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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

Along with Fireball Charming, because my empress Drossel commands it. Not sure how well this will work, what with each episode being only 2 minutes long and all, but I did cover almost 70 episodes of Hetalia. This is not uncharted territory for me.

I’m guessing the first season of Fireball must have done some mighty fine business for Disney. Certainly enough for them to pump money back into the franchise because oh my Drossel has the animation quality ever improved. From the lighting in the classroom scene from the last episode to Drossel’s magnificent display of her reflexes (say it again Gedächtnis, magnificent!), they’re really flaunting their budget here. Swooping camera angles and everything. Now if only every CGI mecha could look as good as Drossel. Not that I want every mecha to have as prominent hips as she does. While the original design will always be my favourite, what this new design does is make her do is thrust those hip bones pistons about quite a lot. No wonder Gedächtnis told her she was being a bit un-ladylike, what with her effectively doing a pole dancing move into the chamber and everything.

One part I love about Fireball is how the world is apparently inhabited by way more than just Drossel and Gedächtnis, but that’s all we ever see and the show goes out of its way to not show anyone else. One of my favourite moments from the last season was the room of invisible maids. Now we have the man in charge of dropping a pan on Drossel’s head. We never see the poor guy, and we’ll never see him again because Gedächtnis is a tough employer, but he’s one of the many staff in charge of keeping their palace up to scratch.

…welp, guess 400 words per post is about as much as I’m ever going to manage for Fireball. Hopefully blogging this series will cut my wordcount down beyond its current 1100 state.

Some people suggested at the time that we shouldn’t cover anime at the time of the disaster, because of respect or something dumb like that. Wouldn’t the worst thing to do, in light of the economic hit the country will take, is to stop covering their exports? Even so, the reason we have a connection to Japan in the first place is because of anime. There were some pretty crazy drives by anime bloggers to raise funds, which was cool to see. I didn’t donate any money myself because I have none, but it did prompt me to sell my body to the vampires donate blood for the first time, which was a fucking weird experience. One thing I did notice was the total lack of a sense of humour amongst most people talking about the incident. Say anything that wasn’t “our deepest condolences” would cause some people got all worked up about showing respect. I guess I’ll have to chalk this down to cultural differences, for I’m the sort of person who’d crack a joke about a tsunami charging towards my house, let alone the other side of the world. It’s rather ironic that the British and Irish culture of joking about everything is placed in area of the planet with the least natural disasters.

A Grade

A Madoka Magica

Epis­odes 9–10

There’s something almost poetic about the delay for the final two episodes of Madoka Magica. As I said before, Madoka currently hinges on it’s ending. The final two episodes really are make or break as to whether this perfectly constructed plot comes off in the end. What better than to delay those final two episodes in classic Shaft style, possibly to air them on the real Walpurgis night at the end of April. Please do that Shaft. Please have a Madoka double bill on Walpurgis Night. And please please please make this ending fit what has been one of the greatest stories told in anime up until this point. Madoka deserves it.

B Grade

B+ Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Trail

Episode 4

Now that’s more like it. This is the Black Lagoon we know and love. Well, not quite. This was Black Lagoon: Character Exploration Addition, which we don’t see all that often. Normally we just get the Crazy Awesome Edition or the Ceep And Dreepy Edition. It’s been interesting delving more into the psyche of what makes Balalaika such a mad women or why Revy clings just that little bit onto Rock. Or does she? That was what made her discussion with the chibi maid interesting, because I wasn’t quite sure which side to believe. Roberta’s Trail is finally all coming together. I just wish that crappy second episode didn’t exist.

B– Tailenders

I went into this expecting a massively watered down version of Redline. Which is exactly what it was, but it was still pretty enjoyable regardless. I liked the world design a lot, such as how they drove through crazy clockwork structures, without quite giving us the exact reason why these things exist. It was fun to come up with my own theories why the terraforming machines created the land as such, or what the terraforming machine even was. I was kinda similar to Pale Cocoon in that humanity spent so much time running away they weren’t even sure what the original world looked like anymore. Not that it was handled as well as Pale Cocoon, nor as bombastically entertaining as Redline, but it was one of the better animation shorts I’ve seen.

B-Supernatural

Episodes 1–10

Proof Madhouse can make good anime out of USian material…sort of. I’m wary of heaping too much praise on Supernatural. The overlying plot is rather dumb and gets in the way of a good episodic show. Plus some of the depictions of couples in this show are eye-rollingly dumb. But it does have a lot of good aspects to it as well. As an episodic show, it’s one of the only decent ones I’ve seen in recent years, sort of like what Psychic Detective Yakumo was trying to be. I’m often not able to predict the twists in each episode, even when I think the answer is obvious. The animation style is unique too, albeit it does have the similar problem to Wandering Son except instead of bright lights shining on everybody’s heads, everyone in Supernatural appears to have black shadows over halfof their faces most of the time. Most of all though, it has the lead two characters. Sam and Dean are great fun to watch as their personalities bounce off each other. The interactions between those two carry this show. It’s pretty easy to see why the live-action has such a large fangirl following. Those two are, like, totally in love with each other kyaa~

B– Durarara Specials

Episode 2

SECOND SEASON WHERE!!!

B– Wan­der­ing Son

Epis­odes 7–10

If someone wants to ask why I never really fell for Wandering Son, I’d tell them it’s because I am as far removed from the target audience as you can get. If they asked me to elaborate further, I would point them towards the character of Doi. Doi was me when I was that age. A bit of a smart-alec who had since grown up from his younger years and is trying to be friends with those he may not have been very nice to in the past. Doi was made out quite blatently to be the villain. We were meant to hate Doi and take delight when whathisface shunned him. Basically, that was Wandering Son telling me that I could never be forgiven. Up until that, I had really enjoyed this months episodes of Wandering Son. It finished that dumb Romeo and Juliet arc and proved it had direction and character development all along. But that scene with Doi was such a kick in the gut for me.

C Grade

C+ Level E

Epis­odes 8–12

I can see why Level E only ran for 3 volumes. It has no real idea what it wants to do, beyond show us just how big a prick Prince Baka is. This leaves the show with very little heart carrying it through. It’s decently funny and some of the characters are great, but no purpose leaves it floundering a bit. It’s just too hit or miss for me to really enjoy the show. I liked the first Colour Rangers and the first arc a lot, but the Love Alien and Colour Rangers 2 didn’t impress me much. I’m glad the final arc went back to our punk-ass Yukitaka and his Love Hina-esque hole in the wall. Ex-delinquent characters plus some foil for the Prince beyond Craft really help this show shine.

C+ Bak­u­man

Epis­odes 22–25

In amongst the rage against the shitty females characters, the gradual but devastating collapse of the animation and the supreme insufferability of Mashiro, somehow Bakuman has managed to become a more enjoyable anime again. Yeah really. Somewhere in there the story got back to being about dreams. Watching the development of the various side characters and peeks into their more vulnerable sides has really helped this anime improve. I’m still going to mark this season down as a failure, yet I’m not nearly as unenthusiastic about the sequel as I was this time two months ago.

C+ Ore no Imouto True Route OVA

Episode 13

Kuroneko featuring in her own spin-off series with no Kirino whatsoever? My prayers have been answered! Ultimately the core of Ore no Imouto is too rotten for me ever to heap praise upon. At least, not on any part of the show whose name doesn’t start with a K and end with an O and like Code Geass Maschera as much as I do. It still stumbled about, tripping over quite poorly with the OTT reaction of the fujioshi, sprawled over the table, declaring her dreams of poor little shotas getting gang-raped. But hey, it had Kuroneko and no Kirino. Credit where credit is due.

C+ Young Animator Training Project

Episode 1: Oji-san no Lamp

Part of the Young Animators Training Project. Honestly, I’m surprised this even got subbed, but I’m glad it did. Not that I have anything particularly interesting to say about this. Story was original and competently told but without anything truly memorable. Animation was clean and did what it was meant to do without much fuss or artistic variances. It was good, but instantly forgettable. My bets is that these Young Animatior Training Project pieces will merely serve as an otaku nerding out session in the future. The next great director in animation could come from these projects, so you’ll get to nerd out by saying “yeah, this guy first directed Oji-san no Lamp. You guys probably haven’t heard of it but I have because my otaku powah level is so much higher than yours mwahaha”.

C Hen Zemi OVA

Episode 2

Still way more watchable than it has any right to be. Not that that’s exactly a ringing endorsement, because by all rights Hen Zemi should be horrible. Show about perversion by Xebec? Instead though, we get something oddly entertaining, albeit in an extremely squeamish sort of way. It’s almost a relief to have an anime be so honest and straightfoward about discussing nipple slips, vibrating eggs and a mans defeated libido when he’s finished masturbating and not just say “haha boobs” and leave it at that. Shame this director isn’t directing the TV series. Instead they’ve put the director of Rainbow Gate on. This show is doomed.

C Nichijou

Episode 0

Damnit KyoAni, I should have expected this. Give them an absurdist manga and somehow they will still focus on the cutesy angle. It was still all right, mainly the talking cat being awesome, but they need to get back to the absurdism and away from all that blasted cuteness. Not that they’re going to do that though, are they? This is KyoAni we’re speaking about. Oh well, we’ll have to wait until the TV series airs to see which part they focus on, but if they stick to the formula of this preview, then it could get old very quickly.

D Grade

D Break Blade

Epis­ode 4

What the hell happened here? Where has my beautifully choreographed clunky robots duking it out in a desert setting gone? Now Break Blade has turned into over-powered mecha spam. Introducing a dozen new characters  at the halfway point is never a good idea, and it doesn’t help when they’re all trying to be cool but come off as lame and cliche. It was just a massive disappointment compared to the previous awesome 3 episodes. Hopefully Break Blade episode 4 was just a blip, like Roberta’s Trail episode 2, and the rest of the series will go back to being awesome. Mind you, there’s a niggly little voice in my head that tells this this won’t be the case and we’re in for a very disappointing finale.

D– Suite Precure

Epis­odes 5–6

Suite Precure is just too dumb to care for. The attempts at drama are incredibly lame and none of the characters ever do anything to endear themselves to the audience. Any attempts at depth in the characters fall flat and it’s generally just not good fun, as a kids show should be. The real killing point was at episode 6 where I watched the bitchin’ transformation sequence and it didn’t do anything for me. Considering that was the sole reason I kept watching the show in the first place, that was a pretty damning sign.

E Grade

E+ Fractale

Epis­odes 7–11

Is an E grade just a bit harsh? Maybe. But Fractale insulted the storytelling lover inside me. Fractale produced an anime that had a lot of elements but never considered what connected them together. It tried to create depth without a purpose. An overlying plot without a story. Fractale liked to pretend it knew what it was doing, and at the start it appeared like it did. But the end came and it finally became clear that this show had not a fucking clue what it wanted to do the entire way through. So Yamakan. Are you going to retire now?

F Grade

F Rio Rain­bow Gate

Epis­odes 9–12

Rio is extraordinary. Have you ever for a second considered what must be going through the creators minds as they constructed this piece. How much of this awfulness are they doing intentionally. Some of the ‘so bad it’s good’ scenes you might consider the work of a mad genius, but the attempts at drama and character interaction between Rio and Rina stink of such seriousness you really have to wonder what exactly were the script-writers thinking. I am going to miss Rainbow Gate though. It lives in a world that cannot be achieved by the more traditional bad anime like Fractale or Suite Precure. Rainbow Gate lives in the land of the Terribad. A true F grade, through and through.

Cuteness is a very simple way of appealing to the viewer. It runs the same way something sexually titillating would work. Here’s some boobs, now get a boner. Here’s a kitten, go kyaaa~. That’s the highly simplified version of events. A more likely scenario would be something slightly more complex. Here’s a generic male lead who accidentally falls over and grabs hold of some babes breast. The girl blushes before knocking him away. The aim of this scene is still sexual titillation. Self-projection into the male lead and imagining that the girl likes being grabbed by the boob. For cuteness, it would run something along the lines of having a fancy male character blushing when he realises lead female has seen him rescue a kitten. The end product is still attempting to generate a kyaaa effect.

I don’t like this. The appeal being merely cuteness is such a cheap method of drawing thrills from the viewer. There’s no story here. No characterisation, no humour, no expertise. It’s not that I can’t enjoy cuteness, but to gain such cheap thrills is lame. Compare this to giant robot fights for a second. I don’t get any enjoyment from simply watching bullets and beams being fired everywhere. I haven’t a clue what’s going on in the fights during Gundam Seed, and it merely ends up being a parade of colours that is dull to sit through. The fights in Broken Blade clearly demonstrate each move in the battle with incredible care and precision, highlighting how clunky these machines are. You actually get the sense that these are real machines and the moves tell a story in their own way. That’s a proper use of robot battles.

Cuteness has do something beyond the cheap thrills to appeal, using cleverer methods via storytelling to get across the cuteness. The mini squid girl segment from Invasion Squid Girl is fantastic at this and one of the few times cuteness has actually appealed to me because it told a story through the cuteness. Either that, or the cuteness has got to serve another purpose. Back to sexual titillation for a second, there was the pole dancing scene in Panty and Stocking. The deliberately sexualised manner of it was a parody of the magical girl transformation sequences and how otaku loved seeing their magical girls naked midway through the transformation. The sexualisation served a purpose and the scene would have felt unnecessary and pointless without that layer behind it.

To bring this post in a full circle, let’s go back to Chiyo for a second. Dressing Chiyo in a penguin suit is cute. But the humour of the whole situation is the reactions of the other characters. Each character’s reactions add to their characterisation. Of course Sakaki would explode at the sight of Chiyo in a penguin suit, but the other characters all being subjugated to the extreme cuteness and blushing like Sakaki showed how goddam cute she really was. That’s what made it even funnier when Tomo’s gut reaction upon seeing the waddling epitome of cuteness was to push it over. That’s how you use cuteness. It’s a means to an end, not the end itself.

Durarara

Well I’ve covered the first episode in detail already but let me take a step back a second and say that this episode was no A-grade material. It wasn’t so much exposition saturation as introducing explosion. With so much information being hurled at you in the first episode, it was impossible to take it all in.

Still the best first episode of the season though. I said it before, but it’s when an episode oozes quality even when not that much is happeningon screen that you know you’ve got something great on your hands. Baccano started the exact same way and that worked fantastically and Durararahas a whole 24 episodes to start making sense in.

So yeah, Durarararagi (sorry, I stuttered) had obvious quality stamped on it before it aired and the first episode has obvious quality stamped all over it too. I just hope none of these characters are as painfully annoying as Enjin from Yozakura Quartet. This show gives off similar vibes to Yozakura and I’d hate to see it ruined.

Rating: B

Ookami Kakushi

I appear to be the last man in the universe not to have seen Higurashi but from what I heard, the first episode of that was very similar to how Ookamistarted. So I’m all for givingthis the benefit of the doubt and continuing on but that doesn’t change that this was a very poor episode.

The writing was poor and it didn’t have the failsafe of being completely OTT like Umineko to fall back on to provide entertainment so the episode remained pretty dull throughout. The ‘character designs by Peach Pit’ that everyone was touting turns out to be a negative strike for this, I don’t like them one bit.

It was an all round very poor episode. But hey, mystery and intrigue and whatnot are beingtouted along with the possibility that they will all get brutally murdered. But things really need to pick up or I might bail on this show. For everything Deen did with Umineko, at least it was entertaining. This isn’t…yet.

Rating: D+

Hanamaru Kindergarden

I had a half-written post in my drafts where I lamented the fact that an awful lot of anime made recently have ‘cuteness’ as the main appeal, such as Kobato, K-ON and Kimi ni Todoke. Hanamaru fits straight into that category except…I actually enjoyed this.

My prediction of something similar to a Yotsuba anime turned out to be right on the ball. This is the cuteness and innocence of kids in a world where real adult problems and lives exist, with their problems and lifestyle being seen through the world of these kids. Granted, Yotsuba does this a lot better but that’s a high standard to be compared to.

The genuine adult problems was actually a bit of a shock. I certainly didn’t expect anything like that at all, which goes to show there is a bit of brains behind this anime. It lacks the cutting ‘that’s so true’ edge at the moment but it’s a surprisingly enjoyable way to spend 20 odd minutes.

Rating: C+

Seikon no Quasar

You know the way everyone was hung up over the ‘breast-milk’ aspect of this show? Well, that’s actually the best part of this show. There’s a creepy nature to the sexual content in this show when combined with the Christianity and I can actually see potential here and I’m willing to give it another episode or two. But there’s so much it does wrong.

If you’re trying to subvert the sexual nature, you don’t then and go toss in blatant fanserviceas well. The entire suckling scene would’ve worked far better if prior to that scene I wasn’t treated to continuous Gainaxing, panty-flashes and prominent curves beforehand. If the sexual content was played for plot rather than fanservice this would’ve worked a whole lot better.

What’s going to eventually be the killing blow is the animation. Oh dear lord was it terrible. Random panning shots, a scene of a character standing perfectly still for 5 seconds, a still frame of something that doesn’t need to be still-framed and the occasional shotwhere the artwork suddenly collapsed. Censorship galore and it’s pretty darn jarring.

::Edit:: Hmm…actually the only reason I’m giving this a shot is because I found myself thinking “it has fanservice so I’ll instantly dismiss it” and then hated myself for doing that. I’m going to cast aside my elitism for a change and when I do drop this show, it will be for poor story-telling and plot. Not for boobs.

Rating: C–

Warning: If you are viewing this post in Internet Explorer than the pictures will end up all stretched out. Go get Firefox

Best Animation:

This was actually a difficult category since there were no real shows that blew me away animation-wise this year. Third place went to Eden of the East, for some of the most gorgeous and detailed background artwork I’ve ever seen, although that was a bit of a cop-out choice amongst many other well-animated shows. Ride Back takes second spot for one of the very few instances where CGI was integrated to phenomenal results. I drooled at those Ride Backs for the entirety of that show. First place goes for a movie I haven’t actually seen yet. The Kara no Kyokai movies bore me, I mean really bore me, and yet I’ve watched 5 of them. Why? Because I have yet to see better animation in my life. If the last Kara no Kyokai movie is at the same level the it easily outscores anything else this season.

Top Opening Songs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This was really tough to cut down and I felt terrible leaving out the first FMA opening but eventually third spot went to that epic Umineko opening song. It was perfectly OTT with all the yelling and dramatic music flying about everywhere, man I loved that opening. Second place went to the Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou opening, which never failed to plaster a big grin across my face. First place was insanely obvious though. You could spend ages dissecting the messages in that opening song (and people sure did), what with all the now famous imagery of the Selecao numbers and Noblesse Oblige. Eden of the East, Falling Down by Oasis.

Top Closing Songs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ah, the humble closing song. Never as great as their opening counterparts and constantly looked over. And for good reason, they’re never as good as the openings. But hey, I’ve picked out three I certainly enjoyed from this year. The Spice and Wolf ending I actually enjoyed even more than the engrish ear-worm from last season, a mighty achievement indeed. There doesn’t seem to be anyone out there who doesn’t like the Bakemonogatari ending and I’m not about to buck that trend. However my favourite ending goes to the other Shaft series that everyone sorta forgot about. I love that Natsu no Arashi ending, such a damn funky tune. Shame the second season sucked.

Best Insert Music

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now this was a tough category except this time it was because this year just didn’t have that many memorable soundtracks, especially compared to last year (although, as I said at the start, I need to watch Phantom). I’ve always liked the music in Spice and Wolf, although it’s hardly amazing. Eden of the East gets the nod for second place, mainly because of that song when Takizawa was shooting down the missiles. The winner was insanely easy to pick. I watched Hellsing this year and Yasushi Ishii’s work on that series was fantastic, but it doesn’t compare in the slightest to the Darker than Black soundtrack. I know people out there disagree with me but damn did I love every single chord of that soundtrack.

Best Male Character

Not many great male characters this year. Guin was in with a shot here but I ended up giving Roy Mustang third spot thanks to a combination of the gradual collapse of the Guin Saga anime and Mustangs epic performance in episode 19. Second place goes to my favourite expressionless character, Azuma from Cross Game. My winner is a bit of an unorthodox choice considering he’s probably only the 4th most important character in the series, but Xerxes Break stole the show every time he was on screen in Pandora Hearts. There was so much to this guy going on behind the scenes that everytime he appeared you found yourself wondering what on earth was he thinking now.

Best Female Character:

Oh lordy was there ever a bucketload of fantastic female characters this year, so much so that I can’t give anything to Hime from Sora no Manimani or Minami Chiaki bar a passing mention. Alice from Pandora Hearts takes third spot. Pandora Hearts had a multitude of fantastic characters, not least my favourite male character of the year Break, but Alice was the best of the lot. I was as fascinated as everyone else was by Senjogahara. She’s made it into my top 10 anime characters of all time and in any other year I would’ve laughed at the possibility that anyone else would top her performance. But no, this year had Horo. And nothing beats Horo.

Best Action:

A genre that didn’t get enough love this year, mainly thanks to the painful lack of mecha, but still produced some damn memorable pieces. Ride Back takes third spot, mainly for that fantastic rescue scene in episode 4, which was memorable for more than just the hopeless aiming abilities of those soldiers. Second spot goes to Full Metal Alchemist. The truly epic fights may only show up every 4–5 episodes but they are certainly worth waiting for (episode 19, again, deserves a mention). The winner is obviously Darker than Black. The combination of excellent choreography, clear-cut animation and some ingenious twists that is inherent with those bizarre contractors made every battle in DtB a huge amount of fun to watch.

Best Comedy:

My two favourite genres. Action and Comedy. Thankfully, comedy got a much better deal this year compared to last year, where the only comedy anime worth noting was Kannagi. Third spot here goes to Natsu no Arashi, for doing a little bit for making me dislike Shaft a little bit less after the dull Maria Holic and total saturation of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei series. Bakemonogatari took that slight dislike for Shaft and turned it into full-blown love with the brilliantly witty script writing and the constant stream of uber quotable dialogue between Senjogahara and Araragi.  But the winner was easy. Hetalia Axis Powers, for being one of the few anime that can make me fall out of my chair from laughing, trumps everything else this season comedy wise, even if it is a bit inconsistent.

Worst Descisions:

A year of dumb decisions don’t you agree. I’m torn between giving third spot to either the first episode of Mazinger Z (who the hell thought it would be a good idea to provide a mish-mash of everything to come as a first episode?) and the choice to leave Cencoroll as just that one-episode anomaly when it clearly needed a proper airing to get anywhere close to its potential. Second place goes to the combined intellect of Shaft deciding to announce that they would air the final three episodes of Bakemonogatari on the internet when they hadn’t animated them yet…yeah, really smart there Shaft. First place is painfully obvious. Endless bloody Eight.

Most Memorable Quotes

3rd place:

I sealed it with fire!

I think I’ve mentioned this episode of FMA twice before already but who cares! It deserves even  more. Episode 19 of Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood was the turning point of that series. No longer did it live in the shadow of the original. Finally it had produced something far better than even the first season could achieve. One of the best episodes in anime history, with one awesome scene after another until the sheer awesomeness exploded with this line. Mustangs GAR shot through the roof and FMA:B was never the same again.

2nd place:

It would be great if that became popular

What?

Senjogahara Fascination

Sometimes when watching an anime you find yourself wondering whether the creators do this stuff on purpose. It’s as if they knew exactly how popular Senjogahara would be and knew all they needed was a handy catchphrase. Anime Fandom had been enthralled by this character and nothing said it better than this quote. And it did become popular, oh boy weren’t we all fascinated. I never said it when it aired but I fully support the Senjogahara Fascination Movement.

1st place:

Noblesse Oblige. Please continue to be the Messiah

There are some quotes in anime history that become synonymous with the anime itself. All you need to do is say that quote and everyone in the vicinity will nod in unison as they remember the awesomeness that was the anime in question. Even so, I’m struggling to think of one better than Juiz’s famous line in Eden of the East. Whether you’ve just asked for missiles to hit Japan or just to make the Prime Minister say ‘uncle’, the response will always be the same. Order received. Noblesse Oblige.

Hey, where is that anime?

I fall quite nicely into the moe-haters category. That said, I don’t think K-ON deserved the amount of abuse it got from certain sections although that doesn’t change the fact I thought it was dull and repetitive. Shojo is not a genre that has ever interested me and I totally fail to see the appeal of Kimi ni Todoke. Combine cuteness and shojo together and you could probably guess that I didn’t like Kobato. Canaan was terrible and anyone who thought that was a good show needs their head examined. Maria Holic looked pretty but never made me laugh. Umineko was entertaining, although for the wrong reasons more often than not. Summer Wars is actually a decent movie and probably the best anime that didn’t get a mentioin in this post.

Wish for 2010

Well my wish for 2009 was that Shangri-la would be a hit and turn Gonzo back onto the trail of glory…errr…yeah, that didn’t turn out so good. Because of that, I’m a bit wary of making some wishes for 2010 but here it goes. First, I hope that Crunchyroll will improve its subtitles and at least equal the quality of fansubbers. I hope that Brains Base’s first foray into making an anime 24 episodes, Durarara, will sell well enough to make them into a true bigwig in the anime industry and hopefully for Shaft to follow suit and also make longer series. Mark my words, these two will the the next two great anime studios. Finally, I hope that Break Blade will be a success and more companies will follow the Kara no Kyokai route of making these uber-long, straight to dvd episodes as the reign of the tv anime slowly dies out.

Overall Best Anime:

1o: Cross Game

To be quite honest, I think some people are over-rating this anime slightly to show off their elitism by proclaiming their love of an obscure series. Now that’s not to say this isn’t a good anime. I’m really enjoying watching the characters personalities bounce off each other, especially the best tsundere of the year Aoba. Herself, Azuma, Kou and the rest of them, ah I’m really going to miss them once the series ends. It’s slice of life done right and it’s a real delight to watch. But please don’t go around flaunting your knowledge of this anime as if you’ve unearthed an absolute gem. It’s a very well-made series but no masterpiece.

9: Hetalia Axis Powers

In some quarters of anime fandom, 2009 has been the year of Hetalia. In fact I’m not sure if many people realise how big an impact this series has made. From the realms of an obscure online webcomic, Hetalia has risen to become one of the top-selling dvds in Japan over the course of the year, with a third season and a movie just announced, and that’s not even getting into the realm of the copycat series. It isn’t the most consistent anime (understatement of the century) but when gets it right it is the funniest anime ever created. At least, that’s my minds telling me when I’m curled up on the floor in pain from laughing so hard.

8: Ride Back

Yes, the ending was a total let-down and really overshadowed the rest of the series. I keep having to remind myself that when I was watching Ride Back for the first 3/4 of the series, I found myself honestly thinking that I couldn’t see any other series this year topping it. I drooled at the animation and more than anything in the world I wanted one of those Ride Backs for myself. It awakened a fanboy inside me that I never knew existed. A fanboy of motorbikes with arms!

7: Pandora Hearts

One of the best cast of characters ever. In fact, the only anime I can think of with a better cast is School Rumble. Alice, Break, Gilbert, Oz, ah I loved them all. And that’s just the main characters! How could anyone forget the most fabulous character of the year, Jack Vessalius, or the slightly crazed character of the Chesire Cat. Another anime that ended on a bit of a whimper but boy did I enjoy the ride it took me on.

6: Trapeze

I’m unsure what title I should give this anime. Should I call it my sleeper hit of the year? Or the totally incorrect pre-conceptions of what it would be about (I was really expecting some depressing stuff). In fact, I think the most suitable title for this anime would be the feel-good anime of the year. Never did an episode end without succeeding in plastering a giant smile across my face. I wasn’t able to give it any awards, although I was sorely tempted to give Irabu one of the best male-characters award. That guy is such a total nutter. Or maybe Fukkuichi. He was awesome.

5: Darker than Black: Meteor of Gemini

This season of Darker than Black easily matched its predecessor. The linear storyline suited the pace of DtB better than those double-episodics. However the biggest difference was the change in Hei. I never liked Hei last season. I thought he was a prick being portrayed as someone we should look up to and that never sat well with me. This season he was a prick, shown to be a prick but did the whole ‘gradual healing and gaining respect’ progress that when he finally turned back into normal Hei, I found I had grown extremely fond of the guy. Shame the ending was a bit…yeah…wasn’t a great year for endings was it.

4: Spice and Wolf II

I didn’t think my love for Horo could grow anymore. Pfft, in comes Brains Base, knowing a business opertunity when they see one, and make this fantastic sequel to the first anime I ever watched as it aired in Japan. I could watch Horo and Lawrence flirt away in their unusual, bickering way for another 10 seasons and not get bored. I’d probably just love Horo even more than I already do. And here’s a surprise, an anime with a good ending! So join me folks as we pray for yet another season of Horo…and Lawrence too I guess. It’s not that I don’t like you Lawrence, I think you’re a great character in your own right. But face it, you’re in an anime with Horo. You never stood a chance.

3: Bakemonogatari

I had never really loved a Shaft production before. However I could see the potential in there and I knew it would be only a matter of time before they produced something I loved. Every season I looked at the most recent Shaft production and thought ‘will this be it?’. It wasn’t Maria Holic, it wasn’t Natsu no Arashi, and then came Senjogahara and I was hooked. Such intelligence and wit in the writing, I’d never seen anything like it before. We were all fascinated. Well, I certainly was and if you weren’t well then sucks to be you. Mwahaha, go my biased views go!

2: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Have I mentioned episode 19 yet? Like, several times? Before that, FMA:B was just not needed and, while still certainly entertaining, never really in with a shout of being remembered with much fondness. But then in came the story that we had yet to see, the pacing finally slowed the fuck down, and we were treated to Brotherhood. I’m going to stand my ground on this one: Brotherhood is equal to the original. No better and no worse. Quite frankly, that is one of the highest praises you could give an anime.

1: Eden of the East

Not really a surprise this is top of the list is it. If you are surprised then you haven’t read the rest of the post yet so go back and read it now. If you had read the post and were still surprised to see this up here then you need to drop everything and go watch this now. For Eden of the East is the best anime of 2009. Noblesse Oblige. Please continue to be the Messiah. Now bring on those movies!

Hetalia hasn’t made me laugh properly in a while now. In some ways this is because it’s a comedy that’s coming to the end of it’s tether. This usually happens with any comedy, even great ones like Cromartie or Hare+Guu. The thing is that these episodes are only 5 minutes long so they really shouldn’t be running out of material already. So it’s not because Hetalia is getting old yet. It’s because it isn’t even trying to be funny anymore. It’s busy being ‘cute’ and I just don’t like cute. Don’t give me bloody moe and don’t give me chibi’s, give me Germany trying to train Italy to become a world beater and failing miserably.

The episode continued the story of Liech and Swiss, which was never funny in the first place. It’s not exactly touching either. What made the America’s storage cleaning sorta work was because we knew the characters already so it was seeing a different side to them. We’ve only seen Austria appear in one episode where he played the piano in the middle of the sea and as for Switzerland…the only time he’s appeared was for about a millisecond in the first episode where he yelled at Japan.

I guess I just need a break from Hetalia. Of course now would be the ideal time since the first season of Hetalia is finishing but instead of a little break they’ve decided to air the second season straight away. I suppose it is an Internet release so they don’t have to worry about getting a TV spot or any of that but a break from Hetalia for a few months would have done me the world of good. In the end it comes down to those Koreans again…heh heh heh.