Boy time, y'all

Kimi to Boku is what I've been wanting ever since I saw K-On - a decent slice-of-life featuring boys. They don't sing Fuwa Fuwa Time, obviously, but boys lounging around is a nice way of approaching the genre, methinks. I have no idea where it is going, since I haven't read the manga, but I hope for some romantic conflict and lots of friendship goodness. Kaname does crush on his girl-next-door's onee-san, doesn't he? Always the sucker for older women, that one *chuckle* And it seems I can never leave alone any piece of fiction involving twins (JKR, is that the trauma you gave me?!)

Am I losing my touch?

Lately I am making mistakes telling apart the demographic designation of manga/anime, which surprises me to no end. I thought I had a grip on that - leaving aside the issue of the source of publication which defies common sense in the final analysis.

But seriouslly, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai is seinen? I was going to bet my head it was shounen! And I agreed that yes, maybe Chihayafuru was indeed josei, but that was more of a wishful thinking on my part at the stage when I've read all the scanlated chapters (10) and saw three episodes released to date.

Oh well. For now I've edited the labels, hoping that the confirmation is not too far ahead.

Battle Royale meets Kore wa Zombie desu ka?

Ok-kay, so... Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!! is...ridiculous? Ridiculously funny?

Based on the first episode, I can't say if it's horribly cliched or making fun of horrible cliches. You know how difficult it is to tell the different with Japanese ideas of spoof - take Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, that was so darn hilarious in parts that mocked the mahou shoujo and harem cliches, and then got perplexingly bad when it forgot it was supposed to be making fun of itself and started its ~ srs bzns~ thingie (and I mean the other zombie plotline and the second vampire ninja gone all wifey)

So far apart from the romantic plotline I didn't really get (are they or are they not siblings? why do they call her onee-sama?) nor did I appreciate much, they had this grand Battle Royale-meets-Kore wa Zombie style all-out war between classes, and so many stereotypes are players in the game - eyepatch and bondage girls! ninja maids! evil kimono girls! smartass strategist boys! yankee boys! ridiculously-named finishing moves! ninja ma..I mentioned these already, didn't I? At some points I was laughing out loud, forgetting to look for common sense, and at times I was so perplexed that I was tempted to turn it off.

Did anyone else see it? Cuz I'd like to hear what you make of it. As for me, I'll reserve my final judgement until a coupla more episodes are out.

omg my dreams of Kyoya-centic shoujo came true!

Before you get too taken in by the imagery, I probably need to apologize. The anime is not about him, BUT DARN IT doesnt he look just like baby Kyoya of your dreams?

Ahem I might be getting carried away here, sorry.

Let be start from the beginning. It's my first year of discovering a new season - meaning the season when most spring-summer animes get their finales and new ones start airing - as it slowly unfolds. Never before have I seen first episodes for anime only days after they started airing, sampling various projects to see which ones I liked enough to continue watching. To tell the truth, the experience feels great, since there wasn't time for any of the shows to get enough reviews to establish either a positive or a negative reputation and therefore letting me make up my own mind about them first.

I've decided to give a few of the shows a try - namely, Tamayura, which had lovely OVAs, Phi Brain, Kimi to Boku, Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai, and Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai which I already wrote about.

Of this season's premiers I was probably expecting least from Chihayafuru, and that's why it took me by surprise. The annonation gave me a really vague idea, showed me some startled-looking girl in a kimono and promised some youthful romance. What I got in the first episode was so many things I like: childhood friends harbouring romantic feelings, one girl-two guys triangle, cute boys (seriously, smart, pale and outcast boy in glasses vs outgoing, doomed-to-be-friend firy one - what else do I want for my shoujo triange?), a pretty but really goofy girl (I liked how they straightaway acknowledged both facts), and a poetry card game called karuta that looks surprisingly hot for such an innocent pastime. I have to say I like the stories that incorporate traditional Japanese activities like tea ceremonies, calligraphy or ikebana into romantic stories, and I remember I liked this game from one of Motomi Kyousuke's short stories, One Thousand Year Love Song. Funfact: it also features my all-time favourite best friends to lovers romance.

My verdict, judging solely by the first - and so far only - aired episode: I'll be watching that. Unless they screw something royally, there's always a pleasure of exploring childhood friendship and growing romance inside a triangle, and I'm excited to see more of karuta. And can a girl hope to see Arata (that's what baby Kyoya is called) all grown-up and in a kimono? I mean, they certainly showed us the girl wearing one. Just saying:)

My Lows, or How I Don't Really Mind Harems

For the purposes of this discussion, let me emphasize that I by harems I mean classic ones, a group of girls centered around a boy for various, often romantic, plot purposes. Not to be confused with reverse harems of one girl around a bunch of boys because my feelings on those are quite different (and those are a subject for a different post), and those curious can refer to this regularly updated blog on reverse harem.

As I get it, many girls have little patience for harem stories. It may be due to the fact that often they are shounen romance in genre, and are often really stingy in character depth department for female characters, and even more often heavily ecchi. I might be generalizing here, but hardly too much.

Given like that, the whole genre looks like something I'd never voluntarily watch and happily troll in my free time. Mysteriously, that doesn't happen.

I believe the answer lies in the order of movies that introduced me to Japanese-style entertainment.  I've seen Speedy Racer and Sailor Moon and Transformers (and a mecha series I can't remember the name for and it PAINS me because I was crazy about it so HELP ME) as a kid, but those are firmly rooted in the bulk of the-story-of-my-childhood rather than anything else and thus I don't think of them as animanga much. What really counts starts from my university years, and that makes Love Hina one of the first anime I've seen.

If you don't know the plot, you might easily guess it from the picture above - an average nerdy boy and a set of girl including but not limited to a shy violet, tsundere ninja, tomboy and many more. If you're curious, it also involves corny childhood promises to enter Tokyo University one day (hence the paranoid cramming look on Keitaro's face), a managing job in a female dorm by the hot springs and lots of compromising situations that inevitably lead to the main hero sent flying by Narusegawa's mightly kicks.

(the caption is not something from the anime, I wrote it to make a upic out of screenshot)
It was precisely those kicks that got me so happy about the series. It's hardly a secret now that I strongly associated the poor protagonist of the story with my ex-boyfriend (and not without a reason), therefore each time he went flying and disappeared as a sparlky spec on the horizon I was enjoying my evil glee moment. Hardly something to be proud of, but here you have it:) That's why I took all other things that came with it rather calmly, being pacified by Keitaro's misfortunes already. I was entertained and had little desire to judge anything too much, the same way you don't really lecture yourself on the lameness of junkfood when you've just happily wolfed down a cheeseburger you'd craved for.

The reason I'm saying all that (except to remember the sheer pleasure of seeing Keitaro fly)?

I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a new series, even though for all it's worth it looks like yet another harem in the making. I'm talking about Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, whose first episode aired recently.

The harem vibe it gives off is as subtle as a truck, but I think I will give it a chance to win me over because - underdogs, DUH. I'm willing to cheer for the third parties and unlucky ones and left-outs and outcasts and most importantly underdogs in any fiction at all, and the premise of this series is you're-an-outcast-too-let's-be-friends-yay, so you see where my enthusiasm comes from. I'll let you know if it leaves to my expectations or not:)