Here's a great remix of DISCOTHEQUE, an okay OP for Rosario+Vampire Season 2.
Nothing like a series fueled by a poorly handled harem. It's like having 8 huskies pulling a sled and you tell them to mush in 7 different directions. It just doesn't make sense.
The original, barring the needless fanservice dancing and other stupid CGI shit, had a good main phrase going but also had three major flaws right next to it:
1) The voice was a bit too whiny at times when hitting the high registers and holding it there
2) It was pretty slow for what was supposed to be an active song
3) Japanese phonetics and inclusion of random English words is painful. I mean, Korean-modified English is embarrassing, sure. But listening to some of this is just...Christ.
The remix reduces two of these flaws and emphasizes one. Guess which one it is.
The remix does a very very good job of pumping steroids into the song without making it sound like it's hurrying to get somewhere. It has a nice beat now and all the stuff going around and syncing along with the ascending/descending notes helps mask the whine. However...the English is emphasized, something that I wish to never be done on a remix ever again. Ever.
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So today I want to delve a bit into comparison of character interactions. Regardless of genre, background, initial personality, or plot, I firmly believe that realistic character interactions make up a major part of any great series. Again, I couldn't care less as to whether the setting is on Earth or Mars or Earth then on a Star Destroyer. However, the protagonist better be damn surprised but willing to adapt once he's on that Star Destroyer, because that's how people tend to act.
But protagonists/antiheroes/antagonists/suck-ups lackeys vice-presidents sidekicks aren't supposed to behave like normal people - else they wouldn't get CAUGHT in those weird situations that railroad the plot into Forced Awesomeness Land, you say.Well yes, they can act slightly crazy or somewhat overly optimistic. Awkward levels of that is fine. But something that would get them totally ostracized from society is NOT fine.
So what kind of anime do I rage at? Here's one that fuels a love-hate relationship: Zero no Tsukaima.
Despite what it looks like, this is actually not how the relationships work out. But just saying, don't go down the boy's route. Bad stuff happens.
Before you start about how I hate that thing because Rie Kugimiya is in it, let me correct you: I do NOT flippin' hate it because she is in it. I hate it because of half the lines she says in that thing. And before I go on,
==== SPOILERS AHOY! ====
Anyways, take the last episode of Season 2 and the first episode of Season 3. Watch them one after the other and tell me how that makes ANY sense. The two mains have a GODDAMN PRETEND MARRIAGE CEREMONY before leaving each other tearfully. Then when they get together, they're happy. That part's fine. Roughly 5 minutes later, Louise leaves in a huff because she thinks Saito is hitting on someone else...again.
WHAT THE HELL? What kind of personality do you have to have to think that your beloved is hitting on someone else after they came back from the depths of hell, AFTER going through a marriage ceremony with you? I don't give a damn about whether it's silly comedy or not, there is no point in having a series centered around certain characters if the characters don't develop/are mentally retarded.
The reason why I'm hating so much on ZnT so much in particular is that it has a splendid setup and mildly interesting cast, especially the background/personalities of Princess Henrietta/Charlotte. This series could be so much deeper, go so much farther, create much more tension, development. The way I see it, drive it a bit better and the character interactions could rival that of Spice and Wolf's. I may elaborate on this a bit later, but for right now, just understand that the series had so much potential...then it fucked it up. Fucking random-ass characters have to come with ultra-powerful monsters...all to get demolished by Imagine Breaker the "Void" Dispel spell that apparently owns everything. Just...why?
To give an example of a series with near-perfect character interactions, I present to you Valkyria Chronicles. A series that spawned from a game, it is surprisingly very, very well done.
This series is not for the ADHD-prone impatient. Characters actually take time to gently, slowly develop. Surprise! Oh and I don't know why those flowers are there. The hell.
To list:
1) The characters are mostly sane except for the obviously evil dude. Let me repeat this: NOBODY EXCEPT FOR THE GUY WHO'S OBVIOUSLY A SETUP LEVEL 10 BOSS IS RETARDED.
2) Most of the reasons as to why people act out of hand are explained later in the series; i.e., they had a incident and they're reasonably biased, although sometimes unwillingly.
3) The main relationship isn't a stand-up act between Dumber and Dumbass. Alicia is conflicted and acts like a normal being, Welkin is naive, but when confronted, it's obvious that he knows about what's happening; he just doesn't want to shout it out to the world. This way, the cute scenes are much more delightful because it feels like it's happening in reality, where it's much harder to earn random blushes from someone you met about....3 days ago.
In fact, almost everything fits into place. The one part that I would like to nitpick is the leaving of Alicia from the squad at the end (because that was a bit unreasonable in the face of the decision she had to make...especially since everybody had become friendly just before then with like a steak party or whatever it was). However, even that part was sooooort of a necessary railroad since then it would have been much harder to weave the plot in 2-3 episodes to the rescue+kiss scene. In any case, Valkyria Chronicles tends to keep the shit to the bare minimum. In doing so, world immersion became much easier and the scenes became more exciting.
Keep in mind that this is a steampunk world with an obviously "1600s European" theme. This is about as believable as a random magical ho-ho-ho-Harry-Potter-is-coming-by-unicorn world where artillery pieces appear in the middle of the desert. But the difference between the two series (not to beat the point endlessly) is that Valkyria Chronicles keeps it real in the face of stupid settings, while Zero no Tsukaima does not. And that's why Zero no Tsukaima is a mediocre ordeal to put yourself through (especially the infamous 3rd season) and why Valkyria Chronicles gets high ratings across the board.
What's the moral of the story? The Rule of Cool is fine, but that Grim Reaper riding on that electric guitar over a waterfall made of Fanta had better take care of his wife and children back at home.
That man definitely needs to get a better computer than that.
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