Azure Flame Reloaded

In the quiet village of Sera Field, Firiel Dee lives an uneventful life, spending time with her father’s servants whilst he and his apprentice research and study the stars. On her fifteenth birthday, however, she decides to attend a royal ball as a special treat, only to discover that she is descended from the queen and thus a candidate for the throne! This isn’t to be a simple rags-to-riches tale, however, for this revelation ends up sparking a series of events that plunges Firiel into a world of intrigue and danger that will affect both her and the ones she loves the most.

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I can now exclusively reveal that the reason my blog is so HARD GAY is because I have Lui chained up in my basement.

As the days became depressingly short and winter tightened its grip upon the land, I had the great idea of summarising all the 2006 series I watched in one great ‘Annual Round-Up’; hardly an original idea since everyone likes to do it, but nonetheless a course I became determined to take. Little did I realise that such an innocent decision would lead to a massive fifteen page document that took over a month to compile; in fact, if I had any sense, I would take the lazy route of posting this over several days in order to avoid having to write anything else for a week or so. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on your perspective), I’d rather just include it all in one guide so that I can get on with writing newer and more interesting things to spice up the inevitably dull and grey January.

I shall also take this opportunity to thank necromancer, whose screencaps made many parody posts and Tuesday Rumble sections possible, as well as my blogging ‘sempai’, who can identify himself if he wishes.

For once, red is not for generally poor series, just for the ones I dropped before the end of their run (mostly because they were generally poor). Series in blue are my top picks for the year. Links lead to earlier reviews, rants and parodies of the series in question.

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To celebrate the fortnight anniversary of the Weekly Round-Up (or rather, because I just thought them up), this week sees two new additions to the format-

1. Series in red are on Zero Tolerance, which basically means that they have 1-2 more episodes to impress before being dropped entirely.

2. Whenever a series introduces a new OP/ED, I will try to specifically comment on it. For now, I won’t be extensively ‘back-commenting’ on existing OP/EDs.

Reviewed this week: Aria, Chocotto Sister, FLAG, Good Witch, Higurashi, H&C II, Innocent Venus, Keroro, School Rumble, Tsubasa, Shadow Warrior Chronicles Utawarerumono, NHK, xxxHOLiC, Night Head Genesis

…and in manga: .hack//4Koma, .hack//GU+, Furuba, Mai-Otome, Tsubasa, xxxHOLiC, Yotsuba& Continue Reading »

Train wrecks. No one could argue that they hadn’t happened before- Mai-Otome and Fate/Stay Night stood in the Great Hall of Crashed Series as a testament to their existence. Even they, however, were the mere forerunners to the newly crowned Queen of Train wrecks- better known as Good Witch of the West (Nishi no Yoki Majo).

Like the series that preceded it, Good Witch started well enough. The first episodes seemed to promise a magical fairy tale, perhaps even a candidate for ‘fantasy of the season’. The story started simply enough- our heroine, Firiel Dee, resides in the quiet village of Sellafield until the day her father’s observatory is attacked and her friend Roux is captured. Through the ensuing events, Firiel learns that she is a descendant of her country’s queen, and a new chapter of her life begins. A seemingly simple tale, yes, but in the right hands, one that could be effective.

Unfortunately, it soon became clear that the writers didn’t really know what they wanted to do with their thirteen episodes. Continue Reading »

Today marks the start of a new blog section that I intend to make into a weekly feature for as long I can keep it up. Contained within are short reviews of the ongoing anime and manga series that I’ve watched and read over the course of the week (by ongoing I mean recently subbed/translated even if in some cases they aired some time ago).

Reviewed this week: Higurashi, H&C II, Ouran, Keroro, NHK, xxxHOLiC, Kamisama Kazoku, Utawarerumono, Good Witch, Chocotto Sister, Bokura ga Ita, ROTK, School Rumble, REC

…and in manga: Tsubasa, Furuba, SaiMono, .hack//GU+, Otome, Higurashi, Kamisama Kazoku Continue Reading »