Anime-Blog

From bad weather to glorious sunshine, such is the beauty of the relatively random nature of Hidamari Sketch's timeline - more importantly however, this week sees us introduced to Yamabuki High's swim meet.

Despite being a free event which allows its students compete, watch or simply stay at home, there's a good turn-out to watch proceedings, for reasons not at all to do with Yoshinoya wearing a school swimsuit.  Meanwhile, despite learning to at least float, Yuno still isn't up for playing an active role in the meet, and thus acts as one of the "recorders" tasked with taking photos; something she does with relish and with an occasionally worrying flourish, in spite of the expensive camera in her possession.


Meanwhile, Nori, Sae and Miyako are Hidamari Apartment's contestants in various disciplines, with Sae's heat in particular creating a surprising bond between Hiro and Natsume as her cheerleaders.  At the end of the day there's good news all-round for the main characters involved, with their role in helping their class to victory proving to be more important than some of the younger students had realised, while Yuno's photographic efforts are very much appreciated, and displayed (quite literally) in all of their glory on the school web site.

Sure, this wasn't one of Hidamari Sketch's best episodes, but it still brought out a number of laugh out loud moments while being vaguely fun and reminding us once again of how much bigger this show's budget is now than during its first season, ensuring that it looks the part as well as delivering a decent chunk of humour.  No matter where its subject matter lies, it seems like this show always has one or two gems to deliver, and this week's instalment is no different in that regard.

After just one night of training from her big brother, Medaka and Zenkichi are ready to face the former's "date" with the wanna be ruler of the world Miyakonojou.

Between proving themselves to be effectively immune to his command voice and with Hitoyoshi, striking out surprisingly effectively with an attack of his own, Miyakonojou is at least impressed enough to reveal a little more about the so-called Flask Plan - a plan filled with the Abnormals of Class 13 as its subjects, but also one which ultimately looks to use the whole of Sandbox Academy as its testing ground.  It's this news that really sets Medaka's mind on the task at hand - getting to the core of the Flask Plan to find out all she can about it, and then quite possibly to destroy it.


Rather than involve the entire student council (which is currently run ragged with complaints about Class 13's members from students anyway), Medaka and Zenkichi choose to go it alone... or at least they would have done were it not for the interference of Shiranui in telling the other two council members what is going on and pointing them in the right direction.  They arrive not a moment too soon, with Medaka easily passing the first test of the Flask Plan's laboratory complex by entering a code of a million combinations correctly and leaving Hitoyoshi to pass through using his own abilities - a task which leaves him wavering until the others show him how its done.  A simple door is about to become the least of their problems however, as they reach their first true test within the complex...

After a sluggish and overly wordy first half that adapts the original manga faithfully but adds no frisson to account for its animated nature, I was a little worried that this series was going to start slipping in quality again after a decent enough start - thankfully, the second half of this week's instalment felt a little more energised in terms of both its subject matter and presentation to make things just that bit more compelling.  The real test for Medaka Box Abnormal is how it handles events to come however - this could just be the time to shine for this series, so it needs to make a convincing job of it.

It's been a decidedly long time since I last got to enjoy some Joshiraku, but rather like buses episodes seem to suddenly start turning up all at once.

This eleventh episode of the series sees our rakugo girls taking a much-needed holiday abroad... or at least, that's what they'd like to be doing, but a paddling pool and some posters in the dressing room is about as close as they can get to achieving that.  Given that the girls are all dressed for the occasion, the conversation quickly turns to the topipc of swimsuits - school swimsuits more precisely, and their set in stone design in contrast to Japanese school uniforms.  From here our discussion turns to education, Gan's maternal instinct and just how many girls you can fit into a single oversized swimsuit.


As per usual, we hit the road for the episode's second segment, hanging out in Musashi-Sakai to moan about how confusing its train station is while enjoying its place as the arguable noodle capital of the world despite Kigu's reluctance to eat at a place named "Dong".  Finally, it's Christmas as the group enjoys a decidedly low-budget start to their Christmas party, before the pitfalls of online shopping enter the discussion.  Once some of those pitfalls are ably demonstrated by Tetora and an order of a hugely over-sized Christmas tree, things get crazy even by this show's standards with Marii impersonating in turn Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and Rambo, while Predator and Apocalyse Now also get name-checked in the ensuing insanity.

In a way, I'm glad there's been a bit of a delay in getting hold of some of the later episodes of this series, as this is actually the kind of show you end up missing quite quickly from your viewing schedule.  Thus, this instalment fills a nice comedy gap in my current line-up, managing to get laughs from both its pointed discussions of cultural topics and its ability to go off on ridiculously crazy tangents at will, all of which is helped by a cast that seems to bounce off one another better with every episode.  With a couple of episodes still to go, I'll continue to look forward to checking them out.

With the promise of a date on the cards, Haru is already thinking ahead to what that date might involve.  In fact, he's probably thinking about it a little too much...

That aside, it's the second term of the year, and as all and sundry return to school Shizuku seems as determined as ever to best Haru in any test results as we learn a little more about exactly why the latter is so smart despite never studying and missing virtually the entirety of his middle school years.  Any thoughts of dates are quickly extinguished however at the appearance of Haru's older brother Yuzan once again - despite Haru making good on his escape, it seems that it's Shizuku that Yuzan is after.


While teasing his younger brother mercilessly via text message as he hangs out with Shizuku, we learn the real reason for Yuzan's appearance on the scene - put simply, Haru's father wants him to return home after kicking him out for being a disgrace to the family during those aforementioned difficult middle school years.  However, given that he's now attending school and making a decent fist of things, Yuzan feels that the time is ripe to prove that Haru is more than capable of staying where he is, while also realising just how important Shizuku's role in Haru's "rehabilitation" is.  Thus, his plea is for Shizuku to effectively look after Haru; a plea which does nothing to dissolve the sense of trust the younger sibling has for his elder.  Just when it seems as if everyone's goals are aligning, has a rival appeared to challenge Shizuku?

For all of its pretty traditional shoujo plot points and concepts, this felt like a strong episode of My Little Monster.  I know I've mentioned it before a few times now, but in particular Shizuku is often a breath of fresh air within this genre - sure she still swoons over Haru a little, but never to the point of allowing herself to be manipulated and told what to do by him, proving herself to be a strong and decisive character who can make her own decisions and figure things out for herself rather than becoming a simpering wreck without the male lead around to help her out.  I think it's this that really makes My Little Monster a joy to watch - I could take or leave a lot of the other characters, but I can't help but root for Shizuku's happiness as she figures out the new feelings and experiences which are arriving thick and fast for her, making for a journey that is proving to be pretty fascinating to watch for the most part when the show is focusing sufficiently upon her.

The countdown to launch is drawing painfully close, but the whole thing is all-but forgotten as a more pressing concern comes to the fore - where has Apo gone?

After disappearing from the pillar restraining him thanks to the "good deed" of an errant kid, all of Mutta's friends quickly join the search for Apo once they learn that he's missing while worrying about the possibilities of where he could have gotten to, whether it's being hit by the shockwave of the launching shuttle or being eaten by crocodiles.


Luckily, it doesn't take too long before Mutta finds Hibito's dog - but who is this strange old man about to drive off with him?  After catching up with him, we learn that the man in question is a NASA employee, and after mistaking Mutta for someone else he still insists upon taking him for a drive into what seems to be the middle of nowhere, but actually turns out to be a spectacular spot to view the shuttle launch from via an old NASA blockhouse.  As the countdown hits zero, it's finally time for Hibito to get one step ahead of his brother and enter space...

After really worrying that this episode of Space Brothers might be a bust (not to mention a distraction from the real business of the shuttle launch), the series actually succeeded in handling this instalment pretty well - sure, the stuff with Apo was kind of frivolous and pointless, but it led into some nice moments with Mutta as he got to watch the launch from a more secluded location, in turn allowing him to reconcile some of his emotions about Hibito's launch.  More importantly, the final countdown to the launch itself was an absolute triumph for the series, somehow managing to concentrate all of the excitement, tension, exhilaration and overflowing emotion of those final agonising seconds quite beautifully - scenes matched by our view of the final minutes before launch of the astronauts themselves as they waved goodbye to their final human contact before the launch and prepared themselves in their own ways.

It's those scenes that really reminds me of the power of Space Brothers in capturing the reason why we're so engaged by space exploration from both a human and technical perspective - it's wonderfully achieved here and now we've finally seen the Mars I launch I hope it's the beginning of this series exploring some fascinating material as surely it has to at this juncture.

After introducing us to another new character, Finnish transfer student with a poor grasp of English named Kud, at the start of this episode... the rest of this week's Little Busters has absolutely nothing to do with her.

Instead, our focus returns to Komari Kamikita - while heading to the rooftop to hand over a reward to be given to Komari by Rin to thank her for helping out an injured cat, Naoe overhears Komari talking about her big brother in her dreams.  What's unusual here is that Komari is an only child with no such brother, despite having a recurring dream about him reading a book, the exact contents of which she can't remember, to her when she was younger.


Prompted to search for the book she remembers as a result of discussing this dream, Komari stumbles across some shocking information - not the contents of the book itself (a quite literal chicken and egg story) but rather the fact that it's signed by one Takuya Kamikita.  Does Komari really have a brother that she's simply forgotten about?  Any thoughts of this are placed to one side as Komari spends her Sunday helping out at an old people's home with the assistance of the other Little Busters assembled so far, but when Naoe refuses to take no for an answer when it comes to helping one belligerent old man who is a patient at the hospital, he might just have stumbled onto something very relevant regarding Komari's family.

Having expected Little Busters to continue to build up its cast judging this week's episode by its opening scenes, it now seems that we're going to enter what you could call the first "proper" arc of the series - and it certainly feels like pretty typical KEY stuff given its layout and obvious eye for human melodrama.  Not that this is a bad thing, mind you - these guys know how to pull on someone's heartstrings - but at the moment it'll have to do a little more than it's succeeded with from this episode, which turned out to be a slightly tepid and decidedly by the numbers affair aside from a couple of sparkling moments of comedy.  It would be unfair to dismiss this particular plot arc straight away, but it isn't the most compelling of beginnings for this aspect of the show's story.

Given that their career in Shounen Jack is on the line and dependant upon them beating +NATURAL in the rankings, this week's Bakuman is surprisingly swift at delivering its verdict on Ashirogi Muto and their future.


Needless to say, the speed of that judgement makes it pretty much a given that the final news is positive - for Akito and Takagi at least, but decidedly less so for a defeated Iwase.  With their future working for the magazine secured and PCP safe from cancellation, it seems as if life is getting better and better for our two protagonists, with news of a drama CD (and no prizes for guessing who one of the voice actresses working on that will be) and novel adaptation of their work quickly following.

As all of this success floods over them, thoughts naturally turn towards what seems to be an inevitable anime adaptation - but is PCP really suitable to such a switch?  In Hattori's opinion, no, as PCP is the recipient of frequent complaints thanks to its real-life premise and the possibility of kids imitating it.  It's a body blow to our two manga artists as their ultimate dream seems to be dashed (and little do they know of the offer which has landed on the chief editor's desk), so how do they work around it?  Mashiro begins to formulate a plan, only to find that even this looks set to be swallowed up by other events transpiring around him.

Thus, another week brings another entertaining episode of Bakuman as it continues to benefit on keeping its focus largely away from the romance angle to focus on the industry chatter and the hurdles that face our young manga artists (and their assistants on this occasion) - it's a simple but effective formula that I can't help but love as I devour it with a combination of interest in watching its glimpses into the wiring under the board and entertainment at the way it spins so much pure drama out of its concept.  Given the interesting twists and turns brought about by the events of this episode, that opinion doesn't look like changing in the near future either.