AniFriday Issue #24: August 1st, 2014 (that felt kinda nice)

I’ve been a tad lazy this week.  No, I’ve been very lazy.  The rain, the lack of things that need to be done on my days off.  Sometimes it just feels good to just veg out and enjoy the slow days.  On my days off, if I even so much as have a conference call for 45 minutes to an hour, it just pisses me off until the task is done.  I like to do things at my own pace, on my own time.  Though I honestly work best under pressure.  It takes a lot to motivate me if I’m not self motivated.  That’s why I don’t really have too much done this week.  Still, for most people watching five, six or seven episodes of anime in a week is still quite a bit.  I hope you appreciate the work I put in this week, even at my laziest.

Here are the anime and manga I’ll be covering this week, in order:

• Stardust Crusaders ep17
• Akame ga Kill! ep4
• Naruto ch686
• Bleach ch590
• Hajime no Ippo ch1061

AniFriday Issue #19 (June 27th, 2014): Chaotic Neutral vs. Neutral Evil

 

Had to adjust my AniFriday schedule a bit, even if it meant pushing back the post a whole week.  I just couldn’t allow to call this series AniFriday, and all my posts go up late on a Saturday night… Damn you JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure!  But I won’t dwell on that.

I will say, it feels great to be in a groove with a couple of series again.  Tokyo Ravens is fun as hell, Chaika is damn near my favorite thing to watch right now, and even though Stardust Crusaders has been a little stale for a bit in my opinion, it’s still better than most shounen battle material I’ve watched or read this year.  As for the manga, I’m pretty much hyped for everything except for Umi no Misaki, and you’ll see why.  I don’t know what it needs more of.  Perhaps more tits and/or plot – wait!  That’s the same thing isn’t ?!

Here are the anime and manga I’ll be covering in this post, in order:

• Stardust Crusaders ep12
• Tokyo Ravens ep18
• Chaika the Coffin Princess ep4
• Naruto ch681
• Bleach ch585
• Hunter X Hunter ch342 – 344
• One Piece ch750
• Team Medical Dragon ch105
• Umi no Misaki ch6

AniFriday pt6 (December 13th 2013)

 

Man, it has been a tiring week.  It’s not easy for me to keep up with all this anime.  And I can’t help but think I’ve brought this upon myself.  I mean, if I would actually not f*ck around and watch everyone of these shows consistently every week, then I wouldn’t have to worry about these long tiring “catch up” sessions.  Then again, there’s something to be said about the joy of watching a show in spurts like this, as if I were renting an anime DVD from Blockbuster or the old local video rental place back at home.  Ah!  Memories!

For now, I hope you guys appreciate the effort and attention to detail I’ve put into watching and analyzing these shows.  At this point in the season, and the year, I’m really learning to appreciate what has been a very interesting year of anime.  A surprising year.   And maybe even in this post here, that only covers mediocre to average anime I’m currently watching could have moments that are memorable, or that perhaps will last and reverberate forever throughout anime history.  It’s unlikely as hell, but it could happen.

This week I’ll be shaking up things a bit by adding manga to this AniFriday post, because… well because “why not?”  The name AniFriday doesn’t really mean anything, I can barely get these out on time, and I’m pretty damn sure someone’s already using the name Manga Monday somewhere.

Here are the series I’ll be covering in order of appearance:

• Valvrave eps 18 – 21
• Ms. MONOCHROME ep11
• Tokyo Ravens ep10
• Coppelion ep11
• Naruto ch657 & 658
• One Piece ch729 – 731
• Bleach ch560 & 561

If anyone knows a way for me to link to different sections within a blog post to make this quicker, I’d appreciate it.  For now, enjoy the presentation!

Naruto ch655: a nice ending to Naruto for the year. So many good, sad moments – and regret.

So this is the last chapter for the year.  And it was a heavy one.  Obito is pretty much finished.  Kakashi finally makes his way out of the void to seal the deal, something Sasuke wasn’t hesitant to try and do himself, but it’s Minato himself that stops his students from killing themselves.  And perhaps it makes a lot of sense.  In a way, Minato wasn’t just the leader of the team, or the mentor, he was their protector and dad.  And even with his anointment as the 4th Hokage, he still has a lot of regrets.  Kakashi being the only member of the group to survive in a sense being one of them. His Uchiha student practically dies and comes back as the enemy of the world.  And it seems the whole team falls apart in the death of poor Rin. It’s an interesting situation in that it’s an incredible and eerie parrallel to Kakashi’s own Team 7. They’re pretty much the prequels to the original Star Wars movies, in that they perfectly illustrate how things can go incredibly wrong when you make decisions based on emotion.

It sucks that in essence, when Obito questions Kakashi about how Naruto has been so much more successful in his path, Kakashi basically
tells him that his will is stronger, and that it wins more support. I can’t imagine how it must feel to literally get a second chance at life and to fail in your efforts and convictions right before the finish line. Obito is fading away just enough to see the world move on without him. Though it’s not exactly over at the moment, he’s still alive, Madara is still haunting the battlegrounds and the evil god tree is still standing.

The story continues, though it looks like Obito is done. And I’m a little bit sad. He’s actually shown himself to be a pretty good and memorable character.  He’s been Naruto’s “Shadow Link” the entire series. For all the complaints about certain mangaka seemingly pulling plot twists out of their butts. I thought Obito was very well integrated throughout the entire story, enough so that I think it adds to the depth and integrity of Part I, which despite my praise now is still by far Naruto at its best.

I’m very much still glad that I’m following this series. And I think this has been a worthwhile year of the series. Until next year fellow
Naruto fans.

Manga scans47.jpg

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#Naruto ch646: I think this safely counts as the series’ darkest hour. #manga

So that’s the reason Uchiha have been going insane for generations?  Because that damn stone tablet has been telling them that chakra was stolen from a tree that so happened to be a huge d*ck?

#Naruto ch635: I’m questioning who the zombies really are in this story. #manga

Really Kishi? You just gonna end the chapter there? Taking notes
from Kubo I see. Ugh, the end of this chapter. It bates so hard…

Well it looks like you can’t just throw an all-star team of legendary
shinobi together and expect them to have great chemistry. Though this
lesson should’ve been learned from the Five Kage Summit and the crap
with the start of the Allied Shinobi Army. The problem is that Sasuke
is such an irrepressible douche, that he makes himself a magnetic for
hate and mistrust.

On the bright side, Orochimaru! YAY! Though his team of elite freaks
certainly lacks any chemistry of their own. I really wish he would
stray away from his creepy fascination with Sasuke. He really makes
the pedo jokes so easy. But at least for now, even his goals are
aligned with everyone else’s. How can he discover new jutsu and enjoy
the chaos of the world when it’s all one big, fake peaceful dream?

Tsunade looks like total and complete crap, but that’s to be expected
after the MURDERING she took. These guys have died several times
over, they should’ve long since died.

I’m interested to see if someone can break through to Sasuke. God, I
hate him so much. I don’t see how any one would want him as Hokage,
even with all the power he wields.

A little theory a friend gave me at work: our guess is that Naruto
will never become Hokage. Instead he’ll be reborn as the Sage of the
Six Paths and travel the world promoting peace with Kakashi and MAYBE
Hinata. Meanwhile, Sasuke will rebuild the Uchiha clan’s reputation
and mend the Hidden Leaf as the Sixth Hokage. As far as I’m
concerned, it’s sound enough. Though I’ll never enjoy the idea of
Sasuke not being dead in a ditch, next to the corpse of Sakura with
that idiotic, vapid smile on her face.

Morbid, I agree, but I doubt most of you have followed this series for
as long as I have.

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#Naruto ch631: I’m sorry, Sasuke wants to do what?! F*ck you guy! #manga

So many amazing panels this week that I had trouble pairing it down!

It looks like the Edo Tensei has backfired. Orochimaru’s used it to
ressurrect the four previous Hokage, and now we’re down to a test of
strength between them and the Juubi.

It was funny seeing Hashirama kinda brush off his old friend to take
care of business. Madara was just kinda annoyed, and appears to be
just letting the Hokage do their thing. His hard-on for Hashirama is
pretty strong. I’ll avoid the gay jokes, and just say it’s endearing.

And then Sasuke shows up, and everything gets real weird. And I knew

it would get that way, too. I just wasn’t expecting Sasuke’s reaction
to it. As if he and Naruto weren’t already at odds. And as usual, I
don’t agree with what Sasuke has said.

I don’t agree that everyone is in this predicament because of the
Hokages. I believe everyone is in this predicament because of the
Uchiha clan, and especially because of Madara Uchiha.

You damned idiot!

Whatever! Team Seven’s back together… well, except for Kakashi.
He’s having a conference in another dimension. Man, what a
disfunctional group.

screenshots33.jpg

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Senran Kagura ep1: shimapan to the face!

There’s no end to the ways something can be interpreted, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable.  Whether that be the concept of ninjas, of mahou shoujo, sexual assault or even a bad show.  Senran Kagura lends itself towards being any and all of these things.  Though I’ll also add that fun to the list.  This appears to be a bad, but fun show.  And I think that it makes it interesting enough to watch.

OK, this is a pervy anime through and through.  An utterly ridiculous, bouncy, pervy anime full of cute girls doing stuff that makes them spread their legs and jiggle.  Now I’m not gonna be a complete hypocrite and say I’m appalled by this in any sense.  I did used to have a recurring Pervy Images of the Week blog post thingy that I did for awhile (and thanks to this show it may be coming back).  I just want to make it absolutely clear to anyone considering watching this show.  Read my words, and take a good look at the pics I use in this post.  If you don’t like seeing lady parts, and the unmentionables the “ladies” use to cover them, then you won’t be having a lot of fun watching this.  This is not Naruto!

DonKangolJones’ Images of the Week: February 14th (Boobs don’t work that way!)

 

I’m back, and even though I had to take off the previous week for various reasons (corrupted flashdrive again, I swear I’ve learned my lesson this time) and I’m a day late on this post, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy on the anime or manga front. So while you’ve been compiling a list of your favorite romantic moments on your blog, or setting up a romantic candle-lit dinner for your dakimakura, I’ve been hard at work. Let’s get to it. And hopefully after this you can all leave the house/apartment/basement/stuffy dorm and meet someone in the real world.

DonKangolJones’ Images of the Week: December 5th (Big and Black; Long and Hard)

And by that title I mean it has been a long and hard week of watching anime.  Lots of crying (from the characters in shows, not me), and panting, and beating, and farewells.  Everything I watched and read seemed to be really intense and trying its best, with very few failures.  The only real failure of mine was not watching OreImo.   I just couldn’t do it.  As much as I enjoy the supporting (and in this case I mean that quite literally) characters, Kirino sucks most any enthusiasm I have for the show right out of me.  I just can’t seem to bring myself to sit down and deal with her.  With that out of the way, time to move to the week in Japanese illustrated NERD.