First Impressions of Spice and Wolf and Maoyu

So disregard completely what I said about fan-service, because both these anime have it, unfortunately. I chose them because of their supposed heavy focus on economics, as that is what I am trying to learn right now.

Maoyu - Episode 1

Strange. the first word that entered my mind. It starts out as a narration of a 'hero' leaving behind his companions to fight a demon king to save humanity from a fearsome, ongoing war.  The typical plot for a fairy-tale, only there is a twist. When he gets there, sword in hand, ready to fight something fearsome, there is a smiling, collected woman standing there. He is dumbstruck as she comes up to him and has absolutely no interest in fighting, rather more in negotiating, and starts talking about the economics of war, and how necessary it is. From that point, it definitely felt like part of the anime plot was a parody. With that same smile on her face, she asks him to be with her as well, and after a couple flash backs to memories of the past, talking about her dream of finding an economic alternative to the war, and bluntly honest conversation exchanged between the characters, the hero agrees to embark on that quest with her. Now this is a good idea and all, but I think the strangeness of it came from the demon king's(queen, but the anime calls her king) thought process. Neither characters were realistic, like the parody feel of the plot set-up. None the less, it would be interesting to see how the anime will present the demon king's plan, and it wasn't nearly as odd as Humanity Has Declined.

Maoyu can be watched here: http://www.crunchyroll.com/maoyu

Spice and Wolf - Episode 1

The first one contained boob jokes. This one contains a naked girl, right in the opening.(which I rather liked the song to, btw) Both shows seem to have not-so-good animation quality, although the backgrounds in Spice and Wolf are very beautiful.  Both open with narration in a medieval setting, although I thought this one executed the episode better. It was more interesting. It opened telling about a wolf harvest goddess named Holo who watched over a village and helped the wheat in the fields grow, but they stopped trusting and believing in her, and now think she is a myth, so she wants to go back to the northern forest she once lived before. The merchant who will taker her there, Lawrence(he's supposed to be younger, but he has grey hair and wrinkles?), stopped by the village to meet a fellow trader he knew named Chloe, and heard from a soldier that the village was having a pagan festival. When he gets there, Chloe has been chosen to be Holo for the festival. He leaves for a bit, and to his shock, there is a sleeping naked wolf-eared girl in his merchants wagon.(fetish pandering, anyone?) Anyways, he yells at her to get out and she tosses her head haughtily ordering him to take her to the north. Then Lawrence and Chloe have a talk where Chloe grabs his hand, leans in, and asks him to be her trading partner(with benefits), but he calls her inexperienced and refuses. Holo seems like an interesting character. She is a bit arrogant and vain(although she is a harvest god, so it's expected for her to be, maybe?) I don't like Lawrence so much, I cannot put my finger on why, he just has that humorless lack of charisma about him.

Spice and Wolf can be watched here:  http://www.funimation.com/shows/spice-and-wolf/home

Anyways, that's what I've seen so far. perhaps they'll turn out good, but the fan-service really puts me off. I'll give them another go anyway.(especially now that Holo has some clothes.) If these impressions seemed rather negative, that's because it's 12am and I haven't gotten very much sleep. 

[Images belong to their respective owners] 

First Impressions of Erin and Humanity Has Declined

Anime First Impressions:

Erin - Episode 1

So I'm going to start off the first impressions with an anime I have wanted to watch for a while, called Erin. I watched the first episode. I was actually quite surprised. It opening with a narration that was almost like a storybook. I was a bit put off by it, but a little bit more in realized how it was necessary. It filled in history and bits of information about the villages culture. The story centered around a little girl, and her mother, and showed their relationship and her mother's relationship with these dragon-creatures called the Tohda that the village is dependent on for protection. The main conflict was that the village has a very defined set of gender-roles. The men look after the Tohda, and the women do chores and work in the fields.(pretty much servant work, perhaps because of some religion) But Erin's mom is a Tohda Healer, something she is not allowed to be as a woman, and when a baby Tohda goes missing, the village elder(I think) tells her if she doesn't find it, she is going t make her conform to the village's rules, but Erin and her friends find the baby, and her mother saves her from the mom Tohda(?) that attacks Erin. I can sense a feminist theme here and that makes me happy, as does the mother and daughter focus, because that is rare to find in anime. I'm actually really intrigued. The plot was simple, but there is 49 episodes ahead of me and I foresee this potentially being really intelligent and different. I really liked the art-style as well. It was simple and very unusual, with soft painted-looking backgrounds.(kind of reminded me of Naruto's style.)
 
Erin can be watched here: http://www.crunchyroll.com/erin
 
Humanity Has Declined  - Episode 1

First thing I noticed was the background art-style. I loved it. It was like Tsuitama, so colorful and bright, with that splashy digitally-painted look to it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was done by the same person. The character designs were moe though unfortunately, but not super moe, so they're okay. Then I got to the opening and went wtf?(well, it wasn't as weird as The Eccentric Family's opening, but still) I continued watched after that, thinking it would be light-hearted until it introduced the concern of a food-shortage among the people.(I have a feeling this anime may turn out to be rather political.) The protagonist was rather nonchalant about this concern, having accepted that humans would soon be extinct, and even with this reveal, the anime keeps it's light and casual atmosphere. It had that village setting like Erin did. The main protagonist was something called a mediator, and interacted with these small elf-like people called 'fairies'. I got the impression that she's a bit of a cold strategist, willing to lie and manipulate the people with her about not bringing back a chicken(?) to protect her reputation. As it continued it revealed more of a post apocalyptic atmosphere, with crumbled buildings and a collapsed freeway, and they got to an old factory that the fairies revived, it got kinda creepy as a robotic piece of bread talked about making bread out of ingredients that weren't food(using garbage as one example.) and then self-destructed. It strongly reminded me of some of the food production of today.(albeit more exaggerated.) Humanity Has Declined was kind of quirky and unsettling, but I liked it. I think I may watch more and see more of what it has to say about how humanity lives now. I rather liked the quirky ending song as well.

Humanity Has Declined can be watched here: http://www.crunchyroll.com/humanity-has-declined

Well, that's all for now. I'm tired and have to do my driver's ed. 

 [Images belong to their respective owners]

Hello Whoever Views This, It's Fantasy Anime As The Current Genre Theme

Hello whoever happens to come across and read this. I'm Reflective Fairy, an ordinary, yet highly ambitious almost-adult who is a semi-closet anime fan.(It's complicated) I'm honestly not making this blog to impress anyone. Leave the professional bloggers to that. This is for myself more, to let off some thoughts and steam, especially considering I don't have anyone to discuss this stuff with in real life.

I'm on a fantasy kick so let's make the theme fantasy anime for now. I'll probably do a supernatural theme too, considering I've watched so many within that genre. I'm really going to search for the non-mainstream stuff. As a long-time anime fan, it's getting harder and harder to find new anime coming out without that moe style where everyone looks younger than they actually are. Top that off with the high-pitched voices of Japanese women, and ya got something creepy if the anime happens to have fan-service. As a result I will try to avoid anime with that kind of content, unless it's really, really good, like Code Geass. In rare cases such as that, I try to overlook it.(unless the characters actually look like adults. Then it can be hot)

Anyways, I'll be reviewing stuff, or more so reacting to stuff, as I'm not an actual critic and more opinion will probably get in than unbiased analyzing. before i actually put up reviews, I'll probably put first impressions first. I may also put up other stuff. Haven't really thought yet of what else.

If anyone would like to learn more about anime, keep a list, or find some of their own,
I have three great links here to sites I like very much: 

http://myanimelist.net/
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/
http://www.crunchyroll.com/

And now for the list of potential impressions and revews:

Fantasy Anime:
Pandora Hearts(seen some)
Erin?
Scrapped Princess(seen some)
Nagi no Asukara?
The Tower of Druaga?
Humanity Has Declined?
Blast of the Tempest? 
Claymore?
Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit?
Kobato?
The Guin Saga?
The World is Still Beautiful?
Romeo x Juliet(seen some)
Kino's Journey(seen some)
Fullmetal Alchemist(seen some) 
Attack on Titan(seen some)
Fruits Basket(finished)
Chrono Crusade?

Supernatural Anime:
Shinsekai Yori(seen some)
Ghost Hound(finished)
Ghost Hunt(finished)
Durarara!!(finished)
Noragami(seen some)
Mushishi(seen some)
Hell Girl(seen some)
Natsume Yuujincho(seen some)
Kamisama Hajimemashita(finished)
Death Note(seen some)
Code Geass(finished)
Sunday Without God(seen some)
Tsuritama(finished)
Vampire Knight(finished)
Angel Beats!(finished)
Nabari no Ou(finished)
Darker Than Black(seen some) 
Haibane Renmei?
The Eccentric Family(seen some)
Un-Go?
Blood Lad? 

I honestly feel there is a fine line between the two, so I am going to bunch anything with the youkai spirits of Japanese mythology into the supernatural genre. I also know there are like thousands of other anime I haven't covered on these lists, so just bear with me. 

Anime banned from ever being reviewed for fan-service reasons:
Sword Art Online
Black Butler
Elfen Lied

So this marks the end of my first post. Who knows, maybe someone actually will like the amateur content I put out. Until then, I'm just gonna be my blatant myself. So toodles until my next post.

~ Reflective Fairy ~