Summary: Christmas slowly approaches for the Lucky Star gang.
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The pace has picked up for Tokimeki Memorial, as the subs are released more frequently (props to...whoever, for staying with the project) and it seems the tension is beginning to build up again.(Yes, we know that's a real plant)The long-awaited culture festival has finally come (and by the end of the episode, it will have gone as well), and it's crunch time for both Sayuri, who is the star in the Drama Club's play, and for Riku, who is in just about everything.Meanwhile, will the two have any time for each other? Or, will this be the time for the "side characters," energetic girl Tsukasa, and shy (yet determined) girl Mina, to shine?Perhaps it's a bit of spoilers to be talking like Sayuri and Riku are meant for each other, but really, the anime is making it so blatantly obvious that it will take a miracle to get anyone else to be The True Ending. Tokimeki Memorial is making itself out to be the answer to the question I posed yesterday, in asking "can anime still be good when you know what's going to happen?"And the answer, for now, seems to be yes - although that might be just that faint glimmer of hope in praying for a Mina ending speaking. We'll see.Anyway, full non-spoilery (since I, uh, technically spoilered everything) recap ahead, after the jump.Of course, as it always seems to be before a public event, everyone is nervous at this being The Big Time - although maybe this mood is a bit out of character for Sayuri, the popular idol-type who's good with people. Or at least she used to be, until she met Riku, and fell for him, and all that junk. Now she's worried.Still, somehow, I wouldn't doubt that she's about to put on a brilliant performance - the only question is, will Riku be there to see it? If not, the inner conflict of idol Sayuri just might keep growing...Ah, what the hell. I'm speaking in present tense like I haven't seen the episode. You have. You know he doesn't show up, like the great harem guy he is. But more on that later.A bit more lighthearted as we get an out-of-context meganekko (with the large glasses, increasingly rare these days), followed by another great science teacher scene:It seems Riku's class isn't the only one that came up with a "meido cafe" idea. Although I think the guys may be a bit dissapointed:"Meido" apparently means more than just 'maid' in Japanese, and so the dramatic-music science teacher picked the less-common meaning of it, for maximum hilarity.His scenes never fail to amuse in recent episodes, it seems. Bonus points for his deadpanning of the famous imouto line in the above screenshot.Meanwhile, we continue switching around the huge culture festival at school, and now we get to the abandoned outskirts, home to the sports clubs and their events...but certainly not a lot of people.For the big attraction of the day is the hugantulous real haunted house (plus maids) that Riku's class set up!They're raking in the money (and we're raking in the meganekko. yay!)...As is the Happily Evil Bread Lady, who is selling undoubtedly counterfeit "Magic Shortbread". It's strange, that a lot of side characters in TokiMemo are more awesome than they should be for people who only make a 5-second appearance in each episode. Her, the science teacher, the delinquent guy...Riku's being subtle about Sayuri as always (they're not on first name terms yet? how sad), and yet still everyone blocks his way, as he, as part of the culture committee, is forced to do everything and a half, whether it be managing the haunted house, giving directions, finding lost kid's parents, so on, so forth...Meanwhile, Sayuri makes Haruhi references (I guess high school is 3 years, so it's a common number after all. But still...) which makes the crowd cry. I still find the 'real life in anime' quotes funny as always. Yes, the rest of the guys side characters are there. Probably the whole school is there (sans Riku), considering Sayuri's popularity.Although of course the one person that is missing disturbs Sayuri the most. It's horribly, horribly melodramatic and annoyingly typical (almost like a real high school relationship, it could be said), but there are better arcs to come. Hopefully.Meanwhile Riku continues to get gangraped tortured to death by curious students who exist only to distract him from getting to Sayuri. Well, probably not, but you never know given the ferocity of students at this school (at least in the early episodes).Sayuri's play - which is probably, as always with school plays, thinly disguised character exposition (for example, the theme of the Tokimeki Tree is present in the play as well). As pictuerd in the second shot, there's plenty of still shots, and panning back and forth between Sayuri on stage, and Riku...everywhere. Sayuri doesn't have a lot of time to look worried about the lack of Riku, although Riku does seem to have his mind of Sayuri a lot.As Sayuri's play wraps up, Riku finally frees up, and makes a mad dash to the theater to catch the end of the show, just in time......to be too late. Can you feel the drama? Instead of the play, the next act is on stage, including a trappish guitarist and some pop idol person - who I thought for a second could be the girl for 14. That would have been a nice development!Riku as expected is dejected beyond belief, and goes off to mope while the rest of the crowd, y'know, enjoys the show.He heads to the Piyoko area for consolation from everyone's favorite cute-speak (i.e. not Japanese) chick. Unfortunately, Piyoko's a bit distracted at the moment, to say the lease.And so, energetic girl Tsukasa to the energetic rescue! She asks Riku what's wrong and he responds in a disturbingly candid manner. Now, Riku, I know you have eyes for Sayuri, but the least you could do is be courteous to your current 'girlfriend'. She's having a good time, at least.Although she seems to be the next in line for a nervous breakdown, as she is beginning to suspect that maybe Riku's not the faithful lover she made him out to be. Gee, I wonder why.Suddenly I'm reminded of the conflicts of Kaede and Sia as Tsukasa fights herself to keep putting on that happy face and keep fighting for Riku. The two end off going on a date-ish thing around the culture festival, which I'm sure had good intentions, but really just makes Riku more miserable. Leave the emo guy alone, peoples.Meanwhile, Sayuri looks just about the same at the drama club celebration (with really creative subtitles, I must say), as everybody's happy about a job well done. Except for her, of course, since nobody (and by nobody, we mean Riku) saw her well done job. She runs off rather quickly, not even stopping to apologize. Certainly she's in a bit of a depression today.She runs by the haunted house, asking for Riku - just like Riku asked for her, in a horribly subtle manner - and the girls tell her that they don't know what he's up to either. She runs off, again, and they all make comments about how Sayuri's changed. Surely they should be able to draw the lines by now...?Spot the difference in this picture. Yup, it's drama at it's finest - one scene, two groups, missed by an inch. How sad. In "obscure reference" time, this reminds me of a Chinese romance movie called Turn Left Turn Right, where two lovers missed each other every day, because, even though they're neighbors, yup, one turned left every morning, and one turned right. Well done, guys.You can't see it in this picture, but Riku is being more blatantly obvious about "where's Sayuri, tear tear" than usual, having a huge frown, which rubs off on Tsukasa as well - pretty hard to do at any rate. But, she keeps fighting.Speaking of fighting, we come to the third and final contender for Riku, Mina (wai for...Mina? hmm, that'll need work). She's been sad all along and she hasn't even seen Riku yet; although I suppose that situation is the same for Sayuri.She tries, like the shy girl she is, to talk herself out of chasing after Riku - which her pink-haired friend (the one obsessed with the cool guy Inukai in previous episodes) encourages her to do strongly.Ah, Mina, such a dreamer. Only in anime and fiction can you so convienently find your lover in a school of thousands of -Oh, wait. See, works every time! Problem, however: Riku's with Tsukasa, and they're both playing happy, at least for a bit.The good thing about TokiMemo is that it does have some interesting characters that act in vaguely realistic ways (if you get past the "everyone's in love with the same person" theory of harem shows), and as such Mina is scared absolutely stiff.Absolutely stiff.And as such it's up to energetic helper Pink Hair to charge Mina into battle, a bit too enthusiastically - note how the some of the background characters are staring at them in a strange manner.Now right about now would be where we expect Mina to chicken out, to deny herself a chance, but as always TokiMemo delights in breaking the stereotypes, as Mina gathers up her resolve in an amusing (and very powerfully-posed) manner, dashing up to Riku and Tsukasa and practically screaming "Can I join you?"To add to the relative non-sequitur, she also adds "I'm not going to lose!" (to Tsukasa). Well, if Riku's being subtle about Sayuri, then Tsukasa and Mina have be subtle about Riku, as it is.Hilarous (if not a bit predictable) overenergetic fighting ensues, as Tsukasa and Mina try their hardest to win the competitions (note that the sports booth finally gets some use) and impress Riku, or something. I've begun to take note of blue hair as a cute trait also, in addition to glasses, explaining the picture on the right; it seems that blue hair girls have a good rep with me: Mina, Ciel, Mai, Nayuki, Nerine...Quite a length of time passes, as Sayuri is found at sunset at the same fish booth (left in the picture) that the three were at earlier. Clearly she still has had no success. I wonder why she seems to be lacking attention nowadays; Sayuri in a cute dress would have drawn giant crowds in any other episode.But right now it's all about the Sayuri/Riku drama as time is up (shown by the announcing of the end of the festival) for the search. It's strange that she seems so sad that the festival is over, like Riku is going to go home right away. She seeks solace in waiting beneath the tree, just like in the first episode, and just like in the play.Meanwhile, the three rank-two boys finally show back up at the haunted house after gawking at Sayuri and probably half the festival at the same time and peek up their skirts beg for forgiveness. The girls refuse to forgive them, but, amusingly enough, when Riku shows up and does the same, they forgive him. Subtle, ladies.Token cool guy Inukai shot, as he burns the haunted house sign in a fit of symbolism, or something. Yay, rended 3D fire! ...I wonder if tsundere can apply to guys as well...The girls also talk about the rest of the harem, such as Tsukasa and Mina, who brought lots of fish as a gift, and Sayuri, who's been looking for Riku all day. Riku doesn't seem comforted by that news at all, although he should be, given the obvious signs she's falling for him.Like Sayuri, he's smart enough to turn to the tree - even without seeing the play for reference - and his efforts will finally pay off as the two "lead" characters meet for the first time today.The two share some fun together, as they apologize simultaneous, which causes them to break out in laughter. It seems after it all, they can still smile. And so the episode ends with Riku asking Sayuri to show him her acting, right now, under the tree. She laughs but appears to consent, as we fade out to a shot of "their special place" (odd that they can find a place so secret) , as they call it.When did the episode credits change? It's a new sequence, for me at least, as we get different shots of the girls - although, as always, the one worth keeping is the one of Mina.And this time, the episode preview makes some sense! Usually the voice-over stuff is like that of Lucky Star, where the scenes and the voices make no correlation (case in point: LS9's talk about the 1up trick in SMB). This time, it seems to be Tsukasa talking, as she begins to go on a monologue about how Riku just might not be pining for her, and what she should do about it. Next time: a Tsukasa arc? It might not be so bad after all...-CCY
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It’s an ad for Animate, I guess. Well, now I know where that Lucky Star scene came from.
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Guy singing Ai wo Torimodose!! (Fist of the North Star OP aka. You wa Shock!) while driving. Definitely an hero.
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Rating: 9.5/10 Impressions: Although this episode wasn’t as funny as the last few, it definitely has its share of awesome moments. Lucky Channel and the mobile phone gags are amongst the funniest in this episode, but I am much more impressed by the Kagami and Tsukasa changing hairstyles and the picture of Kona-chan’s insanely young-looking and cute [...]
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Here we go with another episode of Lucky Star, this time featuring cake and eye drops! Sneak Attack! I still haven’t found a good way to blog this series. There isn’t a plot to speak off or anything really. Its all references and random, both of which I love in this series. Heck [...]
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I’m having a hard time recommending Lucky Star to people. Not because it’s bad, no no no. I love Lucky Star. But because no one I know seems to have seen a series I can compare it to. It’s not Azumanga Daioh-esque, it’s not Haruhi Suzumiya-esque. If I have to compare it to anything, [...]
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So, as you may recall from a few days ago, I watched the first episode of Azumanga Daioh, and didn't think very highly of it. I thought it a pointless, plotless anime with overused and overstretched gags that were occasionally funny but mostly predictable.Now, if you will direct your attention to the title of the post, you will notice that my post is covering all of the first disc of the Azumanga anime. Incidentally, the first disc contains nine episodes - much more than a usual R1 release of 3 or 4, for some odd reason (but, the poor Japanese rarely get more than 1 or 2 at any case).Which, implies, correctly, that in the span of a few days that I have watched 8 episodes of Azumanga Daioh. I think that means I don't hate it anymore.So, why? What changed me into a convert?I think there are a lot of valid reasons, and some common ones I use to judge how much I'd enjoy an anime.For some reason, the OP song to an anime seems to be a good barometer. I've got Last Regrets (Kanon) pretty much on perma-loop on my computer, Tori no Uta (AIR) is a good song in the same vein, the Shuffle! series songs (YOU, innocence, Remember Memories, even whatever the Tick! Tack! OP is) are good for a bit of a more rock-ish Japanese feel, and even the retro (relatively) Cardcaptor Sakura themes are great for a bit of cheery feel-good-ness.Not to mention the plethora of Haruhi - Yuki muon madobe nite, Cool Edition, Kimidori's Hare Hare Yukai, the list goes on.I haven't been able to figure out what it is about the OP that's so important - I could understand if it was maybe the animation that goes along with it, but since I usually just listen to the MP3s over and over, that's likely out - unless the case is that I associate the music with the anime, and start visualizing.Anyway, I've gone incredibly off track, but the point is that the Azumanga Daioh OP song, "Fancy Hearing Cake" (which is a random name for a random song for a random anime), has grown on me. It's certainly not top tier, but it seems that it's certainly passable to listen to every 25 minutes (or however long an episode is). I didn't expect to like the song, and perhaps I don't, but it's similar to the Mikururururururun song in that "This is the worst song ever and it's sung badly and I hate it and why am I still humming it" kind of way.As for the anime itself, another boosting factor is what I like to call the Halo Character. It's similar to the concept of the halo car I've read about in magazines, where one superbly awesome supercar, like the Ford GT or whatnot, will boost perception of all other vehicles by that manufacturer. As such, the Halo Character in anime is one that is so incredibly awesome that it brings up the whole anime - usually, one which could stand, theoretically, on their own for an entire episode without looking my interest. Want examples? Look up. Yeah, at the banner.For the anime at hand, I think I've found a halo character in Osaka. It seems that spacey, perhaps innocent, characters are the amusing type to me, with the rise of Tsukasa in Lucky Star, and now Osaka in Azumanga Daioh. Perhaps it's because I can relate, being quite the slow-witted person at times myself. And so I find the antics (or lack thereof) of these characters very amusing. And, so, with the second episode being almost entirely around Osaka, life was good.The third factor, for Azumanga Daioh, was environment, strangely enough. This isn't one that I usually factor in to an anime's enjoyment, but it seems you really have to be in the right mood to enjoy Azumanga Daioh. For, it seems, a lot of people in America like to get things done. We multitask, with our laptops and Blackberries and cell phones and coffee and so on. We don't have time to sit around for half an hour to enjoy an anime which has as much content as cotton candy.As such, when I sat down to watch Azumanga for the first time, it was two days before a project was due for school, and the day before finals week. I didn't really have time to burn, so it really didn't click to turn my mind off for half an hour and enjoy the senseless antics of the cast. This, I imagine, is the time for what I call 'thinking anime', like many Key series, maybe even Haruhi at some of its deeper moments. These are anime where you can actively get involved in it, get involved in connecting the dots and figuring out the plot.Azumanga, from what it seems so far, is more of a 'summer' anime. It's the anime for when you don't want to think, when you want to just sit around and relax, when there's nothing else to do, when you don't need to keep track of the time, like during a slow summer day. And with my first slow summer day being yesterday in the period after the last day of school, Azumanga just...clicked. It's perfect for sitting down in the afternoon in a catatonic state, and getting up to go to bed at night after watching 4 hours worth of episodes.In a sense, I'd call it almost like a lot of American TV and sitcoms, in that there's not a lot of thinking involved, but there is a lot of humor involved.Not a lot has changed about the show itself, to be honest. The gags are still repeated numerous times - a "Sakaki-gets-bitten-by-cat" counter could probably rival the Uguu-o-meter at any rate - and some scenes are just screaming 'reused/cheap footage'. Perhaps it's just that we're getting into the fresh content, the ones I don't quite remember from the manga, that makes it a bit better for me.Perhaps the Yukari-mobile is just that much more funny (especially as one who recently obtained a driver's license) in real-time. Who knows?But, in the end, Azumanga Daioh seems to be an interesting show after all, at least under the right conditions. And with the onset of summer for joyous schoolchildren everywhere, it just might be time to sit down, clock out, and chill to the tune of Chiyo being naive, Sakaki being cool, Yomi being a meganekko, Osaka being spacey, Yukari being a Good Driver, and Kaorin being a fangirl. (see look, I remember names now!)Except for Tomo and Kimura. Those two are just annoying.-CCY
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This post's just a little list of all the anime I have watched, am watching, or have yet to watch, just for reference. Top of the list is top priority, bottom of the list is finished/dropped/lowest priority/etc. I'll edit this as necessary.---Shuffle! MemoriesAzumanga Daioh Lucky Star (currently airing/subbing)Tokimeki Memorial ~Only Love~ (currently airing/subbing)Wangan Midnight (currently airing/subbing)To Heart 2Kanon KazahanaThe Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (chronological viewing/R1 viewing)AIR (finished - possible R1 rewatch)Shuffle! (finished - possible R1 rewatch)Cardcaptor Sakura (99.9% finished; need to find specials; possible re-watch/blog)ONE (under debate)Honey & Clover (under debate)Da Capo (under debate)Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (under debate)Shingetsusomethingblah lunar legend Tsukihime (under debate)Fate/Stay Night (under debate)Clannad (airing late 2007/early 2008)School Days (airing July 2007)Doujin Work (airing July 2007)Nanatsuiro Drops (airing July 2007)Kanon 2006 (re-finished)D.N.Angel (finished)Kanon 2002 (finished)-CCY
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