Hyouka

Episodes:   22

How:  Fansub

Rating:  2.5 out of 5

Summary:  {from mal} Oreki Houtarou is a minimalistic high school boy. One day, he joins the Classic Literature Club at his elder sister's request.

There he meets Chitanda Eru, Fukube Satoshi, and Ibara Mayaka. Chitanda is a calm beautiful girl but she turns into an embodiment of curiosity once she says, "I'm interested in it (Watashi, Kininarimasu)". Fukube is a smiling boy with a fantastic memory who calls himself a database. Ibara is a short girl and is strict with others and herself. She loves Fukube, but he always dodges her approaches.They begin to investigate a case that occurred 45 years ago. Hints of the mystery are buried in an old collection of works of the former members of Classics Club. The collection is titled "Hyouka."



Thoughts:  This show nearly bored me to death for the first six episodes, Episode seven is where it started to climb out of the pits of mediocrity into something much more entertaining to me. Until episode eighteen that is, That's where it got back into it's "meh" stage but still...
        In the end it was all over the place, I was never sure what to expect after each little mystery ended. Some of the mysteries were just simple others were quite entertaining and took some thought to figure out. It was an "Okay" little show...


Who we have....


Houtarou Oreki -  The "Main Character".  His quest in life so far is to "save energy", Doing the least amount of work he possibly can and still survive High School.  Of course this quest is his is destined to fail now that he's met Chitanda.
     He's amazingly good as putting things together, he's perceptive. Every little mystery that has met the group he has solved one way or another and with seemingly little trouble. It wasn't quite said in the series but, It was pretty obvious that he holds some sort of attraction to Chitanda.
     The only reason he joined the Classics Club is because his older sister {who was also a member of the club at one time} asked him to in order to prevent it from being abolished.

Satoshi Fukube - The "Best Friend", His memory is amazing and is a natural database of random stuff.. He's a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fanatic and really seems jealous of how easy it is for Oreki to figure mysteries out.
       He's a bit of a jerk, At least to Mayaka. He use to become obsessed about stuff and is attempting to be more laid back.... Bleh.

Eru Chitanda -  The "Main Characters Love Interest".  She's curious about everything, Even tiny things that make you want to reach into the screen, slap her and scream "who cares!".  I guess she's a bit on the cute side, Oreki can't seem to say "No" to anything she wants but really....
      Anyways, She's the only daughter of one of the four remaining wealthy farming families. She joined the Classics Club basically to figure out what happened to her Uncle 45 years ago. Since the Club had basically no members in the beginning, Chitanda was given the spot as Club President.

Mayaka Ibara - The "Girl with the unrequited Crush", Last to join the Club I kind of figure she only does it because of her feelings towards Satoshi. She's also a member of the Manga Club and works in the Library, People in the Manga Club really seem to be hard on her.... At least certain ones.
    Anyways, She went to the same Middle School as Fukube and Oreki... Apparently they were all friendly but she and Oreki really don't seem to get along.
    Oddly, I probably liked her the most... I never wanted to smack her or anything and I actually felt bad for her when the Manga Club girls picked on her and Fukube was just a jackass to her at Valentines Day.



Favorite Character{s}:    Oreki - I liked his energy saving attitude, The fact he obviously had a thing for Chitanda was rather cute. He couldn't say "No" to her no matter what...

Least Favorite Character{s}:  Satoshi - He was just a jerk, a jealous... irritating jerk.

Squid Girl - Season 2

Episodes:  12

How:  CrunchyRoll
Grade:   B+

Summary: {from MAL} The nefarious Squid Girl is back to continue her self-appointed mission to invade the surface world. Or that's what she would do, if she could just stop getting distracted by squidding movies, reading squidly manga, and making friends as only a squid could make them. Squid Girl must overcome not only danger found at every turn, but her own squidly good nature as well. 

Opening Song:   High Powered -  Fast, Addictive, I really loved this one.
Ending Song:  Kimi wo Shirukoto -  Slow, Nice song....

Thoughts: This season was pretty much the same as the first season, Three small stories per episode with some running story lines. Everyone is back and really they didn't add anyone new.. It was enjoyable but, It wasn't quite as good as the first season.
      It's also difficult to believe but, I really missed the Dub VAs.



Whats going on...

- Goro's love for Chizuru as not advanced a bit, Nor has Sanae's for Squid Girl.
- Sanae attempted to be not stalkerish for most of an episode, Only to have her desires overcome her and start glomping Squid Girl again.
-Kiyomi plays a bigger role this season, I didn't even touch on her in the first seasons entry. Whoops.

Kiyomi Sakura - She's Squid Girls best friend, The two of them met when Squid Girl attempted to do a Ding Dong Ditch on her house. Only to have Chizuru show up after she rang the bell, before she had a chance to run away and had to lie and say she was there to see Kiyomi {Who she didn't know yet.}.
      Kiyomi is on her schools baseball team and Squid Girl ends up playing with the team due to one of the players not being able to.  Squidy isn't too bad at Baseball when she uses her Tentacles.
    Squidy, Kiyomi and a few of her friends also make an "Invasion Club", They go around and "Invade" places. In other words they just go out and have fun in places and call that an invasion.

Ayumi Tokita - The daughter of the rival beach house is back, She's still attempting to become less shy and sort of does so for a while.. thanks to some cosplay like uniforms though.  She's still quiet and such but, She seems to be coming out of her shell.


The End:   There's not much to write about really but then, at the same time there is too much. With every episode having three little plots it could take forever, It's random and slice of life like.  The final episode this time doesn't involved Squid Girl leaving but instead..
    Eiko and Squid Girl get into an argument about Squidy saving over one of her game files, This leads to Eiko not talking to Squidy.  It's Festival time, The entire group goes and Squidy ends up getting lost... Eiko of course is the one who finds her with the help of the Octopus girl again.
   Eiko really does care about Squidy!


Favorite Episode-  Episode 10 - Again this is an episode where all three parts stuck out, There's the battle of the food basically, Where Eiko is trying to get the food pieces of beef anyway she can before Squidy and Chizuru snarf it down.
   Then there's Chizuru teaching Ayumi how to defend herself, to make raise her self confidence by showing Ayumi her self defense moves on Goro.
    Winter on the Beach, On an extremely hot day the three stooges have a device that makes it snow on the beach.  Snow a little too much, The device breaks and it becomes like the North Pole.

Squid Girl

Episodes:   12
           
How:  Netflix Stream
       
Grade:   A
         

Summary:  {From MAL} Foolish land-born air breathers! Behold the terror from the depths, the tentacled conqueror of humanity: Squid Girl! With your pollution and stuff you really deserve it, so prepare for menacing, inky doom! 

Squid Girl has come from the depths of the sea to conquer humanity for its pollution of the ocean. Within moments of arriving on the surface world, our easily distracted, little invertebrate is promptly bullied into working for the Aizawa sisters as a waitress, supplying their restaurant with squid ink. If poor Squid Girl can't handle two pushy Japanese girls, how will she ever subjugate the human race? 



Opening Song:  Shinryaku no Susume - Meh, I really didn't like this song much at all. Skipped it almost every time.
Ending Song:  Metamarism by Kanae Ito - This wasn't so bad, slow... nice music. Good Song.


Thoughts:  Attempted to watch this show on CrunchyRoll before but, It just didn't do anything for me at the time.  Then Netflix gets it, It's Dubbed, I thought....maybe.   So there it went.
      Every episode is like two little episodes, Random nonsense really with some running themes. The way Squid Girl speaks got on my nerves at first but as it grew on me I found it quite amusing.  It's a relaxing show, one to watch whenever you just want to sit back and chill.
      Too bad Media Blasters won't be dubbing the second season.


Who we have....


Squid Girl -  Always snarfing shrimp, she spits ink, she glows, she has tentacles for hair, she's a math genius and she's here to take over the world! Well, At least that was the plan. From the sea she came only to run into difficulties as soon as she entered the upper world.
     The Lemon, A beach house ran by the Aizawa family and her first target for domination. Hoping to make the house her headquarters she quickly finds out that there are frightening things on dry land.  Chizuru.
After accidentally smashing a hole in the Lemons wall she is forced to work there as a waitress to pay off the repair bill.
     As the story progresses she's really seen more as entertainment than a threat, At least to most people. Day by day she learns more about the upper world through curious misadventures and actually makes "friends" with those she's trying to conquer.. sort of.  She's also quite afraid of the blow up killer whales, Seeing that the real things try to eat her in the ocean.

Eiko Aizawa -  Squid Girls babysitter, Although she'd probably never admit she cares deeply for the blue tentacled girl. Always the one bringing the others down to earth so to speak she is constantly getting irritated by Squid Girls antics.

Chizuru Aizawa -  The Older Aizawa sibling, She's normally quiet and polite but you do not want to get her angry.  Squid Girl is terrified of Chizuru due to the fact that she's a knife wielding maniac... Basically.  Throughout the series she goes into psycho mode just a few times but that's all that's needed to keep most people in check when she's around.

Takeru Aizawa -  Chizuru and Eiko's younger brother, He and his friends really tend to worship Squid Girl and will go out of their way to make her happy.   He's like her playmate.

Sanae Nagatsuki - Eiko's friend and Squid Girls stalker.. or should I say wishful lover.  At any given opportunity she is attempting to glomp on Squid Girl, Normally to be flung away by her tentacles.  This tends to attract her even more crazy, masochistic stalker girl.

Alex -  Sanae's Dog, He really dislikes Squid Girl since Sanae is so infatuated with her. Even after the two of them have a small adventure together and saved each other from a giant, ferocious dog... He still hates her.

Running Themes and Odd Things...

- Squid Girl can spit ink, like a squid. Chizuru uses this ink on the pastas at the Lemon, Which grosses Eiko out and all but apparently it's quite tasty.
- There's a Rival Beach house{Southern Winds} with an owner that's just insane. Well, Maybe not insane but he has his extremely shy daughter wear unusual gets up that tend to have giant Squid Girl like heads.
- Cindy Campbell, An American Alien Hunter.  She's in Japan with three of her cohorts looking for Aliens and she thinks Squid Girl is actually one.. A Squidian.
- Cindy's cohorts are, Harris, Clark and Martin.  They are extremely smart {sort of} MIT Graduates that want to run tests on Squid Girl.
- Someone is actually afraid of Squid Girl and believes her invasion is an actual threat, That someone? Nagisa Saitou.  She's a surfer that takes a job at the Lemon, Squid Girl loves her since she's the only one that's scared of her.
-  Unrequitted, Goro. He's a lifeguard at the beach and claims to be the protector of the sea!  He has a huge crush on Chizuru of course he can't bring himself to tell her this.  Also, Squid Girl misinterprets his protector status at first and thinks he's like her...


The End:  Time on land apparently has taken it's toll on Squid Girl, No longer does she really need her squid abilities and her body starts to evolve or maybe devolve. With her tentacles, ink and everything else not working it's decided that she should go back to the sea.
     While she's gone everyone is sad, lonely, bored and constantly looking out to sea for Squid Girl. She seemed to have been gone for the Fall/Winter seasons and then... She comes back!  Her abilities however have not.
     Now with short hair, she works at the Lemon as any normal human would. Using her hands for everything which is rather inconvenient seeing that she use to use her tentacles to carry stuff.  It's not until Eiko nearly drowns that her abilities come back to save her.. Yea.. That was a little cliched.


Favorite Character{s}- Too hard to choose, Pretty much loved them all.

Favorite Episode-  Episode 3; They are all quite good but the combination of Squid Girl glowing in the cemetery, the killer whale floats and Nagisa showing up was just the best.


TidBit; In the last episode while Squid Girl is on the beach alone, A new girl shows up. This girl tells Squid Girl she isn't alone up there with the humans and not all the humans were bad. To me she sort of looked like a Jellyfish but.. after further poking around it turns out she's probably an Octopus Kozue  Tanabe.

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland ~ Platinum!

Alternate Title:  I hate some of these Trophies..


Bought:   June 4th 2012

Beat:  July  4th 2012   {Normal Ending}
Beat:  July  16th 2012    {Game Over}
Beat:  July 17th 2012     {Cordelia Ending}
Beat: July 19th 2012   {True Ending}
Beat:: April 12th 2013 {Gio,Tantris,Iksel,Sterk,Lionela}
Beat::  April 14th 2013  {Astrid}
Beat:  April 18th  2013    {Adventurer}
Beat:  April 19th  2013  {Good,Bad}
Beat:  April 25th 2013    {Rich}
Beat:    April 29th 2013   {Pie}
Beat:   April 29th  2013     Complete.


Trophies:  53 of 53
       Fourth Platinum!



Thoughts:   The Totori Platinum was much, much easier. For some annoying reason the Pie Ending would just not trigger on my Rich games save, No matter what I did.   So, I did an uber speed run from hell and just got all of Iksel's events with a True Ending and all the Pies made.
     This gave me the Pie Ending!!
Anyways, The last play through was actually rather enjoyable with just having to worry about Iksel's flags and getting the Pie stuff.  Pretty much ignored everyone else...
    Certain parts of the game itself really stuck out after having played Totori for such a long time, Like needing the items in the basket when you go to turn them in.  Yea, I could have done without that. Continuously going back to the Workshop for the items was a real pain in the ass...
    The time restraints were much nicer though, Seeing you didn't spend any "time" while fighting monsters or while gathering.  Of course if you didn't spend time while doing this stuff in Totori the game would have lasted FOREVER.
    I did find myself getting a little bored sometimes, After exploring the opened areas, getting all my stars and crafting the same stuff over and over again.  I just didn't really have much to do... But sleep till the end of the assignment.


Characters:   Endings.


Astrid Zexus-  Her ending was easy to get, You just had to trigger pretty much everything plus the True Ending.    As always Astrid leaves town at the end of the game leaving Rorona to handle the workshop alone with Hom.   The difference?   She comes back.
     Astrid returns to the village to open a rival shop, She certainly didn't get the reaction she wanted though when Rorona breaks down, hugs and cries on her.

Iksel Jahn-  His ending needed the "Good" low stars but high popularity.  After blowing up her workshop quite a few times, Iksel throws the idea at her to come with at his cafe.  During the end she puts Hagel to sleep with one of her creations.

Sterkenburg Cranach -  Again, Rorona has blown up her workshop 19 times in the past two months. This time she's talking to Sterk though... Apparently Astrid asked Sterk to watch over Rorona and with all of her messes.  He decides to move into the workshop with her.  Awww... It's difficult for her to concentrate with him hovering around of course.

Tantris - The normal ending, You get enough stars to stay open but the people in the town don't like you much. Rorona is bored, There are no requests coming into the shop so she decides to go on an adventure.
    Meanwhile in the Castle, Tantris or really Tristan is preparing for his first day in training to become the Minister.  Running into Esty she tells him that Rorona was leaving so... Out he goes, Leaving a letter saying "I can't do this." for his father.
   Outside of Town,  Rorona and Hom run into Tristan as they are sneaking out of town.
  I didn't like Tristan much the first times I played this game but, After this go around he really did grow on me and he seems to be more Rorona's age then Sterk.

Lionela -  So, She does have magic and all but.. the talking puppets are actually her speaking for them.  She was lonely and made them "come alive" to keep her company.  To get her ending you have to fix her puppets that apparently broke when subconsciously she started to believe that she no longer needed them.
     She does need them though and when they stopped "talking" she freaked out, Not really realizing that she was the one who was making them chatter to begin with.   Well, Rorona or should I say Astrid fixes them by making Lionela remember that it is her that was bringing them to life.
    Her ending starts pretty much the same as Tristans but, She leaves with Lionela instead of him and she and Rorona end up having to preform for money.  Meh.

Gio -  The King of Arland, Rorona finally finds this out when you go out with him to fight the Bandits that had been terrorizing people. It turns out that the current Minister was supplying them with bombs and such for some reason.
    After the fight with the Bandits Sterk shows up and scolds both Rorona and the King, While doing so he lets it slip that he is in fact the King and Rorona only freaks out a little.
   His ending is cute,  Rorona becomes the Royal Alchemist and he's always sneaking off to see her and running off with her.  He makes it quite clear that he'd like Rorona to become his Queen but... She's oblivious to this.
      Pervy Old King,  The image of him hiding in her cauldron is quite adorable though.

Good Ending -  True Ending - Bad Ending - Normal Ending - So Forth - All were sort of generic but go figure, There were some funny moments but... I won't be going into that.

Rich Ending -  This was amusing, Rorona got so much money by the end of the game she never had to work again.  She was literally laying in her money piles while Hom was asking her when she was planning to work again.

Pie Ending -  Bored with Alchemy Rorona turns to her one true love, PIES!   This ending was a pain in the ass to get, It glitched or something and I had to redo the entire game. Anyways, Instead of keeping her Alchemy Shop open she opens a Pie Shop! To Iksel's dismay, She is now his competition in town.

Other Stuff-  I didn't get it before but, With getting all the shopkeepers Friendships up I got Hagel to come and request a wig from Rorona.  This thing turns out looking crazy, Like an Afro even and it's insanely heavy.
    After playing Totori I was really kind of wondering if Pam would request a body, Tying it into that game and all but she never did.
   Esty,Esty,Esty,  The poor woman keeps on about her age and not having a husband. I wish she would just get with Sterk or someone...  Maybe make her the Queen she was closer to Gio's age then Rorona.

What now?   I'm never, ever, ever going to play this game again.  Well, More then likely I won't.  I'm happy that I finished it... I am moving onto Tales of Graces F....probably.... if it keeps my attention.   It may be a while, A long while before I go to Meruru since I get kind of obsessive about platting these types of games lately.

April ~ It's an Eleven Dollar Month

I  did it.

I just bought one thing with actual money.

Sony was nice enough to give me a free 10 Dollars to use on the Playstation Store but, As for actual buying for entertainment purchases.... One item.


That item was...


Cardcaptor Sakura Omnibus 4:  These books are amazing, Well made and have nice pretty pictures in them. Also, if someone breaks into your house you could probably do some hefty damage to a person with one.
       They are heavy, Massively heavy.  While reading earlier volumes I'd have to take breaks because my wrists started to hurt..
       The downside to this release however is the awful Dark Horse logo on the side, What smart person decided to change the logo on currently running series?  Seriously, You could have just slapped the new logo on new series or series that only had one other volume released... Uhg.
     Now it's all out of whack with the other three.



Though, Anyway... That's all I bought.








Network Purchases:  Sony for some reason gave me a free 10 Dollars to play with so... Having been looking at it for sometime and actually wanting to buy it for the Playstation 2.
     I bought Fatal Frame.
People have always said this game is scary, Even putting it in their scariest game suggestions.  So far? Not really scary.  I have been making a point to play it at night with the lights off to see if I can up the scare factor but... other then it being a little creepy it hasn't caused any jumps or starts.
    Of course I am only about two hours in.


Malicious, It was a free game and thank goodness it was. It's...strange to say the very least.. It's a game full of bosses.  It's one screen for each area with you killing things and the giant boss. I haven't really given it a lot of time but, I have a bad feeling that I will be regretting allowing this thing onto my Trophy List.





Labyrinth Legends,  haha, This game is cute.  It's addictive.  It's kind of irritating at times. Though seriously, It was the best free game I downloaded this month...or maybe even the best free game available this month. Demons Souls was available but, I did not download it and yes... it's more addictive then that.







Cardcaptor Sakura Omnibus 4 -   $10.79
Fatal Frame -   "Free" 10 Dollar PSN Credit.

Total;   $10.79


This was a good month, May is looking pretty good too considering there aren't any games I want showing up and I doubt I'll be finding much else to buy.  June will be a Fathers Day month so that will be easy on my personal spending as well.

Yey!


Free Games {The Growing List}

Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One
Darksiders
inFAMOUS 2
Quantum Conundrum
Closure
Joe Danger 2: The Movie
Spec. Ops: The Line
The Cave
MALICIOUS
Labyrinth Legends