Ani-Monday on August 6

Well, we were back to our regularly scheduled series last night on Ani-Monday.

As usual, I ignored the Street Fighter II series which came on at 11, focusing my time and energy on Noein and Tokko instead.

First though, a word about the end caps to the commercial breaks. This week finally featured some new ones. Including one from what I believe is Read or Die; an OVA which is supposed to be on Ani-Monday in the future, and is one of the things which I'm really looking forward to. How can I not? It's an anime about books and a super-powered librarian.

The plot really does sound better than I'm making it sound up there.

Anyways, the translated clips still lack the humor from previous weeks, but it was nice to see new ones show up. I am wondering about those freaky, black-and-white drawing things, which show up during commercials for Ani-Monday. Why not use something a bit more, related to anime than something as random as those things. Heck, nothing says anime like a girl in a sailor fuku, so why not spend the money wasted on those things, and design a better logo-character. After all, they'd get more attention, if it was a moe, meganekko sailor-suited girl, than whatever they are.

And no, I'm not providing links to what those two terms mean. Research is good for the soul.

Anyways, Noein was still dealing with the repercussions of Haruka being taken to the future. We flipped back and forth between the future and the present, watching Yuu have a mental breakdown in both time frames. Over all, it explains a lot of what's going on. The voice actors have settled in better here, or else I'm just getting used to them torturing the delivery.

Over in Tokko we're now out of the answers phase, and into the part of the plot where bad things happen to confuse the main character, even though he supposedly was given all the answers. Yes, it really is as confusing as it sounds. Fortunately, as a viewer, we know more than the main character, so we have a better idea of what is happening. Additionally, we don't have the whole issue on whether or not to believe what he's being told, we as viewers know that it's true. Of course, he really doesn't have a choice in that matter, as the bad guys certainly believe in him.

So, basically, we have some answers. We got some violence. My wife got to hear a blond anime girl tell the main character that she would "cut his *@%$ing head off." My wife then asked, why the character just didn't curse, and I had to start explaining cable's tendency to censor itself, despite the fact that it is not subject to the FCC's decency rules.

Not sure why, but she went to bed at that point. Personally, I find the relationship between the FCC, Cable television channels and broadcast television channels highly stimulating. It's right up there with reading War and Peace or really anything by Tolstoy.