Deadman Wonderland – And We’re Back

Kids, respect your elders.

It’s been a long wait since the last chapter of Deadman Wonderland, so I thought I would give a quick little recap for those who have forgotten what’s going on.

Meet Hagire. He’s a dick. He wants to fully unlock the powers of the Wretched Egg because…I don’t know, science? The other Deadmen have gone back to what remains of the prison in an attempt to stop him, because the Wretched Egg awakening would likely wreck Japan. Ganta and Crow got into a fight with Hagire that left him mostly dead, but Yosuga helped him get back on his feet, albeit in what turns out to be a much more decrepit state than before. The last chapter ended with Ganta putting together a plan to shut down the Mother Goose system that regulates the powers of the Wretched Egg so he can bring Shiro back and stop Hagire. And if I remember correctly, I don’t think the plan made all that much sense even last year.

Yerocha’s 2012 Anime Awards – Part 2

[previously on 2012 Anime Awards]

Most Under The Radar

Kuroko no Basket

A while back, I started the manga version of Kuroko no Basket and attempted to catch up on the series before the anime came out. At only 30 or so chapters, I failed hideously. I honestly didn’t think the series was that great in the beginning, since it had a rough time capturing the team aspect of basketball properly. Hell, I still have trouble telling some of the other Seirin players apart. When I later switched over to the anime, I was surprised with how everything managed to be so much more exciting. I would say this is just due to Production I.G. knowing how to direct a sports series, but I can’t because those were the people who made the Prince of Tennis anime. I think what made it better is that the source material is very action intensive, and those types of series can work much better when we get to see the characters move. Plus I felt the characters were all acted well, so each of them became a lot more interesting. For all of that, I feel I should thank the anime for rejuvenating my interest in a series I might have dropped a while back.

Yerocha’s 2012 Anime Awards – Part 1

Well, it’s that time of year again. The time where I finally sit down and get to discuss all the different anime that came out this year. Strange as it sounds coming from an aniblogger, I don’t get to talk about anime as much as I would like to. I’ve found that you don’t really know how strong your opinions are until you try to get them in writing and see what comes out.

This will go similarly to the awards I gave out last year, except I decided to divide this into three posts instead of two. The awards themselves are mostly for fun, but I also go over what I thought about the series as a whole. Like last year, these were a few shows that slipped under the radar and thus aren’t included. The main ones I missed out on being Hyouka, which I never started for stupid reasons I’ve genuinely forgotten (I’ll watch it one of these days) and Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita and PSYCHO-PASS, which didn’t look like my thing. I’m not far enough into Magi or Shinsekai Yori to really discuss them, either. Also these awards are for shows that started in 2012 rather than ended, so Chihayafuru, Persona 4, Shana Final and Guilty Crown were covered in my previous awards. So with that awkward introduction out of the way, here are my awards for anime in 2012.

Most Gratuitous Use of Imouto

Zetsuen no Tempest

SAO may have had one as a major character, but the fate of the world never revolved around sibling love in that show.

It took a little while for me to fully understand what the themes of this show are supposed to be. The Shakespearian quotes and everything like that I could get, but it was difficult to grasp how to feel regarding the story. Then a few episodes ago, it occurred to me that this series shares a good deal of similarities with the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. The world is rapidly going to hell and various groups are working towards remaking everything based on their own ideals. There may not be the hordes of demons to team up with, but it’s still a familiar feeling that I get. There’s even a major focus on the nature of order in the world, which goes nicely with the Law vs Chaos theme a lot of the SMT games revolve around. It all makes for an interesting series to watch each week, and it might also help lay the groundwork for Devil Survivor 2 come April.

12 Days of Christmas – Day 9 – “Life After Death” by Notorious B.I.G

2012 was the year of Jojo, in more ways than one. Even before the show got announced, I started putting in the effort to catch up to the ongoing manga. That’s a lot of ground that needs to be covered, and I’m still nowhere near finished the series. I’m up to the beginning of Part 6 at the moment, so I felt I should spend one post talking about a noteworthy moment I read. I would discuss the anime, but I’ll be talking about it in the Anime Awards I’ll be putting up later and this would just be a copy/paste of that. So I chose this moment primarily because it relates to the anime, but at the same time doesn’t.

12 Days of Christmas – Day 8 – Chained by Fashion

The characters in Hunter x Hunter make killing a form of art. We got our first glimpses of this back when Hisoka started pulling out his magic tricks, but in the most recently animated arc we got introduced to the rest of the Phantom Troupe. This is a group that could only be held together because the members are different enough to complement each other and get through just about anything. These differences even show up in their methods of killing, from the guy who massacres whole rooms with bullets that are fired from his hands to Chrollo, who likes to put as much effort into tearing apart one person as he can. But even after seeing each member show off their skills (…except Mummy Boxer…) the character who impressed me the most in this arc was still Kurapika. Through him we get to see that even if someone doesn’t want to kill, they can still make it into art.