Kabukichou Sherlock

I have a feeling that from now on if someone mentions Sherlock Holmes, an image of the rakugo loving freak from this anime will be the first to pop up in my mind. The same with John Wakabayashi =) Because despite being generally weird, the Japanese version of the famous detective’s adventures is surprisingly complete and logical.

Sometimes it’s catchy in the same way the recent TV “Sherlock” was — it takes familiar plots and well-known characters from Doyle’s original stories, and puts them into a new setting, whispering “Ain’t I clever to twist everything like that?” And you’re like “Damn, true, it’s clever!”

Sometimes it grabs your attention by rakugo — because all anime about rakugo are awesome, that’s a scientific fact proven by all those two shows that had come out before (Joshiraku and Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu).

Sometimes it’s just genuinely funny =)

It’s not a “real” detective story though — it won’t give you a chance to solve the mystery and find out who the real culprit is before the heroes have done that. And if there’s a character named Moriarty, you know that he’s going to be a villain, he has to. But the atmosphere in this anime makes up for everything else and I thoroughly enjoyed all 24 episodes. Approved! (I should stop watching Davie504’s videos)

Мастер Времени

Мастер взял и разродился новым альбомом, первым с 2010го года. Никто уже наверное не верил, что они это сделают =) Я честно говоря ничего хорошего не ждал, а когда увидел протряcающую обложку этого альбома — так и вообще решил, что ой все и даже пытаться не стоит слушать альбом некогда моей самой любимой группы.

Тем не менее $5 заплачены и надо слушать =) Альбом оказался лучше, чем я ожидал — хотя новый “С Петлей на Шее” мы уже конечно никогда не получим.

Ну а еще группа выпустила клип — всем клипам клип, на уровне с обложкой (что-то мне подсказывает, что режиссер и художник могут оказаться одним и тем же лицом)! Пока есть только версия на испанском.

Smile Down The Runway

I’m not ashamed to admit that I began watching this anime for two reasons — Chiyuki was drawn super cute and the opening theme was catchy.

Other than that… well, this is pretty much your stereotypical “I’m going to be the best” anime. The main characters should overcome all the obstacles getting in the way of becoming a top model/a fashion designer. The difficulties are numerous but if you are talented, put a lot of work into what you’re doing and don’t give up on your dream — it’s possible to achieve everything. Replace fashion with baseball or cooking or whatever else — and… nothing will change, we’ll get pretty much the same anime with a different set of decorations. Instead of Koshien the characters are aiming towards the Paris Fashion Week and instead of a high-school basketball tournament there’s a local school show. Smoke and mirrors — the anime will not sway from the scheme it and its countless siblings are built upon even for a moment.

For what it’s worth, I don’t know a thing about cloths, so maybe the designs shown in the anime are really groundbreaking. I can say for sure, though, that the rest of the show is not =)

In the last episode of “Oda Cinnamon Nobunaga” our warlords got to visit Odawara Castle ^_^

I wish they also had shown the garden by this castle or the view from the top =)

Or, you know, the souvenirs which are sold inside =)

P.S. I didn’t post any pictures from the trip to Japan in 2018, so this looks like a good occasion to start doing that once in a while =)

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken

It’s already almost April and seems that the time to start wrapping up another anime season has come — mind blowing.

Surprisingly, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken turned out to be not my personal favorite this winter season — I looked forward to watching it and Yuasa’s show lived up to all my expectations or maybe even exceeded them but another story stole my heart =) However, this anime about making anime is amazing and definitely a must-watch.

Especially if you’re okay with a peculiar Yuasa’s art-style, which he’s carefully been carrying from one show to another. Despite being not the weirdest one Eizouken is still balancing on the verge of getting named “experimental animation”, especially when Asakusa’s untamed imagination creates something in-between the real life and fantasy.

These scenes and the shorts the trio are making are adorable! And those sound effects! I couldn’t help but was smiling like an idiot watching how their city was dissolving into an unreal new world, with Asakusa saying something like “tadadadada~” on the background.

The characters and how passionate they are is another part of this show’s charm. Whereas Kanamori is going to be everyone’s favorite, for sure — all three are great.

The only downside of Eizouken — it ends abruptly. No “what happened the day after”, the confrontation with the student council has no conclusion, nothing at all. I bet though, that we’re going to get at least an OVA or maybe even the second season, so the future is bright.

P.S. The live action has already been announced and I have no idea what to expect!

https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20200218-keep-your-hands-off-eizouken-live-action/

While I’ve been trying to avoid reading twitter and news recently (for obvious reasons), I began to browse youtube more (terrible, I know) and found these two guys, who play bass at some incredible level

Channels: 1, 2

Kind of amazing that two weeks ago we were in the Dominican Republic doing nothing but sleeping, swimming and eating and my main concern was the new rendering engine we’re about to roll out in Warframe. Now I work from home and we got our groceries delivered for the first time today =) “May you live in the interesting times” eh? Nothing to complain about but still… yeah, it’s really weird.

And as a completely unrelated thing I was positively surprised by a dialog with the CRA agent on the phone today — had to update some info and expected the process to be nervous and exhausting. I was proven wrong! Everything went totally smoothly and the agent was super polite and friendly. Hooray! (And after that I learned that the tax deadline was postponed, heh).