Welcome to The Cart Driver’s world renowned anime season preview! In the post-chartfag world, the need for season previews to simply tell you what anime are coming out has been diminished. Instead I’m here to tell you why these upcoming anime are interesting. And there are a lot of…interesting anime coming out this spring. Bar maybe two or three titles, I wouldn’t call this season particularly promising per say, but there’s certainly a lot of anime I’m fascinated in seeing how they’ll turn out.
The Continuation of the Adventures
of Rider and Waver
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
Yes
This isn’t so much a sequel as an unusually long gap between episodes 13 and 14, but finally we get to see more Rider and Waver interactions. And some other characters too, who seem to hog an awful lot of screentime considering the show isn’t even about them. Look at the title; it clearly says Rider and Waver. Not the adventures of some stoic blonde girl in fancy armour. Not a parade of deep voiced brown haired self-important dullards. Rider and Waver. Hopefully the anime will rectify this minor flaw in the second half.
Eureka Seven Ao
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
No. Same world but new characters and new plot
People claim that series are never as good when they’re shaken down for more content, which isn’t true. You only need to scroll up one space to see an example. There’s also another currently airing example with Aquarion EVOL, which seems to be getting largely positive reviews despite its previous season apparently being as well received as a dead mouse down the back of your shirt. Then there’s Gundam, Macross, Lupin III, Ghost in the Shell (or at least, I’d argue this case). The trick here is to not mess with the work the original achieved and try to take it in a new direction. Even the currently airing Last Exile Fam I feel is approaching their sequel the right way, the only flaw being the moronic main character they chose to head the new series. Make the new series in such a way that it calls back to what made the original great while also being open to new fans.
What I’m saying is there’s nothing inherently wrong with what Eureka Seven Ao is doing. It’s technically a sequel to the original, except with an entirely new cast of characters, which is a good thing. This means newbies will be able to jump straight in. I was able to watch Eureka Seven without having seen the previous 6 Eureka series oh ho ho. Anyway, I loved the colourful aesthetic the world in Eureka Seven had, and the trailer indicates that thankfully that is staying. Same director of the original too. Reasons to be worried though probably boil down to the lack of Dai Saito on the series composition (script on Bebop/Champloo/GITS:SAC/Eden of the East/Ergo Proxy). Without him but while keeping the same director came forth the Eureka Seven movie, which was as well received as salt on a paper cut. The staff announced are all just mecha design and colour design and animators and so on, which is cool and all. Eureka Seven has always looked great. But without the writing to back it up, it will be wasted talent.
Zetman
Zetman is based off a manga by the same dude who made Video Girl Ai, I’s, DNA² and a load of other cheesy seinen romance stuff. Which makes it even weirder that he also made what can be only described as an American comic book style superhero manga. Thanks to the popularity of Tiger and Bunny, superhero stuff is back in vogue, with spruced up bishified character designs. The obligatory homoeroticism yaoi bait comes from, judging by the trailer, a mean rivalry with lots of shots of them staring angrily at each other. Also, judging by the trailer, there will be ANGST and TRAGIC PASTS and LATIN CHANTING and ATTEMPTED RAPE and MORE ANGST. It is a fairly impressive trailer mind you, and that’s not just because I’m highly susceptible to anything with latin chanting. What rubs me the wrong way is how American superhero comic book-y it is, a genre I’ve just never gotten into. It strikes me as the kind of show you hear old guys saying “well I haven’t enjoyed any anime in years because it has all been moeshit but I liked Zetman”, which may be the hint that you’re looking in the wrong area for your entertainment.
Ozuma
I’m not sure why producers have suddenly decided Leiji Matsumoto stuff is cool again, but here we are. A remake of Space Battleship Yamato is coming together in a massive series of movies. There was the live action Yamato from a year back. Now there’s Ozuma, with no relation to any of his previous series (although I’m sure the female character designs will be as wispy as ever). It’s a 6 episode thing to run every 2 weeks about some kids in some sci fi setting and humanity is dying whatever synopses are overrated. It’s got some real veterans on the staff, most notably Takahashi, the guy who made Votoms and a whole load of other mecha anime. Well, the real veteran would obviously be Leiji Matsumoto.
Yeah, Matsumoto. It’s hard to over-estimate his influence on anime. You could probably count the number of people more influential than him on one hand. There’s Tezuka, Go Nagai…errmmm…that’s kind of it. Yamato, Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 are his 3 big ones. For something newer fans might have actually seen, there’s that Intersteller 5555 movie with Daft Punk. Chances are though most people reading this have seen next to no Matsumoto before, so just treat this as a totally new ambitious sci-fi anime where the girls have very pointy noses. Given the alarming disappearance of noses in modern anime, this is something that can only be celebrated.
Hyoka
Oh hi there KyoAni, animation studio behind K-ON, Lucky Star, Haruhi, Nichijou, Clannad, Kanon and basically a whole load of moeblob anime with shockingly good animation. Can’t say I’m a fan due to their adherence to the bible of cute, although I know plenty of others are. I was quite interested in Hyoka at first because it’s adapted from a mystery novel. Plus they brought in the author of Full Metal Panic to do the series composition, so I took it as a hint that maybe they’re taking a few steps away from cuteness again. Expectations took a massive dip though when I saw the character art and it started to dawn on me what this would probably be like. What was that JC Staff show from a few season’s back…God’s Memo Pad? Yeah, that’s what this reminds me of. I do wonder why they’re half-arsing their cuteness with stuff like this or Nichijou. Either go full out K-ON style or make something totally different. Halfway between garners the interest of neither crowd. I guess it could be good, but…well, it’s KyoAni.
Saint Seiya Omega
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
No. Entirely new story and characters
Saint Seiya was a manga from the 1980’s about a bunch of pretty boys in skin tight body suits getting really angsty and punching each other. As you can guess, it was a massive hit amongst female readers, something that was rather a shock at the time, and fuelled the angsty skintight clothing bishie brigade that dominates fujoshi fanbase ever since. What the actual story is about I have no idea, but that’s fine because Saint Seiya Omega is completely unconnected to any previous iteration of the franchise, which I’m totally cool with. As I said in my Eureka Seven Ao piece, I like it when they make a franchise like this open to newcomers (except when it gets overboard in the case of Gundam. Please stop making new Gundam).
What’s cool about Omega is they brought in the Casshern Sins team, a highly talented tight knit bunch. At least, I usually think of them as the Casshern Sins team, but the promo art for Omega begs the comparison to another series they worked on: Heartcatch Precure. It’s actually a bit disconcerting how similar they look. It’s like one of those joke episodes where a dude in Heartcatch becomes a Precure in a dream. I know Saint Seiya has always swung towards the ladies, but…come on, that main guy’s hair is fucking pink! I guess it serves as a nice contrast to DARK AND GRITTY Zetman. Whatever, I’ll probably get over the look within 5 seconds of the first episode.
Sankarea
I did my usual trick pre-season of checking out a chapter or two of the manga that are being adapted. Impressions upon reading the Sankarea manga are as follows: 1) The childhood friend character is called Wanko. 2) Zombies are apparently a fetish now. 3) It is really bad, I can only imagine how worse it will get with Deen adapting it. 4) Her name is Wanko! I guess anything is on the table after we had a character last year called Anal.
Kuroko no Basket
Kuroko no Basket is an adaptation of a really popular shounen manga, running since 2006. Shounen is…well, I like good shounen, but they seem to be few and far between in recent years, and it’s really difficult to tell which will hit and which won’t since there’s an equal amount of hype from everything from the good (Blue Exorcist) to the bad (Beezlebub) to the offensively awful (Toriko). Plus I’ve been feeling kind of down on sports shounen since Knight in the Area proved itself to be probably the blandest anime from last season. The bit of the manga for Basket I checked though was surprisingly good, in a goofy shounen kind of way. It’s difficult to tell with shounen really. Staff is talented though, with Production IG doing the animation and a Brains Base veteran on the series composition, although the director worked on Prince of Tennis so it balances out. I don’t know, I’ll remain hopeful I guess.
Space Bros
Space Bros! Motherfucking Space Bros! OK, before I go completely crazy over the name, let’s be boring and talk about the staff working on it. Director is this dude called Ayumu Watanabe, who for years and years only worked on Doraemon. Working on stuff like Doraemon or Shin-chan is kind of like the anime director’s equivalent of training in the mountains. They come down for years after nobody hearing of them at churn out amazing work. At least, that’s the plan. Anyway, fucking Space Bros! The very little I read of the manga was fantastic, very reminiscint of Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys, which is about as high a praise as you can give something. Speaking of Urasawa, the last time a seinen anime got over 50 episodes was Monster, but Space Bros has already been scheduled to run for 48+, which shocked me. A non-kiddy/shounen anime airing for over a year? I wasn’t aware Japan made these anymore. Also man, it’s Space Bros! It’s about Bros. In Space! What’s not to like?
Hiiro no Kakera
Count the character archetypes in that picture. There’s the angsty angry white haired dude who goes “tch” and turns his head away when talking to anyone. There’s the shota dude who is really over-exuberant. The other effeminate guy who has a dangerous heart disease. Then there’s that long-haired dismissive guy who keeps pushing his glasses back up his face because god forbid he buy a pair of glasses that fit his face. In case you haven’t guessed by now, this is yet another otome game adaptation about a group of samurai ninja bishies the main girl woos by being completely ineffectual. Chances are it will turn a tidy profit for Deen, because these shows always bloody do. Did you know they’re making a third season, an OVA and 2 movies for Hakuouki? Fucking Hakuouki!
Upotte!!
This is one of those anime you make up as a joke. I know anime loves to anthropomorphise everything into cute girls, but guns? I guess Strike Witches was anthropomorphised WWII fighter planes, so guns is probably a significant step down from that and quite reasonable, all things considered. I don’t play enough gun wank modern military shooters so for all I know an AK47 is just a spin-off group from AKB48 when B-chan left, so what interests me most is the staff. This is Xebec and their Z-Quality Team, with the director of Rio Rainbow Gate on board. You could not get trashier than this.
Mysterious Girlfriend X
I have absolutely no fucking idea what to expect from this. The manga is…strange. The plot description is the title. This guy has a mysterious girlfriend. It seemed to me to be a commentary on how formulaic relationships are in culture and how exciting doing something different can be. For example, why do we even take kissing for granted as something couples do? I don’t know if the show can expand this single idea into a full series though. It’s being directed by the same guy who’s doing Space Bros, so he’s also a bit of a dark horse. Then there’s the studio adapting it. Hoods Entertainment, the guys who made their debut with the tit sucking extravaganza Seikon no Quasar and then followed that up with breast mutilation anime (stealing from sankaku headlines now) Manyuu Hikenchou. Their history isn’t what you’d call star studded. I mean, the Mysterious Girlfriend X manga is sorta perverse, but in a really bizarre sort of way that questions the very notion of what is considered perverse. It might be easier to simply think of this as Nisemonogatari episode 8 the anime.
Medaka Box
“Oh boy” I hear you say, “I am so looking forward to Medaka Box”. Nope, you’re not, this show will suck. “What? But it’s a manga written by Nision, guy who wrote the -monogatari series, which means it will be good”. Nope, sorry mate, but Medaka Box has routinely been towards the bottom of the Shounen Jump rankings and frequently gets criticised for going absolutely nowhere for months upon end. The fact that it hasn’t been cancelled is something of a miracle. “Ah but it’s being animated by Gainax, I love those guys”. Wrong, all the guys that made Gainax great have left. The Evangelion/Kare Kano/FLCL crew? They’ve all left or retired by now, most of them moving to Studio Khara to make the Evangelion movies? The team that made Gurren Lagann and Panty and Stocking? Imaishi packed them all up and moved to his new animation studio Trigger. The person directing Medaka Box is the same person who directed He is my Master and This Ugly Yet Beautiful World. There is nobody good left at Gainax.
Accel World
I prefer Sunrise when they make their own stuff, rather than adapting light novel Shana clones. At the very least they tend to have really high quality animation, and the trailer looks very flashy, albeit flashy in a Guilty Crown sort of way. There are also no noses, because noses aren’t considered moe. Seriously, this has been something that has been bugging me increasingly over the years. What happened to noses at the turn of the decade? Anyway, the director is the guy who did Mai HiME so knows his flashy action sequences, but also made Girl Who Leapt Through Space so he also knows how to make crap. I’ll be honest though, the only reason I’m really drawn to this is because the main character is a little chubby kid. I’m not sure why I’m drawn towards that, but with swathes of Yuji Everyleads dominating the world of Shana clones, sometimes all you need is a fat kid in the role of Yuji to stand out from the crowd. You know what else would help you stand out from the crowd though? If you gave the characters some fucking noses!
Tsuritama
Kenji Nakamura is an interesting fellow. He directed a segment in the Noitamina anime Ayakashi that impressed the producers enough to give the character in that arc his own full TV series in Noitamina a year later. This anime was Mononoke, a really weird artsy piece, so it was a pretty big shock when it proved to be a huge success, both critically and commercially. Since then he’s been given a free reign to do pretty much anything he wants, with varying degrees of success. There was the equally bizarre Trapeze, my personal favourite of his, and last year he made [C] which was…well, it had some fascinating ideas and was fairly entertaining, but was also kind of a mess. I’d call him an auter except he doesn’t seem to have any single style cemented, but they’re always imaginitve, creative and worth a shot.
So onto his new anime, Tsuritama. First impressions on the trailer were a bit disappointed. I remember thinking C was fairly normal looking by Nakamura standards, but Tsuritama is yet another step down the path to normality, although compared to what most anime look like it’s still incredibly stylised. Rather reminiscent of that Toei short piece Kyousogiga, a look I rather like. The weirdness is mainly found in the synopsis. A Frenchman, an Indian who marries a duck, and an alien who has come to earth to do some fishing. I probably should have left it with that final point. Arakawa Under the Bridge as directed by Kenji Nakamura. That’s all I needed to know.
Natsuiro Kiseki
It’s because stuff like this is being made that I have such respect for Daily Lives of Highschool Boys. An anime about 4 girls being insufferably nice to each other, created for the sole purpose to promote a bunch of idols. The one point of interest, and also confusion on my part, is that the director is Seiji Mizushima, the director of the original FMA and, more recently, Un-Go. He’s a director I have a lot of respect for. Heck, he even made something like Hanamaru Kindergarten watchable and fairly entertaining. He doesn’t have his usual posse that help him out on projects though, but I’ve seen enough of his stuff by now that I’m willing to give anything with his name on a shot. Maybe this will prove to be some sort of glorious deconstruction or something, complete with more jabs at nationalism and how idols are treated as tools by society hollowing out their personalities leaving empty shells of marketable traits. And hey, speaking of hollow marketable idols…
AKB0048
This. An AKB48 anime. It was going to happen eventually. In fact, it did happen before, with the anime Project Ice, which I still class as one of, if not the worst anime I have ever seen (and I’ve seen a fair amount of bad anime in my time). For those happily ignorant of what AKB48 are, they are kind of a big deal in Japanese otaku fandom. It’s a group of idols (the current number is somewhere around 57) each with their own cutesy appeal. Through some really ingenious marketing strategies, their sales blow everything else aside in the Oricon charts.
So you might think that this would be similar to the Idolm@ster anime, following a group of idols as they go about their idol duties, right? Nope, instead we’re going for a post apocalyptic setting where humanity rebels against the oppressors, inspired by the underground idol group AKB0048. Better yet, it’s been directed by Shoji Kawamori, guy responsible for a lot of the Macross Franchise, including Frontier and Zero. Also Aquarion EVOL, so the guy knows how to make good dumb goofy sci-fi stuff. What I find really weird is how they’ve brought in this high profile director and yet have character designs that look really amateurish. Honestly, I haven’t a bloody clue what to expect from this. Considering they’re based off real life idols, the characterisation will be as shallow as a puddle, but that’s the only thing I could bank on. The rest? Not a fucking clue.
Saki: Side A
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
No. New characters and new plot
The other side of the spectrum to Eureka Seven Ao. Eureka Seven was finished, plot wrapped up and everyone living happily ever after yada yada yada. Starting with new characters made perfect sense. Saki, on the other hand, didn’t finish its story. I know a lot of Saki fans wanted a proper sequel to the original. But no, instead we get this big cast on new characters. Seems counter-intuitive but they have brought back all the same staff, so maybe fans of the original just have to get over themselves and accept these new imposters. But what do I know, I didn’t like the original either. In fact, this director is one of my least favourite working today. Manabu Ono and his mission to eliminate noses from anime altogether. Look at that picture, what passes for noses could just as easily be mistaken for a speck of dirt on your screen. What do you have against noses you crazy man?
Sakamichi no Appolon
This is one of those dream combinations that you never thought would see the light of day. Shinichiro Watanabe, director of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, directing an anime about two kids setting up a jazz band with Yoko Kanno doing the music. If there is a potential problem, it’s that it’s based off an ongoing manga so it won’t have the opportunity to wrap up in time. Mind you, if your biggest problem is that you’re based off an award winning manga, then chances are you’ll be OK. Winner of the Shojokukan Manga Award no less, probably the biggest manga award there is. Ooh, should probably add that Mutha Fookin Space Bros won that award the year before, so double the hype for that. But back to Appolon. It’s great to see Noitamina back to hosting high quality josei anime again. It’s great to see Mr. Bebop back in the anime world after being absent for so long. If you watch anything this season, watch Appolon.
Jormungand
Someone asked me, back when Steins;Gate was airing, were White Fox the new big name in the animation studio ring. I pointed out that White Fox were simply a journeyman studio, with no cohesive style or staff behind their works. This adaptation of Jormungand proves the point I made in that post. It’s being adapted by White Fox but has none of the main staff that worked on Steins;Gate or Katanagatari or Tears to Tiara, the three anime White Fox have made before. Instead of that Steins;Gate director, who was essentially a Madhouse veteran, they instead brought on board the director of Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka. Yeah. That said, as I’ve learned from Future Diary or Spice and Wolf that if you give a director quality source material they will hitch up their trousers and try to prove to the world that they’re capable of animating more than just shitty harem VN adaptations.
The Jormungand manga is very Black Lagoon/Hellsing -esque in that it has really angry women holding guns along with this general vibe of sexy danger. I couldn’t tell you how good the manga is. I tried reading it but didn’t get far because I can never tell what the fuck is going on in action manga. However for these kinds of stories, a lot often comes down to whether you can nail the tone. Turn too far in the direction of sadism and you end up with Deadman Wonderland. On the plus side, the manga ending is coinciding with this anime adaptation, so it will at least end properly. My point here is that if you’re going to hype yourself up for this, do so because of the source material. Not because you love Steins;Gate and White Fox are making Jormungand too. There is none of the same staff.
Phi Brain continues airing
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
Yes
Does this even count as a new season if there is absolutely no gap between the two? I vote for no, so I’m not going to cover it. Moving on-
Shining Hearts
Shining Hearts is Production IG’s adaptation of an RPG by the same name. The game alternates between fighting monsters and bread baking, depending on your preferred style of play. Kind of how like Pokemon Ruby/Saphire allowed you to either engage in manly real battles or beauty pageants if you felt like being a humongous pussy. A gameplay choice I appreciate but, unlike gameplay, you can’t decide in a TV show that you’d prefer to watch the main character killing slimes instead of the umpteenth episode of hawt girls baking bread and accidentally spilling cream on each other’s faces and watching it drip slowly down their smooth skin as it disappears into their cleavage and speaking of hawt girls, the character designs are by God. However I have learned by now that God is not a good person to trust when it comes to the quality of upcoming anime. Plus this is hardly what I’d call Production IG’s A-team when you’ve brought aboard the King of Average, director of Rental Magica, Chrome Shelled Region and Legend of the Legendary Heroes. So don’t expect much from this. Go and watch Fault instead.
Sengoku Collection
If there’s one thing you’re almost guaranteed of every anime season from now until the end of time is that there will be at least one anime per season that has something to do with the Sengoku Era. Choose a random subtitle, add Sengoku to it and there’s probably an anime with that name. If you want to be super original, why not genderswap all the characters too. A female Oda Nobunaga would be hilarious and totally original! When searching for information for this, I accidentally typed in Sengoku Paradise instead and there’s an anime with that name too. It’s based off a ‘social game’ which for me reads like they’ve adapted the Japanese equivalent of the Mafia Wars facebook game. What’s annoying about this is it’s being animated by Brains Base. Damnit Brains Base, I thought you guys were legit! Sure your stuff can be flawed, but there was always intent to producing quality content. Akikan was the one blemish on your record. If it was going to come to this, I would have preferred if you just stuck to making more bloody Natsume.
Korean Zombie Desk Car
of the Dead
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
Yes
One year ago the first season of Korean Zombie Desk Car aired. It was an incredibly generic harem comedy that occasionally pointed to itself and proclaimed “look at me, I’m being horrible and generic”! This caused people to mistake it for a parody, only to have it later shoved in their face as the show gradually forgot to even point out how generic it was being and the true beast below was revealed. Now we have more, this time with ‘Of The Dead’ tacked on at the end. A mockery of nonsense anime titles that slap English onto their names to sound cool? A parody of Highschool of the Dead? Or are the creators’ idiots who think ‘Of The Dead’ is a catch all term they can put onto something that has zombies in it? Me thinks it may be the last option.
Acchi Kocchi
The latest 4-koma adaptation! Right, let’s unearth from my basement Ye Olde Laws Of 4-Koma Adaptations. Rule 1: Thou must have more than one joke in your repertoire. Judging by the short sample of the manga I read, Acchi Kocchi nimbly evades this by having no jokes whatsoever. In the final panel, where a joke usually resides, the characters simply yell something and that’s the end. Rule 2: Thou must be more than cute girls doing cute things. Instant points right off the bat because there are men in this show. Rule 3: Thou must form some sort of cohesive narrative. Again, signs are positive that this will be passed. The director has previously directed Lotte’s Toy, which did have a story. It was about an 11 year old child’ need to guzzle semen and occasionally pretended to be about parenting. As we can see, I have scientifically proven that Acchi Kocchi will be the greatest anime ever, with the likes of Space Bros and Appolon cowering beneath its mastery of the 4-koma adaptation.
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
As signified by the fact my favourite anime of both 2010 and 2011 were by Shaft, it’s probably clear by now that I’ve become a Shaft fanboy (no, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is not by Shaft, but bear with me I’m going somewhere with this). With the massive success of Madoka and the -monogatari series, it’s become a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ Shaft’s influence will start to be seen across other anime. It might be difficult to judge exactly whether the influence comes from Shaft, as it’s not like Shinbo’s style was born in a vacuum. He’s on the record saying that he was influenced by that old-hand at Madhouse Osamu Dezaki and his work on Rose of Versailles, which crazy auteur Ikuhara also says he was inspired by. That’s why there are a lot of similar stylistic elements between PenguinDrum and the many of Shaft/Shinbo works.
If there’s a clear example of a studio being influenced by Shaft though, it’s Silver Link, for the quite obvious reason that the staff there all used to work at Shaft. Thing is, the anime they’ve produced have been kinda shitty. Tayutama, C Cubed. Their best was probably Baka to Test, which still wasn’t very good, running out of jokes after maybe 2 episodes and repeating itself from there on. Then again, this is largely the same problem all early Shaft/Shinbo stuff had too. It wasn’t until the turn of the decade did they start to produce some proper storytelling capabilities within that crazy style. I think it’s safe to say that Dusk Maiden of Amnesia won’t be their breakout hit. It’s just another Shana clone. Generic male lead who has no discernable personality beyond the fact he’s kinda nice has high school girl with super powers fall into his lap. The website for the anime boldly greets you with a giant cleavage. I guess there are some parts from Shaft I wish they didn’t take quite so much inspiration from…
Koi-ken
Oh boy, ’tis the season for social networking games. First Sengoku Subtitle and now Koiken. I suppose if they’re going to make social networking games, they might as well base them off the most well-worn clichés and genres. First Sengoku era characters turned into hot teenage girls. Secondly a dating sim set in high school in which, in their own words, an “extremely ordinary” male lead gets to talk to a series of girls. Want to date the maid? How about the shrine maiden? What about the girl who is basically Azunyan from K-ON? The options are limitless! It’s going to be a web-release by an animation studio I’ve never heard of before, so look forward to eye-cancerous webrips and possibly terribad levels of banal rubbish.
Kimi to Boku Season 2
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
Sorta. It’s s’life but they’ll assume you know the characters
Funny how this anime’s abject failure is even more stark now that Daily Lives of Highschool Boys graced our screens.
Nyarlko Season 2
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
Sorta. It’s a goofy comedy but they’ll assume you know the characters
Flash shit about moe-fied cthulhu. Also a sequel. The original wasn’t very good. Yeah…that’s all I have to say.
::Edit:: Captain Lolicon Buttfuck Cartoons has informed me that the second season won’t be flash shit and is in fact being animated by Xebec. I guess in the grand scheme of anime studios, Xebec is probably the next level above flash. Looking forward to the third season being animated by Studio Deen.
Queen’s Blade Rebellion
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
I don’t think so. It’s a sequel but it looks like it has new characters
Titties! You know, after getting bored by Bodacious Space Pirates lack of actual pirating or bodacity, that pirate character design in the trailer actually looks rather appealing. Maybe I’ll give this a go. It’s got completely new characters, and I’m sure I’ll pick up on the complex lore behind the Queens Blade mythos as it progresses.
Rock Lee no Seishun
Full-Power Ninden
Do I need to have seen the previous season?
Sort of. It’s a gag story about a side character from Naruto
There used to be a thing for this back in the 90s. Super-deformed spin-offs of existing franchises. This is that for Naruto, focusing in particular on the bizarre character design of Rock Lee. Don’t have much to say about this, it’s mainly just a piece of fanservice for Naruto fans. But what’s important here is that Naruto fans clearly still exist, while apparently everyone has stopped giving a shit about Bleach. Yes, the TV show this silly little chibi Naruto spin-off is kicking off the airwaves is Bleach. That once shounen powerhouse that stood proud alongside Naruto and One Piece has been cancelled, with the manga also entering its final arc. Since those days, One Piece has exploded in popularity, Naruto has declined slightly, and Bleach seems to be regarded as a joke. It’s kind of fascinating to see.
Yurumates
Some 4-koma adaptation about people with weirdly proportioned heads. It had 2 previous OVA releases, which were apparently well-received enough to warrant a TV series. I think it will be one of those 5-minute episode things? I’ve never heard anyone talk about the OVAs, none of the staff or animation studio ring any bells in my head, I can’t be arsed to check out the manga. Nobody is going to sub it anyway. Does anyone seriously care? Would anyone notice if I didn’t even bother including this in the preview?
Polar Bear Café
It’s an anime about a polar bear running a cafe with a panda and a penguin. Clearly the greatest anime of the decade.
Kiddy Shows
Instead of wasting a load of space on each individual children’s shows that air each season, I’m just going to dump them into this one category. Ginga e Kickoff is a kids show about saawwcurrr that looks like it’s trying to capitalise on the popularity of Inazuma 11. I look forward to the massive following of creepy shotacon loving fangirls. Pretty Rythem Dear My Future is a sequel to Pretty Rythem Aurora Dream, except with an entirely new cast of characters. Trying to pull a Precure here I see, except instead of trying to get little girls to buy multi-coloured plastic toys, it tries to get them to jump around on DDR machines and maybe take up ice-skating, so clearly it is better for your children’s health. One Stormy Night is a collaboration between Japanese and Singaporean animation studios about a goat and a wolf travelling across the land. It has some genuinely talented staff working on it, such as the director of Shiki, but there’s no point looking forward to it because nobody ever subs these kinds of shows. There’s a new Jewelpet, a new Beyblade and a new Cardfight Vanguard, new Bakugan and even a new Transformers, just in case there weren’t enough toy advertisements in your children’s’ lives.
Movies and OVAs
Usual reminder here that the movies that are currently being released in Japan are only getting theatrical releases. You won’t get to see them until much later when the BD releases are out. With that in mind, I’m going to be previewing the movies that are coming out on BD within the next 3 months, according to amazon.jp. Also for OVAs, I’m not going to be covering those that are just special additional episodes to TV series, since they’re usually nothing more than pieces of fanservice. Watch them if you liked the TV series.
Recollection of a Certain Airship Pilot
This has been released and subbed already, but it only came out very recently and I didn’t talk about it in the last season preview, so I’m giving it a quick mention here anyway. This is Madhouse’s latest movie, a studio with a looooong list of amazing anime movies to their name. You know, every single Satoshi Kon film, every single Mamoru Hosada movie, Redline, and that’s just in their movies catalogue. This one doesn’t have quite the star studded staff behind it, unless you think the director of Story of Sainkoku is something worth leaping for joy over. Which is far from being a bad thing to have on your résumé, but it’s also the only thing on his résumé, unless you want to list that he was assistant director on Cosprayers. To be fair, Cosprays was trying to be bad, and he at least helped achieve that. As much as I love Madhouse, this looks rather tepid and ordinary by their standards, which admittedly means it looks considerably more interesting than most everything else coming out. As I said though, it is already out and subbed, go give it a shot and make up your own mind.
Alice in the Country of Hearts
Wonderful Wonder World
Speaking of movies that have already been released, this Alice movie thing has already been released in Japan for quite a while now, but no subs exist yet. Heck, I didn’t even see any raws. Not sure why nobody is jumping on this. There’s colourful bishies everywhere, that should be reason enough for a large proportion of the anime viewing population to watch it, right? It’s based off a manga by the same name. From what I can tell, it’s kind of like those Sengoku era stories where all the famous figures turn into large breasted ladies, except in this case you replace ‘Sengoku Era’ with ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and replace ‘large breasted ladies’ with ‘colourful bishies’.
Un-Go episode 0
Un-Go was a really fascinating anime. Yeah about half of the episodes were really badly rushed thanks to Noitamina’s limited episode count, and the mysteries themselves often sucked. But I still loved it because whoever was making it really had an agenda they were trying to push. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anime more laden with political statements, even more so than Stand Alone Complex or Eden of the East. This ‘episode 0’ is the story of how Shinjuro met Inga in the first place, back when he was a soldier. If I could have asked for anything more from Un-Go (asides from maybe cutting out a few of the mysteries it didn’t really need so it wouldn’t be so rushed in places) it would have been exactly this. So I’m stoked. Not sure many other people are, but for those with me the DVD/BD release is the 20th of April.
Then there’s a bunch of franchise movies that don’t warrant covering. There’s a new Precure movie, new Naruto movie and a new Prince of Tennis movie, the final one of which I’ll only watch if tennis wipes out the Klingons.
Kimi no Iru Machi
OVAs now, first with Kimi no Iru Machi. Or, as the ‘fans’ like to call it, RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE etc. The manga is by the same guy who wrote Suzuka, and from what I gather it’s largely the same stuff. Lots of characters liking each other but being various degrees of stubborn and not getting together and then finally getting together but then deciding they don’t like this and so on and so forth. Short OVA adaptations of ongoing manga generally suck balls, but the reason I’m interested in this is because the director is the same guy who directed Time of Eve and Pale Cocoon. Yasuhiro Yoshiura is one of my favourite guys working in anime today, although there’s a rather noticeable lack of any of his handheld-camera style of animation from the trailer. But whatever, he’s got that other movie coming out this year. I’m guessing this is just a way balance the books on his end.
Moe Can Change!
And finally, to round it this humongous post, we have the prime terribad material category. It’s based off a game for Android which is, for all intensive purposes, a pretty princess dress up game. You get some moeblob and stick it in various outfits. Apparently this idea so was shocking and mind-blowing that they decided it was worth making an anime out of. Director has done Spice and Wolf, but some kind of crazy magical lighting struck his head when he adapted that novel because everything else he has done has been utter trash. I can’t wait!
::EDIT:: A few days after I posted this, there was that small deal of a new Lupin III TV series announced.
The Cart Driver 
I’m not sure I agree about it being a Shana clone. Sure, I’ll give you the generic male lead with no personality, but from what little I remember of the manga, Yuuko was completely unlike Shana and didn’t have superpowers. Oh and the manga was pretty fanservicey, so I’m not sure it’s just the animation studio that should be blamed for the giant cleavage.
On an unrelated note, Space Bros!
Note in my definition of Shana Clone I don’t specify the personality of the girl. The important part is the personalityless male lead. Although I thought she did have super powers? Like, she was a ghost or something
Ah well fair enough, though I always default to the insufferable Shana archetype whenever someone says Shana clone. Were there no male protagonists with no personalities before Shana?
She’s a ghost, but does that count as super powers? I guess it might? But I would consider it supernatural rather than super powers personally.
Think you got some bad information on the new Nyaru-ani. The second season already aired, this is the third season – and it’s not flash. Totally new creative team – and it’s from Xebec!
Fix’d
It’s not the first, second or third season as far as I know – it’s actually the first season of this anime. I don’t think that they’re going to proceed from where this flash animation season ended.
It’s gonna begin from the start of a story.
Ah, Kimi ni Iro Machi, how much I loathe thee. Utterly hair-tearing rollercoaster of character drama due to everyone being UTTER IDIOTS with regards to relationships. The bane of Crazydave’s life.
That said, I’m definitely looking forward to some of the adaptations, Nazo Kanojo X and Zetman in particular. The former because of the author’s thesis for the manga (“romantic relationships can be fun and exciting without jumping straight to sex”) and how it can even be properly adapted, ESPECIALLY by a studio that’s so far done fanservice nonsense. And despite the author of the latter’s other works, it’s actually closer to Berserk! in actual tone, meaning its really dark at times, with rape and a whole lot of ultraviolence.
Not really a lot of keepables for me aside from those, though I see many watchables like Eureka Seven AO and Hyoka.
I’m suprised so many people read that manga when absolutley none of them seem to enjoy it. Are they all just masochists?
I point you to the Guilty Crown hate fanbase.
Guilty Crown people don’t seem to hold out any hope, or ever wish that it will get better though, unlike the Kimi crowd
See Kimi no Iru Machi fans used to have a lot of RAGE but the rage was just one of those common shipping wars where why didn’t X go with Y which was actually very fun. There were people who hated what was going on and there are those who actually liked what was happening or rather there was still a lot to like.
But it only took 1 chapter. 1 CHAPTER! (or at least a set of chapters building up to that chpater) to shift everyone to the “THIS MANGA IS TOO RAGE” scenario. It was really as if the author destroyed every single aspect of what made the series have even the least bit light. The following chapters after that got surprisingly worse, generic and the writer pretended as if the series was still going smoothly and fun but in reality it just pissed on every single reader. I mean when it comes to manga, I’m honestly a completionist. When I read something, I read it until the latest chapter or the last one. And seriously, I was quite invested with Kimi no Iru Machi. It wasn’t a masterpiece but it had a lot of good bits here and there. But after . . . o god RAGE RAGE RAGE. I literally stopped and put my face on my palm. “Why are they doing this? Am I suppose to sympathize with them? Oh god poor lovers everyone hates them! Well guess what we (the readers) hate you too!” Fuck you Haruto and Eba.
Lol sorry Scamp but almost everyone who reads the manga feels the RAGE when talking about it.
-Nyarlko is neither a second season nor flash, but at least you got the not quite good part down.
-As disappointed as I am about Gainax’s current situation and their choice of Medaka Box, refering to Souji Saeki as “the HiMM dude” is simply unfair. You might want to try “that cool guy who directed half of FLCL, did a lot of work on TTGL and even directed the rather entertaining magical girl one-shot by the name of Pleiades”.
And yes, a lot of the big names in the studio have left. Too bad you’re wrong by saying nobody good is left. The other confirmed staff member for this show is Kuwana, one of the most talented guys in the industry. And I do mean it. He’s amazing. No, really. That good.
-Misspelling both Urasawa and NisioisiN’s names is like asking nerds to get irrationally angry. I didn’t mind because I’m not a nerd but holy shit do it again and I will kill you through the internet.
Man, Pleiades is shit too. He also did This Ugly Yet Beautiful World. In the face of that, his work on FLCL was probably just a fluke.
I’ve gotten into the habit of writing his name as Nision. I know it’s not that, but NisiosiiosiisosinsiN is too confusing. Fix’d Urasawa’s name though
You can just be weaboo and write Nishio Ishin of just Nishio 😀
*or
Wow is it just me or a lot of old character designs/shows are coming? It feels like a new trend is coming or an old trend coming back
Hmm, I was kinda hoping you’d misspell the anime name in EVERY screenshot.
Close, though!
Other than that, let’s see… F/Z, E7, the noitaminA’s, Leiji, maybe Zetman, and yeah I’ve been following the Amnesia manga. Some of the mysteries in it can miss, but there were a few genuinely shocking panels in the mid-teen chapters. Good creepy stuff, but I don’t know if that will translate well onto anime.
At the very least, I’m looking forward to that more than I did with Another.
Oh yeah! The Un-Go movie! I am fucking stoked.
Crap, forgot to mention Space Bros, too. I’m all over that.
Assuming that someone somewhere is willing to sub it… Still waiting on Hyouge Mono. 😦
Hah, I’d totally forgotten about the screenshots names. I took them so long ago that I couldn’t have told you what I named them. Often I don’t know the names of the anime websites that I’m on when I’m taking the screencaps so I just write down the name I’ll remember it by.
Two people telling me Amnsesia might be good. Will at least give it a proper look now
As funny as those were all to read it was a huge downer remembering all this rubbish is being released. Lets just hope Space Bros is as good as you make it sound. Sort of like how Guilty Crown turned out so much better then you made it sound.
It’s obvious we all need to watch Polar Bear Cafe.
Good post as always.
These season previews will forever hold the spectre of Guilty Crown over them. Guilty Crown…[sigh]
For you maybe. Guilty Crown did turn out to be one of the most entertaining shows from the previews, you just refuse to see it. Hell, even Nichibros has duff episodes; GC on the other hand manages to surpass itself every week. Comedy of the season!
Looking at it that way you have a point. It’s gotten to the stage where I can’t help but laugh at the terrible characterization and plot.
Sadly, Scamp is not a Segai. He will never be able appreciate the flawed masterpiece that is Guilty Crown.
You’re quite behind on the times with Medaka Box. People have been loving it since like eighty chapters ago.
Eh, I heard it got marginally better but still wasn’t particularly great.
It’s gotten better around the 60th chapter with the appearance of 「Kumagawa」, but I don’t think that Gainax will get to these chapters even with 2 seasons…
But I’m still hoping that they’ll try to turn it into something great andd we’ll see both Kumagawa and other seasons.
The thing about Medaka Box is… it’s insane. In a good way.
Being ordered to transform it into a shonen fight series seems to have driven the mangaka to decide, ‘Whatever. If I have to follow a a shonen fight framework then I will, but other than that, Medaka Box is going to do what Medaka Box wants to do.”
Where else do you get a manga where one of the big bad bosses declares, “Since Medaka is obviously a main character, I can’t beat her. Luckily this is a high school setting and I’m immortal, so I’ve just going to wait three years until you graduate out and then proceed with my evil plans unhindered. Hah!”
ehh. it seems Zetman it is this season. Couldn’t care at all about other stuff. And with Zetman manga is..strange. At first you get this little whiny angsty half bum kiddo, but after short period there is “superheroes”, grown up kid with brains in his head (but still half bum), huge corporations going on each other throats and some weird monsters. We’ll see how far anime will go.
You don’t care about Space Bros? Did you not read the description? It’s about Bros. In Space!
Clearly the best season ever.
“I do wonder why they’re half-arsing their cuteness with stuff like this or Nichijou. Either go full out K-ON style or make something totally different. Halfway between garners the interest of neither crowd.”
That’s assuming that humankind can be divided into two opposing groups of people who only care about cuteness, and people who hate cuteness and want to get rid of it just for the sake of getting rid of it.
In fact, things being cute is better than things not being cute, as long as it doesn’t contradict the theme.
Saying that they are half-assing it, is like saying that every show that isn’t a comedy should be dead serious, and any joke in it would be half-assing humor.
Eh, in theory, but that does still happen though. Do something half-heartedly often means you turn off both sets of fans. I would prefer no cuteness for the sake of cuteness in my anime
Yeah, but that’s just a minority’s hostile reaction to the moe fandom, not a sign of cuteness being naturally unappealing.
Just look at how mainstream people use the phrase “cuteness”. They generally see it as an appeal, even if not the single most important appeal of something.
So, from KyoAni’s perspective, it makes perfect sense to use it moderately, not to appear creepy by focusing on it, but still be appealing to mainstream audiences.
Hardly, cute is seen as girly and icky by most men. That said, Japan is rather different when it comes to cute stuff
So, if a man says that children are “cute” or lolcats are “cute”, they mean that these are icky, rather than something positive about them?
I think that’s hardly the case. The very dictionary definition of cuteness involves the words “attractive”, “appealing”, and “pretty”.
Of course it CAN BE used negatively, but only when it is at the wrong place, or when there is too much of it, the same way as even “smart” or “beaoutiful” can be negative, but it is not a value-neutral term that some people hate and others like, it is by definition, an appealing concept.
Kimi to Boku 2 best show ^__^~~~~~~
By the way, what happened to your “I refuse to use thze weeaboo name” campaign, regarding the names of Scarlet Fragment, Place to place, Kuroko’s Basketball, and Apollo on the Slope?
Embraced my inner weeaboo/got lazy
it’s per se, not per say.
I’m sold on the bros. and the pointy noses. Thanks for the reviews.
Zetman has a fair dose of Devilman and Kamen Rider mixed in with its Batman and Iron Man nods.
Tiger & Bunny is certainly the cause of the adaptation, as Masakazu Katsura did the character design on T&B. Though of course, someone else did the Zetman TV designs. Because why make it appeal to the fans of the manga too much?
Katsura’s debut in the Eighties with Wingman was the blueprint for both his sci-fi romcoms and his superhero work. It’s an early Urusei Yatsura clone with Kamen Rider mixed in.
Ah so that’s the thread combining the two series. I heard they shared character designers, but I hadn’t realised it was for the original manga rather than the Zetman anime
I think this may be the most positive-sounding preview you’ve done in quite some time. I’m pretty hyped myself; there’s a wealth of show’s with potential here. I’m especially looking forward to Sakamichi no Appolon, Polar Bear Café, Eureka Seven Ao, Mysterious Girlfriend X (Glo has spent enough praising that show), provided Hoods doesn’t screw it up, Tsuritama and Ozuma. Also, SpaceBros… fucking SpaceBros man…
Also, that AKB48 anime sounds fantastic! When it looks like a bad Bubblegum Crisis 2040 rip-off, and is written by Mari Okada, there’s no way the show won’t be entertainingly awful!
“I was able to watch Eureka Seven without having seen the previous 6 Eureka series oh ho ho”
shakes head, leaves room
I’m probably not as positive about this season as I come off. As I said at the start, it’s more ‘interesting’ than promising. Stuff like Mysterious Girlfriend X, Eureka Seven Ao, Saint Seiya Omega, Zetman, Jormungand. I’m really interested in seeing how each of these turn out, but I wouldn’t say I have the highest of hopes for them either
“I’m not sure why producers have suddenly decided Leiji Matsumoto stuff is cool again”
This implies that his stuff was cool once. Which it wasnt.
Remember all those people on Twitter who were ranting apocalyptic on Noitamina’s demise. Boy, I bet they feel real stupid right about now!
(Awesome looking season, by the way.)
Cue Touhou anime and Ano Hana sequel in the summer
Can’t wait for it.
Moe is the cancer killing noitaminA and you just can’t deny it!
I like your tags. They’re not generic. They’re awesome and descriptive. “I’m yelling now. This means I’m funny right?” I was laughing.
…Well, maybe not descriptive to most people, but they tell me a lot about what to expect. Keep it up!
Season Previews in particular are always a blast with the tags because I get to trot out all my old favourites
Reading your season preview definitely makes me want to work harder on my next one- whilst we actually said a lot of similar things, you’ve this air of utter confidence in your opinion that I’m yet to master…
I actually compared Nazo no Kanojo X to Arakawa- same boy meets girl, boy has perception of what is normal completely warped by girl premise but, I think your comparison to Nisemonogatari 8 is more apt!
That’s actually a fairly good comparison. Arakawa was more challenging your entire view of society, not just relationships. I doubt Mysterious Girlfriend X has quite the same breadth of scope Arakawa did, but you never know. Arakawa on the face of it doesn’t look like it should delve that deep either
SPACE BROS
YEAH
SPACE
BROS
YEAAHHH
best shows this season are clearly going to be SPACE BROS
YEAH
appollon which i will now continue to forget exists until it airs because i’m reverse hyping it
and ozuma
and i guess unicorn episode 5 though the series has turned into a the biggest pile of shit not even the first voiced appearance of my glorious waifu CAPTAIN BRIGHT NOA can save it from how fucking awful it is.
Oh you don’t even know the half of what makes Kimi no Iru Machi RAGE RAGE RAGE (It’s not as simple as shipping wars and it’s more of the author managing to create the two most heartless individuals on earth). . . Well at least the part that they are going to animate looks like it isn’t where the rage starts.
Well I’m very excited for Apollon, Tsuritama, the continuation of Fate/Zero and Space Bros.
Seems better than this winter season.
And I’ll also watch Accel world because there’s a chubby dude. I guess we grew too acostumed to pretty characters as main leads. Now that we have a chubby one, it feels like the beginning of a revolution in the anime world.
about Wanko, some time ago the scanlator change the name to Ranko adduccing that is the official name.
Awww, there goes my main reason for watching it 😦
Her real name is Ranko, but her nickname is Wanko, yes.
I’d just like to point out that Zetman less resembles mainstream Capes comics and more closely resembles the Go Nagai style of superheroism: reluctant and grimderp. It’s like a crossover between Devilman and Blassreiter, but with more senseless plot twists that just get pseudo-retconned by terrible explanations.
How did you learn to write like this?
Seriously, I’m consistently amazed at how witty yet informative you manage to be.
I must agree.
Why thank you~
I put in more effort to season previews than any other post because I know how many people read them
They’re informative as hell. When I don’t know a thing about the next season (which I did until an hour ago; I did see the chart, though) I only have to go here and can see what would be worth watching. Yes, pmuch that. I can make up my own mind from reading an other’s (post).
Jormungand has a very good source material. Better than black lagoon in my opinion. It has lesser action, but a better story to make up for it. Hopes that School days/ akane/ katanagatari director doesn’t screw up. Katanagatari was the only decent anime out of all his works. Hopefully that is due to a good source material too.
Oh, you made a slight error, the director did white fox katanagatari and the character design is by a steins gate staff. As for the music composer did the music for katanagatari and gurren laggan. I’m not a fan of the director, but I’m love the music composer for the series
Aw shit, it is the same director. Somehow missed that. Also fuck, I didn’t like Katanagatari =(
Needs more noses.
I thought Medaka Box started off alright, but I dropped it so long ago to remember why I dropped it. The explanations for power ups were stupid? Idk.
I was looking forward to that sphere animu (fuck you too for calling them “a bunch of idols” ;__; ), but the PV was just absolutely underwhelming. I usually adore slice-of-life, but I suppose they need a niche…something this anime with the most generic of settings and lack of plot lacks. Here’s hoping that it’s a troll and whatever that “miracle” is isn’t friendship.
I thought the AKB0048 anime was about new characters in the future…? I mean yes there’s still the characters based off the girls IRL, but the original promo image shows new characters, so characterization won’t be completely hopeless?
Tony Taka isn’t God. Is this a Sankaku joke? Tony Taka’s artwork is stiff and lacks life. I’d rather have Shining Force Feather adapted.
Inazuma Eleven’s popularity is…partially because of the shotas, but also because of the super dimensional plays honestly fuck it Ginga looks lame.
You have a DS, don’t you? Go pick up the game and listen to the squeaky dub. The gameplay is fun and so is the story.
Implying they aren’t anything other than a bunch of idols eh? Well if you like them, the director is great so you never know
Thank God noitaminA is getting cool again. I swear, if I hear one more effing Supercell song…
Supercell is the cancer that is killing Noitamina
Spelling errors.
You’re a spelling error
The first chapter of Tasogare Otome x Amnesia:
Panty shot? Check
Groping? Check
Bland male lead? Check
Sankarea kicks ASSSSSS.
Mysterious Girlfriend X is THE BEST MANGA EVERRRRR.
END.
brains base whyyyy not a kuragehime sequel whhhyyyy ;_; oh, right, i forgot, because the manga is releasing super slow and is just barely at volume 9 when the anime ended at volume 5. guh.
i…i must watch polar bear cafe. o_o
I’ve been reading the Dusk Maiden manga, and, shockingly, it’s actually quite good.
Sceptical face =|
Really, I swear!
The art style is nice and atmospheric, though I don’t know how it’ll translate to the anime.
Jormugand and Zetman confirmed for 12 and 13 episodes, respectively. Can’t belive this shit
Are you sure about Jormungand? They have neither release the episode count on their official site nor their twitter account. They have enough materials to fit 2 cour. It would be weird to stop at 12, unless they decide to split the anime into 2 seasons like black lagoon and fate zero. Can I have the sources? Thanks. The only source I saw that states Jormungand has 12 episodes is animelist, which is most probably a mistake.
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/nanamibeya/20120302/p1
Thanks alterego 9. Gosh this sucks. However to be optimistic ->あくまで現状の仮予定という事なので変更ありえます。<- This scheduling is temporary and is subjected to change. It is still possible for a second season too . From the pv, they show scenes from the last few volumes. Hope they don't rush everything in 12 episodes. Can't put my hopes too high though, it's that director after all.
Probably they plan to have a second season if it turns out to be popular enough. If Kimi to Boku can get a second season…
I’m glad I’m not the only one insanely looking foward to Uchuu Kyoudai (Space Bros). I read the scanlated manga so far and it was simply amazing. I just hope they will capture that in the anime, I miss realistic settings.
Also: It was fun reading your preview, thanks xD
Jormungand PV :
http://www.wat.tv/video/jormungand-trailer-4qgwb_3m0bd_.html
Um.. It was epic! At least the music!
Native American music? That’s new, I’ll give them that. As much as I say White Fox is just a group of journeymen, each of their series have very different looks to them
Man, I think I’ll end up watching half of these just because they seem so retarded. Polar Bears, Penguins, and Pandas running a cafe….Bros, in space no less! Some random name I can’t pronounce that sounds Viking-esque, Korean Zombies with cars for desks. What a line up!
The only thing I can’t stand is Phi Brain. I watched the first episode of that and it was just terrible. Usually I can make light of terrible and watch it anyway, but there’s something about that main character which makes me want to see him die in some horrible and painful way.
Phi Brain: Then you are missing out by not watching, as half the episodes feature him screaming in pain.
Thank you for putting Recollection of a Certain Airship Pilot into your post. Without you mentioning the movie I would possibly never have watched it. You made my day!
Glad to be of service 😀
i dont get why do you hate some studios, since they are just hired (mostly) to do something, so i cant be a fan or a hater of any studio. this is why funny your xebec hating for example. you may hate, and you can, but their employees can be appear almost everywhere and you dont realize it. its not a family what cant change their members send them to help make the keyframes for a random movie, ova and so…
When the two anime a studio produces in a season happen to be moefied Cthulhu and moefied guns, you start to notice a pattern.
Space Bros sounds cool, can’t really tell if it’s a drama like Planetes or something more lighthearted but I’ll take anything that’s remotely hard science-fiction!
Polar Bear Cafe sounds pretty… chill, you could say?
Also if the MGX adaptation follows the manga word for word then prepare thyself for NONEXISTANT RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT (WITH ADDED COCKTEASE) : THE ANIME
I believe ‘nonexistant relationship development with added cocktease’ would accurately describe a surprising amount of anime
There are several reasons for why the Alice movie seems to have nobody jumping on it.
1: It’s by Quinrose, the company that refuses to make a doormat heroine, and Japan just loves it’s doormat heroines. (the only reason the company sells is because their pretty boys are all out of the norm in usually good ways)
2: As the poster already told you this has already a victorious guy there’s not really a chance to see the other favourites interacting the way they want with the heroin (again Quinrose makes quite clear who is the real love interest no matter how much you like another character and in this game there are at least three big favorites other than the hatter)
3: The movie moves around it’s narrative A LOT, so people who haven’t played the games or have short attention spans will not get anything out of it, and really tons of fangirls don’t have the interest to actually look at the history properly if their guy of interest is not on screen.
It’s probably a plus, that the company makes a pain in the ass to buy their stuff if you live outside Japan, for the lack of raws since they appeared just last week.
All of the above don’t bother me at all beacuse whoever makes the desicions in there usually matches my preferences so this company is my favourite (save for the pain in the ass that is buying their stuff).
Rant over now to the stuff that I’m watching thanks to you.
Space Bros!! Tsuritama and Appolon (also korewa zombie, the rock lee spin off, hiiro no kakera even if I probably won’t survive the first three episodes because it’s bad in a bad way and not in a funny way like utapri, medaka box because I really hope they get to the kumagawa arc seriously the guy is the sole reason I keep reading the manga, and will check the first episode of the AKB anime only to see if it’s funny bad or boring bad. well I was going to see these even before reading your review.)
And also thanks, you oficially broke me, I can’t stop smiling every time I get to the polar bear anime, I can’t wait to see it even when I didn’t even knew it existed a few hours ago… AND NOW I’M MORE EXITED ABOUT IT THAN FOR SPACE BROS!!!!!
Ugh…I checked the raws for Space Bros…I’m too hyped for this, can’t wait….x.x
Sorry for the late, large comment.
A quick note about Bleach. The anime is ending, but most people think it will come back when there is enough source material. As for the manga, it might be on the last arc, but this last arc will likely last 5 to 10 years. So, yeah, Bleach is here for a while.
Anyway, on to Spring.
I am surprised manga fags aren’t expressing their anger at you for mocking their beloved series especially given how many adaptations there are. I guess everyone just grew to love you! Isn’t that nice?
Well, you know how lenient I am (or at least I hope you do…), so take the following with a grain of rice:
Medaka Box: I liked the first few chapters. The way I saw the manga proceeding was that the president was a saint who did really nice things, but at the same time, her best friend/vice-president kept her safe from the shadows. In other words, she did the public good deeds while he secretly took care of all the problems she was too nice to handle. That is what I wanted, but I did not really get that. 😦 I dropped it a long, long time ago. Newer chapters might be better, but apparently the male lead does not get much screen time, so, yea! Still, try the beginning, it might be interesting. In my opinion, the more they focus on the male character(s), the better it will be.
I have only read a small amount of Zombie Girl and Ghost Girl (too lazy to copy pasta correct names), but in general, the two received really good reviews, so, they are likely doing something correctly. Zombie Girl seemed to touch on some serious issues like parental abuse in the first few chapters, I hope that it sort of continues to touch on serious things. I hope Otome does something similar.
I can’t vouch for newer chapters, but from what I had read before, Mysterious Gf X is a great manga. It is not for everyone, but it really is quite good, and the romance is actually quite sweet if a bit strange. The only major complaint seems to be that it is slow for a monthly manga.
I read a good portion of the Accel World manga (also an adaptation of the novel). Have no fear, noses might not be present, but it is a fun series. I actually really liked what I read, and yes, the chubbiness of the male lead adds to his charm. He seems like a character you start off hating (weak, soft etc…), but he probably gets more confident and you like him more. That is just my impression of what is likely to happen, not what did happen mind you.
I am really excited for the fishing boys, the weird anime made by NOITASOMETING and Hyoka. I so, hope Hyoka is a legit, genuine romance.
JaggerSomething seems really interesting as well, and the female lead is hot.
Oh and Astro Boys seems interesting as well, but my only gripe is that it seems a lot like a typical American Success story. That might be a good thing though, who knows.
I posted my Spring Preview a week before you, does that make me a god of some sort? Granted it wasn’t as funny, but still!
Sankarea got some issues balancing seriousness with humour and that can make the anime really horrible if they mess it up but since i do in fact enjoy the manga i will watch it.
Whoever picked upotte to be animated should take one of his moe-ified guns and shot himself, i mean even the manga is so terrible its funny that does not bode well for a anime…
Quite an underwhelming season, I’d say, compared to the previous two. The Spring has much less to look forward to, at least from first impressions.
I guess that’s mainly because many of these shows don’t have much of an aesthetic appeal, nor do they look particularly promising. I noticed that this preview started off somewhat strong, but it progressively got worse and diverged into generic nonsense. To be honest, the only show I’m really, really looking forward to this season is Apollon. I fell in love the the promo video, and ever since I watched it awhile back I was blown away by how stylish the anime looked. Then I discovered Shinichiro Watanabe was heading the project, and Yoko Kanno was composing the music… and I sobbed sweet tears of joy.
Unfortunately, this is the only series I have such feelings for. It seems many of the others will just fill the gap between each episode of Apollon, just by my initial impressions (emphasis on “initial impressions”). Not doubting the legitimacy of other potentially great shows this season, though, I’m just not particularly intrigued by anything like I have been in past seasons.
I’d say Space Brothers and Tsuritama are the two that come close. Both seem very interesting, but I just don’t know what to expect. Space Bros has a promising premise and good source material, yet here’s a director who has virtually done nothing other than Doraemon. There’s definitely potential, nevertheless unpredictable. Then you must take into account that he’s also directing another anime in the same season, so quality might suffer. With Tsuritama, you have a much more reliable (and perhaps ambitious) director backing it, and looks much like Kimi to Boku except more stylized, but totally unpredictable when it comes to it’s premise and content. I’m looking forward to both, but again, I have no idea what to expect.
The rest are wild cards. I’ll probably check out Hyoku and Accel World because they somewhat interest me, but I’m not excited for either. Zetman, Mysterious Girlfriend X, and Jorma-whatever may or may not be crap, but regardless, I’m not very interested in any of them.
Sorry, forgot to say how great your season previews are in my above post. Keep up the great work, however dull the changing seasons may be.
so, watched the trailer and read your blurb on natsuiro. At first i was all like “blah blah blah, slice of life, girls being insufferably nice, whatever.” but then, probably to the additional cue of your mention of the director normally doing some pretty bad ass shit, i noticed the trailer ended kind of odd. I think the trailer may be hiding some gem from us. i may be putting my foot in my mouth here, but that last scene seemed oddly representative of the four corners….
and despite my normal disregard to naruto, im oddly looking forward to this rock lee special… lol
Natsuiro Kiseki just had a commercial during Gundam AGE twenty minutes ago. I’m not saying it’s mecha, but it’s mecha.
Upotte will be my most-anticipated-yet-least-interesting anime every single week. And you’d be surprised how much research went into Strike Witches’ WWII references.
“What was that JC Staff show from a few season’s back…God’s Memo Pad? Yeah, that’s what this reminds me of.”
The good thing (maybe) is Hyouka’s 21 episodes, so that might actually be a good thing or a worser thing (if executed poorly).
“…I think it’s safe to say that Dusk Maiden of Amnesia won’t be their breakout hit. It’s just another Shana clone…”
sniff I’m trying so hard to believe it’s gonna be good (I had read some of the manga). The signs point to more hope. I need hope for this show man!
Jormungand is scheduled for second season in fall.
“Eureka Seven Ao”
“Do I need to have seen the previous season?”
“No. Same world but new characters and new plot”
Incorrect. New characters, but seemingly in relation to the characters from the previous show. Also, if you’ve read the manga, you’d see very interesting similarities between this show coming up and the previous one. It’s going to tie in, and I think people should watch Eureka 7 before this.
Why do I see nothing about the animu I was looking forward to most this season? THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE WHERE?
/in Japan, watching them new movies
oh my goodness i think i am a big fan of naruto and there are no other cartoons that will ever in comparison to NARUTO!!!! HAIL FOR THE NARUTO TEAM
oh my goshhhhhh earls and fairy are is very romantic although a bit crazy i love its my favourite though on neva forgetting fruit basket even when i am on my way to bed and to the bathroom
You may perhaps expertise burns or electrical shock from these
goods if applied improperly. Together with that muscle mass goes the toughness.