24/365: Inari Konkon

This is the first really new anime I've ever gotten to watch. So new in fact that only one episode has been released so far in the US. I've watched series that were released slowly in this country, a few episodes at a time on VHS or DVD, but they weren't really new. Just new HERE.

It's kind of cool. I like this modern age quite a bit sometimes.

Anyhoo, this show was very cute and I wasn't sure I'd like it cause of all the cute stuff and the middle school characters and they adorable scream-y business. But in the end I liked it quite a bit actually. The funny stuff was really funny, the anime in-jokes were awesome (the main character's "spell" to activate her powers was based right off Sailor Moon on purpose and I laughed out loud), and the story really wasn't too bad.

Basically it revolved around a young girl who makes a silly wish in order to win the heart of a young boy. When that wish can't be taken back, she is given some god powers to make up for it. I'll have to assume hilarious situations will arise from that later on. As there is only one episode of the show right now, I can't know much else.

Even the Wikipedia entry had summaries for only the first and second episodes. I can't even cheat and read ahead to see what happens next.

Kind of a new feeling experiencing a show an episode at a time without an opportunity to spoiler it for myself. I'm pretty amused by the whole thing.

23/365: Durarara

I'm not sure I paid as close enough attention to this show as I should have. To be honest it's been a long week and I had some drinks with dinner and now I'm not focusing as well as I want to. So I'll have to try this again at a later date when my attention span is longer than a couple of minutes.

I will try this again, I know that at least. The animation style reminds me of that seen in Eureka 7 but the story seems to be its own thing. I couldn't follow all of the stuff about areas of Tokyo, but I could follow the stuff about sushi and yakuza and urban legends. There are obviously a lot of layers here and I have a feeling even completely sober I would have missed some of them.

But like I said, I'll come back to this show and see if I can get into it more with a second viewing. What I gathered this time is that basically there are some kids living in a district of Tokyo and that brings them into contact with a cast of colorful characters including an American/Russian/sushi chef that looks about eight feet tall, a strong man who likes to throw heavy appliances, and a mysterious lady on a motorcycle whose head has been replaced by black smoke and a yellow cat-eared helmet.

Speaking of the mystery headless lady, she is one of the most popular cosplay costumes I've seen at Sakuracon in the six years I've been going. I think it might be the skintight black bodysuit and the cat-eared helmet that make it so popular. I could be wrong but I'm probably not.

Anyway, this show seems cool and I'm looking forward to giving it another shot. Just not tonight when all I can really think of at this point is sleep.

Ahhh, sleep. It's about time we spent some quality time together.

22/365: Guin Saga

So if you took Hercules and stuck a leopard head on him and gave him amnesia and hooked him up with a pair of twin heirs, you'd kind of basically have Guin Saga.

I'm sure there is more to the story than that, but I don't know how far into it I'll get cause while the anime is 26 episodes, the novel series it is based on is 130 novels PLUS 21 side-story novels.

Let me give you a second to really think about those numbers. 130 and 21. All written between 1979 and now. 151 books in 35 years. Over four books a year on average.

That is a mind-boggling amount of books to write in that period of time. Some authors take decades to write one book. The author of these was cranking them out like it was nothing.

And there is no way a 26 episode anime series will encompass all of the story that took 151 novels to tell. No way.

Even if they managed to come up with their own ending for the Guin Saga anime, it wouldn't have anything to do with the actual ending (if the series even has one, I was a little confused on that when reading up on it). Would it even fit with the story if it was just tacked on to complete the series?

That just doesn't work for me. I'm not fond of long-ass series with no real ending (once again looking at you Bleach) but I'm also not fond of ones with rushed or forced endings that don't seem to really fit with the show.

There is certainly stuff to like with this series. The animation is pretty slick and the fantasy world the characters live in sounds pretty complex and interesting.

But can I get emotionally invested in something that won't really end? I'll have to give it some more thought before I decide if I want to proceed.

21/365: Rurouni Kenshin

Watching Kenshin brings back so many memories for me. This was an anime that I shared with my friends way back in the day. It was one we'd pile around someone's computer to watch while talking and snacking and being young.

This show could probably be total crap and I'd still love it because it meant so much to me back in the day. The terribly annoying theme song, the never-ending fight scenes, the old school hand drawn animation.

It's all wonderful. I love it. Even now, 15 or so years later, I still love it. It still brings back so many great memories for me and yet stands up as a good anime as well. It's long and there is an over-abundance of fight scenes, and I don't get all of the historical references, but it it still a good anime.

Kenshin is basically about a warrior who was once the most feared killer in the country but gave all of that up and became a wanderer. He ends up wandering into a dojo one day and making friends with the lovely girl who lives there along with a rag-tag bunch of characters that teach him how to be a good person no matter what kind of past he is coming from.

I forgot how fun it is to watch Kenshin go from pretty boy with big purple eyes to serious warrior with thin purple eyes to scary killer with slitted golden eyes. You can tell the second the switch flips from cute Kenshin to badass Kenshin and you know when it happens the next scenes are gonna be exciting.

It amuses me. It amused me once upon a time and it amuses me now when I'm older and crankier and not as amused by things teenage me was amused by. I like that in a series.

I also like that the series takes a lot of time to be warm and humorous and fun. I saw the OAVs a lot later on and, while they are beautiful, they are also so freaking sad. I was just depressed as all get out when they ended.

I think I prefer a Kenshin that can make me laugh to one that makes me want to cry.

20/365: Fushigi Yugi

The end of this anime still makes me cry. Been almost twenty years since the first time I saw it and I still tear up like a weepy romantic girl during the last few seconds.

Oh me.

This was the first anime I saw all the way through from beginning to end (original 52 episode series). It took a long time as I had to buy the episodes on VHS tape and at the time they were expensive and hard to find.

I loved it anyway. I loved the perky, kind of dumb but full of heart, heroine. I loved her handsome money-grubbing love interest (and his sexy dubbed voice). I loved her bevy of adventuring cohorts - the mask-wearing monk, the rambunctious bandit, the beautiful cross-dressing concubine, the beautiful not-quite-but-almost-crossdressing emporer.

I loved that while a lot of the series was pretty funny in tone, there were moments that were dark, dark, DARK. Rape-y bits. Murder bits. Child sexual assault bits. Family death bits. It may have looked like just another magical girl Sailor Moon knock off, but there were moments where Fushigi Yugi took things a lot further than expected.

It was a great show. An epic show. A show not without its flaws ("MIAKA!" and "TAMAHOME!" are still imprinted on my eardrums to this day) but still worth watching for every one of its 52 episodes plus three multi-episode OAVs.

The story, basically, has to do with a girl who gets sucked into a magical book and has to gather warriors and call a god in order to grant her wishes. Of course she also has to fight Big Bads, deal with a BFF that has turned to the dark side, fall in love, and keep from being devoured by an ancient Chinese fantasy god.

Just your typical teen adventures and all that. 

I have dozens of fond memories of watching this anime with my own BFF (along with at least a dozen posters, wall scrolls, and one absolutely amazing original cell from the OAVs). And it still - to this day - makes me cry at the end. I kind of love that.

19/365: Attack on Titan

This show sure doesn't pull any punches. It starts with a giant skinless man crushing a wall protecting a human city from - what I could only assume would be more giant skinless people - and kinda built on the graphic violence from there.

It's the future but a fantasy-style future as opposed to a science fiction style future. People all live in a city surrounded by a mega wall because giant naked men are trying to eat them all. Honestly it sounds like a pretty crap future. Especially when the wall is breached by the giant skinless dude and slightly smaller skin-wearing dudes with creepy ass smiles who start eating people.

Seriously. They just pick up humans like French fries and pop them in their mouths while rampaging. Blood flies everywhere and those creepy ass smiles just get wider.

It's pretty brutal actually. The main characters are kids in the first episode and it's their mom getting scarfed like a piece of fried chicken. They were screaming and I was cringing and their mom was a Lunchable and it was not okay.

I can't see things ending terribly well in this show. Not with such a serious and intense start to it. But I got to hand it to the series creators for coming up with something unique and interesting to watch. The giant killer dudes really are super scary with the wide smiles and wonky eyes and mammoth naked bodies. And the fact they are just wandering around eating people certainly adds to their horror factor.

I'll be watching more of Attack on Titan, though I doubt I'll marathon it like some recent series I got into. I have a feeling nightmares would be soon to follow if I had to look at those creepy ass smiles too much in one day.

18/365: Hellsing Ultimate

Sometimes I forget which version of Hellsing anime I've seen most recently. Then I watch some of Hellsing Ultimate and I'm reminded immediately that it is a much better product - better animation, better adaptation of the manga, just better overall - and the original anime series just pales by comparison. Getting them confused with each other is just stupid and wrong.

Hellsing is dark and bloody and graphic and intense. People - a lot of people - die all over the place. The colors are vivid and in your face and used in some cases to obviously make you uncomfortable. There is some humor sprinkled here and there but really this is a serious show meant for mature audiences. There are no middle school kids with magic powers and constantly visible panties here.

I kind of love Hellsing. It's brutal and vicious at times, absolutely ridiculous at times, and the head vampire is wonderfully scary while saving the day. He isn't some emo vamp with too much glitter and time on his hands to fall for weepy teenage girls. He shoots to kill. He is made of shadows and demons and blood lust. He fights fellow vampires not just because he is bound to do so by the Hellsing organization, but because his fellow vampires are so much beneath him they don't deserve to continue on with their un-lives.

I wish there were more vampires like Alucard and less like the weak perpetual teenagers that pop up so often in television and movies and animation. Alucard creeps me the heck out and that is awesome.