3 Seiyuus I can't stand

As you can see in my previous post, there's a whole ton of seiyuus I keep an eye out for. Of course there's still a lot of talented people I didn't nominate a role for, like Inoue Marina, Sawashiro Miyuki, etc. Of course, at the same time, there are also ones who I can't help but dislike. These people are big names with tons of fans - so while I might be the unpopular opinion here, I'm pretty sure that I am not alone.

Nogizaka Haruka, Toujo Aya, Satellizer el Bridget, Ichinose Kotomi

3. Mamiko Noto (4292 favourites, #15 on MAL)

Most cringe-worthy role: Nogizaka Haruka (top left)

I've always thought that she had the most generic "soft" voice there is in the industry, so I was surprised that people actually liked her. I never did, but I never hated the voice either until Nogizaka Haruka. Back then when Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu came out, I had the dumb pride of never dropping a title just so that I could write a fair review. And trying to finish that title was pretty much torture. While it doesn't apply to all her "soft" roles, every time I heard Haruka's half-crying, half-gasping voice I had wanted to punch her (the character, lol) in the f-cking face. That title still haunts me.

It's funny. I had wanted to write a post like this for a long time, and I was sure that I'll be putting Noto in the #1 spot. But I soon started hearing her non-"soft" roles, and guess what, it's pretty darn good! I'm mostly referring to Tomoe in Hanasaku Iroha here, but it just proves that she can be pretty awesome outside of her character archetype. And that pushes her back into the #3 spot.

Preferred roles: Anyone that isn't a pushover, e.g. Wajima Tomoe, Felicita (Arcana Fagmilia)

Nanael, Nagase Minato, Nonomura Ayumi, Lucy Heartfilia

2. Hirano Aya (12582 favourites, #2 on MAL)

Most cringe-worthy role: Nagase Minato (Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka, top right)

I was quite a "Harutard" back then, and a lot of people assumes I'm a Hirano Aya fan as a result. I thought I am, too. Then came Nanael (Queen's Blade), the first of many characters who made me cringe. She has a really pretty voice that also made her a good singer, but it's her exaggerated voice work that ruins it for me. Her loud, animated voice does suit over-the-top characters like Haruhi very well, but it's not always the case. I guess it's usually worse with the weaker characters, because Lucy (Fairy Tail) wasn't as bad as the less well-known characters like Ayumi (Hyakko). Maybe it's her tendency to overact the less popular ones?

I do really like her role in Misa (Death Note) and Konata (Lucky Star), and her recent minor role in Arisa (Girls und Panzer) was pretty good too. It's beautiful when she doesn't sound like she's on drugs. It's too bad we're unlikely see many (or any) roles for her in the future because of her scandal. Fucking your whole band is a risky thing to do when you're in the "purity is gold" business...

Preferred roles: The less girly, the better. I always thought that she got a pretty good boyish role... am I mistaken?

You already know these characters.

1. Kugimiya Rie (13585 favourites, #1 on MAL)

Most-cringe worthy role: Everyone after Shana.

Why is she the voice I can't stand the most? Does the pic give a hint? You know, I don't even need the four famous ones for the pic.

Kanzaki Aria, Astarotte Ygvar, Rose, Sanada Yukimura

Well, she's called the Queen of Lolis for a reason. The problem is that besides sharing the exact same voice, they are pretty much sharing the same fucking traits. Tsundere, violent, childish, falls in love with a pathetic male protagonist. I don't blame her, though. She's good at what she does, there's a high demand, and the industry is churning these characters out like cockroach eggs. But do they have to put KugiRie in like half of them? Look, I actually liked Shana, but when they start producing a thousand Shanas off the cloning vat, it gets really annoying.

Unfortunately, there isn't a character I find that she's particularly good at. Except for Shana clones and cats, I don't really think there's a suitable archetype for everyone's favourite seiyuu.

Preferred roles: Anything not loli.

P.S I would have liked to put Satomi Arai here, but there just isn't enough characters of her I hated, and I kinda liked Kuroko...

Series Review: Amagami SS+ plus (5/10)

Instant summary: Protag scores with a different girl each arc.

I've had one problem with the Amagami. It's that every character seems to have one unique, and specific role to play, and they are given no more than one character trait to play it out. I had written about how the prequel turned out to be a rather big waste of time, but I had hope that this would add a little more value to the franchise (and the time I wasted). It did not. No surprises here.

The omnibus format has its advantages. It gives all the heroines a chance to become the main character, and receive their own happy ending. But with the tiny number of episodes per character, there's not a lot you can do with them. Unlike its predecessor Kimikiss (which I loved), the characters never felt like they had any depth. Except for Kaoru's and Tsukasa's arc, everyone else's story are so excruciating boring. Especially Sae, the only things that differentiate her from a piece of dead wood is her sickeningly shy personality and oversized tits. The anime even had to use a narrator specifically for her arc to try to convince the audience there is something happening.

Damn, I really liked Kaoru (I even bought her manga). But it just doesn't work out for the anime. I believe this sequel wasted more time then the prequel did.

Plot/Concept: Never worked the way it should
Story Style: Mostly boring, depends on arc
Audio/Visual: Good
Value: 5

Intense Debate, you failed me for the last time...

First it was the ccTLD error that prevented people from other countries from posting on the site (fixed after a long time). Then it was the missing post counter (which still hasn't been fixed for a couple of months). Now it was a persistent timed out error that prevented me from posting on my own blog.

I've had enough. I've never liked the blogger's default commenting system, but it least it works perfectly. Guess this means I'll be losing all of my past comments.

New Year (Anime) Resolutions, Site Update, Anniversary, Changes, and gosh, I don't know what I'm talking about

(Sorry for the excessive expletives)

First of all, Akemashite omedetou minna-san! May we all have a good year ahead of us. Well, 2011 is a pretty bad year for anime, to me at least. Except for the best-sellers, I can't even say confidently that I loved all of my top 12 picks. As long as we're not all going to die, 2012 would definitely be better. I hope.

Well, this would be a tl;dr rant. I hate posts like that, truly, and I almost never read tl;dr anyway unless it's MAY, so if you're anything like me you should bounce now, really. The above paragraph is all that is for this post. My head is now full of shit (again, sorry for the excessive expletives in this post) and I just need to get stuff out before I can continue blogging like I want to.

12 Moments of Anime #5: Series of Disappointment

One of the disappointments (apparently) that I didn't watch myself.

Every now and then we get a highly-anticipated series that turns out to be a flop. It could be due to its studio, original work (for adaptations) and/or crew that we gave it so much attention, but when we finally got to the show itself, it's terrible. Shit happens, I know, but it seems like it happens way too often with 2011 titles. Titles like:

Minami beat Yui. WTF. Haqua beat Azusa!

(Again, I'm talking about the Saimoe 2011. Click for source)


The three main K-ON girls are beaten in the first round? This is bullshit! That's it, I'm calling this round of Saimoe a fluke.

Now will you please excuse me, I going to murder me some fanboys.

(FYI, Azusa fucking won the tournament last year, and Mio was in the group finals. Yui was runner-up in 2009. The only K-ON girls left are the imouto, the club leader and the sensei, and I doubt they'll make it very far)

What the hell? This isn't the Minatsuki I had in mind (Deadman Wonderland Ep6)

Umm no, I'm not talking about Minatsuki's true personality. As of now I've completed the available 45 chapter of manga awesomeness, so I had a pretty good idea what the rest of the story's gonna be like.

I do appreciate that the anime stuck faithfully to the manga, up to almost every scene, sequence and even dialogue. But these studios also gotta learn that manga and anime had a very different method of storytelling, and this episode shows that how sticking too faithfully to the manga isn't such a good idea.

Go read the these two chapters of the manga and you'll probably see what I mean. The anime had killed off 90% of the fight and Minatsuki's awesomeness.

First off, she had a SHITTY VA. Her voice work was so amateurish, forced, and fake-high-pitched that it hurt my ears.

Then it was the animation quality. The first pic right on TOP of this post is high-quality and detailed, but it didn't carry over to the animation. Sure all the blood hair were waving around, but this pan up of Minatsuki was choppy and had shoddy detailing (see the hair).

Then it was the expression of the scene. See how the "lighting" effect and black background in the manga helps depict her mentality? In the anime, she's just making a face for no good reason. And moving her tongue around while she talks. In the incredibly annoying voice.

And what's with her expression this round? She's a sadistic phycho, and the manga has done well expressing that. But Minatsuki is not a lunatic. She doesn't make crazy mouth movements just because of her temperament.

The "lighting" effects here again. And here in the manga, that frame can just be figuratively expressing her thoughts at the moment. The problem is when you actually sees her turn around and make a face just because, it looks really, really awkward.

I suppose they don't have the budget to animate this awesome scene, so we're making do with yet another lunatic laugh.

Another thing about manga depiction of a scene is that there's no sense of time. That's why you don't feel the flashbacks and all the talk dragging on and on the fight in the Narutoonepiecebleach manga, and how it becomes so painfully obvious in the anime. You see here that all the talk Ganta do was on just one page, but in the anime, you see him talk while walking slowly up to Minatsuki and it's painfully obvious to the anime audience that she could have done him in twice and eat a hot dog while he's obviously coming in for the kill.

The headbutt is a surprise because the manga kept it to one page. The anime totally killed the surprise here.

I think I should be the director of DMW instead.

How I see the Madoka Magica ending

My reaction to the ending. (spoilers ahoy)

In the end, I think I don't quite agree with the ending. I don't have any problems with "sacrifice endings", as long as the story proved that there's value in it. You know, in 300, King Leonidas died holding back the enemy horde, and his sacrifice gave the Greeks the reason and time to be able to stand against the enemy. There are many more examples of a good sacrifice, but I just can't see Madoka as one of them.

Why do I say that? Well, first of all, since there's no real limit on the wish Madoka can make (due to her imba threads of fate or something) she wouldn't have to make a sacrifice in the first place. The wish could had been like, you know, that the energy never accumulate in the soul gems at all. Or such that Puella Magi would never turn into Witches. Or better yet, erase the whole entropy problem. That last one might be far-fetched, but it's not like it's proven unworkable, since her wish is suppose to be able to bend laws and shit.

Secondly, I see very little value in her sacrifice. Puella magi are still reanimated bodies with souls trapped inside little gems (if that's actually a problem at all). Monsters still exists, and they're still risking their lives to fight them. They still accumulate despair, which means they are still going to die young. And since there's not a shread of humanity left inside a witch, and its past life have little influence of what she would do... if you look at it realistically, does it really matter how a witch is born?

So in summary, this is how I see the ending: Madoka used up her huge assload of power to achieve absolutely nothing other than getting herself trapped in eternal limbo.

I'd really like to look on the bright side but... can anyone really prove me wrong?

How every Winter 2010 shows I watch becomes shiiiitttttt

Two season ago, it was Otome Youkai Zakuro and Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru. That was 50% of the shows I was following that season. And these two shows isn't that bad, it's just that they got off a great start but didn't manage to carry on the momentum all the way to the end.

Last season, it was every damn show I watched. They got off a great start and had generally positive reviews over the span of the season, on the blogosphere and amongst the Japanese audience as well. To me, endings makes a lot of difference in the overall experience of the show, but somehow none of these show delivered what I wanted.

Ranked from bad to worst are:

5. Fractale

Two of the main characters are in the pic. What do you mean you can only see one?

Okay, unlike many people out there, I don't think Fractale is a total crap. But it's no doubt a disappointment and definitely doesn't deliver what it has promised, or what it could have achieved with the story settings. Too many questions had been left unanswered until the last episode, too much needless drama at the end, and the twists at the end feels like it's being pulled out of Yamakan's ass at the last moment. The writing wasn't there, too many pointless stuff happens and any build-up towards the finale didn't work with all these distractions. The animation could have been a LOT better to, seeing how much Yamakan gambled with this project. I wanted to see a Last Exile.  I got a Allison & Lillia.




4. Kore wa Zombie desu ka?

Best thing in the ending.

I'll touch my heart and say that despite the pretty awesome first episode, I'm expecting this series to suck anyway, because of the people involved (read: DEEN). When I first got into the show, I liked the way they do things, like giving a dead guy magical girl powers, and making a chainsaw their primary weapon. That was fun in being random. But they went overboard with it, to the point where things doesn't even make sense anymore. Their attempt at serious storytelling is a joke. Anti-demonic music out of nowhere? And how did Eu suddenly decide that it's ok to kill off the bad guy in the end after all? And, well, I love epilogue episodes like ep12, but it turns out to be a pain to sit through. The 15 minute of concert stuff was beyond randomness... it was bullshit. And the ability to drain Eu's magical powers become a giant plot hole if you think about it.




3. Infinite Stratos

Getting in touch with inner Ichika.

Everything was going alright until they're done with the character introductions and started getting an actual plot at ep10. Ichika suddenly becames retarded and reduced himself way below a typical harem lead stereotype. The dialogue was so bad I feel like I'm watching a high-school orientation skit. Ichika's dream sequence and Gundam-styled nekkid talk was so hilariously bad, I feel that they weren't trying anymore. With the amount of CG and suit designs they had, the fight was nowhere was awesome as it could have been. And where did that rogue IS come from? Was Tabane behind everything after all? I could hire my niece to write something better. I expected it to be the next Macross Frontier, but all I got is a good harem.




2. Yumekui Merry

CHECK OUT MY HAX TRUMPET SKILLZ

I ranted in the recent post so I won't be explaining it here. But when I got the feeling that the other series are going down south, I expected this to be the most enjoyable show this season. I was wrong.




1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Homerun traveled one and a half month into the future, bringing the last two episodes with her.

Well, it wasn't the show that sucked, it was the viewing experience. What's more, I can only blame mother nature to put a one-month break right before the (supposedly) epic ending of the greatest show for a long long time. I'm not even anticipating the last two episode airing this Thursday anymore, I'm just dreading that I might forget critical parts of the show.

What the fuck, Merry?

And to think that I tried putting the series in a better light. J.C Staff, now you proved that you totally suck at writing anime original storylines.

Kawanami and Leon are pitiful characters. Despite what seemed like a important plot device, the gun does absolutely nothing, Leon bit the dust and Kawanami simply got brainwashed. In summary, they might as well have absolutely no purpose in the anime, other than eating up screentime. Perhaps that's the precise reason they are here; to make up for lack of story by filling up screentime.

I tried to screencap the stupidest line in the episode, but there were too many of them.

And wtf is with the power of thoughts thing? Engi's wounds simply healed by itself, Merry gains enough strength, and Yumeji summoned a fucking weapon? YOU WANNA BE MATRIX DAMMIT? And Yumeji's power should be left for the manga storyline. Maybe they realised they fucked up and won't get a chance for a second season anyway.

I really expected the action in the last episode to be better. This is just sad, and I guess it really shows that they've really ran out of money or something. And wtf is with the BGM? WTF is with the invisible trumpet Yui is blowing?

Yumekui Merry, you failed. I expected better.

We are anime protagonists, and anime protagonists gain imba powers for the sake of writer's convenience.

Dog Days, omg no

First it was the striking colours that makes my eyes bleed.

Then it was the protagonist, apparently a normal human, doing all the superman acrobatics because it's athletics.

Then he got summoned into a world full of Erios and Caros.

Then the war is JUST A FUCKING GAME.

Then he said that ^

I'm sorry, you've hit my bullshit threshold.

Infinite Stratos Ep10: I want Tabane dead

Ugh. The strongest impression I have of this episode is how much I hated the new character Tabane. Not only that her character is completely one-dimensional, but her hyperactive personality and annoying voice makes her scenes unbearable. God, if we need a sacrifice for some melodrama, please put this woman to sleep forever.

Other than that, I guess I was wrong about the series after all, as the problems with the plot has finally got to me. I don't mind them spending two-thirds of the series building on the characters, but it seems like they have nothing planned from that onwards.

It won't be so bad if they kept the characters interesting, but show moved on from selling the characters to selling the mediocre story. Which is a bad decision. And there just isn't enough Charlotte in the episode to tide me over this episode since Cecilia took most of the scenes in this episode. I dunno, Cecilia seems to be the least popular character out of the five, why did they chose to feature her in this episode anyway?

Ichika's stupidity seems to have has upped a couple of notches this week. And there's the crappy animation we see outside of scenes with the IS(s). Did they dump all their budget into the CG?...

Well, Houki's new suit looked pretty good, and everyone is amazed with her 4th Generation specs but I assure you, it will all become irrelevant soon enough.