Nopy's Blog

It’s hard to deny that anime has good music compared to other animation. For example, I don’t think a song from Spongbob Squarepants or Ben 10 would ever make it onto the Billboard Charts, but you often hear of anime music reaching the top 10 on Japan’s equivalent Oricon Charts. With music oriented anime like K-ON! achieving huge success, that got me thinking: does music affect the popularity and success of an anime, or conversely, does an anime affect the popularity and success of a song?

In a recent post, I listed 10 anime series with good music that made it onto the Oricon Charts. Most of these series were very popular when they aired, but it’s hard to determine if that was soley because of the music or if the anime was already good. Ideally, to figure this out, we would need to put a crappy anime on the market with good music and a good anime with bad music, then watch the Oricon charts. Unfortunately, I don’t know any pop stars or anime studios that would help me, so I’m settling for the next best thing: watching Senki Zesshou Symphogear.

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Some of you may remember a post I made last year on whether to purchase one or both versions of a particular figure. The figure in question was of Ruri Hoshino, my all-time favourite anime character and unofficial mascot of Nopy’s Blog. Originating from the 1996 anime Martian Successor Nadesico, figures of her are extremely hard to find, which was why I was elated to hear that a company called Kurushima would be releasing two versions of Ruri, titled “Way Back From Bakery” and sculpted by Keiko. As you can see above, I bought two of these figures, one is the polka-dot dress version and the other is the pink-dress Miyazawa limited version. They come in exactly the same box with only a couple of stickers identifying which version is inside. Each figure retails for 14200 JPY, making them the most expensive in my collection.

Unlike most figures, which are made out of PVC, this line of Ruri figures is made out of cold cast resin. While PVC figures are generally soft and pliable, cold cast figures are hard and brittle, making them extremely fragile. Enough description though, below you can see my review of the actual figures.

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A while back, I was compiling a list of the most powerful books in anime. I didn’t get very far because quite frankly, there aren’t many popular examples. Instead, I had another fun idea: who in the world would be most suited or likely to possess the most powerful books in anime? A few days later, a huge news story swept the Korean peninsula: Kim Jong-il dead from a heart attack. For one of the most popular (not in a good way) villans of our time to die of a simple heart attack sounded suspicious to me… like something out of Death Note, wouldn’t you say?

If you haven’t heard of a Death Note before, see the below image for a run-down of how it works:

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I’m sure you’ve seen a few of these posts around by now, but if you haven’t, du5k from One Minute of Dusk has come up with a blogging carnival with the topic of “What Makes a 10/10 Anime?”

A 10/10 rating can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but here’s a rundown of how I use the 10 point rating system:

Score of 10: perfect

Score of 9: could’ve improved in at least 1 area

Score of 8: overall great

Score of 7: enjoyable

Score of 6: average

Score of 5: meh

Score of 4: bad

Score of 3: waste of time

Score of 2: caused me to rage

Score of 1: should not exist

What we’re focusing on today is what exactly is “perfect”? I’ve thought about this for a while, and I’ve come up with this short list of what the perfect anime needs:

• decent production values
• likeable characters
• constant attention

Sounds simple, but lets consider each item separately.

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Now that the new year is here, it’s time to present the January 2012 issue of Megami Magazine, or volume 140. There are a few winter and Christmas-themed posters in this one as you can probably guess from the snowflakes on the front cover, though not as many as you would think. As usual, text links to images are ecchi and/or NSFW, so click at your own discretion.

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Back in 1997, visual novel producer Leaf released their third visual novel series, To Heart. The title proved to be extremely popular, and two years later on April 2, 1999, the To Heart anime adaptation was aired on Japanese TV. This was the beginning of a brand new genre in anime: the school harem.

While there were already plenty of love triangles in anime, To Heart was the first to introduce 11 different girls in a school setting with which the main character could end up with. The sheer number of girls vying for one guy’s affection and the fact that it all takes place in school was what led to the term “school harem”. The golden age of school harems can be considered as the years from 1999 to the mid-00′s, and ended at the start of the moe boom. Popular school harems include To Heart, To Heart 2, Kanon, Da Capo, Shuffle, and Clannad.

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Everyone goes through the “newbie” phase when they start anything and it can be a very discomforting experience, especially if you’re a newbie to anime. With words such as “kawaii”, “moe”, and “otaku” to name a few, learning the anime lingo can seem just as hard as learning a new language, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive guide to help you figure out what exactly defines a character as “moe”, why there’s so much hype over some pieces of plastic, or why anime characters have such big eyes. Well, Tsurugiarashix and I aim to change that, but we need some help.

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Now that 2011 is coming to an end, I thought it would be fitting to write a year-end or annual report. Many companies submit reports summarizing their activities throughout the year, so I figured why couldn’t a blog do the same? For those interested, below is a list of the major points of interest concerning my blog for the past year.

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Last year I decided to rank my top 10 anime girls of 2010 and I am once again ranking the top 10 anime girls of the year, after all, it’s more interesting than the top 10 anime of the year. As before, any character appearing in anime that aired this year are qualified, and they are ranked by how much I liked them (which can factor in anything from cuteness to personality).

10. Inori Yuzuriha (Guilty Crown)

I’ve always liked pink-haired characters, and when I first saw Inori in Megami Magazine, I knew she’d be more than just looks. Not only can Inori sing, she knows how to use a pistol and can take out a pair of guards in a heartbeat.

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Since the end of Mawaru Penguindrum, I’ve seen a lot of people say things along the lines of, “this anime sucked, there was no real story and no explanation whatsoever.” OK, comments may not have been that extreme, but you get the idea. I actually thought that the story was great, and no great story holds your hand through the end. With that said, it’s understandable that there would be some confusion with regards to Mawaru Penguindrum. To try to dispel some of that confusion, I have outlined some of my observations and conclusions here. It is by no means complete and I can’t guarantee it’s what the writer had intended, but it’s how I viewed the series and why I enjoyed it.

I have structured this post so that observations and explanations of small details are listed first. In the conclusion I explain how I viewed the series, and you can just skip to that part if you aren’t interested in the details.

Warning: Do not read further if you have not completed Mawaru Penguindrum (or Revolutionary Girl Utena). The topics that I cover below will spoil the entire series and assumes that you have seen every episode at least once.

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