Between Four Shows That Look Alike, Saint Seiya Omega Has the Worst Traits

Casshern Sins, Heartcatch Precure, and Yumekui Merry all come to mind when I look at Saint Seiya Omega, and not in a good way. I like Casshern and Heartcatch, but the things I like about them aren’t present here; instead, what I hate about Casshern and Merry are what I see.

Two names are important to analyzing these shows: Umakoshi Yoshihiko, who did character designs and animation directing for Casshern Sins, Heartcatch Precure, and Saint Seiya Omega; and Yamauchi Shigeyasu, who directed Casshern and Yumekui Merry. Another person of mention is Hatano Morio, the director of Saint Seiya Omega, who also directed a few episodes of Heartcatch Precure.

(800) Days of Fuzakenna! And Eight Awesome Eighth Episodes of Anime

I tend to miss my blog’s benchmarks. I realized in June that my third anniversary had passed in April, and I’m not sure when I broke 300,000 hits, but I’m already halfway to 400,000. But most of all, I’ve missed my specially-numbered posts, or realized after the fact that I’ve made them. Well, today I was lucky and noticed that this will be my 800th published post! It’s a great mark to have, because 8 has always been a special number to me (I was born on August 8, weighing 8 pounds and 8 ounces) so to mark the occasion, I’ll be listing 8 of my favorite ‘episode 8s’.

8 tends to be an important episode number in anime. In a lot of 26-episode shows, the 8th episode marks the transition from plot set-up to actual movement of events, and will often feature a shocking twist or revelation that changes the way things will happen from there on out. This is a common enough practice that I could make a list of just transitional eighth episodes, but of course, being an important episode doesn’t necessarily qualify as being a memorable and awesome one, so this list will take eighth episodes from any series. The requirement for consideration on this list was that the eighth episode wasn’t just great, but was one of the most memorable or amazing episodes in the entire series. Oh, and you can count on there being spoilers for each episode.

200 (+) Anime Worth Taking With Us Into the Next Decade

100 Characters For 100 Otaku (Part Six: 75-71)

The sixth post in “100 Characters For 100 Otaku.”

Have you been following “100 Characters For 100 Otaku?” It’s the post series where I go through my top 100 characters and tell you what I like about them, how they mirror the nature of otaku, how they reflect my own otakudom, and how they parallel the first episode of Crest of the Stars! Make sure you keep up, so that you may see how YOUR favorite characters could fall into all this mess! Today’s piece is 75 through 71, so let’s see what we’ve got!

Otakon 2009 – Convention of the VOCAL Generation

I’m gunna try to go through my time at Otakon as fast as possible. There are a number of things that deserve their own posts, some of which I’m sure someone else will do better (such as someone who’s camera didn’t run out of memory during Yamakan’s QnA.) This was an extremely fun and extremely fast otakon that, while not legendary like last year’s, was still a much-needed thing in my life and unforgettable. Pics will come in a second post, later.

Casshern Sins – A Surefire Favorite to the Right Audience

Like my Simoun post, I am going to do this post in the form of a spoiler-free review followed by a spoilerific summation of how I felt on the series. Expect to see a lot of posts in this formula, since I like it.

Casshern Sins is not for everyone. The show pretty much moves at one pace, and that pace is ‘slow’. There is a lot of silence, introspection, and philosophical dialog. Ordinarily, this would make one assume the show is pretentious (especially since it has a lot of similarities to Texhnolyze), but it really isn’t. Casshern has a very simple plot, very simple dialog, and is easy to understand, so people looking for a mind-blower won’t find it here. The plot and messages of Casshern Sins are much more along the lines of Kino’s Journey or Mushi-shi. However, just like action fans will be turned off by the slow pace, fans of more quiet, contemplative anime might be turned off by the fact that there is at least one fight scene per episode and they can at times be lengthy. So the niche here is kind of small, requiring that you like a good variety of styles. I happen to fall into that niche.

Casshern Sins 7 – Walking Through the Empty Age

Casshern Sins is like a combination of Texhnolyze, Kino’s Journey, and Trigun in a brilliant and beautiful tone piece. At this point it’s primarily episodic, though there’s a plot always hanging in the background and leading everything along. In episode 7, Casshern meets a woman who used to work in a factory before the apocalypse and has now spent all of her time building a tower onto the factory. Her dream is to hang a bell on top of the tower that, when rung, will make all who hear it see that the world is beautiful even in the ruin. She tries to use Casshern’s body to make her bell but fails. She then builds a simpler bell (which is broken soon afterward) but she is dissatisfied with the sound it makes. However, Casshern is enthralled by the sound which he feels resonating from the woman’s heart. At the end of the episode, ringo shows up at the tower and listens in wonder at the woman’s bell of the heart.