Alright, let’s move on to the next three classic titles that shall I quickly review today. I’ve been having a lot of fun watching these shows, and I believe I would treasure them for a long time to come.

Mahoromatic
I’ve heard a lot about Mahoromatic. Especially when there’s a lot of memes and references made on the show. I watched Mahoromatic just for the heck of it, and since I’m a long-time fan of Kawasumi Ayako’s vocal works, I found much pleasure listening to her cute voice going “Ecchi na no wa ikenai to omoimasu!” [lit. I think perverted thoughts/things are bad!] and all that while servings of boobies [of all shapes and sizes] are more than abundant throughout the show.

Mahoromatic is about Mahoro, a combat android who decides to spend her days in retirement [lol?] serving as a maid to her late Commander’s orphaned son. Mahoro is especially proficient in household chores, cooking, exerting ridiculous amounts of physical strength as well as busting crooks when she goes out grocery shopping.

Honestly speaking, though, if it weren’t for Kawasumi, I don’t think I’d bother watching much of Mahoromatic. Sure it’s funny and fun to watch and all that, but I guess it’s just not my thing. Meh.

Ai Yori Aoshi
I never knew anything about Ai Yori Aoshi. I never read the wiki page, I never read any reviews, and I never heard anything about it. However, I suddenly developed an interest for it after seeing a lot of fanart of a short-haired girl in a blue kimono.

I’ve seen many depictions of a yamato nadesico [classical Japanese beauty] but too often did I see this incarnation that I decided I had to find who this girl is. Asking around a little bit led me to the show. I watched the first episode, and the moment I heard Aoi speak I was like…

“OHMYGODIT’SKAWASUMIAYAKOLOVELOVE

LOVEMOEMOEMOEKYAAAAHHNN!!~~”

*cough* Sorry, my fanboy blood went out of control for a while.

The show is mainly about Aoi and Kaoru, childhood friends who promised to get married when they grow older. Many years after their separation, both of them have already grown up into fine young adults and they found each other again and renewed their romance. Although this time, their story is accompanied by friends and various other character living together in one mansion. As many fans accurately describe it, AiAo is pretty much a “Wasei Love Hina” [don't worry if you don't understand what this means].

Due to the similarity in nature to Love Hina, I wasn’t really too hyped about AiAo as the story for each episode can get quite predictable sometimes, and more than a few occasions I found myself skipping to the scenes of Aoi and Kaoru together. One thing I’ll commend about AiAo, though, is the brilliant cast of vocal talents.

Kawasumi aside, I was once again impressed at the talents of Yukino Satsuki [Full Metal Panic's Chidori Kaname and Bleach's Shihouin Yoruichi]. She brilliantly played Tina’s Kansai dialect and listening to her is a lot of fun. The last time I had as much fun listening to Kansai speech was probably Osaka’s speech patterns.

*pops in AzuDai DVD*

Ahh…oh that’s right. Ai Yori Aoshi. *cough* Uh, so..um…yeah. It’s nice. Go watch it :D

Neon Genesis Evangelion
I think the problem with Eva - yes, evidently there’s a lot of problems when it comes to this stupid goddamn mecha show - is that (1) it’s too popular and has (consequently) gained too much hype and (2) too many people have said too many things about it. Which I think is pretty much unjust for a show that is very vague and cryptic and one that makes extremely obscure references even some of the most devout religious zealots fail to catch. [Lance of who?]

Before I proceed, I shall first make it clear that I had no preset bias for or against Eva, or Gainax or anything that has to do with the show at all. I also watched Eva for the first time only a couple of months back, well over 10 years after the series ended airing in Japan.

Some have wondered and asked me stuff like “Why Eva?” and “Why only now?”, to which I’d simply answer;

1. because I haven’t watched Eva properly before this and
2. because it’s about time I did.

The only thing is, even if I have never watched Eva, I couldn’t help but KNOW it.

I’ve known who Shinji Ikari is, what colour schemes EVA-00 came in, and that Rei is a tragic emo clone of Shinji’s mother. I also knew that a lot of them would simply DIE and that the final moments of the show are just mindfuck therapy.

I knew all that, without ever watching a single episode of Eva. Big surprise? I guess not. I’ve seen plenty of the Eva-related meme’s and laughed at them, because even when I have never watched Eva, I KNEW what it was in Eva that those memes referenced. It’s just too freaking popular.

And so, I finally watched Eva.

After that I watched the movies.

After that I read the “Re-Take” doujin [which is like, the most awesome doujin work I've ever read, it almost feels canonical]. All that happened just a few months ago.

I won’t go into anything deep with Eva, too many people have done it over the past 10 years, so I’ll just cut down to the chase.

Eva is fun to watch. At least it was, until you reach the last two episodes, and the goddamn movies. I don’t know about you, but the ending[s] of Evangelion have just left me dumbfucked [as expected]. If anything, I’d tell you to watch Eva just to broaden your perspective, and allow yourself to see anime from a…uh,…different(?) point of view.

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I still have a couple of other classics to watch, Berserk, Tsubasa Chronicle, Macross Plus and Noir, just to name a few. It’ll be a while before the next anime blog post, so the next round will probably see me talking about more recent shows from the past [few] season[s]. After that, it’s high time for us to see what Fall 2007 is looking like by then :D

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Missed the first part? Read it here!

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