The New Matthew’s Anime Blog

Cookin’ Idol I! My! Mine! 1

And for the first show of the new spring season we have something educational for the kids, Cookin’ Idol I! My! Mine!. Since this runs Monday-Friday I’ll only post if there’s something I find amusing about the episode.

Director: Hiroshi Watanabe
Series Composition: Miharu Hiromi
Character Design: Atsuko Nakajima
Animation Production: Studio DEEN
Monday – Friday, 17:40-17:50 on NHK Educational

Opening: “The Kitchen is My Stage” sung by Haruka Fukuhara
  

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Main (that’s “mine”, not “main”) is an 11 year old aspiring idol that has a penchant for daydreaming. Today’s her big first job on stage and she’s pretty nervous about it, so her manager (and owner of the talent agency), Yuria, suggests that she imagine the audience as being cabbage. Thanks to Main’s overactive imagination, she bursts out singing a song…. about cabbage (　ﾟДﾟ)ﾎﾟｶｰﾝ So no more of that show for Main after that performance. However, there’s still hope — an audition for a show called Cookin’ Idol is coming up.

Meanwhile, in the land of cooking fairies, there’s warning of an impending danger of the dinner tables on Earth losing their power, so someone will have to be sent to make sure people enjoy eating again. That one happens to be Misanga, who falls to Earth to find a partner who is pure of heart and that can see him.

The Cookin’ Idol audition is Main’s last chance to make it… or else she’s fired. Misanga ends up at the studio thanks to jumping into a cabbage truck, and Main happens to find him — she can see him, so she must be it! Main goes off into her own world yet again singing about cabbages, while those around her see her dancing with a cabbage (　ﾟДﾟ)ﾎﾟｶｰﾝ However, the producer of the show seems to like Main.

–segue into about a minute of live action here–

…which I won’t cap since I’m only really interested in the anime part — no offense to Haruka Fukuhara-chan (10 years old), who provides Main’s voice and plays her in the live action cooking part. Her voice is pretty decent, actually, though perhaps the singing could use a bit of work. Ganbare!

Anyways, as y’all know this blog’s motto is “Kawaii wa seigi!” (It is?), and I like watching kids’ shows for a change of pace. Main’s plenty cute and her daydreaming gives potential for some amusing chaos, so I’ll keep on watching.

Added 8:29PM: Geez, guys, already doing fanart of Main? Well, yeah, the character design is very ooki na otomodachi friendly (that’s NHK quality for you there!). Here’s the tag on Pixiv (registration required to view large images, btw).

Tags: Anime, Cookin' Idol I! My! Mine!, Spring 2009

Winter Season Review Part 1: Minamike Okaeri, CLANNAD after story, Asu no Yoichi!

Yes, I’ve been slacking off as usual, and that isn’t likely to change soon since that’s my natural state (^^;; Anyways, thought I’d go through the shows that ended recently and give a quickie review on each. I really don’t like giving out number ratings and such, but in this case I’ll do it based on this blogger survey at Game ya anime ni tsuite bosoboso to kataru hito which rates shows on the following six categories on a 1-5 scale (for a total of 30 points max): Story, Characters, Visual, Direction, Music, and Overall.

Minamike Okaeri

Story: 4
A move back closer to the feel of the first season of Minamike which makes up for what happened to Minamike Okawari. Respected the original manga, and the original parts were entertaining as well.

Characters: 5
Easily 5 for the lovable cast of characters… well, I don’t know if you’d call Hosaka lovable, but just his presence onscreen made me laugh. I was glad to see that Touma got some more screentime this season. Her stupid brothers, especially Natsuki, were funny as well. However, my favorite’s Uchida (then Chiaki).

Visual: 3
The one disappointing part of the show as the animation quality from Asreed was simply good enough most of the time. Naoto Hosoda’s part in episode 12 gets a 5+, though (his Uchida is much too cute). I’m sure Shinpei Tomooka would’ve done a better job in the B part of that episode if the schedule weren’t as rough as it seemed.

Direction: 3
Stayed true to the feel of the original manga, though rather average for the most part with nothing really standing out to me.

Music: 4
Excellent OP/ED, good music in show kept from previous seasons.

Overall: 4
I’m very satisfied with how it turned out. Hoping for another season after more stock of the manga is built up.

Total: 23

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CLANNAD after story

Story: 4.5
“CLANNAD is life”, as a 2channeler once said, going farther than those other galge that simply end after high school. Engrossing from beginning to end. A bit off for the somewhat complicated “true” ending involving parallel timelines.

Characters: 5
Easily a 5. Tomoya’s growth from beginning to end was quite pronounced and shown well. Sanae-san and Akki were always amusing in some way. Heroines were all attractive in their own ways. I favor Fuko (which is probably no surprise to most of you). And, Ushio-chan kawaii yo Ushio-chan.

Visual: 5
It’s KyoAni. Just everyday work for them.

Direction: 5
It’s KyoAni. Just everyd(ry Had to reach for the kleenex more than once through the last few episodes.

Music: 5
Excellent OP/ED, and music (as expected from a Key game).

Overall: 5
Yes, I’m a Key fan, I bought the AIR and Kanon DVDs and will grab CLANNAD as well. Easily recommended for those that liked those previous works. I could grab the PSP version of CLANNAD, but I doubt I’d be able to get all the way through it (^^;;

Total: 29.5

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Asu no Yoichi!

Story: 3
A good adaptation of the well-worn harem genre that’s pretty faithful to the original (that I quickly scanned). Good mix of comedy and not too serious seriousness.

Characters: 4
Yes, Asu no Yoichi!’s characters are pretty much the usual stock characters for this genre, but since they were well used, no problems. Wassan was especially entertaining. Wishing that Kagome-chan got more time in the spotlight.

Visual: 4
High quality animation every episode as is required for this genre (if the heroines aren’t cute, who would watch?). Good job, AIC.

Direction: 3
The usual for the genre, but solid nonetheless.

Music: 3
Nothing that stood out that much to me, but plenty good enough.

Overall: 4
I looked forward to watching every week. I have absolutely no problem with shows that aren’t “innovative” so long as they execute well.

Total: 21

Tags: Asu no Yoichi!, CLANNAD, CLANNAD after story, Minamike, Minamike Okaeri, Winter 2009

Console war moefication P.S. Three-san gets a drama CD

[As posted on Japanator]

The PlayStation 3 has had a rough time of it so far in this round of the console wars — no matter how hard it tries it can’t beat the Wii or the XBox 360. An artist named IKa has turned the unlucky PS3, its rivals, and its predecessors into moe characters and chronicled the ups and downs of Three-san’s seemingly futile fight against Wii-san and Hakomaru-san (“box” and “circle” put together, a nickname for the XBox 360) in an online 4-koma titled P.S. Three-san. Though the management at Sony might not garner much sympathy for their troubles, you can’t help but feel sorry for cute Three-san. Of course, the portable consoles DS-chan and Pii-chan (PSP) make appearances, and Sega-san shows up every now and then to cause trouble with her erratic behavior.

The online 4-koma was published as a collection last year, and today it was announced that a drama CD is on the way. I’m sure a lot of you will recognize some of the seiyuu assembled for it, including Kaori Mizuhashi as Three-san, Mika Kanai as Sega-san, Yui Horie as Wii-san, Asami Shimoda as Hakomaru-san, Chiaki Takahashi as Hako-san (XBox), Satsuki Yukino as Two-san (PS2), Ryou Hirohashi as DS-chan, Emiri Kato as Pii-chan, Tomoko Kaneda as Grandma Famicom, Hekiru Shiina as Dreamcast-san, and Yuko Goto as 32X-senpai. Quite an impressive cast, don’t you think? The drama CD is currently preorder-only and scheduled to release on May 8.

[via YU-SHOW-san at Suki Suki Daisuki]

Tags: Drama CD, Gaming, P.S. Three-san, PS3

Snow Day

Good afternoon, everybody. Not at work today since the University of Georgia is closed due to the 5-7 inches of snow we got around Athens yesterday. Snow’s not melting a whole lot, so schools might be closed tomorrow, too. Unlike y’all up north, we don’t know how to deal with this much snow. Didn’t help that the power was out from Sunday afternoon until this morning (^^;;

I got Tales of Eternia and Idolmaster SP Wandering Star from YesAsia in Friday, and since there wasn’t much to do with the power out yesterday, I played PSP. Mostly Eternia, though. Iori’s gonna be mad at me for not keeping a promise to produce yesterday (^^;; I actually hadn’t played Idolmaster (only watched videos and such), so I had to learn how to do the producer thing — harder than it looks (^^;; Iori’s only at rank E now, so there’s still a long way to go. I’ll do Ami/Mami after I make Iori top idol.

Tags: Gaming, PSP, Random Stuff

Random Stuff for Feb. 20: PSP Get!, etc.

Hey, y’all! It’s been a month since I posted last. Miss me?…. orz. I’ve been tweeting rather than blogging since it requires less effort to write 120 characters (or less) than do a whole post. Can’t help being lazy (^^;; So, follow me on Twitter if you want to know what I’m up to these days (which ain’t that much).

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Anyways, tax refund came in last week so I put it to use and finally got a PlayStation Portable — the Rachet & Clank bundle to be specific. Though I don’t really like Rachet & Clank, but whatever. Also picked up Star Ocean Second Evolution since I loved the original Star Ocean 2 (I own the soundtrack, too. Motoi Sakuraba fan). English voices are passable for the most part (though I would’ve liked an option to turn them off).

Speaking of Star Ocean, any of y’all planning to get Star Ocean 4 when it’s released in a few days? Too bad the NA release is English voices only… would’ve gotten it if it included the Japanese voices. Watching some playthroughs on Nico Nico Douga now — Miyuki Sawashiro as Lymle is great (don’t call her a Rozen Maiden).

Anyways, also ordered Idolmaster SP Wandering Star and Tales of Eternia (port of the PS1 game) from Yes Asia and should be getting them in a week or so. And if you thought that I got a PSP mostly for Idolmaster… you’re right (^^;;

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And here are recent anime purchases — CLANNAD collection 1 and ARIA The NATURAL part 1. CLANNAD is very much a no-frills release compared to ARIA. Very good job with the extras, RightStuf. Interesting to note that CLANNAD is branded as a Sentai Filmworks release, not ADV Films.

And on the side, seeing Nagisa on the cover after recent eps of CLANNAD After Story… ・ﾟ・(つД｀)・ﾟ・

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And that’s all the stuff I’ve gotten lately. I should cut down on the anime/game expenses a bit (^^;;

Already watched this week’s Shugo Chara! on Crunchyroll (impressions… Amu-chan kawaii yo Amu-chan…), so I guess I’ll get back to Star Ocean for a bit. Later, y’all.

Crunchyroll Working on Video Quality

…at least they’re working on it for Naruto. Here’s the news post from Shinji:

Hi guys,

We’ve been working hard this week trying to get the video quality better. We were finally able to get the raws for Naruto Shippuden 90, so we re-encoded it and replaced the old videos. To the Anime Members, please give me some feedback for the HD versions! Since we have the raws, we’re able to use better telecine cadence detection to minimize blended frames and made the animation smoother.

We’re currently working on tonight’s simulcast, Episode 93. Hopefully we’ll have it encoded in the same way before the launch tonight! If we don’t finish encoding with the raw, we have a lower quality version as a backup (until the better version is ready of course).

A quick look at the 480p stream of today’s Naruto shows much improved quality with much less frame blending (and such). Though my Eee PC struggles to play it (^^;; Hopefully this week’s Shugo Chara! will show the same improvement. I appreciate that they’re working on things and keeping us informed of what’s going on.