The whole point of this post is just some random ideas I have for new anime. There have been so many cookie cutter series lately personally I have gotten bored with a lot of genres lately. This especially lies the lazy adapts of eroges/visual novels that translate to a rushed twelve episode harem hi-jinx series that are now painful to watch. Originality is something hard to do when you need to make a bottom line in order to live. However it is still possible to take some long established tropes/cliches and still make it enjoyable to series that is fun to read or watch even if the series isn't serious or low-key on some end.
The best way of doing this by trying or build or do some twist/turns to already established plots to make something feel fresh. Even if you need to use old tropes so people can keep interest in the medium try adding some twist or turns so it will not be so bland. Something else really important is how the execution of the material is handled, such cases are with anime series like ToLoveRu and Is This Zombie prove you can re-use the same old material over again, but have a fairly decent product in the end. You just need to charters some kind of depth to them instead of making them so damn one dimensional all the time.
Below is just an idea I would like to see for an anime since I am a huge melo-drama fan/slice of life fan. What do you think should be done to make anime or manga fresh again using already established set-ups?? Say for example the child-hood friend cliche where the MC moves back to his hometown and doesn't have any memory of her or any promises he might of made. You can twist this around by making the MC remember that promise and his child hood friend which can turn something overused to fresh/new in the market. Even minor changes like this can completely change the outcome of story and grab peoples attention if done right now it's time for my idea.
We have a standard male lead becomes friends with a 2-3 female
characters however he is homosexual, so it's easier for him to become friends with some of the opposite sex. The girls know this because he is
having a hard time in school and getting constantly picked on by his
class-mates over time he becomes really good friends with certain girl. However to add a huge twist it turns out that she is in love with
the same guy as the MC. Now this is something I would actually like to
see done and there is countless ways of doing it however what do you think?? What are your ideas for any new anime, manga for visual novel IP's?? Share them with me below and get the idea tank moving, I'll catch you all around later~
My body is ready sums up all I have to say to this news about to love ru darkness getting an anaime adaption. By far the entire to love love-ru is one my all time biggest guilty pleasure franchise I like. Now there is only one problem I can see with this and it's the fact that to love ru darkness sexual content is quite high compared to the tame version that ran in shonen-jump since the more adult oriented manga is running in the monthly magazine jump-square. The large amount of high sexual content that can be or not be animated will come into question as well, but my biggest concern is solar flare censor-ship to sell blurays.
Something I did find funny is that one of the recent volumes of square-jump is giving away 300 limited edition ass-pads of yami to help promote the series. By all means do what sells your product, sex appeal defiantly helps push to love-ru out the door and I am not ashamed to admit that. call me what you will.. For those who can not wait until fall 2012 to see the series a full twenty four minute ova is coming out August 17th bundled with volume five of the manga so look forward to, my main question is your body ready for this??
In usual tradition it seems that 7th expansion's new visual novel is getting a English patch. As I previously stated, I do not know much about the series like I did with Higurashi or Umineko however from what I gathered from the manga it's really damn brutal. One thing I do need admit is that I watched the anime series both each before playing the Visual Novels.This means that I am going to go in blind with this series no prior knowledge what so-ever. On the series getting an anime.. it will take some time fIt seems that it will follow their usual formula like it's predecessors and wait for the first four arcs to come out first. The translator that is doing this has my full support and I hope that a partial patch is up soon. I am off and I will catch you all around next time.. I just hope I don't end up like the woman in that pic.
Yes I am promoting a new legit/legal site that is legally hosting digital copies of manga online called J-Manga "however this is for people state side only so learn to proxy if you need to". Much like any other site like crunchy roll, hulu plus etc you need to pay a monthly fee of ten dollars to accesses most of the content. However there is a catch.. your monthly subscription comes with a points/voucher that you are allowed to spend.
The points allow you to buy chapters of certain series that are currently hosted on their site and one huge plus is that they are doing series that have never been published in paper back state side, so this is great exposure for the series. On a down side only being allowed a certain amount of points per month does limit what one is able to buy and what is exposed. I do like the premise of this site and hope for the best.
So i am actually reviewing another manga this time around?? Well I guess hell finally froze over due in part that I actually bought a hard copy for the first volume of Rail-Gun. Now Don't count me on doing a full review for every single volume that comes out for the series, however this is one of the few manga's that I will actually be following legally state-side as of now. My only small rant is not at the publishers for the manga Seven-Seas but at the company Funimation. As much as I love the company I just wish that the would announce an release date for the Rail-gun/Index DVDs/Bluray's already.
However due to some complications came up genon of Japan so the series will them setting on the title for awhile. However a legal stream at their site to in order to promote the series more which would greatly help with sales of the series down the road and being region restricted for Japan should not hurt sales that much due to reverse importing.... but that's just my opinion on this.
Now that my little rant is over for the time being lets get on with this. Rail-gun is a spin-off series from the popular light novel To Aru Majutsu No Index. The manga for rail-gun started in publication on April 2007 which is still on-going currently with six volumes out so far. As I just stated above Seven-Seas is doing the localization for the manga in the states.
From what I have read in the first volume they seem to be handling the localization quite well the translation also seems to be on par with everything I have seen so far as well for the series. The printed softback is also in decent quailty with fifteen page preview of the tord-dora manga as well. Normally I would go into more detail than this but I will save the major details for my review of anime when I am able to.
Shocking, isn't it??
Now lets move on to the main plot/story, To Aru no Railgun takes place in city called academy city that is mainly made up of students with a population of 2.3 million. The technology they have in the city is thirty to forty years far more advanced than any where else in the world. The main focus or study in the city is on esper or telekinetic powersand rates the students based on their abilities from level zero to level five, of course level five being the strongest possible, so powerful that only seven students even register at this level and our main fourteen year-old female lead Misaka Mikoto is ranked number three out the seven registered.
Her special ability is that of electrode master. Basically I am saying that she has the ability to shoot off huge volts off electricity from her body at high speed "up to a billion volts", warp sand into a steel like sword. Then there Misaka's special ability called the rail-gun In which she fires an arcade token three times faster than the speed of sound.
Misaka goes to an all girls private school named Tokiwadai Middle School which is on campus area and lives with her roommate Shirai Kuroko who is a level four teleporting esper, that happens to be one the most flamboyant lesbians I have seen in a long time. It's funny to see her get turned down from Misaka more than any male lead put together in recent history I can think of.
Kuroko also has a habit of calling Misaka oneesama, not due in fact that she is her older sister but out of respect Kuroko has for her. So what is the instal story about for the first volume?? It starts off really slow with a few crime bust from Kuroko because of her part in the student enforcement called Judgment, where main job is to enforce law/order with in academy city. "gee what happened to baseball or soccer?"
Who Knew??
It's not until chapter three or four is when things start to really heat up due to mystery bomber that solely attacks judgment remembers. This is where they introduce the third main female lead UiharuKazari that works along side kuroko at judgement. Uiharu is an esper as well but unlike the other two she is just a level one that has a little to no use with her ability. It's around this chapter that we see some development between the girls and Misaka realizes how hard it to work for Judgement by a mistake in identity, be warned some minor spoilers below
However it's not until the bomber nearly kills off Uiharu from using some kind of power up. This is when we finally get a sense of where the series gearing towards more action than just slice of life. In the main bombing just mentioned if no not for a certain Touma even Misaka would have been killed, even with her rail-gun ability. One huge plus I do give for Misaka is that, she doesn't take crap for no one and she is willing to fight/stand up to anyone even if she had no ability her-self "which makes a great role-model for younger to older teens"
The only other character that is worth mentioning as of now are Touma Kamijou who has the ability to negate, deflect any and all esper abilities with his right hand called "the imagine breaker". From time to time Misaka tends to get in to bouts with Touma because of his ability. Misaka is like most in the city don't realize that his arm is capable of stop the attacks but to be honest I think that's it's just more a of lover's quartile than anything else.
You would have to be pretty damn dense not to see how Misaka feels about Touma, but of course she goes about it in a tsundere style. I will admit that Misaka is no where near as bad as recent characters with this trait, hell you could just say that she is your average teen-age girl w/ electric powers. However you might want to wear some rubber gloves on the first date unless your looking for sparks to start the mood.."
Well There Goes The Good Night Hug
In all honesty this initially starts off the same way the anime has so if you have seen that, then there is little reason for you buy or even read the first volume. However the manga is much more faster paced than it's T.V. counter-part but the same could be said of all manga, I will say this I rather enjoyed the first volume of the manga much more than the T.V. series I had to watch fan-subbed.. ahem moving on along is the story, characters and art any good? I would say that's it's above average, noting really great but not bad what so-ever. Hell I really enjoy this franchise in all honesty I am actually happy to own a legal piece of it.
As far as recommendations go for this title is go. Well this is a mixed series that takes some time to establish the plot/characters over-time, it's a bit slow paced to the action but once it gets on the ball it's a blast to read. The manga however takes a different course from the t.v anime but still stays true to the sci-fi elements a lot and yes there is some fan-service in chapter one. However this is nothing that would stop any mainstream fans from reading it. I will also give Misaka props for wearing a pair of shorts under her skirt the up-skirt viewof her panties".
The last few things I wish to add is that the first volume comes with seven full chapters "around 30 pages each" and cost as low as $7.88 depending where you want to buy it. I will provide a link to the cheapest place available. I know that most of you will say that this really wasn't a review just "info giving" but I hate to spoil to much for you, go out buy a copy and read it for yourself. However I do need to work on my impressions ...I loved it all I can say.
They only flaws I do wish to point are the generic/cliched settings that have been used over a million times already, however they quickly drop these move along past the main set-up to something that's really enjoyable to read with really likeable characters, settings and a hint of magic here or there. Well that's all she wrote on this review, I hope that you found this to be helpful and I might make this my bi monthly manga review if this keeps up, for those who have watched the anime feel free to watch the OP for season one part one below.
So with nearly 6000 hits so far in only three short months, I do feel like it's a time for a bit of celebration. That number isn't anything I do realize this compared to nearly what most sites get per day. However I find this to be a good start thus far. Oh I hope you all did enjoy the Final Fantasy Four DS Opening as much as I do. I am your reviewer "Cecil The Dark Knight" after all, where else did you think I got the name from? "Also having the last name Cecil seemed to have helped in that decision as well." Despite the original Game being nearly over twenty plus years old already it is and will always be my all time favorite Jrpg.
Let's move on past this, for those who don't know I have set up the site now to where any-one can post with an log in account. So to the anon's of 4chan play nice, after all I am a old fag after all and being lurking around there since 04. So what I am going to do for this near celebration?? Well The only thing I can do is just finish up my two reviews for spring line up before the summer line-up hits into full swing. Also I do plan to have a another manga review up soon, from a really unexpected title so look forward to that as well. That's all I have to say to everyone, have a good summer and I will catch you guys around. Also feel free to leave any comments of what you think I should review I do welcome any hint's/suggestions so just leave some feed back.
I know that this is something that usually do not care about or choose to cover, but I can no longer pass it up anymore. Normally I would never review a manga/graphic novel but I have a special reason for doing so. It has been ten years since the initial release of manga in Japan thus giving me reason to celebrate the ten year anniversary of the series. I also have some personal reasons, do due in part this is the first magna that I have read all the way through, due in part it was given to me from a dear friend in my senior year of high-school.
Okay getting all of my personal feeling of this series aside lets get on with an overview for it. Chobits is a series created from the well known group "Clamp", who have done such great series like "Card CaptorSakura" and "Code Geass ". The manga was first serialized in “Young Magazine” and published by “Kodansha” from Feb. 14th 01 until Nov.29th 02. Later eight paper-back volumes was released in Japan and where localized/published in English by “Tokyo Pop” in 2003 released bi annually through out the year.
Now due to the fact that Tokyo Pop is no longer being in business "Dark Horse Comics" decided to pick-up/renew the license and is releasing it in big "Omnibus" collections with re-translations as well. As usual there is a an anime adoption as well that aired on "TBS" from April 2002 until September 2002, with a total of twenty six episodes. Funimation has just recently released the series on DVD/Bluray set. I highly suggest picking the anime as well, but I will not be reviewing that as of now guys/gals.
Getting this out of the way lets focus on the plot for the series, which by today's standards is rather generic due to harem and ecchi elements. The setting takes place in science fiction type world where all computers have persona's or human form called "Persocoms". They are mainly like any other type of PC but with the ability to talk, give directions, play games with their master "no not those type of games you sick bastards".
There happens to be talk of a rare kind of Perscom called a "Chobit", which is able to think, learn, feel and even rumored to the ability to return love as well "but is this love real?". Now you might of guessed that the main focus of our story is just a typical shojo romance manga/anime which to something that most people hate.To be honest I usually avoided this genre until now and I am highly regretting it for doing so due in part of all the good stories/shows that I have missed over the years.
Moving to a short synopsis of the main story which is about our average male lead “Hideki Motosuwa” who has to move from the country side to Tokyo. He moved here due in part that the college he applied for, thus forcing him to go an “Cram-School” for a year. On Hideki's visit to the big city he is astonished to see "Persocoms" or personal PC's everywhere and how expensive they are thus dashing his hopes to ever owning one "I do think 5,000 dollars for a basic model is tad much."
A few weeks pass by Hidieki gets an apartment and job so lets move on to that. He finishes up a late night shift at his part-time job, at a pub called my pleasure. He works with a young high school senior named "Yumi Omura" that has a crush on him "thus the reason why she calls him "Senpai". On Hideki's on the way home he finds a beautiful girl in the trash, that he happens to think is a murder victim.Upon closer inspection it turns out the girl is a "Perscom" and decides to take her home instead of letting her rot away in the garbage.
When Hideki gets home, he looks all over her body, for a way to turn her on.. "yes this pun is intended" and finds that her on switch is.. well between her legs. I do suppose this is one way to turn a lady on " I mean that literally". After she wakes up the said girl hugs Hideki only saying the word "Chi" which he decides to name her, "I guess it better than calling her blonde bimbo." This huge turn of events will change/impact Hideki's life forever.
On to a little more on Hideki's personal life, he lives in single room apartment which make things more fun due in part, that will be next impossible to keep something like this a secret from his land lady " Chitose Hibiya" and his neighbor " Hiromu Shinbo". Hideki goes the same cram school and Shinbo has his own personal mini persocom, named " Sumomo" which is basically just a laptop computer. There are many other characters and story elements that I would love to introduce but I do not feel like spoiling the rest of the story for you. I have set up the basics for the plot and it's up to you if you want to read/watch this or not.
Alright people even with these hugely used generic tones and flaws that are present the industry today, I will say this at the time this was new and interesting for me. Even after ten years since the entail release of the series in Japan, I still find Chobits to be amusing, funny and charming to read due in part of how the characters and story is handled. This could have been another cheap/generic harem at the time but looking back I am happy that Clamp took the high ground and said no. Everyone in this series and I do mean everyone ends up with some else in the end, which is something I have yet to see again. I am willing to admit that there is a lot of fan service shots "epically with Chi and Yumi" focusing on their panties/swimsuits but I am willing to look past this, mainly due in part even I need some eye candy time to time.
For now I only own the original release from Tokyo-Pop and despite my collection setting around for nearly ten years. The art-work for the series still holds up and even surpasses current manga that are coming out now. Through all of the series not once did I notice a quality drop from chapter to chapter. I do realize that I am giving it to much praise but one flaw I can point out is how some of the story has serous plot holes here and there. This also take a lot of understating in computers/technology to get a lot of references that are used so you might need to re-read some parts more than once. I have to also give props due in part that every character ends up with some-one thus negating the sour taste from a harem ending.
One of the huge reasons I re-read this manga is due in part of the story, and the lesson that it teaches. I usually do not care for lessons or what a show has to teach but this still has a big impact on my life, even till this day, "yes this going to be corny so just deal with it". I learned that you should love some one for who they are, not for what they are. You have to look pass they people look and try to love them despite them of their race, culture, and religious beliefs. This had a huge impact on me at the time in 2004 and I just wish that I could find "the only one meant for me". Okay that's enough ass kissing my only problem with the series is that it ends in a cliffhanger, I wish that clamp did a better job on this but at least it wasn't a "Bitter-Sweet Ending" making me personally happy. Have fun watching the OP for the anime below guys/gals.
That's all I have to say on this people, there is nothing else I can add or take away from my thoughts on this manga series. Yes I have such a huge biased on this series I do realize this but I needed to get this review out of my system. I know it seems that I only review shows that I like so far but believe me you, will see some non kiss ass reviews soon enough. Chobits is just such a huge nostalgia trip me that this review needed to be done. I will some more reviews up soon, right now I am working on review for one of the worst eroges I have ever played.
-Cecil The Dark Knight -Rating 4/5 -Age Rating 16+
