I was dreaming

There was fire and screaming and panic
There was a crowd
We were alone
Against a terrible beast

It had a big wriggly body
It moved like it was being poured
Its skin shined but had no reflection
It melted into the ground where it touched

We tried to run
But the walls, they were everywhere
It was like no one really wanted to leave or even cared
The beast roared from a monstrous maw

Its eyes were fire
It reached for each of us with tiny tendrils
A poke here, a jab there
The tendrils always moved faster than our feet could carry us

The beast was hungry, you see
We screamed as it fed on us
We cried as we couldn’t run away
We knew fear looking at what was left

It ate our souls
It ran us down and devoured all that we were
The body remained, helpless and unthinking
The bodies remained, smiling, walling us in

Only a few of us were left now
We ran fast, but soon we had no way to flee
The beast surrounded us
It reached out for me…

I was dreaming
But
My eyes were open

My eyes are open

Copyright 2009 T. Ares

On the way out to get some dinner with the family, I saw that one of the cocoons in our garden had finally hatched.  There’re between 6 and 10 of these cocoons scattered around, and we weren’t sure what they were from.  While we had fears of spiders or locusts (both of which I more or less discounted with wikipedia, but you know how reliable that can be), we were hoping it would be something cool.  Anyway, after month and months of waiting I just happened to look at the one on top of our rose bush to see a 8 tiny praying mantises hanging around it.  They were about a centimeter long and were still transparent.  The mama had been around four inches long, so it was quite the surprise to see just how tiny these things are when they emerge into the world.

I know the image is a little dark, but it couldn’t be helped because of the lighting and my camera; you can still make out the little things quite clearly.  By the time we got back from dinner, the mantises were already getter darker in color and were starting to move around more.

I wish those little things the best of luck, especially since we just had a frost last night.  I wonder if they’ll climb back into the cocoon for the night.

~Whim

PS - Haha, no need to worry about aphids if we have sixty praying mantises.

After quite a bit of behind the scenes work, I’m proud to present flyingwhimsy.com: host to anime and movie reviews, photography, fiction, and whatever else I can cram in here.  I’m still working on the appearance, but I hope it’s enough for you guys to enjoy and read and hopefully find a worthwhile experience.  I look forward to talking with you and embarking out into the wilderness.

~Whim

Original text at the nekoheadz.org forum

Chaos: Head comes to us from a myriad of companies, one of which I think is worth mentioning for their eroge production Chaos: Gate, which is totally unrelated to this series but has some really great character designs; those of you into the figure scene have probably seen the awesome figures of Ignis. Anyway, I seem to have stumbled my way into a bunch of heady, philosophical and psychological anime lately and while I’ve been trying to get some variety in there for all of you reading these reviews, I really like thinking anime; I guess it comes from so many years studying philosophy at college. Just out of reviewer integrity I will make a point to watch some other things (Queen’s Blade is coming along nicely, by the way) so you guys don’t keep getting buried with all of the emphasis on character revelations and such. Anyway, you won’t have to worry about too much depth here as Chaos: Head is another thinky anime that tries the mainstream approach.

Chaos: Head is about a second year high school student named Taku. Taku lives in Shibuya and is a NEET of rather unique determination. The NEET is a term used almost exclusively with Japanese fans that are obsessed with anime to the point where they prefer the 2D world over the 3D in pretty much every aspect; experiences out in the ‘real’ world for NEETs are generally painful and awkward. From my understanding, NEETs are generally hikkomoris (shut-ins) and are seen as a bit of a drain on Japanese society, from both filial and federal perspectives. There are lots of other things to say about the NEET, but for our purposes Taku is a super Otaku shut-in that is shunned by a society he disdains. Taku’s main companion is a delusional anime character that shows up when he’s at home; Taku’s sister and a couple friends at school add some touch of the outside world to his life. One thing I like about Taku’s characterization is that he has a carefully made chart so that he can be absent as much as possible while still meeting minimum graduation requirements. As you probably guessed, Taku’s world gets interrupted when strange events start to happen in Shibuya. Turns out there’s some sort of group trying to destabilize society with a related string of suicides and murders. Much to Taku’s dismay, he gets pulled in kicking and screaming as the line between perception and reality get blurred with as much subtlety as a neon colored sword to the face.

Speaking of subtle, the production values in Chaos: Head are pretty good; well, above average. The music is fitting with a kick ass opening and a really sappy ending (more on that later), and while I wouldn’t bother with the incidental music, I would gladly have that opening on my iPod. The animation is pretty top notch with a lot of polish; everything moves fairly well and the swords are really cool looking. The character design is good, though a bit stereotypical, but this is coming from people that make erotic computer games, so I’m just happy they weren’t cut-and-paste generic characters; but they were awfully close. Things get a little clunky at times, but I’m willing to chalk it up to the generic look and feel the rest of the series has. The music and animation never do anything to take away from the series, and end up contributing with a bit a style and flair. Now that that’s out of the way, I can address this series for what it is.

The story in Chaos: Head goes through several stages. It starts out as a romantic comedy harem thing with all of these cute girls throwing themselves at Taku while he makes a rather sad attempt to ignore them all for his beloved anime character Seira. Weird dreams and vivid hallucinations aside, things go fairly straightforward until Taku stumbles onto a guy crucified with a bunch of little cross-shaped spikes. With the sinister turn the series then takes on the format of a terribly written console RPG (role playing game like final fantasy); bad dialogue with our super-powered yet totally helpless guy surrounded and aided by a number of beautiful, mysterious women in a fight against an evil authority figure. Once Taku “levels up” enough he reaches a point where he no longer needs the women to fight for him and the series turns into Noein with its soft-science psychological and perceptual weirdness. I would not have been surprised if one of the characters said “there is no spoon” and was totally serious about it. The overall affect of these transformations is to give us the weird feeling that we’ve seen it all before, like the series has gotten itself all lost and confused in a closet full of popular things from Japan.

On the whole, Chaos: Head plays like a NEET fantasy: the reserved male star having power beyond imagination, the loads of pretty girls, a secret plot that has the whole world out to get him, etc. Maybe I should rephrase that as otaku fantasy, but either way you get my point. The characters (by which I mean the girls surrounding Taku), though interesting at first glance, quickly devolve into one dimensional support figures that are ultimately powerless on their own. The only exception is Rimi, the pink-haired love-interest, who actually has some depth and character development, but again it’s all shelved for the sake of Taku. Well, it’s not exactly shelved, just pushed off to the side. Even the ending titles play like some fantasy, with the opening lines talking about how “You are always super special.” Naturally, for the end of the series we get what I can only guess is an attempt to make a more accessible (understandable) Evangelion type of ending; some business about perceiving others and so on. It actually comes out more awkward and leaves more questions. Chaos: Head leaves me with a lot of questions, and not just about the ending. While I could go on about all the things that don’t make sense, I’m afraid it would just spoil most of the series for you, so I’ll just say some things about the dialogue. (Although I still need to ask 2 question: what is so magical about Shibuya and what on earth do characters like these do after the series the ends?)

The dialogue in Chaos: Head is so clichéd, so horrendously bad, that it really deserves its own paragraph. See, a really good series and really bad series actually get similar reactions from me while I am watching them: I talk back, I shout, I laugh, I taunt. Every episode ended with me telling Taku that he needed to get killed in a sufficiently brutal fashion (too much Higurashi, I suppose), but he was just so whiny and self-centered. He never said “I mustn’t run away,” but I really wish he had; I think Shinji may have more backbone than this punk. At one point one of the girls says she loves him because he is so weak and pathetic. Another girl is a perfect cross between Rei Ayanami from Eva and Yuki Nagato from Haruhi (particularly the rock concert), I couldn’t help but feel some affection for her even though I kept getting a Frankenstein’s Monster vibe; also she spouts gothic poetry and fiction. If you’ve ever played a poorly voice-acted rpg, it’s exactly the same feeling. The series is totally sincere in how terrible the writing is, too; there is never any sense of parody or an indications that the series doesn’t take itself seriously; it made me laugh all the more at how terrible it is. It’s like a little kid pretending to do something adult; you want to criticize but all you can do is smile and laugh. Consequently, I think the series itself comes off as a huge joke, but more of the kind you groan at. The writing doesn’t just stop at the bad dialogue: the plot is every bit as bad.

Chaos: Gate is, as I’ve said, so terribly bad that it makes the full loop back to being wholly enjoyable. While I hated Chaos: Gate, especially Taku, I couldn’t help but enjoy it. It makes the perfect example of what’s bad about the generic philosophical “I am the me that exists in your mind” style of psychological anime that we’ve been seeing more of; vague, indeterminate, and pretentious with no real substance. Clichéd and hokey as it is, the story was entertaining enough to keep me interested, I got psyched up by the opening every time, and some of the supporting cast was actually pretty charming. I think what I’m getting to here is a recommendation: it’s great if you’re looking for something a little shallower than the mental black holes I would typically recommend; it’s also got some cute characters, humor, and a little fan service; and it’s really terrible while making every attempt to be a serious show. I hope you’ll enjoy it, but if you can’t make it past the second episode I won’t blame you. Actually, I will blame you because you made the mistake of taking the series as seriously as it takes itself, making both of you the joke.

~Whim

PS – I watched this as a fansub from m.3.3.w; just pretend the 3’s are e’s and say it out loud.
PS2 – See, shorter again for both of them this week. Now that you’ve had a taste of my shorter reviews, which do you prefer?
PS3 – I cannot emphasize how much I hated this show, but I couldn’t stop watching and laughing and enjoying myself.
PS4 – What is with all of the shows either starting with their last scene or having a narrative from the main character from after the series ends? I guess they don’t want us to be too surprised by an original ending. Higurashi is a special exception due to good writing and sheer mind-screwy awesomeness.

Original text at the nekoheadz.org forum

Apparently I can’t get enough of the sexy sexy violence Higurashi (aka When They Cry) brings to the table. Tasty. So after watching all twenty some odd episodes a couple weeks back, I couldn’t help myself and looked up any sequels and spin-offs and well, my desktop is now a few gigs of creepy cute super violence heavier. Of all the Higurashi things out there, the live action movie was the hardest for me to find, but find it I did. The live action movie is, naturally, shorter than the series by a lot, so to compensate for it the movie only covers the first chapter of the anime series. While I don’t want to make too many comparisons, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help it given the shoes the movie has to fill.

For those that did not read my Higurashi review a couple weeks back, I’ll give you another summary: Keiichi, a high school student, transfers from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo to the quiet mountain town of Hinamizawa. Keiichi quickly settles into his life surrounded by cute girls and lots of fun, carefree days. However, rumors of a gruesome murder and a failed dam project bring Keiichi’s fun to an end. With the Cotton Drifting Festival drawing near, will he find out the truth before the curse strikes again?

Corny intros aside, I can’t quite do this review like my other ones since my terrific trinity of animation-music-story don’t quite apply here. Come to think of it, I’ve never done a live action review of anything before. Well, let’s just wing it and hope this doesn’t catch itself on fire from sheer suck.

The Higurashi movie is filmed like, well, a movie. It has real people and a real mountain town and violence that they try to make look real. The cinematography is pretty good with lots of dynamic landscape shots and a good use of light and shadow. The sets are good and they really play up the feel of a rustic mountain town. Looking at the Hinamizawa of the movie it really comes across as an idyllic setting; I would like to live there. It also made me pretty happy to hear them mention winter since the series is time locked in June. All of the set pieces, from the cars to the clothes to the alarm clocks, are all accurate to the period (i.e. the early 80’s). I get the impression someone put a lot of work into making the setting as perfect as they could. Unfortunately, I think they put all of the budget into it as well.

Violence, at least the disturbing kind Higurashi is known for, is only brutal because it is hard hitting and brutal; visceral would be another word I would use for it. To get that across, you need more than a rubber hand, some putty, and several gallons of fake blood. Sadly, that’s all they had for the violence in the movie. While I’m glad they didn’t take the terrible CG route, I wish they had put some more effort into the violence of the movie. There’s this odd contrast, too, as the scene with Keiichi biting into food with a needle in it is really well done, but the part with Rena’s hand in the door looks really hokey. Same goes for the two scenes of people clawing their throats out; one of them was done up really well with makeup that looked like torn skin, the other looks like smeared red paint. I would say don’t get me started on the baseball bat scene, but with how important it is I can’t ignore it. See, without the highly stylized animation, some of the scenes needed more aggressive direction to get the same impact that the animated version had. I understand that blood splatter doesn’t show up very well at night in real life, but it kills the whole scene to have it occur during the day. Also, fake blood looks even more fake in broad daylight. In the anime series, the first arc isn’t as graphically violent so they have somewhere to take it in further episodes, but the movie doesn’t need to hold back. I would really have liked to see someone get hit with the bat. I also would have liked it if the people hit with the bat looked like they’d been hit; getting beaten to death by a baseball bat will not leave you leaning up against a wall looking like someone blasted you with a super soaker full of red food coloring no matter how much artistic license you exercise. More aggressive direction and cinematography could have made up for it, but they seemed more interested in reproducing the shots from the anime series than they did in getting the same feel.

I think the director failed to realize the difference between anime and live action as far as subtlety and atmosphere are concerned. While the actors for the older kids were good, the actors for the younger kids simply weren’t young enough; I don’t know why they made that choice but it really left the cast feeling unbalanced. Also, the actors simply weren’t cute/cute acting enough to make the sudden threats of violence seem as disturbing. I get the impression they were trying to stay as faithful to the anime as possible, at which point I am always quick to ask “why do we need it?” It really worked against the movie, too, as for example, Rena’s demon eyes looked really bad (they were put in with CG). Actually, it really seemed like they were holding back the whole time; but that may be my desensitized-to-violence-because-I’m-American-ness talking. I have to say, though, that I did cringe at one of the throat clawing scenes, and I mean ‘oh no I can’t look anymore please don’t make me look anymore’ kind of cringing, and ironically it was I mentioned earlier as looking like smeared paint.

The name of the game for Higurashi is atmosphere: the combination of cute normal things and the threat of gruesome violence generally leads to a foreboding, eerie sense of unease. Overall, though, I think they failed and the end result comes across as a b-movie. The movie is rather inconsistent with quality, with some scenes done spectacularly well and others left feeling like they hastily done as everyone ran to a TV to watch the series between takes. The feel of the mountain town is just perfect, but the horror simply isn’t there; Higurashi also lacked the feeling of something peaceful and idyllic going horribly horribly awry with no idea how or when, just that it’s happening and nothing can be done to change it. I’ve seen plenty of other Japanese horror flicks, so I do have an adequate basis for comparison when I say this movie was thoroughly blah. I mean, hey, if you liked anime Higurashi even half as much as I did, then you’ll probably get a kick out of seeing your favorite characters in fleshy form, but you’ll probably be a bit dissatisfied when the shit hits the fan.

~Whim

PS – I watched this as a fansub from EPIC-Pakapuka; yeah, I have no idea what that means either.
PS2 – See, if you thought I was biased towards live action stuff from my Nodame review, you are dead wrong. I judge things based on merit, not on any preferred style. Except reality television, that stuff’s is just awful plain and simple.
PS3 – One of the themes in Higurashi is friendship, and while it’s one thing to talk about sticking together, it’s another thing when you stumble upon your friend after she’s just killed and dismembered two people. How’s that for an after school special?

Original text at the nekoheadz.org forum

My second review this week, (the first being Yonna in the Solitary Fortress), Hoshizora Kiseki is listed as an ONA on Anime Encyclopedia. For those not familiar with these things, ONA stands for Original Net Animation. Admittedly, I’m not very familiar with these releases other than the fact that they are originally released on the internet and distributed that way. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog is probably the best and most successful example of a net release. I think I can actually pull off a spoiler-free review for this one.

Hoshizora Kiseki (hereafter referred to as HK) is a story about a girl and her quest for summer romance. The main character, Kozue, is a high school girl with a fixation on astronomy. Hearing a voice telling her where a meteor will fall, she decides to go on a camping trip on the neighboring mountain so she can be there when it happens. Once there, she meets a boy in a spacesuit with some sort of stellar ability that will vanish once he’s left in the normal atmosphere. Kozue attempts to get the boy to choose for himself whether he will be a tool for the government or if he will leave his bubble.

HK strikes me as a work someone did after watching all of Makoto Shinkai’s works (Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 3cm Per Second). The backgrounds are all focused on the sky with wide, panoramic angles. The characters are internalized eccentrics with special mental ties to one another. The music aims for profound stirrings of the heart. Unfortunately, it’s not a Makoto Shinkai work and without his hand to tie it all together it turned into a flat imitation. That’s not to say it’s all bad, the animation is still really nice and pretty and the backgrounds are stunning (though not as artistically powerful as Makoto’s), and the characters are top notch. Kozue is an obsessive eccentric with loner tendencies, though she still has the same desires as normal high school girls. The boy in the bubble is dynamic and strange, making for an interesting pair romantically and thematically. I’m reminded of Nodame Cantabile, actually, only with the roles reversed where Chiaki was the obsessive eccentric and Nodame was dynamic and strange. I wonder if this is the beginning of a new set of stereotypes. The story is fairly straightforward and well-paced for twenty minutes; hardly any time goes to waste with things that aren’t related to the love story and the setting for the characters. The music is a little flat, but the rest of it is pretty solid.

I do have one major gripe with HK, though: it’s too damned misogynistic. All of the female characters have roles subservient to the males. The military girls operate the computers and handle communications while the men do all the big important things like roughing up high school girls and keeping boys trapped in bubbles. There are moments of straight-up objectification of the main character and one of her friends, and while I like fan-service (I did review the first episode of Queen’s Blade which I would avoid like the plague if I wasn’t into fan-service), I only like fan-service when it doesn’t distract from the story: a long shot of Kozue’s ass may be sexy, but it’s a terrible flow breaker when it’s shoe horned into the show. The big climax of the story sees Kozue on the sidelines while the males do all the decision making. It’s probably pretty obvious at this point, but I am not a fan of patriarchic societal trends as the only way to pursue equality is not through political correctness, but through vigilance against subtle and overt social programming.

Hoshizora Kiseki is fairly competent, though uninspired. Sexist trends aside, the story, music, and animation are all above average with the animation standing a cut above. However, the eerie similarities to Makoto Shinkai’s works bring this one down quite a bit on my “I liked it a lot and want you to watch it scale,” as HK is the generic store brand soda compared to Coke or Pepsi: flat and desperately trying to be something original and inspired by copying something original and inspired. For a piece to be moving it needs to have a journey from at least one emotion to the other. However, HK is still interesting and if it had been a bit longer it could have really made a name for itself. Since it’s not longer, I can only recommend it for Makoto fans or folks looking for some good characters and quick romance. Hey, it’ll fill a little bit of time before the next Makoto pictures comes out.

~Whim

PS – I watched this as a fansub from Ureshi.
PS2 – See, shorter.

Original text at the nekoheadz.org forum

I have to admit, I needed a little break from anime after Higurashi; too much, as my friend Kevin would say, “gruesome fetishized violence.” So this week I’ve only got a couple reviews of some shorter things for you. First up we have a CG movie called Yonna in the Solitary Fortress. Movie might be a little generous, though, as it’s only 33 minutes including the end credits. Given that it’s so short, I’ll try to go easy on the spoilers but there is absolutely nothing to spoil for this.

Yonna in the Solitary Fortress is about a girl named Yonna who lives isolated in a fortress. It’s always nice when there’s a fitting title. Anyway, Yonna happens to have magical powers and, given how people are often portrayed was driven out of her home town along with her older brother while they were both still children. The Federal Government, being of a slightly saner disposition, has heard of Yonna’s powers and wants to join the government forces for an unstated-but-since-it’s-a-government-you-can-assume-it-will-be-sinister purpose. After years and years of talking with Yonna’s fiercely defensive brother, the Federal Government loses patience and sends one of its elite agents, a young man named something forgettable, to “liberate” Yonna from the big stone fortress with his futuristic hand-held computer and grappling hook gun. As it turns out, there’s also another agent who’s been trying to talk his way into the fortress for some time. Yonna ends up torn between her oppressive brother and the dashing young secret agent.

Overall, I get the impression that Yonna in the Solitary Fortress (referred to as FFPY from here on out because it’ll take too long to type Final Fantasy Pretender Yonna) began life as a side project or possibly someone’s lunchtime experiments with a 3D rendering program. Many of the sounds, action, animation, and story feel like they were rushed into place between other projects. I bet FFPY was still being designed, animated, and voiced as the pieces were being put together. The music is, oddly enough, the only thing that doesn’t suffer from this problem. Seeing as the music was probably one of the last things done for FFPY, the folks doing the music could see what they had to work with overall and could work towards putting in something fitting. Though generic and predictable right to the ending j-pop song, I couldn’t help but be impressed because the music seemed to be the only thing done with any skill. I guess the voice-acting was okay, but the voices never quite matched the character actions or expressions. Actually, this brings me to what is probably the weakest part of the show, the animation.

Now I know I’ve said some bad things about three-dimensional computer graphic animation being forced into two-dimensional anime before, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like things in the third dimension. Any Pixar picture and most of the Dreamworks movies rank pretty high in my movie pantheon of sheer awesome, I think the Japanese companies have a way to go to catch up (see my review of Vexille for more details). I did love the Final Fantasy movie, btw; the Spirits Within not that bit of fan-wankery everyone else thinks of. But that’s only one movie. Anyway, FFPY does not do much to help push anime into the format. I will list things off in no particular order: bad shadows, generic designs and horrible faces, the level of detail in the models was beyond that of the textures so things looked really bad for close-ups, the character movement was unnatural (though not the worst I’ve seen, so they get a C+ for that), awkward camera placement, everything was the same damn color, and the voicing never matched any of the mouth movements. In other words, it was like the folks making FFPY didn’t actually have that much experience with 3D animation and they fumbled through as best they could. My standards may be high because of the stuff I usually watch, but the general awkward feeling of the whole thing really killed any attempts the show made to draw me in. The awkward animation would be bearable (shoot, we still enjoy the End of Evangelion despite certain budget issues and trips to the land of stock footage) if it were the only thing that was wrong, but the story even more uncoordinated.

The story in FFPY is this weird blend of Science-Fiction and Fantasy that is as uninspired as it sounds; I call it Final Fantasy Pretender Yonna for a reason. The story doesn’t even make any sense, I mean why would Yonna be the target of persecution when her brother clearly has magical powers, too; though admittedly I guess there’s a difference between shooting little balls of lightning and being able to summon demons and making giant golden lions out of fire and rose petals. I guess in their world people draw the same distinction between summoners and spell-casters that they drew in Final Fantasy IX; it still doesn’t make that much sense since they make it out to be such a bad thing. Really, it’s all just so bloody vague and I have so many questions. I mean, why don’t they have indoor plumbing when they have interplanetary travel? Why would magic seem so bad when they are bound to have found some strange life or even have the different planetary cultures be so foreign they’re alien? We have to assume the Federal Government is evil (admittedly not that hard since they want to abduct Yonna for their own purposes), but are they really that evil or are they just a little more on the ends justifying the means side of things? Why didn’t the secret agent just go flying in on his damn spaceship? FFPY relied on my understanding of Final Fantasy far too much, as if I hadn’t played any of those games (or similar Japanese RPGs) I’d never had understood the setting or the stereotypes for the characters. Actually, everything in the story is borrowed and the writing doesn’t flush out the characters well enough to make up for it. Yonna is forced to make a big decision between potentially killing her brother and saving the elite agent, but it happens so fast and the dramatic pause she takes wasn’t nearly dramatic enough. If the voice acting been better applied and the facial animation done better (so obviously done by someone who’s used to working with 2D anime faces with less detail and range) then maybe the character development would have been there. The story could have been paced better, too, as we only get a picture of what the story is about during the end dialogue; turns out it’s a tale about Yonna’s inner strength and not about the agent’s quest to “save” her. Had the writing been going in that direction sooner I might have known that and been more in tune with it during the key scenes.

While it sounds like I didn’t like FFPY, (it’s true, I didn’t) I might recommend it for one rather amazing scene that was put in more as a bit of fluff but really defined the character Yonna for me. Yonna captures the agent (as opposed to letting her brother kill him), but in a moment of self-doubt and depression in response to his efforts to persuade her to leave Yonna summons a little flying demon (although instead of fire or smoke, Yonna’s magic happens in a flurry of rose petals and makes quite the sight with the little demon) to try and cheer her up. She summons ugly butt-naked little creature and then curls up in a ball on her bed. I then watched as the little creature flew around and made cute noises and poses to try and get her to loosen up; in the face of failing efforts, the little demon then summons/turns into a big bright green naked horned demon. The big demon then makes some poses before sitting on the bed next to Yonna in resignation. However, given the demon’s size he bounces her pretty high when he sits, so he scoots closer to Yonna and bounces her a lot as he does so. She cracks a smile and looks away to see the little demon just waiting and smiling. Yonna smiles and cheers up, but the interaction is interrupted as someone comes into her room. A shining moment of brilliant storytelling and execution, this scene actually made me glad I watched FFPY. I’m detailing it here because I don’t think any of you will actually watch this series, but I just wanted you to try and get a feel for what characterization is. See, we saw Yonna react and we saw that she was a deep and complex character just for the sheer fact that she summoned something to cheer her up and then completely ignored it so it would work even harder. The way the rest of the characters were characterized was the simple way of someone saying they were a certain way or by having the character say it themselves. I can’t be told by a character that they are sad and have it have the same effect as seeing them be made sad and reacting to it. There’s a wonderful line in the last episode of Futurama (the series and not the made for DVD movies) where the robot devil shouts at Fry: “You can’t just have your characters tell us how they feel, that makes me angry!” (Note: quote may not be exact.) Anyway, that one scene, good as it was, left me wondering what happened with the rest of FFPY.

I’ll be honest, here, I can’t recommend Yonna in the Solitary Fortress after all. The way everything just seemed slapped together like it was being stuck together before it was even done really killed this show for me. Excuse me, killed this half-hour movie for me. I jokingly said that this may have been put together on someone’s lunch break, but the more I think about it the more that’s probably true. Given how unoriginal the thing was all around and how unfamiliar everyone seemed with the animation tools and direction, I can’t help but think this is something someone started making on their own and then their boss saw it and said “hey, let’s finish it properly.” Unfortunately, the story just can’t stand on it’s own and the characters just aren’t strong enough to pull it off (if they had just focused solely on Yonna it may have worked, but the focus kept shifting back to that elite agent). I don’t feel like I completely wasted the half-hour I spent watching it or even the time spent writing this review, mainly because of the scene I detailed earlier, but also because it so clearly demonstrates how a lack of harmony with the three parts of music-animation-story can ruin something great. FFPY was bad enough to remind me that there is plenty of crap and I’m glad I’m searching for new things so I can find it all and make fun of it. If it ever gets a release stateside I will send a letter asking them to call it Final Pretender Yonna (drop the Fantasy to avoid copyright issues, naturally); that would be the only way I’d buy it.

~Whim

PS – I watched this as a fansub from Ureshi.
PS2 – I recently saw Battle for Terra, and I have to say for an indie flick it had a lot of polish and a good story, so there are examples of lower budget CG productions out there.
PS3 – Turns out since there aren’t really any legal barriers at this point, some of the fansub groups are going ahead with Queen’s Blade for those of you with a need for the massive boobage. I’m actually working on tracking down some more stuff like Kaiba, though.

Original text at the nekoheadz.org forum

Before I get into this review I want to say a word about fan-subs, that is to say anime that is subtitled and distributed by a non-profit group. I’ve been rocking out the fan-subs quite a bit lately, due partly to the economic crunch but also because I’ve been looking for something different. It’s easier to get more obscure and new releases faster than waiting for a company to translate, dub, and print a series. That said, I do not encourage fan-subs as a form of piracy. However, I’ve found that a lot of fan-sub groups put in enough time and effort that their releases are often the same or (usually) better quality than the official DVDs. There’s also the additional issues of translation problems and censorship, but I’ll ignore those for now as they aren’t relevant and they really piss me off. I bring fan-subbing up now because I just finished watching the official DVDs for Higurashi and there were typos; not just one or two across all twenty-six episodes, but there were several per DVD. While it may seem like nitpicking, it really pisses me off because these people make a living subtitling these things. Proofread your damn stuff. I know this may sound hypocritical if you’ve read my reviews and kept an eye out for typos and such, but I write these in a tense, foaming-at-the-mouth state and only have a small amount of time to proofread them. I also don’t get paid. It pulls me right out of a show when I mentally need to add words in or fix grammatical errors. On top of that, most DVDs still use the basic yellow text for subtitles, and while that’s a nice neutral mostly visible most of the time method of doing, I always get the impression of a series being stamped out for us to view. If I’m paying thirty bucks a DVD, I expect more care to be taken than that. Fan-subs, depending on the group, can have custom fonts or at least unique and fitting font and color choices that really add to the experience instead of just sit next to it. I’m not saying we should stop buying anime or start paying the fan-subbers (they do so well because they care, once money gets involved suddenly it becomes work), I’m just saying that we can and should expect better quality product. Although the point for this series is a little moot as the late, great Geneon was responsible for bringing Higurashi stateside. Seriously, though, just ask me about Elfen Lied some time and I’ll give you such an earful. Maybe I should send an email to some of the publishers. *coughfunimationcough* Anyway, onto the review.

This week we’ll be looking at the violent loli parade that is Higurashi, or When They Cry, or Higurashi no Naku Koroni, or whatever the hell you want to call it. Higurashi is a story set in 1983 in a little mountain village by the name of Hinamizawa and follows the games club of the local all-ages schoolhouse. Keiichi, recently transferred in from the city, has been happily adjusting to life in the country with his new all female super cute loli for every taste friends when he learns of a murder five years prior. When Keiichi asks his friends about the event in jest he ends up with more questions than he can handle. Suffice it to say there is more to Hinamizawa than meets the eye.

A word or two about the structure of the series: Higurashi is a horror series, plain and simple. It’s violent, mysterious, and twisted to a degree I’ve not encountered since I first saw Elfen Lied years ago. While I am all gung-ho for walking into a show without any idea what’s coming, I got blindsided by Elfen Lied at a very fragile point in my life and even a word before hand would have probably saved me some trauma. I only mention this on the off chance that some person somewhere is saved some hardship even if it is at the cost of some of the element of surprise. That said, I will try and keep the spoilers to a minimum as this series totally needs it. Although considering the opening scene involves somebody getting beaten to death with a baseball bat I feel there are a few liberties to be taken.

I think I’ll mix it up a bit and start with the animation this week. I may have mentioned about Keiichi being surrounded by cute girls, and I can’t emphasize that enough. The characters in this show are so damn cute you’ll be squealing right up until the blood starts splattering. Rena is particularly cute and the creators of the show used that to its full advantage, giving her cute mannerisms and even the occasional little floating rainclouds and whatnot. The characters are all a little more deformed in the cutesy fashion (skinny with big heads) than in your usual anime and the drawing style is occasionally a bit, but that’s just the show’s style. I actually can’t think of anything I’d change about the style, especially since the art director countered the cuteness with an amazing sense of applied lighting, deep shadows, and a keen awareness of warm and cool colors. There are moments when the series turns eerie and you won’t even realize why (it’s actually a combination of the art and music for some of those moments but you won’t catch it unless you are looking for it). Overall, the animation is really fluid and they didn’t take the cheap route for anything. The violence is graphic and bloody without Gantz’s over-the-top levels of detail and excessive everything. I’d also like to say that they use the perfect shades of red for blood. As I mentioned in a previous review, a great anime occurs when animation, music and story all blend seamlessly to create a memorable and profound experience for the viewer: I’ve not mentioned that in a while but Higurashi definitely makes a play at the trifecta.

The music in Higurashi is exactly what you’d expect from a horror series: eerie and quiet. Yet another series where silence is used wonderfully well, the music actually flits between happy lounge muzak, scary pulse-pounding horror, and quiet incidental music that really builds a lot of tension. Fortunately, proper care was taken so that the transitions in the music are well timed. Most of the sounds used in the show are taken from the anime sounds greatest hits, but the squishy violent parts have a thud behind them that is very satisfying. Actually, a lot of the music and sounds are very generic, but there’s this underlying sense of parody for the lighter parts that keeps it from being clichéd and the unsettling parts are still unsettling. The opening, though, is fan-fricking-tastic; the song is great and the visuals are both stunning and creepy enough to set up the series perfectly; admittedly, though, it got a little old by the last episode but it’s been a while since I watched a show this long with intent to review. The ending is mid-range, doing it’s job by giving us something to listen to if we want to watch the credits but not good enough to make us want to watch them. Just the same, it’s not a soundtrack I would buy or would want to seeing as it’s all cheesy lounge-music and generic scary bits. While the music itself isn’t groundbreaking, the implementation of it is done so well it makes up for the lack of originality. Some of my favorite parts of the series are still the quietest moments when the story speaks for itself and even the animation sits on the side.

I have to admit, I was pretty engrossed in the story from the start of Higurashi. The opening scene where we see Keiichi with the baseball bat, blood splattering, and two dead girls in the middle of the night was probably one of the most sudden and interesting ways to pull me into a series. The fact that the rest of the first episode is normal save for an eerie last couple of minutes really adds to that, too. As far as content goes, it reminds me a lot of Sky Crawlers thematically, but is far more accessible and the added horror element really brings out a lot of intentionally unsaid theme. When I say horror, Higurashi is not one of those scary monster or ghost series. Well, not directly, anyways. See, we’re actually told the roughly the same story a few different times from different perspectives or with different characters and events; each telling bringing a new, fresh look to the tale while somehow being related either directly or indirectly. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a series where the main characters died so many times. Anyway, the real horror comes from the a combination of characters turning to violence and sometimes insanity paired with the inherent creepy factor of cute young girls: all of which the story drives towards with a sense of foreboding so strong when you go back to your life away from watching anime you’ll expect something really bad to happen just from dropping a pencil. It’s dark outside right now and there’s a quiet little voice telling me if I leave a curse will catch up with me and I’ll claw my own throat out. One of my favorite creative points about this series is how they characterize the characters in all of the stories: they use a blend of common stereotypes and music to tell us who these characters are, with the music subtly changing as the shit hits the fan; even better, though, is that the characters act differently from story to story, which keeps it both fresh and really makes the characters more interesting to see how they act differently or the same in certain scenarios. Since all of the main characters range from early elementary to high school, none of them act with a terrible amount of wisdom so watching them try and cope is like watching the crash of the Hindenburg. There is an overarching plot, but it’s kind of throwaway as it only makes an appearance in the last episode and is gone over so briefly that it didn’t do a lot to give me any sense of closure to the whole thing beyond what the end of the last story arc would have had anyways. Overall, the story is really compelling and the characters are genuinely interesting (especially Shion, holy crap that Shion is something else in one of the stories). The basic elements of horror are there and the pacing is spot on throughout. The different tellings of the story of Hinamizawa build on each other really well to give the entire series a sense of depth and saves us some of the silly repetition that would have otherwise bogged everything down. The story is strong, but there are a few points where things are a little flat and the sheer crescendo building horror wouldn’t be apparent without the music and art proudly putting it on display.

Higurashi is definitely an example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole: the art style is rich but occasionally a little schizophrenic, the music is generic, and the story, though interesting, falls a little flat in the end; however, when the three are combined we get a series that I can’t help but describe with the phrase ‘fucking awesome.’ The characters really drive the series, especially as the occasional descent into madness is both compelling and believable when it’s a rational occurrence. Actually, one of the things I like about this series is that it makes sense in its own twisted way throughout; even the supernatural elements follow a certain logical progression. The violence is so jarring and terrible that it’s both disturbing and satisfying in ways I should probably seek therapy over. This series also has a high re-watching value because it builds a lot and the ending has ramifications for the series as a whole that make it substantially different the second time through. If I were the type to give awards, this series would win ‘harem done right’ and ‘acceptable use of loli characters.’ The underage factor of all the characters does so much to add to the horror and the underlying attraction between some of the girls and Keiichi really does a lot to turn the concepts of their heads. Now that I think about it, Higurashi is pretty much the definition of turning something on its head: from the way the series starts to its blending of light humor and disturbing horror, I can’t help but feel this series was progressive in several ways. Not radically genre-defining progressive like Kaiba, but definitely enough to make you think about harem and loli anime series a little differently. I suppose any series that has what would be the traditional love interest coming at you with a meat cleaver after four episodes into a story arc would have to be pretty different.

EDIT: You know, I finally put my finger on what added so much to this series: tragedy. All of the horror branches out from the tragedy of things going so terribly wrong. This series is right up there with Air on tragic level, especially during the second run through when you know more about what’s going on. See, it’s one thing for characters to go insane and start hacking bits off of other characters, it’s entirely different when they totally aren’t supposed to do so. How did I miss that when I was writing this review? I guess that’s the price I pay for just hammering these out all willy-nilly. Anyway, I guess any series that starts off with a scene where the protagonist is beating the now dead bodies of the two most prominent romantic interests with a baseball bat is playing the tragically wrong trump card from the go.

~Whim (with a big thanks to Jacob for loaning me this series)

PS – I actually avoid dubs at all costs these days because of what they did to the music track for Castle in the Sky; way to piss all over the original director’s intent guys.
PS2 – Yes, only one review again this week. Sorry, but I’m making a website for these and my other artistic endeavors so I’ve been a bit preoccupied. I’ve got a good number of new things ready to be watched, so once I get the site up we’ll be back to a high volume. Also, I will be putting in a little more oomph and planning for these reviews as believe it or not, I can actually do better than these rushed run-throughs. (see the edit about tragedy at the end of the review proper.)
PS3 – Having started a second run through the series there are a lot of things that build towards the ending that weren’t obvious the first time, which is good and all for the second viewing, but that still doesn’t help the fact that it came off so damn flat the first time through. Actually, the series is a totally different beast the second time through; how interesting…
PS4 – Turns out there are two sequels and a live action special of Higurashi. I think I know what torrents I might be firing up next.

Original text at the nekoheadz.org forum

Sorry this one is a day late, I wanted some time to think about it since I usually come up with all sorts of fun things to say after these are posted. Of course, four hours wrestling with a roto-tiller into some sod has completely drained my creative faculties.

At this point I’m not entirely sure how to approach some of these reviews anymore. While it’s fun to fly wildly into intro-summary-music-animation-story-conclusion with nothing more than my experience of the show, I’m beginning to think I should do a little more research on these things so I’m not surprised by the details for the announcement that Sky Crawlers is coming to the states and that its creator was none other than the mind behind some other really great anime properties. The issue I have with that, though, is that I don’t want to research before hand as that will probably jade my expectations and the less I know going into a series/OVA/movie/videogame/dark alley the more I can enjoy it honestly. Although I doubt I’d have been any kinder to This Ugly Yet Beautiful World even if I hadn’t known Gainax made it. Anyway, the direction I’m going here is I’ve stumbled onto this show Kaiba, and I feel like I need to know more about who made it to do it justice and so you can know more about it. See my conflict here? Well, I can’t get the network cable to reach where I’m sitting (currently typing this during one of club showings, thank you killing two birds with one stone), so you guys are just going to have to live with not knowing. From a purely objectivist point-of-view, though, I strongly suggest that not know much about a series/whatever beforehand is the better way to approach it. Then again, I write these reviews on the assumption you haven’t seen it. Heh.

Kaiba is our titular blond-haired, blue-eyed protagonist who wakes up with plot-powered memory loss and a hole in his chest over which a locket hangs with a blurry picture of a girl. Yay symbolism. The world Kaiba awakens to is set far in the future where humanity has spread to the stars, met alien races, and none of it matters since nearly everyone has had their memories converted to chips the size of an average thumb and bodies get swapped like clothes. Naturally, there’s a wicked class system in place ruled over by a heavy-handed king. Within moments of waking up, Kaiba is nearly taken by body harvesters and is sent away by his new friend Popo. Across multiple worlds, bodies, and minds, Kaiba inadvertently follows his love, his memories, and the truth at the heart of the world.

Before I get going into the rest of the review, I just want to say a couple things. First, everything in Kaiba is well done. Second, Kaiba is deep. Seriously, when you stop watching it you could get the intellectual bends if you aren’t careful. Like Sky Crawlers, it would actually be best for you to just go out and watch it right now. Don’t read anything else about it, don’t listen to anything else about it, just watch it. That said, I will do my best not to spoil anything and I strongly hope you will be encouraged enough to watch this show as I could write twenty pages and it still wouldn’t cover everything. Speaking of twenty pages, let’s get started. (Note: this actually won’t be that long as I have listened to some of your comments.)

The music in Kaiba is pretty stunning, if a little repetitive. The melodies are well-structured and full of emotion. I don’t know who the composer is, but they did their job well. The director used the music perfectly, with the score often making the scene. In several instances, the music starts up before the conclusion of a scene, leading me into the emotion rather than enforcing it after the fact. Though a small difference, it did a lot to affect the impact of the series for me. As I mentioned, they use a lot of the same music throughout the show, but I can’t really fault them for it as it helps unite the series and given its length, a broader soundtrack would go to waste. The opening and closing are very similar, both being slow, thoughtful melodies about love filled with images that I only understood as I watched the show. I relished the time the opening gave me to think about the characters it displayed and where they are at the start of the episode. The ending was a wonderful period during which the full ramifications of the events could really sink in. I would buy this soundtrack if it were available domestically, but I don’t know if I’d be willing to shell out the extra money to import it. That said, you would definitely catch me listening to this stuff on my ipod.

I just realized I haven’t said a word about the animation in Kaiba, which is amazing given that the animation is superb. The style is fluid and reminiscent of old cartoons with an emphasis on shapes and motion over fine detail. If you’ve ever seen the Felix the Cat movie, there’s this part after Felix travels to the other dimension and he’s surrounded by strange cartoony characters that are all sorts of weird. Well, Kaiba is filled top to bottom with creatures and people like that. Realism is not the name of the game. My favorite part is that all of the visual elements are thematic and symbolism is everywhere. The heady nature of the series combined with the vivid visuals makes for an engrossing and unique experience. Kaiba is so visually rich it could easily overwhelm you if you aren’t ready for it. I was going to be insulting here about if you were the type to be scared off by something so wildly artistic, but admittedly this show simply can’t appeal to everyone when it is so very stylized. There’s a ton of action in this series and the style reflects that perfectly. Everything moves and flows so well that it’s actually easier to understand what’s happening in Kaiba than it is with some series that are more realistic. Like Windy Tales, Kaiba definitely has a unique look and it really went somewhere with it. The amount of work and thought put into how everything looks should be something everyone can appreciate, even if you can’t quite swallow the visuals.

When I came across Kaiba while searching for something to watch, the first tag for it was ‘psychological.’ Out of all the series I’ve looked up over the years on that site, not one of them had psychological within the first five tags, let alone as the first. Without reading anything else I found the HD torrent and mashed download as fast as my little router could go. Here we are twelve episodes later and while the music and animation were each enough in their own right to sell me on the series, the story in Kaiba is quite possibly the best I’ve ever come across. I was going to say that the story was basically boy meets girl, but even then there is nothing basic about the way they go about it. The way the story is executed is innovative and I never knew what was coming next; it was like a roller coaster for the thinking part of my brain. Every piece of plot in Kaiba has depth surpassing much of what I’ve seen in other series. While there is an ultimate plot to the show, it’s only vaguely hinted at until around the eighth episode; at only twelve episodes that’s a long time to play around and there’s more than enough plots, characters, and story to fill a series twice as long. I tell you, though, those first seven episodes were amazing. Within the first two episodes we see body swaps, drugs, a person literally fucking herself to death by another body with a duplicate of her mind in it, weird creatures doing weirder things, memory theft, memory smuggling, characters walking into the memory of other characters, and so on. I guess I forgot to mention that this series can be pretty dark and violent with its brightly colored pictures. I was actually speechless after episode three; I just sat there for ten minutes thinking. When the story finally made an appearance at episode eight, I was sad that our tour of the world with Kaiba was coming to an end and we had to get down to business. It was the only time when I was really made aware of the fact that I was watching a show, but the feeling was quickly erased by how awesome the story actually was. Remember in Cowboy Bebop how of the twenty-six episodes only probably five or seven stand out as the most dramatic and emotionally hard-hitting? Well, every episode in Kaiba is like that: every episode builds to a strong climax with some really powerful emotional, intellectual, and philosophical depth. While looking for that level of depth may seem silly in a cartoon, I assure you that Kaiba practically demands it with the pacing and writing. Suffice it to say the characters in Kaiba, though not always wildly unique, are still individuals and products of the dazzling world in which they live. The characters are consistent and well-written with the dialogue, interaction, and character development all standing at the forefront. (Actually, everything is at the forefront, period; there is no part of the composition of the series that gets overlooked.) Characterization, the ways in which a character is defined throughout the story, is immensely well done as we get to the know the characters far more through their actions and interactions than anything said directly about them; Kaiba neatly avoids the problem many other philosophically deep anime wherein the only way to show characters are thinking is to let us hear their thoughts. While subtle, Kaiba is still understandable and surprisingly intuitive. Due to Kaiba (the character) being on the run, he ends up in the body of a large stuffed animal at one point, unable to talk or show any expression on his face. It was an amazing turn in the story to force us to look at the world through Kaiba’s eyes as all he could do was watch, listen, and run when necessary. Personally, I think the world itself in which Kaiba lives is well characterized through the first seven episodes and that’s where the series gets so much of its depth from; through all of Kaiba’s encounters and the events he’s a part of, the world becomes a living thing of its own. The animation helps quite a bit towards that end, too. Speaking of the end, without spoiling it for you Kaiba avoids that vague “all is one” voice-over philosophical and psychological ending we’ve seen in Evangelion, Gantz, Kare Kano, and pretty much every other series that’s tried for depth and always come off a little wanting. Kaiba is immensely satisfying, period. As you can see, I could talk about the story in Kaiba all day, but we have other things to do and it’s best if you experience it for yourself.

Ultimately, Kaiba is probably the most powerful artistic experience I’ve found in an anime. I remember raving about Sky Crawlers, but truth be told Kaiba is considerably more accessible and the sheer mind-blowing depth blasts Sky Crawlers out of the sky. I was trying for some witty wordplay there but I got nothing. Anyway, by now you can tell I recommend Kaiba. I recommend Kaiba so hard I’d pull out an episode for you to watch if you even asked what I reviewed this week. That said, I can’t expect everyone to like Kaiba, though I’d ask them to give it a chance. It’s violent, though the gore consists of neon colored goo instead of blood and organs. It’s sexual, though you’ll find that just the imagery in the back is more graphic than any character action or what little nudity there is to be had. It’s highly stylized, though I think it’s worth enduring for the story if you don’t groove with the art design. It’s intensely psychological, though if you aren’t looking for irrevocable depth I think you may be looking in the wrong place for your reviews. Kaiba is not a series if you’re looking for something fun, fluffy, or pants-tighteningly sexy. While someone could theoretically watch it and enjoy it at a straightforward, action-packed level, I think they’d be missing out big time if that’s all they took it as. Kaiba is an entirely unique experience that has steamrolled its way into my top five series to watch and stands at the top of the mountain for execution and direction. This series totally blindsided me and I hope it does the same for you.

~Whim

PS – That’s right, I have top five lists based on series to watch, execution, and artistic merit. Kaiba is on each list and top of the latter two. No, you can’t see the lists.
PS2 – Sorry, but only one review this week. Kaiba totally took center stage and I actually didn’t bother watching anything else. If I had time I would have preferred to watch it twice for this review. Just like Sky Crawlers, I still feel like I haven’t done it justice.

Boob-tastic. That’s the word. For those of you not in the know, Queen’s Blade is a card game turned cultural phenomenon known for lots of scantily clad ladies fighting each other for control of a kingdom. There’s art books, figures, and now, an anime series. It just started airing in Japan, so I can’t give a full series review, but I figured I should say a few words as this is the next Ikki Tousen, only better because it’s not based on what is to most of us westerners obscure Chinese history. I have seen the first episode and some of the second, and odds are if you were even slightly intrigued by my opening word, you are going to want to watch this series. You may have to wait until it hits stateside, as some distribution companies are already sending out cease and desist letters to fansubbers for this series. I suppose they’re trying to keep a lid on it until it can reach the US.

Anyway, about the actual show: Queen’s Blade, as I mentioned, is a medieval style tournament show where the prize is leading the kingdom. From what I’ve seen, most of or the entirety of the cast is female and either scantily clad or um, beaten naked. Unlike Ikki Tousen, the clothing doesn’t just magically shatter or anything, it just gets damaged. Or melted by that pink blobby girl with the acid shooting boobs. Yes, you read that right, acid shooting boobs. See, what I thoroughly enjoyed while watching this show was not the copious amounts of nudity (your first boob is like three minutes in) but the writer’s ability to not take it too seriously. Blobby girl (who is made of pink and sometimes transparent jello but is really skinny and buxom) is defeated when our heroine Reina gives her a bear hug so her armor prevents Blobby girl from squirting her acid until she explodes. It is both hilarious and ecchi. I have to say I appreciate the fact that they don’t tease us with the nudity, instead just putting it all out there and letting the inherent sexiness of the series speak for itself.

Queen’s Blade isn’t all fluff and boobs, though, there’s a real story behind it. Since I’ve only seen 1.5 episodes, I can’t say too much, but it’s interesting enough that I’ll actually keep watching it. It’s shaping up to be a fun romp with enough character development and plot to keep it from suffering the fate of other terrible fan service series. There’s angels, demons, and humans all in the fight for power. The approach the creators have to this series really pleases me because it sounds like they are in it for the same reason I am, to have some fun while telling a story. I have a couple worries, though.

Queen’s Blade has a couple obstacles to overcome, but I think they can manage. The animation in the first episode was a bit rough at points, but from what I’ve seen of the second episode they cleaned it up. I just hope they can keep it up during the series. Speaking of keeping it up during the series, I hope they don’t lose sight of the story or the fanservice; they are aiming to walk a fine line here but it’s like hanging a pair of shoes from a wire by the laces. Lastly, while this isn’t a concern per se, this series is going to be pretty dirty. As I say that remember this is Japan, home of the tentacle monster. By the end of the first episode our main character wets herself in fear, blobby girl’s boobs explode, and in an earlier fight our main character is stripped naked in battle and left helpless. In other words, this series is probably just on the other side of good taste. I suppose I should say that this series has something for everyone in the 17+ crowd, either that or try not to let your parents catch you watching it.

~Whim

PS - To try and show that I’m not horrendously outdated, and possibly as a cynical attempt at getting more readers, I have written this review of one episode. One measly little episode. This series is going to be big, though, just you wait and see.
PS2 - I still can’t figure out if I actually want to watch this series…