Archive for April 2006
xxxHOLiC 01 - Hitsuzen
April 18, 2006, 8:23 pm
I read the first few books of the xxxHOLiC manga last summer, and it seemed like a pretty decent story. I’d been reading Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles since it came out, so it was neat how the two stories wove together, but didn’t overshadow one another. I watched the first episode of the Tsubasa Chronicle anime back when it first came out, and while it seemed pretty interesting, I didn’t keep watching and I heard that it wasn’t as high-quality as the manga (not that the manga is any great work of art or anything, but it is a pretty fun little story), so when the xxxHOLiC anime came out I decided I’d at least give the first episode a try.
It’s been a while and I read them quickly, so I don’t really remember how the first volume of the manga starts out, but this anime version seemed to be pretty true to it. One problem I do have with the anime is the animation style; the characters, Watanuki especially, is just disturbingly long and lanky, and while I realize that’s part of his original character design, I just find it unnerving to see that style of character moving around. The voice casting seems to be pretty solid; the voices aren’t too unlike the ones I came up with in my head when reading the manga. Maru and Moro are suitably irritating, and Mokona’s… okay. I guess that’s the one weird voice out of the bunch for me, since I heard the black Mokona in my head as sounding much like the original Mokona from Magic Knight Rayearth, so it was kind of different from what I expected.
Overall, I was neither impressed nor underwhelmed; seems just like the usual CLAMP anime adaptation fare, which could be seen as either good or bad.
—Erika | Comments Off
(posted in the Anime, xxxHOLiC category)
Nana 01 - Prologue: Nana and Nana
April 15, 2006, 2:22 pm
It’s been a while since I used this blog, since I’ve been watching most of my anime lately at anime club, and blogging all those new episodes at once is kind of a chore. Since the new season of anime just started with some things I want to watch, I decided to pick this back up again.
I’ve been reading Nana in Shojo Beat, and I really enjoy the manga version, so I probably watched the first episode of the anime with too many expectations. I was surprised that they decided to jump right into the story of the two Nanas meeting, since I felt that going into their backstories right from the start really gave me a better feel for the characters. It’s pretty clear how centered the anime is going to be on Hachiko (that is, Komatsu Nana), and I suppose to an extent the manga version is as well. In the anime, for people who haven’t read the manga, Oosaki Nana is such a vague and mysterious figure, just as she is to Hachi at the beginning. I think the anime did a good job of portraying Oosaki Nana’s mystique, but I really feel like we’ve missed something by completely skipping both of their backstories. It seems as though episode 2 will be about Hachi’s backstory, but there wasn’t much of a preview at the end of the episode, so it’s hard to tell.
The animation was pretty decent, but I thought that Paradise Kiss (a series I still have to finish watching) was a bit higher quality in comparison. It’s pretty rare for me to complain about Madhouse’s animation quality, but there you have it. The director is the same one who did Chobits, which I’m a bit skeptical about, but it doesn’t seem too bad so far. I’m pretty interested to see how the anime version is going to handle the story as a whole, but as of the first episode I have to admit I have mixed feelings.
—Erika | Comments Off
(posted in the Anime, Nana category)
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