Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works 13 – Thoughts

Please be gentle ;_;7

Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works second season aired over a dozen hours ago in Japan, but I only just watched it a couple of hours ago. 780p encodes are all this terrible computer can handle. /sadface

Anyways, I wasn’t disappointed by what I saw. But that can be attributed to me already having experienced Unlimited Blade Works through the VN and just wanting to see it done faithfully by talented animators. It’s Ufotable, so it doesn’t take much to satisfy in that regard, but I wonder if the hype was worth it for people who only ever watch anime? That was a pretty killer wait and the hypetrain was like over 100,000,000km. Well, whatever.

Cardcaptor Sakura 【HD Rewatch】 36

DREAMING DREAMING

そして扉が…

ひらくよ~

I realize that it’s already April 2nd in Japan, but since it’s still Sakura’s birthday/CLAMP Day here at least, I should get off my lazy bum and continue with these posts!

Now that our little detour in Hong Kong is over and done with, the second season blogging of Cardcaptor Sakura is finally underway. Whereas the first season is pretty hefty (35 episodes!), this is actually relatively short – it’s just comprised of the very tail-end of the Clow Card arc, and let’s just say that the second season of CCS is as “long” as one average anime series (one cour, 11~12 episodes).

Uguu Re-read! The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya

The SOS Brigade will be entering a baseball tournament!

Sup everyone! We’re entering one of the first volumes that comprise of “short” stories. In terms of this book, we have four:

• The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya
• Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody
• Mysterique Sign
• Remote Island Syndrome

The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya, the short story that this entire volume is named after, is sort of a filler. It’s a funny chapter about the SOS Brigade’s attempt at baseball, but nevertheless it’s really weak compared to the other Suzumiya Haruhi arcs, mostly because nothing truly jaw-dropping happens. It’s kind of justified though, since the chapter itself is actually the pilot of the series that was published two months in The Sneaker before The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya ever came out. So it’s only natural that the most we get from this story are very basic showcases of the cast’s personalities and nothing really spectacular. Also, just in case you were wondering, yes – it’s exactly the same as the anime.

Uguu Re-read! The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (Light Novel)

Danger draws near combat waitress Mikuru!

We’re onto the second Suzumiya Haruhi novel now in my series of light novel posts, and I’m still dying to get through all of the adapted stuff so I can talk about material that has yet to become an anime and will probably never become an anime (;_;).

The second novel is the making of the SOS Brigade’s amateur film, “The Adventures of Asahina Mikuru”. You’ve probably seen it in the anime, and of course, it’s not much different.

Uguu Re-read! The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Light Novel)

I have no interests in ordinary humans.

If you guys have been following this blog since my early high school days (back when I had a sense of humor. 2006? 2007? Man, I don’t even know how long I’ve been around in the anime blogosphere anymore), you may know that not only am I the biggest Cardcaptor Sakura geek out there, but I’m also a gigantic Haruiist. It’s the closest thing I have to a religion besides maybe my strange fascination with Buddhism.

Well, anyways. There’s scarcely ever any new material for Suzumiya Haruhi nowadays. Tanigawa Nagaru hasn’t written a new novel in over three years. Kadokawa hasn’t issued any new anime adaptations by Kyoto Animation because he hasn’t written a new novel in over three years. I’m definitely going to watch the The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan anime adaptation when it airs, but it… just isn’t the same.

The only thing that remotely satisfies my cravings is re-reading the light novels and re-watching the anime. So… here I am. Might as well write about it.

Fate/stay night Unlimited Budget Works (1st Cour Impressions)

-I am the bone of my sword-
体は剣で出来ている。
-Steel is my body and fire is my blood-
血潮は鉄で心は硝子。
-I have created over a thousand blades-
幾たびの戦場を越えて不敗。
-Unknown to Death-
ただの一度も敗走はなく、
-Nor known to Life-
ただの一度も理解されない。
-Have withstood pain to create many weapons-
彼の者は常に独り 剣の丘で勝利に酔う。
-Yet, these hands will never hold anything-
故に、生涯に意味はなく
-So as I pray, UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS-
その体は、きっと剣で出来ていた。

Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works is, hands down, the best anime adaptation I’ve seen of anything non-manga, period. It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

ufotable really outdid themselves here. Ever since their Fate/Zero adaptation, the studio’s really become Type-Moon’s little pet animation studio. For good reason, too. I don’t know if the animated openings for the original visual novel and its Réalta Nua PS2 port were done by Studio DEEN or some other company, but it was really easy to tell that Type-Moon switched to ufotable for the Réalta Nua openings on the Vita version. That distinct animation style, that quality…

There’s really talented staff working at that animation studio, and it shows. The only other anime I’ve followed from ufotable were just OVAs and movies, such as their Tales of Symphonia and Kara no Kyoukai adaptations, which are naturally some high-quality stuff when it comes to animation. But the animation for Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works, a *TV series*, feels like it’s almost about the same quality. In fact, bits and pieces manage to seem just a bit more polished than even their Tales of OVAs or their openings for the Tales of games in general. Dayum, son…

Cancerous Ship Girls Rant: The Expansion

Image Credit: 蒼天空 from Pixiv

…Illness when writing that mess aside, I don’t think it needed to be any clearer for comprehension.

I was going to do another Cardcaptor Sakura post or a Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works post, but in light of certain reactions to my previous Kantai Collection post from denizens of the anime community’s infamous cesspool (I say “the”, but in actuality, there are quite a few of them – pick your poison) repeatedly missing the point, I feel the need to clarify more than a few things for others who might also misunderstand the context.

(The real reason is mostly because cramming for midterms in college sucks, and I’m finding an excuse to procrastinate and letting out stress.)

KA~N~KO~RE! Kantai Collection TVアニメ 始まります! (Rant incoming)

SHIP GIRLS

(EDIT: Oh lord, just read this)

Just a small rant before I get into my first impressions of the first episode, because I’m easily annoyed by the anime(-only) fandom. I’m writing this in bed while the flu kills my body, so it might not be as coherent or friendly as I’d like it to be, but whatever.

Ufotable Cafe Fate/stay night Popularity Poll

Image Credit: Fate/stay night Cafe

I… suppose the rankings aren’t that bad, but I’m surprised that Shinji got voted at all. Why not Gilgamesh? Or even Taiga?

He was well-written in the sense that he was easy to hate (a well-written piece of filth, if that makes any sense), so I’m surprised someone honestly went online, saw a popularity poll, and thought, “Hm, a popularity poll? Shinji. Definitely Shinji!”

Must have did it for kicks. Must have.

Happy New Year!

Image Credit: あきのん from Pixiv

よいお年をお迎えください!

It’s finally 2015 on my side of the world, guys! I didn’t do a “12 Days of Anime” countdown for the end of 2014, but I’m still up to share some blurbs of my Japanese-related highlights of 2014 all in one post (excluding Fanime, you can see that post here).