For the past four years, there's been this annual secret santa event on /a/. I'm not actually sure how the whole thing started off in 2012, but I was among the first to join back then, and it was a pretty fun experience. The organizers have come and gone, but the secret santa thing seems to be a tradition now (as traditional as it gets on an imageboard, really) and after two years of absence, I decided to give it a go this year. I wasn't really expecting much, but I actually managed to receive my cards and, well, I felt pretty happy. The only ominous thing about the cards is that both had Chinatsu on them. I had no idea this many people liked Chinatsu. Then again I hardly post in the Yuri Yuri threads (thankfully) so I don't know that much.

I'll probably be sending out my cards within the first week of January, since the printers are taking a very, very long time to print out my cards. There should still be two cards heading my way, which should be pretty exciting. Sometimes I get really amazed by just how trustworthy a group of anonymous people on the Internet truly are. It's a community that I've spent my past five years with and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever actually quit that place. There's hardly any other place on Earth where I get to rank girls and say all sorts of random things to them. Sometimes I just get the impulse of saying 'I want to cuddle and have lots of children with Honoka' or 'I want to do X to Y' or something stupid like that.

Speaking of Honoka, I just bought a figure of her about two weeks ago. She looks great! I'm starting to assemble my Honoka shrine now, and if there's a new CD out from her I'll most likely buy it too. I'm not sure why exactly I like Honoka so much. In terms of personality, I really like Kotori, while in terms of looks, you can't beat Eli. But for some reason I just really, really like Honoka. Maybe it's because she's just a very genuine person, someone you can imagine having a conversation with, having fun with, laugh with and cry with. Honoka has her moments but for the most part, she's pretty, outgoing, and authentic. Truly the best girl. She might not be real, but that doesn't really matter. As Illya puts it: 'Don't Think, Imagine!"

It's been a while. It's New Year's Day in New Zealand (the clock went past midnight about two hours ago), and this will be my first post in 2016, it seems. I have been really lazy for the past two months or so, since school had been extraordinarily busy for me. I'm in the middle of a break right now, so I guess I can get some writing going on and talk about card games and video games and cute girls.

2014 was an incredibly important year for Hearthstone. Both Naxxramas and Goblin vs. Gnomes were released in that year, and cards like Loatheb, Sludge Belcher, Dr. Boom and Piloted Shredder permanently changed the meta. In contrast, I feel that 2015 was a lot quieter. Blackrock Mountain only had a rather small impact on the meta (beyond Emperor Thaurissan and Grim Patron), and the true potential for League of Explorers is yet to be seen. With that said, cards like Sir Finley and Reno Jackson have added a lot of deck-building potential to the game, and the new Discovery mechanic is a very appropriate and 'fair' use of RNG. 

Of course, the actual meta game changed a lot. Hunter is now, for the most part, a tier 2 or even a tier 3 class. And just earlier this year, the meta game had been a toss-up between Patron Warrior, Secrets Paladin and Midrange Druid, with Patron Warrior usually coming up on top. Now that Warsong Commander has been nerfed to the status of Undertaker and Starving Buzzard, Secrets Paladin is now officially the most popular, if not the strongest deck in Hearthstone. It has no bad match-ups, it's hard to make mistakes with it which makes it perfect for laddering, and it is very mana efficient. 

The reality is, I think, that Blizzard has consciously played an active role in pushing Paladin to tier one status. With every expansion, Paladin has received relevant cards, from Shielded Minibot and Muster for Battle, to Mysterious Challenger and Keeper of Uldaman. In contrast, Hunter has received almost none, beyond Quickshot. It seems to me that Blizzard is experimenting with an alternative way of nerfing or buffing certain classes - give the weaker classes stronger cards and give the stronger classes irrelevant/gimmicky cards. If this theory is correct, then it's pretty apparent that Blizzard has done a pretty good job.

I have been working on my free-to-play account on Europe for a significant chunk of the year. My goal was to produce at least two meta decks (aka decks that would carry a competent player to Legend) without spending any gold, within six months. I achieved the goal two weeks ago. I completed a full Hybrid Hunter and Zoo deck (with Dr. Boom), while my Midrange Druid and Secret Paladin decks were about 80% finished. That's almost four decks in total! So it is, in fact, possible to play this game competitively, and for free. In retrospect, it really boiled down to three things: you need to be good at arena (I average about 6-7 wins per run, and last week I managed to hit two 12 wins), you need to play a lot, and you need to be careful about managing your gold.

The reason why a lot of new players have trouble getting into this game, I think, isn't really because Blizzard isn't giving out enough gold or packs. For one, I already think that Tavern Brawl is more than adequate for providing a steady stream of gold and packs. The real gap is the knowledge gap. Most new players just don't have the basic card game knowledge (knowing how to trade, etc) to play this game, not to mention that arena drafting is inherently very complex. The reason why I was able to successfully create a free-to-play account had a lot more to do with my experience in this game, and not because I managed to get lucky and unpacked a Legendary, etc. Perhaps a new tutorial might help?

Anyway, I'll definitely be playing more Hearthstone in January. To round off this post, I'd like to share two decklists that I'll be using on my free-to-play account, starting with my favourite class, Hunter. I really think that Hybrid Hunter is the go-to Hunter archetype right now. Face Hunter is pretty bad right now (except against Secrets Paladin) and Midrange Hunter is far too slow. Hybrid Hunter seems to be the most appropriate archetype right now, because in Hunter, you need both board control and the burst and Hybrid Hunter provides that. 

The tech cards in this list are Argent Squire and the two copies of Glaivezooka. To fight off cards like Darnassus Aspirant and Shielded Minibot, turn one Webspinner just isn't cutting it anymore. In contrast, cards like Argent Squire allows me to trade efficiently (particularly with the Glaivezooka buff) into cards like Knife Juggler. No Eaglehorn Bow in this list - you almost never get Secret value off it, and Glaivezooka usually ends up doing the same amount of damage for one less mana. 

The next list is Midrange Druid. I'm not much of a Druid player, but I've played against that class so many times that I know the deck very well. As long as the Force of Nature/Savage Roar combo exists, Midrange Druid will never go out of fashion. Midrange Druid is basically a deck capable of taking up just about any matchups, has heal, card draw, burst and tempo in the form of Innervate and Wild Growth. A really good all around deck designed for laddering. 

The hard part about building Midrange Druid is choosing what goes in the 5-mana slot. I personally prefer Sludge Belcher. I certainly can see myself playing two Azure Drakes, however, since cycling is very important in any midrange decks, and the spell power helps with removing threats (the one weakness of Midrange Druid is its lack of efficient removals). Beyond that, I really think that other tech cards (Sylvanas etc) are all worthy of inclusion, but with a deck as versatile as Midrange Druid, it's probably best to leave the core as it is.

I don't really watch much anime anymore. The only show that I'm watching right now is Yuru Yuri S3. The first three episodes have been pretty decent - nothing spectacular or particularly memorable, but pretty good overall. Last night, however, I watched episode four, and what an amazing episode it was. I'd easily rank it as one of the best Yuru Yuri episodes from the three seasons combined, and perhaps one of the best in the entire yuri genre. Everything from the episode came together almost seamlessly. They managed to crank up the yuri to eleven and nothing felt risqué at all. Very pure, very tender. It's times like this when you drift into an fantasy wonderland where being a lesbian seems to be the solution to every problem in the world. 

Well, in Yuru Yuri, pure love trumps everything else, right?

So every year in Auckland there's this anime convention that gets held at the same netball stadium. There are other conventions, to be sure, but this one is probably the only convention in the whole of New Zealand that caters specifically to anime. My previous experiences had been pretty decent (it's been a year since my last post on this convention, who knew!) and hopefully this year would be even better. So I packed and set off, managing to arrive there at about one.

The thing about conventions is that it attracts the best and worst people in the fandom. Some people are pretty chill while others can be really obnoxious, and that's just something you'll have to deal with. The community in New Zealand is really small, so it's not surprising that you're going to see some Dr. Who cosplay here and there even though, well, neither Dr. Who nor something like Adventure Time counts as anime.

Most of the merchandise there is really overpriced, but there were quite a few good stalls, since people were selling their own art and things of that sort. I think that by going to conventions, you get a good idea of what the most popular (aka flavour-of-the-month) anime is among the Western fan base. Three years ago, it was Madoka. Two years ago, Attack on Titan and Free, and last year it was Kill la Kill. This year - and you'd never believe it - it was actually Love Live! I'd actually never imagined anyone except for a vocal minority would be into idols. I was wrong.

This convention turned out to be a weird reunion of some sorts. The Love Live cosplayers, who were at the Love Live movie screening, came here as well, and this time their costumes were actually pretty good. Most of the people who went to Noizi Ito's earlier event came here as well. That included the president of my university's anime club, whom I had a nice short chat with. There really are only so many anime fans in the Auckland region, and it gives me a weird feeling that somehow everyone is now together in the same room.

Last time I came, I met a really good artist who drew a lot of Love Live fan-art. It turns out he's come a long way since and now he's well into making his first game. I went to his stall and greeted him, and asked him if he remembered me. He didn't. I said that I was the person who really liked Honoka, and he instantly remembered. I think that's a sort of litmus test for Love Live fans, really, is that you remember people by who their favourite (best) girl is and not by other things like names. I believe he really likes Nozomi and Eli.

I had a really nice chat with him. Like me, he also used to browse a lot of 4chan, and the conversation that happens between two people that browses /a/ is totally different from a more 'normal' conversation. I can't really put my finger on how exactly it's different, but it just is. Anyway, I asked him a bunch of questions about how things are going on in Japan, since he just came back from there. Apparently Love Live is enormously popular (obviously), but @ is holding its ground, and Wake Up Girls is still a spectacular failure. He also told me that no-one in Japan cares about what /a/ thinks - or what the Western fandom thinks in general, rather. Nothing too surprising. 

So I bought some stuff from him, and after a bit of nagging, I managed to get him to sketch me a portrait of Honoka. Maybe this is turning into a yearly tradition or something. I'm pretty sure we only meet like once a year anyway so I might as well make the most of it. But honestly, I have a lot of respect for him, since he's actually a very good artist and obviously works very hard. 

I kept walking on, and then a girl called my name. I looked back and she immediately lowered here head, pretending that she didn't see me. But I recognized her immediately - she was my high school classmate, whom I haven't seen in four years. I couldn't remember her name, but she still looked every bit like how she was in high school. It turns out that she's putting out some of her drawings for sale, and it turns out she really likes Saber and that apparently Fate/Zero is a masterpiece. I told her that I really liked Prisma Illya and she accused me of being a lolicon. Of course I denied it outright but deep inside she was kind of right.

It turns out that the high school arrangement hasn't changed at all. Back in high school, there was a bunch of people who really liked anime - herself included. Most of them are turning up to this convention as well, though I'll probably be gone before they get here. So much for my high school reunion, then, but it was pretty fun chatting to her while it lasted.

Lots of drama happened on the day, as well. But that's a story for another post. 

A lot of things happened this week. This Wednesday, Noizi Ito came to Auckland. I was actually quite excited about this, even though I've never really liked Haruhi (or anything else by her, for that matter). I seriously considered not going, because the event was going to be held at a polytechnic that's two hours away from where I live. But I went anyway. 

By the time I got there, I was pretty exhausted. The event was held at a very small gallery, with prints of her art hanging around the walls. There was also a glass cabinet with a couple of Haruhi figures and dolls. So walking into the gallery (in a surreal way) felt like walking into my own room. I didn't recognize anyone there, aside from the owner of a local anime store who instantly knew who I was. 

Noizi Ito came with her husband. She didn't look very different from her photos, though she looks a bit jet-lagged. The event started about fifteen minutes late. Everyone huddled into the gallery and watched Noizi Ito introduce herself. It was pretty awkward, really, and things got even more awkward when Noizi Ito tried to make a joke and it got lost in the translation. The atmosphere was just very awkward in general, and made me a bit uncomfortable.

Noizi Ito walked around the gallery explaining her work, where her inspiration came from, and all that stuff. It was actually quite dull, and when she finished explaining her drawings we huddled back into the lobby where she was about to do a live drawing of an original character. There was also going to be a raffle, with a signed artbook, a DVD set and a Haruhi nendoroid as the prizes.

She started drawing and everyone watched very, very attentively. Except for a few creepy old men standing near me, who kept on snapping pictures of her even though there was a sign that said 'No Photography Allowed'. I swear, these anime events always attracts the creepiest people. Most people there looked pretty socially awkward, but some were just downright creepy. I don't know why. Every time I go to one of these events, it always happens. 

Next came the Q&A session. I was the first person to speak. I thanked her for coming to Auckland, then told her that I found some of her Love Live fan-art online. So I asked which Love Live is the best Love Live, and why. Everyone in the audience laughed for some reason. Noizi Ito said that she really liked Love Live, and that her favourite girl is Nico because she is very cute and hard-working. Well, I guess this shows Noizi Ito clearly has bad taste. I was going to ask her to do a 'Nico-Nico-Nii' as well, but then I decided against it.

So overall, the event went pretty well. The four hours of commuting almost killed me (I left home at four and got back at around eleven), but I was sort of happy I got to meet the illustrator of Haruhi and ask her a really pressing question - for me, anyway. Noizi Ito was going to make an appearance again at a local convention later in the week. And so that's where I went next.

Some things in life happen purely by chance. Watching Love Live the Movie turned out to be one of those things. Madman licensed the movie's distribution rights in New Zealand a while ago, and had planned a one-time showing of the movie on the morning of September 11. It also turns out that I got hold of this information on the early, early morning of September 11. So clearly the timing ended up being pretty tight. Getting up early to watch some anime is pretty ridiculous, but I convinced myself to do this, somehow.

So I got there fairly early. The location was an underground, art-house cinema - the kind of place where you'd least expect something like Love Live. When I arrived, a crowd was already forming. The crowd looked very similar since they were mostly bespectacled Asians around my age, who were almost constantly playing on their phones. Really goes to show who Love Live usually attracts - single, unattractive, nerdy males. To my surprise, there was also a sizeable number of girls there, most of whom looked equally as nerdy as the guys. There were quite a few cosplayers though, with one particularly good Kotori cosplayer who also brought along his boyfriend. Finally, there was an old couple who must've bought tickets without knowing what they were getting into. "It's anime," one of my peers replied.

I took my seat and waited as the crowd began filling the theatre. There were a total of three white men, two of whom were horribly obese, one of whom was staring obsessively at a Love Live artbook he brought to this occasion. Next to me sat a whole role of cosplayers. The movie starts. Everyone in the theatre applauds. Maki appeared. Everyone cheers. Nico did the "Nico-nico Nii". Everyone did the same thing, followed by a rattle of high-pitched laughter. Hanayo and Rin shares a tender moment together. Everyone 'Awws'. Umi does something stupid. The crowd laughs.

So clearly everyone was enjoying the movie. I was, too, up to the ending of the New York arc. The aspect of Love Live that appealed most to me had always been the slice-of-life. The idol stuff was the icing on the cake, really. But then, the drama kicked in, and things became far less enjoyable. Not that I dislike drama (I love it, in fact), but rather because most of the drama was sorted out in season 2 and there was no reason to repeat it here. The movie, as a whole, was passable in the first half but became excruciatingly boring in the second. Hardly the kind of emotional finale you'd expect from the end of μ's.

Everyone who bought a ticket was entitled to a random shikishi, a poster and a Love Live game code. Judging from the crowd reactions, Eli and Maki were clearly the most popular of all. But I didn't expect just how crazy people got when they opened the shikishi they wanted. The girls, in particular, were screaming at the top of their lungs - cries 'Eli Eli Eli!!' and 'Maki-chan!!!' everyone in the lobby. One Japanese girl screamed 'Watashi no Eli-chika!!' when she opened her shikishi. All of this made me very, very uncomfortable. I've heard of the obsessiveness of the Love Live fanbase before, but watching it first hand was another thing entirely.

In all, it had been a pretty interesting, if not somewhat uncomfortable experience. Although the movie itself was really mediocre, observing the Love Live fanbase ended up being rather entertaining. If anything, it goes to prove that Love Live has become the equivalent of opium among those people. It's pretty dangerous, really, and very scary to think that Love Live is basically making money off people who think that the more they spend, the more real those girls will become. It's hard for me to sympathize with those people. Really hard.

So the debut episode of Prisma Illya season 2's 2nd cour came out a few days ago. The 'story' picks up where the 1st cour left off, although to be honest, episode one had no real story. It's summer break for the girls, they went to buy swimsuits, all sorts of crazy shenanigans happen, Shiro is once again blissfully unaware of how popular he is...and next episode is a beach episode. I've watched the episode twice already, and each time I always wonder how on earth Shin Onuma knows exactly what I (and thousands of other otaku, I imagine) want. They have gotten really, really good at pandering to people like me. With a start this strong, 2nd cour is going to be absolutely incredible.

The weird thing is that, I actually consider the Prisma Illya manga to be rather mediocre. Or at least, the manga is nowhere as good as the adaptation. To be sure, the manga also had its heavy dose of yuri and maids and whatnot, but what made the anime adaptation super good was the VAs and the soundtrack, the stuff that the manga cannot provide. Mai Kadowaki has done a superb job (as always) voicing Illya. Her pitch is so cutesy and well-toned, it's almost obscene. And of course, the soundtrack has consistently delivered the right atmosphere, may it be a violent fight or an intimate, flowery moment between Chloe and Illya. The yuri is as wonderful as it is, but the music really turns the knob up to 11, if you get what I mean.

I have a really hard time understand why I love this show so much, when in fact Prisma Illya pretty much represents everything that's wrong about the anime industry. I mean, episode one practically went all out in terms of piling on fanservice (not that I mind). I think the real reason why this show is so great, is that Prisma Illya has always been naughty and slightly erotic, but has never appeared criminal nor perverted. It's hard to think of another show that depicts lesbian, under-aged incest with such purity and good taste. If I watch another Illya x Chloe scene, I swear I am going to go crazy. Not that I'm not kind of screwed-up already, ha!

About a week ago, I said that I bought about 170 dollars worth of stuff. About two years ago, I'd be buying stuff like figures and collectibles from Japan on a monthly basis. But my interest in this kind of stuff had since died down, and I haven't bought this much stuff in around 9 months. Well, I guess you'd know by now, that in the end I gave into my consumerist urges! So today, I'd like to give a review of the stuff I bought: the Key 10th Memorial Box. And yes, my decision to buy this may have something to do with how much I liked Charlotte...

The Key 10th Memorial Box was released sometime in 2009. As the name suggests, this collector's item was released in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Key's founding. I'm a pretty big Key fan myself (for better or worse), and I've wanted to buy this for a very long time. But for a long time, I was also turned off by its hefty price-tag: 14,800 yen, when it was first released. And since it's a limited edition item, it becomes really hard to find this item six years after its release. So when I saw this item finally float up in Mandarake, I bought it immediately. Shipping included, the box cost me 170 dollars, which isn't that bad at all considering the good condition of the box.

As you'd expect from a collector's item of this calibre, the box is packed full of good stuff. First, the box contains all-age versions of every VN Key released up to 2009. This includes Kanon, Air, Clannad, Tomoyo After, Planetarian, and Little Busters. I can see that some people might complain about the removal of H-scenes, although I personally don't care that much. After all, who reads Key VNs for the terrible ero, anyway? My only minor complaint is that the Little Busters case was, perhaps wrongly, labelled as Little Busters Ecstasy (the 18+ version). The VNs also comes with a slim artbook that contains character sketches, commentary and lots of illustrations. Basically, the stuff you'd expect from a typical artbook. 

The box also comes with an assortment of mini-posters, nicely packaged in slim boxes according to the VNs the posters came from. I can't say too much about the posters, since I have no intention of opening them nor putting them up, but they'd probably resemble the mini-posters you can buy from AmiAmi. So nothing out of the ordinary, really, besides the fact that these posters are 'official'. Same goes with the mug, which is really just a standard mug with Key's mascot on it. I rather liked the fact, however, that instead of a boring brown box, the mug's packaging also featured Ayu and Rin (aka Best Key Girl). Nice attention to detail there.

After posters, mugs and the artbook, it's pretty logical that the collector's items should come with a T-shirt as well. Again, nothing too special here, besides the fact that the T-shirt is far, far too big for me. I'm really not sure why they made it so big, especially considering that Japanese T-shirts are usually a size smaller than their Western counterpart. Perhaps this might say something about the real life appearances of the Key fanbase...

The coolest part of the box, in my view, is actually the assortment of alternative covers they provided. For every VN, they've provided about 2-3 covers which you can insert into the DVD cases. Personally, I'm quite impressed with the range of designs and how unique they look. For example, I really liked the alternative designs for Air's cover art. From certain angles, Misuzu's character design can look a bit autistic, but the alternative covers really made Misuzu look a lot prettier. I think that's a general problem with a lot of Key's earlier work, really, since what's considered 'moe' in the early 2000s is borderline autistic by today's standards. But anyway, it was very nice of them to provide the alternative cover art. Really innovative.

So at the end of the day, was the box really worth its price-tag? Well, the instinctive answer is no. Even if you take away the hefty shipping, the items themselves are really just 'official' versions of things you could print off or download yourself. Not to mention that none of these things will most likely get any use - for example, I'll probably never actually wear the T-shirt. But as a collector's item, the box has a lot of value. Almost like how people buy antiques, not to actually use them but rather as an investment. So maybe in forty years, this box might become an antique or something. Would I still be into anime by then? I'm not so sure.

So, the first episode of Charlotte aired a few hours ago. Surprisingly enough, the pilot episode turned out really, really good. A couple things really stood out for me. First, there's the comedy. Jun Maeda's attempts at humour, at least for me, tends to fall flat a lot of the time. But the comedy in Charlotte worked really well - partly because of how surreal it is (it is an anime based on supernatural powers, after all). My guesses are, however, that Charlotte will soon turn on its drama mode. Maeda has done that with just about everything he's ever written. So expect Charlotte to be a lot less funny, very very soon.

The MC also has a lot of character to him. A lot of the 'old' Key MCs (Yukito, Yuuichi, and to an extent Tomoya) are very flat characters that act more like proxies for self-inserting fans. But since Little Busters, Key MCs have gotten much more interesting. So far, Maeda has done an admirable job letting Yuu drive the story, instead of letting the heroines do the job for him. Everyone else also feels very likeable - especially Yuu's little sister. I remember watching the stream last night and was almost about to fall asleep when I heard that high-pitched 'Onii-chan!'. Truly music to my ears. Adding an under-aged, cute, high-pitched imouto to any cast seems to work nowadays. Or at least it works for me.

Being P.A.Works, the background art is absolutely superb as always. They've never failed to disappoint with pretty pictures and hopefully, they can keep up the quality for the next twelve episodes. My only concern, at this point, is that Maeda keeps his story tight and coherent. A problem with Angel Beats (as acknowledged by the man himself) is that it featured too large a cast and there was impossible to squeeze so many stories into 13 episodes. As long as Maeda focuses on what he already has, Charlotte will probably turn out really good (like, 'anime-of-the-year' good). Knowing that this show will eventually turn into a soap opera makes me very happy. In all, episode one is great. Hopefully it stays that way.

The next two seasons of anime look very promising. To start off, there's Aria the Avvenire, a three-episode OVA series which will come out later this year. I had always been a fan of the Aria series - Origination, in particular, is probably one of the best SoL ever made. Aria seems to get the mixture just right: a perfect balance of drama and comedy, with a hint of sentimentality here and there. I was, of course, very excited when Avvenire was announced, even more so when I heard that the show will once again be directed by the capable Junichi Sato. Even though the manga finished in '08, Kozue Amano is handling the story and character designs. The animation quality, as seen from the PV, also looks very high. Overall, I have a lot of hope in Avvenire to live up to the 'Aria standard', so to speak.

In every season, there's always one or two shows that everyone ends up watching. Most KyoAni shows, the Fate franchise and the Monogatari series falls into this category. For the upcoming season, I think Charlotte will be the one show that everyone (for better or worse) is going to watch and hate. For those who don't know already: Jun Maeda is handling the writing. Partnered with P.A.Works, Maeda's latest creation will most probably end up like every other Key anime: plenty of awful drama, unexplainable illnesses, slightly autistic protagonists, and more awful drama. The picture above (props to 4chan) illustrates my point very well. I'd be very shocked if the dots don't line-up by the time Charlotte finishes.

P.A.Works and Maeda had previously partnered on Angel Beats, a show which was moderately enjoyable when it aired but in retrospective was pretty awful. For the most part, I expect the same with Charlotte. I honestly think that Maeda's writing is long past its prime. Now, I'm not saying that Air and Kanon were good by any means - but at least they were entertaining soap dramas while they lasted. However, I feel that upcoming writers like Mari Okada have produced dramas (like Nagi no Asukara) that are just as heart-wrenching as Maeda's best works, without having to fall back on the same plot devices time after time. Granted, I'm still going to watch Charlotte regardless, in the hopes that it ends up being a decent show and not a half-baked effort to make its viewers cry.

Yuru Yuri season 3 is coming soon. While waiting impatiently for season 3 to arrive, I've picked a couple of other series for my daily dose of yuri. First, there's Hibike Euphonium. Every KyoAni show since Nichijou has been disappointing for me, but Hibike Euphonium looks very promising. Its art looks very pretty, and most importantly it has yuri in it. Yuri and KyoAni seems like a mix that just might work. Second, I'm also watching Strawberry Panic, an older series that showcases yuri's ties with its shoujo roots. Lots of fanservice (aka hand-holding), beautiful art, and very relaxing to watch. A different kind of yuri compared to what I usually watch, but enjoyable nonetheless. Sometimes I think that if I watch anymore yuri, I have to go see a psychologist...

I also bought like 170 dollars worth of goods yesterday. They'll get reviewed in a few days time.

I finished both seasons of Prisma Illya a few days ago. My earlier verdict on Prisma Illya is that it's 'Really Good'. Having watched both seasons, I think Prisma Illya is a top contender for anime of the year. Both seasons of Prisma Illya were absolutely superb. Maybe I'm biased. Maybe it's because I'm a fan of both yuri and magical girls and putting the two things together makes me go crazy. But Prisma Illya is just that good. As a supposed 'parody', it has become much, much better than your run-of-the-mill magical girl series. Prisma Illya has done an almost perfect job satisfying the desires of twisted magical girl fans - such as myself.

I say 'twisted' because magical girl series, despite their cuteness and all, are usually filled with a surprising amount of violence and trauma. Madoka is the most well-known example. But other prominent series such as Nanoha A`s, Princess Tutu, and even the occasional PreCure episode have all featured heart-wrenching drama and moments where little girls get beaten to a pulp. The concept is sort of sadistic, really. You start off with a young girl, who's completely innocent and cute and whatnot. Then all sorts of horrible things happen. She gets smashed by a big bad monster. She gets abandoned by her mother. Her best friend only has a few weeks to live. And so forth. 

And if you're like me - a moderately attractive young man in his early twenties without much of a love life - you'll probably start to feel sorry. You'll wonder why this girl - Fate-chan, Yayoi-chan, or (in this case) Illya-chan - has been exposed to so much suffering. You might even lament the fact that if she knew how much you care about her, she might have f-f-feelings for you. In short, the magical girl formula lives off contrast. It lives off pain and suffering, juxtaposed against a façade of easygoing school-life, teas and cakes, and that smile you always wanted to protect. 

Alright, so maybe I'm going a bit off-topic here. But my point still stands: Prisma Illya has done a magnificent job bringing out the best (or should I say, 'worst') from its twisted fans. Prisma Illya is extremely good at making its girls cute then bashing them into the ground, provoking a compassionate cry of 'Doushite?' from its viewers. Miyu got slammed so hard that blood gushed out of her mouth (and her heart nearly got pierced). Illya almost had her hand crushed. Chloe was thrown repeatedly at blocks of shattered concrete. But when the fight is over, everything goes back to normal. The maid costumes, the fanservice, the collective gasp of 'Eh?!' followed by a panning shot to the sky. Rinse and repeat.

I think what really made Prisma Illya as good as it is, however, is that it crammed just about every otaku fetish into the space of twenty episodes without overdoing it. I think their scriptwriting process probably involved a spinning wheel, with the fetishes written around the circle. Of course there's 'Meido', 'Loli' and 'Pantsu' on there somewhere. But there'd also be less obvious ones, like 'T-tsundere', 'GAR', 'Oppai', 'Yuri Kissu', 'Onii-chan, daisuki!', 'Gym uniform', 'Onsen' , 'Delicious Flat Chest', 'China dress', and so forth. Then before writing commences they'd spin the wheel a few times to determine which fetish is going to get featured. 

Well, that's my wild guess of how the show was written. My point is: Prisma Illya is absolutely, unabashedly direct in pandering to its twisted and slightly perverted audience. But the show does have other redeeming qualities. For instance, I really feel that Chloe made the show at least 120% better. Not just because she has the same name as I do, not just because she's looks like an exotic succubus, but she actually made Shirou an interesting character. If season one was all about Illya x Miyu, season two is about Illya x Shirou x Chloe. Some of the funniest moments in the entire series (like how Illya slapped herself out of jealousy) came from the trio. Not to mention all the kissing and the hand-holding that got me into this whole mess in the first place.

In all, Prisma Illya would probably be regarded as garbage by anyone outside its intended audience. And I won't be surprised if Prisma Illya is, in fact, regarded in that way. After all, Prisma Illya is really just pure entertainment at its finest - and it really delivered just about everything it promised. As I said before, if you like it as it is, you'll probably regard Prisma Illya as a de-facto masterpiece. 20 episodes of Prisma Illya has definitely given me something of an emotional attachment to those girls, giving me the faint hope that one day, I too can be one of their 'tomodachi'. On a more serious note, Prisma Illya's story is far from over and season three will air in about a month's time. I cannot wait to be entertained.

I first watched Eve no Jikan back in early 2013. After working through all six episodes in one sitting, I quickly came to the conclusion that Eve no Jikan is a masterpiece. The story was fascinating, the narrative had some really touching moments, and the show was beautifully animated. The quiet story of the cafe became the setting for an emotional roller-coaster, an experience I still remember today. A show this good, I thought, deserves all the support  from its fans. After I got off the ride, I did what any responsible fan would do: spend money.

At first, Eve no Jikan was only released in Japan. Then in mid 2013, its creators started a Kickstarter project for an international release. It aimed for an original budget of $18,000 - over $200,000 was eventually raised. Eve no Jikan is the first anime project, I think, to have achieved such success on Kickstarter. It definitely paved way for subsequent Kickstarters, such as Little Witch Academia and the Clannad VN project, to find success among a Western audience. Kickstarter gives the creators direct contact with their fans, sidestepping licensing companies such as Funimation. I really think more projects should be funded this way.

Anyway, I pledged about two hundred dollars into Eve no Jikan, hoping that it won't take too long for my rewards to arrive. From the very start, however, the project experienced delay after delay. The art-books and Blurays had to be translated from scratch; it eventually turned into a grassroots effort when the creators asked the fans to do the translating work for them. The budget was very tight, and while the creators were masters of storytelling, they were no doubt a lot less adept with managing a global supply chain. In all, it took two years for the bits and pieces of the rewards to arrive. The last package - the art-book and a clear folder - arrived about a month ago.

In all, the rewards included a Blurays box (Blurays + OST + book), art-book, clear folder, a dozen cards, a coffee canister, and a cup/saucer set. Everything was well-packaged, and arrived in New Zealand in pristine condition. Of the rewards, I was most impressed with the art-book. The book appeared more like an architectural portfolio, which gave it a very slick, modern look. The content is packed with character designs, commentary and line art. It was also pleasing to see the OST and an additional book sheathed in a tight little package with the Blurays.

Everything else, I feel, is a bit lacklustre. Neither the clear folder nor the cards offer anything unique - you could print out the cards yourself, and clear folders are an anime merchandise staple - just check AmiAmi. The coffee canister and the cup/saucer are a bit more interesting. To be honest, however, they felt like overpriced versions of things I could buy at the supermarket, except they are printed with the words 'Time of Eve'. Since most collectors will never use these things to store or drink coffee, the items could've used a bit more effort e.g. packaging that allows the items to be displayed in a nice looking box. Overall, I felt that the rewards were a bit 'cheap'. Even as collectors items, they certainly are not worth $200.

It's pretty understandable why the rewards might have fallen short of expectations - at least for me. Of course, the whole point of Kickstarter isn't to function as a market - pledging X amount of money rarely rewards you with things that's worth X. The rewards are really supposed to serve a symbolic purpose, kind of like the badges you receive after donating to, say, the Red Cross. Overall, I'm actually quite pleased with how this turned out. Projects like this are certainly a lot more meaningful than buying, for example, licensed DVDs because the money is going straight to Japan. So I really hope there'd be more projects like this in the future. I'm definitely ready to throw more money at them.