anime|otaku

Watching the first four episodes should be enough for one's first impressions, right?

Right now, I'm feeling the loss of dispossession. I didn't have Internet once more until late January of this year, and when I did, Suzuka finished a few weeks ago — and I didn't have any idea of what it was. (more…)

[x-raws] seem to be delayed or absent this week, so I've had to settle with [Anime-Raws] some days later.

Ergo Proxy – 12

I just discovered this nifty ability of WordPress to shorten out posts so as not to look cluttered yet still could be extended. Darn, I was stupid not to notice this all along. Anyway, of course, as this is a summary, there will be spoilers. To encourage you to read further, I think just the fact that Real kissed Vincent this episode should be enough … (more…)

I really had a feeling it was more or less difficult to read with the dark theme I once used, so I used a new WordPress theme which is clean and has a white background. What do you think?

EDIT: I changed it again – the previous newer theme was a beta, therefore I couldn't use its sidebar widgets. At least this is still clearer. 

An online friend of mine who knew Japanese translated 2ch comments on Ergo Proxy – 12. This is by far my most awaited episode from what she obtained:

• Vincent confesses to Real. (I told you this was going to be a love story.)
• Ergo wants to kill Real. Vincent, of course, wants to rabu~rabu her.
• There's a freaking kiss … and it's a wet one! Real wipes her mouth afterwards.

Ooooohhh … the comments make me want to twist and turn in my bed as I'm writing this. I always banked and thought it's going to be a love story. Always. 

Is it going to be like the scene of X-men III between Jean Grey and Logan? Mmmm!
Man, I can't wait for the raw to come out – this is the 'emotional desolation' and 't3h smexin' episode.  

TurboUpload seemingly is suffering under a denial-of-service attack, or it simply shut itself down. Anyway, for the full OP of Higurashi no Naku Koroni and perhaps for Polysics (which I infer isn't really appealing to you guys because not one of you has downloaded its Lo-Bits album yet the last time I checked when TU was still up), kindly wait for sometime – I may reupload them tomorrow. No, wait. I'm definitely going to reupload Higurashi no Naku Koroni's OP. It just sounds so good, I'd like to share it with everyone.

I can't really do much today. My neck hurts, and I think I'm going to sleep. (I think I won't re-upload Polysics, but if anyone likes to try it, just leave a comment over at that post.) 

On the bright side, look for another summary of Ergo Proxy coming either later tomorrow or early Sunday. If you'd like to comment, fire away! Aside from this, I'm also open to anime you could suggest me blogging. I'm currently downloading Suzuka, so if you'd like an alternative opinion on that romance anime, perhaps you could try my entries? I think someone has blogged that series before, so I don't plan to, really. 

*sigh* I'm just showing how pooped I am. I do welcome anime you recommend I blog, however: I'd also like to update this blog more frequently. 

This episode starts with moving pictures taken from a manga about a weakened basketball team and their only remaining player. Eventually, despite all the difficulties brought by the powerful opposing team, the sole player standing on the court does a Galactic Bomber with the help of his friends. Of course, in the end, they win the game. The main character does a winning pose that Tenma follows stupidly, standing on top of the table.

'Basketball is so cool,' she says. Then appears Yakumo (<3) who says that it's different.

Tenma again says to herself that she'll do well in basketball. We then see Sagano practicing basketball along with other girls. Mikoto and Tenma praise Sagano's skill in basketball – Ichijou then tells them that she was the star player in secondary school. Suou asks why she isn't playing in high school, and Ichijou replies that there isn't a basketball team for girls (just like in many other schools, I may add.) 

The boys' team is then concentrated upon, with Asou losing his guard with a spin move (don't bother if you don't know much about basketball) and does a spectacular lay-up. Ichijou then clarifies that Asou is going to be the next team captain. 

When Harima hears Tenma yelling for Asou to do more cool basketball moves, Harima steals a pass and dunks a ball. It's also cool, but the problem is that he can't go down. Tenma REALLY wants to do the Galactic Bomber now.

At a window above her, Satsuki (she looks like Tatsuki in Bleach) watches them play. She later on talks to Anegasaki Tae to ask her if she'd be willing to coach the girls' basketball team. Luckily, Tani-sensei is also there, and Tae asks Tani if he could introduce her to a capable basketball player in the boys' team. He recommends Asou, of course.

Satsuki and Asou ask Sagano if she's interested in joining the basketball team. She is. Satsuki's full name is Tawaraya Satsuki, btw. Asou then feels unimportant and unneeded in their conversation. 

Tenma tries her best to be recognized by Satsuki. She brings a ball and repeats dunk a lot of times. When Eri says a pointed statement that someone is free, Satsuki, instead of looking or talking to Tenma, talks to Mikoto. Although at first she declines because she has her dojo, she accedes to the pleas of Sagano and Satsuki eventually.

Although Tenma really, really tries to make it obvious that she wants to join, nobody really notices (as I said in a post somewhere, the beauty of School Rumble is in the thick-headed and dense people it contains save for a few like Akira and Yakumo.)

They start practicing then. Lala appears and wants to join the club because Ichijou is there, and to show off, she destroys the whole ring by hitting the ball full force into the board. That's only what she remembered the teachings of Tougou and Harry, and Tae accolades her for her genius. They both thought that the goal of basketball was to hit the board well. (Asou, the patient guy that he is, simply brushes off the idiocy.)

Tae then assigns their nicknames: Boss for Sagano (as she's the best player), Ichi-san for Ichijou, Rookie for Satsuki, D!, no, Miko-chin for Mikoto, and Gori for Lala (… duh …)

Lala seems happy with this nick until she discovers later on what Ichijou was leading to.

They practice: Satsuki acts as the coach – well, technically Tae should be one but she barely knows … about basketball. Tae then perceives the crush Satsuki has on Asou and seemingly puts her thoughts into words. She then quotes the battle master Sun Tzu, but calls her a girl. Tenma, as usual, calls her Son Ko. (Remember S1.)

The usual group of four girls talk about basketball. Mikoto replies that when she saw Satsuki she felt that she had to do her best as well. (This is what makes School Rumble so good yet so unpredictable: there are a whole lot of ambiguous meanings, and I feel Mikoto is developing feelings for Asou. Remember the dance? It seems Satsuki has become competition … and Mikoto likes to compete )

They then talk about why Satsuki doesn't grow. Tenma then laughs like an idiot and then tells the group that Satsuki seems to have a crush on Asou. Only Eri and Mikoto are surprised (Akira is among the most level-headed and perceptive people of 2-C.)  Tenma wasn't able to practice because she liked staying in bed when she should have gotten up.

It's practice time again – Asou and Mikoto have a one-on-one. Despite missing her shot after a beautiful spin-move (I can't even do a spin move – and I'm a guy. I wonder how hard it would be for a D-sized chest AND a girl like her. o.O ) Asou speaks of her potential and praises her.

Satsuki then challenges Mikoto to a one-on-one game after practice (hmm … jealousy?) There's competition again, but Satsuki clearly loses Mikoto on a spin-move and gets off a beautiful shot that is nothing but net. She called it the quick turn, and acts like a pedant by telling Mikoto that she has still much to learn. (That girl has guts.)

The girls then invite themselves to Asou's new family restaurant. Satsuki doesn't go …

but later on, she still does. She orders a happy meal set, and eats until she passes out.  Mikoto then praises Satsuki for her guts (I personally think that Satsuki has an ulterior motive with letting Asou carry her to her home, which Asou would do seeing as he's pretty much a gentleman.) Instead, Mikoto carries her home because she's going the same way with Asou thanking her for the trouble.

Mikoto praises Satsuki for being unselfish and facing her opponent head-on (which I assume is Mikoto – clearly, Mikoto has some interest in Asou – and the dance they did was simply beautiful.)
She thinks that Satsuki is beautiful and says that she'll do her best too.

The focus returns to Tenma with Yakumo (damn it, SHE'S THE ONE for Harima!) preparing a larger than normal bento for her sister for her activities.  Tenma is then laid off by Tae saying that there are only five players in the team and that she'll have to be a substitute. 

Yakumo then tries to cheer for her sister, but she thinks she's late as Tenma walks away from the gym. Tenma again starts with her … saying that 'only the ace players must practice alone.' 

Back in the gym, the one-on-one practices have begun. Mikoto was noted by Asou to be pretty good, but even then she thinks herself that she couldn't properly move (implying that it was a good defender.) It was Imadori. From nowhere, however, a ball flew and hit Imadori's head. It was Ichijou (personally, I like Ichijou's jealously: it's so unobvious.)

As Imadori tries to shoot (his form is great) Lala blocks his shot. He tries to shot a lot of balls, but Lala blocks them all. (Ben Wallace = Gori = Lala, anyone?) In the end, he fakes, and Lala tries blocking. She's laughed upon by Imadori, but he gets beaten up by her.

Satsuki can't make her shots anymore because she's tense, and Tenma praises herself while doing nothing but swinging in the playground.

Yakumo wakes her sister up again, while cooking a big bento to share with her teammates. As she couldn't be honest with herself, this bento becomes three bentos by tomorrow, and Tenma becomes really, really fat. She still vehemently denies not being in the team, however.

Tougou tries to enter the basketball teams but is denied by the girls, so eventually, he makes up a team of Imadori, Tenma, Harima (of course) and himself.

Addendum:

This is what makes School Rumble great. Despite being a comedy, it doesn't throw away the scalpel-sharp incisiveness it has with human characters and characteristics. This is human nature in all its fatuousness, its seriousness, and beauty. 
I'm sorry for not having screenshots right now – I have school in thirty minutes.  

I can listen to all types and kinds of music, but I like some more than the others. Among the ones I don't really like is the electronica genre of music. Polysics, as a synth-electro band, certainly does not get on my good side on music. Their band deals with funky and unique tunes having a noticeable dovetailing between modified voices and computer-generated music (noise?).

Still, because of a surreptitious recommendation by an online friend, I listened to their music, and as I expected, I really didn't like it. But so as not to be so biased, I listened to all their songs in Lo-Bits, and found out some weren't really that bad, like their version of My Way, for example. I just didn't have it in me to appreciate their music or their work.

However, a lot of you may have that appreciation, so here's the link to download a RARed version of their Lo-Bits album.

I wonder if this has something to do with anime at all, but I'm sharing something I have but do not want anyway.

Higurashi no Naku Koroni – Shimamiya Eiko

This is an anime OP where the emotions of the anime are magnified because of the aptness of the song. The dark, foreboding themes of Higurashi no Naku Koroni are dealt with the seemingly fragmented nature of the song and with organized noise. Thematic elements of classical music are mixed with a unique modernism, and this irony brings out the beauty of the song.

I'm going out on a limb and say that this is the best OP of the season.

Anyway, it's up to you guys to evaluate. Here's the song.

It's more or less a situational summary from both the actions seen in the show and what little Japanese I could understand.

Trying to find Pino in the middle of nowhere, Vincent stumbles upon an old bookshop called as the City Lights library.

He meets with the bookshop owner named JJ, and asks if the bookstore owner has seen Pino.

After their short chat he pulls out a book with his name engraved on the front cover as if he was the author. He is then hypnotized to stay frozen as the bookstore owner arranges the books. Books with his name on it then appear all around.

After a while, the books are all organized, and with the snap of the fingers of the bookstore owner once more Vincent comes back to consciousness. He then sees the bookshop full of books with his name on them.

His voice resonates as Vincent sees Dorothy once more. Before this Vincent was asking if it was another dream of his again, and the voice says otherwise.

Dorothy, however, appears as Ergo Proxy while saying a lot of stuff. It is then known that he is shown the image of where he once worked; however, all the faces were changed into Ergo Proxy's.

He tries running away, and scene changes to the mall in episode two. Most people are seen only as shadows as the mother and baby ride the escalator upwards (incidentally, they were the same ones who were killed by Monad in episode two.)

The two are then focused with faces again like Ergo's, and then the baby speaks before Monad Proxy appears and Vincent, afraid, falls back. He sees another instance of himself and an Ergo-faced Dorothy, and the camera then pans out to show a labyrinth.

He is then interrogated by (yeah) another Ergo-face, and later on talks to who once seemed like Hoody and Real. At the thought of seeing Real, Vincent blushes, but it's shown to be another Ergo Proxy face.

The reappearances of the face serve to wean Vincent out of thinking he isn't Ergo Proxy. He still, even now, vehemently denies that he is Ergo – he still thinks he is Vincent Law.

He runs away to see a bird's-eye view of what happened in episode two, where he runs away from Monad while Monad kills people.

The scene comes back to the interrogation with Vincent still saying that he is Vincent Law.
We then see that he saw Real first while being on a line which seems to be a registration for migrants. At another flashback, we see Moscow burning down as Vincent walks away from it.

He reiterates to himself that it's all a dream.

Some more images appear – but Ergo Proxy pronounces himself as Vincent and Vincent is he. Vincent still tries to denies this.

In the end, faced with overwhelming evidence, and trapped in a mirror wall, he realizes that he and Ergo Proxy are one.

The scene changes back to the bookstore, and they talk some more. It culminates with the bookshop owner saying 'Vincent Law, or rather, Ergo Proxy.' Everything becomes black.

Pino is then seen outside the Rabbit trying to find Vincent, and one notices that the books lying on the floor slowly lose their 'Vincent Law' titles as Pino comes out of the Rabbit once more. A spacecraft has detected her movement, by the way. Vincent lies somewhere in the ash (?) but says that he is Proxy.

Real reaches out her hand. Vincent thinks it's a dream once more. But with Pino and the Rabbit in the background …

IMPRESSIONS:

Wow, the animation and character designs have gone from bad to beautiful. This is the circa-first episode class of character design, and the OP animation seemed cleaner than usual.

Vincent now realizes he is Proxy, and Real comes back, probably to ask more about who Vincent is and to know more about him. Overall, a great episode compared to the more or less shit that came before this. The story has been flowing more or less, and I think Manglobe showed what they were all about this episode.

I'm not expecting Ergo Proxy to be a love story, but its prospects of being one are slowly getting higher and higher, because, one admits that both Real and Vincent are feeling alienated from Romdeau and from its conformity. They try to seek something new … although Vincent tried to stick with Romdeau, to become an ideal citizen.

Basing it from MrProphet's post on AS, anamnesis as per Aristotlian definition is simply a rediscovery. This has been what the episode was all about – a rediscovery of who Vincent really is, and despite his denials, who he is as Ergo Proxy.

It's a great episode, IMO.

To tell the truth, I wanted to watch School Rumble about a year ago. If it's a perennial top 10 on AniDB, it must at least be good. I started watching it about two days ago, and right now I have watched all of the second season (so far) and all of the OVAs. I'm still procuring the first season, however.

SR is a great show – it's a great comedy, but for me it has also been a melancholic anime despite its gags and funnies because Yakumo can't end up with Harima. (Right now, in the manga, Harima and Eri are being developed, but man … it's just depressing.)

After being depressed for more than a day I have once more awakened to my senses and realized that it wasn't meant to be, although I liked it very much.

Don't mistake me – I was and still am all for the Onigiri faction. However, as sad as that may be that Onigiri is slowly fading to nothingness, there are a couple of cogent reasons why Onigiri can't happen.

First, Harima has no interest in Yakumo. He's too selfish – I stand corrected for my other posts – in his love for Tenma that he can't let her be free. With otacu's link, however, this will rumble — the manga *is* getting to an important point, but I don't want to spoil myself too much.

Second, even if Yakumo did have an interest in Harima, again, he's too selfish to appreciate both her beauty and her finesse. He's too enshrouded in his own world of Tenma, which, although it sucks for Riceballers, is true.

If Yakumo is more or less as perceptive as Akira, she would have perceived that (I've only seen the OVAs and the second season so far) Harima likes Tenma, and as much as that hurts her if it does – is stifled by her because she is selfless for her sister, and to some extent, Harima.

'If you truly love them – you let them go.'

If in self-denial and obfuscation Yakumo believes that she can let him be free, as painful as it is, she does and says this. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into her character and she really doesn't give a damn about a relationship with Harima. All's fine for her.

I have to rearrive at reality. Unless if in that critical point in the manga right now he really decides to let Tenma go, I hopes he realize how much Yakumo has done for him and doesn't call her as Imouto-san but recognizes her as Yakumo, not shadowing Tenma but knowing her as as herself.

This doesn't makes it easier that Yakumo is incommunicative – as I said in some posts in some other forum, she doesn't convey the messages she wants to convey well, and she may well be in denial that she couldn't even admit that she has feelings beyond admiration for Harima, if she does.

I'll be pretty sad if the story doesn't shift that way, but most likely it wouldn't, seeing how Jin builds Harima up with Eri. Perhaps Yakumo will be alone forever … I hope that in the future that can change, because I really think that Yakumo is for Harima. I believe that Yakumo can temper his idiotic side with that charm and intelligence, and I believe that Harima can let her experience what true happiness is – putting her first above all and realize that love is not selfish. At all.

I believe Harima can discover tranquility with Yakumo, and Yakumo will perhaps develop a better view of the world with Harima. But that's what I believe.

Other people believe otherwise – but that's them.

It was a post somewhere out there by me, but I stick with my Riceball pairing. It may fade away, it may disappear into thin air, but believe me – it will be among the greatest romances in anime if that comes to life, I mean a romance between Yakumo and Harima, IMO.

I think and hope it will come to life. Really.