Saved by a mermaid ...

Seto no Hanayome (瀬戸の花嫁) follows the misadventures of one Michishio Nagasumi, who, while on holiday with his parents at Seto Bay, is saved from drowning by a young mermaid, Seto San. However, according to mermaid law, either the mermaid who revealed her identity, or the person to whom her identity was revealed, needs to be executed. In an attempt to save the lives of both children, their parents agree to have the young couple become engaged. How fortunate that they happen to be the same age, ‘ey?

Thus Nagasumi gains himself a beautiful bride-to-be and San’s life is saved, although we need to make you aware of the fact that her father (being the typical doting dad), is less than happy about the method employed to save his daugher, and is very much in favour of seeing Nagasumi dead and his little girl back where she belongs.

Summer holidays do come to an end, however, and Nagasumi gets to head back home to normality – or so he believes. San, being his fiancé, decides to tag along, and as such, Nagasumi’s troubles are just beginning …

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The term, harem, tends to crop up a lot when various anime series are discussed. Now, in the unlikely event that this is your first foray into anime, and visions of Arabic princes with forty-odd wives fill your head, I need to explain one or two things. Well, maybe one.

The word harem (like many other words) was simply adapted to describe situations in anime where the main character is male, and the majority of the remaining protagonists are female, are various ages within one or two years of the main character, and they all have various levels of feelings towards the main character. These feelings tend to vary in type and intensity.

Surrounded by beautiful girls - what more could a guy want? (Shuffle! and Seto no Hanayome)

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And here we are – having finally arrived at our third and final installment of the Summer 2010 Anime preview – although, in truth, it has become more of a review at this point, since many of the shows have already started airing. What’s more, because of deals struck by such online entities as Crunchyroll, Funimation and AnimeNewsNetwork, a number of these shows are already available to watch online.

Which is great if you have a nice broadband connection to play with. But I’m not here to discuss the internet – moving on, let’s take a look at three or four more shows I have an interest in.

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Before we continue on with our preview of anime series being launched in Summer 2010 – I thought I should make mention that the creators of ToLove Ru has announced a second series of the anime based on the manga by Hasemi Saki and Yabuki Kentaro. No details on the possible release date yet, but I’ll keep an eye out for more info. What we do know, is that the director is different, but studio, seiyuu and the majority of the staff are the same as the original series – thanks to Mangajet for the info.

Finally, since there is quite a few series coming – I’m going to focus on those series I’m looking forward to more – so I can actually get this covered before the Autumn releases :P

And now, back to our anime preview, the next set of series: Read the rest of this entry »

Since we’re approaching the end of June, this post technically comes a little late, but, I’ve decided to give a quick list of the anime series we’re expecting to hit Japanese screens from June to August this year.

The guys over on T.H.A.T Anime were nice enough to compile a list of the series expected for release, some of which have started their runs already. Notedly, they go into a lot of detail about each series, with each of the writers giving a short comment with their thoughts on the series – I’m just going to provide you with the list and a short summarised synopsis of the series; for the details, as well as some pretty pictures and links to trailers, head over to T.H.A.T Anime’s Summer Preview.
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You might find the title for this post a little odd, but trust me, it has bearing on the series. I don’t think I’ve actually really slated an anime on this blog, but there’s a first time for everything.

While watching Aika, you’re probably going to have a fair bit of trouble figuring out what the series is actually about. I’ll give you a brief run through the list of possible options:
1. It’s about Aika
2. It’s about a plot to destroy the world
3. It’s about panties.

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All of those who know me, and those of you who have been following Animated Meanderings for any length of time should be familiar with my extended love affair for those anime series derived from Key’s games. These are, of course, Kanon, Air, and more recently Clannad, of which I did a review in the not too distant past.

So, finally, I managed to get my paws on Clannad ~After Story~, and this managed to sit for my shelf for quite a length of time before I finally got around to watching it. You might find this odd, but I was actually scared to watch it. One of the reasons is that it would finally bring to a close a much loved series, and the other, more significant reason is the fact that I knew what was coming. Read the rest of this entry »

It was with great joy that South African anime fans received the news that South Africa would be getting its own dedicated anime channel. The joy was short-lived however, and soon complaints surfaced regarding the endless reruns and repeats, the lack of new shows and the usual messed up episode orders.

Three months after the launch, I decided to comment on the state of Animax, and at the time, stated that I thought Animax still had some promise. Views swayed both ways though, with a lot of people having negative opinions about the channel and the direction it was moving in.

However, Animax made it through the first six months, and suddenly seemed to start getting things right. New shows started appearing, albeit at a slow pace … and when I say new I mean shows that the channel hasn’t been airing non-stop for 5 months. Nothing newer than 4 years old. In October 2008, I decided to revisit the topic.

Animax was still not living up to its promise.

And now, I’m starting to think people have given up. Animax seems to have lost the plot and turned into an MTV clone. A lot of reality TV shows have been added to the channel – not all bad, I’ll admit, but I’ll give a brief rundown:

Ninja Warriors

Ninja Warriors is a Japanese reality show, in which contestants have to compete in the obstacle course from hell in order to be crowned Ninja Warrior. And to complete the course, you’ll need ninja skills – at this point (we’re watching shows from 2007 at the moment), only one person has ever managed to finish all the stages.

Takeshi’s Castle

Another obstacle type scenario, but this one seems to be geared a lot more towards the contestants enjoying themselves. Takeshi’s Castle is good for a couple of laughs, and the commentary tends to be pretty witty as well, even though its being done in English.

That’s it for the good stuff – now lets move on to the sewage:

Next

Next is a dating game, American I might add, which features a bunch of guys and girls who think the world of themselves. It features one guy (or girl), and a bunch of members of the opposite sex who do nothing, as far as I can see, but humiliate themselves. And of course, trying to convince the viewer that they’re the shit.

As far as dating shows go, it’s probably one of the shallowest ones I’ve come across and not worth the time I actually spent watching it. Or writing this.

Bromance

No idea what this one is about. I’ve seen it advertised, but I’ve never seen it. However, it’s American, it’s reality TV, and once those two have been combined I don’t think I’m going to stress myself trying to find an actual time it’s playing at. Moving on.

Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands

This one is a pointless little Survivor clone in which they took everything that made Survivor great, tossed it out the window and came up with their own little failure of a formula. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the point of these types of situations to challenge the contestants?

Instead, they get a new addition every so often and the two opposing teams square off and try and get the new sod to join their side. This includes getting the girls to wear nothing but bikini’s and flirt with the guy (if it’s a guy). And they get supplies dropped off from time to time. Sweet.

Sounds like the sort of desert island situation I’d like to be in. Who wants to get home if you get your food dropped off for free every week. Oh, and its British by the way. And crap.

Solitary

This show is actually vaguely interesting, but I got bored pretty quickly. A bunch of contestants are locked up in cubes by themselves and competed against each other in a bunch of tortuous events – the first one to give up is out of the game. Of course, they don’t see each other, so they have no idea when someone has given up.

Their only contact with the outside world is a semi-sadistic female computer voice who completely fails at her HAL 9000 impression. I may be interested if people start vanishing mysteriously. Also British.

Kenny vs Spenny

I haven’t watched this one. I don’t want to. The ads themselves were enough to put me off for life, and convinced me that Animax has finally lost the plot. Kenny and Spenny compete against each other and whoever loses need to perform an act of humiliation. It’s the lowest form of toilet humour, and could only possibly have any kind of following in the US. I hope. But it’s nothing more than a steaming pile of …. let’s not go there.

I shudder to think that people might actually find this entertaining. Once again, its a US program – and for the life of me I don’t see its relevance to the channel or target audience.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Shows like Bleach, Death Note and Black Lagoon have made it onto the list, but at the same time, we have Negima and Wolf’s Rain, which have been playing for two years, and .hack//Sign, which have been with us since the beginning. A brief foray into subtitled anime with a Japanese soundtrack didn’t last very long either.

The worst part is that the abovementioned reality shows take up prime-time slots. Yes, from 6pm to 11pm, the people who wanted the channel and who want to watch anime would be better off just sticking their heads in the toilet. It might be more entertaining too.

Right now, the channel has many more negatives than positives; for myself, I’d rather just go out and buy anime. It’s more expensive, yes, but I can watch it in the language of my choice, at the time of my choosing and I don’t get showered by crap every night.

I’m sorry Animax, but you’ve failed us. You probably won’t go away by yourselves. It’s sad. Hopefully, we’ll one day get a channel here that cares about its viewer base. But I won’t be switching to channel 126 again. Go away.

Eh? What? Where did she go?

Patience my friends. All shall be explained.

The second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya finished airing in Japan last month. Basically, it consists of the first season of the Melancholy, and adds in additional episodes based on events in the novels following after the first volume.

I’m currently, rather painfully, making my way through the ‘Endless Eight’ arc – an arc which reportedly ‘pissed off’ a large number of fans. It doesn’t surprise me. I feel the same way. And I’m a rather big fan. But I’ll talk about that at a later date, when I finish the series and do a review. In detail …

So what’s this ‘Disappearance’ about? you may ask. Were people so disenchanted that the series got scrapped?

No – a teaser trailer was actually aired at the end of season 2 – the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya concerns the events detailed in the fourth volume of the series – and a planned movie is in the making – scheduled for release in Spring 2010 (that would make it March-April for the people in the Southern Hemisphere).

So what’s the story about? Read the title again … fair enough – you want a synopsis. I’ll give you one.

Our favourite cynic – Kyon – wakes up one morning to find the world he had wanted when he started high-school. Normal. Very normal. So normal, in fact, that he finds it abnormal.

No Haruhi. No SOS Brigade. Asahina doesn’t know who he is. Koizumi (and his entire class) doesn’t exist. Yuki, the ever silent, expressionless doll – has emotions and no abilities beyond that of a normal human. Asakura Ryouko sits behind him in class, in the position formerly occupied by the SOS Brigade Chief, and considering the events of the first season, probably not something Kyon is entirely comfortable with.

However, Kyon has had, by this time, about eight months to get used to the SOS Brigade and the whirlwind disaster (read Haruhi) that had transformed his life and immediately sets out to find out why his world had been turned upside down. And to set it back to rights – if possible.

You most likely haven’t read the novels yet – the second novel is only now being released in translated format – but when they become available, I would definitely recommend getting hold of them and giving them a read – for a new author (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was Tanigawa Nagaru’s first novel) it was a spell-binding read.

My final treat – Kadokawa has made the 30-second teaser trailer of the upcoming movie available on their YouTube channel – have a look.

I made mention, more than 2 years ago on my now long-dead MySpace profile of the expected sequel to Kiddy Grade. It really appeared to be in the works at the time, with a mysterious promo-video released, and it even had an expected launch-date planned. There was an official site for it as well.

And that was pretty much all that happened – the series itself never materialised. But now, I have some good news for Kiddy Grade fans; the much awaited sequel is finally making its appearance.

I’m not certain if I should treat it as a direct sequel, or as a spin-off. The new series is called Kiddy Girl-and (sounds vaguely lecherous, doesn’t it?) which takes place (according to this article Anime News Network) approximately 20 years after the events of the original.

The series introduces two new characters to the Kiddy Grade universe: the energetic Ascoeur and the more reserved Q-fueille. The sound like a perfect complementary partnership similar to that witnessed between Eclair and Lumiere, who were the main characters in Kiddy Grade. The two will be voiced by Uchida Aya and Gouda Aya respectively.

The two new characters are in training to become full ES-members. The question of course remains – will we see some of the original cast of Kiddy Grade? It seems so – the promo video shows shots of Tweedledee and Tweedledum – and other members (including Lumiere and Eclair) are listed in the credits on Anime News Network’s Kiddy Girl-and page. They also appear in the list of cast members listed on the official site. The site is in Japanese though, so feel free to check if you can read it.

The show is scheduled to release next week … yes … you read right – next week on the 15th October 2009. If you’re looking forward to it – here’s the latest promo video released by Kadokawa Shoten to whet your appetite a bit.