Category Archives: Darker than Black

A Girl’s Last Regret

…is not getting to know November 11 a little better.

Eternity approaches. The feeling of solitude escapes its frail shell through the cracks of the oncoming holiday season. Weather changes from warm to chilly; perhaps your coworker has caught a cold and you try your own best to beat the bug. At any rate, all of this is to pass through the flight of time. In a blink of eye we will be reading Jeff Lawson’s post about his favorite anime being better than yours, along with everyone else that partake in the half-trollish, half-festive tradition. The urge to recall what happened early this year fills you invariably with happy and sad memories at the same time, or worse, a chilly void of “wow, what have I been doing with my life?”

Eternity is here, in some sense. For girls like Chihiro Shindou eternity has been severed into pieces; each night’s sleep leapfrogs her from one small reality to the next, guided by written continuity from the hands of an equally fragmented author. A little sheep grazes at the lawn it is chained, perhaps, to its eventual death. However, what that little sheep fails to realize is that life keeps going. She may be limited by her chains but the sum of herself is more than the recollection of self. It’s the fact that eternity is here. It’s the story about memory, and how we perceive them and express them.

Pop quiz: Why did Nayuki asked Yuuichi if he remembers her name?

Answer: Kanon 2006 FAILS.

But good o chap Jack Simon will live on with those who remember him. And I think even if he doesn’t exist as a real person, he is pretty inspirational as an icon of those who can keep his cool all the while doing the thing he has to do.


Women Don’t Have A Thousand Faces in Anime

Sorry Yumi-chan, but a cat has even more.

What's the matter, cat got your tongue?

Or in this week’s case, an alien bent on destruction of the Human race.

OMG NERF BELLCROSS!

That must’ve been one of the most satisfying moment in anime that I ran in to for some time. It’s definitely one of the more satisfying thing to happen to a persistent pain-in-the-butt character (and Heroic Age‘s got its share) that I’ve seen. It’s not even karmic, because to be fair Peato Ou does have the right idea (killing DNAra will lead to the end of the Human race), even if he’s blind about the end result. (It’s like knowing not to hit a tagged rogue in Area 52 on a PvE server, but you do it anyways because you are dumb.)

In the introspection of the nature of men and women, there are some anime that take it seriously, and there are some anime that don’t. For everything else, there are high quality key animation frames that captures the essence of the human spirit expressed through the art of body language translated into pictures. The exaggerated nature of anime art style only enhances the enjoyment of its audience when we see the actors on stage, normally being serious, break out in a show-and-tell of how badass something that may have just happened to them.

And this treatment is gender-neutral! Dropping your jaw is not a sexist behavior in anime.


Darker than Buck Naked

I highly approve the use of nudity in this episode. Why? It just goes to show how boring Misaki’s office outfit is. In fact, as long as she wears anything different–could be even a boring jeans & t-shirt combo–she looks just dazzing.

How does episode 21’s nudity shows that? I’m not sure, but it goes along the lines of “hey, I look good naked, maybe you should try something different too? You can’t go wrong!” And it seems about 4 other guys tried it, probably to good effect. Well. Maybe that’s exactly what episode 21’s nudity doesn’t show.

I don’t approve the reappearing blood elf though :/

On the other hand, the previews for episode 22 shows the world in an alternate state of affair in fashion. November wears a different color suit? Shocking!


Darker than Death – Soooo Predictable!

Mao: a contractor?!

Okay, this has got to stop:

Just how many hawt guest stars live through their guest appearance from Darker than Black? Two? Just Two? We have Witch Hunter Robin (spoilers lol) and … the smell girl (lol spoiler)? Well, with exception of the persistent guest stars like April and Amber (…and Kiko) I guess? That’s two out of 8 (not counting the little-kid-who-likes-Amber arc and the doll traffic arc). I wish I had that good of an odd at guessing which Simoun “trap” would spring :(

Dying is so predictable (OK, 75% is not that high of a chance, but there’s some certainty) and ugh not as full of impact anymore for Darker than Black. I thought episodes 19 and 20 were wonderful as far as Huang’s story can be, and to be honest it’s surprisingly good for a major character that gets so little development over the course of the series. Plus he’s just not a likable character unlike Yin and Mao, so it’s probably extra hard to spin his story out. And what the? What’s with that in episode 20 ending? What? I thought it was a great couple episodes…only to be sloppily dropped at the end.

Tensai Okamura is a kill-them-all kind of a creator, so this is actually not surprising…but the episodic structure of the show does dull the edge of death, when each dispensable character has only 2 episodes to play with the heartstrings of the viewers.

But so much more eager that makes me look forward to the slaughter ahead!


Sweet Aftertaste: A Brief Rundown of Sorts

When the episode ends with putting a smile on your face, I think that’s a good thing.

11/11 always makes me smile

Of course, sometimes it’s just a cheating cheap trick that’s doing the smirking for you. (Hello wawawa wait I forgot what show I’m mocking?) Gurren Lagann’s rather-epic end to the first 13 episodes is a good example of how to do it so honestly, on the other hand. But still, you aren’t sure if you are smiling because you know we’re going into a recap episode and jump forward in time (yay non-loli NonoNia), or because you’re still on the well-animated euphoria of good old battle robot…goodness.

On the flip side there’s this さよなら絶望先生 sort of smile. Shinbo’s show generally does that for me, although lately he’s doing it with a twist. Hidamari Sketch had those sublime and Azumanga Daioh-like moments; Negima mixes adolescent romance with some pretty cool otaku tropes, plus a bit of that Nanoha battle feel to it. But with Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei he goes back to super-overloading the basics of a simple manga adaptation to create a lot of joy for, at least, some of us. I know it’s not the sort of show everyone will enjoy, but like Soul Taker, Shinbo manages to transform a rather mundane thing into something very unique and it doesn’t terribly suck!

Sort of like Sky Girls TV, actually. Although I think, like Yin, I might have to use my fingers for that one.

On a completely unrelated subject, this is pretty cool–and you won’t see it in a street racing anime:

RX-8