Blog - /Personal

I went to the callout/first meeting of the Purdue Anime Club last night. Good times were had, mostly. My major gripe was that the sound was turned up way too loud, but that was remedied by putting on a pair of headphones for a slight muffling effect.

I only stayed for the first half of the lineup — most of their meetings go on until 11pm. A quick review of each anime that I saw there follows.

Fate/Stay Night

This one began poorly, with two high-school age warriors with superhuman abilities screaming at each other. Bleh. This one has two related storylines: one of them covers the experiences of a teenager who can use a bit of magic to analyze the structure of things by sending a small electric pulse through them. Nifty.

The other storyline I can't quite figure out yet, but it has something to do with those aforementioned warriors infiltrating a school and floating over a city by means of jumping off of tall buildings. I am unimpressed so far, but I'll reserve judgment until I see some actual fight sequences. There was some strange references to the "holy grail" in the opening, which does not bode well for my enjoyment of the series.

School Rumble (second season)

This was described during the meeting as a "love dodecahedron", as opposed to your standard "love triangle". It fits. Lots of cute girls, misunderstandings due to inability to communicate well, and plenty of amusing emotional animation sequences such as the "falling despairingly into a dark swirling vortex" and "turning instantly into a thwarted old man".

Trinity Blood

Trigun meets Hellsing. Ugh. The Vash character is a meta-vampire that lives off the blood of other vampires and yet is nice to the ladies. Way too much gore, predictable, and only token sympathy for the fallen. Also: the portrayal of the Papacy as a superhero organization devoted to fighting off the alien vampires from space. I don't know whether to be more astonished that such a piece of utter crap can come from a Japanese animation studio, surprised that it was even allowed to be aired due to flagrant copycat-ism from Trigun, or amazed that it has enough fans in the US to warrant a showing.

Honey & Clover

The daily lives of students who attend an art college and (mostly) the same apartment complex. This one was the big win of the night. It was laugh-out-loud hilarious. It really showcased the main benefit from watching anime with a group: sharing laughter with those who have similar appreciation for the medium. The primary audience seems to be female, however, since I've seen only one female character in the production so far.

I think I'll keep attending. For one thing, I want to see the second half of the line-up. One strategy would be to bring my laptop with me to the proceedings along with my better pair of headphones, and work on school projects during the lame series.