Itazura na Kiss Review

Itazura na Kiss Review

Have you ever seen a series that makes you wish you take the place of a particular character? This series makes me feel just that way. It leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside after watching it. This is the only romance anime series that I have seen that does not leave me heartbroken mid way or leave me wanting more and more. I mean, sure, given the choice i would take more eps of Itazura na Kiss. But this series does not need more eps. It ended the best way it could.

From being in high school to growing up and then having kids. This series covers it all without being too hasty and without killing the mood by being draggy. The comedic moments are time just right so that it leaves you laughing yet not letting you miss out on any detail while you are laughing. This is definitely a relaxing series to watch. But not too mild like ‘Mushishi’ that you end up drifting off into dream land. (Dont get me wrong, I love Mushishi)

Just like all good ramance anime, you have to have moments of highs and lows, moments that pull on your heart strings yet ends it quickly before you get too emotionally involved that you would want to stop watching the show. (Bokura ga Ita did that to me =_= too painful to watch but I finished it)

From the screencaps you can probably see the way the art is like. All pastel in color with a nice and relaxing opening song that seems to carry an 80s feel to it which suits this anime so perfectly. A dreaming existence would be what i would call this anime. And by the end of the series, you would be in love with all the characters.

I have seen the other versions. That taiwanese version that had a huge hype was alright to me, the jap version wasn’t as nice as the taiwanese version, You would think that after watching so many different versions that basically tells the same story, I would be sick of this plot. Well, i thought so too. Since it came out the same time as Soul Eater and other way more interesting series that normally would out shine it. this way at the bottom of my list. But the thing is that this series surprised me. By mid way of the season, I was more interested in this series than any other series. It just left me wanting more and more and more of the characters. The feeling of this anime to me is so much more different to the live drama counterparts. Where the drama tries to be a comedy with romance in it, this tries to be a romance with comedy in it. And that is the way I love it.

7.5/10

So if like a good romance that would fill your Sunday. I would say this is my pick. And this series definitely has some rewatch value in it.

Kyou Kara Maou – Season 3 (End)

Kyou Kara Maou Season 3

Brief Summary (Spoilers and more spoilers)

This season basically revolves around the king of Big Shimaron being manipulated by a mysterious person who later turns out to be a reincarnation of the great sage as well called Janus. There is a mysterious group in this season called the ‘White Crows’ who seemed to work for the king of Big Shimaron, or so it seems before you find out that in actually fact they are working for a mysterious lady called Alazon. You later find out that she is the queen of Seisakoku. A race of humans with special powers and people have been seeing them as a form of gods but that country had disappeared a long time ago. And the head of the White Crows is Janus himself, yet why does it look like the great sage (just with added mysterious hippie face paint on his face?) That is because Alazon had created a body for him after he died and had brought him back to life looking like the Great Sage. Yet what a cruel fate he bears as he is a loyal servant to Shin Ou and no matter how he longs to meet Shin ou, he is unable to as everyday he has to return to Alazon to heal him so that he wont die as his powers come from Alazon. (his face paint is not explained at all =__= any thoughts on why his face looks that way?) As for our main sinister plotter – the king of Small Shimaron, Saralegi. He is the reason why the story unfolds the way it did. He is in actual fact the son of Alazon and with his powers he manage to manipulate everyone. The only one he did not want to manipulate through powers was Yuri as he say Yuri as a fun toy that could entertain him. Of course by the end of the ep all hell breaks loose and our King saves the world. But it seems like he has lost his powers for good. Or has he? =p

Review

It is a typical Kyou Kara Maou season, with favourite characters like Kohi and those annoying birds that never fail to make me laugh when they say “bad omen” in jap. It is hillarious. You have your filler eps in there as well that is as entertaining as ever and when the main plot takes over, you would wish there were more filler episodes in there as those are the only moments that lightened up the mood of this whole season.

I personally felt that the air was heavier this season. You get to see alot of Shori this season as well as he makes his was into the other world. But as fun as that can be, when he turned into another Konrad betraying Yuri, you just want to smack his head and smack yourself on the head as well. It is sweet to see the brotherly love but do we need a repeat of the heartbreak that Konrad had caused Yuri?

Saralegi annoyed me. He was fun and all but if he were real i would slap him across the face. He is beautiful and all, but he is one of those characters that is so tormented as a child that he got screwed up thinking that it was fine to treat people any way he pleased as long as he achieved his ultimate goal, anything goes.Thank god he became good by the end of the season. (And his mom reminds me of a witch from the Wizard of Oz)

And i have to cry out loud. Where is my Wolfram and Yuri moments?! I want more of it. Sure i dont really like the whole pairing of Wolfram with Yuri as much now that Wolfram is suddenly so much more feminine and seems to be giving into Yuri a bit more. But, does that mean Wolfram has learned to love Yuri for real? =D Or is it just Wolfram growing up slightly? But it is always interesting to see the chemistry and the situations that the both of them get into.

One thing that annoyed me was the lack of relation in the OVA. In the OVA Yuri had met Saralegi before, yet when they meet this time around it is their first time meeting. It seemed like the OVA was really a teaser that is somehow not related to this whole season at all. I could understand if at least in the OVA the both of them knew each other and then at the very least there would be a possibility to put that OVA ep somewhere in the season timeline. But rather it seemed like an alternate reality thing. That annoyed me slightly.

But now that the season is over, I want another season. The whole series ended on a high note and it pleased the audience with a happy ending. It is KKM after all, how could it be anything but happy?

As of yet there is not Season 4 in the plans. But hopefully we will see smth in the future.

If you have not watched KKM or Season 3 yet then I suggest you get to it ASAP. =)

It is a good thing to watch when you want some laughs, some action and some drama without having to concentrate too much. It is definitely smth for a lazy afternoon. ( but you might not want to watch it at night, or else you may end up staying awake for a very long time )

-ra out

Antique Bakery Review

Antique Bakery

Ahhh, this is one anime that leaves you confuse and unable to understand just how you feel about this anime.

Whilst this is not a great anime, it is never boring. Perhaps this can be seen as a peaceful anime (but not up to the level of Mushishi) with moments of comedy and some hints romance during the start of the anime inside.

There is only one main plot that runs throughout the whole series and that mainly revolves around the lead character Tachibana.
The buildup of the climax and plot from the beginning to until the end was steady and not too fast with each episode just letting you in on a little more information than the previous one.
However, the last episode fails to satisfy the viewer as the reaction that you would have expected to see since all the episodes before that seem to be a build up to suggest such a turnout was not what had happened. To put it simply, the ending while nice was also frustrating at the same time.

While i understand what the writers were trying to do with the last episode of the anime by making it the way it is.
I was very disappointed.
It is obvious that the writers were trying to create a sense of calmness and wanted nothing too dramatic to happen as that would be very unlike the previous episodes of this anime. But I personally feel that they were trying a bit too hard to push and create this illusion of peace.
Simply put, the last episode could have been much better if it were cut down to just being a 10 mins episode because the rest of the episode just felt that it was going around in circles, and the funny thing is that the character themselves seem to know that this whole series was just a huge circle whereby eventhough many things have happened, the ending scene’s situation was the same as when the anime first started off in its first episode.

So i am glad that this is a short series for if it were made into a 26 episode series, it may have just destroyed itself if the rest of the episodes were like the last one.

Overall, it is a good series (excluding the last ep) with a little bit of drama, comedy. romance, tension. suspense, mystery. But perhaps it is because it is so little of so many things, the whole series just seemed really average and would fail to make its viewers excited for the next episode. Sure you may feel the urge to watch the next episode and it may be a little hard to press the pause button to pick up a phone call during an episode, but it is not a good enough anime to make you want to lock yourself in your room and lock out all the connections to the outside world just so you can emerse yourself in the world of Antique Bakery.

So, while i do like this series, it is a nice anime to watch when I am bored but there are many other anime out there which would be able to satisfy me.

If you are looking for a BL anime then ‘Junjo Romantica’ may prove to be a better option.
Or if you are looking for one that is about baking, then perhaps ‘Yakitate Japan’ would be a better choice.
So unless you have nothing much better to watch, this anime may be your choice of entertainment.

Rating: 6.5/10
(Its good but thats all it is. Nothing that would make me too excited to want to protest for another season.)

Antique Bakery – 01

Antique Bakery on ANN

To satisfy our thirst for BoyLove and Yaoi goodness, this season presents us with a new BL series! After the first season of Junjo ended i was left with a void in my life (and yes, I am being melodramatic here). I am glad to say that Antique Bakery does a relatively good job of filling up that void.

Koisora (Sky of Love) J-Movie

I am not really one to review movies but I can’t keep what i feel about this movie in.

While it is not a horrible movie, it is neither great.

It is mediocre and unsettling to watch. Though this is based on a true story, the story itself if rather unbelievable.