![[Hadena] Shining Hearts - Shiawase no Pan - 12 END [10bit][720p][75AF558F].mkv_snapshot_12.11_[2012.07.03_19.30.40]](http://i1.wp.com/www.halfey.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Hadena-Shining-Hearts-Shiawase-no-Pan-12-END-10bit720p75AF558F.mkv_snapshot_12.11_2012.07.03_19.30.40.png?fit=500%2C300)
I think it’s fair for me to say that I watched this because of the Tony Taka-designed characters.
KugiRie-voiced character, except that her voice wasn’t heard in this episode.
Goodbye KOS-MOS, er, “Queen”. Let’s meet again someday.
Picture probably unrelated but it’s Christina so there should be no problem.
In the last few days Google on the other hand announced their take on tablet business by launching the ASUS-made “Nexus 7″ which immediately made available for purchase after the Google I/O event. For me Nexus 7 is more like a competitor to the existing 7″ Android tablets like Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook rather than iPad. Alongside that they also announced another Nexus-branded product which is the “Nexus Q” streaming media player, together with the recommended premium-priced Triad bookshelf speaker. I’m not interested in that player but if I got the money I’d get the speaker for sure.
With both Microsoft and Google already have their own tablet hardware let’s not forget about another company that is new to this tablet business. Vizio, one of the major household names in the US when it comes to LCD TVs are making their own PCs that look as beautiful as Macs if not prettier. For the first time I feel Macs now have a serious competitor that even longtimers in the PC business failed to achieve that reputation. They are also making tablets but so far the focus is more on their laptop and desktop offerings. Now I wonder if they would make their way to this part of the world.
About anime, yeah most of Spring 2012 titles have ended this week and we’ll be watching Summer 2012 anime starting next week. This spring I enjoyed titles like Tasogare Otome x Amnesia, Sankarea, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, Acchi Kocchi and a few others, including titles carried from winter (Aquarion EVOL). Titles like Shining Hearts and NazoKano will end this week too (the finale for those series is not available yet by the time of writing). Other than that, Mouretsu Pirates, another title carried from winter will have its finale aired by tonight and I’m going to see Chiaki-chan again (^_^)
Speaking of ‘pirates’….. for now I’m happy with me being able to watch anime almost as the same time as it was airing in Japan. Earlier this week Apple has launched iTunes music store in my country after so many years waiting. The only problem is I can’t purchase anisongs from it without registering to the Japanese iTunes music store. Of course I could always register by using the iTunes prepaid card and use a random Japanese address but it shouldn’t have been that tedious! Record labels nag about piracy but then they never make it easy to get although I’m willing to pay! Bullcrap!
By the way do you have a blog? If you do then I would like to have a link-exchange with you. If you don’t have any then I’m inviting you to become a co-blogger at my blog. Currently I have only one co-blogger and I’d like to expand that number. I don’t set any particular requirement to become my co-blogger; as long as you’re interested and passionate about it then it’s enough. You may also give it a try by becoming a guess writer first so if you’re thinking of joining my team then reply to this post and I’ll guide you to the next step. Note: you may write about things other than anime/manga/games.
For Shining Hearts this week, I’m not sure which part I should start with and which part I should put to the end. Let’s just say that Rick has finally decided to become a warrior once again to save Kaguya. This is no longer about saving the island anymore, because Kaguya is already treated as the islander thus the palace ordered Rick to save her too.
There’s more revealed about Kaguya however where she ‘s not only from the other world, it’s the world of war where she might happen to be the strongest there. There’s a high possibility that Rick and the Le Coeur girls also from the same world as their arrival were also the same as Kaguya (being washed to the shore with no memory of the past other than their own name). Another important thing revealed about Kaguya is her real name is Sakuya and the key to her unimaginable power is her mysterious pendant that is now in the prince whatever’s hand (now it seems like a good thing the prince confiscated it from the thief kitteh).
Oh by the way Xiao Mei the kitteh and Hank once again escaped with ease now that all the guards are preparing for a possible war (it seems like nothing can stop those two if they are serious). However the escape is not just an escape to flee but actually to assist in the ‘war’. You know Hank is extremely good at machineries and he seemed to have built his own weapon of mass destruction that is about to get into action.
That’s one badass 2-wheeler you have there, ojou-san.
You don’t mess with the “Saturday Night Rider”.
(Top) Maeda during working time. (Bottom) Maeda’s strict meganekko boss.
In everyday life she appears to be a tall, plain nerdy-looking (but oppailicious) meganekko who works at a convenience store but every Saturday night she would go patrolling the city beating up the bad guys as guided by Matsukaze. By beating up bad guys are including “correcting bike riders into becoming a true kabukimono” while at the same time enforcing some ‘moral’s on them, which is not really a bad thing to me. Quickly she gained a feared reputation among the bad guys and of course that’s really a good thing.
I found this sexier than the last week’s episode and the one with Masamune too (and she might even be on par with Masamune in terms of “oppailiciousness”, if not better).
One thing that has been disturbing Maeda is the thug whom she “talked to” one day in front of the store has bought a colourful boxer. Maeda who always have the mindset that “kabukimono must always wear white underwear” felt she must correct this because she sees modern bike riders and thugs as ‘kabukimono’ too and not because she was having a grudge or something against him. However the way she ‘teaches’ him about it was way too sexy that I have lost my words to describe it but before that let me show you her ‘henshin’ sequence (even sexier than the sexiest henshin I’ve ever seen before!).
The moment before transformation into Saturday Night Rider.
Transformation in progress.
Transformation into Saturday Night Rider 100% completed.
This is what I call “reverse raep”.
And a reverse raep is still a raep if you ask me.
For a reverse raep to work it’s necessary to undress and flash your underwear first.
And as the one who does the raeping you’d need to act ‘S’.
Once you’re done with flashing and ‘S’-ing then you may proceed with the riding position.
Once you found the perfect position then you may start doing ‘everything else’ until you’re satisfied. Reverse raep done.
Next in episode 13.
The ‘Queen’ (as ‘she’ introduced herself).
This kitteh was caught.
Reminds me of KOS-MOS and Shion in Xenosaga.
Those aren't panties, they're shorts. Sorry to disappoint.
Like I said elsewhere, I hate kitsumimi but I can give exceptions sometimes.
That fox girl was down for not being able to stop the thieves.
Happy fun with mizugi though too bad there wasn't much "nice angles" to take awesome snapshots of.
Can't wait to see this "KOS-MOS lookalike doll" moving.
Open your eyes KOS-MOS, er, I mean "mechanical doll".
Kitteh loves fish-shaped bread, with passion.
Kitteh reflexes is no match to that of a human.
This is the "Flora-san".
Bitch or slut?
Dylan warned that there’s a chance that a huge warship might attack the town (island) soon and offered Flora to ‘flee’ with him. Flora declined as if she has decided not to rely on Dylan ‘anymore’ (Dylan must have helped her a lot before). Dylan seemed fine with that and then left the island.
Ero by default (because it’s by Tony Taka)
On the other hand Kaguya, the girl who recently washed to the shore now has become healthier and might be discharged from the clinic soon. On one night while walking back from Flora’s bar Rick met her who was taking a night stroll. While they were at the seashore Rick asked her the same question (whether she remembers her past or not) but Kaguya seemed not worrying much about it for now.
She should have stayed at the clinic.
The most interesting part is in this episode is the last few minutes towards the end. Hank went to Xio Mei’s place and they seemed to be plotting something together. Well I don’t mind if that means the KOS-MOS-lookalike ‘robot’ will walk again and I want to see her connection with Kaguya.
When talented people like Hank and this kitteh join forces, something interesting will happen.
Cute turn uglee
The above pic maybe old but I decided to put it up after seeing it in my G+ stream yesterday and I didn’t get the chance to write about it back then so I could say this is a ‘delayed’ criticism. Actually I’m not going to criticize the immediate subject in the above pic but about how ‘rude’ some people are when they write about something without consulting the people who know best about the subject even if they wanted to write something positive about it. I’ve read the related article in the above magazine and I must say it’s a positively written article but the author was being too arrogant and showing no respect to the existing Miku fans is actually what makes me pissed off.
I don’t have to name the author but the worst part about him is he didn’t feel guilty about it, let alone apologize to the fans for using real human to represent Miku. He said since Miku isn’t a person so anybody would have to use some fanarts to represent her, thus he used a real model because it’s his form of ‘fanart’. Well it should be fine if it was an article about cosplay but if what he wanted to write about was Miku then using real model would not work because due to how our brain function (read about “Uncanny Valley” and you’ll understand).
Originally uglee
Most gamers would know immediately the character shown above. Going straight to the point I must say I haven’t seen any uglee female game character like this since Lara Croft (Tomb Raider). Yeah those who think they appreciate the beauty of art out there might disagree with me but let me tell you something; beauty is art but not all art is beauty. Bayonetta might be one of the best example of the ‘art’ in games but sorry she is just artistic but not beautiful.
Monster girl
So I heard you like catgirls? I’ve written somewhere that I see catgirls as monster girls, and I dislike monster girls. For me monster girls are including (but not limited to) female angels and elves, as well as those with demon wings, horns, fangs, vampires, claws, tentacles, etc. No matter how cute they are I’d still prefer human girls though I admit that I do have a few exceptions like Xiao Mei from Shining Hearts (pictured above) probably because I love cats and catgirls are the most tolerable species of “animal girls” to me. I did say I ‘dislike’ so here I must say I ‘hate’ a certain “species” of monster girls too such as foxgirls (kitsumimi), dawggirls (inumimi) and a few more.
The real reason I’m writing this was because I feel hesitated to write a review for the latest episode of Shining Hearts: Shiawase no Pan (ep. 07). I also didn’t write the review for 6th episode either last week. If you ask me the real reason behind that was there hasn’t any awesome snapshots I could get from the 2 episodes. To be honest I can’t come up with a proper episode review without snapshots from the said episode.
The awaited mizugi episode has arrived and we got to see Neris and Xiao Mei the catgirl in their glorious appearance! Xiao Mei, being the new attention (and given the main screentime for the first time) already served us with appearance in swimsuit! Of course I’d love to see other girls in their swimsuits as well, including that Kaguya girl.
Amil is still in blues from the thought of Rick picked up the sword in the clinic back then. She is having trouble to get rid of it from her mind. She must be really worried about Rick, after all Rick still haven’t regained his lost memories from the time he arrived at the town.
The story starts with Xiao Mei, Neris and Rick agreed to pick up whatever was lying on the sea floor. For that Xiao Mei rented a ship but even after numbers of attempts they still failed to bring it up. Then they requested Hank to help them, though he refused at first, thanks to Xiao Mei telling him the details he agreed to help them with his machine (after all he is highly curious about the connection between the KOS-MOS lookalike robot with something that lies in the sea).
With Hank’s help they managed to pull the “treasure chest” up at the cost of Hank’s machine and some serious damages to the ship. Hank finally found “the missing part” of the robot that prevents her from repairing herself. Too bad though the result of their hard work soon ‘confiscated’ by the government soldiers because of some stupid laws.
The stupid law (I want to kill whoever made that law whom must be some king resides in the palace) seems to have been around for a long time. Now the law is passed to newer generations as a taboo “do not take from the sea what you will not eat” from the original “taking objects that lie on the sea floor is not a gain, but a loss”. In the end, despite their effort they were given nothing, not even a token of appreciation.
In this episode it was revealed that Hank found the KOS-MOS lookalike ‘robot’ by the sea-shore too (she even ‘speaks’ like KOS-MOS too!). I hope somebody will rob the soldiers and return the treasure to where it belongs because I want to see that KOS-MOS lookalike robot alive! After all this episode is supposed to focus on her!
'She' looks like KOS-MOS to me. Don't you agree?
The first half time was fine with the usual happy-fun day to day life but starting from the second half the episode began to feel like wasting too much time unnecessarily. The scenes always involved slow-mo camera movement (not sure if that’s the correct way to explain what happened here) but for better understanding you should see for yourself. I think they should have used that time for explaining more things about Kaguya or Rick’s background instead of dumping it in the future episodes.
Rick has a feeling that he had met Kaguya before but he still can’t remember the time before he arrived at the town (or was it an island?). However his body seemed to remember being an expert swordsman that he by reflex grabbed a sword to defend Kaguya from the town guard who was trying to kill her. The guard felt that he had to do it in order to stop Kaguya’s pendant from shining as the town safety takes the highest priority at that time.
I’m actually kinda interested with the andro-mechanical ‘thing’ that resembles KOS-MOS at Hank’s place whose presence is still unknown to Rick and the others (from the next week’s episode review she seems to be some sort of “mechanical doll” which means a ‘robot’ just like KOS-MOS?). Not sure how Hank got ‘it’ there but I’m kinda disturbed by the way he treating her (maybe because she ran out of control back then). ‘She’ seemed to have some sort of connection with Kaguya though so that means Rick must know ‘her’ too.
Oh I did mention about Kaguya’s pendant shining so bright and how she seemed to have some connection with that “thing” at Hank’s place (and the other “thing” hidden somewhere in the sea). Thanks to that ‘thing’ that resembles KOS-MOS (who was also ‘shining’ at the same time), she shot some sort of beam attack at the sea, effectively wiping off the entire pirate ships. Not sure if ‘she’ is on the good side or not but if not because she was there the town might have been plundered by those pirates.
To end this I think it wouldn’t be too OOT to explain why I always have the things for KOS-MOS. Just like how you people have the hots for 2D fictional characters, I feel the same towards KOS-MOS too. That being 2D (not human) plus the fact that she is not human even in that 2D world adds more excitement to me.
Title: Shining Hearts – Shiawase no Pan
English title: Shining Hearts – Bread of Happiness (?)
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Harem
Sub-genre: Action (but looks like “happy-fun” and slice of laifu so far)
Flavor/Theme: Bread-making
Character design/Original artist: Tony Taka (character designer), SEGA (game maker/developer/creator)
Source media: Game
Seriousness factor: Medium
Studio: Production IG
Episodes: 12, “half-season”
OP: “Jisei-kai ~Toki Sekai~ (時世界～トキセカイ～)” by Kanae Itō, Mai Aizawa and Shiori Mikami
ED: “Fuwaffuwa no Mahou (ふわっふわのまほう)” by Kanae Itō, Mai Aizawa and Shiori Mikami
Airing status: Currently airing
Aired by: CBC, MBS, Tokyo MX
Watchability factor: Medium
Rewatchability factor: Medium
Hateability factor: Medium
Recommendability factor: Medium
Characters: Rick, Amil, Neris, Airy
Characters I like: -
Characters I’d like to beat to a pulp using a spiky baseball bat: -
What I’m in for: ….. bread-making?
What I hate about it: -
Other noteworthy remarks: -
So what is this anime is all about? I can’t really tell. What I know is it does have some sort of harem element. However at this point it still feels like a slice of laifu. Although I could still sense a crisis is coming but for now everybody seems so happy. At least the characters are designed by Tony Taka (now I’m waiting for Kantoku to design anime character too).
My first impression on the first episode was this series is a slice of life anime with people waking up in the morning, work their asses of throughout the day and then back to sleep again at night. Sounds boring? I couldn’t tell that either, possibly because as Tony Taka’s fan, seeing his artworks being animated would easily make me forget about any flaw that comes with it. Sorry for being unprofessional here.
It’s been years since the last time I saw a bread-themed anime (the last one being Yakitate! Ja-pan. I didn’t take Yumeiro Patissiere into account since it’s more about cakes and sweets and candies). If compared to Yakitate Japan, this one didn’t really teach the audience about bread-making except occasional moments where Madera taught Rick some dos and don’ts. It’s a sign that this is more about the story than the bread-making itself, though bread-making still plays a major part in the plot.
Oh yeah it’s Shining Hearts series, set in a fantasy world so of course you’d see elves and monsters and weird animals inside. I never liked elves to begin with, even if the have hot bodies and oppai. I can’t help but to see them equal to that of monster girls (that I don’t like either). However they are still more acceptable to me than some girls with horns or tails or tentacles (or even wings. Yes, “Angels” are also monsters to me). Now I have to say sorry to some Touhou girls.
Before I end this I think it’s important for me to tell you that it’s still hard for me to recommend it that this point. Not that it’s bad or anything but it’s still impossible for me to see where is this series going.
