The Twelve Kingdoms

I have a few bones to pick with this anime. I was bored so I watched it, but I found it lacking. A lot.

The story was simple enough, but the whole thing felt flat. There were no jokes, no sarcasm, nothing remotely interesting happened. It failed to be funny, it failed to be entertaining and it failed to be creepy as well. It also failed to be scary... but it didn't fail to be depressing and booooooooooring!

So... It was a fantasy one. A girl gets spirited away to a fantasy land to be a ruler. Major mishaps happen, girl meets a lot of bad people until someone finally tells her what's going on. After a load of trouble she gets to be a ruler, and from then on we see other stories about the other kingdoms. All these stories are separate and the thing is just tedious. I didn't stay up late to watch more and more of it.

My problems:

• The idea was good, but there was a crapload of technical terms, and I couldn't remember what meant what, didn't feel like taking notes for any anime I watch for enjoyment (where's the enjoyment?!) so I was continuously puzzled and lost.
  
  
• One original idea was that in the fantasy world where everything took place kids grew on trees in fruits... which was all nice, but then what need was there for males and female? I mean why did women have breasts, when that part only happened to develop thanks to evolution to lure in males and to feed babies... so what's the point? It was an inconsistent and badly done part. Not to mention there were still marriages, but there was never a same-sex couple, women were mostly maids, I didn't see one female scholar even in the most flourishing country and there was only one female warrior... the female protagonist. Pathetic.
  
  
• Even though sex did not exist in the fantasy world, hookers did. The first "nice" person the protagonist and her friends met sold them to a brothel. What, pray tell, do the hookers do over there? Because sex ain't one of those things. I'm still flabbergasted at this huge mess up.
  
  
• Nobody ever cracks a joke. Well, there was one time. That joke died right there. It wasn't really a joke, just an attempt. There was nothing funny or entertaining in there.
  
  
• Everything was predictable. I mean you knew who the bad guy was and that he was gonna die in a few episodes' time.
  
  
• Good people almost always died a painful and horrid death. If one of the main heroes met someone nice, friendly and pretty much harmless you were sure they were either gonna part ways the next episode or end up skewered, eaten by some monster or in some other gruesomely gory fashion.
  
  
• The artwork was... decent. Not pretty exactly. Clothes were mostly bulky. Some were frilly, but those only happened to the girls with the gravity-defying hairdos who took care of the kirins and who were also having err... it was suggested they were having sex with men who came whenever a new kirin was presented to the world. I'm floored, I am.
  

This is all I can think of now. The story could have been better, new terms could have been less or more memorable... No, I vote for less. This isn't a frikkin classroom, learn to entertain! Sadly, with the children born from a tree all the sexual jokes and innuendos were gone, so... it was boring. No jokes at all were mentioned and somehow the whole thing sucked.

Why did I still watch it? I need something in the background while I crochet or bead. I multi-task often. But this wasn't really what I wished for.

My advice: avoid. Plot is predictable and pretty boring, artwork is decent, but can be a turn-off a lot of times, not funny, only slightly entertaining and you get lost in the terms for almost everything in the fantasy world. The only good thing is the soundtrack, all 2-3 of those songs.

I give a 3 out of 10 for this series, and I was generous because of the nice soundtrack.

Ergo Proxy

Meh.

Seriously.

It's very beautiful. The artwork is pretty, really pretty.

The story is... sort of interesting, once all the bits reassert themselves in your head, but... you'll have to watch it a few times to get all of the bits.

Thing is, it's deep. Ok, the story is original for the usual anime, but I'm not sure I prefer it quite this deep. I don't like to go "HUH?!" at the end of an anime. I like a bit of mystery and suspense, but complete bafflement? No.

Also, the story was told in a haphazard way, dotted with filler-like episodes that made sense only after you've watched the anime till the end. There were dream sequences that lasted for a full episode each, and time loss, lots of time loss. Sometimes you were dropped into a situation in medias res, and were left with no ending or follow-up when the episode ended and the next one was already happening somewhere else, much, much later. *sigh*

There were some big words. French, mostly. Boring speeches, although those probably because you've got to have boring, long-winded speeches in anime, that are completely unrealistic. I got used to it. At least I had time to drink some tea and offer food for Manó. He likes dried fruit btw.

Over all, it was nice. The plot, when you finally piece it together and understand it (after a few watchings and talking it over with others), is pretty neat. Finally not the "bad guy comes and destroys all just because he had a sad past" or "vague / not so vague, but totally out of character entity gets revenge / gets reborn / wreaks havoc / saves his old gf / kills his best friend / etc" or even the usual "boy gets girl or vice versa" plot.

But I feel that over all it would have been more enjoyable if they didn't go to great lengths to bewilder the watchers with riddles, throw us off-kilter with filler-like riddles and annoy us with that "Q Q Q" guy. Man, my finger twitched on the fast forward button like hell when I watched that episode.

So... great anime it would be, were it not overly complicated to give it a more artistic feel. Simple doesn't always mean bad, you know. And this... even if made a bit simpler... it wouldn't be simple at all.

Decided to read some Bleach, because every time I look at the cage while sitting next to it or walking next to it hurts.

So...

• Kenpachi is still damn sexy (and unhinged) as ever, check.
  
  
• Crazy dude with scythe dead, check.
  
  
• (Slain by Ken-chan, check. Yup, that guy still has it in him...)
  
  
• Ulquiorra still being mysteriously emo, check. (It pisses me off, that guy.)
  
  
• Gin's funny and cute as always, check.
  
  
• Aizen's a creepy thing as usual, check.
  
  
• Woohoo, new hot(meaning unhinged) guy fighting Kira, check.
  
  
• Killed by Kira a few episodes later (a shame, really), check.
  
  
• Gone blind because I saw a seriously ugly and overly muscled transvestite (I quote his battle cry: "Beautiful Charlotte Coolhorn's miracle sweet ultra funky fantastic dramatic romantic sadistic erotic exotic athletic... guillotine attack!" *retching noises*) in some hideously low-cut pants and tiara, check.
  
  
• And then he transforms into... see picture for reference.

Blind yet? I sure am.

Dissing Fate Stay Night Part 2

Ok, I know I'm talking about an anime, and anime tend to be absolute rubbish with made-up stupid foreigner names and utterly stupid things stolen and thrown in for fun for Japanese who obviously have no idea what they are talking about...

But this is so bad I just have to go on with the list. It is sort of hilarious... Too bad it pisses me off. So...

• Our knight lady is actually called Arthuria. She's also a King. Well, I've always wondered about Arthur and Lancelot, but still, if she's Arthuria, what the hell is going on with Ginevere? And who fathered Mordred if both Arthuria and Morgause (Arthur's sister) are female? Hmmm... I wonder. No, I really don't wanna know.
  
  
• Oh, and our noble King, who is a lady knight, who is a frikkin woman, for the gods' sake, is a dragon as well. Uh-huh. Of course. Because the knights of the roundtable love dragons... Suuuure.
  
  
• Then, they introduce the plot twist: we need to have sex to defeat the bad guys. Actually, one girl attacks the hero and then attacks the lady knight. Yup, because threesomes are awesome and they save the world. (Kinda makes me wonder about Future Peter and Future Hiro and Present Peter... *blush* Hold on... that's two Peters and two more Peters than I'm usually interested in so let's switch Present Peter with anyone else... Like... Daphne. They need at least one girl, no? Too bad Angela is related and too old anyway...)
  
  
• The archer guy. Servant. Summoned little pet, or whatever. I'll post a picture. First time I saw him I knew he reminded me of someone. Doesn't it remind you of someone? Seriously.
  
  
  Just take a looooong look.
  
  And... I seriously prefer Mr Stampede, tyvm.
  
  
• Anyway, the archer guy's special power seems to be the ability to massacre the English language and utter phrases in this butchered English that makes me cry laughing. Oh, and he also utters a lot of nonsense and certain sayings that rattle of dust.
  
  

So far, that's it. Will add more as it goes on. I mean it's a goldmine.

Dissing Fate Stay Night

What the title says. And blergh. Braaainsss!

I thought maybe after a few months I could start watching anime again. The Bleach fillers scared me away and I couldn't find anything I liked.
I thought maybe this time I'd found something a bit interesting. And then I started watching. My first reaction: Ye gods!

• The plot so far is mediocre at best. 7 mages are fighting for the possession of the Holy Grail. The grail picks them to fight each other for it. Yeah, because the Holy Grail needs a massacre. And the Grail picks lotsa twisted and evil people and like... one good guy. Uh-huh.
  
  
• Our main hero is a Mary Stue. Everybody loves him, girls fall for him at every turn. He is a goody two shoes who want to save everyone and he has a sad, sad past. (The last "Holy Grail War", which was about 10 years ago wiped a whole city, and he was the lone survivor. Sad, sad. He was adopted by a magician. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the adoptive dad's fault the town got wiped btw.)
  
  
• Our main hero believes girls shouldn't fight, because they injure themselves and girls should stay pretty and in the kitchen, protected by men. I hate that guy, ok?
  
  
• I cackled up when one of the summoned fighters (each mage summons a fighter, it's in the rules that the fighter fights for their mage who summoned them) called his lance Gáe Bulg! Well... it sounded a bit different, after all they were speaking Japanese... but seriously...
  So... Gáe Bulg. The wielder was once called Lancelot, although it might have been just his profession mis-pronounced. But... should I even mention that Gáe Bulg belongs to Cúculainn and NOT Lancelot? *sigh* Wrong fucking nationality, geniuses!
  
  
• But let's go on. Insane guy can be pointed out by his shady look, even from the opening. No surprise there.
  
  
• Knife-licking insane, demonic (or maybe demonic) chick, check. With long, gravity-defying spidery hair, check. Who also wears a skintight miniskirt and loves to crawl on objects Dracula-style (head down, backside up), check. Who has a dangerously low-cut top without anything suspending her boobies that are as big as mine (like F-cup), check. Antigravity boobies rule, no? Wish I had a pair of those.
  
  
• Adorable little girl, who is really cracked and insane and has blood red eyes and a huuuge monster: check.
  
  
• Huge monster called Berserker, who's really Heracles... that is when I felt this thing was utterly, utterly stupid, and I was so very sorry that nobody ever cares about getting any, or even one single little fact right.
  
  
• Girl, who's really a knight and nobody, nobody ever said she can't be a knight, check.
  
  
• *whimper* She's wielding the Excalibur! *hysterical sobbing* (I remember chanting "don't say Excalibur, if you say Excalibur I'm going to scream", but she called her sword Excalibur anyway, while she offed a Pegasus.) Besides the fact that the Excalibur rests with the Lady of the Lake, who is no friggin knight, there are no female knights of that period. Not sure about later but I haven't heard of female knights so far. And... the Excalibur, for the gods' sake! Will the pain ever stop?
  

Well, so far, this is it, and I'm only halfway through this insanity. Good gods, please spare me.

Zsámbék and Basilisk

Today we went to Zsámbék. It has an old church ruin that we wanted to see and walk a bit in the nice weather. So we visited the ruins, the turkish fountain (which was a load of rubbish, full of graffity and trash, another old church and an Immaculata statue.

Actually, it was fun, save for the horrid nausea I had the whole trip thanks to my carsickness. But I really liked it. I also got to use my tourist-guide thingy, so yay.

What else... Oh yes. I came back and actually started liking Basilisk a bit. Now that they are less and less, plotting comes in, and... yup, I love plotting. It makes the show interesting.

I also found myself a fave charcter. The tactician. (That guy. Bite me.) Or if there were one, he would be it. He is the one who has the ability to take on the looks of other people. His disguise also includes the voice, so he's quite smooth.

His fave thing is to infiltrate the enemy, get close to someone and rile them up against the enemy. Like... he told his "comrade" who killed her love, so she ran blindly to confront said person in battle. (Ok saying the killer's art does not work on women helped.) Thing is the guy uses his brain! And he misleads and uses deceit as his biggest weapon. How sweet is that?

Oh, and he's pretty cute too.
(And just to rile people up, I'll try to include a pic with all the ninja in it.)

Basilisk: scuse me, I crowed too early

Correction.

The badass bad guy is still alive. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! What does it take to murder this utter bastard? He's crap. As in ruining what I could still enjoy about this crap. Grrrrrr.

Basilisk in a nutshell

After watching 6 eps of Basilisk (1/4 of the whole anime) I've come to a conclusion: it pretty much reminds me of Ninja Scroll.

The art is pretty nice, but needs a bit of getting used to. Just like Kazuya Minekura's, the faces look a bit similar. But still it's nice art. (Trust me, I've seen much much much worse.) On the bright side, it has lotsa hot guys. Yay for the hormones!

So... what the series lacks is an original plot. Not kidding.
So far the plot consists of: badass, crafty ninjas murdering each other in big showdowns because they are sworn enemies, meaning they come from different hidden villages/clans.
But... let's face it, since Naruto it's pretty much old news. And Naruto is much cuter and much much more interesting. And less recycled.

They also introduced a love story sub-plot between the two heads of the opposing ninja clans. (Male and female respectively, don't start to freak out now.)
But since Romeo and Juliet it's also pretty old news. Not to mention the original was better in every aspect.
Oh yes, it also pretty much means that the guy (the sucker) getting unintentionally lied to by the girl, thanks to her eeeeevil subordinates who want to murder the guy who went over to be their guest (how stupid can you get, godsdamnit?!). The girl by the way is beyond stupid, clueless and even platinum blonde. She's practically braindead. She starts to simper one more time and I lose it. >.<

So... as first impressions go, this one will get deleted as soon as I finish it or get so annoyed that i stop in the middle. It makes me miss Sci-Fi harry's horrid, jumbled plot about an evil organization that turns out to be consisting of all humanity agains all psychics. It was that bad. Trust me.

But on the bright side... it (Basilisk) has nice music.

Yes... I might talk about Harry later. But not now.

Yesterday I've found one of the best anime scenes ever. Well, in my point of view.
I'm not much, if you consider it.

Story goes: guy fucks up, so he goes to the group-head (pretty much like a yakuza), who's in a pool on top of the rooftop. It's night, the pool is lit from under the water, so all is blue and sparkly. Guy goes in, admits failure, places gun next to the pool and offers the lady to shoot him. (Btw, he's a lover-subordinate of the pretty much crazy lady.)

Lady swims there, takes the gun and asks "You think that I won't shoot?"... and proceeds to shoot him in the knees. He falls to the floor, woman drops gun into the water, no longer interested in it. (Oh, those who can afford it all...)

After shooting, she swims to the poolside again, touches the face of the suffering guy, tells him to get it sorted out, and then mutters "You can get some medical care for your knees after I have my fun." And drags him underwater with her, kissing him, while the guy trails blood after him in the poolwater.

I found the scene pretty. It's not the dominance, it's not the violence, it sure as hell not the blood or the implied pool-sex afterward. I just think that the scene is pretty hot.

Dunno why exactly. But the guy prolly has something to do with it too. ^^

Anime Review

Right. Here is a guy who runs around all secret-like. Silent as night, blends in with the shadows like a pro and is very athletic, so jumping a few storeys up and down is nothing to him. Wowzers!

Thing is... there are a few things I feel I should mention.
Our Stealth Agent wears a glaring RED, long trenchcoat, runs around the city with a drawn katana, takes strolls on the side of tall buildings (being all horizontal), and jumps from building to building that are kms away and lands safely on their side. Nah, not weird at all. Also, he wears a funny hat. (The piccie is of said anime hero.)











Still, maybe it's just me. I mean it's Japan we are speaking of, and maybe people are doing those things all the time so it might be ok. Also, maybe people don't see glaring red colour as we do.

Anything is possible, no?

But... is it me or does he remind me strongly of someone of another vampire-based anime? Hmm... You be the judge.

(Second piccie is of Alucard. He sometimes has long black hair. And wears goggles.)

Yup, no kidding. They made a shameless and tasteless copy of Alucard (alias Dracula).


I do believe the original is much much hotter, anime-character-wise. ^^

Oh, and he also has a funny hat!