It’s not often where you find a series so good, that you’re willing to sit through the anime, the manga and the live action film for it. Yet, Library Wars seems to convince its fans to do so, almost too effortlessly.
As you all know, I shouldn’t be doing this.
However, the whole manga/anime industry feels the need to throw this kind of crap in my face. You know what I’m talking about. You definitely know what I’m talking about. Bleach Chapter 686, also known as ‘the last chapter’. If you haven’t already read it, please leave right now because there will be no limits on how far I go today. I’m so emotionally damaged right now that my whole emotional switch-breaker has completely been rendered useless.
Greetings!
Yes, it has been quite a while and honestly, you shouldn’t even be expecting any posts from me until about the end of November but here I am. I’m here and I’m ready to do this. For those that are just a tad bit curious about the whole situation. I’m well into my last year of high school now (Much like the third years in Chihayafuru- sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ll just try to restrain myself a little more from now on.) which means there are exams and stress and all of that incredibly joyous stuff. Really, I’m actually having fun right now. However, isn’t that what school’s all about? Trying not to get too caught up in the nitty gritty? Just go with it. So I’ve just finished my mid year exams, there’ll be another one in the next 5 weeks or so and then 2-3 weeks after that, I’ll have my final WACE exams. Despite all of that, I’ve decided to take the time out to write about Chihayafuru because I really think that doing ‘my thing’ is important too. I always say that I love writing, which is true, but sometimes I really don’t give myself enough time to just write.
Moving on, let’s dig into Chihayafuru!
Due to my clear negligence of writing any reviews for a very long time, I would say that I’m doing a rather good job of actually committing right now. I thought that I would take a little break from the whole Marvels scene and actually write about an anime. How long has it been since I did one of those aye?
For the past week I have been re-watching the anime: Yumeiro Patissiere. Why? I have absolutely no idea but now I’ve found it to be rather inspirational. Strange, I know, for me to find inspiration -of all places- in a cooking anime. But this anime is definitely more than just a cooking anime, it really instils the importance of establishing a goal and working hard towards reaching that dream. Not to mention it constantly brings up the fact that you should never give up, no matter what.
Hello.
I know. I know.
I haven’t been reviewing many animes recently…and there’s a perfectly good reason behind it.
School and life has just been getting in the way between all this and I haven’t even been able to catch up on any anime goodness, much less review anything.
The good news is Spring Break is coming up soon in a couple of days time and I am free to catch up on everything, which of course includes watching anime because honestly, I am so deprived of it.
Seriously, no joke. While I was doing without anime, I wasn’t able to focus on all the drama in the series and I started focusing more on my life, which made me just over-analyze everything that was going on in my life. It’s made me realise that focusing on the drama in my life is very taxing and now I know why I occupy myself with the make-believe drama that you find in animes. Much less stressful but just as entertaining.
I’m getting off task here, today this post will be focusing on the anime adaption of the manga: Ao Haru Ride [アオハライド]
This anime is still fairly recent, considering that it only finished airing yesterday (22/09/2014).
I’ve been able to complete over these past 12 weeks. Since they only released one episode every week, it’s been pretty easy to be able to fit it in while studying and such. Also, it was really amazing to finally see the characters ‘come to life’. The voice, the colour…it was beautiful. As a fan of the manga from the very beginning, waiting for the chapters to come out one by one, it was breath-taking and heart-stopping.
There will also be a drama adaption coming out soon too, so look out for that if you’re a fan.
Synopsis
Ao Haru Ride is basically an anime centered around young love.
The main girl, Yoshioka Futaba, a middle-schooler is depicted as the typical young shoujo school girl. Misunderstood by the girls and extremely adored by the boys. She’s cute, pretty and oozing ‘femininity’ from every possible angle! Of course, she attracts all the boys with all her physical looks and feminine personality. As an outcome of this, the girls in the school don’t particularly like her very much, in short, they pretend to be her friend while they trash her behind her back. (Like what most teenage girls without a life do.) However, Yoshioka Futaba does not attract the boys on purpose! She actually does not like boys, in general, at all, maybe even to the point of being slightly scared and repulsed by them…except for one guy. Tanaka Kou (Later known as ‘Mabuchi’)
Kou is different from the other guys, he’s gentle, small and maybe even slightly feminine. (It may be because of the fact that he’s slightly feminine that Futaba doesn’t really mind him.) Kou, much like the other guys, starts developing a little crush (I’m not sure if I could refer to it as ‘little’, let’s just say that he liked her so much to the point that he would write her name all over his notebook and even go back just to circle it over and over again.) on Futaba, just that his ‘like’ for her was much more pure-hearted and innocent.
After a while, after a couple more encounters and some light sniffing action (You’ll understand later..), they both decided that they had a mutual ‘like’ going on between them and Kou asked Futaba out. Thought after some stuff, Kou found out that Futaba ‘hated’ guys so he bailed out on their date and stood her up. Also due to some family issues he left and went to a different middle school.
Fast forward a couple of years later and they’re in high school now.
Both of them have changed slightly, Futaba is now no longer feminine and she acts like a complete slob (I’m not sure if I feel very comfortable referring to her as a slob, since I’m always like that and I certainly do not do it on purpose…or maybe I am a slob..) just so that her ‘friends’ don’t leave her and hate her because she doesn’t attract guys anymore. Kou’s moved back too and they meet once again, now that they’re going to the same high school. However, he’s changed too, he’s no longer ‘nice’ or ‘gentle’ and that slight hint of ‘femininity’ is completely gone, he’s actually quite silent and mean now. So life carries on after that … do they still have feelings for each other, do they even remember each other?
You’ll have to find out for yourselves.
Anyway, watching this manga come to life in an anime has been a dream come true for me, I had always thought that it would make a great anime but much like many great mangas, they never get produced as an anime and it really is such a shame. It was quite surprising learning that it would be turned into an anime. However, though it was not a surprise that they ended the series at 13 episodes, though it is quite a shame, I would’ve loved to see it at least reach 25 or 26 episodes.
As for whether there will be a second season, it doesn’t look like it’ll be very promising, which makes sense since they’re probably much more focused on producing the drama version of this series than continuing the anime version right now.
I highly recommend this series if you’re looking for a manga from the shoujo genre but you’re tired of all the cliche storylines. I’m not going to falsely imply that this series is the best and that it’s completely out-of-this-world so much so that it would knock your socks off. I am going to say, however, that it doesn’t really follow to the normal ones in the sense that it jumps from the past to the present and it shows how much people can change over time. It also shows the true meaning of friendship and how incredible it is when people can work so hard for another person just out of pure love.
I thoroughly enjoyed the anime version and I just hope that the manga releases more chapters soon.
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I know, it’s been quite some time but I’ve just not found the time to watch any new animes recently.
However, since it’s the start of my Autumn break, I’ve been spending the last couple of days with my eyes glued to dramas and mangas. I’ve never done a post about a drama before so I thought it’d be good if I could do that. It just so happens that one of the dramas I’ve just completed was ‘Mei-chan no Shitsuji’ it’s quite a good drama and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so to the point that I completed it within a span of one day.
SYNOPSIS:‘Mei-chan no Shitsuji’ the drama is based on the manga titled: Mei-chan no Shitsuji. (No surprise really) The main storyline of it all is centered around a girl named: Mei, who is the daughter of the parents who own and run an udon store in the out fields. However, due to a certain incident, both of her parents ended up passing away. She is then informed that she’s actually the next inheritor of the Hongo company (?) Anyway, you only need to acknowledge the fact that it’s a big deal. After that she is assigned a butler, Shibata Rihito, and sent to the Saint Lucia Academy. It is an academy for rich young ladies (more like brats might I say), where each of the young ladies gets a a super good-looking butler who practically does everything for them, which is a total invasion of privacy might I add. But hey, they’re super hot. Anyway, things get crazy and you should just watch it or read it to find out more.
Even though it had that same quirky/weird feel to it that practically all JDramas share, it kinda just added to the whole feel of it.
I did think that this drama was a little extreme compared to the other ones that I’ve watched so far. Even though it did have that humour/comedy factor to it, it was a lot more violent than usual. THEY WERE FIGHTING EACH OTHER WITH SWORDS! AND THEY BLED! It’s not like I’m not used to it or anything like that… just that it’s quite alarming when it’s coming from a JDrama.
I did really like most of the characters though, aside from the evil ones because they really were absolutely crazy and insane!
However, taking Shibata Rihito as an example, I really loved him in the drama, mostly due to the fact that it was Hiro Mizushima that was playing him, aside from the fact that Rihito was pretty charismatic. I mean he’s a friggin’ butler for crying out loud!
Mei was also pretty good in the drama. I liked her because she was actually convincing when she was playing the poor, nerdy girl. (Which I found myself connecting with since I’m exactly like that, not going to lie here) Unlike other girls who try to pull of the role, they just aren’t as convincing because honestly underneath even with all the the glasses and such, they’re face it still so nice with make-up and such, plus they look way too cute, each and every one of them.
Kudos, to Mei’s childhood friend as well, man, I really pity him, getting the girl he likes stolen from him by his very own brother. Man, I feel for you. I really liked his character though, he was so honest and he really truly, honestly loved Mei.
I would talk about Lucia, but she’s just so…. words just can’t describe how awful she is. Please just watch it and find out how disturbing she is for yourself.
Now, about Shinobu, Shinobu is Lucia’s crazy obsessive butler who Lucia clearly doesn’t appreciate. First of all, I think the white wig was a bit too much. How terrible do you want him to look, I don’t care if this is just a live-action created directly based from the manga, that was just ridiculous and completely ruined the seriousness of all his crucial scenes. Plus, if you guys were already set to go with the white wig thing, couldn’t you guys just invested in some white eyeshadow powder or a pencil? Just to make sure that his eyebrows matched his same ridiculous hair?!
Anyway, let’s just move onto the manga.
Now after watching the drama, I was pretty crazy about the whole thing so I just thought that I should try out the manga as well.
Now let me just say, the manga is so much more explicit in so many ways!
First of all, what is with all the sexual references?! And the violence! (Please, that picture above, doesn’t even begin to describe to explicitness of it all)
My gosh, the drama seems so much more normal now.
The Mei in the anime was so much more different, for one, she was not even a ‘nerd- girl’ she was just one of those cliche, annoying , practically- good-for-nothing girls that was probably only liked for her looks.
Rihito however was way hotter in the manga and he was a lot stronger. Mameshiba just looked like a girl, Lucia was even more crazy, what is with Rose’s insanely big chests and why is Shinobu even more crazy as well??!!
Now, I really don’t want to ruin it for you so I won’t say anymore.
[Yes…please do…]
Honestly though, at first I thought that this drama was about a girl and sheeps because ‘shitsuji’ means sheep. And now you know why there were so many random sheeps flying around throughout the drama and why there’s so many curls in the title.
Hi again!
I finally read the manga: Power!! And I actually stumbled across it during manga drawing class in school, I was looking for inspiration, and I just completely fell in love with it!
All that went through my mind, when I first saw the cover,was: Girl. Basketball. She looks like a boy.
After that I just went crazy and started looking it up.
My friend was sitting next to me and he was like: She’s going crazy again..
[And he’s more obsessed about these stuff!]
Anyway, back to more important things.
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This manga was written by Shizuru Seino and it’s also know as Girl Got Game.
[I actually knew about this manga for quite a couple of years, but never dared to read it because I judged the title: Girl Got Game. So I thought it was a bad manga and didn’t think much of it.]
What I liked about this series was that it was pretty much a Shounen series as well as a Shoujo series combined.
It had that sports factor in it [basketball] and still that ‘almost innocent’ high school romance life all rolled up into around 34 chapters, with some comedy chucked into it.
______________________________________________________
Story Outline: The main girl, Aizawa, is forced to attend high school as boy. Who signed her up for this you may ask?
Her father did. Turns out Aizawa’s dad enrolled her in as a male student since he wants her to join the all boy’s basketball team at school, to fulfill his own dreams of entering the NBA league when he was younger. [Which didn’t come true, due to an injury in his younger days.]
Life then carries on during Aizawa’s high school days where she has to share a dorm room with the main guy of our story, Eniwa.
But what I really like about this manga is that the girl ACTUALLY looks like a guy.
I mean comparing Aizawa to Mizuki in Hana Kimi, Aizawa is very convincing.
Mizuki doesn’t even look like a guy.
[Look for the girliest guy]
So since they actually made Aizawa look like a guy, it just seemed more realistic and there was less of that screaming: “HOW CAN NO ONE TELL THAT THAT’S A GIRL?!”
But even though, I’ve pointed this out, I have nothing against the manga series: Hana Kimi, in fact, it was my first manga that I’ve bought physically.
Of course though, throughout the whole series of Power!! Aizawa slowly looks more and more feminine as more guys find out her identity.
AHHH!~ She looks so CUTE!~~~ (//.//)
So, all in all, this manga was a great read. I tried not to fit in too many spoilers into this review, or it would’ve have been longer.
This manga is perfect if you’re looking for a break from those really typical shoujo series and each chapter is guaranteed to make you laugh.
If you like playing basketball but you don’t really want to read something as hardcore as “Slam Dunk!” this is also a great alternative.
I was a bit upset, however, that this series did not go on longer, I thought it ended pretty abruptly, but the ending was still pretty sweet.
Now tell me, what are you’re thoughts about this manga?
Have you read it?
Do you feel like reading it now?
What are your thoughts after reading it?
Leave a comment below and tell me!
[Signing Out, Linn.]
Honest Linn 