January the 18: Wow that headache lasted forever...
STILL had some of that headache when I woke up this morning, had to take another Excerderian to get rid of it (I took that, extra strength, and a motrine last night, I don't even know what caused that one!). Anyway, haven't done much today, I showed my mom a funny clip from Top Gear on youtube (Top Gear is this A-MAZ-ZING British car show that comes on on BBC America, which my dad gets but we don't ;_; ), went to the library (where I waited in line for ten minutes to pay a five cent fine in ten seconds) and watched some more of the anime I won (which I expect I'll be reviewing later in the week). My mom is going to help me with the sewing machine later, YOU WILL OBEY ME YOU BITCH!
Ahem, anyway, speaking of reviews, I'll start in on my review of my fall animes. I've got five here, Earl & Fairy, Le Chevalier D'Eon, Kannagi, and Vampire Knight Guilty. So in that order, let's get started.
Earl and Fairy (Hakushaku to Yōsei in Japanese)
ANN page
Good: This was my fluff for the season I will admit, the producers certainly knew their audience and how to aim it. The romance part of the story is a bit different than normal (with our heroine, Lydia, not falling for the male lead at first site, or for most of the story to be honest) and I loved the European fairy tale aspects to it. There are a lot of animes with traditional Japanese fairy tale creatures, but not nearly so many with ones from other cultures (actually, there are some that use European elements but I can't think of any that use African or American elements and only RG Veda for Indian elements, this needs to be corrected!).
Bad: This anime is based off a series of light novels and wow, it really skips around in the books. I believe it covered books 1, 3, 8, and 9, but don't quote me, go to kagedreams" translations. So if you are watching this anime and some things don't hang quite right, your right, like the parts concerning Ermine were severely simplified. All of the characters also feel much more real in the novels, Lydia is less moe (well, that's how I felt about her), you hear more of Edgar's thoughts, and Raven has even more funny lines.
Art: About average, it looked a little different than the art of the other animes out there, but the art from the original novels looks a little strange to me.
Music: I really liked the opening song, actually I got the link to the group that did the song Myspace and I like listening to their other songs. Didn't really appreciate the ending song since everyone who saw it asked if I was watching hentai (..'k really people, do I DO that?) so I skipped over it most of the time.
Final verdict: I give this an 8 out of 10 and want it in a nice pretty box set! And also really want the novels to be translated and distributed here stateside. And I might be making myself a little Nico plushie...
Le Chevalier D'Eon:
ANN page
Good: Well, this is a different anime. Set in historical France, in my experience almost all stories set in France in this time are set in one of two periods. Either A) Under Louis XIV "the sun king" or B) under/after Louis XVI during the French revolution. This anime is set between those two, during the reign of Louis XV so you can see the begginnings of the revolution, but the main characters are nobles, not peasants who are upset with the king. So even that part of the background is different and then you have the story itself. D'Eon is a character (and this story makes so much more sense than the real, historical D'Eon cross-dressing, seriously, they even had a bet going in London if he was a man or not!) and the other characters are quite likeable, plus with all the suspense, you can never be quite sure who is the good guy and who isn't.
Bad: Parts of the plot move too fast and parts of it move too slow. That was my only real complaint, they also fit too much stuff with too little warning into the last two episodes (they shouldn't have stretched it out, but a little bit of foreshadowing in some cases would've been nice). So some things hang oddly, I'm interested to watch it again and see if I missed anything actually.
Art: Also different, I would almost call it realistic and that really fits with the setting. The colors also seem a little muted and everything seemed historically accurate.
Music: ...Alright, is the ending song in English or something? ADV didn't put subtitles in but it didn't really sound like English... anyway, I liked the opening song a bit but didn't really notice the background music.
Final verdict: An 8.5 or 9 out of 10, this was a really good series. I already have volume 1, 2 (+artbox), 4 and 6, all courtsey of the rightstuf bargin blowout and can't wait to get the rest. ADV really packaged them up nice and I love the extras.
EDIT: Well crap, LJ apparently went down as I was typing my other two reviews (yeah I know, I said five but I can only think of four) so I'll post the reviews for Kannagi and VKG tomorrow, I don't have time to re-type them. Damn, not happy, signing off!
Ahem, anyway, speaking of reviews, I'll start in on my review of my fall animes. I've got five here, Earl & Fairy, Le Chevalier D'Eon, Kannagi, and Vampire Knight Guilty. So in that order, let's get started.
Earl and Fairy (Hakushaku to Yōsei in Japanese)
ANN page
Good: This was my fluff for the season I will admit, the producers certainly knew their audience and how to aim it. The romance part of the story is a bit different than normal (with our heroine, Lydia, not falling for the male lead at first site, or for most of the story to be honest) and I loved the European fairy tale aspects to it. There are a lot of animes with traditional Japanese fairy tale creatures, but not nearly so many with ones from other cultures (actually, there are some that use European elements but I can't think of any that use African or American elements and only RG Veda for Indian elements, this needs to be corrected!).
Bad: This anime is based off a series of light novels and wow, it really skips around in the books. I believe it covered books 1, 3, 8, and 9, but don't quote me, go to kagedreams" translations. So if you are watching this anime and some things don't hang quite right, your right, like the parts concerning Ermine were severely simplified. All of the characters also feel much more real in the novels, Lydia is less moe (well, that's how I felt about her), you hear more of Edgar's thoughts, and Raven has even more funny lines.
Art: About average, it looked a little different than the art of the other animes out there, but the art from the original novels looks a little strange to me.
Music: I really liked the opening song, actually I got the link to the group that did the song Myspace and I like listening to their other songs. Didn't really appreciate the ending song since everyone who saw it asked if I was watching hentai (..'k really people, do I DO that?) so I skipped over it most of the time.
Final verdict: I give this an 8 out of 10 and want it in a nice pretty box set! And also really want the novels to be translated and distributed here stateside. And I might be making myself a little Nico plushie...
Le Chevalier D'Eon:
ANN page
Good: Well, this is a different anime. Set in historical France, in my experience almost all stories set in France in this time are set in one of two periods. Either A) Under Louis XIV "the sun king" or B) under/after Louis XVI during the French revolution. This anime is set between those two, during the reign of Louis XV so you can see the begginnings of the revolution, but the main characters are nobles, not peasants who are upset with the king. So even that part of the background is different and then you have the story itself. D'Eon is a character (and this story makes so much more sense than the real, historical D'Eon cross-dressing, seriously, they even had a bet going in London if he was a man or not!) and the other characters are quite likeable, plus with all the suspense, you can never be quite sure who is the good guy and who isn't.
Bad: Parts of the plot move too fast and parts of it move too slow. That was my only real complaint, they also fit too much stuff with too little warning into the last two episodes (they shouldn't have stretched it out, but a little bit of foreshadowing in some cases would've been nice). So some things hang oddly, I'm interested to watch it again and see if I missed anything actually.
Art: Also different, I would almost call it realistic and that really fits with the setting. The colors also seem a little muted and everything seemed historically accurate.
Music: ...Alright, is the ending song in English or something? ADV didn't put subtitles in but it didn't really sound like English... anyway, I liked the opening song a bit but didn't really notice the background music.
Final verdict: An 8.5 or 9 out of 10, this was a really good series. I already have volume 1, 2 (+artbox), 4 and 6, all courtsey of the rightstuf bargin blowout and can't wait to get the rest. ADV really packaged them up nice and I love the extras.
EDIT: Well crap, LJ apparently went down as I was typing my other two reviews (yeah I know, I said five but I can only think of four) so I'll post the reviews for Kannagi and VKG tomorrow, I don't have time to re-type them. Damn, not happy, signing off!