Another show I started scanning through in hopes of finding candidates for the top rotation. After two episodes, I haven't taken any.

But I am getting interested in the show. I originally skipped it because it was a mecha show, and you all know how I feel about those. But so far it's telling an interesting story, about a pretty admirable character. And despite the collection of cute girls (five so far, plus a couple of minor characters) it doesn't seem to be heading into harem territory.

Misao, Tomo's red haired companion, is the most interesting thing in the show so far IMHO because the story behind her looks to be key to what's going on. They're hinting at it already.

UPDATE: The first plot arc ends with ep 3, and unfortunately it looks like they're not going to sustain the parts I liked the most so far.

And I did get one nice cheesecake shot out of it:

UPDATE: OK, Ep 4 wasn't bad. I'm willing to keep going for a bit longer.

UPDATE: End of ep 5, and it feels like the show is in a rut. Like so many shows based on a series of light novels, it feels episodic. And I think I don't care any longer.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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James has a picture of a Japanese cosplayer and wonders what the story is. I don't recognize the character, myself.

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Well, they don't waste any time. Episode 2 is a beach episode. And they give us a busty cat girl in a bikini, with tentacles:

Nothing high brow about this, nossirree...

UPDATE: No, I won't be using that one in the top rotation. Nope.

UPDATE: OK, the green-haired DFC is a water/ice spirit. In character terms, she's pretty much exactly like Korone in Daimaou, especially in being a dry tease. And as of the middle of ep 3, she's moved in. The harem is forming.

The blonde in the maid costume is named Lizlet, and she works in a maid restaurant which serves fancy tea. Just a cameo of her so far, but she's easy on the eyes.

UPDATE: Won't be using this one either, more's the pity:

UPDATE: This is like something out of Daimaou, too:

UPDATE: I'm up to ep 6 now and there's actually a moderately good story being told here, albeit not particularly original. Unfortunately, Himari is turning into a ball of angst, and I'm no fan of that. And I've already figured out what the ending is going to be: Himari is going to go feral and try to kill Yuuto. In times past when this has happened, his ancestors killed. Yuuto won't. Instead he'll snap her out of it somehow.

UPDATE: I bet the reason Kuesu is such a bitch is that she suffers from backaches all the time. Anyway, she just got stabby.

UPDATE: OK, I've got 82 candidates as of the end of ep 8 and that's enough. I'm going to stop now.

UPDATE: So I jumped ahead to the last episode, and I was right about how it ends.

The eye catch for the 12th episode is a prize:

UPDATE: Won't be using this one, either:

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 11:39 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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There's an applet running in Merope's tray which can report in real time just how much power it's using when you mouse-over. And what it usually says is "11.3 watts".

Which is really tiny, if you think about it. I'd already noticed that before I noticed the applet. Merope has been running continuously since it was delivered, and there aren't any hotspots. Not even any warm ones.

Admittedly, uTorrent isn't very CPU-intensive, but that's still quite impressive. Arcturus used to get quite warm to the touch. And after a couple of hours of use, I can tell easily where Alcyone's graphics chip is located.

This will make Merope a good roommate when weather gets hot. 11 watts is about the heat load of a couple of flashlights.

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My copies of BD 2 and BD 3 just got delivered, and I immediately checked a particular graphic which had always annoyed me. And I'm happy to report that they fixed it.

Ignoring relics like Bentenmaru and Barbarossa, there are three main classes of warships we see in this series, all of which have hulls that look like swords. The smallest is the Corback class, which has one turret on each side. It's classified as an "escort", or a "destroyer". The next class up is the Talbot class, a battleship, which is larger and longer and has four turrets on each side. The biggest is the Maracot class, which has two blades and has five turrets on each side. We only see two Maracots in the series (at least, so far): Queen Serendipity and Jabberwocky. Maracots are designed to be fleet flagships; they're loaded with communication gear.

This is from episode 9:

The actual situation is that there are five Corbacks and one Talbot. The green one uses the proper graphic and is labeled correctly. But the red ones all use the Talbot graphic, and they're all labeled as "Maracot class".

Well, they fixed it on the BD:

Now they're using the proper graphic and the proper labels on them all.

It's nice to see that someone is paying attention, and that they care enough to make the correction. It's less nice that the correction was even needed in the first place. But I guess the time pressure is different for the BD release.

These BDs each have four episodes on them, and they put all four together into a single file. These were the non-deluxe BDs; I wonder if they did the same thing for the deluxe release? (My copy of the first BD is deluxe, and the episodes were separate files on that one.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:57 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I went through the first 6 episodes of Shining Hearts and managed to come up with about 75 candidates for the top rotation, though a lot of those are duplicates or scenes which I won't be able to frame properly.

A while back I downloaded Rinne no Lagrange in order to harvest it, having heard that it had some pretty good images. Initially I turned the subtitles off and went through it without sound, but about halfway through the first episode I got curious, and I started watching it.

With the proviso that all giant mech shows are fundamentally really stupid, I have to say that this one wasn't as bad as it could be. (Damning with faint praise.)

It's the latest show to name its lead character "Madoka". And as of the end of episode 3, it seems like there's a huge switcheroo going on. The mechs from space may well be the good guys. The mechs that Madoka and Ran are piloting may well be cursed. The guys from space are trying to prevent the prophesied curse from coming to pass.

Ran seems to know about the curse. No one has told Madoka yet.

As to fan service, Madoka is nicely shapely but not grotesque. There's another girl who has only shown up once so far. She's the third pilot. She gainaxes massively. Unfortunately, she also isn't really that good looking. So I'm not sure there's really going to be much fodder here for the top rotation. I only ended up with 8 grabs out of three episodes, and none of them are really very good.

And I'm also not sure I really care enough to watch the rest of it. I might jump ahead and watch the last episode. Or maybe I won't bother.

This was the other show that Sato was working on for last season, but this one was only 1 cour.

When you really come down to it, it's a moldy plot. How many shows have there been where a teenage girl is drafted into piloting a mech in order to save the world? I'd need a calculator to add them all up, I think.

That said, it was rather fun listening to Madoka singing during the last half of the battle in episode 3.

And it could be worse. At least Madoka and Ran's mechs don't have tits.

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This ends the first series. Wasurenai says they want to do the second series, too, but it's anyone's guess when they'll start, let alone when they'll finish it.

But they've done this now, and we can see the series end. And quite an ending it is, too. Episodes 38-40 are one story.

In episode 34 they brought up Giordano Bruno, apparently a friend and scientific ally of Galileo's back in the day. Bruno is a true martyr to science, because he was arrested by the Inquisition and burned at the stake. (And there isn't anything funny about that.)

Well, at the beginning of episode 38, Galileo gets arrested by the Ptolemaic Inquisition. And in order to save him, Marika has to explain the Copernican system and show why it's a better explanation. And she does, thus demonstrating that she's finally begun to understand science.

The Science Sentai Team! Clockwise from the upper left: Da Vinci, Curie, Marika, Newton, Archimedes, Hertz, and Darwin. Edison and Fleming are in the basement trying to repair something.

Unfortunately the whole Sentai team gets captured, too, and Marika is the only one who isn't gagged. So it all comes down to her.

The foundation of the series was that she was trapped there until she did understand science -- and now she does, and the bridge to the outside world suddenly reappears, and she does leave on it at the end.

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I don't quite know what to say about this episode. For a beach episode it was amazingly free of fan service, for one thing.

There was one very noteworthy thing: Ai is being developed as a strong character. She got a lot of screen time.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:05 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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1 Yeah, next week definitely looks like it will reveal some of the secrets that have been lurking since the first episode.  I also have my own theory about mysterious hooded figure at the bar.  Could it be that the rumors of his death were slightly exaggerated?And, as always, the next episode is too far away...

Posted by: Siergen at May 19, 2012 10:28 AM (PuIGa)

2

Interesting idea! I wonder if you're right?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 19, 2012 11:00 AM (+rSRq)

3 Well, on our "Fairy Godmother" characters:

They used the plural for "Kato", right?  That implies more than one.  Now, this could be Ririka, but she doesn't seem too worried about her own safety.

So, the idea is that the hooded figure is either Gozaemon or, what I'd actually guess, Marika's uncle.  And if it was an uncle, if Marika died, he'd suddenly be pressed into service, right?  Lots of interesting possibilities. 

The council itself looked like it had military and government officials among them.  That'd make a lot of sense.  And maintaining the power & utility of a Pirate ship that bases there would be really important.  So the truce, while always a very logical thing, finally gets confirmation of why it's operating.  It's nice all of the speculation paid off.

Oh, Kane was riffing as "Coach" from Gunbuster.  You kind of had to expect that send up to eventually happen in a space series like this.

On the episode as a whole:

Obviously, they're setting up Ai-chan to be a major player in the final story arc.  She's still something of our Chiaki stand in, as someone at school with a level of skills that Marika can interact with.  Yet, she's quite enjoyable.  Seems both realistic and determined to do what she likes.  Can appreciate that in an anime character.

Yeah, our "fan service" was Kane, ripped, in a speedo.  The body shots of the girls were more revealing in the space suits.  Which just kind of goes with this series and doesn't bother me in the least.  Oh, and poor Lynn & company, haha.  (That was another Gunbuster reference, btw. Running laps was used as punishment by Coach there.)

Plus, a wonderful cameo by Show.  He's always trying to steal the show.

The last thing was a little moment at the end.  After Kane had finished his whole run as "Coach", Marika corrected him and forced him back into addressing her as Captain.  Really subtle moment, but one of those details that is actually really important.  I liked that they were mindful of that.

Further thoughts on the "Fairy Godmothers":

It strikes me that the Truce has as much to do with future influence.  Since Marika will have a considerable amount of local power when she goes full time, who she aligns with can have major repercussions.  If she sides against a set of companies/organizations, she can do significant damage to them.

That would explain a lot of what is going on.  And why so many people suddenly showed up in episode 1.  They all wanted influence with Marika, but they were likely going to end up fighting each other more than anything else, so they made a mutual decision to let her get up to speed and just save the bidding war for later.

That and Ririka kept a not terribly small arsenal and could make their lives hell if she decided to go against whoever.  At the end of the day, she's still Blaster Ririka and a notable pirate in her own right.

Posted by: sqa at May 19, 2012 12:04 PM (fYnLL)

4 If anything, the deferred conflict is even more stark now. With the Bentenmaru now having the Silent Whisper, it has even more varied and more valuable abilities.

It's easy to see why various factions would want to be on Marika's good side. It isn't so obvious why any of them would want to kill her, unless it's because they fear she might align with their enemies. Bentenmaru's assets are potentially also a threat.

As privateers, and de facto mercenaries, Bentenmaru is a loose cannon.

Marika has already made some serious friends in high places, and I don't just mean Gruier and Grunhilde. The government of Sea of the Morningstar has already done well by her in a lot of ways.

But she's also already made some blood enemies. Taking down Robert Dolittle probably seriously inconveniences some people not to mention frightening them, and maybe that's the story with "The Bisque Company". I hope we find out more about that soon.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 19, 2012 12:26 PM (+rSRq)

5 About the truce: I think I understand it now. If the conflict was among different groups jockeying for future influence with her, then they must have realized that they were potentially killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Too much violence and/or intrigue too early might well have convinced her she wanted nothing to do with it, and in that case the game would be over.

The original truce term was until she got her Letter of Marque, but now it seems to have been extended to when she graduates from high school. And I think it's for the same reason: by that point she's going to be firmly committed to the job. Before then, she still might decide to chuck the whole thing.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 19, 2012 01:36 PM (+rSRq)

6 sqa, in the first episode Misa said that only the previous captain's "direct descendent" could become the new captain, so if the new face is Marika's uncle, he sounds as though he couldn't become captain.

By the way, I just rewatched the first episode, and there's a lot going on that I missed at first.  Little glances and facial expressions that hint at things only revealed later.  It also seemed that the way that Misa and Marika's mother greeted each other was some sort of pass-code.  I also got the impression that they were sharing some secret that Kane was not in on.

Posted by: Siergen at May 19, 2012 01:44 PM (PuIGa)

7 I don't buy the idea of an uncle. It's way too late to be introducing previously-unknown relatives. It's also lousy storytelling, and this author seems to be better than that.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 19, 2012 02:08 PM (+rSRq)

8 I've always thought the "food poisoning" bit was a little hard to -- ahem -- swallow.  Also, as much as I like Marika's ability to solve problems peacefully, if she's going to continue on as a pirate, at some point she's going to come up against the necessity of using genuinely "deadly" force.  I've wondered if they would deal with that in this show, given the fairly light tone it's maintained.  But it looks like we might see some of that play out next week.

Posted by: Dave Young at May 19, 2012 03:30 PM (ZAk0Z)

9 Dave, nice choice of words there.  I only wish I'd thought of it first.   As to the use of deadly force, I've been wondering that myself.  Marika seems to understand that her decisions could put her and her crew (and fellow students) into grave danger, but I don't think she has yet needed to "fire in anger".  As I recall, it appeared that the ship that she "flashed" with the Odette's solar sails was left disabled, then driven off by the arrival of other ships. 

I can't wait to see if she needs to face that, and if so, will it change her?  Will she still be light-hearted and innocent afterwards, or will she become more her like mother?

Posted by: Siergen at May 19, 2012 03:51 PM (PuIGa)

10 Based on the preview, Marika may go into a killing rage next episode. Basically, someone will be shooting at one of her friends in an unarmed dinghy and Marika will be flying the Silent Whisper, which I assume has rapid fire lasers or some equivalent. The look on Marika's face in one clip was terrifying, and the voiceover suggested she might be in a killing mood.

I don't think a member of the yacht club is doing to die. And I suspect that Marika won't actually kill anyone herself. But she'll try, and then afterwards she's going to do a lot of thinking.

Which parallels Gruier's "I almost killed this baby!" moment, and I suspect Gruier is going to talk her through it, having already been there.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 19, 2012 05:53 PM (+rSRq)

11 Steven, yeah, for this show that sounds about right on the money.  That way they can deal with the issue without getting too dark.

Posted by: Dave Young at May 19, 2012 07:51 PM (ZAk0Z)

12 Is it just coincidence that, except for Marika's mother, the two conspiracies are split along gender lines?

Posted by: Siergen at May 19, 2012 09:24 PM (PuIGa)

13 Sqa, it wasn't the plural, exactly; his exact words were "Kato-oyako", with oyako = "parent and child". We haven't seen anyone gunning for Ririka (which sounds like a really bad idea), so either the food poisoning was an attack, or that isn't what happened. If, however, Dad was so seriously injured that he couldn't engage in piracy for an extended length of time, it would be in everyone's interest to declare him dead, both to keep the franchise running and to flush out the bad guys. Which reopens the question of how recently he met Gruelle, and why he gave her the ring.

I think they've avoided the trap of ending the series with filler...


-j

Posted by: J Greely at May 20, 2012 10:10 AM (2XtN5)

14 Generally, I'm happy when anime and manga avoid traps in general.  Squick.

Posted by: ubu at May 20, 2012 10:56 AM (GfCSm)

15

If they're going to make a plot arc out of answering the question, "Who tried to kill Marika in the first episode, and why?" then that will be a very satisfying ending.

It sounds just like Sato to do that, too.

If that's what's coming, they just set up a nice character moment. Marika told Kenjo that what was most important to her about her crew is that she be able to trust them. But it looks like her crew has been holding out on her, about some really important matters. How will she feel about that?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 20, 2012 10:59 AM (+rSRq)

16 I did like that Natalia, the third first-year, finally got some characterization. It's odd, that aside from Lynn and Jenny the three new first-years seem to have the most characterization of the regular club members. We do have some idea of the other student's personalities from their time on the Bentenmaru, at least.

Regarding the Bentenmaru, I was a bit surprised at the nose/hull/spinal weapon they used in the contest. I don't recall that being used before; they always used the triple laser turrets mounted on the side of the hull. I wonder if that's putting us on fair notice that the Bentenmaru has a few tricks up it's sleeve that we haven't yet seen.

Speaking of the Bentenmaru's newly-revealed capability (Warning! Bad pun ahead!), I am surprised but happy to see the ship is equipped with what can with 100% accuracy be described as a Wave Motion Gun!

Posted by: Civilis at May 21, 2012 03:25 PM (VMYCu)

17 The nose is the hyperdrive.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 21, 2012 04:30 PM (+rSRq)

18 I'd missed that!  I hadn't been paying much attention to the ship itself when it gets used.

Still, the fact that the hyperdrive doubles as a 'wave-motion gun' and is linked to the fire-control system is new to me.

I also find it convenient that none of the yacht club members we've seen (including Jenny's year) would have been attending the high-school five years ago.

Posted by: Civilis at May 21, 2012 05:11 PM (YVev7)

19

It seems like that old hag is nutso. Clearly whoever she's holding a grudge against isn't there any longer. But that will all become more clear, I hope, once we find out why in hell she wants to kill girls from Hakuoh.

As to the nose they showed us that clearly in ep 18, about 10:45. There are hull segments which retract, exposing more of the nose, when they're setting up for an FTL jump.

Those same hull segments were shown retracted when they were trying to do things to the ocean, and the nose was also glowing. Exactly what that latter mode was, it's hard to say. But I don't believe for a moment that Sato put that in there with no intention of taking further advantage of it. My guess is that the nose device has the ability to warp space. One use of that is to create an entry portal into hyperspace, but there seem to be other ways it can be used.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 21, 2012 06:33 PM (+rSRq)

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I've got about 2000 gigabytes of fansubs on Deneb, and I can't think of anything I feel like watching. Such is life.

(Is it Saturday yet?)

UPDATE: I'm going to be really sad when Mouretsu Pirates ends. It's been a long time since I've been so excited about a series.

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And so, in this episode, we meet the princess and prince. They send their doggy-girl maid to the bakery to get some bread:

Her name is Rouna and she's a dojikko. In fact, the other characters call her that after she stumbles and falls one time. But she's also very handy with knives -- in more ways than one.

She delivers a very special order, which has to be specially made, and she helps them prepare it, and it turns out she's very good in the kitchen. Afterwards, all five go to the castle to deliver it.

The princess seems nice enough, but the prince comes off as being a little dark, like maybe he's a villain. He's a bishie, so he has to be a bad guy, doesn't he?

At the very least he clearly has an agenda of some kind. (The kind of show this is, he probably isn't a bad guy and his agenda will probably eventually be revealed as being praiseworthy.)

The law on the island is that anything that come from the sea that isn't edible -- or alive -- has to be turned over to the castle to be evaluated. When Rick was washed ashore, the castle invoked that rule to take his armor and his sword. That's why he hasn't had them until now.

Seems that the castle has been getting robbed. Security there is very tight, with lots of soldiers patrolling, but the thief is way too good for them and they haven't caught him (her). They rather telegraph her identity; I guessed it immediately. Anyway, the prince talked Rick into helping. Rick is a master swordsman. The prince knew this from the stuff he was wearing when he washed ashore. The prince gave him his armor back, plus gave him a standard-issue sword.

Neris turns out to be a master archer. And even though she's clumsy, Rouna knows the castle and is extremely skilled throwing knives. So the three of them patrol the castle that night, and damned near catch the thief. She escapes just at the last moment, but Rick saw her clearly and knows who it is. (He kept it secret; next episode he's going to confront her.)

The fight scenes were pretty cool, and Rick really does seem to know his stuff. I suspect it will turn out that he's the best swordsman on the island, especially once he gets his own blade back. It's pretty clear that the prince thinks he is.

At the end our heroes got some sort of reward from the Prince, which we didn't get to see. Whatever it was, the girls liked it. My guess is that it's money and they'll be able to pay to get their oven repaired. Hank the Dwarf is in the next episode, and I bet they hire him to rebuild it.

UPDATE: The princess, on the other hand, is presenting a nicely calibrated zettai ryouiki, so obviously she's not a bad guy. Right?

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