Behind The Nihon Review » Clannad

Five Tsundere Anime Girls I’d Gladly be Berated by

Sorrow-kun — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 11:30:59 +0000

Freud would have a field day with this post title.

October marks the beginning of “Tsundere Appreciation Month” at The Nihon Review, an occasion that’s enticed me out of my self-imposed hiatus, at least temporarily, to open our month long celebration of everyone’s (or, at least, our) favourite moe archetype. “Tsundere Appreciation Month” started last year after a random thought about what makes tsunderekko so damn sexy inspired six (go ahead and count them: six) articles from Akira, Kylaran and myself ruminating over the charms of anime’s bipolar sex symbols. (Major spoilers for the tagged titles.)

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2011 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Bakemonogatari, Clannad, Love Hina, Mai-HiME, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Tsundere

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Denpa Onna is Shinbo’s Take on a Key Romance

Sorrow-kun — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 13:44:07 +0000

Shinbo's use of light and shadow is almost always exceptional.

Whether you choose to describe Shinbo Akiyuki‘s career as “distinguished” or merely “prolific” depends on your opinion of his success rate. With that said, I don’t think there are many anime fans who haven’t seen at least one Shinbo anime they liked, just on the count of the fact that he’s made so many, and they’re all unique in their own way. The opposite is also true… watch enough Shinbo anime and you’ll eventually dig up the spuds. If there’s a defining feature that permeates through Shinbo’s works, outside the obvious stylistic signatures that we all recognize now (head tilt, anyone), its an understanding of genre conventions, and a willingness to create (or adapt) works where two disparate genres that should, by rights, clash, are mixed together. (Below image is available on zerochan. Minor spoilers up to ep 10 of Denpa Onna.)

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2011 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Air, Clannad, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, Kanon, Le Portrait de Petite Cossette, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica, Shinbou Akiyuki, Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Tsundere Sexuality: A Second Cut

Akira — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 06:00:22 +0000

Tsundere? Her? Nah...

October must be Tsundere Appreciation Month here at BtNHRV. Sorrow-Kun‘s random twitter thought seemed to have generated much discussion and debate amongst the readers of this blog. I happen to think that there’s no direct correlation between tsundere and sexuality or promiscuity. Each character is different; it is our reaction to them remains constant across series.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Akira | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Bakemonogatari, Clannad, ef -a tale of memories, K-ON!, Kugimiya Rie, Lucky Star, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Seikimatsu Occult Academy, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Toradora, Tsundere, Working!!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Tsundere Sexuality: Part 1

Sorrow-kun — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 08:32:13 +0000

A random thought which I posted on Twitter last night resulted in an interesting discussion on tsundere sexuality. The first thing I wanted to determine was whether I, along with other tsundere fans, were the only ones who noticed tsundere characters in a more sexual light than other moe archetypes, and, if that wasn’t the case, whether some objectivity could be applied to the observation. I think, based on the handful of responses I got, it’s safe to say that tsundere characters, in general, emanate more sexuality than a lot of other moe archetypes, but I still have no idea whether this is something that’s innate or engineered.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Clannad, K-ON!, Love Hina, Lucky Star, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Tsundere, Zero no Tsukaima

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

The Unpredictability of Angel Beats

Sorrow-kun — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:41:23 +0000

Yes, the filename is descriptive. This is my current desktop wallpaper.

There are two types of people in the world: those who like Angel Beats, and those who don’t… which, of course, completely ignores the third type that haven’t heard of Angel Beats, let alone seen an episode, which constitute the vast majority of the world’s population. Either way, there’s one thing common across both types of viewers: whether you’re a fan or not, no one is completely sure what’s coming next. I’m sympathetic with Angel Beat‘s decriers to the point that I can see that the execution is fairly shonky, but its ability to constantly surprise and usurp expectations is the thing which keeps me engaged.

(...)
Read More »

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Torrid Anime Romances

Sorrow-kun — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:51:02 +0000

'Torrid' is the last word you'd use to describe these two. Even holding hands was an ordeal.

In all honesty, this is an intentionally misleading title, because none of the following anime romances can really be described as “torrid”. In fact, anime romance generally isn’t torrid at all. Romance in anime tends to be fairly subdued, and there’s an innate innocence about the emotions involved, especially compared with other mediums. Romantic J-movies tend to be obsessed with jun’ai (or “pure love”) and often come off as melodramatic or unbelievable. Western romance movies love to focus on the quirkiness and irony of love, and often seem to imply that love is an irrational response (although maybe there’s a corn chip of truth to this). And then there’s Western romance novels which sometimes don’t even bother to disguise the fact that they’re straight up smut. Their reputation as being targeted towards lonely housewives who are compensating for their own passionless relationship is well entrenched. Obviously I’m making vast sweeping generalizations here, which is necessary when trying to comment on how a genre differs across different mediums. But I want to make the argument that anime’s track record with romance is as good as any other mediums, which is something that I’m not comfortable saying about any other genre, with the arguably exception of the mystery genre (and the iyashikei genre, which is exclusive to anime and manga). This post, which features some relatively recent examples of anime couples that I really liked, contains major spoilers for the tagged titles.

(...)
Read More »

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

2nd Anime Oscars?

Sorrow-kun — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:36:28 +0000

More mock awards on the anime blogosphere (as if there haven’t been enough), this one being a sequel of the one I did last year. Just like the last effort, this set of awards will be structured to (somewhat) resemble the real Academy Awards, cheekily timed to coincide with yesterday’s ceremony. Again, these awards are completely biased by what I’ve seen (as well as the small detail of my own taste), and I’m pretty much going to conveniently ignore ongoing series except where it’s utterly clear that there’s no worthwhile competition within cooie. The other anomaly is Bakemonogatari, which is near enough to completion that I may as well treat it as such. I’m also going to snub worthwhile series like Aoi Bungaku and Kemono no Souja Erin because I still haven’t finished either (which is unfortunate, because what I’ve seen of both series has been outstanding, but they’re not what I’d call “easy” shows to watch, which is why I’ve been pacing myself with them). Oh yeah, and seeing as I’ve had to try to recall an entire year’s worth of anime, songs and seiyuu, there’s almost certainly something or someone I’ve unintentionally left out, so feel free to point out if you think I’ve tripped up.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Aoi Hana, Bakemonogatari, Canaan, Clannad, Eden of the East, Kara no Kyoukai, Natsume Yuujinchou, RIDE BACK, Taishou Yakyuu Musume

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

AnimeSuki 2009 Choice Awards: Picking Winners

Sorrow-kun — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:27:47 +0000

This is happening a lot quicker than it did last year. This time last year there was a massive gap between the end of nominations and voting, which didn’t start until the 25th of Jan. This year, voting is going to be over before the 20th. Personally, I think it was better the way Kyomi did it last year (although I have a sneaking suspicion it was a consequence of him being lackadaisical)… well, not the massive gap between nominations and voting, but the fact that voting didn’t start until late in the month. It gives more people time to catch up and to stew over the anime they’ve seen in the last year. Some of the nominees haven’t even been completely subbed (to my knowledge and conveniently ignoring Crunchyroll), while, in my book, Bakemonogatari (which is going to absolutely clean up these awards) is still technically ongoing.

This year’s nominees are reasonable enough again. I can’t think of too many blatant exclusions (except for one which I’ll get to later). In all honesty, I’m actually less concerned with what wins than I am what gets nominated. Winning is, a lot of the time, about splitting hairs. Being nominated means that an anime has actually been recognized by a reasonably sized audience for excelling at something. 5 cm/s missing a nomination for the animation category two years ago still sticks in my mind. I’m not sure what was going through everyone’s mind during the nomination process (myself included, since I also forgot to nominate it). Since then, forum goers have been much more careful during nomination. I like to think AnimeSuki has learned its lesson.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: AnimeSuki Choice Awards, Bakemonogatari, Clannad, Eden of the East, Eve no Jikan, Gundam (all), Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, K-ON!, Kampfer, Kara no Kyoukai, Kemono no Souja Erin, Natsume Yuujinchou, Saki, Spicy Wolf, Taishou Yakyuu Musume, Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

AC’s Top 20 Anime of the Decade

AC — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:47:47 +0000

This has been a decade of mixed reactions for some people. A handful may see it as a period of renaissance, paying tributes to giant robots and classic mecha of the 80s and 90s in the form of instances such as Tengen-Toppa Gurren Lagann and Gundam SEED. Others see it as the period of the rise of subcultures, and the saturation of genres created as groundwork from previous decades. I see it simply as a decade of wonderful anime titles, most of them contributing to my all-time best list. Without further ado, here’s my list of 20 best anime this decade has to offer.

NOTE: The decade is defined as the period from 2000 to 2009, and the titles for this list are chosen based on those that began within the year 2000. Ongoing titles which debuted in 2009, and all formats – TV series, OVAs and movies – are taken into consideration as well.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By AC | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Clannad, Dennou Coil, Ghost in the Shell, Monster, Moyashimon, Mushishi, Natsume Yuujinchou, Now and Then Here and There, Sword of the Stranger, Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

NHRV Editor’s Choice Awards – April 2009

NHRV Staff — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:33:15 +0000

Today, a new tradition at The Nihon Review is starting: the NHRV Editor’s Choice Awards. Every six months from now on, in the months of April and October (to coincide approximately with the start of a new major season), each of the NHRV Editors will pick one anime that has recently aired and been added to the review database, one anime that they think stands above the others they’ve seen, and deserves recognition on the basis of excellence. Here are our choices for April 2009, the inaugural NHRV Editor’s Choice Awards.

(...)
Read More »

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh