Alright! It’s back! My featuring post about anime you’ll hate or enjoy. Let’s start this week on a good note and talk about anime that I really enjoyed and hope you did too.The only change I’ll have in this new and reborn Jerkpop is, I think I should try and get through the new anime first before going through the old ones. No, seriously, anime I was reviewing in the old posts were at least two seasons old.

Right then, since this Jerkpop is ‘new’, I think I’ll restart the count from #1 again. Note that the numbers doesn’t mean anything other than just a count. Aka, not ranking.

Anime I enjoy watching #1: Natsume Yuujinchou

“Natsume Takashi has the ability to see spirits, which he has long kept secret. However, once he inherits a strange book that belonged to his deceased grandmother, Reiko, he discovers the reason why spirits surround him. Containing the names of these spirits, a binding contract was formed between the spirits and the owner of the book. Now, Natsume is determined to free the spirits and dissolve the contracts. With the help of a spirit cat, his days are filled trying to return the names to these spirits.” -ANN

Alright then, a hero that can see spirits and keeps it a secret. Inherited some item from his ancestor that has some great power and every spirit in town wants it. Where have I heard of a plot line like this? Hmm…hard call. Perhaps just about every other anime. However, that’s only on the surface. The whole plot line wasn’t enough to make me watch it when it first came out, and it wasn’t until TubeOxen bothered me enough telling me to watch it that I did.

However, when I actually got around to watch it. Oh boy. First of all, I have to clarify. The story is not as cliche as it sounds, even though the structure of it is. Natsume doesn’t stand out at all, he doesn’t give of the ‘protagonist’ aura at all. He is completely normal, and you get the feeling that he could be someone your neighbour is. The main focus of this anime is actually tracing back to his grandmother, Reiko. The story actually focuses on Natsume discovering Reiko’s past little by little through meeting the spirits his grandmother once met.

As said before, Reiko; Natsume’s grandmother, plays a great part in this anime. She doesn’t have much presence either, seeing as how the only time the audience sees her is from a flashback. However, this is exactly what makes this anime interesting. You see the view of the spirits from Natsume, and you also see what Reiko sees of the spirits. It’s the same anime, with two flavor.

The art style of this anime gives off a traditional Japan view for some odd reason. Although still very anime, you also feel that it is very traditional Japanese. The animation budget doesn’t feel skimped either, although a few frames might be reused, they are generally high quality.

The music is where this anime really stands out. Every BGM gives off a really easy feeling, it puts you into a relaxed state. As with the art style, each piece of music gives off a heavy Japan taste to it. You forget your normal day troubles when you watch this anime thanks to the music, and you would want each episode to last longer. You would feel that each episode is very long because of the slow pace this anime goes at.

What makes this anime so good, however, isn’t something I can explain through words. There is a certain X factor that makes everyone I know fall in love with it. So even if my review doesn’t give you the motivation to go see this anime right away, give it a try anyways.

Alright! That’s it for now. I was going to review Eve no Jikan as well, but I decided that I should put that off because I’ve only watched one episode so far. It’d be more fair to review after watching another one or two episodes. (Even though the whole series will ONLY have 6 episodes…) That’s it for now, have a great time watching Natsume Yuujinchou (or named as Natsume Yūjin-Chō).

Here’s a new upcoming trend that we’re sure to see at cons in no time; “Big Eye” Contact Lenses.

So for a mere $32 you can have giant anime eyes.
I think this is kinda cool. Don’t know if I would want these myself, but they might be fun.

You can go to the makers site here to get more info, or to pick up your giant, sparkling, shimmering eyes.
What’s your guys’ opinion? Hot or not?

EVO, the longest running fighting game tournament in the world, started this morning at 9:00 A.M. The games running are: Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike, Capcom Vs. SNK 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, And Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Jump for more win.

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If you haven’t seen it, it fucking amazing.  A new favorite of mine that hasn’t even finished yet. Here’s the OP, which is a very beautiful song attached.

Ureshii http://ureshii-fansub.org/ is doing the sub. One ep comes out every 2-3 weeks. Check it, it’s great.

I’m actually surprised that no one else has done this yet. Regardless, I go into this having only seen the first episode (I’ll get the dvd this weekend), so keep that in mind. First thing I notice, as I’ve seen everyone else noticed, the OP and ED are QUICK!!! Gotta love how they try to save time. Pissed me off when Adult Swim did that to Cowboy Bebop, as I liked The Real Folk Blues. Regardless, still all goodness in Gurren Lagann-land. The voices actually surprised me with their quality.

The first voice we all wanted to hear, Adult Simon, gave me a boner, I shit you not. It was perfect in my mind, so I thought, “Hopefully Kamina also sounds like this.” Then we hear young Simon,  and once more, I was pleased. The next voice I heard was that of the cheif, and I liked it; his voice got me to give him some more respect. Then… Kamina… I feel that “meh” describes my feelings best. I can feel the correct attitude in his voice, can almost resonate with it, but the quality of the voice messes with me. It needs to be deeper, and a little gruffer. That being said, the point in the story that I actually got a feel for Kamina is when he confronts the giant Gunman around halfway through the episode. I think it’s done quite well, but his voice takes 20 points from it. His yell near the end (he and Simon doing the “if I yell there will be more power” yell) is quite good though. Yoko was goodness. I have absolutely no complaints.

My verdict?  One of the better dubs I’ve heard, but I still feel it could’ve been done better. Maybe the Kamina voicer will grow on me after a while, but I doubt hearing “bro” will. Seriously Simon, it got a little annoying.

Pro: Adult Simon, Young Simon, Yoko, boobs.

Con: Kamina. Hopefully it’ll get better for me.

Favorite Quote: YOKO: “What is this furry thing hiding in my cleavage?”

KAMINA: “A tasty morsel hiding in more tasty morsels.”

In case you can’t quite spot what the above picture is of, the anime you should watch is Medabots. A story of a world where everyone has a Megaman like assistant to do battle with. Guns, swords, breasts, small robots, giant robots; what more could you need?

Read on after the jump as to why this show is awesome as hell. Read the rest of this entry »

So, I was supposed to have a so-called “date” today (today meaning Thursday, March the 6th) as people who frequent the Japanator IRC channel might have heard me saying, but I didn’t go because I simply didn’t feel like it. Instead, I have written the second installment of “Anime I Regret Watching” because I’m cool like that(or not).

Anime I regret watching #4: Shuffle! Memories.

What the heck did they do to Primula’s face!?

The first problem about this anime is, I can’t figure out why they made it. I mean, aside from the reason to rip more money off of anime fans, there is simply no reason to have this 12 episodes “sequel” where 11 are made out of recaps. No, I’m not kidding. If you are a Shuffle! fan and thought, “Oh yay! Sequel to Shuffle!” Hold your horses, because it is definitely not a sequel. There is -some- (Note: Very little.) original content within the recaps, and the only episode out of the 12 that contains 100% original content is the last episode, which just an OVA with the usual crew on a boat and have nothing to do with the plot.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved the original Shuffle! series. However, I don’t love it enough to watch a water-downed version of it. Frankly, if I want to watch Shuffle! again, I’ll just watch Shuffle! again! Why would I go ahead and watch 11 episode of a water downed version of a series that I enjoyed all of the 24 episodes in the original series!? Why!?

The plot had to be trimmed and condensed so that they can fit 24 episodes into 11, which means only the dramatic scenes get left in and as a result, you can’t relate to the character as well as the original series. Aside from that, this series has more or less the same quality of the original. The animation quality was a tad bit higher, but everything else remained the same. After all, this is just a recap. The only major change in this recap version of Shuffle! is the music, and again, why!? The original music was great, but they just had to go around fiddling with the OP and ED, putting in second rate songs that are sung by the seiyuu, it’s just horrible!

So overall, if you haven’t seen the original Shuffle! series, go watch that instead of this. If you watched Shuffle! and want more of it, only get the last episode of Shuffle! Memories.

More bad anime after the jump.

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Seeing as how we launched today, we were all told to write a post…and I couldn’t think of anything to write. Then I looked at my clock, 12:52am, and I panicked. WHAT TO WRITE!!!!???

Ah well, can’t be helped. I’ll start with what I do best, rant. But not just rant, I will also give you my piece of opinion as to what anime you wouldn’t want to waste your time on. Because, we all know that there are too many anime and too little time.

That said, let’s start with the top few anime that I regret watching. Of course, do keep in mind this is my opinion. (Though I did ask a few of the other writers to help me come up with this list)

Anime I regret watching #1: Stratos 4

Now…Let me sum this show up to you in an equation.

Girls + Rocket ships + Rocks = Waste of your time.

Yes, I’m not even exaggerating here. That’s basically the whole 13 episodes of it. It’s about a team of girls shooting down comets that are falling down from space so the Earth doesn’t blow up. No, I’m really not kidding. In essence, it’s about rocks. That’s about it. Nothing much. Yet somehow they were able to make a 2 episode OVA sequel out of this, amazing huh?

Maybe you are thinking, they had to have done SOMETHING correct if they were able to make 15 episodes of girls shooting rocks. Well, in that case…the only thing that made this anime fly (no pun intended) is: Cute teenage girls in tight pilot suits. Nothing else.

Read more of anime I regrettably wasted my time watching after the jump.
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