Magical Canan 1
Moyism has his thoughts up. Also check out Jasc's review of the first episode.
A floating city in the sky at night.. a very tough looking guy with a sword enters a room. In it are these crystals... Apparently very important things that were stolen and taken to the human world. The Queen orders someone to go and collect them. These чио tane, "seeds", are very dangerous things that might lead to the destruction of the human world and Evergreen...
A magical seal appears above a school in the human world... and at that school some girls have come back from the pool to change, and in the changing room is a strange animal. Chihaya, a high school student though she doesn't look it at all, spies the animal hiding then one of her friends, Miyuri, takes a broom to get rid of it. But it makes a getaway only to be caught by the school nurse. Chihaya talks about that strange thing with Miyuri and Sayaka... even though it's the first time she saw it, she feels kind of natsukashii. Miyuri thinks she must be sick or something to say something like that, so they go off to the nurse's office, where it seems that animal's just about to be dissected. Chihaya stops the nurse, saying it's her pet. But she was just going to take out a splinter ;)
Chihaya takes it home with her, but it doesn't seem to be in too good a mood. The crystal on its collar begins to flash and it jumps outside and onto the street, so Chihaya goes to retrieve it. Three waitresses that work at the cafe speculate on what it is and Chihaya just says it's a stuffed animal. It's soaking wet, so Chihaya gives it a nice warm bath. And while the bath it seems to be in a better mood, saying "chuu, chuu" all the time. Chihaya takes that to mean it wants a kiss ("chuu") and when she kisses it the crystal lights up and then begins to sound like it did before.
On the street, two thugs have just robbed a guy. Behind them, that demon-looking thing from earlier appears and it sends one of those "seeds" into one of the guys, turning him into a monster. Chihaya and the animal run to the scene, with the little thing trying to fight the monster, but to no avail. They eventually get chased up to the roof and are cornered when Chihaya holds on to the animal and...
It's henshin time! And 45 seconds later, after a rather ecchi transformation, Chihaya has gotten *ahem* bigger *ahem*, has red hair and a magical staff. She's just a bit surprised at all of that, of course ;) She then hears a voice telling her what to do and she fights the monster, eventually defeating it, and getting that "seed" back. And who was that telling her what to do? A guy named Natsuki introduces himself... he was that cute furry animal from earlier.. thanks to Chihaya he's gotten some of his power back. She's his partner, the magical warrior that protects the human world from the threat of those "seeds", Carmine!
I think we covered all the bases the first episode of your typical mahou shoujo should have, right ;) It's too early for me to make any kind of judgements here, but my first impression is kinda average. It certainly didn't start off good -- the opening was just a montage of scenes from this episode, so I'm going to hope there will be a proper one in the next couple of weeks (the same way there was with Girls Bravo). Our mahou shoujo, Chihaya, is a pretty cute character, and if any of y'all have watched Kaleido Star her voice will be very, very familiar to you as that of Sora. Sounds almost exactly the same, but that's fine with me :) Mizuki Nana is also in the show as Sayaka, who also happens to be the mahou senshi, Cerulean Blue, so I'm hoping for some her soon. And if Natsuki doesn't get to be the usual annoying mascot I'll be pleased as well. And if some y'all are feeling you've heard something like this before... yup, the whole setup does rather resemble Nanoha, doesn't it? ;) Though minus the awesome opening and other things for now...
Following blog policy here, I'll keep on watching for a few more episodes and have more for y'all. Hopefully things can get a bit better from here on out. My mahou shoujo bias will probably be influencing me here, so take what I say with that in mind ;) Your comments are welcome as usual.
So its Nanoha minus the awesome opening song and great animation?
Wonderful.
*wishes Triad would hurry up with Nanoha*
Hmmmm, Sora's VA you say? I might have to check this out, even if Mahou Shoujo isn't usually my thing. Also, bad reviews usually intrigue me more than good reviews for some reason =).
This sounds a lot like Nanoha, which is a lot like Figure 17, which is a lot like any number of other anime.
I'm detecting a lack of originality here......
wonder how well this will work out? Since basically the hentai version involved Chihaya and Natsuki working out their differences, etc, etc.
LOL, probably going to watch this anyway. So if you give up blogging it Matt I'll probably be doing it anyway. ;)
I actually thought it was good :]
It is a lot like Nanoha, but c'mon, i mean it's mahou shoujo... they can't be too original :P
I haven't seen it yet, but the henshin's eechier than Nanoha's was? That was the first one I've seen where the clothes disentegrated in stages instead of coming off all at once. :)
Hey, I didn't say it was so bad I'd stop watching it, lol. I'm probably going to stick with it no matter what. Y'all know how much I like mahou shoujo ;)
Matthew, have you ever seen Nurse Angel Ririka SOS? It's an older one, and pretty much still only available on VHS fansubs, but it's quite good. It has some very lovely plot twists you don't see coming, and an ending that'll make you bawl. :) It's one of my absolute favorite Mahou Shoujo series! (You should see my cel collection from it. ^_^)
No, I haven't seen that (or a lot of the older ones for that matter) :)
I need to figure out what tapes I have stored where (I had an unexpected and sudden move back in 2002 when my job disapeared when the IT job market slumped). I've got all of Ririka, actually I think I have 3 full sets, I love it so much I was obsessed with having the best set possible. My best set was direct from SVHS master tapes. ^_^
I've got all of Hime-chan no Ribon too, although I can't say I've seen it all. It's a quite different magical girl show. If you've seen it and Minky Momo you know what the mortal enemy of magical girls everywhere are though. ^_-
Yes, I'm really making myself sound ancient here aren't I? o_O I actually ran a VHS fansub distro at one point, nowadays I can't imagine anyone doing that anymore, but that's mainly because I don't see much demand for VHS anime period, fansub or commercial. Weird how quick the anime market switched to DVD. LD died first, which was fun to be around, I picked up a commercial-grade player and tons of anime LDs for next to nothing. Of course right now the LD player's sitting behind the couch because I have nowhere to set it by the TV and hook it up... *sigh*
But to end on a happy note, got blanks today, downloaded DVD image, did a trial burn, both Apex players I have play DVD+Rs just fine and dandy! ^_^ I also found a great deal on a motherboard/cpu combo so with luck I'll get a new computer put together this year finally. :) (This is a really big deal for me as right now I'm having to watch all my digisubs on a laptop from work, which I won't have much longer because I'm finishing up the project it belongs to.)
Sorry to post so much. ^_^;;;;
Sugoi~~! You've definitely got me beat. I am nowhere near that hardcore, lol ;)
Oh... see 3 episodes (DVD rips) of Nurse Angel Rirka SOS on AnimeSuki. Guess I'll get those and check it out :)
Ehh, not hardcore really, I did the distroing mainly because I wanted to share and help others get anime the way people had helped me. I'm also an obsessive collector, and a close friend helped me out by letting me copy some of his fansubs that weren't supposed to be in distribution anymore (specifically Fushigi Yuugi, I actually have the entire fansub version of it.) I used that as a base to trade with others for things I wanted that you couldn't just get from a regular distro (all reputable ones pulled tapes when a series was licensed, it was HARD to get licensed fansubs until digisubs became widespread). So a little here, a little there.
Actually the guy who convinced me to distro (and I played by the rules when I was distroing, no licensed stuff offered) and I traded back and forth for over a few years. We'd wear out those big priority mail boxes in a couple of months, were doing regular 20+ tape trades a month. :) Of course after a bit we were even copying commerical tapes and LDs to trade back and forth as friends, but it was still a blast. Incidentially he introduced me to a friend of his online who was doing a post-doc in Japan. That friend and I hit it off bigtime, and he invited me to stay with him if I could manage to make it over. Thanks to that, and timing my visit around Thanksgiving, I was able to pull off a two week vacation in Japan. I've missed it ever since oddly enough, even though the US is home, Japan felt more like where I belonged. Hard to explain, and it's not all just about anime/manga stuff. :)
Anyway I'd hesitate to call me hardcore, a skilled negotiater perhaps, but I've only been seriously into anime since 1996. I have a VHS fansub collection that makes it look like I've been one since near the beginning though. I lost count, but I have somewhere near 1000 tapes. :) I need to see if I still have a copy of the tape list, had some hard drive failures around the time of the move so it may be gone.
BTW, this is kinda sad and funny both, grabbed this month's Newtype USA and in the "now showing" section they've added Rozen Maiden. Their description of Episode 2 says Tomoe stops by with homework, this depresses Jun, and Tomoe goes home to discover she has a Rozen Maiden doll too now, demanding she play with her. Ummm, you know, even without knowing any Japanese I could have given a more accurate summation of that episode from watching a raw. ^_^;;; How did they not notice Hina Ichigo with Tomoe at the beginning of the episode? o_O Annoying, but I buy it mainly for the art so it's not quite as bad as it sounds, but man they need a new editorial staff.
I do find it amusing that most of the new series they added to the list you've already finished blogging the whole series. ^_^ Arrggh, sorry to post such a huge post yet again. I'm in a happy talkative mood tonight though. ^_^
Hehe :) I do have an e-mail addy you know, if you want to chat some more about stuff, lol. You don't hafta keep posting on here, though feel free to if ya want to :)
matt, thanks for the link for magical canan even though my thoughts weren't much. LOL
Maestro, funny you mention FY VHS fansubs. I actually have the whole TV series VHS fansubbed laying around that I borrowed from my friend who borrowed from some church friends. (Un)fortunately, I *still* have these tapes though it's been 5+ yrs already. XD
Heh, there's definitely something natsukashii listening to folks talk about the good ol' days of VHS. I came in relatively recently ('99 or so) around when VHS was rather in decline, but I've had (and heard) my share of stories. (btw I was pre-warned about Newtype's editorial 'quality' so I haven't been buying it..).
So..Magical Canan is a Nanoha clone.. could sorta see that just from the screenshots, but your description makes it sound even more so. (Still gonna end up watching it, though...blasted mahou shoujo addiction..)
One of these days there's actually going to be an original take on mahou shoujo and we're all going to be totally shocked...but I guess we have to be patient a little while longer.
UNLESS it suddently takes a turn midway through the series. I somehow doubt this, though.
I was surprised by the editorial content being so off, but like I said I buy it mainly for the art. I was buying it imported back as early as 2000 for the same reasons, at least it costs less this way. ^_^;;; I do think it's pretty sad though, if someone who doesn't know any Japanese can do better summations, what the heck are they paying those people for? They need to hire Matthew and Moyism, and everyone else who does such a great job blogging about the series! ^_^
Sounds like you're like me moyism, I tend to forget to return things for ages too sometimes. ^_^;;;
maestro, you're praising us too much ^_^;; And yea, it's also news to me about NewType but much like maestro I really only buy it for the art. Nowadays though, I can't really forsee myself buying US NewType considering the price (even $10 back in the day was a tad pricey) when we have great online sources like Momotato, Matthew's, Memento, etc, etc.
btw, it's not like I really wanted to keep the tapes. I see the guy like once-twice an week but he has no need for them and hasn't been in contact with the person he borrowed it from long ago. Actually, my friend also leaves random stuff at my place even though he's usually over a lot. His ZOIDs model and two gundam models (well, suppose to sell the gundams for him but never get around to it) have been in my room for god knows how long. LOL
> So its Nanoha minus the awesome opening song and great animation?
but plus inflatable boobs. Which some people wouls probably see as a bonus.
I know how you feel Moyism, I may give up on it too, seems every month the best stuff from Newtype Japan and Megami are scanned in and posted online anyway, and the content is definitely looking less and less appealing. I would miss a few of the columns, I love reading the one that's written by one of the members of Clamp, but it's not quite worth the ~$10. o_O
I have a portable CD player that sorta doesn't belong to me, but sorta does. My friend "loaned" it to me on my way back from Japan, but he has others and it was basically a "Here, I'll loan it to you, I don't want it back" kinda thing. :) I don't even use it anymore since I ended up getting a CD/Mp3 portable for the car and then an iPod this fall for work. ^_^
Shiroi Hane: Speaking of inflatable boobs, if you see a copy of Computer Games on the newstand flip through it. There's a screenshot from an early test/goof in one game, the character's boobs are about 5000 times larger than she is! :)