Kemeko DX Ep. 1 to 7

AniDB & ANN

Yeah, I haven't posted in a while. I suppose I am not good blogger material.

Anyhow, Kemeko DX is a comedy heavy anime that definitely does not take itself very seriously. It stars (kinda) Sanpeita, who's an unfortunate little kid, who in his childhood made a promise to marry a girl, who subsequently moved promising him to see him again in 10 years. 10 years later, he is having a normal morning when a spaceship crashes into the roof of his house followed by hostile robots from the local technology giant Mishima Co. But, out comes a short, fat, stocky woman with scary eyes and an extremely obnoxious personality to boot. comes and fights them all off with a weapon that's reminscent of a giant boxcutter blade. In the aftermath, she introduces herself as Kemeko and his wife, and adds that he is in danger, and that she will protect him.

Sanpeita will soon find he is roughly the only sane person that he knows. His family quickly accepts his intruding "wife", and when Kemeko replaces their homeroom teacher and also announces her identity as his wife, they are quick to accept the fact without much complaint.

This is somewhat similar to the situation of Sakura and Dokuro-chan in Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan, and there's a lot of funny, absurd humour.

Sanpeita also has a childhood friend, Izumi, who is of the rather usual fare: likes him, denies it, and sees Kemeko (her rival) as an enemy.

It is quickly revealed though, that Kemeko is actually a very small robot or mecha, and is actually piloted by a girl (and this is also observable in the OP) who has a striking resemblance to the girl that Sanpeita promised his hand to. When asked though, this girl denies it being her vehemently, and Sanpeita decides that such a brash girl couldn't possibly be that girl of his dreams all those years ago.

As a note of warning though, this girl seldom comes out of her robot, and has a very deep emotional link to her power suit, Kemeko. Seeing M.M. in the flesh is, thus far, a rare pleasure.

Anyhow, Kemeko DX has been a very enjoyable, hilarious anime, and there are a number of very likable characters (along with often excellent character design, though Izumi's design is fairly awkward). The overall mood and tone of the story can pretty much be summarized by its ED and OP. I reccommend it to anyone who can tolerate silliness and absurdity, but people looking for a gritty, serious story obviously need to look elsewhere. Here are a couple of visuals to aid your decision, along with the aforementioned OP and ED.

Intermission: Laziness and Art

So, clearly, I'm not very good at keeping a straight schedule. I'll try to get another anime blog up in the next few days, but with some fine amount of work and studying ahead of me, I might put this off more.

Anyhow, what you see there is pretty much my first serious attempt at making an illustration (digitally, especially). Lots of areas for improvement, of course, and I gave up on adding shadows and highlights to it. But I learned quite a bit, so I'm pretty happy with it.

I have stuff on my deviantArt too, which is linked in the corner. Feel free to check what humble offerings that are available there.

Tales of the Abyss Anime - Ep. 1, 2, & 3

Synopses and Fansub group listings/ratings at:
AniDB & ANN


Unlike most adaptations of the Tales of games into anime, the current anime adaptation of Tales of the Abyss will be a full length anime, and it is being handled by Sunrise (which is a part of Bandai, which is now a part of Namco-Bandai, which is responsible for Tales of now). As such, it's expected that the show will go into a fair amount of detail with the plot, in contrast to the OVA adaptations that Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia recieved (both of which were not even 6 episodes--half a cour--long).

I'm unsure what to say of it, other than that thus far I have enjoyed it, and am very happy at how faithful it is to the source material, without getting too tedious. The personalities of the characters are brought out well, and the nuances of the original are typically preserved. In the end though, there is quite a lot of material to cover, and they're forced to do it rather quickly, but
I am sure that was done in the interest of the casual viewer, though some may question the wiseness of appealing to the general populace rather than the established fanbase.

As expected of Sunrise, the production values are great, and though I had played the English version of the game (and thus, heard the dub voices rather than the Japanese voices), the acting seems overall well done. The fact that Tear (who, before now, was probably my least liked character from the main party) is voiced by the same actor as C.C. (as she always was, so perhaps it's more correct to say C.C.'s voiced by the same person as Tear), makes her a lot more interesting, though her random moments of "kawaii...!" still fail to really amuse me. Anise's "I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU BASTARDS!!!" on the other hand, was really well delivered.

My only complaint so far with the series is the strange, seemingly unnecessary adjustment of Anise's skin tone, which, for whatever reason, they saw fit to lighten up. And not only did they just lighten it up, but they left all the other elements of her character design to be suggestive of a more Latin sort of ethnicity, with the particularly curly hair and all. The result is what seems to be a sickly pale brown child, rather than "just another fair skinned person". Observe:

Compared to:


Otherwise, the show is shaping up to be one of the better offerings this season, which isn't saying much due to the high volume of good shows, from everything I've watched thus far.

The OP is Karma by BUMP OF CHICKEN, just like the game, and is as excellent as the first time I heard it (though that time, there would be no vocals due to the English localization of the game only having the instrumental cover for it, not wanting to pay licensing fees for the vocals, or trying to make a probably terrible English cover of it), while the ED is Bouken Houkiboshi by Kurumi Enomoto, which I've taken quite a liking to too.

For your listening pleasure:

The Original Game OP:


The Anime OP:


The Anime ED:


To note, I am particularly happy with the fact that at the end of the anime OP, it has Anise running up to Luke and hugging him rather than any of the other female characters, since it shows they prioritized the personalities of the characters, over decision based on "true pairings" (that is, though Luke's ultimately destined to actually end up with a girl who's not-Anise--not that I think that's hard to guess at--, it's only Anise--especially early on in the series--who would actually hug him like that).

Gundam 00 Season 2 - Ep. 1 & 2

Synopses and Fansub group listings/ratings at:
AniDB & ANN

So this will be the first in a hopefully semi-regular series of updates about anime. To start us off, is the second season of Gundam 00. Inevitably, we must bring to mind Code Geass R2, however, it is safe to say that Sunrise takes much better care of its flagship franchise. The show picks up from where it left, and pretty competently sets things back and going at full speed, without wasting any time on exposition (the convenience of having the same audience, I surmise).

So, at the start of the first episode, you're instantly thrown into some mecha action, with some very unfamiliar mecha. The only thing that suggests what you're even watching is 00, is the presence of the false GN reactors and their pretty, red shinies. You're quickly introduced to the fact that the world is now united in an Earth Federation, very much in the style of many Gundams in the past (most prominently in the Universal Century Gundam Timeline shows). Additionally, you're shown the cruel suppression of anti-government groups (any armed countries that have refused to join the Federation and non-government rebel groups, most prominently Kataron) by a new force of "peacekeepers" called the A-Laws (I've seen it translated as Arrows too). From the attitude taken towards the A-Laws that almost all the characters from last season have taken, the general impression is bad and evil, much in the style of The Titans from Z Gundam (second entry to the Universal Century Timeline)

Overall, however, the show will no doubt take a different direction from previous Gundam. Blending the politick of the UC Gundams and the monopoly of force by a few, main-character-mecha far beyond the common mook that's so fashionable lately, I would draw the line of similarities as mere throwbacks to the old classic Gundams.

Much like Z Gundam, the second season to the original Gundam, however, is the introduction of possibly a new main character, Saji Crossroad. Up until now, Saji (who was featured in season 1) has played almost a non-role, and seemed to only exist to focus the suffering of the common civilian in the hectic era of armed interventions by Celestial Being. However, it would seem with the new season, he is to eventually play a greater role, once he's sorted out what he believes exactly. I may be wrong, though; it's quite possible he'll remain a bystander, and this could just be a feint by the storywriters. But if not, he may play a very important role in the action, and could then, continuing the Z Gundam comparison, make a very rough equivalent for Camille Bidan. Saji even looks a bit girly, and they both shriek a lot.

Additionally, Saji's girlfriend from S1, Louise Halevy, makes a return, now with hair cut military length (for her gender, and within presentable anime standards, anyhow) and just a few strokes crazier. The immediate response of me was "lol Four", and for those who don't know, Four Murasame was one of the main romantic interests for Camille during the run of Z Gundam, and she, being a cyber Newtype, was similarly crazy and unstable. She met a rather tragic end. It'll be interesting seeing her probable confrontation with Saji, whether it's on a street or with two mecha frames between them.

With the following episode 3, it seems the main cast will be finally assembled, with the rescue of Allelujah Haptism, whom we've been shown chained up a couple of times now, in the last two episode. Aside from that, Sumeragi has been recruited again, and the late Lockon Stratos will be succeeded by his younger brother, Lyle Dylandy, who'll also take up the same codename. From then, I figure it'll be a matter of them getting together a full team of Gundam again, rather than just the two they have for use at the moment. The pieces will be set, and I'm sure the show will charge on without remorse, while mercilessly applying a constant stream of cliffhangers all the way through.

Anyhow, of note is that, after the credits, there is always an extra excerpt or scene that are very much worth watching. So make sure to stick with it until at least the beginning of the previews. And now, without further ado, stupid stuff:

To employ a 14 year old, drill-haired, Suiseiseki-style desu yapper
as their comm officer, Celestial Being must be in tough times.

Hi there, Rollo.

The show's definitely shaping up to be fairly satisfying. I'm unsure as to what to expect for the time being, but my interest has definitely been piqued.

As a final note, should there somehow be someone who has no idea how to get anime as they air in Japan, they may find a very useful resource towards this end in my link section, if only by coincidence. Otherwise, it is at the usual places: "illegally" on youtube, crunchyroll, and Veoh too, most likely. Not that I condone streaming anime at all.

Tales of Vesperia

So surprise, surprise. I fail at blogging. But never mind that.

Roughly a month ago, I received by copy of Tales of Vesperia, which is a part of the Tales of series by Namco (now Namco-Bandai), and possibly one of my favourite video games series, period. As per usual, the cast of characters are all very likable, while the story is fairly straightforward and linear (which I take as advantages), and the battle system fast-paced and satisfying. The visuals this time around are excellent, with Namco-Bandai toting possibly one of the prettiest, most-close-to-anime celshading techniques I've seen applied thus far with 3D modeling in general.

As of basically Saturday night, I finished the game, though I'll be making a few additional sweeps for extra and endgame content, along with enjoying the multiplayer with a friend. Overall, the story was enjoyable, though I felt at the end things may have been a bit too compressed, and I felt like there could've been more, but that may be my fault in how intensely I had been playing it (I racked up roughly 80 hours, and though it was over the span of perhaps a month, I had really only turned on the game at best, 6 to 7 times, if not less). I really flew through that game, and not in the sense that I was rushing either. As per usual, I went through things fairly thoroughly, in the fashion of combing through dungeons and making sure I got every possible treasure chest, etc.

Regardless, I recommend it to any fans of the series strongly, and I think anyone who generally enjoys JRPG's, particularly action ones, should get a lot of fun out of this, especially if they're anime-inclined.

Anyhow, I think over the next few days I'll put up a bunch of my impressions of this season's anime, with some handy-dandy screenshots. I think you can already tell that it'll all be about personal impressions, and me skimming over any sort of synopsis of story as best as I am capable of.

New York

So, now I'm minutes away from being shipped off to the airport.

It's been 2 weeks since I got to New York, on my own, and stayed with my host family of relatives.

I must be some adaptive beast, because I'm not feeling very particular about all this. It's just business as usual, but y'know, instead of an hour and a half of train commute to get to New Jersey to see some friends, or walking for half an hour aimlessly to find a restaurant, I sit in a plane for 10~ hours.

Just another commute.

I say goodbye to the host family, but it's not very particular.

Perhaps I'm underestimating the scale of the time that'll have to pass before I ever even have a chance to repeat this kind of trip.

God knows.

Continued: So now I'm back home. Met a nice kid on my flight from San Fran. Customs was EASY CAKE, which was awesome.

But thinking more about before. I'm wondering if I shouldn't be missing my host family more. Great people, they were, and a very different kind of family from mine.

... suddenly assailed by tiredness. a;lkdfjabw, need to unpack too...