Those of you who have been following this blog for a few anime seasons– i.e. those of you who remember my Shugo Chara! layout –know that although I rarely enjoy mahou shoujo anymore, I adore Peach-Pit’s Shugo Chara!. So of course, I was thrilled to hear via 2nn that the series is going to continue through its second year, which will begin this August.

Hop, step, jump indeed!

No, seriously, look: first, there were those Mangaka Association awards I posted about before. Then…

- The 32nd Kodansha Manga Awards, with Moyashimon taking the top prize (best general manga), among other familiar names (Shugo Chara! Woot!)

- The 12th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, with ¥2 million going to…Moyashimon! Hmm. I’m detecting a pattern here.

Right then, moving on to the rest of the news…

Anime:
- The sequel to MS Gundam IGLOO will be an OVA, says Moon Phase. Shown above.

- This is only barely anime-related anymore, but 4kids isn’t doing too well and I thought you should know. And yeah, I know a couple of you are snickering in the back row there.

- Anime on DVD thinks it knows FUNimation’s next licensing announcement. I’m convinced!

Movies:
- TokyoGraph is on a roll; they’ve confirmed a sequel film to the manga-to-live-action-movie Crows Zero. The sequel will be directed by the original’s helmer Takashi Miike, and Shun Oguri returns as the lead, Genji Takaya.

- TG also reports that Jin Akanishi, a member of the popular boy band KAT-TUN, is taking on his first voice acting role…as Speed in the Japanese dub of the new Speed Racer flick. Hmm.

Conventions:
- Girls rule, boys drool! Alafista reports that women outnumber men at the enormous Comiket doujinshi events, 57% to 43%. There are a lot of other interesting tidbits of info in the article, such as the fact that 71% of the doujinshika are women, and the average attendee is 2-3 years younger than the average circle member.

- FanimeCon is not only running a charity auction this year, they’ll also match all donations. Sweet!

Well, I put up the new layout, after much deliberation over which show to feature. For those who don’t know my little scheme with layouts is that as each season ends, I pick the show that was my favorite for the season and do a layout based on it for during the next season.

However, fall ‘07 was such a mediocre season overall, there were no obvious choices for my favorite. I eventually narrowed it down to Ghost Hound, Moyashimon, or Shugo Chara! before eventually settling on the latter. And I worked my ass off trying to make sure it wasn’t TOO hideously pink. Mostly I like the layout because it has so much space for content.

So! New layout. It will be here until ~March, unless I get extremely tired of it. ♥

Edit: I HAVE noticed it looks a little funny in IE6. I’m working on it. It seems to work fine everywhere else though…and y’all should be using Opera, Firefox, or at least IE7+ by now anyway. ;)

So we’re up to ~episode six in most series, which is the halfway point for the Fall season (though not necessarily the halfway point for each show). I figured I’d check in and talk about where I am with each show these days.

• Bamboo Blade: Miya-Miya owns the ass of every female character this season, hands down. Then again, it’s not like she’s up against a lot of competition. Status: Watching regularly.
• Blue Drop: The pacing is sooo slow, it took until episode three or four for anything to actually happen. But the promise of lesbians keeps me going. Status: Watching regularly.
• Clannad: I maintain that this show would be so much better if they would just ditch Nagisa entirely. Beyond that, I’m liking it better than I expected to. I do still wish that anyone looked somewhat close to how old they actually are / sound…but eh. Status: Watching regularly.
• Dragonaut: The Resonance: I can’t explain why I keep watching this show. I’m not really fond of the art style, the plot is pretty mediocre…and yet, I keep watching. I blame the boobies. Status: Watching regularly.
• Genshiken 2: Ogiue’s Sasahara x Madarama FTW. That is all. Status: Watching regularly.
• Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun: GOOO REIKA! GO GO GO! Mayu’s cute, but boring. Status: Watching regularly.
• Jyuushin Enbu: Story-wise it’s gotten better, but the art and animation are still incredibly mediocre compared to FMA, and the characters aren’t as cool either. Status: Watching every so-often.
• Kaiji: I’m interested in seeing where this goes, but running out of space on my anime plate for watching it. Status: Dropped for watching later.
• Kidou Senshi Gundam 00: Major improvements in terms of developing characters, but I think I still like the ending theme better than anything else about the show. Status: Watching regularly.
• KimiKiss: I like this show, and I think it’s because it’s a dating sim but not one that focuses on one guy and a dozen girls, but rather a group of friends (male and female) and their love lives. Status: Watching regularly.
• Kodomo no Jikan: Epic yet uncomfortable win. But I’ve ranted about this show being undervalued as mere pedo fodder enough, so suffice to say Status: Watching regularly.
• Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro: I would totally be watching this show IF ANYONE WOULD FREAKIN’ SUB IT. I’ve actually already seen people cosplay from the manga, and yet no one will sub the anime? Am I missing something? Status: Watching…if it ever comes out.
• Minamike: I like the show a lot, but almost all the comedy comes from either crazy middle sister Kana, or crazy Kana-like characters (Chiaki and Haruka each have a classmate with a similar dynamic). And Kana is never given the opportunity to have any redeeming features. Hmph. Status: Watching regularly.
• Moyashimon: This one’s a little behind, but I like it…though the agriculture 101 bits can be a little dull, the rest of the batshit insane stuff makes up for it. Status: Watching regularly.
• Night Wizard: I’m getting a little tired of Eris being the sweet, cheerful, flock-of-birds attracting Mary Sue, and annoyed at Renji being the show’s whipping boy with, like Minamike’s Kana, no real opportunity to redeem himself. Status: Considering dropping.
• Prism Ark: …One episode was really enough. Status: Dropped.
• Rental Magika: It got so boring in episode three I just couldn’t continue. Status: Dropped.
• Shinrei Kari / Ghost Hound: I still have some issues with the art style, but the pacing has picked itself up nicely and I’m curious to see where it’s going. Status: Watching regularly.
• Shion no Oh: Mmm, delicious trap, must eat. Status: Watching regularly.
• Shugo Chara! Mmm, delicious magical girl, must eat. This is probably one of the more solid shows of the season, IMO, though it’s obvious not for everyone. Status: Watching regularly.
• Suteki Tantei Labyrinth: Looks cute, but pretty dull– I’m more interested in the dolls than in anything to do with the main character. Status: Dropped.

• Title: Shugo Chara!
• Studio: Satelight
• Genre: Mahou Shoujo

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥♥

• Animation: ♥♥♥♥
• Characters: ♥♥♥♥
• OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥
• Overall: ♥♥♥½ (A date so cute I got cavities.)
  

Thoughts:
I’ll admit, this is one of the shows I was closer to excited about– I think Peach-Pit does some really fun manga, and the first two volumes of Shugo Chara! (released by Del Rey) were great. Not to mention I’m a bit of a fan of Rozen Maiden (desu).

So. Shugo Chara!’s heroine is Amu, a girl whose outside appearance is that of a cool, punk-y badass sort of girl. In reality Amu is shy, but her reticence and occasional bluntness is taken for hardcore-ness by her classmates. She feels stuck in the persona she’s been given and wants to bust out.

Shugo Chara!’s handling of the idea is undoubtedly cutesy and occasionally cheesy, but on the other hand, it’s the sort of issue most people can really relate to. As with other Peach-Pit works, though, it’s really the characters that carry the series. In particular I really like Amu; not ALL of that caustic exterior is false. I also like that most of the time, she doesn’t sound like a freakin’ three-year-old; her normal (non-SD, non-big reaction) voice is amazingly realistic when I compare it to the voices of female heroines in so many other shows.

Oh, right, back to plot. So, one night she wishes for the courage to be ‘reborn’ as her true self. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds three eggs (which she laid?)– pink plaid, blue plaid, and gree plaid. (No, really.) She takes them with her to school to keep them warm and safe, and then finds herself confessing her love to her crush, the school “prince”…except she does it in front of an auditorium full of students. Oops! Wonder if those eggs had something to do with it. *cough*

The aesthetic of Shugo Chara! is closer to punk than Victorian gothic, and honestly, I find a lot of the art more pleasant to the eye than Rozen Maiden’s; I think it’s the use of lots of blues and greens and pinks, whereas RM used a lot of very strong yellows and reds that could be a bit glaring at time.

Not all Rozen Maiden fans will like Shugo Chara!, I gather. I think a lot of people liked the dark feel of RM, which is pretty lacking in the lighter Shugo Chara!. But I really enjoyed the episode myself. Then again, I have a fairly high tolerance for Cute…

According to MantanWeb, the theme song for the upcoming PEACH-PIT anime Shugo Chara! going to be performed by two members of Beryyz Koubou (”Koubou” means “workshop”), the little sister protogee band of the popular girl group Morning Musume.

The members are Momoko Tsugunaga and Miyabi Natsuyaki, who will be joined by °C-ute’s Aori Suzuki. The three make up the newly formed idol unit Buono! This is the only pic I could find of ‘em (from here.

I did dig up this video of the gals making the announcement at the Nakayoshi Fest, though.

Current Mood:  Thoughtful

A bunch of new anime has been announced recently, mostly presumably for the Fall season. I’m always so excited about new shows. I think it’s a combination of being able to announce them to fans, and also just the potential that’s there. Any of the shows could be the Next Big Thing, you know?

Anyway, some of the recent announcements…
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