No Filter (#7): The Suffocated One (Part 6)

To
the one who I didn't give enough space,

Well that's a gruesome title.

But it's true. In fact, I'm borrowing the words that you used to explain what was happening. I don't mean to be sassy or anything, it really is the best way to describe it. Sorry. I was too caught up in us and I didn't consider your needs.

We started off our relationship from thin air. There was no foundation of friendship, and we went straight for it after meeting each other. Before we met, I didn't even know that you existed, and all of the sudden you were the only thing that existed. Somehow we made things work, but I felt like I didn't have enough of you. I didn't spend enough time with you.

I'd like to say that's why I got clingy, but truthfully, I don't know why. Hell, I didn't even know that I was being clingy until you pointed it out. Naturally, things quickly fell apart and we ended. Still, I want to express my thanks for bringing a whole new meaning of "dating" to mind. You were the first one I had regular physical contact with, and the first person I actually felt like I was dating.

Recently you've been trying to talk to me more and take a jab at becoming friends. At first I thought it was a bit of stretch but now I can see that it's not that difficult. Thank you for that, and once again, sorry for latching on a bit too hard.

From,
the one who suffocated you

No Filter (#6): The Fogotten Girl (Part 5)

To
the girl who I made the terrible mistake of forgetting,

It seems to me that you are the one who I hurt the most, but hey, if it makes you feel any better, I'm kinda hurting too. Recently I tried to close things off with you, but I think all I succeeded in doing was digging my own grave. To be honest, I have no idea what your opinion of me is now (I'm sure that it's negative, however I don't know in what light).

I do not deserve any forgiveness from you. There is absolutely none to be had, seeing as I left you out of nowhere. I can understand why you would not "enjoy" receiving a message from somebody who has hurt you, that somebody who you have pushed away for so long.

So here is how I will close things off, seeing as there is no way to do it with you. I apologize for leaving you behind, when I was supposed to be the one there for you. Even after our relationship ended we agreed to continue to talk, but for some reason or another I never responded. I am saying sorry not to ask for a response, but instead for myself, to make myself feel better.

Would you look at that? After those years I still remain as selfish and dramatic as I was before.

By,
the boy who doesn't deserve

No Filter (#5): The One I Messed Things Up With (Part 4)

To
the one who I wouldn't keep,

By "going out" with you, I had already condemned our trio to an end. Looking back, that decision of mine is one of the greatest regrets that I have. I can't even begin to imagine how things would have turned out differently if it had not happened.

Don't get me wrong though, I liked our relationship. It was just framed by a story of three friends, and I ultimately valued our friendship more than the relationship. The worst part is that I didn't even "trade" properly. I gained very little by labeling ourselves, and lost it all.

I regret being complacent with our chats, and didn't bother to think about what else I could obtain. Even though we said we were "dating", we didn't do much different than what we did as friends. To me, this is the saddest part.

I think you were the final one to end before I finally realized that mutual feelings of attraction don't need to lead to a relationship. Thank you for that. Also, thank you for doing your best not to make things weird around me. If it ever does feel weird, it is only because of me, and the fact that I have a hard time letting things go.

The way that we ended wasn't the greatest, and it's a painful memory. I only remember feeling intense and unbiased emotions of jealousy, and eventually I pushed you to cut the rope. Sorry about that.

From,
the one who was too dumb to see what he had

No Filter (#4): The High School First (Sorry) (Part 3)

To
the one who stole my heart within a day,

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like the apologetic and twisted person that I am, but this is a post that will see the word sorry a lot. Oh, before you get even more disgusted with me, let me say that I am sorry for breaking off our relationship. Realize that I know that it was my fault. Realize that, only after it was pointed out to me, I truly felt sorry for what I did. Yes, we both did rush into it, but I was too stupid to see anything.

Sorry, for leading you on. Occasionally I think about what I gained and what I lost from doing that. Rash, rash is a good word to explain how we jumped into it. Really, I traded what could have been an amazing friendship for a mediocre and short-lived relationship. Yet, even though it now sounds like I'm hurting, I was the one who hurt you.

Sorry, that I can only say this to you now, and not even to your face. Only when I'm comfortably sitting at my desk can I say something, and even then it's to a monitor. Real. Real classy. You should know however, that I genuinely do feel sorry for what I've done.

Sorry, I don't really know what I'm trying to say. Once I figure out things, I'll see if I can somehow stop being a coward and say it to you directly. Regret. Remorse. You'd think that after I felt all of these things I could say something, but looks like this is all I have to say sorry to you.

I'm sorry,
the boy who threw away your heart within a day

No Filter (#3): The Rebound (Part 2)

To
the girl who had the unfortunate luck of being my rebound,

Thank you for the short, albeit happy times that we spent together. Compared to the very first, I spent more time in person with you, and that was one of the things that I was missing. Truth be told, it's surprising that we even "dated" for a bit. If I think about it now, it was bound to end badly, with me going to a different high school and all.

Like the very first, you were also this close to ending up with another guy, and then I happened. I'm bewildered and utterly confused as to why you chose me (or anybody for that matter), but I'm glad that you did.

Through the brief amount of contact that we've had since our elementary school days, I discern that you're a part of the clique that I would never willingly touch. Who knows, I may be wrong, but it does make me think back to elementary school, where social circles expanded to fit nearly everybody, and there was much less in-group bias going on.

And now, I want to say sorry for what I did to you once high school started. After saying that we would find a way to make it work (how cliche does that sound?) I broke it off after one week of high school. Why? Because I grew infatuated with girls that I would (in a week) come to dislike. It was cruel and hasty of me, and even though I doubt that we would have made it last much longer, I wonder what else would have happened.

Every now and then I dig around and clean up my drawers, and every time I always find these letters that I have never handed off to you. They're bursting full of passion and emotion, however that's all smudged by such naivety. I don't think that I will ever give you the letters (maybe if I remember I'll include it in my will) while I'm still alive, but I'm sure that there's nothing that important to you in them.

Sincerely,
the boy who gave you a rock

No Filter (#2): The Very First (Part 1)

To
the very first,

Really, you were the one who I spent my innocence with, the innocence in which "liking" each other was equivalent to "dating". There were a lot of things that we never got to do, but I don't regret it at all. I was fortunate enough to have spent time with you.

At times I feel somewhat guilty for "stealing" you from another person, however in the end it was... worth it? Sorry for ruining what could have been between you and him, but everything has worked out, in one way or another.

It seems as if it has been forever since we would spend our whole nights together on the phone. To the grade six me, you were the most obvious and important thing. You took precedence over anything and everything. What we had was amazing, and some of my best days were with you.

In the aftermath, it seemed like everything was going to go wrong. For the first time I experienced what I could naively call "heartbreak". Reality came crashing down and I struggled to get up from my very first fall. You were the hand that supported me on my very first steps, and the same one that let me stumble to the ground.

Thank you for everything (even the crashing and burning, that part was needed eventually). Hopefully you had a bit of fun with me, or at least gained something out of it.

Yours truly,
the guy who told you about a piece of lettuce on your shirt (to this day I don't know if you were pulling my leg or not)

I'm Back from the Dead

Is that him?

I am back. There have been a bunch of ideas swirling around my head, but I am too dumb to figure out how to convey them in a blog entry, so instead you can catch up on the meaningless events that have occurred recently in my life.

Not everything in the winter anime season has aired yet, but when I get around to watching some I will write up a First Impressions for that. So far I have seen the first episodes of Musaigen no Phantom World (disgusting and terrible) and Boku dake ga Inai Machi (brilliant and one hell of a first episode, rank 56 on MaL already), which are the polar opposites of each other. Mixed feelings, but this season looks mediocre, asides from a few airings.

On New Year's Eve I discovered that my brother had registered me for a cubing competition, which was a shock because I had never solved a cube. But by the end of the night I had somehow memorized the algorithms and now I am in the process of getting them to a second nature. My recognition of cases are terrible, but my goal is to solve consistently under a minute before the competition (early/mid February) comes up.

School has been slow for me, and the work has been piling up (largely because I am refusing to do it).

That's about it. I promise I will make the greatest effort to remember to post sometime relatively soon (at least before a week passes by again). Until next time my dear reader.

Fall 2015 Final Thoughts

- WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS -

Welcome back for the conclusion of the fall season. I did not watch a whole lot this time around, but as a result there is a lot more space for me to go through the shows. Additionally, I picked out anime that I expected to be exceptional this season, making it much less tedious and painful for me.

MyAnimeList
Fall 2015 First Impressions

This Season:
Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka??
Haikyuu!! 2
One Punch Man
Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen
Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru
Taimadou Gakuen 35 Shiken Shoutai

Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?? (12)

I Rate: 7.1/10.0
One Sentence: Second (and hopefully last) installment of the acclaimed moe series, consisting of gooey and cutesy girls leading idealized lives in a cute and small (did I mention cute) town.

It requires a tremendous amount of patience and boredom to watch GochiUsa 2 in an engaged manner. For me, I needed to be doing something else while watching, whether it be eating, participating in a conversation, or playing something on mobile. What I am trying to get at is that GochiUsa 2, while still cute and all, is essentially the same as the first season. You could watch all the episodes (from both seasons) in random order.

The content, while not exceptionally exciting, is sufficient for the purposes of a moe SoL. If there is to be praise given to GochiUsa 2, it is in the art. The colours were bright and vibrant, and definitely fit the mood of the anime, along with the moe style. Not much to say in the sound department, asides from nice voice acting and average opening and ending themes.

Worth watching if you have a lot of free time and you don't mind episodic plots, however there are other shows out there that do the same and are better. Needless to say, if you were a fan of the first season, you will be a fan of GochiUsa 2.

Best Girl: Rize has come out on top


Haikyuu!! 2 (ongoing, 13/25)

I Rate: 8.4/10.0
One Sentence: "SEASON 2 HYPE HERE WE GO BOYS ALL ABOARD THE HAIKYUU TRAIN CHOO CHOO VOLLYEBALL." - MrRhyce's Anime List

Absolutely love this season of Haikyuu!!, where we've been thrown right back into the action. The new dynamic of the team and their development has been portrayed amazingly, and it would be neat to see another sort of arc where each player is focused on.

The general tone of this season is this is our last chance, and all these episodes have done the job of hyping the ending. It may be just me, but it feels as if there are a lot more games in Haikyuu!! 2 (which is definitely not a bad thing). The progression of the story is well-paced, not shoving too much in at once nor drawing out unimportant events.

In terms of character, there has been loads of development with Hinata and Kageyama, while the other characters have their respective mini-arcs. The one thing that I did notice was that two prominent side characters in the first season, Sugawara and Yamaguchi, have seen little screen time, however I'm sure that they will get their spotlight later on in the season.

Art and animation look superb as usual, and the OP and ED get you pumped up and excited. If you haven't watched the first season yet, do yourself a favour and treat yourself. And if you have, you're probably already watching Haikyuu!! 2 as well.

Best Girl: nothing wrong with a little Hitoka


One Punch Man (12)

I Rate: 8.2/10.0
One Sentence: All it takes is one punch (and a lot of indifference).

One Punch Man was an anime that I picked up later in the season, in fact, I decided to try it out when it was on episode 8 or something. I was not actually sure what was going on with all the frenzy and commotion around the anime, and if I was going to do a half-decent season wrap up, I needed to cover this hot anime.

It is a bit of stretch to say, but One Punch Man is a hilarious and light-hearted satire on the hero stereotype. By poking fun at the passionate and virtuous heroes who fight long and hard battles against evil, the anime becomes funny in that aspect itself. Our main character, Saitama, is a "hero for fun". Nobody knows who he is, however it's ironic because he is the strongest hero out there. The whole anime is about Saitama going around and decimating enemies with a single punch, enemies who cannot be defeated by other heroes. You would think that having every fight being decided by one punch would get dreary, however the interesting parts become how the other heroes try to handle the situation.

OP and ED are vastly different, but both have their charms. As for animation, Madhouse really outdid themselves with One Punch Man. I'm not a huge fan of the art style, but I would be lying if I said that the animation wasn't good.

Most of the other characters are heroes, each with their own quirks, which made them either easy to like, easy to laugh at, or both. Certainly there's not a whole lot of development going on, but that seems like a waste of time when considering that we are talking about One Punch Man. One thing that I did notice was that Genos' backstory was never fully fleshed out, and there could have been a really interesting arc about that, but...

The show did end in an open way, making the transition into any possible second season much smoother, so now all that's left to do is wait and hope. Glad that I came around and started watching what came out to be one of the best this season.

Best Girl: tsundere Tatsumaki


Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen (12)

I Rate: 6.9/10.0
One Sentence: Great at a few points, unbearable at a lot of points, and everything else can be overlooked as average.

For all those looking to experience the terrible loss of potential in the first cour of Owari no Seraph, I have some good news for you; the Nagoya Kessen-hen cour will also disappoint those with high hopes. Riddled by poor timing, cliches, and over-convenient plot devices, what was originally a good start has come out as a messy, terrible, contorted mess.

Let's start off by recapping what happens in the Owari no Seraph's second cour. The first three episodes are completely dedicated to character development on the Shinoa squad. Yuu and Kimizuki both gain advanced powers from their Black Demon weapons and overall the group looks much more cohesive and stronger. Episodes four to ten serve as the thick of the plot, the actual battles against the vampire nobles in Nagoya, however it turns out to be more focused on the battle against the noble trio of Crowley Eusford, Chess Belle, and Horn Skuld. From then on, the last two episodes are a climatic and massive fight, with much infighting on the side of the humans, and the reveal that humans have been developing a weapon of mass destruction (appropriately dubbed Owari no Seraph).

Now it's time to break this all down. The first three episodes and the few that followed were the strongest and most concrete of the whole cour. We can see that there has been an obvious change in the atmosphere of the Shinoa group, and it's good development. After that point, the first few battles against the nobles were interesting, and the content remained solid. However once the battle against Eusford and company began, the cour began to dip in quality. A lot of overused devices came into play and the arc didn't seem unique. An example of a convenient device was the fact that Kimizuki's demon just happened to have the power to somehow reverse Yuu's transformation into a demon (I thought this transformation would have been great). The last episodes were action packed, but lacked any depth to them.

Unfortunately in this second part we don't see a whole lot of the other characters, asides from Yuu, Shinoa, Mika, and Guren. There's a lot of small development going on for pretty much everybody else, but nothing substantial enough.

The consistency and quality of the art and animation carried on from last season, and were pretty good. When it comes to the soundtrack, the ending theme has lodged itself in my heart, and the opening, while somewhat unfitting for the style of Owari no Seraph, is nice.

tl;dr: If you haven't watched the first cour, Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen isn't worth it (hell, it might not even be worth it if you didn't enjoy the first cour). The performance and showing of this second cour isn't enough to warrant a watch of the first cour either, so maybe you're better off not watching either.

Best Girl: HYPE HYPE SHINOA (tbh, Asuramaru almost got the spot before I discovered that he was a guy)


Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru (12)

I Rate: 8.0/10.0
One Sentence: Loved this show for its new and fresh quality, definitely hoping that a second season will become a thing.

The fall season brought to us another mystery anime, and Sakurako-san has been one of the more recent of its genre to showcase something worth watching. Featuring episodic mysteries, the show focuses on the strange relationship between a woman named Sakurako and an adolescent boy named Shoutarou.

As I've briefly mentioned, there isn't too much to see here if you're looking for cases that span longer than two episodes at the least. However, I can say that there is never a dull moment in the anime. We're constantly kept on our toes with new mysteries and for the most part, they're all engaging and fresh. In terms of story line, only the last few episodes have anything that can be counted as moving the plot along. When it is discovered that most of the cases that Sakurako and Shoutarou have been working on are linked to a man named Hanabusa, that's where the only progression happens.

Sakurako as a character is original and captivating, with her uncanny obsessions with bones. She comes off as indifferent with her raw and unfiltered style of life, however, with the right people, she shows a more caring and affectionate side. In comparison, Shoutarou plays the very stereotypical young-male-keeping-girl-detective-in-check. He can't help it, it's just the way that it has to be. The side characters (ex. Kougami, the teacher, and the officer) are neat in their own aspects, but none of them carry as much depth as Sakurako (naturally).

One undeniably good part of show was the animation and art. The usage of the colours set up the perfect mood and atmosphere, and the art was well done. Animation was fluid and realistic, and one recurring and beautiful scene was the transformation of Sakurako into detective mode. I personally found the OP much better than the ED, but both pieces were good, at the least.

If you're into mystery and you don't mind episodic stories, then I highly recommend you try Sakurako-san.

Best Girl: good ol' Sakurako


Taimadou Gakuen 35 Shiken Shoutai (12)

I Rate: 7.0/10.0
One Sentence: Turned out unexpectedly alright for your typical anime set in a magical academy, although it should be noted that the CG is awful.

Looking at the lineup season, I saw a lot of the usual "magical academy" type anime, however it was on a whim that I decided to watch Taimadou Gakuen 35 Shiken Shoutai. All that happened was that I saw it in the featured panel of Crunchyroll and thought that the art looked nice (which, by the way, it does... at times).

For plot, it's pretty much the usual. MC-kun (this time, played by Kusanagi) has some sort of weird quirk, but loves to get involved and save the people dear to him, and he'll go to any length to do it. There are a bunch of fights, a bunch of accidental (and not so accidental) skimpy scenes, and then some sort of giant fight that eventually culminates to nothing and effectively brings all the characters full circle (except for the fact that MC-kun's harem now have raging feelings for him).

Characters: they're... enjoyable? Even though they all represent classic archetypes of girls in any harem, most (ahem, Usagi) of them are actually pretty likable. While none of them contain any depth and will always remain two-dimensional, they made the show bearable.

One strong point of the show was the art... kinda? Everything looked pretty, and I enjoyed it a lot. Animation seemed to be decent enough for the simple scenes, but when it got to the heavy-duty scenes, CG was used... and it was atrocious. It really took away from any quality that the show had, and reminded me of KanColle (unfortunately). Asides from that, the music had an electro theme and was pretty good for the most part.

Overall, skip it rather than watch it. Probably right in the middle of the pack when it comes to its genre, seeing as there's nothing memorable about it.

Best Girl: ...let's go with Lapis

Happy (or is it?) New Year (2016 edition)

Before I start off the very first post of 2016, I have a confession to make.

I do not have anything special planned for this post.

In retrospect, I should have held back on the Christmas post and used that idea for this post instead, but what's done is done. So have my apologies for giving you a very plain and boring first post of the new year. Really, the only thing that I have done today is try to get my computer up and running (which I have finally finished).

Let me be honest with you. I've been slacking off on this blog lately. There's been a draft post (the conclusion to fall anime season) sitting for a week that I have hardly touched, and at one point, I actually forgot about it. I don't know if it's because I've been lenient and lazy because of the winter break, but hopefully things will change.

Once again, sorry for the dumb post, but I won't let that stop me from wishing you an awesome 2016 and the strength to get through another year.