No, Shuffle never appears on this list.

I’ve just decided to use images from shows I’ve never actually seen as my intro images.

Antique Bakery

(on hold at 6 of 12)

HAI GIEZ! I IS GAI STEREEOTIPE! I LUV TEH GAI CLUBZ AND I IS SCARED OF WIMMEN!

Aoi Hana

(on hold at 3 of 11)

I’m actually a bit embarrassed to admit that I haven’t finished Aoi Hana yet since I was one of its biggest promoters prior to its airing. In my defense, I’m going through it slowly because I’m trying to compile a comprehensive guide for the differences between the anime and the manga.

Yasuko sucks. She makes all the cool girls unhappy because of her own selfishness. She seemingly decides to date Fumi on a whim, then dumps her on another whim, and then expects her to start dating her again on a whim (Fumi turns her down). She then ends up moving in with some random girl because Fumi isn’t interested in taking her back and the guy she loved has married her sister. All of this is kind of ironic since Yasuko comes off as a cool, mature type initially. Don’t let her fool you – she’s probably the least mature person in the whole show.

Aquarian Age: Sign for Evolution

(dropped at 1 of 13)

Kyouta is another one of those lame male protagonists who just happen to stumble on something extraordinary; in this case, holy fuck, people are battling behind the scenes for the fate of the world! And most of them are girls! ZOMG!!1

Kyouta’s just… boring. He’s a very bland protagonist, and his dreams of forming a band don’t really change his blandness at all, especially as this came out around the same time a bunch of other anime about boys in bands did. Maybe if he hadn’t sucked so much I would’ve kept watching… although, chances are, with the whole band junk? Naaaah.

Asatte no Houkou

(completed)

Hmm, this was another one of those shows where its more like I’m picking the weakest character as opposed to one I actively hate. However, I really, really did not like Shouko for the first half of the show; she was mean to a little girl because she was jealous of the fact that her ex never came back to her because he was taking care of his little sister. Um, what? Grow up, good lord.

Baby Love

(completed)

What a crappy OVA. Seara, the girl pictured above, is the star – supposedly she’s a mature 6th grader, but she really could’ve fooled me with the sheer amount of whining she does. When she was little she got a crush on an older guy, and decided to grow up to marry him, so of course she spent the next four years drinking milk and acting like a snob to everyone because she was “becoming more mature”. No, actually, dumbass, being mature doesn’t mean ignoring your peers because you think they’re childish. It also doesn’t mean you’re mature if you like an older guy, it means you’re a human being. Now stop whining, you obnoxious girl.

Baccano!

(dropped at 3 of 10)

There’s no picture here because I honestly don’t remember anything of Baccano! other than that it was violent, took place in the 1930’s, and had immortal people in it. Question: if a person is immortal, then are they actually a human any more?

Battle Athletes Victory

(completed)

I almost feel bad for picking a dead woman. So let me clarify – the resurrected teenager Tomoe is the worst character in the show.

Let me explain briefly: bad aliens want to have a tournament against humans in order to decide who gets supremacy of Earth. So the ladies of BAV are put together as a team to compete against them… but, oh noes! THE ALIENS JUST CLONED TOMOE MIDOH, THE BESTEST ATHLETE EVER TO COMPETE! Oh, and Tomoe is the mom of the heroine, Akari. Did I mention that her clone is really fucking annoying? After the world is saved and all that jazz, she then moves in with Akari and her dad and… I dunno, picks up where the dead Tomoe left off? Its really weird.

Let me point out that this was probably one of the worst endings for an anime I’ve ever seen, and that the manga and OVA don’t feature such an ending.

Big O

(completed)

Alan Gabriel is fucking creepy. He also tried to kill Dorothy! What a total bitch! He also demonstrates the fact that Big O had some seriously weird character designs, although Scwarzwald had him beaten out on that front. Still, I hated him, he furthered the argument that robots shouldn’t be permitted to have full rights because he was a fucking psychopath. LEAVE DOROTHY ALONE YOU BITCH!!!

Alright, that’s a wrap for today, I need to go to class. Lame.

Negativity FTW.

Once upon a time… or maybe it was just last week… anyway, glo rolled out a post wherein he declared, and began, his effort to name his favorite character from every show he’s ever watched.”Damn,” I thought, “That’s a really good idea! Why didn’t I think of it?” and I said as much in the comments.

Sometime between then and the second or third post in the set I was struck with a brilliant idea – why tell everyone which characters I loved in a show? Fuck that! I’d rather tell you which characters I hated! glo encouraged the idea when I mentioned it to him in a comment… so here we are.

Before I start off, I’d like to caution – although I am trying to name my most hated characters from every show I’ve ever seen, there are a good number of shows I’ve seen that I have simply forgotten because I watched them in either middle school or early high school; it was too long ago, so although I know I’m missing some from my list at MAL, I just have no idea what they were. Obviously, though, at the very least, they were forgettable. So this is really more of a ‘Worst Charactrers from Almost Every Show I’ve Seen’ list or a ‘Worst Characters from most of the shows I saw before I was fifteen and all of the worst from all of the shows I’ve seen since’. But, hey, semantics. Let’s go!

07-Ghost

(dropped at episode 5)

Well, I dropped 07-Ghost pretty early because it was really boring; I’ve read the first volume of the manga, which moves at a faster pace and just seems to execute things better. Oh well, maybe I’ll try it again some day.

So, who did I hate? Duh, Ayanami – that is his picture there, after all. Maybe he got better as the show went on, but he was so thoroughly stereotypical as a villain, it was obnoxious. He doesn’t show any empathy, is basically invincible, and is quiet all the time. At least the other villains had personalities, Ayanami was just… boring. It is possible to have a heartless bastard for a villain, that is perfectly fine – but you have to at least give them some shred of differentiation from the zillions of others.

Also, he failed to kill Teito even though Teito was still a military cadet and Ayanami is supposedly some big badass whatever. Lame.

11eyes

(watching; 6 of 12)

I’ve said before that 11eyes is both better and worse than I was expecting. That annoying guy whose face is in the middle of that picture is one of things that is infinitely worse about 11eyes than I ever could’ve anticipated. His name is Tadashi; he is the stereotypical goofy male friend character, except in this case his obnoxious factor is turned up to about 500,000. He is one of the worst characters I’ve ever had the displeasure of enduring the presence of, which is kind of shocking considering how many lousy characters there are out there. I keep wishing he gets sucked into the Red Night as well so someone will stab him in the face. Dream on…

2×2=Shinobuden (a.k.a. Ninja Nonsense)

(on hold at episode 3 of 12)

Its been a long time since I’ve seen 2×2=Shinobuden, so my memories of it are hazy. I seem to recall be irritated by this… thing’s perversion. His name in Onsokumaru, and he’s the teacher of the ninja school. He likes panties and seeing naked girls. I don’t really remember much else.

5 cm per second

(complete)

5 cm per second is one of the shows designed to not have you dislike anyone in it. So it was hard to come up with someone, but if I had to pick one, it’d be Kanae, because she isn’t the girl Takaki originally likes, so she doesn’t have that sweet past history with him – no cute kisses under a tree in the snow after taking hours and hours to get to each other for you!

After War Gundam X

(complete)

This is Olba Frost, the younger of the bad and evil Frost brothers. His only purpose for existence seems to be to say ‘Nii-san!’ a shit-ton (his voice actor even said after the show wrapped up that he’d come to dislike the term because of how much he had to say it), and, I dunno, give Shagia, his older brother, someone to be incestuous with. However, unlike Shagia, he doesn’t have the air of creepiness which makes him at least somewhat interesting. No, this guy just seems to be along only because his older brother tells him to do stuff. He also is the one who kidnaps Tiffa early on while she’s still in intensive care. Loser.

Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot and Marple

(on hold at 5 of 39)

Surprisingly enough, the worst character in this wasn’t Poirot, who is probably one of the most annoying characters ever (and yet I’ve still basically read all of Christie’s books even though he’s in a good chunk of them). No, Oliver the duck took that distinction. For the most part, Mabel is worked into the storylines well enough, but Oliver sticks out like a tack on the floor, fucking things up by acting in ways that suddenly remind you of how thoroughly anachronistic Mabel’s actions are. I’m really thinking we need some roast duck for dinner.

AIR TV/Movie

(completed)

Ok, so, the worst character in AIR is obviously Misuzu’s lame-ass dad. He sucks so much, in fact, that I couldn’t find any screen caps of him. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Or maybe he is a horrible character. Explaining why he’s the worst character isn’t hard – he doesn’t show up until the very end, having ignored Misuzu for most of her life. Good lord, if you’re gonna fucking father a child, at least visit the damn thing. Bitch.

Aishiteruze Baby

(dropped at 4 of 26)

I’m not sure that’s actually the right character, but its the only one that showed up in the image search. Anyway, Natsu gets mad because Kippei won’t spend time with her after he ends up in charge of his five year old cousin. Wow, way to be a winner – jealous of a five year old.

Amatsuki

(dropped at 4 of 12)

Why no picture? Because I don’t remember a damn thing about this, so I can’t choose a character I hated. Oh well. People have said its pretty good, maybe I’ll read the manga sometime.

Angel’s Feather

(completed)

Day, why are there so many characters in that picture? Which is the one you hate?

Answer: all of them. What a perfectly wretched show; absolutely nothing made any fucking sense in the whole damn thing. A lot of people whined, a bunch of them were confused, and then someone sprouted angel wings and cackled or something before flying off. I’m pretty sure this was followed by someone feeling betrayed because the guy they were fucking turned out to be evil or something. I really don’t know; I saw it about four years ago and it didn’t make any sense at the time, so I remember very little.

Animation Runner Kuromi

(completed)

Takashimadaira doesn’t show up until the second half of the OVA, and quickly proves himself to basically be the scourge of otaku everywhere – he encourages Kuromi to cut corners in order to make a deadline! DIEEEEE

Ok, I’m going to have to cut it off there, because while I do have more ‘A’ titles to cover, I’ve already done eleven different shows, and have lots of homework looming in my face, so, I’m gonna have to call it a day. Also: I just discovered the Arabic YouTube – Arab Tubbe! And it has YukitoxTouya AMV’s in spades! AWESOME!

Wait… why wasn’t my high school student council like this?

I had really low expectations going in to watching Seitokai no Ichizon, and so I’ve ended up pretty pleasantly surprised. It seems that this is one of those cases where the original version having been one the weak side is a positive thing, since it has forced the anime writers to come up with better material. I’ve actually laughed out loud at this thing, and I think the last time I did that for an anime was… well, Detroit Metal City or Potemayo.

It helps a lot that Seitokai no Ichizon doesn’t take itself seriously, and never comes across as being smug about its humor. Some of these types of shows seem to smirk, and nudge you after making a joke – “Hey, hey,” it seems to say, “that was really clever of us, wasn’t it?” Thankfully, Seitokai no Ichizon avoids this, although this could be in part because it moves so quickly. In particular, I’ve been especially amused by jokes and references to older shows like Tenchi Muyo and Yu-Gi-Oh, although my favorite was probably their use of Mamiko Noto to parody Jigoku Shoujo.

Truly, Seitokai no Ichizon is very limited in its scope, but what it does, it does well. Its had very few flat jokes, something surprising given how many jokes it makes. The jokes about Sakurano’s body are a bit tedious, but they’ve lessened considerably as the show has gone on. The characters are broad stereotypes, but they’re amusing nonetheless, which is really all they’re supposed to be. It may not be anything special, but it makes me laugh, and that’s actually more than I had been expecting anyway.

In other news: GAAAAH HOLY FUCK MY STREAM OF THE PATS-COLTS GAME JUST STOPPED WORKING WHAT THE FUCCKKKKK

Because Hei could be a lolicon AND a shoutacon… if he wanted to.

Yay, Darker than Black – you took the potentially annoying trope of having a teenager as your main character and made it good!

Seriously, though, this has been a solid season for DtB. The new characters thus far have fit into the storyline very well; Suou in particular has been suprisingly likable as a character. I was quite worried Bones was jumping the shark on us by having a loli along for the ride, but she’s not even particularly loli-esque! I’ve also really liked the fact that they are utilizing characters we didn’t see a ton of last season like Hazuki. July might not be exactly fascinating, but thats ok.

I guess my only real concern here is that it doesn’t really seem like there’s enough time left to wrap up the story; maybe they’re planning on having another twelve set ordered if this does well? Probably not… but it does seem like there is still a LOT to cover, and they only have six more episodes to do it…

Other things I’ve liked:

• everyone is hot; I don’t usually think anime characters are hot,  but DtB has hot anime characters
• Misaki’s Section Three colleagues are all amusingly ambiguous insofar as sexual orientation goes; its just… I don’t know, it amuses me (before you claim that Hazuki is the only one who is, I’ll remind you that Shizume called Hei ‘prince’ and said something about making him his, and that Sawasaki didn’t really indicate one way or another how she felt about Hazuki kissing her) (actually, if anything, Hazuki is the only one who is kind of clear on that point)
• hobo Hei
• the setting keeps changing

Anyway, I do have to call out episode six for having basically the most awkward emotional scene ever. Really, guys – I shouldn’t be laughing when people are mourning the death of a mother and wife.

Alright, I think that basically covers it. I hope that we don’t get some silly scheme with Yin, Suou, and Misaki all wanting to jump Hei’s bones, though, that’d be a bit ridiculous.

Kimi ni your face.

Yeah, yeah – I know, that didn’t make any sense. You have a problem with that? Bite me.

…

Hmm, kind of a weird note to start off on Kimi ni Todoke with.

I originally wasn’t going to bother watching Kimi ni Todoke – from everything I’d heard about it, it was a sweet, confectionary treat of a show waiting to happen. Nothing wrong with that, obviously, but I wasn’t really interested in watching a high school romance story.

Well, I forget how I ended up watching it, but its actually been pretty good. Yeah, the angst was a bit heavy-handed for about half of its run already, and Sawako needs to really grow more of a backbone (her sticking up for Yano and Yoshida might be a good sign, although she also needs to get some social awareness, and fast), but… watching someone go from friendless to having some genuine friends is always really heartwarming. Watching Sawako come out of her shell, and watching her classmates warm to her, has been really wonderful.

That being said, the whole romance part? Well… Kazehaya is kind of boring. And I honestly would rather watch Sawako strengthen her friendship with both Yano and Yoshida than watch her and Kazehaya get all mushy-mushy. Its just a more engaging storyline; it also helps that Yano and Yoshida aren’t dull. And I’d love to see some more of Ryuu, as well. I also question a bit how much they can really develop of a romance in the second half considering how slow the pacing has been thus far – but, hey, maybe they’re planning to have a sequel if the first season does well.

One thing that I can laud without any question, though, is the artwork. Production I.G. has generally had pretty high production values, but the art here really shines. Its quite honestly beautiful to just look at this. And their rendition of the super-deformed versions of the characters is really, honestly adorable.

Despite the fact that I’m sure there is more angst to be had in this, I’m looking forward to watching the rest of this… and, no, not just because Mamiko Noto does the voice of Sawako.

EDIT: So I went and looked at the Wiki entry for Kimi ni Todoke, and Kazehaya’s given name is Shota.

…

*snort* *giggle*

Mas o menos.

Interestingly enough, 11eyes has actually turned out to be both better and worse than I had been expecting, with the better being enough to keep me watching.

First, the better:

• for an eroge adaptation, the plot is actually engaging
• our male lead is neither a total loser nor an instant hero
• no harem!
• slutty nurse character is actually a decent/meaningful character
• female characters who are actually capable of handling themselves!

And the worse:

• male friend character is far and away one of the most obnoxious characters EVER
• Yuka, the female lead, is obnoxious – over half of her dialogue is limited to saying, yelling, shrieking, etc. “Kakeru-kun”
• the panty shots are seriously skeevey – its one thing to catch a glimpse of panties because a girl is kicking someone, its another thing to see a girl’s panties because she is being carried to the nurse’s office after having fainted
• mute girl. enough said.

Some people complained about how long it took for Kakeru to get his powers, but I actually found this to be a relief – the whole trope of the “average guy” suddenly having super awesome powers is really boring. Kakeru actually had to put in a lot of work before he awakened his powers, and I think it benefited his growth as a character to have to be shown and told that he couldn’t just say he was going to protect someone, but that it was something he was going to have to focus on and work at.

At the same time, though, I’m not going to claim this is a brilliant show. As mentioned above, there are a lot of flaws as well. I don’t understand what the point of the annoying male friend character is, after all, since he really adds absolutely nothing to the plot. Yuka is also fairly frustrating; looks like she’s going to function solely as the damsel in distress, but she could at least be a more useful damsel in distress, couldn’t she? Characters like this in other shows tend to at least have something redeeming about them. Its really too bad, because her relationship with Kakeru rings fairly true otherwise.

But, like I said, there is also a good chunk of stuff that really exceeded my expectations (admittedly, low ones – come on, its an eroge adaptation!). I’m curious to see what the reason for the Red Night really is, and how the Black Nights got to be that way.

LISTS LISTS LISTS!!!

Recently, there’s been some back and forth (and more!) on the subject of ranking one’s “favorite” shows or what one consider to be “good” (or the best!) shows out there. What constitutes a “good” show? Is designating something a “guilty pleasure” legit? Can we make lists for our “all-time” favorites and also have one for “current” favorites? The mind boggles!

I have a pretty simple approach to all of this (which I actually stated in the comment section of 21stcenturydigitalboy’s post) – I don’t rank. Yeah, I’ll rate stuff on MAL, but I refuse to put together some sort of list with set positions. Why? Honestly, too confusing – and it seems disenguous in a sense to rank anime when I’ve only seen a fraction of what is out there, and haven’t even watched all the shows I’m interested in yet. There’s also something inherently vague in ranking things, as rarely can one really explain the exact methodology involved – well, why does Show X rank above Show Q on your list if you love both of them? Uh, just because!

I take a more… well, laidback approach. Instead of saying “These are my favorite five!” I tend to say, “Some of my favorites are…” and then name a few. This allows for the fact that favorites can change very easily, and in a way tends to inspire further conversation – oh, those are some of your favorites? Are there any others? What about such-and-such a show? The only thing I’ll commit to in terms of “favorite” is Revolutionary Girl Utena. Its my favorite show. Everything else? It ranks somewhere after that.

However, I will confess to having two different types of favorite.

The first is… favorites.

The second is… favorites that are those shows that are so epically crappy that they’re AWESOME. My reason for categorizing these separately is not really anything to do with my own self; as such, these aren’t “guilty pleasures”. I don’t feel guilty for loving these shows. However, I recognize that they are pure crap, honestly (which is fine, since most stuff is). And as such, I can’t recommend them to others without a disclaimer. With Revolutionary Girl Utena, I can point and declare, “Everyone should see this!” Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora (a.k.a. Shattered Angels)? Eh, not so much. (However, at the same time, I will list shows that I simply like and are not necessarily masterpieces without the disclaimer; I don’t feel like I need to warn people if its a show that I think they might just find mediocre or ok.)

Essentially, what I’m trying to say is, I don’t categorize them for my own benefit, but so that someone won’t go off to watch Myself;Yourself thinking it’ll actually be “good” (understandably, the term “good” is a bit debatable, but since I don’t really want to address that here… try to just roll with me, ok?).

Think of it this way – a friend has asked for a movie recommendation from you. That’s it, no other details. Would you really tell them to go see G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra without cautioning that its actually one of those so bad its good movies? No, of course not. I loved that movie, but I know I loved it because it was pretty bad. I’m not ashamed of having loved it, but I also know that not everyone loves horrible movies – or anime, for that matter. Hence the different categorization.

Anyway, for the sake of interest, some of my favorite shows are the aforementioned Rev. Girl Utena, Jigoku Shoujo, Princess Tutu, Mouryou no Hako, and Outlaw Star. Some of my favorite awful shows are Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora, Myself;Yourself, H2O~Footprints in the Sand~, and Weiß Kreuz (it actually pains me to put WK there, but there is no way in hell that anyone could consider that to be quality entertainment – I mean, come on, its about four guys who are florists by day and assassins by night!).

Hint: It starts with a ‘k’ and ends with a ‘ampfer’.

*sighs* So… I’ve decided to drop Kampfer. I can’t even be bothered to type it correctly, in all its fake-ish German glory. Although the first few episodes were strangely fun to watch in a kind of “Wow, this really sucks!” kind of way, its all become too irritating for me to take. Suffice to say, I am not the target audience.

However, before parting, I’d love to ask whether the people who first created this have ever met a girl or woman in their entire lives. Because, quite frankly, I really don’t think they have. No, anime characters don’t count.

Girls actually *don’t* suddenly turn into lesbians in the absence of men. I find it really hilarious that all the girls are depicted as “lesbians” but none of the guys are implied to be gay – no, they just act even more ridiculous about the girls on the other side of the school than usual. But those ladies? Well, if they have no men to fuss over, they’ll just fuss over a pretty lady instead! It isn’t even like they’re in a legit single-sex setting, though, because they know about the guys on the other side and they live in an essentially non-sex-segregated society, so you can’t really pull the Saudi Arabia argument. I mean, I know if I was the main character it’d make sense that they were all crazy about me, but I’m not, so its a little baffling.

On the upside, Natsuru is actually a pretty decent guy, at least. He’s really leagues ahead of so many of the harem leads we get these days.

Also, the girls’ school setting – this is about as accurate as the girls’ schools you see in stuff like Maria-sama ga Miteru where everyone is being all proper. You want an accurate representation of a girls’ school? Watch High School Girls. Its not perfect, but its closer than this. This may come as a shock to many of you, but, when left to our own devices, us ladies end up basically having a locker-room level of discourse like you guys do. Not all of us, but, then again, not all guys do either (hellooo Liberty University). Not only that, but we also talk about fun stuff like periods. BLOOOOD BLOOD BLOOOOOD. TAMPONS!

Sorry, I had to do that… I know it freaks guys out, so I couldn’t help myself… One time in JROTC, we tied a tampon to an inflated trash bag and threw it around the back of the bus during a trip. It was hilarious, and a bunch of the guys started shrieking and flipping out.

Also, if someone like female-Natsuru suddenly appeared on campus, chances are everyone would be a lot bitchier about it. Girls’ high schools are kind of insular, so transfers get tortured before they get accepted. It’s like a sorority, duh.

Anyway, I’ll head this off before someone starts whining – I know, I know: Kampfer isn’t supposed to be high art. But the sheer absurdity of it is a bit astounding. I’ll miss the Entrails Animals, but probably not much else. Oh, yeah, and Marina Inoue voicing a guy.

9000 is for wimps.

Sometime overnight… I got my 100,000th hit! Holy shit! This calls for a celebration!

I was quite happy to use a Tenchi Muyo! image, as I still revere TM! for being one of my earliest anime, and still find it extremely entertaining. It makes me a bit sad, in fact, that it no longer is one of those ‘gatekeeper’ anime – used to be everyone basically had to watch it for whatever reason in order to be part of anime fandom. Ah well, I guess even someone like Tenchi these days is too strong of a harem lead (if TM! were a more recent creation, it would’ve had to have been done by KyoAni, since Tenchi isn’t totally useless and is actually pretty nice… therefore, he couldn’t really come from another studio’s harem show!).

Anyway, I digress (although I will point out that there was a very quick and clever TM! joke in Seitokai no Ichizon’s first episode). I hit 100,000 despite having not posted in a few days, which makes me feel a wee bit guilty – at the very least I certainly could’ve given all of you something decent to have read to reach that mark! Ah well. I’ve been working on a script for a one-act play contest, so I’ve been a wee bit busy as of late. Last year I placed as a runner-up (two winners were selected), and I would really like to improve upon that finish.

In other news, I scored 277 on my military physical fitness test. I know this is essentially Greek to most of you, but I’ve been working my way toward improving my score, and that represents an improvement. The scale is 300, and the minimum passing score is 180. BOW DOWN BEFORE MEEEEE. Wanna criticize me? Well, I can do more push-ups than you! I once used that as an argument in class because some of my classmates are so insufferable as to not deserve decent answers; the person in question was absolutely baffled by this response to his argument, and I was thoroughly amused. However, I go to a very, very Southern school, so the manliest guy on campus is whomever is wearing the pastel-iest, most plaid and/or animal print covered pants with the most flamboyantly-hued shirt, complete with multi-colored Sperry’s and pink and yellow-striped socks, so… being able to do lots of push-ups doesn’t matter. I think it’d only matter if it somehow got you a better place to sit at the horse derby. Or is one of the fraternities had it as a test for getting into their frat!

…hmm. I don’t know where I was going with any of this? I think I’ll just list the stuff I’m still watching of this season:

• Kampfer
• 11Eyes
• Kimi no Todoke
• Kobato.
• Seitokai no Ichizon
• Sasameki Koto
• Yumeiro Patissierre
• Inu-Yasha: The Final Act
• Darker then Black: Ryuusei no Gemini

Well, shit, that’s a lot of shows. Kampfer is edging toward being dropped, though, and I constantly have the urge to punch the love interest in Sasameki Koto. I also want to stab the female childhood friend in 11Eyes for only saying one thing over and over again (because I needed to know how many ways she can say/shriek/warble the hero’s name!). I dropped Nyankoi! because it ended up being epically stupid and a harem, and I dropped Letter Bee for allowing its more obnoxious elements (e.g. the pantsless loli) to kill its more charming aspects. And I haven’t started Aoi Bungaku yet, although it looks like pure, distilled awesome.

But, yes…. ONE HUNDRED FUCKING THOUSAND. The vast majority of the hits have come this year.

Oh, and my top search term for this year?

Hamlet.

Yeah.

…

Go type it into Google image search – I’m the top hit. For something really amusing, paste this: “Гамлет” into Google image search. You done it yet? Well, now you’ll see that I’m the third hit for Hamlet when its written in Russian. Now that’s pretty funny.

Or, why I’m not enjoying Sasameki Koto.

Fans of legit yuri have been a bit lucky lately – we’ve been getting shows that are actually good and which are actually about women liking women, not all fanservice-y empty gestures solely for the purpose of making fanboys merry (because, yes, it is usually fanboys who get merry over all of this). The women and girls of these shows actually behave like one might expect a real-life woman or girl to act – what a bizarre concept!

Sasameki Koto is on the end of the spectrum wherein the girls actually act like girls, and they actually like each other and are not being run-over by fanservice every six seconds. And yet… I just am not really into it.

I’d read part of the Sasameki Koto manga not too long ago, as Erica Friedman over on Okazu had mentioned it several times in reviewing it and in her weekly Yuri news segment whenever compiled volumes were looking to hit the shelves. She had been fairly positive about it, and I was between Aoi Hana scanlations, so I figured I’d check it out. But, sadly, it never really clicked; I just couldn’t see what was so good about it. I figured perhaps the anime would breathe some life into it for me, so I decided to tune in anyway.

In watching the anime, I suddenly realized why I don’t really like the show or manga – I can’t stand Ushio (interestingly enough, Erica recently admitted in a review of the first few episodes that she also realized in watching that she doesn’t like Ushio). In fact, I dislike Ushio so much so that I found myself cheering for the guy, Akemiya. Wait, what? I’m cheering for the guy in a yuri show? What the fuck is up with that?

Ushio is, quite honestly, that guy crazy girl you knew in high school… except she’s girl crazy. So much so that she can’t see the fact that Sumi is bonkers for her, and is totally awesome in so many ways (such, as, oh, I don’t know, the fact that she actually likes girls) that put her way ahead of any of the fluffy-types that Ushio is after. She’s ignorant of Sumi’s feelings, and because of that, she repeatedly hurts her. I know she doesn’t know that she is, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is; and while intended malice is fairly rotten, there’s something particularly cruel about the unintended variety, as it seems to indicate a lack of care for the other.

So, basically put – Ushio sucks, and Sumi deserves better. Akemiya is very much crazy about Sumi, and to me seems to be the much better choice; he likes her as she is, and just comes across as a very, very sweet guy. Ushio on the other hand… urk. However, this is yuri, so Akemiya is destined to lose. Very lame. I can only wish that he was legit a girl since then he would have actually have a chance.

Damn, I wish they’d animate Milk Morinaga’s Girl Friends.

*sulks*

EDIT: I realize my title is a bit misleading, so I apologize – the fact is, its more a matter of not wanting Ushio to win out as opposed to wanting Akemiya to, although I would be happier were Akemiya to end up with Sumi.