School decided to swamp me

Now I doubt many of you noticed, as my following is practically non-existent, but I’ve been absent for a rather long time. Why did I choose to fall off the face of the world for nearly two months? School. This is the semester where I was applying to various schools and trying to make myself look as good as possible. So…blog…or work on applications. I chose the latter, but now I’m back! I’ll have to catch up with the couple of shows I’m blogging, and hopefully gain back my followers.

Please come back : <

I want someone to write for~!

Tamayura: Hitotose – 02

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Despite missing it for only a week, I certainly missed the laid back ambiance that no other show this season offers me. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m a bit behind on Tamayura, but that’s only because I rely on subs to watch anime…as much as I love the Japanese language, I am nowhere near …

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai – 02

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In this weeks episode Yozora takes a page out of my school’s anime club’s book by proposing the Neighbor Club play a ‘PSP’ game together in hopes of promoting friendship. What’s the game in question? Monster Hunter obviously.  Now I personally have not played that game, but I’ve watched plenty of other people do it …

Persona 4: The Animation – 01

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Has anyone noticed how many school oriented anime are released every season? I’m hard pressed to think of one show this season that isn’t related to school kids one way or another. But that’s not the point of this post. The point is the fun fun game of persona And random tidbit that you probably …

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai – 01

Somebody has it REALLY good

I feel like I should have started writing this review last night when the episode was still fresh in my mind, but oh well. Let me just start out by saying that I was most definitely not intending to blog this show, but I had just so much fun watching it that I have to ramble about it somewhere. Any way, let’s begin!

To start us off Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai basically translates to “I do not have many friends,” which seems pretty hilarious to name a show…but then again, what I found funny with this show was pretty much all over the place.

Well our episode starts out with our  hero, Hasegawa Kodoka, quite the unfortunate guy indeed. He  recently just transferred to St. Chronica’s Academy, but no one wishes to befriend him because of his blond hair and rather fierce face…all of which were none of his fault. His mother was english, so the hair thing is not because he was a yankee, like the whole school seems to believe, and the ‘fierce face’? Poor Kodoka took the wrong bus on his first day of school, had to take another bus to get to class, and sprint all the way to his classroom, where he missed his opportunity to properly introduce himself. But this is an anime after all, so of course there was no way he could have avoided his fate…doomed to be alone for the rest of his days, to be thought of as some thug.

The leading ladies...Yozora and Sena don't seem to like each other...at all.

But then a swift change of pace occurs! Kodoka happened to be walking back to his classroom when he heard the sound of one usually silent classmate, talking rather animatedly. Upon closer examination, Yozora Mikazuki was actually just talking to her imaginary friend ‘Tomo-chan.’

If that isn’t awkward, I don’t know what it.

Realizing that their non-existent social lives are rather pathetic and that joining a club at that point in time would only be a hindrance to the relationships already established, Yozora decides to make a club of her own and take Kodoka along for the ride.

And thus the Neighbor’s club was born! The description of the club was extremely BS, but if you read the flier advertising it at a certain angle, you could read the subtle plea for friendship written by Yozora. And it is read, just not by the sort of person Yozora had in mind. Sena Kashiwazaki, the school’s resident idol, answers the call, saying that while she has the boys wrapped around her fingers, but she lacks girl friends because of it.

Miss Antisocial + Miss Popular + small room = CHAOS!

Most of the cast has yet to be introduced, but I’m looking forward to it next week!

This show looks like a keeper > <

Tamayura: Hitotose – 01

Now let me start of by saying that Tamayura: Hitotose is most definitely not a show for everyone. If you enjoyed the slow-paced shows from Summer 2011, like Ikoku Meiro no Croisée or Usagi Drop, then this slice of life may be a good fit for you. The basic premise of the show is that our heroine, Fu Sawatari, returns to her deceased father’s hometown of Takehara, Hiroshima and enrolls into high school. The show looks like it’ll be focused on Fu coming to better know the town that her father loved, and maybe some self-discovery along the way. What I am grateful for is that this doesn’t seem to be the usual slice of life comedy that’s just overrun with jokes that aren’t really necessary…but that might just be my own issue, as I can’t stand shows anymore that are like that. Life really isn’t THAT humorous….but that’s beside the point.

The first episode basically lay down the foundations of what is to come as we learned a little bit about Fu’s life and how important her father was to her, as well as some introductions. Fu’s best friend, Chihiro, much to my surprise does not seem to be one of the main characters, but I have a feeling she will be a reoccurring face one all the main characters are introduced. While Chihiro is a sincerely good friend, evident by her trying to make Fu happy and distracting her from reminiscing about her father, her constant tears were starting to get on my nerves by the end of the episode. Four times. She burst into tears on four separate occasions this episode alone! So for seeing a little less of Chihiro, I’m glad that Fu moved away.

I feel sort of heartless…but meh. Tis how I feel.

All in all, I look forward to covering this show, and I hope that you’ll support me, dear reader. I have a feeling this will be a truly heart-warming show, and I’d really like someone to talk about it with.

(Wahoo, first anime blog post…must get better!)

Here's to a season of Chihiro's water works~

 

The prospects are looking bright! (My appeal to the readers!)

Ride the majestic narwhal of ADVENTURE

 

Yes, I am trying to get your attention by sticking in this picture of Holo riding a narwhal. Did it work?

To the 86 people who have looked at this blog…I’m talking to you.

Take a good look at the fall anime season line up and then look at those blogs that you frequent. Which show in the line up is not being blogged about? More specifically, which shows that YOU want to see are not being blogged about by others? My appeal to you all is…I will blog that show that isn’t being covered (minus the kiddy shows…I don’t have patience for that).

Please just leave a comment telling me of the show that you’d like to see me blog.

I’ll do it.

Persona 4 isn’t going to be enough to keep people coming back, so I’m hoping to pick up a couple more to keep you all entertained.

So please…leave a comment.

 

 

Damn you, Dirk! ( A Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns opinion)

The men of Bluebell and Konohana....where's Dirk?!

I feel like before I start rambling about this game,  I should give my readers a background on my experiences with Harvest Moon. Why would I talk about something so…uninteresting? Because this is a topic I actually have experience with! And having a lot of knowledge about the subject at hand really makes me feel good about myself…just a little.

It all started when I was a small child…I kid you not.  I watched my cousin play this mysterious game on his nintendo 64, and of course being the jerk that he was, he did not let me play. The game in question was harvest moon. Angered by his stupid selfishness, I watched silently as he tried romancing the girls…he sucked at it. Its because of this moment in time that I started buying Harvest Moon games, mainly to prove that I could be better at something than him. I’ve bought every single harvest moon since Friends of Mineral Town, and let me just say, I played the shit out of most of those games; the exception being Harvest Moon DS…did anyone like that one?

Now to the subject at hand!

Tale of Two Towns has the premise of literally every single other Harvest Moon game, except I think more awesome. You are a farmer moving to a new town to start a farm, gasp…what a spoiler. But this is where things become interesting! As your riding your horse with attached cart (squeal) to the town, you get into a freak accident and lose control! You’re thrown off of your horse and knocked unconscious! (So badass) When you wake up, you find two mayors staring at you, one from the town Bluebell whose focus is raising animals, and the other from the town of Konohana whose focus is on grown vegetables. You obviously have a choice as to wear you can

Say hello to Christina

live, I just find it hilarious that you can’t remember which town you were originally supposed to move to.

There are some nice changes in this game, something that makes me quite convinced that Marvelous entertainment actually wants to make its fans happy. I’ll now list some!

– A cart! Movable storage! Yay!

-Alpaca (If you aren’t excited about that…get out.)

-A decent line up of potential love interests (DAMN YOU DIRK)

Now I’m not going to lie to you. I originally wasn’t going to buy this harvest moon game till waaaaaay later,as the Gamestops I keep frequenting made it seem like it was for the 3DS only, and I wasn’t going to spend $160+ just so I could play. And to be fair…I mainly wanted the alpaca.

I mean look at it….how could I not want that?

So I bought the game….and you know what? I haven’t had this much fun on a Harvest Moon game since Friends of Mineral Town (sorry Grand Bazaar…I do still love you).

Great game! I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Harvest Moon, or has been thinking about giving the series a try.

Now onto something silly.

Why I love/hate Dirk

I am a Grand Bazaar fangirl, for it has my most favorite bachelor of all, IVAN. I literally was waiting over a year to play the game just for him. In Grand Bazaar to marry, you must have all of your future spouse’s family high enough before you can take the plunge…meaning I had to raise Dirk’s heart level as I want to marry his brother. I don’t know why, but I’ve always disliked Dirk, I think its because he’s the one that looked the most like a child compared to all the other bachelors. So you can only imagine my excitement to see him in the newest entry in the series…as a special spouse.

But gasp! Dirk got a growth spurt~! And he looks like less formal Ivan.

Damn you Marvelous…you got me.

…why’d you have to make him like tea and bugs? *sigh*

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée 8 – The Grand Magasin

If there’s anything this chapter of Ikoku taught me, its that that Grand Magasin is an evil place that should be avoided at all costs. Yes, it may be pretty, but I’m convinced that you’re better off shopping elsewhere. At first I thought that Claude was making a big deal over nothing, but to be honest, I now understand why he has such an immense hatred for the place that robbed him of his father, as well nearly robbed him of Yune. After Yune’s trouble in the shopping mall from hell, I don’t see her coming back any time soon…though that might change if Alice drags her there.

Now the chapter starts out innocently enough with the trip to the Grand Magasin, though Claude is visible nervous. I would even go so far to say that he’s being overly cautious about the whole thing as he not only asked Yune to wear the geta that made a lot of noise, but he even contemplated putting a bell around her neck. When the duo finally reaches the Grand Magasin where Jean worked and died, the constant flashbacks of Claude’s father’s death were actually unnerving. Seeing such a thing in a generally feel-good manga was actually unnerving. Back to the story! Yune looked up at the high ceiling and marveled at the beautiful glass dome ceiling that low and behold was made by Claude.

Trying his best to brush aside his memories, the shopping trip goes on. The two were led by a sales attendant to the top floor where all the Japanese items are sold. Yune seemed genuinely happy to see things from her home country, but the moment is ruined by crazy Europeans, who were basically foaming at the mouth at the sight of a real Japanese girl in their midst. Claude has enough sense to drag her away from the crowd, but unfortunately the strap of Yune’s geta snaps and he has no choice but to carry her….bride style. (I’m a total Claude x Yune shipper, so please forgive me…) Seeing as Yune now is unable to walk around due to her lack of shoe, they wander to the children’s area to find her some new footwear. This eventually led to Yune being convinced to try on different clothes by another store attendant, and Claude agreed. I personally believe that this is where everything starts going down hill. If Claude didn’t leave, I forgot where he went as this is where the action really started getting confusion, he would have been able to prevent that mysterious person from stealing Yune’s kimono. If Yune didn’t run away to try and catch the person who did such a thing, she would not have been accused of thievery and padlocked into some room. This wouldn’t have led to Claude freaking out to find Yune as a fire starts in the cafeteria of the Grand Magasin.

The manga did a really good job here, as I was feeling Claude’s anxiety as he tried to find Yune in the department store filled with people frantically trying to escape. This chapter really made him grow, a lot more than the others have done. While this felt like an action-packed chapter that hardly seemed suited to the previous ones, it was well executed and tied in various elements from the other chapters.

I can’t wait to see the aftermath in the next chapter!

All the cool kids are doing it…

Have you ever felt the need to relieve the stress of a terrible day by relentlessly beating some poor helpless monster with a stop sign or by dating a bunch of girls, all at the same time? I have. Dealing with a plethora of small screaming children and their terrible parents will do that to you. Making you want to scream at them and not being able to? Persona 4 helped me deal with getting through those crappy days…and I still need to finish the game. (Hey, hey! I’m on the last couple of days!) But now to the point of this post.

AIC is bringing us Persona fans Persona 4: The Animation this fall, and like all the other cool kids on the block (aka other more prestigious anime bloggers), I will also be blogging this show.

Now why do something that surely everyone else will be doing?

…because I want to try this out…and I figured blogging a show I’ll definitely (hopefully) enjoy would be the best way to start.

Now time for a summary of P4 to help get you excited.

[Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, known in Japan as Persona 4 (ペルソナ4, Perusona Fō^?) or P4, is a role-playing video game developed and published by Atlus for Sony‘s PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North America in December 2008, and Europe in March 2009. It features a weather forecast system with events happening on foggy days to replace the moon phase system implemented in the previous games.

Instead of the city locales of previous games in the series, Persona 4 takes place in a fictional Japanese countryside and is indirectly related to Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 in terms of gameplay and production. The player-named main protagonist is a high-school student who moved into the countryside from the city for a year. During his year-long stay, he becomes involved in investigating mysterious murders while harnessing the power of summoning Persona.] (Info from: Wikipedia)

Please look forward to it!

(And please look forward to my future post about Atlus’ recent game Catherine. I just need to finish playing it first.)