(Sebastian and Ciel have a moment; Ciel rescued; Sebastian at work)
The 2008 Anime Season, as seen by me.
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SHIKABANE-HIME: AKA, TO ARU MAJUTSU no INDEX, MORYOU no HAKO--was not able to get watchable subs of any of these. Fume.
YOZAKURA QUARTET--13 episodes: from the manga by Suzuhito Yasuda.--Long ago, the people of this area planted seven special sakura trees, called nanago, that formed a passage between our world and the world of the youkai. Over time,
more and more youkai moved into the area, and the town, once called Ohma, came to be called Sakura-shin City ("New Sakura City"). Now, in the modern day, the population is about half humans and half youkai,
living together in peace and harmony (let's hope they never get hit by the Minus Wave). One human family, the Hiizumi clan, possesses the power called tuning, which dispatches rogue youkai back to the spirit world, and its inheritor
is pledged to stay here and use his power as the protector of the city's peace. ==That's where we come in. =)
KANNAGI--boy carves a figurine from the wood of a sacred tree, finds himself the companion of a bossy little goddess. Just too cute.
KUROZUKA--time-travel adventure starring no less than the hero Minamoto Yoshitsune and his faithful liege Benten. Looked gorgeous, but...I don't know...
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JUNJOU ROMANTICA 2--o, happy day! more hot and romantic misadventures of Usami and Misaki, with even more entanglements this time as Usami's brother gets into the mix,
and Misaki still can't make up his mind how he feels about any of it...or can he?
Or is it more fun just watching him squirm? *koff* =)
VAMPIRE KNIGHT: GUILTY (sequel) 13 episodes.--So. By the conclusion of last season's Vampire Knight, beautiful and devious pureblood Kuran Kaname had been pretty damn busy. He'd taken the life of fellow pureblood Hiou Suzuka, but promised her that he'd destroy her true enemy;
and he'd implicated Kiryuu Zero in the crime by expressing his suspicions to the Supreme Vampire Council, but made a point of feeding his blood to Zero to keep him from devolving into a Level E.
Right out of the gate of this sequel, Kaname drives the Council's assassins away from Cross Academy when they arrive to punish Zero, rousing their considerable suspicion; and little Maria, whose body had been hosting the late Suzuka, tells Zero that Kaname was only a pawn of those who wanted
Suzuka dead, and that the real culprit is the enemy of all purebloods, including Zero himself. And then Zero's twin brother, Ichiru, enrolls at the Academy...
If you think that's complicated, you'd better take notes as you watch this series. By the end of episode 6 it's
plain there's a much deeper conspiracy going on that involves both the Supreme Vampire Council and the Hunters, that Kaname is even more highly placed and powerful
than he seemed, that Yuuki's mysterious and forgotten past will play a major role, and that we may even finally find
out what Cross Kaien (former vampire hunter, now goofy-on-the-surface headmaster of Cross Academy AND Yuuki and Zero's
adoptive dad) is really up to. (And it's not at all what I suspected.) ==Lots and lots of bloody, incestuous
eroticism, revenge, old grudges, emotional tangles (between the nightmares, the overwrought emotions and being the walking drink bar for
not one but two vampires, it's no wonder poor Yuuki starts hallucinating and passing out in class. But wait till you see her step up to the plate at full force.) and high-level
intrigue, plus all the gorgeous undead bishies you could possibly ask for:
if you like the vampire milieu, this baby is the total definition of a guilty pleasure. It's not for everyone, but
I wouldn't have missed it for anything. (And I'm very pleased to note that the ending leaves lots of room for a series III.)
Part 2: 2008/9, Autumn/Winter Season.
2008: SECOND SEASON:
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First, the ones we dropped:
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In the manga, the Yozakura ("evening sakura") Quartet is composed of Hiizumi Akina, the current keeper of the family legacy, plus three
powerful girls: Hime, the town's mayor, the incarnation of a dragon; Kotoha, a user of the "kotodama" power, who can materialize words; and telepathic Ao, who appears to be a fox- or wolf-youkai. In the anime, the cast also includes
Hime's butler/administrative assistant Kyosuke, an oni; and Azuma Rin, a jiang-shi who comes to live in Sakura-shin. Working from their HQ in City Hall, the kids have their hands full, taking care of the youkai community
(personally repairing leaky roofs and the like), dealing with youkai who get out of hand and, as the story opens, realizing they're facing a formidable threat: an elusive kitsune who seems determined to destroy the protective
nanago trees. Meanwhile, Hime--who became mayor at a very young age when her mother left to deal with a shadowy enemy named Enjin--struggles to fully master her dragon powers; and who are these three kids sneaking around the sidelines
and reporting back to an unseen leader?
==From the start I thought this was a bit chancey; the
character art is super pretty, and I'm a pushover for youkai/human casts of characters, but the YQ spent so much time bickering and playing off against
each other that they got on my nerves more often than not. (In the first volume of the manga, Yasuda describes the three female leads as "determined to get their way
and make a big production of everything", and that's exactly the case.) ==By episode seven I realized I still didn't even like them, and that tore it. Pass.
Saw in entirety:
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-- a serious do-not-miss.
KUROSHITSUJI ("Black Butler")-- 24 episodes of shady Victorian fun and games...and the darkness of angels, the kindness of demons, and the light of the human soul. --We're in a slightly alternate-universe UK (OK, maybe more than slightly alternate: this is probably the only place you'll ever see it asserted that Jack the Ripper's partner was a rogue Shinigami) under the reign of Queen Victoria, somewhere in the late 1800s-early 1900s. Handsome and elegant Sebastian Michaelis is the butler of the noble Phantomhive estate and bodyguard to its current Earl, 12-year-old Ciel Phantomhive,. He's an absolute paragon of the perfect manservant: courteous, skilled, discreet, exquisitely efficient, impeccable in every way, not to mention ruthlessly deadly in a wide array of hand-to-hand combat skills and a gifted violinist to boot. --Too good to be human, right? Right. He's a demon (a Western-tradition demon, not a youkai), bound in return for Ciel's soul to serve him absolutely, and the inverted pentacle on his hand matches the one in Ciel's right eye (usually covered with an eyepatch)--the seal of their covenant. (And Sebastian isn't really his name: the young Earl chose it.) -- Ciel apparently made this Faustian bargain about two years ago, around the time that the original Phantomhive estate was destroyed in a great fire. He's a ruthless businessman, impatient with anything except practical matters, and since becoming the sole master of the house (and acquiring Sebastian's devoted service) he's raised the family company, Phantom Toys, to great heights of prosperity--but all he truly wants is revenge. Of course, they have business rivals, enemies, and the Mafia to deal with, along with the kawaii excesses of Ciel's fiancee Lady Elizabeth, and the goofy incompetence of the other Phantomhive servants (Bard, the egotistical cook; Finian, the black-thumbed gardener; and Meirin, the near-sighted maid--all of them hand-picked by Sebastian, and not one is what s/he seems). But the House of Phantomhive isn't known as the Queen's Guard Dog for nothing (which is the other reason that the 12-year-old head of a toy company wants such an overwhelming level of firepower on the payroll), and Ciel's remorseless instincts and Sebastian's icy violence look likely to get Her Majesty, and Phantomhive, anything they want. ANYthing. Even if Sebastian's devotion may not be quite as pure as it seems...
This is my absolute favorite of the fall season. Few things on the screen are half as awesome as watching Sebastian do his bloody stuff
without so much as creasing his trim black suit, and the strange, delicate balance of his relationship with Ciel is
captivating. But don't be fooled and think you're just watching a supernatural action-adventure about a rich kid with a demon butler: it gets steadily deeper, darker and sadder once you pass the halfway point.
The moral background sinks into decay, innocents die,
the Queen's awful delusion is revealed, terrible angels purify London with fire, and Ciel is driven by his stark purpose past all redemption---not that he ever hoped for any.
And it's heartbreaking to witness the very quiet moment in which there's nothing
left but him and Sebastian, true to the last, in the cypress gardens of the Isle of the Dead.
"As expected of my soul. No... of my Young Master."
Don't miss this one. (My deepest thanks to ZOMGAnime.com for having all 24 episodes.)
HAKUSHAKU to YOUSEI ("Earl & Fairy")--13 episodes. Hmm, quite the season for British Earls. =) A very slight, but likeable enough little adventure. In 19th Century England, teenaged Lydia Carlton is proud to carry on the traditional profession of Fairy Doctor: someone who can see and understand fairies and help to smoothe the interactions between them and mortalkind. But when she accepts a contract with a shady character who claims to be Lord Edgar the Blue Knight Earl, the rightful owner of a magical sword guarded by Merrows (merfolk), and to need her help in finding and claiming his inheritance, she gets a lot more than a mere check for 200 pounds. Especially as it seems this handsome fellow with the ash-mauve eyes may mean a lot more risky business than he says he does; and what's worse, he doesn't even believe in fairies. (Even though his formidable and gorgeous green-eyed servant/bodyguard, Raven, is half-Fae himself.) He's a drinker, a flirt, a hunted man, and a rascal by any account. Is spunky but very proper Lydia gonna fall for him in the course of their adventures? C'mon, do you doubt it?
It picked up steam once we actually began searching for the sword and engaging with Fae-folk; British Isles faeries must seem as exotic in Japan as youkai do to us, and this one's got not just merrows but a gorgeous kelpie, a selkie, a banshee, various beasties of the Unseelie Court, and brownies galore. But it's really just an opposites-attract romance: sharp-tongued, determinedly independent Lydia falls in love with her charming scoundrel of a boss despite herself, while Lord Edgar, following her earnest example, comes to care about the mysterious invisible world of Faerie and become honestly devoted to its service and protection--becomes, in fact the Blue Knight Earl he was only impersonating, and wins the respect of the Fae.==They're just beginning to face the enemy at the end of episode 13, so I'd bet you a cookie there are another 13 episodes on the way, and I'll probably be there. =)
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2009 "WINTER SEASON" (half-season series, January-March 2009)
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Saw in entirety:
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ZOKU NATSUME YUUJINCHOU ("The Natsume Book of Friends: Continued")--In this second chapter of Takashi Natsume's adventures in the Unseen World, things take a more poignant and serious turn. Takashi continues to release youkai names from the Book of Friends, but the process begins to weigh heavy on his heart, as he realizes that he likes these strange creatures, and each one he liberates is one he'll never see again. He's growing tired of always saying goodbye, he thinks; and he's also growing tired of lying to everyone, even his adoptive parents, about the beings he sees and the world he spends more and more of his time in. Takashi meets dishonest humans and honest youkai, keeps promises, and gains more insight into his late grandmother, who drew him into this world. He begins to develop a closer relationship with the youkai exorcist Natori Shuuichi, though he hasn't told even him about the Book...and he begins to feel that there are some people he wants to show his real self to. And he's grown into such a wonderful character, thoughtful, resolute, wise and dreamy, gazing off into the sky while his friends rattle on about snowboarding and girls. The pressure on him got pretty intense, and it looked as if he'd be forced to make a painful choice--human world or youkai world?--but his experiences taught him well, and he came to a perfect conclusion: "It doesn't matter if they're human or youkai; all that matters is how precious they are to you." And the Book of Friends becomes that in truth, as Takashi --in the final scene--sits down to a picnic dinner with his visible and his invisible dear ones.
==This is such a lovely, lovely little series. I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and I hope it develops a warm following. It deserves one.
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Watching now:
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KOUKAKU no REGIOS ("Chrome Shelled Regios" or "Chrome-Plated Regios")--The distant future: the world's surface is overrun by Polluted Beasts and giant insects called Limbeekoon, and humanity has isolated itself in mobile cities called Regios (with a hard G), each specializing in a different field. We see the Academic City, Czerni/Zenri, under attack by Polluted Beasts; its defenders are the warriors chosen to carry the Heaven Blades, using the power of Gei. They're trained in the city's Academy, where kids from all the Regios come to learn the military arts. The inter-platoon competition for promising new students is fierce--and a bit hyperactive, where Nina's young platoon is concerned. Into the midst of this is thrown the slightly awkward but gifted young fighter Layfon Alseif, and Nina isn't the only one who sets her sights on recruiting him. ==So far, a fast-paced, not-explaining-much team battle series, but it's got a lot of energy, likeable characters, and just enough strife and mystery to keep things interesting. I've become a lot fonder of it that I expected; will be here for it all.
HETALIA: AXIS POWERS--Based on a super-popular webcomic, this insanely funny little series is basically --I swear to god--a retelling of World War II with the Axis and Allied nations played by cartoon-cute bishonen (plus a loli or two). Yes, you read that right. America loves burgers and Italy loves pasta; Japan doesn't say much but can build anything in miniature AND in seven colors; Germany is efficient and resolute but a little awkward socially; China is never without his panda and wok. -- You get the idea. The history is actually not too far off the mark (its fans swear it's helped them in school!) but you will be giggling too hard to take notes.
KEMONO no SOU-JA ERIN ("Beast Player Erin")--ANN says, "Kemono no Souja Erin (The Beast Player Erin) will center around a girl who can control the greatest of beasts as if she was playing a musical instrument [and becomes] embroiled in a war for supremacy between kingdoms."==A new fantasy-adventure series from the writer of my much-loved Seirei no Moribito. It's set in a kingdom whose military power is grounded in its ability to train touda-- Komodo-dragon-like reptiles about the size of two armored tanks--to charge into battle with its warriors. Touda are difficult to raise, and Erin's mother, Soyon, has a gift for handling them, so she's tolerated even though she's one of the much-scorned Mist People. Little Erin doesn't know much about that, or care: she just loves the touda (they're wicked cuddly as babies =) and wants to grow up to be a great trainer like Mom. But with the rampant prejudice about her kind, the mystery of the Mist People's origins, and the sword that hangs over the head of anyone entrusted with the care of the priceless creatures, her life isn't going to be all that peaceful--it's already taken its first dark turn. If it's anything like Moribito, this will be one of the treats of the season; its art is clean and pretty, and and it already has the same rich fantasy-world feeling as that classic. I'm really enjoying this one.
...go back to the 2008 spring and summer season.
...go ALL the way back to Seasonal Reviews Mainpage for all anime series reviews 2005-10.
...return to Amalgam links page.