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Review: Nagasarete Airantou (ながされて藍蘭島)

Posted by ranpha on 24th December 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


What I will do if I were the protagonist.

The review of Nagasarete Airantou is now here, and it should be the last 2007 anime that will challenge Nodame Cantabile as the best anime for this year. Well, enjoy whatever lack of content this review has, and I will take this opportunity to say ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy New Year’ to everyone.


Lotsa nosebleed here. This one looks much better than the vast majority.

Story:-
Some lucky bastard fell off a ship and he drifted to heaven an island filled with beautiful women with no other competitors in sight. Instead of having his way with all those gorgeous women who wants to get into his pants, he chose instead to live with only one of them, spurning plenty of opportunities that I will grab if I were in the protagonist’s shoes.

If you think the storyline in Ai Yori Aoshi is thin, this anime basically has none. Except for the couple of episode both at the start and the end of the series, this anime has nothing that people usually called ‘storyline and plots’. Each episode shows the main protagonist and the rest fooling around doing things like taking a bath at hot-springs or investigating a crime. At best, the only thing these episodes do is to do character development. And I personally think that can be done in half the time actually.

The ending is so typical and a cliché of the genre, and not even worth mentioning here.

This anime doesn’t even have fan-service like Umisho does. Thinking about that, Umisho’s protagonist would have made a better protagonist here than the original one.


The best character in the series.

Character Design:-
A positive point of the anime, character designs for the female characters are good. Outstanding are those two shrine maidens, the lately-introduced Chinese female drifter and the lesbian ninja.

Voice acting:-
Mixed bag. I like the voices of Ayane and also Mikoto (she need a lot more airtime). The two main protagonist voices are average (yeah, Yui Horie did not do well here) while the others echoes the sentiment of my general judgment for the voice acting for this series.


The one at the left is also good, but not many screen time unfortunately.

Music:-
The music in this series stinks in general. Nothing to be said here.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation is decent as all the 2007 anime I have watched also did. Fast-paced scenes are fluid, but choreography for them especially for action/fighting scenes is not that good. Directing is decent, but nothing to write home about.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Basically just like Ai Yori Aoshi, but a little bit worse. Still looking for a harem anime with substance here. Oh, BTW, Nodame Cantabile is still Anime Of The Year 2007.


12 years of sex-depravation makes you do crazy things.

Review: Ai Yori Aoshi (藍より青し) + Enishi (藍より青し ～縁～)

Posted by ranpha on 21st December 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted, romance genre standard. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment


The main female character Aoi Sakuraba.

For today, I will make a mini-review of another anime I have always wanted to watch, Ai Yori Aoshi (all 2 seasons of them). Romance anime series are usually reviewed by me with a higher standard compared to other genres, so let’s see if this anime can extract points from me at the end.

Story:-
Kaoru Hanabishi is a piss-poor university student who stumbled upon a beautiful damsel-in-distress at the local train station. He eventually finds out that she is his long-lost fiancée and after a set of events, he finds himself living in a mansion filled to the brim with all kind of beauties commonly seen in a typical harem anime. He has to keep his engagement secret while keeping out the other women who are interested only in getting into his pants.

Frankly speaking, the story is so thin there is nothing I can really write about here. And I prefer not wanting to comment about the second season’s story which is almost entirely composed with filler episodes with little character developments. The only shining star in the series is the damsel-in-distress Aoi Sakuraba, whose character strength barely able to carry the series forward.

Speaking about character strength, I want to question why the male protagonist’s character is not developed as well as Aoi Sakuraba is. This also applies to that manager character too, but throughout the 2 seasons of the anime, character development for Kaoru Hanabishi can be described as minimal at best. This robs the massive potential this anime may have. This anime as a whole also has pacing problems. Between some characters, time seems to flow differently. For example, how is that Tina Foster managed to graduate before Kaoru Hanabishi did, despite her taking a year off her studies?


If Kaoru Hanabishi has half of the character development she has, the anime would have more substance.

Character Design:-
A positive aspect of the anime if you can ignore the hair colours. They are pretty decent, especially for female characters. Aoi Sakuraba really stands out in this anime, and other females are not bad too. Still, brown is the new black huh.

Voice acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is decent in general, with the voice of Tina Foster being outstanding. Aoi Sakuraba, who has the same voice actress with Noda Megumi, did not perform as well as she is in Nodame Cantabile. Overall, they are still good though, should be no problem there.

Music:-
The OST is great, but only the OP in second season and the ED in episode 15 of first season are good.


Chasing another woman is not character development, mind you.

Animation/Direction:-
Despite watching DVD rips, some of the fast-paced scenes exhibits obvious low frame rates. And I think this happened in some normal scenes too. No action scenes that I can comment on though. The directing is good, my complaint will be only about the time sync problem I mentioned above.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Non-existent story, almost zero character development for the main character (Kaoru at the start of the anime is basically the same as the one at the end of second season, except older), disappointing themes are the factors that caused the anime to lose points. The next anime that will be reviewed is Nagasarete Airantou, a hopeful 2007 anime that may have a chance to dethrone Nodame Cantabile. Maybe.


A pic that simply has to be here.

Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン)

Posted by ranpha on 18th December 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted, perfect score, rewatched anime reviews. Tagged: , . 1 comment


Huzzah for English in Japanese animation! It is not perfect, but a considerable improvement.

I watched this one way before this blog is started from original R1 DVDs, a long time ago. As I rummaged through my DVD collection, I managed to find this one and out of nostalgia, I rewatched it again. A series that is considered legendary by many fans, this Neon Genesis Evangelion anime is just as good as they have said.


The poster boy for everything emo in Japanese animation.

Story:-
A teenage kid was forced to become a child soldier pilot for a robot by his own father to fight some monsters called ‘Angels’. Things become difficult when it becomes clear that the boy has some ‘problems’ and his colleague-pilots don’t seem to be sane either. Can a trio of problematic robot pilots save the world from devastation?

Those people who say that this anime is legendary are not kidding; this anime has a very good story. The series is really enjoyable and I can’t stop watching the anime whenever I have the time, just like Rozen Maiden did. The story flows freely and has decent character development that allows multiple characters to be strong or interesting enough to also support such a good story.

My only complaint will be the unorthodox ending, which consists of 2 episodes of counselling sessions for the main protagonist instead of a big huge battle against the big boss. The anime ended up with the main character becoming a little bit less emo, and that’s it. It could use some more oomph, that’s for sure.

And lastly I should note that none of the emo characters is as annoying like the main lead in La Corda anime. That’s a very good thing.


Very innovative design for an enemy combatant.

Character Design:-
Being another anime from the last century, the character design is surprisingly very well done. Like Kiba The TV Animation, the hero is sloppily designed but it meets the storyline perfectly (he has black hair too). The other 2 pilots also stand out especially the blue-haired one. All of the other main characters are not bad either.

Mecha designs are excellent too but for some questionable design for some of the Angels. Anyway, it is definitely a plus point of the series.


The scene of a homicide case.

Voice acting:-
Unlike the character design, voice acting here can only be described as generally good. This is to say, there are no screw-ups but no one outstanding either.


Another perfectly good green hill destroyed in the fight between good and evil.

Music:-
The OST is average, the OP if forgettable but Fly Me to the Moon is a very good song.


One of the downsides of being an emo kid.

Animation/Direction:-
For its time, the animation is decent, and choreography and fast-paced scenes is not affected. The directing is superb, a far cry from Armitage III, and probably what makes the series good in the first place.


I have learned from this anime that penguins does not match well with spicy food.

Conclusion:-
I hereby award 10 out of 10 for this anime. Unlike Wolf’s Rain of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, this anime really fulfils my expectations. But if this anime were to compete with Nodame Cantabile for Anime Of The Year 2007, it will fail.


A robot stalking another. Only happens in the crazy world of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

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