March 13, 2005
Mai-HiME 20
First, some screencaps:
Second, WHAT. THE. FUCK.
More after the break, with spoilers. This is one of those cases where you really don't want to be spoiled.
There was a point about 2/3rds of the way through the episode where I realized that it had taken at least two minutes for Takumi's disappearance to fully register with me. I was just so overwhelmed with everything going on. And that look on Mai's face was just frightening and disturbing. I still don't have any idea where they are going from here, but this episode brought up some interesting questions that I kind of want answered.
The first is that the HiME's children have a connection to the person they care the most for. They have said that if their child dies, the person they care for the most will disappear. But what if multiple HiME's care for the same person. This seems like it throws some kind of weird wrench into the rules. Since Mai still has her dragon, unless that other person for her is Tate. Of course if that is the case we'll be running into the issue again soon enough.
The other thing that I am finding scary is how much all the HiMEs are being manipulated. And not towards the exact same goal necessarily. There are some people I really do hope die a brutal death.
And i still have episode 21 sitting here to watch. Damn.
March 11, 2005
Scrapped Princess on DVD
One of my more favorite shows from the past few years, Scrapped Princess, is finally coming out on DVD on 4/26/2005. From the web page:
Pacifica Cassul is known as the "Scrapped Princess." According to prophecy, she is the poison that will destroy the world on her 16th birthday. In order to avoid being killed, she must secretly wander the lands along with her two siblings who vow to protect the princess every step of the way. But being the Scrapped Princess means you must stay one step ahead of your enemy. Just how long will they journey before time runs out?
They've also got a trailer in Quicktime and Window's media linked to there. Definitely one to check out if you haven't before.
March 07, 2005
Girls Bravo - Season Two
Okay, so the first season was butchered by TokyoTV. While there was some fanservice, it was constantly obscured. Sometimes by darkening the images, other times adding steam. In both cases it was bad enough that you couldn't even see who was in the scene. My theory is that the people producing the anime got so upset and frustrated by this that they decided to go completely overboard. There is much more skin than previously. It just seems a bit overdone.
We'll see how it progresses.
March 02, 2005
Futakoi
Just got around to watching the first episode of Futakoi. It looks as though its makers got together and said to each other, "Guys, guys, what's the scariest possible harem show we could make?" "Ooh, ooh, I know, let's have the guy not only have to choose between half a dozen beautiful girls, let's have him choose between half a dozen pairs of twins!" "GENIUS!"
That said, this was actually a pretty engaging little show. To their credit, they introduced an in-story reason for so many female twins showing up, and judging from the opening and ending credits, only ("only") two sets of twins look like they will seriously compete for the hero's affections. The protagonist is a nice enough kid, easily turned by a pretty face, but what boy that age isn't? And I have to like the guy because he's a stargazer and his dad is a professional astronomer. So I expect I'll be watching more of this one.