I can’t really explain it to you, it’s about girls in a club who build models, wear little models on their head, and generally beat the shit out of each other. There is also stereotypical American females, GIANT GIRLS WHO DEMAND MOCHI, pelvic-thrusting sports players, a tank, and whatever else. Just go download it, watch it, spit things over your desk, and then we’ll do deli. It’s easier than me typing.

We’re halfway through the Spring season, and it’s almost time to get on with the list for Summer 2013. A few excellent titles are in the mix for this season, and a few other promising leads. This season caught me up with so many titles I didn’t initially include in the chart, so I am going to try to get everything seated properly this time, even if that means making a post-chart after the first week. Anyway, let’s see what we have in store based on charts from these fine sources:

Anichart – Summer 2013
Neregate – Summer 2013

Unilaterally Confirmed for My Watching Pleasure

Rozen Maiden

Studio Deen
Although the show originally premiered in 2004, it wouldn’t be until 2006-2007 when I would watch this absolutely amazing piece of work, having been blissfully unaware of its presence for so long, despite the fact that 4chan was built on DESU DESU DESU DESU. It continues to remain one of very few titles on my MAL list to ever receive a 10, which I’ve only given to shows that were my all-time favorites, or that I considered the best of their time. Will this iteration of Rozen Maiden withstand that test? Honestly, I’m not sure. The standards for anime today versus 2004 are pretty low, and the chances of Rozen Maiden returning to those glory years, especially considering Studio DEEN’s recent work, it’s going to be a tough sell. Is this a remake? A sequel? That’s going to be the kicker here. DEEN was not part of the original shows, rather, they were animated by NOMAD, who, as it turns out, is doing Kitakubu Katsudō Kiroku this season. Haw. I’m also a bit concerned they’re going after the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni crowd, since that was in DEEN’s wheelhouse before.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear 2

Satelight
I can see a few people now saying “What the fuck, son? I am disappoint?” because it was just a half-baked anime made to promote songs. I know, but fuck man, I had a pretty damn good time with Symphogear. The characters, the enemies, the plot, and the twist, they were all blantently obvious and worthy of trope and song. It’s like dragging out an old gaming system and playing that game that you loved and couldn’t put down when you were ten, but now that your thirty, it wasn’t as much fun as you remembered, but it was still a good time for a couple hours.

Highschool DxD S2

TNK
After having to suffer through Yuuki Kaji’s unfortunate voicing of Shoe in Guilty Crown, having him voice a character that is not afraid to use his demon powers to rip clothes off of girls, form a demon harem, and bury his face into Rias’ tits (thank you based Yoko) Highschool DxD turned out to be more awesome than I originally thought it by the end of the first season. The manga really helped me reinforce my overall opinion though, it is much better constructed, despite the story and characters being nothing special to bat home over. I’m all in for another season of RiasXAkenoXKonekoXAisa awesomeness.

Genshiken Nidaime

Production IG
When I was in high school, I joined the Japanese Club in my senior year. The few who ran the club wanted it to be about Japanese culture, but everyone else just wanted to watch anime. I had a Dell I9000 P3-800Mhz (woooow) at the time I used for taking notes in classes and downloading anime off IRC during lunch, and I was watching something off of it while everyone talked and did whatever one afternoon. People came up around me and were shocked that you could watch anime as it was airing in Japan, albeit a week late, since digital fansubbing was still new in 2001/2002 and not instant-fucking-tanious as it is now.

Genshiken always reminded me of those old days, high school, post-high school, right up to about 2006. Me and friends would hang out, bullshit about anime and games, go over to each others’ houses, and waste our lives where we should have been doing something with them. Now when I think of it, it was a shitty idea, but I still often wish I had a few people I could bullshit with face-to-face about this stuff. Being an adult sucks.

Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai

Manglobe
TWGOK. A few years ago, I thought it was the title to something boring. Then I watched it as part of my Saimoe-inspired backlog, and found it was most excellent, especially the OP music. The show tries to foster a BEST GIRL mentality among the girls he saves, but they were so forgettable that I don’t even know their names, only Elsie and Haqua. Still, I summarize that it will be a fair amount of fun in the way it can only be.

Selected Based on Description and Submitted for Approval by the Midnight Society

Servant x Service

A-1 Pictures
Remember Working!!? See the studio who did that? Yeah. Another show about working, this time in a WELFARE OFFICE. I doubt this will be as awesome as working in an American DMV, but it should be damn close. As long as it has a POPLAR, we’ll be golden. If not, hopefully something similar.

Gin no Saji

A-1 Pictures
Huh, a city boy wanted to be a farmer, eh? This sounds like the story of every kid living in this state who thinks they’re from the South. Protip: Rednecks don’t drive Honda Civics.

Love Lab

Dogakobo
I’ve come to enjoy a lot of what Dogakobo puts out, and even though this is another Five Girls franchise, it looks interesting, and has a manga predecessor, so I will be sure to check that out in the coming weeks to confirm it’s viability.

Watamote!

TBA
So let’s put this into perspective, you know who Katsuragi Keima is, right? Now imagine a younger female version of that. Still with me? Is this awesome? I hope so.

Stella Jogakuin Koutou-ka C3-bu

Gainax
Every time you get a show from Gainax, you have to pause and think about what they’re going to do. They’ve made other shows besides Evangelion, many good shows for that matter, including Mahoromatic in the early 2000′s, but then they go and make shit like Panty and Stocking and you wonder if they are genius or insane. This show seems to mimic Upotte! in a way, but plot-wise, it sounds more like Girls Und Panzer. Military seems to be a hot-topic in anime, and so far, it’s been done pretty well, so it’s up to Gainax not to drop the ball.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya

Silver Link
I sadly have not really kept up to date with FATE/Stay Night since watching the original run back in 2006, but it’s always had a fun cast of characters, and a spin-off series featuring Ilya as school girl or magical girl just seems like stupid silly fun. What we’re really after though it just more Rin. Maybe.

Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku

Nomad
Instead of animating Rozen Maiden, Nomad goes for animating a 5girls 1club series, based on that ol’ one-two punch of >Doesn’t want to join any clubs >JOINS A CLUB. Cliche aside, club shows are hit-or-miss, and after GJ-bu, it’s hard to trust anything else that doesn’t have a Kirara in it.

Call Kenny Loggins, Because You’re in the Danger Zone

Monogatari Series: Second Season

SHAFT
I’ve been a sucker for the Monogatari series, especially the characters, but the visuals and the way they tend to drag along at times makes it something I prefer to watch all at once and get the good bits out. When you realize that the character dynamics will never change, that Senjougahara is heartless, Suruga a lesbian, Sengoku pure, Hanekawa a cock-tease, and Hachikuji eternally lost, you know all you need to know and the rest is just an adventure.

Kiniro Mosaic

Studio Gokumi
It’s a five-girl short series, so this time, I am trying not to place too much hype in short series so as to not be disappointed by five minutes of animation.

Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi

Madhouse
It looks interesting, but there’s something about it I can’t put my finger on yet, and I’m afraid I am going to have to see more on Day One to feel this one out, even with the description given.

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou

Gonzo
The premise looks interesting, but it strikes me of two things, 1. >Gonzo and 2. >Kore wa Zombie. I dunno why, but it just does.

Fantasista Doll

Hoods Entertainment
It sounds awfully a lot like Angelic Layer, one of my absolute favorite shows of all-time, but the cards part is where it skewers. Angelic Layer focused on battle dolls, but it used space-future movement technology, where this seems more like Magic: The Gathering with props. So the jury will be out on this one.

Fuck No

Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS

TBA
I tried to give RKB that fair shot (haaaw) back then, but it wasn’t that interesting. Sure, the girls are cute, but they’re goddamn kindergarteners. I just can’t do it.

Milky Holmes S3

JC STAFF

As I’ve probably mentioned in previous posts around Katsucon time, I’ve been attending conventions since Otakon 2002. So, by many people my age’s standards, not long. I had a stigma about conventions and gatherings for a fandom from my parents, as they commonly went to gatherings once or twice a year with other fans of Jimmy Buffet music. They were parrotheads. This rabbit hole goes deeper, but I’m not going to indulge you. Not here anyway. So, for me, who was plenty into anime by this time, going to a convention seemed like a risky move. I’m not an outward socialite, I didn’t have any friends going, I wandered around Otakon alone, met some IRC people, but nothing really great. I spent a lot of time sitting in hallways doing nothing. That was my con experience.

Having a few conventions down by myself, I decided to try to bring my friends along for the ride. They all were mostly anime fans, but some were passive fans and others were active fans. Others still had no interest and just wanted to go tear shit up for a weekend. We tried one year piling into my car and driving down. Another year we tried several cars in a large group. What I learned from this venture was that your friends are the worst people to attend a convention with in a large group. They are loud, excessive, cheap, giant fucking leeches, and incredibly difficult to keep track of. I could not enjoy my convention experience because I felt like I had to babysit a bunch of adults, we all were ages 20-24 at the time. I burned out on that and told them to find their own way, along with quitting Otakon because that convention is just a clusterfuck anyway. After awhile, I quit all conventions period, except for Katsucon, which I staff and enjoy, and occasionally Connecticon because it’s in my home state, twenty minutes from home.

I have not seen some of the shit others have seen attendees do, and some of that makes me glad. I certainly cannot imagine how I would react to something like people having sex in the lobby in full cosplay, or running up and down halls naked. I’d probably laugh my ass off and take pictures, because I am a terrible person, and these people deserve to be shamed for acting like sub-human primal beasts. The rampant, unchecked unwarranted self-importance that goes on in this conventions are surreal, and are often played out on forums, Livejournal, and Tumblr after the convention, where hundreds of attendees whine and cry about how the con didn’t cater to them, and vow to make their own con, with hookers, and blackjack. I’ll go, if they forget the con and the blackjack.

For what it’s worth though, we’re only talking about a fraction of the people who attend conventions. A very small number. Katsucon has been an excellent con to staff because we really don’t have many of the problems that other cons our size or smaller experience. Minimal drama, minimal incidents. We’ve had a few, and many more unreported no doubt, but the overall experience has always been high from everyone who goes, and really, if you can nail a 80% or higher on a theoretical customer survey, you are doing pretty damn good. You can’t please everyone, but you can try. But it’s pretty bad when older attendees start talking about “21+ Only Conventions” because the majority of convention attendees are under 18. What’s worse is parents think that they can just drop their kids off and take off, someone else will deal with them. We’re not a day care facility, we’re not certified instructors or anyone like that. We’re volunteers who come to put in our time and effort to help put on a good show for everyone, not supervise your little shit so you can nail an escort at a downtown hotel, or whatever it is you think you’re going to do without your kids for a weekend. Teach your kids to have some goddamn respect for other people, personal property, and hotel management. Hell, if the only thing you ever teach your kids to respect in a public place, is that common walkways are not like the locker area at high school, and by congregating around them and staging photo shoots, you are going to get us all killed in the event of an emergency because you’re blocking the paths to the exit.

The TL;DR here, is that we all know this sort of shit will happen, because we’re living in a culture today where self-responsibility and morals checked out long ago, but we can mitigate a lot of this by pretending to deal with one another constructively for three days. It’s the least you can do to remind the rest of humanity you are not a pretentious douche who happens to be wearing a costume, but rather a civil human being cosplaying the character you love and interacting with others who share your love of the fandom. Don’t be a dick. I recall some washed-up child actor turn geek celebrity saying that once.

TL;DR

Wrapping up the weekend in this week’s anime, Shingeki continues to impress with awesome visuals, even though I’ve read pretty far into the manga, so no surprises for me. Gargantia continues to be one of my top-ranked series this season, being everything I wanted Overman King Gargantia to be. Henneko also does not fail to disappoint me in the light-hearted territory. Let’s get on with it~

Lookin’ good there, Stallman

Shit gets hot in Shingeki as the colossal titan blows another hole in the wall open, and the The Night Watch trainees immediately spring into action… hahahaha no.. only Eren springs into action, and showing everyone he is no crow, he takes on the giant, but before he could land the killing blow, it disappears. Victory was not immediate, the open hole let in the giants to the yard, and suddenly it was time for a battle. Stuff, stuff, blah, things, Mikasa, and then we’re off to more fights, except this time, Eren gets chomped on the leg trying to rush one who ate a comrade. Then his whole team gets fucked, Armin cries like a bitch and is almost eaten, and Eren sacrifices himself to save Armin. What a waste. Next episode will be good though, from what I have read. The Stallman and MOE TITAN jokes really made this episode though.

This is a gg translation, so take away from this what you will.

Things get extra -dere in Henneko when the quest to get Tsukiko’s emotions back runs into the Steel King, the -dere turning out to be Tsukushi herself, wanting to separate herself from her sister, so that she could… marry… her? Okay, that is an interesting twist, maybe not a twist, but certainly an interesting 180 for a character that has been extra-tsun thus far. But she was responsible for the Stony Cat, and insists it has no magical powers, but it seems to have some kind of powers, and almost gives Tsukiko’s emotions back… but she gives them up. Not sure what is supposed to happen now, the whole show was built on this facade premise, without it, does it just become another romcom? Guess we’ll see.

I think I’m a clone now…

I have to kind of interject, even if Railgun is trying this time around, kind of, to stay with the bulk of the action and not be a complete snooze-fest of HEY LET’S JUST FOLLOW MISAKA AND HER FRIENDS AROUND FOR TEN EPISODES HURFDRUFHAERPDURP. So far, we’ve been given this middle-of-the-road feel, school life with the looming SISTERS appearance slowly building up to the end of this episode, meeting face to face. I’m still expecting good things from this show though. Is that wrong to think of?

Oh yeah, right there.. dat text…

So wait, this entire episode of Photo Kano was because Haruka didn’t feel well? Or the childhood memories thing? Wat? Don’t get me wrong, this show is good for a couple laughs, but it’s not exactly interesting, it’s a generic harem. With a camera. A camera harem. I guess that makes it different?

God yes.

So far, Gargantia is ranking among my top picks of the year, which isn’t much since we’re still early in the year, but it’s a lot for a mecha show that isn’t Gundam. The look and feel is definitely a throwback to Overman King Gainer, that whole life aboard a moving colony, be it land or water, and being the odd one out in the space-future robot. There are so many little things that make this show enjoyable, from Amy’s look and demeanor, the atmosphere of the ship, Ledo’s easy-going attitude about everything despite being very concerned about his position in this unknown place, all sorts of fun. I almost wish this was getting a full season of episodes, but alas, nope. In fact, only Railgun and Shingeki get full runs, everything else tops out at the end of the season.

Dohoho, what do we have here?

Haw, oh Ore no Imouto, you give me almost half of an episode with Kuroneko and dress to kill my heart. Honestly, as much as I hate to fag up here, Kuroneko and Manami are the reasons I watch this show. Every other character is a pile of shit, really. This episode just weirded me out more than usual, probably because of the whole “brother as a boyfriend thing”. Terrible. Ugh. Glad they kept that short though, would have had to choke a bitch otherwise.

So for those who don’t pay attention to Twitter, I proposed to my fiancee of six years last year after PAX. Next Saturday is the day of reckoning, we do this shit. It’s been a very long-drawn out process for us, mostly her because she planned 90% of it, and we’re paying for 80% of it, so it’s something we like to call our own. What it means for here, is that I will be missing the entire weekend of anime and reviews, and will likely not get back to that until the weekend after. I probably won’t do any posts this week unless it’s for a couple shows. So TL;DR, BRB, gonna marry my 3D waifu. Sad day for 2Dfags. That feel, bro.

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about the still-running anime based on astronauts, space, NASA/JAXA, and everything in-between, and that is Space Brothers. It’s been on the air now for a little over a year, crossing the fifty episode mark a month and a half ago, but with a few recap episodes airing recently, I didn’t care to really get back on until they ended last week opening up with a new arc in the ASCAN saga, building a rocket that deploys a parachuting rover.

Space Brothers is the sort of show that 12-year-old me finds absolutely fucking fantastic. I grew up in the golden age of NASA’s space exploration, during the Space Shuttle era, before the launch of the International Space Station, MIR, and so on. When I got to visit Johnson Space Center in Houston one year, it was something out of a book to me. I’ve always been fascinated with space, and one of my biggest regrets to this day was that I let my dream of space exploration die, that I didn’t go back and do well enough in school to become a NASA astronaut. Even if I fell short of becoming an astronaut, I would have wanted to be a NASA engineer. It would be the career of a lifetime.

Perhaps that is why I like this show more than I should Nanba is by all intents and purposes my age (give or take) and has an outlook on things that aren’t far from my own. The only difference is I don’t have a little brother, rather I have a little sister, but she won’t end up on the moon anytime soon. The show likes to believe that you aren’t too old to pursue your dreams, which is nice of it to do, but for those of us watching that let that dream go long ago, it’s just good fun entertainment now. That’s fine though, I’m okay with that. I always like to think that the mass of humanity will reach space before the end of my lifetime, but realistically humanity will probably take another several generations to make it to space, but it’s my hope we do. We need to make it to space, not just for our planet, but for our people as a whole. Space exploration needs to happen.

Now back to the show, Nanba’s trials through the astronaut candidate program have been incredibly fun to watch. Throughout the first fifty episodes you got the impression that once they passed that first test in the groups, they were home free, and in a sense, they were, but the show continues to put them through more trials and hardships on the difficult path to becoming an astronaut. I’m not intimately familiar with the actual process, but I assume the writers and staff for this show at least got most of the details and research from JAXA, and their process is no doubt similar to NASA. It’s no doubt a long and grueling process.

The Home Depot. Where rovers are built.

The best part about this show though is all of the little references, especially to America. A large part of the show takes place in Houston, and although they did get the American home and yard down early on, as well as Texas Roadhouse, they don’t fully replicate the experience. That doesn’t matter too much, after all, it’s not the focus of the show, but you can tell they zing Americans quite a bit, such as Lowry and his Japanese word obsession, or the fat engineer eating a burger, fries, and a candy bar in the most recent episode. The US has never been very flattering in anime, and rightfully so, most people outside of the US don’t see the US favorably, and vice-versa. A lot of anime companies use actual cities and towns in Japan as backdrops for their stories, and they often turn out beautiful. I’m not holding out for an anime that takes place in a small US town done well, but it’s a shame American animation companies don’t try to go for something similar in their own ballpark.

Case in point, Space Brothers is the show to watch for space, and really it’s like a land-based Star Trek sometimes. It’s full of interesting space facts, great characters, and an awesome story that any space fan should watch. Bonus points if you break out your Lego or real space shuttle models.

Another week of chinese cartoons, and some crazy shit going down in the heavies while everything else, eh. You’ll also note, if you visit the site often, that I’ve changed up the theme again, now rocking one of those fancy slider themes that all the WPfags use these days. I am a web and graphic designer in the new job I have, and part of that has been working on porting their site to WordPress, so I’m learning a few tricks I didn’t bother to figure out before, so I’ll be working on the site a little in the coming weeks to make it look nice.

Now to get on with the show.

Subtitling, like a boss.

Well shit gets real in this week’s Maou-sama as we find out Lucifer was the one attempting to wipe out both Maou and Emi, and manages to gain magical powers from the despair of humans. The same is true of Maou however, and as he saves Chiho and everyone else from Lucifer’s attacks, Emi charges her power up and an aerial fight ensues. Lucifer gets punched in the face, Maou uses the last of his collected power to restore the city, and everything goes back to normal… except Chiho knows everything now. So now what? Who the fuck cares. This show is easily one of the best this season on my list. Loving it.

Dem legs~

What sucks about Aiura is that the episodes are five minutes long, of which only about two minutes are actual show. Still, it’s like the best two minutes of anime a week sometimes. Those Wakatsuki legs were worth this week’s two minutes. When you consider most shows never bother to animate below the waist, it’s rare to see some good shit in the animes.

Well, of course she is the leader’s daughter. CAGALLI anyone?

I’ve made a lot of SEED jokes so far about Valvrave, but this week, we get to turn up the GUILTY CROWN as the whole school has decided the South must rise again, or something. Basically they think that they can use the Valvrave to hold Dorassia and ARUS (pretty much Valvrave’s version of Russia and the US) at bay, as both pretty much don’t give a shit about them and just want the robot. Meanwhile L-Elf is trying to convince Shoe Haruto that he will need his help in effecting some kind of revolution plan. But before that could happen, Shouko overhears ARUS attempting to pull back and take Haruto and the Valvrave with them. The students create a diversion and rescue him, and Shouko decides this is a perfect time to reveal herself as who she is, JIOR’s leader’s daughter, and quickly rally the student body to declare independence from every nation and form their own with the Valvrave as their bargaining chip and protector. So we’ve gone full-GC now I guess, and I’m not sure what to feel. Part of me is actually liking what is going on, but I can’t handle the cliches man, I just feel like this whole thing could have been done differently. Let’s just hope this doesn’t sink into something worse.

“Pro-wrestling”

Meanwhile, in Majestic Prince land, Rabbits continues to be the butt of everyone’s jokes, but this time they have the three-man team of Doberman, comprising of a military goody-two-shoes, a womanizer, and an equalizer. Together the two teams sortie to check out a spot where a small enemy force was believed to be, only for a large base to be there. They take a risk and infiltrate it, place a bomb, blow it sky high, and return. Not much else in this episode besides some implied porn one of the Doberman guys gives our Red hero. I like the mecha in this show, but the characters are largely forgettable. They could all die next week and be replaced by five more wiped memory students and I wouldn’t even care. Even chesty-boing-boing does nothing for me, she is dumber than a box of rocks.

Finally, a character worth posting about~

I like to think I’m in roughly the same school of thought regarding Machigatteiru as other twitterfolk, but fuck if I am not a gullible shit when it comes to falling for this obvious trap of a main character. I’m this fucking guy, not just in high school, but beyond high school. I don’t go out of my way to make friends, I sit in the corner and observe the room, although I do have professional aspirations, so I guess that’s the changeup there. But even if I can sympathize with Hikki a little, this show is just… I dunno, very static? I’m trying to think of a better way to put it, but it’s much like last season’s romcom, Ore no Kanojo, was for me, just stale overused tropes with a fresh coat of paint. I’ll probably keep watching, because I am terrible like that, but it’s low on the priority list. I ended up watching last and this week’s episodes today because I just plain forgot.

Nothing else notable to mention right now, honestly, Nyaruko wasn’t worth more than a sentence, Space Bros. I need to write a full post on at some point, and I’m going to cover the rest this weekend as they air, so keep your eyes on that. Also, I have not forgotten the wiki, so stay tuned, I’ll post when I finish the current season. Been busy, and lazy, to sit down and TAKKATAKKTAAKKA on that.

It’s that time once again, when we crack open the gates of hell and partake in Japan’s version of Star Wars, that’s right, good ol’ Neon Genesis Evangelion: Rebuild and it’s third act, 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo. I really had a tougher time with this movie compared to the first two because it drastically skewers from the original source material, and it got to be hard to follow in some places. I had read a little bit of spoilers back after the movie premiere in Japan, enough to question what was going to happen, but the end result of watching it. Woof.

Fair warning, spoilers will be ahead in this post, so if you have not watched the movie, find it yourself via your preferred method of acquisition and give it a watch. If you have not, your life is forfeit below.

Shingeki no Evangelion

The film opens up with Asuka and Mari attempting to recover Unit 01 and Shinji, which is encased in some giant black cross-shaped thing. All of this is post-Third Impact that was caused by his going berserk and trying to rescue Rei, but the impact was stopped by the Lance of Longinus piercing through Unit 01. It’s unclear how he ended up in space or any of that, but once recovered, he is brought to the Wunder, a large mechanical ship resting in the winter seas of presumably the South Pole. There, Misato, Ritsuko, survivors of NERV, and Toji’s younger sister, Suzuhara Sakura, are all part of an anti-NERV organization known as WILLE. While Shinji is cleared as not being an Angel or being a threat to the vessel and its people, it’s pretty clear that no one trusts him, or acknowledges him, and a choker is placed around his neck that will explode if he tries to pilot an Eva again. Unit 01, in fact, is discovered to have been converted as a power source for the massive vessel, which is capable of flight, generating an AT-field, and other feats previously seen by EVAs. This is put to the test immediately when more SEELE Nemesis series EVAs attack the ship, forcing it to go airborne and eliminate the targets.

The entire bridge is a plug? Wat?

The real kicker however, is that Shinji is informed by Risuko and the others, that he has been inside Unit 01 for fourteen years, and that by all accounts, he should actually be twenty-eight, but as it is discovered, all of the EVA pilots do not physically show signs of age, even if they are, by technicality, fourteen years older. Everyone else, sadly, looks that much older, including Toji’s sister Sakura, Misato, dressed much like Gendo was previously, and Ritsuko, who cut off most of her hair. Even though he is unable to pilot, and they have no desire to let him, after threatening to kill him with the collar, they return his walkman and plan to leave him be, but the ship comes under attack again, this time by Rei and Unit 09, who rescues Shinji and is nearly destroyed by Mari, but manages to escape. Misato activates the collar detonation system, but is unable to press the button before he goes out of range.

Oh Misato, it’s cute you want to kill him, but you can’t. Good try though.

Rei brings Shinji back to what is left of NERV deep below Tokyo-3, which is largely gone from above Central Dogma below, exposing the sky to the large underground cavern everything once stood. Here, Shinji meets Gendo once more, and it told that he will be piloting the new Unit 13 alongside another pilot, Kaworu Nagisa. Although largely confused, he goes along with the plans, mostly after discovering Rei is alive, and convincing himself he succeeded in saving her. Unfortunately, she does not seem to remember anything about the incident, nor anything else about her that he remembered from all that time ago. Meanwhile, he meets Kaworu alongside his piano and the two play a little. He explains how he is confused as to what has happened these past fourteen years, and wants to know what became of Tokyo-3, his friends, and why Misato and everyone hates him. Kaworu takes him to see the ruins of the city and the result of Third Impact, which leveled almost all of the area and killed everyone. Unable to cope with the guilt and regret for what happened, Shinji vows not to pilot EVA again and confines himself to his room, but Kaworu convinces him that if they pilot Unit 13 and retrieve both the Spear of Cassius, and the Lance of Longinus, they can “reverse” the effects of Third Impact and fix everything. He comforts Shinji’s fears and even takes on his collar, willing to sacrifice himself so that Shinji may live. Shinji goes along with this plan and Unit 13 springs into action for Terminal Dogma, along with Rei in Unit 09.

Decent into Darkness~

It’s not long, however, before WILLE takes notice of Unit 13′s activation, and Asuka and Mari sortie to eliminate Unit 13 before it can do anything in Terminal Dogma. Despite their best efforts however, and against even Kaworu’s objections, Shinji unearths both spears, which turn out to both be the Lance of Longinus. The resulting acquisition of the spears and the Angel-ified Unit 06 absorbing into Unit 13, causes Fourth Impact to begin. Asuka engages Unit 09 and goes Beast Mode, managing to stop it, but not before convincing Rei to eject, and Asuka ejecting herself after activating Unit 02′s self-destruct. Kaworu tells Shinji that he is in fact the First Angel, and having come in contact with the Thirteenth and Final Angel, forces both spears into Unit 13 and terminates Fourth Impact, before being beheaded by the collar. With his plug ejected, Shinji winds up on the ground at the end of the terminated impact, only to be found by Asuka and Rei. The movie ends with him being dragged up the hill by Asuka, with Rei following.

Not quite a sunset ending.

I joke about how Evangelion: Rebuild is Anno’s response to Lucas’ Star Wars: Special Edition because it essentially is. We’ve been told time and time again that this is Anno’s “true story” that he was unable to tell because of financial constraints back in 1995, or because certain technology or techniques were not unavailable at the time. Having watched the original show many times as well as the first movies, I’ve pretty much digested and understood Anno’s original vision of Evangelion, that everything culminated in Shinji’s ascension to becoming God, and that everything else mattered not in the end goal. Rebuild stuck with most of that until we got to 3.33, and then everything went far fucking south.

The thing is, my major beef with this “new story” is the fourteen year timeskip, as well as Misato and WILLE. I’ve always seen the purpose of a “timeskip” in stories to act as a sort of “reboot” to a series or story, a means to essentially end the current arc and begin a new one, either with the same characters X years later, or new characters with references or cameos of the previous characters. In this instance, the timeskip essentially ends the original story of Eva as we’ve seen in the original TV show and skewers off into a new tangent, starring most of the core characters, hardened by fourteen years of something. Misato is ice-cold, so cold that she originally has no issue with killing Shinji, only to fail at pressing the button when she had the chance. Ritsuko doesn’t even try to stop her, and Sakura, knowing what Shinji did for her and Toji, tries to “protect” him, but is utterly incompetent at doing so. Asuka and Mari have not changed, thanks to a new plot device that says they do not age because they are Eva pilots, but Asuka has also hardened considerably, especially towards Shinji. WILLE’s purpose is obviously to counter NERV and Gendo’s plans, but as Gendo alludes after Fourth Impact, they’re well accounted for in his plans, even if he isn’t calculating it down to a tee.

Then there is Shinji. Poor Shinji. For eighteen years now he has been the butt of anime jokes in almost every major language, and rightfully so. He wrote the book on the beta male wussification of science-fiction mecha anime that spread to other genres over the years. We know his character is pure shit in any iteration of Evangelion, the Rebuild Series being no exception. But despite all of that, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him at the end of this film, because he is a character that exists to gain pity from others, and no one else will give him even an inch to work with. But when you think about it, his actions before Third Impact, however reckless they were, were his own, they were started by him, and he alone pushed his will beyond what anyone else in the show was capable of. He is desperate for attention, and praise, and affection, that he wholeheartedly bought Kaworu’s hypothesis that the spears would change the world, when in fact, they simply restarted what he triggered before. I ended up having pity for him in the end, because he is so incredibly naive and stupid about his surroundings and the people around him that it is no wonder everyone hates him, and that he winds up hating himself. But you know, a lesser man would have killed himself ages ago. Shinji can’t even manage that. That either makes him incredibly strong, or incredibly stupid.

Evangelion 3.33 deviated so much from the original source material that it’s hard for me to construct a clear picture in my head. I had figured upon a complete re-working of EoE and Death and Rebirth, essentially, and perhaps that is what the fourth film will do, I’m not sure. I don’t even know what the final film will do at this point, it’s hard to tell, even from the preview at the end of this film. I mean, we know all of the major players are still alive, but we also know whatever happens to bring about a conclusion to this saga, it has to go through Shinji, and right now he is a giant ball of emo fuck in a constant bubble of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. That’s what makes me dislike this piece of the overall Rebuild Series, because it really did nothing to explain anything that connects the first two films to the last film, it was pretty much visual effects porn with a heaping of Shinji angst, Asuka angst, Mari :3 face, and Poor Widdle Misato. But then I liked this film simply on the technical and visual merit alone. I’ve always loved the Rebuild graphics they use on the computers and visuals in the cockpits, and the Angel effects are also top-notch. But much like Star Wars, when you constantly re-invent the universe, you begin to re-write and re-write and re-write the characters and story so much that the fans of the original source material don’t even want to care anymore, it doesn’t need to be flashy, it doesn’t need to shine on you crazy fucking diamond, it just needs to be what it has always been, Evangelion, the crazy fucked up story of Hideaki Anno and his merry men (and women) of GAINAX.

Title: Neon Genesis Evangelion: Rebuild: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo
Sub Group I Watched: UTW-Thora
Rating (1-10): 8

:3

Also check out my prior reviews for Evangelion Rebuild. They’re a bit rougher, the result of my writing styles changing over the years, which may warrant me re-writing (LEL IRON-EE) these upon the conclusion of the Rebuild Series:

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Rebuild: 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Rebuild: 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance

Long time no see, I kinda cheaped out on writing anything for the past couple weeks, that sorta thing happens around here. Was kinda getting into my new job and getting into the swing of things again and also spent most of my past couple weekends out, so I didn’t feel like writing much. Not being winter outside anymore has made my attempts to go outside more frequent as well, so it’s nice to drive around to my EUROBEATS and interact with commonfolk again. But you came here for how I feel about this season’s weekly animus, so strap in, there are a lot.

I-I-I-I-IT’S NOT LIKE I LIKE LINUX OR ANYTHING–

I’ve pretty much stopped riffing on Valvrave with all of the SEED jokes because they just keep coming, it’s like Sunrise isn’t even trying to hide the fact that it is completely ripping off everything they’ve ever done ever. It’s literally OMNI/ZAFT/ORB all over again, and it will only be a matter of time before they wind up on Earth in the fucking desert trying to get to Alaska or some other place before wining up in Neutral Country again or something. Besides that, there is this whole thing between Kira Haruto and Athrun L-Elf and the vampire shit, and Haruto’s love for Shouko, yadda yadda and such. I suppose I am not completely hating this show, but so far it’s not very inspiring for a Sunrise original. But then, what ever is?

Oh Kuroko, you slut.

My chief fear watching this iteration of Toaru Kagaku no Railgun is that they will waste a lot of their time in the same manner as they did before, SCIENTIFIC girls doing cute things. I’m not completely opposed to it, but I love the action in the Raildex universe, it was part of my draw into the franchise and of the Index series. The third episode sort of split up between Saten hijinks and Misaka’s investigation into The Sisters Project, which looks to be the prelude into the Sisters appearance in the series. Kuroko’s shame is so hilarious though, I can’t help but laugh at her attempts, directly or indirectly, to get Misaka in the sack. It’s one of those little gems in the show I chuckle.

Mask☆DeMasque

I have to admit, I like this show. Perhaps it is the characters, perhaps it is the straightforward style it presents, there is something about Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko that actually has me watching it episode-to-episode and enjoying it. My guess is between Tsukiko and Azusa, I can’t even do the whole PICK ONE routine, they’re both too much fun in this show to settle on one or the other. Tricky how that works. The obvious romcom is obvious though, and for that I am trying not to fall into the obvious trap of thinking this will be any different. What I want to know, is how the older Tsutsukakushi girl will play into this tale of facades and stony cats?

The most truth any anime has ever spoken.

Ahh, poor Kirino. She is given the opportunity she craves to have a pseudo-little sister and she realizes just how much of a pain in the ass they can be. After all, unlike Oreimo, brothers and sisters are hardly what Japanese anime makes them out to be, they’re in actuality annoying and often spoiled little shits. Personal experience aside, this season has distinctly lacked the BEST GIRL Kuroneko, and for that I do hope they plan on making up for this in the coming episodes, though a non-otaku Saori or Minami is fine too. Come to think of it, so far, all we’ve really seen is Kirino, which maybe makes up for the lack of her in the extra episodes of the first season, but fuck Kirino man, this show is about EVERYONE ELSE in the show besides her. Or so I’d like to think.

Maybe if you showed him your tits…

I’m often amused that Sunrise didn’t enlist Hirai Hisashi to do the character design for Valvrave, it would have completed the SEED experience, but instead it seems Dogakobo stole him for Majestic Prince, and what a series it has turned out to be. Having watched a hundred episodes of SEED and SEED Destiny and all of the emo faces, MJP has become vastly different in comparison, in facial expressions and actions. Mayhaps it is because MJP isn’t going down the super serial route of things, it seems to be taking this roundabout way of trotting out the mechs, showing off their capabilities, highlighting the JUPITER ENEMY (Jovians anyone?) and pulling them back to Earth again for TRAINING, presumably. The entire time, we’re shown five kids who are essentially “super soldiers” but have the mentality of Cloud Strife confused about his identity rather than actual soldiers, or the junkies from SEED. In that retrospect, I am enjoying MJP a little more than Valvrave because it’s just that much different, but we’ll see what tropes they can get themselves into soon enough.

–says every virgin ever.

The prison island awaits our lost dimensional-traveler in this week’s Arata Kangatari which decides to “eat” two people an hour in what could only be seen as the most efficient prison system in another world to date, one our own world could benefit from adopting. Anyway, no one in there is too happy to see the “Princess Killer”, predictably, even if you are a criminal, you’re loyal to the crown I guess. Despite that, they manage to run into a couple of kids and manage to rescue each other from thugs before they are claimed by the pipes towards the end of the episode. I need to get on the manga and see what this is all about.

Such a show-off.

If there is any series I am enjoying this season, and what I consider to be top-tier in the season, is Hataraku Maou-sama. Hero Emilia’s past is opened up a bit this episode, showing her ascension to her position as the Hero, at the expense of her father and homeland. She harbors extreme hate towards Maou for this, but could not figure out why he went through such measures to save everyone in the underground accident. Then we get some kid with wings who claims to be Lucifer? Is this Supernatural The REAL Anime? Maybe not, but it’s still pretty entertaining, especially for upset/mad/angry/disgruntled Emi face.

You see her face? She wants the D.

I’m afraid that I really don’t watch Aku no Hana straight through anymore, I pretty much pan the episodes and watch certain parts. It’s not deviating from the original manga, which I’ve read, and the visual style is still pretty horrid to me, so I’m watching it really just to see how they visualize certain parts of the story. I just can’t get over the whole mouths-not-moving thing, especially when they’re starring at each other face-to-face. It’s kind of annoying. I realize the whole rotoscope thing is a tongue-in-cheek jab at us fans for expecting a show based on the manga, but it really is just that, beyond-trainwreck-bad.

I’M SO BOSS I NEED A MASK

There ain’t a whole lot to write about in Nyarlko-san W besides crazy alien hijinks, but Hasta transformation was.. surprisingly normal. I mean, it wasn’t a mecha like Nyaruko or naked fire like Kuuko. Super Saiyan Monkey though was humorous, especially in getting rid of it. Still, I can’t help but hum the OP often, I even find myself whistling it at work. Good thing no one else I work with is into this shit.

Meat orgasm much?

I kinda thought the next few episodes of Shingeki no Kyojin would be TRAINING-TRAINING-TRAINING but it looks like we’re nearing the end of at least the first phase and getting on to another Titan invasion. I can’t help but hope that this time, we see some dudes take out some of these mass naked titan events. This is another show I need to read the manga on, but that’s on my impossible stack of things to watch/read/play.

I’m missing a couple shows on here, Machigatteiru, Aiura, Photo Kano, I will amend to this post tomorrow with those as I’m still finishing watching those, but having just watched and currently digesting Eva 3.33, I want to change gears and write a post about that, so check back with this post later.

Announcing a new addition to the tldranimu domain, http://wiki.tldranimu.net, a new wiki based in MediaWiki whose purpose will be to collect everything I’ve watched ever and present it in a streamlined wikipedia-like format along with relevant images and media. The goal was to make a companion to the blog that can be referenced and searched a tad easier than my jumbled mess of a blog, what with my changing writing styles and all.

Details and rules inside.

As it is based in MediaWiki, folks familiar with Wikipedia won’t have too much trouble navigating around. The concept of the wiki is built around Templates and Portals. Right now, although I have the framework together for the many portals that will serve all of the content, I have yet to get all of the portal pages together, so you will see a lot of red links. I’ve watched a lot of shit, and reviewed a lot of shit, so all of this will not come together in the short-term, it will take me many weeks, perhaps months, to put everything together. I am starting with the current season of anime and working backwards until I get to the end of where I started on the blog, and then I will slowly start to tackle my master list. Since I can only work on articles during evenings and weekends, I estimate it will take most of the year to complete this, but it will be worth trying.

It even looks good on mobile!

Now, the savvy of you might notice there are no edit permissions for anonymous users, or registered users. At this point and time, I decided this will be a one-man operation with respect to page creation, editing, and move/deletion. I don’t have the means to police for vandalism, and since I want each page content structured a certain way, I cannot have others potentially ruining it. I have, however, allowed talk pages and user pages to be freely edited, so if you choose to register, you will be able to edit your own user page, and you will also be able to use any page’s talk page to offer suggestions, comment on what you see, or whatever purpose you wish. I very much welcome others to participate in the project, and perhaps at some point in the future I might look for more admins to help run the site, but for now, it’s strictly me. Apologies in advance.

That said, I will post more about it as I continue to assemble all of the pages and portals, hopefully by this time next month (and days before my wedding) I’ll have most of the past five years of what I’ve watched built out, and go from there.

Else, I will dump it in a lake and move to Canada, after changing my name to Countess von Fingerbang. Who are you, Comrade Questions?

More premieres, and more things I keep filling my hopelessly bottomless plate of anime with this season, it is clearly by far one of the busiest seasons I’ve taken on in some time. Inside I have previews for Kakumeki Valvrave, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S, and added to the roster is Hataraku Maou-sama. I will update this post soon with the premiere of Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko which should be sometime tomorrow. Fourteen shows. Fifteen if you count Space Bros. Surprisingly I am keeping track of all of these.

~/o and I’m freeeeee, freee-falling– ~/o

Among the twitterbros I converse with and some other pockets of the fandom I bother communicating with, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S gets a mixed reception. When the first Railgun spinoff aired in Fall 2009, I quipped mostly about its connection to Index. The Raildex universe is one of my favorite universes in theoreticals, that being that based on what I’ve read in the LNs and seen in the animes, there is just so much I feel could be done in the universe, even if they don’t base it on the source material. Railgun S does just that, it’s based on the manga which was a spinoff story from the books, and it goes into more depth behind the Level 6 Accelerator project and The Misaka Sisters. I have no shame in saying Misaka is one of my favorite characters in the Raildex universe, and it will be loads of fun to watch her antics along with Kuroko, Uiharu, and Saten. Don’t forget TouMAN and everyone else who might appear from the Index side. Despite its lackluster performance in its last run, I’m hoping this series gives us a little more bang for the buck. If anything, the fuckwin awesome OP will do just fine for now. Though fripside’s last OP was probably better.

TLDR Watch This: ONEE-SAMA, the Sisters, ACCELERATOR, and Kuroko
TLDR Don’t Watch This: Lack of Index, not enough TouMAN, whatever else
Sub Group: UTW-Mazui
First Rating: 8

Save the world, get bitches

Ah, Sunrise. It’s always good to know that even in a non-Gundam series, you still see fit to recycle all of the old themes we know and love. Kakumeiki Valvrave sets up the exact same way as SEED, two powers fighting, one power neutral on the side. School children, infiltrators, secret mobile suit development, ends up in the MC’s hands, he owns face by accident. Where they deviate from SEED is the MC watches his friend “die” before his eyes, spurning him to pilot the suit. If she actually stays dead or not is still up in the air, but he piloted the suit. He saved the day. He now has a million Twitter followers. That happened. But at the very end after the credits, well, for those who have not seen it, I’ll keep it a surprise, but this might be the game changer. Or not. We’ll see. For a Sunrise original, this better not suck. The OP is pretty boss though.

TLDR Watch This: You love being introduced to twelve minor characters at once, giant robots, space tits
TLDR Don’t Watch This: You don’t have any Twitter followers and will never pilot a giant robot to save the world ;_;
Sub Group: gg (Valvrave the Liberator? You sure live up to your reputation, don’t you?)
First Rating: 8

God Bless Fake-McDonalds Growth Horomones!

I saw some Twitter chatter about this last night and last week but didn’t comprehend what I was missing until someone mentioned “little girl big tits” in a combination of other words. I then realized that I must be missing something good, and sure enough, I was missing a potential gold mine. Maybe. Hataraku Maou-sama is the story of the Devil, known as Maou Sadao, drifting from his world to modern-day Japan along with his cohort Ashiya Shirou. Winding up stranded with no way to return, they adopt those names for themselves and proceed to live as Japanese, taking jobs and trying to survive on little pay. However Hero Emila, from the same world, followed them to Japan to finish the deed, only to wind up similarly stuck and unable to use magic or return, and goes by Yusa Emi. Together they all form somewhat of a truce until they can figure out how to get back.

Being based on the manga, I of course will be hitting that up ASAP on the internets to get up to speed, but it looks like a very refreshing look at the fantasy-cross-world niche of anime that Zero no Tsukaima and many others brought alive. But with some minor fanservice early on, along with cute-and-tsundere service two-for-one, chances are most of you will find some entertainment value in all of this. I might.

TLDR Watch This: Burger Tits, Angels and Demons flipping burgers and troubleshooting cell phones
TLDR Don’t Watch This: You are Vegan
Sub Group: Commie
First Rating: 8

Finally, although this occurred late last week, it wasn’t until a couple days ago we got word that Zero no Tsukaima author Noboru Yamaguchi passed away from his fight with cancer. ZnT was one of my favorite series, and like Railgun, one of my favorite universes. He planned to author 22 volumes of the light novel, but it wasn’t specified if he finished the 21st and 22nd before his passing, with the 20th coming out recently when the last season of the anime premiered. I always said that I sort of wished they made a season where the roles were reversed, Louise ends up in Japan with Saito and whomever he knew on his side, but the adventures in Tristain were the sort of stuff that echoed why people enjoy Harry Potter, that fantasy-meets-sorcery-with-regular-people sort of thing. It was great. If JC STAFF plans on making more (which I’m assuming they will not), I hope they will keep the universe as he wanted it to.

Hentai Ouji tomorrow hopefully, and then we do it again next week. Already saw the second episode of Aku No Hana. Let’s just say… well… pictures explain it better…

Put on your coooooool faaaaaaaaace~