Hi! You may know me as woodburner. Or hey, you may not. Anyway, this is a mostly open journal - subscribe/unsubscribe at will, no need to ask permission. :)

But why isn't that song that played at the beginning of episode 18 of Pandora Hearts on the 2nd OST? Anyway, my animes, let me show you them.

- Watched ep 3 of Darker than Black. Seriously, the new season of Darker than Black is weird. Have there been any contractors that manifested weapons before? Why does Hei keep getting into skeevy-looking positions with that girl? And why does it seem he's gone from binge-eating to binge-drinking? Also, cats are more expressive than squirrels, is all I'm sayin'.

- Why is no one releasing the 2nd episode of Aoi Bungaku? I really enjoyed the 1st episode - unexpectedly, as I am pretty snub-nosed when it comes to deliberately depressing realist fiction, and when it comes to depressing realist fiction, no one freaking tops the Japanese. (Also, the original author of the first story seemed to be trying to set some kind of world record for number of attempted suicides in one lifetime. No seriously, look at the wiki, it starts getting almost funny after a while.)

Congratulations, Japan, through pretty, dream-like visuals and a compelling story-flow you're making me enjoy a genre I usually hate with a vicious passion. But nobody's subbing it!

- Fairy Tail ep 1 & 2: Nothing outstanding, but it's fun, and for a shounen craving it manages to hit the spot. Check it out if you like uber-cracky shounen.

- Kuchu Buranko (aka Trapeze) ep 1: Unexpectedly highly comedic. Amusing diversion, but eh, nothing mind-blowing. Nurse is so over-the-top, oh my god. The animation... Well, I don't know, it seems like they had about a million things that they said "Hey, you know what would be AWESOME?!" about, and then used them all at once, and it's a little too much. An interesting artistic exercise, certainly, but I feel like it doesn't quite hit the mark.

All I want to know is, why, for the love of god why does the doctor cream his pants every time someone gets an injection?

Next episode: Takahiro Sakurai has a chronic erection problem. Oh, Japan.

- The Sacred Blacksmith ep 1-3: Old-fashioned high-fantasy anime that begs for breastplate jokes. While it's nothing all that special so far, I'm really enjoying it - though I hope they intend on having Cecily toughen up enough to match Luke (or at least not be so utterly and completely out-classed by him). Luke is an adorable grumpy tsundere boy and you guys know how I am about adorable grumpy tsundere boys.



Look at the cute little McGrumpy face! Don't you just wanna pinch his widdle cheeks? Also, girl-lovey subtext, I can smell it.



Can has?

- Hanjuku Joshi - a yuri manga I really like! Yet another high school girls setting, but even so, it's very sweet and funny, and I dig the subversion of icky tropes. Pretty art, too.

Kuchu Buranko trailer is out.

Why are all of Kuchu Buranko's protags male? In an anime about people's psychological issues, having all male protagonists sends a clear message that women's problems don't matter, and that you don't think anyone would want to watch a show about women and their problems, not even for a single episode.

They're doing this thing with the protagonists of each episode - they're all designed to look like the (very popular) voice actors playing them. I think that's pretty nifty, but there are plenty of wildly popular female seiyuu they could have done this with as well. It's not like only male seiyuu are popular. Yet they went so far as to switch a couple of characters who were female in the books to male in the anime.

One of wonderful things about Mononoke was the feminism. So why, why all male protags in this one? It doesn't even seem like the kind of show that's targeting the fangirl hordes or anything, so it seems unlikely the decision was for that reason.

I'm still excited to see it - I mean, it looks like a pure acid trip, and you all know how I am when it comes to surreal imagery - but I'm really disappointed by the all male protags thing.