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Review: Doujin Work (ドージンワーク)

Posted by ranpha on 21st October 2009
Posted in: anime review. Tagged: . 2 comments


The main protagonist (left) in her first Comiket ever, selling rape hentai doujinshi for her friend (right).

In this post, Nodame Cantabile will have a new challenger in the form of a short anime titled Doujin Work. Doujin Work turns out to be a very good comedy anime, but is it good enough to unseat the ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ incumbent? Read on to see the outcome.


The quirky characters that helped the main protagonist in her quest to make money in the dark world of doujinshi writing.

Story:-
Our main protagonist was lured into drawing hentai doujinshi for money. But to actually makes money, she has to be good, and unfortunately she is not. Therefore she has to work hard at improving her skills at drawing nude characters (which were never shown in this anime) in order to achieve her dreams, with plenty of help from like-minded friends of hers.

Let’s get straight to the point; the quality of the story in this anime is definitely not its strong point. In fact I think a similar anime reviewed here before, titled Comic Party has a better storyline (at least for its first season). But what Comic Party lacks and which this anime has in abundance is good quality humor. This anime could do with more humorous one-liners, but there are many good slapstick comedy stunts here, plus the main protagonist has great tendencies to get involved in many awkward but funny situations due to the School Rumble-esque misunderstandings. For what its worth, the thin story did flow very well with flawless scene transitions and good pacing (has some reference to real-life dating simulations games too), but you have to really ignore the amount of Comiket events the cast went to though.

Character developments in this anime is quite good considering the length of this series. The main protagonist, her overbearing childhood friend, her friend that wrote rape doujinshi titles and also her rival that wrote extreme yaoi doujinshi titles are all great and interesting characters in this anime. The director has really done a very good job here considering that this anime is just basically a 6-episode series (12 episodes that are 12 minutes in length to be exact). The ending is average and predictable, and that would be the only overt weakness of this series.


The main protagonist and her yaoi-loving rival.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is decent overall, with the rape doujinshi writer being the best of them all. She also has black hair, and that’s a bonus.

Voice Acting:-
This is where this anime really shines, because voice acting in this anime is great. All the recurring characters has great voice acting gigs; I cannot even choose who is the best amongst them. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Music:-
This anime has also done great in this regard. The OP theme is very good and the ED theme is not far behind, while the OST is quite decent too. Another positive point for this anime.


Despite the fact that she sheepishly wrote hentai doujinshi, the director has not shown any of her works to the audience.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography did not apply in this comedy anime. The director has done a very commendable job despite the thin storyline this anime has.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. Nodame Cantabile still retains the ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ title, but Doujin Work is a recommended watch if you want a good laugh and do not have too much time on your hands.

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Quoted For Truth!

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Review: Tears to Tiara (ティアーズ・トゥ・ティアラ)

Posted by ranpha on 19th October 2009
Posted in: anime review. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


The main male protagonist, Demon King Arawn whose atrocities makes Japanese World War 2 soldiers looks like Dora the Explorer in comparison.

The anime backlog I have on my hard drive doesn’t seem to be thinning, mainly because I downloaded just as much completed series at the same rate as the amount of what I have watched in the past two months. Even now I have Shangri-la in my Azureus queue (alongside some hentai titles). If not for the big hard drive crash I’ve encountered a couple of months ago, the queue is going to be bigger. This post then is for my review of Tears to Tiara, a 2009 anime that will challenge Wolf and Spice 2 for the ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ title. This anime is actually simulcast live in Animax Asia (which is available in my ASTRO subscription) but I don’t really view that channel nowadays (I mostly just watch the sport channels or History/Discovery Channel). Plus, the version I watched is in HD and highly likely not censored too.


One of his hobbies is to sink his lusty claws upon innocent young and helpless girls, like the one above.

Story:-
Rumors abounds in Divine Empire that the evil Demon King is about to be resurrected from his long slumber and destroy the world. The senators ordered the priests to do their thing and seal the Demon King permanently. But the head priest has other ideas and wants to revive the Demon King instead so that he can destroy the world. The priests then kidnapped a young naive maiden to be offered as a sacrifice for the revival of the malicious Demon King, while the maiden’s brother and his fellow clan members raced against time to prevent her slaughter and stop the revival of the Demon King. Alas, for once, evil prevailed and the Demon King is reborn anew. He then destroyed the Divine Empire and the world. The End!

This anime, set up in a medieval world where horses are the main means of transportation, has good promise early on as it starts pretty well for 6 to 7 episode or so. But after that great start, the anime’s ordinary story was eventually exposed, and that’s a shame because the story has a unique premise rarely seen in an anime, which I last see in Gokudo-kun Manyuki. In addition of the average story, this anime also suffered the same bad storytelling problems that Gosyusho-sama Ninomiya-kun has. While the problem is not as worse as the ones in Ninomiya-kun, this anime still have problems in scene transitions (a good example is the priestess’ kidnapping at the start of episode 12, which is completely disconnected from the preceding plot) and the pacing of the story (they become slower and slower as the anime went on). Bad storytelling means that some scenes that could have an impact upon the viewers if correctly presented lost their potential; an example is the first long flashback that spanned episode 20 and 21.

Character developments in this anime is surprisingly bad, with the exception of the priestess’s brother who is a slightly emo person. The main male protagonist is basically the same person from episode 1 all the way to episode 26 with minimum emotional and physiological changes, and virtually all other characters is not that different really. Only the aforementioned brother of the priestess (he being emo actually helps him a lot – making him the best character in this anime) and to a lesser extent, the blonde swordswoman too (thankfully she is not an emo character). The ending is lame, predictable and unoriginal; the less said about the coronation ceremony that resembles the ending of a certain famous movie trilogy which plot involves a couple of midgets throwing a ring inside a volcano, the better.


Expect plenty of violence in this anime, with blood being cheaper than water in some scenes.

Character Design:-
The character designs in this anime is excellent all around, there is nothing else I can say here. Black-hairs are rare though. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Voice Acting:-
Unlike the character design, voice acting in this anime is simply average. There’s no one I think of that has good voice acting gigs.

Music:-
The OST is good but not so for any of the OP/ED themes or the insert song.


This anime is one of the most beautiful titles I have seen recently.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is excellent, even in fast paced scenes. Choreography is just like the storytelling; could have been much better. Significant duels during the climax of certain plots, like the duel between the blonde swordswoman and her childhood friend on that windy cliff of the sea could benefit from a much better swordplay duel. The directing fails at thing I mentioned in the story section above, but he/she has provided some good fan-service moments with nifty usage of camera angles like the one in screenshot below.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Wolf and Spice 2 easily beats the feeble challenge presented by this anime. I wonder whether the other anime that was simulcast on Animax Asia alongside this anime, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood will fare better. You will have to wait until that anime concludes though, to know the result. That may only happen next year though.


During this scene, where will you look at; the far more important children or that blurry 'valley'?

Review: Starship Operators (スターシップ・オペレーターズ)

Posted by ranpha on 15th October 2009
Posted in: anime review, no screenshot. Tagged: . 1 comment

If the disappointing Monochrome Factor should be used as a poster boy as an exhibit about how filler episodes can ruin a series, the shorter anime titled Starship Operators shows why a filler-free title makes it much more pleasant to watch. This is a 2005 anime, therefore none of the ‘Anime of the Year’ title holders will be challenged.

Story:-
Sometime in a distant future where interplanetary travels are common, a bunch of university students are having their internship aboard their planet’s state of the art starship en route of their graduation. Just as their test flight is about to end, their home planet was invaded by a vastly superior foreign force. With their planet’s government quickly raising the white flag faster than the French, the students takes the matter into their own hands and started to rebel against the conquerors, while being filmed by a galactic TV network.

The story itself is quite good although not on the same level as the one in Tytania or Legend of Galactic Heroes. But what this anime has (and so are Legend of Galactic Heroes) that Tytania lacks is intense space fleet warfare with good tactics and strategies. The main female protagonist of this anime is definitely better than Fan Hyulick or any of the Tytania Dukes, and she probably can easily become one of Kaiser Reinhard’s generals. Without any useless filler episodes, the director make full use of all 13 episodes to show us a high-paced storyline and almost perfect scene transitions and plot developments. The story has some nice plot twists (what else do you expect from a space opera) but the romance elements here are crap.

Character developments is probably an aspect where this anime has not done very well, mainly because this anime has a huge cast. Many characters simply doesn’t have enough airtime for their development inside that starship filled with women. The main female protagonist is definitely the best character in this anime, considering her role in the starship and the amount of screen time she has. The ending is actually very good too, and provides a great closure to a decent anime. No hurried endings because of the lack of episodes, because the director has given the ending all the air time it needs.

Character Design:-
Character design in this anime is plain average overall with your usual shounen genre designs. I do not remember any black hairs, but then again this anime is set up in a futuristic future where hair dye usage should be common.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is excellent, with the main female protagonist and the captain of the starship being the best of them all. Definitely a positive point overall.

Music:-
The OST is good, but not so for the OP/ED themes.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is very well done, but it can be jerky sometimes in fast-paced scenes. 3D CGI animations are even better, but integration with main 2D animation is not seamless. Choreography is non-existent in this anime. The directing is excellent as mentioned before above.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. A very good watch for any anime junkies who like space wars. This is the first post in this blog that will not have any screenshots.

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