Fate/Stay Night

Name: Fate/Stay Night
Type: Television Show
Episodes: 24
Rating: TV-14
Runtime Per Episode: 30 min
Director: Yamaguchi Yuji
Produced By the Fate Project, Studio DEEN, and others
Year Produced: 2005

A widely publicized visual novel turned anime, Fate/Stay Night was reserved just for the ending because of my love for it, and no matter what happened, I wanted to end on a high note (for me, not you.  I don't really care what kind of "not" you end on, so long as you read this far).

I guess you could call this a cult classic, but I don't think it would be right to do so.  I do know that the term "GAR" originated from here, but that's about as far as it infiltrated public opinion in so much as internet jargon (and I'll explain GAR later).

The visual novel was produced by a company called Type-Moon.  If you know titles like Tsukihime or Melty Blood, then you know Type-Moon.  They make good stuff.  Though my current non-existent budget only allows me to buy Fate/Stay Night at the moment, I'll be getting the other two when I have the time to strike it rich.
If you're interested in buying these, I'll provide you with a link to a place that I know carries the Fate/Stay Night titles.  There's also Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, and Fate/Zero, which are the top two on my shopping list.

The thing that you have to know about visual novels is that they are like those picture books that you might have been interested in when you were a kid.  The way their set up is that they tell you what's going on, then give you a couple of choices on what to do, and then the story modifies around your choices/actions.  It's pretty fun.
That being said, there are numerous endings, as well as entirely different story paths in visual novels, and Fate/Stay Night is no exception, and the visual novel version of it has three scenarios; Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel, all of which have been semi-combined into the anime, meaning that there are parts of all of the scenarios in the anime, but there are also a bunch of parts that are not there.


Emiya Shirou is the adopted child of Emiya Kiritsugu, who died quite a while ago after saving Shirou from a soon to be grizzly fate.  The whole reason Shirou was orphaned in the first place was that the block that his house was on apparently exploded for, killing almost everybody, and leaving everything else in fiery chaos.

Shirou is generally over it by now, and is now living with his adopted elder sister Taiga in what I would call a mansion.  Shirou is a high school student who attends the same school Taiga teaches at... in fact, Taiga is his homeroom teacher!  But that doesn't really matter right now.  What really matters is Shirou has a cute underclassman named Sakura coming over to his house every day and making him feasts.  I don't know why (except the obvious, and does this happen all the time in Japan, and if so, how in the hell does it start?), but I'll go with it.

There's an important thing that you need to know about Shirou... he's a magician.  I'm sorry, but I'm too lazy to try and sugar-coat it right now.  His father (here meaning step-father) was a magician too before he died, and he's apparently taught Shirou a couple of things.  Shirou's best at what's called "tracing", or determine the base materials that make up things, and using that power, he can find structural problems in appliances and stuff like that.  He's also pretty decent at "strengthening" materials, which is just how it sounds.
He obviously keeps this a secret and nobody around him knows, not even Taiga.
 
All around the city there have been strange incidents that is beginning to scare people, people are passing out from suspected gas leaks, and the police obviously have no idea what to do.

One day, Shirou is staying late at school cleaning up when he hears something outside.  When he goes to investigate, he finds two warriors battling each other with a lance and swords.
Unsure of what to do, Shirou is quickly found out by the warriors and is eventually chased down by the lance guy.  After having seen the fight, it is some  kind of law that Shirou can't be left alive... but a law for what?!  And just like that, the lance guy kills Shirou.

End of Story?  No.  You might wish it was, but then you'd be missing one of the greatest characters of all time.

As Shirou is lying there in the hallway, dead, someone comes to him.  His classmate Tōsaka Rin, the master of the swords guy (I realize that this is starting to confuse the hell out of you right around now, but all the more reason to watch the anime or play the game).
Rin is horrified by Shirou's death, and... somehow revives him.  Freaking magic, man.  Seriously.

When he gets back home, Shirou is still a little anemic, I mean, he got run through the heart, how could he not be?
When things couldn't get much worse, the Lancer guy, who's gotten away from the other guy (Rin's servant), finds him again.  We don't know how, but we just accept the fact that this guy has a bug up his ass about Shirou, mostly because he saw something that he shouldn't have.  The fact that he is a magician doesn't seem to earn him any points with Lancer, who eventually chases him down again into some kind of storage shack.

Just when Lancer is about to deliver the killing blow, something happens and a beautiful girl blitzes out a magic circle and beats Lancer back.  She turns to Shirou and asks him if he's her master.
A "yes" would be an awesome answer here, by the way.  If any cute girl comes up to you and asks you if you're her master... say yes.  I know I will.  Girls... since you're generally not considered to be as perverted or horny as guys, I don't know what you should say, but general consensus is that if it's a guy, it's up to you, and if it's another girl, guys will try to watch.


I loved this anime, end of story.  It was nicely timed and well developed, and had a lot of awesome Taiga and Saber moments.

The plot line was a bit jammed in the beginning, to the point where I had to pause the anime a couple of times in the first several episodes to read the subtitles and the explanations that the subbers made.

The art was awesome.  Among my top ten artists of all time.  Woot to the max.

The animation was nice and smooth, and since there was a lot of action sequences in there, I had a lot of time to analyze it.  There wasn't too much in the way of innovative animation that I could see, but that didn't change the base line that it flowed well.

Japanese is always the best.  The actors that were in this weren't in a lot of other stuff that I remember noticing them from (but that means hardly nothing), but the actress for Saber was in more than a few things that I've seen.
And another thing... has every actor/actress that I've seen in all the animes that I've ever watched, played a part in a Gintama episode?  What's up with that?  Maybe I should just watch it already.

The music wasn't bad, but wasn't hard enough to keep my interest for too long.  It was more long the whimsical side, which is okay for this anime I suppose, but I wasn't too interested in it.  There you go.

Fate/Stay Night Mintheatre
Fate/Stay Night TV Reproduction

The second link is a link to something that they did after the final broadcast.  They compiled all of the episodes into two 60 minute OVAs, and that's what's here.  I don't really get it, and I didn't watch it because I was fine with the original versions (that and it was in parts... I hate parts), but it's totally up to you.


... and that is the end of this review, and the last review that I am going to be doing on this blog for a while... possibly forever.  But if that's the case, I'll probably just shut it down, so don't worry.

Tune in tomorrow for a final thesis thing that won't interest you unless you're going to be wanting my final opinion on being a reviewer... which you won't.

Elfen Lied

Name: Elfen Lied
Type: Television Show
Episodes: 13, 1 OVA
Rating: Mature
Runtime Per Episode: 25 min
Director: Kanabe Mamoru
Produced By GENCO VAP
Year Produced: 2004

A Serious Warning:
This is a very graphic anime, no matter what anyone might say, me included.  I may make jokes about situations, but this is not something that should be taken on lightly (unless you're a gore junkey).
There are more than a few things in this anime that are beyond the pail for an average, unprepared viewer, and I implore anyone not 100% sure about it to not take the chance (unless, as I said before, you have a high tolerance for gore, nudity, and other inhumane scenes/implications/situations).

That being said, I'd also like to downright state that this story is something that should be experienced, so if you don't think you handle watching it, then I'd recommend reading it (I'll provide a link or two at the end).  I'm afraid that it's not a story that you can appreciate by looking at a summery on Wikipedia... or here (duh), and because of the overall message that it sends, you'd do well to understand it.  I think I'll read it again too, actually.

Despite what some might call excess blood, gore, and nudity, Elfen Lied is what I call a must-see, and not just that, it's also an absolutely a must-read.  The manga by Okamoto Lynn is extensive and utilizes an art style that is unique and strange for these genres of anime (those being horror and alike).

Now the anime covers about half of the manga, taking bits a pieces out of the later halves, and then resolving with a different ending.

For obvious reasons, the anime was not aired in the U.S. as far as I can tell, despite the fact that there was a strong desire to by the Programming Director (look at Wikipedia or whatever if you want to know more), though it was later released.


In a quiet, island research facility, something terrible has happened.  For some reason, a test subject has gotten free of her restraints... and doesn't seem too happy about being restrained in the first place.

Using some strange kind of power, this test subject, named Lucy, is now roaming through the installation, trying to find her way out.

She's the quiet type, but that doesn't stop her actions from being loud... and... red.

Now I'm no doctor, but that's too much blood to be coming out of three people (trust me, it's three people).

Emotionless and very deadly, the facility's staff use everything they've got to try and stop Lucy, but can't even scratch her as she cuts through them.

When she finally gets to the front door, they box her in, but someone in the control room (also filled with dead bodies for unknown reasons) unlocks some kind of emergency, way too convenient side-doors, and Lucy goes out into the open air.

...What the hell?

... where she is hunted from afar.

Vectors?

The sniping attempt fails to kill Lucy, just blasting the helmet off her head, and her unconscious body falls into the ocean below.

Back on the mainland, a college student named Kouta has just arrived in town.

While walking up some stairs to his favorite place to watch the ocean, he is called to by his cousin Yuka, who's been looking for him at the train station.

As you might have been able to tell, Kouta has been here before, when he was a child, but that hardly matters right now.  What's more important is that Yuka, who's had a crush on him since childhood, drags Kouta down to the beach for a trip down memory lane.
But what they find is a little more interesting than some rather depressing memories of Kouta bulling his younger sister.

... um, hello?

Are those... horns?

Why yes they are!  Not in the conventional devil sense, but rather in the kind of cute, kitten way.  Nyan!

With an obvious head wound, and probably severe trauma, this naked girl was the beginning of a very interesting road for Kouta and Yuka.

Different from what I was expecting it to be, this anime was more than I bargained for, then again, it was my fault for watching it at night.  I just got sucked in and ended up having a monstrous headache from the sound piping into my skull.

The character development took a more hasty approach than I probably would have normally liked, but I knew that they needed to cram a lot of information into a short period of time, so I'll let it slide.

The character development was not so great to one of my favorite characters out of the manga.  In the anime, they only took him a little further than his starting place (I'll tell you who it is during the spoiler part).

That being said, if you go into an anime expecting the in-depth detail you'll get out of the manga, then you'll be disappointed at the least.

The art was a lot different than the manga.  Elfen Lied was Okamoto Lynn's first manga, and it's easy to see his progress as an artist through the story.  The anime had a different approach, it kept the moe-ness that Lynn started off with (one of the things that made this manga unique was it's lighter art style combined with the heavy storyline and scenes).

As far as I'll say, there were at least two animation styles combined into this anime (or at least into scenes of it).  I don't know if it's right to say this, but there you go, I already have.

There was the normal animation style for pretty much everything, but during the fight sequences, there was a special style that was preformed to create the vectors.

You should stay with the Japanese version on this.  Although it managed to get an English cast, it wasn't anything exceptional.
Actually, you should make a point to watch the Japanese version, at least of episode 12.  The creator Okamoto Lynn makes an "appearance" as "Special Guest", whatever the fuck that means.  If you can figure it out please tell me.  The best I can figure is he's the SAT member who actually says something.

I'm betting it's the guy who says this, since he the only irregular in the list of people who spoke during the episode.

The beginning theme was something opera, and therefore, not to my liking.  It was also repeated endlessly through the course of the anime.  It's not a bad song I suppose, the melody's melancholy, but kind of interesting.  I just wasn't thrilled with it, that's all.
Another thing about the opening was that those images are adapted from a painter named Gustav Klimt.  I don't understand the significance of that, so don't ask me.
That being said, I did kind of like the ending theme.  It was a cool riff and stuff like that is usually more important to me than the words.

If you still want to watch this, please do, but refer to the opening section of this post again, just to make sure.

Elfen Lied Minitheatre

Coming up next!


Kai Doh Maru!

Miyazaki Marathon Day 7: Princess Mononoke

Name: Princess Mononoke
Type: Movie
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 133 min
Directed By Miyazaki Hayao
Produced By Studio Ghibli
Year Produced: 1997

The To Aru Kagaku no Home Theater Miyazaki Marathon... and then some... continues, despite public protest!

This is a "festival" where I sit down at spend about a week and a half watching all of the Miyazaki movies that I want to.  I didn't mention this last time, but I don't have any particular interest in Ponyo.

What's still to come are:

Monday of Next Week - Spirited Away (2001)
Tuesday of Next Week - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)


I've already reviewed Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, and Whisper of the Heart, so if you're interested in that, then check it out... back there.


During a more fantastic age in Japanese history (specifically the Muromachi Period), spirits were a more common sight than they are today.  Sure, those soot gremlins out of My Neighbor Totoro appear randomly, but not around America.

In this time, everybody's heard of the "Spirit of the Forest", which is... the spirit of the forest, the very life of the woods of Japan, but that's not the point right now, the point is that there is a very small village in the extreme countryside of Japan that's having some kind of spiritual... scare I guess, although they could be freaking out about bandits or something like that.

Prince Ashitaka, the... prince of the village (and of the Emishi people (look it up if you care, this is semi-historical)) is riding out to the watchtower on Yakul, a red elk.  He's going out there to find out what's got the village people so worried.  On the way there, he passes his sister and her friends, telling them to return to the village quickly.

At the watchtower, he peers out into the forest and spots something moving behind the barrier placed there.  As he and the old man on guard watch, a demon smashes down the wall and then... sneezes, I suppose.  When it does, the things "skin" comes off in the form of a bunch of weird worms.  It's a boar underneath... or at least until the worms fall back on top.

Achoo!

The demon spots Yakul and obviously sees a meal in it, and so charges towards the tower.  Ashitaka manages to scare Yakul out of his stupor, but in exchange, he doesn't have the opportunity to get down, and so the demon rams and tips over the tower, so Ashitaka grabs the old man and hops to safety in a tree.

Ashitaka gets down, the guard shouting after him to watch that the demon doesn't touch him, less the curse be on him too.

Ashitaka gets Yakul and then dashes after the demon.  When he manages to catch up with it again, Ashitaka tries to ward it off by... asking it nicely, since that's all you can do with a god/demon.  But it doesn't work.

 

The two burst out of the forest, Ashitaka and Yakul dashing on, but the demon pauses and then notices Ashitaka's little sister.  More food.

When it goes after them, Ashitaka gets in it's way, and when one of the little girls falls down, Ashitaka starts a fight with the demon, shooting it in the eye.

The demon gets seriously pissed, chasing after Ashitaka, and managing to grab onto his arm.

Ashitaka rips himself away, then fires another arrow, striking and killing the demon.

After the battle, all of the people run out to see what's left of the demon and their prince.  The place where the demon grabbed Ashitaka is burned with some kind of evil mark now.
The wise woman is fetched and she tends to the boar god, asking it to pass on peacefully, but the boar's bitchy and doesn't agree, and actually curses all the human race.  Wow.  That's not very nice of him.

Later that night, the village elders all meet (along with Ashitaka.  He is a prince, after all).  The wise woman uses fortune telling to determine Ashitaka's fate.  He's going to die.  That mark on his arm will eventually consume his entire body and kill him.  Kind of like cancer, I suppose.

 

Maybe because they don't like living with a cursed person, or maybe because of some ancient tradition, Ashitaka is forced/obligated to leave the village, which he does without complaining.
The only clue he's given is to go West.  That's helpful.  But wait!  The wise woman reaches insider her robe and pull out this; a ball of iron, in case you're wondering.

Before he actually manages to leave though, his little sister runs out (defying village law), giving him a crystal dagger to remember her by.

 This is important later.

And so Ashitaka sets out to the West to search for the answers that the wise woman was talking about, but he's going to find more than just answers.  There's always been a shitload more questions than answers, believe me.


Like I said a couple of posts back, this was probably the first anime that I ever watched, and I'm pretty happy about that.  I mean, it's got everything that a teenager needs; samurais, battles, blood... and that's it!  We're easy to satisfy.

Miyazaki's naturalist theme is back with a vengeance, along with a humanitarian element that has been rather rare since Nausicaa (it was a lot more stressed in the manga, but you could still pick up on the small issues in the anime).
This portrays the natural element a lot more forcefully.  It's presented as a battle, humans and technology vrs. the forest and spirituality.  It's kind of sad how you can relate this to pretty much every one of the world's issues...

The music was nice.  It wasn't to my specific style, but I found myself humming it quite a lot after I had finished watching it.  Serious Japanese influences, mainly because this is a semi-historical film.  The only thing in it that's not accurate is... you know, the flamethrowers.  I don't think that you can do that with gunpowder.
... and if you can, please don't write a million comments protesting your insane knowledge of explosives and firearms, because I find it kind of creepy and... boring.

Actually, I listened to the Japanese version for the first time.  It was really weird, amazingly.  The Japanese version was a lot quieter than the English one.  The Japanese voice actors were a lot more toned-down than the American ones, so that made is quieter, but there was also a lot of stuff said in the English version that didn't have a place in the Japanese one.  That was kind of cool.
... and Moro totally sounded like a guy, only it's not.  Kind of creepy, just like this.

Bwa ha ha ha ha!

It was my favorite one of all the Miyazaki movies, and in the unlikely situation that you actually agree with something that I've written here, you'll like it too.  So watch it, if nothing else.

Ghibli 13 Movie Collection (Dual Audio) Nihonomaru

Princess Mononoke Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Day 8: Spirited Away!

Mugen no Juunin

Name: Mugen no Juunin
Type: Television Show
Episodes:  13
Rating: TV-14
Runtime Per Episode: 30 min
Director: Mashimo Koichi
Produced By Production I.G. and others
Year Produced: 2009

Otherwise known as Blade of the Immortal, Mugen no Juunin was originally a manga by the mangaka Samura Hiroaki, who is renown for his art style (kind of sketchy pencil looking drawings, very cool).

The anime follows the quest for revenge by Rin, the only surviving daughter of the Mutenichi-Ryuu dojo, and the last member of her family free.

Her father was murdered by a band of dojo-smashers (a term that I just made up, and since I don't have the patience to figure out the correct term, I'll just explain this one.  Dojo Smashers are people who go around and slaughter members of a dojo or sword style and eventually destroy the dojo or style.  The end.).  Her mother also fell into the hands of these men and was taken away from Rin.

Two years later, Rin is on looking for her mother and for revenge on her father's murderer... only one problem.  She can't beat her opponents by herself.

So she seeks the aid of Manji, a mysterious warrior with... a swastika kimono.
Okay, yeah, I know.  It's not a swastika.
... Well, it is, but it started off as a symbol for any number of things in any number of more Eastern religions before it was adopted by the Nazi party.

Either way, Rin convinces Manji to go on this epic quest with her to hunt down all those who have done her wrong... a time-consuming and dangerous quest to say the least.

That's... a foot, right?

The plot line and the characters were quickly defined within their first appearances, especially since many of the character's weren't alive by the next episode.  The main thing that I noticed about this anime was that there was a lot of indecision.  You'll see what I mean, right around episode 12, things get really confusing because they start to repeat things, but then argue with themselves, then... you get the idea.

I liked the animation style.  I was a fan of Samura Hiroaki after I read Mugen no Juunin, and I remember reading online forums discussing worries about the anime because people were afraid that the art wouldn't be true to Samura Hiroaki's style, but it didn't seem that weird.

Oh, and the reason that I like the animation was mostly for the battle scenes.  They were a lot more... physically possible and accurate than normal samurai-sword slashers.  It was cool to see the hero stumble around a little, and what's more was that the weight seemed to be in the right place.
You may or may not know what I'm talking about, but in a lot of fighting shows, the character's are like... anti-grav, it's kind of epic.

I've done a little bit of martial arts and... you could call it fencing, but you'd probably be wrong.  Even though I'm pretty comfortable with my weight and balance and stuff, I can't do half of the normal shit that fighters pull out in those animes, it's just not humanly possible.  If it is. then please make a video of yourself, post it, and send me the address... and tell me how to do it.

I strongly encourage you to watch the Japanese version only, but if you don't feel like dealing with subtitles, then I suppose the English version wasn't too bad, but in Japanese, it makes a lot more sense.  I mean, you'd laugh your ass off at a white samurai, I know I would.

In my opinion... the music was bad.  I don't care much for wailing, and the songs that were sung in the intro, outro, as well as those songs that geishas play with the shamisen were all like that, so I wasn't having a great time.  I know this isn't technically music, but I also don't get haikus at all.

Even though the anime was decent, I'd still say you should just read the manga.  It's an experience, not to mention freaking long.  The anime doesn't even cover to the end of the first couple of books (roughly, I download mostly, since I'm too cheap to afford the bound books) as it is, but I understand that they will producing a second season, so that's good.  Even though it wasn't the best, I'll be watch it.

Mugen no Juunin Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Ookami to Koushinryou

Midori no Hibi

Name: Midori no Hibi
Type: Television Show
Episodes: 13 (Containing Suspected OVA)
Rating: Teen (Male), Any Age (Female)
Runtime Per Episode: 24 min
Director: Kobayashi Tsuneo
Produced By Bandai and others
Year Produced: 2004

... Otherwise known as Midori Days, Midori no Hibi was inspired by the manga of the same name by the mangaka (God, woot); Inoue Kazurou, who is also the author of some of my personal favorites (in case you couldn't tell) like Aoi Destruction and Ai Kora, and a couple others that look interesting, but I am too lazy to translate for myself.

Either way, this anime is the first that I am doing that was (more of less) directly translated from the manga.
And... it held up really well!
I don't know if Inoue Kazurou consulted on this or not (since it didn't credit him or anything), but it was still really funny (to me, there were apparently a lot of complaints about Aoi Destruction, but then again, it might be either an acquired sense of humor... or just inspired lunacy).

I'm not sure how to tell this without spoiling it, but the story's essentially a slice-of-life comedy about a delinquent (with a good heart, obviously) who's reputation has built itself around his "Devil's Right Hand".  The man's name is... Sawamura Seiji.

Surprisingly accurate depiction of a beginner...

... 20?

As you can tell, Seiji has been having some "Lady Problems"... he can't get one (that's about the worst Lady Problem).  Girls are afraid of him because... well... he might pull a shiv and shank them.  Either way, it is his fate, no, his curse never to have a girlfriend... ever.

Teens

Twenties

Thirties

Retirement Home

That's pretty bad.  All he's ever wanted is to have a girlfriend, live a normal, happy school life, and buy a scooter...

But the fates and the common sense of every Japanese school girl are conspiring against him.  Poor guy.
Little does he know that there is a girl out there who understands his poor, tortured soul... well, not for long.

How rude.

Yes, you've seen it now, the secret behind the whole story.  He finally got himself a girlfriend!  And she's always close at hand, literally!
I hope you'll excuse the poor joke/pun/whatever, but it's true, a dream come true!  He should be happy, right?  Well... maybe not, but still, what a turn of events!  Just thinking about it, you shouldn't have been able to see this one coming!

Now Seiji has to get used to having a girl (Kasugano Midori) who's totally into him... as his right hand.

 

What'll happen to his delinquent life?!  Well, it'll have to keep going because he's built up such a reputation that everyone wants a piece of him now!  An unfortunate situation, you might say.

The slice-of-life comes from the fact that the anime is mostly about their daily life together, but with the underlying main story of trying to get Midori back into her original body (which is sitting in bed all this time with a mysterious illness), and trying to get Seiji better understood by his classmates, with some classic Inoue twists, turns, fan service, and plenty of...

Full...

Frontal...

Nudity.

... I am so getting banned.

... Um... Yeah, okay, could you... stop staring and let's... get back to the re... view...

... Okay!

Since I read the manga before the anime (as I am want to do, whatever this means, since the literal translation does not make any sense), I had a hard time figuring out how to write about the character development.  It was... good?

The characters remained true to the manga, I can say that much without a doubt.  Each character was allowed enough flash-back time to make their point, and the relationship between Seiji and Midori was integrated into their characters over the course of the show.

The art style was awesome, as a huge fan of Inoue Kazurou, I also came to appreciate his classics.

And my friend's personal favorite...

Okay, granted.  The second one isn't exactly and original, but it's still a classic and funny as hell.

The animation was smooth and flowed well, there were even a couple of fight sequences that were pretty good.

More importantly, there were also some sequences that weren't technically action, but rather random mayhem, which I can't display here because I don't have the skill.  Basically, most of them are in the first episode during house-call by the gangsta' girls (is this in correct form?).
There's also an epic car-punching sequence in there.

The Japanese version of this anime was really good, and the English one wasn't so hot, as usual.  Actually, you should probably just stick to listening to the Japanese acting exclusively unless I tell you that the English version is worth a try, which isn't very often.

The music wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite to my tastes.  I'm more into rock music than what appears to be the norm for anime intro and outro music.

To put it as simply as I can, watch this anime, and then read the manga... or the other way around.  Inoue Kazurou is awesome at what he does, plain and simple, and even if it is a take-off of Love Hina, Ai Kora is the best manga I've read in a while.  Too bad nobody's WORKING ON IT!
I'm pretty sure that I still like the manga better, but the best thing about this anime is that it didn't hurt my view of the manga at all, and it actually brought up some stuff that I never thought about before I watched the anime, cool, yeah?
Oh, and this is one of the main reasons that still I like the manga better...

'Nuff said, x2.

Something gets lost in translation, I'm afraid.

If you've agreed with anything that I've written here, then you should check it out... even if you're an adult who doesn't give a crap about anime and manga and shit for teenagers like that, you should still read it.
Just do it!

Midori no Hibi Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Mugen no Juuin!