Darker Than Black Episode 24: Meteor Shower

It seems that just about every storyline in Darker Than Black is either wrapping up or hurtling towards a climax. I think we'll be getting answers to some of the show's major questions soon, and I'm really excited to see them. I have to wonder at this point how much my predictions are based on my knowledge of the show's second season, but I imagine I'll get some surprises regardless.

At the risk of being a bit spoiler-ish, I have to say that this was probably one of the most tragic episodes of the series. However, because of the breakneck pace the show is now going at, I feel like the weight of some of what happened never really hit me. I hope a little more screentime is devoted to some of these things, if there's time to do it without leaving anything out of the story.

Because of everything happening, I don't think this episode had much room for a lot of the wonderful character moments I've become accustomed to- they didn't even have time for the opening theme- but they still managed to squeeze in a few anyhow. This one went out on a bang, and I had to force myself to type this up before starting up the next episode. Believe me when I say that I'll have it playing by the time this post is published.

Rating: 93/100

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Nyan Koi! Episode One

In Nyan Koi!, a high school student who can't stand cats (he's allergic to them), unwittingly unleashes the wrath of a cat deity when a careless kick beheads a cat statue. He is now able to understand cats, and from them he learns that he is cursed. The only way for him to break the curse is to help catkind. If he doesn't manage to break the curse, he'll turn into a cat himself.

We're still pretty early into this anime season, but I've enjoyed this show the most so far. It's just cute and fun- and it doesn't hurt that the main character's adorable love interest, Mizuno, is genuinely likable. It got off to a bit of a slow start, but once there multiple cats were interacting with the main character, Junpei, the show really picked up. A few of the cat heavy scenes had me genuinely laughing out loud.


I am concerned that the show will get into repetitive territory before too long, but I believe this one is only 12 episodes, so they won't have to keep things up for too long. Right now, I'm just glad to have one new show that I'm actually looking forward to watching again.


Rating: 85/100

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10 Awesome Gundam Wallpapers

Here are 10 awesome Gundam wallpapers for your desktop.

1394×1000


















1280×718














2064×1290

1920×1090

1025×768

1600×1200

1280×960

1280×1024

1280×1024

1454×909

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Darker Than Black Episode 23: God is in His Heaven

Darker Than Black's first single parter episode is one part sweet and wistful, and one part action packed. The pacing on this episode overall was really wonderful, and it made me wonder how some of the weaker past episodes might have benefited if they hadn't had to stretch their story across two episodes. The writers of this show can clearly fit plenty of events and character development into 22 minutes or so.

Things in the Darker Than Black world seem to be headed pretty quickly towards a climax, and it certainly seems like the next few episodes will be pretty interesting. I am worried that a few things aren't going to get addressed before the season's end, but that's when I have to remind myself that there'll be plenty of time for wrapping up loose ends in season two.

I particularly liked the moments between Li and Misaki in this episode. One of the things I enjoy most about Li as a character is that I'm never sure how much of what he says is an act and how much is really him, and their time together kept me guessing. You really get the sense of what the world must have been like before the Hell's Gates events in this one, and I imagine that'll add quite a bit of emotional weight to the stories yet to come.

Rating: 94/100

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Kämpfer Episode One

Kämpfer tells the tale of a 17 year old boy, Senou Natsuru, who is chosen to be a "Kämpfer", a sort of magical girl who apparently fights other magical girls. Apparently, menfolk can't be magical girls, and so he has to sprout a pair of breasts every time he transforms. If it sounds like nothing but fanservice, that's because it is. There's not really much of a reason to watch this show apart from that.


Kämpfer is adapted from a manga, and it feels like it- the plot simultaneously felt both rushed and sluggish. There's an exposition dump early on that's delivered by a disemboweled stuff tiger. As I type that sentence, it sounds like it should be a lot of fun- the whole series does- but Kämpfer just felt dull to me.

There's not to say there's not an audience for this. I enjoy guilty pleasure shows from time to time, and Kämpfer actually reminds me a bit of Shuffle!, one such show that I had a lot of fun with. But there isn't anything like the antics of God-chan and Satan to keep me entertained like I was with Shuffle!, and since I'm not particularly into Shuffle!, I'm going to go ahead and drop this series right from the get go. It's clearly not for me.

Rating: 68/100

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Darker Than Black Episodes 21 and 22: City Under Crankdown, Moist With Tears

It looks like my worries about the show taking another dip in quality as it ended are unjustified so far. This was without a doubt one of the best story arcs yet. We were hit with an explosion of stuff happening, and I'm very anxious to see how each piece of it will wrap up. The episode was full of new characters and old familiar faces, and it was wonderful to see.

There's no way I can talk about this episode without mentioning a certain spoiler-tastic scene.

» Major Spoilers Under Here «

November 11 is such an awesome character, and it was awful to see him die. I never felt like we got enough of him, and there's so much I'd love to learn about him. But man, what a death scene. It's the best one I've seen in an anime since the end of Cowboy Bebop. I was fighting back the urge to salute my computer screen.

This is the last of Darker Than Black's two episode story arcs, and I'm excited to see what they do with single episode pacing. Because of the massive events of this episode, I'm hoping things will all be pretty continuous from here on out with no filler. I'm glad that season two is not far away, because it's going to be really hard to see this series end.

Rating: 96/100

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The Sacred Blacksmith Episode 1: Knight

The Fall 2009 anime season is finally upon us, and with that comes new show recaps! The first show I've checked out so far is The Sacred Blacksmith, and while it was not great, I think it was worth giving at least another episode to.

The Sacred Blacksmith takes place in a medieval fantasy world full of knights, one of whom is Cecily Campbell. We see early on that she is not a particularly good knight- the show opens on her having her life saved for a third time by another character- but she's a cute one, at least. Based on the opening and ending theme, the show looks to be full of cute anime girls, so it may be worth checking out for that factor alone.

While watching this episode I often felt like I was watching cutscenes from an RPG instead of watching an anime, and that playing The Sacred Blacksmith as a game would be more fun than watching it. They're not breaking the mold here. The Sacred Blacksmith is fairly bland, typical RPG fare, and when there's not gameplay to break that sort of thing up, it can get dull pretty quickly. However, The Sacred Blacksmith picks up near the very end of this episode and turns into something a little more interesting. If the show focuses more on that sort of thing than standard RPG adventures, I think I'll be able to keep watching The Sacred Blacksmith. For now, it's only a few episodes away from being dropped.

Rating: 75/100

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