Anime

If you read many of my reviews, you'll notice that nearly all of them are basically positive. This is partially due to my outlook: I try to extract as much enjoyment from a show as I can without letting non-fatal flaws bother me. I like to think it's also due to my careful selection of entertainment, as my "to watch" and "to play" lists are always getting longer, and my free time is always getting shorter.

I have no idea why I decided to watch 2x2=Shinobuden (ニニンがシノブ伝, a.k.a. Ninja Nonsense).

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (雲のむこう、約束の場所, Beyond the Clouds, the Promised Place) is the tale of two best friends' shared aspiration, and their promise to share that aspiration with a girl. It's also a story about a mysterious tower that warps reality, and about how that same girl's coma-induced dreams are the key to saving or remaking the world. As with Voices of a Distant Star, Makoto Shinkai imbues this short science fiction story with a poignance far greater than its 91-minute length suggests.

I finished Honey and Clover II recently, and it was good. Actually, it's not quite as good as the first season, primarily because there's less of the Honey and Clover™-brand comedy I love so much. The drama is still quite good, though some of it didn't engage me emotionally as much as that of the first season did. But this is all fairly academic, as Honey and Clover II is a worthy finale to an excellent series, and should be taken as a whole with the first season.

Did I mention how much I love School Rumble? I watched all of Second Semester this week, and I can't wait for the inevitable third season. But my appetite for School Rumble is insatiable, so no matter when it ends it won't be enough.

Mini-review time! I watched a bunch of shows in the last several months that I kept telling myself I'd get around to reviewing, but it would take way too long to do full reviews of each one, and my memory gets fuzzy pretty quickly. So! I have decided to clear out the entire queue with one gigantic mini-review bonanza. I may end up writing more about one or two of these series, especially the ones with second seasons that I haven't seen yet, but don't hold your breath.

There are far too few high-quality images of Now and Then, Here and There, so I decided to trace a simple Lala Ru scan I found. I ended up spending way too much time on it anyway, so I suppose it's a good thing I keep choosing simple images to trace.

• SVG (compressed)
• PNG (2549×3506)

Only one resolution this time since it's not even close to the right aspect ratio for a desktop wallpaper. It wouldn't be hard to slap a simple background on it, at least if I had any artistic talent. But I don't, so you're stuck with a boring monochrome background.

Here's another vector trace, of Abelia from Now and Then, Here and There.

• 1600×1200
• SVG (compressed)

There's no widescreen version this time, since that's all the screenshot there was.

The first episode of Martian Successor Nadesico (機動戦艦ナデシコ, Mobile Battleship Nadesico) left me with approximately the same impression I got from Excel Saga, namely "my brain asplode." It turned out that was just the exposition, though, and things quickly settled down into zany comedy with hints of romance and drama to come.

Here's a vector trace I did of Yomiko Readman, a.k.a "Zah Paypah," for no reason. It's from the end of R.O.D's opening credits.

• 1920×1200
• 1600×1200
• SVG (compressed)

I should mention that I shamelessly stole the look of the above caption links from PinkuBentoBox, which has been on a run of great Simoun vectors recently.

There are a number of anime with English titles that differ in mysterious ways from a literal translation of the original Japanese. To take liberties with the translation of dialogue is one thing, but the title? I suppose it's precisely because the title is so important that those bringing anime to our shores feel the need to ensure their titles sound "cool," but I think it's debatable at best whether many of these new titles sound better than their literal counterparts. In any case, I think faithfulness to the original is more important than is sounding cool.