Too short - too long!

*Includes spoilers. All media credits go to their owners.*

I don't know about you guys, but I personally prefer shorter animes. The skill it has to take to fit a whole story into a short amount of time is admirable - and to make it good at the same time - well, not something that anyone could do. But I do admit that there are cases where a long series works way better than a 12 or 24 episode show could. Like in most shounen animes. Imagine Naruto had been a 24 episode anime and that's that. Pretty damn pointless. Sure, the amount of fillers makes me want to bash someone's head into a brick wall sometimes, but none of the epic skills, special jutsus and progression of our favourite characters would have been possible. Also, it's kind of comforting to know that you can tune in to the same characters and story every week for years and years.

But now, when looking for something to watch and wanting it to be good, I have noticed that people tend to split into two groups - those who will look for longer animes and those who will look for shorter animes. Both are right at times. Let's call them Team L and Team S. - Why? Because I can!
Basically what Team L thinks is more or less like this: longer animes have more action; you won't have to find a new one to watch for a longer while; you get to know the characters better; and even if there are fillers, you can always power-watch through them - which is true, if you're watching the anime from scratch, because if there's 30 weeks of fillers then that's not too great... Also true if you're the kind who likes to watch hours and hours of the same topic. While that's fine if you watch it week by week as it gets released - then if you have to watch it from scratch, doesn't it get pretty dull after like a 100 episodes? Even if the topic is really good. Hell, I'm still stuck at Bleach 136 from when I started watching it from 0 (I've seen the ending saga though, so I'm kind of up to date).
Team S thinks that: they want to see a full story; they don't want to commit to it for a long time; they want things to evolve fast. Also true - except for the times when the story evolves too fast.

An example. Ao no Exorcist or Blue Exorcist had lots of potential - sons of the devil himself, blue flames, demons, epic exorcist organization, an exorcist training school... Sounds awesome. And the first couple of episodes were pretty damn good, with the devil trying to possess people and gates of hell opening. But then what happened - the epic story turned into a school anime. And even though the story went on in bits and pieces along the line of the original story - it all ended very abruptly. Yeah, there was a battle with the Paladin and Shura, but did they really show anything of the Paladin's power? We are talking about the strongest exorcist, you know... Same with the Okumura twins' father, Fujimoto. Most of what we saw was about how he was a kind and caring old man, not about how he turned out to be at the top. The ending story might have made sense, but with that quick ending in the style of: "I'll burn you all to the ground because you don't let me live in peace!" there was little left to save.
Now, if this one had been a full scale long series, it could have been so much better. All the characters had pretty unique powers and the class system had potential - they could've shown how specialized exorcists work, how they train. There could've been longer history arcs, the stories could've entwined. But right now, all that there was, was: boy founds out he's a half demon, boy becomes better than all others. The end.

Same with a few others, like Ai no Kusabi -> I know that's not a very nice show to watch, but I did and I had to read about the entire setting to know what was going on in the first place. No explanation, no nothing. 
Claymore - not sure whether this one should've been longer or shorter, really. At the moment, all they showed was a random series of events after the epic Theresa had passed... and it ended with the greatest evil being beaten while more evil still lived on in the world. That main story could just have been put into 8 episodes, maybe 12 if we're thinking in standards. Maybe if they had more time they could've worked on the arcs a bit better?
The Legends of Legendary heroes - OMG how promising that was! But in conclusion they just talked about nothing, showed no real relics or magic battles, lamented about the past horrors and in the end showed a crazy surreal part within Ryner. Dudes!!! Why???? This one should definitely have been longer - at least 50 or 70 episodes. Could've been so much better, honestly. There was epic battle magic, after all!

Still, there are a few that should've been shorter as well.
Like my favourite anime for years and years - X (tv size). Don't judge me, I was a little emo kid! Anyway, since it was based on X the movie, it's pretty obvious why they made it into 25 episodes, but to be truthful, most of it was lamenting how the world was going to end, no matter what. Seriously, even as a little emo kid, I thought that might've been a tad over the top. Sure, there were episodes with a pretty decent amount of 'action' too, but with all the stress on how things couldn't be changed and that fate would turn out to be the same, no matter what, kind of spoiled the ending.
Same with Natsuyuki Rendezvous - damn, you should've made it into a movie instead. Might've worked better.

All in all, I'm so happy there are animes with the exact right length and story explanation time - could not endure all the horrible fillers that float around in the anime world!
Anyways, back to studying for me - see you next week.

Awesome romance anime

*Includes spoilers. All media credits go to their owners.*

First of all - I know I missed last week, my conscience told me. But since I needed sleep between sessions of hardcore studying, I couldn't help it :( Anyway, this week I'm continuing with my practical writing exercise, so yay for me!

I've never really liked full romance animes. I mean, I've always LOVED romance in animes - but only if the anime was of any other genre than romance itself. The school-love combo just gives me nothing - it's full of horrible melancholic moments and weird choices by the main characters, from wether to admit their feelings to bla bla bla...

Please don't be offended

But! This season I've been forced to eat my words - I think probably for the first time ever. Because I'm sorry to admit it, but I didn't really like Clannad. The After Story was great (let me specify - the marriage story was great), but the regular Clannad was so damn boring. Seriously, I considered skipping it all in all. Eventually I had to force myself into watching it because I wanted to properly see what After Story, the nr 1 spot on ANN was about. But it was just another story about how people form groups in a collectivistic society that will likely be their only network of connections next to their colleagues for the rest of their lives... damn I'm glad I live in the West.

After Clannad I've seen a bunch of faliures - that at least I thought were meant to be romance animes. Like Chihayafuru - okay, maybe it was meant to be a 'sports' anime, but seriously, wasn't everyone hoping for the storyline they began with the triangle to evolve.... ? Was that just me...? Woopsie... <.<
And then Natsuyuki Rendezvous. Bad. So bad. I had such high hopes - I was cheering for it until the very end. But it ended in complete randomness. I would like to take this time and ask: Excuse me, but what was the point of that entire anime? We all knew the ghost would have to give up Hazuki's body in the end, we all knew how sad that whole situation was... what exactly did this anime give us? The ghost was still floating around even after his wife had died after living decades and decades with another man.... So in the end there was no closure, no nothing. Stupid.
I also checked out Arcana Famiglia, which I knew was shoujou, but I tried anyway.... was bad, so whiny. Yuk!

Junjou Romantica

Okay, I guess I did like one romance anime, but that was probably because I had never seen one like that before. And it had sex, lots of sex. I like sex :x
I'm not even entirely sure this should be counted as romance - but they are doing romantic stuff, right? And the title says so... Perhaps a pretty straightforward anime pick for my very first yaoi, but then again it had some mushy feelings in it and all that. It's not like it was Ai no Kusabi reborn :D (oh yeah, those who have seen it blushed a little there). Didn't have lots of school in it - still evolved around a university, so I'm guessing that counts. Anyway, that was kind of fun and fresh. So, coolio. I'm borrowing this phrase from a friend. Cooli-o. Coolio.

But other than that I had never seen a traditional romance anime that I'd actually like. Until Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (My Little Monster) came along! Alright, maybe it's not very traditional in the sense of what goes on in there, but basically - it has romance, it has school life - I think I've found my perfect traditional exception, finally! 

First of all, it's funny - anyone who sees it and isn't completely derived of a sense of humor, should see that. Sometimes the fun is situational, sometimes it's just the things they say and the responses they give. The characters are special and not your typical: worn out hero-type gentle high school guy, who keeps coming to the rescue with only pure thoughts in his head; and the kind and useless lead female. No. This time the hero is a genius-boy who has extremely weird tastes, is brutal, a bit dirty-minded and actually has feelings he's not afraid to admit. But for a change, the girl doesn't get overshadowed - she's smart, blunt, knows what she wants and isn't afraid to say it either. Basically they're both downright honest - not such a common thing in anime, eh? So throw in a bunch of rich delinquents, a nice baseball dude, a cute but dumb girl who is also incidentally an internet geek, and a shy class-rep who isn't so shy after all when she falls for the male lead - and you get a mixture crazy, funny and romantic that actually resembles real life. Oh, and don't forget the rooster - the rooster is important!

I mean it isn't so unusual to kind of fall for your best friend, now is it? And it isn't unusual to tell the person you like them, try to figure things out. So where the regular romance anime goes on for episodes and episodes of denying their feelings, trying to be just friends, this one comes right out and says it: "Now that I realised I have feelings for you, I want to do all kinds of things to you..." - Haru.

So far in this show, they've confessed like four times, changed their priorities, realised the world isn't black-and-white, kissed, gone on dates, stopped dating - and it's still at episode 7! Every week I just cannot wait for another episode, it's freaking awesome! I'll throw in a few pics to illustrate my point.

Haru and Shizuku

Haru forces Shizuku to go eat out with him

Oshima having a moment with Haru... and Nagoya

A bit of the philosophy that drives Haru

Shizuku announces her ambition, Haru backs her up

Shizuku and Haru, almost there...

Shizuku flushed after a kiss attempt

Haru thinking about Shizuku

Basically - watch this anime or you'll miss out on a helluva lot of epicness!

More grains to spill next week - share your thoughts in the meanwhile!

Stupid love in anime

*Includes spoilers. All media credits go to their owners.*

AaAAaaaarrrgghhh! What's up? Well, I watched the latest Fairy Tail episode and so I'm pissed off. Like WTF??? What the eff-ing crap?? Double-uuuu-teee-eff. Stoooopid sh....
If you're any kind of romance-in-shounen fan like me, you will immediately know why.
It's not very often we get to witness our favourite characters in shounen animes finding happiness and getting together with someone. So this week, when there was a chance that the magnificent and awesome Erza would actually be seriously reunited with probably the love of her life, the creators of the manga decide that: Nope. No, sorry, ma'am, that will not happen.
Now why the hell would you even go through the trouble of inserting a kissing scene into the show when you're going to fuck it up anyway? Seriously, it's almost as good as throwing those minutes into the bin. Maybe it's okay on paper, in the manga, but the anime crew has to do it too then!
Also, what the hell is the logic behind this kind of behaviour? Let me break it down for you:
Jellal did all kinds of BS to Erza and then, when they finally meet again, and know they both have feelings for each other, he decides on the last second that not only is he going to brood over the evil stuff he did in the past while he was possessed, but also he is going hurt poor Erza even more by rejecting her with a stupid excuse. So dude... basically you first bash her faith in you and then bash her feelings... 
Instead of redeeming yourself by making her happy... you just... aaghhh... I don't even...
Well done - well done! Today we salute you, irrational logic guy!

Erza rejected by Jellal

But that's not really unusual in anime, is it. Japanese people find ALL kinds of retarded excuses why it's not possible for the two lovers to be together. Like in 5 Centimeters Per Second - which is a very good movie and extremely beautiful, 12/10 on the visual. But oh my fking ... - that synopsis is completely stupid. Ok, so the boy falls in love, there's a huge depressive adventure and some happiness and then BOOM! Suddenly they stop writing and calling and everything. True - at first the time was in the 80s-90s, there were no mobile phones. But then he gets a mobile phone TO NEVER CALL OR TEXT HER ANYWAY. He writes texts to no one. Never sends them. 
Dude... what the hell is your problem? If you're going to spend years and years thinking about her and being horribly sad over not being able to be with her, then how about you call her?? Call her, maybe? I cannot emphasize this enough.
Maybe you shouldn't sit around and wait for life to happen and be depressed all the time. Maybe, just maybe you should go and try to - oh I don't know - DO something so that you wouldn't regret it forever and ever? I mean, he knew what was gnawing at his soul. Might as well have gone and tried. Right? Right?!?! Yeah, you better agree or angry Rika is going to come hit you with a shoe :x

Alright, so besides not anything whatsoever in anime, they then go to the entire other end of the scale. 
Which might actually be even worse. Because in the first case they're scared or vulnerable or whatever wimpy reason they have (seriously, am I the only one with balls around here?? And I don't even fucking have them), but in the second case they're just plain dumb. Like in Zetman. They met, he didn't even like her. He wanted to throw her out. And then...

...Hai?

He saved her - sure, sounds nice. They kissed - great. Must be hard living alone all the time, so a little smooching might cheer poor Jin up, eh ? 
But then suddenly they're creating a family and all. What the hell did I miss exactly?? In that picture above you can see a better translation, but in my version there was:
"I want to try the family thing with you."
Hello?
Yes, this is dog?
Crazy.

At least they have sex after that scene, so I'm happy with that. I'm always happy when the main character gets laid. Yay for you, Jin!

In general, I'm still too angry to write any further, so I'll see you next week.