As I'd said previously, it was a bit of a slow weekend of anime releases. What that really means is that Monday has a higher than average number to make up for it. OK, let's start from the top:
BECK - episode 24, Koyuki's rendition of "I've got a feeling" drew the crowds in and the newly reformed BECK/Mongolian Chop Squad played a couple of their most popular tunes to the audience at the third stage. While full of stock footage, the feeling of a crowded low-key gig was definitely conveyed well enough; I often found myself singing along to their songs. Ryuusuke also got one last chance to play with Lucille on stage which was nice to see. Will they meet the challenge of pulling in a larger crowd than the first stage? Stu and I were discussing this earlier and it doesn't seem likely; they'll probably go with the band splitting up ending or they get signed up for a record deal anyway at the end of it all (cop-out ending). Only two more episodes to go before we find out...
Gundam SEED - Destiny - While not much happened for the majority of the episode, it was certainly amusing to get to know Heine Westenfluss' character a bit more. Coming across as being much more laid-back than Athrun, his interactions with everyone certainly livened things up. The Minerva and Archangel crew have just discovered that the Earth Alliance and ORB are now united in their fight against Plant. Athrun's pretty much screwed since he's no longer sure where home is anymore. And of course, Freedom made a dashing appearance right at the end of the episode destroying Minerva's main cannon to the familiar tune of "Life goes on". Its also hinted that Neo has definitely gone through the same memory conditioning treatment that Sting, Auel, and Stella have gone through, further reinforcing the idea that he is indeed Mwu Laflaga (spell it as you wish) and not a clone. Haro^2 and Tori^2 are indeed Aone under a different monicker; while I have been watching SEED fansubs lately, I've not been 100% happy with the quality of the translation and to me at least, it feels a bit rough and ready compared to Aone's.
After sitting on my Xbox for the last two months or so, I finally finished off watching Popotan. What started off as a mediocre fanservice series, turned into a rather emotionally deep fanservice series. It's about three sisters and their maid who live in a time travelling mansion. Each episode, they end up in a new location and time, although they do revisit a few places for the sake of the story. I was hugely disappointed by this show with the first five episodes; it seemed to lack any coherent plot and it featured the annoying voice actress for Nurse Witch Komugi-chan. Once a plot had been settled on, it became surprisingly good; by no means excellent but I have seen a lot worse before it.
And with one show getting finished, a new show is begun in it's place. And the candidate? Why, it's Futakoi of course. "So, what's it all about?" I hear you ask. Well, a highschool lad named Nozomu returns to his late mother's home town to attend the school, whilst his father is away teaching at a university. Because of a local legend of some giant rock, the town has an inordinately high number of female twins. Yes, this is a harem anime but it's more sweet than ecchi and from the first episode so far, it seems like it'll be a lot of fun to watch. It also appears to feature a number of popular voice actresses which I'll have to check up on later.
For any DearS fans out there, here's a .gif I made because I was bored and because I'm a "poivoit":
