'Soul Eater' manga ~ some like it hot, huh?

It would be unfair if I said that this is one of the best shounen manga I have read. In fact, I've never read anything bad among long shounen series. 'Kenshin' was astonishing, I read the 28 volumes of it in my native language in some 4 or 5 days. 'Letter Bee' was a very serious intoxicating thing and I'm waiting for it to be completed so that I read it to the end. 'Jing' was an extremely weird and extremely interesting adventure.

Therefore, it's better to put it this way: 'Soul Eater' is the next item in my collection of wonderful shounen pieces, which proves once again that this genre is a source of extremely rare gems.

story and characters

Call me sexist or whatever, but female mangakas never create stories like this. Even if they make a fantasy story, it'll be about a cute girl in a beautiful dress and a bunch of hot knights. The best thing that ever managed to get away from it is 'Slayers'. Of course, there are a few other examples. But surely, you won't see an androgynous child say 'do you know where true hell is? it's inside your head'. In katakana.

Of course, a male mangaka means that there'll be something for boys to enjoy...

But that doesn't mean there's nothing for girls to enjoy. Unlike most shoujo, shounen does not mean that an extremely lame male character saves the world and gets all the girls. No, instead there are enough naked male torsos to look at

and occasional surprises to have a nosebleed with.
I mean, isn't he hot?
Isn't he?

 In case he's too young for you, have a few high-schoolers for dessert.

But that's not the point. Of course, it's not. The point is that the left side is lower than the right, and the symmetry is broken!

Okay, okay, enough with that. To be honest, this manga won my heart with a long black dress of the Heroine

You've got me, I was just kidding.
To sum it up, 'Soul Eater' is complete madness. Madness is the main theme of the manga, madness if the greatest enemy of the protagonists, but in fact, madness fills up every single page of this work.
And in the end, the true madness is really inside the head - inside the head of the author. However, this is the case I'll gladly follow it.
What I wanted to say with all these images is that this manga is gorgeous. Because the characters are hot because they are cool (now this was a real coincidence). Because they are hot exactly because they are strong, because they are ready to support each other whatever happens, because without those things whey could not win. Because when some sh*t happens, the author makes us laugh at some stupid detail like that symmetry thing or silly actions of major characters. Because right after something stupid he again makes the reader shiver and long for more, because it's impossible to let go of those wonderful people, each having his own personality and therefore personal reasons and motives, in a pinch.
I mean, this is epic.
And you know what I liked the best? The fact that, unlike most happy-ending stories, this happy end was not entirely happy like in 'happily ever after'. I don't like tragedies and dramatic bad ends, but that does not mean I like those kinds of stories where everything comes to an end and there's nothing more to tell. The greatest thing in 'Soul Eater' is that the enemy is not completely defeated, which means there will be more adventures ahead and there are still some goals not yet achieved, and the story does not end here where we part with the characters. That's much more positive and promising than when mangaka shows us how happy the characters are to finally settle down and never ever have to fight again.

graphics
It is almost strange and difficult now to recall that the first volumes give an impression that the author is 'slightly' inexperienced or at least has a very strange style. In general, the graphics gets only better with time, and every next volume makes the style more and more sophisticated, which I personally think to be important for a mangaka.
It's a rare phenomenon for me that a mangaka does not simply draw nice lines and clear contours, but bothers to create an explicit impression with his work. When necessary, mr. Ookubo even uses unusual for manga bold brushstrokes.

 When necessary, he emphasises that what needs to be felt rather than simply read.

And does not spare black colour, when necessary, writing monologues and inner thoughts of characters to make the reader taste them better.

And my favourite trick would be one page filled with black and covered with strange white stripes. At a closer inspection, it seems to be the author's fingerprints covering the whole page. But I won't show it to you because that's something you'd better find and examine yourself.

language
I would separately mention the wording in the manga, too. What I noticed it that the author was frequently using phrases that were tasty to pronounce like this line by Tesca Triptoca:
とことん混沌 (tokoton konton) - 'a complete chaos'
Another pleasant aspect for a person who understands the original language is repetitions of words and phrases that have key meaning for the story:
月だって歯が抜けてかみ合わないのに (tsuki datte ha ga nukete kamiawanai no ni) - 'even the moon cannot do it well (does not 'gear' well) because it lacks teeth' - the verb 'kamiau' that literally means 'bite each other', which was used several times with the meaning 'complement each other', 'get along well', here is used in relevance to the moon that literally lacked teeth, which made the verb have a double meaning.

conclusion
Were there any minus points? Oh yes, there were. Some meaningless deaths that are explained by nothing else but the fact that it's a shounen and it has to deal with this topic, otherwise it won't look like a real war. That's what one would have to put up with. However, I'm sure you've noticed already, I do love this manga. It was one of the best things I've ever read, let's not say anything about its genre. The perfect balance between different aspects of what manga is makes it stand out greatly. Incredibly interesting story with profoundly elaborated characters and unexpected twists, a hint on romance between some charactesr, but before that - other feelings, devotion, belief, trust, friendship and support, sacrifice and peace-making.
And the humour that made me ROFL from the 1st to the last volume.
Because, you know...
If you thought there would be something here, you're an idiot!!

 Even if you turn the page over, it's the same, you idiot!!

Now this page is extremely 'natsukashii' - nostalgic for me, because I still remember so well my first visit to Osaka with its symbol.

Oh, and personal thanks to mr. Ookubo for introducing Russia into the plot.

the truth about myself I was not even aware of ~ analysing my own blog

incoming search terms and websites that refer to my blog are sometimes so funny I cannot resist making a post like this. if you think your search queries are private, you are mistaken. I can see them. and I can troll them ^____^

who else wants emma to end up with hans a victorian romance

oops. obviously I do not. I was absolutely satisfied with the ending in both the anime and the manga. however, there is one thing I would like to mention. there was no proposal to Emma from Hans in the original manga. moreover, there was another woman whom Hans could 'end up with'. haha, discover it yourself if you want

anime ecchi tit, etc

watching only a few anime series with ecchi led to a huge number of people directed here. as if 'ecchi' is the most frequent word of this blog. I do not even have a label like this. and meseems, I have just contributed to this process by mentioning the word 'ecchi' several times. what a pity! there is not actually anything about ecchi here, since I only mentioned it in regard to the anime I watched, which is not something to occur in the future regularly

ashita no nadja why does nadja choose francis

yeah. I would like to know that, too. especially when in the manga Francis and Keith-Black-Rose were one person. and especially when Nadja changes her mind in the last episodes of the anime and never decides anything, following her mother's idea - 'is it he who you need? or the other one? or no one of them?'

"rurouni kenshin sad" wallpaper

wow. not only I sell wallpapers here, I even sort them according to their 'mood' haha ^.^

boku wa kowai lyrics romeo and juliet

the only thing I cannot understand why this query led to my blog, since I have never even mentioned 'boku wa kawaii kowai'. have I?

sad flute in letter bee background music free download
well, not only there is nothing to download here concerning Letter Bee, but I also wonder what that 'sad flute' means. first of all, there were a lot of melodies with flute, and a lot of sad melodies in Tegamibachi. secondly, if you are eager to listen to it, you just download the OST album and search for it. am I wrong?

tegami bachi letter bee porn pics
this is the most hilarious thing I have ever heard of! ahaha......
well, ok. there are hentai doujinshi based on popular anime/manga. I have seen some RuroKen hentai manga. what comes to my mind when I read something like this is my friend's exclamation of grief - 'I can understand hentai with some guys, but Full Metal Alchemist! how dare they create hentai based on such a pure thing?'
Tegamibachi, from my point of view, never gave any hints on possible hentai. I tried very hard to think up who may be the possible couples for an activity like this. actually I could not find a single one. however, while discussing this with my friend, I noticed something. 'tis not 'hentai', 'tis not even 'yaoi' or something... 'tis 'porn'. so, this is what I am doing in my blog! I am uploading porn live action with people cosplaying Letter Bee characters! >____<
ahahaaaaaa, this query will make me die laughing...

saiga mitsuki, mitsuki saiga

there are 4 queries 'saiga mitsuki' and 4 'mitsuki saiga'. haha, since they are separate, it means that the total number of times was 8. too bad there is not anything really helpful in my blog about Saiga-sama

upd. 01.05.13
ashita ni nadja porno hentai
this is kind of a comprehensive phrase including all of the tags there are in my 'list of strange tags'. Nadja, porno and hentai in one line... just... wonderful... wonderful, because I am wondering who and how would want to see a Nadja-based hentai?

upd. 07.05.13
emma manga ecchi ? this is another surprise. ecchi in Emma. I wonder who would need it?
but everything else is beaten by...

 

erotic photo of letter bee

yeah. erotic PHOTO. you see? 

JumpSQ, you are shocking me

I really do not understand why Tegamibachi and RuroKen are published in a magazine that also hosts this

my humble opinion on 'Tegamibachi' manga ~ there is a genre called 'thriller'

there is a genre called 'thriller'. I know people usually use it to describe movies with detective, mystic, action and other aspects, with cars blown up, a lot of bad guys chasing the good one, and the whole planet in danger. 'Letter Bee' is a thriller too, but thrilling has a different sense here. Tegamibachi makes you thrilled because...


story and characters
let me start with good points. after reading manga I understood that the anime filler episodes were really good. I could not distinguish which of them was in the original and which was thought up by Studio Pierrot. some of them even were for the better - like the one with the little girl who gave her ribbons to Lag and Zazzie, and the latter gave his ribbon to a stray cat, and then the same ribbon was seen at the floor near 'Hell's Kitchen', hinting on the fact that the cat must have been there and therefore it might have been dissected by Dr. Thunderland Jr. since there was no such episode in manga, the ribbon was not used either, which is not a bad thing, but still I think the ribbon trick was well thought

the second good awesome point is the humour. Kappelmaister Prince Steak >____<

yes, things like that do not thrill. what does?
while stories about relations between Bees and dingoes were touching enough in the anime, they were really touching in the manga, too. what is their essence, in the end? they are stores about true friendship and support, feelings almost absent in human society where no one would accept you as you are, and no one would love you as sincerely as dingoes loved their Bees. take Darwin or Bolt - such loyalty is nowhere to be found. I am not a spoilt child of fortune to have seen the same happiness shining in someone's eyes for seeing me, meeting me and being near me, as there was in the eyes of dingoes. dingoes - ready to take care of you. dingoes - trying to say 'rely on me, rely on me, rely on me'. dingoes - never betraying you or leaving you. living in Amberground is hard and I would not wish to be there, but I envy some of the Letter Bees a lot. having such selfless dingoes is truly a blessing...
apart from moments that almost made me cry because of what I described, there was another problem. though on one hand, reading the beginning was pleasant because it once more let me drown into the calm and warm world of mutual trust and support, where everybody was so kind and nice, on the other hand, reading this peaceful story was even more painful that I knew about the coming disaster which was to break and crush everything. therefore I had mixed feeling throughout the whole manga
while reading the same pattern as in the anime I was getting tired with waiting for the difference to come. when in volume 9 the events finally took an unexpected turn I felt a relief and the will to read further again, like in vol. 10 when the events had such a pace that I just could hardly stop reading at 3 o'clock in the night, and it seemed to me that I was almost hearing everything that was taking place - the voices, the sound of wind blowing, Jiggy's bike roar, Aria's violin melody... but the fear of seeing once more that one thing I did not want to see, and read what I did not want to read - that fear was again making me feel feverish, though not as bad as when I was watching the anime
finally overcoming the desperately sad point, I bothered myself to dive into additional information. from some point, JAC group stopped translating the last pages of each volume where a lot of things are explained. I actually felt too tired to read all of them, too, and I did not really feel all of the info was necessary for me, but I could not help reading the 'Dr. Thunderland's comments' (the father one, not Jr.) section in the last volumes. this, of course, does not mean anything particular, but he (Dr. Thunderland) stressed that Lag's mother told Gauche that he lost 'almost all memories', which could hint he did not lose absolutely all of them. this was Dr. Thunderlands speculating, as if he was reading the story with us as did not know what comes further, and we are supposed to believe it, but since Dr. Thunderland's comments are the invention of Asada-sensei...
considering the part which is different from the anime, I have nothing but positive words to say. 'tis not that the anime looks worse to me now, but the manga version is even more attractive. since manga is longer, mangaka can indulge himself in writing anything he wants, inserting as many characters as he wants, describing as many places, drawing as many beautiful scenes, imagining as many flashbacks, thinking up as many intriguing hints... as he wants. I love and admire it when authors of any artwork create a WORLD, be it a part of our real world or an imaginary place

graphics
there are 3 artists whom I remembered while reading 'Tegamibachi'. they are Abe Yoshitoshi, Kumakura Yuichi and Murata Range. why?
the colouring and the atmosphere - to some extent dark and 'dirty' - were really close to that of Abe-sensei's style - especially when he paints his works in one colour range like this

the black'n'white pages are also extremely beautiful. the thing I love most is the wise use of light-and-shadow which really reminded me of KoBJ. I am not saying they are absolutely the same but there are points that look alike a lot. they are the fractured 'triangled' alternation of lights and shadows, thick and thin outlines, postures that are as if captured in a split of a second, static but conveying so much movement, and the most characteristic point in my mind - the lines being interrupted in some places but nevertheless creating visible shapes - for example, the lip, hair and other contours

and Murata-sensei's art is memorable to me because of its super realistic angles and shapes which make the pictures look somewhat less manga-ish, the same as sometimes Asada-sensei's pictures do

even characters who looked... well, average to me in anime, are HOT in manga. yes, go beyond the limit... including guys like 'kanchou' and Dr. Thunderland Jr., and Aria-san, who looks really cool

is it my imagination or Felidae-lover-Zazzie's eyes are made to look like those of a cat?

and the last point I consider important is that Asada-sensei's graphics does not change to the worse  become more primitive as it did in case of Watsuki Nobuhiro. I know many fans, and I also belong to those who were unhappy with the fact that Watsuki-sensei's last volumes of RuroKen were looking too plain and lost their original style. I also hear many Kaichou wa Maid-sama fans saying that the best pictures used to be seen in the middle of the manga, and then the quality dropped, and though I would not say it truly 'dropped', I cannot but agree the middle part was the best. Asada-sensei's graphics did not lose its charm, and is steadily improving without becoming unrecognisable because of the progress made in seven league strides

conclusion
I already promised myself I would never again read ongoings. it hurts too much when you have no access to fresh chapters or at least volumes. 'Kaichou wa Maid-sama' and 'Dantalian no Shoka' were enough for me to learn this lesson. and still I watched 'Tegamibachi' thus stepping on the same rake again. this time my reasoning was - I would not want to read manga after such a long anime, both if it turns out to be good and bad. a good anime would provide me with enough pleasure, and a bad anime would not make me interested in the original. oh how silly I was. now I have to wait patiently for the next volumes to be scanned. on one hand I am truly tired after more than a month of living with Tegamibachi, but you cannot imagine how bad I feel now to be parting with this amazing work. amazing, amazing, amazing!

p. s. wonder if I go too far in speculating if I notice that Ray Attlee also looks like an Albisian and her parents are said to have been promoted after the Day of Flicker

Asada Hiroyuki, you... damn... ~ where???

problem #1

vol. 15 has been released on October 4th or 5th. nobody seems to have scanned it, though scanning the previous volume only took a few days for those who did it. I wonder if this means I will have no vol. 15... T___T JAC is also claiming to have no raws

if you want your interest and imagination stirred up in vain - you can have a look at the preview here

problem #2

from what I get, chapters from 60 to 67 have been published already in Jump SQ. nobody seems to take the responsibility to scan them regularly. what can we get?
well, the chapter published in November Jump SQ can be found at raw hunters - though 'tis numbered #60 there, which is wrong
Jump SQ issue for December can be found here
comic zip has a lot of magazine scans, including JumpSQ with Tegamibachi

January issue of Jump SQ seems to have NO tegamibachi chapter. am I wrong? at least raw-hunters full volume here does not have it. I wonder if Asada-sensei took a break like other mangakas do sometimes? I really need to read his blog more attentively

problem #3

I really want Asada-sensei's illustration collections! and all I could find is photos of the artbooks in Nattoli's blog. some of the pictures from Tegamibachi used in 'Shine' artbook can be found in Minitokyo Tegamibachi section but 'Water' artbook with illustrations for other works seems unreachable to me...

problem #4

if only I were in Japan now!!! >___<

何度も呼み返す素敵なせりふ

ゴーシュ「ラグは、誰かに手紙を書いたことはありますか？」

ラグ「ないよ・・・そんなの・・・」

ゴーシュ「ではいつか書いてみて下さい」

ラグ「なんで・・・？いいよ、手紙なんて」

ゴーシュ「たった一言でもいいのです。それでも受け取って・・・嬉しくて涙を流す人だっているのですから・・・」

ラグ「ひとことで・・・？」

ゴーシュ「離れて暮らす人々にとって『テガミ』は、書く人の『こころ』そのものなのですよ」

Tegamibachi music collection incomplete ~ trying to do something with that

as I have said, there are a few unreleased themes in Tegamibachi. some of them are like 'friendship', pieces by Ryou-san left out of the OST album, but some of them are real ones

I cannot list all of them, but at least I could try to name those I remember - while I still remember

two of them is Aria's violin bit hits. they are mentioned, for example, here and are Bach's works. the first is Air in D Major from Orchestral Suite No. 3 - used not only by Aria, but also as a background. I can remember hearing it in ep. 3 of Reverse in the end of the episodes when Kimidori's memories are shown, and in ep. 9 when Lag speaks to the elder daughter of Maka in the end of the episode, and dozens of times more

the second is Sonata for Solo Violin No. 1 in G Minor

let me be honest, I do not remember the latter being used, but meseems it must be Aria's shindan in ep. 13 of Reverse, simply because she announced her attack as 'Sonata No.1 in g minor for solo violin'

BTW just right after 'Air in D' in ep. 3 goes a frequently used instrumental which I suppose belongs to Ryou-san

in ep. 4 memories of the old man are accompanied by a very good instrumental which is, again, unknown to me 

ep. 10 has a nice cute instrumental in the middle, when Sunny asks the Bees what they want in Lament

ep. 11 has a strange melody played by strings (?) while Roda, Lag and Connor have a short confrontation, but more importantly - one of my favourites, the piano solo used as a background for Sunny's memories

ep. 9 of Reverse has an organ instrumental, but since 'tis too slow I could not understand what 'tis

one of the biggest inspirations, I believe, is Chopin's Nocturne #20 in c sharp-minor, which gave its name to Gauche's heart bullet gun

and Garrard's gun is called Partita #3 named after Bach's work I guess

to be continued

TMC. part 3 ~ grammar or lexis?

intro

people tend to believe more and more that grammar is not as necessary as vocabulary. who cares if a participant of an international conference, prominent scientist and dedicated researcher, whose mother tongue is not English, uses Past Simple instead of Past Perfect if everything is understandable?

in that case, I feel a little remorse, but I have to admit that this is not the case to get angry. 'tis not that all people feel the same respect towards languages they learn. and they do not aspire to become translators, as well, seeing a foreign language only as a means of international communication

'freelancing'

there are cases, however, when people have to become translators - if not they, who will? students, young people studying Japanese have already embedded it into their duty - to translate manga, to make subtitles, to translate song lyrics, so that the others, who are not as fortunate as them to be able to learn Japanese, could enjoy the product of Japan's modern entertainment industry

are they high professionals? nope. do they get reward for this? nope. in other words, since they do it out of their free will, we cannot blame them or demand something from them. or so I believe

it only bothers me a little that they have no pride and no ambitions to exceed the level of beginning amateurs. it strikes me very often how many of them see only one word out of three, and dream the rest up, and leave the grammar absolutely unnoticed

lyrics

just the other day I saw lyrics of Psycho le Cemu's 'Rin ~ai suru mono no tame ni~' where the line

叶わぬ思いだけは音もなく迫る炎に遮られて was translated as 'The feeling of an answer, this silence is drawing near and the flame is blocked'. a nice text it may seem, if we are to close our eyes to the fact that there is no word like 'answer' in the Japanese line, 'kanawanu' is a negative form of 'kanau' which is not rendered in the translation, 'oto mo naku' is not a noun but an adverb, 'semaru' is not a predicate but a participle because it stands before the word 'honoo', and the particles 'wa' after 'omoi' and 'ni' after 'honoo' are just overlooked, which made the flame 'be blocked' instead of making the 'feeling' be 'blocked by flame'

Tegamibachi

even I know that a verb ending in -i, the so-called second stem or -masu form, with the particle 'na' makes imperative mood, and a verb in dictionary form ending in -u with 'na' makes negative imperative mood. even I know that one must read all the possible variants of translation in the dictionary to understand the meaning fuller, and even I know that 'forge' may mean 'temper', but can also mean 'falsify'. even I know that words should not be ignored if they are used in the text, and I can read in jisho.org that 出なおす means 'to come again', 'to make a fresh start'

therefore, even I would be able to translate this properly - 'come back after you have tempered your 'heart' enough!'

and still, they write

probably this is not important. probably it does not affect reading the manga. probably I am too scrupulous. but I do believe that ignoring overtones and nuances even once leads to ignoring them more often, and also to ignoring more important parts as well. and I do believe that ignoring whatever - a short line or a long monologue - distorts the image of the character. Zazzie is not a misanthrope who gives up Mackey completely because of his cheating. vice versa, he encourages him to try again, but warns that a strong heart is needed. this is a big change in Zazzie's personality. am I wrong?

my humble opinion on 'Letter Bee' ~ a sad shounen

the more I think of my 'reviews', the less I understand whether they are for people who have already watched the anime or for those who have not. if for the former, then why do I write recommendations in the conclusion? if for the latter, then why do I insert so much spoilers? the answer seems to be simple - being the egocentric person I am, I write in order to put my own head in order, and therefore, no practical sense is t be found in my posts like this, moreover they are unnecessarily long

plot and characters 
first of all, I do not separate the OVA 'Light and Shadow' from the rest, since the OVA was remade into ep. 17. both OVA and episode are good, thought there are a few differences, but from now I am going to speak about the TV

Tegamibachi starts as a typical shounen. naive - perhaps this is what many would think of it at first. yeah, 7-year old Lag is behaving like a teenager, 12-year old Lag is almost a young man, 14-year old Zazzie is as if he were a grown-up - and we are supposed to believe this is all right, and also believe all of them are for real. and this line of Niche

made me worry whether she would turn out to be just one more capricious main heroine who is constantly getting angry with the main character shouting '... no bakaaa!', especially when Niche's seiyuu is Fujimura-san, who voiced such girls several times
I almost see how people throw tomatoes at this anime and shout - 'cliches! stereotypes!', and they would be right sometimes. who else but a person with a Russian surname could be the mayor of the city in the North covered in ice...

but very soon after the beginning I realised I need not have worried. seemingly grown-up main characters still stay children

the general image of the world where the events are taking place is deliberate and even sophisticated. actually I decided to watch Tegamibachi because I read that the world reminds of XIX-XX century Europe and this is true to some extent

but I must say honestly we do not get to see much of that XX-century-Europe-ish design
as for characters, I found myself torn apart by thinking who is the character I sympathize with the most, as my usual strategy is to find one or a couple of favourite characters and pay attention only to their story. this strategy failed, and I felt huge sympathy and/or respect towards absolutely all the characters. probably, this is mostly the mangaka's achievement, though

the story development has a nice pace which doesn't make you feel the anime is hurrying towards its end, and doesn't make you feel bored, either. so-called 'fillers' like season 1 ep. 19 'Ill Letter Bee and the girls' were not looking like fillers but rather contributed to the general flow of the story and even if we can use the word 'filler' then it will have positive connotation, because this 'filling' was necessary - there must be peaceful days, too, do you not think so?
another important point is that all peripeteias and twists and turns of the story were properly designed. they do not create the feeling that I hate the most in any fiction - when you see clearly that this or that episode or moment is dictated not by the logic of the story, but by the author's whim. for example in season 1 ep. 15 while the long talk between Frank, the elopers and Lag was taking place, I was afraid I might have the usual question all the spectators have in such cases - why don't they do something but just stand and listen? however, I notice a wise move on the part of screenplay writers - Niche couldn't interfere because she was busy with collecting Lag's bag which fell from the rock. the fact that it fell may also be considered as necessary to move Niche away and make her unable to help, but the falling itself is not unrealistic, while her standing near and doing nothing would undoubtedly be
I would also note the wise use of all the characters. in other words - nothing and nobody odd. Maka helping in the battle with Cabernet is good. Vincent Alcott who was thought to be an untalented writer takes notes of everything that happened during the battle and creates a bestseller which Lloyd reads in the last minutes of the last episodes. brothers Signal and Signales turn to be more than simple gatekeepers. and Lloyd himself exceeds the 'understanding boss' and shows a great deal of courage and involvement
being so full and detailed, the story is interesting. yeah, really interesting and intriguing. this is a rare thing. Tegamibachi is an adventure which appeals to your heart and your brain equally, making you both think of your own life and the world we live in, and also - sympathize with and worry about the characters, who have been dear to you right from the start. Tegamibachi is the case when you just cannot stop watching because you long to know what comes next. nowadays people often say 'this anime's attraction is not that it makes you want to watch the following episodes one by one, but the one that slowly gives you graduated pleasure' and consider it to be the right kind of charm, but I do think thrilling, breathtaking story is no less wonderful
and this story is flavoured with humour. this humour is actually a dangerous thing making you feel relaxed and sure that everything would be the same throughout all the episodes

and special moments like coming to a very strange forest

or Connor making a delivery of erotic magazines

 and special episodes

and themes embracing the whole story in the person of, for example, Niche

and Steak, and some others

and praiseworthy is that the authors understand that some ideas may seem ridiculous

but do not get washed away by the funny episodes. they become more and more rare as the story continues. I said, the characters become dear and make you worry, and this does not apply exclusively to the main ones. if you didn't cry in moments like this

then you are probably made of stone...
actually, being the crybaby I am, together with Lag and Sylvette, I spent most sad and touching moments exactly like this

and finally, Tegamibachi is not a typical shounen because 'tis... too serious, especially when you do not expect it

what I went through emotionally while watching the series is hard to describe with words. how many times I cried is impossible to count. how painful 'twas to watch the last episodes is something I would not wish even my worst enemy to understand
you know what? I sincerely believed in an absolute happy end with 'happily ever after' until the last several moments before the last episode ending 'Perseus' started. I believed Gauche's heart would come back. then I believed he would throw away everything and live with his family and friends. then I thought even if he would not 'throw away everything' he and the other 'unable to become spirits' would stay in Yuusari. I believed Lag would get to Akatsuki and change the world. or something like that. I was waiting for a relief but all that I have left is hope. I expected to see shounen adventure, but I got drama
Tegamibachi exceeds the level of typical shounen, but is it an entirely good thing? I doubt. if I am to accept the anime as 'tis, taking its ending as the end, and ignoring the fact that the manga is not finished, then the anime's ending is not even in the least satisfactory, as it leaves too many things unexplained, from not-so-important matters, such as the photo of Jacob and Sandra Gobeni's photo with a child, to urgent problems, such as prof. Thunderland's experiment on returning the lost hearts back, and up to global ones, such as what was the meaning of the Day of Flicker, and why the guy on the airship heard a lot of voices crying 'mother, mother' when the flicker happened, and why Lag's mother was taken to the sun, and how did Gauche get to see her, and in the end - what is Lag, if he is not human. to some extent we can guess and speculate, but proper explanation was never provided. and of course, the greatest disappointment is that we do not get to see how the characters live after that, because we are not that dumb to believe that Lag is going to continue cheerfully his Letter Bee duties, Connor - bring up his child(ren) with Sunny, Zazzie - take care of local cats, and Aria - do the paperwork at Bee Hive as if nothing had happened. this incompleteness almost breaks me now that I finished watching the series today at 2 o'clock in the night, and all that I was thinking about while going to sleep, waking up in the night, getting up in the morning, having breakfast, washing the dishes, drinking tea - was Tegamibachi, more precisely, I was trying to deal somehow with what is called 'cognitive dissonance' scientifically, but in reality is a pain somewhere inside that makes you feel empty and unable to do anything else but to try to get rid of it

music

I could not actually believe 'twas really Ryou Kunihiko-san who made the OST until in ep. 2 short harpsichord and flute melody played in the background while Lag and Gauche were trying to catch a lizard. then I listened attentively and recognised his perfect style. at first one might think - if he is familiar with 'Emma' OST - that Ryou-san is cut for composing music reminding of classics and suitable for arranging a 19-century-Europe-like setting, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear he wrote some very memorable and unusual tracks. some of them reminded me of Scudelia Electro greatly, because there are not - well at least I do not know - many composers able to use electro in such a masterly fashion. especially Scudelish are 'Heavy-Metal Enemy', 'MA-KA', 'Attack', but my favourite electro here is of course 'Lightning'
the only frustrating thing is that again - like in 'Emma' - not all of the melodies used as background in the series are released as soundtrack. for example, 'Lightning' has a very dark, somewhat ambient arrangement used several times in the second season during scenes about Reverse, like when memories of Jeel are shown in ep. 19. also, several very sad instrumentals (for example, the one playing at the background of Lament when Lag came to pick up Connor and Sunny) along with classical pieces (like that Aria was playing on her violin) were not released at all. the only  good news is that a track called 'friendship' which was used in ep. 15 of Reverse (when Lag and Gauche went together for a delivery) was recently uploaded onto Ryou-san's official website, and though 'tis not meant for downloading, it can be downloaded easily with the help of some application (I personally use Firefox plugin called download helper)
OPEDs are not too impressive, I must confess, but on the other hands - they are all slightly above average. should they have been just a bit more plain I would call them worthless, but surely all of the songs are not mediocre ones, and apparently the best songs of respective artists were chosen as OPEDs, because Suga Shikao's and HIMEKA's discographies didn't impress me that much, and surely absolutely mainstream Stereopony is not a unique band famous for their original style. however, as OPEDs the songs are good, and I watched OPEDs without skipping them several times, which is unusual for me. in other words, the atmosphere was respected

OPEDs
I would also praise most of the OPEDs in terms of how they were directed and designed. note how all the songs were chosen to fit the ideas and story of Tegamibachi
'Hajimari no Hi' - 'The day of beginning' - has lines like 'I wanted to run out of this town' which reminds of Lag leaving Campbell, and 'without knowing where to head so that we find our future, we were running together with you' and other lines hinting on Lag and Niche's travelling together
'Hatenaki Michi' - 'Endless Road' - is just centered on the theme of journey and finding someone who is dear with lines like '
'raburetaa no kawari ni kono uta o.' means 'Instead of a love letter, this verses' - even though this songs is likely to be just an average love song by an average j-pop young girl, it can be viewed differently if applied to Tegamibachi. allusion to letters conveying feelings is obvious, such as the first line - 'I wonder if you'll understand if I write it in a paper, I wonder if you'll see it if I make it into words' which describes brilliantly Lag's anxiousness when he was trying to write his message to Gauche to put it into the red message bullet. the chorus part starts with 'Even if I call your name again and again, my voice wouldn't reach you, but now that I recall your turning around to me, smiling, your face was so bright that I cast down my eyes'. and what stroke me most was the last line of this opening - 君がいないんだ - which originally would be translated as 'you are not here', but taken separately from the rest of the text can also mean 'you do not exist'. and those words are sung exactly when the opening animation ends in this frame↓

'Hikari no Kioku' which means 'Memories of Light' already hints on the other central theme of this work - light and memories. the most touching lines for me are 'even if you lose the sight of tomorrow in the times of change, even if your heart is taken from you, I want my feelings to reach you, that I want your memories of chasing that while light not to be broken and stay as they were on that day' - is it not the cry from Lag and others to Gauche?'A little magic' or 'chiisa na mahou' says 'gathering all the words I want to say to you, I use some magic and send them to where you are'
'wasurenagusa'  means 'forget-me-not' and this is already enough for making it a perfectly fitting song which breaks my heart every time I listen to it - 'because we met I feel this pain, because we met I see this dream. if we never met, I would never love this much. please do not forget me ever. this forget-me-not blooms for you', and the second chorus - 'because we met I cry this much, because we met I see this sky. if we never met, I would not be who I am now. I will never forget you. in my heart forget-me-not blooms'
the only time I felt uncomfortable was when 'yakusoku' OP began in season 2 and I was thinking 'hey, what's with this OP? the picture seems to be all wrong and fails to fit the song absolutely!' - however, starting with ep. 18 the picture changed and WHAT CHANGE 'TWAS!!! one of the most beautiful opening videos I have ever seen, following the song's tempo and rhythm and providing all kind of pictures, wisely made OP
'one-sided feelings...

 ...a wish that is ready to disappear...

 ...surely become a promise binding me and you, it seems so to me'

and the last ending... you can read the translation if you need


graphics
there seems to be a problem in Studio Pierrot - they make beautiful scenery

and pay attention to the colouring

and draw beautiful close-up freeze-frames, or frames where only a few objects are moving

and sometimes use the manga-like graphics

but they make mistakes in drawing smaller objects - why does not Gauche's scarf here fall down by the force of gravitation but makes this strange curve?

finally, seiyuus
this paragraph I write the last because there is not much to say. all the seiyuus were good, including both the main characters and the minor ones. Fukuyama was predictable but credible. Sawashiro-chan really surprised me with the high level of her skills of voicing a boy. Fujimura-chan surprised me that her Niche was not like Misaki from 'Maid-sama' or Ayano from 'Kaze no stigma'. that Koshimizu-san is good I already know, but this time she created with her voice a very calm woman, which was an image different from what I have heard so far. Kishio Daisuke as Zazzie and Suganuma Hisayoshi as Connor seemed good but not outstanding to me until I suddenly realised - 'twas during the scene when the Bees were having dinner at Sylvette's home - what great work and skill it takes to create such realistic characters with realistic behaviour and intonations. even Nana Mizuki whom I do not like very much did a good job. I also noticed a number of experienced seiyuus with pleasant voices such as Largo Lloyd's Konishi Katsuyuki, Sandra's Yamashita Ayaka, Niche's elder sister's Koyama Mami, Jiggy's Nakai Kazuya, Hunt's Chiba Susumu, Sarah's Komatsu Yuka and many others

conclusion
the beginning and the last episodes are as if from different worlds. probably, most stories are like this, if only they are not stories for little children or meaningless merciless shoujo for drooling
by the end of the day the sadness and dissatisfaction with the anime ending that were tearing my chest apart are slightly subsiding and I with a cooler head I can make a conclusion
one must bear in mind that if he decides to watch the anime, he will watch a screen version of several volumes of manga for a while, but considerable difference is reported to be noticed approximately in the middle. and since there seems to be no plans for season 3, 'Tegamibachi' anime as 'tis now can be considered only as a very-big-slice-of-the-characters'-life ending in nothing, which does not allow to name it a 'full-fledged' story
if this is ok with you and you can ignore this aspect, all the other aspects would bring you enormous amount of pleasure. they make Tegamibachi an example that many others must follow. as you see, I cannot, so this pleasure is almost crossed by the void that the ending left