Kuroshitsuji II Ep. 2: Everyone You Thought was Dead Isn’t

Alright to start this episode review off I’ll say that I love Kuroshitsuji so I do have a bias while reviewing it. Also none of your questions will be answered this episode. In fact you’ll just end up with more and more. (Kind of like watching an early episode of Lost.) I’m not going to spare any details so read at your own risk. I also don’t really think I’m spoiling anything because this episode plays out like any pointless beginning episode of a anime series where nothing really happens.

Like I said nothing really happens this episode. The Phantomhive family apparently makes it their business to stop floods. So Ciel is attending a flood gate event. Basically it’s an excuse for rich people and nobles to get together and to have a Elizabeth-centric episode. Yes most of this episode revolves around Elizabeth and Ciel wanting to protect and make her happy. They go searching for an elusive white deer because it’s supposed to bring lifetime happiness and that’s what Elizabeth wants for Ciel.

All manner of craziness happens in this episode. Pigs, pigeons, and Tanaka in picnic baskets. Ciel risks his life for Elizabeth. Sebastian is back to beating up the servants due to the stupid stunts they pull that he has to then fix. Kind of sounds like the being of Kuroshitsuji season 1 huh?

Well yeah it really is. There’s no mention of why Ciel is alive. He seems to be acting like he was never being carried around in a suitcase or supposed to of had his soul eaten. Oh yeah the whole gang is back. Bard, Finny, Maylene, and the fore-mentioned cast. Guess what else Lua and Ran aren’t dead. They even interact with Ciel and gang and no one has any kind of reaction to this. No omg I thought you died in the river Thames! No what the hell are you doing here you backstabbing bastard! Nope it’s all smiles and good times. I was half expecting Pluto to come bounding in. One thing I love about this show is it’s dark nature but what was the point of supposedly killing people off if they’re just going to come back like nothing ever happened? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any stranger the preview for the next episode had a glimpse of Madame Red. Yeah it was very bright and maybe dreamlike but if they seriously bring her back I won’t know what to think.

So like I said more questions than answers. Why isn’t Ciel dead? Why was Sebastian carrying him in a suitcase and how did he “wake” him up? What happen with Lua and why does no one care that he’s around? I’m sure these questions will be answered but I want them answered soon. Why do I have to be so impatient…that’s probably why I often watch a show about half way through and then wait till it’s done airing before I finish it.

We also have a Ciel & Sebastian centric opening with splashes of Aolis & Claude thrown in. Come on I want to see some more butler battles!

Occult Academy: I Am Not A Number I’m A Free Man

I have to admit that I wasn’t feeling Occult Academy at first. Maya was annoying me and I just got a weird vibe from the show trying to be arty with the style but silly at the same time. I couldn’t tell if the silliness was intentional or not either. About half way through it kept my attention better but I still hold final judgment until I see later episodes. Lets get on with this review! (Also this is a long in depth review because I’m really trying to get across why I felt the way I did.)

So the episode starts out with a man being chased by some red eyed moth creature. He’s working with some sort of supernatural organization and needs a teleport out of there fast. Opps too bad for him he’s dies. Presumably because of said moth creature. However this group has one more agent, number 6. (If you get this entry title you’re my hero. Also no I haven’t watched the remake.) This part of the show I found suspenseful and interesting.

Things then take a 180 turn from there. Now we’re following our main character Maya. A girl who hates the occult and feverishly denies it’s existence. Her father was the Principle of Occult Academy and has recently passed. Maya just seems pissed off and disagreeable the whole time she’s on screen. Now not to say I don’t like hard to deal with characters. So far Saya is one of my favorite characters from High School of the Dead. Something about Maya just rubs me wrong. So she arrives late to her fathers funeral and the one comical scene to arise from this is when the vice principle greets her crying and has a long snot drip coming from her nose. She sniffs it up and wipes it away with her hand. The same hand that she then uses to grab Maya’s luggage handle much to Maya’s disgust. (While this was amusing it is still on of the factors that leads to the wtf feeling I get from this show. What kind of show are you trying to be? Comedy? Serious?)

Now we’re at the funeral and the whole time Maya  is sitting on stage with a sour face and is tapping her foot. That is until the Vice Principle plays the Principle’s last message to his students. Oh great it’s an ancient spell that summons and evil spirit. Even during the message the Principle is like opps guess I read the wrong spell oh well going to bed now. I’m bothered by this the whole time I’m watching. I just keep thinking why in the hell didn’t he go back and record over it then? Fore-mentioned evil spirit takes over the Principles corpse and begins to scare all the lil kiddies present at his funeral. Oh yeah and for some unknown reason he drips green slime all over like he’s Slimer from Ghostbusters or something. Maya proceeds to throw the possessed corpse (Of her father!) back into the coffin after hitting it with a folding chair wrestling style and claims that this whole fiasco is staged.

From here we’ll skip ahead. The Slimer Principle escapes the coffin and goes flying off leaving Maya to locate him. Now things start to get interesting. We meet some other characters like Maya’s childhood friend Ami, the school mechanic named Smiles (hell yeah!), and other members of our ragtag spirit hunting group. During all the above happening Maya is very knowledgeable about what is going on. Which at the time pissed me off because I was like how can a girl who hates the super natural know so much about it?!? From Ami though we discover that Maya once loved the supernatural. They used to do all sorts of supernatural games together.

Our thrown together group is hunting the spirit when one girl in the party gets possessed. It’s not at all clear why this happens beside the fact that maybe they wanted to bring back the “oh know her glasses fell off and she can’t see anything” joke. I foresee this joke happening throughout the series a lot though I pray it doesn’t. After this Maya finds her father sitting in a room decorated for Christmas. It’s nice and cozy and there’s a roaring fire. He tells her that yes it really was all staged and he knew she wouldn’t visit unless she thought he was dead. They have a touching moment and Maya cries on him. She then gets up and starts to walk away from him to leave the room. When the principle stands up we see that dun dun dun he has sharp pointy claw nails and isn’t really the Principle but the Slimer Principle! Of course we knew this all along but I love twisted stuff like that. Apparently Maya also knew all along and suddenly has an axe. The only way to kill the creature is to cut off the host bodies head. Bye Bye daddie’s head! All the “blood” is green because remember he’s Slimer but these scenes are still excellently made and have a great feel.

Maya now gets some redeeming back story. Once again we’re shown how much she used to love the supernatural and she goes to visit her dad in his study. While trying to get him to interact with her he smacks child her in the face sending Maya to the ground. He has become obsessed with the supernatural and no longer cares about his family. Maya and her mother leave him and he goes to build his Occult Academy never once trying to contact them. Discovering all of this I now forgive Maya’s earlier behavior toward her dead father.

After all of this and a little more Maya is on the school roof. We get clips from other characters like the Vice Principle who seems she may not actually be such a great person but one of our shows evil characters set out to do evil things. And when the clock tower’s bell rings a bright light shines down from the clouds and a naked boy wearing swimming goggles descends in front of a freaked out Maya. It’s number 6! He finally gets tied back in at the end of the episode and we’re done.

So yeah in the end I like the episode and no not just because of the naked man. Come on what do you think of me? I hope the show sheds it pointless silliness. I wouldn’t mind if it was actually funny but it’s just stupid. When the show took itself seriously I enjoyed it. I’ll continue to watch for now and hope it gets better.

Also random notes…

• The live-action kids in the ending have some scary eyebrows.
• The show takes place in the year 1999 and one of the first things we’re greeted to is a news report about will the world end. Y2k anyone?
• The opening makes a point (in my opinion) to linger on the year 2012 and then quickly count down to the year 1999. So maybe we’re dealing with a have to stop the end of the world and the only way to do it is destroy this school show.

High School Of the Dead & It Just Keeps Getting Better

I just finished the second episode of High School of the Dead. Again another great episode. While the first episode was more about mood and setup. Episode two starts to delve into our characters a little more. Finally they’re all coming together and we get to see some great emotions from the cast. Of course atmosphere is still maintained by showing some news footage from the outside world and the characters try to setup a plan to escape the school and find their families.

I can’t wait to see their character growth as the series continues. I love that admits all of this zombie horror there is going to be romantic triangles and I’m sure hurt feelings. I mean lets face it just because zombies attack it doesn’t mean people lose who they used to be. That’s one of the aspects of this show that makes it believable.

Of course we can’t forget that there are still bouncing boobies and panty shots. Though it didn’t feel like there was as much as in the first episode. Maybe I was just watching for it to much. Although Marikawa Shizuka the school nurse does provide some hilarious jiggles

Everything is done right in this show and I hope that these two episodes are just glimpses of what greatness is to come.

Let the zombie gore commence!

Japanese Fan Video Fun Time – Durarara

Alright lets start this out with the obvious fact that I didn’t make any of these. There are tons of fan made videos for tons of animes out there. Usually they start out on Nico Nico Douga and end up migrating to Youtube. Today I’ll show you some of the Durarara ones I really like. We’ll have some serious and some silly. Here we go!

It’s Pocky time ladies and gentlemen!

Izaya loves Shizuo?

Mandatory Caramelldansen Clip

Time to rock out with all our characters!

A very nice Shizuo & Izaya vid

Shizuo & Izaya shall sing to you

Durarara Gourmet Race –
if you don’t love this video I’ll have to go cry in a corner and wonder what the world is coming to

Let Izaya serenade you

Well there are just a few. You can literally spend hours searching youtube for more if you so desire. After just now spending said hours to compile these videos I leave you now to go watch some anime for the night. Also I leave you with one more video…

Izaya Caramelldansen (come on with how popular these videos are did you really expect to only get one?)

All the Different Flavors of Alois

So here I am pondering who to cosplay for this years Youmacon. When I think maybe Alois. So far I’ve been thinking of doing Izaya. Either way one of my poor friends has to then cosplay Shizuo or Claude. Deciding to do a google search I type in Alois. Apparently there have been many famous Alois throughout history. Here’s a list of some…

Alois Hitler – Yep Adolf Hitler’s dad was a Alois

Alois Hitler Jr. – If you couldn’t guess Hitler’s half brother

Alois Estermann – Apparently a murdered Swiss Guard but we’ll let this soap opera snippet explain it better…”Tornay turned to Alois Estermann for affection, and enjoyed a short homosexual affair. Their relationship deteriorated into acrimony as Tornay realised that Estermann had betrayed him with another guard. Estermann’s close links to the Opus Dei movement, and his final refusal to award the Benemeriti medal for 3-years service led to further frustration and Tornay’s decision to kill Estermann”

Aloysius “Alois” Alzheimer – “was a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist and a colleague of Emil Kraepelin. Alzheimer is credited with identifying the first published case of “presenile dementia”, which Kraepelin would later identify as Alzheimer’s disease.”

Alois Brunner – “is an Austrian Nazi war criminal. Brunner was Adolf Eichmann’s assistant, and Eichmann referred to Brunner as his “best man.” As commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944, Alois Brunner is held responsible for sending some 140,000 European Jews to the gas chambers. Nearly 24,000 of them were deported from the Drancy camp. He was condemned in absentia in France in 1954 to a life sentence for crimes against humanity. In 1961 and in 1980, Brunner lost an eye and the fingers of his left hand, respectively, as a result of letter bombs sent to him by Mossad. In 2003, The Guardian described him as “the world’s highest-ranking Nazi fugitive believed still alive.” Brunner was last reported to be living in Syria, where the government has so far rebuffed international efforts to locate or apprehend him”

Alois Hudal (also known as Luigi Hudal) – “was a Rome-based bishop of Austrian descent. He was for thirty years head of the small Austrian-German congregation of Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome and until 1937, an influential representative of the Austrian Church. In his 1937 book The Foundations of National Socialism Hudal praised Adolf Hitler and some of his policies and indirectly attacked the policies of the Vatican. After World War II, an unrepentant Hudal became infamous for the “ratline” he helped to establish, allowing prominent Nazi German and other European former Axis officers and political leaders, among them war criminals, to escape Allied trials and denazification.”

Johann Alois Senefelder – “was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in 1796”

The more you know! Yes this entry was completely random but maybe now you know a little bit of random history. Also some of the random things I do with my time. I wonder if there are Ciels throughout history…I might have to check that out next. All quoted material was taken from Wikipedia.

Kuroshitsuji II: Watch it Now or Fail

This will probably be the hardest anime first episode to talk about this summer season because it was so incredibly awesome and I have to try and not give everything away. Before I get into it though I will say I’m a bad person and just finished Kuroshitsuji yesterday. I was on episode 16 forever and since the new season started I buckled down and finished it along with the OVA. I think it helped though because the show was still fresh for me so I felt this first episode even more.

Alois Goal: to be even more shotaesque than Ciel so you love him more. Shorter shorts. Knee highs. Bows on his boots.

For those who don’t know the first episode of season 2 starts out with a new kid, Alois Trancy, and his butler, Claude Faustus. Though many people seem to hate Alois and say he’s too bratty. I see a crazy as all hell kid whose past experiences affected him differently than the way Ciel was able to deal with his. (I was also probably not as bothered by the pair starting the episode because of what I’d already read about the episode. More on that soon.) One of the first scenes we see with Alois is him getting out of a bed naked with bruises. Oh yeah there’s an older man naked in the bed too. I think I’d be pretty crazy if something like that was happening to me on a regular basis. Of course from that one scene I can’t say for sure it is but that’s pretty good motivation for someone to make a contract with a demon right? Through out our time with Alois and Claude we see how horrible/crazy Alois is. He does the so called “bratty” things like unbuttoning the shit that Claude just buttoned for him and purposely spilling a glass of wine. Oh but the craziness is there in the extreme. After Claude dresses him he decides to have a high pitched crazy laugh fest while rolling around on his bed for no reason. Oh yeah and stabs his maid’s eye out with his fingers because she looked him in the eye. He also goes quite quickly from I’m a laughing little brat to I’m pissed off and crazy. One of the many examples is when he’s delighted about the changes Claude has made to the dinning room and suddenly his facial expression changes and he’s calling his upcoming dinner guests bastards. Claude on he other hand doesn’t seem to have that much personality like many people are saying but he also doesn’t get much screen time. He does preform awesome butler feats like any good demon butler should and they are very entertaining.

Now I’ll tell you why I can like these characters. Though I didn’t mind knowing you may not want to read further ahead if you want this to be a surprise. I’m not going to spoil the whole episode but I will talk about one of it’s most awesome factors…

Hopefully you’re not reading this if you don’t want to know. Plus I had to right something before I said…Sebastian shows up! That’s right our favorite demon butler shows up and has a mini butler showdown with Claude. Of course he manages to call Alois a brat and is overall his awesome self. That’s not even everything that makes this episode great.

If your a fan of Kuroshitsuji then this first episode should hook you right back in. I’m looking forward to episode 2!

Hentai, Yaoi, and Yuri Oh My!

Actually I don’t know if this site has yuri but they seem to have everything else so I don’t see why they wouldn’t.
Mandarake
This site is another awesome one that has hard to find figures for good prices. The figures may be new or used but it’ll say in the item title. Although this part of the site claims to be in english most product titles are not. So all the menus and the check out process are in english but you’re gonna have to look at every picture to see if it’s a figure your looking for. Most product pictures aren’t the official pictures either. They’re pictures of the actual figures in their boxes that Mandarake has. Considering the deals you get though it doesn’t really bother me.
I was hesidant to use this site at first because I thought some deals seems to good to be true but the site I’m always promoting My Figure Collection has tons of user reviews in their forums. I bought the Haruhi Figma SP001 from them for about $50 with one day shipping. (She’s usually around $100 or more on ebay)

She came with her box and all the pieces but the PS2 video game was not included. Honestly I didn’t care about the video game I just wanted the figma so I was happy.

They also carry doujins there. They have both hentai and yaoi doujins and you can get either new or used. Just try to have more self control than me…I just spent $111 on Durarara yaoi doujins. Also most of the doujins have preview pages which is nice and for the yaoi ones they list seme/uke in the usual seme x uke style. (ex. Shizuo x Izaya)

The last note I’ll make is to pay attention to where your buying your items from. Mandarake is a series of stores in Japan and if you’re not careful your order will have to ship from multiple places. They don’t ship things to a different store to ship it to you in one bath. So you might have to pay shipping on multiple items. They do give you many reminders to check your cart for that issue though.

Have fun shopping!

Highschool of The Dead: Anime and Zombies Done Right

Well, I’m a little behind the times. Actually quite a bit behind consider yesterday I used to finish two anime series that ended in early ’09 yesterday. Today I decided to watch the first episode of Highschool of the Dead though. Now I’m sure everyone’s already heard great things about this series but here it goes again.

First off I thought the animation was great! And yes there is tons of “fan service” with bouncing boobs and panty shots. I might vary from other girls in the fact that that doesn’t bother me. For some reason I especially like it in this show because it’s kind of funny in contrast to all the violence happening with the fan-service.

Also as you’ve probably heard there are many cliched ideas and scenes in the first episode but they pull it off so well it doesn’t even matter.

So far I love the main male character. I can’t tell his personality exactly but he doesn’t seem to be your “hero” hero type. Not to say he’s a coward just a angry highschooler with some problems. From the end of the episode it doesn’t even seem like he minds that he’s kind of gotten the girl he’s liked since childhood because he threatened to leave her alone after smashing in her zombie boyfriends brains. What a dick but we love it. Otherwise people wouldn’t like Death Note or Code Geass. Maybe that’s mostly girls who like those characters though because my male friends are always going on about how they hate those characters. We don’t really get introduced to the rest of the main cast yet but it does appear they all show up in one small clip or another.

*Had to come back and add that there’s even a Muse-esque song used toward the end of the episode. Think 28 weeks later. Or any recent trailer lately for that matter. Even Day & Knight used a Muse song…*

The only thing I have left to say is go watch it if you haven’t and I hope it keeps being great! Also any guys out there want to tell me if they like asshole main male charters?

I feel like I should buy figures from this show now…

Things Get Interesting

Just when I thought it was going to be a boring day I stumble upon something great! Back on June 24th I downloaded an AMV, AMVNews Alt.Opening.2009 Le.Chiffre-Ian.Flemings Property of a Lady. I was just about to watch some of the new summer animes when I saw this amv sitting in my download folder. Clicking on it was the best decision I’ve made today.

Do you love anime girls with guns, James Bond, and/or Muse? I happen to love all three of these things and Property of a Lady brings them all together beautifully! Not to mention the spectacular editing. I’ve provided a youtube video below, but I always recommend using AnimeMusicVideo.Org to download your AMVs.

Summer Cleaning

I’m currently trying to sell some of my older figures and ones I have duplicates of. If anyone is interested you can e-mail me at ampzer@gmail.com. Make the subject Summer Cleaning. Thanks! (I will also be making a sales page.)

prices are negotiable just send me a e-mail

Nendoroid/Figma Winter Accessories sealed in bag
I have an extra set of what I’d call light purplish-pink nendoroid/figma winter accessories. Both my winter versions came with this color. It has the scarf and a set of figma & nendoriod gloves. – $7

Action Figures (these figures do contain boxes and all pieces)
Len Nendoroid 040 – $80

Action Figures (none of these figures contain boxes)
Armitage III: Poly-Matrix – Naomi Armitage – $8 (the black pieces by her shoulders are broken but still attached and could be glued back in place. Also doesn’t include gun or hand cuffs)
Legend of Dragoon – Rose $15

Trading Figures (none of these figures contain boxes)
Bleach The Styling – Abarai Renji $7
Bleach The Styling – Kurosaki Ichigo – $7
Bleach The Styling – Matsumoto Rangiku – $7
Code Geass R2 EX-Portraits – Lelouch Lamperouge – $8
Growlanser IV – Dianna Silvernale – $5
HGIF Evangelion File Neo Vol 2 – Nagisa Kaworu – $7
Magical Canan – Cerulean Blue – $5 (no base/stand)
Ningyo Shippuden 3 – Haruno Sakura – $5
Ningyo Shippuden 3 – Yamato – $5
ONE COIN FIGURE SERIES: Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball – Helena – $5 (no base/stand)
TECMO GALS COLLECTION – Daian Pinky – $5 (no base/stand)
TECMO GALS COLLECTION – Sara – $5 (no base/stand)
Tsubasa Rerservoir Chronicle Chibi Figure – Syaoran – $5

Completed Models (these figures do contain boxes and all pieces)
Japanese Life Set A – – $25 HOLD
Japanese Life Set B – $25 HOLD
I just got these in a few days ago. I don’t really collect a lot of nendoroids, but I was hoping the playsets would also fit figmas. Alas the figmas are too tall. So, now I’m looking to sell them. The playsets where opened and built to check to see if a figma would fit and that’s it.

Completed Models (none of these figures contain boxes)
Headliners, Pioneer Tenchi Muyo – Ryoko – $12 (has a button so that it talks but I don’t know if it still works since I haven’t bought batteries for it in a while. I don’t see why it still wouldn’t though.)
Headliners Tenchi Muyo – Kagato – $2
Headliners Tenchi Muyo – Masaki Ayeka Jurai – $2
Headliners Tenchi Muyo – Masaki Sasami Jurai – $2
Kyun-Chara ver. Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann – Simon – $15
Summer Beach Ver. – Yoko – $18

Pinky:st
I’m selling an assortment of pinky:st parts. I’m not sure about the price. I know what I’ve seen them go for in the past, but right now I’m just taking offers. I will end up putting them on ebay if no one wants them.
Pics are located here: All Pieces, Upper Bodies, Lower Bodies, Skirts, Accessories, Character Cards

Send me an e-mail if you have any questions or if you’re interested. None of these prices include shipping. I can also get pictures if anyone wants them.