Winter 2014 – Week 11 Anime Review

This week: the contrast between Aki’s family and Hachiken’s family in Silver Spoon, demonstrating Hiyori’s character growth through subtraction in Noragami, the humanistic personalities of djinn in Magi: The Kingdom of Magic, and the good half and bad half of the story in Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha.

Summer 2013 – Week 4 Anime Review

During sometime, whenever Week 4 happened to be: the brilliant aesthetics and visuals of Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou, the magnificent and expressive use of creativity and imagination in Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-bu, the appropriate use of mild comedy in Tamayura ~more aggressive~ and Karen being the only stupid character in Monogatari Series Second Season.

Robotics;Notes – 14

Robotics;Notes can be split right down the semicolon into essentially two separate parts.  The first is the ‘Robotics’ half which tells of Aki’s story and the construction of GunPro-1 and now, GunPro-2.  The latter piece is the ‘Notes’ side of things, focusing in on Frau’s story and the conspiracy linked to her mother’s sudden disappearance.  Although there is some overlap between the two halves, mainly due to Kai’s character playing fundamental roles in each, there have been two narratives developing throughout the anime that examine two distinct and dissimilar stories.  In doing so, Robotics;Notes has found itself some positives and some negatives.

Robotics;Notes – 9

Every character in Robotics;Notes has a dream, either in the form of a goal or some type of drive that motivates them in pursuit of their desire.  For some, it’s rather apparent, such as Aki and fulfilling her dream of completing GunPro-1.  For others, it may be overlooked, such as Junna wanting to have more friends before graduating high school.  For Kai… well, it’s debatable.  Still, the point remains the same regardless of the character, that each has their own ambitions that they are chasing after.  However, the characters will eventually reach their goals, like Aki has with GunPro-1 in the ninth episode of Robotics;Notes.  The next question becomes, what do they do with themselves when their dreams have been realized?

Robotics;Notes – 4

Presently, GunPro1 resides in an abandoned airport hangar, resting incomplete.  Through anyone’s eyes, the project is nothing more than an unfinished structure of welded steel in the shape of a torso crowned with a masked helmet.  But to the people who are at the heart of this project and those potentially linked with it, GunPro1 appears to be much more than it truly is.  Whether it is the manifestation of a lifetime of dreams, a rational and fully-functional giant robot, or an opportunity for unique corporate advertising, everyone associated with GunPro1 has their own, distinctive vision for this arising giant robot.  However, these conflicting interests and completing influences may ultimately keep this project grounded and forever incomplete.