Check-in Station Dark Edition: Issue #5 (just wear pants, you bloody idiots!)

I didn’t think I’d go well into Fall before I got back around to this material.  Just goes to show times are hard and life is rough.  If a man can’t find time out of his day for a little pervy manga and anime, then he’s forced to live a very shallow, base life – devoid of true happiness or fulfillment.  Thankfully, I made some time to relax and wade through some truly thoughtless and silly material.  I’ve changed things up a bit again.  Starting with something very light and silly, and then going into some truly sketchy material.  And as always, even the silliest shows can pull some nice thoughtful moments.  As My Lovely Ghost Kana and Recently, My Sister is Unusual both manage to give me some moments that made me think.

Here are the entries I’ll be covering this week in order:

• Chrysanthemum Garden ch0
• Cutie Lips ch1
• Nana to Kaoru ch70
• Hana to Hoshi ch2
• Yuria 100 Shiki ch58
• My Lovely Ghost Kana ch19
• Happy Negative Marriage ch6
• Liar’s Paradox ch4
• Recently, My Sister is Unusual ep3

Check-in Station Dark Edition: Issue #4 (It’s not gay – it’s penis)

It’s time for my fourth blog post exclusively dedicated to the manga and anime too risque to go anywhere else.  The red light district of the Check-in Station if you will.  This time I get to enjoy the beginnings of a new breather in Nana to Kaoru, though I could do without a certain furry interloper.  I try out a new yuri manga with one very stoic character and one giant moron… so you know, the standard manga relationship that I’ve seen forever.  Yuria Hyaku Shiki tries things out “both ways”.  We get to see a lot of adults in relationships do a fair amount of lying to each other.  And I slowly learn that the need to go to the bathroom is a growing and disturbing fetish in Japan.

Here are the entries I’ll be covering this week in order:

• Nana to Kaoru ch68 & 69
• Hana to Hoshi ch1
• Yuria 100 Shiki ch57
• My Lovely Ghost Kana ch18
• Happy Negative Marriage ch5
• Liar’s Paradox ch3
• Recently, My Sister is Unusual ep2

Check-in Station Dark Edition: Issue #1

Due to the heat at my house failing at the worst possible time ever, I’m sorry to say that I was horribly delayed in my ability to watch new anime and read current manga.  I had to evacuate the fam as quick as possible to a relative’s place before we all turned into little ethnic popsicles.  In consolation, here’s something I’m working on to bring the pervier titles back to the forefront of my blog.  Think of this as the dark side of my AniFriday posts.  And I hope you enjoy this, because I would really like to keep blogging about pervy manga and anime.

Here are the manga I’ll be covering in order:

• Nana to Kaoru ch63
• Yuria 100 Shiki ch54
• Happy Negative Marriage ch1
• My Lovely Ghost Kana ch14
• Octave ch8
• Girl Friends ch26

Check-out Station: Wanna Be The Strongest in the World

If there is a higher being watching over me, then I ask them not to let me watch something this crappy again.  It feels like my guardian angel is a heavy drinker and tonight was $1 pitcher night at the pub.  I am forsaken.  This show is forsaken.  And anyone who planned and produced this series needs divine punishment.

Check-in Station: Monogatari S2 eps 17 – 20 (more mature, more lonely; less naive and less divine)

This arc has left me thinking, while the previous ones have left me in awe.  It’s a thought that makes you wonder what you’re doing here on Earth, and are you using that time wisely?  Are you being true to yourself?  Are you contributing to the world?  And if not, is their punishment for squandering gifts from god?  A divine retribution for the liars, the cons, the sloths, the fugitives, the cheats; imagine if your natural talents were out on loan, and to not turn a profit is to forfeit everything, including your life.  And this has nothing to do with good or evil.  If you’re a murderer, you had best continue to kill people.  If you’re a whore, you had best continue to sell your body.  If you’re a thief, houses must continue to be robbed.  If you’re a truck driver, then you can’t go around driving buses, or taxis because its easier.  You are what you are until the day you expire, and those tasks associated with your lot in life are to be done for as long as you walk the living worth.  That seems to be the world of oddities and demons.  You are to be who you are; nothing more and nothing less.  For if you are not, there is divine retribution.

This is information and perspective I did not have before this arc, that I am now knowledgeable of now.  I’m also a bit sadder, as well.

Wanna Be the Strongest ep4: how to get rid of crabs

Have we finally passed this barrier, crossed this hurdle, ascended to another plane? How we finally defeated the Boston Crab?! Oh sweet merciful Jehovah! The series can move onward! Someone give me a cigar and whiskey, the pain may just be over!

Wanna Be the Strongest ep3: the next person I see in a Boston Crab is getting lit on fire

Well this is a pitiful state of affairs. This show is bad, I don’t know how much I can bear if its main character just plain sucks, too. The “eternal lead” Sakura is just awash in fail and quit as she gets tapped out of all of her matches since turning pro. It’s utterly ridiculous how she just gets taken out over and over again with the same strategy. A strategy that of course allows us to see her crotch stretched out in front of us. Geez! What lazy cinematography, even when the show thinks its winning it’s losing.

Check-in Station: Monogatari S2 eps12 – 15 (goodbye Nadeko Sengoku)

How did things come to this? I leave the Monogatari series for just a little bit and the formerly cute, formerly disturbingly sexy Nadeko has become a monster!

Scratch that.  The Nadeko we know isn’t a monster, she’s dead and something else is in her place.  Either that, or this is her true form, and we’ve been fooled all along.

Check-in Station: Wanna Be the Strongest in the World ep1 (oh no! Not the Shame Hold! The humanity!)

I came into this with low expectations, so I wasn’t disappointed by this bland fanservicey show. I came. I saw crotch. I moved on. 

Check-in Station: Monogatari S2 ep7 – 10 (to save a girl, to save a world)

Well this turned out to be an interesting arc.  What seemed to be the start of something intensely focused on Mayoi, turns out to be an arc just as much about Shinobu and her connection to Koyomi.  And I started out not too terribly excited about this arc, since I’m generally not a fan of time travel stories, plus the fact that at times the Monogatari franchise can be impenetrable for some people and complicating it with this concept can only make it worse.  So going into this arc I wondered if this latest story would not get too busy and complicated for viewers to understand, let alone follow.  And I also wanted it to do what all good story arcs in this franchise do; I wanted it to make me the love between Koyomi and all the girls in this show, because in the end we can’t deny that this crazy show is a harem at its core.