Excuse me whilst I teach people to suck eggs for a while.

So, in the second episode of KanColle, there’s a scene where Fubuki bumps into Akagi in the bathhouse. Akagi apparently took some minor torpedo damage in the skirmish from the first episode, and as such is taking a soak (and popping bubblewrap) whilst she’s being repaired. Much to her delight, particularly given she was otherwise going to be stuck there for the next fifteen hours, the Admiral sent her in an instant repair bucket, allowing her to depart, and consume vast amounts of food, much more quickly.

This scene is a little odd in so much as it’s a realisation of game mechanics in the actual show in a peculiar fashion. I kind of feel like I need to explain the joke somewhat, because it likely comes across somewhat differently to those who play the game than it does to those who don’t.
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This week in Cinderella Girls, we meet the Energy Drink, the trademark-infringement-free way to restore your idols pep anytime, anywhere.

This is, of course, a concept lifted from the original mobile game – it’s one of the many items which can be used on your idols to provide a beneficial effect. That said, whilst I call it “legitimising micro-transactions”, I’m mostly joking, because it’s one of those things that is a little difficult to to properly place a significance on without actually being a player of the game. It’s probably for another post, but the bath scene in last weeks KanColle rather puts that into focus, as I’m sure that came across completely differently to those in the thick of the war against the Abyssal Fleet than it did to those who aren’t (by which I mean, buckets are common as muck without paying for them). Mostly, though, it’s just a small, if a little weird, acknowledgement of actual game mechanics in the show, something that the previous iDOLM@STER show never really got into.
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I don’t usually write about this kind of news these days, but, hey, I figure there’s probably an exception to be made for many a thing in life.

So, to presumably to tie in with the Cinderella Girls anime which is now airing, Daisuki have started uploading episodes of the original iM@S TV show. “Big whoop” is probably your reaction to that, but the specific interesting thing about this is that, unlike the North America-only stream of the series on Crunchyroll, the regional restrictions applied on Daisuki appear to be more inline with those they have on Cinderella Girls.

That is to say, this marks the first occasion that the show is available in the UK (and at least some parts of of the rest of Europe, I gather). Now, this isn’t the first iM@S material available over here, as whilst we were deprived of iOS Shiny Festa, Animax picked up the second (and only the second) series of Puchimas a couple of seasons back, but I guess it’s the most significant.

That being said, yeah, yeah, Daisuki. As someone who keeps a PC hooked up to the television for use as my primary anime delivery mechanism these days, I actually managed to watch through the first episode of Cinderella Girls and Tsukimonogatari flawlessly, which is a big improvement over trying to watch Hanamonogatari last year (I gave up). I understand that for those folks who like to stream their cartoons via their games consoles it’s not particularly useful (though Daisuki do have mobile/tablet apps), but, hey, it’s one less excuse I’m going to accept for having not jumped on the cartoon idol bandwagon in the future.

The first spot of the new anime season, it’s the Mikan box so orangey they deemed to label it twice – that is, they’re Mikan Mikan boxes. They’re all over the boys club room, too.

There’s not really a ton to say about Cute High Earth Defense Force LOVE, aside from the fact that the shows title is a wee bit of a mouthful. This is largely because it’s very much the kind of show that you’d expect the folks involved in it’s production to produce – the shows director, Takamatsu Shinji, made an awful lot of Gintama. The shows lead writer, Yokote Michiko, made an awful lot of Gintama. The episode director working on this opener, Miyawaki Chizuru, worked on Wandering Son. Also, made an awful lot of Gintama.

This probably all sounds like me being awfully reductive here, but in CHEDFL, it’s a little difficult not to stress that they’ve made a show that very much sports the same kind of sardonic tone, and the same kind of dialogue and directorial cadence, as what is arguably the most significant of their previous works. Right from the opening, it just noticeably has that feeling to it.

Which is, you know, fine – Gintama is a good show, but they’ve, well, made an awful lot of it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking the lessons learned whilst adapting such a long running manga and applying them to an original show with new characters and a completely different setting.

(Not that this is the first time these folks have done such a thing – also see Ixion Saga DT, though what I watched of that one was a wee bit hit-or-miss. Will be curious to see if CHEDFL is more consistent, though I’ll probably forget to watch it from the second episode onward anyway…)

This is an obligation post, to a degree. I figure that people would think it would be weird for a new iM@S cartoon (or just a new late night otaku idol anime) to air without me passing some kind of comment on it, but, as I’ve previously mentioned, I don’t really DereM@S. This isn’t really my territory, and I can’t really tell anyone anything that they couldn’t pick up just as quickly by skimming the fan wikis instead. I mean, whilst I’m the kind of guy who knows about most of the surreal Uedo Suzuho cards purely by cultural osmosis, I’m really not equipped to pick up the apparent use of Nation Blue, instrumental or otherwise, in the soundtrack.
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