Saturday, April 8, 2006

Honey and Clover
Sheesh. I finished this series about a week and a half ago and I still haven't posted anything! How silly of me. I watched most of the 24 episodes in a span of two nights. I guess I really got into that one.

If I were to compare H&C to a movie genre, I'd say it would be an independant movie. There isn't a big, overlying plot. Instead, it focuses on the relationships between characters and imagery.

Honey & Clover is about 5 normal college kids at an art school in Japan... or not. Honey & Clover is about 3 normal college kids and two rather extraordinary ones. A lot of the series revolves around the introspective thoughts about life and love from the three "normal" characters: Takemoto, who is a normal person from a middle class family who isn't particularly good at any art but likes making things with his hands and is in love with Hagu, Mayama, who graduates soon in the series but still hangs around everyone and is love with an oldergirl that he works for, and Yamada, a brilliant pottery student who is in love with Mayama.

The other two students in this group are both geniuses, but are very different from each other. Hagu is very tiny. So tiny that, although she's 18 at the start if the anime, she looks like she's about 12. When I was first getting into Naruto, my sister said that she didn't like Rock Lee because his eyes made him look like a doll. Well if you think Rock Lee looks like a doll, you should check out Hagu. As I've mentioned, Hagu is a genius and has had many works of art exhibited in museums.

Morita is a different kind of genius. He provides almost all of the humor in the series as the eccentric genius. Morita is actually in his seventh year of college but does amazing things whenever he puts his mind to it. He also does a lot of strange things... like dress Hagu up as some kind of mythical creature and take pictures of her for a website. He even started calling Hagu "Mouse #1" for a while when he had plans to dress her up as a mouse.

Honey & Clover is a good piece of storytelling. The characters are likeable and realistic and you find yourself rooting for them to succeed. It is definately up there among my favorites.
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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Guruguru mawaru
At the rate I was going, I was afraid I'd finish H&C before writing about School Rumble. END PROCRASTINATION.

School Rumble is your basic story of guy who loves a girl who loves a guy who loves curry. Huh? Let me start over.

School Rumble is a romantic comedy with emphasis on the comedy. There's two people who can be considered main characters. Tsukamoto Tenma is a ditzy, clumsy, childish 2nd year high schooler who is in love with a guy named Karasuma, a very strange guy who apparently likes curry more than he likes Tenma. The other is Harima Kenji, a delinquent who is in love with Tenma.

There is also a plethora of side characters who play a large role in the anime. There's Tenma's three best friends Suou Mikoto (the large chested girl who has a secret crush on a former sempai), Sawachika Eri (the blonde half-British half-Japanese snobby rich girl who turns down every guy who confesses to her), and Takano Akira (the mysterious one of the group who really doesn't do much). There's Tenma's sister Tsukamoto Yakumo who, despite looking and acting older, is actually a year younger than Tenma. For guys there's Haruki Hanai(the straight-forward class representative who works hard at everything he does and is in love with Yakumo) and Kyousuke Imadori (the mindless flirt who has an obsession with breasts and thus is often seen chasing after Suou). There's also many other characters that I didn't feel like mentioning.

School Rumble seems to blend a bunch few different genres into one. If you look at just Harima's part of the story it'd seem like a harem anime (sort of like Love Hina). A guy who likes a girl and somehow gets a bunch of other girls to fall in love with him inadvertantly. There's at least 3 girls I can think of that start liking him in the series (though two wouldn't admit it and never actually say it). Tenma's story looks like a regular shojo series where a girl stares dreamily at a guy and continually tries to draw the courage to ask him out (though Harima does the same exact thing to Tenma).

The opening song ("Sukuranburu" or "Scramble") is definately one of my favorite anime openings. The song is very upbeat and peppy... it fits the anime very well. The chorus is so damn catchy that I've had it in my head for the past three days. If the song wasn't made specifically for the anime then they did a great job of choosing it.

The best thing I can say about this anime is that it made me laugh out loud on several occasions. There's something to be said about that. Some of the stuff that happens is just so outrageous that you can't help it.

School Rumble rivals Azumanga Daioh as the funniest anime I have seen. It falls slightly short and will have to be considered just second best. There's good news though, School Rumble 2 starts April 2nd. Yes, that's this sunday. I can't wait until I find a subbed version.
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Monday, March 27, 2006

Hmm.
Whoops.

Ok. Got a new hard drive for my computer. Burned all of my School Rumble eps onto DVDs... or did I? Somehow I'm missing the last two episodes. So much for watching the whole series in two days. I'm trying to watch the last two episodes on youtube but it doesn't seem to be cooperating with me.

Currently downloading Honey & Clover and Beck. I decided that I've been watching too many comedies lately. I've heard a lot of good things about H&C and apparently they're coming out with a H&C II this summer so I figured I'd watch it next.
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