don't be dull, be fannish

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a strange anime. Either you love it or you hate it. I loved it to pieces, really. The anime has 14 episodes but the first one, called "Episode Zero" is actually a prank episode and depicts the movie Haruhi and her club filmed. Don't judge the series after this ep! I did it at first and almost skipped this wonderful anime.

The series tells the story of Haruhi Suzumiya who is not your average girl. She doesn't like boring stuff and if you are not an alien, a time traveler or an ESPer, there is no chance that she will even look at you... that is until she meets Kyon. Kyon is a bit put off by her gruff demeanor but he keeps talking to her anyway. And the result is that Haruhi decides to establish a club with him, a club that will concentrate on finding supernatural things. Haruhi steals the room of the book club and includes its only member, the withdrawn girl Yuki, into her own twisted plans. Then she forces a well-endowed senpai, Mikuru, to join the club stating that they need big breasted bunny girl to attract new members (not that they succeed). And the last member is the transfer student Itsuki who just goes with the flow knowing that it's useless to try and oppose Haruhi. But Yuki, Mikuru and Itsuki are not what they seem, just like Haruhi is more than a simple school girl. The only truly normal human being is Kyon who just doesn't get how he ended up in a club with all these nutcases!

This anime is hilarious. From the first ep to the last one. But beware, just like the characters are not normal, the series isn't normal either. The episodes don't follow the story chronologically. So, you have ep 0 but it's listed as ep 1, ep 4 is actually ep 8 (or something like that), so you have to watch the preview at the end of the episode to understand where in the story you are. At first, I thought I missed an ep or that I don't have the whole series but it's intentional.

And I truly loved the characters. Especially Kyon. He is the poor, suffering victim of Haruhi's twisted plans and his inner comments are so full of irony and so hilarious that you have to laugh out loud. He tries to dampen Haruhi's exuberance and stop her most devilish plans but he doesn't succeed every time. He is usually miserable and annoyed by the fact that every member of the club is a weirdo and that everybody goes to him with their secrets and expects him to mum about it.

But all that makes the relationship between Haruhi and Kyon even more engaging. Until the last episode, you don't actually understand why Kyon is a member of the club, what's his role in the grand scheme of things, what is he to Haruhi. And even though Haruhi is the main character, I can't tell much about her because every thing I would say would be a spoiler.

And there was another thing that totally got me - the way the series is animated. I have never encountered an anime where the movements would look so fluid. Especially in the ending credits where the heroes dance to the song. It's simply wow! Totally smitten here!

This anime is unusual, weird and touching, sci-fi and romance. I would recommend it to everybody. Go and watch! 5 stars out of 5!

Because I'd finished reading Anita Blake, I picked up "Moon Called" by Patricia Briggs. So far, it looks rather good. But I freely admit that since Ukiah Oregon, I'm really into werewolves and packs. Yeah, yeah, paint me weird! XP

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I decided to stop downloading the The Coyote Ragtime Show anime. At least for the time being. It didn't grab me as I thought it would. It reminds me of GunXSword; that one also had such ridiculous heroes and baddies :( I have enough other anime to download and watch.

Thanks to the rec of a friend, I totally fell in love with the new anime Tale of Saiunkoku. It's similar to Harukanaru Toki no Naka de but the difference is that it's not your usual "a whiny girl gets transported to a magical world" plot. Shuurei's strong and stubborn and can scream your ears off... But there are also a lot of similarities - the eight men are so beautiful. I especially like Seiran and Ryuuki but the bickering between General Ran and the Vice-Chamberlain Ri is so funny too (they remind me of Tomomasa and Takamichi).

( Seiran and Ryuuki )

I think that this anime is definitely a keeper. I'm downloading the We Suck's version; it's good but I hate the yellow type because it's rather hard to read X(

I've downloaded the first three eps of the anime Tactical Roar. It's... well...

The premise of the anime is really good. Pirates steal ships. One of the ships they want to steal starts a fight with them and sinks them. But then, the captain of the ship is court martialed because the pirates' ship she sunk belonged to the military in the past. It's obvious, that there is something dark and bad going on in the military...

If it would be just this, I would be totally excited about it but! *sigh* It's a harem anime. All the crew members are females who run around half-naked or even naked. Panty shots, boobs and more panty shots. Lesbians crawling over each other and arguing about who has the right to bed the captain first. Lollies all over the place. And just one guy who gets smothered or beaten all the time.

So, I'm not sure if I should keep downloading it or not. I probably will since it IS interesting. But why? Oh, why does it have to be another harem anime?

I just saw the trailer to Winter Cicada. I think I will really cry when or if I ever watch this Haru wo Daiteita movie. The "if" thing is there because I'm not sure if fansubbers will sub it since it should be aired in a cinema...

And I also watched Tantei Gakuen, ep 26. What a cliffhanger. And no new subbed episode in sight *sigh* The Soldats fansubbers are really angry at folks for asking about new eps all the time. But when they promise that they are not dropping this project but don't sub any new ep in 6 months... no wonder that fans are asking about it, right?

Off to watch more anime.

I have been watching the first episodes of Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid and wow! It looks really great. Finally a female hero that doesn't cry and isn't all helpless. She kicks ass, unfortunately mostly the main male hero's. Poor boy, he is cute and nice but a bit dense :P Now I will just have to find the first season. Grr, the download rate is stuck at 0kBs! :/

Tsukuyomi ~ Moon Phase - oh my gosh, this series is getting better and better. Kouhei is learning how to use his powers and Hazuki is all worried. They are such a sweet couple! (yeah, it's het ;)) And now the vampires caught up with them. Poor Kouhei. Why do all the vampire girls love to suck his blood so much? Hehe, they are always so disappointed when they realize that it's impossible to turn him into a brainless servant. Go, Kouhei! Go! I can't wait for the next episode. Such an awful cliffhanger!

And I'm writing another Gorgeous Carat story. I have the first two scenes done and it's almost 2000 words again. Wow. I have never written such long one-shots before. GC has a really intriguing story. And there are so many possibilities for h/c since Floréan is hurting so nicely :D

Off to watch some more anime. My hdd is at 1,5GB out of 40! I need to do some cleaning!

Soldats actually subbed another episode of Tantei Gakuen Q! Please, pinch me! I need to know that I'm not dreaming! O.O! -.-! O.O!!! And it took them only... well, six months? But now, the scarrywater tracker is down again so I can't download this episode! Grr!!! I really need to know who their enemy is!

Tantei Gakuen Q - ep 26