I found this trailer recently. It’s the first movie of a tetralogy of movies for the retelling of the Evangelion story. This is the trailer they’ve been showing in Japan with Utada Hikaru doing a rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon” (which was the original ED song for the series). Well, I sure like it. Must have this song.. and her other single “Beautiful World / Kiss & Cry”.

On a personal note, I enjoyed the original Neon Genesis Evangelion. As I watched the series, I started to appreciate more and more why so many had considered this serious as a very revolutionary anime. Now that they’re remaking it with the technology available these days, I’m sure it’s going to be great. Also, it’s said that the presentation of the story has been redone for easier mass consumption. I guess less inuendos and suggestive behavior, and more straightforward conversation and explanation. That’s fine with me.

Once in a while, I do some random searches for information that wasn’t available before. This time, I found a very exciting piece of information that I have been waiting for several months to become true. And that is a new season of Haruhi! With 10 light novels of the series, and only 1 and a half of those novels having been covered in the original Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, there was no way a second season (or even more) can be ignored in lieu of the famdom the series has created so far.

Anyway, the proof of the second season can be found in this image:

The image is a reference to Volume 3’s short story “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody”. The story involves the Tanabata festival, celebrated on July 7th each year. Haruhi asks the Brigade to write down wishes and post them on a bamboo shoot. The top image shows her looking out the window. In the novel, she’s sitting on a chair stairing out the window, but this is close enough. Below are live-action shots of a promotion video put on my Kyoto Animation that portrays the events in the short story. Basically, Kyon is taken back to the past (exactly 3 years ago) by Asahina. Asahina is put to sleep by an older version of herself who awaits for Kyon in the past. The older Asahina instructs Kyon to help Haruhi paint the symbol on the school field that Tanaguchi talked about when describing Haruhi’s past junior high antics. So, it turns out Kyon actually helped Haruhi paint the symbol for her that night.

It’s still not revealed what exactly the second season will cover, but who cares? Season 2 is confirmed! There is a god.

Well, I just paid for another 14 months of webhosting to keep this site up. It’s just too bad I don’t know what else to add to this place. I’ve been debating with myself if I should have done it. But for $6.45 a month to have my own domain and plenty of diskspace and bandwidth, the interest alone from my savings account already has this covered.

In terms of what I can do to keep me busy with this website, I could add downloadable content, but downloadable content that’s popular is usually illegal. So scratch that. I could start doing reviews on things, such as games, but I don’t have enough money or time to buy and play all those games; not to mention, game reviews are well taken care of by other websites. Now the biggest thing could be to just document my life, like all those other blogging sites. It’s probably the easiest thing to do, but that’s boring. No one reads about other people’s lives.

I’ve even thought of putting up my artwork online. I’ve already put up a few, but maybe I should start doing more of that. The easiest transition would be to draw comics. Unfortunately, the time investment is just too overwhelming, and I can’t seem to draw the same character to look exactly the same each time. I should work on that.

Well, I guess in the meantime, it should be more anime, more music videos when I find the inspiration to do so, and the occasional mind rant such as this one when I’m bored.

Sola Episode 13 Review

I was slightly let down with how this series ended. The apparent bad guy of the series was the one who got another chance at life while the other main characters were sacrificed.

Continuing off from the episode 12, Matsuri hesitated for a second and failed to land a direct hit on Aono. Though Matsuri should have been fatally wounded at this point, she was still very functional as she proceeded to clean up this mess.

More fighting starts and Aono gains the advantage with her more dynamic origami powers. Yorito sacrifices himself to protect Matsuri, and Matsuri takes the moment to kill off herself to give Aono a mortal life again. Somewhat reminiscent of a vampire who’s been granted another chance at life.

The second half of the episode was what I consider a waste of time. It was just ten or so minutes after the events. Mayuko and Takeshi continue their love-hate relationship and Aono befriends Mana and Koyori and the three go back to what the series was really about: enjoying the sky. How boring… In the end though, like most anime when it comes to the death of main characters, they always leave a sign that the main characters are not quite dead yet. In this case, a pair of tomato juice cans on a bench table.

Anyway, this series would have been better if it just ended on the 12th episode. Just keep things open for interpretation. But no. Didn’t happen that way.

Sola Episode 12 Review

The episode starts out with a flashback of the original Yorito and company in the cave. They make plans on how the three of them are going to leave the area on their own. On a side note, I just like how they reveal Matsuri’s behavior of kicking things when they don’t work properly as having existed all the way back then. What doesn’t make sense is why there is a well inside a cave.

On the rooftop of Aono’s house, Matsuri is requesting that Aono let go of Yorito and let her take him away. For some reason, this felt like getting a marriage blessing. Matsuri challenges Aono to a final battle for Yorito and runs off to the battleground, which happens to be more rundown, abandoned city areas.

Yorito and Matsuri are inside a movie theater and pretending that they are watching a film. As Aono shows up, Matsuri explains that she intends to defeat Aono and erase Yorito from existence. The two begin their fight. I must say, this episode had a very big fight sequence. At least half of the episode involved Aono’s paper attacks and Matsuri’s distenegration techniques and sword swinging.

Throughout the episode, there are several flashback scenes revealing how Aono came to be a yaka. Matsuri was lonely, and so brought her back to life to keep her company. It would appear that Matsuri is atoning for her mistake.

Aono pins Yorito to the wall with her powers to await for Matsuri’s downfall. There he does some trash talking about how Aono created him so she could easily control him, unlike the original Yorito who I assume fell in love with Matsuri and didn’t show as much sibling affection towards Aono.

More fighting ensues as Matsuri flings Aono through a concrete wall! If only there was more of that during the series. Matsuri gets a clear stab at Aono afterward, but it turns out that was a fake Aono. Aono fabricates a knife out to kill Matsuri, but Yorito pulls himself off the wall and tackles Aono to the ground. Yorito clutches Aono in a death grip and signals Matsuri to go for the kill.

It did appear at first that Matsuri was headed towards that direction until a film starts rolling inside the theater. The film depicts a blue sky. At that point, Matsuri stabs herself with the sword. Takeshi explained to her that putting her life in the sword and projecting it to another yaka would turn that yaka human. She walks over to Aono with the sword and the episode ends with the sword thrusting downwards.

What an episode. If the series ended here, I think it would strike a similar chord of that of the Sopranos series ending. One more episode to go. Hopefully, it’s not some boring episode used to tie up loose ends.

Sola Episode 11 Review

Yorito peels off the sky from his ceiling as if preparing for the end of days. He tells Matsuri that he’s made up his mind to put everything back to the way it used to be. Aono is also confused by Yorito’s changed personality, and is wary of his actions.

At the highschool, Mana tries to find out what’s happening with Yorito, but he won’t tell her anything. He dodges her probing and it’s probably safe to say he didn’t want to ruin their relationship by telling her he wasn’t real. His reluctance to tell her anything upsets Mana and drives her away.

Aono also tries to push Koyori away as well. So in the end both Yorito and Aono are trying to eliminate the relations they made while in this city. Mana finds out that her friends have no memories of Yorito and even traces of him in her picture are gone. Mana rushes back to campus in hopes of finding Yorito. She finds him on the rooftop taking more pictures. At this point, Yorito is like a fading entity disappearing with the sunset.

Mana realizes what’s happening by this point. She knows that Yorito is going to disappear, but she doesn’t want that to happen. Unfortunately, there’s nothing she can do about it and as the sun sets, he’s already gone. Mana shares the same fate as her friends and loses her memories of Yorito.

This whole time, though, there’s really no explanation as to what’s going to happen. Matsuri has plans with the sword and Yorito, and Yorito has plans with Aono, and everything is just building up for the final confrontation. Matsuri showing up at Aono’s house is a clear indication of that.

Sola Episode 10 Review

At this point of the series, everything’s starting to speed up. Yorito is as confused as ever, and Matsuri and Takeshi are at a truce. Mana has made Yorito aware of Aono being a yaka. He returns home and acts like nothing’s wrong while Koyori is there. Once she leaves, Aono confronts Yorito’s uplifted personality. Yorito counters back that she’s hiding stuff from him. And it’s about time Yorito stopped being such a wuss when it comes to his sister’s desires. He’s actually finally sticking up for himself. Kind of late though.

Yorito awaits for Matsuri back at the abandoned apartment structure where he stabbed her. He reveals how he’s starting to remember memories of a past life with him living with Matsuri and Aono in a cave, but it doesn’t make any sense to him how he was there hundreds of years ago, and still around now as a normal human.

Matsuri explains that the original Yorito actually died a long time ago. She pulls out Takeshi’s sword and stabs Yorito. His pain ripples across to Aono, whose pain is also felt subtly by Mayuko. As Yorito falls to the floor, we now find out the truth behind Yorito. It turns out he’s just another one of Aono’s origami creations. It’s also revealed that the real Yorito died under a collapsed house.

After the whole ordeal, Matsuri and Yorito sit on a bench to reflect back on everything that has happened. Yorito, like the typical Emo kid who just found out he’s not even real, has lost all reason to live since he’s just a doll to Aono like all the other dolls he bought her. Matsuri kisses him and assures him that though he’s not the real deal, he does exist and that’s what she likes about him.

I think the strangest thing about this episode was the ending. Mana and Koyori show up at his house so they can go to school and he pops out of the house happy as ever as if he was brainwashed again. Not sure what to make out of this, but he obviously doesn’t appear normal.