WonFes 2009 – Figma

Max Factory had quite a few new Figma action figures on display at WonFes, some previously announced and others a surprise.

Previously seen only as a silhouette, Figma Ein was on display in full colour. She looks just as good as expected, and I’m looking forward to seeing the other parts she’ll come with. I hope we might eventually get a Zwei Figma to match as well.

WonFes 2009 – Nendoroid

I think Good Smile Company are going to financially ruin me. This summer’s WonFes has had a lot of interesting announcements, plus lots of prototypes of previously announced figures.

This was the most surprising and interesting announcement as far as I’m concerned. Good Smile Company are clearly one of the leaders in terms of producing male figures, but Sengoku Basara Nendoroids came as quite a surprise. Both characters have rather complicated outfits, but given the great quality and detail on the most recent releases, these two shouldn’t present too much of a problem.

Gurren Lagann + Gundam 00 LE DVD 1 Sets (UK Edition)

I thought I’d take a few photos to show off my recently arrived purchases. I had the limited edition version of both the Gurren Lagann and Gundam 00 first DVD sets preordered after Amazon UK decided for some reason to price the regular and limited versions of Gurren Lagann the same. I had originally intended to just get the limited version of 00 and the regular of TTGL.

I believe both sets are quite different from the US releases, both in the packaging and the extras, and Beez obviously put a lot of work into both sets because they look really awesome.

This is what the set included. The DVDs contain the first nine episodes, and Beez put them into a single digipack to save space. The box is sturdy, and not too large thanks to the reduced number of cases it has to fit. The extras are a badge of Yoko’s hair clip, a Gurren-dan patch and the light-up drill that I believe the American set also came with.

Initial Impressions – CANAAN

Next up from the new anime season is CANAAN. I was pretty interested to take a look at this series because I generally the way Type Moon material handles female characters, and the promo art for it was very pretty. I was also intrigued that prototype figures of Canaan emerged before the first episode had even aired, which is a rather confident move.

The plot isn’t exactly clear from the first episode – it focuses mainly on the action and atmosphere, both of which it pulls off with style. It’s apparently a continuation from 428: Fūsasareta Shibuya de, the game it’s connected to, but it’s hard to tell from a single episode whether knowledge of the game is necessary to enjoy the anime. The first episode is certainly watchable enough without it – the great visuals make up for the confusion.

The few male characters introduced look to suffer from the same problems as most of the men in the other Type Moon shows that I’ve seen, which is to say they came across as either boring or unlikeable. Their character designs are generic compared to the beautiful designs of the women, and there wasn’t much appeal in their personalities, either. The journalist was pretty amusing, but that was about as good as it got. I hope they’ll get enough development throughout the series that they don’t drag it down.

The women on the other hand seem pretty interesting for the most part. Their designs were definitely attractive, but also fairly practical – less silly outfits and ridiculous proportions compared to other series. Maria’s cheerful personality was borderline annoying at times, but Canaan herself is mysterious but likable, and Alphard and Liang Qi are mostly just mysterious, but enough hints were dropped about them that they seem interesting.

The fanservice was largely kept at a minimum, with the exception of one scene. There’s nothing that distracts from the rest of the episode, and hopefully they’ll keep things at the same sort of level in future episodes.

The atmosphere was great. I thought the mixture of violence and celebration was really effective, and the contrast between the seemingly lighthearted festival-goers and the sinister incidents occurring worked nicely. The use of colour, light and ‘camera’ angles was good, and the animation was fluid.

CANAAN definitely looks like a promising action series. It looks great, and hopefully the plot will turn out decent as well.

Initial Impressions – Aoi Hana

There’s not as much that interests me this season as last, but I thought I’d take a look at a few of the shows starting this Summer. I spent a while catching up on and finishing various anime I’d already started, but now I’m onto the new shows. First up is yuri anime Aoi Hana.

Aoi Hana looks to be this season’s slow-paced anime. It’s gentle, sweet and a bit angsty, and while there’s probably nothing groundbreaking here, it makes for a nice, relaxing watch.

The art is soft and muted, using watercolour backgrounds and character art that is unremarkable but attractive. The real draw looks to be the character interaction, both between Fumi and Akira and between the two girls and their various classmates.

The first episode covers some familiar ground setting the scene. The childhood friend trope is a well-used but effective one, and Aoi Hana’s use of it is hardly original, but it sets the relaxing tone for the series. The episode manages to cover the teenage girl slice-of-life side of things without coming across as fetishistic – this isn’t the yuri show to go for if you’re looking for fanservice, but I imagine most people would have realised that from the promo art and trailers.

Overall, this show looks as though it will be great for both yuri fans and those who enjoy slow-paced slice-of-life anime.

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Onto a different topic – this is mostly real life stuff so go ahead and skip it if you’re only here for the Aoi Hana coverage.

I’ve been a little lazy with the blogging lately. I’m not sure I’ve been particularly busy, but somehow I manage to waste the day away nonetheless. I must admit that much as I like having moved out of the house I was renting in Sheffield (especially the part where I never have to live with either of my ex-housemates ever again) being at home tends to be a drain on my energy and motivation because there’s rarely a need/excuse for me to leave the house, and my parents are still rather overbearing even now that they’ve eased up a lot since my starting uni. I also need to at least make an effort to get a temporary job and the prospect of this terrifies my reclusive self, which has been a bit of a downer as well.

Also, weirdest search term I’ve had for a while. I’m not sure if it’s the inclusion of square brackets, or the fact that it’s the only popular Code Geass pairing that I don’t actually like (and have never mentioned) that confused me.