THE BACKLOG

Sailor Moon: In the early parts of Season 1, so far the gals in play are Moon, Mercury, and Mars. Recent discussions about it IRC have me more interested in watching it than ever.

Akagi: Part of the power hour with Kaiji, entertaining in a cerebral way. Akagi still has a long way to go before he’s a mahjong legend!

Kaiji: Plays into my love for gambling manga such as Liar Game and Gamble Fish perfectly. And my love of Fukumoto after reading Legend of the Strongest Man Kurosawa.

Gintama: Yoshiwara is Burning arc just ended with a nice follow-up joke episode about Shinpachi and Kagura training. Yoshiwara wasn’t my favorite arc by a long shot, but still pretty good. Seeing that Gintama is my Favorite Anime of All Time, I’ll still watch it.

Heroman: Doctor Minami is in jail, and the foreshadowing of a new threat has me wanting to watch more.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Yang is once again dicking around with the Empire with his flighty shenanigans, this time hot on the heels of the Empire trying to get into Free Planets territory via Phezzan. I have to be in a certain mood for LOGH, sadly, but I hope to finish it this year.

Macross Frontier: I think the Quarter just launched to bail out the Galaxy? I’m not sure, it’s been a while since I watched. I’ll work on it some more maybe next month.

Gundam 00 S2: Celestial Being is finally getting off their asses to go fuck up the giant dickwad space laser. I cannot be any less rude about that for some reason. I might start a power hour with Frontier so I get the two finished sooner.

Rockman.EXE: Haven’t started, but I’m assuming it to be standard shonen fare. I got it on a whim, time will tell if I’m really interested.

Shin Mazinger: Rewatch. As usual, lots of “ZEUS. ZEUS. ZEUS.” and Mazinger badassery. Not much out of the Kurogane Five yet, but if I remember correctly that won’t be for a bit.

GoGo Sentai Boukenger: I really enjoy this show, the characters are interesting and I like that the episodes aren’t as formulaic as Gekiranger and Shinkenger (find enemy, fight enemy, defeat enemy, enemy becomes huge, defeat enemy in robot).

Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger: Amazingly fun to watch as well, I really like that most of the last episode I watched was dedicated to investigation rather than just fighting things blindly.

AND AS FOR THE WEEKLIES:

Kamen Rider OOO: A lot more story driven than Kamen Rider W, and I am very thankful for it. It will be interesting to see if Goto becomes Birth sooner rather than later.

Super Robot Wars OG: THE INSPECTOR: Many anime bloggers dropped it, but I’m also a Super Robot Wars fan so I’m loving the shit out of it.

Star Driver: Always Ginga and Bishounen enough for me, and now they’re blending in mindfuck timeloop shenanigans!

WHAT’S AHEAD?

Gundam 00S2-> finishing Gundam Wing -> Gundam X

finishing Heroman -> the rest of FMP Fumoffu -> one or two VOTOMS OVAs-> the last five Patlabor OVAs

I go into Madoka Magica sometime this weekend with no expectations, we will see what I come out of it with!

Maybe more posts? I dunno, we’ll see what I feel like doing.

Heroman is amazingly fun to watch, even if it isn’t the GREATEST ANIME IN THE WORLD (sadly I have to give that award to Gintama). Joey is simple as a character, yet very likable. I also find Heroman to be just plain awesome in terms of fighting . I think my favorite side-character has to be Joey’s sister, Holly, but I just have this massive feeling they’re not really going to do much with her. I’m about 17 episodes in right now and so far Heroman’s had to deal with an alien menace then a dickbutt jerkoff of a scientist. Now the next episode blurb is foreseeing probably about the whole rest of the show’s worth of a NEW THREAT to America and Heroman so it’ll be interesting to see where that goes. If you want something that’s fun to watch and you don’t need to put your FANCY THINKING CAP ON for, go check out Heroman!

On an unrelated note, if I can keep this blogging train a rolling, I might be doing some posts on some of the shows I’ve got sitting around and plan on watching soon. Such shows include Akagi, Kaiji, Gundam 00 S2, Macross Frontier, Sailor Moon, the rewatch of Shin Mazinger, Gintama, Heroman, Rockman.EXE S1, GoGo Sentai Boukenger, and Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger.

One thing I’ve tried to be big on with some exceptions is finishing what I’ve started if it’s a show I really like. If I don’t feel good about finishing it, I won’t finish it. If there’s some sort of hang-up regarding me having to finish it, I’ll finish it anyways.

One of the biggest finishes I’ve done recently was Armored Trooper VOTOMS. It’s a wonderful show (and a franchise I hope to watch all of someday) that I can’t for the life of me figure out why I stopped watching. However, one night in about November or December I was hopped up on large amounts of coffee and pledged to finally finish the show since I was about ten episodes away from the end.

I marathoned the everloving hell out of it and enjoyed every moment of it. Weeks later I’d do the same thing on a much grander scale with Gintama (entire arcs were laid waste by grandiose viewing blocks).

Now I do interesting things with my viewing habits to ensure I’m interested and actively geared up about finishing shows. I watch Akagi and Kaiji in a one-hour-block instead of watching either one individually. I do the same thing with GoGo Sentai Boukenger and Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger. If I had known about the power of doing this months ago, I would’ve done the same thing with Macross Frontier and Gundam 00 S2.

If you’re having trouble finishing a show but you’re still interested in it, try watching it in a block with another show related to it in some fashion. It worked for me!

Giving K-On a shot also allowed me to watch Shinryaku! Ika-Musume. If you’ve talked to me for any length of time lately, you might know that I absolutely adore the show and find it very fun to watch!

This doesn’t mean I’m just going to “watch moeblobs” all day, but I’m glad to be more versatile in what I choose to watch so I have a lot more anime to experience!

I think the biggest things I love about Kuuga are Yuusuke Godai’s personality and the fact that he has no idea what the hell he is doing in-battle as Kuuga thus far. He continues to become Kuuga so he can “see everyone’s smiles”. He’s honest and trustworthy, and he’s always full of thumbs-up to give to people who aren’t sure what to think of him. Many of his early battles up until where I am currently at are him getting the crap kicked out of him until he finds out something new about his powers as Kuuga. For instance, he’s fighting a grasshopper Grongi and can’t jump to get to him. Somehow his second form is unlocked that decreases his power but increases his speed and jumping abilities!

I’m not really sure what to think of the Grongi, the enemies of the series. They’re a bit confusing because they don’t talk in Japanese, so all of the scenes with them are reliant on paying attention to their actions. I don’t know if this is due to the show itself, or the subtitle group, but if it’s the former I’m actually thankful because it’s something different to experience!

As I continue to watch Kuuga, I look forward to seeing Yuusuke learn more about his powers as Kuuga and learning more about the Grongi and “what the hell their deal is”!

Holy shit, I fell in love with it after the first episode. In the field of anime I’ve watched, it’s pretty goddamned ridiculous and confusing in scope, but I quite honestly don’t give a flying fuck. It’s an enjoyable experience worth the weekly wait, unlike Iron Man and the new Super Robot Wars (which I’ll watch EVENTUALLY, that place between not watching for a long time and immediate watching).

Tauburn is amazing, I really like that plume on its head for some reason. Episode 1′s enemy Cybody was cool, but Episode 2′s was much more interesting. I just think it’s a shame that they feel the need thus far to finish battles in five seconds more or less. I’m hoping these first couple of fights are primers on Tauburn and not indicative of a trend.

I give Star Driver five galactic pretty stars out of five.

I’m here to talk to you today about the magic of falling in love with a show after the first episode. For many people, that just doesn’t happen that often. However, I am one who has standards as free-flowing as sand in an hourglass. This love  happens a lot for me. It happened with Gintama, it happened with K-On, it happened with Kamen Rider Kuuga yesterday. It happened with Star Driver, too, but I’m not going into any details in this post.

I’ve loved pretty much every show I’ve watched, it’s always a matter of finishing the show, not whether or not I liked it. A lot of people get hung up on the debate on whether or not to keep begrudgingly watch a show after the first episode. That rarely seems to happen and I don’t know why. It happened with Panty and Stocking, but I’m pretty much over that if listening to the ending song on loop is any indication.

More rare for me is getting a feel of HOLY SHIT I NEED TO FINISH THIS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I usually get a really dorky shit-eating grin and decide that what is going on is “really fucking awesome”. Off the top of my head, I remember that happening with Star Driver and Legend of the Galactic Heroes just to name a few shows. This is usually accompanied by raving about the show to a bunch of random internet denizens just so they know how “really fucking awesome” the show is.

I really love having flexible standards for things despite contrary appearances in some situations. It’s a really strange experience!

Shadow the Hedgehog, Eishi Sasazuka (Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro), lots of random bit parts in various anime

The official Japanese dub voice for Kurt Russel, Hidan (Naruto)

Lavi (D. Gray-Man), Sogo Okita (Gintama), Eiji Shigure (Gravion), Shinn Asuka (Gundam SEED Destiny)

Jason Beck (Big O), Gates (Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid), Chibodee Crockett (G Gundam), Yazan Gable (Z/ZZ Gundam), Jiraiya (Naruto), Gavan Gooney (Turn A Gundam), Dee Jay (Street Fighter Alpha 3), Agent Smith (The Matrix), Aragorn (LOTR), Captain Planet

Kurz Weber (Full Metal Panic), Roy Mustang (Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood), Tatsuma Sakamoto (Gintama), Kojiro/James (Pokemon), Ryusei Date (Super Robot Wars)

Wonderful coincidences and trains of voice acting credits can too be yours if you give watching subbed anime a chance, you lazy bum. Also Kamen Rider Den-O, good stuff.

For purposes of this post, I use the term “FILLER” to refer to any extended period of time where the plot takes a backseat in favor of aimless wandering about and tiny story arcs. Case in point: Naruto filler. Whether or not it was any good isn’t the issue in my mind, it’s the fact that instead of putting it on hold and doing another season, we got a bunch of random stuff that ultimately had no bearing on the plot. Sadly, in my book, this also includes the wonderful subject of Endless Eight during Season 2 of Haruhi. However, this is taken to an extreme that I hope isn’t replicated anytime soon. Instead of doing maybe two or three episodes (leaving more time for a mini-arc or more plot with some stuff from the Novels), they make what is essentially the same episode over and over. (On a side-note, the movie more than made up for this, by far!)

“Filler” is a period of time where nothing happens to further the plot, but might further character development or your understanding of a character. That term is much more loose and might range from a few episodes or a part of an episode. One example of this is Eureka Seven. If you wanted to be really anal-retentive, you could find quite a few moments that didn’t further the plot as a whole per-se but did further understanding or character development. However, as a whole it tends to be much more enjoyable.

“Filler” is awesome, “FILLER” makes me weep like a wee bairn. I hope others feel this way too!