Month: April 2009

Spring Fever: Sping 2009 Anime Guide

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As we get better at this we seem to add more and more shows that we review each season. I don’t think I would ever want to review more shows than we did this season. This season had a pretty good selection for all the major anime food groups. Some selections were rather lackluster but overall it was an enjoyable selection. Look back on Wednesday because I will be looking at some shows that Narutaki decided to avoid this season. Often times with good reason.

Alright, it is worth noting that we had to do this enormous review not once but twice! It is amazing that it is done at all. Anywho! This is becoming a standard when the new season starts up. However, I think this is the first time that there are way more shows that I want to keep up with than is humanly possible. It is shaping up to be a good season. I think these first episode reviews are worth doing, first impressions are important and it’s fun to see how right (and wrong!) we are when the dust has cleared.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #040

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Picked up Bride of the Water God volume one from Dark Horse. This is one of their manhwa releases. It is the story of a girl who is married off to the God of Water to prevent the village from further hardship because of a drought. When she arrives she runs into a little boy who ignores her when she speaks to him. He is of course the Water God. There is a large cast of other Gods as well as the Water God’s attendant who girl’s name mistakes for the God when she first arrives. Both girl’s name and the Water God have sad pasts that are more than hinted at. The artwork is very nice and that is probably the strongest thing about it. The story wasn’t bad but it wasn’t especially well done either. Most of the side characters are just thrown in her and there without real reasoning. It may have held my interest if girl’s name fell in love with attendant’s name rather than the Water God, but that isn’t the case.

Color of Water flows from the first book (Color of Earth) without missing a beat. Ehwa had two potential relationships that failed to bloom but soon finds herself falling for a young wrestler. Her mother continues her relationship with the traveling calligraphist. If the theme of the first volume was discovering love then the main theme in this volume seems to be waiting for relationships to develop and dealing with long distance relationships. The closeness of Ehwa and her mother grows a little more distant. As with any teenager, Ehwa needs to develop a little more away from her mother and she begins to keep much more to herself. The frank nature of discovering your sexuality continues into this book especially when it comes to masturbation. Overall the storytelling and artwork remain top notch.

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Experiment: Crunchyroll Subscription, Sample Platter

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So one of the biggest and most infamous fan-sub sites went too legit to quit. It did not happen overnight but it has become one of the forefront sites to see legitimate streaming anime near simultaneously with Japan. They have a mixture of new shows and old although they tend to put the emphasis on promoting the newer ones. They even have some live action shows. Does this mean that Crunchyroll’s detractors have forgiven them for the mistakes of the past? Heck no. The Internet neither forgives nor forgets. Does that mean that sane people should forgive them and patronize their site? We paid the price and took a look to let you know!

We grabbed the first time offered Anime Membership for Crunchyroll. This essentially means that we could watch certain shows, streaming, just a few hours after their Japanese release. We also had access to many older titles in their entirety. Without the membership people would have to wait about a week to view said episodes. Many things were added and taken away through the experiment and things certainly changed over the course of the three month period as Crunchyroll became more accustomed to their new program.

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