Zero no Tsukaima (Zero’s Familiar) is about “Zero” Louise, a magician  that’s terrible at magic, always blowing things up and such, and the familiar she accidently summons, Saito, a human commoner from our world. Louise lives in a world of magic and goes to a magic school, and no, it’s not Hogwarts. Saito himself is special (when are Harem leads not?), being summoned with odd runes on his hand that let him transform into a master swordsmen when he grips a sword. This is the story of these two’s rather ‘odd’ relationship.

Louise is all tsundere, caring for Saito, yet constantly beating him up and denying him food. Saito is an uncommon harem male, having a backbone and standing up to people that insult him. We seem to be getting a lot of character’s like that lately, with Archer, Mister, maybe Shirou, and some others. Guess the japanese like their manly men now. There’s two reasons I’m watching this show. One is that both Louise and Saito have the same voice actors as Shana and Yuiji from Shakugan no Shana, making for some good fun as they play essentially the same role (and I just got around to watching Shana this summer). Second is Kirche, the red-haired, big breasted, sexy antagonist to Louise. If you haven’t notice I have a certain ‘fetish’ for characters like that (see Kikyou of SHUFFLE! for a good example).

In this episode, Saito finds out why Louise is called a “zero ” and starts annoying her about it. She get’s ultra-pissed off and says he won’t have a meal for everytime he said zero. After missing two meals he’s begging her to relent while changing her. I must say that it’s  weird how Saito get’s all flustered over Kirche later, when he regularly see’s Louise naked from changing her. Must not be a lolicon eh? Louise relents and Saito start’s thanking her, saying how he’ll never say again that she has zero magic and zero breasts, even though that’s true. Smart man, that Saito. Louise explodes on him, denying him food and making him sleep in the hall. There, he is found by cute meido Siesta and taken to the commoner’s kitchen to eat something. Turn’s out, he’s the hero of the common people who hate how arrogant the nobles are. They even give him the nickname ” Our Sword “. Siesta later leads him out and tells him how Louise bought an expensive potion to heal him earlier. Siesta asks if they can talk longer sometime, to which Saito agrees. Add meido to harem.

On his way back, Saito is attacked by Kirche’s Salamander and taken to see her. Kirche meets him in her sexy lingerie (as seen above, depicted by Utility Pole Spirit, best fanartist in the world), clearly meaning business.She goes on about how much she loves Saito and how cool he is for beating up a noble. However,  before they can get to it, Kirche’s other lover’s start barging in from the window, prompting Kirche to keep setting them on fire. She finally kisses Saito, but then  Louise chooses to barge into the room. She asks whose familiar Kirche thinks she’s kissing and tells Saito to come with her. Kirche say’s that it’s tyranny to say who a human can love, to which Saito whole-heartily agrees. Louise finally persuades Saito to leave by saying how all the nobles will be after him the next day. Of course he still requires some ‘ physical ‘ persuasion to leave (ie. much pain to the ear).

Louise of course is angry at Saito again, getting out a horse-whip to beat him with (so your that kind of girl eh Louise?). Stopping Louise for a second, Saito realizes she’s beating him because she’s jealous. This earns Saito Louise’s ” One Hit Kill ” knee to the groin. Louise say’s he can definitely not go out with Kirche, as their two families hate each other. After explaining the situation, Louise decides she should get Saito a sword to defend himself with, and they leave on horse the next morning. Seeing them leave, Kirche goes to enlist the aid of Tabitha, the local Rei/Yuki clone and her awesome dragon familiar. And so they set off in hot pursuit (lol at Tabitha having to tell her dragon not to eat Louise and Saito).

Louise and Saito are at the sword salesmen, who is trying to trick Louise into buying the super expensive gold sword. Louise refuses, and asks what she can buy with a 100 new gold. Turns out all she can get is an old bronze sword and she buys it. Saito keeps talking about how much a piece of junk the sword is, but Louise say’s she already bought something expensive and didn’t have enough money. Saito remembers how Siesta told him Louise bought the medicine that made him better, and that seems to content him. Meanwhile Kirche and Tabitha are spying on them, and Kirche goes to buy the gold sword, using her ‘femenine wiles’ to lower the price. Back at the school, Kirche shows Saito the sword, and both her and Louise start arguing, challenging each other to a duel. However Tabitha doesn’t much like this idea, telling them both you can’t duel inside while taking their wands. They decide to have Saito decide instead which sword he likes better. Saito can’t decide (and gets punished for it), but before they both start arguing again the sword interrupts them. Yes it seems the sword can talk and it’s name Derflinger. Saito decides to keep it, and Louise wonders why strange things seem to gather around her…

As I said before one the reason’s I’m watching this show is Kirche, which this ep had her in spades. So sexy! Anyway’s were introduced to a talking sword this ep with a weird name, further cementing this show’s tie with Shakugan no Shana (just call it Shana part 2). Too bad it doesn’t have Margery’s book’s va, as that would be awesome seeing as it’s the same kind of ” inanimate object that insults people “. Animations good all around as it’s by J.C. Staff. Can’t decide if I should get the op single yet, as it’s catchy but not overly good like NHK’s op and ed (which I’ve raved about enough on this blog). Next week we focus on meido Siesta and her apparent problems with slavery…

 

We open with Shuuji watching the preparations for the universities Hamabi festival. He flashes back  to Professor Kouda telling him Hagu has been offered another chance to study oversea’s. She asks if He’s ok with  Hagu going back to her hometown after she graduates, that isn’t she just worried about being a burden on him? Shuuji thinks how it’s everyone’s last festival and that they should all enjoy it and do their best. While searching for brush cleaners, Hagu finds a postcard with a painting of a moon shining over a river on it. Shuuji tells her its by Munch,the guy that did the scream, and he got it with some friends a while ago.

Shuuji flashes back to being with Harada and Rika at a river with the moon over the river,like the painting. Harada wonders if this is what is meant by the song moon river they all just heard in a movie and starts walking in. Shuuji tries to restrain him, but then Rika tries to get in and he has to let go of Harada to catch her. Harada walks into the river and asks Rika to join him. Shuuji keeps yelling no and thinks about Harada’s death. He then wakes to find it was a dream.

He thinks about how they had a small funeral for Harada after he died, how Rika couldn’t come because she was in the hospital, the pain that awaited and how she tried to kill herself by not eating. But Shuuji told her she couldn’t see Harada that way, and she stopped chasing after him. Whenever Shuuji saw her, he though a silent scream was coming from her, and realized it had always been him and Harada/Rika, he was watching over their happiness. Seeing how much pain she was causing, Rika told Shuuji they shouldn’t see each other anymore. He thinks how he couldn’t carry her, but like how Hagu has supported him, she needs Mayama to support her to her future.

Rika and Mayama are seeing a customer off by train, who remarks how him and his partner are so old he wonders who will go first. Mayama thinks how Rika’s been there before, losing someone. Another train arrives from Sapporo, which is the train you take to get to Hokkaido where Rika’s hometown is, and Mayama pushes them both onto that train, with mayama blushing profusely. Rika asks him why, and Mayama says that doesn’t she want to see her hometown? A person comes and asks if they have tickets. Mayama is about to say something, but Rika interrupts and asks if they have a room available. they do. Rika thinks how it will take nineteen hours to get there, and that they didn’t bring any work with them. She wonders how long it’s been since she spent so much time doing nothing. That somehow makes Mayama feel happy.

It’s getting late, and they both decide to get some rest. Rika goes to take a shower, and Mayama says he’s going to stay upstairs. She say’s that he’s too big for that, and should take the bed downstairs. This makes Mayama incredibly happy. They both go to bed. Mayama thinks how setting the alarm, turning the lights off, being with Rika makes him very happy. When Rika wakes up, she see’s that Mayama decided to sleep upstairs instead. At Otaru, Mayama asks how far away her town is. Rika say’s it’s actually pretty far, and she just came to the city a lot when she was young (this is the city that was on the webcam Mayama spied on). Mayama goes to rent a car.

On the road, Rika asks if this is Mayama’s first time in Hokkaido, to which he say’s yes and is surprised at how vast everything is. Rika thanks him for the blanket he got for her leg and asks if he got any sleep, because Mayama keeps downing super strong mint gum to stay awake, though he furiously denies it. They arrive at her hometown to find her house torn down. Apparently it’s common practice in Hokkaido to tear down a house, lest the snow knock it down. The last time she was here was when her father died. Harada oversaw the demolition and covered Rika’s eyes, saying how he was the only home she had to go to. Rika goes and buries some biscuits for her dog that she had when she was young and spent all her time with because there was no one else around, and thanks Mayama for bringing her here. Rika say’s how there’s nothing here for her now. Mayama thinks how one more tie to this world has unraveled for Rika, and that he’s slowly losing her.

Somehow they both end up sleeping together. Rika tries to leave early, but Mayama put something on her bag that made noise when she tried to leave. He asks her if she was trying to hurt herself by sleeping with him or had another plan already. Was she trying to console him because they weren’t going to Spain together? He knows she only booked one ticket and one apartment, because he’s looked through all her mail, faxes, etc. He knows she wants to die after Harada’s last project, but he won’t let her. It was a mistake to meet someone like him because he doesn’t let things go. He starts crying and begs Rika to live. He asks her to go downstairs to have tea while he pulls himself together, but holds on to her bag. When they get back to tokyo, Rika flies away somewhere. When Mayama checks her email, he finds that the apartment has been changed to a two bedroom one…

Young Rika is the most Moe thing I’ve ever seen. That is the definition of Moe right there. In all seriousness what a surprising development this was. The scene change from them standing by her old house to being in bed was quite abrupt and left me going wtf for awhile. It seems Rika and Mayama both know their feelings about each other and want to be together. I don’t know whether to applaud or condemn Mayama’s stalkerish ways. On the one hand they got him the girl, on the other hand their downright creepy. Email, faxes, letters, did you also check her trash Mayama? Aside from the emotional development, the animation was absolutely stunning. I’ve never been to hokkaido, but I think I have a good idea of what it looks AND* feels like thanks to this episode. Bravo for the stunning visuals all around. Also, it’s weird how both Mayaman AND Takemoto had to go to hokkaido to sort their feelings out. Is hokkaido some mysterious land of love I don’t know about? And will the other characters make trips there? Next week we turn back to Yamada and Nomya it seems. That’s nice and all, but there’s a reason the first season alternated between Mayama/Yamada and Takemoto/Hagu episodes. I’m starting to feel emotional burnout here…

Seven Sea’s gomanga has posted an interview with Andrew Cunningham, Translator for their Boogiepop series and Tokyopop’s upcoming Kino no Tabi novels. Interesting interview on how he got into the business of translating and the work that goes into it. He has a site himself here, that posts reviews on light novels and manga in japan. Good stuff.

It occurs to me that since I downloaded the ed to this show I have been listening to it almost non-stop. It’s that deliriously good.It’s weird how jpop is, how you have no idea what their saying and just somehow learn to appreciate the music on it’s own. But this post isn’t about jpop but our hikkomori friend Satou and his life. A word about Satou. While watching this ep I realized that while NHK is supposedly about otaku, Satou is not a normal otaku in any way. He lacks any knowledge of anime, manga, or games. Why would an ” otaku satire ” manga put a non-otaku as it’s protaginast? Because it’s easier for us to get acquainted with otaku culture as Satou does. Or is it because it makes Satou an even more pathetic character than his otaku friend Yamazaki by having no passion for anything at all? Anyways enough analyzation and onto the differences between manga and anime.

A short summary first. We begin from last time with Satou and Misaki at the park, Satou just being enlisted in the project and that he has to meet Misaki the next day. All throughout the next day Satou does nothing and decides to not go to the meeting, sad at how he lied to Misaki about not being a hikkomori. But then Satou imagination flares up and he thinks Misaki will get raped if he’s not there and quickly heads to the park. There, he lies to Misaki about having an in-home job (seeing a pattern here?) and that he’s a creator of some kind.

Back at home, Satou gets drunk and decides to yell at the guy who plays anime music all the time next door. Bursting through the door, he finds out his neighbor is Yamazaki, a hardcore ero game otaku. Satou once saved Yamazaki from bullying, and he joined Satou’s literature club later. They are both surprised to see eachother, and Yamazaki thinks Satou is still in college, to which he agrees. Yamazaki is in game design, and while they both get drunk, Satou decides to take his student book and tell
Misaki he’s a game designer. While meeting Misaki, Satou is spied on by Yamazaki, who now knows Satou is a hikkomori. He won’t lend him a game to show Misaki, but decides the two should join together to make their own game, an eroge game, and that Satou will write the scenario. Not so short a summary actually.

Of course the ep has been lengthened, as in the manga both meetings with Misaki take place in the same night, where she invites Satou to the project and he tells her he’s a creator. Also Yamazaki does not spy on them, instead Satou ask’s for his help later.

The meeting with Yamazaki is also rearranged, as in the manga it happened before Misaki asked Satou to the park. Here we also get the complete ommission of Yamazaki’s ” All women are evil ” speech and his ” super maid robo ” idea, instead replacing it with joyful remembrences of old times. So now we know Yamazaki is just an otaku, not a women-hating otaku. That’s really weird gonzo.

Also it seems Yamazaki now has a taste for ” older women ” instead of 12 year old lolitas. Imagine that, an otaku withoug a lolita complex! Of course this is just for the censors, but I worry about the next ep which is called ” Welcome to the Bishoujo ” instead of ” Welcome to the Lolita “

Two scenes were added as far as I can tell. The scene where Satou imagines Misaki getting raped by a masked molestor (which is a hilarious addition), and where his sempai asks him to join the literature club. The club is mentioned in the manga but I don’t think they ever show Satou getting recruited like that.

My nit-picking aside I’m still enjoying NHK. The music’s still awesome, the animation fresh, and I’m falling in love with Misaki’s voice. That voice perfectly captures the characters playful and depressing sides. Now if only Satou would over-react more…

Ah Coyote Ragtime show, where would I be without your weekly doses of action and good campy fun? Actually I’d probably being catching up with Higurashi but thats a different story. Anyway on with the review.

We begin directly from ep 02 with our heroes fleeing the city in their ship while being chased by the gothloli sisters and their helicopters. Question: if Mister has a ship that can fly in space, while the gothloli sisters are using helicopters, why doesn’t Mister just fly into space? oh who cares it’s ufotable. So there we have our heroes being chased all around, arguing on what to do. Finally Mister decides to go see his friend/enemy swamp, supposedly to figure out the trick of the pendant. In between we find out the Pirate King’s name was Bruce (Bruce sounds more like a bouncer than a pirate king), and that the gothloli sisters hate getting thier clothes messed up. Maybe assassination shouldn’t be your line of work than hmm?

Bishop doesn’t want to meet Swamp as it seems they had some problems in the past that Bishop lost at. However Mister tells them a story about a village at war with itself and how the children united everyone to fight the common enemy of germs (always the poet that Mister). Of course no one knows what he’s talking about, and he has to tell them that they both have a common enemy in Marciano and that’s good enough to team up. Here we also find out that it was Marciano who shot Bruce the Pirate King with her golden gun. Making a decision, they fly off to meet Swamp.

It is then that we meet Swamp, who is a black soul singing pastor with a huge orange-tinted afro. God I love you ufotable. Turns out Swamp was Bruce the Pirate Kings subordinate and is angry at Mister for being chosen as successor instead of him. Mister leads the guild helicopters into Swamps valley, where Swamp’s men quickly blow them to the ground with rocket launchers.

Here we turn to Angelica in space, still on her way to ku-rong. She yells at the pilots to speed up and takes a birdcage out of the closet that holds May’s head, an android that was blown up in ep 01, and asks her what is going on with Marciano’s takeover of the guild. Back at Swamp’s house, the whole gang is watching on tv how a military man called Malconomoid will be in charge of dropping the bombs on graceland and he’s known for never being late. Swamp tells Mister to just ask him already about the secret of the Pendant. However Mister surprises Swamp by telling him he already knows the secret, that the pendant was Bruce’s false eye that recorded everything, and he just wants Swamp to join him on the mission.

Before Swamp can decide, members of his congregation barge in bringing him food, and Franca decides to make everyone breakfast. While everyone is busy making breakfast, Swamp calls Mister out to the church to decide if Mister is worthy to receive Bruce’s treasure. They both pull guns on each other, only to shoot at guild troops entering the church.

It seems the gothloli sisters have found them, and send their soldiers in. Mister and Swamp fight their way out, killing the ground troops and holding off one of the gothloli sisters with a grenade and some of Swamps old fashion kung fu. Just a side note, the sister their fighting is September, the so-called sniper of the group, who it seems can’t shoot worth a damn. They join the others on their ship and fire missiles at one of the helicopters. Turns out that helicopter holds September, who is blown up pretty damn good. Swamp joins the crew, telling Mister he’s going to judge him to see if he’s worthy to have the treasure. Meanwhile, Marciano decides to head into space…

So this week we see the excellent addition of Swamp, who’s both a good fighter and a good singer. Hope to hear more tunes in the future. Franca was cute the whole episode (as seen above), confused at what everyone was talking about. I’ve found out that Katana, one of Mister’s henchman, is voiced by the same man that voiced Rentarou in Futakoi Alternative. Easy to tell it’s the same guy. Also this same guy was Gilgamesh in Fate/stay night, Andrea in Gankutsuou, and Tate in Mai Hime! I would of never guessed Andea or Gilgamesh. Guess he has a harem lead/ harem destroyer voice difference. Mister meanwhile seems to play in Godmode the whole episode. I mean the man runs through a line of machine guns and doesn’t get hit at all. Bullets must be avoiding him from how awesome he is.

Lol Haruhi ripoff. Speaking of ripoffs this show is reminding me of Mai Hime way too much. Kazuki is like a less busty Mai and we have ” Taters ” Yuuji. Or maybe it’s the uniforms. I know there’s not that much differences in uniforms but have anime companies resorted to blatantly ripping off other people?

Truer words have never been spoken before.

Chihaya aka. closet lesbian stalker aka. wannabe rapist

Ara ara ara Akari-chan my breasts are still bigger than yours.

Ara ara ara Akari-chan I’m still a better cook than you.

Best ” I’m about to get raped ” expression ever

Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Coyote Ragtime Show? Karin? Shaman King?

If I become ruined for marriage will you take me?

Ara ara ara Akari-chan I’m a still a better lover than you.

As you can see I’m enjoying Tonagura immensly ( and the ara ara). Expect more posts and ara ara when the subs come out.

Viz has dropped a bomb over at the San Diego Comic con by licencing both the Shakugan no Shana light novels and manga, as reported by both ANN and JpMeyer’s blog. Of course for any Shana fan this is a dream come true. The manga was most likely expected but no one thought the novels would be brought over. In the niche market of manga light novels are themselves an even deeper niche.

Light novels are like ero games, one of the most least expected things to ever be translated outside of the asian world. Why is that? Is it the phenomenal amount of text, more so than manga and anime combined? The difficulty of making japanese prose sound normal in the west? Because otaku don’t like to read?

Of course than there’s the difficulty of saying what exactly a light novel is. Is it a book with pictures? A book inspired by anime? The deranged writings of otaku? My boogiepop
novels tell me that Kouhei Kadono ignited the light novel trend, so I guess light novels should focus on kids in high school faced with strange events? Sounds like my anime to me.

In the end all that can be said about light novels is that their just another cultural phenomenon otaku have chosen to rally around, since light novels generally exult all of thier own cultural norms that otaku love. As for me, well I’ll just continue to read things I like and thank God that tokyopop didn’t get the shana novels. Now if only someone would hurry on that Haruhi licence…

   

Edit:The originial post somehow got lost by wordpress, so I’ve entirely rewritten it. It contains the gist of the originial post, with some added clarification.

So NHK has been made into an anime. Who would’ve thunk it? If forced to describe NHK I would call it a suicidal Genshiken on crack. Both satire otaku culture to varying degrees. However while Genshiken lets it’s characters grow into stable citizens of society, NHK does not afford that luxury to it’s character, letting them fall deeper and deeper into depression, addiction, isolation, and paranoia throughout each chapter. Not exactly the best thing to be made into an anime watched by those same otaku.

NHK is the story of Satou, a hikkormori who is enlisted by the strange girl Misaki to be part of her ” cure hikkomori project ” The first ep basically show’s how much of a fuck up Satou is at the moment and his initial meeting and contact with Misaki. The rest of this post we’ll be focused on the differences between the manga and anime.

The anime has a longer and more active  ” drug sequence ” than the manga. However, Gonzo declines to tell us it is actually Satou snorting a line of crack that are causing these hallucinations, leading us to believe Satou is just plain crazy. Not the best of moves, as it denies Satou sympathy from the audience to an obviously pathetic person, which is important in driving the story.

Satou’s suicide attempt is taken less seriously in the manga, being a half-hearted joke that Satou tries to strangle himself in a moment of despair. Satou contemplates suicide seriously in the manga, deciding to drink a mixture of chemicals, before dismissing it completely. Good for you Satou.

Satou himself has been very much toned down, not as prone anymore to overreaction and yelling. He even seems almost come when he thinks someone is accusing him of being a hikkomori, in great contrast to manga Satou, who explodes into a tirade about not judging him. I also don’t like Satou’s voice, as it really seems too mature for someone who’s been couped up inside for two years.

There’s also the usual rearrangement inherent in anime-manga conversions. Satou’s meeting with Yamazaki is changed to next episode. Misaki give Satou his notice to meet at the park to his face, after seeing clutch a naked figurine he was about to throw away. Satou has really bad luck.

Despite the toning down of subject matter I am very much like NHK. The music is some of the best of the season, the op and ed are awesome, the op especially. The op is by Round Table feat. Nino, the same group that did ARIA’s op’s, the polar opposite show of NHK. The ed meanwhile is a hard rock tune, reveling in it’s own absurdity with lyrics about ” kidults ” and baby humans. The animation is distinctly gonzo, and I am unsure whether the quality will take a dip in the future or not. For now, I’ll just eagerly await next week’s episode, and hope for a new scanlated chapter soon.