Big Windup! Ookiku Furikabutte

After completing the first season of Ookiku Furikabutte (Big Windup!), I've decided that it deserves the 2nd place in my favourite anime list. 1st goes to HxH of course XD

It was plain awesome, even for a person who knew nuts about baseball (except that you try to hit the ball with a bat and run somewhere before the opposing team gets the ball)

Story is about this wimpy pitcher, Ren Mihashi, who had been bullied by his middle school baseball teammates, thus under the impression that he's the lousiest pitcher ever. He then transfers to Nishiura High School intending to quit baseball cos he believes he's not good enough to succeed. However, he is dragged into the baseball team by the coach. Assisted by his new teammates, especially the catcher, Takaya Abe, he grows in stature, confidence and skill, helping his team to excel.

Partly taken from wiki, cos summaries give me a headache =l

Anyway, I'm here today to fangirl over the characters and certain aspects of the anime. My favourite character is Abe, because he is so dependable and his droopy eyes are hot.

These screenshots are all from the opening sequence cos I realised that Abe doesn't look very photogenic from the shots I took during the anime hehe.

Next is the adorable main character Mihashi! His mouth becomes a diamond shaped when he's flustered---- extremely cute XDXD looks like a bird! -squeals- though he teared a lot throughout the entire season, I wasn't too irritated cos Abe did the scolding

Sho cute desho?!

As expected of a team sports anime with 99% of the characters male, there are a few of yaoi pairings. The most obvious and popular one being Abe X Mihashi. I don't blame the fangirls, seriously. The subtitles made me cringe at times.. Well, if you don't see anything wrong with the next sentence, I apologise in advance for having a dirty mind -__-

Abe thinking to himself: I want to make him (Mihashi) feel good.

When actually what he meant was to let Mihashi gain confidence and experience the awesomeness and satisfaction after throwing strikes and outing the batters of the other teams. These kinds of misleading subtitles were repeated a few times in the season and in other situations too X_X

This is unlike Prince of Tennis where the relationships aren't always made clear and the animation itself seem to encourage such shounen ai stuff.

Mihashi and Abe.

I mean, urgh. I don't accept shounen ai for this series because the relationships have been stated quite clearly right from the start. Pure friendship, like Killua and Gon in HxH and I'm quite angry with the subs for putting such a thought in my mind. Now I can't look at emotional scenes of Abe and Mihashi without having that shounen ai factor clawing at a corner of my mind. Partly my fault too =((((( sigh

Abe: Hands off my uke please.

Fan girls are free to come up with and like all these pairings and I'm not saying that Oofuki anime doesn't fuel their imaginations in that direction but as someone who simply enjoyed and was touched by the friendship, the subtitles really spoilt it for me. Of course, it might just be me being biased cos I heard that the manga drawings are even more suggestive than the anime =/

Angel Beats!

I wish Togashi would run out of money quickly, and get back to Hunter X.

Just last week while I was looking around on 'watch anime now' website, I randomly clicked on an episode of Angel Beats! and the video started. The clear and strong piano opening was extremely captivating and I ended up watching the entire opening sequence before clicking on episode 1.

Alas, the video for the first two episodes were spoilt so I jumped straight to the 3rd. Plot was pretty easy to pick up even without any background information. The animation was also good though the graphics look very game-like. I was mainly attracted to the music and luckily for me, the 3rd episode was regarding music (4th episode was on baseball) or I might have stopped watching all together.

Angel Beats! is a surprisingly funny anime with many touching parts. I had cases of goosebumps at the end of most episodes. Never close to crying but the scenarios warmed my heart while giving it a little wrench. Ehh that sounds really weird X_X hahaha but you get what I mean lah.

Just a short series of screenshots from episode 3, showing the ultimate Pi attack and a blooming obvious conclusion.

Battle start!

KO!!!!

Hahaha Many more funny parts throughout the series =D Bishies, action, humour, friendship and a little romance XD Me like!

I've also been entertaining myself with some tear-jerkers. Just cuz I feel like it =/ It started off with Angel Beats! and Hunter X's hiatus putting me in a melancholic mood, so I decided to go all the way. Watched the last four episodes of Wolf's Rain which are also the OVA and cried alot when Toboe died and during the last episode T__T

Next up was Samurai X: Reflections (Rurouni Kenshin Seisouhen) which is also the 2nd OVA. I think I've mentioned this OVA at least twice in my previous posts over the years but please bear with me XD

So there I was, watching the sad little tale and preparing to bawl like a baby when suddenly, Gintoki from Gintama appeared! My eyes almost popped out!! I almost thought that I was watching the wrong video and that the whole thing was a Gintama parody.

There! Looks just like Gin-san desho~?!

Of course, on a closer look, Gintoki doesn't wear glasses like that and he isn't as muscular as Enishi (that's the real name of the dude above). The hairstyles are different too =DD But Enishi really does look like Gintoki wearing Midou Ban's glasses XDXD

Yea, that unexpected appearance by the Gintoki look-alike ruined the sadness I was trying to build up since the start of the OVA..........

P.S. Kenshin's voice is too feminine, I'd prefer a lady with a deeper voice to do the voicing.