Joukamachi no Dandelion review

This is a what I think one of the hidden gem of this season. The style makes you think that this is probably your average ecchi slice of life anime at first glance, yet by no mean it's not. While the show itself is not a masterpiece, it is actually a really decent and enjoyable anime to watch.

 The Sakurada family is a pretty ordinary family of eleven people living in a solitary house. Except that their father is the king, and each of the children has special powers. Also, to ensure their safety and to help citizens decide the next king, the town is observed by more than 2000 security cameras. (Source: Wikipedia)

The main theme in this anime are actually about family. Royal family. With superpowers. Despite having a rather complex setting, the story itself was rather simple and straightforward, with plentiful character development. It is generally a slice of life anime, with each episodes focusing the life of each of the family members of Sakurada family as they follow the path of living like a normal citizen would. The anime consists of many smaller parts and most of the episodes are divided into two, sometimes even three short stories instead of a single one spanning the entire episode. At time, the whole story itself feels like a celebrity reality program. The concept of having a voting, democracy system to determine the next ruler is really amusing, as each sibling regardless of their ages try their hardest to win the heart of citizen. As such, there are lots of hidden messages that can be learned from the characters, from familial loves, finding one true purpose to taking good care of other people regardless of your status. The comedy are very nice and not overly exaggerated, making each scene really enjoyable to watch. The plot are well written, for an anime that features  the ending are very, very satisfying.

The main highlight of the show is the cast of colourful characters. They have their own personality each with Strength and Weaknesses. The characters are relatable as they have shown their inner strength, not their obvious supernatural powers as a main focus. They've shown their weaknesses when they are in troubled with life,yet they've always helped each other to overcome it. Even though their archetypes might be common as seen in most anime, further sense of duty and responsibility further shines upon their character keeping them refreshing to watch. This anime have one of the most siblings in an anime, 9 of them in total; the oldest being Aoi, followed by Shuu, Kanade, Akane, Misaki, Haruka, Hikari, Teru and the youngest Shiori. Each character are different from the rest, there is never a character who are boring to watch for. There are lack of antagonist, but it is understandable since its a mainly slice of life anime, with a tinge of superpowers. The best thing about the characters however, is their development. Each episodes showed several different scene that focuses on each of the characters, as they progress and left none unchecked of. As such, the characters grows, overcoming their troubles, and their relationship between family members and people around them grows. For a 12 episodes anime with variety of different characters, I would say this is a great success.

Art and animation are above average, as expected of most anime nowadays. The character design are simple but lovely in their own way. The art is consistent and bright fit with the theme of the anime and it is pleasant to look at. The animation is smooth and clean. It is not overly exaggerated, keeping it mostly simple. The sound fits really well with the anime. The OP and ED are really cheerul and catchy, pleasant to the ears. As for the OST, it fits the mood; they can be fun yet calming at time. While the overall art and music direction does not stand too much, the story makes up for them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this anime and consider it a hidden gem that not much people talk about. The story is well written, with great character development and satisfying ending. Although it is not an outstanding anime with masterfully crafted story, it is simple and fun in its own way. It manages to stand out a bit from your typical slice of life comedy. If nothing else, there is nothing straight-up bad to say about it, which is more than I can say for most anime. Do watch it if you had the time to do so.

When Marnie Was There: Not The Usual Magical Journey (MINOR SPOILERS)

Hey guys. I decided to switch it up a bit and try reviewing a different genre of anime for a change. Well, by looking at the title some of you might say "what's the need for this review. It's Ghibli. Of course it'd kick ass like always". I thought so too myself. So rather than a review I'd say this one is more of what I thought about this movie. And I'll start by saying this. "When Marnie Was There" is very different from the usual Ghibli Studios kind of work.

This is a scene from after she had one of her asthmatic attacks

A bit of the beginning

So the story starts with a girl who was sitting alone on a bench drawing a beautiful scenery of the park. This girl is Anna, a somewhat anti-social girl with a little bit of asthma on the side who is also the main protagonist of this anime. What, you thought the main character is going to be Marnie?

Her foster parents' relatives. Looks like a cheery bunch don't they? Well, they are.

Due to her having more problems with her asthma than usual her foster parents decided to send her off to their relatives in the village for some fresh air. You know, the whole "maybe the clean air would be better for you" and stuff like that. And yes. Anna is an adopted child but not the miserable, abused kind. At the beginning of the movie however, there was talk about how Anna had changed and she wasn't as happy as she was before. So maybe she had some unknown problems with her foster parents or something. You have to watch to find out.

Look at that. That's her foster mother. Her foster parents loves her. This isn't Natsume Yuujincho where the person gets passed around one relative to another.

A bit psychological and supernatural combined

In any case, the movie was quite different in this sense because I really thought that there would be some magical journey or the likes waiting for Anna at the village. There was none of that stuff. One thing was for sure and it is that this movie was pretty much aimed at an older audience, maybe for adolescence and above because there are a lot of sophisticated things addressed in this anime.

Most of the time when you watch any of Studio Ghibli's works you'd just brush off those out of place things as being something magical or supernatural. With this one however, you just can't. When Anna met Marnie for the first time, I'd thought her crazy or something. No really. The way they showed how Anna met Marnie and how she suddenly disappeared made me wonder, "Was this girl just imagining it all?"

The house in the middle of the marsh was Marnie's. It does look a little haunted, doesn't it?

 If it was any other of their works I'd just say that Marnie was a ghost and all that this girl experienced was real and made possible by the ghost. The thing is, even at the end of the movie I still couldn't say whether it was really a ghost or just Anna's figments of memories and imaginations.

The first time Marnie and Anna met at the Marsh House.

A bit of my thoughts

One of the themes of this movie would be the emotional conflicts in a twelve year old girl as she faces her own lack of self-confidence and other weaknesses and how she overcomes them. I don't really think this was the main theme however. In my opinion it'd be parental love. That was how Anna's story came to be and it was also how Marnie's came to be. The movie shows a contrast of how Anna was loved by everyone around her while Marnie was always abused by the maids in her house. But hey, that's just me trying to make sense of this movie is all.

Now, the movie might not have much of those amazing magical worlds and all that but it was brilliant nontheless. What the movie lacks in magical wonders it backs it up with a generous heap of mystery. I guess you can expect that much from the "legendary Studio Ghibli" (I'm just repeating what the poster said above). It does have quite a mature story but it will keep you wondering about a whole lot of stuff until you feel as confused as the tween that is Anna herself.

Believe me, it will.

Touhou Review: TH 10.5 Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

TH 10.5 Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

The second fighting game in the official series. Now with improved gameplay and also more user-friendly mechanics. Here it is, Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (aso known as Hisouten). This game still uses sprites in Touhou 7.5 but also have new characters and also spellcards. There are some characters that need to be unlocked.

The story happens in summer of Gensokyo when Hakurei Shrine was destroyed suddenly in an earthquake. Not only that, throughout Gensokyo is having weird weather changes where different places have different weathers. such as hailstorm, snow, mists and lots more. Thus, each main character conducts their own research to find that the culprit is Tenshi Hinanawi a celestial up in the heaven just want to have fun aside from boredom living in the heaven.

For the mechanics of the game, it is made much simple compared to touhou 7.5 for melee attacks where a full melee combo now uses only a set of button "z". Spirit attacks are basically uses the same buttons and also have been made simpler to execute with no range requirements. Another changes is that the spirit energy of the player is now in form of 5 spheres where the characters in game now can have the spirit spheres to break up 5 times where in previous games the player has only 1 bar. Other than that, the game now has the "20 card deck" system where player can insert variety of cards to use in battle. The cards consists of system cards, skill cards, spell cards. System and skill cards usually consumes 1 card where spell cards have range from 1 card to 5 cards slot depending on the damage it can cause. As example, lower level spell cards like master spark will definitely consumes lower number of cards than Final spark, the stronger version of master spark. The amount of card it consumes will be shown  in game by how many cards will glow upon selecting the card. There are cards that require to be collected but it should not be a problem because the card  drops very easily after abttles. New to this game, the battle now has weather system where during the battle, a specific weather is shown from time to time. However, the effects such as bonuses or drawbacks of the weather only applies in arcade or versus mode and not in story mode.

Here is some screenshots and video of the game

Causing earthquake and all the weather changes just because of bored. Man...

 Time and Space ability done right. Good job Sakuya

Yukari sure gone yan to tenshi (well.... breaking Reimu's shrine)

From this line, fans think that Tenshi may be a Masochist

Patchy's route (battle only)

Reimu's route (battle only)

Remilia's route (battle only)

Suika's route (battle only)

I find this game is very interesting and also well made. Not only this game is easy to understand, it also can be quite challenging when taking the higher difficulties such as lunatic mode. Though some spell cards might look unfair, our characters also have spell cards that are very strong to beat them. It is shown in the videos above. There are communities that held up a tournament annually despite being an old game. This game also have another expansion to it  later as Touhou 12.3. 

Here is the link to the game (Moriya Shrine)

https://mega.nz/#!yxRknJZA!PAwUpMDYlRrGF2GJJYhiEvYd5e0hkSphUFm9Ma7Diaw

That's it for this game, Next will be about Touhou 11. Stay tuned!

Tanks themed gallery

I love tanks. And I really mean it. The beauty of cold, hard steel marching towards the battlefield is a sight to behold; a true show of military prowess. With thundering cannon fire, they bring destruction for those who dare to cross their path.

This time, we feature anime themed tank pictures, because apparently anime goes along with everything. Even tanks.

Panzer Vor!

All images belonged to their respective artists/owner.