• Title: Myself;Yourself

• Studio: Dogakobo
• Genre: Romance

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥

• Animation: ♥♥♥
• Character Design: ♥♥♥
• OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥
• Overall: ♥♥ (…Don’t call me, I’ll call you.)

Thoughts:
Allow me, as usual, to preface this by saying that moe romances aren’t really my thing.

That said: the series opens with Chiyo-chan. No fooling: Tomoko Kaneda, who played Chiyo-chan in Azumanga Daioh, plays Aoi Oribe in Myself;Yourself. The character appears quite a bit in this first episode, but not at all in the ending sequence (which focuses on three females in particular), so I’m guessing she’s not a romantic interest.

Which is good, because she’s Chiyo-chan, and that would just be wrong. (Chiyo-chan has one of those voices that you really shouldn’t transfer over to another character.)

So, the series is centered on Sana Hidaka, a guy who left his hometown at the age of 11 with his parents and returned without them, for undisclosed reasons, at the age of 16. Aoi recognizes him right away; it takes a sec for her to recognize her. His best buddy Shuu and Shuu’s twin sister Shuri he recognizes right away, however.

And then there’s Nanaka, his close childhood friend. He spots her at a temple and doesn’t recognize her, and she totally snubs him. Then, when he continues to not realize who she is at school, she slaps him. WTF? I’m sure there’s a reason why she’s mad, and I’m also pretty confident that it’s one I’ll find stupid.

I find it unlikely that I’ll want to continue the series, but as this genre goes the animation is well-done and the characters are nice to look at. I obviously don’t know how it compares to the original novel the anime is based on, but it looks like it’ll be a fun show for romance drama fans. Especially if Nanaka keeps beating up Sana.

No, not the Drew Barrymore flick. And not really 50, either, but I’ve got a nice pile of first episodes to watch, and I’m going to try to get through them all today. And ideally, I’ll write up all of my first date posts for them today too. I have Blue Drop, Myself;Yourself, Clannad, Da Capo II, Gundam 00, Night Wizard, and Kaiji. And I’m all in marathon mode too, thanks to a Heroes marathon yesterday.

So, time to get crackin’!

So the absolute first October to be subbed was Da Capo II, followed by Myself;Yourself and Clannad, all of which I’m putting off. (I’m sure I’ve mentioned that the dating sim/eroge-to-anime is not my favorite genre.)

So, that makes MY first show of the fall Dragonaut: The Resonance.

Title: Dragonaut -The Resonance-
Studio: Gonzo
Genre: SciFi/Mech

Ratings (out of 5):
Story: ♥♥
Animation: ♥♥♥♥
Character Design: ♥♥♥
OP/ED Themes: ♥♥
Overall: ♥♥♥ (No kiss this date, Dragonaut, but maybe next time…)

Thoughts:
My absolute first impression of the show is that Gonzo wanted to make their own Code Geass. The main character is a disgruntled teenage boy with a slight sister fixation who’s lost his family. He meets a strange girl with weird powers who saves his life. And judging from the OP and next episode preview, they’re setting up for a bit of a rivalry between him and his childhood friend. The show also has a bunch of sci-fi going on in the background, and is clearly going to be a large-cast kind of deal.

But this first episode feels a bit clumsily put together. I mean, first off, in one episode we are introduced to twelve characters, many of whom don’t even get names, let alone motivations in the first episode. (And there are still a few in the opening sequence we’ve yet to meet, too.) On top of that the audience is still trying to put a finger on what exactly is happening, which leaves the whole thing a bit muddled. If the show gets enough time I think it can work out this problem, but woe betide if this is some 12-14 episode series that rushes through everything in a panic (which was, I think, the key issue with Jyu Oh Sei).

The character designs also feel a bit off. They all clearly are attempts to make the characters stand out and look distinct, but many of them just feel a little weird– like the scientist who can’t be bothered to take her lab coat off but when a flirty reporter asks her to but who wears a super-crazy low cut blouse, or the “ojou-sama” character who has bangs that are half purple (the bottom half). In fact, the only design that really feels solid to me is heroine Toa’s. And may I also say that it’ll be nice to hear Minori Chihara play a role that doesn’t sound exactly like Yuki from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (even if she only gets like, what, one line in the whole episode?).

I think the show has a lot of promise in its story and characters, so if Gonzo can relax a bit with the pacing and let us get to know the world they’ve created and the people who live in it, this might be a pretty fine show.

Myself;Yourself, an “adventure” game for PS2 by Yeti, is going to be made into an anime this October, so sayeth Moon Phase. The game follows a boy named Satou who has just transferred back to his old neighborhood after several years away, which naturally means…grown-up versions of childhood sweethearts, eh?

The pic above is from the characters section of the game’s website, and if your first thought looking at it is “there are some funny proportions in there,” believe me when I say I’m with you on it.

Moon Phase also notes that jpop singer Kaori, who just put out the album re;stratosphere, will sing the show’s theme.