Finished "Buzzer Beat"

Just finished watching final episode of "Buzzer Beat." It kinda ran out of steam in the last episode, but it's still fun to watch. Riko and Naoki's separation is kinda forced but necessary for the final climactic reunion. The cheating ex-girlfriend is well played by Aibu Saki (Riko from "Absolute Boyfriend") who manages to do "sympathetic bitch" pretty well (haha). I really liked the actress who played the Riko the lead Kitagawa Keiko. She is so pretty and wears these skinny jeans through the whole thing (hate her) but can't deny she's way pretty. As for Yamapi, I can see his appeal, but yeah, his frizzy dyed curly hair is not a good look. Oh yeah, I learned about downloading RAWs and getting the .SRT subtitles from trying to get episodes 7 through 11 because they are hard to get hardsubbed at this point. Learned something new just to finish this show! That's how much I enjoyed it.

"Buzzer Beat" OP

Conan and Andy... Back for More

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"Buzzer Beat"

I started watching the j-drama "Buzzer Beat" which stars the famous Yamapi (Yamashita Tomohisa). It has a good ensemble cast, including the female lead of "Absolute Boyfriend." There are plenty of cute actors playing professional basketball players. The basketball action takes a backseat to the romances of the show, and there are plenty of pairings to go around. I really like the actor that plays the coach Ito Hideaki. So cute! Anyway, i'm only through with episode 2, but I'll hang in there. It's kinda hard believing Yamapi could be a pro player, but I'd rather watch him in a romance than (insert any NBA player.)

"Kaikan Phrase"

"Kaikan Phrase" is a really old shoujo anime from 1999-2000 about a band called Lucifer which is composed of five hot guys including the charismatic bad boy lead singer Sakuya. The manga is popular too, but I haven't read it. The first part of the anime is about how the band gets formed, and the second part is about their career as signed band and their new high school aged girl lyricist. I'm at episode 30 and there is 44 in total. The art style is dated, but I still like it. I also like seeing the "realistic" (for anime anyway) situations about trying to be successful in a band. It's a lot of "lets' get together and put on a really good show!" a lot of the time which is corny but kind of uplifting when you are feeling cynical. Plus I really like Sakuya, the bad boy who rides a motorcycle, composes music, and sings lead vocals. You get to hear the song "Datenshi Blue" about a million times, but it's not a bad song.

"Ookiku Furikabutte"

"Ookiku Furikabutte" AKA "Big Windup!" AKA "Oofuri" is a great sports anime about a new boys' high school baseball team made up completely of freshmen. It's mainly about the pitcher, Ren Mihashi, and catcher, Takaya Abe. The pitcher Mihashi was bullied on his junior high baseball team and has really low self-esteem. Abe sees the potential in Mihashi encourages him to become more confident as a pitcher and teammate. It's really nice to see the team learn to work together. And it made me appreciate how complicated baseball can be. I never knew there were so many types of pitches and plays and how much strategy each at bat involves. This is coming from someone who really doesn't like sports. The second and final game takes place over several episodes. If I hadn't been watching back to back, I don't think I could follow the show! That aside, this anime is a really nice, wholesome break from fantasy and violence.

"Starship Troopers 3: Marauder"

I admit I enjoyed "Starship Troopers" from 1997 starring Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Patrick Muldoon, and NPH (Neil Patrick Harris). It's got a good looking cast, science fiction, pretty good CGI alien bugs, so cheesy it's good dialogue, and some satirical humor. It's all back in "Starship Troopers 3: Marauder" but with a dinky budget and horrible acting. One actress who has an strange accent I figured was South African (Afrikaans?)since it was filmed there is extra horrible. Casper Van Dien is back, looking pretty good for a decade later and the same writer is back. The low budget shows, but the movie tries to make up with it with extra gore (lots of flying decapitated and/or exploding heads) and gratuitous nudity. The end actually has some giant robot mecha (!) in it and I think if there was a larger budget it would have looked about a million times better and been featured more. I actually even watched the first sequel which sucked horribly and I had low expectations for this one. But, as you watch you get start enjoying it in a guilty pleasure way.

"Endless Eight" Over

The "Endless Eight" arc of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2" is finally over. I got so excited with Kyon finally spit out something before Haruhi left the restaurant. I supposed the animators wanted to emphasize the repetition of the 15, 532 "recursions" of 2 weeks in August by making the audience go through eight recursions ourselves, but that was a little much. I stuck it out though.

Conan and Andy Dub Anime