I know it's not actually a good show, and honestly speaking I can't think of a reason why I'm even watching it other than "it's good blog fodder". Or rather, blog fodder to talk about, in the sense that I can kind of discuss the stuff around the show without actually talking about the show itself.

The second season of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, oddly subtitled Purezza, is the sort of show that I'd be happy to watch, but do not exactly watch to be happy. It's somewhat lower than the comfort food of anime I watch; overall, it's suitable for background noise, both in the visual and aural sense.

It is not offensive to my tastes, which I admit sounds like damning with faint praise. It's not, honestly. It's kind of a non-recommendation, in as neutral a sense as I can engineer. It is not alien to me as most mecha series are, and it is not directly insulting as many anti-moe shows feel like. It simply rests in the surprisingly small pool of Okay-ish. It's there. I don't have anything else to say about it.

And yet I watch it anyway, because it is not offensive. When you want to watch something, anything, that you haven't watched before, and you're surrounded by stuff that are incompatible to your tastes, then you take what you can get.

Perhaps, if I were in another mood, I'd be more ebullient in my praise. But for now, all I can say about Purezza is that I do not dislike it. And for now, that's all I can ask for.

City of Heroes has a number of dance emotes, for a given value of "dance". This is because the animator who first manipulated the game model frames for this purpose based the moves off his own flailing attempts, and I use these less-than-flattering words because I am quoting to the best of my knowledge the man himself.

One of these dances, known among players as the Hyperactive Monkey, requires such great movements of the abdomen that when I introduced a friend to the game, she noted that doing that dance in real life would likely rupture something important.

Watching the ending animation for Kampfer, I cannot help but think of that phrase.

Kampfer has been billed as a "guilty pleasure", if it has been billed positively at all. While I am certainly going to be following this show, assuming it does not deviate too far from the source, I cannot quite call it a "guilty pleasure", as I feel refreshingly free of guilt.

We'll keep on trying. We'll tread that fine line. We'll keep on trying, until the end of time.

I admit that I didn't expect Marina Inoue to voice both versions of Natsuru. When I read the manga, Guy!Natsuru seemed like he'd be voiced by a Standard Harem Comedy Protagonist Voice Actor. I shouldn't be surprised, considering some small plot points hinged on Girl!Natsuru sounding a lot like Guy!Natsuru.

Speaking of which, the fourth-wall-breaking voice actress jokes in this episode fall just short of excessive. Yukari Tamura got the longest mention, which is a little brain-breaking in her role as a foul-mouthed plush bunny post-ritual disembowelment. Yui Horie and "the original Shizuka" (Michiko Nomura; reference to Doraemon) were also mentioned. One gets the feeling that the writers felt like being a little too clever.

This can also be seen in the vast amount of double- and single-entendres which pass for much of the comedy. I cannot find fault in this, seeing as I usually do much the same thing anyway. Clearly this is not a show to be taken seriously.

Gender-bender premises, especially aimed at the male demographics, are a fascinating source of observation for the reactions. We've seen it in action with Mizuho in Otoboku and Jun in Happiness, as well as unofficially with Kyonko. Anime, already a commonly-used art style for good-looking characters in general, is able to sidestep all the messy biology inherent in the problem.

And so we end up admiring what is, to all intents and purposes, a cute girl, while still knowing that there is still a technical male presence in that picture, be their magical transformation sequence ever so pretty and sparkly.

Kuroko is not the first teleporter who gets that onomatopoeia stuck in my head. Chances are I've used this reference before, and I will use it again.

My primary familiarity with A Certain Scientific Railgun is from the manga version. Well, obviously, since the anime just started airing. Despite the title, I have the impression that this show will not exactly be a shining pinnacle of accuracy in physics.

I'm not as familiar with the original source of A Certain Magical Index, having read the first few bits of the manga until what I think could be counted as the end of the (relatively long) prologue, but my impression of the male protagonist, Touma, is that while he has a special power, it is nowhere near as powerful as pretty much everyone else in the show. Touma gets to be the main character through a combination of luck, some skilful use of his abilities, and the sheer bloody-mindedness that is available to every male shounen series protagonist.

However, in Railgun, he's Mikoto's kinda-sorta rival, in that no matter what Mikoto wants to do, he can one-up her without even breaking a sweat, largely because his Imagine Breaker power is a great deal more general-purpose than her electromagnetism.

Same character, two different viewpoints. It's not a huge revelation. I just found the plot quirks interesting.

As for the actual episode itself, this is probably one of those series I'll be following if I remember to, since a) I already know the story, and b) I know there will be some measure of faux-philosophical angsting in store.

I wonder if it says something about me that the yuri-ness of Kuroko is amusing, but not especially titillating. Is this a special case, or have I changed my tastes?

I admit that this is a little late for my usual two-posts-per-week. Let us just leave it at "Real Life" and move on.

Zettai Heiwa Daisakusen translates roughly to "Absolute/Ultimate Peace Plan", which happens to be the primary premise of the manga: two countries were at war, but peace was quickly declared when it was discovered that the prince of one country and the princess of another were deeply in love with each other. Prince Johanne is a proud warrior, and Princess Euda is a gentle healer, as keeping with traditional gender roles or some such. However, the truth of the matter is that the True Love is not exactly True, and indeed only an act to stop the senseless violence from continuing. And so now Johanne and Euda have to learn how to live with each other, while pretending to be lovey-dovey in public.

This, incidentally, is not a spoiler, since the manga takes immense pains to mention all of this at the beginning of every chapter. It's as tedious as it sounds.

Even so, I find myself fascinated by this manga, despite it being very, well, shoujo. For everyone who criticizes moe anime for being repetitive and unimaginative, please take note of the incessant refrains of "I love him! Wait, no I don't! Wait, yes I do!" that make up the majority of the inner monologues. And Johanne, in true shoujo love interest style, is pretty much a jerk, albeit with the requisite Heart Of Gold. Most of the manga is told from Euda's point of view, which does mean that she gets the vast majority of screentime.

And that, perhaps, is why I'm still reading this: apart from the amusing situations Euda gets herself into in trying to make herself love Johanne (except not really, except yes, except no, except yes), she's fairly short, and has pretty much one dress style. Comedy is thus obtained in inverse proportion to Euda's height.

(Also, Euda reminds me so much of Kyonko that I'm starting to associate the two together now. This is a little odd.)

And all he wants to do is sing. Or swing, maybe.

For some reason this show feels over-animated to me. The art style takes a little getting used to, since I usually see it when used for scenes with a great deal of movement, when you don't have the luxury of examining every line in detail. Seeing it used for the longing stares at faces is a little unnerving.

I have no doubt that there will be a great deal of Drama in store for this show, mostly because anytime fiction deals with the Upper Crust there's going to be Drama about class responsibilities and social insecurities and all that. And yet, the fact that you can probably tell who the important female characters are by the size of their bustline is a little deflating to the inevitable angst.

The show is full of not thinking about things too much, and just going with the flow. Teppei is a little more composed than the usual flustered harem anime lead, either due to his l33t swordsmanship skills or his sideburns. Yuu is clearly the Maid Option, and it's a little early to tell whether she's the hypercompetent sort or the doormat sort (or both). Despite that, she's still the girl I'm rooting for the most, partly because I'm hoping that whatever class struggle backplot she may have will be neatly resolved by a romance.

However, I get the feeling Charlotte Hazelrink is the Chosen Girl of this anime, what with going around in a horse carriage in this day and age, as well as likely having both the largest chest and the smallest brain. Silvie gets to be the Established Fiancee Option that gets Gracefully Turned Down, after a highly-animated budget-breaking sword duel of some sort, leaving legions of Saber fans disappointed.

This is probably not a good show for me to blog, because I can't help but think of stuff like "I bet Teppei's really good with his sword, hur hur" and miss the actual plot in favour of low innuendo. Still, I'm still working my way through the current Summer 2009 season of shows, squeezing them into my very much non-copious free time, so it's probably a good fallback.

I'm a little iffy about the leads. They're not bad, but Saku and Mihoshi just don't really interest me all that much. It feels like they're missing something, some strange chemistry that makes other couples work. Hime is also a little too tempting a target for the plot gods to mess about with in a comedic and yet schadenfreude manner; I've known her for less than an episode and already I feel sorry for her.

Still, I admit that this is entirely subjective, especially considering the existence in general of shipping wars. Even as we speak, the Saku/Mihoshi and Saku/Hime shippers have girded for battle, with the Saku/Fumie faction patiently waiting their turn, or so it may seem.

The comedy is amusing enough for my low tastes. I have a weakness for sudden chibification of the characters as they go through some absurd skit, and Mihoshi's antics lead to plenty of this. Club president Roma's emulation of Excel Saga's Hyatt (what with the blood and the coughing and the dying repeatedly) would be disturbing in a more Serious show, but provides the necessary predictable humour: whenever there is anything remotely resembling physical exertion, Roma loses about half a litre of blood and keels over. Apparently life-threatening conditions are great for defusing tension.

So far I'm watching this mainly for Sayo Yarai, who appears to be there entirely to be kind and a great listener. I don't know if I'm drawn to her because of something I like, or because there is nothing I dislike. Given that I find the other characters at least tolerable, I suspect it is the former, but I cannot quite pin down what. (Apart, of course, from the "kind and a great listener" thing.)

Oh, and if you're wondering about the symbols next to the names in the credits (both opening and closing), they're astrological signs for the Western Zodiac. From the small sampling I've checked, they're accurate as well.

One of the front-running candidates for the third spot of my Favourite Anime listing (behind Card Captor Sakura and Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) is Hidamari Sketch, and the main reason it hasn't been shunted into the position yet is because I'm not entirely sure why. This isn't exactly a reason in itself to deny greatness, but I felt that I needed to know if it was the show itself which I liked, or just the general style such shows in the genre lend themselves to.

I've not seen Sketchbook yet, and other series involving art students don't come to mind as yet, so I don't know if the general concept of Slice Of Life involving Art naturally leads to a more Artistic sort of anime style. Of course, I know just about nothing about True Art, so I can't tell if this is actually Artistic, or merely pretentious. Whichever it is, at least it's entertaining, which is far more important to me than Art.

And of course, it is difficult to separate the Art of an anime about art students from the Art of SHAFT, when watching Hidamari Sketch. Maybe there is no such separation, and the two build on each other like cheese on pizza.

Geijustuka Art Design Class, or GA for short (regardless of any possible confusion with similarly-initialed series), is not quite up to HidaSketch standards in my pantheon of Favourite Anime. I place the source of the difference squarely on the soundtrack: I love the HidaSketch soundtrack to bits, while GA has some good tracks, but the majority appear to be there merely to give some texture to the background, and could have been replaced with a dial tone. On the upside, I like the opening theme ("Osaki ni sil vous plait", possibly translated from both Japanese and French as "Go ahead first, if you please"), and the ending theme ("Colouring palettes", Tomokane/Miyuki Sawashiro version) is very catchy.

Speaking of voice actors, GA gets points for being very surprising: all the names are familiar, but the voices are different. Haruka Tomatsu (Shiho Sannomiya in Zettai Karen Children, off the top of my head) sounds so much like Mamiko Noto (one million million light-and-airy-voice characters, like Nodoka Miyazaki in Negima, Aoi Futaba in Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel, Kotomi Ichinose in Clannad… so on and so forth) that I had to double-check the credits. Miyuki Sawashiro is no longer Puchiko from Di Gi Charat, but a loud hyperactive tomboy character. And Yui Horie abandons her genki-cheerful voice for a lower oneesan role in this one.

Since I've only had time to watch the first episode (the second is waiting for another unbroken chunk of an hour or so to watch and jot down my impressions thereof), I'm obviously not going to make a judgement one way or another yet. Maybe the really awesome parts of the soundtrack will turn up in later episodes, or maybe even a later season.

Until then, I suspect I'll be subconsciously and constantly pushing my spectacles up in sympathy with Kisaragi.

Why do so many bishoujo games have a token cute animal (for varying degrees of "cute")? The Key anime adaptations featured theirs, with Piro in Kanon, Potato in Air, and Botan in Clannad. Nursery Rhyme has Azu, and Heart de Roommate had Toshibo. I first noticed this during the fake opening for the last Haruhi-chan episode, where apparently Muu-chan (a Haruhi-chan original) and Shamisen double-team this role.

I've not had much time to play Coming x Humming, and I swear that this is actually the name of the visual novel. I have no idea what it's about, except apparently some sort of local goddess from the shrine taking human form to… I don't know. Boink the player character, maybe. Characters in visual novels seem to have a surprisingly blase attitude towards plainly supernatural phenomena; it's hard to tell if this is something generally Japanese, or if it's just easier to tell a bishoujo game story like this, without having to explain all the plot contortions.

I wonder what the first bishoujo game to utilize all these conventions was. Probably something relatively old and familiar, since when I encountered them in Coming x Humming, they had this comfortingly familiar feel. Token cute pet, token childhood friend, token MAGIC… all is well with the world.

A bit later than the curve would suggest, but I've started on Spice and Wolf. Note that I said started, as in "watched about five minutes of the first episode before I had to go". I have heard tell that this anime concerns itself with being informative and educational rather than entertainment, which I admit would probably not have lured me in if there hadn't been the much-fanarted Horo. I learn better when a cute anime girl is involved; I am a simple man.

Most of my knowledge about the history of currency is from Neal Stephenson's unwieldy Baroque Cycle. For those who have never read it before (and believe me, if you've read it you'd know, considering its possible usage as a 1d6 bludgeoning weapon), it deals with the political and cultural upheavals of the late 17th and early 18th century, with an immense focus, as only Stephenson can do and still get published under Fiction, on modern finance and banking. I am hoping, with the sort of desperate optimism a college student the day before his finals may possess while looking for Cliff's Notes in the bookstore, that Spice and Wolf may provide a less depressing context for the history lesson.

(And while I like Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, Making Money isn't really all that informative. Entertaining, but not informative.)

The idea of economics is pretty fascinating, although I should mention that I'd rather not do all the heavy lifting of actually studying the subject. The basic principles, from the concept of barter, is simple: I have A Thing which you want. You may have Another Thing which I want. We then trade our Things as far as we see the transaction to be viable. Except that the Real World doesn't work that neatly, and so lots of complications arise, and lots more complications arise from the attempted solutions to these complications, a state of affairs familiar to experienced gamers.

Along the way someone came up with the idea of representing, say, a given amount of apples or spices or cow with a shaped bulk sample of precious metals, and then someone else thought of keeping the general shape but reducing the amount of precious metal in that sample, and then we have things Written Down which promised to Pay The Bearer One Dollar I Say One Dollar Upon Presentation Of This Note. The piece of paper alone is worth about as much as a regular piece of paper plus some ink, but the information recorded on that paper, and the reputation of the person or organization encoding that information, made it worth as much as a given amount of precious metals, or a given amount of cow, if it comes to that. The jump to that information without the paper seems trivial in comparison.

Along the way, the world became more and more connected, and lines of communications became more and more secure, and very intelligent people thought up of ways to use this to their advantage, or their nation's advantage, or their culture's advantage. Or politics, which is never very far behind. (I include religious beliefs of that time inside politics, since that's what it boiled down to anyway.) Thus, given that it is fairly safe to assume that a message sent to someone will reach that person, these intelligent people are able to shuffle around money that they have, or don't have, or will possibly have in the future provided various things come to pass, or other people's money which they are keeping in yet other people's pockets, and still settle accounts, through some sort of financial voodoo.

We have come from trading Things, to what is essentially Magic. And the essential part of magic is in knowing just that bit more than everyone else.