w00t! Angelique powers up her harem!

despite the rather stupid action scenes in the first half of the episode (I mean, recklessly fighting one strong opponent individually without devising any plans?!), I guess it was shown for the purpose of showing how divided the team is at this point… then the team-up became all the more apparent when Angelique showers her harem of bishies with the power of love

The uber fast monster speed of the anime somewhat forced me to go and Deep Fry Toshokan Sensou like I did with Kaze no Stigma. The Toshokan Sensou anime might be realll good at this point, but I do think it’s even better if you know the missing antics and tidbits in between. So yeah, hopefully I’ll be able to fill in those stuff for you guys!

And, I was supposedly taking down notes on the stuff omitted in episodes 1-2 of Toshokan Sensou, detail by detail, till episode 3 comes down like a BOMB and as I check what it covered in the novel, I see that it skipped 100+ pages! Now before I struggle over whether to skip reading some parts too, I shall go and talk about the differences I’ve seen in episode 1 first.

While my fellow chef absolute0 prodded me to join MyAnimeList months back, lazy old me didn’t get to update my list until recently. While Owen and his constant MAL preaching did get me to stop bumming around MAL-ing, I’d like to think I did it for the sake of my fans (LOL!). So yeah, feel [...]

While this topic has been argued to no end, a recent issue just sparked me to post my thoughts on this.

First off, let me ask you this, will you watch an anime raw, and even go to the extent of blogging it, if you didn’t understand much of what’s being said in the episode(s)? This is not quite a problem with regards to bloggers who openly admit that they don’t understand the raw episode they’re watching, especially for those who put disclaimer in each post like “Feel free to correct me blah blah because I watched this raw”, “From what I understood…”, “I didn’t quite understand… but I think”, and all that, to highlight the lack of certainty. Not to boast (because it’s not really worth boasting about), but I did this when I first started out in blogging, pointing out how confused I was with Touka Gettan, for example, where I even put (?) in parts of the summary I was uncertain about, etc. FYI, that post sucks butt. The problem comes in when the blogger starts stating things in a matter-of-fact tone, when in fact, it’s far from the truth.

Call it being egotistic or what, but I don’t think both my conscience and pride will allow me to blog about something I don’t really understand, and deceive people into believing the ’facts’ that I say. Perhaps there would be times in which you’d think that you understood the episode, when in fact you didn’t, in which cases counter-check will always help (more on this later). Not having a good grasp of Japanese isn’t supposed to be an excuse to just leave things as misunderstood as it is, and to post your thoughts about something you didn’t understand just makes you lose credibility over all. It’s to the detriment of both you and the readers as well…

After quite some server downtime yesterday, the blog is finally up! I hope you guys didn’t suffer from some heart attack, seizures or whatnot when you thought our blog is dead or something D: So to those who read my post on Kure-nai before the blog went down, now’s your time to comment! So please come back!! D:

After three episodes, well what can I say~! The staff behind Kurenai never ceases to amaze me with what they have done to this anime, transforming the supposedly lackluster novel (at least in terms of the overall pacing and plot progression) into the awesome anime that we see now. They certainly know how to make the most out of an anime adaptation, incorporating foreshadowing, revealing bits of Murasaki’s past and Shinkurou’s dark side with each episode, something which is yet to be tackled in the novel, as far as the halfway point of the first volume goes. Without revealing all this, the anime would not have been as compelling and awesome (for the lack of a better word). With the early revelation of Murasaki’s past, we get to see the complexity and depth of Murasaki’s character, and the reason why she acts the way she does.

From what I’ve read so far, there was not even a mention about Murasaki’s family background; Murasaki just came out of nowhere in the novel, unlike in the anime where we actually see how Benika kidnapped her from the Kuhouin household. We also don’t get to see a glimpse of Shinkurou’s ‘dark’ trouble-maker self, till past the halfway mark of the novel. Instead, we see Shinkurou’s past and how he met Benika, early on in the novel. Though in my opinion, it was a rather sloppy shoved-in-your-face kind of revelation, where you get to see the entire past in an instant (it’s a complete wall of text in the novel, 8 pages worth of Shinkurou past, all at once!) T__T

Ahh, Neo Angelique~ Yet another Koei shoujo show that’s not getting any love. Deja vu~ The only ones in the blogosphere who took the time to cover the first episode of this anime were Aroduc, psgels, and recently, BluWacky though all of them already decided that it’s not an anime they want to bother with anymore. I can’t blame them though, given the number of other great shows this Spring (heck even I’m having a hard time choosing which shows I’m going to stick to x_x). Neo Angelique is, after all, a generic-looking shoujo anime, whose bishies serve to lure the likes of fangurls, especially those who got to play the PS2 game(s) *points to self*

There’s only 1 day left before the Anime Blog Awards Nomination Phase ends, so I’m not sure if this post will still be of any use, but anyways. Anyone who has an anime blog who’s currently reading this, please get your nominations in by April 22, which is coincidentally, Earth Day (although I wouldn’t have known about this if it weren’t for that Starbucks promo XD).

The top 5 nominees in each category will be selected for the next phase, the actual voting, which will run from April 25-June 1.

In behalf of my fellow chefs who are still hibernating at this wonderful Springtime, I’d like to once again thank everyone who nominated us! We may not have a chance to become part of the top 5 nominees, but one nomination is enough to touch the heart of this little bunny *bow*

So anyways, I finished placing my nominations (partly thanks to the power of copy pastah lol), and to spare me the agony of having to write about my selections for each category, I’m just going to highlight one which I consider to be the most personal of all, The Most Influential Blog Category.

peek a boo!

By the time this post is published, I’d have already gone for our company’s Beach Party, and won’t be back till Sunday afternoon. I remember mentioning to some people about my Oryzae plushie, and how it’s going to become our Beach Party Mascot character. And well, I wasn’t kidding when I said that.

See, this cute Oryzae is like the epitome of a happy summertime, with its sun shape and its radiant smile. So a couple my officemates and I suggested Oryzae to be our official mascot, and it was heartily approved What can I say, Oryzae is well loved <33 xD

Enough with the talk, and on with the pics!

While tons of other bloggers have given their praises for Kure-nai (especially for the adorable Murasaki), allow me to join in the bandwagon just for fun. Contained within this post are my impressions, insights, predictions, and what have you.

My eagerness for this anime was apparent in my earlier pimpings, though I should say that after watching two episodes, it far exceeded my expectations. It completely blew me away. I mean, who would’ve thought that I’d find myself crying buckets of tears just by watching the first episode? I know that my tears are somewhat shallow, considering how I’ve shed them for KimiKiss and True Tears as well, but this time around it’s of Aka-chan to Boku or Aishiteruze Baby quality. That’s how genuinely moved I was.

The bond between Murasaki and Shinkurou is one of the purest and sweetest ones I’ve seen thus far, as exhibited in episode 2, where not even a trace of lolicon and other pedo elements were present in their hot spring bath scene together. Their relationship is like that of siblings way back the 80s or 90s, where the minds of people were still not corrupted by the vile thoughts plaguing our society now.