1st Impression: Queen's Blade

Name: Queens Blade
Genre: Fantasy; Supernatural; Action; Ecchi
Studio: ARMS

Forgive me on the details, but I believe the "Queens Blade" is a contest held between powerful warriors to determine the next warrior queen. Having only watched the 1st episode no other plot indication has been given, except that the story may revolve around a family of warrior sisters and a vagrant warrior/thief.


Based on a manga I have never read, I was solely attracted to this title by the accompanying picture of the characters in full battle gear and the word ecchi in the caption.

An action packed 1st episode and a few very interesting battle techniques have left me with high expectations for the remainder of the series, whether my expectations will be met is yet to be seen.
As I've mentioned already, the biggest selling point of this anime will be the ecchiness of the show and boy is it available in copious amounts. The Queens Blade contest certainly seems to be a no-holds-barred, clothing optional type of contest.

The animation style is reminiscent of DBZ, sporting full-bodied female characters which I rather favour over the disproportioned females of other fighting type shows.
All been said, I really will only be watching this show for one reason.

1st Impression: K-ON!

Name: K-ON!
Genre: Slice of Life; Music; Comedy
Studio: Kyoto

Its Yui's 1st year in high school and she decides to join a new club at school. She decides to join the Light Music Club (K-ON) despite not being musically talented in any way whatsoever. The club comprises of three other members, each distinctively different but all share something in common.

Now it should be known that I am not the biggest fan of slice of life shows. I find them often pointless and lacking in much depth, however I don't know why, but i have this weird feeling about K-ON!.

Perhaps it is the somewhat dry humour used in the show which isn’t shoved in your face, but its there and for those who pay attention can be extremely funny. It may also be the all girl cast (well, they haven’t introduced a male character yet), although I don't think so - it’s not ecchi, let me repeat that: no harem here, it is not ECCHI.

The animation style is very modern, but not too realistic as they make fair use over-sized & chibi styles to portray different emotions. Overall its very smooth, sleek and soft on the eye which is greatly supported by the mellow BGM. However this is a music anime and if the intro & outro are anything to go by, I expect this to change in the near future or at least during their performances.

Bottom-line, it’s funny and fresh (to me) and very easy to watch, especially as a mental break between my favourite deep thought provoking shows.

Spring Anime 2009 - 1st Impressions

Its April and that means its the beginning of the spring anime season in Japan and a whole slew of brand new shows for me to procrastinate time away.

For a neatly colated list of the spring anime line-up, you would do well to have a glance at Animebreaker's Spring 2009 Anime list. Or if you wih to read the article which inspired mine, check out Anime News networks Spring 2009 Preview Guide.

So, after the "Week of Ends" as I like to call it and the minor bout of depression that accompanies it (RideBack I miss you!); I was eventually able to dive into some of the new shows. I thus prepared this article - My 1st impressions on those shows which I tip to be moderate-to-big successes this season.

To make for easier searching, I will upload each review as an individual post. And without any further hesitation, in no particular order...

Disclaimer: Just let it be known that I have done very little research on any of these shows and any "facts" stated within has been obtained from any previous anime knowledge that I may have aquired. Lastly, and this goes without saying - the article is purely of my own opinion and hence will probably contain some heavy biases towards my preferences.

New Mecha in Town

If you didn't know, Mecha is my favorite Anime genre and here are my reviews of two of the hottest Mecha animes on the scene at the moment.

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Name: RideBack
Studio: Madhouse Studios
Genre: Mecha, Sports, Rebellion
Episodes: 5
Rating: 5
At the moment (excluding Hajime no Ippo - New Challenger) this is my favorite new anime. The fact that is a mecha anime is only a fringe benefit. I have no doubt that I would watch anyway even if there where no mecha in it.

And on that note, the mecha in this show are very low key actually. The story revolves around a former ballet protege Ogata Rin who suffers a career threatening injury while she is stil young. When she starts at high school (ateast I think its high school) she stumbles upon the schools RideBack club.
A RideBack is a mix between a robot and a motorcycle in that it has two wheels over which the rider straddles but in addition it also has two robotic arms which can and are used for many diferent purposes, ranging from balance to carrying weapons.

The main character joins the club for the reason that it lets her feel the same way she felt when she still did ballet, that being said, the modus operandi of the club is for sporting uses of RideBacks. There are however other organisations which make other uses of RideBacks and it isnt to soon before the RideBack club crosses paths with these other such organisations.

As I said before the story revolves around Rin, but she meets many characters during the first few episodes, some of whom are keeping some dark secrets. The story appears to be developing into strong political story and altough not factual, the story is unfolding in a very believable way.

The action sequences accompanied by some great music are very entertaining and some of the RideBack sequences bring memories of scenes from Air Gear, they are so graceful. A detachment from some of the mainstream mecha anime in two ways; it has a more femine feel to it and as an engineering friend of mine has pointed out, it is much more theoretically possible than other mecha animes.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the show thus far and eagerly await the next episodes.

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Name: Vipers Creed
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment (Japan)
Genre: Mecha, Police, Sci-Fi, Capatalism
Episodes: 2
Rating: 4This new anime appears to follow the same formula as a few manga's I've read, whereby an elite division in a private military company takes on very dangerous missions for the reward of extra money/profit. I however, with the expcetion of GITS, have not seen this in many mecha anime.

The elite unit Viper consists of a team of blademen who make use maneuver-blades (High-tech motorcycles) which have the ability to transform into different forms. Company policy states that each blademan needs to assisted by an operator who remains at headquarters and comunicates battle plans and news via radio, an interesting aspect of the story are the differing relationships between each blademan and their operator as some are good and others are non-existant.The actions scenes are fast paced, with many of the enemy mecha's reminding me very strongly of those from one of my favorite animes - GITS. The 1st episode in particular is almost entirely one mission which they dive into immediately after the opening sequence. The story and character building only really start in the second episode.

The animation is very clean, with what appears to be a blue theme as most of the buildings are blue with all the computers being blue as well. Lots of high-tech future technology is displayed in the anime, but is done well and does not come off as unrealistic.

Unit Viper itself consists of many different character types which by on it own would make for an interesting anime, but i get this feeling that there is going to be a lot more to this anime.

Smart St00pid Criminals

Wow! I didnt realise how long it has been since I posted last - almost a year, DAMN!! Well here is a new post.

Today was no ordinary boring day at work for me. Today I witnessed first hand how knowledgable criminals these days can be of ways to "crook" the legal system to their advantage. For those who don't know , I work in a high-end retail store.

And today we experienced something which thankfully we don't experience too often - somebody attempted to steal/shoplift from us. Amazingly (I am still convinced that we are stolen from on a regular basis) the security guard on duty was alert enough and apprehended the perpertraitors before they were able to make off with the stolen goods.

There were two criminals caught, one male and one female. As protocol states we are to keep the guilty parties in custody until the police arrive. The guilty parties are escorted to our back area by our manager and the security guard. On the way to the back area though the female shoplifter attempts to attract as much attention from onlookers as possible by means of shouting and struggling with her escorts. Her knowledge of the law in this instance both shocked and gave me the impression that she had clearly done this before.

Whilst struggling and shouting, she on several occassions threw herself at her escorts in a manner that forced them to grope her, at which she always exagerrated her reactions claiming that they were indecently assaulting her. however this act of ingenuity was quickly qwelled by her partner constantly shouting out perfanities and on some occassions actually attempting to physically harm the escorts, which obviously made no positive contribution to there claim of innocence and was duely noted for later referal to the police.

To cut a long story short; the female was arrested (as she was the one who physically took and hid the items) while the male was allowed to go free, which he did in a rather quick manner (swak for the female, lol).