Persona 4 – Episode 18

Do you...hate me?

Unlike a certain Hina from Papa, when Nanako weeps, it’s heart-wrenching. Probably one of the series’s best episodes so far (he gets another nifty persona to boot). Between Episode 18 and the Deus-Ex Megidolaon (which I really liked) of the previous episode, this definitely takes the cake.

But with Yu’s courage and understanding maxed out over the course of a single episode, it’s definitely time to progress to episode 19, where he’ll need plenty of the former~!

Don't you just hate censors.

Looks like the author approves of the fan ending. All warm and fuzzy~

Oh, and if you’ve dropped the series for a while, now’d be a nice time to return to it.

Guilty Crown – Episode 15 (aka 2nd BSOD)

Y U NO HEAL SELF FIRST?!

Alright, the first time (involving a younger brother and a pair of shears) was annoying, simply because there was a lesser motive for raging and a ‘wish-granting’ behind it all.  Maybe the producers decided justifiable deaths concerning characters you don’t likely care about aren’t enough a stimulus.

So they went ahead and took out one of my favourites of the series.

Making matters worse, it’s presented in similar fashion to the phoenix-down event of Final Fantasy VII, meaning the death was unjustified (you had a heli shoot at you and miss). Well, it’s definitely agonizing, and until someone with a time-travel void shows up it’s likely a non-reversible death.

Still, unlike the previous breakdown this time Shu’s just plain mad. And that’ll mean plenty more exciting things to come with this new development. Impatient wait for Episode 16 then!

The full second opening for Shakugan no Shana Final is released ~! /joy

Persona 4 – Episode 15

Unrelated: A great mess at the file-sharing side of things, legit or otherwise.  With so many hosts down for the count, looks like it’s back to the old ways of torrenting. Not all’s bad news, so long as there’s new episodes coming out~

Hoo yea~ Chihiro~!

Fans of Persona 3 rejoice~! Plenty of references in this episode to the previous game in the series, from locations (it’s based in Tatsumi Port Island) to music (it’s remarkable that they managed to compress most of the soundtrack from Persona 3 into a single episode).

They’ve faithfully adapted Gekkokan High as well, from the interior all the way to the history teacher. Add that to Shirakawa Boulevard (and its ‘hotel’), the alleyway a certain character  frequented (where Chie encountered the thugs), and the hilarious ‘King’s game’ at the club and you have another fulfilling extension to the series.

"The King's order is absolute."

Does seem like it’ll be back to the TV world the next episode~ Well, not long to wait now!

Hatsune Miku – Tell Your World

Made popular by the chrome video, and now in it’s full glory.

 

Blackout Day

Here’s something unrelated to the typical stuff that belongs here. Sites have been going dark supporting the protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill, which can essentially stick a huge wench in us anime-watching people’s gears. So it’s not as unrelated as I’d like to think. Needless to say, I’m pretty much against it as well, seeing as I do like my anime/manga early, and I hate censorship (no, it’s not about the 18+ material).

It’ll just open more doors to allow for the indiscriminate blocking of sites, or force the owners to have a death grip on their user’s posts, comments and whatnot. Makes t3h interwebs a suffocating place to be in, no? Copyright infringement is a pretty darn gray term, and out goes the fanart and doujins if they felt like it (well, they already could actually, since the community here is built on piracy). Not to mention every manga streaming site, fansub base and likely most discussion forums are potential targets. The good news is, they’re not very big targets, but the bulls-eye’s still attached. ^_^

Becomes a dull place to be when the search engines are scrubbed shiny and return just a handful of unrelated search results, don’cha think? I’d stick with The Dark Side any day.