Short summary : A somewhat asocial guy drinks by mistake a magic potion which transforms him into a sheep plush, and “forcibly” becomes the familiar of a beginner magical girl.

I was mostly looking forward to this show because the original game was designed by Noizi Ito, but sure this show is different of the image I had in mind. Well yeah, I did see all the magical girl thing in the CGs but 1) almost forgot about it cause Nadeshiko (Nako-chan) is mostly what I remembered from them, 2) eroge usually have more… “mature” story ?

Anyway, they did a good job at keeping the original design. As for the interest of the show, well I would say that it’s ok to watch it if you have some free time in your hands. This is mostly a Card Captor Sakura rip-off, and it’s 12 episodes long only, so if you’re not too demanding you can give it a try.

On a random note, I love the main theme that we hear throughout the serie in different versions.

Sumomo the magical girl, and the main character in his plush form. Her mission is to collect 7 star drops with this kind of big spoon. When I said it was a CCS rip-off…

First, you take Tsuruya-san… then, you mix with Nagato… and you have (somewhat) Nadeshiko. Is it… perfection ???
Long green-ish hair and from a rich family like Tsuruya-san, and with a kinda emotionless face like Nagato. As for her personality, she’s calm like Nagato and reliable like Tsuruya-san. She’s also very protective over the crybaby Sumomo, like Tsuruya-san is protective over the crybaby Mikuru. Well all these similarities are coincidental and can be found in lot of other characters though.

Another similar point with CCS : Nadeshiko is totally Tomoyo for Sumomo.

Nona, aka Asparas-san. A nice rival character. I immediately recognized Yuki Matsuoka as her seiyuu because the first thing you hear from Nona is her laughter (Matsuoka is Tsuruya-san’s seiyuu too).

Well the show has some good points that makes it different of CCS too, so that’s still enjoyable to watch.

:beer:

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Encore un “classique” de la fin des 90’s dont je me suis souvenu recement.

J’aime particulierement l’instru, aux sonorités qu’on a pas l’habitude d’entendre dans un morceau français (c’est peut-être pour ça qu’elles sont plus connues aux States qu’en France).

Bon quand ça chante, pas de doute c’est français. Peut-être que ça serait mieux passé en anglais, mais ça reste encore largement écoutable je trouve.

Un des rares morceaux français qu’on puisse à mon avis véritablement qualifier de “R&B”, terme trop souvent galvaudé pour qualifier les morceaux Hip Hop un peu lent et sans insultes sur la police.

Les Nubians – Makeda

Et en plus elles chantent en boubou, c’est la classe.

:beer:

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Short summary : Makoto, a shy guy, confesses his love for a girl who rides the same train as him, Kotonoha. But a short time after he started to date Kotonoha, he finally falls in love with Sekai, the girl classmate who helped him to confess his love, and eventually dates her in secret.

So, this is the anime adaptation of that infamous H-game with very depressing bad ends (suicides, murders…), and pathetic main character.

Indeed, Makoto is pathetic. Really, the most dumb and irritating main character EVER (like, the guy was reading a pr0n magazine in a shop when dating his girlfriend… WTF ?).

Also, I may not be a fan of Kotonoha (who is your typical big-breasted shy and plain girl), but the fact that everybody in the show treats her like shit just pisses me off, honestly. It’s so irritating that I actually WISH for a bad end to happen. Well, a Makoto bad end, that is. Kotonoha should just kill him and go for a happy yuri ending with Sekai.

I only have screenshots of my favorite character, Setsuna, Makoto and Sekai’s classmate. Well, she is also one of the characters who acts harshly towards Kotonoha, but she actually doesn’t think bad, and doesn’t know anything about what Makoto and Sekai are secretely plotting, so she can be forgiven. Setsuna is the kind of character who is funny while being cool and kinda emotionless. She also cares a lot for Sekai. She’s the main reason for me to watch this show, I noticed her already in some CGs from the game and was looking forward to see her in the anime too.

Really, I won’t tell you to watch it, you might be as irritated as me. Also, if you don’t like shows featuring yandere (sweet girls suddenly going psycho and murderous), or drama animes with bad end, you should definitly avoid this show.

Nice Boat !

:beer:

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Another good point of Youtube is that you can just post a video you liked when you dunno what talking about.

And I feel like I should spam my blog while I still can (did I ever mention that I have to move to some indeterminated place next week ?).

So today, a video of Kagami-sama cleaning the streets of San Andreas of its evil Pikachus, with awesome musics (including Big Blue from F-Zero), voices from the anime, gangstah Doraemons and much more greatness.

dondake~ Σ(ﾟωﾟ; )

The end is simply hilarious. Don’t ask me where to get this mod, I just don’t frikkin know.

:beer:

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Short summary : A young girl moves in a new city, where she meets other children who are specialized in finding missing virtual pets, and will be kinda forced to join them.

I like this show a lot, but in fact I don’t really have so much things to say about it, and just noticed that I didn’t take many screenshots of it, though there are a lot of enjoyable moments. ‘Cause yeah, this show is really nice, in every way. Surely one of the best 2007 show.

Nice design, nice music, nice characters… everything is nice in this show. It’s calm and funny, with some interesting plot and drama too. If you like ‘iyashi-kei’ shows such as Haibane Renmei, you just have to watch it, if you aren’t already watching it. If you like action… well then this show is not for you.

The design really gives the same calm and peaceful feeling than a Ghibli movie.

Yasako insisting for the frightful Isako to become her friend makes my world a better place. Well, out of context it looks naughty, but in fact she used ‘shishou’ for ‘master’, not ‘goshujin-sama’ XD
Actually, Yasako may looks like your typical shy heroine, but she’s pretty silly and funny.

Again, it’s out of the context… I just can’t help myself to take that kind of screenshots.

Episode 12 was just genius from the beginning to the end. I haven’t ROFL’d like that while watching an anime since a long time. INTERPLANETARY WAR !

Sadly, fansub teams are kinda slow for working on this show. I should also mention on a random note that this show is the dream for meganekko lovers, because every characters in this show wear glasses.

:beer:

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Short summary : Everyday life of an otaku girl and her “rather” normal friends.

So… Lucky Star ended… well, until season 2 at least.

Indeed, I didn’t really feel like it was the end. It was rather like a “12th” episode, the kind of episode which makes you feel that you reached the half of the show. Moreover, KyoAni animated barely anything from the 4th volume of the manga, and volume 5 just got released. If you add lot of original content, KyoAni have enough materials for much more episodes. And don’t school animes usually end with the graduation ?

Anyway, it was a nice episode, 100% original KyoAni content, which gave lot of screentime to Patty, the cutest school-anime gaijin since Sarah Adiemus from School Rumble.

Lucky Star, like every “Everyday Life” animes, is the kind of show that you either love it or hate it. Personally I really enjoyed it and it will be one of my all-time favorites, mostly thanks to the characters, they’re all awesome. ‘Cause yeah, Lucky Star isn’t a show that wants to be funny every single seconds, just watching them talking about various things is enough to make my day.

Konata, the perfect girl ? Dunno, but sure that a girl who wouldn’t complain if you play some video games sounds nice. She would even play with you.

Kagami-sama, just plain awesome. Tsundere + yuri + tsukkomi + twintails, should I even mention that she’s one of my all-time favorite characters ?

Lovely Tsukasa. Sometimes she reminded me of Osaka from Azumanga Daioh, because of her tendency of being amused by totally random things (like “Balsamic Vinegar”).

Ok, I must admit that this scene alone in the first episode was the thing that made me a fan of this show and Kagami-sama.

Souichiro, aka Awesome Dad.

Since Konata is an otaku, it’s natural to see a ton of references about games, anime and manga. Some of them are really unexpected though.

The Lucky Channel is one of the strong point of the show in the beginning, but eventually became kinda boring. The ending songs are just genius, and Minoru Shiraishi (Taniguchi’s seiyuu in Haruhi) playing his own role is hilarious.

Hiyori is my second favorite of the show. She rocks for being a doujinshi artist who loves yuri, and always fantasizes about Yutaka and Minami.

Though the animation was pretty simple throughout the serie, KyoAni showed some awesomely animated scenes occasionally.

Misao, a secondary character who got a huge popularity.

A tribute to the Lucky Star fans who invaded a shrine in Kyoto.

One can complain about the fact that there was too much references about Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. Well, I can’t help but agree a bit.

It might be my own disillusion, but I’m sure Konata and Kagamin are in love with each other.

“Konata no nioi…”

Though Kagamin acts harshly towards Konata most of the time, she truely cares for her, and it makes my world a better place.

In this episode, only Konata noticed that Kagamin’s attitude changed, not even her own twin sister noticed it. That’s why she got the idea of that purikura thing. Thanks, KyoAni. Thanks you for making it real.

Duh, ended up being a quite big post, and the final part was all about yuri… dondake~

:beer:

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Short summary : Kazuma was banished from his family because he had no talent at controlling fire, his family’s speciality. He returns several years later, as a master at controlling wind, for getting some revenge. But another wind user is making a fuss in the city by killing members of Kazuma’s former family, and Kazuma ends up being accused.

Well, first episodes were all serious and pretty classic, so I found it boring in the beginning, though it was amusing to hear Daisuke Ono as Kazuma, ’cause hearing Disco Koizumi-kun as a kick-ass bastard was funny.

Koizumi… errr I mean Kazuma, ready to kick some asses.

But unexpectedly enough (for me at least), the show turned somewhat into a typical love-comedy after a few episodes… and I must confess that I liked it.

Ayano, classic tsundere character, but it always works.

I’m not really that fan of serious shows, so I appreciate the way the show is now, means humorous (mostly thanks to Kazuma and his badass attitude) with some drama/plot/seriousness occasionally.

These 3 scenes are some classics too, but it was kinda unexpected to see them in this show so it worked for me.

Another funny thing in this show is the fact that the Kazuma x Ayano end is SO obvious that actually even the characters are aware of it.

Ayano’s friends got more and more screentime throughout the serie, and have changed their statute of minor characters for totally cool supporting characters. I especially like Nanase, moreover dubbed by Shizuka Ito (Akiha-sama/Hinagiku).

Ren, Kazuma’s little brother, has his own drama too, and eventually grew some GARness. I have some sympathy for him.

All the screenshots I had were mostly from the same episode, but all the show was filled with some funny moments.

Not an awesome show, but still nice to watch if you’re not too demanding.

Blast of wind~… in my heart~

:beer:

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Ce qui est bien avec les sites comme Youtube et Dailymotion, c’est que c’est un peu le musée de l’audiovisuel (enfin, quand ils ne font pas la chasse aux vidéos avec copyright). Vieux clips, émissions ou sketchs… je trouve personnellement que l’interet de ces sites de partage de vidéos est plus dans le fait qu’on puisse se rappeller de bon souvenirs plutot que de mater des vidéos à la con de mongols qui font du karaoke ou du playback, filmés de face assis devant leur pc, en esperant voir leur faciès insultant passé dans Les Enfants de la Télé.

Et de temps en temps, je me rappelle de zics un peu ringardos ou kitch que j’avais entendu à une époque et qui m’avaient fait délirer, et qui des fois sont tombées un peu dans l’oubli général, à croire que y’a que moi qui avait entendu ces zics.

Bref, sans plus tarder la “Pépite de la Chanson Française” du jour : Mafia Trece – A la recherche du mic perdu

Un morceau de rap de la fin des 90’s assez marrant, avec un clip tout en blue-screen (avec un mec qui court sur place pour faire style qu’il court aussi vite que Naruto à travers la foret), des effets digne d’Hollywood (chewing-gum), un sample tiré du générique de la série Kung-fu avec David Carradine (je suis étonné que Will Smith ou Pouffe Daddy ont jamais utilisé un sample qui aurait pu etre très rentable), et des paroles dans l’esprit “Shaolin”.

Mafia Trece – à la recherche du mic perdu

Sensei ! Sensei ! On a volé l’micro d’or !

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(typo intended)

Well… if you are expecting a detailed summary or analysis of the show and/or episodes, you won’t find that here. There are enough anime blogs already, and anyway if you are into deh anime, you know this show already (if you are not into anime, you just won’t read this). For the “Anime” posts, I’ll just throw some screenshots (yeah I like to take screenshots), and some random comments about the show or specific moments/characters. Actually, I’m the kind who can get interested into a show after seeing some random pics/fanarts instead of a fuckin’ long text by a 16 years-old animefag. So that’s just how I’ll write these posts, for people like me. This text was just for introducing this category, now look at the pics or GTFO.

Short summary : An unlucky guy with a huge debt ends up becoming the butler of a young girl he wanted to kidnap for a ransom.

Before Hayate no Gotoku was made into anime, I only read the first chapter of the manga long ago, and didn’t remember anything about it. Though, I was looking forward to it, ’cause I knew it was good stuff, but the main reason I was looking forward to it was… Hinagiku.

Like I said earlier, I can become hooked on a show just because of a picture, fanart or whatever I saw. And some weeks (months ?) before the first episode was released, I fell in love with Hinagiku Katsura after I read a nice doujinshi that I randomly grabbed just because it had a cool cover (usually I don’t download doujinshi from anime/manga I don’t watch/read, I didn’t even know it was a Hayate doujin).

cover of the mentioned doujinshi

And thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed by this show after seeing the first episodes. This is a quite funny show, and rather original love story. Hinagiku didn’t disappoint me either, she’s awesome and moreover dubbed by Akiha-sama’s seiyuu.

But this show has a major bad point : the characters cast.

How can a show have so much awesome characters ? That’s unfair. I mean ok, the show will be 52 episodes long, but man you can’t give enough screentime to everyone. When an episode is centered on a specific character, it means you won’t have the chance to see the other characters. And it’s heart-breaking to not see Hinagiku for 5 episodes straight.

Of course I’m not saying this seriously. Having lot of awesome characters is cool. It makes every episodes nice to watch, and choosing a favorite is pretty hard. Well mine is obviously Hinagiku, with Isumi as a close second, but I like also Izumi, Ayumu (aka Hamzawa-san), Miki, Saki and of course Maria-san and Nagi.

Anime version of Hinagiku Katsura

Nagi, the heroine, in the first ep. So cute with that huge coat.

Episode 8 & 9 : is Isumi Nagi’s first love ? I approve.

Yeah, it’s true that Hayate seems to be in love with Maria-san. But I think that he has some feelings for Hina too. I’m all for a Hinagiku ending, regardless.

Izumi Segawa is a cute and funny character who doesn’t get enough screentime. “Hayata-kun~”

Ayumu Nishizawa, the first girl who was in love with Hayate before he became a butler. Anime girls who properly confess her love to the main guy always got extra win points from me. Also, it seems that Hayate thinks of her occasionally, so we can consider her as a potential lover for Hayate, with Hina and Maria-san.

Hinagiku again, ’cause she’s plain awesome. And she’s a kendoka, which makes her even cooler.

Miki Hanabishi, another nice character who appears way too rarely.

Hayate no Gotoku contains also some fanservice, like these artworks which seem to be targeted especially to people who likes to take screenshots.

Nagi rocks for being more ‘deredere’ than ‘tsuntsun’, unlike the standard tsundere characters. (if you didn’t get that comment, lurk moar)

Isumi Saginomiya, an unexpected rival for Nagi.

:3

Nagi idealizes Hina a lot. That makes me think that some yuri vibes should be developed around Hinagiku, it would be nice.

Saki, the other awesome maid. We need more girls like her in anime. I mean, a cute girl in her 20’s.

Wataru-kun seems to like Saki’s delicious flat chest a lot.

Another nice (and adult) character who appeared just recently. Too bad I forgot her name… :p

I uploaded all the screenshots I had on my computer, and it finally ended up being somewhat a (female) characters introduction. And moreover… no Maria-san screenshots ??? Next time maybe :p

:beer:

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So, since I have no idea of what I should talk about, I might as well talk about this game.

Everybody has a game that they want to play, but know they will never have the possibility to play it. Everybody has a game that they would love to have, but would never pay for it even if they had money. Everybody has a game that they know a lot about it without playing it, but kinda fear to give it a try because they don’t want to be disappointed.

… Well I have a game like that, the iDOLM@STER.

Iz dat some kind of eroge !?

As I said in the introduction article, I visit lot of japanese blogs. One day, I started to see a peculiar youtube video spreading all over the blogs I was visiting.

here is the video : Sekuhara P

So basically, we have here what is apparantly a standard dating sim/eroge with some good 3D and motion capture. And then, there is this “Touch System”, which allows you to touch (you guessed it) the girl. If you know a little about japanese pc games, there is nothing to be surprised about, if you don’t I guess you just went OMGWTF or something like that.

As some few days passed, the number of articles about this video was growing bigger, and I finally ended up searching for some informations about this game by curiosity… for seeing that this game was actually THE big hit in Japan. Only one week after it was released (January ’07), the game was in the Top 10 of game sales charts for the month, first time ever for a Xbox360 game. Thanks to that, M$’s console got a sales boost they never saw before in Japan.

So, what is this game exactly ?

In fact, the iDOLM@STER, despites what some people may think while watching the video posted earlier, isn’t an eroge. This is a raising and management game, the kind of game that japanese people are crazy about (there are management games about everything in japan). And surprisingly enough, this is a game by Namco (now Namco-Bandai), famous for the Tekken, Soul Calibur, Ace Combat and more epic game series.

The game is pretty easy to summarize : you are a producer, and you have to chose a girl from 10 aspiring pop idols and make her the #1 idol in Japan. Like any other raising/management game, you have to train her (mostly to sing and dance properly), while keeping an eye on her fatigue and moral level. But the fun part, as you saw in the video, is that the game actually features a big “dating sim” part, full voiced and with animated 3D characters unlike most of the games of this kind. Having a good relationship with your idol helps her to make faster progress, and for that you will have to behave like she expects you to do during lot of various events (before and after concerts, photoshooting sessions, and free time), which include multiple-choices questions and the infamous “Touch System”.

π Touch

Really, no need to be a genius for guessing that if the game is so popular, it’s also thanks to that “Touch System”. Basically, if it wasn’t obvious enough, there are some moments in the game in which you have to touch the idol on a certain place. Like the multiple-choices questions, you have only a few seconds to make the good choice. Depending of the girl and the situation, touching at the same place will have different results that will make your harmony with your idol going better or worse.

Dunno if it was originally intended by Namco, but to put such a feature in the hands of japanese guys (or every guys, actually), there was no way it wouldn’t end up with something naughty. The apparantly high number of this kind of scenes and the unexpected reaction from some of the girls make definitely think that Namco wanted to create the first ever “all-public” eroge, though. Taking the “Sekuhara P” video for exemple, the girl asks you to play a sexual harasser because she wants to learn to defend herself. When the player is asked to touch the girl’s arms/elbows, the guy touched the breasts 2 times… which resulted with a “Good Communication” at the end, and the girl to ask for more.

Even so, I think the game is far from being a game targeted to perverts and lolicons. If you don’t take this thing seriously, it can be fun to tease the girls for the lulz and see their reactions. And well, talking about this single feature makes forget about the rest of the game : the management, some catchy songs, a bunch of interesting characters, cool 3D, awesome motion capture, and finally the Xbox Live which allows you to buy new items and stuffs. But I couldn’t talk of this game without mentioning what made it famous on japanese blogs and youtube.

I think it’s all I wanted to say about the game itself, it’s time for some pics and vids.

The Characters

Haruka Amami (16)
VA : Eriko Nakamura

Haruka is the typical dojikko heroine, a bright girl from the countryside who move to the capital for realizing her dream of becoming an idol. Her nice and simple personality might charm you eventually.

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3

Yukiho Hagiwara (16)
VA : Yurika Ochiai

An overly shy girl who is scared of everything, but mostly of boys. Tends to cry a lot.

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3

Ritsuko Akizuki (18)
VA : Naomi Wakabayashi

A bossy meganekko with old-person behavior. She believes more in theory than in her own capacities and appearance. Rather than being an idol, her dream is to become producer. Seems to be rather popular among the iM@S fans.

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3

Chihaya Kisaragi (15)
VA : Asami Imai

A cool and mature girl who dedicates all her life to singing. The second best singer of the game in my opinion. She eventually became my favorite character… dunno, I think I have something for cool, refined and… breastless girls (since I’m a Akiha-sama and Hinagiku fan too >_> )

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (π Touch)

Azusa Miura (20)
VA : Chiaki Takahashi

The scatterbrained and kind onee-san type girl who always loses her way. The best singer of the game, she was my favorite at first.

Video 1 – Video 2 (π Touch) – Video 3 (π Touch)

Makoto Kikuchi (16)
VA : Hiromi Hirata

Everybody mistakes her as a tomboy because of her appearance, voice and love for sports, but she’s in fact a very romantic and sensitive girl who likes cute clothes and shoujo manga. She is called Makoto-kun by the other idols. Very popular among the iM@S fans, also thanks to her singing ability.

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (π Touch)

Yayoi Takatsuki (13)
VA : Mayako Nigo

A very cheerful and caring loli. She is born in a poor family in which she has to act as a mother for her 3 little brothers. She gets along well with Iori though being very different from each others. One of the most popular character of the game.

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (π Touch)

Iori Minase (14)
VA : Rie Kugimiya

Tsundere + loli + ojou-sama + large forehead + sabishigariya (she hates to be alone) + Rie Kugimiya, all the ingredients for being the most popular character of the game. She is also a stubborn girl who has chosen to be an idol mostly for going against her father and older brothers’ authority. She gets along well with Yayoi. Her seiyuu Rie Kugimiya is well-know for being also the voice of Nagi (Hayate no Gotoku), Shana (Shakugan no Shana), Louise (Zero no Tsukaima), Rizel (Rizelmine), and Alphonse Elric (Full Metal Alchemist).

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3

Ami & Mami Futami (12)
VA : Asami Shimoda

A pair of identical bratty twins. Ami is actually the only one singing and dancing on stage, Mami’s existance is kept secret.

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3

Miki Hoshii (14)
VA : Akiko Hasegawa

The one who started everything. Miki is a flashy, lazy and over-confident girl who think that she doesn’t need to work hard, and bets everything on her inner talent and her sexyness. She’s also the character who shows the more of interest toward the producer, with some risquée scenes that made her being called “14 years-old jail bait” by some people. Miki is obviously a parody of Maki Goto, a member from Morning Musume. When she started her career with the song “Love Machine”, Maki Goto was 14, had blonde long hair, and was somewhat hot. Miki is an exclusive Xbox360 character, she wasn’t in the original arcade version of the game.

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (Sekuhara P)

The Songs

I couldn’t finish without mentioning the songs, ’cause well… this is a musical game after all. There is a total of 16 songs in the game. As you might expect, the quality isn’t that awesome. Though, I made a quick selection of the songs I found decent, in my own preference order. Most of them are sung by Azusa.

9:02pm
Taiyou no Jealousy
Massugu
My Best Friend
Aoi Tori

The other songs, in no particular order :

Relations
Positive
Agent Yoru wo iku
Watashi wa Idol
Mahou wo kakete
the iDOLM@STER
Here we go
Omoide wo arigatou
My First Stage
Ohayou Asagohan
Go My Way

Conclusion

Well… honestly, I can barely call myself a iM@S fan. I know the characters and the songs, but like I said in the very beginning of this post, I actually don’t feel the “urge” to play it. Even if I never get the chance to give it a try, it would be ok. It’s just that, seeing articles and videos everydays on japanese blogs during these past 8 months, I eventually grew some sympathy for this bunch of characters, little by little. It’s like I knew them since even longer.

I dunno how to end that conclusion… I said everything I had in mind about this game. I would just say Don’t take Japan too seriously.

And upcoming articles will be shorter, hopefully.

:beer:

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