breaking into 2010

By breaking into 2010 I'm referring to the scanning of anime mags. Specifically, over the weekend I scanned the January 2010 edition of megami.

I only scanned two mags total and I'm sure if I hadn't been feeling crappy I would have done more. Also I was slightly hampered because I went through the scans I've made and tried to name them.

When I scan there are always some images I can't easily identify at the time, so I then have to search through sites like AP and ANN to work out what they are. I've obviously been concentrating on doing scans, rather than naming them, so there were quite a few without names.

It's one of those jobs that takes ages because it's glacial - you sometimes have to open pages and pages to find the image you're looking for. Or you make a guess that proves to be inaccurate, but does lead you down the right path in the end.

So yeah, it can take hours and all you end up with is a dozen or files that have been renamed :/.

Anyway, the point is I watched some anime while I scanned so here are some mini reviews. There are quite a few, because I didn't watch many episodes. I was also a bit dismissive if I'm honest, probably because I wasn't feeling 100%.


Sora No Otoshimono

Essentially this is an "instant girlfriend" show, where the protagonist suddenly acquires a girlfriend, who usually also happens to be a magical girl or an alien or root or something like that. However, I'd say it was a good example of the genre.

Certainly, the first episode hinted at a lot of promise. In it, the protagonist goes power crazy, using and abusing the girl's power with suitably dramatic consequences. The second episode was less good as it kinda stretched itself a little thin, though if tightened up it would have worked a lit better.

So yeah, an overly familiar genre, but potentially quite a good example.


Sora no Manimani

I have to confess I found this to be okay, although I'm pretty sure it's a fairly standard romantic comedy anime. There's nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it is a rather well-worn path. There's also a tendency in these sorts of shows to utilise a gimmick, rather than do anything particularly original, and in this case the gimmick seem to be astronomy.

Now to be fair that does score more points with me than most gimmicks, because it's an area of interest for me. So overall a watchable sort of show, but nothing new.


Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

Although this is an adaptation of a manga, that manga was a spin-off from Toaru Majutsu no Index. I quite liked Index, so I was expecting to like this too, but I dunno, it didn't really do anything for me.

I think the problem was that were Index pretty much got into a plot straight away, whereas this felt more like a sort of slice of life job. A slice of an unusual life, maybe, but because I Was expecting plot, it was just kinda dull. Maybe it works better if you've seen all of Index (I've only sampled it) or it develops a proper plot later, or something,


Kaidan Restaurant

Although the 'kaidan' bit generally seems to be translated as "thriller", a better translation would be "ghost story" or "scary story".

Basically, this is a horror Portmanteaux series aimed at kids. In other words, it features the same characters, but each episode has 3 ghost stories (2 featuring the characters and 1 shorter one told by them as a ghost story).

I wouldn't say I found what I watched particularly scary as such, but other culture's ghost stories can often be quite interesting. And everyone loves a ghost story, although to be fair, this is aimed at kids.


Anyamal Tantei Kiruminzoo

Magical girls. Animals. I barely got ten minutes into this - any show that features an animal psychologist (who, incidentally, proceeds to put a cat next to a feeding bowl were several guinea pigs are feeding) isn't going to get very far with me.


Kobato

A CLAMP show. I've said before that CLAMP do little to nothing for me, and this didn't really do anything to reverse that opinion.


Weiß Survive

One of those two and a half minute webisode type shows. If I tell you Weiss is basically a company that makes card games, you can probably fill in the rest yourself.


I've also continued watching Ouran High School Host Club. I'm really enjoying it. This was actually a bit of a surprise, because I wasn't sure it would be my cup of tea.

And I've been reading Gantz at a breakneck speed. To be fair, this is partly because it has one of those structures where it kinda eats pages. It's a bit like Claymore - you happily read a volume and enjoy it, but then realise that actually, it's not progressed very far. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I like both - but it does mean it works better reading it in big chunks of multiple volumes, rather than individual chapters or volumes.