Aquagaze’s Anime Weekend: The Emo Album

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Don’t be distracted by the A-Channel header, Steins;Gate is the best comedy of the season. Ignoring the question of whether or not this is intentional, the larger-than-life antics of Okarin and his colleagues easily outshine the actual comedies of the season with scientific glee. Steins;Gate skips through its mind-bending plot with a huge grin on its face, supported by exceptional voice acting and a cast of characters to whom overacting and overreacting is as natural as breathing air.

Despite the fact that it’s intrinsically a sci-fi thriller, the Takanashi-esque snark-offs between Okarin and the naturally adorable, albeit suspiciously noseless, Kurisu stole most of the spotlights this episode, while Mayushii and Daru continue pouring some of their own charm into Steins;Gate’s delicious cocktail. Even Ruka actually being a guy keeps being funny thanks to the variable presentation. Steins;Gate does not seem to suffer from the fact that there is a discomforting number of characters that are, as of yet, completely irrelevant to the plot –yes, you, Feyris Nyanyan- but this may change in the near future, for better or worse.

More after the break.

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Bakacast – I Want to Sparkle

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I’m sorry these podcasts keep coming out late, but my spring semester is almost over and the work is piling up. I’ll be editing and posting episodes much quicker after the first week of May. And hopefully Jon will be caught up on anime around that time so he return to his regular hosting duties.

In the meantime, we brought Scamp, writer of the Cart Driver blog, on as a guest host this week. Marvel at his soothing Irish voice as he explains exactly why no one should ever watch Apocalypse Zero. Also, this marks the first week we finally decide to drop some shows. Because watching and talking about over a dozen shows each week is kind of tiring.

We cover:

  • 3:08 – Gosick #13
  • 7:11 – Suite PreCure #10
  • 9:27 – X-Men #3
  • 14:01 – Nichijou #3 (dropped)
  • 21:29 – Tiger & Bunny #3
  • 26:06 – Hanasaku Iroha #3
  • 35:59 – Battle Girls #3
  • 40:39 – Steins;Gate #3
  • 46:22 – Sket Dance #3 (dropped)
  • 50:55 – A-Channel #2
  • 53:20 – Blue Exorcist #1
  • 59:27 – Aria of Scarlet Ammo #1 (dropped)
  • 1:10:56 – AnoHana #1
  • 1:21:05 – Deadman Wonderland #1
  • 1:30:00 – Listener question

You’ve probably noticed that the second episode of C and the finale of Madoka are not on that list. That’s because those episodes aired after we were done recording (Madoka actually aired a mere two hours after). We’ll talk about them in the next episode, I promise.

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net,@reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

Final Impressions: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

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In a lot of ways, we knew exactly what to expect from Puella Magi Madoka Magica before the first episode even aired. The story was a closely guarded secret and the previews were only stills of the characters and a few random lines of dialogue with the opening theme in the background. But several other things stuck out. Shinbo had directed several magical girl anime before, and now he wanted to take a risk doing an anime-original story. It was obvious that he wouldn’t be bothering with this unless he had something interesting in mind, but the music, character designs, and what we could discern of the premise gave the impression of a bog-standard Nanoha rehash. But once it was revealed that Urobuchi Gen was in charge of the script, everything suddenly made sense.

It’s not what a story is about, but rather how it’s about it. Execution is the single most important part of storytelling regardless of the medium. As the premise grows more complex and ambitious, it becomes more difficult to pull off. But with higher risk comes higher payoff. When these sorts of stories are told properly, they can leave an impression on viewers for years or even decades. When done poorly, they typically end up so terrible that they can enrage even the most stoic fans. Into which extreme does Puella Magi Madoka Magica fall?

If you make a contract with me, I can take you past the break!

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Aquagaze’s Anime Weekend: Second Episode Syndrome

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The second episode of a new anime seems, in many cases, to be the hardest. Similar to how hotshot artists need to justify their often critically-acclaimed debut with a sophomore effort, it’s here that the writers must prove that the first episode was not a lucky shot and that the obligatory plot elements introduced in the first episode are actually leading up to a compelling story. Usually it’s the second episode that finalizes the main characterisation of the protagonists; if the first episode didn’t make entirely clear who the heck we’re dealing with here, episode 2 sure will.

On the other hand, episode 2 is also charged with the duty of explaining every single plot point and introducing characters that didn’t make it into the first one, because actual characterisation and plot progress is often strictly off-limits in most first episodes. This is however not a bad thing. No one wants to watch a pilot episode that does nothing but shove bits of info and characters down your throat, hoping you’ll still remember all the names and lingo the following week.

It’s here however that a problem comes in: most writers and directors don’t seem to realize that the rules that apply to first episodes also apply to every other episode. Because of this, a lot of second episodes turn into infodump hells, doing the exact same thing the first episode tried not to.

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Bakacast – Punch It in the Gun

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Jon is absent again this week, but that’s okay. We kidnapped Thomas to help us talk about the second week of the spring season, where we still managed to miss a couple shows (Aria of the Scarlet Ammo, for instance, was released by gg two hours before before we started recording).  Somehow, even with over a dozen shows to talk about and a news section, we managed to keep this podcast under two hours. I think we might finally be getting decent at this whole reviewing thing.

We cover:

  • 2:47 – FUNimation licenses Panty & Stocking
  • 5:03 – The gg karaoke party (I’m singing on the far left, koda’s right next to me with the mic)
  • 7:47 – Gosick #12
  • 14:13 – Suite PreCure #8 & #9
  • 18:45 – X-Men #2
  • 23:12 – Nichijou #2
  • 28:28 – Tiger & Bunny #2
  • 32:57 – Hanasaku Iroha #2
  • 40:12 – Toriko #2 (dropped)
  • 45: 32 – Battle Girls #1 & #2
  • 53:03 – Steins;Gate #2
  • 1:00:45 – Sket Dance #2
  • 1:06:55 – A-Channel #1
  • 1:13:54 – C: The Money of Soul #1
  • 1:19:59 – Macross Frontier #23, 24, 25
  • 1:33:56 – Listener question from Jon (you’ll want to click this link for context)

Bakacast – Winter Wrap Up

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Welcome to the last Bakacast of the winter season. It seems like only yesterday that we watched those first episodes, huh?

Jon wasn’t able to join us, so we kicked Fractale out the door, bid fond farewell to Wandering Son and Level E, and hosted our last Star Driver Love Party without him. We then start the first round of spring season reviews with a pretty respectable amount of anime. Expect the list, as always, to be cut in half by the time we figure out which shows we want to stick with.

And which shows we can convince each other to watch.

We cover:

  • 2:19 – Mass Effect animated film announced
  • 5:04 – Gosick #11
  • 8:37 – Level E #13
  • 11:22 – Fractale #11
  • 17:13 – Wandering Son #11
  • 22:11 – Star Driver #25
  • 29:49 – X-Men #1
  • 34:23 – Nichijou #1
  • 40:09 – Tiger and Bunny #1
  • 46:05 – Hanasaku Iroha #1
  • 54:47 – Steins;Gate #1
  • 1:00:49 – Sket Dance
  • 1:09:32 – Macross Frontier #21 & #22
  • 1:18:06 – Listener questions

All you bronies out there should appreciate the songs I chose for this episode.

Aquagaze’s Anime Weekend: Rock, Paper, Scissors

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Hello there, fellow denizens of the intertubes, and welcome to the first Project Haruhi-housed installment of Aquagaze’s Anime Weekend! This column started of as a personal weekly blog of mine published on Japanator, where I’d talk about that week’s currently airing anime. Gradually, the blogs became bigger and more ambitious, quickly developing from mere summaries and moving into the inexplicable territory of ‘A bunch of random stuff related to currently airing anime’: videos, parodies, songs, original write-ups, short fan-fics, etc. In its one year of existence, AAW has seen it all, and I am glad I have been given the opportunity to shamelessly copypasta whatever my mind farts out onto here.

The spring season  started off last week and despite the rather odd schedule, I’ve seen a lot of great stuff already. No wonder I can’t wait until we get to see the shows that have yet to air.

Anyways, A Channel has been scrapped of the list for today already – if you want my first impressions on that, go straight here – and that leaves us with the charming slice-of-life of Hanasaku Iroha, the mind-screwy sci-fi of Steins;Gate and the colorful comedy of Nichijou. More after the break!

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First Impressions – A Channel

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BOOB SLAP!

It’s hard trying to survive in the world of slice-of-life comedy with an all-female cast, as it’s virtually impossible to avoid being compared to KyoAni’s previous smash hits. So what do you do if you have been branded ‘Lucky Star season 2′ without being given a chance to come up with an identity of your own? Simple. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Once you’ve got an audience gathered, try to establish yourself in the one thing that matters: the details.

A Channel tells the story–yes, story, because they dropped some hints on there actually being character development somewhere–of four girls in high school. When Tooru (voiced by Yuki Aoi, also known for her  roles as a certain floor-rolling detective and a pink-haired not-magical girl) enrolls in high school, she pays a visit to her senior and middle school friend Run (voiced by Kaori Fukuhara, better known as Tsukasa Hiiragi) to tell her she made it into the same high school as her. However, upon entering her room, she finds her friend in a rather compromising situation with Yuuko (voiced by Mugi with a kansai accent).

Tooru boob slaps Yuuko and procedes to molest her with an invisible chainsaw, while Run introduces her to another friend she made in high school, Nagi (voiced by newcomer Yumi Uchiyama). The rest of the episode flashes forward to all the girls together in high school and focuses mostly on jokes, but also gives us some nice undertones of Tooru trying to deal with the fact that her friend has other friends now, and with Nagi and Yuuko accepting the eccentric Tooru into their group. Sadly enough, this character development is only hinted at slightly, but at least it’s better than the girls immediately befriending each other from the get-go as is the case with a lot of other slice-of-life shows.

What will happen next? (Hint: not much.) Find out after the break!

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Puella Magi Madoka Magica Resumes

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As you may have heard, SHAFT’s hugely successful series Puella Magi Madoka Magica has been on indefinite hiatus following the Sendai earthquake. While most other shows resumed after only a week, SHAFT has taken the opportunity to do what they do best. But after a month of silence, there is finally an official schedule for the remaining episodes.

According to the official MBS website, episodes eleven and twelve will both be aired in the original timeslot on April 22nd.