It seems that to commemorate their flagship icon’s 35th birthday, Sanrio has teamed up with the British Royal Mint to create a number of silver and gold coins, each more expensive than the last. The collection consists of a series of proof quality coins in Sterling silver or fine gold, each with their own British-themed Hello Kitty display case and have a maximum mintage between 1000 and 3000 coins.

As you might expect, these are truly prohibitively expensive. To sum up:

• Three-Coin Silver Proof Set: £230 – Three 28.28g coins in Sterling silver, 3000 coin mintage.
• 65mm Silver Proof Coin: £280 - A 65mm, 155.51g Sterling silver coin with a face value of $10 and a mintage of 1500 coins.
• Small Gold Proof Shield Coin: £440 – A small, 22.05mm coin with 7.98g of 22 carat gold, a face value of $25 and a mintage of 1000 coins.
• Gold Proof Big Ben Coin: £920 – 15.61g of .999 fine gold in a 26.50mm coin, at a face value of 50$, again with a 1000 coin mintage.

To those hard-core fans crazy or wealthy enough to actually afford these, note that pricing is subject to possible variations in bullion price and doesn’t include shipping.

Supposedly, they have been available in Japan sometime now, and are now available for purchase internationally through the Royal Mint. High resolution images thanks to Harro Kitty, more details and pictures can be found on the website of the Royal Mint. While I can’t deny that they look awesome, I’d advise those looking to invest in precious metals to look for regular bullion coins instead.

To celebrate the end of my exams, my first post in quite some time: some thoughts on the first episode of Viper’s Creed.

I’ve never been a big fan of mecha and it doesn’t seem like Viper’s Creed will be much of a positive influence. From what I could pick up from the prologue, Viper’s Creed plays out in the middle of the 21st century, after pollution, economic collapse and the ensuing Total War transformed the earth into a light version of Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. The rising sea level claimed 35% of the world’s landmass, cities are isolated, billions have died and unmanned mecha, remnants of the war, have somehow gone berserk. In an effort to rebuild society, Fort Daiva City was constructed as an international safe haven, under the protection of the PMC Arqon Global Security. (Daiva is supposedly a take on Diversity.)

Arqon operates a squad of transforming mecha charged with preventing any automated mecha from reaching the citadel’s walls. The entire first episode has this Viper Squadron chasing one such unit around the road network surrounding the city. Exactly why these roads are there and why they are in such pristine condition compared to the burned out sky scrapers is just one of the many plot holes this series is raddled with. As for the Viper unit, they are composed of your standard array of military stereotypes, with each pilot backed up by an operator, all trying their hardest to out-stereotype the competition.

Animation-wise, most of the episode consisted of acceptable CGI while the regular animation was rather lackluster. Voice acting was passable but uninspired.

All in all, the first episode of Viper’s Creed wallowed in mediocrity with a typical military drama storyline, stereotypical characters and average animation. What little hope I found in the scene where the enemy mecha plays dead was crushed further down the line when the Quiet One self-destructs to finish it off. (He’s all right folks!)

If you’re into this genre or wondering what a Future Cop LAPD anime could look like, give this a shot. If not, you’re not missing out on much.

With the new broadcasting season starting properly this week I have the honour of starting of AniAri’s writing season with the latest series from J.C.Staff, Toradora! Named after the lead characters (more on that later), Toradora is a romantic comedy adapted from the original light novel series by Yuyuko Takemiya. I saw the first episode with little more to go on than the premise and I was pleasantly surprised by the simple yet endearing plot and the character design that backs it up.

Ryuji Takasu is your average highschooler where it not for his intimidating eyes, a gift he inherited from his runaway father. While he’s actually a caring and gentle guy, his constant glare gives him a bad reputation. Apart from some hinting to the yakuza, little else is said about his father while his mother seems to be a complete airhead who works as a bar hostess. Ryuji is now the one taking care of the household, cooking, cleaning and removing the mold caused by the enormous skyscraper next to his house.

Keikaku Doori

With the first day of the new school year starting, Ryuji finds himself isolated until his best friend Yusaku Kitamura shows up, one of the few who managed to look past his threatening appearance. One of those few is Minori Kushieda for whom Ryuji has developed quite an impressive crush over the years.

On the way to class, Ryujii has a run-in with Taiga Aisaka, a short girl with a fierce temper and a reputation to match his own. She has been given the name “Palmtop Tiger” due to her short stature and brutal behaviour. Quick to anger, she sucker punches him to the face without even saying a word. In class we see that Minori is one of her only friends. (plot device anyone?)

Unlimited Desk Works?

After being called to the teacher’s office, Ryuji goes to fetch his bag where he interrupts Taiga. Possessing inhuman speed, she rushes into a cabinet in a not so subtle hiding attempt, knocking over half the desks in the room. She seems obsessed about Ryuji’s bag, only conceding the fight over it after her illness starts to act up. (Going through ten handkerchiefs a day with my cold, I can certainly relate.)

When he gets home he finds a love letter from Taiga to a Kitamura Yuusaku in his bag, which she mistakenly put in there. Not only that, the letter even turns out to be empty. She really does seem to be the clumsy type.

Ryuji is awoken that night by Taiga who has broken into his home with a bokken. Bent on killing him for reading her love letter, but willing to settle for amnesia she chases him around the room. However, upon hearing that the letter was empty she collapses out of exhaustion and hunger. Not knowing what to do, Ryuji decides to fix her a meal.

After trying to teach her some table manners, he puts her embarrassment into perspective by showing off his secret obsession for Minori. Ryuji has everything planned from poems to music, lacking only the resolve to actually confess to her. After a brief introduction the Inko, a sickly though not quite dead parakeet, Ryuji tries to work Taiga out of the house before his mother gets home, going so far as to promise to obey her like a dog.

The next day, while cooking breakfast, Ryuji’s interrupted by a phone call from Taiga, ordering him to look out the veranda. There he finds her staring back at him from her apartment next to his house. Going over with breakfast, he finds her place in a state of total squalor. After noticing the total mess his cleaning Ryuji’s Cleaning Power kicks in, tidying up the room and indirectly curing Taiga of her runny nose by getting rid of all the filth.

[insert preferred meme here]

So far Toradora seems to be a promising series. Rie Kugimya’s voice acting is once again exceptional, fleshing out her character without falling back on her typical Shana voice, even with the occasional Urusai thrown in. Rie is probably the best voice actress out there for tsundere characters and she puts down another excellent performance here.

We haven’t seen enough of to be sure, but Taiga seems to be set up for the typical “Tsundere with a troubled past.” stereotype while Ryuji is certainly the more interesting of the two. He’s reminding me a lot of Genzo from Cheeky Angel for some reason. Just a quick note, the series’ Title is taken from the names of the two leads: Taiga is the phonetic equivalent of Tiger, which when translated back to Japanese becomes Tora. Similarly, Ryu is Japanese for dragon, pronounced doragon in Japanese.

Urusai! Urusai! Urusai!

There are certainly some character similarities to be found to J.C.Staff’s earlier work, notably Zero no Tsukaima and of course Shakugan no Shana. What little we’ve seen of the plot so far seems to put it in the romantic comedy or slice of life genre which I think would work perfectly by keeping things simple yet charming.

I’ve yet to see any information on how long it will run, but I’m guessing it will clock in at your standard 13 episodes. I will certainly be following this in the following weeks to see where they take the story.

  Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream

It seems that I’ll be the first new author to make my appearance. The name’s Vadigor and I’m a long-time reader of AniAri. I’m usually found commenting on Shirukii’s lack of regular updates (mostly at his request) but as of today I’ll be joining the team in an effort to make his laziness less apparent. I’ll have the honour of writing alongside him on this little part of the aniblogosphere. If for some reason you’d want more personal information about me, a short biography should appear on the site sooner or later. Now without further ado, I give you my recap on Strike Witches, the latest series from Gonzo.

Odds are that most of the more dedicated loli fans are already following this series, seeing as so far it’s been running almost entirely on it’s all-female loli cast and non-stop fan service. And how do they pull that off you ask? The answer is right there in the first snapshot. Haven’t noticed it yet?

How about now?

Strike Witches has been dubbed the Pantsless Anime, and with good reason. It seems that we’ve ended up in an alternate history where World War II is replaced with an alien invasion and pants for women under 40 are unheard of.

The year is 1939, every country has a nice new name, the Nazi’s are replaced with laser-firing aliens dubbed the Neuroi and women called Witches have magical powers but no pants. From what we’ve seen so far the Neuroi are similar in nature to NGE’s Angels. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, are always seen alone and are essentially indestructible, except for their core which is located somewhere in their body. Oh, and they quite like their lasers.

Mankind is about to be wiped off the face of the earth when one man saves the day with the creation of a new kind of weapon: the Striker Unit or in common terms, Plane Legs. These devices magnify a Witch’s magical power, giving them the ability to fly at transonic speed, create protective force shields and wield hundreds of pounds in military hardware.

With their shields and magic-infused weaponry these units proved to be the only effective defense against the Neuroi and thus the 501^st Joint Fighter Wing or the Strike Witches were born, a fighter wing comprised entirely of lolis without pants.

Sound familiar? It should, both Strike Witches’ story and its character design originated from the mind of Humikane Shimada who did the character and mecha design for Sky Girls. While that series at least made some attempt at handwaving their fan service mechanics, Sky Girls no pantsu just foregoes it entirely. Some say that the Striker Units require direct skin contact with the user but this is hardly plausible given that several of the girls wear tights. The lack of civilian pants is also supposedly explained somewhere in the novels as young girls idolizing the witches and imitating them by not wearing any pants…Yeah.

And if you think the lack of pants alone is bad enough, you haven’t seen anything yet, I’ve only just started. Guess what happens when the Witches manifest their powers.

It seems like Gonzo wants to cater to every loli-fan out there, giving each girl animal ears and tail that show up whenever they equip their Striker Units. So far we’ve seen everything from cat and dog features to rabbit ears and even a leopard tail. Something for everyone I suppose.

Oh Hell No

Not only did they give each girl animal features, they also gave them distinct magical abilities, from Sakamoto’s Geass X-ray vision, Miyafuji’s healing power to Sanya’s use as a radar and radio receiver. Also, all the characters are modelled after real-life fighter pilots. (one of which is still alive)

The animation so far has been mediocre, the character designs are solid but combat scenes leave much to be desired. So far action scenes have been limited to the Witches flying around blocking lasers until they discover the location of the core at which point someone gets to blow it up. Given the setting and the nature of the Striker Units the show had a lot of potential for awesome dogfights, but as it is the action scenes are not much more than a way of creating even more exotic panty shots.

Plot-wise, Strike Witches has been following the beaten path so far, the main character Myafuji was recruited into the squadron after showing her innate skill with the Striker Unit and she’s been accepted as a true member of the group after showing her worth in battle. After that every episode has chronicled her getting to know the other members of the Strike Witches: the shy girl with a minority complex, the veteran with the distraught past, the speed freak, etc.

Apart from that, we’ve also had the usual beach episode, and pretty much every episode features a hot spring scene as well. In case you’re wondering if these traditional fan service elements are really applicable in this already fan service laden show: yes, yes they are.

Gonzo also doesn’t hesitate to explore the sexual tension in the squadron, with Myafuji having dreams about “flight training” with Lynette and other more straightforward scenes throughout. I doubt we’ll see any real development on this field though.

Overall, the plot has been nothing but a device to carry the fan service. In the latest episode we have what could be some foreshadowing to changes in the current standoff or possibly a government conspiracy, but I doubt it will turn out to be anything major. My guess is that it will continue its current trend until the entire cast is introduced, at which point the battle against the Neuroi will escalate and our heroes will have to save the day. I admit that I’m curious as to what explanation there will be for the Neuroi’s presence and origin. Their military tactics aren’t the brightest yet they somehow managed to occupy Europe. Someone or something behind the scenes is a likely possibility. It would certainly be interesting to see new Neuroi sporting swastikas.

In conclusion, Strike Witches is running solely on its fan-service and character design. I have some hope left that we’ll see some actual plot development, but with the series at it’s halfway point and with Episode 7 slated to be a Panty Thief episode (with even more NO PANTS than usual) it’s doubtful. If you quite like your loli fan service this show will be right up your alley, otherwise you’re not missing out on much.

Except an awesome doggy paddle.