Japanophile Isle

Episode 4 picks up where ep. 3 ended, when Murasaki decides to secretly follow shinkurou on a job. This scene is great, Murasaki gets in danger, we see shinkurou trying to make things go smoothly, we see the mafia pulling the classic “goon in the elevator”. Not only is the action great, it’s believable, you can feel the tension leading to the fighting scenes. (Well, believable insofar as you discount shinkurou deflecting bullets with a bone extending from his elbow ;D )




The second part of the episode is very information rich. We get to see the past events, explaining much of the current situation. However, there’s still a lot of mystery to go around. They didn’t reveal to much too make things uninteresting.

Shinkurou and the girl with glasses as kids. Shin was some apathetic fool as a kid. Benika “saved his soul” if you will.

Benika’s promise, the reason she gave the responsibility to shinkurou.

Excellent story-telling so far. Episodes can’t come fast enough!

4/5

NisiOisin’s novel series will get an anime adaptation
About a damn time one might add as he’s one of the most important modern light novels writers and till now aside from one episode in the first xxxHolic season (which was based on the stories from his xxxHolic novel) he was completely ignored by anime studios.
2008 is shaping up to be a great year for NisiOisin fans I must say. English edition of Death Note: Another Note novel is already out, we’ll also see English releases of xxxHOLiC: AnotherHOLiC, the first volume of Zerotogo before the year is over, not to mention his work will also be included in first volume of Del Ray’s Faust anthology.

Hopefully this will lead to even more translations of his novels and there’s a lot to choose from, this man is a writing machine.
For those who want to learn more about Bakemonogatari and it’s author I once again recommend Andrew Cunningham’s excellent site:
Bakemonogatari
NisiOisin

This week the action speeds up and it finally starts to resemble an adventure show.

Allison and Wil easily bluff their way into the base (great performance Allison!) Meanwhile a pilot who flirted with Allison during rescue mission is also at the same base.

Heh, so Allison didn’t made him up just to make Wil jealous ^_^
He doesn’t get a lot of development, but from the little they’ve shown us he’s pretty interesting and has potential to turn into typically pulpish dashing kind of hero (let’s hope so at least).
He doesn’t get lot of exposure, because this episode belongs the old man.

He turns out to be a bad ass and after our young duet gives him a little help in escaping it is actually the old guy that carries on the whole action, until the very end when he sacrifices himself to let them escape. I liked how it was handled and it gives Allison and Wil much stronger reason to find the treasure.
And speaking of the treasure…

There was a short flashback from the time the old man was near it. It’s a very nice and mysterious scene with great use of music that strongly suggests a more supernatural origin of the treasure ( I even got the impression that it might be sapient), it sure as hell made be curious.
Unfortunately the animation still sucks badly, especially since an episode like this could have used some fluidity in action scenes.
Despite that though I really enjoyed this episode, much more than previous one, it doesn’t seem like the visuals will improve in the future, but so far the characters and plot managed to hold my interest enough for me to anticipate every new episode.

rating: 7.9

Get it from translators’ site.

New RPG published by Sega, scenario by Masato Kato (Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Cross, Xenogears), Sound by Yasunori Mitsuda (Xenogears, Chrono Cross) and character designs by Tanaka (Xenogears)

As you can see, very good pedigree on this title. Chalk up another rpg for the ds. Hopefully this one can surpass the usual mediocrity we’ve been seeing on the DS.

This week’s episode slows the action down a bit, allowing us to take a longer breath, while still delivering lots of thrills and answers.

So first… Rolo, he’s definitely not the poster boy for mental health. He goes from cute nii-chan to psycho killer in a split second. He seems to have developed brotherly feelings for Lulu, but he still wants to kill him badly.

We finally learn how his Geass works and fortunately it’s neither stopping time nor teleportation. Rolo simply freezes people around him for short periods of time. Sunrise really did nice job in that scene, we see people freezing while the water in the background still flows. “Show, not tell” is a classic rule in cinematography and it’s great to see Sunrise following it

We also were blessed with some wonderful C.C and Karen scenes.
Cat fight!

It looks like Kallen has returned to being Zero fangirl and C.C being the witch she is uses it to poke some great fun at her

Then we got some funny fanservice. Seeing Kallen blush was hilarious and the Chinese ambasador’s “Zero is… woman?!” reaction was truly priceless

Shirley also got some great screen time.



She’s simply adorable. It’s good to see the fears of her being forgotten were unfounded. Being with her made Lulu remember how heavy the consequences of his actions can be. After all he did to her almost exactly the same thing as Emperor did to him. I’m quite surprised how much of human side of Lulu we’re seeing in R2 so far.Hopefuly this will make some people realize that despite being ruthless calculating bastard Lulu isn’t Light Junior

By the end of episode the action speeds up, the Chinese make their move against Black Knights inside the embassy, the imprisoned Black Knights are about to be executed outside and the confrontation between Lulu and Rolo isn’t going well for our hero.

This episode proves just how damn good Geass is. We’ve known how this episode ends for many days (the famous 6 minutes leak) and yet the episode still managed to surprise and entertain me.

Now I start another painful week long wait for next episode

rating: 8.8/10

miss epic failure

edit suzaku.cfg…. #Godmode ON!

I’m writing this guide because, let’s face it, nobody likes wasting time. You too might have a friend or acquaintance that does it the old fashioned way, hopelessly refreshing their countless websites when a certain series usually arrives. With this guide, all that will be a pain of the past. Anime will take less time of your day and it will be a much more pleasant experience.

Step one: Rounding up the tools

Prime on the list is RSS/Atom.

Here’s a quick and easy guide explaining how RSS/Atom works:

Another tool of the trade, Bittorrent, you can download your bittorrent client here.

Now that they’re out of the way. Let’s put them to creative use.

Step two: Subscribe to a torrent feed.

I’ve got a few for you:

-If you mainly want to try out animes, I suggest tokyo tosho. This page customizes your feed so that you receive only what you want. My suggestion is that you will want the anime square to be your only selection. Otherwise, your box will fill much too quickly and you’ll have an insurmountable mountain of clutter between you and your anime. When you have made your selection, copy the URL in your feed reader.

-If you have narrowed down the animes you want to keep up with, I have a great tool for you. Mininova.org’s search function. Type in the anime you want and you can subscribe to it, having a feed dedicated to that anime and every related download.

Step three: Sharing the love

Now that you have the tools and the knowledge, you can begin talking and arguing about what you love best. Here’s how I do it:

I subscribe to a few anime blogs. To see what the gurus have to say. See what I may have missed, even talk about what they have missed. I’d invite you take a look at our own feed too.

Talk about it on a forum. See where people share your interests, find some pleasant posters. I’d suggest giving our own j-isle.com a try.

God forbid, talk to your friends about anime. Sometimes, people you least expect will be watching the same shows as you.

Kurenai’s third episode was a little more of the same. Characters are getting fleshed out, the bitter girl in the picture below turns out to be Shinkurou’s informant. She’s jealous of the attention shinkurou gives to the girl above (Yuuno). Also, we learned that shinkurou got his powers from Yuuno’s place and that he was living with her for a while.

That’s a lot to take in but, for the second episode, I complained that the school scenes were rather bland but this episode fixed that. This time around, we know who the characters are and what their relationships are. Makes the school life more relevant to the story.

Now, for the reason we all watch this show, Murasaki Kuhouin’s spotlight. This time around she’s running around Shinkurou’s school and learning about the culture, making for some really comedic remarks. As you must have picked up by now, Murasaki had nothing in terms of standard Japanese education.

Taking her time to congratulate the guys who take care of their bodies.

Learning about Baseball, hilarious misunderstandings in that scene. “Are those maids?” “Well I suppose they do serve so you could call them that”

The reunion scene, pretty funny. Yuuno seems to know about the kuhouins though, something is up. She acted like Murasaki should have recognized her last name. She also showed a suspicious smile.

Vile woman

While Shinkurou explains himself, Murasaki listens and she’s deeply saddened by the situation. She now believes she’s a burden to shinkurou. With her pride, it’s hard to take in. Especially with the ruckus she made at the train station.

She finally gives in, ending this episode.

I can’t find anything bad to say at this point. Things move along quick, there’s some funny scenes here and there, we see the plot thickening. It’s all good if you ask me. I’ve seen people complaining that it’s hard to keep up with. My advice is that you don’t need to ask yourself too many questions. Things that don’t quite make sense now will be revealed in due time. Just make sure you pay attention and try to fit the new information in the big picture. (Or you could just laugh at Murasaki’s antics. That could work too.)

4.5/5, WATCH IT!

More Light Novels news!

Del Rey is going to publish the english version of The Case of the Dragon Slayer (Japanese cover on the right), a fantasy mystery novel from Kouhei Kadono (best known for Boogiepop series).

Meanwhile we’ve also learned that Tokyopop will be releasing the Gankutsuou light novels in english. It’s ironic, the anime already was a twised version of a novel and now the anime itself is getting novelization ^_^
It’s reminding of the whole “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” situation, first a novelette by Phillip K Dick,then a movie called “Total Recall” and finally Piers Anthony wrote novelization of that movie

Dear God… what did I just watch? Even in previous two episodes Kanokon was pretty wild and willing to be much more ecchi that other harem anime series, but I thought they have reached the wall of how much they can do in episode 2.. but no, whatever wall there was it crumbled and our happy trio keeps racing forward with me laughing so hard that I have to avoid drinking anything during the show ^_^

This week the two girls tried a more tactical approach by playing the roles of “perfect girlfriends”. Of course they both suck at it…badly.
Nozumu copies typical shy manga heroine, with all the “coincidental encounters” hilarity you would want.

deadpan delivery of classic tsunadere lines FTW!

Chizoru attempts (and fails epically) at cooking, Nozumu not wanting to be left behind tries to compete with results just as bad ^_^
It seems that’s the Kanokon’s approach: take harem cliches, make the perviness a lot stronger and then execute them in comedic near-perfection. It just keeps getting crazier and funnier with each episode and despite nearly softcore moments( I mean… did they just show two orgasms during this episode or was it just me? ^_^) it manages to keep a very playful atmosphere. It’s simply hilarious and continually makes me laugh instead of rolling my eyes.
And the last scene…Dear God.. the last scene .

.
Chiziru has been a bad girl

So she will get punished



Yep… spanked raw


and yep… she loves it. So does Kouta (considering how many times he
did it ^_^)

BUAHAHAHA!
When was the last time we saw something like that? And it’s pure comedy gold.
XEBEC! I salute you!
To sum up, best Kanokon episode yet one of best comedic episodes I’ve seen in many years, if you like anime comedy and you aren’t bothered by ecchi elements, you absolutely need to watch this.

rating: 9.3/10

testing committee ^_^

lotion sweating lolis ?! ^_^