Wednesday, March 7. 2007
 The spring anime season shall be hot and humid, with a lot of interesting stuff coming out. Personally, to determine what I'll watch next season, I listen to my friends and randomly browse the animesuki forums. So yea, here's what I should be watching next season :
-Mahou shoujo lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
-Claymore
-Hayatenogotoku (Hayate the combat butler)
-El Cazador
-Tales of symphonia (Technically, this is an OVA, but it's coming out this spring)
Mahou shoujo lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
This is the follow up to Nanoha A's. It happens 10 years after A's. Nanoha, Fate and Hayate are grown up now (I can hear the lolicon crying) and work for the time-space administration bureau. They are joined by a new cast of little girls (lolicon rejoice!) who somehow get powers. The animation will be done by the same studio (Ivory) so expect the same amount of explosions and giant beams everywhere on the screen. Not much more is known about the story of this season, beside the fact that it follows the manga (which makes the link inbetween As and StrikerS). The op should hopefully be sung by the awesome Nana mizuki, which I just love.
Claymore
This one is an adaptation of a shonen jump manga of the same name. In a post-apocalyptic world (or maybe just a parallel world, I have no idea), monsters called the Yoma eat humans. They have shape-shifting abilities and thus are able to blend easily into society. Once they kill someone, they can steal his memories as well as his appearance. Fortunately, there are wandering mercenaries called the Claymore who take care of such vermin. The Claymores are females who have been genetically enhanced with monster genes, which makes them even stronger than the monsters. I know it sounds rather cliché, but what is interesting is that the more they use their powers, the more they become like the monsters. That is why they are more feared than loved by the villagers they help. I've read the first volume of the manga and I found it to be really interesting. The animation will be handled by studio Madhouse (Trigun, Tenjou tenge, Beck and so many more...), so I believe we can expect it to be rather good.
Hayate no gotoku (Hayate the combat butler)
I must admit, the name alone sold me on that one. Then I read the premise, and it is so incredibly silly that it just makes me want to watch it more. I'll simply quote from Anidb (which quotes from ANN it seems) :
16-year-old Hayate is really down on his luck. Because his unemployed parents are good-for-nothings who waste what money they have on gambling, Hayate had to start working at a young age to help out his family. Although such experience has made him inhumanly fast and tough and skilled at things boys aren`t normally skilled it, it has also left him in an awkward position, as his parents have racked up such a huge gambling debt that they have sold Hayate to the yakuza for the value of his organs. In a desperate attempt to avoid that fate, Hayate decides to become a “bad guy†and kidnap someone to be held for ransom, but his efforts to do so are mistaken as a confession of love by the girl he targets. When he helps save the (as it turns out) ultra-wealthy 13-year-old Nagi from real kidnappers, she takes him in and gives him a job as her new personal butler (and love interest) until he can pay off his debt. But Hayate is more attracted to Nagi`s beautiful teenage maid Maria, and head butler Klaus is initially disapproving of the boy with such a poor look. And then there`s Nagi`s pet Tama, who is also a force to be reckoned with.
It is based off a manga of the same name by Hata Kenjirou. On the musical side, the op will be sung by KOTOKO, which has a tendency to be loved by a lot of people, but I can't really classify her as a singer that I like.
El Cazador
Well, what can I say more about this than what mduo already told us? I have a tendency to like these kinds of "girls with guns" shows. Noir was my first anime ever and I have a bit of nostalgia toward it. Beside, Kajiura Yuki is usually excellent and I'm looking forward to what she'll give us this time around.
Tales of symphonia
Again, not much to say about this, beside the fact that it is the exact same story as the videogame. This one is coming out a bit later than the others, namely in June. The animation will be handled by ufotable (They're relatively unknown, but they have cooperated with other studios on a lot of projects.) and Colette Brunel will be voiced by none other than Nana Mizuki  .
So that's pretty much what I'm looking forward to. There's also the second season on higurashi no naku koro ni coming out sometime this year, but I have no idea when, and we'd probably know it already if it was to be aired in spring. Now I just need to find something to help me wait until April...
Monday, January 15. 2007
 Lately, I've had the chance to watch a not-so-recent series called Mahou shoujo lyrical Nanoha. Obviously, it is yet another magical girls show and it might scare most anime viewer with its extreme cheesyness. But fear not, young otaku, it's actually better than it sounds.
Takamachi Nanoha is a young girl (about 12 years old?) who lives a normal life with her family. Suddenly, one day, she meets a small ferret who gives her a magical jewel and tells her that they must find the magical jewel seeds before they destroy the world. Up to now, that's pretty cliché and rather uninteresting, but what is interesting with Nanoha is everything around the story. The animation is very well done. There is a scene in episode 1 which probably stands as one of the best scenes I ever saw in an anime, animationwise. The characters themselves are really well detailed and well... loliness = win in my book XD.
Fortunately for the story, it evolves into rather unexpected ways. It even goes into science-fiction territory at some points. Yet, when you reach episode 9, you can pretty much predict what is going to happen until the end. Another interesting element in nanoha is the way the characters fight. Fights in Nanoha usually have a bunch of big explosions and special moves, reminiscent of mecha anime. Some battles even last for more than half an episode (especially in the second season). In a sense, this is the beauty of Nanoha: it can cater to many kinds of audience.
Nanoha is very conservative with it's music, with more classical music and, at some times, piano reminiscent of the Melody of Oblivion soundtrack. Sorry, there's not much for the electric guitar and drum freaks. Both first and second season openings are performed by Nana Mizuki, and both endings are performed Yukari Tamura. While the openings are really good (especially the second one), I do believe that the endings are a bit too childish though, at least for my taste.
There is not much more to say about Nanoha. It's a rather cheesy anime which has some nice moments. As I usually describe it to my friends "It's a mecha anime where the mechas are disguised as little girls and fight for love, justice and freedom". It's definitely worth your time if you can laugh at it, instead of finding the whole "becoming friend with the whole world" principle annoying.
(Btw, did I say that it was lolicious?)
(Oh and, Mahou shoujo super robot taisen)
Monday, November 20. 2006
As a type-moon fan, I usually hang out on an irc channel called #beastslair, which is a channel dedicated to everything Type-moon, ranging from Fate stay/night to kara no kyokai. During my various visit there, I'vwe had the chance to discover many interesting sites, like Arai's Fuyuki wiki. Yet, the thing I'm probably the most grateful for discovering is this : Broken phantasm.
Broken phantasm is an arrange album (wait, is that even the proper words to name this? anyway, that's how they call it....sounds like engrish) of various songs from Fate stay/night, Fate Hollow/ataraxia and Melty blood. It was realeased by a really obscure japanese band called Crow's claw. It's mostly more metal-ish versions of these songs, with one of them having techno elements added. It's really different from most metal cds, as only one song has lyrics. The electric guitar is easily the most prominent and the better sounding instrument out of all the ones used in the various song. Yea, the guitarist has talent and it shows. It's truly an album for electric guitar lovers, as the band itself seems to really put an emphasis on it (their 5th album is called "parental advisory, explicit guitar" :p). Most of the songs are truly better versions of the original games' soundtracks, which only makes this CD more awesome.
All in all, this is a great album to own by any type-moon fan out there, or even metal fans who want some good old electric guitar driven music.
Tuesday, November 14. 2006

Yo, this is red, the third member of nekomimi music. Unlike soc, my posts will be mostly about anime and anime music in general. After all, I'm not a remixer :p . But before writting further about anime, I think it is in order for me to do a quick presentation. So yea, like soc said, I'm a canadian and a quebecer to be more precise (for those who do not know what that is, think "french canadian"). Beside going to college and getting drunk with friends, I spend most of my time watching anime and playing games. Yea, that's pretty geeky, but do you know many geeks who enjoy history, politic, philosophy, anime, videogames, hockey, tabletop roleplaying, computers and french litterature? Beside me, I do not, but I wish I did  . My favorite videogame composer is Motoi Sakuraba (think tales of phantasia and star ocean) and I don't really have a favorite anime music composer (Yoko kanno is pretty good though).
So, now that this is done, let's talk about anime. Lately, I have been watching this anime called Welcome to the NHK . I'm guessing most of you have already hear of it (if not, give yourself some good time by watching the first episode. You shouldn't regret it) and this is not really the best space to discuss it. What I'd like to talk about more precisely is the first ending. I have recently gotten the single for this song (Odoru akachan ningen) and it is quite awesome. It contains 2 other songs beside Odoru akachan ningen, which are all pseudo j-metal stuff. I highly recommend getting it if you ever find it anywhwere. Even if it's only 3 songs, believe me, it's worth it.
So, I guess this is enough for today. I am already getting ideas for future entries, but for that you guys will have to wait :p .
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