Cliched plot, but Vampire Knight does not disappoint in its first volumes. The characters are extremely endearing; Yuuki Cross starts out as an energetic but somewhat clumsy heroine with good intentions that we, as readers, can easily relate to. Zero and Kaname, her love interests, are both compelling and equally strong personalities (aka perfect bishonen). Vampires’ from Vampire Knights are slightly different from our regular western vampires, rendering the vampire mystery intrigue more interesting than another shoujo vampire manga.

All is good and dandy when…

Spoilers start here!

Yuuki turns out to be a vampire princess whose parents sacrificed themselves to give her a human life but her brother, Kaname (????) and future husband totally ruins his dying parents wishes by turning her back into a vampire and starts their romantic incestuous relationship and not only that you kind of discover that Kaname isn’t really her brother but her ancestor, the first Kuran ever, reincarnated. He also seems to be a possessive manipulative bastard who, in hopes of “protecting poor young Yuuki from the dangerous world”, locks her up in their basement/home where he has his subordinate/friend teach her manners. Hmm. And meanwhile, Zero is emo because he too is a vampire and can’t live without human-Yuuki in his life and strives to kill them all.

Oh and best of all, get this: although from the very start Yuuki claims she loves Kaname, but slowly develops feelings for Zero (although this is questionable). She does indeed end up with her brother, Kaname, and they are officially a couple but she tells him – get this – “I can’t never be happy if I don’t have both of you ’cause I love both of you” with that pitiful puppy face that says “bouhou, look at tragic me” and Kaname totally agrees with her.

What?

I swear, the moment Yuuki turned into a long-haire ‘beautiful’ vampire, her personality flipped 360: Yuuki who had originally fought against the principles of others in order to defend her own and helps the ones she cared about, turned into this weak, meek, fragile girl who CANNOT make up her mind about key issues (protect Zero, see Zero and put him in danger, don’t see Zero to protect but see Yuri and puts her in danger, love Kaname, don’t love Kaname, resolve to kill, but can’t do it). It’s ridiculous. It’s laughable.

I can now say with pure hatred that I hate, I absolutely detest the turn Vampire Knight took. I used to relish in the fact that it was not a cliched shoujo like the others, and that the plot was actually structured and interesting, especially since its focused on characters that I loved – but now it’s such complete bullshit. Just like any other empty shoujo manga with pretty artwork.

Just. Ugh.

I didn’t start watching So Ra No Wo To until the 4th episode came out, but after being so tired of waiting for Darker Than Black Gaiden, I caved in and gave it a try. I mean, it was everything I loved in a series: post-war/apocalypse setting, cute girls, music, and a french rural/european city with beautiful landscape and art inspired by  Gustav Klimt, what was there to hate about this series? The only thing I disliked was the hateful ressemblances to K-ON!’s characters, but the good far far outweighed the bad (considering Noel replaced the most annoying character of all) and so I fell in love with it and now I’m hooked and goodbye wonderful grades for this semester~!

Episode 1 was everything I’d hope it would be. The landscaping, the music, the slow yet pleasant storyline. There is nothing to hate. Moving on.

Episode 2-4 were a bit disappointing compared to the first episode, albeit not terribly disappointing. It, naturally, focused a lot on the other characters and their character development, but to tell you the truth I’m not all that interested in a bunch of cute girls learning to love each other cause I mean they already loved each other because that’s just what cute girls are. Anyways. Another thing that bothered me (as it almost always does in music anime’s with the exception of Nodame Cantabile, i.e. La Corda D’Oro which was the shittiest music harem anime I’ve ever seen), is with what ease the main characters are learning to play their instruments. I mean seriously? “All you need is to let go and let the sound resound on its own”? If it was that easy, countless of aspiring musicians would be experts within a few years. Where does all those years of hard work and practice go, huh? huh? Though I do admit the advice is not completely unsound, since with wind instruments there is a degree of letting go of the air and letting it fill the instruments to produce a strong and clear sound. But I disgress.

I do like all the references to the post-war times, and the school, and the continuity of music. It’s deeply enchanting, somehow, and I have to say that So Ra No Wo To stays a compelling series thus far.

Hopefully the remaining episodes aren’t let downs either!

Astraea is a the prototype for Gundam Exia, aka it’s the whiter and shittier version of the Gundam 00 lead gundam. I actually quite liked the simplistic design of the Astraea, which is why I got it in the first place. However, I have found major problems with this kit that just makes it overall an unpleasant purchase.

Polycaps, polycaps, polycaps. I hate them. To death. And especially on this kit. There are super stiff in places where you don’t really need them or even want them to be (shoulders, for example), and intolerably loose where it should be critical for them not to be (hands, leg-hip joints). The leg-hip joints are particularly frustrating; the two caps that form the joint keep on splitting apart, making it impossible for the model to pose without have its legs literaly falling off. Hands is also problematic for the same reasons.

Conclusion? Don’t buy it unless you really loved the design, or if you’re looking for a cheap and easy to customize model to test wild ideas on. Otherwise? I wouldn’t really recommend this kit at all.

It follows a fairly large cast, and two main central figures: Sven and Selene. Selene, a Coordinator and scientist participating in  the development of the Gundam Stargazer, has her station come under attack by Phantom Pain, a EAF  battalion that has come to claim its AI unit. Sven, piloting the Strike Noir (hottest SEED Gundam everrr) is part of the attacking forces.

Although incredibly short, and thereby so, so very unsatisfying, STARGAZER is by far one of my favorites SEED spinoff ever. Its plot is strong, and although character development is lacking due to time, the characters are also strong and so very endearing. The ending is either tragic or open depending on how you interpret it.

I’m not exactly sure why I liked Stargazer so much. Nothing of particular importance happens – no outwordly political intrigue, no amazing speeches, no save/destroy the world plan. It’s just about a bunch of people trying to survive, trying live, and fighting for it. And maybe that’s everything it is. Maybe that’s why it’s so captivating, to me at least. My only, tiny quirk, is that I wish it was longuer ;_;

Oh, and a little note: I do believe the DVD version has extra and/or longer scences that aren’t in the STAGE versions, and some extra shots during the ending credits where you see what happened to the rest of the crew.

edit; for those too lazy to do Math, the ending says that 669 hours have past while Selene and Sven where sleeping – that’s 27 days and  21 hours. Selene said they’d survive for 27 days,which means that they died ;_;

Pros:
-Yamapi
-Koyama

Cons:
-What’s her face Tsurara. I hated her from head to toes. Horrid character. Stupid and stubborn. UGH.
-Yukari’s 180 personality shift, which was really sad since Yukari started really well. Then she was reduced to being a love rival. Sad, really.
- Detective Kashina’s creepy cackling laugh. Like, really creepy. *shudder*
-Terrible music timing
-Reuse of plotx1000
-Really bad TsuraraxKurosaki development
-Open denouement

Kurosagi: movie. Another rehashed plot, except wait! Add Shakespeare’ Julius Caesar,  more settings, more luxury and more gadgets and it turns into a totally original movie!

Pros:
-Yamapi
-Funnier
-Better settings/scenery
-Really cool shadow play
-Julius Caesar symbolism semi-interesting
-Barely any Tsurara!

Cons:
-Cackling laugh.
-Still bad music timing
-NOT a closure to the story
-Still no inclination towards Mikimoto
-Finishes off on a “I’LL KEEP SWINDLING FOREVER!!” note

All in all;
I quite disliked the jdrama, simply because there was to much focus on Tsurara and because 9 episodes of the same thing is way too much. Tsurara sucked. She was very idealistic, and never faced reality until she oh-so-magically **~falls in love~**. She’s also completely useless, and only causes trouble and inconveniences. She’s also incredibly slow. She doesn’t do ANYTHING in the series. I get the point of her character, its an important part of Kurosagi’s struggle, but Tsurara’s main focus isn’t even that important aspect of balancing out Kurosaki’s nihilism. She’s practically there just for the drama factor. And yes, too much of the same plot. It only changed at episode 10, and then again it changed soooo very little. Even when Kurosaki lost to Shisaishi, it was STILL the same routine, except they added a “HA NO YOU ACTUALLY LOST!” snippet at the end instead of the usual Tsurara confrontation about righteouness and her obsessive love over him.

The movie, on the other hand, was pleasant. This was how the jdrama should’ve been. It’s too bad it wasn’t. I’m mainly pissed at the movie simply because I was expecting some epic showdown between Mikimoto and Kurosaki… which totally didn’t happen, and instead we get ANOTHER random Shirosagi. Still good, because this time around the tricks were way cooler, but still. I wish they’d finish his story once and for all. It’s like they did it expecting the movie to be so popular they’d be able to make a sequel or something >.>

EDIT: OK so I’ve watched the k-drama. It was better than the manga: Ji  Hoo was 1000x better (as if that was even possible) and Ga Eul and Yi Jung are soo getting together. Some of the useless plot was cut out too, and all the side-guys were really well fused together. Minuses: Geum Jan Di is stupider, Gu Jun Pyo is still annoying as hell, she still doesn’t end up with Ji Hoo and the amnesia episode is still there. UGH. At least, it ended way better than the manga. Ga Eul’s story was much more interesting, and so was Ji Hoo’s with his grandfather. The initial setting was better too, plus the scenery is freakin’ beautiful. And the luxury!! Scary, scary thing. Now I reaaally have to go find their soundtrack.

I was so disappointed with this manga. I know a lot of people raved about it,  and that the serie itself had gotten itself a lot of praise and approval. And think about it, this manga was first published in 1992 and its still popular today!

But what kind of hell of a shojo manga was this? It was long, dreadfully stalling, and really, really stupid.

Makino started really well; a good heroine that was strong willed, morallistically correct and most of all, realistic. Then she just got stupid and fell in love with Domyouji. Who, by the way, has abused her physically, nearly raped, and is a controlling, selfish and unsensitive bastard. I don’t see how, in all infinite possibilities, she could’ve found something good about him.  I still haven’t. He’s violent and dumb. Worst combination ever. But hey, I guess this is what this manga is all about: love is unpredictable.

The mangaka is an expert at dilly-dalling. She should’ve just kept the story at a “slices of life” type of setting. But no, instead we have abductions,  mystical twins, deserted island, AMNESIA, and a load of side-guy-lovers along with the central two guys, Rui and Domyouji. It’s sickening how unrealistic the story is. These things do not happen. Any girl would’ve been freaked out and possibly dropped out ages ago if she were in Makino’s shoes. Makino, who was once spirited, witty and actually smart, becomes a complete idiot once she ~*falls in love**~. What’s even more unrealistic is that Domyouji, the boy who was spoiled all his life and knows how to do nothing on his own, suddenly becomes really reliable in the face of danger. What? And god, the amoung of misunderstandings and missed-out moments and DURAMA is insane! If Makino and Domyouji, or even Rui, had been able to speak and listen to each other, which they never do, even when they were together, more than half of their problems would’ve been solved ages ago!

The only praise that goes along with Hana Yori Dango is the realistic view the author gives to the notion of love. It’s very real, very pure, yet filled with hardships and bumps and difficulties. Makino easily sees the differences between loving Domyouji, and loving Rui. They are many ways to love, and lucky for her, Makino actually gets to choose which ones she feels best with. Which takes her forever, considering she keeps on swinging back and forth between the two.

In my own opinion, I really, really, REALLY thought she should’ve ended up with Rui. Other than his really creepy obssession with Shizuka and his rebound episode, I thought he was the better guy. Makino even admits it herself; with Rui, she feels at ease and has a peace of mind. IMO, that’s the type of guy I’d go after. He’s always there for her, listens to her, supports her, and really, Rui has never hit Makino or forced her into anything at all. Domyouji was a brainless idiot. Next to him, Makino seems surpressed, and becomes a useless girl herself, vs the girl who used to be able to defend herself against others. Next to Rui, she seems to bloom, be herself and grow into a better person.

All in all, this was a disappointing read. I was really looking forward to a nice shojo to cheer me up, but this one just got me even more frustrated. Christ.

Casshern Sins is an anime remake of the 1973 Neo-Human Casshern, thought I hear that the two are entirely different.
It is the story of Casshern, an immortal robot with no memory of who he is or what he’s done, as he wanders a destroyed world filled with ruin in search of truth. It’s really emo and filled with angts, but there’s action, and the slow-paced story drawn in a unique art is really compelling.

There was so much imagery and hidden meaning involved that it just blasted my mind, but I am a sucker for symbols, and Casshern does not disappoint.

Spoilers start here!

The story is really unclear at first, which is something this anime just does. You just don’t know what the hell is going on. Appreaciating what isn’t said is really the key to enjoying the serie. It took me awhile to actually understand what was up with Luna and the ruin, and episode 18 is still a big question mark in my head.

From what I’ve understood, at the beginning of the serie we are led to believe Luna was some sort of iconic goddess that allowed robots and humans to live eternally with, presumably, her healing. When Casshern was ordered to kill her, he killed the source of life and hence brought death into the world. Apparently, this isn’t true. Luna was once the embodiment of death – her role was to bestow death unto the beings that had gained eternal life. When Casshern managed to kill her, he released death into the world, causing ruin to spread and affecting everyone. Purged from death, Luna magically became a foutain of life from which Casshern attained eternal life. Hence her newfound healing ability, because it sorta makes sense that she would have the power to withstand her own power of death?

Casshern Sins dealt with one of my favorite dilemma’s of all, which is What is the meaning of life in a meaningless world? Is death a curse, or a blessing? The show offers both views on the matter, Casshern’s side being that death is natural, and Luna’s side being that death is unnatural. Both sides are dealt with in all aspects, and the show eventually reaches the conclusion that life is meant to be lived, but death should not be forgotten. Symbolically, Luna and Casshern end up being the only two beings capable of eternal life and representing the two constants of our existence – Life and Death.

I also loved the fact that there wasn’t any real ‘villain’ or destroy the world plot in the anime. There are only differences in opinion and views, which brings about hostilities, but no actual embodiment of evil, which was nice.

The anime lasts 24 episodes, which really should’ve been planned out better. The 12 first episodes were simply amazing, despite the fact that all Casshern does is wander a dying world. His meeting with the various people struggling for life is beautiful, and the action scenes are breathtaking.  On the other hand, though episodes 13-23 deal more with the plot, the production quality seemed to have dropped down considerable, especially during action scenes, and somehow the mini stories weren’t as interesting as the first ones. The last episode was really touching thought, and I really wished they had split the ending into at least 3 more episodes, considering the amount of things happening they squeezed into that half an hour. Especially since Casshern Sins had always been so slow paced, it was a bit disappointing to have them rush it all in the end. Still, Lyuze and Oji’s deaths were especially touching, and seeing Ringo grown up was nice. It was a strong ending, and neatly wrapped up an decent anime.

On the other hand, many questions remain unanswered. There’s that colorful stone, for one, which was supposed to be Luna’s nano-cells or something. I’m assuming its only role was for Oji to discover Luna’s past, but damn that stone was pretty and had so much more potential (and why did those kids have to ‘die’ for it since it was so unimportant?). Nonetheless, Casshern Sins has a knack for keeping things realistic and low on the coincidences and drama and I guess this is one of them. Another point that I didn’t really get was Luna. How did she become death in the first place? Why was she so revered? How did she magically become Life after being stabbed? It was all a little too weird. And what was up with Braiking Boss? I get his role in the past, but in the present time he’s practically only there for action purposes, thought I’m not complaining. Leda’s part of the story is a bit unclear as well. What actually happened to her child, how did it end to cause her to become so bitter, seeing as the experiment was considered a failure but its pretty heavily hinted that Ringo is the child? And how did Oji NOT understand it when he found baby!Ringo, considering he was the Professor that worked on the robot baby project? And what were Dio’s accessory for?? Leda’s were swords, Casshern was rocket booster, but what about Dio??

Yeah. Things we’ll never know.

It follows young Azoth’s life as he becomes an professional assassin (a wetboy) known under the name Kylar Stern.  Magic, evil powers at work and saving the world insues. Oh, and did I mention immortality?

Spoilers start here!

When you first open the book, there’s a map, reminiscient of any fantasy world books. Its typical, hand drawn, simple, yet utterly unclear. I can see the countries involved in the story (which is scarcely limited compared to the amount of countries/places indicated on the map) but the borders are poorly definined, and I really can’t tell how big Ceneria is supposed to be. Small detail, but it really irked the hell out of me. Khalidor looked tiny! compared to Ceneria, which I don’t think it was supposed to be? Anyways, the maps does serve its purpose in setting the countries in accordance to each other.

Story:

In all honesty, I loved the trilogy with all its good and bad. I was so addicted I read throughtout the night without being able to put it down. The story is exciting, fast-paced and filled with actions. The book is not for the faint hearted, though; sex and violence are common occurences in the serie and really add to the spice and realism of the assassin’s life.

Each and every event keeps you holding on to your breath and reading on to find out what happens next. You just can’t stop. It’s that bad. Every plot and twist is nicely brought about and linked together, forging a strong tale. On the other hand, the author is guilty of deus ex machina, though mildly, and also of being a tad predictable, especially with the damsel in distress card, or the HIDDEN POTENTIAL!! card. Or the immortality card. Durzo coming back to life despite losing his immortality? And Elene going miraculously from mute to not was a mistake, in my opinion. What was the point of having her mute from the start? The ending was my only low point in the plot, considering the fact that it was really rushed and ended in an open way. A bit too open; and the author forgot Ulyssandra and Momma K. Uly didn’t attend the funeral, and Durzo forgot to visit Momma K, which really irked me considering he wrote her a message of “I’LL COME BACK FOR YOU”. Not. And Kylar ended up staying immortal afterall, which is a bit disappointing, considering I consider immortality a form of godmodding. Oh and the baby thing? Yeah. As great as it sounds, it was pretty far fetched.

Characters:

The main character, Kylar/Azoth, is a typical hero in my book. Though he lives a life of murder, his moral grounds are unshaken and he feels remorse towards the jobs he does. Read, total emo. Not as much as his master, Durzo, thought. Still, both characters are strong and just, and readers can easily sympathize with them. The author also presents the other side of the assassin world through Hu and Vi, another pair of master-apprentice assassins who, on the other hand, relish on the violence that thier job entails, which evens out the strong sense of justice the main characters carries about. But Kylar was a good character, in the sense that as the hero, he persevered and grew stronger with each and every struggle that came his way. What is there not to like about a guy like that?

As any good hero does, Kylar has a sweetheart. First introduced as Doll Girl, later on named Elene, she is the epitome of perfect goodness incarnated in a desolate world of nothingness and death. Yeah, I didn’t like her much. I didn’t like her the moment I found out her name was Doll Girl. Because really, that’s the only purpose Elene serves throughout the book: she is a doll. She doesn’t do anything except being dragged along by whomever decided to drag her along. Of course, I get that she’s there as Kylar’s only fragment of happiness, or whatever, still doesn’t beat into my head that there’s only three girls in the entire book, and that one of them is a bratty child, the other is the forgotten assassin and this one’s a total ignorant fool who can’t even understand that her entire life was payed with the death of others. That point irked me the most. Hadn’t Kylar taken the job as an assassin and killed so many people, he wouldn’t have been able to send the money for Elene to get out of the slums and live the carefree life that she did. But no, the girl instead yelps on and on about the God and goodness and how Kylar is disgusting for deceiving her. Yeah, right. Not to mention that Elene falls into the enemies hands… well ALL of the time. She has her redeeming points at the end of the series thought, but its not much compared to the amount of fail that she was the rest of the time.

And then there is Logan, Kylar’s best friend and up and coming King of Cenaria. This man, I loved. Logan started of as a naive, rich, and righteneous young man yet became cruelly caught in the threads of fate. Yet despite all of this, Logan faced his own humanity and kept his honor. As unrealistic as it is, it is so damn cool.

Vi was by far my favorite character. It’s a shame she’s always pitted against Elene, and ends up being overshadowed most of the time. Vi represented the femme fatale character, what with ultimate feminie beauty and all, yet I loved her anyways. She had her share of troubles, and faced them all with her chin held high, and she was actually useful! She also ended up being pretty damn strong. It’s not clear wether Kylar ever did end up with her or not, thought it was hinted at it but I had the unrepressible feeling that it was a rebound time of thing :/

Another character I loved was Momma K. Epic, that’s really all I have to say. She had influence, power, and values.

There are many more characters to The Night Angel Trilogy, but my most memorable ones limit themselves to the above. Dorian’s story was exceptionally sad, I found, considering he is probably the character that had the highest influence on Cenaria’s victory, yet ended up crazy and without the love of Jeni.

There was something that kind of had me thinking about the cast, though. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that there’s a hint of racial discrimination (if you can even call it that) or even just plain stereotypical associations with appearances. The most notable one: if you’re blond, you’re pure. Hell, Elene is blond, Logan is blond, and they were both characters with exceptionally high degrees of moral justice and righteousness. I can’t recall if Momma K was blond, though she might be the exception to this. White skin people were obviously the favorite, considering Ceneria and its neighboring peaceful city were inhabited by white people whereas the rest of the world was not. Khalidor people were dark skinned (except Dorian, curiously) despite the fact that their country was up north and filled with snow. The Sethi were dark skinned, and although good, they had their share of savagery. There were even Asians, who ended up being uptight honor people liken to the Japanese during the samourai era, and whose young leading was already guilty of patricide. Oh, and the only black guy mentionned ended up being a prostitute and dead. I don’t know if any of this was intentional or not, but its something that I picked up and thought I should point out.

Overall, though, this trilogy is definitely worth a read. Its one of my favorite books by far.

I am Anonymously Me. My main interest is myself, and the occasional you.
I intend to turn this into my blog and sometimes add reviews about books, movies and music. Or just random things. And, when I have the time, anime/manga opinions and thoughts. We’ll see.
I’ll see you around.