Oneshots have been the word of the day these past two weeks, which is fantastic – so many people get caught up in series they forget that there are so many shorter, lovely ones out there that are good when you’re crunched for time! I really enjoy seeing what a skilled mangaka can pull off with limited amounts of space. Sometimes it’s an utter disaster, but sometimes it’s magic. This oneshot was most definitely one of the latter. Perhaps I should do a former just for comparison next week?

Mangaka: Otsu-Ichi (Story), Hiro Kiyohara (Art)

Genre: Romance/Fantasy/Drama

Review Status: Complete (1 Volume/1 Volume)

Licensed: No, this is not licensed in the US.

Art: It’s simple with clean lines and good shading, but the characters are a little less than memorable-looking. That’s okay, though, this was made for the story not the art.

Summary: A shy girl imagines a cell phone in her head. One day, someone picks up…

Review: This was a lot shorter than I thought it would be at four chapters (plus an alternate beginning (which I chose not to read because I was busy having ALL THE FEELS for the ending and didn’t want to spoil that). Nevertheless, this makes use of every page to tell the story of two people who are linked by… destiny? Fate? Kismet? Whatever it is, it’s a beautiful thing, allowing Ryo, a girl that’s afraid to speak, to make a friend with someone that no one else knows about, someone who won’t tease her about how quiet she is or put her down because of it.

I don’t think that there’s anyone who hasn’t been worried or afraid of speaking out at some point in their lives. Nobody Can Hear Me But You takes it a step further with a heroine that’s physically affected by speaking, a psychological fear and worry that’s been happening since she heard someone talking about her behind her back. Words have power, and those words took away her confidence and ability to speak with any meaningful or forthright attitude. She has no one to turn to. No friends to talk to. Her family also seems to be out of the picture (but this is manga, and that’s not terribly unusual). What she does have – or doesn’t, as the case turns out to be – is a cell phone. One that Ryo created in her imagination. She wished and dreamed about it so hard that it became real… in her head. And it allows her to talk to two different people. She quickly discovers that the people she is talking to are separated by time and space from her, in two different places at different times of the day and year.

But are they real? Well, that’s what you’ll have to read to find out! This is so short it’s hard to say more without spoiling the whole thing. But let me say that the ability to talk with people at different times of the day does come in handy, but whether it’s for good or ill is really up to you. The luck might be questionable, but it’s most certainly darned tragic, and made this one of the more touching romances I’ve read. Sacrifice tends to do that to me. And that was only helped by how invested I was in Ryo and Shinya, the boy that she’s talking to.

Their first conversations are simply adorable! It’s full of the first-meeting awkwardness that you would expect from two introverts, but you can double that with the possibility that they might be talking to imaginary people and add a good dose of telephone weirdness. We all know what that is! It can be hard talking to people we know on the phone. Just try holding serious, prolonged conversations with a total stranger! But against the odds they find common ground when they try to figure out how they connected and the differences between where they are, and how they feel about people and speaking. That’s really the idea behind the imaginary cell phone; Neither one can really speak to other people, even if it’s for different reasons. It’s not hard to like them.

I know that there’s a flaw or two in this story, but for the life of me I can’t think of them or really bring myself to pick at them because the way the love story is executed is so fine and well-crafted. I was sucked in. I’m SAD that there isn’t more. Except this has just the right number of pages and the right timing for the story. This would easily have dragged on had they added more to it. Less is more for this manga. It’s a great read all around.

Recommended: YES. 13+, as there is death and you do see it even if it’s not graphic or gory. But other than that YES. YES PLEASE.

Overall rating: 10/10. This is a very beautifully conceptualized story. My original rating was 9/10 but as I went back and thought about it, it got better and more beautiful. So while this might be memory goggles, it’s a beautiful story and I don’t regret a moment reading it.

Thanks to the magic of scheduling, I’m posting this while I’m writing an exam. Aren’t I amazing?

Senyuu isn’t a hard anime to summarize, it’s even pretty typical. It’s about a hero and a knight who have been tasked with killing the King of demons. And then stuff happens. Funny stuff happens.

As you have guessed, it’d be lying to say the plot is anything close to being original. It’s not. Everything but. Especially lately, the figures of the Hero and the Demon King have been dreadfully popular. I don’t particularly get why but whatever floats their boat. I’m not against it, I like fantasy and as far as I’m concerned, more fantasy is always a good thing.

Now though, plot isn’t the thing that’s going to make you keep on watching Senyuu. Plot really isn’t the main asset. As I said it’s something incredibly typical, the hero and the knight are sent on a journey (they don’t even have a name …) to fight off the Demon King, but it happens that the Demon King is a little girl and there’s no way a little girl can be so dangerous. So stuff still happens, just, pretty typical stuff. Which is still a pretty amazing thing considering that each episode is nearly 5 minutes long.

I honestly didn’t mind the unoriginality of the plot, it wasn’t supposed to be anything special anyway. The thing that was supposed to be special in Senyuu is the comedy.

And you could really feel while watching that everything was made to support the funny aspect of the series. Even the art style somehow participated to it. (To be honest, it reminded me of Soul Eater’s.) And the seiyuu were pretty good at it too. The most important thing about the whole anime is that the comedy actually worked. (Or at least it didn’t for me.) I can’t even start to describe how the incredibly basic plot and easily predictable plot twists did wonders to the comedy. As strange as it may seem.

But the thing that brought the most laughs out of me probably was the relationship between the main characters, that is, the Knight, the Hero and the Demon King. Who would have thought that those 3 could work so well together?

At the beginning of the series, it’s pretty obvious that the two guys literally hate each others, I especially loved Ross’ passive aggressive way of doing things to Alba. That’s definitely the kind of guy who’s more suited to be the villain but who somehow works really well as a good guy because it’s also the kind of thing that makes him quickly popular with the viewer. (Also, I’ll admit that Alba is a bit dumb.)

The characters aren’t anything special either to be honest. They’re mostly stereotypical people, usual tropes you can find in main characters, only, they’re twisted and used to make fun of it. I quite liked that.

Did you ever meet a bad guy, or a bad girl in this case, who does bad things by mistake while trying to make pop corn? Well, Ruki did. Do you ever meet a hero who tries to kill his partner or at the very least make fun of him in every single episode? Well, Ross did. As for Alba, well, he’s the walking stereotype of the nice hero who wants to save everyone. Except it usually doesn’t work that way, and you’re not supposed to try saving the Demon King from being killed either.

The good thing is that all characters are like that. It seems that every role is reversed. The hero can’t do a thing, the bad guys are actually good and the good guys are actually villains.

It brought a nice aspect to Senyuu, it brought change and the absurdity of it all made me laugh. As I said, it wasn’t anything special, but  it managed to draw me in. Not because I wanted to know what happened next week but because I wanted to know what kind of stupid things they’d do next and how will Ross imagination work to find more ways to humiliate and try to kill Alba. That was probably my favorite part.

In short, Senyuu is a nice funny anime, kinda cute and dark at the same time, the perfect way to spend some minutes in good manner.

Oh hi there. I guess I’m back again with RRM. See, I got your back guys! Now go have fun reading what I got for you today. I think!

Te to Kuchi 1 review: wp.me/p27Qf7-32P Great (and long!) review by @boredindividual of the debut of a new Edo period series.

— Shonen Beam (@shonenbeam) May 12, 2013

Check out my new anime + video game podcast, Chic Pixel Plus! Pilot episode features special guest @ryougasaotome chicpixel.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/introd…

— Anne Fujosushi Lee (@apricotsushi) May 13, 2013

POST: Anime Instrumentality turns 5, hits over 1 million visitors. I celebrating by chronicling the site’s history: goo.gl/RIUGP

— zzeroparticle (@zzeroparticle) May 4, 2013

Nopy’s Blog How to Become a Mecha Pilot: Decades of sci-fi robot anime has given us a good idea of how to beco… bit.ly/13Sv6el

— Nopy (@Nopybot) May 13, 2013

Check out the latest Drunken Otaku, where @animatedink takes a look at #Oishinbo anigamers.com/drunken-otaku/…

— Ani-Gamers (@AniGamers) May 10, 2013

Review 172: Knights of Sidonia (vols 1 and 2) by @vertical_ed. Pretty space-fi character drama disguised as action! goodokbad.com/index.php/revi…

— Seth T. Hahne (@sethhahne) May 13, 2013

Newest Post – ‘Animating’ society wp.me/p1pfjh-1rQ

— Illogicalzen (@Illogicalzen) May 9, 2013

Queerness in Go Nagai’s work: Introduction wp.me/p2HiNq-tY

— FoxyLadyAyame (@FoxyLadyAyame) May 12, 2013

Chihayafuru 2 Episode 18–Their Spirits Haven’t Broken goo.gl/fb/aFYZS

— Muse (@subduedfangirl) May 11, 2013

New post: Arion Review wp.me/p1QygD-s0

— Sandra (@spherecow) May 10, 2013

blog.hachimitsu.org/2013/05/11/gin… Wrote about Majestic Prince today.

— Mira (@hachikurooo) May 11, 2013

• I have caught up to Gargantia and it has been a pretty good show. Now read a post about Gargantia talking about some of its elements. 
• Hey, stop being so attached to fictional characters!…Ok, there’s more to Hoshiko’s post then that!

I guess if I had a chance to Remember Love, then I don’t know about you, but looking back at my childhood and trying to figure out what anime I’ve watched that not only stood out to me but shaped my viewing habits, then Dragonball would be one of the shows I’d have to cover.

Yeah, yeah, I will give you this: I do enjoy watching Dragonball Z, and with Dragon Ball Z Kai, all the horribad pacing in Z was fixed (Too bad no Bruce Falconer music for the US peeps), and while I haven’t watched all of the episodes of Kai, it seems better on that front. Still, it gets too much into the realm of absurdity, and you can pretty much tell after the Cell Saga how Toriyama was mostly finished with writing about the series, but well, impressionable kids and adults who followed since its creation in 1984 pretty much fell in love with Goku in manga form, and thus, the series took its turn to who’s just going to get stronger and eliminating everyone else. Characters just get one-dimensional and nothing develops because it’s mostly just fights and little adventure.

That is pretty much why Dragonball holds more dear to me than Dragonball Z: it actually had an adventure that was fun and provided for a number of hilarious moments that shounen series lived up to. Well, ok I’m not being completely honest. This happened to be one of the series where I could actually attempt to mimic anything in the show (well, almost anything). I was partly first interested in my friend to take martial arts, but in watching Dragonball, that put it over the top. You know what that means — the training arcs for the first tournament! That arc, while it did have unrealistic parts, I was able to do some of the training there (as in the more weight thing), and it was hilarious seeing little Goku and Krillin trying to do their training with turtle shells on their back.

But in general, Dragonball was required watching for me. I remember one time I was at my grandma’s house and my cousin, who occasionally stopped over, was there too. Since he visits less often, usually we let him watch whatever since there was only one TV. But then there was Dragonball, and man did I want to watch that. So I basically was the rebel that day as I somehow managed to watch half an episode of Dragonball (the other half was me trying to beg to watch it). I really believed it was a well created, balanced, and hugely entertaining anime back many years ago.

So not surprisingly, it makes sense to cover the last part of Dragonball — the Piccolo arc. Ok, the Piccolo at the tournament arc. I watched the episodes after Goku defeated King Piccolo. It was the part where Goku got cocky for a change — he defeated the strongest fighter in King Piccolo, and he really believed he was the strongest in the world. But in trying to figure out a way to save his friends, he runs into Popo. Yeah, this did not end well for him. He ends up getting owned pretty easily. To get owned that easily is pretty much tempers things, and it made him see that he has a long way to go.

Of course, this arc represents the change from innocent, plucky, and controlled shounen battles to eventually leading to material called Dragonball Z. This arc had our main character, a small little kid, grow up and shock everyone because he changed fairly drastically in size, we then had another martial arts tournament that ends up with having some quirky characters, and then we have Goku saving the world once again, despite the fact that Piccolo grew in size ( Hmm. I don’t think Piccolo ever did that in DBZ…). And well, I guess I loved that while growing up.

Remembering Love Week 1

Chikorita157
AnimeEmily
Anna
Thehippiefreak

Alive by Hajime Taguchi is a short story collection centered upon the theme of being “Alive”. And in reading each of the stories, some short, some long, pondering what being alive means in this manga and how it relates to society and people in general, it doesn’t feel like it gets it right. With over 15 stories there might be something that would catch your eye, but it’s hard to gain meaning and understanding with any of them thanks to inconclusive endings, some stories ending too quickly, and easily art that tells me digital just isn’t the way to go. It’s 279 pages of inconsistent and lacking works.

The good of course is the variation of stories, and they all revolve around the theme of “Alive”. In this work, there are ordinary people who end up living ordinary, mundane lives, with a past that speaks to how life can seem so great at one point, but change just as quickly, and getting hurt is a possibility. In one story, a man no longer can cope with getting hurt/or hurting people in a relationship, so he not only shuts himself out of meeting a woman and trying to start anew, he ends up fulfilling whatever he desires with a doll. In another story, a young high school boy doesn’t know what his life holds for him anymore at one point, and instead wants to be killed (that admittedly, does lead to a nice moment where he tries to get himself run over by a car, asks for the driver to hit him, and then asks the driver does he have to live. The driver responds by saying no, but if he hits him, he’d have to go through the court system. Yeah that kills someone’s enthusiasm!).

Then there just happens to be ordinary people in Alive who end up living lives that can only be cased as surreal, out of touch with reality, and downright crazy. The very first story revolves around a high school girl who just doesn’t want to see things she hates anymore ever again, so she ends up getting glasses that turns everything she hates into mosaics. You can guess this backfires to an extent. Then there is one wacky story that ends up having a man make a daring attempt to climb over a wall, only to discover what lies behind the wall is civilization, and he has to make a choice whether to listen to his loved one and come back down or take a chance and discover what lies in the unknown.

With all these assortment of stories, something in it should stand out, except for Alive’s case, I can’t say any of them turned out to be memorable to me. One story in this collection — 69th Street Mary — is probably the best example of what was interesting about this collection but also is holding it back. An old hag — ok, an old transvestite — ends up suckering you, the reader, as it is drawn in that perspective, into paying her tab as she bemoans and yells at the state of affairs in society nowadays, while also sharing how terrible a parent she was. This is the art style. That made reading the short story surprisingly interesting, but I mostly could not take any of it seriously.

And that is one of the bigger problems of Alive, and that is the art. It is not good. It really looks like it was all done digitally, with little care for proportions and refinement in most of the characters that were drawn. Some backgrounds placed in the work looked out of place and distracting. If the stories were solid to amazing this easily could have been overlooked, except some of the works had forgotten there needed to be an ending, and some of the stories ended up taking visual cues that left me wondering where the story planned to go. In this case, it might have just been better to have normal slice of life stories revolving around the theme instead of getting into territory that was abnormal. That is what kills Alive, and Alive is something you don’t have to read.