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Usually when I forget about a show it’s a sign that I should perhaps give up on it, that it obviously hasn’t made an impression and that I watch too many shows anyway. Thus I have dropped Zetman and, er, that show with the girl in the countryside and the guys sworn to protect her. [...]
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One thing why I probably like Kimi to Boku is how much it can actually reflect real life. Real relationships. Real people. I really liked this episode despite the little less comedy it offered. Sure the Asaba brothers are a couple of stoic looking characters, but they can actually make me laugh really hard. The [...]
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In The Steam Aww, twin love is probably one of the strongest bonds there is. I kind of always wished I had a twin. I’ve got an Irish twin, but that’s completely different. Me and my brother were born the same month, a year and 4 days apart. We aren’t really as close as typical [...]
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I may have been a little too soon in saying that this show hit its stride last week, since this episode went back to its old slow pace. The first half of this episode had me a little concerned. Were we really going to watch Yuki do nothing for twenty minutes? The introduction of the "brothers fight and then make up" plot arc was appreciated and prevented the episode from becoming a complete waste of time, yet I can't say that it was good overall. The twins are enjoyable characters, but a lot of that comes from the way they play off the rest of the cast in this series. The two of them alone was, quite frankly, boring. They even had to bring in Kaname for a while to remind the viewers that they can be funny, given the right prompting. I don't think that it was a good idea to give an entire episode to the characters whose only function in the show are to act as comedy foils. There was a chance here to expand their characters beyond "Yuta is the responsible one and Yuki just doesn't care" but nothing in this episode happened other than to reaffirm what we already know. Watching this episode, I felt as if Yuki's laziness had affected the entire staff; the off-model animation was back in full force, along with the use of blank or solid color backgrounds whenever possible. Even when the episode decided to have something resembling a plot, it was resolved in the laziest way possible as well. I have no idea how Yuta found the plate, which was obviously what caused him to forgive (or at least, decide to tolerate) Yuki's laziness. Yuki was shown as the one who found it... yet this was after they had their argument, and they weren't talking to each other. Unless that was supposed to be Yuta and I got the two mixed up. If that's the case, then this episode has more problems with its art direction than I thought, since it's usually pretty easy to tell the two apart. Part of my disappointment in this episode has to do with the season it's airing in; while the reaffirmation of the bond between brothers was nice, there is a different show this season that's pulled off that sentiment in a much better way. Space Bros may a be a bit of an unfair comparison since the aims of these two shows are obviously different, but since they both try to take a realistic approach I think that the comparison is merited. If Space Bros is the bar, then this episode did not reach it. I wouldn't be so hard on this show if I didn't already know that it can do better than this, and following up those great episodes with a lackluster one was definitely not what I expected. To be fair though, this episode was like a lot of the first season, so I'm just going to put this one as a "miss" in the frequent "hit or miss" nature of this show. I'm also getting more and more interested in the source material, but probably not for the reasons intended. Is this just a result of adapting the manga? Was it this slowly paced in the original? Did the studio have very little content that they had to stretch over an episode? I'm interested if any of my readers are familiar with the manga, since I'm genuinely curious. As for the episode, there's always next week. Current tally: Two (2) Episode(s) without Shun in drag, zero (0) consecutive, one (1) where he does not appear at all. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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An episode without Chizuru gets an instant down raiting for me. You see, what is good about Chizuru is how he stirs the gang to something interesting. Always gets them in some form of situation or mess, while we enjoy the reaps of each character’s charms. But nevertheless, this week’s episode did had a decent [...]
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I meant to post this a few days ago. I must have pushed the wrong button. Tasogare Otome x Amnesia 2 is a meet-and-greet in two parts. We don’t learn anything more about Yuuko’s death in either one, but we do get some information on what ghosts can and can’t do in this world, and [...]
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The least mature person in the episode was the reindeer man, in my opinion. What kind of person steals candy on Christmas Eve? The comments at the beginning and the end of the episode by Azuma-sensei--he always thought that time would make him an adult--provided a nice thematic frame for the episode as a whole. This week focused a lot on the difference between perceived age (from the way that someone looks and acts) and someone's actual age. Akira played an extremely small role in the previous season, so I had no opinion of him (my assumption was that he was Azuma-sensei's boyfriend, since this show seems to encourage me to think in those terms). This episode provided the right amount of fleshing out to his character, since I'm pretty sure that he'll continue to be a side character that'll show up every now and again to ruffle Chizuru's feathers. It reminds me a lot of the relationship that Chizuru and Kaname have, come to think of it... Anyway, watching Akira chose to act childish (even oblivious in some cases) while still insisting that he's an adult ("I have a job!") was interesting in the context of Azuma-sensei's statement. What makes an adult anyway? The answer the episode seems to be getting at is reliability; our heroes, the teenagers, are more reliable than the children--who take their free candy, tease one of their own for believing in Santa Claus and then walk away--yet they can't always pull off what they set out to do--they lose the balloon, can't catch the thief, and then forget their DVDs, which was the whole point of going to the mall. On the other hand, Akira wins his trust in style, stopping the thief and saving the kid all in one swoop. And Azuma-sensei is observant enough to know who the DVD bag belonged to. Of course, this ties into the idea of maturity as well, and Akira also proves that acting like a kid doesn't mean that you have the maturity level of one. However, that's not to say that this episode was an in-depth look at what it means to grow up; the usual antics were still there, with everybody getting on Kaname's nerves, Chizuru trying to look cool and failing, and Shun in a Mrs. Claus outfit. However, I think that Kimi to Boku may have finally hit its stride in balancing humor with an interesting insight on life, which it's tried before with mixed results. I might be biased here, but I think that a good slice-of-life show should do just that. Or maybe I'm reading to much into it. You tell me. Current tally: One (1) Episode(s) without Shun in drag, zero (0) consecutive. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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I feel weird watching a Christmas episode when I’m currently having my summer vacation. BUT I have to admit that this episode sure was fun. It was funny how one simple thing they do actually draws to the bigger picture of the story. I just noticed that Chizuru actually is the one that brings them [...]
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This show is trolling us. I’m here being burned alive in this hot summer, watching these kid complain the cold. Maybe we should switch places so that I can relieve myself in this hell. Anyway, less stellar episode this week. There isn’t much drama here. We only got Chizuru messing around with Choco Banana. Oh [...]
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Commencing gross fangirl sobbing in three…two…one…~ Even though the wait for Kimi to Boku’s second season wasn’t extremely long, I still needed something Kimi to Boku to fangirl over. I actually ended up reading the manga (with art that’s OH SO CUTE) and read this chapter. I just…I can already feel the tears coming… It’s [...]
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My heart just melt. It’s a pity that no one in my sphere seems to understand the awesomeness of this series. But damn. I really wish Mary would at least notice Chizuru. Forget what I said about Chizuru’s out of nowhere infatuation with Mary. I felt his honesty and his fears. This has been a [...]
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Mary’s Christmas Oh man, that entire rumour skit was fantastic. It made me crack up, especially when Chizuru jumped on Kaname whilst Koichi(teacher)questioned that rumour. But anyway, it’s all cute, funny yet sad at the same time that Chizuru cares for Mary, yet she kinda just ignores him all the time. It’s actually pretty upsetting [...]
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Mary’s Christmas Oh man, that entire rumour skit was fantastic. It made me crack up, especially when Chizuru jumped on Kaname whilst Koichi(teacher)questioned that rumour. But anyway, it’s all cute, funny yet sad at the same time that Chizuru cares for Mary, yet she kinda just ignores him all the time. It’s actually pretty upsetting [...]
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Title context! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway, after a lackluster start, this is the show I've been looking forward to. The show has dumped the usual shenanigans and jumped right into the romance, and I couldn't be happier. I can't even say if the animation improved this week because I was completely distracted by how cute this episode was. Chizuru and Mary were characters that grew on me over the first season; Chizuru I was mostly indifferent towards although I found him funny, and I didn't like Mary for a while because of the way she was first introduced. She's calmed down a lot since then, but she's still got a ways to go in learning not to take things so seriously, as shown in this episode. It was nice to see that she didn't lash out violently whenever something didn't go the way that she planned; the only instance I can think of in this episode was when she slapped Chizuru's hand away when he was looking at the bear, which is a big improvement for her. Putting the couple of the hour aside for a moment, there were also a lot of great back-and-forth moments between the characters this week, especially between the twins and Kaname. There were also brief references to events that happened last season, like the fact that they're still on "bread duty" so that Yuki can collect stickers. It's nice to know that this slice-of-life didn't go for a complete reset and is building on what happened previously instead. Speaking of development, let's get back to Mary and Chizuru. I still think that Mary is headed straight down the path of heartbreak since Shun is nice to everyone. Rather than worrying about him misunderstanding something, she should be worried about herself misunderstanding... Anyway, Chizuru continues to stack up brownie points be being more concerned with Mary's happiness than his own. Building off of last season, he clearly knows where he stands; however, that doesn't mean he's completely bottling up his feelings either. He half-jokingly attacks Kaname in this episode for walking home with Mary and accidentally starting a rumor, yet I can't picture him doing the same thing if similar events happened with Shun. He doesn't correct the woman at the bakery when she mistakes them for a couple, but he still defends her later when the guys in his class try to tease Kaname using the present. There's an interesting contrast going on here, where he's not against furthering his own interests but draws the line when Mary isn't happy. I initially thought that it was a little sad that he couldn't give her the present he bought properly, but it made her happy in the end, which was the point all along. I hope that Mary comes around on her own. If she just likes guys who are nice and will stand up for her, then what she wants is closer than she thinks... Current tally: One (1) Episode(s) without Shun in drag, zero (0) consecutive. (Yes, I will be keeping up with this.) Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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