The Blog of Xbolt

Well, we’ve come to the end of another round of anime reviews by me. As I did last time, I’ll finish with a few comments on all the OPs.

Last Exile – I’ll say it up front. The Last Exile OP is one of my favorites of all time.
“OF ALL TIME!” (Shut up Kanye.) I mean, how on Earth can you go wrong with didgeridoos and bagpipes? The answer is: You can’t.

Toradora! (OP1 and OP2) – I like the first one much better than the second one. That synth is great.

Spirited Away – Being a movie, Spirited Away doesn’t have an OP. So I’ll just post the main theme song. Same goes for the other two movies.

Air – Despite the show being less than what I’d hoped for, the OP for Air is very, very good.

Bamboo Blade – It’s ok, I guess…

5 Centimeters Per Second – It starts out kinda so-so, but it gets better by the end.

Rozen Maiden, Traumend, and Ouverture – Of the three, I like the original the best. No question.

Blood: The Last Vampire – Very dramatic and epic and I like it.

Haibane Renmei – Violins. If there’s a surefire way to make me like a song, it’s to have violins. Because violins are awesome.

A Summer Day’s Dream – Not bad, not bad. I really like how they used ultra-widescreen for this. Because in addition to violins, I like movies better when they have ultra-widescreen.

And that concludes the winter special edition of Xbolt’s Anime Reviews. I’m still your host, and I’ll see you next time!

akita vs miku

Miku and Neru fight each other with lightsabers. Need I say that this is win?

Bonus points if you recognize what fight this is based on. (And no fair peeking at the YouTube comments page.)

4th MMD Cup – Double Lariat

The fourth MMD Cup is on, which means there have been a few MMD videos in the ranking lately. I really liked this one, even though it’s a very old song, but this acoustic guitar rendition is new.

On the other hand though, Miku could have at least spun around a few times in the dance. I don’t know why she doesn’t; that’s like the whole point of the song, right? But that was Haku playing the guitar, so I’ll forgive them. ;)

Oh, and “A Whole New World” was the #1 song this week.

I’ve saved the best (or at least, the most important to me personally) for last. This week is the crown jewel of this season of Xbolt’s Anime Reviews.

A Touhou anime.

Granted, it’s not an official anime done by a professional studio, but honestly, who cares? The fans who put this together did a superberiffic job! It’s pretty much exactly how I imagined a Touhou anime would look. Seriously.

But while the animation may not have been done by a professional company, they somehow managed to hire big-name seiyuu (voice actresses) for it. (Where they got the money for it, I’ll never know.) I was amused to see that:

The narrator is played by Sanae Furukawa, and Reimu by Nagisa. Suika is played by Yui Hirasawa. Marisa is played by Shinku, and Sakuya by Koyomi Mizuhara. I haven’t watched any shows with Aya, Remilia, or Patchouli in them, but I’ve heard of some of them. (Aya is credited in Clannad as “Female student (ep 6)”. So I suppose technically, I have seen her in a show before. Technically.)

Since it’s only one episode long, (For the moment. They’re still working on episode 2.) I can just embed it here:

Part 1

Part 2

And that’s it. Pretty good, eh?

Well. Now that my glowing fanboyism was allowed to speak out, here’s all the little details that I feel could have been better: I was disappointed to see that neither Flandre nor Cirno was in it. (Cirno did make a brief “appearance”, but that doesn’t count. Flan was mentioned, but not seen.) But Suika was there, so that’s ok.

Remilia’s voice sounds different than what I’d imagined, though the others are really good. I’d have given her a more sultry-sounding voice as opposed to just a high pitch. But that’s just my opinion on how it should be, obviously other people will interpret the character differently.

The last thing that I would have liked to see, is some danmaku action. The fight between Patchy and Reimu was great, but danmakus are what it’s all about! (Danmaku literally means bullet curtain, an attack move involving channeling energy into large amounts of weaker bullets, as opposed to the large single attacks Reimu and Patchy did here. (See also: Touhou Dogfight. Notice Utsuho’s epic displays there.))

But despite these niggles, I really liked this production, and can’t wait to see the rest. And I want to find out who the culprit is behind Gensokyo’s newest incident. I have several people on my “Persons of Interest” list, but that’s only based on my external knowledge of those characters. It could still be someone else entirely.

(Oh, and pay attention to the bookshelf in part 2 at 2:16. I was amused.)

World’s WORST movie chase scene…EVER!!!

The title is misleading. For this is in fact the world’s GREATEST movie chase scene ever.

All Your Yeah Are Belong To Us

I didn’t make anything particularly groundbreaking this time…

*puts on shades*

…just another meme.

YEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

Kaito and Meiko – A Whole New World

Well, what can I say? I was instantly reminded of my childhood when I heard this.

And don’t forget that exclamation mark.

Toradora! is your standard anime about normal people, who do normal things. No metaphysics to see here! But I thought it was a fun anime. It’s a comedy show, but it has a story to it that can get dramatic at times too. Which is a good thing.

Ryuji Takasu is a junior-year high school student. However, his eyes are scary-looking and make people think that he’s a dangerous delinquent, when he’s actually a really nice guy. He excels at cooking, and is obsessed with keeping things clean. (Even at other people’s houses.)

Taiga Aisaka is a girl in Ryuji’s class. She gets upset very easily, and often snaps out at people. Because of this, and the fact that’s she’s very short, she has the nickname “Palmtop Tiger.” She comes from a well-to-do family, but due to issues in her family life, she lives by herself. Because of her spoiled upbringing, she doesn’t know how to do any household chores. And so she relies on Ryuji to do that stuff, and spends most of her time at his house, then goes back to her apartment to sleep. (Their houses are right next to each other. You can get from one to the other via windows without even touching the ground.)

Yusaku Kitamura is Ryuji’s best friend, and also the guy Taiga is infatuated with. She kind of shuts down whenever he enters the room. Yusaku’s a very diligent guy, and he should be. He’s the vice-president of the student council after all.

Minori Kushieda is my favorite character. She’s a close friend of Taiga’s, and has a really opposite personality. As opposed to Taiga’s violent nature, Minori is always smiling and cheerful, with a seemingly endless supply of energy. She’s the captain of the girl’s softball team, and holds quite a few part-time jobs on top of it.

Ami Kawashima is a childhood friend of Yusaku’s. She is rather pretty, and even works as a model. But she took a break from that when she transferred into Ryuji’s school. She appears to be kind and generous to everyone, but this is merely a deception. In truth, she’s a selfish, arrogant person who is quite prepared to use abusive language on people. She tried this on Taiga, who responded with a slap in the face. Since then, they became rivals. Ami teases Taiga at will, and Taiga always refers to her as “Baka-chi” (Stupid Chihuahua).

Found you!

That’s about the scariest face I’ve ever seen. How would you like to see THAT when you look out the window? O_O

Team Fortress 2: Meet the Psychic!

Aren’t glitches fun?

Megurine Luka – DYE

This song is just awesome in every way. Techno/Electronica For. The. Win.

In other news, Kaai Yuki made it into the rankings this week. Last week, Yuki-chan snuck into the ranking on a Miku-Miki combo. But this week she has not one, but two solo songs on the charts! If DYE up there wasn’t so epic, Disco Chocolat would have been my pick for the week.