Too much new anime to watch, can't keep up!

Haven't posted in a while. Ah well. Been watching quite a few of the winter series: Yumekui Merry, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Gosick, Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne, Freezing, Dragon Crisis, Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? Infinite Stratos and Fractale. That's a lot of anime to watch (not counting the older stuff I'm re-watching or catching up on) which leaves me little time to blog about it. Probably going to do a mid-season overview of the series I'm following, if I get to it.


Anyway, re Madoka:

Boy, what a surprise that series has turned out to be!

I'll get back on the blog-horse pretty soon.


Laters!

IS - Infinite Stratos: a new anime season begins

Infinite Stratos is one of the series I have been looking forward to this winter season. Well, it aired today and the speedsubbers have been hard at work, with Ayako's release coming this evening.

How is it so far?

Haiku Anime Reviews Part the Third: Strike Witches

In the world of Strike

Witches it is forbidden

for girls to wear pants.

 (Or, in the words of one of my fellow scanlation group members: "Best law ever!")

Thank you. <bows> 

Seitokai no Ichizon DVD fansubbed? NO WAY!

YES WAY!!

Thanks to ar over at Unlimited Translation Works, there is now a decent fansubbed DVD version of  one of my all-time favourite series. Not that there was anything wrong with the old SS-Eclipse subbed release, it's just that it was based on the broadcast version. Ar, going by the handle "HarEM", did this as a side project "With help from a lot of others along the way". The results show, and are totally worth rewatching. (more)

Haiku Anime Reviews Part the Second: Hen Zemi

Comedy ensues

When a sick-minded psych class

Does sick-minded things.

Thank you. <bows> 
(A very strange OAD, released by Doki and m.3.3.w.)  

Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya: A Brief Review

Ahem.

It. Was. AWESOME.

This movie was so worth waiting for. Gonna watch it again tomorrow with my son (a huge Haruhi fan). 

And it will be just as good then as well. 

That is all.  

I take back anything I said about Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt.

I suppose, some months ago, when I first watched Gainax's Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt that I wasn't in the right frame of mind. "Oho," I thought. "It's a Japanese version of a second-rate Adult Swim cartoon" -- and I turned the episode off after a few minutes, mainly because I found the art style annoying.

Not what you expect from Gainax.

Turns out I should have watched longer, and with a better outlook.

This anime is AWESOMESAUCE, with extra sauce on the side. Sure, it looks like something from The Cartoon Network, but The Cartoon Network could only hope to do something this funny and risque. It's multimedia in the best sense of the word, combining regular animation (with hilarious use of art-shifting, e.g. the main characters' transformation sequence shifts to standard anime style and they pole dance), CG and live-action miniature work. The show is foul-mouthed, rude, crude and one of the best things I have seen all year.

Imagine, if you will, a North American cartoon like Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends or Jimmy Two-Shoes with an NC-17 rating and you get the idea. However, the animation is far, FAR better in only the way Gainax could do it. I'm not going to do a long description of the anime; it has been done better elsewhere (like the Wikipedia page on it, for example). I will say this, however: fer crying out loud, Panty (the blonde character in red in the pic) uses her panties as her main weapon -- they turn into a gun -- and Stocking (the goth loli) uses her stockings in the same way.

Consider me a convert. This is the kind of anime that people who don't like anime could easily watch and enjoy.