Nov 5

Series: Hidamari Sketch (ひだまりスケッチ)

Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, School Life

Animation Production: Shaft

Number of Episodes: 12

Synopsis:

Yuno has been accepted to her dream school: Yamabuki Arts High School. To attend the school, Yuno moves and starts to live in a small apartment building named the Hidamari Apartments located near the school. Once there, she starts making new friends like her classmate Miyako and the second year students, Hiro and Sae. Surrounded by good friends, Yuno starts moving towards her dream of being an artist.

Source: Anime News Network

Main Characters and Cast:

Yuno: Kana Asumi – Yuno is our main character. She finds her self as a beginner artist when others see her as an excellent artist. Yuno has a very enjoyable personality and is a well developed character. Kana Asumi has had a few major/primary rolls in other anime series, but has only casted in a handful of anime titles.

Miyako (Miya): Kaori Mizuhashi - Miya is the neighbor to Yuno. She is a carefree and energetic character. Miya is another well developed character with a unique personality. Her unique personality made her one of my more favored characters in this series. Kaori Mizuhashi did an excellent job making this character likable. Her play on Miya’s unique personality was brilliant. Kaori has done many major/primary rolls in a lot of anime series and has been in the indusrty for quite awhile.

Sae: Ryoko Shintani – Sae lives on the first floor and is a short story writer. Her character is the smart yet introverted type. Her character was fairly developed, but could have been developed more. Ryoko Shintani has done a fair amount of casting for a good handful of series. She did a great job with this series and her character. She made her character believable.

Hiro: Yuko Goto – Hiro is the neighbor and good friend to Sae. Hiro is always watching what she eats, but still loves eating sweats. I would describe her personality as mother like. She is always caring for others and looking out for everyone. Her character was not as developed as it should have been. I would have liked to see more about Hiro’s character.Yuko Goto is a very well known seiyuu, she has had many major/primary rolls and always does an excellent job. Yuko did an excellent job with this character as expected.

Yoshinoya-sensei: Miyu Matsuki – Yoshinoya is the teacher to our main characters. Yoshinoya is a cute, cosplay loving, clueless character. Her character is well developed and very likable. She was probably my favorite character from the series. Miyu Matsuki did an excellent job with this character.

Personal Thoughts:

I enjoyed this series a lot. All of the characters were likable and cute in their own ways. The animation was a bit hard to get used to at first, but it grows on you. It is a very simple animation style. The opening and ending themes were enjoyable as well. I would recommend this series to people who enjoy comedy and slice of life series. On of my favorite moments of the series was when the girls were watching water drip into a bucket. My question is how bored were they?If you have seen this series or plan on watching it I hope you enjoy[ed] it. 

Personal Rating: Rating: ★★★★½

Opening: Sketch Switch – Kana Asumi, Kaori Mizuhashi, Ryoko Shintani & Yuko Goto

Ending: Mebae Drive – marble

Posted in Hidamari Sketch | 4 Comments »
Oct 27

My top 5 for Female Anime Characters has changed recently so I was going to see what my readers top 5 are. I will start off.

5: Shana (Enpatsu Shakugan no Uchite)


4: Louise Françoise de la Baume le Blanc de la Vallière

3: Konata Izumi

2: Primula

1: Taiga Aisaka

*Source*

Shana – Link

Louise – Link

Konata – Link

Primula – Link

Taiga – Link

Well that is my top 5 Female Anime Characters. I hope to see what kind of list others will come up with.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »
Oct 14

Series: Canaan  (カナン)

Genre: Action, Mystery

Animation Production: PA Works

Number of Episodes: 13

Image Source

Synopsis:

Two years ago, Shibuya was ravaged by a biological terrorist attack using the deadly Ua virus. Maria Osawa was saved when her father inoculated her against the virus, but is left with partial amnesia from the shock. She works as a cameraman when she reunites with a girl named Canaan in Shanghai, China. A gifted assassin with synesthesia, she is under orders from an unknown organization for a yet unspecified mission.

Charaters and Cast:
Canaan: Miyuki Sawashiro – Canaan our protagonist is one of the main characters of the series. Her character is pretty quiet yet strong willed. The seiyuu Miyuki Sawashiro has had many different rolls that go unseen/unheard. I would have to say she is one of the most notable seiyuus this year for her excellent voice casting. She speaks her part so well it is occasionally hard to pick out that it is her.
Maria Oosawa: Yoshino Nanjou – Maria is a new hire photographer that wants to change the world through her pictures. She works along side Minoru. Maria is our focal character of the series. The seiyuu Yoshino Nanjou was impressive in this roll. I thought her voice casting was done very well and expressed the emotions of her character well. This is another major roll for Yoshino; she has had very few rolls in the industry, but is making a name fairly quick.
Minoru Minorikawa: Kenji Hamada – Minoru is a supporting character to all of our protagonist characters. He is a mentor for Maria; Minoru is trying to become a better reporter and cover the greatest story all times. Minoru may seem like a dull character, but plays the support roll well. The seiyuu Kenji Hamada played the roll of Minoru well. Seeing as the character was developed through others it was hard to feel the real emotions of the character through Kenji.
Alphard: Maaya Sakamoto – Our antagonist Alphard, a strong willed soldier who has a mission of her own. Alphard will not let anyone stand in her way of completing what ever it is she has set out to finish. It was interesting seeing Maaya Sakamoto play such a strong antagonist roll. She pulled it off; and pulled it off well. I was impressed when I found out it was Maaya Sakamoto.
Personal Thoughts:

Canaan was one of the few series I found enjoyable this season. Though, I have been catching up on older series I managed to squeeze in this one. The animation style is your typical 2008/2009 style so it was easy on the eyes to adapt to. The character development was done exceptionally well and most of the characters are likable. The story progression is smooth and enjoyable. I found the concepts of the series to be intriguing. Their take on synesthia was my favorite part. I was a bit down about the 13 episode run time, but was glad to hear that Canaan has been approved for budget for 3 movies. Overall I would say this was a great series and one to watch.

Personal Rating: Rating: ★★★★½

Opening: Faylan – Mind as Judgment

Ending: Annabel – My Heaven

Posted in Canaan | 2 Comments »
Sep 25

Well, last night I was convinced to go see the movie premier of Eureka 7. Was not too excited over it, but the fact of anime in theatre over weighed the thought of “will this be a good or bad dub?” or the fact that I just flat out don’t like dubs. First thing that wanted to deter me was the fact of Bandai and Bang! Zoom! doing the production. The other thing was I did not feel like sitting next to a bunch of AdultSwim naru~whats and listen to their witty comments and poor improper Japanese.

Now I have seen this movie three times now, once in fan sub, second in RAW format, and the theatre premier being third. All of which nothing really was edited which was a plus. Now to pick apart the English movie dub, the opening scene contains some of our main characters being Eureka, Renton, and Nirvash. The scene also shows their teacher. With this I was mostly looking for pronunciation. ‘Nirvash’ and ‘Renton’… pronounced flawlessly. Eureka was pronounced so bad I nearly *facepalmed* in the first 10 minutes of the movie. They decided they wanted to pronounce it ” air-rehckk-ah” instead of “air-rdeck-ah” yea yea, seeing it typed is harder to explain than hearing it, but let me say that Renton’s voice actor said her name 4 different ways. The name that was butchered the most was Anemone. Now, it was so bad I can’t even recall how they pronounced it in English. Setting bad pronunciation aside there were some translation differences. The biggest one was the title: Eureka 7 ~Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers~…. Hmm…. 交響詩篇エウレカセブン ポケットが虹でいっぱい … don’t see how this romantically translates to the enlish title, when it should be, Eureka 7 ~Pocket Full of Rainbows~… minor issue, none to be fretted over I see title translations being wrong more than I would like, but moving along, there were portions that I knew had been translated a bit differently than the RAW, but not enough to change the story.

All in all I thought it was fairly well done, especially for Bandai. As for the best VA award I would have to give it to Kari Wahlgren who voiced Anemone. I thought she played/voiced the part of Anemone the best. She kept a ‘real’ tone and personality that was believable that it was Anemone’s character. None of that monotone long tone talk that sounds like you are trying too hard to be the character or that I could tell you were really trying to read from a script. No, in this it sounded like she knew the character and her roll to play the character.

Well that’s about all I have for my review. In case you were wondering, I do not plan to review the actual storyline since I will leave it up to you to write. *insert blank page* Anyway, my next review will hopefully be Canaan.

Here is the ending theme (safe to play, no spoilers)

Posted in Eureka 7 ~Pocket Full of Rainbows~ | 1 Comment »