Untuk Tugas

            Saya akan menceritakan sebuah kisah yang sayapun tidak tahu darimana asalnya. Hal ini saya lakukan untuk memenuhi tugas TIK. Jadi, bila ada salah kata saya mohon maaf yang sebesar-besarnya. Mari kita mulai:

Saya Lupa

            Dahulu kala ada sebuah desa kecil yang bereada di lereng gunung. Di sana hidup seorang pemuda yang bernama Jono. Jono hidup sendiri di sebuah gubuk kecil yang terbuat dari bambu.

            Pada suatu hari, Jono pergi ke hutan untuk mencari kayu bakar. Ia berangkat ke hutan pagi-pagi sekali. Sesampainya dihutan ia bertemu dengan seorang kakek yang terlihat kebingungan. Ia lalu mendekati kakek itu dan menanyakan apa yang terjadi pada kakek itu. Ternyata kakek itu tersesat. Kakek itu ingin pergi ke sungai yang ada di dalam hutan untuk mencari ikan. Karena Jono tahu letak sungai yang dicari kakek itu. Ia bersedia untuk mengantarkan kakek itu sampai ke tujuan.

            Mereka lalu berjalan menyusuri hutan untuk menuju sungai itu. Sesampainya disungai kakek itu mengajak Jono untuk memancing bersama. Tanpa ia sadari Jono menerima ajakan kakek itu. Mereka lalu memancing ikan bersama sambil becakap-cakap.

            Tidak terasa hari sudah sore namun mereka hanya mendapatkan ikan dua ekor. Mereka pun pulang dengan membawa ikan masing-masing satu ekor. Mereka pun berpisah di jalan keluar hutan.

            Dalam perjalanan pulang Jono teringat tentang tujuan awal ia pergi ke hutan. Karena itu ia tidak bisa menghangatkan tubuhnya dan malam itu ia tidur sambil menggigil kedinginan.

 Set. Awal

Aligment = 4 4 3 3

Spasi       = 1.5

Font        = TNR(12)

Paragraf  = Justified

Jarak       = after: 0

                   before: 0

Mashiro-Iro Symphony : The Color of Lovers

Catchy opening theme, gaggle of girls with the same half-dozen designs seen in every other contemporary shounen romance anime, bland male protagonist? Check, check, and check. Welcome to Mashiro-Iro Symphony, an adaptation of a slice-of-life romance visual novel that is more or less like every other such adaptation you've ever seen.

The show opens with our protagonist, Shingo Uryuu, running out into the night to help his little sister find her way home. She, meanwhile, appears to be wearing a bra and a dress on top of a turtleneck and skirt, or something...it's odd looking. Anyway, the sister, Sakuno, chases after an adorable fluffy creature while her brother searches for her and gets even more lost. While Sakuno waits in the rain, a girl named Airi Sena spots her and shares her umbrella. She's also lost, so together they call the brother and arrange to meet up in a nearby park. They succeed, and Shingo gets all wide-eyed upon meeting Airi in person.

So! Shingo, Sakuno, and guy-pal Hayata, as it turns out, are also serving as representatives from their school, which is merging with another (formerly all-girls) school. The trio will attend the new school, which is naturally chock-full of female characters: a teacher who's nervous around boys, a be-ponytailed , and of course, Airi Sena, who turns out to be opposed to the merger. OBSTACLE!

The main thing to enjoy in Mashiro-Iro Symphony thus far is its soundtrack, which is full of enjoyable orchestral arrangements (although the charming, heartwarming music that went with the opening scene felt kind of out of place for a rainy night). Other points: Sakuno, while largely the standard little-sister-with-a-brother-complex, offers a wry response about girls feeling clumped together when she and her brother are confronted with a mass cluster of their new classmates. There's also a thus far unintroduced character randomly playing with the generically adorable mascot character outside of the school building who suddenly stops to stare at the camera again. These are pretty much the only surprises in the episode.

While the art itself is detailed and crisp, the character designs are a bit overdone, and the characters themselves generic (though points should be awarded to Sakuno for her wry response about how girls feel in clusters upon witnessing their new school). As for pacing: kudos to the show for not being excessively blatant in its introductions to Shingo's new classmates, but the overall pacing is still a bit off. In particular, the opening scene feels oddly leisurely, with bits where more snap to the dialogue and action might have given the protagonist's intro a little more energy.

Thanks to ANN

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

A month ago, transfer student Kodaka made a really, really bad first impression on his first day and is now widely regarded as a delinquent because of it. One day he overhears the normally standoffish Yozora uncharacteristically carrying on a conversation with someone who turns out to be an imaginary friend. Both soon admit that they have no friends and have trouble finding them, and both also admit that joining an existing club at this point would be an ineffective way to get them, so Yozora does the only logical thing: she starts a new club, one which will essentially be a place where friendless students can connect and make real friends. Surprisingly, the first person to respond to their advertisements for the Neighbors Club is Sena Kashawizaka, the seemingly perfect daughter of the school's Chancellor, who always has a gaggle of boys in tow but claims that she has had difficulty actually making friends because of that. Yozora and Sena instantly get on each other's nerves despite Kodaka's efforts to mediate.

This light novel-based series really, really wants to be the next Oreimo, and is even made by the same branch of AIC as Oreimo. While this one's concept has nothing to do with otaku, its more conventional concept is an interesting one which has even more potential: the notion of creating a club for the specific purpose of allowing friendless people to make friends, something which could easily be inserted into just about any high school anywhere in the world. The discussions that Kodaka and Yozora have about forming friendships are also remarkably insightful.

The first episode shows two fundamental problems that limit this one's potential, however. The first is the presence of Sena as the club's third member. She was doubtless deemed necessary from a marketing point of view, as stories about the kind of true social rejects who would genuinely want/benefit from this kind of club simply wouldn't sell as anime (those type of stories seem to work much better in live action anyway), and she does seem to have a legitimate reason for wanting to join, but her perfection harms the integrity of the concept and the credibility of the story. That and opener scenes which suggest that Kodaka may end up being the only guy certainly raise the specter that the series will hedge in a harem direction.

The other and bigger problem is that the caliber of writing simply is not there, especially not compared to Oreimo. Insight is a plus but isn't enough. The writing makes the mistake of letting Kodoka become more a hanger-on than an active participant, does not make Yozora an interesting enough character, and does not even come close to getting the same kind of combative chemistry out of Sena and Yozora as Oreimo did out of Kirino and Kuroneko. This could improve over time, and the artistic merits are reasonable and the series does have a pretty cool closer, but already it is starting out a couple of steps behind.

Thanks to ANN