Sumomo and Nadeshiko with Yuki (Tsuwabaki) in the middle

[Impressions]

In this episode, Sumomo overcomes the fear of swimming in water and learnt a new spell in such an amazing speed within a day. Nona is definitely not amused with that although she wants Sumomo to be of a higher standard before they battle it out fair and square. Pretty straight forward episode (dont expect much from a mahou shoujo anime like this), but basically a few things has been pointed out in this episode - Sumomo is falling more in love with Tsuwabaki after all the advice from him although she does not know Yuki’s true identiy. The reason behind all this star drop chasing and about Nako-chan, will the anime show that she has feelings for Tsuwabaki ? hmm..

When the episode played the opening song’s music in this episode, I was like “wow”…reminds me of the sweet moments that was portrayed in the game, yea… <3

Pretty sweet episode as usual, not much complaints here although my fave character remains to be Nadeshiko Yaeno. Reliable and a close friend of Sumomo, she will play one of the important roles supporting Sumomo as a friend as the adventure to collect star drops continues.

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“i want to play~” -Konata

[Impressions]

Another episode of lawl, the first scene that came up after the opening pwnz. Honestly, this episode is like trying to promote SHnY as much as it can, not to mention the parody scene where Konata and her collegues in cosplay cafe did that Haruhi dance and also mimic of the voice (well…in real, Hirano Aya voices Haruhi in SHnY as well..hence her voice can change so fast..talented indeed). Konata starts the episode with a big bang by showing off her new cellphone which has a new ring tone as well -Mikuru Theme song! Miyuki is pretty well feature in this episode as well, showing her “talents” in extreme concentration. Flashbacks to the young Miyuki is indeed cute !! As for Tsukasa and Kagami, the focus is not mainly much on them except the part when the both of them and Miyuki goes to a bookshop to buy the manga that Konata wanted and poor tsukasa was “stalked”! :o

Lucky channel in this episode features Akira “LIVE” indeed, yea…singing at ktv with no one else except Shirashi. (lol..poor Akira..her song session didnt last in the ktv room and as usual, that expression of Akira’s face again) but hey! at least the real voice actor gets to sing the song till the end. (nice song imho)

Overall, this is another excellent episode, the fun and humor just keep rising and just a week earlier, we have Da Capo parody…and now? SHnY dance (lol). I am going crazy over this anime

ps: that “Mikuru” realli got me laughing when she said “classfied information” -.- and yea…this post is gonna have lots of funny screenshots :P

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Byousoku 5cm - Akari & Takaki

[Impressions]

I have always been in love with Makoto Shinkai and Tenmon’s works, it has always been astounding. From his previous works like Voices of a Distant Star (ほしのこえ）, The Place Promised In Our Early　Days (雲のむこう、約束の場所) etc, his animation and storyboarding enchanted me as it is so fluid and it compelled me to have that urge to import the DVD. This time, he directed Byousoku 5cm (秒速5センチメートル) and I would say his works have reached another level. The theme of his movie is as what the title is all about. - distance in different aspects

The movie is broken into 3 parts and each part has a name to it. Oukashou, Cosmonaut, 5 centimeters per second

Part 1 is about how Takaki gets to know Akari and soon they find themselves seperated by distance at 2 different cities that are far apart, although physically apart, Takaki makes an effort and overcomes the physical barrier just to meet Akari for once. Yet, as they find themselves going to move to different cities for studies, the physical distance is making it harder.

Part 2 takes place when Takaki is now at Kagoshima (hope i get it right) and now there is a girl in his school that likes him - Sumita. This tanned looking girl who loves surfboarding at the sea is secretly in love with Takaki, although she wants to make a confession to him, she realises that Takaki’s feelings is somewhere else. If you guess it right, Part2 deals with the distance of emotions and feelings. To overcome that, Takaki sends SMSes via phone to Akari.

The final part of this story takes place back to the city where Takaki and Akari has grown up, time has past and while both parties still remember the promises and the feelings towards each other, time has waned the both of them and each of them takes on a different move in life. Time has not stopped for Takaki and Akari for them to be together but time has slowly eroded the bonds of both as they move on in life. Akari is now married and found a companion in life while deep in her heart, she has a fragment of memory about Takai when they were young. That fragment of memory has yet to be eroded by the cruelty of time, however, it is obvious that with time, the bonds will slowly be eroded and forgotten. (as seen in the scene where Takaki finds no one on the other end of the track as he thought the girl, supposingly Akari will wait to see who he is). If you guess it right again, Part 3 talks about the a bond that is eroded by time from the distance between the two.

I am sure some will disagree with what I said. Just based upon my views and how I look at it from my perspective. In my opinion, this animation is about the different kind of distances.

Time can erode feelings and the bonds of parties seperated by a distance. As the distance gets further, one will slowly lose the closeness if they lost contact with each other.

The distance with emotions cannot be overcome with the help of anything by closing in of sheer physical distance.The

A relationship by physical distance can be overcome but as the gap gets bigger, even with modern transport, it is just hard.

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Song: Forest
Vocal: Emily Bindiger
Composer: Kajiura Yuki (梶浦　由記)
El Cazador OST Vol1 is scheduled for a release on the 25th July 2007

Ellis with a smile..

[Impressions]

This episode is awesome, why? Because it is about how about “Professor” Heinz and Ellis’s relation to each other grew from a “scientist-specimen” to a “father-daughter” kind of relationship. It brings the series to its peak as we get to see Ellis from young until the point Heinz got killed and it also show Ellis’s latent powers. Ellis is indeed an interesting girl we have in El Caza and how Heinz changed to like her to the point he abandoned his experiments just for her.

The episode shows that it is very unlikely for Ellis to be the “killer” who shot the “Professor”, there is another someone. While this “someone” is an unknown, there is something true for sure. The “someone” is definitey under orders /related or maybe even Rosenberg himself. That guy is under the govt since he mentioned about peoples’ taxes to the “Professor”, no doubt he will have some major backup up in the upper ranks

The quality and the emotions brought about in this episode simply moves me, the music is another factor that’s worth a praise, it brings out the emotions intended. The insert song was wow and it’s sung in english, seriously moved and I felt sad for Ellis’s past. It’s Kajura Yuki again whose musics are simply dazzling. So much Ellis goodness in this episode….I am starting to like this series again <3

ps: fyi, the insert song’s title is Forest, it is sung by Emily Bindiger and composed by Kajiura Yuki.

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Satoko Houjou

[Impressions] - 厄醒し編 - Disaster Awakening Chapter

As Rika looks at the calendar, she knows she is going to face her same destiny again, a destiny that have been repeating in a spiral- death. The baseball scene in this episode reminded me of Tatarigoroshi-hen in the manga, I wonder if they will show Rika meeting the policeman in later episodes. In this episode, Rika is seen talking to a mysterious person, the mysterious person is voiced by Horie Yui (uguu~)…well, since the voice is by her, Rika is definitely talking to Hanyuu (Somehow, I was expecting Hanyuu to go uguu~ :P ). This epsiode shifts between 2 important perspectives - Satoko and Rika. Satoko is being ignored due to her family background and Rika is well aware of her destiny despite persuading by Hanyuu. The 2 perpspectives merged when Satoko is now well aware that Rika is definitely talking to a “someone” and she is wondering if Rika is bothered by her family background. Rika doesnt mind but Satoko isnt aware of it. Suspicions and misunderstandings may arise but I am not sure.

Since this is an anime exclusive, this arc will be filling the missing parts of season 1 likely and eventually lead to the answer arcs later on. Will Rika able to escape the wheel of death and break free the 1983 fate ? :)

ps: it would be good if there is anime adaptation of 賽殺し編, , it will be interesting if they did :P

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Sumomo is happy. I am happy too :P

I got bored and decided to change my blog theme from a bright background to a dark theme. Basically modified some of the colors and changed some stuff. Added a few things and removed some details here and there. Do let me know in the comments here if you spot something wrong or weird in your browser.

Changelog

+ Changed the background, font colors

+ Modified fonts to century gothic with arial and some other common fonts as secondary backup

+ Added/Modified page content on About Abzanzai, My Rigs

+ Modified the image border to black

+ Modified the sidebar to make it look more compact and also the border line to gray

+ Modified the highlight on the sidebar to orange and fonts bolded when selection is highlighted.

+ Modified Shoutbox’s colors to fit the theme

+ Activated wp-cache plugin.

- Removed the extra > in the tagbox

Clare

[Impressions]

Time is definitely not on Galatea and Clare’s side as No. 9 Jeane has awakened (as shown in the next ep trailer), the 2 Claymores are definitely stuck as they meet up with one of the toughest Yomas and also one of the 3 Prime Awakened Ones. Yup! That cute looking girl is an Awakened One, a powerful one in fact. The little girl is known as Riful of the West, one of the 3 Primes who had awakened during the peak of their powers, a little past was revealed here as there 3 Primes who were previously No1 Claymores that had transformed. If you guess it right, Priscilla is one of the 3 Primes as indicated by Riful. The other one is a male Awakened One and it seems like Priscilla had joined forces with him and starts to form an army up in the north. Riful is doing the same too hence Jeane was one of the captured Claymores who were tortued to awaken so that she could be Riful’s ally. Just a sidenote, the 3 Primes are known as Dwellers of the Deep as they had hidden themselves well from the outside world while mustering their forces.

Galatea’s veteran experience was very much useful to Clare indeed, and luckily for Clare, Galatea prevented an unnecessary awakening for her as Riful tries to do some cheapskate taunting to invoke Clare’s anger, next episode will be the finale for this arc, honestly, I have no clue how this will end as Clare and Galatea are facing off Riful and that big-ass Yoma and whats more is that Mizuka Nana is voicing Riful ! It will be a pity too if her role just dies off in 3 episodes, aint it? :P

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Lucky Star Parody? by MAD - Titled Lucky Star Rhyme

I saw this Lucky Star fan video parody of this h-game visual novel (Nursery Rhyme) by Lump of Sugar. The song is True my heart (yea..i like this song) but whats interesting is the parody similiarity of the Lucky Star fan made video to the original one. haha..I wondered if we have anyone making a Da Capo video..Wait, dont we have one ready in Lucky Star ep15? LOL. Anyway, click on Read more to view the original video.
Note: The original video does not contain explicit scenes

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Kotonoha and Makoto

[Impressions]

Makoto deserves a big knock on his nuthead once in a while, he has got to be more “sensative” to a girl somehow. In this episode, Kotonoha is unhappy because being a couple, Makoto still calls her Katsura-san (surname). I think this is the worst mistake a guy can make when talking to his girlfriend. Luckily, this is an anime, it is pretty rare for Makoto-class people here. Anyway, the episode advances further as Makoto visits Kotonoha’s home. Kotonoha’s younger sis, Kokoro gets to meet her sis’ bf too and had hell lots of fun (*remembers Summer Days*) Sekai’s Radish costume was omg! There were some slight references to Summer Days in this episode (FYI: Summer Days is the “sequel” to School Days where the story revolves mainly around Setsuna). The ending of this episode was disturbing though as Makoto tells Sekai that handling Kotonoha in a relationship is tiring.

We can assume many possibilities - Kotonoha will be hurt deeply in future episodes, Makoto will start to have feelings towards Sekai. Otome is unhappy with Kotonoha and will try ways to add stress to her.  Unfortunately, we havent get to see the “ecchi” scene in this episode, not that it is for fan service but is one of the crucial turning point in the 3’s relationship towards each other. Something is gonna happen soon. I still believe the “glass cracking” opening in ep1 holds a significant meaning. :P

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