kanna-chan's cafe

Hey guys, kanna here. Because my writer's mind has decided to torture me and keep me in the realm of vampires (oh, joy), we're going to keep the theme going with...Vampire Knight.


You guys are lucky I still have my sanity after Diabolik Lovers. I could barely make it through the first season, let alone start the second. And if the rumors of making a third season are true, then I pray for EVERYONE'S sanity.

A bit of background.

Vampire Knight started out as a manga series by Matsuri Hino. You might recognize her from...actually, that's all you'll recognize her from. Vampire Knight is the manga that she's known for. She's done other work, but none of it is well-known. Kind of sucks for her, don't you think?

Anyway, aside from being known from only one manga, this manga was so popular that an anime adaptation was in the works thanks to Studio Deen, who produced some pretty popular anime, such as Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Rurouni Kenshin. This anime had two seasons: Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight: Guilty. I'll get to which season was better later and why, but for now, let's talk about the plot of the first season.

The story is set at Cross Academy, a fictional school split up into two divisions: the Day Class and the Night Class. The twist: the Day Class consists entirely of humans, and the Night Class consists entirely of vampires.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "How is this possible?" Well, the headmaster, Kaien Cross, believes that humans and vampires can coexist without vampires feeding on humans. However, the Day Class doesn't know the secret of the Night Class, so the headmaster assigned two "guardians" to keep the secret at Cross Academy.

Our first "guardian" is Yuki Cross, Headmaster Cross's adopted daughter, and the overall protagonist of the anime. Yuki has no memories of her past. In fact, her earliest memory is of a stormy night in winter when she was attacked by a rogue vampire and then saved by Kaname Kuran (more on him later). She later became Headmaster Cross's adopted daughter and became friends with Kaname and eventually developed feelings for him.

Our second "guardian" is Zero Kiryuu, the lone survivor of a vampire attack that killed his entire family. Zero was taken in by Headmaster Cross after being bitten by a pureblood (more on that later) vampire, Shizuka Hio, who also killed his family. Due to the attack, Zero hated vampires and did not trust them. He believed they were all just blood-sucking monsters and did not share the belief that Headmaster Cross and Yuki shared of vampires and humans being able to coexist. He is a childhood friend/brother of Yuki's and it has been shown that he has feelings for her and often gets jealous when Kaname is around.

The first season basically shows the struggles that take place between vampires and humans coexisting, along with the struggle of keeping the Night Class's secret from the Day Class. We also learn a little bit more about vampires and the different "levels," and we get a lot of character development on Zero Kiryuu. It's kind of like a "day in the life of..." season, with a few twists and turns scattered throughout.

The second season shows Yuki trying to discover more about her past and why it was hidden from her. We get a lot of character development on Yuki's end, and learn something really shocking about her towards the end of the season. I'm doing my best to keep this review spoiler-free, but I will explain a few things.

Let's start with the different "levels" of vampires. There are five "levels" of vampires, which vary according to the purity of their blood.

The highest level, or level A, is the pureblood vampires, and there aren't many of them. They're the strongest and most powerful vampires out there, and their blood is known to have many different properties, so it is sought after by weaker vampires.

They have no human blood in their family line, so to reproduce, they often intermarry to reproduce. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means that, for example, a brother will marry his sister so that they can keep the pureblood line pure, without a single trace of human blood. Disgusting, right? What sick mind would come up with this?

Additionally, a human bitten by a pureblood vampire will become a vampire.

Level B is the aristocrat vampires. They're the elite vampires with special abilities beyond normal vampires. They are also very powerful vampires, but are not as powerful as the purebloods, due to the small traces of human blood in their family lines. They also have super strength and speed.

Level C is just the commonplace vampires. They're not really that special and don't really make an appearance in the anime, so we're going to skip over them.

Levels D and E are the lowest levels. They are ex-humans who were bitten by pureblood vampires. While Level D vampires can be tamed by a vampire hunter, Level E stands for Level End, meaning that the end of that vampire's life is near and will be ended by the Hunter's Association.

We talked about Zero and Yuki already, so let's talk about Kaname. Kaname Kuran is a pureblood vampire, and as such, is in charge of the Night Class. He's the one who saved Yuki from the rogue vampire when she was young. He, too, has romantic feelings for Yuki.

So, rating: um...wow, this is tough. Let's just rate by season.

Vampire Knight: 8/10
Vampire Knight: Guilty: 5/10

Why (overall): This anime is actually pretty good, and the first season sets the second season up pretty well. The animation is great, as is the character development. There's comedy throughout thanks to Headmaster Cross, and the romance is actually somewhat believable. Keyword being somewhat. Why? Well, let's get back to what I said about pureblood vampires. It almost feels like their forcing the message of incest being okay (which it might be in some countries, I honestly don't know) down our throats.

As far as the characters go, this is basically the anime version of Twilight (minus the werewolves). Heck, this whole series is basically like this:

Yuki: Bella
Zero: Jacob (minus the werewolf bit)
Kaname: Edward

The only differences are that Yuki is a bigger dimwit than Bella (didn't think that was possible), Kaname is just a big abuser, and Zero isn't a werewolf.

What makes the series interesting is the different "levels" of vampires and the Vampire Hunters that are in the series. But that's all taken away from (and I'm going to spoil it here), the Team Kaname/Team Zero thing. Yuki chooses Team Kaname, decides to become a vampire, and we learn that not only is she a pureblood vampire, but she's Kaname's younger sister.

The music is probably the best part of the entire series. The openings for both seasons are sung by ON/OFF, and the endings for both seasons are sung by cellist and singer Kanon Wakeshima. The music videos for the songs are actually pretty cool to watch, too. I'd definitely check them out. The opening for Vampire Knight is "Two Beats and a Red Sin" (ふたつの鼓動と赤い罪), and the opening for Vampire Knight: Guilty is "Rinnie -Rondo-" (輪廻－ロンド－). The ending for Vampire Knight is "Still Doll," and the ending for Vampire Knight: Guilty is "Sand Castle" (砂のお城).

Well, that's my review of Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight: Guilty. I hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to Anime Monday #23, which will be...I have no idea. I'm considering Akatsuki no Yona, among a couple others, but we shall see.

ALSO: I'm moving into my dorm in a couple of weeks, and that entails a lot of packing. So, naturally, I might have to go on a short hiatus. Sorry!!!

Good G-d...I promised myself I wouldn't review this. I really promised myself. Heck, if I chose to break that promise, I would have saved it for Halloween. But no...not this...anything but this.

All right, looks like I don't have a choice.

Hey guys, kanna here. Can I just start by saying I am NOT looking forward to this review? I mean...we're looking at one of the anime that's worse than...I can't even say it now. No, I'll say it at the end. Alas, here we are. Anime Monday #21 -- Diabolik Lovers.


G-d, I'm glad that's over...while I go give my brain a rest, please leave your suggestions for Anime Monday #23! I have #22 already picked out (and I'm not looking forward to it), so please pick something good! I don't want to give bad review after bad review...

Hey guys, kanna here. Knowing me, you know I'm obsessed with three things: anime, Harry Potter, and, of course, all things X-Men. So, when I found out there was an X-Men anime that aired in 2011, and I had no idea it existed until now, I wanted to beat myself up for not knowing about it, before I said, "Let's give it a watch." So I did. And now, without further ado...


So...this is technically a part of an anime series known as Marvel Anime, which was a series of four anime series and two direct to video films that were produced in collaboration between Marvel Entertainment and the studio that brought us One-Punch Man, Madhouse.

Each series was twelve episodes long. They followed the stories of Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men, and Blade, and went in that order. Each of these series is a stand-alone, meaning that you don't have to have seen the previous series in order to watch the next one. Which is great, because I couldn't find episodes of Wolverine anywhere. And believe me, I tried.

Additionally, each of the series was guided by writer Warren Ellis, who set the majority of each series in Japan. Does this make it count as anime? We shall see, my friends. We shall see.

So our story opens up where the third X-Men movie ended, with the death of Jean Grey. The writers and animators did take a few creative liberties with it, such as having Emma Frost appear behind Jean Grey, and instead of Jean Grey being controlled by Phoenix, she's controlled by a group known as the Inner Circle. So Jean Grey dies and the X-Men, which now consists of Storm, Beast, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Prof. X, all go their separate ways.

The X-Men are later reassembled by Professor X and are asked to travel to Japan following the abduction of a mutant named Hisako Ichiki. They rescue her and Emma Frost, who both join the X-Men, but are also confronted by the U-Men and members of the Inner Circle.

And...that's basically it.

So, score: um...X-Men, I hate to do this, believe me, I do, but...1/10.

Why: Well, it's relatively simple, really. This can't call itself an anime. It's a cartoon, at best. The animation isn't great, the music is meh at best, and the storyline just doesn't seem to carry itself well. I honestly don't understand how this is called an anime. Is it because it was made in Japan? I honestly have no idea.

Look, this did look promising. It was an "anime" (I'm using that term very, very loosely) that didn't have anything to adapt from, which gave the writers a lot of room for creativity. But there were too many points where you had to have read the comics in order to know who some of the characters were. The movies never referenced the Inner Circle, or Hisako Ichiki, for that matter. So unless you read the comics, you'll have no idea who those characters are going into this.

Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, as they do explain who everyone is in the anime. But is it really fair to the viewer to have it be expected of them to have read or watched the source material first? Not really.

The characters don't really look like themselves, either. I mean, maybe I've seen the movies too many times (which is a possibility), but they really don't look like they should. For example, Beast looks like an overgrown bear, and sounds like one when he growls. It's not very...what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, threatening. Heck, they should have changed his codename to Bear in this. Because that would have made more sense than Beast in this.

There is little to no humor in this series. Which is really, really sad. I mean, it's X-Men. We have Wolverine in this, for Pete's sake. The least we could get is a classic one-liner. The writing just seems...lazy, like the voice acting. At least, that's how it seemed in the English dub. I couldn't find the original Japanese.

Heck, the only characters in this who are even remotely interesting are Hisako Ichiki and Beast. Hisako Ichiki has a unique power (she creates this armor made out of psionic energy and can manipulate it as she wants), and Beast is...well, Beast. He's probably my favorite character in all of this, and that's saying a lot.

I was expecting so much out of this, being the big X-Men fan I am, so I felt like I was punched in the gut when I watched this show. I think any X-Men fan would feel the same way.

Despite all this, though...I really am hopeful that if they do a second season (which they probably won't) or a remake of this, it will be much better. But as of right now, those seem pretty unlikely.

Well, that's X-Men: The Animated Series. Sorry it was short, but when there isn't really much to talk about, there isn't really much to talk about.

Get ready for Anime Monday #21!

Hey guys, kanna here.

Clannad and Clannad: After Story. Where do I begin with two of THE MOST EMOTIONAL ANIME to hit the planet? Well, let's start with a poster

and then move on to development.

Clannad started out as a visual novel by Key, a developer who started out making adult visual novels such as Kanon and Air that were later censored, before moving on to a marketing demographic for all ages. It was released in Japan in 2004, and got a worldwide release for computers with a software called Steam in 2015.

The anime follows the plot of the game. Our story follows Tomoya Okazaki, a high school delinquent who is bored with his life. His mother died when he was young, and his father turned to drinking and gambling, which left Tomoya to fend for himself. The two had frequent fights, one of which involved Tomoya's father dislocating Tomoya's shoulder. The injury healed, but Tomoya couldn't lift his arm up high enough to play basketball. Since then, the two didn't fight anymore, but they treat each other as distant strangers.

The story really opens up at the beginning of the school year, when Tomoya meets Nagisa Furukawa, a quiet girl that loves dangos (is the spelling right? Is it dangoes? Anyway, they're Japanese dumplings that later became a collection of plushies known as the Great Dango Family). She is a year older than Tomoya, but is repeating a grade because she got really sick during the previous year. Nagisa wanted to join the drama club, but couldn't, because of her sickness. The club disbanded because all the other members graduated. So, she enlists the reluctant help of Tomoya, as well as his friend, Youhei Sunohara, with bringing the drama club back to the school.

Along the way, Tomoya meets twins Ryou and Kyou Fujibayashi, student body president Tomoyo Sakagami, top student Kotomi Ichinose, cook Yukine Miyazawa, and first year student Fuko Ibuki. He also starts to develop romantic feelings for Nagisa, which she later returns.

I could go into After Story, but I really don't want to spoil the anime for you. I know that doing this makes for a short review, but I'll make up for it next week with a longer one. Promise.

Anyway, rating...10 out of 10

Why: The characters are developed wonderfully, and the development is done in such a way that you feel a connection with the characters. You understand and empathize with what's going on in their lives, and you can relate to them. Sure, it seems like a typical anime where a guy hangs out with a ton of girls and eventually develops feelings for one of them, but it's so much more than that. You can feel bad for the characters when they encounter a problem, and happy for them when things start going right for them.

The animation is stellar. The character designs are great, and you can easily tell the characters apart from each other (even the twins). I spent a good part of the anime wishing I could style my hair like half of the female characters, but my hair was (and still is) too short.

The music is pretty good, too. While the openings for both Clannad and Clannad: After Story aren't exactly my favorites, the endings of Clannad and Clannad: After Story are incredible. Clannad's ending is "Great Dango Family" by Chata. After Story had two endings. The first one, "Two Shadows," wasn't a particular favorite of mine, but the second one, "Small Palms," is probably my favorite song...after "Great Dango Family." And as we all know, I'm a sucker for a good soundtrack. This anime did not disappoint.

While I won't give anymore or anything away, I will say this much: have a tissue box ready when you watch this anime. You'll need it. Trust me.

Well, that's it for #19! Stay tuned for Anime Monday #20 where I review...I'M NOT TELLING! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I can be evil sometimes, can't I?

*silence*

OK, whatever. But I'm really not telling. ~k

OK, take two.

Hey guys, kanna here. I would have had this up sooner if it wasn't for the fact that I accidentally hit something and deleted EVERYTHING from this post. Not to mention I'll be traveling for a bit and won't have time to write. -sigh- Well, to apologize for the influx of Yu-Gi-Oh posts, as well as my lack of posting thereof, we're here to talk about a rather...interesting anime called Gunslinger Girl.

Hey guys, kanna here.

Well, we all knew this was inevitable. Given my love for the world of X-Men, it was only a matter of time before this review came out. I know it's not an Anime Monday, but whatever. I'm working hard on that one. For now:


We have most of our favorite X-Men returning for this movie: James McAvoy as Charles Xavier/Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique, Lucas Till as Alex Summers/Havok, Evan Peters as Peter (Pietro) Maximoff/Quicksilver (yeah, Quicksilver is back!!!), Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert (ugh...) and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast.

We also get a lot of new cast members to play young versions of the X-Men from the trilogy, such as Sophie Turner (who you may recognize as Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones) as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers/Cyclops, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, Ben Hardy as Warren Worthington III/Angel/Archangel, Lana Condor as Jubilation Lee/Jubilee, Olivia Munn as Psylocke and Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe/Storm. Our villain, Apocalypse, is played by Oscar Isaac, who you might recognize as Po Dameron from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Additionally, we get the return of Josh Helman as William Stryker, as well as a few cameos and other additions I'm not going to mention, because if I did, you'd be sitting here and reading this getting bored.

So if you remember the post-credits scene of Days of Future Past, you should remember a bunch of people saying "En Sabah Nur," which is apparently insert-language-here for "the first one," as En Sabah Nur was believed to be the first ever mutant.

Speaking of, after a narration from who I believe to be Oscar Isaac (which isn't as good as any of Patrick Stewart's narrations, but given that those narrations are on a whole other level, it's...decent, at best), our movie opens up in ancient Egypt with a bunch of people chanting, "En Sabah Nur," who I will now be referring to as Apocalypse for the duration of this review.

So, since the beginning of civilization, Apocalypse ruled the world from ancient Egypt, as he was believed to be the first and most powerful mutant. However, during a ceremony where they were trying to transfer his consciousness into another body (we find out why later in the movie), some of his followers betray him, killing the proverbial Four Horsemen and entombing Apocalypse for thousands of years.

We then jump to 1983 in Ohio, where we see Scott Summers finally discovering his mutant ability of being able to fire plasma rays from his eyes (sound similar to someone you may know?). His brother, Alex Summers/Havok, takes him to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, where we see James McAvoy proudly sporting a mullet haircut. And may I say it actually looks good on him? I mean, he already looked good, the mullet just made him...okay, I can't obsess over James McAvoy in this. I won't. Promise.

After that, we cut to Berlin of the same year, where we see Angel fighting another mutant, Blob. After defeating the other mutant, we then see a young Nightcrawler, a mutant who can teleport, get thrust into the cage to fight against Angel. Raven has somehow made it inside, and she turns the voltage of the electric cage up as high as it can go. After Nightcrawler manages to put Angel up against the cage, frying his wings, Raven helps him escape and eventually brings him to the institute.

We return to Egypt, where we meet a young Storm, who is saved from four men by Apocalypse, who decapitates three of them and literally melts the last guy into a wall. I couldn't make that up if I tried. Storm returns to her house with Apocalypse in tow, and Apocalypse uses the TV to "learn." He becomes disgusted with what the world has become and decides to recreate the world in his own image, with only the strongest mutants and himself ruling. To start such an endeavor, he starts recruiting his Four Horsemen. Storm's powers are increased and her hair is turned white as she is recruited to be his first Horseman, Famine.

Oh, I should probably clarify. The Four Horsemen of the apocalypse are Famine, War, Death, and Pestilence. Back to the review.

We return to the Institute, where Alex has brought Scott to visit the professor and meets young Jean Grey. Scott receives glasses so that he can see without releasing the beams from his eyes, and is enrolled in the institute.

We cut to Poland, where we see Erik Lensherr has gotten married and had a daughter named Nina. Nina is also a mutant, and her ability is to communicate with and influence animals. Erik has renamed himself Henryk Gorzky, and works at some kind of factory with metal. He hadn't used his powers at the factory, until an earthquake happened, which caused something big to fall on one of the workers, which he stopped to save the worker's life.

Unfortunately for Erik, this means that he, his wife, and his daughter, have to leave Poland, for fear of Erik being exposed as Magneto. However, he's too late, as the Polish authorities have come, without metal, and kidnapped Nina. Erik agrees to turn himself in, but Nina, who was too young to be able to control her mutant powers, unleashes a flock of birds on the authorities who threatened to take her father away. An arrow was accidentally fired, however, and this killed both Erik's wife and Nina. Erik kills the men, and then goes to the factory to kill the workers for alerting the authorities.

Seeing as the earthquake was an anomaly, Hank, Alex, and Charles all go to Cerebro to see what happened with it. Thanks to Cerebro, we are reunited with Moira MacTaggert (ugh...), who Charles still has feelings for (ugh...). Alex and Charles visit Moira, who explains how she was investigating Apocalypse throughout history and learned that he would give his Horsemen special powers to aid in destroying whatever they wanted.

We then meet our next recruit, Psylocke, who becomes Pestilence of the Four Horsemen. Shortly after that, we are introduced to Angel, who becomes Archangel after receiving metal wings from Apocalypse and becoming the third horseman, Death.

Our last horseman (War) shouldn't come as much of a surprise. It's Erik.

So now, our heroes are up against a super dangerous foe capable of hacking into Cerebro (which he does, and manipulates a bunch of government people to send their nuclear missiles into the air), along with his new followers.

What do I give this: 3 out of 5.

Why: First off, as much as I liked this movie, it wasn't as good as Days of Future Past or First Class. I felt like the writers were just riding the popularity train from those two movies and just got lazy. Apocalypse didn't get a ton of character development. In the trailer, and even in the post-credits scene from Days of Future Past, he was built up as the ultimate villain; someone on a whole other level than Trask or Shaw or any of the other X-Men villains. Here...I don't really know how to explain it, but it feels like his character wasn't developed enough.

The acting is pretty good, but the fight scenes were a little hard to follow, and the plot itself felt a little...cliche.

I am a sucker for a good soundtrack, though, and I will say that this movie did have the better soundtrack. And the scene where they slowed everything down for Quicksilver was pretty awesome, too.

We also get an after credits scene that builds up to the third (and possibly final) Wolverine movie, as well as the upcoming Gambit movie. But with Singer possibly stepping away from the franchise to work on other things...well, I'm not getting my hopes up for those movies.

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed my review of X-Men: Apocalypse! Stay tuned for Anime Monday #18, where I review Gunslinger Girl! ~k

Hey guys, kanna here. I love that these are getting more and more frequent, don't you? Unfortunately, this might be the last one I post for a while, as I'm nearing the last few weeks of the spring semester before summer starts. In other words: the workload is getting heavier.

But...the new Yu-Gi-Oh movie, The Dark Side of Dimensions, comes out in Japanese theaters in SEVENTEEN (well...probably eighteen if we're going by Japanese time as I'm writing this) DAYS! And given it's a movie, and what I'm reviewing today is a movie, I figured the only way to wrap up these Yu-Gi-Oh reviews was to review the first movie to get an English dub, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light.