:anime: Final Impression:: Teekyu

Not only is this a review, it's also the first "Free/Low-Cost Anime Pick of the Month" of the year!

Review: Teekyu
Alt. Titles: Te-kyu, Teekyuu

Official Site: Japanese
Additional Links: ANN Entry, MAL Entry
Video: Crunchyroll

"Four high-school girls" series are a dime a dozen these days, though that isn't to say that there aren't any bright spots in the genre, as Nichijou (My Ordinary Life) and Hyakko have shown in recent years. A popular flavor has the girls involved in a club, where they often do zany, non- club-related things. Teekyu is one of those series, which centers on straight-laced high school freshman Yuri Oshimoto, who gets sucked into the inane escapades of her three senior classmates in the school's tennis club (which, as you guessed it, involves little tennis). At the same time, there is more to this little (and I mean "two-minutes-per-episode" little) show, whose behind-the-scenes notoriety maybe as sublime as the show's most notable accomplishment--being one of the very few, if not the first, show that can out Fooly Cooly FLCL.

:anime: Ani-Journal - For January 10, 2013

For New Year's, it was about not-so-good things. A day later, for Jan. 2, it was about the technical stuff. And now for the 10th, and closing out this trilogy of-sorts of Ani-Journal entries, let's get down to some more anime!

--(But really…I was trying really to get that Jan. 2 one completed on the 1st. Just missed it…)

--I've already touched on this on Twitter, but I can't really see why Sword Art Online has elicited the kind of emotion that it has among fans. Either it's a popular, great show, or a steaming pile of putrid crap. Personally, cliche-sacked second half and all that hate over that one character aside (see Jan. 2 link), the first half at least was a pretty good, albeit imperfect, one. On the negative side, it skipped time a bit too brusque in certain spots and the "die in the game, die in real life" hook lost some of its edge as the series drifted away from the intensity that was present in the early episodes. Additionally, Asuna, the main heroine and Kirito's main squeeze, is inconsistently portrayed throughout (even in the second half). She's either a strong, independent  and very capable warrior and woman, or she's a helpless damsel-in-distress that gets into avoidable binds (at least, for someone at her level) so Kirito can fulfill his role as the requisite heroic male--sometimes in the same scene.

:anime: Ani-Journal - For January 02, 2013

Last year, we kicked off 2012 with an Ani-Journal entry and concluded it with one (which was, um, a day ago). So, I figured, hey, why not kick off 2013 (and a new year again) with yet another installment of Ani-Journal, now out of its beta phase! I mean, when you've barely had the chance to post anything the past year, you've got a lot of things left to say!

--In early June, I finally was able to purchase a PlayStation 3 (320 GB Slim w/ Move bundle). While, yes, you can play video games on it, I primarily bought it for its Blu-ray functionality, as well as its streaming video services. The latter was rather slim at first for anime (Hulu Plus, Amazon, and Netflix), but the timing couldn't have been more apropos, as the options exploded soon after with Crunchyroll, Neon Alley, Crackle, and YouTube.