Hyouka 1

And after a ridiculous amount of delays, mainly stemming from my own laziness, here's the other show I will be doing this season, Hyouka.

Hyouka is the latest animated venture from the infamous Kyoto Animation, known for various popular shows like Haruhi, K-On, and unfortunately underrated shows like Nichijou. First of all let me say that this show is very very pretty, here are just a few screenshots.

So yeah, this is a very pretty show, think typical PA Works quality, huge plus right off the bat. Anyway onto the episode!

We start off with our very unenthusiastic main character, Oreki Houtarou,  walking into school, he is surrounded by plenty of energetic students, laughing, playing, and recruiting for clubs, but he's not interested, he then buries the idea of being energetic, and clearly states that he wishes to live a "gray" life, so he's pretty much me, I like this kid. Flash forward to his class where he's talking who has to be his only friend: Satoshi Fukube, after a short conversation between the two where we learn Oreki's motto "If I don't have to do it, I won't, if I have to do it, make it quick." Satoshi spots a club application form in Oreki's pocket and wonders what's up, he pulls out a letter from his sister which is pretty much forcing him to sign up for the Classic Literature Club, so after grabbing the keys and going into the clubroom he walks in only to see...

Our beautiful Mio...I mean Eru! He locks eyes with her and she gives him a smile. So we get a brief conversation from them and learn that they were in a music class together once, but only Eru remembers. So after this our first mystery comes up, it's a typical locked room mystery, but don't expect Gosick quality here, apparently the janitor was cleaning the classrooms and Eru wandered into the room and somehow didn't see him, he leaves while somehow not seeing her and locks her in, kinda weak, but we do get this wonderful shot out of it.

Later on in the episode we get yet another mystery, this time involving a secret club, turns out it's just a really small note under all of the other club posters, yeah not doing the best job of captivating me here, turns out the whole mystery was set up by Oreki just to distract her...still don't really care.



Overall Thoughts: Godly animation, just godly, but other than that nothing really happens that grabs your attention outside of the amazingly pretty visuals. I do recognize that this is a very slow type of show, I just wish they did more to make me want to watch next week, and did I mention the animation is amazing?

Natsuiro Kiseki 4

5 Star Animation!

So after last week's travesty, will this week get better? Well enough speculation and let's find out!

Damn that was cute.

So the episode starts off with Yuka tiredly wandering into the kitchen for juice, however juice-chan does not await her, what does await her is our green headed girl's apparent love interest who goes by the name of Sano Takashi, after seeing him and freezing up like a typical lovestruck girl would do, she probably does one of the cutest things ever and quickly tries to hide behind the the counter as depicted in the picture above, I gotta say that was amazingly adorable. The two then share a semi sweet moment with him offering her a bottle of water and her shyly accepting. Flash forward to the two outside, and after a bit of chatting, Sano brings up Saki, and very seriously asks when she's moving, Yuka's eyes get big and she asks why, as she understands why he's so adamant about it, we don't get to know right now however, as we go to the next scene, but it's pretty obvious what's going on here.

Basked on what Rinko says during this scene, he apparently asked for Saki's phone number, however Yuka did not give it to him as she felt it wasn't her place to do so.Yuka casually leans back on the big rock, which will now be referred to as Geodude, and wishes that she was just like Saki, Geodude is more than happy to comply and now we have a body switch episode, oh god.

A little later on, after some misuse to Saki's body which involves her getting Sano's number, we get the girls who are gathered around Geodude again trying to wish away Yuka's accidental wish despite them coming to the conclusion before that you can't wish away another wish. This leads to disaster when Geodude goes into full troll mode and switches Aizawa and Rinko for....no reason at all. After the 4 manage to fend off Rinko's...mother I assume, Yuka who is still in Saki's body, gets a text from Sano that causes her eyes to light up. Request for sex? Luckily no, this isn't a JC Staff show. It's a date request, which Yuki gladly accepts.

Actually kinda sweet.

 So fast forward to the date, which goes just like any other anime date usually does, laughter, fun, a boring song playing over the events, this leads to them almost kissing under the sunset until Rinko, still in Aizawa's body, breaks it up, Yuka comes to the realization that she's living a fantasy, he loves Saki, and they can never be together, she then "breaks up" with him, runs back to the other 3, and promptly faints. The 4 girls are then restored to their original body by Trolldude, and we get another feelgood moment with the 4 running off happily to buy drinks together.

Overall Thoughts: Big improvement over last week, but besides Sano getting his heart broken, I don't know what...really happened. The second body switch served literally no purpose and was just useless filler, it was an improvement, but this show really seems to have a problem with having no direction, and not really knowing what it's doing, I'd like to pass it off as just Sunrise being Sunrise but these are the same people who did Code Geass so we know they can produce great shows when they try. Get it together guys.

Natsuiro Kiseki 3

Dat product placement.

What a terrible episode.

One key point is this scene, our 4 heroines gathered at the big rock after Aizawa has, I assume, called some sort of emergency meeting. Main point of this scene is them talking about how their lives would change if the secret of the rock was ever exposed. The eventual consensus is that the rock's powers might vanish if word ever got out, and they all decide to do whatever they can to maintain their secret. Personally I'm getting very annoyed at how we're supposed to take the girls' random speculation of the rules of this thing as fact, but I'll try to overlook that I suppose.

Dumbest shit ever.

But wait, we're not done here yet, Saki and Aizawa decide, for whatever reason, that they want to get revenge on their friends for the honest mistake we saw in episode 2. So the two of them wish for Yuka and Rinko to get stuck together, which happens. ...Okay...I'll try to remain calm throughout this. First of all, why the hell would Aizawa and Saki want revenge? Let's ignore the fact that the entire misunderstanding was cleared up, and that they both know Yuka and Rinko had purely honest intentions, but wasn't that wish the whole damn reason they made up in the first place? What the hell was the point of getting revenge for something like that? Also why the hell is the rock suddenly granting selfish wishes? Not only did they completely ruin and invalidate that feel good scene at the end of episode 2, but they made Aizawa and Saki look like ridiculous bitches in the process. Aizawa says "Have a nice day together" and walks off to tennis practice with Saki. Good fucking lord Sunrise, nice work.

My Rattata is in the top percentile!

So after that shit, we get Daiki once again questioning Saki's brother, whose name I have still not bothered to learn, about his sister once again. Saki's brother and his friend who i swear I've never seen before, don't believe him and think his eyes are playing tricks on him. Then we get a screenshot that I'm too lazy to post, it's Daiki sitting in a random shed around the area the big rock is in, this shed has a very convient hole in the roof and guess where the girls were flying at? Yup, right in view of that hole, so that's what we're expected to believe, he was just there and conviently saw them through this hole in the roof...wow. Anyway Daiki keeps going on and on and eventually calls the girls witches because he read some stupid book about them, this obviously pisses off our generic brother who shoves Daiki to the ground and walks off along with his even more generic friend.

This current storyline with Daiki is pretty much resolved with all of them trying to actually convince them that they're witches, failing, and Saki just spilling her guts and crying about wanting Daiki and Saki's brother to make up (they had a falling out after the fight.) But wait, I thought the point of all of this was to keep him quiet about the rock? Well it looks like the crack staff at Sunrise completely forgot this point and it is never brought up again. Daiki walks away sad and Saki's brother runs after him to try and cheer him up, and the two run off into the sunset together.

What's that? Wondering how Yuka and Rinko got unstuck? Well...

The rock split them up after this line, that's right, they were separated FOR STATING THE OBVIOUS. Good fucking work Sunrise.


Overall thoughts: This episode was amazingly bad, completely invalidating the events of last episode, making 2 of your main girls look like vengeful bitches, and setting up potential plot points only to completely forget about them or make them totally useless, this episode was amazingly lazy, nothing happened, and that's pretty much the problem people have with the Slice Of Life genre as a whole, way to make those problems even more glaringly obvious.

Natsuiro Kiseki 2

Uh...What was I saying again?

So here's episode 2 of this wonderful show, will it live up to last week? Will the drama between Saki and Aizawa continue? ...Probably, but let's do this anyway.

They uh...seem...important...?

So the episode starts off with Aizawa, her little brother, and this shota/loli pair here doing what I believe are called "radio exercises". While this is going on, Aizawa gets lost in thought, still surprised about what happened to her and the other girls the other day. She's snapped out of her daze by her little brother and coninues working out, but is still in shock over what happened to her.

DON'T DO IT SAKI! YOUR WHOLE LIFE IS AHEAD OF YOU!

Saki is also in shock over what happened, and tries to recreate the event by jumping off of her bed. Her mother walks in on her doing this, and, after an awkward silence, she yells at her mother telling her to knock, her mother then apologizes, and leaves Saki in deep thought.

THANK YOU!

Aizawa has come home from her sexy exercises, and proceeds up to her room, but not before being stopped by her mother who asks if Aizawa and Saki are still fighting, Aizawa angrily storms up to her room as her mother says what has to be the best line in this show so far, and with that, Aizawa's mother becomes my favorite...

It's...really hot...or something.

Or not, Aizawa's back on top again. After opening her window due to the heat, she locks eyes with Saki who was doing the same thing, both of them try to bring up the events of yesterday but keep cutting each other off, Saki asks if Aizawa plans on going outside dressed the way she is and she angrily covers herself with the curtains and proclaims "We're not friends right now, so don't talk to me!" Oh Aizawa, your mother's words continue to ring true.

Swap meet broom.

At the same time over at Rinko's shrine, she's apparently being asked to clean the entire grounds with nothing but a lame dustpan and the worst broom I have ever seen, seriously, how is she supposed to clean with that? It looks like some shitty Harry Potter broom, but I'll attempt to turn off my janitor mentality for the rest of this post. Rinko goes out of her way to sweep around the big rock first, and who can blame her? That thing made her fly the other day! Maybe it can give her a better broom.

She's met there by Yuka, who is making a bunch of selfish wishes, wanting to become an idol, not wanting to ever get fat, etc, she's got an entire notebook page full of these. So I assume this thing doesn't grant selfish wishes.

What? Big Rock is evolving!

Yuka and Rinko start talking  about Aizawa and Saki, and during this conversation they talk about how stubborn the 2 girls are, how they wish that would make up, how unstoppable they are together, and how they want the 2 to make up. Unbeknown to the 2, the rock "hears" this conversation as well, and starts glowing like it did near the end of episode 1, how Yuka and Rinko don't notice this is beyond me, but somehow they don't.

Awww yeah.

The rock takes their conversation literally and puts Aizawa and Saki together, after a little bit of struggling and rolling around, the two quickly put together that the big rock did this to them, and that Yuka is behind it (Rinko was as well, but hey, she's kind of a wallflower anyway). Aizawa manages to get a shirt on and the two angrily stumble out of the room, looking for revenge.

Trouble? More like double trouble! DOHOHOHOHOHO!

Yuka is helping Rinko sweep the side of the road which has nothing to do with the temple so I have no idea why she has to clean it, and yes, she is still cleaning with THAT DAMN BROOM. Sadly for the two, they don't realize that trouble has found them in the form of the tastefully dressed duo of Aizawa and Saki. Yuka is happy to see them, the two then see how angry they are and that they're stuck together, Rinko grabs Yuka and runs, and Saizawa gives chase.

Remember kids, if they can do it, so can you.

A long chase around town ensues, Saizawa stumbles a bit at first, but eventually they get the hang of running together. The girls run all around town, only stopping for a second when Saizawa crashes into a street pole, I have no idea how these girls are still conscious.

Don't look at me like that Rinko! I wasn't thinking anything!

 The chase comes to it's conclusion around the shoreline, when Yuka simply cannot run anymore, allowing Saizawa to catch up to the two...

SHADES OF AJ STYLES!

OR DOES IT! Rinko, for some reason, decides to do a jumping crossbody onto the two...I literally have NO IDEA why she did this, Yuka was only moving at this point because Rinko was pushing her, how far did she expect her to get on her own? But anyway, Rinko then explains the situation to Saizawa, and the sincere intentions behind their unintentional wish, and Saizawa realizes that their friends were just worried about them, but at this point, Yuka is pretty much running on empty, and isn't paying attention to where she's going...which is right off of the pier. The girls yell at her to stop, but she's too exhausted to hear them.

OH GOD THEY'RE PISSED ABOUT THE YURI JOKES I'VE BEEN MAKING!

The two decide to grab her from both sides, hopefully before she falls into the ocean, but at that moment the two split apart, this takes them by surprise, and they both end up falling into the ocean while Yuka stops just before she does, which was hilarious to me.

RIP Saizawa.

After the two get out of the ocean, they sit and have a small talk about everything which ends with the two apologizing to each other and Saki agreeing to play tennis with Aizawa again, this is pretty much the feel good moment of the show, and a good one at that.

Sorry Yuka, Idolm@ster already happened.

They then start talking about the rock again, and as you'd expect, she starts talking about becoming idols again, the other 3 lie down and pretend to be asleep, frustrating Yuka and ending the episode on a good note.

You're a wizard, Harry!

After the end credits we see a boy along in his room reading the book you see above you entitled "Witches of the world". Wonder what this could mean? guess we'll find out next time!

Overall thoughts: This was a very good episode, I admit the chase scene went a bit too long, but forcing Aizawa and Saki to work together in order to save their friends, and realizing what their friends were going through while they were arguing was executed very well, the drama which came across as meaningless in episode 1 was given a purpose and a nice conclusion, which is exactly how it should've been, hopefully the show keeps this sort of pacing for the rest of the season.

Natsuiro Kiseki 1

Most anime fans have a genre that appeals to them more than anything else. Most times this genre tends to be shoujo, but sometimes it can be horror, mystery, or god forbid, ecchi. Slice of life is my genre, out of the 142 series that I've completed, Slice of life makes up about 97% of them, so of course the latest Slice of life anime from Sunrise grabbed my attention...okay, already I have a confession to make, what really drew me into this show was the shiny logo, LOOK AT THAT LOGO! That thing is amazing. It's one of my dark anime secrets, I always get sucked into shows with shiny logos, B Gata H Kei trapped me with it's beautiful pink and blue, hopefully this trap is worth it.

Natsuiro Kiseki, or Summer-Colored Miracle, is an anime about 4 high school girls.

Aizawa Natsumi is in front there with the red hair, she's a member of her school's tennis club and is an overall stubborn girl.

Hanaki Yuka is to her left with the green hair (might be a little hard to see in the pic but it is indeed green). She's kinda spunky and obsesses over the fictional idol group, Four Seasons.

Mizukoshi, Saki is to Natsumi's right, she's also in the tennis club with Natsumi, her dream was to enter the tennis championships along with her.

Tamaki, Rinko Is located to Natsumi's far left, and has some funky light pink hair...? She's the shy girl of the group, she also works as a shrine maiden where the main point of this story is located.

Aizawa wakes up and grasps what has to be THE WORST CELL PHONE I'VE EVER SEEN, seriously, this thing is ugly as hell.

Aizawa proceeds to send a message to Saki before heading out, I'm sure Saki has the same crappy phone as her, right? ...Right?

OH COME ON!

Anyway, the message says "You'd better come to practice today!"  AW SNAPZ, AIZAWA LAYIN DOWN THE LAW! Flash forward to school...

Saki does not, and is instead content to have Four Seasons merchandise shoved in her face, great choice there Saki.

Badass Aizawa isn't having any of this, and intends to take Saki by force, she resists, but is eventually dragged down to the tennis court...

 Where shit instantly gets real, you do NOT drop a tennis racket in Natsuiro Kiseki, a show that's not even about tennis.

Saki then quits the tennis club, Aizawa proclaims that they will not be friends anymore if she does (because tennis rackets are serious shit), Saki is okay with this and storms off, and there's your mandatory drama.

Later on in the episode we learn that Saki is actually moving, providing a possible reason for her sudden disinterest in tennis, END DRAMA?

Nope, now the problem is that Saki never told them that she was moving, Saki then informs Aizawa that she doesn't remember promising to get to the Nationals together, Aizawa responds by running out of the room in tears.

A little later on, thanks to the scheming of Yuka and Rinko, they meet up at "The Big Rock" Now back when these girls were kids they thought this rock had magical powers and would grant their wishes, typical adorable kid stuff, anyway they decide to wish for the same thing that always wished for, to be idols, but nothing happens.

Saki went into complete bitch mode after this and started bashing the idea of a "magical rock" driving Yuka, who believed in it more than anyone, to tears. This led to another Aizawa/Saki cagem- I mean argument.

During this, Rinko looks up at the sky, and says 4 simple words "The sky is blue"

The fighting stops, the crying stops, and all 4 girls look up at the sky together. Their minds and hearts are in sync for a second, and Rinko makes a wish.

"I wish I could fly"

 A blue, pulsating energy comes out of the rock like something out of Pokemon Heroes, taking the girls by surprise.

And the next thing they know...

They are indeed flying, they're taken by surprise for a bit, but once they get their wits about them, they slowly land after a beautiful scene with them looking over the city. And since they're peaceful around each other now...END DRAMA?

Oh goddammit, Saki storms off, this argument is still going on, so I guess this argument will continue, the rock was probably a one time thing, and I'm sure nobody saw them flying right?

...Right?



Overall the episode was nice, the animation was very fluid except for a few lazy spots, the energy from the rock was a nice example of the great animation this show can bring, But like most Slice of life shows, the drama is annoyingly forced and ridiculous, but then again that's the genre in a nutshell. This show could go places, it certainly has the potential to be a hit among Japan, it's got the formula, and depending on where they go character wise, they could make an amazing show, I'm not expecting too much out of a 12 episode show, but with shows like Ano Hana out there, nothing would surprise me anymore.