Rubénerd!

I was all excited to see this new art of my beloved Senjougahara Hitagi, still the best character from the *monogratari franchise. If you believe otherwise, You Are Wrong.™ Well, Nadeko Sengoku is cute too.

Unfortunately, I was wrong, for a very different reason. This is someone (who?) from Grisaia no Kajitsu, a visual novel about an academy for socially awkward people. At least, as far as I can tell. It runs on the SOMY PSP, some obscure portable gaming device thing that doesn't run iOS or Android.

It's understandable why they'd want to take visual cues from one of the greatest modern anime characters ever, but still.

Now this is a fantastic idea, Antec are releasing Bakemonogatari decorative panels for their line of PC cases!

I have an Antec A300 case for my FreeBSD file/torrent server, do you think it'd be compatible? I'm sure it'd run faster and more efficiently with a gigantic image of the queen of Tsundere on the side. Not that I'm a sucker for marketing or anything, mind.

By Min on Pixiv. All the more reason to me to get off my behind and watch a certain scientific... no wait... Magica show!

Upon asking an anime watching friend I met at uni whether the roles and personalities of the characters match up in this crossover, he responded with "Well kinda, Tsubasa and Mami both have ridiculous boobs". There you have it.

Now that Ruben has his MacBook Pro back, he decided to try a new "theme" kinda thing.

While he thought Bakemonogatari was an interesting show, what he really did love were the graphics and character designs, and while Sengoku Nadeko wasn't his favourite spirit-possessed character, the colours in this background were too gorgeous to pass up. As a bonus, they match really well with Terminal.app's "Red Sands" theme which he'd never used before. They're all like the colours from Ubuntu... only classy!

As a matter of disclosure, Ruben uses Sabayon and Fedora as his Linux distros of choice, and only talks about himself in the Third Person occasionally. Like a boss.

It's been almost five months since I last watched an episode of Bakemonogatari, so I figured I'd rectify this situation on this lovely Sunday afternoon.

It's not entirely my fault that I haven't blogged about this epicly awesome series for a while, it's all Shaft. Yeah, that must be it. See the thing was Bakemonogatari's final few episodes were released online instead of being broadcast on television, but there was a delay. Not only that, but I went on holidays in Europe around that time. Developed world problems, they're terrible.

I'm writing up this anime review in nvi

Hey, if you were following my nvi related posts recently you can appreciate that! This was the third episode of the Tsubasa Cat series in which our beloved and super smart meganekko class leader comes out as being possessed by a cat oddity, hence the series being called Tsubasa Cat. Sometimes I worry if I were a journalist or reviewer I'd be too good at it, but the worry subsides when I read my own words.

Using a plot device that would be predictable if it weren't for the fact what happens between it's initiation and conclusion is completely different each time, the crux of the story is Koyomi learns of Tsubasa's cat oddity, so he has to take her to see Epic Hawaiian Shirt Guy with a collar so long it rivals Koyomi's sentient hair antenna. The fact you thought of something else when I was discussing a male character's long... collar is troubling.

You're not the only one

So we all know Koyomi was cast as the typical awkward, under achieving guy that otaku can relate to, other than the fact Tsubasa explained to him he suddenly got charisma and popularity with girls through coming into contact with a female vampire. You know you're in deep when you read a sentence you just wrote describing a plot so ridiculous a regular person would laugh but you find it perfectly normal.

I was going somewhere with this. As it turns out in this episode we're reminded just what a pervert he really is. Hey, he wanted to check Mayoi out, but he was only kidding!!! May he take your coat while you're wearing pajamas? Oooh oooh a buxom young woman is pressing against him while he rides his bike, oooh! Wait, that sounded even worse than I intended, I'll stop now while I'm ahead. Cat ears.

Cap'n, I cannot hold the forth wall much longer!

I'm a huge sucker for writers who break the fourth wall, so when Her Senjougharaness informs Koyomi that her voice actress is very good at her job, I was smacking the table with laughter! Speaking of that scene, that was one TIDY bicycle parking lot! And why was Hitagi even there?

I don't care if a bunch of people don't like this series, the art, the characters and the blunt jokes like this mean this will probably be in my top 10 when I finish, presuming they don't mess up the ending. It was for these reasons why I enjoyed Sayonara Zetsubou Zensei too.

Unanswered questions going unanswered (?)

Will Tsubasa be rid of her cat oddity? Or perhaps a more pertinent question, does Koyomi even want her rid of her cat oddity? Come on, I saw his expression when he saw her cat ears!

I admit it, I blog about anime because it gives me an excuse (along with this entire category) for talking about complete nonsense with lots of innuendo. Hey Koyomi, you can't park your bicycle there, you could get arrested! I'm stopping now.

By the way sorry about the quality of screenshots, I didn't have much internet quota left for this month. To make up for it, here's the best shot from the entire episode!

News stories are spreading like some sort of fire (a wild one I presume) that initial sales of the Bakemonogatari DVDs and BluRay discs have not only outsold the disastrous and missed opportunity that was the second season of Haruhi, but even K-On! In real terms outselling Haruhi didn't surprise me, but beating the K-On with its huge impact on popular culture (sales of musical instruments, shimapan bowls and whatnot) was quite an achievement.

There seems to be two streams of discussion online about this that I would argue are actually the same thing, but people aren't treating them as such. The first is, despite beating the Kyoani war machine, Shaft still didn't sell as many as any series that have super robots. Fair enough, everybody expected that because they're two completely different genres and types of shows. Then the same people turn around and start arbitrarily discussing how much better Bakemonogatari is to both K-On and Haruhi.

Huh?

Let's get one thing straight; I have adored Bakeomonogatari. I think it's been one of the freshest, most interesting series I've seen since I started watching anime again, and Shaft are to be commended for their successful adaptation. I expected no less from the studio that brought us the brilliant Sayonara Setsubou-Sensei!

That said, I'm of the opinion that arbitrarily comparing Bakemonogatari to both Haruhi and K-On is almost as silly and meaningless as comparing Bakemonogatari to shows with super robots. I preface my proposition with almost because I do concede there is perhaps more of an audience overlap between Kyoani's shows and Shaft's, but my point stands. Mostly.

While I admit I adore K-On and thought the first season of Haruhi was far more interesting than anything else coming out at that time, the first is mostly an unabashed moe blob series and Haruhi for all it's time travellers and espers and universe creation was also largely a slice of life show as well. I think it's safe to say both were comedies. Bakemonogatari has it's lighthearted, fun moments, but it'd be quite a stretch to call it a moe blob series or a comedy. The Bakemonogatari universe is also fundamentally different, and aside from anything else comparing the art in it to any other series (perhaps aside from Sayonara Setsubou-Sensei!) is just unfair!

Am I completely wrong? Probably. I just wish people could celebrate the incredible success and achievement Shaft have had with their superb new series without instantly saying it's because it's "just better". A fine bottle of Barossa Valley red is better than a can of Coke, but that doesn't mean the comparison means anything :P.

If I could come up with a witty opening line to discuss an episode of Bakemonogatari where something advertised didn't happen and instead we were treated to a cute date episode, I'd probably put it here. In lieu of this, the above sentence will have to suffice. Forgive me for sounding distracted, I'm wearing a jumper and it's actually quite warm out today.

Despite being titled Tsubasa Cat and the assumption that it would be about Tsubasa and her catlike oddity, we got a drawn out conversation between Koyomi and Her Senjougharaness, I'm sorry Hitagi. If I refer to her as Her Senjougharaness she may construe that to mean I'm discussing matters with her father in the car. Allegedly she's not a fan of that.

This entire episode could be summarised with one word which looking back now seeing as we're in paragraph three should have been put further up the top somewhere. "Awww." After having a troubled childhood and a father who's always away on business (I would have no idea what that's like -__-) Koyomi has changed her life and her father comments that he hasn't seen her that happy in a long time. Awww.

And what does their date consist of? Lying on a tarp looking up at the stars. Awwww. And how does the date get started? By her awkwardly trying to figure out the words. Awwwww. I can imagine a few people were agitated with the lack of action in this episode, I thought it was cute. Awwwwww. There was even some suggestive talking and some Haruhi inspired ear action. Awwwwwww.

As to the title to which I've already discussed, I genuinely thought at the beginning when Koyomi suggested the day was unforgettable "but..." he was referring to the fact a random person who'd morphed into a cat was going to appear and ruin their evening or something of that nature. No, it turns out this episode was about showing Hitagi in various different up close poses pulling different facial expressions. Like episode 02, I lost count after a few dozen times.

Warning: cheesyness alert. Despite the limited number of scenes and the slower pace, I really did like this episode in an overly cheesy fanboy way! I actually thought the scene with the discussion of Hitagi's dad and Koyomi was sweet, and choosing to go on their first date to a place where her parents used to take her to look at the starts -- as cheesy as it sounds -- made me smile. I remember my late mum and I going to Ubud in Bali and looking over this particular spot where you could see the terraced rice fields fade off into the distance and in the evening the flikering candlelight in the soapstone carved lanterns down the streets; one of these days I'll take someone dear to me and show them the same things in the same way :).

As for the graphics, they were still excellent even if some of the same stock road footage was used in several dozen places. What struck me was the fact her father's car wasn't one of those retro modern white two door "vehicle" that up until this point were the only ones we'd seen! Even more shocking: I can never spell "vehicle", and both the Mac OS X and Gnome spell checkers can never figure out what I typed! Thank heavens The Googles suggest spelling.

Because of a combination of not having internet for several hundred years, then assignments all being due at the same time, then work piling up (they always come in threes) I had to push this episode discussion whatnot back for several weeks. Bakemonogatari watches saw this ages ago and are probably already watching and discussing the online episodes. Is that a new thing for a production house to do? Haven't heard of anything else being released in this fashion.

Stars are pretty. Singapore banned the night sky with it's luminescent dense city night light glow, particularly ironic given their flag has five stars on it. Adelaide has pretty night skies. I'll stop now.

Despite the internet only being down at our home for a relatively short period of time, it managed to get me completely out of sync with Bakemonogatari Ghost Storyness. Episode 12 is already out, and I only just finished with episode 11!

We've got a new story arc, this time in the form of Tsubasa Cat which I gathered from the title meant it would be about... Tsubasa. My powers of deduction turned out to be formidable (I always misspell that word), because it turned out most of the episode did centre around her. Genius! It's like I used to say to people in high school, why choose between intelligence, integrity and modesty when you could get all three in me? It seems my wit hasn't developed much at all since then.

Before we got to see our favourite meganekko Class President to End All Class Presidents though in the first deviation from the regular Bakemonogatari story arc format we've come to expect we spent some more time with Nadeko from Nadeko Snake who's now free of the serpent oddities. Snakes are serpents, right? They talk about the supernatural after school and she gives the bloomers and swimwear Suruga had lent her to him for him to return, a real test for a nerdy otaku guy apparently, even if he is a former vampire -___-. She thanks him for all his help but is scared and bolts once she sees Tsubasa. She has that effect on people it seems ^^;.

Before that encounter, Tsubasa and Koyomi are walking and talking about family life. Tsubasa has a bandage on her face and I think it's safe to say we all figured out why, just not whom. Turns out she was adopted and her latest step dad lashed out which she defends but Koyomi isn't convinced. Given the fact he seems determined to solve everyone's problems I was almost expecting him to walk into Tsubaya's house and return the favour for her!

After the impossibly cute Nadeko scatters, the impossibly cute Tsubasa and Koyomi get back to talking. In a second deviation from the regular Bakemonogatari story arc format we've come to expect (did I just unwittingly copy that line verbatim from the third paragraph?) a previous story is introduced in order to establish background. I haven't read any of the Bakemonogatari novels, but if I were to theorise I'd say it could almost have been a separate story that the anime adaptors slipped into this one. I'm probably completely wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time.

It seems even Nadeko has had troubles with oddities, in this case though its not one that attacks her like a snake or morphs her arm like a zombified monkey, but rather changes her completely into... a cat. A nekomimi Tsubasa! The back story regarding Golden Week establishes that Koyomi had once before seen her morph into a blazingly white cat after she'd buried a dead feline friend they'd stumbled across. I can't say stumbled upon because a certain website has wrecked the term for me!

Anyway it turns out the way in which she was able to return to some resemblance of normality after becoming nekomimi, I'm sorry possessed, was to have her excessive energy sapped by... Shinobu! Interesting how there are millions of people in Japan and yet these crafty convenient coincidences coincide to... sorry, I was trying to think of more words that begin with C to keep the fancy alliteration up.

So of course we're left with a few questions. Was Tsubasa's sudden headache (password!) merely the result of stress, or will her new stress be enough to induce a state of catlike readiness (thank you Marge Simpson) again? Was the energy sapping permanent, or will Koyomi have to go back to Epic Hawaiian Shirt guy to get this sorted out again? Will Nadeko and her awesome hair make another appearance? Will Hitagi aka Senjoughara aka Her Senjougharaness make any appearance at all!?

As I've already said, this episode was definitely different from the regular Bakemonogatari story arc format we've come to expect (ah crap, three times) in that it followed on from a previous arc when others were fairly self contained, and that it needed more of a back story to be established.

Oh yeah, and this shot was the best of the entire episode. Suruga is fast, and Nadeko's expression is priceless!

Because another episode of Bakemonogatari is out, it means a new vector desktop background of Her Senjougharaness! Here's hoping her lack of appearances in episode 09 and episode 10 are rectified next week!

Honestly, she is one of the most compelling characters I've ever seen in an anime series and one of the first truly weird and unconventional people since Haruhi before her disastrous second season. Maybe it's because I love office supply shops ^_^. I see your stapler Hitagi, and I counter with... my stack of multicoloured post it notes! Haiya!

I'd also say that I like her character because she has purple hair and purple is my favourite colour, but that might give people the wrong idea at a time when I'm mistaken for someone I'm not far too often enough as it is. My sister clearly doesn't have that problem! Ruben-ko? Wait, Suruga would be interested in me then not Hitagi, whoops!

I had a point somewhere in this post, but I forgot what it was. Oh yeah, new desktop background. As Marvin Martian would say, Earth shattering kaboom stuff!

Bakemonogatari continues to be a series that defies all accepted conventions and refuses to be pigeon holed. I don't know how you would literally pigeon hole a series, I assume you'd simply slip the optical disk into a letterbox and be done with it without much trouble at all, in which case the analogy in this example is flawed. I talk myself into corners without anyone else assisting.

This was a continuation of the Nadeko Snake story arc that started with episode 09 where Koyomi has (once again) taken it upon himself to help save a person with a spiritual oddity that's hurting themselves and their very existence. How nice and selfless of him ;).

After consulting with Epic Hawaiian Shirt Guy he realises Nadeko actually made her situation worse by killing snakes near the abandoned shrine, and the only way to free her from their grip that's causing the marks all over her body is to return to said shrine and prey a special incantation. I think that's what it was, feel free to correct me!

We see more of Suruga because he enlisted her help, but for the second episode we don't get to see any of Her Senjougaharaness which as a fanboy I found hard to deal with, but don't worry I'm getting over it :). Suruga stands by with Koyomi during the exorcism but jumps in to help once Koyomi can't take on the spirit by himself any more. Turns out it's hard for him to tackle a real oddity because by being a bit of a vampire himself he's an oddity too.

Oh yeah, and apparently it seems if Koyomi had watched Code Geass he would have liked the superfluous maid cafe episode, ha! :D. Cue a "what I was expecting, what I actually got" comic.

In yet another unexpected twist we got another random new opening credits song and lighter graphics which I thought were lots of fun! I'll come right out and admit the closest I've got to listening to J-pop and Japanese music is Japanese bossa nova like my idol Lisa Ono (start your jeering, I don't care!) but I'll definitely have to get the sound track for this series. Staple Stable!

I know it's getting extremely boring and old to read, but I also have to say the graphics in Bakemonogatari continue to amaze. Honestly, the art is absolutely stunning and sometimes just downright surreal, I really hope they release an artbook or Megami for example releases an issue with art from this series. The character designs are awesome in their own right, but the scenery is on an entirely different level. I said this before, but if this series comes out on BluRay I'll be buying a PS3 slim JUST to watch it and take desktop background screenshots!

I'm really, really happy I was able to start the reincarnation of my lost anime blog here with a series like this. It's not my favourite of all time, but it's in my top 5, and certainly helped with the crushing anguish of season two of Haruhi that had the potential to be earth shattering and awesome but failed on almost every level. Granted I gave up midway through the Endless Eight and didn't watch anything more after that, perhaps I should give it another try.

In the meantime, I'm glad Nadeko is all okay, isn't that a nice ending? :).