Haiyore! Nyaruko-san review season 1

Just a heads up, you may need to look up some of the Japanese words that have been used.  The honorifics after each name mean different things.

The anime starts off with a young boy running through the night, multiple moons with a reddish color which seems to signify an alternate dimension where normal people cannot see inside, and he ends up running down an alley into a dead-end.   The monster, a Nightguant, has him cornered in the alley and the boy screams for help.  Nyarlathotep shows up to save him by killing the monster with her bare hands.  Nyarlathotep takes on the form of a young girl roughly the same age as the boy in appearance.  The boy is named Mahiro Yasaka and knows of the Cthulhu Mythos and Nyarlathotep.  She tells him that Space Defense Agency sent her to Earth to protect him.  He takes her to his house to clean up.  Nyarlathotep enrolls at Mahiro-san's high school and introduces herself as such, but shortens the name to Nyaruko-san.

She is making him breakfast, using her pet's eggs, a shantak.  Cthugha shows up in a similar guise and Mahiro-san calls her Kuko.  She is apparently the arch-nemesis of Nyarlathotep and all Nyarlathotepians.  Kuko displays a love for fire and as a Cthughan her battle form displays red flames covering her body.  She is completely bonkers for Nyaruko just as much as Nyaruko is bonkers for Mahiro-san and just like his denial for Nyaruko, she has the same denial for Kuko.  Kuko enrolls herself in Mahiro-san's high school to stay close to Nyaruko-san.

Hastur-kun shows up as a little boy, who looks like a girl, and accidentally bumps into Mahiro-san while searching for Mahiro-san's mother, Yorika Yasaka.  Hastur-kun than with the aid of Kuko gets the idea of and starts falling in love with Mahiro-san.

You do meet Mahiro-san's friend in school named Takehiko Yoichi and Tamao Kurei, usually called Yoichi-san and Kurei-san formally.  They somehow get taken over by the Greater Race of Yith who wants to destroy the people of Earth and used both of their bodies and transported alien intelligence inside their minds to take control of their bodies.  Yoichi built the machine, under false pretenses, and Kurei was suppose to stop him.  However, somehow, the weapon she uses accidentally switched Mahiro's and Nyaruko's minds so as to say Mahiro-san was in Nyaruko's body and vice-versa.

Along the way, they face a few villains, the first being Nodens, a space smuggler who sent the nightguant after Mahiro-san to kidnap him and feature him in yaoi films.  The second bad guy was Nyaruko-san's brother, a Nyarlathotepian who has a lot of hatred towards his sister.  He killed all the gods in the Dreamlands that defend it as a spiteful thing towards his sister.  However, Nyaruko doesn't even formally recognize him as her brother, instead calling him the "wild Nyarlathotepian."

And using Dagon to travel to R'lyeh, the city that rose up from the sea, which is where Nyaruko defeated Nodens.  Now, since R'lyeh is the town where the Cthulhu Corporation is based, a final character is introduced working for the Cthulhu Corp.  Her name is Luhy Distone, who looks like a human, but is actually a star-spawn of Cthulhu.  She ends up coming to Mahiro-san's house after his mother gets back and takes Kuko and Yoriko with her back to R'lyeh in what appears to be the  1981 DeLorean DMC-12 from "Back to the Future" fame.  Turns out that she asked them to come help her on the next generation gaming console, since Yoriko is a gaming console fanatic and Kuko is known as the "Queen" in certain video game communities.  Kuko actually ends up destroying the Xoth after Yoriko tells that usually the better gaming console fails because there are no games for people to play on it and the CEO of the Cthulhu Corp calls Luhy and tells her that the project that she's working on has been cancelled.

After these two "villains" are finished, defeated, or abolished, another deity gets added the party.  Mahiro-san kind of looks after this fourth deity, as she has the guise of a young little girl, as a little sister to him.  The fourth deity is named Ghutatan and she has a butler named Roy Fooger, a Lloigor.

Roy turns out to be the third bad guy, who wants to take all of Earth's "adult games" to space.  Nyaruko, Hastur, and Kuko defeat him.  The first season ends while waiting for Ghtatan's parents to pick her up on Earth and take her home.

There is a second season, which I will view and write a review on soon and if any of this didn't make sense or piqued your interest, watch the anime to find out for yourself.  I would give this anime a rating of probably 4 out of 5.  I like the idea to the anime, and though some of the ideas are adult-like, some of the characters are really high-school-ish and immature, especially when they are deities, it doesn't make much sense unless you think about it as when they take on their human form, they can't fit all their brain into their body.  Who knows, anyway, Until next time, don't watch T.V.; watch anime instead.

Demonbane

Demonbane is an anime that has reference towards the Cthulhu Mythos made popular by H. P. Lovecraft.  Each episode gives a listing of the terms used and a background of what is meant by each term.

The anime itself centers around the leading character named Kurou Daijuuji, a former student of Miskatonic University where he studied to become a sorcerer, but dropped out due to financial problems.  Now he is a poor private investigator hired by the Hadou Financial Group which is run by Ruri Hadou to find a book of power.  By fate or destiny, or just plain dumb luck, he encounters a book store owner whose store appears out of a fine mist and she knows more than she should, however, her name is given as Nya who becomes a minor reoccurring character until the last episode where her true identity is given.  Low and behold, Kurou leaves the book store after Nya tells him that what he's looking for isn't at the store, on the way to his car, a girl literally falls in his lap, and tells him that her name is Al and she wants to know if he's a sorcerer.  So she is the book of power he's looking for and in order to save his life and hers, she makes a contract with him and he's just like a lost little puppy and doesn't know what's going on.  Anyway, Al is short for Al-Azif, which is the name of the Necronomicon, the book of power.  Al detects a Deus Machina, basically a God Machine, which allows them to fight evil, but the Deus Machina is name Demonbane, hence the name of the anime, and is sorta maintained by the Hadou Financial Group.  It's a giant Mech.  Anyway, the background info is useful since it gives spelling and details that fill you in on what's going on so you're not completely going insane, but that's what Cthulhu is all about, anyway, if you can get past the giant mechanized robots in the 1920's, then its a fairly decent anime with a good story.

The first episode, 'I Am Providence' was a great episode that made you want to find out what the hell was going on.  You can Wikipedia the name of the anime to get a listing of episodes, there is only twelve, and a plot description more in depth than what I've said here, but all in all, I would recommend this anime, especially if you're just starting out reading or playing with H. P. Lovecraft or Call of Cthulhu or really into the Cthulhu Mythos.  Its entertaining, not really a horror anime, but the way they portray normal people when shit hits the fan is great, everyone screaming and running, its realistic on certain things, but extremely PG rated, again, this is anime targeted children, so its kind of campy.  So if you don't mind all the negative, give it look, you may find something that they put a different spin on, especially the artifacts in the Mythos, I enjoyed the anime immensely.

I would rate the anime overall as a solid 4.5 out of 5, with high repeat viewing capability.  I would buy this if I could find the complete season on DVD or Blu-ray.  Leave a comment and let me know how enjoyed it.  Until next time, watch anime, not TV.

Demonbane review imminent

I will be writing a Demonbane review in the near future.  I finally finished watching it this week, but don't have the time for a full review.  Just letting know it is on its way.

--Don't watch TV, read manga and watch anime, its healthier.--

Reviews in the near future

In the near future, I am planning on writing some reviews for two anime.  Demonbane and Haiyore! Nyaruko-san.   They are supposedly both involved with the Cthulhu Mythos.  I look forward to seeing them.

Nodame Cantabile with Paris and Finale

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED FOR THE CLASSICAL MUSIC FAN!

I started watching this anime because I read it in an online quiz on "how much do you know anime" and because of that quiz I wrote down all the anime that I had never heard about.  That's why I started watching, but the reason I kept watching is something different.  I kept watching this anime because of the character development in the story and my interest in classical music.  Within the show, which starts in Japan, you have two main characters -- Nodame and Chiaki -- who are complete opposites and somehow fall in love.  Chiaki is great with piano and the violin, but becomes a great composer.  Nodame is a great pianist and an Otaku (nerd) to boot.  They are not head over heels from the beginning and it doesn't really get there until the end of the Nodame Cantabile:Finale season, but for all those hopeless romantics, this anime is for you.  Also, if you are a music major and/or love classical music this is an anime for you.   Since I like anime, classical music, and really good storyline, this anime was pretty freaking good.  I would give it a solid four out of five stars.  Some of the music is fun and original in the anime.

FYI:  Some of the music played in this anime are: Liszt, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Schumann, plus others.

High School DxD evaluated

WARNING!!!!! NUDITY IN THIS ANIME.

High School DxD is a great anime if your a guy.  Lots of boobs and hot chicks in lingerie, but there are two catches.  One, the girls are akuma (devils) and two, the girls seem to be in high school which would probably mean that the girls are minors; however, the storyline is intriguing and the list of episodes number twelve with one special that I viewed.  I would have liked to see more of the story enfold before the show ended, but due to what I just described I can see why.  There are also different viewings I found.  One viewing had everything censored out and the other had only below the waistline censored out, so basically one showed nipples and the other didn't.  Because of the story and the drawing involved with this anime I am giving it a rating of four out of five stars.

Shugo Chara & Shugo Chara Doki

This anime has interesting characters and you get tied into it quite early on, but this anime is for kids in fourth or fifth grade; roughly ten to twelve years old or older.  Since the main character is in grade school and most of the show is featuring the school and what happens to the kids there.  Well, that's Shugo Chara in a nutshell.  The main character is a girl, but she's in a group of others including boys and the group is centered around being guardians (kind of like class presidents) of the school.  They also have Shugo Charas ( their would-be selves that hatch from their heart-eggs; since every child has an egg inside them (basically their dreams of what they want to be or could be)).  Yeah, its kind of complicated, so the easiest way to understand what I'm saying is to watch the anime.  Sure, its kinda cheesy, but young kids will like it and they might learn something useful too.

Doki is the second part, mainly the continuation, of the story.  The guardians face new difficulties and a new nemesis or two.  It definitely gets interesting.  Still for kids.  There is a third anime called Shugo Chara Party (I think that's what it is, but I could be wrong).  It is next on my watch list.  After I watch it, I'll post a review here.   Overall, Shugo Chara and Shugo Chara Doki are excellent anime for young kids in the age range I noted above and should be watched accordingly.  I rate these two as a solid four out of five stars.

ADULT WARNING:  One character plays a girl in the first part and is a boy in the second part.  The character is a boy in the first part pretending to be a girl because of family tradition and nothing else.  Take this into consideration if letting kids watch this.

Shion no Ou:Shion's King

This is my 82nd anime watched.  Few are the same show, but different season.  I also have a few continuing anime that I watch, namely Naruto: Shippuden and Bleach.  This anime is also known as just Shion's King.

Shion no Ou:Shion's King was excellent.  A large part of the anime was based on shogi or Japanese chess; it was played during every episode.  The anime actually made me want to learn to play shogi.  I learned mahjong because of anime (the four person game, not solitaire version).  I figure I like chess, so I should like shogi.

Back to the anime, which is 22 episodes long.  I enjoyed every second.  The main character is a little girl whose birth parents were murdered in front of her 8 years ago.  She was adopted and raised by the neighbors who for some reason do not have children of their own.  You meet a boy, who pretends to be a girl, to play shogi, to win money.  You also get to meet some interesting characters.  I'll tell you if you begin watching this anime, you'll be surprised close to the end of the season on who the real killer is of Shion's parents.  I would rate this anime a solid four out of five stars.

Asu no Yoichi

Asu no Yoichi is a great anime.  The story is about a 17 year-old boy who moves into the city to a dojo ran by a group of four sisters after he is told by his father to go there because his father can no longer train him to become stronger.  This is mainly because Yoichi defeats his father easily.  Yoichi is training to become a samurai and his father trained him for the first 17 years but tells Yoichi to go to the city to continue his training and become a modern samurai.  For 17 years, Yoichi has lived in the mountains with no exposure to women, modern culture, or other people really, so it becomes comical the situations he gets himself into accidentally.   Coincidentally, the four sisters are around the same age as him, their parents have left on a "training trip" and it's only the four of them.

This anime is definitely geared towards 13-14 year-old boys from the abundant talk about boobs.  Now the word 'hentai' is used in the anime, but the word is simply translated as 'pervert', so don't worry about any nudity, there isn't any.  Scantily clad girls with huge boobs is about it.  I would have to give this anime about four out of five stars.

Chaos;HEAd vs. Steins;Gate

Chaos;HEAd is an anime that broke my mind.  After the first episode, I walked into the living room and told my roommate that this anime was like a kick in the junk wrapped inside a twinkie; both sweet and painful.  I kept watching and was reminded of the first Matrix movie where it is said that something feels wrong about the world.  Well, this anime totally gave me that feeling, re-affirmed is more like it, and since I have always had that feeling in real life, well, I'm just glad that I could find it in another anime.  I found it once before in Steins;Gate.  I completely love this anime and rate it a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Iria: Zeiram the Animation vs. Chaotic

Iria was a difficult anime to track down.  It may go by a different name because of misspelling.  Regardless, it was a good anime, short, but good.  It deals with space, bounty hunting, aliens, and technology.  I wouldn't recommend for the young, but age 14 and higher should be able to enjoy this anime.  I would rate this about 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Chaotic is a cartoon.  I first saw it when it first aired on Fox Kids or 4Kids or whatever its called.  I became a big fan of the first season.  Loved the artwork, the storyline was good and the creatures were all original.  It's been a couple years, almost like 5, since I originally saw it, but I caught all 79 episodes on Hulu and was disappointed that it ended so quickly and poorly.  I could be wrong, but I think it has ended.  The artwork seemed to change between seasons one and two, but you quickly forget the change.  Overall, I would have to rate this cartoon at a solid 3 out of 5 stars.  Definitely kid approved.

Comparing the two is like comparing peanut butter with jelly.  Both individually enjoyable, but when mixed together a definite awesome sandwich.  Better together than separate. 

Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan vs. Tai Chi Chasers

Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan is a great anime.  It is also called or known as Nurarihyon no Mago.  Target viewers should be of a young adult or older age bracket.  The storyline is remarkable and easy to follow.  As of right now there are two seasons and they are both excellent.  Most of the anime I have watched, and my list is over 75 different anime, have failed when a second season is aired.  This anime however doesn't.  I rate this anime a solid 4.5 stars out of 5.

Tai Chi Chasers is an okay cartoon.  I use the word cartoon because that is what it is.  The target age is somewhere around like 10 years of age.  The storyline so far, I say so far since it is only about fourteen episodes long, is good and should be easy to follow.  The main characters are grade school kids, which is why I refer to it as a cartoon and the fact that it is or was shown on the 4kids network.  I do look forward to future episodes since it is starting to get interesting and might actually mature into an anime.  I would rate it currently at 3.5 stars out of 5.

As far as versus goes, I would totally have to go with Nura instead of Tai Chi Chasers.  Since the Tai Chi Chasers doesn't seem to be based on Tai Chi or at least the Tai Chi that I know I feel that it would be a great cartoon for kids to start watching.  If I had kids I would let them watch this.  Tai Chi Chasers is a group of kids that search for Tai Chi characters and use them, which are imprinted on cards kind of like Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Ho.  Nura is a story based on a boy named Nura Rikuo who is 1/4 Yokai and 3/4 human.  Yokai means Specter in the Japanese to English translation I used.  Apparently all yokai are evil, but this anime shows a different side to some of them.  I really enjoyed this anime.

Just what is Pumpkin Scissors

This question intrigued me and so I just had to watch the anime.  So, found out a couple of things.  One, it is an anime based in a different world, but very similar to Earth.  Two, there are at least two different countries in this world.  Three, the premise is 'war relief' so the setting is in a post-war world that was a fight between the Emperor and the Government or something similar.  Four, the main character is a lady who is also a soldier and she belongs to a Noble family called Melvin (not sure on spelling since my version was English dub).  Five, there are quite a few German references, or at least they sounded German to me.  I don't speak German.  Six, there some under-handed things going on and they started during the war, but they are still happening.  Seven, the unit is called Section Three Pumpkin Scissors and their mission is war relief.  Eight,  You get to know what Pumpkin Scissors mean.  What, you thought I was going to tell you.  Watch the anime.  I give it four out of five stars.

Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu

I love this anime.  Not only did it have the best character, but it surprised me that it was actually semi-serious.  The rest of the Full Metal Panic! animes are also a must see.  Some of the most bizarre things happen in Fumoffu, but they don't seem related to season one or two.  I enjoyed this anime immensely.   I rate this anime a 4.5 out 5 stars.

Psychic Detective Yakumo

I really enjoyed this anime.  It was a great show with unique characters.  The premise was that the main character, Yakumo, was born with a single red eye which allows him to see 'spirits of the dead' or human souls.  Based in Japan, where the idea of spirits is more readily accepted than America, Yakumo deals with a lot spirits.  Hauntings, possessions, and 'living' spirits or astral projection.  Of course a girl is involved, Ozawa Haruka, who seems to complicate his life, but ultimately saves it.  I would recommend this anime to anyone.  I would rate this anime at four out of five stars.

Ayashi no Ceres vs. Battle Programmer SHIRASE

Ayashi no Ceres or Ceres: The Celestial Legend was a good anime, but it seemed to fall apart in the middle.  I stuck with it and finished watching this anime, although it took me over a month to watch the entire thing.  The premise was good and the ending was also very good, although it started slow.  This show was fantasy oriented and overall was about three out of five stars.

Battle Programmer SHIRASE or BPS was a fast paced anime.  Full of relevant and current ideas this show was very good.  Each episode was only about twenty minutes in length and segmented into three-part episodes, but the entire anime was tied together very well.  This show was realistic fiction oriented and overall was about four point five out five stars.

Personally, I would have liked to see more episodes of BPS to see where else they would have gone, but I guess that it wasn't very well liked, so they discontinued the show.

A really good anime!

So, my list of anime has grown slightly with a little over seventy entire anime watched and two ongoing.  A third if you count by seasons.  The meaning of this blog though is to draw your attention to an anime called Steins;Gate.  It isn't a typo, there are no spaces and yes; there is a semicolon in between the two words.

Premise: Time travel and time machines using pseudo-physics (physics, but not really good physics) and a number of interesting characters.

Timeline:  Around 2010, but other years are mentioned and portrayed.

Review:  This anime brought tears to my eyes by having an interesting plot, intriguing characters, making me laugh and using some really cheesy physics.  I did notice some errors, but argued with myself about how and why certain situations happened and why certain other situations didn't arise.  However, this by far was an enjoyable anime, regardless of the small technical errors, and I would totally give this anime a thumbs up, five stars, etc.

In short - Watch Steins;Gate and see for yourself why this anime rocks.

Knights of Badassdom

This new movie just seems hardcore to the core.  and I really don't care what other people think, this is a badass movie.  Like I said before, I am going to watch this till my eyes bleed.  I just hope that these aren't the best parts of the movie.

This is the link for the movie.

http://youtu.be/dnQ9Vp4fV4I

I am going to like this movie.

A little bit of Anime in my life

I am still watching Bleach, the story arcs tag me along.  I am totally invested in watching this anime.  Along those lines, my memory isn't the greatest and I don't watch anime every day, so I started a text document catalogueing what anime I have watched, and if it isn't finallized, what episode number did I leave off at.  So my list of watched anime is pretty good.  I've seen about 64 different anime.  This is only counting anime, no hentai.

List of Anime that was/is exceptional:

Bleach
Naruto:Shippuden
FLCL
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Trigun
GANTZ
Cowboy Bebop
Gurren Lagann
Gilgamesh
Mahjong Legend Akagi
xxxHolic
Samurai X

This is a short list of the ones I really enjoyed.  While all of the anime I watched was good, these I really liked.  I now play mahjong, the 4 person game, not the solitaire version that is usually on people's computers.   Some of these anime make sense, some don't (well, if you're normal anyway), but they do, at least to me.  So if you want to start watching anime, which is a great place to go if you are stuck with coming up with some kind of plot for your players in your game and random elements of fun.

Watching anime opens up different world's of possibility, different cultural ideas/plots, all in all, it gets the creative juices flowing in the brain.  Well, until the world opens up and swallows me whole, keep gaming and game safe.

Graduated

So now I am graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Physics, Mathematics and Computer Information Systems (CIS).  I picked up my fake diploma/degree on Saturday May 21st, 2011.  Now it'll take a couple weeks for me to get the actual degree in the mail since final grades for this last semester have not been reported yet.  All grades should be reported by this Wednesday.  And then next month on the 18th, I turn 32.  So, exciting how everything is coming together.  I quit smoking, so ...  yeah, that's good, but now I realize why i kept smoking all these years, boredom.  I am so incredible bored that I am writing on all my blogs.  I think I have like eight, but enough catching up.  I will now move onto other things other than how nerdy I am.  So, upcoming talks will be on some other blogs that are awesome like Han Solo and have stuff that I don't talk about because that's how I roll .... like a d6.  LOL  keep reading and i'll keep writing.