Shikabane Hime Aka:” The Ladykiller Has Arrived!”

I update my Fall 2008 blog with another new show.  Finally after all the waiting I review the first episode of Shikabane Hime Aka.  I guess most anime database sites prefer the more concise view of writing with the entire summary being one sentence.  “The title Corpse Princess belongs to Mokina Hoshimura, an undead girl who seeks to hunt down 108 corpses in order to go to heaven.”  The whole premise sounds a little generic to many, but I think it also has potential to be rather entertaining.  Well enough with the rather short background story, blog begins now!

It opens up showing a full moon partly hidden behind the clouds.  The screen cuts to showing us the sign of an orphanage.  A cat meows in the background as the place is quiet except for the blowing of the wind.  It

Looks

Looks very comfy...

shows a young boy in his bed having trouble sleeping for good reason.  Apparently there are five other kids attached to his limbs and body asleep.  I think that’s rather odd, and it would be very awful to have to sleep in that kind of position.  A creepy cat that we heard meowing suddenly appears.  Its yellow eyes glowing as it looks through the window.  The boy wakes up to look at it, and the cat jumps through the window (like it can walk through objects) sits down and speaks. It says Ouri in a very

Creepy Cat

Creepy Cat

spooky voice.  The boy gets up and opens the door slowly hobbling outside down an entryway to another building.  By the way he is walking and acting I’m not sure if he is under a trance or not.

It doesn’t appear he’s in a trance as he takes notice to a light inside the building he’s walking toward.  He opens the door asking if the person in there is his brother.  It looks to be like a temple room with a Buddha statue and many candles lit in the room.  The boy opens the door farther and notices there is a girl lying on a mat beaten up with cuts on her body.  Her

You think you had

You think you had a rough night?

clothes are torn and tattered.  He rushes over to her aid. He touches her hand and notices that her body is cold.  He checks for breathing and exclaims she’s dead.  Suddenly other men barge in apparently monks who work at the temple.  One of them has glasses and appears to be in bad condition as well.  The four men stand over the girl while the other boy, who had hidden, is wondering what is going on with the girl.  Then the cat from earlier asks him if he wants to know.  She tells him she’s a shikabane.

The monk with glasses rolls the shikabane on her back and says because of his lack of experience the En was almost severed, although at this time I am unaware what the En is referring to.  He does some healing monk thing and holds her close to him.  The boy hiding notices movement in her hands, and the girl opens her eyes.  She says “Keisei sorry.”  The others appear to seem relieved she’s alive.  The boy can’t believe it and  states to himself that she was dead without a doubt.

Suddenly it shifts to police breaking into an apartment by using a circular saw to cut the chain holding the door.  They rush in to a back room and see a guy sitting on a couch with pink lights shining on him.  He has his head down, and the one of the officers says he is Hagino, and they had found seven dead bodies at his residence apparently all women who had lived with him.  The man responds by asking them since they’re police that if their subordinates disobeyed they would get rid of them wouldn’t they.  He slowly stands up in

Wonder what the spotlights

Wonder what the spotlights are for?

an anything but coordinated manner.  The detective (I assume) demands to know what crimes the women committed, and the man replies saying they did not listen to orders.  He then jumps behind him to the open window and jumps off the ledge.  It is implied that he fell to his death, but with guys like that we can never be sure.

The scene shifts to the day again back to the orphanage.  The children are eating breakfast, with the Keisei man overlooking.  Everyone is praying and while they have their eyes closed Keisei steals some food from a child’s plate.  This gets the younger brother fired up, but  Keisei begins to go off on a long winded

More pain to the back of the head

More pain to the back of the head

speech on nothing really till a woman comes in behind him and smacks him in the back of the head sending him flying into the wall.  The woman demands the priest what he is teaching the children.  The older boy from the beginning of the episode comes in, and apparently he is moving out.  He and from what I assume is his younger brother get into an argument over his name and as he is walking back Keisei trips him causing him to drop his box.  This leads to many swimsuit magazines to spill out all over the floor.

Bad time

Bad time for your "collection" to come out.

It seems that the Keisei had planted the magazines in his stuff and even to the time to write the other young man’s name on them.  Apparently the young man (whose name is Ouri) is moving out and living by himself now.  (A possible harem setup)  A little girl at the table obviously doesn’t want him to leave.  Ouri leaves heading off to school planning on getting his things after school.  Keisei and the woman who smacked him on the head have a talk about Ouri, ever since the night when Keisei was hurt (at the beginning of the episode) was the night when Ouri wanted to move out.

Try to leave after seeing

Try to leave after seeing this face.

We are shifted to a rather empty apartment room with the sound of a shower running in the background.  It’s the wounded girl from the beginning.  She is in the shower, but I’m not sure if there are still smaller wounds on her still healing or if they are some kind of weird marks.  Her phone is ringing, but she can’t hear it and it shifts scenes.  We are now at Ouri’s school, then in his classroom where he and some of his classmates are talking about Ouri moving out.  Ouri tries to hint at getting them to help him move but they run off before he can even get his sentence out.  He chases after them, but bumps into a girl named Inuhiko.  She asks Ouri if he heard about the “harem

Guys seem to get the abuse

Guys seem to get the abuse this fall

killer”.  (AH-HA! A possible Harem Horror Show!!)  This gets the attention of one of Ouri’s friends saying how jealous he is, and how every guy wants to experience a harem setting at least once.  His rant is quickly ended from a hard elbow to the stomach from Inuhiko.

They go into the discussion about the killer talking about the information that the viewer already knew from earlier in the show.  We do learn though apparently he did survive the fall though (like I thought depsite sound of a body hitting the concrete) and is still lurking somewhere.  The scene shifts to the shikabane girl talking to Keisei about the killer.  Apparently the killer has become a shikabane and they are discussing how to deal with him.  It is shown that he lived through the twenty story drop and got up turned into some crazy monster that looked like a shadow attacked the police outside the building and escaped. It appears that Keisei is enlisting the help of the girl (Makina).  It appears one of the guys named Honda is not very happy about keeping the girl around with his statement, “That is the reason why we keep something like you around.”  However, she seems unaffected saying she will find the shikabane and kill him.

We are outside the city near dusk and you see the shadow creature fly across the skies.  The pedestrians below are taking notice below but it flies fairly quicly so they can’t get a good like at it.  (It looks like a more hideous and bigger version of batman in the sky.)  We are back at Ouri placing his belongings in a cart as he prepares to move.  He leaves walking pulling the cart behind him.  We are shown another building with Makina coming up an elevator in an apartment complex.  Down the hall is a room with its door open with pink light flooding out into the hallway like before.  Keisei and the others (priests? I guess) are outside when Keisei is informed that one of the girls in Hagino’s (the crazy demon guy) harem is in the building and apparently Hagino had summoned her.

It shifts back to Makina peeking into the pink lit room seeing Hagino sucking the blood from the neck of a woman.  The room has stained glass on three sides and the corpses of three other women are laying on the floor suggesting that he was already finished drinking the other women’s blood.  Makina asks Hagino what

Tastes better than juice!

Tastes better than juice!

he’s doing he replies that he died and was revived, and he has become an immortal vampire.  The girl responds saying no, he’s just a shikabane.  The women pick themselves off the floor and one of them grabs the girls leg, it is said that they are now shikabane now also.

He rushes at her and she tries to throw a punch but he catches her punch.  She breaks free does a back flip and pull out two guns, and opens fire.  The demon comes out of

A rather intersting thing

A rather interesting thing to have inside you.

Hagino’s body and these things that look like bone wings pop out of its body.  It ties the girl up with cord like things from its body, an explosion happens in the room and the demon is flying out with all five women (the four girls from earlier) attached to him, with some kind of rope thing from its body.  Makina is struggling to get free still while the demon flies above the city.  She still has her guns in her hands and manages to shoot the cords wrapped around her letting her escape, but she is falling toward the streets far below.

We are then shifted back to Ouri who is struggling as he is pulling his cart up a hill.  Suddenly there is a loud crash noise and Ouri sees Makina who had fallen and hit the ground.  Ouri accidentally lets his guard up and the weight of the cart rolls back down the hill after Ouri let go.  Ouri quickly remembers that it was the girl who was beaten up back at the temple.  All of the sudden the talking cat appears and confirms his

Nightmares

There ARE monsters in your closet

statement.  For some reason Ouri shows no sign of surprise to a talking cat.  He checks Makina’s pulse and confirms she’s dead.  He holds her close to him like Keisei did earlier in attempts to revive her.  We are suddenly shown a scene with two sliding doors cracked open.  There is fire on the other side and suddenly hands with claws burst through the door.  Makina is on the other side trying to back away into against a wall from the demons.  She is in pure terror.  We can assume she’s in hell.

She says Keisei’s name and is covered in darkness.  She wakes up in Ouri’s arms, it is now night back in the human world.  She asks who Ouri is, and he says well your heart wasn’t beating and still isn’t.  She asks why he knows that and yet he still isn’t afraid.  He says well you’re alive.  She seems to relax and smile, but quickly smacks him and runs away down the hill jumping on a moped that Keisei drove up on.  They ride off from the scene.  Ouri chases after her but the moped is gone by the time he gets there.  Back on the moped Keisei asks Makina how her body is, she says she just regenerated, and she’s by his side.  He says that the other priests are keeping an eye on the shikabane.  Kiesei tells her not to touch the other women around

Fights on roofs mean

Fights on roofs mean the final showdown

him, because a Shikabane can’t infect other humans.  He believes the women may have just been hypnotized.  They reach the building and Makina takes off up the building to the roof, where shikabane is waiting still with the women around him.

The shikabane can’t believe that Makina fell from that height and lived.  We are told that from time corpses like him appear.  They die but they possess a will and take action.  Known as a murdering Shikabane.  She then says she is a shikabane with the sole purpose of destroying murdering shikabane called a hime

Locked and Loaded

Locked and Loaded

shikabane.  She throws off her coat and pulls out her guns again.  The women rush toward her, but she dodges them and jumps over them cause she jumps like thirty feet in the air and opens fire on the shikabane.  We are shown Ouri who is slowly riding his bike up a hill, looking very exhausting.  Debris from the building where two Shikabane are fighting falls to the ground by Ouri causing him to crash.  We are shown a shot of the priest who doesn’t like Makina standing there by a window looking down at Ouri.

We are shifted back to the fighting after the demon kicks Makina off of him she is surrounded by the women and bit and strangled however, Keisei comes to her aid. and knocks the women off of her. (I guess he is capable of some combat as well.)  Both shikabane rush at each other Makina with her guns blazing sticks

I don't think they like her

I don't think they like her

them right in the demons abdomen, causing blood to shoot out.  She drives him straight into a huge lighting fixture shocking him and shooting him at the same time.  Finally she points the guns point blank at his head, smirking at how just now he feared her.  She blows some rounds into his head, and it changes scenes.

We are at Ouri apartment who finally got his cart there.  He is going to put boxes in his living room when he notices a banner, and his three friends passed out on the floor, surrounded in a mess of food and drinks.

Someone missed the party

Someone missed the party

We then see Makina getting into the shower once again her body covered in cuts.  She says the stunning phrase “The smell of a Shikabane.” and the show ends. The ED starts out with acoustic guitar and sounds very fitting for the night time theme of this show.  It soon picks up though to a faster paced song.  I enjoy it, it doesn’t sound too bad.

My Thoughts

This show was intersting somewhat.  Although I’m really kind of bewildered and slightly unsatisfied.  While it seemed cool at parts, and fast paced at times, it also seemed rushed and left a lot of the plot to the imagination.  It seemed like the viewer was just kind of thrown in there.  It certainly doesn’t waste time getting the show moving.  I still don’t know what part Ouri really is going to play later on in the show.  I do like the “feeling” that this show gives off.  It does a good job of portraying a proper setting.  The action is good, and the the way it shows them is great.  I liked the camera angles it took during the fighting scenes.  I hope that it fills us in though the series and sets the plot a tad straighter in the later episodes.  The ED was good, and I’ll be looking forward to the OP since this show also left it out for the first episode.  I will be checking out episode 2 though to see what direction this series takes.

Rosario + Vampire Capu2 Episode 1 “Vampire Beauties Unleashed”

Once  again after a short break I am continuing my blogging for the Fall 2008 season with a new series Rosario + Vampire Capu2.  You may be thinking that this is a rather weird show to blog, however, more people will watch a harem, ecchi anime than they would have you believe in forums and blogs.  Lets face it, these show keep getting made because well, lots of people watch them.  The harem is made fun of as one of the most loser genres out there, but is seems many “losers” watch it, and I’m sure the fan service only helps it.  Okay enough rant, beginning blog now.

The show opens up playing happy music (sounding like something from a 1950’s commercial) showing Moko Akashiya (the main vampire girl) riding on a bike.  We get a random panty shot, and then see that Tsukune Aono (the main male protagonist) is riding beside her.  They go into one of those lovey dovey scenes similar to the first season where they repeat each others name about three times each.  Suddenly Tsukune blushes and ask Moko if she wants to suck his blood again, obviously a big sexual innuendo for you know what.  Moka replies “No, it isn’t about sucking blood this time.”  She then proceeds to jump on top of him knocking him off his bike.

We are

Tsukune's favorite fantasy

They land in a field of flowers with a background that looks like they should be living somewhere in the deep mountains.  Tsukune is lying on top of Moko and asks if its okay and we hear one of the most popular lines in harem anime, “If it’s Tsukune it’s okay.” HAHAHA!! That’s priceless! Harem shows are so funny!

Sorry

Sorry did I interrupt your fantasy?

Tsukune is lowering himself to kiss her when he peeks an eye and freaks out because there are all sorts of bats around her and Moka’s vampire form has appeared instead.  For those of you who don’t know from the first season Moka is a vampire however, she lives life like two separate people.  Her regular form, and her form when she turns into a vampire.  It is essentially two people in one body, and often the vampire form of Moka refers to the human form as a separate person.  However, that was only when the rosary around her neck comes disconnected from the chain, which didn’t happen this time so I guess it’s something new she can do.The vampire form of Moka greets him and seems intrigued that he does want to kiss her.  She tells him to think over his decision again, and kicks him in the groin, and launches him in the air.  Again for those of you who don’t know when Moka is in her vampire form she is EXTREMELY powerful.  We then learn that Tsukune was in a dream and he had fallen off his bed.

It shifts to Tsukune’s mother cooking eggs for breakfast, and you can hear him running about in a frenzy because it seems he’s late.  He skips breakfast, and frantically is in a hurry to get back to the school.  The school is a boarding school so it seems it is the beginning of a new semester or year.  As he is running out of his front gate it appears there is another girl (new to the series) who is human (Tsukune calls her Kyo-chan) that wanted to talk to him because she hadn’t seen him in a long time.  He blows her off and doesn’t even look back as he shouts sorry to her and keeps running.  She is obviously angry about not being able to talk to him.  Looks like another girl for our simple, male hero in the story.

Kyo-Chan

Disappointed Kyo-Chan, I have a feeling she may have a bigger part later on in the series

We are filled in on typical background information from Tsukune in monologue form, like his name, age, and we find out that it is a new school year and he is now a second year high school student.  We learn that spring break just ended and he is looking forward to the new year.  The bus driver who is driving him to the school for monsters (Youkai Academy) asks him if he’s doing well, and is impressed he is.  We get more random panty shots as they talk as the video shifts to girls riding on their bikes to school in skirts.  The driver tells him to be careful of danger.  The bus drops him off and Tsukune reminisces about him being at the same spot where he first met Moka.  He hears a bike going by and becomes excited thinking that it may be Moka, however it is a different girl who crashes into him.

She

She doesn't like the "friendly" Tsukune

As they are recovering from the crash Tsukune accidentally touches her chest causing a helpless little moan to come out which I’m sure 99.999% of the viewers had a trickle of blood come out of their nose.  We go into what I call “daydream mode” where Tsukune comments on how cute the girl he just crashed into is.  However, in a rather comedic moment “daydream mode” is quickly stopped and the girl very angrily yells at Tsukune how much longer he plans on touching her.  She kicks him off of her while calling him a pervert in the process.  However, she realizes that he has a very nice aroma coming from him, and she licks his cheek. (More nosebleeds ensue I’m sure) Strangely enough after she licks him she kicks him asking him angrily what he wants to do to her.  It seems she may have split personalities.  She tells him to go to hell and leaves.

The scene shifts to the front gate of the school with Tsukune wondering how everyone was doing.  It shifts

This make me laugh

This makes me laugh a lot, but it must be painful if she's bleeding

into fantasy mode showing Kurumu (a succubus at the school) holding the captivation of another female student, as the other female student rubs her face in Kurumu’s rather large chest.  While at the same time Yukari (a loli witch) has two girl gasping over how cute she is.  Tsukune appears demanding what the girls are doing which immediately gets the attention of Yukari as she throws the girls away from her and runs toward Tsukune, but is stopped because Kurumu’s chest smacks her in the back of the head as she runs toward Tsukune as well.  She jumps on him wrapping her

I love the face in the background

I love the face of the random student in the background

legs around him and smothering his face in her chest exclaiming how happy she is Tsukune remember her.  Suddenly Mizore (an ice woman) throws an ice shard at Kurumu’s forehead from behind a tree, asking her if she intends on suffocating HER Tsukune.

Kurumu stands there in a daze with the ice shard still in her forehead with blood squirting out of her forehead.  Suddenly Kurumu comes to and makes her long claws appear asking Mizore if she intends on ruining her and Tsukune’s reunion.  Mizore fires back

That might sting a little

Ice shard impaled in the forehead? I bet that stings a little....

by turning her hands into ice claws and getting ready to fight with Kurumu.  It is stopped by having Moka run up telling the two not to fight so soon after seeing each other.  Tsukune says Moka which causes them to go into “daydream” mode, much to the dismay of Kurumu, Mizore, and Yukari.  They tell each other they missed each other, and then Moka says she can’t really hold back anymore and bites him on his neck.  In response Tsukune says crying this is the second time.  In confusion Moka says, “Second time?” All of the sudden first year girl students start cheering about being able to see the famed Moka.

They trample over Tsukune and surround Moka with googly eyes.  The first years then talk about how awesome all the senior girls are such as the cute, super smart Yukari.  The big breasted Kurumu, the cool and attractive Mizore, but out of all of them the most beautiful and capable Moka. They completely surround her and smother her.  In all of the commotion of her being touched by tons of girls she says the famous,

How many

How many guys want to trade spots with Moka?

“NO! you can’t touch there!” line.  She is then carried off by the horde of girls.  In the aftermath the other three girls are standing there dumbfounded, with Mizore crouched over Tsukune (who is still laying there in shock from being trampled) smiling and poking at him.  Kurumu exclaims her excitement since she’s in the same class as Tsukune this year, as it shifts to the classroom at the same time.  Moko is there, so is Yukari, and although she doesn’t say anything Mizore is there also.  It figures he would be in the same class as all three of them, typical harem.Their homeroom teacher, Ms. Nekonome, (the cat lady) their homeroom teacher from last year, enters and wishes them a good year.

I love this picture

The faces say it all

The show shifts to all of the students at their shoe lockers and the girls lockers dump out several fan letters each.  Mizore then reads on of her letters for everyone to hear and it says we are both alike we are both stalkers can we be friends? I thought it was funny, the letter is from a girl named Araara Kashiko.  Reasonably so, this freaks everyone out, although Mizore seems to show no discomfort.  Moko as expected has way more letters than everyone else, they literally come pouring out of her locker, and she becomes buried by a rather large pile of letters.

There is a unique letter than stands out because it has the face of the bat who narrates the show

Mako

Moka's letter receives a similar reaction.

sometimes.  The letter says that she will finally be getting to meet Moka, she can’t stop thinking about her,  so before the opening ceremony she wants to take Moka’s life.  Obviously this gets a very stunned reaction from everyone. (Except Mizore once again)  It picks back up with everyone in the newspaper clubroom and Tsukune telling everyone it’s probably just a prank, but Moka says she’s still scared.  Kurumu and Yukari say it’s time to bring in the freshman, while Mizore wonders where their club president is.  They believe he’s probably taking perverted pictures again.  (In season one their club president took pictures of girls in the locker room and such, and even framed Tsukune once, but their okay now)  It turns out he is doing just that, scoping out the freshman looking for beautiful girls among them.  He sees a girl wearing knee high socks (the viewer can just see the girl from the thighs down) and gets excited however, she spots him and demands what he’s doing and crushes his camera and the screen becomes cracked.  (Note: The camera angle for this scene is like the veiewer is looking through the viewfinder of the camera.)  The viewer never sees the above the girls waist.

The screen shifts to Moka and Tsukune walking down the hall together, and Moka is worried due to the earlier letter she received. Everyone else tells her to lay low for the time being.  We then meet another familiar face from season one, Ruby.  She is also a witch, and serving as school board chairman. She was one

Ruby return from the first season

Ruby returns from the first season

of the main antagonists from part of season one, but she is now their friend.  She goes into a long speech about her past, but Tsukune and Moko are not listening, instead a bag of candy catches their eye.  However, underneath the bag is another letter that has the face of the bat.  Tsukune opens the letter and reads it out loud.  It lets them know she is already at the school, and looking forward to tomorrow’s opening ceremony so she can take Moka’s life.  This causes Moka to freak out, and Tsukune asks Ruby if she saw someone place the letter there, but has been going on about her past this entire time, so she is of no help.

The epsiode shifts showing different clubs telling the students to join their club, while at the same time showing some familiar faces from the first season.  It moves to the newspaper club where Kurumu and Yukari are dressed like maids handing out copies of the newspaper to the very willing students.  Yukari and

I'm sure somebody enjoyed this screenshot

Girls in maid costumes? One is a Loli? I bet this made at least one person happy

Kurumu are very pleased with the positive feedback, and we even get a full breast bounce to show Kurumu’s excitement….oh joy.  Then it shows the redheaded girl that Tsukune got ran over by at the beginning of the episode and she says the newspaper is garbage and wads it up and throws it away.  Kurumu shouts at her, but there are too many people around her trying to get a newspaper for her to do anything.  By the time the crowd clears the redhead is gone.

The scene shifts to Tsukune and Moko walking in the forest alone together.  Tsukune says they’ll rest in the hostel together.  It turns out to Moko’s disbelief that there is another bat letter, but this time it has been attached to Tsukune’s back.  Tsukune rips it off and reads aloud, just a little longer, I’m very near, the school’s opening ceremony, that’ll be your last day.  Suddenly it shows a cat making a hissing noise, and running off. (but not really hissing more like when you step on its tail kind of noise). The letter causes Moko to run away in fear with Tsukune chasing after her.

We are shown the city at night, the sky is the same pinkish color that it changes to whenever, Moka’s vampire comes out.  It shows Tsukune sitting at his desk feeling bad for Moka since she was completely freaked out.  He opens his window where he can see Moka’s silhouette in her room.  She notices him standing at his window and she gets up.  We go back into “daydream” mode with them saying each other’s name several times.  We then get a random shot of Mizore in the bushes stalking Tsukune looking up at him saying his name as well.  She is interrupted though because Mizore meets the redheaded girl who is looking for someone or something.  It turns out the redhead has heard of who Mizore is the famed stalker and calls Mizore disgusting.  This causes Mizore to shoot some ice spikes at her, which she easily evades and then runs off.

It is the next morning, and Tsukune greets Moka who obviously did not sleep at all the night before and looks rather tired.  She pulls out a small pile of bat letters she received the night before.  The episode shows  Moka receiving the letters the night before with different people delivering them to her room.  Moka starts to

The letters are bad luck

The letters are bad luck

cry asking Tsukune what she should do.  He plays the heroic manly part saying no matter what happens I will protect you. Seems he’s forgetting that she’s an awesome vampire and he’s just some guy.  The scene shifts to the opening ceremony with Tsukune and girls outside planning to protect Moka from whatever danger it could be.  Mizore then tells everyone about her encounter with the redheaded girl.  However, they are interrupted because randomly two guys come smashing through a wall.

A girl provoked them to anger, and they turned into their monster forms, (a Frankenstein and cyclops) and started trying to attack the girl.  It turns out the girl is the redhead from before.  She is much faster than them and they can’t keep up with her.  The place is getting destroyed and Tsukune pulls the rosary from the

The blood-red eyes of awesome

The blood-red eyes of awesome

chain which awakens the vampire inside of Moka.  She easily sets everything back to order by taking care of the two kids who had turned into their monster forms.  She turns back into Moka, and finally the redhead girl meets up with her.  She asks Moka if she read all of the letter she sent her.  Moka tells everyone to run whenever she sees her.  You find out she is Moka’s sister. Immediately after, the episode ends with Moka biting Tsukune’s neck.

Screenshot from ED

Screen shot from ED

The ED is about what you would expect from a harem ecchi show.  The song itself is actually not that bad.  However, it is an upbeat song that seems to just be the reason to show all the girls dancing to the music in skimpy outfits.  I must say that the ED from the first season was way better.  I wonder if the OP will be similar to this ED?   Although for some reason I’m not really surprised at all by this ED.

My Thoughts

This show was everything I expected it to be, with a few small laughs mixed in.  Have a guy surrounded by tons of girls, make sure Kurumu’s breasts are big and bounce, make sure everyone gives panty shots even at the most random times, have Tsukune and Moka go into daydream mode several times and just say each other’s name, and have Moka’s vampire form appear once.  The big plot mover wasn’t really that big. Oh my gosh the redhead is Moka’s sister, which really isn’t too surpising because anyone could have picked up she’s a vampire after the bike scene with her and Tsukune.  I mean they haven’t even said she’s a vampire but you know she is.  So this episode was everything I thought it was going to be, it even let me hear more some of the popular lines from harem anime so that’s a bonus.  The only surprise was the lack of an OP  so i guess I will have to wait till next week, I’ve already heard the song, but just haven’t seen the footage it goes with.  So I guess with the next episode will contain pretty much the same thing. Man, harem shows make me laugh.  Just to note there were WAY MORE panty shots in this episode than what I mentioned obviously.  I got tired of trying to figure out why there were so many of them.

She's so Awesome

She's so awesome she gets an extra picture just because.

Clannad After Story Episode 1:”The Beginning of the Series Everyone and Their Mom’s been Waiting For!!”

It is time to kick off my blogging for the Fall 2008 anime season.  It is very fitting that the first show I’m starting with is the one of the fall seasons biggest shows, Clannad After Story.  A large number of fans have been waiting impatiently for this sequel to air.  Like the name implies this season follows the After Story path of the visual novel, which if the people on Anime-Eden forums are to be believed I’ve already run into a major spoiler, but I’m not going to ruin it for you like they did.  (Note: if you want to tell about endings to anime in forums USE SPOILER TAGS PLEASE!!! It is finally here and boy am I excited.  But enough about me not talking about the show, here we go.

Screen of

Screen of Kotomi from the OP

The OP for Clannad is really good I enjoy the music as well as the opening montage of scenes that portrays.  You can definitely tell that this is a higher budget show with the extra animation and filters in the background as well as the soft color lighting that helps add a grand affect to the sunset shots.  But first we are greeted with some peaceful flute and acoustic guitar music as it shows two people, one adult male and one young boy (very possible Tomoya is one of them) riding on a train and talking but you can’t hear their voices.  It then moves to a field full of flowers and they’re walking holding hands.  You learn this is a daydream by Tomoya because it is interupted by Nagisa telling him to watch out for a stray baseball being hit at him.  It shifts to present day and you see Nagisa and her family outside, and her dad is playing baseball with the neighborhood kids like he did in the first season.  He dedicates his next home run to his wife, Sanae, and he hits the ball straight out of the park and accidentally breaks a window, supposed to be a comedic moment.  The OP then starts up.

Big

Picture from the OP. Although it's kind of tough to see with the green hair and big blue ribbon I think this may just be Fuuko although it seems like she's an adult. Could it be a surprise later on?

We learn that the shopping district that Nagisa’s family lives in is playing another district and Nagisa’s father, Akio Furukawa, wants Tomoya to get his friends together from the drama club and join the team.  We then get background information in monologue form from Tomoya who lets us know the second semester started, he is still living with Nagisa’s family, and he has no clue about his future.  Move forward to the drama club room where Kotomi (my favorite character), Kyou, and Sunohara decide to play, while Nagisa and Ryou decide to cheer.  It seems that the very funny, abusive relationship between Sunohara and Tomoyo (the girl, great fighter, school president) will continue since Tomoya lied and told Tomoyo that Sunohara wanted to do something perverted to her, which caused Sunohara to be kicked into a wall.

Don't

Don't do anything perverted to Tomoyo!

Tomoya plays it off as a joke to test Tomoyo’s athleticism.  Afterward Tomoya makes a joke, at Sunohara’s expense again, and he gets Yoshino Yuusuke to join as well.  Yoshino is the man, former music star, that married Fuuko’s sister (Koko) in season one.  Afterward, they get Misae, the dorm mother, to join the team also, and mention getting Mei (Sunohara’s sister) to play.

It shifts to everyone parting with Nagisa and Tomoya where Nagisa tells Tomoya they should invite his father as well causing Tomoya to tense up, and say maybe next time.  After this it moves straight to the pregame.  You learn that Misae, Yoshino, and Koko (Yoshino’s wife) all knew each other from their past.  The pregame part ends with Akio making a joke about Sanae’s terrible bread by saying if they lose they’ll have to eat it.  (Of course Sanae was not present.)  The game starts and you find out that Akio has a good fast ball and can pitch rather well, giving up zero runs.  It moves forward to Akio’s team batting.  Sunohara leads off faking a huge power swing and ends up bunting.  It’s a pop-fly backwards though and is easily caught by the catcher.  After Kyou mocks Sunohara he demands that she hit the ball which she does getting a single.  Misae is next who also hits a single.

Misae

Misae can catch and hit.

Akio is fourth who they intentionally walk.  Next up is Tomoyo with the bases loaded and she hits a grand slam.  It moves to the top of the second inning and the other teams star player is batting, he swings the bat loses the grip and hits Akio (the pitcher) right in the leg.  This leads to a shocking moment of having Akio call on a relief pitcher who is no other than his daughter Nagisa. Nagisa’s first batter she faces hits the ball to Tomoyo who throws a ROCKET to Tomoya on first base, but he manages to hold on.  Nagisa manages to escape unscathed from the inning.

It could've killed him

Tomoyo's throw could have killed him!

It moves forward and Akio’s team is batting. Tomoya is up to bat, and he strikes out.  The next batter is Kotomi, who being her amazing genius self, goes through some complex statistical probablility formula using the length of the bat, the diameter of the ball, her arm length, strength, range of motion, speed of pitch and the trajectory of the ball to “accidentally” hit the ball and get a single.   Sunohara hits into a double play getting himself and Kotomi out.

It moves forward to having Akio’s team on defense with no outs and a runner at third.  The batter hits it to Kotomi who manages to catch it, but was so excited she caught it, she forgot to throw it home to Sunohara who was playing catcher, so the runner tagged up on third and scored.  We see that was it was the top of the third and Akio’s team gave up one run.  So the score is currently 4-1.  They move up to bat and Kyou and Misae start off with hits.  They have a runner at first and third with no outs with  Nagisa up to bat who ends up striking out.

Don't

Don't Cry Nagisa We All Strike Out every now and then.

Tomoyo is up next and instead of hitting a home run, she decides to try and hit the ball “girl like” according to her and hits an easy pop fly resulting in an out.  They show the scoreboard and it has a 2 in the run column so I assume the other team got another run sometime.  So now it is 4-2 I assume.  Tomoya is up to bat with Mei (Sunohara’s sister) on first, but because of his bad shoulder he decides to do a sacrifice bunt which works and advances the runner.  They show the scoreboard and one team scored one in the third and fourth inning but I’m not sure which one, so I’m not sure what the score is right now.

Akio’s team is back on defense and Misae (the dorm mother) makes a great jumping catch.  Switches quickly to Tomoyo hitting a single.  Up next is Yoshino who is frustrated after not being able to contribute to the batting decides (with a scary red/black aura) to hit the next pitch which he succeeds at.

He's Serious!!

He's Serious now!

They show Yoshino who is making an exaggerated appearance walking and talking about giving them a great thing called memories, but turns out he was walking the bases and got easily tagged out.  It switches forward with the other team now winning 5-4 so those two runs earlier in the third and fourth inning were the other team scoring. Nagisa takes the blame but Sunohara tells her its not her fault, it’s just the players are too good.  This leads to everyone pointing out all the mistakes Sunohara has made in the game.  So they move forward to Akio’s team batting in some inning and Misae hits a pop fly causing the first out.  Next up is Nagisa who amazingly hits a single.  Tomoyo is up next but unfortunately hits a line drive to a fielder and is called out.  Yoshino is up next and hits a single and starts walking around the bases again and talking about memories again, but this time it is okay because he called time out.

Tomoyo

Tomoyo takes her failure line drive rather seriously

Mei is up next and she beats out the throw to first for a single.  So the bases are loaded and Tomoya is up to bat.  He receives words of encouragement from everyone on the bench in a shounen style if you believe in yourself you can do it kind of thing.  He steps up to the plate, and then it switches to after the game with everyone eating at Nagisa’s house, and then we are told that Tomoya pulled through and they ended up winning. It shifts back to the game after Tomoya made contact with the ball, all dramatic and in slow motion showing the ball spinning in the air.  However, it makes an unexpected shift back to the field with the robot from season one sitting in the grass looking up at the sparkly lights in the sky and we are greeted with a To Be Continued.  Episode 1 finished!

Un

Unsurprisingly the robot makes his appearance at the end.

The ED is rather upbeat this time around and the Dangos are once again present.  I will admit after having the show filled with slower keyboard chords with a symphony effect on them, for a airy, fantasy type theme, this music is somewhat of a slight shock, but it is by no means a bad song.

MY Thoughts On Episode 1

This episode seemed like your standard first episode of a series. It was more laid back and had a lighter tone to it with all of the extra comedy, but did not feel completely useless.  It filled you in on background information rather quickly in monologue form and did not linger on what happened in the previous season like many other shows do.  However, with the flashback at the beginning from Tomoya’s daydream, the appearance of the robot at the end, and a flash of a possible adult version of Fukko in the OP, this episode still gave hints to the big surprises ahead.  The animation was still very impressive, and it would seem that Tomoya and Nagisa are together just as everyone thought.  Overall it was still a good, funny episode and I’m looking foward to the second.  This concludes my post on Clannad After Story Episode 1. Please note this was my first blog post for a specific episode of an anime ever, so I would appreciate it if you would leave me comments telling me what you thought about the post, Thank you! I will now leave you with an unbelieveably awesome picture from the OP.

yeah

Yeah, this is awesome, and yes, they are waving good-bye at you!