1 internet to whoever can guess where I got the title for this entry from. Hint: it’s a comedian. After an incident a few nights ago that isn’t really worth going into, I decided that I would write about things in the anime world that just piss me off. No more intro needed to this really.

Male Lead Characters

I know it must be slightly hard to come up with characters to populate an anime or manga series with but do creators really have to reach for the “Character Personality Creation For Dummies” book? Here is what i’m talking about. The typical male lead, which for repitition reasons I shall now call “ML’s”. How can you tell this guy from his elusive, well hidden cousins? Here is a few things to look for.

• Nervious around women.
• Totaly stupid.
• Utterly clueless about women.
• Perversion. Usualy for boobs. If not entirely he has a obsession about 1 or more parts of the female body

Characters guilty of this:

• Yuuto – Nogizaka Haruko no Himitsu
• Tsukune – Rosario+Vampire
• Saito – Zero no Tsukaima (however this is forgivable as he has moments that totally redeem himself)
• Yuichi – Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora
• Keitaro – Love Hina

All of the above characters are guilty of this crime against the anime world. The stupid male is so overused and it is about damn time we got some change happening. How can they go about correcting this bad choice? Easy, you call the stupid moron’s couisn; the compentant, awesome ML. This guy can talk to women, understand them and what is going on with them and to a certain extent their feelings and just generaly act like a normal guy would. He doesn’t stutter or get nervious when the ladies get close to him, doesn’t freak out when they hold his arm or spew forth pints of blood at the meet sight of cleavage. He is a normal person who the anime world is much to devoid of.

Characters guilty of being awesome like this:

• Tomoya – Clannad
• Yuichi – Kanon

I wish I could add more than 2 people to this list but I just havn’t seen an abundance of romance genre shows with awesome ML’s and these are the only 2 that come to mind right now to show how well done male protagonists can really be. Of course both of these series were based off of visual novels (1 adult, 1 not) of their perspective titles, however Key know how to make male characters seem authentic and 1 can only hope others take note of this. This part is getting way to long despite this being perhaps the 1 point I can’t stand about anime over all others so it’s about time we moved on to…

Tsundere Girls

For those who don’t follow japanese terms very well, a Tsundere character is a girl who is usualy very insultive, often physically abusive and very hard to get along with. However she is a nice girl at heart and will eventually become much more friendly after awhile. These type I have never understood myself. In shows like Zero no Tsukaima, the object of the ML’s affection is a rude, abusive, bitch of a character who physically beats the male lead on a daily basis on top of blowing him up with magic. Yes these girls have their nice sides but honestly if a woman was always beating you up, insulting you, throwing stuff at you and screaming at you, chances are you’re not going to fall in love with her are you? You’d call her a Crazy bitch and dump her ass and find someone better.

Now why can’t the ML’s seem to do this? Of course everyone wants to see the guy get the girl in the end but for once why can’t it be someone who you don’t expect? Someone who is nice to him and looks after him rather than giving him brain damage by kicking him in the head when they get mad? Just once i’d like to see this play out in a series.

Guy finds girl. Girl likes guy but is a tsundere so she is a total hag to him. He tries to put up with her crap but in the end he meets someone else that is genuinely nice and he says to the tsundere “i’m sorry, I can’t put up with you anymore. you always hurt me, yell at me, beat me and i’m sick of your shit. I found “X girl” who loves me, I don’t want you anymore”. Just totaly shatter her feelings to show her what’s what. These girls need a harsh slap upside the head in the spot most vunerable. Hit the weak point for massive damage! Sorry i’m back now. Perhaps that is too harsh of a view but still I would love to see it and i’m sure a lot of others would too.

High School Romances

Ok we get the idea already. Stop it. In high school you had learnt about girls and how awesome they are so you were on the look out for a girl friend. Since when did 99% of romance show need to use this setting as the backdrop? Why can’t their be settings were the story takes place at someones work, or their home, or… ANYTHING but a damn school. Out of all the shows ive seen that involve romance I can only think of 1 that didn’t abuse this, and actually had an honestly portrayed ML. That show was Koi Kaze which I throughly enjoyed however I do doubt that the topic of full-blood incest will sit well with the majority of people.

Also a point no one seems to realise is that there is no way people who aren’t even out of their teens live happyly ever after. How often does that happen these days? Yes I know this isn’t supposed to have any real connection to reality reasoning but the chances of 1 couple surviving until their 70s or whenever they die is just insane. Much less expect every show that has 1 of these couples to. We never see what happens 2 or 3 years later to see if they are still together. Yeah yeah nit picking but still. Think of it this way though.

Remember the old Die Hard movies? No i’m not talking about the latest one, but rather the first 3. In the original Holly, John’s wife, is taken hostage. He saves her and she falls in love with him all over again and they get back together. In part 2, John is going to the airport to meet her. Hijinx ensue and sure enough he saves her life yet again. Thats life saving act #2. In the third movie however she doesn’t talk to him anymore. He has become and alcoholic and he says it’s been months says he had talked to her. If saving a womans life TWICE isn’t enough to live happly ever after then what hope do 2 18 year olds have, when the biggest obstical they’ve overcome is them admitting they like each other?

Underused Character Personalities

While there is an overflow of overused mundane personalities, the ones that really deserve to be used more than just once or twice are often forgotten about until a show comes along that makes you remember why you liked those types in the first place. Examples.

Innocently Stupid

• No real surprise here but this girl is usualy stupid but in a way that is cute enough to like. She doesn’t mean to have dumb moments but they happen often enough for hilarity to partake. She can also be tricked into thinking something that isn’t right with little to no effort
• Best example: Kana – Minami-ke

Sincere and Caring

• This lady cares a lot for the people around her and is sometimes too nice to the point where you expect them to turn into a demon and eat someone. They love people and think nothing of going out of their way to do things for others, again to the point where it just seems unnatural.
• Best example: Akari Mizunashi – Aria

Shy but Sweet

• A rarity for characters but it does exist. Thes girls are quite shy around people and often get nervious but are very kind. Usually softly spoken too. Not much else needs to be said about this class really.
• Best example: Sora Kajiwara – Sketchbook ~Full Colors~

Strange and Unusual

• I think most people know what this means by now. Anyone who has seen the brilliant Azumanga Daioh will know who i’m refering to straight away. Yes my favorite anime girl of all time Osaka. She so personifies a potentialy epic personality that should be used again. However i’m sure if it was it would come under fire for trying to copy her trademark blank stare and downright strange, random thoughts. Actually on second thoughts perhaps this shouldn’t be used again as it was done so well mabye further use would only hurt.
• Best Example: Osaka – Azumanga Daioh

Well that about wraps it up from me. This post has gone on enough that any more would just be treading grounds on issues I already have, but in different forms so let me end by saying anime is in no way perfect, and I doubt it ever will be but damnit I still adore it.

Don’t hit the play button if you don’t want to see a kid and his first friend and pet. Having color and some actual animation helps put it ahead of other videos.

What is an OP and ED you may ask? Well to be honest I have no clue what they stand for exactly but it generally means Opening Theme and Ending Theme. Some of these can be quite catchy, others may suck and then there are the ones that make you go “holy crap that was a good song”. I Figured I would share a few of my favorites i’ve come across over the years for shows I love.

Spice and Wolf OP – Tabi no Tochu. Still remains my #1 opening song ever

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni OP – Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Creepy as hell to fit with the theme of the show. Brilliant

Utawarerumono OP – Musoka

Minami-ke OP – Keikenchi Joshochu

Hanban no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora ED – Kioku no Kakera

Claymore ED – Danzai no Hana ~Guilty Sky~

Kaibutsu Oujo ED – Hizamazuite ashi wo oname. I watched this series because of this haha

And the final 2 are from the same series which I throughly enjoyed.

Full Metal Alchemist ED 3 – Motherland. Very sweet song to listen to. Always on my playlist. Winry is such a cute girl.

Full Metal Alchemist ED 2 – Tobira no Mukou e. If my memory serves me correctly, this song was the 1st anime related song I loved to death. I still do.

What are some of your favorites?

Oh get your mind out of the gutter already. Honestly… Well due to some unfortunate circumstances, the huge post I had written up is now useless as every one of the 40 odd pictures I took to accompany it were deleted by family members. *sigh* All That I can do is show off a picture of the finished result of my PG Strike Gundam, with the recently bought and constructed Striker Unit addon. Here is the big guy all finish, sprayed and posing his ass off on top of my desk..

I’m pretty bummed about not being able to follow up on my last gundam post which was ages ago. I went to a lot of trouble to have photos of nearly every step I did and even before/after shots of the pieces I had already constructed. Oh well though. So as I had this package arriving today I thought this to be a decent substitute, as i’m a bit low on stuff to write about today. Perhaps next time will be about an ongoing anime or something. Time will tell. Anyway.

So today the 2 things I ordered arrived. a PVC statue of Choco from Chocotto Sister, and a trading figure box from Pantsu/Strike Witches.

Well I that is the box itself, and pay no attention to my monitor… I was watching Zero no Tsukaima season 3 at the time I took these. Perhaps a little bit of shameless advertising for them but honestly HLJ.com are the best place i’ve found to buy anime related goods and random toys from japan. The stuff they have is cheap, very fast shipping (they can ship my order on a friday, and i’ll have it monday) and a pretty damn big selection of stuff. Ok plug over. 

This is what I actually bought. 

I was looking through HLJ one day and they were having a sale of old things that never sold. Fair enough I thought, there is bound to be something cool in here yeah? While there wasn’t a lot that interested me, I did find a ton of bargins such as things that were $110, but now selling for $15. Then I ran across this.

Way to cute to pass up and since I am a fan of the manga (never seen the actual anime however im in the process of fixing that now) I figured i’d pick it up since it was only $20. The super cute Choco. I wont go into the actual story of the show itself since that isnt the point of this post but rather just to show off some cute things.  

Next up we have the Strike Witches figures. There are 7 in the set, and come in a box of 10, all randomly picked so unfortunately I was 1 short of the whole set. To make matters even more disappointing, that 1 missing happened to be my favorite character… Lucchini. Oh well though.

And Finally, in no relation to anything mentioned above, I give you 1 of the best scenes/series enders in anime history. For those that don’t know, this is from the 2nd season of the show Zero no Tsukaima. In case you wanted a bit of a backstory for this, and I must warn that spoilers will be posted from here on so if you don’t wish to view them don’t read further or watch the video. The guy in the video, Saito, has gone to fight an army of 70,000 on his own in order to protect the girl he loves (Louise). If you were wondering as well yes technical he does die, although he is brought back to life and returns to Louise in the last moments of the same episode so there is a happy ending. This also happens to be 1 of the scenes where I started to tear up because it really is such a sad, sad set of episodes leading up to the cresendo you see now. 

Saito, for all your flaws and bog standard anime male lead features, when you’re trying to protect Louise, you become such a bad ass.

This fan made CO2 gun actually shoots and looks like one of the guns found in the Gungrave anime and games. It can hurt you and that’s likely why it’s not for sale. It would have been perfect if there was a similar case and a silver version of the gun to make the pair.

There’s one odd thing about Gungrave: There’s not much of tie between the fandom of the anime and the video games. The anime was more realistic and included romance while the games from Sega were mindless but very styled. Gungrave the anime wasn’t bad, but it has two sides to it. From the start it’s about the friendships and the mafia, but later changes focus on Grave and his powers. Worth watching for drama or playing to shoot everything up in the games…just depends on your interest.

Wikipedia is a wonderful site for information despite the spoilers. It’s best used when you’re writing when you don’t wish to spend time creating a summary or telling some of the readers something they already know. It’s not so helpful when used to explain for you everything you wanted to say. Wikipedia isn’t perfect and nobody is saying that Wiki sites shouldn’t be used or linked to. Many anime and manga pages contain episode summaries on the main page or carelessly drop spoilers. Perhaps it’s the Wiki user’s fault or maybe that’s how the largest encyclopedia site wishes to be, but it’s something to think about before linking, though.

One other issue is giving credit to Wikipedia for information when there’s sources you can link to instead provided by the site itself. It would surely help other sites get some nice attention, too.

I have had series like Bokurano almost ruined, but it does make up for it with the epic CLAMP versus Clamp debate when users were deciding if the mangaka group should be all caps. At the moment it is Clamp. Maybe let CLAMP decide?