And 2009 began silently. Twelve days after, I feel that twelve weeks had passed, but no, we are still in this freezing January. Cold makes me want to sleep before anything else. I wanted to write so badly but the lazyness won the most part of the time. The only thing I do happily is being in front of the tv or pc screen. Now, I woke up at two in the morning and watched Skip Beat (this vampiric schedule happened thanks to a long weekend). In the commercials that ran after the series, there was one promoting the dvds of the second part of Neo Angelique, I believe. In the very moment that the voice of the protagonist girl sounded, I turned my head away from the television. Then I laughed. I realized that I really hated that show.

I began watching it since it was aired in april, among with Nabari no Ou, that ran in the same day. When I heard the title I found it funny, but I was interested too, only because that stylish name sounded kind of gothic or visual kei-ish in my strange associations. The first episode was weird; the girl was pretty and the guys, well, very normal for a boy-harem anime, with different colors representing every character that, after I while watching, I thought that I was near an epileptic attack, pokemon-like. Anyway I decided to give it a try, because I had nothing that I really considered fun in the japanese tv, excepting for a few dramas and La Corda d' Oro in 2006. But I couldn't. How can you mix a somewhat romantic aesthetic with those monsters (the thanatos thingie) that gave the impression to be designed by a high school boy? And if well, anime characters have this thing of look alike among them the most part of the time (excepting from some well-designed anime like Utena or Oniisama e, and even that) , why they have to made it so obvious? Even the eye color of the guys does not change that much. They are made to appear cute and/or sexy and make the fangirls to spend money on goods of them, but they seem to have died triying. And I will not dare to talk about the music, especially the endings and openings. That's why Neo Angelique piss me off so much. And it lasted two seasons!

With this, all my hopes related to that year's anime dissapeared and I turned back to our old Hagio Moto and Keiko Takemiya again, as always. But after a while I discovered that not all things where going bad. The first hit for me was Vampire Knight, that began the same season that Neo Angelique, but it take me time to realize it was good. Indeed, from the commercials that spoke about a world with beautiful vampires inmediatly caught my eye (laugh), however the character design and the animation itself was not so good as I spected for such an interesting idea. The rythm of the story also had a very slow pace for an anime. But in spite of all that, I recorded the episodes in my old vhs when I could. I stopped viewing it for reasons of time, because it was aired SO LATE in the night that I fell asleep while waiting many times. Then, I bought the manga and I realized how wonderful that story was, and that the anime was not able to translate all that beauty successfully. However, Kishio Daisuke doing Kaname was one of the good points. Nobody but him can impersonate that prince-like attitude. But if I continue speaking about this it will became very, very long (tears).

The another flower of 2008 was Kuroshitsuji, that began in October. I had the oportunity of reading the two first volumes of the manga when it aired, and I had very high expectations. First to say, the opening impressed me, and Sebastian in the part when the lyrics say "yasashikute, atsukute" is so nice made that my mood changes everytime I see it. Of course, achieving the Sebastian drawn by Yana Toboso is imposible to reproduce in an animation, but at least it seems that they care about his appearance and the most part of the time he moves and speaks beautifully. Also we can be aware of his red eyes all the time ^_^. Maaya Sakamoto doing Ciel is so cool knowing that she have such a girlish and soft voice when singing. And for me the most lucky character in terms of having a voice is Grell. Now I can understand his euphoria completely. The music also is nice and fits perfectly some parts with that creepy choirs and whispers. The ending is CUTE, so CUTE!! It had been a long time since an anime trapped me that way. But with all that it still has a weak point, and it is in the story, mainly when they go away from the manga line for a while, and they find that human-dog that is so disgusting, staining all the splendour with that cheap resources. Luckily, this break does not take so long but, why they have to refill with poor stories?

I wonder if we will have more brilliant things this year. Do I have to look at the past again now, scaping from that overused formulas of stupid school girls and short skirts? Now that this victorian-like trend is becoming stronger, I demand elegance and beauty! And more butlers! =P

Labels: 2008 anime, kuroshitsuji, neo angelique, vampire knight