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Reminds me of my friend who held back from watching the last two episodes of Ef: A Tale of Memories because he didn't want his tear ducts to explode

It's been ages since I've posted here. I still post updates on ANN of course, but lately I haven't cross-posted them. Here are some anime I've watched recently:

Hayate The Combat Butler - Lol. It certainly doesn't hesitate to spell out the random plot elements it uses.
There are lots and lots of jokes, only some of which are actually funny. The characters are all very thin, and there's hardly any story. I've heard season two is better, so I think I'll finish this anyway, but I don't think I'll rewatch it.
Hayate The Combat Butler (OVA) - Beach/fanservice episode..
Hayate The Combat Butler (season 2) - Nicer art, and a better story to jokes ratio this season.
The jokes that are there are a little flat though, and the tiny amount of character development doesn't go anywhere either. All in all this isn't such a great anime as I expected.

Maria Watches Over Us (Maria-sama Ga Miteru) - Wow, there are quite a lot of terms and names to remember right away. It looks like it will be a pleasant way to pass the time, even if it isn't outstanding.
It was nice indeed. A little out of order regarding christmas and valentine's day, but that's just details. I wonder if there will be some actual romance in later seasons.
Maria-sama Ga Miteru Printemps (season 2) - The story continues with the same slices of life. I found it a little strange to see Yumi's brother and Sachiko's fiancé suddenly show up. I hope they leave them out in later seasons. Oh, and Touko too. She just annoys me.
Maria-sama Ga Miteru (season 3) - Hmm. The Hanadera boys keep acting up. I wish they'd get lost already. On the other hand, two girls having a phobia for men is a little too much to believe as well. I'll finish watching this series, but MariMite isn't going to make my top favorites. It's just too stiff and far-fetched.
Don't Tell Mother Maria - Funny/strange 'outtakes' from the filming of the regular series.
Maria-sama Ga Miteru (season 4) - It looks like Touko is going to be the one to join the regular cast, not Kanako :/
Well, Touko became a little nicer this season. I still think they stretched out the whole petite soeur drama for too long though. I wanted to see Yumi and Touko together more. And Noriko and Nana of course. Maybe there'll be a fifth season.

Some remarks in MariMite got me curious about Kenji Miyazawa (Japanese poet/writer from the beginning of last century), so I watched these two anime:
Night Of Taneyamagahara - It's more like a picture drama than an anime, but they're very nice pictures. Kazuo Oga is a Ghibli background artist after all. The story is slice-of-life, without a plot or resolution really. Just some farmers talking and the dream of one of them. Nice for people interested in the works of Kenji Miyazawa, or those who want to see everything from Studio Ghibli.
Spring And Chaos - A nice anime about the life of a dreamer.

Pretty Cure Splash☆Star - MFTGX had subbed eps.1-23 and the movie, but no one else seemed interested in picking this up for a long time. Then Zalis finally continued and subbed the rest of the series.
Same good old fun as Pretty Cure, but a little different. The characters of Nagisa's mom and Akane seem to have merged into Saki's mom, but otherwise most of the cast seem to have counterparts in Splash☆Star. Cures Bloom and Egret's attacks seem more magical sometimes than Black and White's rather physical approach to battle.
Splash☆Star is even better than Pretty Cure and Max Heart.
The ending was pretty epic, although a little drawn out in some respects. It was nice to see Kaoru and Michiru come back and even join in the final battles. Maybe that's where they got the idea for PreCure 5.
Including a rewatch of
Pretty Cure Splash☆Star Tick Tack Kiki Ippatsu! - This takes place later than ep.30 in the series. The animation and art are top-notch. I guess a movie has more work put into it than a TV series. A nice short sidestory.

I also wanted to watch Corrector Yui, but it seems it was never even subbed

Candy Boy - I hate the current fad of out-of-order episodes. You have to double check the real order of every anime to avoid spoilers.
This was supposed to have real lesbians, but after watching it, I'm not entirely convinced. I think it's the sisters angle that pushes it down from explicit to subtext. There is Sakuya of course, but she's so crazy that I can't take her seriously.
Other than that though, Yukino and Kanade are so sweet together that I wish this series was much much longer. Why is it always the best anime that are too short?

Currently watching:
Cyberteam In Akihabara - The art is rather dated, and the animation not very smooth. I can't tell yet if the story is going to be good. So far it seems not much more nonsensical than some other anime.

Recently watched volumes 4 and 5 of Doki Doki School Hours. After episode 13 it changes to OVA or bonus episodes; really couldn't tell, except that the japanese title cards obviously started recounting... They were all AU and super silly types of things, like one where Iincho is a paranormal investigator, or all the characters are actually 1 big family of siblings, or everyone is part of two different warring lands (warring over, of all things, which type of uniform is better; summer or winter)

Overall I found these very hit or miss. I preferred the core series. Seki continued to be super annoying, and Nakayama adorable. They introduced a new character, an American exchange student, who was an otaku, but I found his character poorly developed. He was just a Seki/Watabe hybrid. I could tell that his Japanese had a particular simpleness to it that they did not do a very good job of rendering into subtitles, so maybe I missed some of the core humor regarding his character.

Still a cute series and one I enjoy going back to watch. The Cultural Festival plot from the second DVD still wins hands down as my favorite, what between Kudo's role as Snow White and Nakayama's introduction.

Has anyone else read/watched the dotHACK series? I own all the manga available in Canada...

I've seen .hack//SIGN, .hack//Legend Of The Twilight Bracelet, and .hack//Roots. I loved the first series and own it on DVD. The second series was so-so. It had its good moments, but there was a lot of sillyness and fanservice as well. The third series was interesting, but ruined by a) the focus on Haseo and b) being cut off halfway. I haven't seen any other OVAs, and I wouldn't know where they go in the franchise's timeline anyway.

Well, anyway, I've just finished episode 1 of Mnemosyne.

Fuck.

Badass.

Edit: Also, when I hear the name Saya, I now think of three persons:

- Saya, from SRT: OG SAGA EF (EXCEED), who is extremely hot.
- Saya, from Saya no Uta, who is...hot? Not particularly, but she's cute! :3
And twisted. Somewhat.
- Sayara, from Mnemosyne, who is kinda hot, and EXTREMELY TWISTED.

So, yeah, Saya is a beautiful name.





:3
(^Yes, that smiley improved my post...somehow.)

Not Saya from Blood+? She's rather badass too.

Recently finished:
Candy Boy - I hate the current fad of out-of-order episodes. You have to double check the real order of every anime to avoid spoilers.
This was supposed to have real lesbians, but after watching it, I'm not entirely convinced. I think it's the sisters angle that pushes it down from explicit to subtext. There is Sakuya of course, but she's so crazy that I can't take her seriously.
Other than that though, Yukino and Kanade are so sweet together that I wish this series was much much longer. Why is it always the best anime that are too short?

Cyberteam In Akihabara - The art is rather dated, and the animation not very smooth. I can't tell yet if the story is going to be good. So far it seems not much more nonsensical than some other anime.
Bleh. The head villains keep talking in philosophical-sounding nonsense, and the interactions with them are getting surreal. This reminds me a lot of Utena actually.
Overall, this anime is just nothing special. Too much time is spent explaining the convoluted backstory. Time that should have been spent showing the main characters, either in their daily lives or having more interesting fights against the villains. The ending isn't exciting either. Now and then there are some interesting bits (the villain sidekicks' story, Tsubame's redemption), but they're lost in the mass of mediocrity.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari - A short, but very sweet slice-of-life anime.

Mahoraba - Oh dear. It looks like this'll be another harem/romantic comedy anime :/
Well, it isn't really a harem anime after all. The romantic comedy, as usual, is sometimes funny and other times not so much. This anime however succeeds by having more character development (can't call it a plot because the situation doesn't change much). The last few episodes in particular are very good.

Next up:
Zettai Shounen, Yume Tsukai, Yozakura Quartet, and Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou. Why, yes, I decided to pick some anime from the end of the to-watch list. How'd you guess?

Am watching Baccano. It's try my patience. Episode 5 and still no fucking clue what's going on. The characters are loud and obnoxious and I want to find the majority of them fun and entertaining, but..... PLEASE GIVE ME SOMETHING in the way of what the hell is going on exactly.

Firo is my current love, though, but there's no good match for him that I've seen *sigh* Maybe someone will shine to my liking as things progress.