Winter Garden + Rozen Maiden: Ouverture

Well, so that I could feel better about adding anime to the “Complete Series” folder, I got 2 2-episode series — Winter Garden and Rozen Maiden: Ouverture. While I’m quite sure the latter is well known enough for me not to talk about it, the former, Winter Garden, is probably less popular.

Winter Garden

Dejiko looks radically different from her old Di Gi Charat self.

Winter Garden is a short story about Dejiko (of Di Gi Charat fame) when she has grown up. It’s sort of a slice of life, romance-ish thing, which is definitely one of my favorite genres. The fact that I know nothing of Di Gi Charat makes it better since I cannot expect anything from her, or anything from the rest of the show.

Code Geass may have Pizza Hut, but Winter Garden has MCDONALDS.

The animation was well done, as expected of JC Staff. It wasn’t something that would blow you away, but it achieves (what I think is) its effect: a relaxing atmosphere. The story is very simple and does not really leave much room for anything else. Despite this, they still include some side characters to throw in both humor, and to advance or supplement the story.

Moeeeeee~~~

Music… was just okay for me, though if I listen to the OP and ED enough, I’ll probably grow to like them. As for re-watch-ability, I’d say you should watch this again sometime Christmas next year, or the Christmas for whichever year you forget about the entire series.

Yay nostalgia

All in all, I definitely recommend this to anyone. You’ll probably like it if you like stuff like Honey and Clover. And hey, if you don’t, well, at least it’s just 2 episodes.

—

So then now Rozen Maiden: Ouverture.

Suigintou looks rather pathetic in this shot.

To be honest, I’m not really much of a Rozen Maiden fan, but I watched this because I wanted to know just why Suigintou and Shinku hate each other so much. Thankfully, my question was answered.

And in this shot too

As for the show itself, the animation was rather decent (I can’t really say because the video quality wasn’t really good), but the color palette was a little on the darker side (though I guess that makes sense).

She cries a lot too.

Music was from Ali Project, and to be frank, I don’t like their stuff, so I guess any rating from me would be too biased anyway. Story was good and solid. It did exactly what it was supposed to do, though not much else. For re-watch-ability… well, not much point in watching it again anyway.

A LOT

If you haven’t watched at least the first series, I definitely recommend that you either stay away from this show, or just watch both Rozen Maiden and Traumend. I suggest the latter.

edit: took out images first, because I forgot to upload them. orz
edit2: fixed.

—
fin

way overdue entry thing

Having just recently played Collage, a visual novel translated by those guys from Altogether 2006, I can’t help but compare this work to a film I just watched (for school purposes, mind you), Jologs.

Sorry about the quality, I have to catch up on so many things that my HD has no more space for PhotoShop’s Swapfile

While the differences between a Filipino film and a Japanese doujin visual novel are paramount, the main aspect that is clearly seen throughout both of these is that the entire thing is, essentially, a small lapse of time being relived out through different perspectives. In the film, Jologs, we first see the day of Ruben, a university student struggling with his financial woes — lacking 8,000 pesos to pay off his tuition.

This was the only picture I found. Go me.

In Collage, we see life through the eyes of Yuuko Sasaki, a normal working woman who just recently quit her job and got dumped by her boyfriend. Again, we see a pattern in the “main” characters’ settings. Both face some problems regarding their personal lives. But the true beauty of their stories is when they switch perspectives to another character. We see how the first character affects the other, in their words and actions — seen and unseen. When they do another twist, we learn even more about the first two characters and how they all each play their roles in the grand stage of life.

Truly, these two forms of art have their merits and demerits. One, a Filipino film, is plagued with some problems such as the language barrier, the slight inconsistencies that may pass, and other such problems. The other, a Japanese Visual novel, also has its fair share of problems, like the rather simplistic design (which may turn off some viewers) and lack of actual character sprites/pictures. Despite this, their achievements in their own respective fields make them worthy enough to be experienced by anyone willing to cast aside their doubts of it, for the lack of a better word, being a waste of time.

—

Well now, I certainly sounded full of myself. I kinda suck at writing deep reviews, because I just mostly go “it’s good” or “it sucks”. Either way, these past 11 days (of hell) with no internet are a mix of good and bad. My skill at StepMania has drastically improved (holy fuck, I can get a C at most of the things in the Touhou Project), I learned how to commute to a bunch of places, including SM Megamall, so I can go play Giga Wing whenever I wanna. Plus, I got School Rumble volume 3 and Negima volume 12, plus, Christmas is around the corner, which means I get money to buy a figure or two. Hopefully.

Hm… I kinda ran out of stuff to write about even with such a long hiatus, so I guess that’s it.

Oh, and I finished Tsukihime.

PS: I was kinda stupid since I forgot to put in a picture, and to talk a bit about Tsukihime.

PPS: I thought of jamming in the final CG from Kohaku’s route, essentially, the last CG in the game, but then I figured that people would hate me. So I just uploaded it and will leave it online ’till I can’t anymore. So there.

Wahaha.

PPPS: this

Incidentally, there was a Foxgirl Kohaku in my random pictures collection, so I figured I might as well jam it in.

PPPPS: Well, happy 10th aniversary, DoA.

Today was a pretty good day.

A good soul reported my stuff to the lost-and-found, where it was promptly claimed by yours truly.

I had a good 6 hour nap.

I got a high score in Imperishable Night’s Extra Stage with Reimu/Yukari with 680 million, or something like that. Too bad it had 10% slowdown (*kicks shitty Pentium 3 computer*)

I get to spread just a pinch more Touhou tomorrow at my friend’s house.

Now I feel like dancing!

Oh, and Cradle‘s Reimu and Yukari are totally hawt.
(I refer to ttp://cradle.cc/img/etc/soar_image.jpg)

bLaRgH

dammit, some of tjhan’s bad luck is rubbing off on me.

Today, I lost my iPod earphones, my USB Flash drive (which carried some unbelievably important documents, mind you :V), my cellphone’s only battery and the small red Lacoste pouch thing that carried them all. More or less, it’d cost me half of ten thousand pesos to buy those items back.

I swear, if anyone took it and didn’t report it to the school’s lost-and-found, I would personally go right to his face and pull out his eyes.

This is how I feel right now. Except, not in a maid outfit.

Happy Birthday Reverie~

Thanks for making the world a better place.

Many thanks to Suzumoto Yuuichi for writing the wonderful scenario and Komatsu Eeji for the marvelous character design.