I haven’t seen this show so I recently picked up the DVD. The only volume out now has the first four episodes (obviously). Despite the name of the show (Fate/stay night? What the hell?), I liked what I’ve seen so far. It centers on Nobel Peace Prize future recipient (not really) Shiro Emiya. A high schooler who gets involved in some life-death contest with magicians for the Holy Grail. One of these is magicians, a fellow high schooler, Rin winds up helping Shiro understand what’s going on. there are seven magicians who fight for the Grail and they each have a “servant” who fights for them. Each of these servants comes from a special class of fighters (why do I get the feeling that I’ll be watching an anime with card battles?).

As luck (and the plot) would have it, Shiro sees Rin and her Archer servant fighting a Lancer servant. They notice Shiro and break of the fight to go kill Shiro. Its a rule to leave no witnesses behind. As the Lancer is about to skewer Shiro, there’s a flash of light and a blonde servant appears and fights off Lancer then Rin’s Archer. This new servant realizes that Shiro, despite having some weak magical skills that allow him to fix things, isn’t a magician. But somehow he summoned her and they’ve now got a bond. She tells him that her class and name are Saber. Rin shows up and takes them to a priest who is the referee of this Holy Grail war. By the fourth episode, both Saber and Shiro are both injured but decide to fight on in order to win the Grail. Both have their own reasons: Shiro is fighting because 10 years earlier, as he finds out, there was another war for the Grail that wound up destroying part of the city and took the lives of his parents. The man who adopted him was a magician who apparently took part in this war. Saber is fighting for her own reasons, but they aren’t made clear.

As I mentioned earlier, I like the series so far. Geneon releases the second volume in March or April, so it’ll be a wait to find out what happens next. I bought the regular DVD which has a the Japanese versions with English subs, a credit-less open, some previews of Shakugan no Shana (the other DVD I bought), Ergo Proxy, and GunXSword. There also a few sketches of the main characters that were introduced in this volume. I thought the animation was fine (with Kanon out, I can’t help but wonder how FSN would look like if Kyoto Animation did it). They kept the original Japanese opening and closing themes. Overall, a standard release.

I tend to watch the DVDs I buy with the English subs. However, the first time or two I watch with the English dubs just to hear and decide if I like the English voice acting. I think that the voices for the main characters are perfectly matched. I didn’t like the voice used for Sakura, it just wasn’t believable for me. Surprisingly, that’s the only voice I didn’t like. I also didn’t like the voice over that Shiro does, I think its unnecessary.

The characters designs are good. And its clear that the show is going focus heavily on Saber and Shiro (and his attraction to her). She’s a trained fighter with armor and an invisible sword. He’s not. She’s stoic and he wants to help people. In fact, he nearly gets himself when he jumps in the middle of a fight that Saber is having with a huge Servant (I really believe that he’s the type who’ll get himself killed trying to help others. And he’ll get you killed too, unintentionally). Saber is as stoic as they come, but being an anime, I’m sure that we’ll see her grow in terms of emotions.

That’s what I find interesting about the two DVDs that I bought. FSN and Shakugan no Shana both feature cold, emotional-less, sword-wielding heroines. There’s an appeal with these kinds of characters. They can effectively kick-ass and take names, but at the same time you know they have a vulnerability. And its in their emotional growth that the attraction seems to come from. We’re willingly manipulated into wanting whoever they’re paired with help them grow and by extension fantasize that we’re that lucky character who helps them/wins their affection. And damned if I didn’t want to be Shiro. I know its obvious and as I mentioned, we willingly buy into. At the same time, its enjoyable.We have sports teams that we’re devoted to, riding the emotional waves as they win or lose. And its no different in anime. Take Kanon for example, Makoto was my favorite character and at the end of her storyline I cried. There I said it. I, a thirty-something man cried for an anime character (but then I cried when Darth Vader in died in Return of the Jedi, so go figure).

Anyway, I like Fate/stay night (can anyone explain to me just what the Hell the name means?) and I look forward to buying the rest of the DVDs for FSN but I wish they’d make them available sooner instead of releasing them every few months. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to resign from the Manly Man club (and fantasize about helping Saber grow emotionally).

That’s the decaf right? I won’t be able to get any sleep if its not decaf. Now, are you really sure that’s the decaf?

Alrighty then, my apologies to the spam bots (and to the occasional human who visited) for not posting very much. I’ve got a backlog of sorts, but I managed to keep up and make some comments on other anime blogs. Life got (and still is) in the way, ya know. Yare yare.

I’m planning on doing a post or two sometime after Friday (and hopefully before Christmas but next week is more likely) covering the Shakugan no Shana and Fate/Stay Night DVDs that I picked up recently. What is it about stoic superheroes with swords that I find so damn appealing? And damned if I didn’y cry like a kid who had his ice cream drop onto a sidewalk when Makoto left.

Oh, and if Haruhi really is getting licensed over here in North America…woohoo! I’ll take whatever I can get.

Found this website from links over at Anime on My Mind and Kurogane’s Anime Blog

Unfortunately, it doesn’t say in what form. Could it be the DVDs, some station/network is airing the show, or the novels are being released.

Better bring out the tissues.

According to Kurogane’s Anime Blog and Anime on my Mind, there’s going to be second season of Haruhi and her merry mayhem. Woohoo!

….Yare yare …

This episode shows a little about how hard life is for most of the citizens in the Empire. Despite the fact that its been a few years since the end of war, life is still hard. Alice is angry. Again. Because Oland is late. Again. And so is Oreld. For the sixth time that month. Oreld finally comes in from the date that he was on. Oland is outside with the gate guards because he found a basket with an infant child in it. Oland comes running into the office carrying the baby. Captain Hunks reads a note out loud from the mother. She can’t raise the baby so hopes that the Army can and turn the baby, Dieter, into a solider. Alice is angry at the fact that a mother could abandon a child. The baby wakes up and starts to cry, everyone in the office unsuccessfully try to pacify the baby until Oreld suggests that it needs to have diapers changed. He gets nominated to change the diapers. Turns out the Dieter has good aim and can shoot for distance. No matter what the team tries to do, the baby only stops crying when Oland is holding him. Alice wants to go search the city for Dieter’s mother. Despite Oreld’s objections, Captain Hunks agrees, claiming that reuniting the mother with Dieter falls under the “war relief” category. Alice, Oreld, and Machs follow a lead that the mother might be in the black market section of the city.

Down in the black market, Alice marches from stand to stand asking about Dieter’s mother. Oreld keeps suggesting that Alice be more discrete because there is no real law in the area and being soldiers won’t guarantee their safety. Since their search is going no where, Oreld leads them to somebody he knows who might be able to help. The meet an older man whom Oreld refers to as “Pops” (they don’t really make it clear whether this is just someone Oreld knows and worked for or is his father). The man is surprised to see Oreld, he didn’t believe the rumors that Orled had joined the Army. Pops doesn’t care about the baby or the teams mission to find the mother. When Alice tries to appeal to him, he scoffs at the fact that she’s a Lieutenant and is Orled’s commanding office. He goes onto mock the teams overall mission of “war relief”. How does finding the mother of an abandoned child offer relief when there are parentless children out on the street.

Alice finds that Oland has taken the child out into a nearby park. Alice is depressed because of what Pops said. She knows that helping find the mother of Dieter won’t help all of the other children that Pops mentioned. But she still will try. Oland notices a lady watching them from nearby and realizes that she’s Dieter’s mother. She starts to run away but Alice manages to stop her. The mother explains that she decided to leave Dieter outside the gates of the Army H.Q. as the only way that Dieter would survive. In the end, Captain Hunks gives the baby back to her.

So here we get a hint of how life is for people who are on the bottom rung of the empire’s class structure. Alice’s idealism won’t let her believe that black markets exist without any legal laws and that smuggling is rampant. Oreld tries to explain to her that people who buy things through the black market are breaking laws in order to survive. We’ve seen a little of how Alice lives and we know that Alice wants to level the playing field between the nobility and commoners, but her idealism causes her to be blind to how the other half really live. And we’re starting learn a little more about the other members of the unit. We know that Oland is homeless, sleeping under a bridge and that Oreld comes from the streets. And it looks like next week’s episode is an Alice’s home life episode. So we get to learn more about her story.

This was a pretty fast paced episode and I think we’re at the start of resolving at least one character’s storyline (based on some of the blogs that I’ve read). By the end of the show, we’ve seen that Yuuichi is one mean smartass and a smooth character. Picking up the last episode, Yuuichi is at the school at night. He’s trying to get some answers from a sword-wielding Mai. When he hears a sound and suddenly gets knocked into a wall, Mai (who speaks even less than Yuki did in the Melancholy of Haruhi) jumps by and starts swinging her sword around. Mai tells him that she’s a demon-slayer. From here we jump to Yuuichi at home, handing Nayuki her notebook from the school. Heading into the bath room in order to take a hot bath, Yuuichi finds Makoto already in there. Yuuichi makes a joke about joining her in the tub. Makoto reacts by throwing things at him and storms out, wet and only wearing a towel. When he’s done, he finds her outside the bathroom with a cold. Yuuichi challenges Makoto by getting her to say “Demon Slayer” for ten times, as fast as she can. As she does it, she winds up biting her tongue much to Yuuichi’s delight. Later, in bed, he’s thinking about Mai and what she said when he ears Makoto sneezing as she walks up the hall. He hides behind the door. Makoto sneaks into his room, intent on getting revenge, Yuuichi steps behind her, picks her up and carries her back to her room. He tells her to stay in bed until she’s over her cold.

The next morning, he walks into the kitchen for breakfast. After finding out that Nayuki is still sleeping and Makoto is in bed sick, he suddenly realizes that Ayu is there eating breakfast with them. Akiko tells him that she invited Ayu after she passed by the house. After school, Yuuichi is walking around when he runs into Mai. He still can’t get her to talk. As he’s trying to carry on a conversation with her a friend of Mai’s, Sayuri, shows up. Yuuichi jokingly tells her that the ever silent Mai just told him she loves her. He’s doing this to get a response out of Mai, who still stays quiet. Yuuichi is surprised when sayuri invites him to eat with her and Mai. As they eat, Yuuichi asks Sayuri if she like, he then makes a joke that based on the meal, Sayuri is the perfect woman for him. Yuuichi discovers that he can get more than just a yes or no answer from Mai if he serves her food. After the meal, Sayuri invites him to eat with them again. As he starts to leave the school, he finds Shiori, the mysterious sick girl. As they walk around the school grounds, he tries to find out her last name, but she won’t ell him, saying that mysterious girls are supposed to be more interesting. As they talk, he finds out that she came to the school, hoping to see him because he’s an interesting person. She asks him to help her make a snowman. Yuuichi promises to help her, but only when she gets better.

On his way home, Yuuichi runs in to a recovered Makoto. Makoto is on an errand for Akiko. Yuuichi teases her about being too young to run an errand. Makoto claims to mature enough. Yuuichi decides to torment her further by asking her to by a porno mag for him. He’s surprised to learn that Makoto doesn’t know what a porn mag is. So Yuuichi tells her to ask the store clerk to help her buy one. Predictable, Makoto is angry at Yuuichi when she gets home. As she’s shouting at Makoto, she notices he’s eating a pork bun. Yuuichi tells her that he bought it in town along with the comic book that he’s reading. Makoto runs off to get buy the same things for herself. Later that night, Yuuichi goes back to the school to find Mai. He’s brought some food for her. As he unsuccessfully tries to get her to talk, something is creeping up behind him. Mai reacts, swinging her sword which pulls off a curtain. They discover that Makoto was under the curtain. She was followed Yuuichi on order to scare him but was scared by Mai instead. As he leaves, Mai cryptically tells him to be nice to her.

This was a surprisingly fast and humorous episode. And from some of the other blogs that I’ve read, we should be coming up on a climax and resolution to someone’s storyline. So the big questions are why is Mai at school at night? What are the demons she says she’s fighting? What does Shiori find so interesting about Yuuichi? Poor Makoto gets to be the butt-end of Yuuichi’s jokes and pranks though setting her up to buy a porno mag was funny. There was barely any Ayu and Nayuki to be satisfied with, but understandable since it focused on Mai, Shiori and Makoto.

As the show opens, Alice is chewing Oland out for sneaking out of the hospital to find the cats from the bridge where he normally sleeps. Because he snuck out of the hospital, his wounds became infected so he has to stay in longer. Alice is so furious that she swears never to come back and see him. After she leaves, Oreld tells Oland that she was pretty concerned for him. A nurse, Rosetta, storms in and also reprimands Oland. She asks Oland’s roommate to ring a bell if he tried to sneak out again. When she finds out that Oreld and Machs are Oland’s friends, she asks them to take a urine sample from him. Embarrassed, they make up an excuse and leave. The nurse then attempts to take one herself and here we come to the running joke throughout the episode. Since Oland is so big, everything is proportionally big also. Eeevvvverything. Oland starts talking to his roommate, Wantz, who’s envious that Oland has friends to visit him. Wantz works in a briefcase factory and has been in the hospital for a week due to stomach problems. None of his coworkers have visited him. Seeing that Rosetta is having trouble taking a sample herself, Oland takes the sample bottle and leaves the room to do it himself. As he leaves, he sees someone enter the room. Hearing the stranger talk to Wantz, Oland realizes that it’s somebody who works with Wantz. Despite his wounds, Oland limps off to the bathroom.

Back at the headquarters of Oland’s unit, Machs and Oreld are in the library. Machs is trying to find evidence about Oland’s old anti-tank unit, ATT-901, and the “Invisible 9″ that Captain Hunks told him about. Oreld is trying to find out why Machs is doing all this research on Oland and his old unit. Machs explains that he believes that Oland’s presence in the unit could threaten the unit’s work and existence. Oreld tries to get more information from Machs, but Machs refuses. Until Oreld starts to embarrass Machs based on a childhood incident (both have been friends since childhood). Oreld makes the point that just as Mach’s past isn’t of any concern to people in the library; Machs shouldn’t be concerned with Oland’s past. Machs fills Oreld in on the information that Captain Hunks told him about the Invisible 9. As they’re talking, a woman, named Mirelle, passes by them. Oreld had taken her out on a date. Oreld and Mirelle flirt with one another. AS she walks away, Oreld tells Machs that she works in the Personnel department. He gets the idea to pay Mirelle a visit and see if he can get gat access to Oland’s personnel files. Even if there isn’t any record of the 901 Anti-Tank Unit, there has to be records of Oland’s military service.

Oreld finds out that Oland’s assignment was strongly supported by the Imperial Science Laboratory, also known as the Kauplan Institute. Machs decides that he wants to talk to Oland about his past. Oreld agrees and as the two start to head towards the hospital they run into Alice. She’s still adamant about not visiting Oland. At the hospital, Oland’s gets calls the Rosetta because Wantz hasn’t been seen since earlier in the day. She notices a briefcase in the trash next to Wantz’s bed. Oreld and Machs run into the room, telling the Rosetta that someone’s on the roof. All four of them head to roof where they find Wantz preparing to jump. He tells them that the visitor he had was his boss who fired him from the factory. He has no where else to go. The briefcase was his severance package for working for 20 years at the factory. Oland manages to convince him not to jump by promising to make the country a better place for people like Wantz. Wantz starts to step away from the ledge when a strong wind starts to blow him over. Oland dives and manages to push him back from the edge only to go over it himself. He’s caught by Machs and Oreld but because his size and weight, he starts to pull them over. Wantz and Rosetta try to pull them back. Suddenly Alice appears next to Rosetta, helping her and Wantz pull everyone back from the edge. As they lay there, Rosetta starts to look around for Alice who has disappeared behind the door to the roof.

This wasn’t a bad episode except for the ending. I thought it was a weak story device. A strong wind. That’s what that they come up with?! Hell, in Welcome to the NHK, Satou damn near fell of a cliff edge when it collapsed on him, but a strong wind? I know, I know, they needed a convenient plot device to bring a climax to the show. And since there aren’t any tanks or boulders for Oland to shoot, they give us this. I can’t really fault them on it, but it’s just so…predictable. I would’ve been satisfied with Oreld and Machs smuggling in some beers into Oland’s room with Alice spying on them from outside the room. One saving grace was the orchestral background music. It worked with the intensity of the roof seen and reminded me a lot of some classical music I’ve heard before. I want to say it reminded me of Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from “Peer Gynt” but it’s been awhile since I heard it. It was nice to see and ending that didn’t rely on Oland’s tank killing mode and to see Alice’s buried concern for him (even though it’s obvious to the viewers that she is concerned about him.)

Another enjoyable episode, heavy on the internal monologues. With that out of the way, on to the laughable thing I call a blog post. Well, She’s at it again. Hirokko (Hiro) Matsukata, our workaholic lead, has spent another night at the office. where everyone is talking about two photographers who were on a stakeout. They had their cover blown as they were trying to photograph an Olympic athlete and her coach who are rumored to be having an affair. One of the photographers is Fumiya Sagawara who seems to be on the burn-out arc of his career. He and the other photographer are talking with the chief editor about the blown stakeout. The chief editor suggests taking one of the female reporters. After running through the list, Hiro comes out as the nominee. Fumiya rejects the idea of having a Hiro, let alone a woman come with him on the stakeout. Hiro also rejects the idea since she’s got a date with her workaholic boyfriend. right on cue, her boyfriend calls and has to cancel their date tonight because of work. Hiro gets asked by Fumiya and the other reporter to go with Fumiya on a stakeout. As the other reporter is talking to Hiro, Fumiya doesn’t like women like Hiro. He hates strong-willed women. He thinks of them as selfish and doesn’t like their intense expressions. He thinks that women use their sex or some lame reason such as going on a date as a reason to slack off. He’s surprised when she agrees. As Fumiya walks away, Hiro starts to wonder why she doens’t like women or herself.

On the drive over, Hiro tries to find out why Fumiya doesn’t liker her. she mentions that when she started at the company, she worked in the gossip/tabloid division where Fumiya is assigned. She didn’t like it so she managed to transfer over to the political division. That’s part of the reason why Fumiya hates her, he was there when she transferred out.They park and wait outside of get to the athlete’s apartment building. As they wait, Hiro spots someone sneaking up on them. Fumiya realizes that its the same woman who blew his cover the night before. Hiro suddenly hugs Fumiya, telling him to act like they’re lovers. The woman walks up to the car and stares in, watching Hiro and Fumiya. After a few minutes, she leaves and Hiro realizes that she stained Fumiya’s shirt with her natto maki. She heads to a nearby water fountain to clean the shirt. As she’s cleaning it, she sees a taxi carrying the the athelete and the coach drive by. Fumiya also sees the taxi and starts taking pictures of the two as they get out. He realizes that they aren’t giving him the shots that he needs. All it looks like is that the coach is walking the athlete to the door.

As the sun rises in the morning, Fumiya stops the car near a bridge. As Hiro is sleeping, he gets out and walks to the edge of the river and starts taking pictures of the sky. Even though he’s burnt-out, he likes his job and the pictures of the infinite sky is a reminder to him about how insignificant everyone and their problems are. Hiro walks up and asks him why he takes pictures of the sky. He asks her why she’s always eating natto maki. Hiro refuses to tell him why.

This was a pretty good episode. One thing that I liked about it is that not everyone likes Hiro. If this was a average TV show, Hiro would’ve overcome Fumiya’s dislike of her and there’d be a greater understanding and appreciation between the two. Leaving things the way they are seems more realistic and will probably come into play for at least a few episodes down the line. Even with the tension between Hiro and Fumiyua, this was a humorous episode. And here’s another show with an opening them music that I’ve come to like. And hum at different times (damn it).

Since its Halloween and I’m behind on watching this show, I thought that I’d post about the scary show called Welcome to the NHK! episodes 15 and 16. When we last saw Sato, he was talking to his mother on the phone. She was giving him some bad news. We find out what the bad news is, he’s getting his allowance cut because his father lost his job. She tells him that he’s going to have to get a job. After they hang up, Sato is depressed about the idea of having to go outside. He then remembers the MMORPG coupon given to him by the suicide club teenager. He signs up for the game and starts to play as a fighter. He starts to play the game by himself. Because of this, his low-level character keeps getting killed by creatures. He’s interrupted by Yamazaki who reminds him about the game they’re working on. Yamazaki finds out about Sato’s game playing and explains that he needs to be in a group to avoid being killed all of the time. Even in the online world, his hikikomori habits stop him from talking to other players.

When he goes to his hikikomori meeting with Misaki, she reads something from her notebook. She tells him that success is achieved with small steps. Sato realizes that he can start out fighting smaller creatures in his online game. He leaves their session before Misaki can finish. Misaki thinks that he’s improving because of his positive attitude. Back in the online world, he starts to raise his character level by going after weaker creatures. He gets so involved in the game that he stops going to Misaki’s counselling sessions. While in the game he meets another player named Mia. Her character is a healer. They start to play together as a team and are able to raise their character levels. In the offline world, Misaki shows up at his apartment wondering why stopped coming to their meetings. She keeps knocking on the door, but Sato is deep into the game, ignoring her. She opens his door and sees him playing the game. She’s surprised by the discarded beverage bottles and other garbage covering his floor.

Episode 16 picks up with Misaki in Sato’s apartment, freaked out by what she’s seeing. The apartment is covered in garbage and he hasn’t shaved in days. She tries to pull him outside but he shakes her off. Misaki notices that he’s playing Mia and starts to think that Sato might started a relationship with Mia. Insied the game, Mia and Satou are making plans to go after dragons in order to start earning enough treasure to sell and make money in the real world. Sato wants to do this so he can avoid having to leave his apartment and still earn money. As they talk, Sato starts to having romantic feelings for Mia. Misaki comes back to his apartment wearing cat ears and a tail. She starts making “meow” noises. Sato throws her out and asks her why she’s dressed like a cat. She tells him that she saw he was obsessed by the Mia’s cat character. When he gets back to the game, Mia introduced him to some of her friends that she recruited to go dragon hunting with them. The group sets of in search of a dragon to fight. Back in her bedroom, Misaki is reading some “moe” magazines in order to find something to distract Sato from the game. Inside the game, Sato and the group find and kill a dragon. One of the group members talks to Sato about selling game items for money. He wishes Sato good luck and quits the game. The show cuts to this characters room where he’s laughing at Sato. He thinks that Sato will fail at trading items for money and can’t believe that Sato’s character name is his real name. Outside his room, his sister tells him that his lunch is outside the door. She overhear’s his remarks about Sato’s character name. She remembers going to high school with a guy names Sato.

Sato and Mia are still playing the game, defeating more evil critters. Sato has fallen in love with Mia. He tells her that he doesn’t like the real world because of all of the people lying and talking about love. He asks her to always play with him. She agrees on the condition that they meet in the real world. Sato is stunned. He’s afraid of what she’ll think when she sees the mess in his apartment. She tells him that she’s already walking up the stairs to his apartment. he hears someone outside his door and starts to become nervous. She tells him that she’s opening the door. Sato sees the door open. Standing in the door is Mia, a character played by Yamazaki. sato is stunned. Yamazaki tells him that he wanted to teach Sato the truth about characters in MMORPGs. That people can pretend to be someone else. Any sense of love or friendship is just an illusion. Sato lies and tells Yamzaki that he knew Mia wasn’t real and that the only reason he’s playing is to earn money selling game items. Yamazaki doesn’t believe and tells Sato that he won’t make money that way.

Yamazaki tells Sato that the only people who make money from games are the game makers, a subtle way of reminding Sato that the two of them are supposed to finish making their game. Sato loses control and throws a chair at Yamazaki. Yamazaki escapes and goes back to his apartment. He starts to think that playing as Mia might have been the wrong decision. Sato is in shock at discovering that Mia is Yamazaki and that he won’t make any money selling game items. The phone rings. Its the girl from earlier in the show. Her brother was one of Sato’s teammates that killed the dragon. She introduces herself as Kobayashi, the class president from Sato’s high school. We see Misaki outside, dressed in her high school uniform and carrying a bag of groceries. She intends to cook him a meal in order to get him away from Mia and the game. After knocking on the door and getting no response, she opens the door and sees that Sato isn’t there.

Finally got a chance to sit down and actually watch the whole episode in one sitting. More of normal, day-to-day type episode, but it starts putting things in place. The show opens with the normal dream-scape voice over. We then get treated to a flashback scene where Yuuichi and Ayu first meet, seven years ago. She’s crying and he’s trying to cheer her up. This is also where he gets her hooked on taiyaki. And just like the older Yuuichi, he realizes that he was supposed to meet Nayuki. When he catches up with her, she calls him a liar as she does when they’re both older. The scene cuts to the older Yuuichi, who is awake in bed. He hears his door open and someone sneaking in. It’s Makoto. Yuuichi pretends to be asleep as Makoto stands over him, getting ready to drop some konnyaku onto his face. As she she’s about to drop it, he surprises her and she falls to the floor. He asks what she was going to do with the konnyaku. He tricks her into saying that it was her midnight snack. Akiko comes in and sees that Makoto is so hungry that she’ll eat konnyaku.

In the morning, Makoto is complaining about heartburn because she ate so late last night. Yuuichi almost gets her to admit that she was going to drop the konnyaku on his face. After she runs up to her room, Yuuichi takes Nayuki her lunch. She went to the school on the weekend because her track team is practicing. After watch her train for a while, he leaves and runs into Kaori who’s also at school because of her club. She hints that things aren’t gong well at home so she’d rather come to school. Yuuichi believes that she had a fight with her parents. She tells Yuuichi not to cause any trouble for Nayuki and to watch out for Nayuki as she has a tendency to overexert herself. Yuucihi jokes with Kaori about this being the cause of her being sleepy all of the time.

After leaving Kaori, he heads downtown to help Akiko shop. Ayu makes runs up to them and trips. Yuuichi introduces Akiko to Ayu as his landlord. After explaining what a landlord is, he introduces Ayu to Akiko who seems to recognize Ayu’s name, but isn’t sure. Ayu joins them in order to help Yuuichi unpack his boxes. She says she wants to thank him for helping her look for the item that she lost the other day. When they get home, Yuuichi notices Makoto watching them from the top of the stares. She hides behind a corner until Yuuichi calls her down to meet Ayu. Yuuichi and the two girls start to carry up his boxes. As Yuuichi carries the rest of the boxes up, Ayu breaks the ice with the unexpectedly shy Makoto by offering her a taiyaki she bought earlier. As Ayu leaves the house, she notices Makoto watching from a window. She waves to Makoto who shyly waves back. Later that night, Nayuki, back from training, asks Yuuichi for her notebook. He forgot it at school and decides to go and get it, even though the school is closed. He’s walking down the hall when he notices a figure. As he gets closer, we see that it’s so Mai carrying a sword. And the show closes there.

So far, this is the only episode where the music got my attention. The music playing during the flashback scene was nice and enjoyable. I really enjoyed the music that played during the Mai scene and hoped for more of the same in the next episode. Another thing that I noticed, and I’ll have to find the previous episodes, but it seems like every time we see Ayu leave, it seems that she’s heading off into light. In this episode, as she left Yuuichi’s home, Ayu ran into the sunset. During the flashback, when she left Yuuichi, she ran down a sun-lit street. I’ve mentioned before that, as I understand it, the show is supposed to have a supernatural aspect to it and having Ayu continuingly running into the light is very suggestive of a plot development along those lines. And then there is Mai and her imitation of Buffy the Slayer. That should be a very intetersting plot development. Even though the show had a “normal, every day” feel to it (for most of the show that is), this was another enjoyable show.

In the last episode, we learned a little about Alice and that despite being a noble, she’s interested in social justice and breaking down class distinctions. We finally get some more background on Randell Oland in episode 4. Granted, most of it is speculation. There are obvious opposite qualities in these two. Alice is rich and sleeps in a fine bed while Oland is poor and sleeps under a bridge. Alice is forward and enthusiastic where Oland is reserved to the point of being shy. But there are similarities, too. Both are interested in repairing the damage done by the war. Alice has spoken about helping people in pretty much every episode. Its how she got Oland to help fight the tank in the first episode of the show. And Oland was an ex-solider who rejoined the military specifically to join the Pumpkin Scissors unit. And both have their own switches to get them going. Alice basically has a short fuse, not even a tank firing its main cannon in front of her phased her. Out numbered, she wanted to take on experienced ex-soldiers with only a three man team not equipped for fighting. Oland literally flicks a lantern switch to take him from a meek shambling giant to a zombified one-man tank buster.

Oland is dreaming of tanks and a group of blue-lanterned soldiers, including himself, marching steadily towards the oncoming tanks with the words “Toten Sie” (roughly “Kill” in German) being shouted in the background and appearing on the screen. Just as he’s about to fire his gun, Alice appears in his dream, that its time to go and offer war relief. Oland wakes up under the bridge surrounded by hungry cats. After feeding them, Oland passes by a couple of other homeless men who ask him if he had another bad dream. He pauses and the image of Alice flashes by and answers that it was a good dream. The real-life Alice is sarcastically asking Oreld if he can only remember the names of women that he’s dating. Oreld is having trouble remembering the bad guy of episode two, Viscount Wolkins, who hunted them with his tank. An Army tank expert, Lt. Webner, is paying the team a visit. She tells them that the tank is an experimental one and that no one like Wolkins should have one. In fact, its still in development. She asks the unit to investigate. Orled suggests asking Wolkins himself. Captain Hunks tells them that Wolkins is in a sanatorium and incapable of telling them where he got it.

To find out where the tank came from, the team head out to visit the foremost tank expert, Doctor Colt, in the empire. On the way over, Machs is preoccupied with a conversation he had with Lt. Webner concerning Orland. She’s curious about how he’s been able to take on tanks in a fight and survive. Machs describes him as a nice guy.Nice guy or not, she wants to know how he could ten tons of or and know where to fire his gun and have the shell penetrate a tanks’ armor at blank range. The team meet with Dr. Colt and give him their information concerning the tank for his review. After reviewing it, he tells that there is the tank doesn’t exist. There’s an organization called the “Alliance of Western Nations Technological Conference” were such technological advancements are made and this tank hasn’t been mentioned in it either. Dr. Colt goes on to say that this tank is far more advanced than any tank currently in production in any country. He asks if the military has started to analyze the tank. Alice tells him that they’re about to start. She suddenly gets a feeling on the back of her neck and decides to leave. As Machs is gathering up the papers, he notices a gun mounted on a wall that looks like the one that Oland uses. He asks the doctor about it, Dr. Colt tells him that its a mock-up of a 13mm anti-tank gun. It was designed to give a foot solider a better weapon to fight tanks with. The only effecitve way to use the tank is to fire at at point-blank range. After Alice and her team leave his office, Dr. Colt makes a phone call concerning “that tank”. As the unit drives off, they’re followed back to a laboratory were the tank is being dismantled.

At the lab, Oreld notices a new armored car. Lt. Webner explains that it’ll be used by another military unit. Inside the armored car, the men who were following the team have snuck in. They start it up, and fire the main cannon, hitting the experimental tank. As the team try to recover, the armored car starts to move. The drivers intend to ram the tank with a front mounted spike. As the car speeds towards the tank, Alice notices that Machs is trapped it by fallen debris. As Machs is about to be run over, he’s picked up by Oland. Oland had turned on his blue lantern and is in the hypnotic like state that goes into when he is fighting a tank. The spikes of the armored car pierce Oland’s leg. He fires his gun, the same model as the one that Machs saw on Dr. Colt’s wall, at the same time that the main cannon fires, Injuring Orland on the side of the head. Back the head office of the team, Machs is reporting to Capt. Hunks, he tells him that all three of the masked men are dead and the tank is completely destroyed. He goes on report that Oland will be out of the hospital in a month. Machs asks the Captain about Oland’s old unit, the 901st Anti-tank unit. There is no such unit listed and by convention, no military unit has a numerical designation with the number nine in at as the previous emperor was killed on the battlefield on September 9th. Captain Hunks tells Machs that there are unlisted military units. And together they form a group of units called the “Invisible 9″. Stekkin suddenly runs in and tells them that Viscount Wolkins committed suicide. Captain Hunks states that Wolkins was killed in order to keep the secret about the tank. He goes on to say that there’s an organization out there that will kill to keep its secret. He asks if Machs is willing to risk his life in order to investigate the “Invisible 9″. Machs states that he is willing.

There’s been a lot of humor in the previous episodes of Kanon and episode three is no different. Yuucihi brings home the girl who attacked him the last episode. Since she’s passed out, he has to carry her. When he gets in, both Nayuki and Akiko make the same joke (at different times) about the girl being a big ingredient for the oden. They manage to awake her by shouting that dinner’s ready. When they’re eating dinner, the girl is obviously hungry since she’s eating fast. Yuuichi asks who she is but the girl claims amnesia which Yuuichi doesn’t believe since she remembers him. The girl explains that the only thing she knows is that she holds a grudge against him. After dinner Yuuichi, Nayuki and the girl are going through her purse for clues. Yuuichi points that everything she has seems to have just been picked up from the ground. Its clear that the girl is trying to build a history for herself since she doesn’t remember who she is. They also find some pictures taken from a photo booth of the girl by herself. She explains that she saw other girls her age using the photo booth to take pictures. Yuuichi wants to call the police and turn the girl over to them so that they can take care of her. The girl is frightened by this and thinks the police are scary. Nayuki suggests letting Akiko decide. Yuuichi protests because he know that Akiko will let the girl stay.

Sure enough, Akiko lets the girl stay, claiming that being around Yuuichi might help her remember. She later tells Yuuichi that she will talk to the police if there are any reports of missing girls.Since the girl can’t remember her name, Yuuichi comes up with an insulting name. The girl smacks Yuuichi in the face, knocking him over. After everyone has gone to sleep, Yuuichi hears the girl sneaking downstairs. He follows her and finds her looking through the refrigerator, looking for more to eat. He sneaks up behind her and drops some sort of gelatinous looking thing (konnyaku?) down the back of her shirt. The girl shouts and thrashes around the kitchen, waking up Akiko and Nayuki. She tells them that she was still hungry.

I don’t remember a smack like this since Aka double-palmed Matsumaru in REC

At school the next morning, Kitagawa suggests that Yuuichi had some sort of love affair with the girl. Yuuichi points out that he was 10 at the time. Kitagawa mentions that a girl is outside in the yard next to the school. Yuuichi recognizes her as the girl that he and Ayu knocked over the day before. Telling Nayuki that he’ll be back, he goes outside to talk to her. He finds out that she’s a student at the school, but has been home sick. But she’s feeling stronger despite being sick for so long. He asks her why she’s at school and she mentions that she us waiting to meet someone, but she doens’t know a name or what grade this person is, even though we presume that its Yuuichi. As she leaves, Yuuichi tells her his name, but she only tells him her first name, Shiori. In spending time with Shiori during lunch, Yuuichi forgot about his promise to Nayuki to have lunch with her. He offers to buy her sushi as an apology.

After school Yuuichi is walking through downtown when Ayu runs up and jumps on his back. In another humorous scene, Yuuichi makes Ayu angry by mocking her with her catchphrase “Uguu”. To apologize to her, he buys her taiyaki. In all three episodes, Ayu has rarely been seen without a taiyaki bag. In the first episode, Yuuichi had a memory from when was 10. A girl around the same age bumped into him, crying because she was lost. To calm her down, he bought her some taiyaki. In the second episode, we find out that the little girl was Ayu. So it seems that Ayu has a strong unconscious bond with Yuuichi through taiyaki. In a poignant scene, Ayu explains that she was out looking for something that she lost. When Yuuichi asks her what it was, Ayu can’t remember and becomes distressed by not remembering what it was. After searching around places that Ayu could’ve lost it (and they all deal with food), They walk to a bakery that Ayu remembers visiting, but turns out that a bookstore is now located there. Standing front of the bookstore, Yuuichi asks if she has a cell phone. Ayu doesn’t know what a cell phone is until Yuuichi explains that its a mobile phone.

As he heads home, Yuuichi wonders if the city casts an amnesia spell over people. Ayu can’t remember what she lost or where, he can’t remember his life in the city 7 years earlier and the girl at home can’t remember who she is. When he gets home, the girl comes running at him, slips and lands on top of him. Nayuki and Akiko come into the hallway and tell Yuuichi that the girl remembers her name. The girl calls herself “Makoto”. Yuuichi thinks her name sounds like a guy’s name. She defends herself by sayingf her name is cute and his is weird. Yuuichi calls her a freeloader. Makoto points out that Yuuichi is one too, despite being family.

So this episode solves half of a mystery and introduces Makoto whom I liked from the original Kanon. I haven’t seen all of the original series so I don’t know her her story other than what’s been shown here. So know we have to wait to find out who she is and what happened to her memories and her connection to Yuuichi. Then there’s the mystery of Shiori. Why is she sneaking out to meet Yuuichi when she’s sick? Who is she? And if she’s recovering, why is she wearing a shawl instead of a coat in the snow? I thought the camera work during their meeting was great. It followed Shiori as she walked around Yuuichi when they were talking.

I know that Kanon is supposed to have a hint or two of the supernatural to it. That lead me to believe that Ayu is a ghost or spirit of some sort, but we see her reflection in the window of the bookstore. I don’t think that we would have seen her reflection if she was a ghost. As I mentioned earlier, I found the scene when Ayu couldn’t remember what she had lost to be very poignant (and the fact that I was able to spell that word correctly the first time…even though I am using it incorrectly here). The unknown urgent need that she had to find it as soon as possible and her reaction to not being able to remember it came acrossas very painful.

How can you like a show that has a junior employee telling the female lead (and a senior employee) not to change his work, have her be glad not to see her boyfriend because she’s tired and then complains about not having sex for three months? How can you not?

Hatakari Man shows us the life of magazine writer/editor, Matsukata Hirokko (Hiro). Hiro is basically a workaholic, the kind of person who rushes even when she’s not late. A junior writer/editor, Tanaka Kunio doesn’t want her reviewing his work since he knows that its already perfect. In the opening episode, Hiro gets to interview the Foreign Minister about his “celebrity” lifestyle. Instead of the hour that she was promised, she only gets 15 minutes and even that time is cut in half as the Minister is running late (or deliberately blowing her off). The next evening, she’s still at work when she receives a phone call from her boyfriend apologizing for the cancelling their date the other night. She also receives a phone call from a woman who works for the Foreign Minister. She wants to meet with Hiro to talk about the Minister. Hiro thinks that she might be a whistle blower. As she leaves, Kunio makes a comment about work coming before private life. Ignoring him, Hiro meets with the woman who tells Hiro about the Minister misappropriating funds. The next morning, Hiro tells the senior editor and chief editor. They get excited by the scoop. After they approve the new article, Hiro goes into super writer mode where she works three times as fast and is utterly focused on her work.

The next morning Hiro watches a TV news report shows the fallout from Hiro’s article about the Foreign Minister. The woman that Hiro interviewed turns out to be the Minister’s secretary. The minister is shown blaming the secretary. Hiro gets a phone call from someone who threatens her life for “telling lies”. The senior editor takes the phone from and hangs up. He warns her that she could be in trouble from people following her. The chief editor walks in and complains about having to clean up the mess that the article created. On her way home that night, Hiro flashes back to the interview with the secretary. Hiro asked her why she was willing to blow the whistle on the Minister. The secretary points out that Hiro was angry at the shortened time length she was given to interview the minister. The secretary had days like that. As she continues to walk home, Hiro realizes that she’s being followed. She fakes a loud phone call to her boyfriend, Shinji, and runs into her apartment building. As Hiro gets to her apartment, Shinji calls her. She tells asks him to come over because she was followed and is scared. He can’t because he has to leave the city for a business trip. Interestingly enough, Hiro thinks that if she were a man, she’d say the same thing. Later on, Hiro thinks about how scary politics can be and how her article can cause a lot of trouble.

Hiro is arguing with the senior editor because she wants to write an article defending the secretary. The editor points out that its against policy to disclose sources sine Hiro would have to reveal the secretary as the source. They found the possible abuse by the Minster interesting. That’s the only reason why they let her write the article. Hiro calls the secretary, trying to convince her to be named in a follow-up article. The secretary still refuses. She’s allowing herself to be seen as a criminal as a punishment for not stopping the greedy minister earlier. The following day, Hiro is still making her case to write a follow-up article. The senior editor is still adamant about not naming the source as it will damage the magazine’s reputation for protecting informants. The editor asks her if she’s still receiving threats and is she willing to receive more from the second article. The chief editor arrives and gives his approval for her second article. A little while later, Hiro is trouble writing the article. She’s suffering from writer’s block until she realizes that she wrote the article in such a way that didn’t clearly implicate the minister. She kicks into Hatakari Man mode and starts writing.

Overall, I liked this episode. And I can see the potential some pretty interesting office politics and conflicts between Hiro and Kunio. Kuno comes off as a laid back, cocky kind of a guy. I imagine that his writing has to be pretty good for him to tell Hiro not to edit his work. The remaining characters aren’t seen much except for the chief editor who seems to be a gruff stand-up character type, the senior editor who appears to be well-balance and doesn’t raise his voice often. And then there’s another junior editor who’s eager to make her way. She also has tendency to describe everything as a disaster. Hiro was great to watch and I can’t wait to see more. Her eyes still freak me out little, but I think she’s a great characte to follow.

The show starts with Oland waking up in a sleeping bag under a bridge where he apparently sleeps at night. It jumps to Alice waking up in a lush big bed. At breakfast, one of her sisters makes comments about Alice’s uniform being to manly for her. Alice points out that its a military uniform. Her father asks her how long does she intend to play her “army games”. Alice mentions that its family tradition to be in the military. Another sister points out that the war has been over with a for a few years. Alice states that the real struggle is to help the people recover and that its the job of her unit to help bring relief to everyone who needs it. Her father points out that while people are going hungry, she’s been eating well. At the office for her unit, Oreld gets there late, but realizes that Alice is also late. Machs points out the lipstick on his chest. Later, Alice still hasn’t shown up and Oreld points out that she’s rarely late. Stekkin makes a comment comparing Alice to the habitually late Oreld. Alice then enters, out of breath from running from her house to the office. Alice says that commoners don’t have carriages to take them back and forth like she does. When Stekkin offers her a glass of water, Alice hesitates, asking if commoners drink water. Machs and Oreld wonder if anything happened to her. After Alice apologizes to Captain Hunks for being late, he sends her and the team off to repair the Su-13 tunnel in the south.

Travelling by train, Oreld is complaing about rebuilding the tuneel. Machs explains that a rebuilt railroad will bring money back into the empire. Alice agrees and is enthusisatic about having her team work along side the commoners. Just then, her stops growls, causing her to become embarassed and Oland to ask if she’d eaten anything. When the train gets to the tunnel, Alice wants to use the tunneling train to bore directly into the rock that had collapsed into the tunnel. Oland thinks that the tunnel would collapse further if they did. They hear Oreld shouting and turn to see him holding onto a young boy who has stolen some food rations. The boy complains that the military gets to eat well. This hits a nerve with Alice who lets the boy keep the rations in return for taking her to his village. At the village, the boy’s father, the village leader, refuses to help Alice and her team. He explains that when the tunnel collapsed five years earlier, the military hired them to repair it. Instead of being payed for their work, the villagers recevied an exemption from serving in the military. With bad crop harvests and no money, people died. Alice asks him to trust her but he won’t help her repair the tunnel.

Alice decides to go ahead and start the work by herself and orders the rest of the team to help. Oland then comes out with lunch but Alice refuses, ignoring her growling stomach. Alice can’t eat, thinking about people all of the people going hungry while she grew up having food. The same boy, Peter, from before shows up, playing on the tunneling train. Alice explains that it isn’t a tank like he thinks it is. Its a shield train. It was sued to knock down barriers and fences in front of soliders during combat. It’s been modified for drilling the tunnel. Peter apologizes for his father, but Alice understands that he won’t help based on promises. Alice starts working in the tunnel by herself, but since she hasn’t eaten, she collapes and dreams about her grandfather. We see a young Alice asking her grandfather if he feels lonely living in a huge house by himself. He tells her that all nobles are somewhat alone. She wakes up, with Oland sitting next to him. Alice slaps him. When Oland asks why, she admits that she doesn’t know why. She then refuses the dinner that Oland brought. Talking to no one in particular, Oland mentions that the country is wretched, suffering from a disease that he calls “war damage”. Alice compares the people of the country to patients suffering from the disease. She goes on to say that their unit is the doctor, working to cure the country. Oland tells her that the paitents don’t want the doctor to be a friend or to share their suffering. They just want the suffering to end. Alice starts to understand that ignoring meals has no affect on helping the country to recover.

The next morning, Alice and Oland return to the village. Alice drives her dagger into the table causing everyone to think that she’s going to use the threat of violence to get them to help. Alice removes the handle from the dagger, revealing the Emporer’s crest. Alice explains that this isn’t a normal military sword. The crest indicates that she’s the next in line to succeed to the head of the Malvin family, one of the 13 Appointed Families of the empire. She then swears an oath that the villagers will receive the money owed to them for the work they did five years earlier. Orled runs in shouting that Peter drove the Shield train into the tunnel and that it collapsed. Alice and the village leader crawl into the tunnel and find Peter. The tunnel entrance becomes completely sealed, trapping the three of them inside. Alice tells them that her team will get them out. The village leader is amused by her faith in her team. He doesn’t understand why a “well-off” person like her would risk her life. Alice tells him that its because she’s well-off that she risks her life. He then tells her that the tunnel collapsed when the villagers were working on it and that the nobles in charge of the project left without helping. Alice gets a premonition and shoves Peter and his father out of the way as a boulder starts to move. Just when its about to hit Alice, it explodes. Alice then sees a blue light and realizes Oland shot destroyed the boulder with his anti-tank gun. Alice wins the trust of the vilalge leader and the villagers start helping the Pumpkin Scissors team to repair the tunnel along side of the team.

There really isn’t much to say about this episode. It was nice to get some background on Alice. We see that Alice’s father and sisters are typical nobles and that she’s the idealistin the family. We also learn that she will succeed her father as head of the Malvin family. Despite that, it was a predictable episode. And instead Oland shooting tanks, he shoots a boulder. I know this is only the third episode of the show. I don’t know how many episodes the show is scheduled to run for, but I hope a fair amount of them don’t end with Oland using his anti-tank gun and blue lantern to end things. Its not a bad show, but so far, it hasn’t become a great show to enjoy.

Happiness is on my watch list because a high school comedy romance seemed like a nice choice after some summer shows that ate my soul *cough* StrawberryPanic *cough* and dissapointing Fall shows *cough* CodeGeass: LelouchoftheZzzzzz…snort *cough*…huh? Umm, yeah, okay. And besides, with a title of Happiness, how can you not feel …happy. The show opens up with (yet another character named) Haruhi, a magic student at Hogwarts…a school were the magical students are separated from the regular students (Yeah, I know, its not an original joke. But who comes here for the jokes anyway? The bots sure don’t. ) Haruhi is demonstrating her powers in class. After class, she and her friend/rival(?), Anri are walking down a hall, being observed from a window in the regular students building. Watching them walk are Hachi, Jun, and the male lead, Yuumi.

The next Haruhi is buying St. Valentine chocolates to give to Yuumi as its implied that he saved her from bully’s when they were little children with, interestingly enough, magic. Anri is also buying chocolates because she thinks that this is how Haruhi become popular. Hauhi has a stash of St. Valentine’s day chocolates, presumably for Yuumi, that she’s failed to give in the past. Jun is buying also buying chocolates and dragged Yuumi and Hachi along. while their friends are shopping, both Haruhi and Yuumi decide to go outside and wait for them They both come to a park and see some boys bullying a little girl. Yuumi talks to them, but they don’t listen and break the little girl’s box of chocolates. Haruhi uses magic to fix it.

Haruhi and Yuumi are about to talk when Jun and Hachi show up. As Yuumi, Jun, and Hachi are walking away, it gets revealed that Jun, despite looking and sounding like a girl, is actually a guy dressed up as a girl because the clothes fit so well. haruhi goes home, saddened because she still didn’t give Yuumi her box of chocolates as a St. Valentine’s Day gift. The next day, Anri is demanding to know how the chocolates are for. She uses magic spells against Hauhi who dodges the attacks. Anri loses control of the spell and it breaks through a window. At this momemnt, Yuumi, Jun, and Hachi are walking by the building when the magic spell blows up a patch of the ground in front of Yuumi. Harhui runs out to see if he’s okay. As the two groups part, Haruhi manages to give Yuumi her box of chocolates. When Haruhi and Anri get to their dorm, Anri makes a joke about how great things would be if both schools were merged together.

Later that night, Yuumi is watching TV when a news report announces that the magic section of the school has burnt down in a mysterious fire. The next day, the magic school students are transferred to the regular school. As Haruhi and Anri are walking to their new class, Anri denies having anything to do with the fire. When they reach the room, Haruhi sees that Yuumi is in the same class.

Not a bad episode, but nothing really that stays with you. I expect some funny moments from the show. I hope they keep doing the will-they-won’t-they routine. The novelty of Jun, a boy who looks, dresses and sounds like a girl will wear off fast. Its the kind of show that I’d eat popcorn with.

This weeks airing starts with a view of snow falling (wouldn’t be Kanon if there wasn’t snow falling now would it?) outside of a window. A girl’s voice claims that she’s in a dream. In fact, she’s in the same dream with the same scenery again and again. She makes a wish that the next time she opens her eyes, the scenery will be different. After the show’s opening scenes of the Girls of Kanon with slowly moving hair in the wind, we see Yuuichi sleeping in bed. He hears Nayuki’s voice saying “Good Morning. Let’s eat breakfast and go to school”. He soon realizes that her voice is coming from the alarm clock that he borrowed. He then hears loud noise coming from Nayuki’s room. He bangs on her door and then enters. The noise is all of Nayuki’s alarm clocks going off at the same time. Quickly shutting them off, he has to shake Nayuki awake.

At breakfast, Nayuki asks why Yuuichi is eating toast dry, without any jam/jelly on it. He explains that he doesn’t like sweet things like jam. Akiko, Nayuki’s mother, hears this and says that she makes jam that it sweet. Hearing this, Nayuki bolts from the table, saying she has full and has to finish getting ready for school. Bringing out a jar of glowing yellow jam, Akiko spreads some on a piece of toast for Yuuichi. He starts to eat it and has a reaction to it. Asking what kind of jam it is, Akiko says its a secret. Being polite, he says the jam has an original taste to it. Nayuki returns saying its time to go. Akiko asks Yuuichi if he can stop at the store on the way home to buy some ingredients for oden that she wants to make for dinner. As they walk to school, Yuuichi asks Nayuki what kind of did of jam Akiko make. She doesn’t know and warns him to be prepared for the unexpected.

On the way the stop in walking and Nayuki asks if Yuuichi remembers the area of houses that they’re in. He doesn’t and isn’t concerned by not remembering. She encourages him to remember and says that if there is someone out there who wants him to remember, then he should make the effort. Realizing that they’re going to be late on his first day at school, they run, barely making it in time. In the hallway he’s panting for breath and asks her why she isn’t. Nayuki reminds him that she’s the Captain of the track team. After making his introduction to the class, the teacher lets Yuuichi sit next to Nayuki, Kaori and Kitagawa. Nayuki is claearly happy that Yuuichi is in the same class and at the seat next to hers. Kaori tells Yuuichi that his introduction was very normal. Yuuichi responds that if there were any introductions that weren’t normal he’d like to see them.

With school over, Kaori asks Nayuki if she’s got a club meeting. Kitagawa asks Kaori if she wants to go somewhere with him, but she ignores him telling Nayuki that she has a club meeting too. As she leaves, Kitagawa runs after Kaori, telling her that he’ll wait for her. Yuuichi asks Nayuki not to tell anyone that he’s living at her house as it might cause some nasty rumors. She tells him that she’s already told people. She jokingly runs away from him. As she’s running down the stairs, she slips and crashes into Mai and Sayuri, two seniors. Yuuichi tells Nayuki that he’s going to explore the school before going home. Nayuki points out the school is big and cautions him not to get lost. He gets lost. After getting lost and finding the computer lab, library and an art room with a naked male model, Yuuichi runs into Kaori. We here him say that as he turns around, Kaori is standing in front of him. Kaori asks why he’s narrating the scene and it becomes clear that this isn’t his normal internal narration. As they walk through the school, Kaori tells him that she thinks that he’s a spy. Yuuichi tells her that he’s an ordinary transfer student. She points out that he could’ve asked for directions from someone. Yuuichi claims that he’d still get lost because of all of the corners and non descript hallways. Kaori laughs telling him that he’s exactly how Nayuki described. She also tells him that Nayuki looked the happiest that Kaori’s ever seen her when Yuuichi joined the class. As they get to the school gates, Kaori calls him melodramatic and realizes that Kitagawa was waiting for her. She shrugs off that thought and tells Yuuichi good-bye and heads home. Yuuichi tells himself that she’s a very cool girl.

Downtown, Yuuichi is thinking about shopping for the oden ingredients when he hears Ayu’s voice shouting to get out of the way. Turning around, he sees Ayu running right at him. Telling her to move to the side that she hold uses chopsticks with and he’ll jump to the side that uses chopsticks, they’ll both avoid colliding with each other. They both jump to the same side and collide with each other, only Ayu is the one getting knocked to the ground this time. She tells him that she’s left-handed. Getting up, she grabs him and the start running again. Yuuichi realizes that she stole more taiyaki again. They wind up running into a park that niether recognize. Yuucihi complains that all he’s been doing since he came back to the city was running. He asks Ayu why she stole more taiyaki. She tells him that she forgot her purse again and was frightened by the taiyaki seller again. Because she was scared, she ran away with the taiyaki again. As they walk through the park, both are eating the taiyaki. Yuuichi explains that they’ll have to go back to the taiyaki seller and apologize. Again.

They both realize that they’re lost since they were just walking with each other. Yuuichi tells here that since she’s a local and doesn’t know the area, how can she expect him to know the area since he’s just moved back. Ayu recognizes him as the boy that she used to play with when they were little. She tells him that and claims that he moved back, just like he promised. Hearing this, Yuuichi also recognizes Ayu as the little girl he used to play with. Ayu closes her eyes and runs toward Yuuichi who jumps out of the way. Ayu runs smack into a tree. Yuuichi apologizes for jumping out of the way. As Ayu is crying, they hear a shout. Turning around, they see that a younger girl had been knocked down to the ground from the snow that fell from the tree that Ayu ran into. They go over to her and see to if she’s alright. Yuuichi blames the accident on Ayu running into the tree. Ayu blames Yuuichi for jumping out of the way. It was supposed to be a dramatic reunion moment and that she’s not the bad guy that he’s making her out to be. Yuuichi claims that Ayu has scared the girl speechless. He helps her up and starts to help pick up her groceries. He implies that trustworthy. Ayu who reacts to this jab and claims that she’s trustworthy too. Yuichi then says she shouldn’t have stolen the taiyaki.

As the three walk in the park, Ayu notices that the girl bought a lot of groceries. The girl explains that she doesn’t get out much so she buys in bulk. Yuuichi uses this moment as another excuse to tease Ayu about the taiyaki. Ayu thinks that Yuichi is intentionally trying to make her look like a bad guy. Ayu claims that she’s a good girl but Yuuichi stills says that a good girl wouldn’t steal taiyaki. Ayu remembers that Yuuichi was this sarcastic when they were younger. She claims that its destiny that brought them back together and he says its bad luck that chained them together. Ayu asks the girl whayt grade she’s in . She tells them that shes a freshman. Ayu mention that the girl is a year younger than she is. Yuuichi is surprised to hear that Ayu the same age that he is. The group reaches a fork in the path and the girl tells them that her house in down the other path. As she’s leaving, Yuuichi stops her and begs her to tell them how to get out of the park.

After Ayu and Yuichi are out of the park, the pay and apologize to the taiyaki seller, again. After they leave the taiyaki stand, Ayu wants to meet again. Yuuichi agrees. Ayu pinky swear like they used to as a kid. She starts to pull the glove off of her left hand, but stops and pulls off the glove on her right hand instead. After they pinky swear, she runs off. Yuuichi shouts at her, wanting to know how to contact her, but doens’t get an answer. He then walks into the grocery store to go shopping for Akikio’s dinner. As he walks out of the store, a figure in a blanket jumps in front of him. The figure declares that it finally found him and that it’ll never forgive him. It then pulls the blanket off, revealing that its a young girl under the blanket. Yuuichi is surprised by this and says that he doesn’t remember angering causing anyone to have a grudge against him. The girl says she has a grudge against him and takes a swing at him with her fist. She starts hitting Yuuichi, but since her punches are so weak and feeble, they don’t hurt him. Yuuichi sarcastically asks if she can try harder, but she says she’s so hungry that she’s weak. She starts to walk towards him, but trips and collapses to the ground.

I enjoyed this episode, but that’s not really a surprise. There was a lot of humor in this episode starting with Nayuki’s alarms clocks, her reaction to her mother’s jam, Kaori and Yuuichi comments about his class introduction, Kaori nonchalantly blowing off a waiting Kitagawa, and the scenes with Ayu of course. This episode’s given us a questions already. A fe blogs have mentioned that neither Ayu nor the girl they knocked over in the park have were seen at the school. And obviously, the girl who attacked Yuuichi and her grudge are mystireies. But I also noticed that while Ayu said she was left-handed, she used her right hand to pinky swear with Yuuichi. We see her start to pull off the glove on her left hand, but stops and then pulls off her right hand glove. I think that’s the bigger issue and should come into play later in the series.

After deciding not to commit suicide, the off-line group, Yamazaki, and Hitomi’s boyfriend, Jougaskai, are cleaning up after themselves, preparing to return to the mainland. The youngest member of the group makes the comment that he didn’t think that he had any other choices other than suicide. The man who owns the island replies that people with tunnel vision can’t think of any other solutions, even when there is one in front of them.

Satou is sitting by himself when Misaki walks up to him and asks if he’s glad he lived. Satou jumps up and raises his fist. In a flashback, Misaki sees another figure raising its fist, ready to hit her. She falls and curls up, protecting her head. Satou stops and lowers his fist. Satou raises his fist again and she covers herself again and has the same flashback. She mutter “Please stop”. Satou storms off saying that he was more scared than she was.

Everyone gets on the boat and heads off. Once they get off the boat, a man with a flag asks them if they’re the off-line group. Jougaskai explains that he contacted the resort, figuring that everyone would want to relax for a bit. The group excluding Misaki get on the bus. Saotu and the guys are in a hot springs room when a janitor walks in. He asks if they’re the group of fools who tried to kill themselves. To throw away their lives is the mark of a fool. He asks what they would have happened if they actually succeed. He points out that there would be a huge search for them which would involve the local fishermen. their deaths would disrupt the fishermen’ work, the local hotels and inns would have to have to spend time dealing with inquires about the group. And what would happen if their bodies floated ashore onto a beach. Tourists probably would avoid the area. He asks if they understand how many people would have been affected by their deaths. He implies that he was the same sort of fool.

At a group meal, a waitress tells two of the members, the ex-medical student and the teenager, that their families are here. After an emotional reunion, the teenager hands satou a coupon for an on-line video game that he usually plays. He mentions that one of his game friends is also a hikikomori and makes money by trading items that he’s earned in the game for money.

Satou rejoins Hitomi, Jougasaki, and the island owner. Satou were Yamazaki went. Jougasaki tells him that Yamazaki had an appointment. Satou realizes that today’s the last day of the Natsucomi. Satou wonders if Natsucomi is more important than Satou’s life. Jougasaki mentions that Misaki also left. Satou mutters that he doesn’t care about her. Jougasaki and Hitomi offer Satou a ride back to Tokyo, but declines. Hitomi apologizes for bringing him out to the island. Satou passes it off, telling not to worry and to be happy. The island owner offers Satou a ride to the train station. On their way to his car, they see his son. The son tells him that his ex-wife let the son come to see him.

When Satou reaches his apartment, he sees a letter from Misaki stuck in his door. Ignoring the letter, he lies in bed in the darkness. Someone starts ringing his doorbell. Its Yamazaki and he’s back from Natsucomu and he’s drunk. And angry. He’s angry at the the convention attendees, considering them stupid for not willing to buy the trial version of their game, for not recognizing it as a masterpiece, that he couldn’t attend the opening day because he and Misaki were chasing after Satou. He blames Satou. Satou is thinking about Misaki’s letter which he had read earlier. She wrote that she’ll meet him in the park at the usual time. Satou gets up and leaves his apartment.

Satou meets Misaki in the park. Misaki doesn’t look at him, but holds up a copy of the contract. She says that he’s been absent from their meetings for several days and that there’s a penalty fee that he’ll have to pay. She goes on to sasy that she never told Satou were she lived (in the house on a hill where she could see directly into Satou’s apartment). Because of this, she waives the fee. Their counseling sessions will continue and that he has to come. Satou gets angry and as he rips the paper out of her hands he asks her who she is to decide these things. Misaki cowers like she did on the island and starts crying. This causes Satou to pause. As he’s standing there, Misaki tells him that she’s glad he’s back. Satou.

As Satou walks into his apartment, his phone starts ringing. On the phone is his mother and Satou thinks that she sounds depressed. As they’re talking, there are sirens in the background of the phone call.

The show has given very little information about Misaki. We know she lives with her aunt in a mansion on a hill that overlooks Satou’s apartment. We also know that she works part-time in a comic book shop. Other than that, we know nothing. But based on her flashback when Satou went to hit her, she’s been a victim of abuse. My guess is that the figure she saw in the flashbacks were her father.

This has also been a roller-coaster for Satou. He starts out the show to trying to change his hikikiomori lifestyle, he meets his senpai who he has a crush on only to lose her. He finds out that he’s been spied on by Misaki. And now there’s something gone wrong back at his parents’ house. I have to wonder that if he didn’t try to change his life, how things would work out.

Ok, based on the first two episodes of Death Note, I can honestly say, this is a great show. Let’s hope that the rest of the series will be as good. In episode 2, Light’s in school with Ryuk hovering about. Ryuk keeps talking to Light who can’t answer because people would wonder who he’s talking to. Because of the notebook, Light is the only one who can see or hear Ryuk. At home, Light starts writing down the names of criminals, including one who the t.v.names as a suspect in a murder. Ryuk is impressed that Light is working hard in writing names in the Death Note. Light explains that he has a limited amount of time to use the notebook. he has to maintian his high grades, go to school, go to cram school and go to sleep to maintain his health. Light reiterates that he will make the world into a crime-free utopia. His isister knocks on the door, asking for help with her math. Once he lets her in, she sits at his desk where he hid the Death Notebook in a drawer. Ryuk tells Light that if anyone touches the Death Note, they’ll be able to see him. Light is surprised to hear that and wonders why didn’t Ryuk tell him that before.

We cut to an Interpol office where there’s a conference going on about the recent deaths of convicts from heart attacks. One group doesn’t have problem with this while another group considers it murder, even after criminals have been caught and punished. Someone wonder if the should bring in “L” to investigate. A junior Japanese police officer asks his senior partner who L is. The older officer explains that L is Interpol’s secret weapon who only takes on select cases. No one knows who L is or what he looks like. But no matter how hard the case is, L always solves them. Before he can go any further, a mysterious figure appears and tells the officials that L is already investigating. The senior Japanses officer recoginzes the figure as someone named “Watari” who is also unknown and the only person who can contact L. Watari opens a laptop that’s connected to a wall screen. The letter “L” is shown and we hear a digitized voice explains the death of the criminals by Light is mass homicide and needs to be stopped. He asks for the cooperation of all of the police agencies from around the world, especially from the Japanese police. The two police officers from Japan are surprised to hear this and ask why. L believes that the killer or killers are either Japanese nationals or are currently living in Japan. He says that he should be able to provoke the killer(s) into action as a demonstration.

As the conference is going on, Light and Ryuk are in an abandoned building were Light is working with chemicals. Light explains that carrying around the notebook is dangerous, and he might have to kill his family if he’s careless and they disover the notebook. Back in his room, Light shows Ryuk how he’s going to hide the notebook in his drawer. Ryuk is surprised that Light would hide it an easy spot until Light explains some security measure that he’s taken. One of them is a electrical current that will trigger a fire to destroy the notebook if someone doesn’t use the right key to open the drawer. Ryuk tells Light that hiding a Death Note was the biggest problem for other humans who had one. Ryuk cautions Light to be careful, that he could set himself on fire. Light mocks ryuk be saying that Ryuk is saying “strange things”. He goes on to say that merely having and using a Death Note is dangerous. He implies that if he’s caught, a small fire is better than a death sentence that could get.

We see people are talking about the deaths of the criminals, cheering on their killer. They’re calling the killer, “Kira” which sounds like “Killer” according to Light. He’s showing Ryuk websites dedicated to Kira (basically Light). Even though the media doesn’t acknowledge Kira, he’s being talked about all over the world. Light states that people all over the world can feel that someone is judging them. Light expalins who everyone is publicly forced to act the same, say the same things even though they are feeling and thinking different things. Criminals are afraid which delights Light.

A special news broadcast appears on the t.v. Light andRyuk are surprised that its from Interprol. A man with a nameplate of Lind L. Tailor, alias L appears, claiming that he controls all of the world’s police agencies. L addresses a message to Kira/Light,stating that he will be caught. Light goes over the edge and says its impossible for him to be caught. He also know that the police would eventually act. Light scoffs when L calls him evil, calling himself “Justice”, the one who protects the weak and a god of a new world. Anyone who opposes him are the evil ones. He writes L’s full name in the Death Note and waits for him die. He wishes that L was a little more clever so that he could have fun.

In front of everyone watching television, L has a heart attack and dies. Light stands there laughing until the letter “L” appears on the screen and the same digitized voice comes across the t.v. set. The voice on the t.v. claims that he couldn’t believe that Kira/Light could kill someone without being near them.The voice explains that the man who was killed was a criminal already sentenced to die that day and he was the real L still lived. The criminal’s capture hadn’t been announced. Ryuk laughs and tells Light that he’s been set-up. As Light is stunned, L taunts him. It tells Light to kill him if he can. L explains that the broadcast wasn’t world wide. It was just aired locally, in the Kanto region. L now knows that Kira(Light) is in the Kanto region. He started in Japan because of the death of Light’s first victim wasn’t widely reported. L reiterates that Kira (Light) will be caught. Ryuk thinks to himself that he was right, humans are interesting.

This was an episode with nothing but dialog. And it was good. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, based on the first two episodes, I like this show. The moral implications raised by the show of being a vigilante are great. Earlier in the show, Light writes the name of a suspect in the Death Note. The keyword here is suspect. The guy hasn’t been named as a criminal yet. Without any evidence or trial, Light crosses the line from executioner to judge and jury. Imagine if Light was watching the news with the sound off and he sees a police drawing of someone. Its not hard to imagine him deciding that this is a criminal and writing his name in the book. Now imagine if you were watching the same broadcast with the sound on. You hear that the person in the sketch is described as a witness. No suppose this was the only witness to a crime. Who is now dead because Light killed him without investigating further. What would Light’s reaction be? We’ve seen his willingness to kill a, as Light was given to understand, a police official (Lind Tailor). Based on that action, I’d be surprised if Light should any signs of remorse.What if you or I were in Light’s position? How many of us would react the same as Light? Or act differently.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but I want more of this show. And I want it now. I’m impressed with Light’s thoroughness in realizing that eventually the police would start to investgate him. And that he doesn’t flinch about the thought of having to kill someone in his family if they found the notebook.

Or maybe I’m reading way to much into the show.

I’m tempted to buy the manga, but I think I’ll hold off for a while. I’m enjoying watching a show I know nothing about. I just hope the show keeps being as good as the first two episodes.

The second episode of Pumpkin Scissors opens with three men chained together while running from an aristocrat hunting them in a tank. As he and his tank driver are hunting the men, the aristocrat is waxing poetic about how good it is to be part of the nobility and other justifications for his actions. We then see the Pumpkin Scissors’ office in the Army Intelligence HQ. Lt. Alice Malvin is angry and getting angrier because Oland, the giant, former Anti-tank Trooper with the blue lantern is late on his first day in Pumpkin Scissors. Malvin is so angry that she’s swinging her dagger around in the air. Oland is outside trying to get in, but his disheveled appearance is causing him trouble until he shows the guard his papers. Stekkin is glad that she’ll finally outrank someone until Capt. Hunks, leader of the entire unit, asks where Mercury, the messenger dog is. The dog (who bit the head of a senior officer in the last episode) is barreling through the hallways, chased by Stekkin. Back in the office, an angry Lt. Malvin is lecturing the rest of her team when Stekkin and Oland with Mercury biting his head show up.

As Oreld and Machs issue Oland his uniform and equipment, Oreld is describing Lt. Malvin as straight forward and stubborn. He also explains that Pumpkins Scissors is regarded as a joke with no potential for advancement. They’ve also been called “the peaceful and easy going Imperial Unit III. All they do is fill out reports and do inspections. Surprising the other two guys, Orlad likes the idea of a peaceful and easy-going outfit. As the team heads out to Viscount Wolkin’s lands, the nobleman from the beginning, to investigate a report about a disturbance, Capt. Hunks is thinking about Oland. He’s thinking about the fact that Oland doesn’t seem like a solider due to his mild, withdrawn manner, but that his combat skills are “abnormal”.

Once the team gets to the Viscount Wolkin’s lands, they see a funeral procession which causes Oreld no concern until Malvin points out that as bad as things are, its unusual for three people to die at the same time. They hear from local townsfolk about “The Game”. Wolkins and his tank driver, Hosslow, are having dinner in front of Wolkins’ starving maids. He throws his food onto the floor making a passing reference about forgetting to feed his pets. He tells them they can eat the food. The Pumpklin Scissors team storms into the dining room where Malvin accuses Wolkins of being a war profiteer. Wolkins retorts that the Pumpkin Scissors unit and its “war relief” efforts as nothing but a sham used by the military as means to have more access to the nations budget. The unit places him under arrest. Wolkins has his maids draw weapons on the team.

With Malvin sitting on a balcony with the Maids pointing their handguns at her, Wolkins and Hosslow are sitting in the tank, giving a chained Oland and the others a five minute head start to run away. As Oreld picks the locks on their chains, Malvin figures out that the maids were the ones to report Wolkin’s hunting games. She asks why they don’t point their handguns at him. One of the maids responds that they can’t because he’s part of the aristocracy. Malvin then tells them that she’s part of the Malvin family, one of the 13 appointed families of the country. She then cheerfully tells the maids that as commoners, they’re pointing a gun at a noble.

As this is going on, Hosslow is telling Wolkins about a story he heard from other tank soldiers. The story goes that if you see a foot solider with a blue steel lantern, don’t consider them as allies. But don’t turn them into enemies either. Wolkin dismisses the story as a fairy tale. He then starts to react to loud noises coming from outside the tank. He sees that the maids and Lt. Malvin are shooting at him. He starts shooting at Oland, Machs and Oreld who are now free from the chains. Machs and Oreld run away, but Oland stands still, is talking to himself about commoners, nobles and the sham that Wolkin claims Pumpkin Scissors is. As a shell explodes nearby, he decides that it isn’t important at what class you’re born to, its important about how you live your life. Flicking on the blue lantern at his belt, he becomes the glowing tank killer that we saw in the first episode. Surviving shell after shell shot at him and getting wounded in the process, Oland attacks the tank. Lt. Malvin and the team race up in the jeep. The tank tips over throwing Orland off. Malvin jumps out to catch him. Wolkin crawls out of the tank and asks that if stopping him will change things.

Back at the Army Intelligence HQ, Oreld is reciting a list of Oland’s injuries who says he doesn’t mind getting injured in combat but doesn’t feel things will change. Alice, hearing this, basically asks that if he’s so tall, can he see the future. She then compares him to Wolkin. Once in the office, she reads a letter from the maids out loud. The maids thank them and say that they’re heading home. While they don’t know what the future will hold, they’re happier for the change. Malvin tells Oland to not worry about the future so much, but pay attention to the change in front of him.

Not a bad episode of the show. Malvin is certainly a dynamic character, as opposed to Oland whose basically Dr. Jekyll and them Mr. Hyde when the lantern is turned on. I hope, as the series progresses, we see Oland doing other things than attacking tanks. I’m also curious about the class distinction between Alice and Oland as hinted in the show’s opening. I agree with Garten over at Memento that the show needs more complex bad guys. The one thing about the episode that bothered me was Captain Hunks’ reaction to Oland. It seems that he’s not too familiar with Oland’s background. While I’m sure that some parts of Oland’s records would be classified, I get the feeling that the show will portray Hunks as a crafty intelligence officer. And if he is the crafty, knows-all type, then he really shouldn’t be unfamiliar with Oland as a secret weapon. I plan on watching the show and hope that they’ll show more interesting bad guys and deal with the class distinction in a smart way.

Now that its been a few days since the show that hype built landed on us and I’ve gone back and watched it half dozen or so more times. And I still like it. I have to suspend any opinion because KyoAni is taking their time in introducing the characters and what’s will undoubtedly be several involved plot-lines. We’ve been introduced to the main character, Yuuichi, his cousin Nayuki, and his aunt Akiko. We’ve also been introduced to two characters who are, if I remember right secondary characters (I’ve only seen a few episodes of the first one). So we need to be introduced to three more remaining character within the next few episodes before the show really gets going and picks up in pace.

I’m predisposed to liking this show because of KyoAni’s work on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Also, the artwork alone would be a great reason for me to watch it. As I seaid before, I’ve watched it a half doze times already. The show doesn’t necessarily get any better with each viewing, but excluding the artwork, there’s a quality about it that I like. Granted there isn’t the potential for a deep, intense story line like Death Note seems to have. Its pretty much a show that just are along for the ride. So enjoy the artwork, be amused by the story (and probably get depressed here and there). Oh, and decide which girl will you become a fan of. On a few blogs I’ve read, the Ayu vs. Nayuki camps have already started to rally.

Well, I’d suspect that wearing a uniform like this one in wintertime, the girls’ track team would be popular since they undoubtly have to run as fast as they can to stay warm.

Yes, I’ve been wanting to say that and no, I couldn’t think of anything funnier to say. Hey, I didn’t say that these were deep thoughts.

The anime based on the Death Note manga finally appears. I haven’t read the manga series, so I’ve only got a passing familiarity with he story. So I was looking forward to the anime (and the movie if it ever gets released Stateside … released not remade by Hollywood). The show opens with the world of the Shinigami (gods of some sort). We some Shinigami sleeping or gambling. Finally the camera lands on Ryuk who’s off, brooding by himself. Next we see straight A student, Light Yagami(?) in class. We follow Light walking through crowds while news reports are played about murders. In a split screen between Light and Ryuk, they think to themselves that day after day nothing changes. They pretty much think that their worlds are rotten.

Then we see Light in his class (presumably the next day) and while he’s staring out the window he sees a book fall onto the school yard. After class he goes and picks it up and sees that the book is a blank notebook with the title “Death Note” on it. At first he thinks its a joke but takes it home anyways.While at home, he finds instructions on how to use the notebook. They are:

• The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
• This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject’s face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
• If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject’s name, it will happen.
• If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
• After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

Still believing it to be a joke, he almost writes down a name, but pauses, wondering if he’ll become a murderer if he writes someone’s name in it. He still thinks its a joke. To test if the book is true, he writes the name of a hostage taker that he hears on a news program on his tv. 40 seconds later, the hostages come running out and its reported that the hostage taker is dead of unknown reasons. Even though he’s shocked, he thinks its a coincidence. His mother reminds him that its time for cram school so he packs the notebook up. It at this point that he gets the idea to only write down the names of criminals.

On his way home from cram school, he sees some motorcycle gang members raping a woman. He over hears the name of the leader and hides in a convenience store where he writes down the leader’s name and how he’s going to die. The woman breaks free and runs away. the leader follows after her on his motorcycle only to be hit by a truck. Which is what Light wrote in the notebook. Finally, he’s convinced that the notebook is real and that he has the power of death over someone.

We then see Light coming home and going to his room where he flips through the notebook, laughing at all of the names he’s written. He’s surprised by Ryuk who claims that Light is enjoying using the book. Even though he’s surprised by Ryuk, he’s not scared by the visit since he knows the book is supernatural. Ryuk explains that once a Death Note falls to the Human world it belongs in the Human world. Ryuk also explains that since Light found the book, its his to keep or to give to another human, but if he gives it to another human, he has to erase Light’s memory concerning the book.

Light wonder’s about the price he has to pay for using the book. Ryuk tells him that the only price he’ll pay is that he won’t go to Heaven or Hell. Ruyk tells Light that he’s the only one who can see Ryuk because of a bond between Ryuk and Light through the Death Note. We also see that Ryuk discovers a love for apples that were left by Light’s mother. While Ryuk is eating the apples, Light asks him why he dropped the Death Note. Ryuk answers that he just dropped it somewhere and didn’t single out Light. He dropped it because he was bored. Which is the same answer that Light gives as to why he used it.

While I was looking forward to this show, I wasn’t sure what to expect. This was a good episode and I hope the rest of the season is just as good. I’m pleasantly surprised that I liked it a lot. While I know that I was going to be impressed with Kanon, I didn’t know that I’d be impressed with Death Note. The artwork is good, the moral implications and how the show handles its great. Because of his boredom and disgust about the crime in the world, he used the Death Note. We see Light go through the process of justifying his use of Death Note, just like a politician. Because he’s targeting criminals and those people he thinks of as rotten in an attempt to build a better tomorrow, a better world with only people that he considers good. Hell, let’s call it a utopia.

I think there’s a flaw in Light’s plan to build a world filled with people according to his standards of good. Nature abhors a vacuum, so where Light kills off a criminal another will appear. And so on and so on, until the criminal might not be an actual criminal, but won’t measure up to Light’s definition of “good”. And if a Death Note user doesn’t go to Heaven or Hell, where do they go? Do they become a Shinigami? Or something worse? I hope the producers of Death Note maintain the moral aspect using a Death Note, even if its going after criminals. If they do, then this will be a great, cerebral show to keep watching. I’m looking forward to the next few episodes.

Based on some of the anime blogs I visit, Kanon is one of the more anticipated shows out there. I know I was anticipating it also. The first episode is long and drawn out, introducing the main character of Yuuichi who used to live in the city where the show takes place, but doesn’t remember much about it. We are also introduced to his cousin Nayuki, who has a huge collection of alarm clocks, Nayuki’s mother Akiko, and Ayu, a girl who literally runs into Yuuichi. There really isn’t much to tell about this episode as it just introduces the characters. Considering that Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) has about 24 episodes to work with (as opposed to the 14 for their previous show, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Having a slow open for the series isn’t too bad (jpmeyer describes the opening of this episode as “90 seconds of stuff blowing in the wind porn“).

This episode shows Yuuichi moving in with his aunt and cousin, whom he hasn’t seen in seven years. He and Nayuki tour the city and run into a couple of classmates, Kaoria and Kitagawa. These two have a pretty good interaction with each other as Kaori has Kitagawa carrying all of hers bags and he keeps saying that they’re out on a date.

After watching Kitagawa run after Kaori with her shopping bags, Yuuichi wants for Nayuki outside of a grocery store. He claimed that he’d get lost inside. At this point he hears someone shouting to get out of the way and sees Ayu running towards him. Before he can get out of the way, she bowls him over. She then drags him along, running away from someone chasing her. As they hide in a cafe, Yuuichi sees that its a shopkeeper she’s hiding from. Ayu explains that she got scared by him chasing a off a cat and ran away with some pastries. Yuuichi drags her to the shop (well, its actually a van) and they pay and apologize Ayu’s theft. as they start to part from each other, they finally introduce themselves. Ayu has a reaction when she hears Yuuichi’s name, as if she knew him when he lived there before.

Based on a video game, Kanon was already made into a series a few years ago by and outfit whose name I can’t remember (and am too lazy to find out). I’ve caught a few episodes on Youtube so I have a basic idea of the story. This version is done by Kyoto Animation (KyoAni). From what I understand, excluding the male lead, all of the original voice actors are back for this version. The male lead is done by the actor who voiced Kyon in KyoAni’s recent show, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. That was a show that I liked also.

This is so from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

I thought the artwork in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was pretty good. I sort of suspect that show was just a training session for Kanon because the artwork here easily out does the artwork in Suzumiya. And that’s one of the few things that I think most viewers will take away from this show. Visually, this is very well done. The story itself, I don’t think will be complex, but it should be enjoyable nonetheless.

As I mentioned, one of the strengths about this show will be its visuals. Lush, beautiful landscapes. All of the females characters are almost guaranteed to make you fall in love with them in a moe sort of way (at least as I understand it). I even found myself saying “kawaii ” a few times. Especially whenever Ayu said “Uguu”. This show is probably going to be the fall cotton candy show for me.

This episode ended with a new ending song and visuals. It starts out with the off-line group enjoying their last meal around a bonfire while Hitomi’s boyfriend, Misaki, and Yamazaki race to find and stop them. In the car, Yamazaki states that it shouldn’t be surprising that Satou was committing suicide. He didn’t have a job or a girlfriend. he wasn’t in school and the game that he and Yamazaki were making was basically finished. The most damning piece of evidence was that Misaki was spying on Satou. When Yamazaki asks Misaki why, all she says was that he was important to him. On the island, Satou is still trying to figure a way out, stating that all he wanted to do was to hang out and have a good time with Hitomi, his senpai. While the others in the group reiterate their determination to go ahead with their deaths.

When Samazaki and the others get to the wharf, Hitomi’s boyfriend tries to find out any information about the off-line group, Yamazaki tells Misaki that since she was spying on Satou, she new he was lying about being a game designer. He also tells her that he’s a victim here too because he agreed to make a game with Satou in order to keep up Satou’s lies. All Misaki can say is that she wanted to help Satou who Yamazaki compares to a stray dog. Hitomi’s boyfriend comes back and tells them where the other group is and that he has rented a bout.

The island group starts to walk toward a cliff when one of the members, and ex-medical student, suddenly stops, not willing to go any further. He keeps saying he can see his mother’s face and her pain. A second member decides not to go through it also. This member is a young teenager and he admits to stealing money from his parents. This leaves Satou, Hitomi and the island owner. The medical student starts trying to talk everyone out of jumping by saying that even they have something to leave for, such as family. The island owner tells everyone that his wife left him and won’t let him see their son. This sets the medical student off, calling him irresponsible even if he can’t see his son. Hitomi, dragging Satou along (still unwilling to end it all) continues to the edge. Right at the last second, Hitomi’s boyfriend calls out from the boat below telling her not to jump, he needs her and then he asks her to marry him. This was what Hitomi always wanted to hear, that he needed her. Satou, hearing this decides to jump.

His crush on his Senpai has now been broken. As he starts towards the edge, the others grab him and Misaki shouts that he’s important to her, that she finally found someone lower than herself in life. Finally Yamazaki shouts to Satou that people like them aren’t allowed dramatic deaths. No matter how depressed or in pain they are, they have to stay in their daily routine lives. This snaps Satou out of it and as he starts to step back, the cliff edge collapses under him. Hanging on to the side, he’s saved by the others.

Even though I was sure that Satou would live in this episode, I was half-expecting that someone from the suicide group was going to die, even though Misaki and the others would get their in time. I also wasn’t expecting the cliff to collapse under Satou. I found Yamazaki’s statements to Misaki to be a little weak, especially when he claims to be vicitimized by her too. The thing is, he could easily have said no to helping Satou lie about being a game designer. I can only assume that since Satou was his senpai in school that had a lot to do with him helping Satou. However, Yamazaki totally redeems himself with the smartest lines said in the show. I think Yamazaki telling Satou that people like them weren’t allowed to have dramatic deaths and could only live routine lives wasn’t brilliant, instead it was practical, which is the brilliant part of this episode for me. This part really made this episode my favorite to date.

On a side note, the first manga book, that this series is based on, will be released sometime this month in English. I’m planning on picking it up, but I don’t really intend to compare the show and the manga.

Pumpkin Scissors takes place in a country recovering from a major war. Three years after the end of the war, the recovery effort doesn’t seem to be going to well. The show starts off with a military ceremony where the cease-fire is announced and we catch a first glimpse of Lt. Alice Malvin. The story starts when we catch-up with Malvin and two other soliders spying on a group of renegade soliders holed up near a dam. Malvin and the others are part of a military intelligence outfit called Pumpkin Scissors.

Next we’re see Randel Oland, a huge, scarred-face man eating a salad in a restaurant. Malvin and the others enter the restaurant and when she passes by Oland, she gets a feeling on the back of her neck. When Malvin is about to talk to him, an explosion shakes the palce. The renegades have brought their tank into town to extort supplies. Malvin confronts them and they back off after firing a blank artillery round. Soon the villages fall sick and the team realizes that the blank round shot from the the tank was actually a chemical weapon.

Next we see the Military Intelligence HQ. The head of the Pumpkin Scissors, Capt. Hunks, gets ordered by his superior to pull out Malvin the her team. While this is happening, Malvin, Oland and the team come up with a plan to attack the renegades to get an antidote for the villagers. The two soliders under the command of Malvin act as decoys while Malvin and Oland sneak into the base. Here we start to see why the hairs on Malvin’s neck stood up when she’s around Oland.

He turns on a blue light attached to his built and his eyes start to glow. While Malvin searches for the antidote, Oland opens the floodgates on the dam, making it difficult for the tank to manuver.While the tank is trying to escape, Oland attacks it, taking out everyone except for the renedage’s leader, Graywolf. At the end of the fight, Graywolf taunts Oland into shooting him while he’s holding the antidote. Malvin jumps in and gets the antidote.

This show is put out by Gonzo and Geneon.It looks good. Better than Welcome to the NHK! that Gonzo is also involved with. But the, it could just be my monitor. There’s a bit of a spoiler about Oland in the show’s opening, so that has me interested in where they’re going to go with that. Is there going to be a morality tale somewhere at some point in the show?

Overall, its too early to decide if I’m going to like the show or not, but I’m leaning towards the like side of things.

So this final episode starts off with Rena tricking the teacher and then tying all of the students, except for Keiichi as she considers him on her side. In a phone call to the poice outside, she still thinks that Oishi is still working with her. She sends Keiichi out with Takono’s remaining notebooks and demands that an investigation on Sonozaki family starts or a bomb will go off. Once Keiichi returns, he finds her pouring gasoline in the classroom

Its good to have a back-up plan in place, just in case.

When Keiich was handing over Takono’s notebooks to Oishi, he was given a small, two-way ear pice. While Oishi distracts Rena on the phone, Keichi hears from another police officer about the time bomb. Coming up with an excusem Keiichi heads off and starts searching for the bomb. He finds something in a storeroom only to get cornered by Rena. Surprisingly, Rika saves the day allowing him to escape and find the bomb with Satoko’s help.

Ni-paa Power Strike!

Keiichi gets onto the roof and manages to stop on the bomb in time. Rena pops up again. During a bat against hatchet fight, Rena goes on about Keiichi betraying her and allowing the alien parasites to take over humanity.

Keiichi taunts Rena, using their club’s punishment game. If Keiichi wins, Rena will become his maid and wear some sort of maid outfit. If he loses, he’ll believe her. Rena adds in that if she wins, she still gets to wear the maid outfit…Ummm…oookay.

Hey look! She finally made it through a story arc!

Eventually things come to a head with Rena getting the upper hand. She suceeds where Keiichi failed in earlier arcs. In the first arc, Keiichi bludgeons Mion and Rena, despite their efforts to help him. Here, Rena manages to go avoid going that far. She breaks through whatever paranoia that she’s in and its over.

Yep, still alive

This series, I think, started off pretty good, but then just really failed to maintain. I liked the supernatural aspect of it and really wished they stuck with it more than they did. I really could’ve done without the story arc where Keiichi goes after Satoko’s uncle. It felt like they were trying to do something similar to Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and wound up doing CSI Law & Order: Special Over Acting Unit.

While I liked this show, it wasn’t one that I’d recommend with enthusiasm. But it was good enough for me to keep watching it (obviously). As I said earlier, I really think that if they stuck with the supernatural theme more than they did, it would’ve been a lot more enjoyable.

I still would like to know about Oyashiro-sama, the dam murder, the grey suited guys in the van, Takono and her intentions, the drug, etc. Hopefully, there’ll be a second season or at least an OVA or two (preferably two). Overall, good show, but not a great one.

This episode finds Satou and Hitomi meeting up with three other guys from the website Hitomi goes to. They’re here for the “off-line” meeting. They take a train and then boat out to an island that one of the group owns. With the exception of Satou, everyone is withdrawn, barely talking unless they have to. Satou, is the Engerizer Rabbit compared to the rest of the group. Not surprising since he thinks he’s going to start a new life with Hitomi. After getting to the island, they all pretty much hang out on the beach, “having fun during the last day of our lives” as one of the group says. While on the island, Satou decides to end his hikikomori life by trying to talk to each of these guys. He gets shutdown pretty quick and flashes back to his last year in high school where you can basically see the start of Satou withdrawing from society.

Back home, Hitomi’s boyfriend gets off work early and heads to her apartment. Finding it empty, he eventually starts searching around on her computer and find the website and the details about the offline meeting and Hitomi’s mention of basically visiting Satou. Over at Satou’s place, a cute but sad Misaki is walking up to Satou’s apartment (probably to collect the penalty fee from Satou since he cancelled the contract early). Yamazaki comes screaming out of his apartment and banging on Satou’s door because they’re late for the Natsucomi fest. Misaki tells him that Satou took off with a woman. Yamazaki doesn’t believe it until he realizes that Satou would follow Senpai shopping if she asked him to (not his words but then I’m just projecting). Hitomi’s boyfriend shows up and tells them about the offline meeting. Back at the meeting, Satou starts to build a bonfire. After talking with one of the others about “having fun during the last day of our lives”, Satou finally figures out exactly what the purpose of the trip is.

In this episode, we see three groups. Satou, the other islanders, and Yamazaki, Misaki, and Hitomi’s boyfriend. And they’re all trying to end something. Satou trying to end his hikikomori life, the other islander are planning to go offline, and the the last three will probably do attempt to do something to end the paths Satou and the gang are on. I believe that the third group will actually succeed in intervening and stopping Satou and Hitomi from the direction they’re headed in. And that means Satou will still remain a Hikikomori. And I pretty much belive that the off-line group will decide to not go through with it. So everyone wins but Satou. But I reserve the right to be wrong.

Is it just me or do these two go to the same stylist ?

One of the shows that I’m planning on watching is Hatakari Man. Its about Matsukata Hirokko, an editor at Jidai magazine who basically is a workaholic. According to the promo, she’s got a boyfriend who she doesn’t see very often and is basically your normal “conflicted and frustrated” type. At work, she’s surrounded by a laid-back editor, a dependable chief editor, a junior editor whose described as “adorable”, and (get this) yet another editor who has the opposite personality of Matsukata. So if that’s true, then guess who ain’t going to be pulling their weight at work.

The Workers Party new motto: “Live to work!”

Hatakari Man is based on a manga which I haven’t read. I’m wondering if there’s going to be some “Sex in the City” moments. Not really sure why I’m watching this. Oh wait, the promo emphasized Matsukata’s “Naturally Large-Bust”. Actually, that’s not really why. Its her eyes. They scare me. They’re the kind of eyes that hypnotize you into joining a cult or believe that a politician is sincere.

Genshiken is one of the few animes and manga that I really liked and rewatch the dvds and actually hang onto the manga. I even liked the OP and ED songs when I usually ignore or loathe them. I was disappointed when I heard that instead of a second season, they were giving Kujibiki Unbalance its own season. Earlier today I was perusing Anime News Network and noticed the news that Genshiken OAVs will be released.

Heading over to Heisei Democracy, I found more information. The OAVs will be tacked onto the Kujibiki dvds, one Genshiken OAV per dvd for a total of three episodes. The same cast will provide the vocals and Ogiue will be introduced. The first Kujibiki Unbalance dvd will be released on December 22nd in Japan. That being said, it’ll be along wait for it to be released here in the States. Well, at least we get a few more episodes.

Kujibiki Unbalance is on my to watch list, but I’ve got a strong bias against it because I’m such a Genshiken fanboy. I’ll probably watch the entire run since I haven’t found anything on tv that peaks my interest.