Tales of a high-school calligraphy club.

A story about a high-school calligraphy club on the verge of breaking up that enters in a major competition while overcoming problems. Yuki, a promising female judoist, and Yukari, a quiet Canadian-raised boy who just returned to Japan, end up joining the club for the sake of maintaining the membership required to keep the club. Together with the old club members with unique characters, they gradually discover the fun of calligraphy and work together to win in the competition. -- NHK

Kenn's Comment: CANADA! PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND! Canada is so rarely represented or even mentioned in foreign series that any inclusion or mention of this wonderful country stands out like a wonderfully sore thumb. The Japanese love Anne of Green Gables which is set in the little province of Prince Edward Island, which is where the main character grows up.

Anywho, the story is great. From it's description it sounds pretty boring, but the series is written in a way that makes even the most mundane task rather gripping. Calligraphy makes up a good chunk of the story, but it doesn't drag, which is really nice. When the new members are training, you can see them progress and get better, seeing both their initial work and the end work and really gives a sense of progression that feels more honest and realistic compared to a training arc in a battle manga.

The character relations are top notch in this one. We've got the...energetic upperclassmen, the kind and hardworking club president, and the geeky teacher. Then we've got the main character, the slightly awkward Canadian, and the other new member, the competitive Judo champion, Yukari. Watching her reactions to everything that happens is so much fun because they're often little things in the background of the panels.

Also, this one is a two time nominated work for the Best Manga catergory in the Manga Taisho. You know it's gonna be good if it's a two time nominee!

This week, some lovely GUMI!




Title: 彼の彼女, Kare no Kanojo, His Girlfriend
Producer: わるりり
Lyrics: まじゃ
PV: まきの　せな
Vocaloid: GUMI (Whisper)

Kenn's Comment: Where do they get video for stuff like this? Is it like B-roll stuff? Though I do feel like I've seen some of them before.

Anywho, this song is great. GUMI Whisper fits this song like a glove. It's got the right touch of a soft voice and a good register. Another thing I really like about this is how clearly the lyrics come through. I talk about this often and it's that the voice is covered up by the instrumentals. In this one, GUMI's clear as a bell. It's a lovely song too, so you better enjoy it!

Picked up a 3DS yesterday! The decision to get one is one part 'new' and another part 'my ds is fucking old'. For those of you who remember, my DS is the tank one, the very first model that came out. It's screens are the same size as the GBA (original model), and even uses the same charger as the GBA SP.


Compared to that antique, the 3DS feels so incredibly sleek. Holding the old model feels like a task; it's big and unwieldy. The 3DS (along with all newer models of the DS) fits nicely in your hand, and it's corners don't stab into your palm like the old model does. It also looks much, much nicer. The NDS looks like something from an age long past, and it's bright red doesn't help it look much better.


Just a bad way of comparing the two. The 3DS (which I'm almost certain has the same dimensions as the DS Lite) is a good bit smaller than the NDS. A little bit slimmer and smaller but a little bit heavier. I'm not entirely on the triple colour scheme of the 3DS though. Small thing, but when I look at the PSP with it's single colour, I ask "why couldn't the 3DS be like that too?". The triple colour scheme makes it look like it opens on three levels and makes me wonder which of the three is the actual Aqua Blue (it's the bottom colour - same colour as 初音ミク's hair).

Only have this one for now. Going to try and actually finish games for this before I move onto a new one. It's a problem that comes up whenever I have access to more games than I can finish. I'll play a game for a good few weeks and play it so much that I'll bore myself out of my skull and start a new game. Repeat the cycle a few times and you end up with a pile of half finished games. Since I'm playing them until I get sick, when I go back to play an unfinished one I'll remember the reason why I stopped playing and think "no I don't want to go through that again" and not go back to it.

Sometimes I'll have to force myself to play a game, with a prime example being the Valkyria Chronicles games. I'm pretty bad at those kinds of games and in both 1 and 2 there's a stage where the difficulty jumps out the window and just becomes batshit impossible. For 1 it's the battle in the desert with Max's massive tank, and in 2 it's the APC escort against the V2s. The missions are just so hard I'll give up, move on and see if I can get back into it (which I never do).

Anywho, on topic now, as a kid I had an N64 but for some reason never got into Zelda. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't as the original Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask were out around the time I had the N64. I'll be living the childhood I missed out on with the 3DS. Excuse me while I try and figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing in OoT.

As a result of a strange encounter with a mysterious carcinogenic fetus he found inside a patient’s skull, brain surgeon MINAKATA Jin has slipped back through time. Equipped with modern medical knowledge, he faces various fatal diseases and injuries. Then, he meets the ordinary people of Edo as well as illustrious figures, and his surgical knife carves out a new history and story of life.

Kenn's Comment: I'm pretty sure that this manga is award nominated work, but I can't seem to find any information on that. What I can tell you is that it was adapted into an multi-award winning TV Drama (and it's sequel) on Japanese TV, as well a Korean drama (story changed to fit Korea) going by Dr. Jin.
Anywho, the manga is superb. I'm not a huge fan of medical dramas (primarily because everyone's sleeping with everyone else's toasters) or dramas in general, but there's something about JIN that does it for me. The emotions feel real; Jin's vast medical knowledge; the Edo period setting. These factors add up into a genuinely gripping story.

I haven't watched the dramas, and I'm not super far into the manga, but from the bit I've read, I can guarantee that this one will be a great read. A fair warning, but being a medical drama, some parts of it can be rather graphic.

This week we head back to じん and IA for the third song I've featured (I think).






Title: チルドレンレコード, Children Record
Producer: じん
PV: じづ
Vocaloid: IA

Kenn's Comment: There's a date at the end of the PV that I'm not entirely sure of. 8.15 is the date I think, and I'm putting my guesses on the sale of an upcoming album.

Anywho, this one is the...third song (or something like that) in the series by じん. They all feature that girl with the white and blue dress in one part of the PV or another, so I'm assuming she's a rather important character.

Anywho, the art for the PV is awesome as always, and the music this time around is a lot more rock-ish compared to the other two which came off almost entirely as pop. IA's voice is fine is this, though it might sound a bit like Miku to someone who hasn't heard too much of IA. The parts where じん dips a bit lower into IA's voice are where her distinctive voice shines.

If you haven't been able to tell, these distinctive voices are easily one of my favourite parts of each voice. They make them unique and in a way, can give you a good idea as to which voices will do well with which kinds of songs. By no means does that mean that Miku will never do rock because of her high voice, as it's done more often than not. Anywho before I start ranting for hours, I'll cut it short here.

• The geometric dome itself was constructed for Expo 86

• It's on one end of False Creek

• Telus owns it's naming rights thanks to a massive donation

Anywho, most of the exhibits haven't changed much since the last time I was there. In fact, I don't think anything has really changed. The featured exhibit was pretty cool though - Da Vinci is always cool. Ladyfriend's been wanting to see it for a while, so double score. Before she read the descriptions of the various models of some of his inventions, I'd make up something to see whether she'd believe me or not. Like how his early tank was a renaissance mock up of a Dalek. Photography was off limits in that exhibit so, as a rule abiding citizen, no photos of that one.


It's a motherflooping pterodactyl! Had to say that when I saw this one. This was one of two dinosaurs on display in the animals exhibit (Sara Stern Gallery I believe it's called). Lots of stuff in there, from zebra pelts to live tarantulas. Ladyfriend stayed the hell away from all the bugs, and was kind of creeped out by the animal pelts. On display was a zebra, raccoon (which I called a hat), wolf, a bear and probably some more stuff that I didn't see. Stayed away from the reptile corner since they'd probably put a snake on me or something. The pterodactyl was taken with ladyfriend's iPhone.



Ladyfriend being dwarved by the t-rex skeleton (he's named STAN, not to be confused with the subject in Eminem's Stan). This one's taken on my iTouch, so excuse the shitty quality. On the flip side, that same shitty quality means that I don't have to censor out faces since you there's literally no discernible facial details in it!


Here's another shot for the size comparison. Stan's cheating a bit since he's not on the floor. Never trust them rex's to play fair. It looks like he got taken out through foul play though, since he's got a hole in the back of his skull. Probably a tire iron to the back of the head. Them raptors I tell you.

Going through the Body Works exhibit, with preserved pieces of intestines, hearts, brains and whatnot. When the Body Worlds gallery came to Science World, they had a huge gallery of preserved bodies dissected so you could see cross sections of various things like muscles, organs, skeletons and stuff like that. the Body Works exhibit is nothing compared to that. You've got a heart, a brain, a few pieces of intestines and whatnot. Then on the otherside of a small wall you've got the implants (breasts, penile) and prosthetics (eyes, legs, arms, etc). Eureka exhibit was simple machines, as well as light and sound devices (laser harps, and light gizmos). I lifted 200kg!...with a giant lever. Too many kids running around these exhibits, so I didn't really want to take shots and have to retake for every time a kid ran into the shot.


Sunset on River road. I'm not entirely sure where this is. Ladyfriend said it was a dyke (levee if you must), so I'll take her word for it. The birds here sound like they swallowed bicycle horn (those big red rubber ones), and the swarms of small flying bugs were pretty annoying to walk into. Other than that, this place is pretty darn gorgeous. The playground here was amazing. Here in Vancouver proper, the playgrounds are either filled with gravel or those pesky wood chippings. Over in Richmond, all playgrounds have that rubber-y sports surface. Not entirely sure what it's called, but it means that you're not going to have splinters all over or gravel in your shoes! Also, the playground at River Road had speakers playing whale calls built into it. Speakers! The fanciest playground I've seen in my area has a short zipline.

And that's more or less the 108th edition of A Day with Kenn, which has more or less become a Month with Kenn. I'll be doing a few more of those Anime Reviews, ココロコネクト is being worked on and I'm deciding which other one I want to do.

I also might be attending Anime Revolution, so keep an eye out for posts from there when it rolls around next month.

 Joshiraku is a satirical comedy anime that follows the everyday life of a group of girls.

Kenn's Comment: I went into this one cautiously. I didn't know what to expect from a manga that takes place almost entirely in the dressing room of a theatre. Let's just say I was pleasantly surprised.


For those who don't know about it, the らく (raku) part of じょしらく (joshiraku) stands for 落語 (らくご, rakugo), which is a Japanese theatrical practice. Basically, it's what you get when you cross stand up comedy with storytelling. The stories are comical, usually have more than one character and is done by a single person. They pretty much sit (in seiza) and tell their story, differentiating characters by body position or  voice. The storyteller (落語家, らくごか, rakugoka, 家 (ka) indicating something like 'profession') has a small cloth and a paper fan (like a folding fan, not a harisen) at their disposal on stage.

Anywho, back on track, J.C. Staff has done a wonderful job at this. Kumeta Koji works have predominantly been animated by SHAFT, mainly 絶望先生 (zetsubou sensei), and another whose title slips my mind, so I was a bit curious to see how J.C. Staff would handle the dialogue heavy series. And they did it in quite the J.C. Staff way. It's certainly not the way SHAFT might have done it (with the various Shinbo cuts and camera angles), but it's a charming series with a rather sharp tongue. Like Zetsubou Sensei, this one is a satire of society behind it's cute facade. Also in Kumeta fashion, the names all have meanings behind them,

Lots of 4th wall breaking in this one. An early sequence in the first episode involves the transition from manga to anime, and then takes a jab at those who watch the episode without paying for it.

A later scene discusses the meaning of 'casual wear' and how 'casual' has many different meanings. Does it mean what we usually wear? What we're most comfortable in?

Have to say I was pleased to see that come up in anime, because casual wear is something that I've never understood. When I was first told what 'casual wear' is my response was 'how is that any different from formal'. Flash foward 300,000 years, and I've more or less gotten what the differences are, but it still irks me.

The very last scene of the first episode was by far one of the sharpest jabs in anime I've ever seen. It takes shots at the countries around Japan, as well as the politicians in the Japanese parliament.

Give us back our land/people/technology/submarines/money!

One has to be pretty well versed in Japanese current events to know what countries Kumeta is referring to, though the internet is certainly your friend in this situation.

All in all, it's a surprisingly fun series. While dialogue heavy, it's very enjoyable, even more so if you manage to get some of the references and jokes (which is quite difficult unless you're very well versed in Japanese culture and current affairs).


PV:

Coil is a man whose idea of "life" is his alter ego in an online world. A place where the hearts of people come together...and it is not a pretty place. The slender spiderweb that connects their souls within this endless world brings greater pain than reality itself.

Kenn's Comment: While this series masquerades as an online MMORPG, it delves much deeper than your average one.

For starters, I've given it the 'psychological' tag, someone I really dislike using, but I feel that this one really deserves it. I'm quite picky when it comes to genre tags, for example the tragedy tag. I won't use it if the manga starts with a whole city getting slaughtered, and thus setting the main character on a path for revenge. If said series focused on the character who slaughtered the city, trying to attone for his/her sins and ultimately dying, I'd probably slap the tragedy tag on it. It's more a classic approach of the tragedy (like a Greek tragedy).

Tags aside, this one has all the action and guild planning that we all know and love from series like .//Hack and SAO/Accel World, but this one has something those don't - a mature counselling aspect. The world in ナツノクモ is vastly open, and, like in the world of Summer Wars some professional practioners have taken to the world for experimental practices. Through VR interactions, they hold counselling sessions over the game. I won't say too much and spoil it, but it does introduce a very interesting aspect to the series. It's not as action heavy as other VR game themed series, but the psychological aspect really makes this one a great read. 

The song's pretty cool, but the PV is what really takes it for me.






Title: 情動クラシック, Joudou Classic, Classical Emotions
Producer: アテコスリ
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's Comment: That video is pretty darn snazzy. The four boxes are obviously emotions (though anger is evidently missing), but due to my lack of understanding, I'm trying to figure out how they're related to the stuff that happens.

Anywho, the song is more or less your standard fare. It's not amazing, but it's still pretty good. This register for Miku is what I'm used to hearing. Whenever someone goes and uses the upper registers for the entire song, it really just bugs me. People often say that anime is full of girls with high squeaky voices, but Miku's high voice pushes squeaky to a whole new level.

Anywho, enjoy this one! The retro-animation style of the PV gives it a pretty unique feel.

Sakura Ichiko is a 16-year-old girl who leads a charmed life and is blessed with beauty, brains, and health. She has an abundance of “Happiness Energy”, which can make people happy, but at the cost of absorbing all the “Happiness Energy” from her surroundings. She has caused the energy balance of the world to become unbalanced and because of this, she becomes the target of a Poverty God named Momiji. Momiji's goal is to remove Ichiko’s power of absorbing other people’s Happiness Energy and to return all the energy she has taken to its rightful place.  

Kenn's Comment: Since I started with SAO using this format, I'll continue it. Feels a bit redundant, but it'll have to do.

The animation for this one is great. The colours work well with the characters, though I'm not sure why Ichiko has gray hair now, instead of the pink she sports in the manga (I think). Ichiko's quoted to have silver hair in the manga, so her hair in the anime isn't that far off the mark. If it were a bit brighter like Nyaruko's, I'd think it'd be a tad bit more vibrant looking.  The jabs and references to other series is great, coming off of the super-reference heavy Nyaruko and reminiscent of Gintama, it's certainly something that I enjoy.

I'd say the best part of the series is the relationship between Momiji and Ichiko. I've read a volume or two of the manga, and I'd have to say that they share an interesting relationship. While they're constantly at each other's throats, they've always got each other's backs which creates an interesting dynamic between the two.

One worry I have about this one is the pace that the series is going at. An episode typically contains 1-3 chapters of the manga. The real meat of the story doesn't really start until later, with some of the more eventful story arcs will either not make it into the anime, or take place towards the tail end of the season (Momiji takes a jab, saying that it'd be a one cour series). The first of these arcs should be episode 4. Looking foward to that one, and the rest.

I'm hoping this one will be a returning series. Probably not going to be a long running one like Gintama or Naruto, but I'm hoping it'll return constantly like Hidamari Sketch (which returns for it's 4th season).

So, should you watch it? Yes. I believe it's a Funimation licensed series too, so you'll be able to pick up the Blurays (seriously, who still uses DVDs?).

Title: ソードアート・オンライン, Sword Art Online, S.A.O
Animation Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Airs: 07/07 24:00 Tokyo MX / Crunchyroll
Website: http://www.swordart-online.net/

Series Summary from ANN:

Trapped and fighting for their very lives in a Virtual Reality MMORPG, Aincrad Online, the story explores the mishaps and adventures of the greatest one handed swordsman of the VR world, Kirito. Together with his friends, the solo swordsman strives to finish the game, which in turn will release all the minds trapped into Aincrad.

Kenn's Comment: The visuals are spectacular - especially landscapes. They're really a sight to behold. I can only imagine what it'd be like on bluray on a big screen. It'd be a thing of beauty.

The premise is similar to a series most of us are familiar with, .//Hack, with the VR and the headsets, and getting trapped in the world. SAO takes it one step further: you're trapped and if you die in game, you actually die. The first episode was a good and strong introduction, brining us into Aincrad, using Kirito putting Klein through the ropes of the game.

The music is something that's another strong point in this one. Yuki Kajiura nails the music, providing both the grand, epic chorus pieces, like at the beginning of the episode, to the more electronic ones, reminiscent of the stuff you'd find in video games. The music in the PV is quite something too.

tl;dr Easily one of the strongest first episode this season. Great visuals, voice acting is on spot, music s superb. If I could get Zelos' input on this one it'd be even better.

If you haven't realized it yet, this and Accel World come from the same author

 PV:

The story is about class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Middle School where every morning they greet their sensei with a massive firing squad. The sensei is a weird combination of a ALIEN and an octopus that moves at speeds of mach-20. It turns out this creature was responsible for the destruction of the moon, rendering it forever in a crescent shape. He has announced that he will destroy the world in 1 year. The creature will teach class 3-E how to assassinate him before the year is over.

Kenn's Comment: From the man who brought us Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, something completely different. It's really quite interesting, and a far cry from your typical battle manga. The first chapter was really well done in that it was entertaining and interesting, while not boxing the manga into a set storyline. It also dropped a hint or two of Koro-sensei's past, which makes me wonder about the 'destroying the earth' thing. So far, we've pretty much seen that he's a great teacher, albeit a bit odd. Alien GTO kind of thing? I'm down with that.

This one's pretty awesome.






Title: うたをうたうひと, (The) Singer Sings
Producer: ぽわぽわP
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's Comment: The title is kind of funny. うたうひと (utau-hito) is literally 'song person', though I'm much more used to seeing 'singer' as 歌手 (kashu).

The beat is pretty darn cool, and I get the feeling that's Miku's soft voice? It's not indicated whether it's APPEND, though I've noticed that they're not really specifying between most of the APPEND voices now. Probably for the best because it keeps the Vocaloid as a single entity rather than having non-append and append's multiple voices.

The chorus is great though there's a part somewhere in the middle with a synthesized choral chord that I couldn't done without. Felt a bit out of place as it's the only part that it comes in.

Enjoy!

Airs: 07/06 10:30 AT-X
Website: http://kichiku.tv/

Series Summary from MangaHelpers:

Summoned into an alternate world of Alayzard, Ousawa Akatsuki helps defeat the demon lord, brings harmony back into the world and, under the demon lord’s last request, takes the demon’s only daughter back into Akatsuki’s own world. It turns out that being teleported into a different world is somewhat of a common occurrence. Those who find themselves back home often come back with the power to use magic and the world organization fearing people like Akatsuki created Babel, a school to teach and keep tabs on the magic users. Akatsuki is able to pull the demon lord’s only daughter into Babel as his sister, Ousawa Miu. A new chapter for Akatsuki is about to begin in his own universe. [vyc]

Kenn's Comment: There's something about the girls in this that's throwing me off. I can't tell what it is, but they're all looking very chunky. I feel that it's something about how the shoulders are drawn...or maybe it's just how they're drawn in general. I had the same problem with うぽって！, though to a lesser degree.

Anywho, from the look and sound of it, the main character is one helluva bad ass. Things to note in this: エッチ content. The PV has whited out scenes and magic steam for crying out loud. They know what they're selling. Anywho, once I get past the art, I'm hoping that the story can push it through, and not fall flat like so many other light novel adaptations of this genre have.

PV:

Airs: 07/01 24:56 AT-X
Website: http://www.takeshobo.co.jp/sp/tv_chitose/

Series Summary from MangaUpdates:

Chitose is an 11 year old girl who is madly in love with an older guy named Hiroshi. He works at the town hall right next to the school and Chitose spends every day relentlessly pursuing him. Can Chitose ever convince Hiroshi to go out with her?

Kenn's Comment: If you ever need a series to explain to someone what moe is, please, don't use this one.

Anywho, for those who are about to call the local church to get them to ban this, this one's pretty darn clean. Stars Chitose, an overly energetic 11 year old with a huge crush on a young man who works at the town hall. It's a one sided crush to crush all one sided crushes. Think of it like Infinite Stratos. Any of the girls liking Ichika pretty much experience what Chitose is doing, though they're probably infinitely (see what I did there?) more frustrated with that guy.

Anywho, it'll be up on Crunchyroll for those of you interested. I flipped through a bit of the manga, and it's not really my cup of tea.

PV:

Sakugi Mitsuaki is a poor college student who gets hooked on figure modeling. In return for helping his class he receives some special putty -- but the figure he builds with it suddenly comes to life. The figure is a life force called Orichalcum ("Oriharukon") that fulfills the wish of its creator. Their strange life together begins.

Kenn's Comment: I feel like I put this one up before, but I'm pretty sure I only mentioned it. It came up waaaaaaay back when I got the Reycal revoltech.

This one's kind of like Rozen Maiden, with the 'doll' fighting and competition. If memory serves me correct, beating an opponent in this results in winning their orichalcum, which isn't too different from winning the thing from Rozen Maiden that slips my mind.

Anywho, Tsunashima Shirou is the man behind the Jinki series, so the art is more or less guaranteed to be good. Story wise, it's pretty good though I can't exactly vouch for that since I haven't read too much of it. Just enough to know the general gist of it, and have a good idea of what Reycal is like.

I'm probably worse at art related subjects than I am at math, so I wouldn't dare even try making one, but if one of your figures (assuming you have them) could come to life, which one would you want? Not sure if Gunpla should count...

If it was for combat, I'd have to say Black Rock Shooter due to her weaponry. For everything else, I'm split between Seto San and Homura. Gunpla allowed, I'd say either the Graham custom Flag or the Blue Astray Frame. They're so cool looking!