Date: 2009-11-16 22:00 Subject: HATE FUN 2003! Cromartie High School Security: Public

Hiroaki Sakurai (Digi Charat) adapts Eiji Nonaka’s absurd high school manga in a pretty effective series. Personally I find Sakurai’s delivery of jokes a little slow, something Digi Charat suffered from too, and I think Akitaro Daichi would have made a better series for my tastes. That being said, comedy is subjective, and I still found it pretty funny and some episodes are classics. The Ningen Nante episode for example.

Originally published at AWESOME ENGINE. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2009-11-15 22:18 Subject: Love Mouse Security: Public

More independent anime. This time from hidakashinsaku, and again found via SWFBLOG. The odd decision to use synthesized English voices and an apparently machine translated script hurts it somewhat.

Part 2
Part 3

Originally published at AWESOME ENGINE. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2009-11-15 12:00 Subject: HATE FUN 2003! Full Metal Panic Fumoffu Security: Public

Something I actually liked.

The Full Metal Panic franchise is taken from Gonzo’s hands and passed to some Kyoto Animation, with this their first production of their own. Stripping the drama from the Full Metal Panic world, you are left with a clever variation on the so called magical girlfriend genre popularised by Urusei Yatsura. A military boyfriend show if you will.

In much the same way that Lum doesn’t understand human culture and uses alien technology in a way that disturbs the lifestyle of the humans around here, a similar culture clash occurs with child soldier Sousuke Sagara’s interaction with the students of Jindai High.

For something that’s been done to death for decades, it was impressive to see a new twist, and I think it works much better stripped of the more serious baggage of the FMP story proper.

Originally published at AWESOME ENGINE. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2009-11-15 10:00 Subject: HATE FUN 2003! Please Twins! Security: Public

Spin-off from Please Teacher! This time: incest!

Again, I know a lot of people liked this and again I had zero interest.

Originally published at AWESOME ENGINE. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2009-11-15 08:00 Subject: HATE FUN 2003! Shadow Star Narutaru Security: Public Tags: vagaries

This anime adaptation of Mohiro Kitoh’s manga was a lot of English speaking people’s first exposure to Kitoh’s somewhat bleak world view. Deliberately, deceptively cute this is a stronger adaptation in terms of writing to the later adaptation of Bokurano: Ours, probably in part due to Chiaki J. Konata’s presence on staff. Visually though, it wasn’t particularly gripping. While true to Kitoh’s visuals, it just felt a little flat to me. At least in the episodes I saw.

Originally published at AWESOME ENGINE. You can comment here or there.