I’ve been out of the blogging game for a few months, now. It isn’t that I haven’t wanted to blog. Time is simply not on my side. That beast eats so much of my life, ya’ know.

At any rate, to the point of this post. I’ve still been watching the anime. There were some good shows last season: Ladies x Butlers, The Book of Bantorra, Omamori Himari, Chu-bra (kinda). Of course, the last Best Show Ever winner, A Certain Scientific Railgun. BTW, Uiharu won the Best Hair Accessory That May Not Be a Hair Accessory award.

First Up: Angel Beats!

Okay, so this guy apparently dies and awakes in a strange world with a cute girl named Haruhi who is god. Umm…that’s not right. Her name is Yuri, she isn’t god, and she’s dead too. The basic story, follows the SOS brigade group of main characters in the “Afterlife Battlefront” while they try to destroy a mysterious organization, Angel, that may or may not be a single girl who happens to be the student council president.

Oh yeah, that guy I mentioned earlier, he lost his memory so he doesn’t know anything about anything at all. Also, he dies a few more times after waking up (Beat to Death Angel Dokuro-chan style).

Second: B Gata H Kei

Okay, so there is this really cute girl who every boy in school wants to go out with. The only problem is that she is a neurotic mess fixated on losing her virginity. She hides it well. Only her closest friends and family know about her secret obsession with sex. Despite her willingness, she has unfounded body image issues centered around her, for lack of better words, happy place. So, she decides to target a plain looking guy who couldn’t possibly see her in any other light than perfection, because he’s a virgin like her.

Normally, the ecchi factor of this show would make it a hard sell to the Best Show Ever committee. However, the first episode was more funny than ecchi, and it looks to be pushing a romantic aspect of the storyline, which garnered it points.

We will see.

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Edit:  Holy crap, I just found out Angel Beats! has an exclamation point in the name! You know how I feel about shows with exclamation points! They’re totally awesome and not overused at all!

Also, corrected the name…

It took a while for me to place To Aru Kagaku no Railgun into the coveted “Best Show Ever” award slot. The thought had crossed my mind earlier, but I was reluctant to make the assignment (read: to lazy to write this post). Readers that haven’t thought me dead and moved onto bigger and better blogs might recall that another show, Toradora!, held the title previously. I feel it is important to note that this new awarding does not reflect badly on Toradora! or any future/previous holders of the “Best Show Ever” award.

One might wonder what would make this show stand apart from other noteworthy offerings. This season has offered another Kiddy Grade, Kempfer, 11eyes, among others. Why Railgun…aside from the fact that one of the characters is a cutie who can totally smash sh** with coins? Was it because another character is a perverted love obsessed lesbian with a pantsu fetish? Believe it or not, these were on the lower end of the reasoning behind why Railgun achieved this ranking, the “Best Show Ever” award.

No, the reasoning was far more distinct to this show. It made this show stand out. It was the defining quality argument for this series. In one word “hair accessories.” I know that’s two words, but it should be one word, like “hairaccessories” or “hairccessories.”

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Interestingly, Valkyria Chronicles would have taken this award last season for the same reason, if it were not for my reluctance to upset Toradora’s standing (read: too lazy again).

Long ago, in time long forgotten, there was an anime called Heroic Age.

Actually, it wasn’t all that long ago. It would be around two years or so. Of course, in aniblogger time, that might as well be Precambrian.  Bloggers tends to be a bunch that have a fixation on the current.  I tend to notice spikes of interest in certain shows garnering more attention, as measured in “hits” on certain blog posts over the course of time. They seem to be centered around loosely associated geographic areas. I find it interesting, because it either means that fansubs are awfully late for these languages/areas or people are watching domestic releases in their spheres. It’s probably a bit of both, but I lean more toward the domestic release on either DVD or media broadcast. In regard to the latter, I lean more toward television broadcast.  This pure conjecture on my part, though.

As of late, I’ve been watching more and more rented anime. Despite reports of the demise of the American anime distribution business, there are still plenty of releases every month. But the real gems have always been the economy boxsets.  Although, currently RighStuf and DeepDiscount both have the two Heroic Age boxsets selling for around the $40 USD price range, which isn’t really “economy” enough for my taste, being about average for a 26 epsiode series.

Well, that’s why I rented it.

This one still partakes in the occasional English dub. I find I enjoy not having to put as much effort into absorbing the story. But, beyond that, the most interesting part of this story was the links it had to Greek Mythology. After doing some research on wiki, I left this series with a greater respect for the plot.

How elements correlated and are ingrained with Hesiod’s Five Ages is of particular interest. The five ages, embodied by the five tribes in the story, are probably the most succinct example of blatant allusion that I’ve ever seen in anime, and I find it wonderful. I truely do enjoy a story that makes one guess and conjecture about the meaning behind the lines and symbolism, but sometimes just having it plainly layed out is fun too. This is especially true for a story that so heavily leans on a known subject matter.

That is not to say that the story is a one-to-one mapping of mythology, but the links are rather straight forward. The Gold/Golden Tribe are the height of existence and the more pure and knowledgeable, the Silver being next, Bronze being war like, Heroic being nearly gods, and the Iron tribe being newly born; they fight for existence and suffer for all they have.

The story turns out to be one of hope and achievement, but we already knew that was the case. Destiny played a supreme role in the plot of Heroic Age. Again, this is something to be expected.  The fact that the Iron tribe could only achieve their status through blessing of the Golden tribe is classical Greek mythos, which only strengthens the story, in my opinion.

Technically, this is a mecha anime, which will immediately turn off those who hate mecha anime. For that matter, the “mecha” are not really all that attractive. For instance, Bellcross spends the entire show with its mouth hanging open, seemingly unable to clench its teeth.  They howl and rage and break things. There is rarely any emotion other than fury. They are beast, in the most literal sense of the word. Maybe it was purposeful, as it is noted in the story that they were linked with other tribes to give them a sense of purpose or heart.

It was that kind of superfluous pandering to the belief that destiny favors the bold and love can conquer anything that infused the story. That’s beautiful.

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So, “Heroic Age” actually makes reference to two things: Hesiod’s Heroic Age and the main character Age, as in Age being heroic. Isn’t that great? That’s totally awesome. I love word play. Although, apparently, the age the story takes place in wouldn’t be the “Heroic Age,” because that was before humans or the Iron Age.

So, this is where I’d put some caption on the image about Liang Ji really getting into the Wii. Seriously, she’s the freakin’ conductor of the crazy train.

Liang is such an insane character it’s hard not to like her. This is anime, so it is completely possible that they will work in some sympathetic story line for her that will justify all of her pure evilness. In all honesty, I really hope that isn’t the case. It would ruin her essence, her allure, her shining mental warped-ness that defines her.

Also, I seem to have started a perverse guessing game about when she will finally just kill Cummings (betting on ep 10, no real reason).

Like many others have stated, the show is worth watching on its production values alone. It’s a rather good work of animation. I can’t say that I find the story interesting at this point, but I find myself enjoying the characters. To that end, we all know that animation doesn’t necessarily a good anime make. Therefore, I’ll be waiting for something else to set this one apart. Six episodes in, they’re going to have to work for it, though.

It was a normal day just like any other day. I found myself reading through the myirad and random posts on the front page of reddit, whilst preparing to watch another episode of Haruhi 2009.  As I wondered through the various postings of a troubled world and nation, I came to the realization that I had done this before.

…because, I had, every day, for the last year. It’s basically been work, internet, television, and then anime. I’ve manage to sneak a book in every once in a while, but I haven’t managed to actually finish one.

But, all that is besides the point here. I would really like to get angry over the Haruhi mess that is Endless Eight, but I just don’t have the wherewithal. I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t been awaiting, with a childlike anticipation, for the next season of Haruhi. I’ve grown a little less vigilant in awaiting each new episode, and I find that to be a very sad thing, indeed.

The odd thing–I’m sure it has been pointed out–is that we regularly re-watch the same anime repeatedly. It’s not unusal for an anime fan to compulsively digest something they enjoy over and over again. For that matter, it isn’t really that odd for us to re-watch a movie, reread a book, or re-imagine an event in our live. It’s all about examining and finding new ways to see these things along with gaining new insight.

That is the prerequisite, though. There has to be some insight. Lately, I’ve found Haruhi to be lacking. I’m sure many will argue that the Endless Eight arc is full of tiny hints that tell of a larger…something. No doubt, there are many people who have noticed subtle changes between the episodes that in themselves tell something, but overall mean another.

Is it interesting? Yes.

Is it artistic? Yes.

Could it have been accomplished in one episode? Unfortunately, Yes. In hindsight, we should have expected something of this nature to amuse and confound our tastes. After all, this is the show that aired “out of order,” the first season. To which, many were peeved.

I guess, the fact that I’m still watching it speaks volumes for the show.

On another note, I’ve been fairly pleased with Yuki’s emotional range throughout Endless Eight.

Here we see Yuki is surprised to be stopped by Kyon. Sure, it’s happened about 15K times, but she’s still a bit surprised each time, which shows through her excellent body language. Yuki knows how to emote.

Yuki is giving that, “so, what’s up?” look. Excellent animation.

Notice, the posture and body positioning. It says, “I’m waiting to leave.” You can tell a lot of thought went into this one scene.

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Linked to lk’s blog, in his recent repeated post on Endless Eight and rewatchability. I meant to link to him originally, but I forgot when I first posted last night.