So-Ra-No-Wo-To Being Simulcast On Crunchyroll!!

Well...it's not really yuri, but I think So-Ra-No-Wo-To's as good as we're going to get (yuri-wise) out of the new shows premiering this season. ^^; (At least Railgun's still keeping the flame alive.) You know the drill: a group of sexually ambiguous female characters forming close, ambiguous relationships with one another- read into them as you will. Better still if they're sempai and kouhai (like Kanata and Rio?). (Or what I like to call the "Onee-sama Effect." I know it is sounds delusional, but it works in times of scarcity...or any time, really. :P)

I've mentioned this series before, but here's the description again from ANN:

    Model and actress Juri Aikawa plays Kanata Kumika, a 15-year-old girl who fulfills her dream of enlisting in the army and joins a unit of five girls who protect a fortress. The girls also play music that reverberate across the skies over towns without people and seas without fish.

This simulcast will be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. (My condolences for fans living outside of those areas. Hopefully more areas will be included in future CR licenses.)

I enjoyed the first episode (which, yes, I watched before the simulcast was announced). I only expected it to be aimless but cute fluff with a dystopian fantasy setting for window-dressing (blame the K-ON! character designs), but it did a solid job at building its own world and mythology and telling a good introductory story (while not being very dystopian; the world the characters inhabit comes across as charming and fairly relaxed, rather than especially decrepit or miserable. Edit: Whoops- forgot the flashback to Kanata's childhood...hopefully it'll be fleshed out more in future episodes...). The music was pleasant to listen to, especially the song that Kalafina (who sang all of the ending themes for Kara no Kyoukai and the second ending theme for Kuroshitsuji) sang at the beginning. The bland, bouncy pop song at the end, not so much... The background art was very good (I would bet a million bucks that someone on the animation staff is a fan of Gustav Klimt), although the animation was mostly average and occasionally suffered from "minor characters frozen in mid-movement"-syndrome. And the character designs are appealing, but I have mixed feelings about the obvious K-ON! influence on them. Pro side: I like K-ON! And the protagonists each have distinctive, appealing looks. Con side: The character designs could hamper the show from forming its own distinctive identity. No matter where the show goes, I'll still think of After School Teatime (at least subconsciously) when I watch it. But enough of my ramblings. It's a good show (as critical as my write-up here was), and if you haven't seen it, I would definitely recommend it. ^^


As an extra note, my Canaan Nendo arrived yesterday! ^^ It's my first Nendo- it's on one of my manga shelves, in all of its chibi, gun-totting glory.

Any Japanophiles in the south Florida area this weekend might also be interested in this. Morikami holds festivals for Japanese holidays year-round (like Obon and Children's Day), and it always has great exhibits, so it's a fun place to visit at any time of the year, if you're in the area. The gardens are really cool too, especially the bamboo grove and the area where they have different mini-sections organized by styles that were developed during different time periods. I know it's geeky, but I love it. XD