Halftime for Myself;Yourself

Like predicted Myself; Yourself turned out to be solid entertainment, nothing more but also nothing less. The partly revealing of past incidents and the interaction of the characters is interesting so far, but the development of the main plot could be speeded up a little while the rapprochement between Sana and Nanaka was a bit rushed. This could have been stretched more over the past filler episodes in order to give a better idea about how deep Nanaka was hurt by whatever Sana did (assumed that he really did something wrong or she thinks he did. At least I guess that is to be the crux of this story). It’s a bit sad that till now the (obviously) filler character Hinako got the most character development. I don’t say that I dislike her, in fact it’s the other way around, but I’m pretty sure that she won’t be of any real importance for the further dealing with the issues of the five friend’s past and thus she just eats up precious screentime. It’s somehow the same for Aoi, who might be a bit more important but I just like her less.

Some recollection of what was shown so far about the past events:

– As Sana departs with the train Shousuke tries to shout something to him, but the words can’t be heard. Shousuke looks serious, but isn’t in panic, so maybe he tried to tell Sana about the deeper feelings one of the girls (Nanaka?) has for him.

– Sana is startled by the view of a bloody knife. Combined with his reluctance to take off the bulky watch around his wrist I guess he attempted suicide at some time, but nothing else points in this direction so far (beside the daily calls of his mother, which could be interpreted as worries about some possible relapse, but can also be normal interest in what her son does). If this should turn out to be true I think they shouldn’t have put both clues in one episode to make it less obviously.

– At the time Nanaka is asked by Sana to play something on a violin she panics and gets a flashback of huge flames. Shouri seems to know about what happened and convinces Sana to drop this idea. The present Nanaka wasn’t shown playing violin so far, so she seems like she has lost her will to play through whatever happened at that time.

ef – a tale of memories & Minami-ke

ef – a tale of memories

I like the surreal feeling which is created by the way ef – a tale of memories is animated. Only problem is that because it’s being made by SHAFT one can’t be really sure if this is intended or if they are again using the story as mere base for showing off their made animation skillz (which didn’t went well with some of their latest works). Well, so far it’s comprehensible and quite enjoyable, the characters are likeable and especially Chihiro’s fate is pretty touching.

Minami-ke

Watching the everyday life of the three sisters featured in Minami-ke is highly entertaining and relaxing. It literally emits good vibration. Each sister has a unique and well balanced combination of strong and weak points which makes their interaction pretty enjoyable and through the including of each girls individual school life and circle of friends a lot of variety should be ensured. Two thumbs up.

sola – 14

Splish splash

Kimikiss Pure Rouge & Rental Magica

Kimikiss Pure Rouge

While watching the intro of Kimikiss Pure Rouge I was more than tempted to stop immediately, because it literally screams harem romance with mediocre character design and animation quality. Well, I accomplish to sit through it after all and the episode itself was fortunately much better than expected. Instead of some generic harem show Kimikiss features a more or less equal amount of male and female characters of whom nobody can claim the “main lead”-title. The plot develops around the whole group and their interaction among each other (which are in major parts of romantic nature, granted). Four pairings have found themselves so far with the screentime shared fairly among them and much potential to develop.
Altogether a quite interesting series, but I’m afraid that it might not be as interesting as other series I’m watching at the moment. So maybe it’ll drop out over the course of time, but I’m not sure yet.

Rental Magica

I’m a bit puzzled about Rental Magica. Basically I like the concept of it (since the end of Ghost Hunt I miss some “Ghostbuster”-feeling in my anime mix), but the first episode was rushed way to much and quite confusing, the second one only added to this confusion by being chronically settled before the first episode without make clear so from the beginning and the president is rather annoying so far. If they’ll take a bit time to develop the different cases a bit, maybe through spending two episodes on each (the three ones of Ghost Hunt where often a bit too much), and also give the characters more depth over the time I think this could turn out to be a very interesting and enjoyable series. If the pace stays the way it is at the moment, it won’t I’m afraid. I guess time will tell about this.

Clannad & Myself; Yourself

Clannad

I’m already set for Clannad just because it is made by KyoAni. Might not be the best reason, but it’s sufficient for me and so far the animation quality is as good as expected. The first episode introduced Tomoya, the male protagonist, who isn’t sarcastic for a change but seems to be rather uninterested in to annoyed by his daily life routine. Even so he behaves normal on the outside and soon gets in contact with a bunch of girls from his school, who with no doubt each should have a more or less mysterious problem to come by. The obligatory male side-kick loser rounds the character set up. So while the main plot should be nothing spectacularly new the individually backstories of the characters might be quite interesting, although similarities with Kanon are to be expected.

Myself; Yourself

Myself; Yourself seems to be standard harem drama so far with a 16-year old boy, Sana, coming back to town after a five year long detour. He left with a tearful goodbye at that time (which was nearly sickly sweet). Now meeting his old friends again he gets to know how they, uh, developed from that time and everybody is happy about their reunion. Everybody, except one of his female friends, who he doesn’t recognize at first and promptly gets smacked by…
As been said, so far pretty generic, but the intro is quite interesting and if the animation quality keeps on the level of the first episode this could turn out to be solid entertainment. Aoi’s voice could be some octaves deeper though, but it’s nice to notice that I’m not too old yet to hear such high frequencies (although sometimes that might be blessing as it seems).

Shakugan no Shana – The Movie

First of all I’ll have to say that I was a little bit disappointed that the movie didn’t feature some new story. It’s merely a slightly modified version of the first arc of the first season.

Well, beside of this it was surely a blast. The artwork and the animation is of superb quality and the story is very well wrapped up in the limited timeframe. I’m quite sure that some minor things of the shown scenes got changed compared to the original, but the main plot is definitely the same. Of course through the focusing on the main plot some of the characters are pushed to the background (Kazumi) or are missing altogether (Eita and Keisaku). On the other hand Wilhelmina could be sneaked in and Yukari Hirai got pretty much screentime, which I found most pleasing because I think she is very important to get an appropriate feeling about the torches right from the beginning (and besides, I like her).
So, in the end, I could have been happier if some new stuff (plot-wise) would have been put into the movie, but none the less it’s a very good film and a nice way to “get in the mood” for the second season.

Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora

Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora (Hantsuki for short, aired in the first quarter of 2006) is the story of Yuuichi, who got into hospital because of a hepatitis A infection, and Rika, the girl he meets there. While his disease is rather easy curable Rika’s state is much more serious and chances are high that she might not survive the necessary operation. Due to her condition she isn’t used to make friends easily, but after having pierced her cool shell they soon develop friendship and affection toward each other in the short time that might be left.

With focusing mostly on its two main characters Hantsuki manages to deliver a very touching drama over its six episodes. Yuuichi and Rika are well drawn characters and its very easy to sympathize with their fate. The bittersweet feeling I got while watching this series reminded me strongly of the graphic novel narcissu and I recommend Hantsuki especially to those who liked the latter.