didjunoanime - Tumblr blog

[didjunoanime]

Hiroki Kikuta’s bonus track on the Narcissu 10th Anniversary Soundtrack. You can purchase the soundtrack here:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/627310/Narcissu_10th_Anniversary_Soundtrack/

[didjunoanime]

ERASED review

In my search to find an anime from the winter 2016 season that was worth watching, I tried Phantasy Star Online 2 The Animation, Myriad Colors Phantom World, and Dagashi Kashi. I didn't make it beyond Episode 2 on any of those. After I thought I had given up on finding a good anime from this season, I happened across an anime called ERASED. They had already aired 4 or 5 episodes when I started watching, but it had me hooked from the very first episode.

ERASED is a 12-episode anime adaptation of a manga written by Kei Sanbe. The anime was produced by A-1 Pictures, the studio that gave us Your Lie in April, Sword Art Online, Saekano, and Anohana. The story is mainly a seinen thriller with a fantasy element that comes from the main protagonist's ability to jump back in time and relive parts of his life. Though this ability is initially presented as something that only happens when someone is in imminent danger and only allows him to relive that moment with just enough time to take immediate action in an attempt to prevent the potential disaster he knows is coming, we later find that this ability can put him 18 years in the past, allowing him to relive his childhood. This is crucial for him to stop a serial killer who has been killing for a long time without getting caught before he can even attempt his first murder.

This anime got off to a really strong start due to its effective execution as a thriller, using cliffhangers at the end of every episode to keep the audience engaged. This enabled the anime to grab a tremendous amount of attention early on and establish itself as an early contender for anime of the year and maybe even one of the greatest anime of all time. Would ERASED go on to live up to this early hype? Let's dive into that, but be warned that I will go into some spoilers in this review. These will be marked with *spoiler* */spoiler* tags.

I'll start off with the characters, which I actually find to be a bit of a weakness in this anime, largely due to a couple huge missed opportunities. Satoru Fujinuma is the main protagonist who starts out as a 29-year-old aspiring manga artist that works part-time delivering pizzas. He has a couple arcs where he is a 10-year-old student who retains knowledge about the future. While he is a boy, his thoughts are still voiced by Shinnosuke Mitsushima, the voice actor for the adult Satoru, to remind the audience that his mind is still that of his adult self.

A problem I have with Satoru as a character is that the show tries hard to paint him as a hero, but in the end, do we really know what makes Satoru heroic? Any average person would feel obligated to some extent to prevent something tragic from happening in the future if they knew they were the only person who had knowledge of this event's occurrence. Perhaps the difference with Satoru is that he knowingly puts himself in harm's way to change the future, whereas others may be too gripped by fear to go that far. The show presents some cheesy hero from a TV show like Power Rangers complete with a costume and mask as motivation for Satoru being a hero, but it seems like the writers used this to compensate for the lack of depth of Satoru as a character.

I did find Satoru's penchant for blurting things out before thinking through what he is saying to be an endearing quality of his. This leads to some embarrassing moments that comprise a majority of the sparse comic relief in this show.

Let's move on to Kayo Hinazuki, who I think is the strongest character in the show. Kayo starts out as a quiet girl who is always by herself. She is a victim of domestic abuse from her mother, and in the original timeline, she is murdered. Satoru makes it his mission to save Kayo from being murdered when his Revival ability sends him back to his childhood. As Satoru tries to get close to Kayo to make her less vulnerable as a target for the murderer, Kayo opens up, and we can sense as an audience the intense emotion that she must feel after she is finally exposed to people who will actually care for her as a human being.

There are two reasons why Kayo is the best character in this anime. The first reason is that we, the audience, come to feel like we want to protect Kayo and care about her happiness, but the anime doesn't take any cheap shortcuts in getting the audience to feel this way. Kayo doesn't have any moeblob characteristics that you see in practically every other popular anime out there right now. Instead, the anime just uses pure old-fashioned character development. Even if we don't see all of the abuse she has suffered on screen, we see it in the bruises and in the way she acts distant from everybody. We see in the evolution of her facial expressions and behavior how much her new friends mean to her.

That brings me to the second reason she is the best character, which is that she is an effective example of what being abused as a child is like. I think people who have suffered childhood abuse will be able to greatly relate to Kayo. The scene where she cries after Satoru's mother makes her dinner is an especially potent characterization of what a person feels when they have gone a lifetime without the comfort of having somebody who cares for them. We as an audience want Kayo to be protected because we know she highly values protection and kindness from scenes like this one.

Another outstanding character in this anime is Satoru's mother, Sachiko Fujinuma. She is one of the most awesome mothers I have seen in an anime, and I think she will be some people's favorite character in this anime. The audience can see that she greatly cares about Satoru and his friends, but at the same time, she is not overprotective and overbearing. She lets Satoru discover things and live out his life. She has a great amount of trust for Satoru, even when he is only 10 years old. Satoru is not a particularly outgoing person, but he still has a very healthy mother-son relationship with Sachiko, and it is presented in a highly realistic manner.

Just to point out how awesome Sachiko is, let me give you a couple examples of what she does in the anime. *spoiler* When Satoru needed her help to deal with the situation between Kayo and her abusive mother, */spoiler* she handled it with an incredible amount of poise and effectiveness. Also, *spoiler* when Satoru goes into a coma for 15 years, she takes it upon herself to groom him and keep him in good shape for all those years. */spoiler* You will probably wish Sachiko was your mother after seeing this anime!

Now let's talk about Gaku Yashiro. Gaku is Satoru's homeroom teacher, and Satoru collaborates with him in his plot to save Kayo from being murdered. I'll have to get into some heavy spoilers to discuss him because he ends up being *spoiler* the main antagonist of the show, and he is a pretty weak antagonist. The anime tries to give him some background by likening a past experience of his to Ryuunosuke Akutagawa's short story The Spider's Thread and goes on to use the proverbial spider's thread as a symbol for how he views the victims of his murders. This is problematic for several reasons. One is that, in The Spider's Thread, the person trying to scale the spider's thread is attempting to escape from Hell. There is no metaphorical equivalence in Gaku's victims. They are not trying to escape from any figurative Hell. Furthermore, Gaku sees himself as cutting the thread to send his victims back to Hell, but in The Spider's Thread, the thread is broken from the weight of all the people trying to climb it, not from somebody who cuts the thread. What would Gaku's motivation for sending people back to Hell be, anyway? I found this to be an ineffective metaphor in the context of this anime.

One of the most common complaints I see about this anime is how easy it was to suspect Gaku as the murderer long before it was actually revealed. Personally, I didn't see why he would help Satoru in his efforts to thwart the killer's plans as much as he did if he himself was the killer, so I didn't really suspect him until I was lead on by some stuff I saw on Facebook from people who saw Episode 10 before I did. Did he think helping Satoru would make people suspect him less? This seems pretty dubious to me. People weren't going to suspect him anyway. Why bother helping Satoru? */spoiler*

Airi Katagiri is a 17-year-old coworker of Satoru who wants to believe in Satoru after multiple incidents where Satoru used his Revival ability to save people. Unfortunately, her relationship with Satoru fails to develop much beyond that, as she completely disappears from the anime after Episode 6. I hear that the manga does a better job at developing Airi's relationship with Satoru, but in the anime, it's difficult to even say that they are friends as they don't seem to know each other very well. This is one of the big missed opportunities I mentioned earlier, and it really bites this series in the ass at the very end of the anime.

We get what is supposed to be this big moment right at the end of the final episode where *spoiler* Satoru is reunited with Airi, */spoiler* but it feels hollow because we haven't even seen Airi for the latter half of the anime. This moment could have had a lot more impact if the audience was given a reason to believe that these two mean much in each other's lives. The lack of relationship building leaves much to be desired here.

Jun Shiratori is the other character that I felt was a significant wasted opportunity. We don't learn much about him, but we do know that he was wrongfully convicted for the 3 murders that occurred back in 1988. When Satoru changes history with his Revival ability and *spoiler* saves the 3 kids from murder, */spoiler* one of the indirect effects that it produces is that Jun is no longer punished for crimes he did not commit. Sure, one can argue that this isn't as big a deal as *spoiler* giving those 3 kids the whole rest of their lives to live out, */spoiler* but still, being kept from having to rot in jail the rest of your life because of some shit you didn't even do is a pretty fucking big deal. Unfortunately, the anime completely glosses over this. Granted, Jun wasn't aware of Satoru's efforts like many of the other characters were, so he has no way of appreciating what Satoru did. Still, it would have been nice if we had some acknowledgement that Jun went on to live a good, productive life instead of being tossed aside as an afterthought.

The anime didn't provide any context for the friendship between Jun and Satoru, either. How did they meet? What do they like about each other? All we know is that they're friends for whatever reason. It ultimately felt like Jun was just used as a potential suspect for the murders to distract the audience from who the real killer is.

10-year-old Satoru also has a group of friends that decide to help him foil the murderer's plans. One of them, Hiromi Sugita, winds up being one of the victims. Sadly, Hiromi isn't given nearly the attention that Kayo gets in this anime. In fact, after Satoru *spoiler* saves Kayo, the other people he subsequently saves from the murderer */spoiler* are treated like an afterthought. I think this is why a lot of people felt the ending of this anime was rather anticlimactic. Yes, Satoru *spoiler* continues on his mission after saving Kayo, but the anime doesn't even bother covering how the other targets of the murderer were saved. */spoiler* No background is given for any of Satoru's friends either, so I don't have anything to say about them.

Let's move on from the characters and spend a little time on the story. The best thing this anime did was ratchet up the suspense from the very beginning, and this is what hooked a lot of people into the series in the first few episodes. It made effective use of cliffhangers at the end of each episode, though at least on a couple occasions, these amounted to nothing as it was quickly resolved within the first minute of the next episode. In fact, there was one "cliffhanger" in particular that still has me perplexed as to why they even bothered including it in the show. It shows Misato, a completely useless character whose only memorable appearance involves her accusing Kayo of stealing everyone's lunch money, in an otherwise empty classroom by herself. She leaves the classroom, and the episode ends. It seems like some ominous foreshadowing, like she's going to butt into Satoru's heroic efforts or something, but nothing comes of it. I don't even remember her making an appearance again after this brief scene, so I have no idea what this was about.

Some people were disappointed by a perceived failure as a mystery anime, though this didn't really bother me because I prefer to keep an open mind as I watch an anime. I don't like to lump an anime into specific categories like "mystery" and form expectations around that before the anime even begins. If you go into this expecting a suspenseful seinen anime, then you shouldn't be disappointed. If you go into it expecting a mystery that keeps you guessing, though, then all bets are off.

This anime employs some symbolism throughout the 12 episodes. The main example that sticks out in my mind is the butterfly that appears when the Revival ability is about to activate for Satoru. This symbolizes the butterfly effect that results from Satoru’s actions that divert the timeline to something different from the one he had experienced previously. Well, that’s at least my interpretation, anyways. The appearance of the butterfly right at the end of the anime when *spoiler* Satoru reunites with Airi */spoiler* has me at a loss, though, since the corresponding Revival ability activation we have come to expect never happens this time. If anyone has a theory for why the butterfly made an appearance here, I’d like to hear it.

There is probably some other stuff that I did not catch since I was waiting a week between each episode that I would have caught if I was watching it straight through with no breaks. I would need to watch the anime again to catch all the symbolism it uses.

As Satoru has to deal with being accused of the murder of his mother, Sachiko, we inevitably feel awful for him, and this is a big reason why we feel the need to follow this story and see if he can escape having to go to jail for a crime he didn't commit. ERASED does a great job at making the audience feel like they don't know what's going to happen next with Satoru's attempt to save Kayo. The audience may come to care even more about what happens to Kayo than about what happens to Satoru. Either way, we feel joy and relief when Kayo is finally *spoiler* separated from her abusive mother, even if she's not the one who actually murdered Kayo. Likewise, we feel satisfaction when we see Satoru survive the murderer's attempt to take his life. */spoiler* The anime intentionally built these up as moments when the audience would have a sizeable emotional response.

The downside to the story's heavy focus on Kayo, however, is that after Kayo *spoiler* is saved, */spoiler* there is a letdown as it feels a bit like we as an audience are just waiting for the anime to end. We get the aforementioned unsatisfying venture into Gaku's background as an antagonist, and then we get some wind-down as we see what has happened with some of the characters 15 years after Satoru executes his plan to thwart the murderer. Then, we get the climactic scene where Satoru confronts the murderer for the final time. While I won't go as far as to say this scene was terrible, it was pretty heavy on some silly melodrama and didn't make much sense, when you think about it.

*spoiler* Gaku says that he is angry that Satoru thwarted all his plans and acts like he is going to attempt to kill Satoru again. However, he states that he has waited 15 years for Satoru to recover from his coma, and from this, Satoru surmises that Gaku actually needs him to be alive. Why Gaku would feel this way, I don't know, but I'll suspend my disbelief for now. Then, to test his theory, Satoru rolls himself to the edge of the roof in his wheelchair with the intention of hurling himself off the building, forcing Gaku to act. Gaku follows suit, saving Satoru from throwing himself off the building. Now I have to wonder what the hell this is about. If Gaku felt this way about Satoru, then why did he try to murder him 15 years earlier? In fact, why didn't Gaku just continue with his murderous ways with Satoru out of the picture due to being in a coma? He never got caught, so there was nothing stopping him from carrying out the murders in spite of Satoru's earlier attempts to thwart him. */spoiler* This resolution with Gaku just didn't make any sense to me.

ERASED made effective use of music and sound to heighten the suspense. There were some awesome, well-timed sound effects that really added to the tension I experienced while watching this anime. The soundtrack features a lot of slow-moving music that exudes a sense of loneliness and foreboding. Some tracks prominently feature winding lines played on a lone cello. Nothing in the soundtrack really stands out for me, though. Even the opening track, "Re:Re:" by Asian Kung Fu Generation, which has been praised by many people, isn't something I was particularly fond of, though it does have the potential to get stuck in your head from time to time.

Just based on the masterful moments of suspense and the Kayo arc, this anime is an enjoyable watch and worth checking out. The weak cast of characters, save for two strong female characters, keep ERASED from being a particularly memorable anime, though, along with the failure to make anything outside of the Kayo arc stand out. A lot of people have been and will be let down by the way this anime concludes. While I recommend you watch this anime, I would be wary of the hype this anime built up early on because there are some shortcomings that become apparent towards the end of the anime.

Rating: 7/10

[didjunoanime]

[didjunoanime]

[didjunoanime]

To be continued...

[didjunoanime]

Did Ju No Anime Special Report!

This page has been quiet for a while now, but I want to reconfirm our commitment to bringing you anime information and news that you will not find anywhere else. Did Ju No Anime is the source that broke the story of a fanfic writer that would conceive of a fictional world in which Haruhi Suzumiya and Madoka Kaname coexisted, which of course is impossible since one universe cannot contain two supreme beings like Haruhi and Madoka simultaneously, and thus would have triggered the complete collapse of our universe. We brought awareness to this possible chain of future events to ensure that we entered a worldline in which this disaster would not occur. This blog presents facts and information that is relevant to the entire human race, as was demonstrated by the fact that we literally saved the freaking universe!

That is why we have not been active lately, as we have been busy preparing a new story that could have unforeseen ramifications that will affect all of mankind.

To prepare my loyal followers for this story, I would first like to present a little background. You see, there has recently been a multimedia sensation known as Love Live! that has taken the world by storm. Love Live! has amassed an enormous legion of loyal fans, and at first, this fandom was peaceful and pleasant. Everyone was united behind the school idol group μ's, cheering them on to success. However, as time went on, a sense of animosity grew within the fandom. Lines were drawn, and the fandom quickly divided into factions, though two factions in particular emerged as the leaders in directing insults and attacks at each other. Did Ju No Anime sent several investigators to see if we could uncover anything behind why the fandom turned so sour. We could not have possibly anticipated the immense web of secrets we would soon uncover.

We at Did Ju No Anime have actually known most of this story for quite some time now, but by the time we had made these astounding discoveries, the culture amongst the Love Live! fandom had become so toxic, we feared that leaking this information would trigger an all-out civil war within the fandom that could turn violent. The animosity was bubbling to the surface, and any miscalculated move could cause an eruption of vitriol and anger. Thus, we decided to keep this information secret until things had calmed down.

Now, with the emergence of a new idol group, Aqours, indicating that μ's will be phased out in favor of this new group, we have determined that now is a safe time to break this story since the Love Live! fandom’s attention is being shifted elsewhere. This does not mean, however, that the story should be taken lightly. Breaking this story will undoubtedly put to rest an effort into which multiple global multimedia companies have invested much time and money. The impact on the global multimedia industry will be immense. However, we feel it is our duty to uphold our commitment to journalistic integrity and let the people know the truth.

A massive global conspiracy has unfolded right under our noses without the public knowing a thing about it, and at the center of this conspiracy is one of the members of μ's, Nico Yazawa. One of the aforementioned factions that rose up within the Love Live! fandom is a group of fans that herald Nico as the greatest idol the universe has ever seen. Who is the other faction that rose up to challenge the Nico faction? What were the forces behind this division of loyalty? Where does the global multimedia industry come into play in all of this? The answers will be uncovered in the following weeks as we here at Did Ju No Anime present to you:

Did Ju No Anime: Nico Yazawa Global Conspiracy Edition

Stay tuned, my loyal followers! You do not want to miss this story!

[didjunoanime]

Attack on Titan: Junior High review

Attack on Titan: Junior High is a 12-episode anime adaptation of a comedy and slice-of-life manga that parodies Attack on Titan. Each of the episodes is 17 minutes long, which is shorter than a typical anime episode. This adaptation was animated by the studio Production I.G. Funimation has already announced a dub for it, but I watched the subbed version that was recently broadcast. It pits the cast of Attack on Titan in a junior high school setting that includes a section for Titans. The characters encounter the Titans a couple times during the show, but it mostly puts the characters in various situations that are highly typical of slice-of-life anime series such as school festivals and tests of courage.

I won’t go in depth with each of the characters since they are all the same characters as the original Attack on Titan anime. However, I will say that most of them keep the same personalities they had in the original anime. The writers also added some unique quirks to a few of the characters, such as Armin carrying a blanket with him all the time and Olou having a bad habit of biting his tongue. One of the things I don’t like about the original anime is that the cast of characters is much too large. However, this spin-off series manages to turn the huge cast of characters into a positive. One of the huge successes of Attack on Titan: Junior High is that it makes every single character endearing, and it balances time very well between all of them. Believe it or not, the threesome of Eren, Mikasa, and Armin do not dominate the screen time in this anime. Lots of time is spent on the side characters, as well, such as Jean, Levi, Annie, and Krista.

Despite the heavy use of tired slice-of-life tropes, this anime executes it all as well as you’ll see in any anime you watch. I know there are some closed-minded people out there who just will not even contemplate for a second the notion of a spin-off to a series they like such as this, but I honestly cannot understand how any Attack on Titan fan could not enjoy this series. I absolutely adore this anime! The comedic timing is consistently excellent throughout the entire show. It is one of the funniest shows you will ever watch!

I love how Mikasa keeps the same facial expression throughout the entire show. I love how the Scout Regiment acts like a “secret” school club that had never been approved by the school. I love Episode 6 where Jean fantasizes about all the different girls that might have written him a love letter. There are just so many moments in this anime that I enjoyed. I admit, the final 2 episodes aren’t as funny as the rest of the series, but when it ended, I really wished it would keep going.

I also think the animation quality is excellent. Yes, the character designs are a little simplified, but I still think the art and animation is top-notch.

The opening song is a slight variation on the song used in the first opening of the original anime. I also like the closing song somewhat.

I’ll keep this review very brief. If you’re not an Attack on Titan fan, this anime won’t mean much to you. However, if you are an Attack on Titan fan, this spin-off is a must watch! In fact, I may have enjoyed Attack on Titan: Junior High more than the original anime it is based on! The quality of humor and animation is thoroughly consistent throughout the entire show, though I think the final 2 episodes are a bit lacking in laughs. I highly recommend this spin-off to anybody who is a fan of the original Attack on Titan anime.

Rating: 8.5/10

[didjunoanime]

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet review

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet is a 13-episode anime series produced by Production I.G. and written by Gen Urobuchi, known for his work on Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero. It was released in 2013 along with 2 OVAs, and 2 longer OVAs came later in 2014 and 2015. This show tries to cover a large number of genres including shounen, action, romance, mecha, and science fiction. With its focus on a young man named Ledo, who is forced to adapt to a new world with completely different ideas and principles from what is familiar to him, this show is intended mainly for an audience of teenagers coming of age and starting to become adults. This show has something to offer for a broad range of people, though. I watched the English dub, which was done by Viz Media.

The cast of characters is a bit of a weakness in this show because everything revolves so heavily around Ledo that everyone else takes a huge backseat to him. I’ll briefly go over some of the characters, starting with the main protagonist, Ledo, who was raised to be a soldier for the Galactic Alliance. All his life, he has been engaged in a war with a race of beings known as the Hideauze. In this highly militarized society, humans are only valued by how capable they are of fighting the Hideauze. If you can’t fight, then you might as well be dead.

Ledo accidentally winds up on Earth, which is now completely covered by sea. The people who find him are the crew of a fleet of ships known as Gargantia, and they are unwilling to trust him at first. Without any way of getting back in touch with the Galactic Alliance, he has to adjust to these new people’s way of life in order to gain their trust.

As you can imagine, Ledo is initially an awkward and unsympathetic character. Even though he experiences a lot of character development as the show progresses, the show is so short with 13 episodes that we still don’t really get a sense of what Ledo wants to become, which is a real shame considering how much this show focuses on him. Does he want to be a fighter for justice? Does he even come to understand what justice is from an Earthling’s perspective? Does he simply want to protect Amy? The show never answers this question.

Chamber is the mecha that Ledo pilots and has an intelligence of his own. He actually gets the second most character development of the show after Ledo, which is strange considering he is a freaking robot. He is well beyond anything Earthlings have seen from a technological perspective. Chamber somehow manages to be a pretty likeable character, and you actually feel bad for him when he *spoiler* dies at the end of the show. */spoiler*

Amy is the girl who takes a liking to Ledo pretty quickly after meeting him and serves as Ledo’s main romantic interest. She teaches Ledo a lot about Gargantia and how the people of Earth live. She works as a mail deliverer along with her 2 friends, Melty and Saaya. The show never gives us any background for Amy’s life or how she met her friends. In fact, the only role that Melty and Saaya seem to serve is emphasizing how hot Ledo is and how lucky Amy is that Ledo likes her.

Amy also has a little brother named Bebel who is sickly and has to move around in a wheelchair. He serves as the big wake-up call for Ledo to realize that there is more to people than just how well they can fight. As Ledo points out, Bebel would have been discarded had he been in the Galactic Alliance. Bebel is a curious boy who helps Ledo come to see value in humankind beyond military capability.

Pinion is one of the few characters that actually has a bit of a backstory, which reveals why he wants revenge against the whalesquid. Another character who gets some backstory is Ridget, who becomes commander of Gargantia later in the show. Neither of these characters is terribly important to the overall story, though, and the other characters are even less so. I don’t even know why Bellows exists. What purpose does she serve?

Lukkage is probably a fan favorite due to her don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, but even she doesn’t add anything to the overall plot. She is a pirate who is initially a bad guy that attacks Gargantia. Then, she joins Gargantia, though I have no idea why they would let someone who attacked them before join their fleet. Then, at the end of the last OVA released this year, she decides to split from Gargantia and return to her pirate ways. Yeah, it makes little sense, but that’s her character arc.

Kugel ends up being the main antagonist of the series, though he doesn’t even come into play until Episode 10. One of the OVAs focuses on how he becomes leader of a fleet on Earth. Though he is initially hesitant about the idea of leading a group of people, he eventually succumbs to the temptation of being treated like a god by the people he leads.

The first 6 episodes of the anime focus on Ledo adjusting to life on Earth. There is a heavy amount of world-building in this part of the anime, and the pacing of plot development is very slow. This pacing seemed to suggest that this was going to be an anime with something more like 24 episodes instead of just 13. The anime seemed to be setting up for some very interesting developments later down the road during this part. There was even a budding romance between Ledo and Amy developing.

However, the plot development started ramping up in Episode 7, and by Episode 10, the pacing was kicked up to full throttle. When things come to a sudden conclusion in Episode 13, I thought to myself, “Was that really it?” The really unfortunate thing in this anime is that almost everything that was built up in the first 6 episodes is shoved aside and takes a back seat to Ledo’s face-off against Kugel and his rejection of the Galactic Alliance’s way of life, even Ledo’s romance with Amy. So much of the potential that we felt bubbling up in the first part of the anime goes to waste.

I don’t believe I have ever seen an anime make such a jarring transition between two extremes in pacing like I did with Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. It was as if the first 6 episodes belong to a completely different anime than the last 7 episodes. In the latter part of the anime, events unfold so briskly that we don’t even get a chance to contemplate what is going through each of the characters’ minds.

For me, the biggest offense in the latter section of the anime happened when Ledo and Pinion’s crew reject Kugel’s request to adopt them into his society. I think the writers handled the way Ledo and Pinion’s crew come to the decision to rebel against Kugel poorly. First, there was no reason for Kugel to attack Gargantia without first trying to lure them to his side with diplomacy the same way he did with Ledo. Since there were only 3 episodes left at this point, though, they probably figured they couldn’t fit any negotiating into the story.

The people in Kugel’s fleet are unhappy, and many of them are suffering through disease. With this, the writers had an opportunity to examine Kugel’s people in depth from a sociological perspective and use this as motivation for Ledo to move closer to the decision to rebel against Kugel. Again, time was limited at this point, so the writers had to come up with a quicker way to justify Ledo rebelling against Kugel. Instead, they simply showed some people being thrown overboard as sacrifices. It was a cheap way to make Kugel look like a bad guy. It would have been much more interesting if they had gone more along the lines of the second OVA, which portrayed a more human side to Kugel. Instead, the sacrifices turned Kugel into a one-dimensional antagonist, which is very unfortunate.

The breakneck speed of the pacing towards the end of the anime doomed Gargantia and the Verdurous Planet to miss some big opportunities, which include developing Ledo and Amy’s relationship into a real romance. I think there were some things they could have cut out of the first 6 episodes, such as the whole subplot with Fairlock turning the reigns of captain over to Ridget, so that they could spend more time fleshing things out after Ledo finds out the secret of the Hideauze. Then, they wouldn’t have needed to rush things so badly towards the end. It would have allowed the writers to avoid making Kugel such a one-dimensional antagonist.

Of course, this anime also would have been served well if it had more episodes. Then, we could have learned more about Amy’s life and her relationship with her friends. They could have developed Ledo’s relationship with Bebel more. They could have explained Ledo’s thoughts and feelings better when he reunites with Kugel. There are a handful of missed opportunities that could have been handled better had the writers had more episodes to work with.

I also watched the two recent OVAs titled ~Meguru Kouro, Haruka~, and I like them even less than the original anime. I was pretty indifferent to everything that happened in these OVAs. They introduce a new character named Reema who tries to get Ledo and Amy to join her fleet known as “the Land.” She mainly wants Ledo because of his familiarity with the military technology he lived with as a member of the Galactic Alliance. There is still no development of Ledo and Amy’s romance in these OVAs, and very little character development occurs.

This anime faced a unique visual challenge from the fact that it takes place almost entirely on a planet covered in water. There is the space fight at the beginning, which is highly appealing visually, but then everything happens on a planet with no landscapes. Anything noteworthy from an artistic perspective would have to come from the giant fleets of ships, and the anime pulls this off with a great amount of success. The ships are detailed and intriguing to look at. It was interesting to see the innards of the ships when the characters explore the vast ships and venture into the shopping and residential areas. The one criticism I have for the art is that, sometimes, the quality isn’t the greatest when the characters are in the background. Still, I would say the art and animation quality is pretty good overall.

I also think the music is good. The opening and ending songs are pretty meh. Well, I guess I like the ending song a hair. The music during the show matches the action well.

There are some things I like about Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. I like that it mostly avoided the common tropes you see in other anime. The character designs look more like actual people than you typically see in anime. Because of these things, I think this show holds quite a bit of appeal to a Western audience. I like the story, too. Granted, there will be those who complain that this story has been done before with the likes of Fern Gully and Avatar. Nonetheless, I think the story had a great amount of potential to make this anime a truly memorable one.

The problem is that the execution was poor. The characters were not fleshed out well enough, and even when they did try to give some backstory on the side characters, it ended up feeling like it was for nothing. The pacing is some of the worst I have ever seen in an anime. There were too many missed opportunities for this to be considered a high-quality anime. I think this show would be a lot more popular here in the West if the execution hadn’t missed on so many levels.

Still, I think the story is good enough that Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet is worth a shot, especially for Western viewers. I would recommend trying out a few episodes and see if it’s something you want to stick with. Don’t bother with the ~Meguru Kouro, Haruka~ OVAs, though.

Rating (13 episodes and 2 OVAs): 6.5/10 Rating (~Meguru Kouro, Haruka~): 5/10

[didjunoanime]

Steins;Gate visual novel review

Steins;Gate is a visual novel developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus and originally released on the Xbox 360 in 2009, which is unusual for a VN since they are almost always released on PC before moving to any consoles. It was later released for PC in 2010. JAST USA provided the first English localization for the VN, releasing it in North America for PC in 2014. Just a few months ago, PQube released the game on PS3 and PS Vita in North America. I played the PS3 version.

I have not been afraid to deviate from the prevailing mindset on certain VNs and anime in past reviews (my Rewrite review is an excellent example of this), but in this case, everything you read about the great storyline and everything else people praise about Steins;Gate is 100% true. I have to agree with what other reviewers have been saying all along about this VN; it offers an experience that is very difficult to rival. However, I hope to cover at least a couple points in this review that you won’t see in other reviews.

Steins;Gate offers multiple branching routes, but it is different from the likes of Clannad and Rewrite because, in those visual novels, you played through a common route and then entered one of the character routes that would last as long or maybe even longer than the common route, as the common route mainly existed to familiarize you with the characters and the world they live in. In Steins;Gate, however, the character routes are quite brief compared to the main linear story and do not serve as ultimate conclusions to the story. Only one route, the true ending, offers a true conclusion to the story.

Another unusual aspect of Steins;Gate is the cellular phone gameplay element that is a feature of the VN. At most points throughout the game (there are a few times where Okabe has been separated from his phone or something else is going on when the phone feature is disabled), you can pull out Okabe’s cell phone (there are rare cases where you even have another person’s cell phone). On Okabe’s phone, there is a menu with four icons, three of which you can select. I have no idea why that fourth icon is there. One icon gets you to the mail menu where you can view e-mails you have received as well as ones you have sent out. Due to the time travel aspect of this game, some e-mails will disappear as you travel between world lines. Another icon lets you look at your contact list. You will use this when the game requires you to contact a specific character. The third icon gives you a menu where you can change settings on the phone such as wallpaper and ringtones.

You will use this phone to determine which route you take. When I first started playing this VN, I assumed it was going to present scenarios where I had to respond to a character by selecting one of multiple choices on the screen. After playing four or five hours into it without seeing any of these decision points like I had seen in Clannad, Rewrite, or Katawa Shoujo, I figured that I must be missing something. I searched the Internet to find out what I should be doing. It turns out that there are specific points where the game hints that you should use your phone to send certain D-mails (the term Itaru and Makise coined for e-mails sent to the past using their time travel invention). If you click through the text without sending the D-mail, you will end up with a certain character’s ending. Furthermore, the Makise ending and the true ending require you to respond to Makise’s e-mails throughout the game in a specific way. Some of the e-mails you receive in the game will have certain words hyperlinked, i.e. colored blue and underlined, which makes them selectable. The response that Okabe writes to the e-mail depends on which hyperlinked word you select.

I should warn you that this review will be spoiler-heavy as I cover the story of Steins;Gate. If you have not played this VN, look out for the *spoiler* */spoiler* tags so that I do not spoil anything for you.

For now, let’s cover a few of the characters in the VN, starting with the excellent main protagonist of the series, Okabe Rintarou. He is probably my favorite main protagonist of any VN I have played so far. Yes, he has chuunibyou, but he has a certain charm that is infectious. At first, it seems like he is so wrapped up in his unfounded conception of this entity known as “the Organization” that he, to some extent, at least, sees everyone he meets as pawns in this grand delusion. As the VN progresses, we come across some information that only serves to give these fantasies some basis in reality as we learn about SERN and the Committee of 300. When confronted with the undeniable threat that SERN presents, Okabe is forced to do things he never dreamed of enduring when he was merely acting like a chuuni. We see healthy amounts of character development as we learn just how important Okabe’s friends are to him and how much he cares about each of them. We sense the incredible internal struggle Okabe goes through as he wrestles with the fates of each of these characters given the power he never imagined he would have with the invention of a time machine of sorts.

Despite this, Okabe’s chuunibyou personality never completely escapes him. I found myself laughing pretty often whenever he busted out his maniacal laugh. Mamoru Miyano, who had previously done voice work with Kingdom Hearts, did an awesome job as Okabe’s voice actor! Okabe is charming and funny, but he is also a very relatable character.

In high school, Okabe met a huge nerd and otaku named Itaru Hashida. Because of Itaru’s awesome hacking skills, Okabe wants him to join the Future Gadget Lab. Itaru hesitates at first, but later joins after Okabe informs him that the lab is a short distance from MayQueen+Nyan2, the maid café that he frequents. Itaru mainly serves as comic relief, though he does play an important role in revealing SERN’s secrets about time travel.

There is also one important female character that does not have her own ending: Moeka Kiryuu. She is the hottest girl in the VN, and she has an eccentric personality that will appeal to a lot of people. She doesn’t like speaking with people and prefers sending e-mails to communicate, even when she is face-to-face with the person with whom she is communicating. I found it amusing how, after she becomes a member of Okabe’s lab, she would listen to one of Okabe’s discussions with the lab members and frequently send e-mails throughout the discussion. Okabe will be interrupted a lot if you decide to read all of Moeka’s e-mails in the middle of his conversations with others. Due to her quickness of typing on her phone, Okabe calls her Shining Finger. He also calls her “mail demon” due to how frequently she sends e-mails to him.

Later on, you find that Moeka is actually a very dark character. She was a suspicious character to begin with due to her obsession with the IBN 5100 computer, and later on, all your questions will be answered as you find out how desperate she is for a purpose in life. She doesn’t like to talk to people because she doesn’t want anyone to see how empty and pitiful she is. Her sorrowful story of being manipulated adds a surprising amount of depth to a character that doesn’t even have her own route. Moeka presents a complete and unique wrinkle to the raging debate of morality among Steins;Gate fans, as morality is another important dimension to this story.

The other main female characters all have their own routes, so I will discuss them later when I cover the story of this VN.

The overall story of Steins;Gate can be divided into two distinct sections, and the second section begins in earnest when a certain alert flashes on the TV and a certain group of people come barging through the door of Okabe’s lab. If you’ve played this visual novel, you know what I’m talking about. I have seen quite a few complaints about the first section. People claim that it’s boring and drags in comparison to the second section. This is one case where I have to disagree with the consensus. From the moment we see Makise lying dead in the prologue all the way until the last line of the true ending, I was completely engaged by this VN. Even though the plot does progress faster in the second section than in the first, I still felt the first section was highly entertaining in its own way.

I should mention that I know a lot about otaku culture, I am into cool sci-fi shit, and I know a lot about the different physics theories presented in this visual novel. If none of that applies to you, then you probably won’t enjoy the first section as much as I did. If those things do apply to you, though, then the first section has a lot to offer. Even if you are not familiar with any of the otaku references or physics theories throughout the VN, it does a good job of introducing the concepts in the tips list.

I still think there is something for everyone in this first section because it presents question after question and mystery after mystery for you to ponder as the story progresses. I don’t care who you are, finding out about SERN’s secret experiments with humans and the “jellymen” is just fucking cool…and it’ll freak the shit out of you, too! Makise’s death, which you learn about as early as the prologue, is an extreme example of the mysteries you wrestle with throughout the VN because it does not even get addressed again until you reach the true ending. Makise’s death will always be in the back of your mind, though, and when the moment comes that it is finally brought up again, you’ll be like, “Holy shit.”

I was frequently trying to connect accounts of phenomena explained from different perspectives to each other. I suppose if you wait for the VN to feed you everything, then you may find the first part boring. For me, however, I can’t help with a story like this but try to think of all the possibilities for where the story is going and try to figure out solutions to the mysteries before the VN reveals the answers. This is one of the great successes of the storytelling in this VN: the pacing of when new mysteries are presented and when they are resolved assures that not a moment goes by when you feel withdrawn from the constantly evolving plot.

Another thing I really liked about this VN which I haven’t seen discussed in other reviews is how real-life culture and events have been incorporated into the story. I mentioned the physics theories before, which are heavily based in real theories that exist today, but there is also the location in which this story is set, Akihabara, which is a real district in Japan. This district is the go-to place for otaku to meet their shopping needs and get their fill of moe culture. Akihabara has lots of shops for anime, manga, and video games, and it also features plenty of maid cafés. You can look up pictures of Akihabara and see how the art in Steins;Gate is heavily based on actual locations in Akihabara.

There is a world line that Okabe visits where the moe culture has disappeared from Akihabara, and the district is instead a place more known for electronic goods, which is what real-life Akihabara used to be like. It even presents a fictional account for how Akihabara transformed from a place known for just electronic goods to a haven for moe culture. If you’re into learning about Japanese culture, this is a really cool aspect of the VN.

Another feature of Steins;Gate that is heavily based in reality is the John Titor story. At first, when the VN introduced John Titor, I thought he was just something the writers made up, but something tipped me off that there might be more to John Titor than I originally thought. I searched the Internet and found that there really was someone who appeared on several Internet forums back in 2000 and 2001 that went by the name John Titor. He claimed to be a time traveler from the year 2036, just like in the VN. Even the descriptions of his time machine and his understanding of the nature of the universe in the VN are identical to the accounts he gave in his numerous forum posts. The twist the VN presents is that SERN has come to control time and creates a society with no personal freedoms where everybody can coexist. The John Titor in the VN is fighting to assure this future never comes to pass.

Even SERN is based on an actual organization, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN for short. They did, in fact, build a large underground facility called the Large Hadron Collider. I even remember the hoopla in the lead-up to completion of the LHC. Some people were worried that they might create micro black holes, and then people imagined the worst with full-on doomsday scenarios. Of course, nothing like this came to pass, but Steins;Gate dared to ask, “what if CERN really did intend to create micro black holes with the LHC?” I found it very interesting to read about the various stories behind Steins;Gate such as the story of John Titor.

Time travel is a very difficult thing to pull off without some plot holes rearing their heads, especially in a plot as complex as Steins;Gate, but this VN manages to present a plot with a high amount of internal consistency. I found two questionable moments in the plot, and the first one is actually in the prologue when Okabe sends his first D-mail that pushes him from the Beta attractor field to the Alpha attractor field. This D-mail effectively saves Makise from being killed. We find out late in the story that it’s not the D-mail itself that causes the change in worldlines. It is actually *spoiler* SERN intercepting the D-mail that causes the worldline to change. However, SERN takes no action that directly affects any events leading up to Makise’s death. It could be argued that, by creating the dystopian future that Suzuha experiences which causes her to travel to the past and inadvertently save Makise by crashing the time machine into Radi-Kan, SERN did, in fact, indirectly save Makise. The problem with this argument, though, is that, in all the other cases when a D-mail caused the worldline to change, there was a direct reaction to the D-mail that caused events to change, leading to a new worldline. In this case, however, there was nothing SERN did differently up to the point of Dr. Nakabachi’s conference that caused a change of events, namely saving Makise. Instead, it was Suzuha traveling back from 2036 within that worldline that caused the important change. In other words, the future caused itself, which is a paradox. */spoiler*

As I skim back through the text of the VN, it strikes me how nothing in Steins;Gate is wasted. Every scene and every moment has a purpose, whether it is revealing a new mystery, providing answers to a previously established mystery, world-building, or character development. This just makes me wonder how anyone could say that the first half of this VN is boring, as I had mentioned earlier. It would be a disservice to skip or skim through anything in this VN because you are liable to be confused about something later on if you miss anything as you read through. It’s OK if you forget some details, though, because this VN also does a good job at going over old conversations again at crucial moments when you need to remember a specific detail. This way, you never feel like you are lost in the complex plot.

One minor criticism I have is that there are a couple moments towards the end of the first part of the story where Okabe receives an e-mail from an unknown sender claiming that he knows too much and is being watched. These e-mails also contain an attached picture of something that does not pertain at all to the story. One is a picture of gelatin, and the other is what appears to be the bloodied head of a doll. Neither of these things have any relevance to the story, so I don’t know why images of these things would be attached to these e-mails.

It is never revealed who the sender of these e-mails is, but we can presume they were from someone within SERN because we later learn that *spoiler* SERN knows about Okabe’s experiments and want to use Okabe and his friends for their own time travel research. */spoiler* It doesn’t make sense for SERN to send these e-mails, though. What good could possibly come from Okabe being alerted to the threat that SERN poses? If anything, this would be detrimental to SERN’s plans. I understand the reason the writers put these e-mails in the story. They wanted something to foreshadow the upcoming havoc that SERN would wreak upon Okabe’s life. They should have taken a different approach, however, because there is no reason for anybody in SERN to go out of their way to send Okabe a couple threatening e-mails. It comes off as cheap shock value. Neither of these e-mails have any impact on the overall story, though, so I consider this a very minor concern.

Along with the aforementioned issue involving Okabe’s first D-mail, the other questionable plot hole I found is this part shortly after Okabe receives the first of those weird threatening e-mails where *spoiler* Itaru discovers that Okabe’s lab has a direct connection to SERN’s server in France. SERN did not even know about Okabe until Itaru receives his first D-mail on July 23. Itaru discovers the direct line to the SERN server on August 10. That means SERN had 18 days to install all the cable needed for this connection. This is, of course, not nearly enough time to do something like that, so that would mean SERN had to travel further back into the past to pull it off. Did SERN do this to enable Makise to invent the time leap functionality of the PhoneWave? Without the direct connection to the SERN server, Okabe and the others would not have had access to the Large Hadron Collider, which was necessary for Makise to execute the process for time leaping. What does SERN stand to gain from this, though? Were they afraid of a time paradox if they never traveled back in time to install this line to Okabe’s apartment? This seems like the most plausible explanation since allowing Makise to complete the time leap machine appears to only hurt SERN by giving Okabe an avenue to thwart SERN’s plans as he repeats the past over and over. */spoiler* The VN never provides an explanation for this, so I’m left to wonder why they even included this part in the story. They could have simply said that Itaru’s hacking skills are so awesome that he didn’t need a direct connection to SERN’s server to use the LHC for Makise’s time leaping. Putting the direct connection in there only serves to unnecessarily complicate the plot.

Once it is revealed that *spoiler* SERN wants to force Okabe and the other lab members to help them devise a time machine and that they’re willing to dispense with Mayuri’s life, */spoiler* the plot becomes much more action-packed. As Okabe was trying to find a way to *spoiler* get Mayuri away from SERN’s dirty henchmen, known as the Rounders, */spoiler* I found myself hooked in much the same way I was when I was playing Muv Luv Alternative. It was difficult to tear myself away from the TV because I just had to know what was going to happen next. I was so invested in the characters by this point that I was literally yelling at my TV. One point that really got me worked up was right after Okabe *spoiler* time leaped for the first time. He kept telling himself that the events leading up to the time leap were just a dream. Then, when it happened all over again the same exact way it did before he time leaped, I was yelling, “Okabe, you fucking idiot!”

In one of the scenarios where *spoiler* Mayuri dies, the Rounders don’t shoot her but instead kidnap her. SERN eventually uses her in one of their human experiments, and Okabe receives an e-mail with a picture showing Mayuri as a jellyman. */spoiler* This is another case where I felt the writers used unnecessary shock value. I thought it cheapened Mayuri as a character, as this made it seem like Mayuri was just a tool to motivate Okabe to resist SERN. It also made SERN look malicious in a way that is not seen at any other point in the story. SERN is an organization hell-bent on finding a way to travel through time, and they will use whatever means necessary to achieve that, but this just made it look like they were out to fuck with Okabe.

After it has been established that *spoiler* Mayuri dies, no matter what Okabe tries to do, */spoiler* we enter what can be considered Suzuha Amane’s arc. Suzuha is a mysterious girl who is pretty athletic and likes to ride her bicycle a lot. It’s difficult to talk about her without spoiling a bunch of stuff, but I can say she is an easygoing person. Okabe nicknames her Part-Time Warrior due to her describing herself as a soldier of sorts and working part-time at the Braun Tube Workshop for Yuugo Tennouji (Okabe nicknames him Mr. Braun).

This is the part where Okabe starts having to wrestle with some really deep issues, namely *spoiler* erasing certain experiences from people’s past. He sees this as sacrificing their memories to save Mayuri. As this struggle unfolds, you are given the option of refusing to choose between Mayuri’s life and Suzuha’s memories. */spoiler* If you take this option, then you end up in Suzuha’s ending, which occurs in Chapter 6. This is the darkest ending in the VN because Okabe feels like he can live without consequences due to the fact that he can time leap whenever he wants. He gives consideration to both watching people die and raping someone in this ending. It is also the most inconclusive ending, as it ends with Okabe deciding to *spoiler* travel back in time with Suzuha, and it leaves whatever happens when he goes back to the past completely open. */spoiler* The struggle with SERN reaches no resolution. This is, of course, an unsatisfactory conclusion to the story of Steins;Gate, but if you go back and make the decision to erase Suzuha’s memories of her time with Okabe and the others, then you continue to Chapter 7, and the story moves on.

Chapter 7 can be considered the Rumiho Akiha arc. Rumiho is much more commonly called Faris NyanNyan (though it should be spelled Feiris or Feyris since Faris will inevitably be mispronounced like “Ferris wheel”). Faris is a chuuni much like Okabe who works as a waitress at the MayQueen+Nyan2 maid café. She is the most popular maid there and has a bunch of male admirers. Itaru is a huge fan of Faris and takes a lot of flack for it from Okabe since he seemingly can’t decide between his 2D waifus and 3D Faris. She takes no shame in using her charms to bend men to her will. Even Okabe, who is more level-headed around Faris than most guys, falls victim to her tricks a couple times.

All the maids at MayQueen+Nyan2 act like catgirls, but the strange thing about Faris is she acts like a catgirl, even when she’s not working at the café. She does open up to Okabe in Chapter 7, though, and lets him see the real Rumiho instead of the catgirl act. Okabe is presented with an even more difficult decision than he was in the Suzuha arc because he finds that *spoiler* Faris’ D-mail saved her father from death, so undoing the effects of her D-mail will put her father back to death. */spoiler* If you decide against undoing her D-mail, then you enter the Faris ending. This was an interesting ending for a couple of reasons. One reason is that *spoiler* Okabe decides to send a D-mail that transports him to a worldline where he never became friends with Mayuri, Itaru, or Makise. However, he is in a romantic relationship with Faris in this worldline. This is in contrast to the Suzuha ending, where no romantic relationship is implied. The fight against SERN is still not resolved, but this is a really bittersweet ending that forces you to think if it would really be for the best for Okabe to sacrifice all of his friendships to save Mayuri and Faris’ father and have a chance at a future with Faris by his side.

Another interesting facet to this ending is the fact that one of the digits in the divergence meter disappears when you go to this worldline. There is no other case when the worldline changes that this happens. It also happens to be the most important digit in the number, the one before the decimal point. Is the divergence 0.275349, or is it 1.275349? Or could it even be 2.275349? My guess would be that it is probably 1.275349 since Mayuri has presumably been saved. If it was 0.275349, then Okabe would still be in the Alpha attractor field, which means Mayuri would still die. */spoiler* This ending leaves you with a bit of a mystery for you to try figuring out.

One thing I did not like about this ending was that the romance between Okabe and Faris felt forced and rushed in at the last minute. Okabe and Faris have little chemistry together, so their relationship didn’t feel genuine.

If you choose to proceed with the D-mail to cancel the effects of Faris’ D-mail about being kidnapped, then you proceed to Chapter 8, which is the Luka Urushibara arc. Luka is a guy who wishes to be a girl, and *spoiler* after he sends his D-mail, he does become a girl. In Chapter 8, Okabe is dealing with a female Luka. */spoiler* Luka has a very unusual relationship with Okabe that seems at first like Okabe is just screwing around with Luka, making him/her practice swinging a fake sword that he gave him/her for no apparent reason. In Chapter 8, however, you find out the story behind why Luka does the sword swinging and why he/she is in love with Okabe. He/she is a huge crybaby who seems to have had a rough childhood in the worldlines where he is a male due to his gender identity issues.

You can interpret Luka’s character in one of two ways. You can see him/her as a way to shed some light on the touchy subject of gender identity, or you can see him/her as a bad attempt to lure the futanari and yaoi fans into wanting to play this VN. Personally, I did not like Luka much. He/she was a useless character who serves no purpose other than to add another arc/ending to the VN. I wish the writers had him/her help Okabe in some way to save Mayuri or be involved in the fight against SERN. Instead, Luka was just fodder for Mayuri to use her cosplay costumes on.

That doesn’t mean I thought the Luka ending was bad. It’s an ending where Okabe is *spoiler* tired of having to sacrifice people’s memories and simply gives up trying to save Mayuri. */spoiler* Okabe also knows that, if he cancels Luka’s D-mail, Luka goes back to being a male who has to deal with the pain of loving a heterosexual guy who will never return his love. Okabe’s decisions just become more and more agonizing as the story progresses, and the writers did an excellent job at getting the reader to sense the struggle and the pain Okabe has to endure with each of these difficult decisions. In the Luka ending, we see Okabe embrace a future with *spoiler* no Mayuri but with an intimate relationship with female Luka. */spoiler* This is yet another bittersweet ending where the SERN issue is not resolved.

I did think it was heartwarming how Luka took inspiration from Okabe, even when Okabe was acting like a silly chuuni. It’s a good example of how something you might consider small can impact another person’s life in such a profound way without you even realizing it. So I do think there is something to be taken from the Luka arc/ending, even if I didn’t care much for Luka as a character.

If you go back and send the D-mail to change Luka back to a male, then you will proceed to Chapter 9, which is the Moeka arc. As I explained before, Moeka does not have her own ending. However, you do learn about her dark past, and you also witness Nae Tennouji, Yuugo’s daughter, turn into a psycho bitch. Nae’s story is pretty outlandish considering the number of times she claims to have used the time leap machine. How did she manage to access the time leap machine that many times without a single hinderance?

Okabe confronts his final heart-wrenching decision in Chapter 10, and if you are astute, you will see this coming before Okabe realizes it. *spoiler* By escaping the attractor field in which Mayuri dies, Okabe will return to the worldline where Makise dies. While Okabe had faced choosing who dies between two people before when he chose to save Mayuri over Faris’ father, this is an even more agonizing decision because both of them are good friends. Okabe had only talked to Faris’ father maybe a couple times, so losing him wouldn’t mean nearly as much to him as losing Mayuri or Makise.

After Okabe ultimately decides to follow through on saving Mayuri, sacrificing Makise’s life, we witness this climactic scene where Itaru uses the IBN 5100 to hack SERN’s database and lets Okabe do the honors of deleting his first D-mail from the database. */spoiler* This scene stands out because of the great voice acting Mamoru Miyano provides for Okabe. One final time, Okabe gives a silly chuunibyou speech, but by this point, the reader is 100% behind him. We sense the eagerness and exhilaration in his voice. It feels like each silly yet emphatic word is coming from within you. You know that everything that has happened in this long story has led to this moment, and as he strikes that key to delete the D-mail, the sense of satisfaction is so intense, it’s hard to describe!

Assuming you didn’t trigger Makise’s flag back in Chapter 4, you then proceed to the Mayuri Shiina ending. Mayuri met Okabe back when she was around 9 or 10 years old, so Okabe has been friends with Mayuri for longer than he has with anyone else in the VN. Mayuri is a ditzy girl who likes making costumes for cosplay and talks really slowly. It was amusing watching the English subtitles slowly appear across the screen as she talked because of how slowly she would speak. Mayuri doesn’t contribute anything intellectually to Okabe’s lab, but Okabe recognizes her as a stabilizing presence for him. She is also very observant, and Okabe knows that he cannot hide any feelings from her because she will always notice when he is hiding something.

Okabe and Mayuri have an interesting backstory together that lends itself well to developing a potential romantic relationship between the two. She also works at MayQueen+Nyan2 as a waitress with Faris. She is my favorite female character in the VN. Yes, that means I like her more than Makise. So sue me.

In Mayuri’s ending, *spoiler* the dystopian future with SERN taking control of everything has finally been averted. Okabe and Mayuri become lovers. It is the happiest and most satisfying ending so far. However, Makise is dead. Does this mean that, in the Makise ending, Okabe refuses to delete the D-mail from the SERN database and lets Mayuri die so that Makise may live on? */spoiler*

First, let me explain how to reach Makise’s ending, because it’s not as easy to reach as the other endings I have talked about so far. With the other endings, you simply clicked through a part where Okabe is supposed to send a D-mail, or, in the case of Mayuri, you send all the D-mails when you’re supposed to. I was able to figure out how to get these endings without consulting a guide, but I spent several hours trying to figure out how to get Makise’s ending and came up empty. There are several calls and e-mails you receive from Makise throughout the VN, and figuring out which of those is the flag you need to trigger takes forever because there is no way to know you’ve even triggered the flag unless you skip all the way to the end and see if you get a different ending than the Mayuri ending. Even if you know that triggering Makise’s flag occurs in Chapter 4, you still have to skip through 6 chapters to reach the end and find out if you indeed triggered the flag. I had to look up what I needed to do on the Internet, but I won’t tell you exactly what you need to do to get Makise’s ending. Instead, I will give you enough hints so that you don’t end up wasting hours figuring out if you hit the flag or not.

Makise sends Okabe a string of e-mails in Chapter 4, and you need to respond to the correct hyperlinked words in each of those e-mails to trigger the flag. The chance of you hitting all the correct responses in the first try is only 1 in 24, so it will probably take at least a few tries to hit the flag. When you do successfully trigger the flag, though, you will receive the Genius Girl’s Melancholy trophy on PS3. I don’t know if there is an equivalent achievement on the PC version or whatever other versions are out there, but on the PS3 version, I would save the game as soon as you see that you have received that trophy, because that means you are on the route to Makise’s ending.

Triggering Makise’s flag also gives you several extra scenes throughout the VN that get more into Makise’s relationship with her father. Sadly, Makise’s ending doesn’t bring Makise’s drama with her father to a conclusion. You will have to wait until the true ending for that.

Makise Kurisu is a tsundere who spends a lot of time studying science because she wants to help her father with his time travel research. Her specialty is neuroscience. Because of her studies involving time travel, she is intrigued by Okabe’s accidental discovery of a device that can send e-mails to the past. She is an anime fan, though she doesn’t like to admit it. It’s adorable how she tries to cover up her otaku side. She is, in particular, a Dragon Ball Z fan, judging from her @Channel name.

She doesn’t like when Okabe does his chuuni spiel, and Okabe does not hesitate to tease Makise about it. This leads to some very humorous moments between the two. In fact, that’s another thing I haven’t really bothered to mention yet: how funny this VN is. The writers did a wonderful job at balancing humor with the drama, and the humor draws us more to each of the characters. Much of the humor comes from the banter between Okabe and Makise. For example, there’s this one part where Okabe calls Makise and starts speaking chuuni stuff to her. She hangs up on him, and when he calls her again, she says that she thought he was some prank caller talking nonsense. You can’t help but laugh at how uptight Makise is when Okabe acts like a chuuni.

Makise’s ending *spoiler* is barely any different from Mayuri’s ending. Okabe still decides to save Mayuri and sacrifice Makise. The only difference is Okabe falls in love with Makise instead of Mayuri, so this is a really sad ending because Okabe has to live with the death of the girl he loves. */spoiler* I don’t even think this ending was necessary since it is so similar to the Mayuri ending. If you’re going for 100% completion like I did, then of course you should get the Makise ending. If not, then you should consider just skipping the Makise ending and go straight to the true ending.

To get the true ending, you have to first trigger the flag I talked about to get the Makise ending. Then, there are 5 additional flags you have to trigger later on. None of them individually are as difficult as that first one, but you’ll still spend hours trying to figure them out unless you look up what you need to do. The 5 additional flags occur in Chapters 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10. I’ll leave you to look up how to trigger those flags. I did happen to notice that, when you receive an e-mail that indicates you have triggered one of the flags, pushing X will not close the e-mail. On all other e-mails, pushing X closes the e-mail. So if you’re intent on trying to figure out the flags yourself, you can use that as a hint to figuring out if you triggered the flags or not.

In the true ending, the mystery surrounding Makise’s death is finally resolved, and the plot gets really fucking complex. The plot during the true ending is reminiscent of Back to the Future because Okabe actually travels back in time himself instead of just sending e-mails back in time. Knowing the circumstances surrounding Makise’s death from the prologue, you may be able to guess what is going to happen before it actually happens. When *spoiler* Okabe is trying to defend Makise from her father and he manages to take her father’s knife away from him, I had a bad feeling that Okabe was going to accidentally stab Makise, which would be the cause of her death. What I did not anticipate was that she would actually jump in front of her father as Okabe was trying to stab him.

Then things get really weird when Okabe receives a D-mail from his future self instructing him on how to save Makise. I have talked about a couple plot holes I found, but I also wanted to give an example where the writers did a superb job of keeping the complex plot internally consistent, and this moment in the story is where I can point out an excellent example. Okabe could have sent this D-mail to himself before he went back in time with Suzuha the first time, but, as the future Okabe points out, he would have erased everything he went through in the Alpha attractor field because he never would have sent that D-mail to Itaru, and he would have never been motivated to save Makise in the first place. Thus, to avoid a paradox, Okabe sends himself a D-mail after he already stabbed Makise. Then, when Okabe travels back in time a second time, he travels to a worldline with a slightly different divergence than the previous one. Though it becomes difficult to follow at this point, the writers made sure there were no plot holes here.

Shortly before Okabe confronts Makise’s father for the second time, he finds that his plan to use one of his “future gadgets” for fake blood is not going to work. This is where I guessed that, when Okabe gets the knife away from Makise’s father again, he is going to stab himself and use his own blood to fake Makise’s death. Instead, he just lets Makise’s father stab him. */spoiler* Again, I was not too far off.

I was hoping for something more than what I got in the true ending. After everything that happened in this VN, it felt rather hollow to me. Even though *spoiler* Okabe and Makise reunite at the end, Makise knows almost nothing about Okabe since all their experiences together were wiped out in the Steins Gate worldline. It is hinted that everyone has the Reading Steiner ability to a small extent as Makise subconsciously remembers something about Okabe, but their romance is not rekindled. There is no way to know if Okabe has any future now with Makise, Mayuri, Itaru, or any of his other friends now since the lab never did their time travel experiments in this new worldline. */spoiler* I was hoping things wouldn’t be left so ambiguous.

Moving on to the art, Steins;Gate has a unique art style that is hard to describe. There are little spots of light color littered all over the art, and the characters’ eyes have no pupils and look very unusual. I haven’t watched the anime adaptation, but I have seen a few clips. It will definitely take some adjusting to get used to the anime because the art style is completely different in the anime. I really like the art style of the visual novel. The backgrounds you see when Okabe is out and about in Akihabara are detailed and nice to look at. The mouths also move to match the voices, which you never see in older VNs.

The soundtrack for Steins;Gate is solid. A large variety of electronic instruments and songwriting techniques were used in the music. However, there aren’t any particular songs in the soundtrack that really stand out like there are in Clannad, Narcissu, or Rewrite. If I had to choose one song, I would go with “Gate of Steiner,” which is the main theme song for the VN. It shows up in various forms throughout the VN. Another song I like is “Technovision,” which is only played once in the VN during a scene where Okabe and Mayuri are running away from SERN’s henchmen. It’s simple, but it has a lot of style.

I bought this VN for $40, which is higher than most VNs I have seen here in the West, and some people will probably consider $40 a steep price for a game like this. Since visual novels are a niche market in Japan, they need to price these pretty high to make a profit on these things. Personally, I think $40 is justified for the many hours you will spend unraveling this amazing story accompanied by awesome art. However, if you’re wanting to experience Steins;Gate without shelling out money, or perhaps you want to read a little of it before deciding if you want to purchase it, there is a website called Let’s Play Archive where the entire script has been typed out (except for a few parts deemed NSFW). It also offers plenty of screenshots. Go here to check that out.

In conclusion, 5pb. and Nitroplus delivered a staple in the science fiction genre with Steins;Gate. It has a tremendous amount of style and a well-thought out story. If you are a sci-fi fan, Steins;Gate is a must-play. It has well-executed drama and plenty of humorous moments that add charm to the awesome cast of characters. It has one of the best main protagonists you’ll ever see in Okabe Rintarou. This VN was riveting and an absolute joy to play! I had to get pretty picky for most of my criticisms, but mainly the lackluster conclusion and the good but not great soundtrack keep this from being a perfect 10 out of 10. The minor criticisms don’t detract from the immensely entertaining experience this VN offers, though. I highly recommend Steins;Gate to everyone who is interested in visual novels.

Rating: 9/10

[didjunoanime]

In an upset for the ages, Eru Chitanda became the 2015 International Saimoe League champion! I was rather pleased with her victory because she was the only one besides Kosaki Onodera in the Tiara Finals that can actually be considered moe. I suppose, to a lesser extent, Makise Kurisu and Yoshino are moe, as well, but Eru is probably the most moe out of all the contestants in the Tiara Finals. Let’s face it; her opponent in the final match, Yukino Yukinoshita, is an unlikable character from a mediocre anime. I have absolutely no idea why the fuck she was supported so much throughout the entire year.

The victory felt quite hollow, however. You should read through the ISML forums as the action unfolds in the tournament. It is absolute madness. You’ll find loads of crazy talk about anti-votes, strategies, and sabotaging other contestants. They were talking about how Eru might have been the weakest winner of the Tiara in the history of ISML. You know you’ve got issues with your competition when the participants themselves don’t even buy the results.

You may wonder how these people could possibly know how many of the votes in a match were due to people anti-voting a specific character without actually going out and talking to the people who voted. In the case of the final match between Eru Chitanda and Yukino Yukinoshita, however, I think they have a point. You see, before the competition even began this year, ISML announced that there was going to be a Tournament of Champions after the normal Tiara events had concluded. This tournament was going to feature only previous winners of the Tiara.

Well, one of the issues ISML is battling right now is swarms of people with shit taste that blindly support a single girl and vote for every other match in a way that they perceive will be beneficial to that one girl they support. Namely, there are three girls that are supported by masses of crazed voters like this: Kanade Tachibana, Misaka Mikoto, and Ruri Gokou. I can understand the support for Kuroneko because she’s actually really moe. As for Misaka, I’ve never seen her anime, so I won’t comment on her. However, Kanade…I don’t know what the fuck to say about that. It makes no sense at all, but people come out in swarms to vote for Kanade.

I don’t think there are as many supporters for these 3 girls as it would first seem, though. It’s just that their supporters are so dedicated that they will cheat their way to victory by taking advantage of the poor accountability inherent in a voting system executed over the Internet. It’s not like a national election where everyone is assigned a specific poll location and each voter is checked to assure they each only vote once. When you hold a vote like this over the Internet, all the vote-counters have to go by are IP addresses. Well, it’s easy for people to change IP addresses via proxy servers. Someone can submit 30 votes, change the contestants they are voting for each time except for one match where they vote for the one girl they support in all of their 30 votes, change their IP address each time they submit a new vote, and there’s no way for a vote-counter to know that those 30 votes all came from the same person. Because of this, a competition like ISML is always going to be susceptible to multi-voters, and you’re going to get skewed results. You can make efforts to weed out apparent multi-voters, but you just know there’s no way that process is entirely accurate.

In round 8 of the Emerald period, these Kanade, Misaka, and Kuroneko supporters finally had a reason to come storming out of their caves and participate in ISML. There was a qualifier match during this round that featured Kanade, Misaka, Kuroneko, and the other past winners of the Tiara. The three with the most votes out of the eight contestants would move on to the semifinals of the Tournament of Champions. Well, you can guess which three moved on. In fact, none of the other five even came within 4000 votes of Kanade, Misaka, or Kuroneko. It’s fucking pathetic. Then, to prove how shitty this wave of voters’ taste is, they went and voted Shitoge Kirisaki as the winner of the Emerald necklace. I guarantee you, Shitoge would not have won the necklace had they not held the qualifier match for the Tournament of Champions in the same round, bringing out the masses with shit taste. Shitoge ended up getting a necklace she didn��t deserve, and I got told to suck a guy’s dick for being a Shitoge hater. No, sir, you should be the one sucking a dick for having shit taste.

In the Tiara finals, Yukino had a couple close encounters with Eucliwood Hellscythe and Yoshino. There may have been a few Yukino anti-voters from the Kanade, Misaka, and Kuroneko crowd that came out early, but they won out in the end because the number of participants that voted in the final round was comparable to the number that voted in round 8 of the Emerald period when they had that qualifier match.

Think about it. If you’re a rampant Kanade, Misaka, or Kuroneko supporter, and you want to employ a strategy to get your girl to win the Tournament of Champions, do you want the girl who went undefeated in the Regular Season and is clearly the favorite to win the Tiara, Yukino Yukinoshita, facing off against your girl in the Tournament of Champions? No, so they came out in that final match and assured that Yukino would not take part in the Tournament of Champions. That’s why you saw a number of voters in that round similar to the number that participated in round 8 of the Emerald period. It didn’t matter who Yukino’s opponent was. It could have been Kosaki Onodera, or it could have been Shitoge Kirisaki. It didn’t matter.

Eru Chitanda went 28-7 in the Regular Season, good for rank #4 in the Stella Division. That’s respectable, but it’s clear she didn’t have the support that Yukino had throughout the season. I like Eru, but Yukino should have beaten Eru to win the Tiara. Instead, the Kanade, Misaka, and Kuroneko supporters have assured that the fourth contestant in the Tournament of Champions poses little threat to them. Eru Chitanda may very well get beat by several thousand votes when she faces off against Kuroneko tomorrow.

ISML screwed up by announcing the Tournament of Champions before the season began. They should have waited until the Tiara had been decided before announcing it. That way, the crazed Kanade, Misaka, and Kuroneko fans wouldn’t have influenced the outcome of the Tiara or the Emerald necklace.

I will praise ISML for one thing, though. They did the right thing by excluding past winners from the Regular Season this year. If Kanade, Misaka, and Kuroneko fans are going to vote solely for their selfish desire to see their one girl through instead of for which girls they actually think are the most moe, then they need to be removed from participation. They got lucky in 2014 when Kotori Itsuka defeated Kanade in the final match since people finally asked, “Hey, why the fuck should we vote for the candidate who has already won this tournament before?” But if people are going to vote like that, then why have a contestant who has won it before compete again? Removing past winners ensured that supporters of other girls would have more fun participating in ISML since they would not be sabotaged by the swarms of crazed Kanade, Misaka, and Kuroneko fans.

Despite that, I think ISML is still a very flawed tournament. If I were put in charge of ISML, I would completely redo the rules. ISML as it stands just is not a fun experience for many people. It sure as shit wasn’t fun for me. The three girls that I consider god-tier waifus – Tamako Kitashirakawa, Mikuru Asahina, and Kotomi Ichinose – all got eliminated by the end of the Preliminary Phase. If none of your girls make it to the Regular Season, then you’re stuck with several grueling months of voting for girls you don’t give a shit about. I was stuck with just one girl I really cared about in the Regular Season: Kobato Hasegawa. Well, guess what happened to Kobato. She only won 8 matches, so she didn’t even come close to making the postseason. The only girl out of the original 14 I nominated that made it to the postseason was Rikka Takanashi. Well, she got eliminated in the Division Finals, so I had nobody I cared much about in the Tiara Finals.

The bottom line is, if you’re not a Kanade, Misaka, Kuroneko, or Yukino supporter right now, ISML is probably going to suck for you. That’s the problem with ISML: it’s only fun for the supporters of a very select few girls. Chances are that your favorite girls are going to get eliminated before the Regular Season, so you’re stuck going through several months of voting for the same damn 72 girls that don’t include any of your favorite girls.

I understand it’s a difficult problem to solve. You want to have multiple matches per round because finding patterns in people’s voting to eliminate multi-voters is much easier when you can look at how people voted in multiple matches. At the same time, though, having multiple matches in a single round opens matches up to being sabotaged by people executing their selfish strategies instead of just voting for the best girl. It’s a damned if you do/damned if you don’t situation.

Still, due to cheaters skewing the results, the possibility of your girls getting sabotaged by die-hard supporters of a select few other girls, and the long Regular Season that makes you spend way too much time voting for girls you don’t give a shit about, I cannot recommend anyone participate in ISML, even if you are into moe culture. This was my first year participating in it, and due to my experiences with it this year, it will also be my last. If you could somehow assure that there is a 1-to-1 relationship between the number of votes cast and the number of individuals who voted, I think it would be a more enjoyable experience. As it stands now, though, ISML is not worth the trouble.

[didjunoanime]

Love Live! Season 1 review

Yes, I have ventured to the dark side of anime. Love Live! is the first idol anime I have watched, as I imagine it is the first for many others, as well. Over the past couple years, Love Live! has been the ultimate media franchise in Japan, arguably surpassing even Miku Hatsune’s popularity to take over the idol world. It started out back in 2010 as a promotion in Dengeki G’s Magazine, which published information and short stories to familiarize the readers with each of the members of the idol group μ's. They released singles with accompanying animated music videos, then started doing full albums in 2011. Just earlier this year, they had a “best of” album reach #1 on the Oricon album chart. Love Live! went on to spawn two mangas, two seasons of anime as well as an OVA and a film, two video games (School Idol Festival and School Idol Paradise), and a light novel. I am reviewing the first season of the anime.

The first season of Love Live! consists of 13 episodes created by studio Sunrise, the studio that brought you Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, and InuYasha. This season covers how nine girls become members of the school idol group μ's. These girls are students at the all-girls school Otonokizaka Academy. The fact that it is an all-girls school leads a bunch of fans to ship lesbian relationships between some of the characters, such as Nico x Maki, that have no basis in anything tangible, though I guess the fact that the girls never discuss boys at any point doesn’t help. The writers did this, though, because there’s this stigma in Japan that idols are only attractive if they are innocent and have never been “corrupted” by men. If they even hint that there’s a specific guy they like, that destroys the fantasies of all their fans. Thus, Love Live! completely avoids any suggestion that its idols might be into certain boys.

Anyways, Otonokizaka Academy is under threat of having to shut down, so one of the girls gets the idea that the school can be saved by grabbing prospective students’ attention through a school idol group. The girls later find that they’re actually starting to gain fans and rise in the school idol popularity rankings. As the season progresses, the question arises: should μ's stop at saving the school, or should they capitalize on their rising popularity and continue performing for their fans?

As you might imagine, there is plenty of fighting amongst the fandom on who the best idol in μ's is. Everyone has their favorite girl. I admit the memes and videos for one girl in particular convinced me to start watching this anime. I will go over each of the nine idols in chronological order of when they joined μ's, rank them in order from favorite to least favorite, and reveal which of them was the one who got me into Love Live!

Honoka Kousaka My ranking (from 1-favorite to 9-least favorite): 6 Honoka is the girl who first came up with the idea to start a school idol group. She gets her two friends, Kotori and Umi, to join her in her mission to save the school, so μ's starts out as a 3-idol group. Honoka is fiercely driven to get μ's off the ground and acts as the vocal leader for the group until towards the end of the season when some drama goes down. Her hobbies are swimming and collecting stickers, and her favorite food is strawberries.

Kotori Minami My ranking: 3 Kotori is a gentle, caring girl who initially serves as the choreographer for μ's and also designs the costumes they wear for the concerts. She is highly fashionable and also the hottest girl in the group with the possible exception of Eli, though she has a very unusual hairstyle. Her favorite food is cheesecake. I like Kotori because she seems like the ideal girl to take care of you since she exudes this aura of kindness.

Umi Sonoda My ranking: 8 Umi is initially hesitant to become an idol but ultimately decides to go along with Honoka, though she seems to hold a grudge with Honoka throughout the season because of it. She even says this to Honoka’s face in the last episode of the season. She is the main lyricist of the group. She is also very smart and athletic. She excels in dance and archery, the latter of which serves as the basis for her signature catchphrase “Love arrow shoototototo!” That catchphrase is the only cute thing about her, though. I don’t like her because she is such a downer most of the time and is so negative about everything.

Hanayo Koizumi My ranking: 4 Hanayo has been an idol fan for a long time, but she is initially too shy to tell Honoka, Kotori, and Umi that she wants to join μ's. She has poor self-esteem, which makes it so heartwarming when she overcomes that to achieve her dream of becoming a school idol. She initially wears glasses but does away with them after she joins μ's, though I think she is better suited with glasses. Her favorite food is rice. I like Hanayo because her shyness is so cute, and she is deserving of a spot in the idol group since she is so knowledgeable about idols.

Rin Hoshizora My ranking: 7 Rin is Hanayo’s best friend and acts like a catgirl, which is strange because it seems at odds with her tomboyish personality. She is energetic, athletic, and good at sports, but she is poor at academics. Her favorite food is ramen. Of all the girls, Rin is the biggest unknown because very little is revealed about her character in the first season.

Maki Nishikino My ranking: 5 Maki is a tsundere, which automatically makes her a lot of people’s favorite character. She belongs to a rich family that expects her to inherit their hospital in the future. This makes her hesitant to join μ's at first because she wants to focus on her future. However, she ends up writing the idol group’s first song, “START:DASH!!” and ultimately becomes the main songwriter for the group. She is very intelligent, and her hobbies are playing piano, photography, and stargazing. Her favorite food is tomatoes (WTF?).

Nico Yazawa My ranking: 1 Yes, Nico is the idol that Nico Nico Nii’d me into watching Love Live! She, like Hanayo, has been into idols for a long time. She was one of the founding members of the Idol Research Club but ultimately drove off all the other members of the club because of her overwhelming determination to become an idol. She manned the Idol Research Club alone for a long time and initially thought of μ's as a group of amateurs. She is a polarizing figure because she often comes off as boorish, though she only acts like that because of her insecurity and inferiority complex. She has an alternate personality that she views as her “idol personality” complete with her infamous “Nico Nico Nii” catchphrase. She is also good at cooking, and she likes any food that is sweet.

Nico is my favorite because she does what she wants to do despite what anyone else thinks about it. Yes, she wants people to like her, but she ultimately stays true to herself, and I very much relate to that. She is very blunt like me, too. If she thinks you’re an amateur, she’s going to let you know as much. She is also very funny. I love all the epic faces she makes throughout the anime. Furthermore, she is the cutest of all the idols. Her idol personality is so adorable!

Nico is also the idol that ultimately gave μ's what it needed to go beyond merely a school idol group bound to save the school. She showed the others how to act like a true idol and gave them the drive necessary to compete with the top school idol groups in Japan. She is the only member that was driven to become an idol in every sense of the word, outside of maybe Hanayo. Before Nico, μ's really was just a group of amateurs. She turned them into a real idol group. Nico truly is the #1 idol in the universe!

Eli Ayase My ranking: 9 Eli is the school council president who is one-quarter Russian. She grew up training to be a ballerina, which is much of the reason why she initially views μ's as amateur dancers. When she becomes a member of μ's, though, she uses her background in ballet to become the choreographer and dance trainer. Her hobbies are quilting and crafts, and her favorite food is chocolate.

Eli is my least favorite because she is stuck up and full of herself. Her attitude toward μ's is not justified by her background in ballet because ballet and the type of dancing idols do are totally different. You can’t compare the two. Yet, she gets it in her head that μ's sucks since they don’t do ballet, and she even abuses her power as school council president to hinder them because of it. On top of that, she is the one that makes Nico the most insecure about herself. So Eli can go fuck herself…or me, since she’s hot. Either one works.

Nozomi Toujou My ranking: 2 Nozomi is the school council vice president and Eli’s best friend. She is supportive of μ's throughout the season in spite of Eli, though she ends up being the last one to join the group. She uses fortune telling as a way to quickly make friends. I like Nozomi because she is the most mature of all the idols. She never lets emotions get the best of her and always approaches problems with confidence and calmness. This makes her an important friend to Eli since even Eli sometimes needs a voice of reason, and she can always rely on Nozomi for that. I admire girls that are emotionally stable and rational like Nozomi.

Those rankings are subject to change upon viewing of the second season or whatever else may change my mind about the characters. Nico is solidified as my favorite idol, though.

One of the strengths of this season of anime is that, despite having only 13 episodes, it manages to balance time very well amongst the 9 idols, giving you a reason to care about each of them with the exception of Rin. Love Live! isn’t plot-heavy as it focuses solely on the idol group’s quest toward saving Otonokizaka Academy. The episodes that do not develop this plot are spent familiarizing you with the characters so that you feel a connection with each of the idols.

I was successfully drawn into rooting for μ's to succeed. I felt the tension when the existence of μ's was threatened near the end of the season, and it was interesting to watch how each of the girls reacted to the situation. Obviously, character development in a 13-episode season with 9 main characters to develop is going to be limited, but I felt they did as well as you could hope for within those limits. With 9 different girls with their own unique personalities, chances are you will connect with at least one of them.

Since this is the only idol anime I have seen, I am in no position to try comparing it to other idol anime such as THE iDOLM@STER. This anime does get into some aspects of what it means to be an idol, such as the smile you always have to wear and the cute act you have to put on. It also doesn’t shy away from the reality of the possibility of failure and relegation to obscurity.

The animation wasn’t always high quality, but overall, it was pretty good. Some people complain about the CG-animated dance sequences, but I didn’t mind it. The choreography in the dance sequences is good. Sunrise has been around a long time now, so chances are they’re going to give you something that is at least visually solid.

As for the music, I’m not a fan of J-pop, so I didn’t care for most of it. In fact, my favorite song from the anime isn’t even one of the μ's songs. My favorite song is “Private Wars” by A-RISE, the school idol group that tops the popularity rankings in this anime. I don’t know much about J-pop and K-pop, but from what I read, “Private Wars” has more of a K-pop flavor to it than the μ's songs. If you’re going up on stage to perform in front of thousands of people, you want “Private Wars” pulsing out those speakers because that song screams, “Look at me! I’m a fucking bad-ass idol,” unlike the weak shit μ's sings. Sorry, μ's, but if you ever want to surpass A-RISE’s popularity, you’ll have to step up your music game (I’m looking at you, Maki)!

Love Live! is a great gateway into idol culture, and it has served as a surprisingly pleasant experience for many people like me who were initially hesitant about getting involved in idol culture. Sure, there isn’t much plot and character development, but this anime could have just beaten you over the head with fans screaming and a predictable rise to stardom. Instead, Love Live! gives us a human experience with friendship, strife, and a fun cast of characters, each with their own obstacles to overcome. On top of that, the Love Live! fandom is a very fun one to join, even if they do go overboard with the lesbian shipping. I recommend giving this anime a try, as I feel it has enough to offer for many people to find something they like.

Rating: 7/10

[didjunoanime]

Date A Live Season 1 review

Date A Live is an action, harem, and comedy anime from studio AIC PLUS+ with 2 seasons, though I will only be reviewing the first season. The first season has 12 episodes of pure, wacky, nonsensical lunacy. I put off reviewing this anime for a while because it's pretty difficult to form coherent thoughts on a series as random and crazy as this one. I watched the English dub from Funimation. Let's kick this off with the cast of characters, which is one of the biggest strengths of this anime. The characters in this show are very interesting, to say the least.

The main protagonist is Shido Itsuka. If you're familiar with the harem genre, then Shido will pretty much fit the mold that you'd expect, as he is a highly typical harem protagonist. He offers nothing out of the ordinary and has little depth as a character, so I won't spend any more time on him.

Kotori Itsuka is Shido's sexy-ass little sister who at first seems like a carefree, happy-go-lucky girl until Shido finds out that she is secretly the commander of an organization called Ratatoskr that exists to seal away the powers of the Spirits. Spirits are alien beings that always take the form of a human female. Where do they come from? Who the hell knows? Date A Live explains very little about Spirits, just like it explains very little about pretty much everything else in its story. Spirits frequently cause these disasters called "spatial quakes" that destroy anything within a specific radius around the Spirit, so there are lots of people committed to dealing with these Spirits as quickly as possible so they don't cause too much havoc.

How in the world did Shido go so long without finding out that his freaking sister is the head of this operation? Again, who the hell knows? Later on, we find out that Kotori has a pretty dark past, but I won't spoil that here.

Tohka Yatogami is the first Spirit that Shido encounters. After Shido finds out about Ratatoskr, he is recruited to take these Spirits on dates. Yes, that is Kotori's approach to dealing with Spirits. She gets Shido to take them on dates, and when Shido kisses them, their powers become sealed so they don't cause any more spatial quakes. The premise is quite similar to The World God Only Knows' premise of Keima Katsuragi conquering girls' hearts to capture loose souls that escaped from Hell. TWGOK was much better in the romance department, though, and was a more entertaining series overall.

Tohka is a vulnerable, gullible, likeable, and very cute character who quickly takes a liking to Shido. Even after Shido succeeds in sealing Tohka's powers away, she still wants to continue a relationship with Shido, so Shido continuously has to entertain her desires. There is even a moment right at the end of the season when Shido almost kisses her, which suggests that she is the main girl with whom Shido is destined to get in a relationship.

Origami Tobiichi is a mostly quiet girl who is a member of the AST, a group of fighters that take a different approach to dealing with Spirits. Instead of trying to establish relationships with the Spirits, the AST just uses brute strength and tries to kill the Spirits. Because of this, they are often in conflict with Ratatoskr.

You see a completely different side of Origami when she is around Shido. When Shido was first learning how to interact with girls so that he could take Spirits on dates, he tested his skills on Origami. Shido awkwardly asked Origami on a date, and Origami complied without a moment's hesitation. After that, Origami can't help herself when she is around Shido.

Origami is such a funny character! It's hilarious how she is normally a quiet, shy girl but gets so aggressive around Shido. Her English voice actress, Michelle Lee, did such a great job with her. I suppose you could say it was a relatively easy role since her voice is monotone all the time, but she still nailed it.

The biggest highlight of this series, in my opinion, is the interactions between Origami and Tohka. Since they both like Shido, they get in fights with each other, and they are so funny! Origami often takes advantage of Tohka's gullibility when they're bickering at each other. For example, there's one part where Origami tries to imitate Shido's voice and make it seem like Shido said something bad about Tohka. It's so obvious that Origami said it, but Tohka is completely oblivious and can't believe Shido would say something like that. It might be the funniest moment in the whole season! If they made a spin-off series featuring just Tohka and Origami, I would be all over it, because those two are just so damn funny together!

Yoshino is the second Spirit that Shido saves. She is a generic shy, cute girl who always has a puppet on her hand named Yoshinon that she cannot live without. If she is separated from Yoshinon, she is liable to cause a spatial quake. She causes further jealousy among Tohka and Origami.

Kurumi Tokisaki is a psycho bitch who has to eat people to stay alive. She often seduces guys before killing and eating them. A lot of people liked her, but I did not. There was no depth to her as an antagonist. In fact, I didn't see any point in her existence as a character in this anime. Maybe that would change if I watched the second season, but Shido never gets anywhere with her in the first season. It seemed like Shido's confrontations with her throughout the anime were for naught.

It is pretty clear from the beginning who the target audience of Date A Live is. When Shido is dating Spirits, he is in constant contact with Ratatoskr, and when the Spirits ask him a question, the Ratatoskr command center pulls up three possible choices for a response and relay to Shido which response they think is the best one. Sounds a lot like a dating sim, right? Well, that's exactly who Date A Live is after: dating sim fans. There is even a love meter that measures how much the Spirits have warmed up to Shido. How could they possible gauge something like that without some device connected to the Spirits' brains? Again, who the hell knows?

Date A Live is a series that does not take itself seriously at all, which is why barely anything is explained. There is nothing wrong with this as long as the show executes its comedy well. Date A Live is a hilarious show. I mentioned the banter between Tohka and Origami before, but also the absurdity of Ratatoskr's approach to dealing with Spirits as well as that one perverted guy in Ratatoskr's command center make this show one of the funniest I have ever seen. Just the humor alone is where I give this show most of its points in my numerical rating.

The problem with Date A Live, however, is you also get these weighty moments like Kurumi's homicidal rampages and Origami's quest for revenge against Kotori that lead to some serious tone balance issues. If the show is not taking itself seriously, then why are they trying to sporadically push this melodrama on us? I felt like the show would have been a lot better if they had just stuck to the absurd premise of dating Spirits to save the world and being funny instead of trying to pass off this extra crap like the crazy bitch Kurumi and the backstory with Kotori being invaded by a Spirit.

Visually, this is a very appealing series. The color palette used is very vibrant and enticing to look at, and I liked the character designs a lot. The animation is high quality.

The music was decent. I didn't care much for the opening or endings, but they weren't bad.

I don't really have anything else to say about this anime. The plot is just random crap, so it's not really worth breaking down and analyzing any of the plot points. If you're looking for laugh-out-loud silliness, then Date A Live will certainly fill that role. I just wish the anime had stuck to being a comedy series because that is, by far, what it did best. Kurumi and the conflict between Kotori's Spirit and Origami should have been left out.

Seriously, though, give me that spin-off sitcom with Tohka and Origami. That would be the greatest thing ever!

Rating: 6.5/10

[didjunoanime]

Charlotte review

Here I am going back to yet another effort from the visual novel/anime studio Key. They have produced nothing that I have liked lately, yet I keep coming back for more of their stuff. Why is that? What is the deal with Key?

Key is such a fascinating subject because never have I seen an entertainment company so revered after giving us one masterpiece (Clannad), another good visual novel (Planetarian), one good anime adaptation of a visual novel (KyoAni's adaptation of Kanon), and mediocrity at best (poorly written drivel at worst) for everything else. Over 11 years ago, they gave us an absolute masterpiece with Clannad. People often forget that the same year Clannad came out, Key also released Planetarian, which won't floor you like Clannad will but has a nice story and very good presentation for a visual novel released in 2004. Key hit it big that year with those 2 visual novels, then stuck largely to what they had already been successful with when they released Little Busters! in 2007, another widely acclaimed effort. By the time 2010 came around, people were worshipping Jun Maeda like a god.

It is understandable that, after Air, Kanon, Clannad, and Little Busters!, which were largely similar works, Key would want to try something new, and they could afford to do so with their legion of fans ready to worship anything they put out at this point. So they decided to do an original anime series called Angel Beats! This is when shit really started unraveling for Key. They had interesting ideas and a premise that had tons of potential, but they wanted to stuff it all into a 13-episode series, and it ended up being a mess. Fans didn't care, though; they ate it up.

Angel Beats! is the most mind-boggling thing I have ever seen in the world of anime. I watched the first 5 episodes and then dismissed it as pointless crap. Yet, over the next few years, I would see swarms of people sing its praises and act like its the greatest fucking anime of all time. I wondered, "It only has 8 more episodes. Could those 8 episodes really have produced something so different from the first 5 episodes that it could be considered such a great anime?"

Then I played Rewrite. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as Clannad, but I figured it can't be that bad. Almost everyone who reviewed it seemed to think it was great. I was left wondering what was so great about it. It had such poor writing, I didn't understand how so many people could heap praises upon this visual novel.

Then I caved in to all these damn people saying Angel Beats! is the greatest thing ever and finally watched it the entire way through. Once again, I was floored by how something that seemed so beloved by everybody could be such utter drivel.

Now you might be wondering why I'm going on about this when this is supposed to be a review of Charlotte, the new original anime from Key. There are two reasons. One is that, since Angel Beats! is the only other original anime that Key has produced, people will inevitably compare Charlotte to Angel Beats!, and I will follow suit because Charlotte does have some similarities to Angel Beats! The other reason is that watching Charlotte and seeing the ensuing reaction to it has made me realize something about Key and its fans. I will discuss this realization at the end of the review.

Charlotte, like Angel Beats!, is a 13-episode anime series. It has elements of drama, slice-of-life, romance, and comedy in it, though it is not quite as heavy on romance as previous Key efforts. In this anime, there are a small number of teenagers who have superpowers that they lose when they become adults. Scientists have tried to experiment on these people, but this normally leads to bad psychological effects on the subjects of these experiments. After learning of what happens to people who are used by these scientists for experiments, some of the people with superpowers tried different ways to protect anyone else with superpowers from being discovered and used for experiments. Eventually, an academy was established where students with superpowers could go and not have to worry about being captured and used for experiments.

There are only 3 characters in this anime that are central to the story: Yuu Otosaka, his little sister Ayumi, and Nao Tomori. I think Key learned their lesson from Angel Beats! about not going overboard with too many characters that mean practically nothing to the story, but there are still a couple characters that provide nothing more than comic relief.

Yuu is the main protagonist who uses his superpower to cheat his way through high school. After meeting Nao, he becomes a student at Hoshinoumi Academy, the school for people with superpowers. He evolves from a shallow guy into someone who cares for others and accepts great responsibility. This character development is more than we ever see from Angel Beats' protagonist, Yuzuru, and much of this development is sparked by his experience with his sister, Ayumi.

Ayumi is a bit airheaded but so adorable! While it seemed like everyone else was drooling over Nao for whatever reason, I was posting pics of Ayumi on my Facebook page because she is just too damn kawaii. I don't know how you could not want to protect her.

After watching the first 5 episodes of this anime, it seemed like things were heading very much in the same direction that Angel Beats! went in its first 5 episodes. We had the crappy baseball episode, and nothing happened that would be consequential to the rest of the story. The first 5 episodes did accomplish one thing, though, which would be amplified greatly after the events of Episode 6, and that was attaching me to Ayumi. I was so mad that they would *spoiler* kill off the most kawaii girl of the season */spoiler* in Episode 6. It really made me feel bad for Yuu in Episode 7. Before going over the rest of the story, though, I want to finish introducing the rest of the characters.

Nao Tomori is the student council president of Hoshinoumi Academy who, personality-wise, is very similar to Yuri Nakamura from Angel Beats! She's not nearly as kawaii as Ayumi, but for some reason, all the guys went gaga over her. She uses a camcorder to record people that she suspects may have superpowers so that she can bring them to Hoshinoumi Academy before the scientists catch them. She becomes the object of Yuu's affection, but she puts up a hard front until the very end when she finally gives in.

Another thing that Charlotte did better than Angel Beats! was make the main ship of the story, Yuu x Nao, much more believable than Yuzuru x Kanade. It did feel like there was some genuine chemistry between Yuu and Nao, whereas the love between Yuzuru and Kanade was forced upon us at the last minute. It was still nowhere near Tomoya x Nagisa (Clannad) level, though.

Along with Yuu and Nao, the other 2 characters in the student council are Yusa Kurobane and Joujirou Takajou. Yusa is a pop idol who has a run-in with some obsessed fan chasing after her and a TV producer before Nao gets her to transfer to Hoshinoumi Academy and join the student council. Yusa also has a sister, Misa, who died in a motorcycle accident. Yusa's superpower is that she can bring Misa back from the dead to possess her body, while Misa's superpower is that she can wield fire. Neither of these superpowers are used for anything important in the story, though, and Yusa is relegated to comic relief after Episode 3.

Joujirou is another useless character that is only there for comic relief, but he doesn't even get a backstory like Yusa did. His "big" contribution is being a huge fan of Yusa and behaving around Yusa in ways that Nao finds disgusting. If you're familiar with Key, you know how prone they are to beating jokes to death, and the big joke they beat to death in this anime is how disgusted Nao gets when Joujirou and others have fan moments over Yusa, which often involves Nao physically abusing Joujirou.

Yuu has an older brother he has forgotten about named Shunsuke. Shunsuke's superpower is the ability to rewind time (much like Homura Akemi) and he used this ability many times trying to find a way to keep people with superpowers from being captured by scientists. Eventually, he decided to found Houshinoumi Academy, but he was afraid of people finding out the purpose of the academy, which was to protect people with superpowers. He felt it was necessary to erase any memory Yuu and Ayumi had of him to protect himself and the academy, hence why we don't find out about him until Episode 9.

Kumagami is Shunsuke's best friend and helps him carry out his plan to protect others with superpowers. His superpower is the ability to locate other people with superpowers. He is a mysterious character that we never learn much about.

To continue on with the story, Episodes 6 through 10 are where this anime shines. We feel for Yuu, who is suffering after *spoiler* the death of his sister. */spoiler* We get some resolution on the plight of Nao's brother, Kazuki. We learn about the threat Yuu and Ayumi faced from scientists wanting to experiment on them and what Shunsuke did to protect them. This all culminates in *spoiler* Yuu stealing Shunsuke's ability to rewind time, then going back to save Ayumi. Obviously, I was very happy when Ayumi was saved. */spoiler* We actually had some good pacing and a sense of direction in the plot with these 5 episodes.

There were several bad plotholes and things that didn't make much sense during these episodes, however. The first offense happened in Episode 7, in which, at the end, we find out that Nao observed Yuu the entire time he was having his breakdown. She didn't even interfere when he was threatening people with violence. Really? Nao is totally cool with sitting back and watching as all this shit happened in Episode 7 without wanting to do anything about it?

Then, in Episode 8, Yuu brings the lead singer of Zhiend, Sara Shane, to see Kazuki. She sings a song for Kazuki, which supposedly helps lead him toward recovery. Unfortunately, the writers never bring this sidestory to a complete conclusion. Was he able to make a complete recovery? The last we hear about Kazuki is in Episode 10, when Nao mentions that he is "steadily heading towards recovery."

Then, when Yuu *spoiler* rewinds time, that wipes out everything he did with Sara and Kazuki. */spoiler* So does this mean that Kazuki is not recovering now? Kazuki is not even mentioned in the remaining 3 episodes, so they left a nice big hole there.

It's very difficult to pull off time travel without plotholes. We have numerous examples of movies and anime proving how difficult it is, and Charlotte is no different. The final 3 episodes of the anime go through a whole new arc involving people from other countries with superpowers forming terrorist groups. Why did these terrorist groups not exist in the other timeline? Huge plothole there.

One more plothole I'd like to mention that maybe not everyone picked up on was how Yuu was able to *spoiler* save Ayumi from the psycho bitch who tries to kill her. */spoiler* There was nobody around when Ayumi *spoiler* activated her collapse ability in Episode 6, so nobody saw psycho bitch try to kill Ayumi. Yuu sees the psycho bitch walk by at one point and recognizes her as the one who tried to kill Ayumi, so he plots to hide in a locker and jump out just before she tries to kill Ayumi. */spoiler* How could he possibly have known that this is what happened?

I should also mention that the whole plot point with the psycho bitch liking some guy who devotes his attention to Ayumi instead of her was thrown in with no character development at all on either the psycho bitch or the guy she likes. They rushed that shit in just to have a reason to *spoiler* kill Ayumi off. */spoiler*

So after 5 episodes that were flawed but reasonably paced, we were left with 3 final episodes in which to pack an entirely new arc, and, as you might expect, it was horribly rushed. Yuu traveled around the whole world stealing everybody's superpowers in literally a single episode. They were concluding the arc before we even had a chance to get into the action and what was going on with the terrorists.

Despite these flaws, I still feel like it wasn't nearly as bad as Angel Beats! Key tried not to do too much like they did with Angel Beats! with disastrous results. This resulted in a more straightforward story and less characters packed into one anime. It even allowed Key to have a period of 5 episodes where the pacing was executed reasonably well. Even though there were some similarities to Angel Beats!, namely the style of humor and structure of the first 5 episodes vs. the rest of the anime, I think Charlotte is superior to Angel Beats! in every facet with the exception of music.

The animation studio that did Charlotte was P.A. Works, the same studio that did Angel Beats! If you read my review of Angel Beats!, you know that I was not impressed with the visuals and art in Angel Beats! I think they did a much better job in Charlotte with character designs and visuals. The music, on the other hand, I was largely unimpressed with.

After I wrote my scathing review of Angel Beats!, I finally started seeing more and more people seemingly coming out of the woodworks to admit that Angel Beats! was a disappointing and poor effort. I thought, "Finally, I'm not the only one who recognizes Angel Beats! for the drivel that it is." Then, after finishing Charlotte and watching the reaction and reviews roll in, I found that a lot of people were reacting rather negatively to it. They didn't like how flawed the plot was and how rushed the pacing was toward the end. I even saw one person who commented that he couldn't believe Key could put out something so poorly written. I thought to myself, "How can you be so surprised after the poorly written efforts of Angel Beats! and Rewrite?" Why did people not apply this same level of criticism back when Angel Beats! came out? Then I realized something.

Clannad is widely beloved for its amazing stories, but the thing most people remember about Clannad is the "feels" and how it made them cry. They don't remember that Clannad was also very funny, had amazing animation, and had the greatest soundtrack ever (OK, some people remember the great music). I imagine people also remember Little Busters! mostly for the "feels." By the time Angel Beats! came out, Key had a reputation for being the "feels" studio. That's what people wanted from whatever Key produced. People were still so enamored by Kanon, Clannad, and Little Busters! that it clouded their judgment and made them incapable of viewing any future efforts without being biased and applying nostalgia from previous Key efforts. Angel Beats! gave us a mess of a plot and no reason to care for the characters, but it delivered that heartwrenching moment right at the end that sent fans swooning, never mind that it would have been so much more heartwrenching if everything before that moment had been written and executed better. Key fans had their "feels" moment, and that was all it took for them to proclaim Angel Beats! the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Well, now it has been 11 years since Clannad and 8 years since Little Busters!, and people are finally starting to apply some reason when judging Key efforts, and you see the results when you read negative reviews of Charlotte. Taking a step back and looking at the last 11 years, one has to acknowledge that this is all just a testament to how incredible Clannad really was that it would leave fans blinded like this for such a long period of time!

I said that Charlotte, is superior to Angel Beats! in almost every way, but that does not make it a great anime. It still had some of the flaws that you saw in Angel Beats!, and it proves that Key needs to get away from the 13-episode anime series, because they're just not good at it. They ought to be devoting at least 20 episodes to any anime series they write. They sure as hell need to drop the trend of making the first 5 episodes mostly pointless with little to no plot progression.

I'm on the fence about if I should recommend this anime or not. If you read the criticisms I gave and they don't turn you off too much, then I say go for it. If you're new to Key, though, I would recommend going for their older stuff since it is much better.

Rating: 6/10

[didjunoanime]

If anybody is interested in seeing me live-streaming a playthrough of Steins;Gate, go to my Ustream channel and follow me!

[didjunoanime]

Huge news for Western visual novel fans: Sekai Project is bringing G-senjou no Maou to Steam very soon! This is one of the big ones; many Western fans list it among their top favorites. I can't wait to try it out myself. Also, Sekai Project is looking to bring Narcissu 3rd and a future 4th installment of the series to the West! Hooray for Sekai Project, am I right, folks?

[didjunoanime]

Some thoughts on Katawa Shoujo

I won't do a full-blown review on this visual novel since I didn't play the Rin route, but I think there are some things that should be mentioned. Katawa Shoujo is a VN released in 2012 by Four Leaf Studios, a group of people who met on 4chan that had never made a VN before. It is free to download, and the makers spent little to no money making it. Since 2012, this VN has become the stuff of legends on the Internet. It is #5 on the popularity rankings of vndb.org, the premiere visual novel database website.

Many people have remarked that this VN is better than a lot of VNs with actual budgets. For a group of people who have never created a VN before to get together and complete a VN of this scale is undoubtedly impressive, but let's not kid ourselves. After playing through four of the five routes, I can say that this VN doesn't stack up to works from the big VN makers like Key and Type Moon. It's pretty obvious that there was no budget for this VN.

I can sum up Katawa Shoujo in one word: boring. The writing in this VN is so utterly uninspired and hollow. You can tell that the writers had played Japanese bishoujo games before and wanted to create a generic VN that strictly follows the same things you see in your typical Japanese bishoujo game. Bland male protagonist, high school setting, choices that determine which girl you end up with, and h-scenes with each of the girls; everything was followed to a T.

Now, you can do this and still come up with a good VN if your heart is in the right place, but it definitely was not with Katawa Shoujo. A good story needs a personal touch, but nothing in this VN ever felt personal. It felt like there was a lot of distance between the writers and the stories they wrote; like they couldn't put any of their own emotions and experiences into it. I'm sure they drew on ideas from previous romance and drama stories, but there was no conviction in the writing. There is no reason for me to feel a connection to these stories when it seems like the writers themselves weren't connected to them.

The Lilly route was the only route that approached a decent story because Lilly was a somewhat interesting character and it had a pretty intense climax with Hisao, the main protagonist, running through an airport to reach Lilly before she left on a plane to go live overseas. It was still frequently boring to read through, however.

The Shizune route, which was the last route I played, was all over the place in terms of what it wanted to communicate. I don't even know what the takeaway from that route was supposed to be. There were some vague messages about cherishing memories from high school and similar things that we have seen a million times before. It was just a really incoherent and uninteresting route.

I also want to remark on the h-scenes in this game. I'm not a huge fan of h-scenes, but I don't mind them if they fit in the flow of the story. With Katawa Shoujo, though, they felt like they were thrown in just to make it as similar to a Japanese VN as they could. It was especially bad in the Hanako route. That route had only one h-scene, but it was the most awkwardly-timed thing ever. Hisao is going on and on about how he feels like there is a lot of distance between him and Hanako, and then the next thing you know, they're fucking each other. Then, at the end of the route, they kiss, and it's supposed to be this special moment. Well, it would have been special if they hadn't just fucked not that long ago. Instead, it feels weird to go, "Aaawwww, they kissed," knowing that they had sex a little earlier. They totally botched the h-scene in that route, throwing the flow completely off track. Overall, this VN would have been better without the h-scenes.

The art quality was inconsistent throughout. The art isn't terrible, but there is an obvious gap in quality between it and the pretty art you would see in a Key VN. I noticed that Emi's sprite art looks rougher than the other characters' sprites. Of course, this is about what one should probably expect from a VN with no budget, but it sure makes those people saying this VN has better quality than most VNs with budgets look silly.

The sound quality is pretty good. They didn't just throw together some music using cheap-ass equipment. The music sounds like it was made using some legit software. Unfortunately, the quality of the music itself is not good. There were maybe a couple songs that were ever-so-slightly catchy, but the vast majority of it was mediocre and forgettable.

Katawa Shoujo has somehow become the holy grail of Western indie VNs, which is really unfortunate because Western indie developers can do so much better than this. The writing can obviously be way better. As I mentioned before, Four Leaf Studios stuck completely to the formula that Japanese VN developers already follow. If Western indie developers want their work to truly stand out, they will have to create something that is uniquely Western. You can make good VNs using the Japanese formula, but VN development in the West is still extremely young and ripe for someone with a vision to grab it by the horns and set the standard for what visual novels in the West should be like. If Katawa Shoujo continues to be treated as the standard that all Western indie developers should strive for, though, then nobody is ever going to take advantage of that opportunity.

[didjunoanime]

Angel Beats! review

Angel Beats! is a 13-episode drama, comedy, and sci-fi anime with hints of The Matrix film trilogy popping up throughout. It is set in a world that serves as the afterlife for people who have died and are waiting to be reincarnated. Some people have memories of their lives before they died, and they feel like their lives were unfulfilling, unsatisfying, and unfair. If these people wish to move on to their next lives through reincarnation, they must learn to accept the lives they had. Instead, they rebel, trying to find answers to why they had such agonizing experiences in their lives. They search for some god that can provide those answers, so they fight in the hopes that this god will have no choice but to address their plight.

I tried watching this anime a few years ago, but I quit after the 5th episode because it seemed like the anime was going nowhere in a hurry and nothing made any sense. After hearing the claims of many people who love this series saying that it was an extremely emotional anime, I figured that maybe I needed to stick with it longer to see the substance of this series, so I gave it another try on Crunchyroll watching the subbed version (there is a dubbed version, if you would rather watch it with voices in English). Sure enough, I still felt like things made little sense after 5 episodes, but things finally picked up around Episode 6 and 7. It isn't until then that things finally start to make some sense.

After watching the entire series, I can say that Angel Beats! has a very interesting premise with lots of potential. We can all relate to wanting to blame a god for the bad things that happen in our lives, and this anime presents to us these people that can act on those emotions in ways that we cannot in real life. These people bond with each other through their common goals and struggles, but we know that, at some point, they may have to part with each other when they are reincarnated. A few of these people even find love. It's a great idea for a story. Unfortunately, as you might expect from an anime that tries to tackle all of this in a mere 13 episodes, the execution was highly flawed.

Let's start with the cast of characters, which is one of the biggest weaknesses of this anime. There are just too many damn characters in this anime, and none of these characters experience much development. We get a few brief backstories, but I never felt like I was significantly attached to any of the characters.

Yuzuru Otonashi is the main character who, as soon as he enters the afterlife, is recruited as a new member of the SSS, the rebellious organization that seeks to find God and discover why their lives were so crappy. He gets the most development of all the characters, which isn't saying much. His development involves remembering his past life, which he initially cannot recall at all, and falling in love with Kanade (more on that later). I harped on how much Key recycles plot devices and character points in my review of the visual novel Rewrite, especially the thing where they bring characters back as cats, foxes, and even trees. Another thing they love to do again and again is give characters some form of amnesia, and that's what they did with Yuzuru. Come on, can't you be a little more original than this, Key?

His backstory isn't even original, as the events leading to his death are way too much like the bus crash incident that happened with Riki in Little Busters! (oh, and BTW, what's with Key and putting exclamation points at the end of their titles?) I know Key likes to use vanilla male protagonists because that's a common way to write visual novels, but Yuzuru is just too plain. He is a really boring character with almost no personality.

Yuri Nakamura is the leader of the SSS. Yuzuru meets her at the very beginning of the anime, and we learn about her backstory early on. This backstory sets the tone for why all these people in the SSS seek answers for why things happened the way they did in their previous lives. Yuri often draws comparisons to Haruhi Suzumiya since not only does she look a lot like Haruhi, but she also has a similar alpha personality to Haruhi. Of course, Yuri is not nearly as awesome of a character as Haruhi. She sets up these haphazard operations for the SSS to carry out and never explains what the hell their purpose is well enough. She goes about rebelling until Episode 12 when she learns about some dude who stole enough computers that he gained the power to implement rules for what happens in the world of the afterlife (yes, seriously, gathering computers gives you god-like powers in this anime...it's dumb, I know). Then, I guess she decided she was OK with what happened in her previous life, and *spoiler* she goes on to be "obliterated" in the next episode ("obliterated" is the term used when people disappear from the world of the afterlife to be reincarnated). */spoiler* This anime fails to explain a lot of stuff. She even goes all moe-moe in the final episode, and it feels so forced and awkward.

Kanade Tachibana is the focus of the SSS's efforts at the beginning of the anime. They perceive that she has the power to obliterate people, which we come to learn later is sort of true but in an indirect way, so they think she might know about God and how the world works. But instead of doing what normal people would do and just asking her about it since, you know, communication is a pretty effective tool for finding out stuff you want to know, instead they fight her. Again, it makes no freaking sense. It just becomes all the more hilarious when they find out later that *spoiler* Kanade is just a regular person like everybody else and (gasp!) they could have actually been friends with her if they had just communicated with her like normal instead of fighting her like a bunch of freaking barbarians. */spoiler* This is just one of numerous things they simply didn't think through when they created this mess of a plot.

Kanade is another really boring character. She is a pretty quiet person who shows no emotion ever. Hell, she didn't even get a backstory. Kanade is the blandest character you could ever imagine. Seriously. She does serve a pretty important role in the plot, though, which is to introduce the idea that it is better to just accept your previous life and move on instead of spending eternity agonizing over what happened in your previous life. I did like how Yuzuru was able to look past the groupthink of the SSS and try to see things from Kanade's point of view, which sprung to life the potential for a nice bond between Kanade and Yuzuru. This alone, however, wasn't enough to justify what happened at the very end of the anime, which I will address later.

Ayato Naoi is the student council vice president who briefly assumes the role of president after the SSS successfully gets Kanade removed from the role of student council president after some foul play. He has this random power of hypnosis which ends up serving no purpose to the plot or anything that happens in this anime; it's just something they seemingly threw in there. Since Yuzuru is the main protagonist, that means he has to be the one who isn't a complete freaking idiot and actually tries to see things from other people's point of view, so he shows Ayato a little compassion, and that's all it takes for Ayato to concede and join the SSS. The fact that Yuzuru handles these situations so easily just makes everyone else in the SSS look like such huge dumbasses, but I guess we wouldn't have this anime if they weren't such dumbasses, would we?

Then there is Yui-nyan, the only character in this whole anime that I actually kinda sorta cared about, but only because she is supremely moe and kawaii. She was featured prominently in Episode 10, which is my favorite episode in the anime because it harkens back to the kind of stuff you would see in Clannad, when we learn about her backstory. Unfortunately, she *spoiler* pulls a Makoto Sawatari at the end of this episode, though I suppose it's not as bad as what happened with Makoto in Kanon because Yui was only gone for the final 3 episodes of the anime, */spoiler* while Makoto disappeared for the last 14 episodes of Kanon, which was over half of the anime (I still hate that they did that shit)!

I should also mention Hideki Hinata here because he is Yui's love interest in the anime. I will admit that I was quite touched at the end of Episode 10 when he said that he would *spoiler* marry Yui in the next life, which gave Yui what she needed to accept her "obliteration." */spoiler* It is disappointing that they didn't follow through on this, though, and have Hideki and Yui meet in the next life. I would have really loved to see that. Outside of this, I didn't think Hideki served much of a purpose in this anime.

There are many more characters in this anime, but they serve no purpose other than to provide some humor. There is one character I want to bring up quickly though: TK. WTF was up with that guy? It was weird because his voice actor wasn't some Japanese guy trying to speak English (you know how much of a failure that usually ends up being); he could legitimately speak English. He had a strange inflection in his voice, though, and nothing he said ever had any pertinence to the situation at hand. I guess to Japanese people, it's like, "ha ha, he's speaking English; that's so cool!" It'd be like some person speaking random French shit here in the US. "Oh, cool, he speaks French." But since we actually speak English, we know what TK is saying, and we're like, "WTF is wrong with this dude?" So yeah, Key, WTF? Why did you throw this guy into the anime?

Now let's try to decipher this plot some, shall we? Where do I even begin? Well, as I mentioned before, the first time I tried watching this anime, I quit after 5 episodes because the first 5 episodes of this anime really are pointless. The only thing that happens in the first 5 episodes that bears any meaning later in the anime is the revelation of Yuri's backstory. In Episode 2, Yuri has the SSS engage in an operation to retrieve arms from the Guild, which is stationed underground. OK, so they need some more guns and shit, but they spend an entire episode on this operation, and it does not advance the plot in any way. Then, in Episode 3, they engage in an operation to hack into Kanade's computer to find out some information about her. Poor Kanade! She never did anything to anybody, yet she gets this whole group of people shooting at her, invading her privacy, hacking her computer, and even executing a plot to get her kicked out of the role of student council president in Episode 5. Even if she never shows emotion, you know she has to be as annoyed as all hell! Anyways, the SSS learns about some of Kanade's skills that she acquired using her software. Since all this fighting against Kanade ends up being pointless, though, the events of this episode become completely meaningless.

Then there's Episode 4, the worst episode in the anime. Since Kanade has a team in this baseball tournament, the SSS decides that they should join this baseball tournament, too, to oppose her. Yeah, whenever you're trying to get information from someone and it goes so far that you get in gunfights with them, you have to make sure you're covering all the bases of opposing this person by facing them in a good old-fashioned baseball game, am I right, people? Seriously, whoever Key has writing this shit just needs to stop. Really. This is just so bad, and it's a huge reason why I gave up watching this anime the first time I tried watching it.

Skip ahead to Episode 12 when all this fighting and searching comes to a climax of sorts that actually serves to bring up more unanswered questions more than it does to answer questions and bring things to a conclusion. I am talking about the scene where Yuri confronts the guy who has been stealing computers from the school. It was highly reminiscent of this scene from The Matrix Reloaded:

It is also just about as confusing as that scene from The Matrix Reloaded. It does present an interesting story about a guy who fell in love with a girl that was later obliterated, but he remained stuck in the afterlife. He waited to see if she would come back to the afterlife, but he eventually went insane and turned himself into an NPC. You might think this is setting up for a meeting with this character in the final episode where some real shit goes down and everything finally gets explained, but instead, they went with an episode where everyone "graduates" and passes on to their next lives, which was a great way to end things with a whimper instead of a bang.

So they went nowhere with the ideas presented in Episode 12, and then, after Yuzuru and Kanade end up being the last 2 remaining main characters in the afterlife, they try to force this deep romance between the 2 down out throats. I like the idea of springing a romance between Yuzuru and Kanade, but nothing happened in this anime to make this sudden romance feel at all genuine. I know that Yuzuru was the only one who bothered listening to Kanade and understanding what she was trying to do, and this makes Yuzuru seem compassionate compared to everybody else, but really, it was more about everyone else just being dicks than it was about Yuzuru being compassionate. On top of that, it's very difficult to sell a romance when one of the characters in the couple never shows any emotion at all.

I think the writers realized that this love confession at the end of the anime would seem really forced and unwarranted because they tried to throw in this stupid explanation for why Angel loves Yuzuru at the last minute. She tells Yuzuru that she received his heart when they were trapped in prison together back in Episode 6. He fell asleep with his head laying on top of her, and this somehow magically caused Yuzuru's heart to transfer to Kanade's body. This may be the lamest shit I have ever seen used as a basis for a romance in a story. That's the kind of crap to which you have to resort when you're cramming a story like this into 13 episodes. If the anime had been longer, they would have had more time to develop a romance between Yuzuru and Kanade. Instead, they had to throw it in at the very last minute.

It was highly disappointing that they never meet this god they talk about all throughout the anime or even find out if this god exists. The way this anime ended feels like such a cop-out when you consider how this anime could have been if they went deeper into the idea of a god's will conflicting with the wills of the inhabitants of the afterlife.

Even with this anime confined to 13 episodes, it still would have been much better if they hadn't made the first 5 episodes so freaking pointless. They could have spent that time developing the characters more (especially Kanade) and presenting this conflict between the idea of the afterlife as an "eternal Eden," as they describe it in Episode 12, and the idea of the afterlife as a place where people come to acceptance and move on to their next lives in a more tangible manner instead of vaguely hinting at it in a brief scene in the penultimate episode.

I thought that most of the comedy in this anime missed the mark. Hinata being shot into the ceiling while the ending music plays was just weird. I didn't laugh at all. Key really seems to struggle with humor. Clannad was funny, but ever since then, Key has had problems producing comedy that hits the mark, and that bad streak continued in their visual novel Rewrite. The only moments I remember actually being funny/amusing are the ones involving Yui and Hinata bickering at each other.

It seems that people tend to regard the animation quality in Angel Beats! positively, but I really wasn't all that impressed with it, personally. It's probably more a matter of personal taste, but this anime really did nothing for me visually. I didn't like the colors. I did not care at all for the character designs outside of the pink-haired hotness that is Yui. Their lips didn't even line up with what they were singing during the music scenes. I suppose the fight scenes were animated decently, but when you compare it to the likes of Kyoto Animation, it just doesn't stack up.

It is really unfortunate that most of the music in this anime was pretty forgettable since it was written by Jun Maeda, the guy who wrote some of the brilliant music of Clannad. I like the opening song My Soul, Your Beats some, but the song that really captured my fancy is the ending song, Brave Song. It is such a pretty song!

Ending song aside, you know well by now that there were a lot of things in this anime that I disliked. I just don't know what to think about Key anymore. They clearly went into the making of Clannad with something to prove, and they absolutely nailed everything in that visual novel/anime. The writing, whether it was drama or comedy, and the music was simply brilliant. Then they did Little Busters!, which was just a rehash of a lot of the elements of Clannad with a weak plot thrown on top. Then they tried something different and aimed for the stars with Angel Beats!, but fell flat due to poor writing. Then they released their latest effort, Rewrite, which didn't even have an interesting premise to begin with on top of the crappy writing.

One may conclude that Key just needs to stick to something simple like Clannad and Kanon instead of trying to hit a home run with these complex stories like Angel Beats! and Rewrite, which they have whiffed on. However, I don't think Key should give up on these kinds of projects yet. Angel Beats! could have been even better than Clannad if the writing had been better. The premise upon which Angel Beats! is based has the potential to be an incredible, touching story, and this is where the upcoming visual novel comes into play.

Yes, we have not seen the last of Angel Beats! as there is a multiple-volume visual novel coming soon. In fact, the first volume is set to be released next month. With a visual novel, Key won't have to worry about the issue of rushing to squeeze material into a 13-episode anime series. Key has a great opportunity here to provide the character development that was sorely lacking in this anime. Will more character development alone be the key to making this a great visual novel?

Nope. I think Key will have to largely abandon what they did with the plot in the anime if they're going to make this work. Obviously, you keep the world of the afterlife and the people wanting to find answers for what happened in their previous lives. Beyond that, though, they need to present a story that is coherent and really gets at the heart of what it is like for a person to struggle against a god, whether that god is real or imaginary, which the anime failed to do. Of course, the romance will also have to improve. No "your heart transferred to me when you laid on top of me" bullcrap.

Unfortunately, I think chances are more likely that Key is going to largely stick to their guns and turn out another bad visual novel series. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm willing to go through another 6-month+ experience with a visual novel knowing that it is probably going to suck. Yes, there is a chance that they will turn it into an amazing story and completely nail it out of the park, but it may not be enough of a chance to justify taking the risk of devoting that much time to a visual novel. I will at least wait for some reviews to come in before I make the commitment to playing through the visual novel. Like I said before, though, if they get some great writing that takes advantage of the potential this story has at its core of being a hit, the visual novel Angel Beats! could wind up being an even better visual novel than Clannad.

I really wanted to like this anime. It has a very interesting premise and glimpses of some great story ideas. It does have its moments. It just has way too many flaws to be considered a quality anime. I do not recommend you watch this anime. I would just wait until the visual novel comes out and play that if you are set on getting the Angel Beats! experience.

Rating: 4/10