btw

I just entered college (the same one as another blogger..), so yeah.  Posts may come less or much more frequently, but I don’t have a clue yet.

butts

that epic feeling

Sometimes when I watch an anime or read a manga, my chest swells up, my head goes light, and rain starts to fall down my cheeks.  In my heart, I can feel the sheer awesomeness, the sheer amazingness, the sheer epicness of that anime or manga resonating.  I want to shut the book, close the window, or alt-tab out of Media Player Classic because I just can’t take that much epic all at once.  You know what I’m talking about.  You’ve felt it before.  That thrill, that rush, that anime-induced high that determines the worth of a series.  It’s that epic feeling.

Unfortunately, that’s all I wrote before I got bored and decided to go empty my bowels so I have no idea where I was going with such a cool (it is, right?  Tell me it’s super duper cool!) intro.

But I do remember why I began writing this post.

If you have Twitter (not likely), were online yesterday at 9:00 PM PST (even less likely), and follow me (a snowball’s chance in hell), then you might’ve seen these tweets:

What I’m getting at here is that today, I got that epic feeling from episode 6 of Strike Witches 2.

This has never happened before.

All my previous epic feeling moments came from mecha (the non-Macross Frontier kind), crazy romance/dramas (e.g. After Story), and last episodes of great comedies (Gintama, etc.)… and Mushishi.  Okay, okay, Mushishi is clearly an anomaly there.  Go to your nearest Borders, Barnes and Noble, whatever, pick up Mushishi 8/9/10, flip to the second-to-last story and read it.  I can’t explain the epicness of that one story and it’s not available online (But if you do find it online, comment and post the link.  Actually, comment whether or not you find it.  I like comments.  Comment please.), so just do it.  If it involves awesome time loops and a very hard-to-understand panel order, you’re on the right one.

Anyway, as I was saying, this has never happened before.  That Strike Witches scene was about two girls in the stratosphere killing a black tower alien with a great insert song playing.  It doesn’t sound impressive when I type it out like this, and in retrospect, it really wasn’t.  But w-what is this feeling in my chest every time I see that picture?  Huh?  This is weird, tears are c-coming out…

Mecha, Macross Frontier, and crappy idiots

I recently watched Macross Frontier.

It sucked.

…which got me thinking, “What do I really want to see in mecha?”

Or rather, “Why do I think Macross Frontier sucks when everybody else in the May’n panel room at AX 2010 thought otherwise?”

Before I go into anything else, you have to know that I’m not a crazy mecha fan (i.e. ghostlightning, etc.), nor am I an idiot, devoting himself to a series because of a single character. Honestly, I’m not. Mikoto is amazing, but neither of the To Aru series has been.

I say this because crazy mecha fans will be crazy mecha fans. A lot of them were fawning over crappy Shin Mazinger Z’s crappy first episode last year, even though it was clearly crappy. Crazy mecha fans love all mecha, good and bad and crappy.

I also say this because idiots love all crappy series (Saki, K-ON!, Bakemonogatari, etc.), not just crappy mecha ones. They also hate good series because their crappy brains can’t crappy their crappy crappy. Many of the fanboys in that May’n panel were idiots. Especially the ones who went up and tried to ask questions in broken Japanese. They were the really crappy idiots crappy.

So first, the action sucked. Second, the themes sucked. Third, the anime sucked.

When I’m watching an action anime, I expect a decent amount of action. TOO BAD MACROSS WAS ALL ABOUT MUSIC.

Blah blah blah music can save the day because we need more concert scenes!!1one

NO, music can NOT save the day. And NO, you do NOT need more concert scenes!!1one

YES, themes like “the power of friendship,” “the power of love,” and “if you try hard enough, you win for some strange, unexplainable reason” are overused, but that’s no excuse to go off and use a theme [incredibly central to the story] that leaves much to be desired.

Gurren Lagann went with the “if you try hard enough, you win for some strange, unexplainable reason” and ramped up the action until it became ridiculous. Code Geass didn’t even bother to look at themes, plowing through its story so fast (except that one robot-pizza filler) that it didn’t even matter. Eureka Seven was a lot slower than these other two, but had such a build-up with its “power of love” theme that made the long, fifty-episode journey feel satisfying.

Macross Frontier, on the other hand, was both slow, boring, and stupid (kind of like me). Ohhhh wowwww, Ranka’s song affects the aliens… Ohhhh wowwww, Sheryl’s brain disease affects her song which affects the aliens… Ohhh wowwww, Ranka’s song affects Sheryl’s brain disease which affects her (Sheryl’s) song which affects the aliens. And now Sheryl ends up with a stomach disease instead of a brain disease and everybody lives happily ever after. Except Sheryl, because the disease is now in her stomach.

The bottom line: “the power of music” just doesn’t cut it. Especially when the music itself is horrendous. All the May’n/Sheryl songs sound alike and the Megumi/Ranka songs sound like the May’n/Sheryl ones.

Also, Macross Frontier was very predictable. The storyline was so bland and devoid of any real plot twists (or at least, plot twists that mattered) that I could see the ending from the first episode. It was just a tug-of-war between Alto x Ranka and Alto x Sheryl and Music x Music x Aliens x Brain Disease. The minute Ranka becomes popular, Sheryl gets depressed, her CDs go in the bargain bin, and she’s left out in the rain half-naked. Now, stop for a minute. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? Gosh, those Frontier citizens must have a three-second memory span. Last I checked, Sheryl was still a crazy popular st-

Oh, she got popular again. But wait, why is Ranka so sad after seeing Sheryl and Alto together?

Wait, Ranka’s the popular one again? And Sheryl is jealous of Rank-

Sheryl’s popular AGAIN? Jeez, this anime has SO MANY interesting ups and downs to it!

Either Alto is the ficklest man ever and Sheryl and Ranka have pea-sized brains, or this anime is a total waste of time!

Gintama looks down on Macross Frontier.

Oh, and how come the mecha pilots can kill the aliens with their guns AFTER they say that the guns don’t work anymore? It’s never mentioned that the regular old guns get stronger, but you see all the mecha using them in that pitiful excuse of a final battle… and WINNING?!

Bah.

Big Pasture

I’m back from vacation.

I have nothing to blog about.

fjasfjewirw

ffadw

yep.

Is this still an anime blog?

I found this slightly funny.