Brandon Varnell's Blog, page 24

First chapter!

Just a quick update. The entire first chapter for my book, A Fox's Love, is now available to read. Simply click on the American Kitsune tab and you can read it to see whether you would like the book or not.

Have fun!

A good anime that didn't quite reach its full potential

Now here is an anime that I enjoyed watching, but felt didn't quite live up to it's full potential. Date A Live is the story of a young man named Shido Itsuka, a seemingly ordinary high schooler who comes across a mysterious (and hot) girl dressed in armor at the ground zero of a spacequake, which is essentially just a large explosion of pure power that causes mass amounts of death and devastation. Shido soon learns that this girl is called a spirit, and that spirits are the cause of all spacequakes. He also learns that his cute little imouto is the commander of commander of super-advanced and powerful airship and is recruited to help seal the spirits powers, thus stopping their threat to mankind.

There is a catch to this however. In order to seal a spirits powers he must first make them fall in love with him and kiss him.

One of the things I really enjoyed about this anime was that it has a very interesting take on how to do a proper Harem genre. It's idea of the Main Character needing to seal off the incredible powers of a spirit by making them fall in love with him and kiss him is probably the most original harem story I've seen in recent years.

The issues I have with this anime is not in the harem itself or how the Itsuka goes about getting one, but rather, the main character himself. Like just about every other harem protagonist, Shido Itsuka is a very plain, dull boy, especially compared to the wacky and ridiculously beautiful women he finds himself surrounded by. He just doesn't stand out in any way, just like Tsukune Aono, Rito Yuuki, and other protagonists of the harem genre. And that makes him boring.

Fortunately, a second season of Date A Live has been released. It's only got 3 episodes right now, so we can only hope something happens to make Itsuka man up, because I do not want to see another harem protagonist who can't make up his damn mind about the women in his life.

Overall, I give this anime a 7/10 due to the originality of the storyline, the artwork, and the crazy beautiful girls.

Ecchi, Fanservice and...Character Development!? Oh my!

Ecchi has become much more prevalent in anime these days. And as its popularity grows it seems almost like each anime is trying to outdo the other in perversion to the point where they neglect the story itself for the sake of T&A.
As a guy, I can freely admit that I love ecchi. If there is one thing the Japanese know how to do, it's draw their women. Despite that, I often find myself disgruntled by the lack of actual plot and character development in most of the newer ecchi.
Fortunately for us, Girls Bravo doesn't do that. While the story itself has more scenes of random nudity, boobies and panty shots than many other anime, it also has an incredible amount of character development and plot to go with it. And get this; the ecchi comedy is actually funny. It's not like these newer anime where you see a pair of boobs and your only thoughts are: "Okay, now what?"
The story of Girls Bravo is about a high school student named Yukinari Sasaki, a boy who is so afraid of girls that his fear actually turned into an allergic reaction. Yeah, he gets a rash whenever girls touch him. The poor guy. Fortunately, after having a run in with his busty neighbor who, for some reason beyond my ability to comprehend, was in the shower, Yukinaru gets kneed in the face and thrown into his tub.
Poor guy? Not really. You see when his neighbor Kirie smashes her knee into his nose and he ends up in the bathtub, Yukinari is magically teleported to the world of Seiren; a world where about 99.999999% of the population is made up of women.
Sounds like his worst nightmare, right? Well, it probably would be, if it weren't for the fact that the first person he meets is Miharu Sena Kanaka, a gorgeous girl with pink hair, a generous figure and an appetite that makes Son Goku look like a forty pound weakling. The good thing about this meeting is that Yukinaru finally finds the one girl in the entire universe who does not give him allergies.
Naturally, it took having him get sent to another world via having his face smashed into find her, but who wants to sweat the small stuff.
Without giving too much away, while the story itself sounds kind of cliche'd, it's actually really fun to watch. This is one of the only anime that I actually liked so much I went out and bought the entire two series dvd collection of. It's THAT good. If you are a fan of ecchi, fanservice, and watching as a young man with a serious girl problem (pun very much intended) grows into himself, this is definitely an anime you'd enjoy.

Eyeroll

Rather than give you guys a review, today I have decided to address an anonymous review who posted on one of my earlier chapters in Harry Potter and the Heir of Slytherin.

I don't remember the exact words, but the An review called themselves Eyeroll, and their review was basically talking about how the relationship between Harry and Lisa Crawft is completely unrealistic and that no 11-12 year old kids would be that close to each other physically. They went on to mention how Harry placing his head in Lisa's lap was disgusting and then said they should report my story for pedophilia.

After laughing for several minutes I ended up deleting the review, but still felt the need to explain myself.

The relationship between Harry Potter and Lisa Crawft is based on a real life relationship I had with a girl when I was younger, between the ages of 6-14. This girl, who shall remain anonymous, was very close to me, we literally did everything together. And yes, we were so close that it would not be unusual to find us snuggling together under a blanket or for me to have my head in her lap while she ran her hands through my hair. We did this when we were 9-13, and only stopped later on when my friend got a boyfriend.

In some ways you could say our relationship was sort of the inverse of Harry's and Lisa's. I had the major crush on her, but she had placed me firmly in the friend category despite how intimate we were. I never did date her, and she ended up moving away at some point and we eventually fell out of contact. That being said, the relationship we had was almost exactly like Harry's and Lisa's right down to how we acted with each other. It's the reason I found Eyeroll's words so funny. He called their relationship unrealistic when I was using a relationship I had with someone else as an example.

HP and Shuffle!

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Hogwarts Shuffle is a Harry Potter/Shuffle crossover that combines all the harem goodness found in Shuffle with the humor and writing style expected of fanfic author GinnyMyLove. The story itself is decently written. The authors only real issue is his punctuation. He tends to put commas where periods are needed, periods where commas should go, and sometimes just adds a comma or a period for no apparent reason. This tends to disrupt the flow of the story, especially if you're a grammar nazi, but if you can get past that, it's not too bad.
I think my biggest issue with this story were the Harmony and Harry/Ginny moments. I'm not afraid to admit that I have a personal biased against those two pairings. I find Harmony repulsive because Hermione reminds me of my sister and I don't want to think of her in a manner anywhere close to sexual; I had to skip every part where Hermione flirted with Harry or something of a physical nature happened because of this. And I personally don't like Ginny at all. Aside from the fact that her character was never developed and she just sort of comes out of left field all of a sudden because Harry's suddenly got this big green monster inside of him (Cough love potion cough), what little of her that we do see makes her come off as a fangirl. Let's face it, we only see her a few times, and except for when she's snogging some guy she's dating (to get Harry's attention, of course), she usually comes off as a fangirl. I mean, wasn't she dreaming of being Mrs. Potter long before she had ever met Harry? Sounds like a case of fangirlish hero worship to me.
The other problem I had, one that is not as large but still annoying, MASS OOCness. Almost every character in the story was OC in some way. Now, I don't mind Harry being OOC. Let's face it, if you're writing an HP fanfic about Harry Potter, he's going to be OC. That's why we write Harry Potter, to turn our favorite green eyed, scar-faced wonder into an actual hero. However, while OOC Harry is acceptable, OOCing other people for no discernible reason is not.
Let's take Hermione as an example. Hermione Granger is a studious girl who doesn't have any experience with romance. The closest she comes to flirting in the books is arguing with Ron, and only a fool would actually think that's flirting. From the first chapter of Hermione's introduction in Hogwarts Shuffle, we see her blatantly flirting with Harry, laying in his bed, sitting on his lap, making sexual innuendos at his expense. This is not Hermione Granger. Not only is it not Hermione, there is no discernible reason for her to change so much. For the entire summer she was stuck with Ron and Ginny, and let's be honest here, neither of those two would have made her turn into this flirty and vivacious woman.
Because of how many characters had nearly 180 degree personality changes, I couldn't get into the story as much as I might have. Overall, I would rate this story a 6.5/10 for quality writing and an original plot, but take points away for OOC characters without showing their development first, grammatical errors, and my own personal biased. For those of you who like Harmony or Harry/Ginny, I would recommend this story. For those who don't, I would suggest reading the first few chapters to see if it's something you can hop on board with.

The different kinds of POV in storytelling.

Hey everyone, just updated my Writing Tips section. As asked this tip is about the different POVs, or point-of-view, that are found in storytelling. It had a lot of information in it, so be sure to read it thoroughly. If you have any specific questions ask me on this post and I'll do my best to answer:



This is the link to my writing tip this week: POV

Ashikabi no Shinobi, chapter 31 Q&A

The Q&A for chapter 31 of Ashikabi no Shinobi is officially up for those of you who are interested. (^_^)

Is there such a thing as too much fanservice?

Maken-Ki is an anime that has almost no plot...or so everyone has said. This is not exactly correct in the truest sense, but the plot has been so underdeveloped for the sake of having so much fanservice that the plot feels practically non-existent.

The basic plot is this: "Takeru Oyhama has enrolled at Tenbi Academy, a high school that converted from all-girls to co-ed. Hoping to have a life full of ogling pretty girls, he reunites with childhood friend Haruko Amaya, who shows him around school. However, he learns that the school is for students who possess magical and spiritual energies called Elements and who wield crafted weapons known as Makens. The students engage in school sanctioned combat matches that showcase their powers. While his own ability and Maken is not apparent at first, Takeru soon finds himself surrounded by girls, including Inaho Kushiya, an attractive girl who says she's his fiancée, and Kodama Himegami, a popular blonde who says she wants to kill him. He joins the Security Committee, also known as Maken-ki, which supports the student council's operations."

This plot reads exactly like every other Harem-genre anime out there, from the random guy who ends up in an all girls academy where something unusual (magical girls, battling robots, etc. etc) happen, to the the guy ending up with several girls who seem to be attracted to him for no discernible reason (Childhood friends, promise made over a decade ago, they kissed when she randomly fell on top of him). Even the humor is terrible, not just cliche'd but understated in such a way that it's simply not funny.

It this lack of originality in plot more than anything that ruined Maken-Ki for me.



Let us take the main protagonist as our example of what's wrong with Maken Ki. Takeru Ohyama is, in all regards, plain. He is exactly like every other harem protagonist out there: perverted, idiotic, a complete loser with zero intelligence and no talent except for one ability he can't even control....oh, and he seems protective of his friends. Sound like someone you know? How about several someones? This guy right here personifies what it means to be the progatonist of a harem anime. An idiot no girl would look at twice who somehow makes several girls fall in love with him for no discernible reason.

Not only is the plot underdeveloped, being nothing but a thin smokescreen for ecchi fanservice, but the character development is stagnant. None of the characters ever evolve, they never change. In fact, everything remains the same in this story. Even at the end there is no real difference from when the series started. Just about the only good thing this series has is the ecchi fanservice.









This anime gets a 4/10 in my rating. And the only reason I'm even giving it one that high is because the ecchi allowed me to force my way through to the end.

Quick Update!

This is just a quick update letting you know that the Q&A for Chapter 45 of Shifts in Life is now posted.

One of the most Awesome Anime Ever!

Okay everyone! I just finished watching what I feel is one of the most badass anime of all time. It's called Guren Lagann. As someone who has been watching anime since 1992, I've seen a lot of the animations that Japan has to offer. Out of all them, this one was one of my favorites. It quite literally has everything; a solid plot, good humor, action, adventure, awesome mecha battles, total BAMF moments complete with Shounen manga speeches, romance, and most important of all actual character development.

The story starts off like this: human beings live undergroung , eeking out a living as well as they can. It is a wretched existence, one that people only live because they don't know anything else. Among these people are two young men, Kamina and Simone. Kamina's dream is to one day climb to the surface, Simone has no dream, he just digs holes to help expand the colony they live in. One day while digging, Simone discovers a tiny drill. Little did he know that this drill would become the key to humanities future...




Known as Simone the Digger, he is the main character of this series. At the start of the anime, Simone is something of a frady cat with no aspirations. He doesn't really have anything going for him, and his only purpose seems to be paraphrasing Kamina, who he calls Bro. However, throughout the series we see him go through may transformations and actually get to watch as he develops into someone worthy of being a Shounen manga hero, which is more than I can say for most mainstream Shounen manga heroes whose only real change is their power level.


Kamina must have taken several levels of badassery, because he is one of the coolest characters I've ever seen in anime. Kamina prides himself on being manly and tough. At first glance he appears to be extremely boisterous, hot-headed and hungry for greatness. Never is this more illustrated then when he refers to himself as The Mighty Kamina. He is also extremely perverted and Yoko has said that he is "a man of unlimited stupidity." Despite his loud and perverse antics, Kamina is very determined and insightful, despite his often reckless and downright insane antics. One of his favorite quotes is: "Just who the hell do you think I am!?"


Because no anime is ever complete without the big-breasted fanservice girl, I give you Yoko Littner. Yoko is a surface dweller who originally came from one of the underground settlements. Unlike Kamina who is impulsive to the point of stupidity, Yoko prefers to think before jumping headlong into battle. She is very mature and tends to be protective towards Simone, Kamina and the children with them. Perhaps the most shocking thing about this gorgeous lass, aside from her ginormous knockers and incredible figure is her age: she's only 14.


Because no anime is complete without a good romance, I give to you, Nia Teppelin. From her first introduction into the series, it's quite clear that she was going to be the romantic interest for Simone. She naive, innocent, and very kind to everyone she meets. She enjoys making people happy and is very empathetic, especially towards Simone. Out of all the people Simone meets on his journey, she is the one who never lost faith in him even for a moment.

Awesome moments in this anime: Who the hell do you think I am!?

This anime was so awesome that I give it an overall rating of 10/10, the only one to date which has achieved this rating...I think. Well, whatever. In any case, this is an incredible anime, one that any anime enthusiast worth their weight in gold would love to watch over and over again. Yeah, its replay value is just. That. Good.
Hope you enjoy it!