neko's thinkbox

After a late night talk with Neko^[1], I decided that you know, I live in the boonies, and interenets are slow in the boonies ergo internet video sucks in the boonies. Rather than post a preview of next season (BTW, I’m on summer ‘09 NOW), I’ll do the most difficult thing to do: Figure out which is better, the manga or the anime.

So I sat for HOURS^[2] and decided to do a series a month and, hoping it all works out, stick with it this time. I actually Programmed my TI-83 to roll a 6-sided die 100 times, and had 6 picked out, therefore, the highest won, and thus:

1. K-On
2. Fruits Basket
3. Negima
4. Karin
5. Otome wa Boku ni Koi Shiteru (Also Includes Eroge Comparison)
6. Kampfer

And a winner is:

Otome wa Boku ni Koi Shiteru

Alas, I begin.

Mind, the Blond in the center is… a dude.

Otome wa Boku ni Koi Shiteru ~ The Lovely Maidens have fallen for Me

I had first had my experiences with Otome wa Boki ni Koi Shiteru (or, as I shall call it, Otoboku) in the early spring of 2007, when I had received a copy of the game from a friend. At first, I had assumed that:

• This was an eroge
• There were to be nudity
• And sex^[3]

but something about it was… more. Characters all seemed lively, well drawn^[4] and, most shockingly, human. Sure, the female leads all seemed to go from “Hello” one second to “Let’s bump nasties” the next, but I have known some low-modesty girls in my life, and… anyways. As I said, got the game in ‘07.

Come about summer 2008, I saw the anime sitting in the local anime/manga/magic card shop^[5] and instantly bought it. Of course, the couple real new anime fans in the store at the time were all like “Dude, you like Yuri?” I merely looked at them, laughed, and shouted^[6] “IT’S A TRAP!”, made my purchase, and left.

Fall 2008, read the Manga. ’nuff said.

Premise of story :

• Anime: Kaburagi Mizuho (though uses his late mother’s Miyanokouji as family) is attening an all-girls academy as per the request of his late Grandfather, in order to bring peace to a ghost that was a student at the school at the same time as his mother. Note, Mizuho is fairly effeminate to begin with, therefor he looks IDENTICAL to his mother. Things happen (Fan Service, Harem, Lolis, Tsunderes, the usual fare)
• Manga: Kaburagi Mizuho (though uses his late mother’s Miyanokouji as family) is attening an all-girls academy as per the request of his late Grandfather. Note, Mizuho is fairly effeminate to begin with, but we never see his mother in Manga format^[7], so we don’t really know how much resemblance there is. Story is same as Anime.
• VN:The plot in the VN is the same as the anime, although doesn’t go through so many damn loops to get to the point. Basically, take the anime, cut the pointless stories (Who TF cares about a girl’s hair ribbons, or who can swim better^[8] ), and add a lot of sex scenes^[9], and there you have Otoboku.

Now, comes the hard part: Which is the best. Personally, the manga, IMHO, was not that good. Kinda simplistic, it seemed like a way for the name Otoboku to make just a bit more cash for Caramelbox. So the real vs. is between Anime and Visual Novel.

Anime: Artwork was flawless in the anime, with lots of Bishoujo Shimmer and clean, graceful cuts^[10] and a very nice (I’ll admit, awesome) soundtrack. Characters where very well presented (ie, no Gainaxing), had all then depth you could ask for. Now, my gripe is that some characters (Shion and Maryia) weren’t so good. Sure they’re cute, but… not right. At least Maryia’s got a tight body.

VN: Well, this is the basis of what both others were made from, but I’ll try to keep this even. The art work is very clean and proper (ie, no weird bits or hands with 7 fingers or some such), although I occasionally got the impression that the art was slightly rushed in the later non-H scenes. Story is actually well presented (ie: not some random “oh hey, let’s take a young man, drop him in a school/workplace/shrine, give him a terrible backstory/ailment/attitude, add a harem of friends/miko/maids/aliens/furries and call it an Ero-ge” story), with lots of character development, both on the Main Character side (he’s a very kind, though clueless person) and the Ladies side (all have very interesting back story and in-game story).

Now, the only problem I have with this franchise is the pure outlandishness. ‘Nuff said.

Winner: Anime. Sorry, but the anime just appealed to me more than the VN.

Reasoning for my choice was quite simple: the anime didn’t contain anything that resembled Futa. Don’t get me wrong… wait. Ok, I dislike the futa concept, therefor I naturally was almost predetermined to pick the anime. Sure, I played the VN, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was a dude, not a chick with… anyways.

Another reason that the anime appealed to me more is that it was more believable (as is evidenced by my earlier comment of nasty bumping) than the VN, and actually entertained me for more than one day. The story had a bit more substance than the other 2 versions, and actually went somewhere that wasn’t someone’s bed. Although that is contestable, as Takako seemed to have a strong desire to have Mizuho as hers (when Takako thought both he was a she AND after she found out), but nothing ever happened. Extra points went to the 13th episode, cleverly titled “Tsunderella”. This will really make sense once you watch the anime (or play the VN) and realize that Takako is one of the most Tsundere characters going.

So there. I chose. Now, I can finally get some sleep. I have been spending the last 3 weeks alternating the VN and anime on my PC, so I haven’t done too much else.

1. K-On
2. Fruits Basket
3. Negima
4. Karin
5. Suzuka
6. Kampfer

So that’s the list for next month (March). If the Kampfer manga doesn’t update within the month, I’ll drop it for something else. Anything you guys would like to see done would be really nice, as these lists will start getting really WEIRD if I pick it myself all the time.

1. MSN/Gtalk anyways [↩]
2. More like a few minutes [↩]
3. although, not as much as usual [↩]
4. usually the case in eroge, though [↩]
5. Gamezilla, Prospect Street [↩]
6. I joke not about shouting [↩]
7. that I recall [↩]
8. although it gives some good eye candy [↩]
9. Most of which look Futa [↩]
10. not like Deathnote… headache central [↩]