A weekly look into American otaku culture

You know, considering that my target audience for this site would be college-age male anime fans, it’s not going to be too often that you will see me write up any series that are made for little children. That’s not to say that they’re bad. In fact, I actually like a couple children’s anime shows like Hamtaro and Magical Meow Meow Taruto. But in general, these shows are too filled with frills and fluff to keep my attention for long, which is okay because they are for children after all, not myself. But there’s a show in particular that’s been buzzing around the blogging community that I had to check out. And behind all the frills and fluff comes a number of things that really do make this series enjoyable to even the college-age male anime fans.

Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime (”The Twin Princesses of the Mysterious Planet”), takes place in a world in which the sun is located in the center of the planet. The several kingdoms on this planet rely on this “Sun’s Blessing” in order to keep the world peaceful and prosperous. But when this light begins to weaken, it’s up to the twin princesses of the Sun Kingdom, Rain and Fine, along with their little elf-like companion, Pumo, to save the planet with their magical princess powers. But do the most un-princess-like princesses in the Mysterious Planet’s history have what it takes to do it?

Okay, so the story isn’t really that exciting to me. It seems that in each episode the princesses encounter someone who’s not quite performing “up to par” and they fix it. A princess too scared to dance? A cook who can’t make his rice spicy enough? A fire dragon with a bad cold? Just one magical girl transformation sequence and the problems are solved. Thus teaching the kids that if you just can’t do it yourself, magic will always solve it. But then again, I guess all fairytales are like that, huh?

Once you get past the simple storyline, you really do have a good show. First let’s look at the eye candy here. This show, like all other kiddy anime, is cute. Really, really cute. How cute is it? Well, I was fortunate enough to have my girlfriend watch most of the first episode with me. The way she reacted to the cuteness should be an accurate representation. And so here’s this show’ss performance on the Jenn’s Squee-scale.

So there you go. This show earns a rating of a very large “EEEEEEE!!!” on the Jenn’s Squee-scale. I believe we have a new record here.

But there is one thing that made me squee too, and that would be Princess Leonne’s ears. You see, I grew up with two pet cats. I used to find it so interesting the way that their ears would flicker when even the slightest thing would touch them. I could easily amuse myself with testing out this very cool reflex of theirs. So the first time I watched Candidate for Goddess on TV, my heart was won over by the cat-girl protagonist and her identical ear flickering.

So it’s because of her flickering animal ears that I completely fall in love with Leonne. It’s not very uncommon to be attracted to such a thing either. Recall the first episode of Inu Yasha and how Kagome spent quite a long time flickering Inu Yasha’s doggy ears. I believe that this is just another anime ideal that satisfies the pet-lovers out there.

Another big surprise with this series is the comedy. This show has some very funny moments that made this blogger crack up even after watching it several times. I particularly love the random outbursts such like this:

“You’re Pumo?”

“TELL US! TELL US! TELL US NOW!”

I also enjoyed the music and visuals of the OP and EP. I’m surprised you don’t see more dancing in other series during the theme songs. I mean, you got the music, go get that those feet moving. The OP is very catchy and upbeat, featuring the royal family step-dancing, the other princesses doing some kind of para-para thing, and the twin princesses shaking their booties at one point. The EP gets a little classier with the girls doing some ballroom dancing to slower music. For some reason, it vaguely reminds me of “Watashi no Tamago”, the EP to Dragon Half, except the princess EP is little more elegant and a lot less on crack.

But the thing that I have to really express is just how wonderful the fansubbing is on this show! It’s done by a newcomer to the fansubbing community, Fushigiboshi☆Subs. Okay, so what the group lacks in name creativity, it makes up for in content. The subs are very sleek, sophisticated, and dare I say, downright sexy.

Okay, okay, enough of the joking. Fushigiboshi☆Subs is actually my fellow anime blogger, Matthew. Considering that he was the only one doing it and it was his first time fansubbing, I really didn’t expect it to come out so good. Well, shame on me for ever doubting him! His subs are as top-notch as his website is. The biggest thing I’ve got to commend him on is the fact that he subtitled the advertisements at the end of the OP and EP. I have never seen that done before, and I’ve always wondered just what the hell they kept on saying over and over again. So I really have to give it up for that!

The only criticism I have to give Matt would be the color-coding of the text. I was never a big fan of it when other groups did it. I just think it’s a waste of time, too gimmicky, and I end up ignoring it anyway. But when the color changes right in the middle of the line, it does become very distracting. With fansubs people should be more focused on the show then the subtitles. So this is just a little suggestion for next time from me, but ease up a little a on the coloring. Otherwise, I think this is one of the best subtitling jobs I’ve even seen. Fantastic job, Matt!

So sum it up, being that it’s a show made for children, the storyline is very simple and full of frills and fluff. However, there’s no way that you can resist the absolute cuteness of the characters. Older anime fans can also appreciate some very funny moments, a fun and catchy OP and EP, and the bliss that is Leonne’s flickering ears.

Many of you will recall that not so long ago I had a post of mine cited on Anime News Network. That little link resulted in a huge flow of traffic to my site as well as some brief server problems throughout the day. But still, I was very pleased that it happend and hoped that it would happen again.

Well, it did, but this time it’s a little differant…

Planet Tokyo, an off-center Japanese travel guide, posted an article today on the financial problems of the anime industry. My opinions were mentioned in the article about how I feel that the fansub community doesn’t support the industry financially, and a paragraph from my post was quoted.

While the article was sympathic to my views, the readers weren’t. It’s only been two hours since the article was posted, but I’ve had to turn off the comment feature on that post due to the large number of very wordy, negative feedback I was getting. You know, you can only hear the same thing so many times before you start getting annoyed by it. So this time around I did delete the really nasty ones. Hey, as long as you support the industry in some way that will translate into money for them (which includes just watching anime on TV), then you have no reason to argue with me. I’m saying that everyone should be do as you do! But conversely, if you are completely screwing over the industry by only downloading shows and nothing else, you have no right to argue with me. But whatever. Even negative publicity is still good publicity, right?

So despite the negative feedback, I still think that being considered worthy enough to be quoted in an article is a postive thing for both myself and the whole anime blogging community. People do care about what we have to say and value our opinions. After all, what’s the purpose of a blog if not for expressing our own editorial reviews an opinions! So, I’m still very, very happy about it!

And by the way, since that post I did end up buying the first volume of Girls Bravo with the box. It should be arriving any day now in the mail. When it does, I’ll be sure to write up a nice little piece on it! But for now, lemme finish this Twin Princess write-up for tomorrow! (^_^)