Hiya, guys. I hope you enjoyed last night as much as I did. It’s almost like Gene planned it or something. In order to better help us recover from blacklisted anime night, we showed a bunch of good stuff tonight. It worked out beautifully. From the end of Ore Imo to Time of Eve, it was really something.

So, yeah, if you get the impression that I liked everything we showed last night, it’s because I did. Expect nothing but lavish praise in this week’s post. I thought last night was great, and if you didn’t (or only showed up for the pizza) you’re probably a terrorist.

Moving on, I’ll talk more about how awesome last night was.

Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai 11-12

It’s almost hard to believe it’s over now, but it had a pretty good run. I’m tempted to make this a longer evaluation than usual since I’ve seen the whole show now, but if you’re reading this now you probably read my episode-by-episode posts anyway.

As usual, OreImo was good, and I like the way it concluded–though I’m also looking forward to this ‘True Ending’ which should be coming out. Kirino was as bratty as ever, but it was relieving to see her show some gratitude to Kyousuke considering all the crap he’s gone through for her. At least I get a sense that Kirino’s trying to be less of a bitch.

And that’s a conclusion that satisfies me, I guess. Kyousuke cheers up a bit, and so does Kirino, and by virtue of that is, well… okay, still a bitch, but at least she can find moments to apologize for it.

That being said, the show didn’t exactly move very far, aside from having most people start to accept Kirino’s hobby. Friendzone-chan is still friendzoned, the tension between Kyousuke and Kirino is still there, and yeah. It made a lot of statements on the way, but the show never exactly arrived anywhere different from where it started–not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. There was character development and junk, but all-in-all, things stayed the same.

But like I said, that’s okay! It’s still a good show, and I like how ‘contained’ it was. I can see why Gene and others like it so much, and I can see it being a pretty famous show even in the future. Looking forward to more.

Time of Eve

As good as OreImo was, however, I feel like Time of Eve was the star here. To answer the perpetual question, yes, I was enjoying the Time of Eve. A lot. I feel like it’s been a little while since I’ve seen an anime movie (or any movie, for that matter?) this good. I’m now very tempted to find the ONA and give it a look, even if it’s not that different.

It’s hard to say exactly what I liked about the movie, but I like the central issue, the drama, and the humor altogether. I thought it was really clever, the way they mixed in humor to defuse the really tense parts (the nameless doll, THX walking into the steps, the couple, etc.).

At the same time, though, I did enjoy the more dramatic situations in the movie. Though the animation wasn’t always completely smooth, I feel like the artists had a great eye for what facial expressions there should be where and when, a sort of gesture here or there… subtle things, I guess. It did a good job of making situations where the characters were mostly doing nothing but talking a bit more interesting, giving you something to look at.

Speaking of the talking, I thought the dialogue was handled really well. There weren’t really any situations where you’re left sitting, bored, listening to characters explain shit in some largely uninteresting way. The back-and-forth really paid off, and Time of Eve had enough cool characters to handle it well (seriously, was there anyone who stepped into that cafe that wasn’t interesting?).

Also, as a fan of Isaac Asimov, watching the incorporation of the Three Laws of Robotics was pretty cool, even though they weren’t all that important most of the movie. Despite that, I would probably say that this makes a better I, Robot than the I, Robot movie released here does, since it addresses more of the issues that Asimov’s robot stories usually would.

I should mention, though, that I never really felt this ‘rage’ that Gene promised us we would feel. If somebody could fill me in on that, I’d be grateful. For now, though, I’ll treat it as a good thing that I wasn’t getting angry at the movie.

With that, I think it’s about time I sign off. I really liked Time of Eve, and I’m going to go hunt down the ONA right now, just to give it another viewing. Hopefully you guys all liked it, too.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.