Cleverly Titled Column: Sweet Blue Flowers review

Cleverly Titled Column is my weekly (honest) column, where I'll be talking about anime, manga, and tokusatsu (live action special-effects shows) that catch my eye. My main focus will be on the mecha genre, tokusatsu hero shows, and romance manga, but I might branch out into other things if I feel strongly enough that I need to rant or rave about them.
 
Normally, if someone said "you should read this manga about high school lesbians, it's the best thing", I'd assume it was full of pandering to the yuri fanboy audience with no real substance. But Shimura Takako's Sweet Blue Flowers (also known as Aoi Hana) is a wonderful manga with excellent characterisation, really well-written relationships, and absolutely no fanservice or anything of the sort. In other words - you should read this manga about high school lesbians, it's the best thing.

The Manga Snob: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

“ We are born of the assembly of those experiences that humans savour.
Alpha. We are humanity's children.”

The setting is Yokohama, Japan in the not too distant future. The world is in it's twilight. Many towns have been lost to the rising sea levels of global warming. The population is in a slow decline. Soon all that will be left of humanity is the cities, the strange luminescent mushrooms that look eerily like lampposts and the androids. No reasons are given as to why these things are happening, there is no lecture on the destructive nature of man. Humanity is just declining. So it goes.
Faced with this ecological apocalypse, mankind has decided to live out it's last days in peace.

Something I've Read: K-On!

Slice of life, particularly comedy ones, often suffer because writing funny characters is actually rather hard, without making them overblown, unlikeable or really in need of help. This series falls into these traps a lot. And I mean a lot. But…I still love it.

Something I’ve read: K-on!

Something I've Read: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Something I’ve Read: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

KHR (written by author Akira Amano) is one of those stories that tried to go from light hearted goofiness to serious fighting, and failed. Well, mostly.

First Impressions: Autumn 2012, Ben's Week 2

First Impressions is a series where I'll be writing about my first impressions of the anime airing in the new season.

Ben's Week 2: Psycho-Pass, Teekyu, Magi, Robotics;Notes, Wooser's Hand-To-Mouth Life, Little Busters!, Girls und Panzer

So here I go into the new shows I'm trying out this week. I didn't list all the shows I'm continuing from last week above, because I won't be giving more opinions on those until we're a bit later into the season and I give a review of what I kept on with and what I didn't in the end. I didn't have the time to watch all this week's anime this week, so the rest will be coming up when I've watched it.

For reference (again), here's the chart showing all this season's anime.

Something I've Read: Bunny Drop

“Don’t you think this world is better than you expected?”

When the committee were trying to decide what anime to show this term, we decided that we wanted to show a plot based action show and a more episodic slice of life show, and Usagi Drop (or Bunny Drop) was one of the first anime we looked at. We rejected it for reasons that aren’t actually related to the anime itself, but rather the manga’s reputation, in particular, the ending. And…you may see why.

First Impressions: Autumn 2012, Ben's Week 1

First Impressions is a series where I'll be writing about myfirst impressions of the anime airing in the new season.

My Week 1: From the New World, My Little Monster, Kami-sama Hajimemashita, Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!, Blast of Tempest, Busou Shinki, BTOOOM! Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, K

I'm going to at least try the first episode of every show of the season, except sequels (I haven't watched the original series for anything that's getting a sequel this season), unsubbed shows (I don't know Japanese), and that one show about incest (because ewwwwww). I’m setting the cut-off point for each "week" of anime I cover as when I get back from work on a Saturday, so if I haven’t written about something that interested you and aired or was subbed over the weekend that’s why.

If you want to see a list of all this season's shows, check out this chart.