otome wa boku ni koishiteru 6
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Tagged: otome wa boku
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Challenges: dare to confront what can only be imagined. A story of a girl, her water trauma, and plummeting animation quality.
I’ve been racking my brain over this issue lately, and if one takes a gander at the available haremettes for Fall 2006, wouldn’t Mizuho rank in the top ten? We’re talking about just sheer attractiveness here. Rounding out the top ten, I have Nayuki (Kanon), Kahoko (La Corda), Karen (Code Geass… though you can make a good argument for C.C. and Shirley as well), Rinka (Gift), Lenalee (D-Gray Man), Kahula (Angelune), Misa (Death Note), Matsukata (Hataraki Man), Karada (Day After Tomorrow, grown-up version). Out of these ten, how many would trump Mizuho-oneesama? Karen? Basically, Mizuho is a top three talent for Fall 2006.
The two girls who could trump Mizuho-oneesama in the Miss Fall 2006 pageant star in the same series: Mariya and Shion. If only Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru was done by a better art house (i.e. Bones, Kyoto, Production I.G., or, egads, I’d even accept Gonzo at this point… just keep them away from the scripts). Basically, sticking Mizuho-oneesama, Mariya, and Shion with this really low budget art team is like using a powerful Cell processor to run the likes of Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire and Genji: Days of the Blade.
Still, I’m not surprised by Feel’s plummet in art quality– the previous few episodes already began to show signs of over-reliance on pan shots as well as still shots, and now with an episode where fanservice is key, they don’t do the fanservice right. Maybe it’s a marketing tactic– with anime these days mostly shown on late night TV, they’ve become a virtual informerical for the DVDs and associated products. Maybe there is incentive for the animators to hold something back for the TV release as a carrot for the DVD release– for example, those annoying strips of police tape in Chokotto Sister and Galaxy Angelune? Gone for DVD. As for nudity and fanservice, anime in the 1990’s generally had tons more nudity and fanservice than today– one episode of Outlaw Star had more tops falling off than all of Shuffle!. Even Gun x Sword‘s infamous cover donkey was covering, uh, swimsuits and not nakkidness. One possible reason being back then, anime made money from commercials and less were shown on late night.
Nonetheless, with DVD and related merchandise sales very important to the health of the anime industry, doesn’t it strike us, the fans, as being important that we buy the DVDs to support the industry? Makoto Shinkai became popular on strength on sales of Voices of a Distant Star, which provided him with the financial leverage to make The Place Promised in Our Early Days, which then turned into a megabucks licensing deal that is financing Byousoku 5 Centimeter. Keep in mind that Utawarerumono‘s spike in animation quality occurred roughly a week before ADV announced that they had licensed the show. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but generally an infusion of cash helps make the world go round and round**. Think that from Princess Mononoke and on, Ghibli relied mostly on Di$ney financing to get their movies made. As a fan, if you enjoy something, buy it. I’m not saying become Chris Beveridge and buy everything, just buy something… even one DVD, one volume of manga… that’s a start. And I’m not just writing this because I’m disappointed that I can’t find any further volumes of Noodle Fighter Miki on my local bookstore shelf.
(** Unlike The Simpsons and other American cartoons, generally anime is animated on a much tighter deadline… something akin but not as bad as South Park. Here’s a great article from Fortune about South Park’s hectic production schedule.)
In other news, when I was in high school many, many Kanon‘s ago, I needed to pass a state test in swimming to graduate. Sad thing was that there wasn’t any requirements on something like, oh, physics or chemistry, but, yep, swimming. The boat and watersports lobby is strong in Michigan, methinks. Still, when you’re in high school, coed swimming classes are something that you showed up on time for.
Okay, time for the market news. This week, a rally in school swim uniform fetishes.
Seiou Academy Stock Report
UP Mizuho-oneesama… I don’t care anymore. Just shoot me. No way there’s a penis on this. None. I won’t accept it. The more important question: “Are those real?”
(This year is the 70th year celebration of the invention of the bikini. It’s name does come from the Bikini Atoll islands, the site of many nuclear bomb tests. I’ve heard it both ways that the name is either to protest the bomb or to emphasize the “explosive” nature of the swimsuit. Still, since it is a French invention, I prefer to refer to them as “liberty cleavage.” Kidding.)
UP Blushing and flustered Mizuho… I think when certain girls blush or get flustered, they can get really, really cute. So, of course, I tend to tease them to try to get them into this state, and I think that’s what Yuuichi is doing with the Kanon girls: they’re all superior blushing and flustered, especially Nayuki, Ayu, and Mai. Of course, it varies from person to person, as you probably won’t be alive trying this with Revy, Loli Balalaika, Haruhi Suzumiya, or Zero Louise without the love-love drug.
Just here in Otome wa Boku, I think Mariya is just having fun with Mizuho since Mariya definitely likes blushing and flustered Mizuho. A simple “I’m allegoric to chlorine” with a fake doctor’s note and they’re set. Mariya is basically taking up the Yuuichi role. If only Mariya instructed Mizuho to go to the nearest drug store to pick up some condoms tampons and lip gloss.
(I loved the trauma montage. Reminds me of poor Dororo… now that’s an asshole: Keroro. Yuuichi is about 5% of the asshole that is Keroro.)
UP Mariya’s pillow… um, that’s one lucky pillow.
UP Takako… finally, an episode where she’s not annoying. She’s the exactly opposite of Gift‘s Riko in the ツンデレ meter… whereas Riko was mostly デレデレ, Takako is mostly ツンツン. I thought that the late scene where Takako was napping on Mizuho’s lap was touching and that Mizuho looked extremely feminine (and why shouldn’t oneesama look feminine?). The final “suki desu” was great– if only Mariya or someone capable of jealous was in earshot.
(And, uh, at no point did the verb “Shizuru’ed” cross my mind during this scene. Never. Not even if Shizuru was also the class prez and Natsuki was the “outsider”…)
DOWN Mizuho’s fashion show… not enough time spent on this segment of this episode and not enough outfits attempted. Not only that, the animation was subpar– if it were Kyoto Animation, I’m sure they’d be making people forget about this five centimeter nonsense with their interpretation of a Mizuho fashion show. My hopes for Nagasarete Airantou is taking a hit. Overall, this episode’s animation quality wasn’t very good as they relied on too many still shots, like the entire competition at the end. It’s like they ran out of time animating this episode.
(Still, Mizuho’s white blouse/black pants outfit was cute. If only Studio Deen had Rena wearing something like this once in a while.)
UP Mariya… besides needing better animation supporting her, Mariya’s a very fun character to watch just because she seems to be out for mischief. Potential fanservice is always a possibility with her on-screen, just like Rasheed Wallace and technical fouls. Still, I have two random comments about Mariya: they needed to play “Eye of the Tiger” during her training sequence. Splurging for the rights to “Eye” and a few more cells of animation, it would have been a sequence worthy of goosebumps. But alas. Second, I’m surprised that they brought up the fact that Takako’s family is rivals with Mizuho’s. That’s one way to blow a possible cover if Takako just realized, “Hey, they don’t have a dau–“, if I believed that Mizuho had a penis and all.
DOWN MTV Real World Road Rules Challenge… why does the final competition remind me of a lame RWRR challenge? I was hoping more of something like “transferring body paint without using hands or feet” or “trying to melt a cubic meter block of ice as fast as possible.”
UP Girls locker room footage… desperately needs to be on youtube. Okay, let me get this straight, if Mizuho really were a man, what kind of institution would allow him into a girls locker room where all the girls dress/undress? That school is opening itself up to a shit load of sexual harassment lawsuits. I can only picture the field day respected CNN reporter (*chuckle*) Nancy Grace would have over this controversy. Therefore, Mizuho must be female. Even Shion got confused about the on-going “ruse.”
UP Symmetrical docking… 4tw. Especially with possibly two top ten Fall 2006 haremettes entangled.
29 Responses to “otome wa boku ni koishiteru 6”
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Not a trap^10th
That is an impossibly well pulled off dress-up if not.
Huh? With the right amount of hormons everybody can grow boobs. If you haven’t seen pre-op transsexuals yet, I wonder whether you have actually internet access.
I was referring more to the gigantic lack of anything downstairs. Female or world’s least endowed male at the least. Unless his parents had a sadistic enough nature to make him take hormones, make him tuck his genitals between his legs, and send him to an all-girl school.. then again this is Japan.
…. symmetrical docking. Between that and the shot of Ichiko going THROUGH Mariya two eps back, this show has just about everything but the ‘everyone on the harem master at once’. :D
ya those hips look wayyyyyy too feminine. im pretty sure ive never seen a guy with lovehandles like that.
Medical Scince is wonderous thing. Heh, working Operation Crossroads into an anime post, for a pseudo yuri series. So if and when Mizuho has to drop the bomb I am hoping for a BAKER rather than an ABLE.
I also had a farce of a swim test requirement before graduating, but I never really had to swim until basic training.
>>Basically, sticking Mizuho-oneesama, Mariya, and Shion with this really low budget art team is like using a powerful Cell processor to run the likes of Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire and Genji: Days of the Blade.
I take it that you didn’t bother trying to get a PS3 like the legions of dissappointed gamers.
So, if Mariya and Takako have such a colorful relationship what are the chances that they will have a full blown yuri party in the possible event that your hopes and dreams for Mizuho oneesama get dashed?
@Moo: That is one awesome 403 page. the 404 and 500 pages are not too bad too. Need to save ’em pics.
Anyways, I don’t care about Mizuho anymore, I just need more Takako, especially when she goes all nervous when people mention ghosts.
Dear god, I can’t imagine what would happen if she’d paid a visit to their dorm and met Ichiko.
eh. it works for me, though. srsly.
fine. here:
http://img299.imageshack.us/im.....a03fs4.jpg
WHERE, GOD, etc.
@Moo: It is a shop. I can tell because of the pixels, and from seeing quite a few shops in my time.
@sagematt: It is doujinshi. I can tell because of its pervyness, and from seeing quite a few doujinshi in my time.
Perhaps Mizuho’s mother had a bit of Kei and School Rumble’s Takano Akira in her. Mizuho is really a girl, raised as a boy just because her mother had a fetish for “boku-ko”s and enjoyed creating a doppelganger of herself in that image. Her grandfather probably decided that after his death, when Sachiho can’t haunt him any longer, Mizuho could be brought to a girl’s school to understand her *real* gender. Besides ASAIK, Mizuho is a girl’s name…. or is it a gender neutral name like Hikaru? Anyone out there know about this bit?
It is art from the game. Try this link:
http://www.caramel-box.com/pro.....phics.html
You may need to copy and paste it. If that doesn’t work, start from caramel-box.com and look around until you find it.
And one of the sample pictures on that page is Takako.
>>Not only that, the animation was subpar
At least it wasn’t as bad as green bouncing balls from wal mart.
@Chris: Actually, no, it’s from the game’s CG. A game that doesn’t exist/didn’t happen, because we all know OtoBoku is only a yuri show, not an eroge :)
@Gary: heh, denial.
>>Mizuho-oneesama… I don’t care anymore. Just shoot me. No way there’s a penis on this. None. I won’t accept it. The more important question: “Are those real?â€
One of those bathing suits had some good body fit and showed no “bulge” on Mizuho. I’m going to follow the “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then its a duck” rule. Mmmmm duck
Badger11…I did that once…
…it turned out to be a hat…I’m serious…a hat…
…
fberry – how the HELL does one do that with a ghost? I never figured that out…
>>fberry – how the HELL does one do that with a ghost? I never figured that out…
“She slimed me!”
>In other news, when I was in high school many, many Kanon’s ago, I needed to pass a state test in swimming to graduate. Sad thing was that there wasn’t any requirements on something like, oh, physics or chemistry, but, yep, swimming.
Heh, I needed one to graduate college. Of course, we needed physics and chemistry too… The wife of a business man who drowned on the Titanic donated a lot of money, and her one condition was that everyone who goes here learn how to swim.
Mmm probably is hypnosis or self-hypnosis.
She’s a girl but she don’t know.
O maybe s/he’s an hermaphrodite.
I don’t care anymore. Just shoot me. No way there’s a penis on this. None. I won’t accept it. The more important question: “Are those real?â€
I posted the following comment over on Omni’s blog a couple of minutes ago. The second I hit “submit” however, I realized it was more suited for an AOMM thread.
Here’s what actually happened;
The director walked into the studio one day and said “Hey guy’s, guess what! Were gonna do a show about beautiful bishoujo’s at an all girls school, but to spice things up, were gonna put a dink on one of them. Trap’s the new black for fall don’t you knowâ€.
As all his animators started packing up their stuff, and muttering things like “No friggen way†and “there’s enough tranny stuff out there already†and such; he was forced to say †Just joking, Mizuho’s a hot chick, I was only yanking your chainsâ€.
So the team did high fives and a lot of “Yuri FTW†was heard. The animators sat down and drew the story thinking that Mizuho was a girl the whole time.
Later on the seiyuu’s (who are all enormous perverts – especially Horie Yui) re-recorded the script, while making reference to the fact that Mizuho sported junk, and was actually just a girly man.
So that’s why Mizuho has a tight waist, round hips, large breasts and a sexy walk (and a girls swimsuit when she was younger).
Just out of the toaster… our favorite trap series has it OST fresh for you.
And if you can make conclusions upon the cover of the Disc, the anime would have a Mizuho x Takako ending for sure. Go and get your music…
>> Baka-Kun
Damn true…
Well, while I can’t say I feel privileged to know this (the acquisition of the knowledge that follows was not exactly by my own choice, but by clicking the wrong links in the Cosplay forums), but…
…the technology of transgender/crossdressing has improved a bit much. Some breast forms can be implimented to appear almost natural, with no creases (I’m sure makeup has something to do with it). As for his figure, some guys do have girlish figures. And, yes, I’m sure he’s tucked in… er… down there. Even so, in the case of his entering the water, I don’t think Mariya, Shion or Mizuho are sure of the effects of water on, say, the glue holding his breastforms on, his tuckjob, or… stuff of that sort. I’m sure he’d do just fine. Mmmmm… water-drenched Mizuho~
In other news… anyone heard any updates on the Season 2 or licensing of Season 1?
guys dress as girls O_O im sure that can only end badly if ur not Mizuho-oneesama.
and season 2 better hav the feel has the first three episode those where the best
I must apologize for my last post… it was a bit too graphic and rather awkward. I’ll do what I can to make up for it by presenting a logical selection of options we can choose to decide if Mizuho is male or female.
Before I begin, I suppose I should make a distinction between Anime Mizuho and (what I assume to be) the Eroge Mizuho. For the following steps to be accurate, we MUST assume that the two are different beyond just slight design/animation differences; instead, given Eroge Mizuho’s track record for, um… keeping his hands to himself, we must assume that Eroge Mizuho’s and Anime Mizuho’s ethics are different, with Anime Mizuho’s being a fair bit more strict and based on the Christian ethic.
Well now. Given the following challenges to Mizuho’s masculinity:
* Why would Mizuho be allowed into the locker room?
* How can Mizuho be male if he looks JUST so female?
* Wouldn’t Mizuho have been found out MUCH quicker?
* How can Mizuho be male if he sounds so female? (The sole point of the use of Horie Yui notwithstanding)
We can consider the following options:
1) Mizuho is a girl and fits all the criteria, and the students have no idea. The school allows him to use the locker rooms on the condition that he doesn’t do anything stupid or tasteless, at the cost of being kicked out and most likely humiliated with the public eye zooming in on him. His figure and the technology used to design himself as “female” is just that impeccable and he was JUST so fortunate (read: him, unfortunate; us, VERY fortunate~) that it all worked out like so. This being the case, his combination of a strong sense of ethics (not acting out on any of his hormonal desires) and his appearance and, assuming, mindfulness of his situation, keep him from being discovered in less ways than physical measures. His voice is much like a few unfortunate male individuals that just plain don’t have manly voices.
The only problem is, how likely is THIS? What kind of man on God’s great Earth (it’s great ‘cos it’s got Mizuho :3 ) is girlish-looking, ”-sounding, and ”-acting enough to make such a great girl? I’m sure this is POSSIBLE, without question; however, it’s highly improbable.
2) Mizuho is male, but the school (a good percent of the students and staff) knows about it, but don’t mind as long as Mizuho doesn’t do anything stupid or tasteless. This takes some of the strictness of the conditions for 1) away, as well as lend this explanation for the line of one of the students:
“She must be a girl like us, but apparently she’s really pretty!”
Why would she say that? Wouldn’t the fact of Mizuho’s alleged femininity be sort of redundant to state, unless they had a perogative to use that sort of terminology specifically in the event that Mizuho might overhear?
The only problem with this idea is that it would take the consent of much of the school’s students and staff that, as long as Mizuho acted on good terms, they wouldn’t mind him attending and even seeing things most males his age are prevented from seeing in most cases. Also, why would Takako and Ichiko (and/or other characters that show surprise at Mizuho’s masculinity) not know about it if the rest of the students did? Actually, this one is almost less likely than 1), but has less conditions to be hammered out.
3) Mizuho is male, but the animators did not intend for anime Mizuho to be as feminine as he appears (sort’a too late now, buddies… not, of course, that we mind). This “unintended exaggeration” could be why we can accept Horie Yui’s voice as that of a male character’s; maybe Mizuho had an unfortunate accident on a see-saw/teeter-totter?. Perchance eroge Mizuho is not as “obviously” feminine as the anime Mizuho is? The Otoboku staff, then, would have to resort to the conditions of 1) to be true, or confess that they messed up in this sense.
4) Mizuho is male, and the animators are just exaggerating some features of the eroge’s storyline and atmosphere (read: character designs, retooling some of the situations for ‘cleaner’ eyes to see). Sort of a “Hollywood Re-telling” syndrome from the Eroge to the Anime, we are supposed to see the events that take place in the anime not as a “live” telling of said events, but as interpretations of what took place in the game, presumably at an earlier time. However, this would weaken the integrity of the anime and make it sort of a poor example of what the game covers. If this were the case, we would’ve seen a bit more of Mizuho… and not just by number of appearances. \:3
5) Mizuho is female. The animators and staff are throwing us fanboys (and some fangirls… who knows?) for a rather cruel loop. However, why then would there be so much stress on Mizuho’s part to “act” female and be “girlish” at risk of being “caught” when there’d be nothing to “catch” about her?
6) Mizuho is futanari, possibly raised as a sort of “both” individual. This would explain the picture of Mizuho as a child wearing a girl’s bathing suit, but, again, if Mizuho were raised as “both”, why then would there be such stress or such a problem to have Mizuho act as something that should be at LEAST half-nature?
7) We shouldn’t care. Mizuho is Mizuho is cute is Mizuho. It’s a friggin’ anime show. Who cares about gender as long as there’s fanservice?
I imagine 7) will be a rather popular choice, most likely because it’s true. I’ve got too much time on my hands, or, at least, I do too much stuff with the little time I have.
Yea, uh. I’m not sure any of you have noticed yet but Mizuho didn’t get a single boner in this entire anime? Did he like get his wang chopped off or something?
I think we’re supposed to assume he’s… tucked in, for one, and has… things angled specifically, for another. There’s actually a lot of technology for that sort’a thing. (This could also have been a reason for not entering the water during the swim segment of P.E: They weren’t sure if their… maintanence would… uphold against the water, persay.)
…on an only slightly related note to that information, I now officially hate cosplay forums with crossplay sections.
lol.. not fun actually! lol nnd jk la.. sianz!
The eroge and manga are infinitley superior to the fagtastic anime. In both he pops boners ’round the clock and, despite all odds, packs enough heat to satisfy a school full of horny catholic girls. Seriously though, in some localizations, put two wheels on his dick and it’s a fucking cannon.