WOW IS THIS THE MOST INTENSE BLOGGING YOU HAVE SEEEN IN A BLOG??

Anime

Guilty Crown

Still watching this, still sorta enjoying it but also sorta scoffing. I have a million little beefs with it but if I ever think about any specific one I feel like I'm nitpicking. Most stuff is pretty good, but not great. Main character? Yeah, he's okay. Gai? Sure, sorta interesting. Female MC? I like her, yeah, but she could be better. How? I dunno. The plot is... good enough? The plot devices are... sufficient? The progress is... a little to episodic but also not really resolved enough? All these little quibbles... One thing I have to give super props for would be the scene in the latest one – episode 5 – where MC learns that female MC doesn't really care for him and was just told to act that way by Gai. Now I know this'll probably not last and after a little tour around with the other female characters he'll still end up with her but still, this was pure solid NTR and seriously unexpected. There's been a few other unexpected subversions in this show, not as many as there should be, but there's at least an effort to defy the traditional plot, but none of them really hit very hard, all of them seemed more like “creative cop-out for easiness” instead of “woah ho ho, did not see that coming.” But this was like, woah, brutal! Aside from the fight scenes I think this is the best scene they've done. They actually imparted real despair in there. Now you might wonder why I consider that a good thing. You may remember me praising other stuff for the despair it made me feel and think like what is this kid some emo depressed kid up all in black clothes? But nah. This is a big subject that sort of crosses into my idea of “secret art” but really the “secret art” idea is just another way of presenting my ideas about “deep emotions”. Anyways I don't really feel like explaining it all here but since no one reads these anime review dealies I figure it's a decent enough place to start trying to get this idea into words. Basically I think of emotions as a big 2-dimensional web that expands out from “neutral”. I think an interesting way to think of art is by trying to map how it moves you along this emotional web. I also think that some of the best art is that which aims for the extreme areas of the web, trying to take you as far from neutral as possible. Most people would agree with that, right? So I qualify a really deep emotion in the sad region as “despair”, and although it feels really bad to be there there's also a depth to being there, a certain inspiration, a certain wholeness, these extreme emotions being where we are more ourselves than anywhere else, where we are more human than anywhere else. And a bunch of other stuff too but maybe you get the idea. So yeah. Despair. Pretty cool. And when she walks away from him with the MAJOR SHUTDOWN I was like ugh, that HURTS, I am IN DESPAIR sort of, but nowhere near as much as I was when I read Oblivion but at any rate. The main reason I'm watching this show is the fight scenes, though, because the special effects budget on this show is I think the crown jewels of Britain. When he was jumping around in zero-G and then he pulls the sword from the girl's void (btw I really do think this a cool mechanic) and slashes at the big robot DAAAAANG.

Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai

Watched the first five episodes of this. Why? I have no idea. Nah I dunno it's pretty fun, pretty funny. I like roughly half the cast wait let's figure this out:

MC – C

Eh. His like, tortured past is just sorta dull. Doesn't really do anything too interesting. I miss MCs that narrate and have some wit. Passable, though. The whole delinquent shtick is funny but is sorta the least funny it could be? Hmm.

Childhood friend girl – B

Her voice is like... just a bit too low? It bothers me. Her singing voice in the ED is good though. Design is great. Personality pretty funny but at the same time she's sort of just a less interesting but meaner Haruhi?

Meat – S

What the hell Meat, why is this character so entertaining? Design is like nothing I really like but it somehow works. Personality is just Kirino with more dere which uh is actually pretty much just genius.

Kid sister – S

Again, design shouldn't be good but it is. Personality pretty funny but essentially one joke. Way too ham on attraction to MC though I think. Sometimes just barely not annoying. Voice pretty good though.

Nun – C

Argh, I dunno, I like Index alright but this half-assed Index parody just gets on my nerve. Voice goes way too far. Personality is Index without the interesting backstory etc. Good gags with the kid sister though.

Reverse-trap – B

I figure this will end up being a girl? I dunno. Sorta funny premise. I like the design, personality is good enough. Most of the time it seems like there'll be no jokes here though.

Science girl – A

Probably the most original character. Don't really like the design, nah. Seems uhhh hypocritical? All the girls in this show look like they wear makeup but really only here does it seem grossly inappropriate. Anyways she looks like she'll motivate a lot of the future plots with Doraemon-style gadgetry which is fine. Her gags are all really funny, too, the Evangelion/Gundam thing was seriously hilarious. So yeah good times, I guess.

So yeah I guess I do like most of the characters. There's probably much better shows I should be watching but whatever. I sorta watch shows based on /a/-hype since really that's the only thing that isn't improved by waiting for the BRs. And this show gets a lot of pretty crazy arguments going. By this logic I should be up to date on Idolmaster and nope I'm not.

Saimoe

Wow so congratulations Mami. I really didn't think she'd beat Madoka, but there you go. I guess if I was up on pivix numbers I'd have realized but whatever. Saimoe this year was fun 'cause of all this Madoka stomping but sort of disappointing otherwise. All the non-Madoka factions (blasphemers) were apparently engaged in all sorts of sketchy cheating shenanigans and by the end most people just seemed to lose interest. Like, less than 1000 votes per side in the finals? Lame. Next year will be super-hype, though. Let's hope I still care!!

Sitcoms stuff

Workaholics really funny. The “trapped in suburbia” one seemed like a movie, almost, y'know? Like when the had the first like, mini-adventure with being in the closet with the adulterer, it seemed like they'd format the rest of the episode like that and it'd seem like a movie that maybe some crude older brother of Michael Cera'd star in. It's a dang good premise. Carl's wedding was hilarious too. Community's been pretty good too. Haven't seen the latest one but the one with Pierce's dad and the Halloween one were both good. IASIP has been varying like really wildly, often within the same episode. Seems like they're a bit too eager to land “classic” jokes or premises when those things have to emerge naturally. So yeah good times all around.

ITG Updates

Gonna keep track of stuff I pass that I'm proud of.

10s I have Passed

-Hand of Time

-My Favorite Game

-some other song that was really fun, but I sorta fudged a lot of the 4th-16th-16th-4th rythms with just 4th-8th-8th-4th. That's just HOWs I ROLLs though.

-some other song where really the only 10-worthy part is the stream at the end I think

Let's hope this list continues to grow! And maybe has more descriptive song titles!!

That's it for now really. I should be working on other stuff at the moment.