Land of the Never-Dawn

For reasons that I feel no need to discuss I have not posted in my journal for some time. The only reason I'm posting now is because I was looking for some icons of the new show Maria+Holic and I couldn't find any, so I started messing around in photoshop and created some of my own. It was kind of fun, so I made some of other pictures I had laying around. It's kind of useless posting icons when I don't belong to an icon community, but if you do happen to stumble across this entry feel free to grab what you want. I'd be happy if you credit, but there's no need to comment if you don't want to. I find it's helpful to save the creator's name with the icons; that way you can save them now, and if you want to use them later you know exactly where they came from.

Maria+Holic [8]
Persona 4 [4] (Fanart included)
Diebuster [2]
Xam'd of Lost Memories [1]
ToraDora [1]
Casshern SINS [1]




( Icons under cut )

Alright, so after watching the second episode, I do have some criticism to give Xam'd: Lost Memories.  Now that I've made the connection between it and Eureka Seven I can't unsee it, and it seems to be following some similar patterns to that show.  My largest objection is the introduction of the three children.  I'm sure they're going to play a huge part in trying to bring a "human" quality to the show.  Personally, I don't think that an anime should have to rely on using toddlers to bring out a tenderness in their characters.  The kids' secondary function will be providing comic relief.  I believe that an anime is nothing without short breaks of comic relief, but the kind of humor I saw in Eureka Seven and what I've seen in this anime involving the children has never struck me as funny in this least, and it seems even a bit juvenile.  In the first episode, the banter between the school kids and the actions of the main character seemed amusing enough, but if they cut out that form of humor in favor of five-year-old kids crotch-kicking annoying male character I will be very disappointed.  Also, I don't care for the crew member that they kicked, or for the officer man.  They remind me too much of Eureka Seven, and I can not say that I liked a single character in that show.  I'm not sure what I think of Xam'd now.  It's like a mix of one of my least favorite anime and Nausicaa, one of my favorites.  But I'll continue watching it and hope that it doesn't fall too much into the patterns that I hated of Eureka Seven.

So, I just finished watching the first episode of the new anime Xam'd.  I must say, I'm very excited.  I haven't been reading much about all the new series coming out this fall, but I stumbled on a torrent for this along with a positive review and I decided to check it out.   The wholes style of the anime seems reminiscent of Nausicaa, my favorite Ghibli film.  I would say that the airships and the mythology were definitely influenced by Miyazaki.  Meanwhile, the character designs seem similar to that of the Persona games, giving the art an aesthetic and stylistic appearance.  There have been no characters that I have felt an immediate revulsion for yet, and the protagonist seems likable enough.  Also, the soundtrack was amazing.  However, I wasn't too fond of the opening and ending songs for this anime.  While I thought they were excellent songs, they didn't seem appropriate for what I have perceived is the atmosphere of this show.  I can't say why, but for some reason they brought to mind Eureka Seven, which I was never very fond of.  But maybe that's just me.  Besides that, I really have no criticism to give.  I'm eager to see the next episode, and I have high hopes for this one!
 
**EDIT**
I know why now!  It looks exactly like Eureka Seven!  Go figure.

Apparently my mom is reading my LiveJournal. That's really creepy. Now I feel scared to post anything. Thanks ma. So much for freedom of expression. So much for privacy. And here I thought no one read my journal.