Clichés make a show boring. The more clichéd a story is, the less interesting and enjoyable it becomes. But my theory is that this relationship only holds true until you hit a certain magical event horizon where the laws of the universe break apart, one gets divided by zero and clichés become art.

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Read the rest of Infinite Stratos (868 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: comedy, harem, infinite stratos, osananajimi, quad drill, romance, sci-fi, tsundere, twin tail

Level E is an amazing underhyped show. It’s Men in Black with Japanese comedy and self parody. You have to wonder why it took them 15 years to adapt the original into anime.

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Read the rest of Level E — Episode 5 (313 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aliens, comedy, episode review, level e

If anime were a religion, magical girls would be one of its Five Pillars, along with shounen battle, love comedy, mecha and sports. Friendship, courage and cuteness are the fundamentals of the classic mahou shoujo. Implied yuri and teenage angst come optional in contemporary interpretations.

It’s a genre that is really easy to understand and that’s why I’ve never really been a huge fan of it. It’s like watching the latest Hollywood adaptation of yet another Marvel superhero — mildly entertaining with few surprises.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is different. I am not ready to declare it the best show this season after three episodes, but I will say that it definitely stands out.

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Read the rest of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (1,017 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: akiyuki shinbo, first impression, mahou shoujo, puella magi madoka magica, shaft, wtf

There is no way my post title is so long. Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, or OreImo as it is commonly abbreviated, is an interesting twist of the quintessential tsundere anime genre popularized by titles such as Shakugan no Shana and Zero no Tsukaima.

And beyond that, it, like Genshiken, is a testament to the subculture that has sprung up around bishoujo anime and games.

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Read the rest of Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai (864 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: akihabara, comiket, kirino kousaka, kyousuke kousaka, meta, oreimo, Otaku, subculture, tsundere

I’ve been following Kadokawa Shoten CEO Shinichirou Inoue’s Twitter feed for a while mainly due to Bill 156. Today, he posted a tweet saying that a huge announcement for Suzumiya Haruhi will be published in the next issue of Kadokawa’s The Sneaker magazine (the bi-monthly that the original light novels are serialized in) coming out on Dec 27th.

Given the complete lack of information, I am just going to make a completely baseless guess and call it now: live action movie adaptation of the original Yuuutsu story arc! (No, not this one.) Remember you heard it here first.

Well, at the very least, I think we can be sure that it won’t be a new special rip-off remastered edition of the DVDs, since the Blu-ray box only just came out.

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: haruhi suzumiya, kadokawa, suzumiya haruhi no yuuutsu, the sneaker

One a upon a time, in an oriental archipelago far far away, a wise sensei of the literary arts told his students, “Foreshadowing can be used to masterfully hint at the future direction of your story and make the experience more interesting for your readers. This is an ancient technique passed down through the centuries and it has the power to either advance the human condition when used for good or destroy all life on Earth if it should ever fall into the wrong hands.”

Unfortunately, his lesson was soon forgotten. The Dark Side is too strong and the temptation too great. Forged by the twisted nethers of teenage angst and the passionate flames of homoeroticism, The Legend of the Legendary Heroes is a massive black hole of pure foreshadowing, unrestrained by such mundane limiters as climax or resolution.

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Read the rest of The Legend of the Legendary Heroes (874 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dango, densetsu no yuusha no densetsu, foreshadow, funimation, light novel, takaya kagami, zexcs

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is set to pass new legislation restricting the sales of manga depicting certain sexual acts to minors under eighteen.

Contrary to what certain easily-excitable individuals may proclaim, this is not a ban and this is not the end of the anime. But it will certainly pose a huge problem to the industry.

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Read the rest of Tokyo Government to pass tough ordinance against mature manga (2,428 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, ecchi, hentai, industry, japan, law, lolicon, shintarou ishihara, tokyo

An extremely short trailer for Makoto Shinkai’s latest project “Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo” has been released on the official site. The length and amount of plot details contained are about the same as the Byousoku 5cm trailer.

It looks like he is actually moving out of his comfort zone into more adventurous fantasy territory. There’s a really strong Ghibli vibe in this one, both in terms of design and setting, but since the character designer is still Takayo Nishimura as in 5cm, I suppose this is more of a deliberate homage and probably doesn’t actually have any Ghibli involvement.

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Read the rest of Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo Trailer (145 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: hoshi wo ou kodomo, makoto shinkai, trailer, youtube

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the final evolution of Gainax. The transformational journey from Gunbuster to Evangelion to FLCL to Diebuster to Gurren Lagann has finally ended with the release of the first epsiode of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. With their latest creation, Gainax has worked three times as hard to extract the pristine essence of ridiculous comedy untainted by unnecessarily impurities like plot or character development. Imagine Gurren Lagann without all the preachy manly life lessons or Diebuster without the touching character dynamics, but with way more funk and screen-shattering action. This is it. And, it’s inexplicably incredible.

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Read the rest of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt — Episode 1 (719 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: first episode, gainax, panty & stocking with garterbelt

Highschool of the Dead (HOTD) is a surprising winner once you get pass the campy title reminiscent of last-century B-grade horror movies. Despite a story set-up that is pretty generic in the zombie apocalypse genre, the series manages to mix in enough anime-unique tropes to create an entertaining blend of two vastly different subcultures.

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Read the rest of Highschool of the Dead (1,329 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apocalypse, high school, highschool of the dead, horror, survival, zombies