Youyou Kengeki Musou is a doujin game from the doujin circle Annkake-Spa. They’ve recently released a demo of their game that demonstrates the central mechanics of the game. What follows is a first impression of the two-stage demo that they released a few days ago. The scope of the game and how well polished it feels is something that is to be commended for a doujin work from both the gameplay, music, and quality of the visuals.
The Standing Committee for the Coordination of Simultaneous Anime Viewing (SCCSAV) was a gathering of friends from all around the world to watch anime together. It was started primarily by @vuc_ and exploded over the past year. Because of all the fun times we’ve had together, I choose SCCSAV as my most memorable anime moment of 2011.
Continue reading ‘[12 days] Day 12: SCCSAV – My “other” anime club.’
A year ago, I wrote about the Tamayura OVA, wishing for a longer series. Our wishes were granted with Tamayura ~hitotose~, with most of the staff and even most of the voice actors from ARIA working on the new Fall 2011 anime. Tamayura joins the prestigious ranks of my ARIA and Sketchbook ~full colors~ as top tier iyashikei anime.
Continue reading ‘[12 days] Day 11: Tamayura ~hitotose~ is ARIA’s successor’
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is a four episode OVA that we watched with the SCCSAV Iyashikei Viewing group. A lot like ARIA, it’s devoid of a central plot line.
What stands out the most about YKK is the unique world that the characters live in. Post-apocalyptic settings are typically ones of despair and a struggle to survive. In YKK, despite the ecological disaster that has wiped out most of the world, life continues peacefully. Alpha is a robot who runs a small cafe and there are little stories like meeting another robot from a neighboring town and taking a long trip far away from home. All of it is surrounded by a peaceful, easy lifestyle of everyone we meet.
It’s sad that YKK was only a four episode OVA. I read through the manga a few years back, and through all the 140 chapters, we really got to know the characters. The two kids especially who make a brief appearance in the OVA are characters that we see grow up throughout the many years that elapse in the manga.
One wish I have for the future is that we’ll get a complete length YKK anime. It’s a world I would really love to visit again.
Ka---- Mi---- Chu~!
Early this year, we had just launched Iyashikei Mondays with SCCSAV. We had been watching Sketchbook ~Full Colors~ and ARIA the Animation when @vuc_ joined us and suggested that we watched Kamichu!. I have to thank him for introducing it to us, because it was something I missed back when it was airing in 2005 and I really loved it.
Continue reading ‘[12 days] Day 9: A girl becomes a god and life goes on.’
In the spirit of Steam sales... (Source)
I didn’t know what I was getting into when I started watching Idolm@ster. All I knew about it was that it was ridiculously popular as a game and the music was great. In my usual manner of “Hey, this looks cute, let’s check it out,” I dove right in. Oh yeah. This post contains spoilers.
Continue reading ‘[12 days] Day 8: Idolm@ster is just a lot of fun and Chihaya is the best idol.’
Nekogami Yaoyorozu was an anime that flew under the radar for most. It was airing at the same time as Steins;Gate and Nichijou, so it’s not surprising that it didn’t get as much attention as it deserved. What attracted me to it was that this was an adaptation of an original manga by FLIPFLOPs, the Touhou doujin artist that I wrote about earlier this month.
Continue reading ‘[12 Days] Day 7: Nekogami Yaoyorozu needs more love.’
The whole post-a-week thing for Kino fell through, so here’s my end of the series retrospective.
We watched Kino no Tabi as part of the first group on SCCSAV that I started that didn’t spawn out of Iyashikei Mondays. I’m going to do a full post with my experiences with the SCCSAV group since that was one of the highlights of my year, but for now let’s focus on Kino no Tabi.
Kino no Tabi is a highly episodic series that follows the journey of Kino and her talking motorcycle Hermes. Each episode was an exciting visit to a new location. It excels at taking things that we’re familiar with in our lives and putting a strange otherworldly twist on them. A few examples come to mind. Episode 8 is called “The Land of Wizards” is an uplifting story where Kino helps a girl to build a flying machine against the opposition of the townspeople who believe that she’s better off doing something more productive. Episode 5 contains the story about what happens when mob rule is allowed to run amok, resulting in everyone in the country being killed over disagreements until there’s only one person left. Episode 12 is probably the most memorable. In every episode leading up to this point, Kino has demonstrated that her skills with her guns can get her out of any situation, but in this episode she’s can’t do anything as she watches two countries carry out a genocidal action. Kino no Tabi invoked every emotion from happiness and a longing for adventure to fear and hopelessness.
By telling stories filled with the entire spectrum of emotions of the human experience, Kino no Tabi succeeds in capturing its central message:
The world is not beautiful; and that, in a way, lends it a sort of beauty
Despite having only spent a few hours with Atelier Totori, I’ve already fallen in love with it. I’m not quite ready to declare it the game of the year yet, because it’s got some stiff competition from games like Portal 2, but it is a very strong contender.
The change of pace from having played so many games where the entire world was at stake was refreshing. The only other game I played in the series was Atelier Iris, which was much more strongly heavily focused on combat. In Totori, the combat takes a backseat to a character-driven, more immersive experience. It’s no surprise that this game appeals to the iyashikei fan in me with it being more of a slice-of-life story.
Totori and Ceci are also the most adorable characters I’ve met in a game this year. Ceci is the older, sometimes overprotective sister, while Totori is the younger one who dreams of being an adventurer. There’s scene that really touched me was after coming back from a long time adventuring, Ceci remarked how Totori has been away for so long and that she misses her. I’m looking forward to seeing Totori grow from being a fledgling, clumsy alchemist into a top-notch adventurer.
Ceci is also voiced by Asami Imai, so I hear Idolm@ster’s Chihaya whenever she speaks.
Last Exile’s first series was something that I watched and thought was kind of neat because it was the first anime that I watched that had a huge focus on airships. I’ve been enjoying Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing which started airing this Fall. I’m still not sure how I feel about the shift away from the large-scale airship battles that made the first season so much fun to watch, but I think having the story center on Fam makes it seem like she’s a more important and influential player in the grand story. Claus and Lavie seemed to me to be small compared to all that was going on around them.
Also Dio is definitely the best character in the series. He’s got a certain air of mystery and fun around him. But that’s not what I want to talk about today…
Continue reading ‘[12 days] Day 4: We need more things with airships.’
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