I know I could have talked about the shows that ended with the Winter 2011 season but this week I decided to talk about three really odd things and save my feelings on the shows wrapping up for next week.  My first pick is My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic because I had to understand the strange cult of the Bronies that has formed around this show. Let us get the most important detail out-of-the-way first. This is a cartoon for little girls. It is a very well made cartoon for little girls but make no mistake it is a cartoon for little girls. As someone who watched and loved HeartCatch PreCure! I have no problem watching cartoons for little girls but let us call a spade a spade. There seems to be this odd Touhou Project effect where fans have this strange obsession with filling in all the details of a world. It also creates this strange phenomenon where the fans of the show seem really proud of how ashamed they are of watching the show. That said there is a lot to like about the show. The animation is wonderful and really shows how far flash animation has come over the years. They do their best to make everyone extremely expressive which makes this show infinitely screencapable. The humor is often actually funny. The stories are often super simple considering its target audience but it is rarely patronizing though they do  restate the lesson at the end of every episode in standard kids cartoon style. And now some random observations. As One Great Turtle so succinctly pointed out Fluttershy is the most moe pony ever and I noted that Rainbow Dash is the Tomo Takino of the show. Overall it is a wonderful show to watch with any younger female relatives you have as it is a show you can enjoy together. Apparently it also appeals to older nerdier male audience and there is nothing wrong about that but it is so so very odd.

Twin Spica vol. 5, you surprised me! In a good way. This installment starts giving us some history and the revelation in it, while not totally clear yet, was not on my radar in the least. On that note, this book deals a bit less with Asumi though we do see the continued developement of Kiriu the boy protester she met in the last volume who is focused on quite a bit this time. At this point we know who Asumi is so branching out is nice. And the game of survival they are thrown in during the last couple of chapters adds some great tension while bringing the past and present back together.

Continue reading →