Sunday, May 30, 2010

there wasnt much action featured in Angel Beats!'s 9th episode but it did bring the series to a point where the "direction" of the series is finally revealed...

Kanade lies on the bed, unconscious after absorbing all those other Harmonics. Yuri tells Otonashi that it was her fault that caused her to be like that but Otonashi acknowledges her as a good leader and had chosen the right decision to protect everyone. Otonashi then once again looks over at Kanade and whispers that she once said that no one gets sick here and there was no need for hospitals and "asks" her why wasn't she waking up. Back in the meeting room, the main problem now was about which Kanade will awake, the old Kanade that had fun with everyone or the bloodthirsty ones which she had absorbed and everyone knows that the chance of Kanade returning to her old self was unlikely due to the amount of other consciousness she had absorbed. Meanwhile, Otonashi fell asleep beside the unconscious Kanade and he starts to remember more about his life. After the train had got into an accident, Otonashi had survived and was shocked when he stood up and sees many injured and dead passengers around him in the train cabin. He then sees another injured man and quickly goes off to help him and the two of them escape from the train. Outside, Otonashi sees the problem, which was a collapsed wall in the tunnel and was blocked. The person whom Otonashi had helped was called Igarashi and the two of them return to the train and help bring the survivors out. Otonashi then takes the torchlight and leaves to check on the other side of the tunnel but sees that it was blocked. Otonashi then bends down due to a sudden pain that he felt and realises that he was quite badly injured as well. With him being the one with medical knowledge, Otonashi was looked on by the others as the "leader" and all the food and water are to be shared amongst the rest equally. On day 3 in the collapsed tunnel, Otonashi encounters the first victim and was unable to revive him using CPR and feels useless once again since he had studied hard to become a doctor, in hope of saving other people. On day 7, everyone was exhausted and most of the people are already feeling weak due to the lack of food and water and are barely alive. Otonashi sees that they might not be rescued at this rate and borrowed a pen from Igarashi and sign on a medical card to prove that he'll donate his organs after he's brain dead as he feels that this way it would make his life much more meaningful and that he would have saved someone else. Everyone was motivated to do the same and when Igarashi was praising Otonashi for "saving" everyone's life, Otonashi dies from his injury and moments later, the rescuers break down the blocked wall. Otonashi awakes to see Kanade patting his head and felt relieved after seeing that it was her old self that had returned. Otonashi tells her about his life and that he feels satisfied that his body would have saved someone else and it was still a meaningful life. He suddenly thought that he'll disappear which Kanade tells him that he will if he doesn't have anymore regret in his own life. Otonashi then feels that it would be better if everyone could feel fulfilled in their lives and leave this world happy and start a new life. After having said that sentence, Otonashi suddenly realises that THAT was exactly what Kanade had been trying to do alone, to make everyone feel fulfilled and to leave this world happy. Kanade sees that Otonashi should have disappeared after feeling fulfilled but he did not, which meant that, that was not his true regret. Kanade had actually wanted to make everyone lead a fulfilled youth life here and tried to persuade those who wanted to remain in this world and thus began to fight with them. Otonashi then believes that with his help, both Kanade and him would be able to help the others leave this world and asks Kanade to act accordingly to his plan which she agrees. Under Otonashi's request, she returns to be her student council president and appears to have forgotten the time spent with the SSS so as to allow the SSS to have an enemy again and to distract Yuri and that Otonashi would be able to act out of her sight. Otonashi knows that first, he has to understand more about everyone's lives and tries to make them feel fulfilled as so as to bring everyone out of the world. He also sees Yuri's life to be the most difficult one to conquer but what troubles him the most is what would happen to Kanade and him once the others have "moved on".

much much more story development was added in and we finally know where the series is headed to and it was to let everyone "move on" i'm not really fancying this direction as it would mean that it would most likely revert to the char-per-episode style but i'll see how it ends if it really goes that direction and 13 episodes is really kinda short... Yuri also said that there are much more computer parts and software available while Takeyama is altering the Angel Player, which would mean that there are much more copies of Angel Player available and since Kanade isnt really the Angel, why is it that she can develop her own abilities using the software and not the others, or anyone could do the same as long as they have the software? and what would Yuri do and maybe feel, when she realises that Otonashi is on Kanade's side, trying to lead everyone to disappear, it would be a large misunderstanding which could conclude nicely in their way... Otonashi's death was really unfortunate as shown in the episode but he really did what he could to help the rest and it really makes me feel sour when i see him die, in that way... 4 more episodes to go...

Ga-Rei's manga has ended as well, with a happy ending but without Yomi once again. With the outbreak of Naraku around the globe, both Kyuubi and the Tengu had appeared but with Ken-chan and Kagura's abilities, they managed to push back Yomi's forces and Byakuei fuses with the Tengu and faces out with the Kyuubi. Things seem to be progressing smoothly but it led to a problem when the chain linking both Kagura and Byakuei gets broken, which meant that Kagura's soul was shredded into half. Yomi sees the situation going out of hand and goes to find Kensuke and Kagura, which Kagura is already "fading" away and Byakuei being seriously injured. Yomi wants Kagura to kill her and to end everything but Ken-chan tells her that she was doing everything for her sake and after Yomi realises that, her miasma disappears and her soul fuses into the gap of Kagura's soul caused by the breaking of the chain and ... happy ending...

quite a typical style of ending, would have preferred Yomi to stay on though, since that should be the purpose of Kagura. Ga-Rei Zero was great and then followed by the manga of Ga-Rei which showed Yomi returning, twice, but still disappears in the end. The final climax was great too and story-wise was good too, things started to go much more havoc after Izuna died but that part was touching as well... it was a nice manga and a nice anime series to start it off xD

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

K-ON!! brought us the childhood scenes which everyone was adorably cute at that time =X

Yui apparently had not submitted her "future career" form yet and Nodoka was shocked when she realised that. Yui however is clueless on what she should write down on the form and even almost wrote down "NEET". The other girls then came by and Yui attempted to write down the choices that the others had placed without much knowledge of what they really are. Mugi then revealed to Yui and Ritsu the entrance exam to a prestigious school which she's trying for and it turns out that the duo hasn't even seen a similar question, ever. Things did not turn out well when both Yui and Ritsu were called to the office. Meanwhile, Mio and Nodoka started to talk about the past where Nodoka had met Yui for the first time as Mio told her that she must have a hard time taking care of Yui. Mugi overhears their conversation and gets pretty excited and interested about their past and brings them to the music room to continue the conversation. Nodoka started with her past with Yui where they had first met and it was Yui's initiative to get to know Nodoka and it seems that ever since that day, Yui had been clumsy for a long time but was always forgiven due to her innocent smile. Nodoka also commented on the special connection they had as they were in the same class ever since kindergarten. Yui and Ritsu were then called in by Sawa-chan to talk about their forms as both of them had submitted "undecided" and Sawa-chan revealed that she had chosen to become a teacher as someone she liked said he wants to be a teacher too but sadly she was rejected. The duo then returned to the music room and while Nodoka started talking about Yui wanting to become a kindergarten teacher in the past while reading out her own essay of their own future, Ritsu was reminded of a similar essay reading incident with Mio. Mio didn't want it to be revealed and prompted Azusa to practise but Azusa was also curious about it. Mio had won a essay writing competition while she was still small but as she was pretty much shy in the past, she didn't want to read it out to the others as it was a must to do so. Incidentally, Ritsu notices that Mio had a loud voice and gave her some encouragement which turned out well in the end. Mio was however not really grateful about the other things that Ritsu had thought her (mostly were not really decent), but she was still grateful for her bringing music into her life as well. In the end, Ritsu and Yui wrote down "musician" but was rejected once again by Sawa-chan. The next day, Yui walks up into class, touching the small turtle sculpture on the stairs and starts to think hard again for her form but to no avail. When she exits the teacher's lounge, Nodoka was leaving the class at the same time and smiled when she sees Yui really trying hard to get it accepted and brushes her hand across the same turtle sculpture Yui had brushed past earlier that day.

i tink that it was deliberate for both Yui and Nodoka to have brushed past that small turtle sculpture, in proving that the both of them really had some special connection that brings them together. the girls while they were small are really adorable @.@ except Mugi's and Azusa's small selves were not shown but Mio and Ritsu were exceptionally cute and interesting while they were small and Mio really did improved her "shyness" as compared to the past and i believed that Ritsu, being the more open one, did have some positive impact on Mio. and i cant imagine how takoyakis without tako taste like... since Yui had forgotten to bring the takos for a lesson in grade school, showing how clumsy she was ._. i wonder how Ritsu and her manage to "survive" through high school. i felt that 1st Nodoka-reminder scene quite similar to the scene in season 1 where she was shocked at Yui not handing in her club form yet, somehow it just seems really identical...

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

the PV for episode 9 is out (i tink this is the only series that i kept waiting for the PV lol ._.) nothing much seemed to be on Kanade, meaning that she's all right after ALL THAT?! and more of Otonashi's living time will be revealed, seems like he didn't really just die off in the train accident but due to some robber or criminal? maybe the dude that caused his death got smth to do with Angel Player or maybe is someone he now knows in the world of the dead... im speculating a little too much @.@ heh...

seen the upcoming list of animes as well... nothing much really ._. only quite interested with High School of the Dead and Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi which is by JC Staff, quite looking forward to that and having some expectations on it. theres a gal thats VERY SIMILAR to Taiga as well ._. giving me an impression that its somewhat similar to Toradora! but i dun really mind :D

heres the PV btw:

Sunday, May 23, 2010

after a week of hectic schedule and days of being sick, 50% of me is now blog-able again...

K-ON!! 7 had the episode dedicated to Mio's fanclub which was previously set up by Sokabe in the past. Mio has once again felt that she was stalked, in comparison with the previous season. The others weren't really taking it seriously again and Yui even scared Mio into thinking that Ton-chan was sticking to her back all day long. In the end, Mugi pointed out that Mio had a sticker on her hair which could be the cause for people staring at her, making her feel uneasy. Mio then gets to see her fan club members, who was with Nodoka and the group later decides to hold a tea party for the whole fan club. The tea party begins with Yui and Ritsu taking the stage as emcees for the session. After Mio was invited up to the stage, she apparently bit her tongue twice while trying to address to the crowd and later Mugi brings in a gigantic cake which both Mio and Azusa slices it with shocked faces. Mio was then to walk through the tables and help lit the candles, which was later blown out per question asked of her. the Q and A session was completed with Mio being barely alive and a photo slideshow was shown on Mio's past, whichw as taken from Ritsu's photo album. Mio sees that she really had a wonderful time with everyone, in the past and even now, and regains her confidence to read out a poem she had composed but no one really seem to understand it. Away from the awkwardness, the tea session then ends with a new song being played by them, and a phototaking session which Azusa later asks Nodoka to mail to Sokabe who was unable to attend as she was busy with her college life.

it was fairly nice to see all the past scenes from the previous season and there really is quite a distinct change in the style of drawing in comparison. nothing much really did happen in the episode and the next will focus on their futures, after they graduate...



Angel Beats!'s 8th episode had the hilarious parts being placed together with the multiple deaths of the different SSS members, and was much more humorous than the previous Guild descent. With the evil Tenshi having attacked Yuri, she advances once again at Yuri, who is still able to withstand her attacks. Otonashi leads the other SSS members into formation and opens fire, but to no avail. Kanade then rushes forward and intercepts the blow from her evil counterpart, resulting in a fatal result on both sides. As Kanade was still unconscious, Yuri suspects that the Harmonics Guard Skill that Kanade had previously created was the cause of the evil her appearing. Yuri knows that everyone could be in danger if they continue to disobey the rules openly and she asks the rest to attend classes, but taking extra care not to listen to the class attentively, in risk of disappearing. So off the the members go into distracting themselves, with TK dancing in the class, Noda spinning his weapon outside the window repeatedly, etc... The members held out for the day and meanwhile, Yuri was in Kanade's room, looking at the program that develops her skill, the Angel Player, and rewrites one of the skills "Absorb", which will cause the evil counterparts created by Harmonics to return to the original Kanade the next time she uses Harmonics again. Yuri discovers that the evil Tenshi had created her own Guard Skill, Howling, but decides to not ponder over it in the meantime. However, it was too late to get to Kanade as signs shown that she was kidnapped, leading Yuri to conclude that her evil counterparts have kidnapped her into the deepest point of the Guild they had previously destroyed and this time, everyone went down once again to save Kanade. This time however, they were not endangered by the traps of the Guild but was the many multiples of Kanade that appeared. The team was faced with 2 Tenshis in the beginning and Noda was brought down by surprise and had barely escaped when they met the 3rd one. Matsushita went forward and sacrificed himself to allow the others to pass temporarily and Naoi thus concludes that the evil Tenshis have already activated multiple Harmonics of themselves before Yuri rewrote the program. The team decides that their best option was to sacrifice one of them per Tenshi met, in order to quickly progress to find the original Tenshi, Kanade. Only Otonashi and Yuri were the once left again and Otonashi was given the task to search for Kanade while Yuri fends off the other Tenshi they met. Yuri's guns and grenades aren't much use with Distortion being activated and when the Tenshi uses Howling, Yuri managed to overpower her as she had already foreseen the ability and had used earplugs in advance. Otonashi finds the original Kanade and asks her to use Harmonics once again to save everyone. Another evil counterpart of her appears and asks him if he was right to cause the Absorb to activate as it would mean the multiple killing-intent personalities to fuse into Kanade's own body and that if she would truly still remain as herself after the Absorb is complete. Otonashi realises his "mistake" and holds on tight to Kanade as the personalities are being fused into her.

A heavy cliffhanger and an exciting climax at the back of the episode. it was truly hilarious in the way each member was sacrificed, with Ooyama's being the most ridiculous, as he was led to his death by Naoi's hypnosis:

"You are now a clown and there is a lonely girl in front of you..."
"..."
"Oh! There really is a lonely girl!"
*hops over and dies under the blade"

._.

oh well, Naoi is pretty evil in some ways although i admit he's quite a great addition to the team. now i don't really think Kanade's gonna be all normal in the next episode, most likely turning into the real Tenshi, as in the evil personality. i believe that it isn't going to have a really good ending to this series and after revealing the program of Angel Player, it makes me think that the one behind the creation of the Angel Player in their world seems to be the real enemy but with that, more questions are raised, what is the Angel Player and who exactly gave it to Kanade or how did she obtain it?

Monday, May 17, 2010

currently "blogable" after falling prey to fever yesterday...

Angel Beats! 7

from the previous incident, Naoi seems to have joined the SSS, seeing his role as kami was more than that of his role as student council president. Hinata wasn't quite amused by it and taunted Naoi about him crying in Otonashi's arm. Naoi was clearly not amused by it and uses hypnosis to make Hinata cry over a clothespin. Otonashi steps in and Naoi's personality somehow changes to a more gentle kind towards Otonashi. Yuri then comes by and asks Otonashi and Naoi to come with her and her aim was to let Naoi use his hypnosis skills to help Otonashi regain his memories. Otonashi felt uneasy and was worried if he would still be able to retain his personality and "live" with everyone after he got his memories back but still went along with Yuri's suggestion in the end. While he was alive, Otonashi didn't really have a goal of living at all and he would always continue working to have enough money to feed himself and to buy a present for his hospitalised little sister, Hatsune. Every single day passed in exactly the same way and Otonashi was happy to hear Hatsune thanking him for bringing presents to her every time he visited her. When christmas was nearing, Otonashi wanted to bring Hatsune out of the hospital but due to her condition worsening, he had to sneak her out to the streets when the doctors disapproved of her leaving the hospital. It did seem that she was happy seeing the beautiful lightings on the trees but soon passed away. Otonashi felt lost and empty afterwards, seeing that his own source of happiness was taken away. However when he saw a child across the street recovering from a illness, Otonashi decided to have a goal in his life and wanted to become a doctor to save lives. But on the way to selection for university admission, the train he was on met with an accident and he lost his life and his dream and came to this world without achieving anything at all. Otonashi then asks Naoi and Yuri to leave him alone for a while to calm his feelings down and when he had finished sorting out his feelings, Yuri and the others decided to start Operation Monster Stream which is otherwise seen as fishing. So off the members go to the river and Otonashi even brought Kanade with him after seeing her alone in the garden. The others were all taking up arms after seeing Kanade being brought by Otonashi but Yuri allowed her to join in as well after accepting the fact that she was not the student council president any longer and wouldn't endanger the others, even Naoi was with them now. And so the members started fishing and Otonashi taught Kanade how to bait and everything but due to her immense power, she flung the rod so hard that a poor Takeyama was flung into the sky after being "caught" by the rod. Kanade then somehow managed to attract the large fish in the river and with everyone's help, the fish was thrown out of the water but incidentally, the others were above the fish's open mouth. Kanade sees them in danger and slices the fish into multiple pieces using her hand sonic. Due to the large amount of fish meat they had, they served it to the other students and when it was night, an injured Yuri returned and said that the culprit was Tenshi, but Kanade was clearly with them all along and then, Yuri sees the Tenshi that attacked her at the rooftop, with red eyes.

Yuzuru was Otonashi's real name and it kinda sounded like a girl's name too @_@ it seems that Yuri and the others have kinda accepted Kanade into their group and even Naoi seems to have some "crush" on Otonashi, acting all soft before him. Hinata crying over a clothespin was totally hilarious... Otonashi's slightly longer hair in the time while he was still alive looked pretty good on him too. The cliffhanger then came at the end with a "clone" or some sort of Kanade which leads me to thinking of 2 possibilities:

1) thats the REAL Tenshi
2) something to do with her Harmonics Guard Skill?

the 2nd one seems to have the highest possibility IMO and when Kanade went to to slice the fish into multiple parts, it did seemed like she had used Harmonics and the one that slashed through the fish was her with red eyes...(im just guessing this part)... nice cliffhanger there and am anticipating the next episode...

episode 8 seems to be quite an interesting one... red-eyed Tenshi VS SSS O.o

Thursday, May 13, 2010

the instrument-naming K-ON!! episode has finally arrived~

rainy season has arrived and while Yui was having trouble preventing her Gitah from getting wet, she was drenched instead. Incidentally not by tripping over, but due to:

1. kids running across puddles > splashes
2. a dog shaking off water from its fur in front of Yui > all drenched
3. vehicles over puddles > ._. yet again...

In the class, Mugi is apparently feeling uncomfortable about her curly hair due to the increase in humidity and when Yui comes in, Mio and Ritsu were surprised to see her being totally drenched. Yui then carefully places her Gitah down and Mugi helps to dry her hair with her towel. The others then suggests Yui to have a change of clothing to prevent her from catching a cold and goes off to the music room. She not only gets out of her drenched clothes, she even gets to warm herself up after Mugi when to fetch some hot water. Due to the lack of changeable clothes, Yui went into the pig costume they previously had and when Nodoka came in, she somehow could recognise that the one in the pig costume was Yui, which she says she kinda just felt that it was her... In the end, Yui went to class in a maid costume, apparently unacceptable as said by Sawa-chan but before Ritsu finish saying that the costume was made by her, Sawa-chan shuts her up with her deadly glare. Luckily, Nodoka managed to borrow a spare set of gym clothes and let Yui wear it temporary while drying her own uniform. In the music room, Azusa then shows everyone her guitar in a special raincoat and then incidentally reveals to everyone that she is a frequent online shopper. Azusa warns Yui that the fingerboard could become moldy if it gets wet. Seeing that Mio is afraid, Ritsu went to tease her more. Yui checks her Gitah to see if everything's well and Azusa advices her to change her strings, which she did, after taking quite some time talking to Gitah. Azusa coudn't understand why and it somehow led to Yui thinking that Azusa was jealous about Gitah and even Mio sees it as a triangle love. The next day it starts pouring again but this time, Yui had wrapped her Gitah in plastics and multiple tapes which did helped repelling rain but proved to be extremely difficult to unwrap later. Azusa then teaches Yui how to see if the guitar is out of tune due to the bad weather and the possibility of the neck bending and is surprised to see that Yui can tell exactly how off tune a string is without using the tuner at all. The rain then starts to get heavier and Mio decides to leave her bass behind and Yui goes forward and names Mio's bass as Elizabeth and feels sorry for it being left behind. Seeing that Yui had named her own guitar and Mio's bass, Azusa had almost named her own Mustang Muttan. Yui did leave her Gitah behind as well but started to scratch the walls in her room at home, worrying Ui, as she was worried about Gitah being left in school. Yui immediately retrieves her Gitah the next day and even holds it during lessons. Mio sees how worried Yui was and got herself worried too, rushing to the music room afterwards to check on her own bass. Thinking that she was alone, she "accepts" the name of her own bass and calls it Elizabeth, but the others were all at the entrance, and had obviously heard Mio calling out to her own bass.

all in all, i think Mio's bass name was actually the more normal among the others when u compare Elizabeth, Gitah and Muttan, but the others are unique as well. have been waiting to see these scenes being animated with Mio whispering to her own bass: "Elizabeth~" ... did loled when Sawa-chan gave Ritsu a deadly glare to prevent her from revealing that she had the fetish to dress them up and that she had made all those maid costumes and also trying to act very teacher-like when other teachers are around... in this season, there are at least more scenes on the other classmates and not too much centered amongst the five keion girls. and Mio crying to Ritsu that she had scratched her bass in the past but Ritsu doesn't seem to be even able to find the scratch was equally cute :D

and Thousand Enemies is really an awesome song~ love Rain Song and Highest Life too :)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

have been busy this week and probably the next... tests coming up =/

anyway, the latest few bleach episodes does look more "attractive" to watch with Ichigo VS Ulquiorra (nt sure if i spelt it correctly) it is awesome to see the fighting scenes between them being animated and quite well too.

am feeling quite happy now that MYE only lasts for a week, (4 days to be exact) right after the June hols, which would not thus clash with Cosfest... am now worrying that my CCA could clash though, since i'm planning to go on both days as theres a sorta nice competition during Day 1... for now... :)

Saturday, May 08, 2010

it was an awesome 6th episode of Angel Beats! ... much much more story development and a rather exciting / moving episode.

The SSS members are released from their detention room and Yuri knows that a serious problem is now posed onto them. It was the first time for them to get sent to the detention room and Yuri sees Naoi as an NPC who was previously under check by Tenshi and thus have not taken much action to them. Yuri then decides to experiment with the NPCs and asks the rest to attend classes but not get in the way of the other ordinary students. She passes Otonashi her communicator and wonders what action Naoi would take if they all do not behave as how they should be. So off the SSS members go and "disrupt" the class with Ooyama eating chips in class, TK, Matsushita, Hisako and Fujimaki playing mahjong, Takamatsu doing push-ups without his shirt again, Yui going off to the toilet almost every minute, Noda sleeping on 2 desks and Hinata and Otonashi just chatting around. It didn't take too long to bring Naoi Ayato to come into the class but everyone managed to escape before he's able to detain anyone. Yuri somehow also realises that Naoi is attacking normal students when no one is around. Otonashi then sees Tenshi sitting alone at her own desks and attempts to start a conversation with her and successfully brings her to the cafeteria with him after saying that he'll treat her with Mapo Tofu. The session eating Mapo Tofu did not last long with Mr. Naoi coming by again and detaining the both of them since they were eating during break time. The two of them then gets locked up in a special detaining room and Otonashi is unable to find any way to escape and tries to call Yuri via the communicator. It took some time before Yuri responded and she told Otonashi about what she had found out about Naoi and that he's currently fighting with the other SSS members through using the other students as shields and hostages and that they are falling one by one. She tells Otonashi that Naoi now has the freedom to do whatever he wants in the world after he became the student council president and that by hurting the students, he's keeping the balance of himself in the world to prevent himself from disppearing and Yuri concludes that Naoi isn't an NPC at all. She asks Otonashi to try and get Tenshi to help them and to get to the grounds after he finds her. Otonashi goes and wake Tenshi up and asks her to help save the others. She silently agrees and tries to use Hand Sonic to break the door but was unable to, even the other forms of Hand Sonic didn't have much use since it was meant for self defense, although her 4th form didn't seem to have much destructive power with it looking like a lotus. Otonashi tells her that they could become friends if he had not misunderstood her as the enemy but Tenshi does not think that its a good idea since anyone who was friends with her would be an exemplary student and then disappears. Otonashi gets Tenshi to use Hand Sonic V2 to stab through the gaps of the door since its thinner and then changes it to V4, thus breaking it open and Otonashi grabs her hand and rushes to the school grounds. By the time he reach the location, he sees the other members already taken down in the rain and the floor was all covered with blood. He sees Hinata still struggling and rushes for him. Naoi tells Otonashi that everyone that comes her have led horrible lives and he would help lead them to eternal rest. Naoi then walks to Yuri and grabs her up, telling her that he'll bring her to rest with his skill of hypnotism, with the rest of his followers being hypnotised by him as well and makes Yuri dream of something happy with her seeing her siblings again. Otonashi rushes forward (most probably with Tenshi already helped taking out the people aiming at Otonashi) and pushes Naoi away, shouting at him to not let people disappear by giving them false memories. He then goes and grab Naoi up, telling him that the lives that everyone had lived through were real and that no matter what kind of lives they had lived through, it was still their own lives and the memories are already carved into them. Naoi then sheds light on his life, revealing that he was always the one alone in the dark but when his brother died, his father told him that it was him who had died and he would be the replacement for his brother. With that, Naoi worked hard for the house's superb pottery and everything went well until his father fell sick. However, Otonashi rebukes him that his life was real and the hard work put him was also by him himself and that he should acknowledge his own existence as well.

the whole part of Otonashi trying to get Naoi back to his senses was great, the words he spoke was meaningful and fitting too with the BGM. and with this episode, Tenshi seems to have a much higher chance of joining the SSS, perhaps after seeing that she had rescued the rest but now is there really an enemy whom they really need to fight? it does seem that anyone who comes into this world are all feeling unfair about their lives and sort of "can't rest in peace" and that when they finally accept their own lives, they will disappear... it was a serious episode, loved the back climax :)

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

With Azusa being left out in the previous episode, the 5th episode of K-ON!! focused more about her and the others while the seniors were at Kyoto. Apparently for the field trip, Ui realises that Yui had forgotten to bring her camera along. In school, Azusa tells Ui that Yui is being too dependent due to the special treatment from Ui and tries to imagine Yui being serious during practise, which is actually quite hard. Yui then sends a message to Ui, showing how fun the trip was already and Azusa really hopes to be with them. So Jun, Azusa and Ui were together most of the time, looking at Yui's messages from time to time, and it even made Jun think that the Light Music Club's activities aren't much related to playing instruments but was instead can-kicking. Ui then receives another message from Yui, asking her to help retrieve her lunch box which she left in her class. So the trio went off to retrieve it and with Jun sitting in Mio's desk, she discovers a "trap" left behind by Ritsu for Mio. Both Azusa and Jun then promises to stay by Ui's side, with a sleepover as well, after seeing her tearing up when she finally realises that Yui wouldn't be home for 2 more days. Jun then bring the girls to her Jazz club and have Azusa teach the freshmen guitar. That night, Jun and Azusa went over to Ui's house for a sleepover and was exceptionally full after eating such huge portions of dinner. Jun had somehow fell asleep very quickly and Ui and Azusa were left chatting in the room, where Azusa plans for them to go the zoo tomorrow. At that moment, Yui then sends a message to Ui, containing only the absolutely random word that the girls were all laughing over at Kyoto. However, it was raining heavily the next day and the girls were unable to go out, until they were too bored and went to a battling center, as Jun had read a baseball manga. Ui learns it fast and go a prize for that. Then, Azusa realises that she had forgotten about Ton-chan and rushes to school. In the music room, Jun locates the next volume of the manga she was reading in the cabinet. Jun then suggest to the others to have a music session and Ui was on the organ for it. When they did finish their melody, the sun came out and with Jun leaving on her bus, Azusa receives a phone call from Yui, telling her that they were lost but was cut off after Yui realised that there wasn't much use calling Azusa (refer to previous episode). When the seniors were back to school, Yui immediately dragged Azusa to the clubroom and gave her the souvenir they brought back, 5 keychains for the 5 of them, listing the word keion-bu.

It was nice seeing how this and the previous episodes are linked and it was funny to see those links again, especially with Yui calling Azusa when they were lost. Azusa and Ui really looks like Mio and Yui respectively when they let down their hair and Azusa looks just like a smaller Mio :D

this part was kinda epic O.o

Ui: Onee-chan says that she's lacking some energy from you...
Azusa: Should i hide...?
Yui: AZU-NYAN!~ *hugs*
Azusa: NYA!

._.

P.S. and theres a rare appearance of male characters at the battling center... lol

and this is a wonderful song in Angel Beats by Girls Dead Monster :D

Monday, May 03, 2010

Sora no Otoshimono's current manga arc could be the best so far, as compared to the Chaos arc. With the angel, Hiyori that Sugata once saw at Synapse being in the real world, joined their club and confessed to Tomoki earlier on, the plot really thickens from there on. In the latest chapter, Hiyori got banged down by a truck in front of Tomoki, while he was going to reply to her confession, after being clueless since he was never confessed to before. Hiyori's body then starts to disappear, along with the memories of her in the minds of the others. Sugata realises that and rushes into Synapse's dome and sees the angel Hiyori waking up. Hiyori knows who Sugata is but Sugata had already forgotten about her. It seems that the angel Hiyori had been experiencing a dream in the real world and that the human Hiyori in the real world was her dream self and thus the memories of her were erased from the others. Tomoki tried to resist the deletion of her memories and goes off to find Sohara, but she had forgotten her as well. Tomoki then sees Nymph and Ikaros's expression, and knows that they do know what exactly is happening. In tears, Nymph says that she cant tell Tomoki as anyone who knows about the reality must be deleted and if she tells him, he might start to notice something, which Nymph ends by telling him that Hiyori is not the only on that is "not" real. Tomoki then loses his memory totally.

the manga can be funny at times, but when it comes down to seriousness, this manga is pretty much awesome, plot development is really great here and their arcs are just wonderful.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Angel Beats! does seem to be getting better with the latest plot development and the char-per-epi type of setting seems to have ended which is good IMO, would prefer the plot to follow more on the meaning of the world they are in or what Tenshi really is.

During the meeting with the SSS members, Yuri announces to them that Tenshi's assault would be arriving, resulting in Otonashi seemingly thinking of multiple Tenshis attacking them, but it turns out to be just the exam period. Yuri wanted to make sure her doubt is correct, that she was not controlled by anyone and would probably have a human soul and her operation would cause some heavy emotional damage on her. The operation was to cause Tenshi to fail in all her tests by swapping her test paper with another and handing it up. Yuri deeply believes that it would cause the reactions of the teachers and the students to change drastically after their operation becomes successful. For the operation, Takeyama is to take 2 exam scripts and he'll fill it with all sorts of crappy answers and hand it in as Tenshi's script. In order to allow the swapping, Hinata is ordered by Yuri to do some idiotic thing to attract everyone's attention and that was the role Yuri had planned for him right from the start. Then, Takeyama realised that no one actually did know of Tenshi's real name and it would really be practically stupid to hand in a script without her name. Otonashi then leaves to check the class register but was stopped by Tenshi at the door. Otonashi tells her that he was nervous and Tenshi answers him by saying that everything would be fine and asks for his name. Otonashi tells her and hopes for her name in return, and it was Tachibana Kanade. The 1st test starts and at the end, Hinata stood up and pointed out of the window, pretending to have seen something outside. It failed to attract attention and Yuri activates a propulsion engine she had installed under Hinata's seat, causing him to get blasted upwards, completing his mission. The next test's diversion would be for Takamatsu who took of his top, showing off his secretly trained muscles, but had to be blasted off as it failed as well. Ooyama was the next "victim" after Takamatsu and was given the role to confess to Tenshi for the diversion. In return, he received a heavy emotional damage and the diversion was created by Hinata blasting off again as Yuri knows that Ooyama had suffered enough and Hinata shall complete his task. The entire test period has ended and Otonashi one day sees Tenshi walking solemnly out of a classroom. It was clarified by Yuri that their plan has worked and the rumour of her getting zero in all her test and making fun of the teachers have already started spreading and Yuri decides to start Operation Tornado at that night itself. Girls Dead Monster, with Yui now as the lead singer, starts off the concert with the last song that Iwasawa had written and all the students were all reaching the highest level of excitement. Otonashi and the others were left outside to guard the place and stop Tenshi when necessary. When Tenshi did appear, Otonashi prevented the others from shooting her as he had somehow sensed something different from her, that she was deeply depressed or something, having lost her position as the student council president earlier that day. The others inside seemed to have noticed Tenshi's appearance and wondered why the others outside have not taken any action against her. Yuri seems to have noticed the same thing as Otonashi did and sees what she was going to do. Tenshi only did went to by her favourite Mapo Tofu but due to the Operation Tornado, her Mapo Tofu food ticket was taken away from her. After the operation has ended, Otonashi and Hinata were enjoying the Mapo Tofu from the ticket that Otonashi had looted when Yuri tells her what she had saw Tenshi doing earlier on. Yuri thus concludes that Tenshi was human as well since she doesn't think a real Tenshi would go looking for her favourite food while feeling down and as the student council president, she wasn't able to leave the SSS alone and had to develop Guard Skills on her own to counter the weapons that they have. Out of nowhere, Otonashi then thinks that Tenshi could actually become one of them, since the opinion of Tenshi by Otonashi seems to have changed but the idea was rejected by the others. Naoi, as the new student council president, enters the cafeteria and takes the SSS members into detention.

an amazing plot development for this episode and Yuri's hypothesis on Tenshi being human sees to be plausible as well and i would hope for Tenshi to "enrol" into the SSS as well and that their enemy wasn't actually the Tenshi and could be something else (or maybe there isnt any enemy at all or it could be Naoi O.o) Tenshi did seem to special as well, since if she was human, how could she develop her own guard skills? If she could, why couldn't the rest of the students? It was certainly hilarious at the start with the blasting off into the ceiling + bgm add-on but the atmosphere dampens near the end and i did actually felt sympathetic for Tenshi... it really is sad, as said by Otonashi, to see that her reputation got tarnished while trying to stop disruptive people. The POV from Tenshi's side is really sad...

P.S. the OP and ED are constantly changing for every episode, with scenes from the epi reflected in them... Yui's voice is amazing as well :D