I always tell myself that I don’t need any more figures, that the money would be better spent on DVDs and manga. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that I have developed an intense need to acquire both a Feena and a Hikaru, even though the latter is from a game I have no knowledge of. Luckily, my birthday is coming soon (if not soon enough), so the probability of coaxing money out of my more generous relatives is high.
How to write a vampire series
1. The lead must be a moody bishounen vampire whose task is to fight against uglier, more evil vampires. His powers include basic invincibility, which mean that no matter how much damage he sustains at the beginning of the fight, he will unleash some God Mode ability later on that completely blows away the enemy.
2. Lead’s allies include a calm and logical older woman, a ditzy yet caring policewoman or negotiator and possibly a loli shota who never shows any evidence of the destined powers he is reputed to have. Loli shota and policewoman will often get kidnapped and find themselves in need of rescue.
3. The enemy vampires will all be incredibly ugly; some will be hairless, grey skinned creatures, whilst others will be bestial furries.
4. In one arc, the lead will meet a former friend or lover who has now converted to the side of evil. After intense angst and flashback, the lead will be forced to kill them.
5. The main villain is allowed to be good looking, but will turn into a hideous monster after unleashing the ‘ultimate power’. At this point, the lead will defeat them.
6. There will be a shadowy organisation connected with the Church in some way. Usually they oppose the hero, but occasionally a Church representative will reluctantly work with him.
New Shounen Project: Shards of FMA
As you may have noticed, some of this season’s shounen series- namely Busou Renkin and D.Gray-man- seem to have borrowed elements from Full Metal Alchemist. This is no coincidence; instead, it is part of an ambitious project entitled “Shards of FMA”. FMA itself has been broken into 109 shards, which have become lost throughout the worlds of anime; now, a destined spiky-haired hero and his allies must travel from world to world and retrieve them. Shards of FMA is expected to last at least 500 episodes, and will begin airing soon.
The Future of the Mai- franchise Part One: Mai-Musume
With the impending release of Mai-Otome Zwei, the time has come to start considering the future of Mai- in general. To that, over the next few weeks, I will be outlining the possible futures of the Mai- franchise.
First up is Mai-Musume, which is to Otome what Otome itself was to HiME. Set in a medieval fantasy world, the series follows the adventures of cheerful lead Marika Yukiha when she enters the Fukerobe Academy, a training ground for Musume. When contracted with a Master, Musume can transform into a powerful mobile armour pilot, and there are those who want to control the Musume for their own ends- or just destroy them.
Storyline: Mai-Musume is set to run 26 episodes, 24 of which will feature pointless, aborted plot lines, and cameos from HiME and Otome characters. In episode 25, the main plot will finally begin, in which our heroines must fight against a generic evil that wants to take over the world.
Characters: As well as featuring at least one hundred new characters, Mai-Musume will bring back each and every one of your favourites from Otome and HiME- from Yayoi to Sakomizu, no character is too minor to deserve one to five seconds of screen time.
Weekly Awards
Most Painful Wait for the next episode: When a series is getting subbed slowly, it isn’t always easy to wait for the next episode, and that’s what this category is all about. In the past, the waits for new Noein and Haruka episodes were hard, until I a) finished the series and b) realised they weren’t that good anyway. Mushishi has thankfully just graduated from this category, and Chevalier is on a much more regular schedule, but Aria, LoveGetChu! and Gargoyle all need more love.
Apple Honourable Mentions: After creating last week’s apple awards, I seem to have become much more attuned to the presence of apples in anime. This week’s apple appearances are drawn from trawls through my screencap archive, and include a recent Tsubasa filler episode, Kurau, and Tenma’s peeling of an apple for Harima in School Rumble.
Cheesy J-Pop theme of the week: Having rediscovered the Aquarion OSTs, the prize here can only go to the second OP theme, Go Tight. Honourable mentions go to Haruka, Kimi no Moto E (Haruka 8), Venus Say (Twin Spica) and Shining Days (Mai-HiME).
Backlogged Manga of the Week: Since I haven’t been in the mood for reading manga online lately, an unaddressed backlog has built up. Alice 19th and Eternal Sabbath are the runners up in this category, but neither can compare to the 150+ chapters of School Rumble I must tackle to get up to date.
Raw Project of the Week: With no hint that it will ever get subbed, I have decided to turn to the raws for the Koi Suru Tenshi Angelique series (since at the worst, I can poke fun at it, Haruka 8 style). Due to the lack of seeds, I will probably only have seen up to the second episode by the time this is posted, but it should make for some light bishie-filled enjoyment.
In Angelique, the lead gets nine bishies- previous heroines have had to make do with seven or eight.
OST Spotlight: Suikoden I
I acquired this OST simply so that I could use the opening theme for my Fantasy Legend Adventure RPG, but when I came to listen to it, I was surprised to find out that it was actually quite worthy. Instead of the simplistic and repetitive tunes I was expecting to hear, the OST contains themes which are…well, simplistic and repetitive, but also incredibly catchy. It can’t be denied that there are more than a few filler tracks, but there are also some nice orchestral and folk themes.
In Your Reflection
Who do you get if you combine the looks of Haseo from .hack//Roots with the automail and some of the personality of Ed from FMA? The answer, of course, is D.Gray-man’s Allen.
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Amusing Search Terms
The hilariously misdirected
“make your own mew mew character”- it seems that whoever was searching for this a couple of weeks ago still hasn’t found what they’re looking for.
“utawarerumono kuuya cg h scene”- I just wanted to mention this one to tell whoever’s looking for it that Kuuya does not get an H-scene in Utawarerumono (of course, even if she did, I wouldn’t be posting it here).
The confusing
“your toube, toube you, you toube”- triple the fun this week.
“t”- third week in a row; perhaps I am the unofficial sponsor of the twentieth letter of the alphabet.
“nue you be”- sometimes search terms defy comment.
The terrifying
“pr0n toube”- it’s the adult cousin of “you toube”.
Honourable mention
“hack roots is bad”- yes, I completely agree.
Angelique looks hilarious. Please do share your thoughts on the series if you find more episodes (I’ll have to trawl through your more recent entries to see if you’ve already done so). ~ I can think of numerous series that could bear with a shard or three of FMA. ~ Those Feena and Hikaru figures look very cute! ~ (felt this entry deserved a comment…)
I haven’t written anything else about Angelique yet (it’s taken me this long to download 5 out of 13 episodes) but I plan to review it once I’ve finally seen it all.
I actually have a Hikaru now (resistance was futile), so just Feena to get…and maybe an Ignis..