Category Archives: Anime Review
Makoto: 5 Centimeters Per Second & Voices of a Distant Star
LenCanvas here,
Been a while since I’ve written anything. You’ll probably see something from me in the next week or so. Hopefully the team has been entertaining. Consider me the one that brings the alternative to this blog since I don’t try to catch the newest (or new) anime season. Today, I bring you some “literature” of anime:
|| Voices of a Distant Star and 5 Centimeters Per Second are both by Makoto Shinka
|| discussing the intangible and mysterious connections between relationships. As the
|| titles suggest, these animations are neither harem-filled, panty-flash eye-candy (though
|| they do have scenery porn), nor ending with happily ever after. These animations hit
|| the bittersweet heart-buds and are meant to be watched with concentration and detail to
|| character roles.
|| The plot in 5 Centimeters Per Second is highly composed and brutally
|| honest, not afraid to give glimpses to the repetitive but equally numbing actions
|| growing children take. As you can tell I felt very moved by the movie but appreciating it
|| requires much attentive relation to the characters. Hence, if you search around google
|| you would see comments of boredom and lack of interest. Highly recommended for
|| the softhearted.
|| Voices of a Distant Star is a (dated) sci-fi fantasy ova harping on those same
|| heartstrings. The story is much less complicated –a preview in comparison to 5
|| Centimeters Per Second. There’s a lot more implied in the characters’ roles: the
|| typical childhood friend scene with singular, timid mix of friendship and hormones. The
|| artwork is not for everyone but if you’re into mech and space scenes…. The breadth
|| of this ova disappoints me but is acceptable since its was all done by Makoto and his
|| wife (later re-dubbing from professionals.)
5 Centimeters Per Second:
artwork: 6/7
plot: 6/7
Lencanvas points: 7/7
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.
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Voices of a Distant Star:
artwork: 4/7
plot: 4/7
Lencanvas points: 5/7
~~
Third Mid-Season Evaluation with TL
Hey guys, TL here, with a short piece on what I feel about the current season.
Tonari no kaibutsu kun started out this season as my favorite. The first couple of episodes were amazing, and in particular, I thought episodes 1 and 4 were some of the single best episodes I’ve ever seen. The comedy was funny, the romance was cute, and the interaction between the characters indicated progression towards a relationship-driven romance series – by the second episode, the two characters had confessed towards each other, and I honestly thought we were going to get a series about characters ACTUALLY in a relationship, as opposed to the typical romance series where two characters ‘struggle’ to discover their feelings, full of drama and ‘misunderstandings’. I was really excited to see where this series was going…
.. only to be totally disappointed. We’re at episode 9, and slowly but surely, the show has decended into your typical romance: Full of ‘misunderstandings, characters clearly like each other but try to deny it, oscillating between hot and cold. There are still many great things about the show, of course. I’m not too big a fan of Haru, but otherwise I love the characters, and the animation, while not big budget, is great (I love the way they draw the cartoony reaction faces and whatnot). I also like the soundtrack. However, I absolutely cannot conceal my disappointment in this show – The first 4 episodes were glorious, but I cannot deny that it has dropped off significantly from that.
6.75/10
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!, or, as I just call it, chuuni. The best show this sesason. Great animation, great characters, and absolutely hilarious. The show itself has kind of a suzumiya haruhi feel to me (except without kyon) – The first 5 or 6 episodes just plain silliness and pure fun. Of course, inevitably, the show had to turn to a more serious tone. How did it do? Surprisingly, not too bad. The romance seems pretty decent as well – for ONCE no harem or even love triangle. The drama wasn’t too overdone – I did have some trouble believing that a student in high school could realistically have delusions like that, but whatever – it makes for fun situations, so I’ll let it slide.
8/10
My feelings towards Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo would be, what I would say, opposite of what I feel towards Tonari no kaibutsu kun. I didn’t like it too much at first, but now it’s grown on me, and I enjoy it quite a bit. The drama and romance, while not spectacular by any means, is alright. Besides dealing in romance, they also deal in other issues like chasing your dreams (and how sometimes they’re not realistic), or dealing with success (and failure), especially in face of failure amongst your peers (or vice versa). Nothing incredibly original or amazing again, but still pretty decent, in my opinion. I think it’s also worth noting that this show is produced by the same studio as Little Busters, but the budget for this show is NOTICEABLY larger. While the latter is filled with still frames, the animation is for this show is, in my opinion, actually pretty amazing. A lot of care is put into detail, and backgrounds look amazing.
The characters are pretty cool across the board, for the most part – I’m not sold on the MC, and I’m not a huge fan of the genki-girl senpai (and I hope the loli imouto never shows up again), but to be honest, even the female main character, who I didn’t like at first, has grown on me considerably. Best character in the show (maybe season?) is still the following though:
7.5/10
If I had to describe magi in one word, it would be fun. It’s not deep or mind blowing, the characters aren’t very developed (so far). The writing, while not full of holes and stupidity, has it’s fair share of kinks. The show does a great job, though, with it’s adventuring atmosphere. I’d recommend this show as a ‘fun’ watch – don’t expect anything amazing, but I personally find it quite an enjoyable show.
7/10
Second Mid-season anime review!! by jampopo
Hey guys! I’m back, woohoo~~ Sorry for being absent for this whole time.. I.. have no excuse.. x_x” Though I’m back right now! And that’s freakin’ good news right guys? Yea? Woo..hoo~~
Anyways let’s get straight to this mid-season anime review!!~
First off, it’s Shin Sekai Yori/ From the New World. (Note, the orders on this list are randomized.)
This anime (so far) talks about a group of teens who, with their telekinetic power, slowly uncovers dark secrets of their current peaceful, utopian village set on mother earth in the far future. The anime starts to get strong at around episode 4, but slowly drifts to being a weak anime with hardly any greater climaxes in the next few episodes. The visual art style isn’t too bad, but the animation quality takes a huge slump at around episode 5 or 6. With such a great setting in a fantasy world, and with the incredible start, I expected the story to continue being dark and interesting. Sadly, that didn’t happen. It also didn’t help that the characters are a bit too generic, but hey, some yaoi + yuri action goes on later, so if you’re into that… wink wink. Personally it was a great disappointment to me that the plot didn’t advance a whole lot since episode 4, but things are starting to look up as the story seems to pointing towards an interesting turn now. Here’s to hoping for more intense contents \(o_o)/
Art: 6/10
Animation: 5/10
Characters: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 8/10
Shin Sekai Yori Mid-season evaluation: 6/10
Next up is Psycho Pass.
This anime is set in a futuristic world where our psychological state is judged by a computer system, which assists the Inspectors of this anime to predict and capture potential or active criminals. The anime is my action-anime choice of the season (though, granted, I’m actually only watching 4 animes this season). Its scenes are focused on chasing criminals, with a bit of detective work. The art style is actually pretty nice, though I can’t understand why the main female character has a different sort-of look compared to the other characters. The story is fairly strong, though I really hope the whole psycho pass computer system will be explained clearly later on. This anime isn’t super good, but it’s not disappointing too. Characters are mildly interesting, though there seems to be more stories about the characters that have yet to be mentioned. An anime I’d keep an eye out for if I was looking for something casual to watch.
Art: 7/10
Animation: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Story: 8/10
Music: 8/10
Psycho Pass Mid-season evaluation: 7.5/10
Third is Robotic;Notes.
The anime encircles around the robotics club and Kaito, the lazy main character who doesn’t mind working, as long as he is beaten in his favorite game by the person who’s asking him a favour. I am not sure why, but every week, I’m looking forward to another episode of Robotic;Notes the most out of all the animes I’m watching. I’m a great fan of Steins;Gate, the previous project of the same studio who’s making Robotic;Notes, and so I’m expecting quite a bit from this anime. The characters are generic, though the two main characters have a condition that either slows or fast forwards time for them, which is rather interesting. The story just started picking up, so we could expect more to come soon (hopefully~). Visuals are nice, bright and vibrant. Hopefully, we’ll see a very rich story coming out from this anime.
Art: 8/10
Animation: 7/10
Characters: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 7/10
Robotic;Notes Mid-season evaluation: 7/10
Lastly, we have Tonari no Kaibutsu kun.
This anime is about the romantic relationship between the hardworking Shizuku and the smart but.. dumb Haru. (Btw no, there’s neither bondage nor anything that has to do with chains in this anime… so far.) My comedy anime for this season, this anime is definitely hilarious. Filled with unreal comedic scenes, the anime invites shounen anime-watchers to also enjoy this shoujo anime. Although the romance in this anime seems rather… push-and-pull, tug-of-war-ish, it is still a comfortable watch that will surely make you smile at several moments. The visual style is rather colorful, and the characters are interesting for sure. This might be an anime you’d want to pin down on your list of to-watch-later-on. If you’re a guy, don’t worry. It’s not THAAAT lovey dovey if you’re worried about that.
Art: 8/10
Animation: 7/10
Characters: 9/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 7/10
Tonari no Kaibutsu kun Mid-season evaluation: 7.8/10
Annnnnnnnd that’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed reading through this list. We will probably get into more details on several of these animes, so continue keeping an eye out for our blog, and hope you’ll enjoy your stay. Tomorrow our new member will post his mid-season anime review, so please check that out! Thaaaaaank you!
Mid-Season Review! Starting with CardOtaku! :DDD
Hey everybody! CardOtaku here!
Recently, as you’ve probably seen… I lack motivation to post more often than I should, but that changes today (hopefully)! My good friend TL has re-sparked my motivation to post and came up with some very interesting things to write about.
First up! The members of Void.Canvas will be writing some mid-season reviews of animes that are currently airing and we will each give our opinions on them! So lets begin!
Psycho-Pass:
This anime really interested me when it first came out because due to various factors! First, it is written by Gen Urobuchi, the author of Fate/Zero and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika. For those of you who don’t know those two are some of my favorite anime and so I have some very high hopes for this anime. Secondly, the art style for this anime is the same as that of Katekyo Hitman! Reborn! which maybe a good or bad thing depending on your personal preference. Now, originally the anime started off quite slowly and the characters in the anime don’t really appeal to me. However, after the watching the recent episodes this show has again interested me. 🙂 (Also… I’m LOVING it’s ending theme! Egoist ftw! XD)
Art: 8/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 8.5/10
Story: 8/10
Music: 8/10
Psycho-Pass Mid-Term Evaluation: 8/10
K:
K is an anime that is very “fan-serviced” based in my opinion and it gives eye-candy to both it’s male and female audiences. However, for some people that may be a huge turn-off. For example, I always get goosebumps whenever Shiro (the main character), blushes infront of Kuroh (a pretty boy featured in K). However, I must give huge props to animation that is present in K because it’s probably one of the only things that’s keeping me interested in this anime. However, like Psycho-Pass, the recent episodes are starting to become more interesting, but still not quite up to what I was expecting. 😦
Art: 8/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 7/10
K Mid-Season Evaluation: 7/10
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!
Ah yes! Chuu2 is probably one of my favorites this year and I can list a number of very good reasons why. First, this anime is full of cute characters that have K-On like art. Second, the art and animation is top notch. Third, the main cast of characters are different enough that their interactions are interesting to watch every episode. These are only a few points that I will make, but after watching the newest episode, I feel that the anime will change in direction and move closer to the relationship between the two main characters. I hope this anime doesn’t disappoint me because I really like it. XD
Art: 8.5/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 9/10
Story: 8/10
Music:8/10
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shita! Mid-Season evaluation: 8.5/10
Robotics;Note
This anime has a lot of mixed reactions from my group of friends because many netizens are saying how bad the game was and how it doesn’t really stand up against it’s predecessor Steins;Gate. In all honesty, I loved Steins;Gate because I walked in to watch it without a very high expectation due to Chaos;Head being Steins;Gate’s predecessor. However, after being amazed by Steins;Gate I unknowingly walked into Robotics;Note with a high expectation. I try not to be too biased against Robotics;Note and just watch it for what it is and not what came before it. Now, getting back on topic, Robotics;Note features a cast of characters that are interesting to watch, but the more interesting character in the series are the minor characters because to me the two leading characters seem to generic. As of episode 7, Robotics;Note threw in a few cheap shots that gives us some very important information, but is interrupted by ongoing events which kind of “movie trailers” us into continuing to watch the anime. I don’t really think it’s a bad thing, but it’s one of the worse parts of watching ongoing anime because we wont ever know the answers until they air the episode. >_<
Art: 8/10
Animation: 8.5/10
Characters: 8.5/10
Story: 8/10
Music: 8/10
Robotics;Note Mid-Season Evaluation: 8.25/10
Keep in mid that all these ratings n’ what not is my own opinion and you do not have to agree with me >_<
Next, we will have Jampopo write about the anime of his choice this season and his mid-season evaluations!
-CardOtaku
BASKETBALLLLLLL?!
Hey guyssssssss… Yeahhh… I know I was gone for awhile (again), buttttt that’s because I’ve been busy with work and story writing! 😛 I’ve came up with a couple of new plots and went over them with Len Canvas which he gave a pass, but I still feel like it’s not up to par with what I want it to be. >_<
Well anyway, recently, I started reading a manga named “Kuroko no Basuke (Kuroko’s Basketball)” after several of my friends recommended it to me. Originally, she was watching the anime and she kept on talking about how interesting the story was and how “attractive” the guys where and so I was like… Hey why not? I started to read the manga to see how interesting it actually was and to my surprise it grabbed onto my attention pretty fast! I’m normally not the one that’s into sports manga, but the way this one was presented really made things interesting. For example, there are a bunch of people named the generation of miracles which played together in their middle school basketball team, but when high school started each of the people in the generation of miracles walked their separate paths and entered different schools. One of the main characters, Kuroko Tetsu, doesn’t have super shooting skills or a strong body build, but he is extremely good at passing and reminds me a lot of a ninja, which I found very humours and fascinating at the same time.
SOOOOO… keeping this post short… If you’re into basketball or into something kinda like Prince of Tennis this is probably a manga/anime for you. I watched the first two episodes with my brother, but I didn’t really like the animation so I’ll probably stick with the manga, but hey… that’s just a personal preference 🙂
That’s it for today guys! 😀
Bye!!!!
P.S. the Void.Canvas team will be gathered very soon so we might do a podcast sorta thing >_< Stay tuned for that! It’ll be a load of fun!
Aliens and… FORBIDDEN LOVE?!
Heyoooo!! So, I just finished watching “Ano Natsu de Matteru” (Waiting in the Summer) and I was really surprised about how the anime turned out! Well… Sort of…
First of all, Waiting in the Summer is about an alien girl who crash lands on earth and unintentionally injures/”kills” a boy named Kaito. Ichika, the alien girl transfers nano-machines to Kaito through a kiss and saves him without his knowledge. The next day Kaito sees Ichika at school and felt some sort of attraction towards her, but he doesn’t remember anything because when he woke up he was at home after the incident. Since she has no place to stay (because she’s an alien) Kaito joking invites Ichika to live with him in which she agrees to Kaito’s surprise. Well… You can sort of imagine what goes on from there and if you can’t then watch the anime! 😛
This anime might sound familiar to you oldies out there because this anime is created by the same people who made Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins.(Please Teacher/Twins) Which also had an alien character in it which was the love interest of the main character in Onegai Teacher. However, this isn’t the only thing that was surprising to me because I also felt an AnoHana kind of vibe coming out of this anime. I don’t actually know why though because they aren’t really all that similar. It might have something to do with the complicated relationships and a type of “forbidden love” that a couple aren’t supposed to have. I mean… Dating a ghost isn’t that much from dating an Alien right? *cough* Okay never mind… However, AnoHana was a lot sadder compared to Waiting in the Summer because well… I’ll let you find out for yourself.
Overall, I enjoyed Waiting in the Summer and I do recommend it for those who are interested in complicated love stories that aren’t TOO shallow. However, I feel that if they didn’t put in that last bit the ending would be a lot more meaningful, but that’s just my own opinion! XD I’ll give this anime an 8/10 for nostalgia’s sake and for a good love story sake!
And before I go… There are also some other animes I wanted to write about (Mayo Chiki), but since I just finished watching this I wrote about it!
That’s it for today guys! I’ll try to get the other guys to write, but they are too busy derping in the summer… (See what I did there 😉 )
FATE N SUMMER!
HEYOOOO!!!!! Holy crap! It’s been over a month since the last post and ya… We’ve been pretty busy *cough* (lazy) ever since summer began, but being the “leader” here at Void.Canvas I believe it is my responsibility to start writing again and so here I am!!! 😀
Soooo… I’ve seen quite a few “old” animes lately and I actually just finished re-watching Cowboy Bebop yesterday. However, I really want to talk about the Fate series today because I feel that there are several things that I should talk about. For those of you who don’t know, the Fate series (Fate/Zero n Fate/Stay Night are the animes that are released for this series so far) is about something called the “Holy Grail War” in which 7 masters are chosen and they summon their servants to fight for the Holy Grail which is said to grant any wish. Now, that’s just a VERY brief summary of what it’s about and I really encourage you to watch Fate Stay Night, but in my opinion I think that Fate/Zero is the true master piece in the series. Even though the series isn’t finished yet, I can personally connect to the characters Fate/Zero more and I think the overall story is better and more enticing. Both of the series have the same classes of servants and they technically have the same “names”, but it really changed my view on all the characters.
For example… In Fate Stay Night my servant rankings look a little something like this:
– Saber
– Archer
– Assassin
– Rider
– Lancer
– Caster
– Berserker
BUTTTT in Fate/Zero it goes something like this:
– Berserker
– Saber
– Lancer
– Archer
– Rider
– Caster
– Assassin
Fate/Zero just did an overall better job and made unimportant characters seem more important and loveable while in Fate/Stay Night the characters that didn’t get enough screen time were extremely downplayed and easily forgotten. However, I haven’t really played the game for Fate/Stay Night yet so I will probably get more background information on the characters in Fate/Stay Night after… But that’s for another post!
WELL… ONTO ANOTHER TOPIC! It’s summer so you can’t really blame us lazy people *cough* Jampo… To not post anything and I will try to post a frequently as possible, but I am currently working on a few side projects so that make cut into my time to post. However, let me tell you that I’m currently trying to write my own “light novel” kind of thing, but it’s obviously gonna be full of errors and unprofessional XD I only do it for fun and as you can see… My writing isn’t very good >_< Anyway, I’ll be sure to show you guys once I have a final draft of it and yeahhhh… That’s it for today! 🙂
(Here’s a picture of Saber! Now go away!)
We’re still alive and back from the Horizon (With big boobies n High-Tech Thingies)! :3
Hey guys… So… Uhhh… Sorry for the HUGEEEEE break we took… and is still taking from the Void.Canvas, but we are currently in our exam week and for the last few weeks of school we want to finish off strong! Sorry for not posting anything for a month >__<
BUTTTT We’ve been quite busy n yeahhh…
Today! I’m gonna talk about an anime called Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere. Initially, I didn’t get very good vibes from this anime because the first episode was super confusing. They introduced way to many characters (around 20) and didn’t really give any back story for any of the characters. All that I’ve learned is that there are a lot of girls with big boobies and there are a lot of high-tech thingies that make you go ZOMGAHHHH :D. However, that was enough to keep me watching until the end. I mean… Big boobies n high-tech thingies are pretty attractive ;). Like come on, isn’t that the reason we all watch the Transformers movies?
Well enough about that! Later on in the story, a lot more of the characters get flushed out and the plot is given more depth. Those pushes made me want to watch the anime for more of a cause. However, I still believe that the Anime could have used a lot more work because if you haven’t read the light novels then it will also be confusing for you. A season two for this series has already been planned and I look forward to it! Hopefully, they’ll do a better job and make use of the huge toolbox of characters they have in their disposal.
I’ll give this anime a 7/10! So, it’s not too bad! If you like big boobies n high-tech thingies give it a shot! 😉 You might like it!
Oh! Before I go I’ll tell you guys that we probably wont start posting again until May so don’t be disappointed! We’re not dead! XD
See you guys soon! 😀
Animes… yea, that’s the title for this post..
Heyooooooo y’alls! How’s y’all been doing lately? Great? Nice. That’s nice.. soooo errrr sorry for the absence that lasted for.. like.. twenty hundred years, but i was very, very busy with school work (essays, tests etc. You know, those things), and so I’ll hereby apologize for my lack of participation in this blog these past weeks.. and months perhaps.. yikes.
Anyways have no fear because I’ve also been watching animes ALL THIS TIME!! yes I’ve gotten through around 3 animes, and am still watching one more now. So for the next few days, I’ll be spreading out my reviews/ random thoughts on these animes, and hopefully my discussion on them will help you in deciding what you’ll want to watch next or make you rewatch them (if you’re into that).
So let’s quickly get on with this review thing. yea~~ first up is….: Mouretsu Pirates (up till episode 12). This anime is about…”The story centers around a spirited high school girl named Marika. She keeps herself busy with the space yacht club and her part-time job at a high-class retro café. One day, two strangers suddenly appear and claim to be subordinates of her dead father. They demand that she assume command of the space pirate ship Bentenmaru. A privateer ship’s compact was made during a war of independence a century ago, and according to that compact, the ship must be inherited by the captain’s next direct descendant. Marika finds herself embarking on a new life as a space pirate.” (thanks myanimelist.net)
TL;DR, a girl becomes a space pirate captain.
Yes. Sounded kinda.. mehh, right? Right? Well whatever the case, for me it did sound a little too typical, in a way. I’ll be honest with you and say this anime didn’t go well for me at the beginning, (though at around episodes 9-ish it finally started to pick up a little.. ish. We’ll get to that later) and this was due to the fact that it just didn’t have a very strong foundation at the beginning. What I mean by this is that it introduced everything too quickly without putting much of a strong background or attempt to solidify the importance of these information. And throughout the anime there seemed to be too many filler episodes that could’ve been used to perhaps list out the details and history or other stuffs. Sadly, it didn’t do that. And well… I still just went on with it. Just to finish it. Yeap. But seriously, the end waaas pretty interesting.
But!! yes, but, there were some interesting parts in the anime. Firstly, as an anime that focuses in the future, the story did well in fitting in little details that make it seem, well, futuristic! Descriptions about spaceships and all those complicated bleep bloop about everything did, in fact, sound pretty legit(imate). But! yeaa, another but, these little details (most of them mentioned in the earlier episodes) just seemed to fall out later on in the story. It was as if the time they spent on explaining things were just another filler and proved to be a waste of time. For example they explained the concept of cyber battle (or something along that line) during the first few episodes, but they never mentioned it afterwards! And that just.. really… really.. is disappointing T^T because cyber battling (or whatever it was called) did seem pretty interesting. Finally though, by the start of episode 9-ish, things started to pick up. The story got a bit more intense, and I finally began anticipating for the next episodes. And that was it. Episode 12 (the end of that story arc) was a little disappointing.
At this point, I’m gonna say sorry to all those fans or just viewers who liked the anime. But for me, other than the cool space bits and parts, and the occasional lol moments, Mouretsu Pirates just proved to be another good way to seriously kill time. Honestly speaking though, it could’ve been sooo muchhh betterrrr if they had just focused more on the “space” part and “story” part, instead of taking the “whoop today we’re gonna do pretty much the same thing as yesterday, yipee” approach.
Nonetheless, I will be anticipating the new episodes and new season of Mouretsu Pirates, just because I’m holding onto the hope that they will seriously get things back together in the future. If not, well, they shouldn’t make a third season then. Seriously.
Here’s a picture of pretty much all the characters that were in the anime, though I swear I’ve never seen some of them.. hmm.. we’ll see.
Void.Canvas 