[Anime Reviews]

Itazura na Kiss and the rationale of droppage

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Itazura na Kiss, Random thoughts, Rants]

My current watchlist looks like this. I think you’ll agree that longlist is looong - there are one or two that I’m following on DVD, or would be if finances permitted, but overall I’m balancing my time between a lot of unlicenced shows simultaneously in addition to full time employment (and the so-far fruitless search for better full time employment). This has led to a feeling that I’m sure many of you are familiar with - my personal standards have crept up to the point at which I’m actually looking for excuses to stop watching them in order to ease the pressure. To put it another way, “why watch series x when y is more entertaining?”. The weird thing is, I’ve never experienced this before but recently I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in terms of how much I’m watching. Sadly, unless you can give a good argument to the contrary, I think that Itazura na Kiss has to go.

When taking on too much becomes a burden: ironically this show has slipped into On-Hold purgatory too

When I say I’m looking for an excuse, I mean I want to give good reasons for dropping it; the last thing I want to do is be another Maddox wannabe who fails to see that logical and articulate arguments are what allows him to get away with being so bitchy and scathing. “This show sucks!” without a good argument to back it up will just make me sound like a troll or a retard; mindful that even after reading my last review for the show I still can’t remember why I enjoyed it in the first place, I feel that I need to outline in detail why InK seems to be failing.

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[Anime Reviews]

Itazura na Kiss 2-6: the tenacious Kotoko and the tsun-tsun Naoki

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Itazura na Kiss]

I’ve been trying to come up with a reason for finding this show so addictive - is it because Kotoko shares the same VA talent as two of my other favourite female leads, Darker than Black’s Kirihara and Tokyo Marble Chocolate’s Chizuru? Possibly. In all honesty though, everything about Kotoko’s character is funny and engaging - her good-natured persistence is simultaneously foolish in the extreme or thoroughly deserving of respect, depending on your point of view on such things. Personally I have to concede that she’s doing really well in the face of adversity, not to mention a guy who doesn’t deserve her devotion or admiration.

It’s like Gainax, without the bounce

Swap the genders round and you have not a shoujo romcom but a shounen romcom sans the fanservice - imagine Kotoko as a clumsy guy who does badly at school and Naoki as an attractive but cold-hearted female genius…and congratulate yourself on thinking along the same lines as Ken Akamatsu. I mean, from that standpoint Itazura na Kiss is a bathing scene away from being Love Hina; it’s still superficially a stablemate to Kare Kano because of the setting and vintage, but the latter has much more drama and angst. Maybe this sort of series was popular back in the mid-90s because I’m loving InK for that old-school aesthetic that KK shares.

[7 Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

Spring 2008 first impressions #1: Allison to Lillia, Itazura na Kiss, Kurenai

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Allison to Lillia, First Impressions and Retrospectives, Itazura na Kiss, Kurenai]

Emerging caveman-like from Backlog Hell and mindful that one episode is never enough to get a decent grasp of what the shows will be like, my belated spring 2008 first impressions post is intentionally belated. Recently I’ve tried to see the previous season’s shows through to their respective ends and giving the new ‘uns two episodes before making my mind up on them; chances are I won’t be able to follow all of them but there’s no harm in trying. Hopefully I’ll get a better idea than guessing on the first ep alone, this way.

In other words my final thoughts on Clannad, Kaiji and (when the last ep is released) Ghost Hound will be forthcoming this week. I don’t know about you but following so much stuff simultaneously begins to get a bit confusing - there’s a lot coming up this season that promises good things so I don’t know how many more of these First Impressions posts there will be. At any rate, first up are Allison to Lillia, Ituzura na Kiss and Kurenai.

[7 Comments]