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.

If my Fate/Zero and Persona 4 posts had to start off with a disclaimer about my lack of experience with each respective franchise, then it’s a given that I have to do likewise for a franchise where I do have previous experience. Make no mistake, what you are reading here are the impressions from a hopeless fanboy for the original Last Exile and shall spend most of this post comparing my sparkly yet fading memories of the original with this latest rendition.

There is a bit of a change of tone for this Last Exile. You know that one scene from the first episode of the original after the two sets of musketeers finished decimating each other (‘Disseth bullets will avoid Mullen Shetlends body’ and all that) and there was that shot of all the dead bodies, offering a rather stark contrast to the fancy pants chivalry commanders on board the ships? There’s none of that in Fam, the Silver Wing (just calling it Fam from now on). Not exactly that scene, but there’s a lack of the darker edge the original had. This version is definitely more upbeat and light-hearted, while still keeping the same adventurous tone the orignal had. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as I’m sure many of you will argue, but the characters are a bit too…how shall I put this…thick headed? They’re stock characters with a single motive that they stick to for every line of dialogue they spout. I guess it’s the first episode so they’re just setting the scene, but everything was very black and white.

They did keep the heart of Last Exile though. The one thing that Last Exile does, better than any other anime I’ve ever seen, is the sense of adventure. There’s a thrill in discovery and flight that Fam captured brilliantly, most notably in that opening sequence with them being pirates and capturing a ship. The music helps here, taking a note out of the original series soundtrack. I’m convinced the song playing during that scene was a remix off the original series opening song. Although, since I’m on the subject of the opening song, this new one just pales miserably in comparison to Cloud Age Symphony. But yeah, that’s just me being the insufferable fanboy for the original again. Not that I want everything to remain the same. As much as I loved Dio in the original, I can’t for the life of me see why he’s in this series, apparently not ageing a day between the two. Is this even the same world as the original, or did they create an entirely new world and just carted Dio over because he’s just that fabulous?

Fam does do one thing better than the orignal. The animation is absolutely fucking glorious. Not only that, but it’s glorious in the Last Exile style, so that all the ships are that highly detailed CGI style that somehow matches up with the character designs. There’s something about the flat faces of Range Murata’s character designs that blend in well with CGI. I always liked how Last Exile used its CGI, keeping only the ships in CGI and the characters hand-drawn, rather that flicking between the two depending on the whims of the animators at the time. There’s a beauty to the absolute classic steampunk design of Last Exile that, again, lends itself to the sense of adventure that the series is so good at.

So, verdict from a Last Exile fanboy? It’s pretty good. I don’t mind that they’re going for a lighter tone, so long as the characters gain depth (and preferably stop being moe, although the moe factor was thankfully lower than I initially feared). If that happens, then I’m on board with this season.

Firstly, on the ‘Not killing you for implying I’m British when I’m Irish’ thing, I’m really not a patriotic person. There’s a reason I fled the country across into England in the first place. In fact, I generally don’t get the whole point of patriotism. Why support something just because you hail from there? It has strengths and flaws, just like every other nation. Why do people feel the need to play up their unique qualities in a desperate attempt to retain their nationality, especially when these include keeping teaching a dead language that serves no purpose in the real world. Fuck you compulsory Irish language!

Oh right, original question. Biggest problem with being a British based anime fan is fucking region restrictions!

I always liked the robot segments from Clannad. The combination of the ridiculously heightened frame rate and the airy-fairy music gave the whole thing this ethereal feel to it. It was a rather simple story about a lost robot, but I loved how the entire thing was narrated by a robot through logical reasoning.

I’ve been watching the Patlabor TV series recently, and I’ve noticed something rather strange. You know the way in modern romance/action/moe anime, such as Shakugan no Shana or the Raildex series, people say they care far more about simply watching the characters than any stories they get involved in? Well, in Patlabor, the plotlines to each episode are often stupid. The real enjoyment comes from watching the cast goof off and be themselves. Patlabor is often held up as a prime example of an anime from the golden era, yet the enjoyment I get from it is rather similar to how people describe the typical JC Staff anime. Heck, Noa isn’t that far away from being a moeblob.

Asides from all the aspects that make a good story no matter what the medium? Something that uses what animation is good at. One to push the boundaries of logic and experiments with presentation styles. Stories that work both on a surface level and deeper one. Something with enough of a sense of humour about itself to muck about, all while keeping this within the tone of the anime and not negatively effecting the story. Basically, everything Legend of Black Heaven does.

I’ve noticed some people complain about the term ‘slice of life’ when it should more accurately be classified as comedy, or coming-of-age, or ~healing~ or whatever. It’s an argument that always struck me as flawed, mainly being judged by the viewers own interpretation of what a slice of life looks like. Honey and Clover may not have been a slice of your life, but it’s a slice of someone’s life. It’s looking at their everyday activities. Having comedy doesn’t disqualify them from being slice of life. Sorry that your life is so boring that nobody ever cracks a joke, but most people’s lives do indeed have punchlines scattered amongst them.

I’m not really the right person to ask this question of, but since I’m here…

10 years ago, fully digital painted anime were taking off, but wasn’t being experimented with much. This left almost all anime around the early 00’s look rather similar. There’s a real blandness in presentation around that period. Anime has since developed and, since about 05, started experimenting much more with what could be done with digital animation. Now most animation studios like to muck about with the capabilities of digital animation, except certain studios. For gods sake JC Staff, catch up with the crowd and animate something that’s at least interesting to look at!

The reason American programmes often get stick for including things like The Token Black Guy is because they’re obliged to include racial minorities even when they haven’t thought properly on how to incorporate them into the story. Anime doesn’t really have this problem, but what you get instead is the reverse issue with under-representation. People have got to write stories that include minorities as a natural part of the piece.

Probably not what you were asking, but whatev’

2DT has a post on this. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that I hate the old form of moeblobs (the horrendously dull annoyingly perfect Miyazaki heroines) as much as I hate the new form of moeblobs.

People are often so intent on seeing boobs and blood that they miss the fact that the censorship is intentionally meant to be part of the show. It can be used for humour, and frequently having a ridiculous animal head censor offers far more enjoyment than seeing a cartoon nipple. Alternatively, while I may laugh at Deadman Wonderland and its gun that shot black censor holes into people’s chests, the alternative is to show everything like Hellsing Ultimate does, which is just gross, sickening and ultimately jarring away from the intended story experience.

Constant reruns of K-ON and Lucky Star unless we stand up and fight for what is right!

Also One Piece will be exclusively read by people over 60 because they are the only ones who have kept up with the plot since the start and nobody else is willing to pile through the 1000+ volumes to catch up.

Fractale. I now see that it is a well constructed tale about a boy struggling to overcome his shyness born from his lack of interaction with society. It’s an epic tale of romance, friendship and a clash of ideals between whether we should shoot down old ladies or shoot down old ladies with angry looks on our faces.

Hahaha no Fractale is shit.

Make everyone watch Hetalia and understand how silly they all look. Except don’t make them watch chibitalia because that part is painful to sit through and trying to make them do so will have the world leaders unwittingly launching their nuclear arsenal.

Plagiarism? I have no idea what you are talking about.

However long it takes to tell the story. While I know it’s nice to spend as more time with the characters you love so much, dragging anything out also thins out the quality. I personally rather like this 12/13 episode phenomenon anime has settled into. The 40-something episode long series are often padded far beyond what they need to be, while short 2–3 episode OVA’s don’t have enough time to get us to care. Patlabor is too long, Dominion Tank Police is too short, but Madoka Magica is just right. This applies less to anime and more to visual novels, where it seems padding your story out with redundant nonsense is common place, as if not being at least 30 hours long means you have disgraced your family. Make it shorter and charge less, is that so hard?

I’m so indifferent about video quality that, even when illegally downloading, I stick to 480p where possible. Once you reach a certain quality of image and sound, it stops having any improvement on how the story is told. Beyond that point is just for videophiles. It’s not like I have a laptop capable of playing Blu-Ray anyway.

The president of Nitro+ recently announced they had 5–6 anime projects in the works. It sounds a little bit over-ambitious to me, but 5–6 projects makes it sound like each one could be a short OVA of some sort. I would certainly be interested in a Saya no Uta OVA. It’s not like it could go on TV anyway, what with all the shit that happens in that game. An OVA would mean less focus on trying to make you fap to rape scenes, and on more on the horror element. The building up of tension would be far more effective in anime format. Keep the story intact, maybe making a few fixes to the natural flow of events, and you have the bones of a real quality 3 episode OVA.

Shizuo from Durarara, Lelouch from Code Geass, Revy from Black Lagoon and Mugen from Samurai Champloo. Problem is, I’m not sure any of these would listen to me when I tried to get them to rob a bank. Realistically, it would probably be just myself and Geek Boy from Panty and Stocking.

How did you know my penis had that? I’ve used all kinds of creams but it won’t go away.

…oh wait, inflationary, not inflammation

*********************************************

Again, if you want to ask me to write about whatever, you can still do so.

This show is going to fucking explode with Japanese otaku. Yes, I know IdolM@ster is already massively popular and preventing the Berserk manga from going anywhere anytime soon, but I don’t think there is a single way they could have made this any better.

This was about a good a first episode as IdolM@ster could have done. It was a unique and clever spin on the standard opening episode ‘cycling through the haremmetes’ routine. In having the cameraman directly ask the girls why they became idols and other personal questions, it gets straight to the root of each of their personalities, without it coming off as lazy expositionary dialogue. I also liked how they made producer-san totally silent for the entire first episode. All the information I’ve gotten from the games is second hand, but from what I’ve heard, you are the silent producer-san, so the way they kept him silent for the episode served as a good way to make it seem like you were touring the set before the actual series began. The animation suited the show well, the bgm fit each scene. Praise praise praise etc.

And here is where I say “but” and launch into a big auld rant at some minor nitpicky aspects before admitting I like the show, right? Or are you too busy being shocked that I liked IdolM@ster?

Actually let me clear that up: I do not like IdolM@ster. I am merely commenting on why I think this anime adaptation looks about as good as an anime adaptation of the IdolM@ster game could be. The problem is, it still has to come from IdolM@ster. That means it still has to have the same cast of characters from the game. This was like a police line up for irritating female anime character archetypes. Each and every one is nerve-jammingly annoying with scary efficiency. They screech and whine and go “ah moo”, every single one sounding like they’ve got a blocked nose. Each one is overacted, desperately trying to highlight their single character trait. None of these aspiring idols are characters. They’re such calculated moeblob archetypes that they’ve surgically removed any actual personality from each one. Every single one made my eye twitch.

So yeah. Well produced. Extremely well produced. Could not be any better produced. But argh argh argh get it as far away from me as you can!

My thoughts on Denpa Onna after 5 episodes. Because sometimes I have more to say about currently airing anime than I can possibly fit in your standard monthly roundup. Or my alternative and more precise sub-title, why it should have stopped after episode 3.

Denpa Onna is about a generic teenage boy going to live with his barmy aunt and her illegitimate daughter, who she bizarrely refuses to acknowledge the existence of most of the time. The daughter doesn’t seem too phased by this either, spending her time wrapped up in a futon and declaring she’s an alien. It is up to our wise-cracking protagonist to discover what’s going on here and snap the poor girly out of her current state.

This scenario works fairly well for the first three episodes, mainly because of how well the characters fit their roles in the story. The aunt may be barmy, a 40 year old women acting like a teenage girl, but this all acts as a sign that she thinks she’s not capable nor mature enough to take care of a kid. She’s been feeling pretty depressed at her own inability to raise a child. She hides from her weaknesses by latching onto and teasing our generic main character, a person she can finally feel some degree on control over. She got on my nerves a bit, especially when they pushed her moe-aunt quotient a bit too much, but it works well for the story.

Erio is the batty cousin, wrapped up in the futon, convinced she’s an alien. This is pulled off incredibly well due to how utterly out there she is. So much so that she might as well be from another planet for all we know. The high pitched squeal of her voice is muffled by the futon, creating this bizarre creature spouting complicated lines of dialogue that actually represent something a lot more mundane, like “go get me pizza”. What’s equally commendable about her character is how, when the futon drops off, she still holds this air of mystique. Shaft really want to go all out here, showing her hair sparkling, zooming in on her face to show what a strange looking girl this is. The futon dropping also drops her defensive barrier somewhat, but it will still take some battling to get through to the heart of the problem.

And that’s where our generic male lead comes in. Obsessed with leading the perfect teenage life, keeping mathematical track of all his interactions with his cute girl classmates, he finds himself living with this elephant in the room at home. A problem that he can’t stop himself from trying to explore, which is exactly how the story is revealed and developed. The story becomes about single parents trying to raise difficult children and how they escape to a fantasy land to get away from the harshness of reality. Our hero discovers this problem and then takes it upon himself to drag Erio out of her fantasy alien land and get her to face reality, with him on hand to help her every step of the way.

As an aside, one thing I liked about Denpa Onna was how it based the story around E.T. I rather like the idea of the modern fairy tale. A popular piece of entertainment from years ago becomes a fairy tale or a classic story to base current stories off. I prefer the modern fairy tale approach than basing your stories from Shakespeare or that bloody bible again. Erio presents herself as the same sort of creature that E.T. looks like, wrapped in the blanket and everything. I love the little twist with how they incorporated that famous bike scene. Instead of taking off into the sky into fantasy magical land, the bike crashes down and that’s where Erio comes to the realisation that she’s not living the life of an alien. It’s cleverly woven into the narrative and I respect Denpa Onna for pulling that off.

The show must go on though, and here’s where the problems begin. With the characters functions gone from the original solved plotline, the author has to continue with the story he has set up. Now it’s about Erio settling into society. Thing is, that’s not what he wrote the story to be about originally. E.T. has long since lost relevance. The characters no longer fit this new plot that he has to explore. The Aunt has regressed from pretending to be a teenager because she can’t face her adulthood, to being totally indistinguishable from a teenager, with no hints of adulthood left in her. She’s regressed to a one-joke character, merely acting as a titillation device. Erio loses her mystique as an alien, but what we get in return appears to be one of those mentally challenged girls from a Key drama. This may be the natural direction her character had to take in this story, but stripped of her alien persona, she too becomes a one-trick pony. Whatever story there was has been lost beneath a pile of pandering and moeblobbery.

What this stinks of is a story being made drag out beyond its natural length. An author who wrote a story that could span one light novel, but hadn’t considered what to write next until his publisher told him to write the next volume. It’s like a TV show made a pilot episode that had the producers roaring with laughter, but when they were told to make more, they suddenly realise they had used up the shows one decent gimmick and weren’t sure what to do with it from here on. The story for Denpa Onna should have ended on episode 3, with perhaps the main characters spiel about adolescence points at the start of episode 4 acting as a final narration over the ending credits. You might say the story hasn’t ended yet. Erio still isn’t integrated with society. I say pah, we didn’t need to see that. The story was just about generic main character discovering what was going on with his bizarro cousin and dragging her out of fantasy alien land. All the show is doing now is killing time before they can finally call it a day.

Note that, despite pimping this contest out, I’m not that much of a mecha fag. Hence some of my choices and reasoning will differ from classical mechafag thought processes.

Lancelot

Code Geass

This blog is named after Code Geass, so I could hardly not put in the most iconic mecha from that series. Lancelot is fuckwin anyway. Not so much for the design. The rollerblades are cool but the rest is standard over-elaborate metal spam. I love Lancelot because of how it’s the spanner in the works in all of Zero’s plans. Suzaku was put into the machine as an afterthought, never expecting it to get off the ground, and stuck into suicide missions, but it’s precisely because of the lack of logic behind its deployment and unpredictability of its abilities and pilot that it messed with Zero’s plans. Also because I’m a big weeaboo and like to pull Lancelot’s lifting off pose (one hand on the ground in front of the legs) when I’m about to run after someone.

Z-001

Roujin Z

Less a mecha and more a super computer turned care worker for seniors. At least, that’s what the Z-001 starts off as. Then it gains sentience and the personality of its patients dead wife and turns into a destructive machine! Rampaging across the country, dragging parts of the landscape and cities into it and becoming one with the machine. It evolves with the more it gathers, becoming a more and more terrifying machine as it attempts to carry out its mission to bring the old dude to the beach. Z-001 deserves a vote for loyalty and determination.

Unit 01

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A very stereotypical choice again, but Unit 01 deserves it. I love how it’s required to be plugged in to function, like a super laptop that has ambitions to be a desktop computer and achieves this by running out of battery as soon as you plug it out. Mainly though, it’s because Unit 01 is scary. It grunts when it attacks. It has a primeval roar. It eats other mecha. Repeat that for me. It eats other mecha.

Gurren Lagann

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Manly combine go! *SLAM*…*fix slightly* Hah, now we’re unbeatable!

Yup, Gurren Lagann is awesome because of the ridiculousness of how the thing functions. I love all the graphs and bars inside the machine that measure the rate of manliness it’s currently exuding. I love the arrange of moves it has, such as the ‘who the hell do you think we are kiiiicku~!’ and, of course, the Giga Drill Breaker. It’s such a ridiculous machine and I love it to bits.

Vital Guarder

Infinite Ryvius

There is no other mecha quite like the Vital Guarder. For one, it’s piloted by about 50–60 people, none of whom are actually inside the robot itself. Instead, they float behind the robot in a seperate ship, stuck behind computors as they compile complicated algorithems so the machine can do something as simple as lift it’s arm. Second, it doesn’t fight with any sort of conventional weaponry. Vital Guarder’s weapons are intense gravity fields alone. Again, Vital Guarder is scary, but in a deadening sort of way as you stare it down, frightened by the sheer power that machine holds.

Delphine

Break Blade

Like all the mecha in Break Blade, the Delphine is a big, ugly, clunky machine that swings its arms and legs in a lazy yet unstoppable fashion as it dukes it out with other hunks of humanoid metal. That’s what makes all the mecha in Break Blade awesome, I’m simply picking the Delphine because it’s the main one. They are proper machines. None of your flying around invincible beam spam nonsense. If you shoot the Delphine, you will scratch the paintwork, and it will wear those scratches with pride amongst the other squeaky clean competitors in SaiMecha.

Canti

FLCL

It’s the imagery used to in FLCL that makes this guy so memorable. Canti is a fallen angel. He is the messiah and the saviour. He saves the birds with his halo and TV screen for a face. He also transforms into a massive gun and is piloted by Naota, even coming with it’s own unique eject function, so I think he qualifies as a mecha all right.

Nirvash typetheEND

Eureka Seven

Fuck the Nirvash. That’s piloted by Renton and Eureka, who are boring people and shouldn’t have been the main characters. Eureka Seven would have been infinitely improved by having Anemone and Dominic as the lead two. Plus their robot is even more awesome. You don’t so much get strapped into the typeEnd as you do get absorbed and held in place in like some sort of futuristic sex toy. It’s the Evangelion-esque robot in a series where everyone else was too busy pussy-footing about on surfboards and is far more awesome than any of them because of that.

Fuego

Ride Back

I want one. I don’t care how, I just want one. I want a motorbike with arms and wheels on its legs that can drive along walls. Why haven’t you made this yet, science? I am still waiting with all my worldly possessions to purchase a Fuego, even if it means going into debt for the rest of my life.

Mecha Panty

Panty and Stocking with Gartarbelt

You know you like it.

It was then that I realised the mistake I was making. A season preview is not about information. How silly of me to think such a thing. The real driving force behind what makes a great season preview is opinions. Informed opinions, yes, but opinions never the less. A chart is no place for my opinions, they are merely information storage houses. But I love opinions, especially my own. So with that revelation, it’s back to doing what I do best: Informing the world of my totally biased views on anime!

TV Series

Fractale

Click here to view the embedded video.

First of all, Fractale is airing in Noitamina, a timeslot devoted to hosting anime that doesn’t suck. Being in Noitamina alone means it’s worth checking out, regardless of anything else. The series is directed by Yamakan, a guy who’s reputation far exceeds his few achievements. He storyboarded a few episodes of Haruhi Suzumiya, got kicked off Lucky Star after 4 episodes for sucking so much, directed that dull Black Rock Shooter OVA. In fact, the only real worthwhile achievement he has to his name is him directing Kannagi. I’m a little bit worried about his moe reputation, but Noitamina wouldn’t host pure moecrap. Yamakan did say that if this anime isn’t a hit, he would retire. However he is a bit egotistical so take all that with a pinch of salt. Trailer looks slightly Ghibli-esque and I love some of the steampunk artwork I’ve been seeing of the series. Sorry, I’m really just babbling by this point. Definitely optimistic, if not overwhelming so.

Kimi ni Todoke 2

Stupid shojo. I don’t think my problem comes fundamentally from the shojo genre as a whole. It’s the stereotypical shojo fair that I have no time for. That is what Kimi ni Todoke is, and I simply have no patience for that at all.

Gosick

Click here to view the embedded video.

First off, it’s by Bones. While their original productions often fill me with rage with their pitfalls, they’re generally pretty good at bringing out the best in adaptations (FMA and Ouran, as case points). Second case for Gosick is the high praise I’ve seen the novels get. It’s a proper detective story, true to the style of Sherlock Holmes, which can often be hard to find in anime outside of Detective Conan. The case against is a bit damaging though. This is far from a star studded staff listing from Bones here. Warning signs alone come from seeing the Heroman director on board. Still, he’s working with better material here, so it should be worth a shot at least.

Beelzebub

I know there are many people excited about this. These people have already expressed surprise at the apparent lack of enthusiasm expressed by the rest of the aniblogsphere towards this hit manga. Want to know why, all you Beelzebub fans out there? Fairy Tail, Letter Bee, Nuaridgyaoean no Mago Nurarara. Time and time again we get the latest Shounen hit manga getting adapted into an anime, getting hyped up by the shounen manga fans, only for it to be yet another disappointment. Seeing Pierrot at the helm as well (they did Letter Bee and Nurarara, along with Naruto and Bleach) doesn’t fill me with excitment either. I mean, it sounds like a pretty cool story. Teenage delinquent in charge of demon baby. A combination of the shounen formula with the new parent comedy, it sounds promising. But I’ve been burned too many times in the past to get excited for whatever the latest shounen hit anime is.

Wandering Son

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Noitamina again. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with the timeslot and think I’m hyping these titles up for nothing, here’s a quick snapshot of what anime it’s hosted in the past 5 years: Eden of the East, Moyashimon, Nodame Cantabile, Honey and Clover, Tatami Galaxy, Trapeze, Jellyfish Princess…I think you get the gist. Even when the studio attached is AIC, whose previous anime have included Ore no Imouto, Amagami SS and the Strike Witches sequel, the call of Noitamina has caused them to produce probably the most original looking anime of the season, at least in terms of the artwork. Admittedly, Wandering Son doesn’t look to be my sort of thing. A bit too airy fairy/fluffy/lovely/beautiful and I generally don’t react too well to these sort of anime. But hey, good for the people who do like this sort of stuff, and good for AIC that they’re not doing fanservice crap yet again.

Merry Dream Eater

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To be fair to JC Staff, they have been branching out a bit lately. Most notably of which is their careful stepping into the generic shojo genre of Maid-sama. So hey, good for them that they’re finally diversifying from the typical ‘flat-chested highschool girl, possibly  with super powers, meets generic male lead’ that they always put out. Merry Dream Eater is about a generic teenage boy and the  flat chested girl who falls into his lap one day. JC Staff being JC Staff. Shakugan no Shana, Raildex series, Ookami-san you know the drill by now. They put out something resembling a plot while the fans fawn over the moeness of the female leads. The Light Novel adaptation has very low profit margins and I guess these series are sorta par for the course for JC Staff. A way of giving their staff some experience on working on anime. It’s just it’s starting to feel like a while that they made an anime I liked that isn’t called Nodame Cantabile.

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

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The wildly erratic but occasionally brilliant Shinbo, along with his equally eratic studio Shaft, are producing this anime original product. There’s been a bit of hype surrounding this due to an apparently godlike staff list, which I had gone along with until I actually took a look at the staff list. Err, this is godly? The actual good staff are on stuff like music and character design, which is a pretty useless place to put good staff if the actual prodict they’re making stuff for isn’t well written. The actual main bulk of the writing staff are a few Shaft folk (although the director of Arakawa Under the Bridge makes me happy) and a bunch of nobodies who only previously worked on the forgettable Gonzo anime Blassreiter. Essentially, this anime boils down to what Shinbo has cooked up in his brain, never a good thing to rely on. My feeling is Shinbo is aiming for a true Magical Girl series, based on wha the promos have shown. Absolute purity and goodness in an unabashed, totally serious way that leaves the old school magical girl fans declaring the glory days have come back. Sorta like Gurren Lagann for the Magical Girl genre. Which I’m afraid I just can’t get excited for. Magical Girl anime just don’t do it for me (he says, basing this prejudice solely off Princess Tutu and the fact they have stupid names like Magical Musical ~Chu~ ~Chu~ Lyrical Heart and Soul Puni Puni Girl SOS).

Wolverine

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Oh Madhouse, what on earth has happened to you? I was one of the few that originally kinda liked Ironman, but eventually the stupidity got to me and I dropped it. Actually no, it wasn’t the stupidity. I watched and enjoyed the entire of Cobra. The problem with Ironman was you could tell the creators simply did not care about the product they were working on. Which makes it even more baffling that they decided to take on these projects when they clearly had no interest in them. Why Madhouse? To any anime fans reading this: Don’t bother with Wolverine or Ironman. If you want some Madhouse goodness, wait for Redline to finally come out on DVD. That will be the next big thing to hit the anime scene from them.

Level E

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First off, actually watch the trailer the full way through. Pretty cool looking eh? Level E is your token low budget, high concept anime of the season. The sort of minor hit that will never achieve much due to its low budget, but will gain a small following of supporters. A bit like Giant Killing from last spring. David Production are a pretty shitty studio, having only previously made Ristorante Paradiso and Book of Bantorra, and being propped up by Pierrot isn’t the most exciting of duos. The manga is from the same guy who wrote Hunter X Hunter (called Hiatus X Hiatus by its adoring fans) so there’s talent somewhere behind this show. Really though, my mild optimism is based more off the interesting synopsis than anything more concrete. But hey, that’s the great thing about these low budget anime. Nobody really cares if they drop off the face of the earth, and if they succeed then it’s always a nice extra to have each season.

Dragon Crisis

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This is apparently the anime to look out for if you’re a sakuga nerd (translation: animation nerd, because animation nerds are also massive weeaboos). Deen have decided to bring in some talenter animators for this. Otherwise, you’re staring at yet another Deen crapfest. You would think something with the word ‘Dragon’ in the name would be pretty awesome. Afraid not. Generic male lead finds magical girl who instantly likes him while bossy childhood friend gets jealous. Yeah, you all know the drill by now. Yawn next~

Infinite Stratos

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Generic male lead goes to school where he’s one of the only guys, although I’m sure they’ll be able to fit in the perverted best friend character somewhere. The catch is this school has girls using massive weaponry to fight off aliens or something along those lines. Basically, excuse to have lots of explosions and mecha musume action. It’s far from being the most inspiring of concepts. It does have one interesting point of note. The director of Infinite Stratos was also a director on Macross Frontier. Otherwise though, total newbie studio 8-bit making harem animu doesn’t fill me with excitement.

Is that a Zombie?

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lolDeen. This is basically Deen imposing on JC Staffs domain of ‘generic male lead getting picked up by flat chested high school girl with magical powers’. Which they can’t even do very well. I certainly would have more faith in Merry Dream Eater being watchable than this. lalala next

Nyarlko

In case you haven’t got the memo, Nyarlko is a moe-fied version of  Cthulhu; H.P. Lovecrafts demon monster thingy I dunno, I’m an uncultured plebian who has never read any Lovecraft. Basically a massive demon thing with tentacles and claws and all sorts of horrid things, turned into a flat chested, silver haired moe girl. Just let that sink in for a minute. The first episode is out already. It’s a directionless flash animation that barely qualifies as a legitimate anime.

Rio Rainbow Gate

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Rio is based off a pachinko game character, a gambling machine for single men who can’t get a job. This isn’t actually the first time an anime has been based off a pachinko game. There was Umi Monogatari a few seasons back. It wasn’t very good, but what it did show was that, given something so plotless as a gambling machine, the creator could come up with their own plot. So what did Xebec decide to do with this anime? Yeah, this was doomed from the moment the name Xebec came into the picture. For a quick idea of what to expect from Xebec, last season they made Yosuga no Sora. Booooooobs~

Houkago no Pleides

Houkago no Pleides is a project between the car manufacturer Subaru and the animation studio Gainax. I have a sneaking suspicion this is just a bloody advertisement. You’d think the producers would say that it wasn’t a TV show if it wasn’t, but I wouldn’t put it past Gainax to troll anime fans. That’s the thing about this project. Having the name ‘Gainax’ attached could mean bloody anything. The promo image is just a bunch of moe girls. It could be an advertisement. It could be some moecrap. It could even be a Redline-esque racing show. I really have no idea what to expect.

Mitsudomoe 2

The first season of Mitsudomoe was low-brow to the extreme, to the point that I stopped finding it funny and was mainly just grossed out by ‘urine samples being mistaken for eye drops’ type jokes. This season is only 8 episodes long btw, so not much for those handul of Mitsudomoe fans out there.

I don’t like you at all,

Big Brother

They’re not blood related. Just sayin’. In the world of incest anime, this is far more down the KissXSis route of straight up softcore porn than the fence-sitting nature of Ore no Imouto. If you like softcore anime porn, then you’ll love this! If you actually have taste, then you won’t. You’ll watch actual porn instead.

Freezing

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The website for the Freezing anime has a game. It’s one of the ball-and-paddle games where you knock out the blocks off the screen. In this case, the blocks are the clothes of the buxom females of the show, revealing their underwear-clad bodies beneath. It’s a rather fun way to pass the time actually. I cleared every single girl…umm, maybe I shouldn’t be admitting to that. Anyway, you should know what to expect from the game alone. This is one of those ‘girls fighting while their clothes disintergrate’ anime, which is a little bit depressing when you realise that’s now a fully fledged genre. Booooobs~

Starry Sky

If I’m going to heap scorn upon Freezing and I don’t like you at all, Big Brother, then it would be hypocritical of me to no heap just as much scorn upon Starry Sky. Generic female lead with no personality goes to school with heaps of beautiful boys with various famous voice actors (that you can listen soothe you to sleep in seperately sold drama CD’s) who all are instantly infacutuated with the female lead. This is the biggest pile of crap out of anything this season. Seriously girls, don’t watch this crap. If you do, I have as much respect for you as I do the people who watch Kiss X Sis. Well, maybe not. As far as I’m aware, straight up female oireantated anime porn doesn’t actually exist. The only one that actually shows anything explicit is Boku no Pico. You’re stuck with ero games, yaoi manga, static art or male aimed hentai. In fact, I’m pretty sure Boku no Pico was actually aimed at the shotacon male audience. So I guess if you’re really starved for some moving anime beautiful men whose only purpose is to sexually excite the viewer, then there’s really not much options. But for god sake, don’t pretend Starry Sky is anything but that.

Suite Precure

The endless Precure franchise. It has its fans, but my unnatural bias against magical girl anime has prevented me from ever watching this series. For those who do, I’m afraid I’m not sure if this is meant to be a sequel to Heartcatch or not. It’s all a bit confusing and I don’t really understand the continuity in the franchise, so go research that for yourself.

OVAs

Most of these are spin off or sequels to whatever. People tend to get unduly excited for OVAs when they’re just stupid extra episodes, which is annoying to see when there’s some genuinely interesting OVAs in there.

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Future Diary was just a 7-minute pilot. Yuri Seijin is a project by ufotable about a planet of lesbians. Dream C Club is based off those idol games, like Idolm@ster, for loser purity-obsessed otaku only. Haven’t a clue what Goulart Knight is supposed to be. There are still 3 interesting OVAs in here. Supernatural is the obvious one. It’s basically a fully fledged series, spanning 22 episodes in length. I’m unsure how the release format is going to run though. Madhouse is behind the project, although I’m wary after their miserable attempts at Ironman. I’ve never seen the original American TV series and all I know is that it has a massive fangirl following. It’s worth keeping an eye on anyway. The other two new project OVAs worth keeping an eye on are Tailenders and Koisento. Tailenders I was originally hyped for but, after watching Redline in the cinema, it now inspires considerably less excitement. It’s basically a much worse animated version of that. Still should be worth watching, but from a company called ‘Anime Innovation Tokyo’ is it too much to ask for a little bit of innovation? Koisento is interesting simply because I know next to nothing about it. Sunrise producing a 40 episode OVA? Sounds cool to me

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Movies

Usual blah blah about movies not being seen by western anime fans until the DVD’s come out etc. My method is researching what anime movies are coming out is to type in names of anime movies that have been screened in Japan but I haven’t seen hit the fansub scene into amazon.jp to see if they have a release date announced. It’s not the msot accurate method, but it’s better than nothing.

Proffesor Layton and the Eternal Diva is apparently out already, although from what I’ve heard, you’re better off waiting for the English dub to hear Laytons hilarious gentlemenly english accent. King of Thorn is out 13/Dec, which looks mildly entertaining.  Trigun: Badlands Rumble is out 15/Dec. Again from reviews, it sounds like a nice nostalgia trip but nothing substantial. The Dissapearence of Haruhi Suzumiya is out 18/Dec, which has been hyped up to extrodinary levels by those who saw either the c

::Edit:: What the hell guys? Why did nobody tell me I was missing the last few paragraphs of this post? What the hell happened to them anyway?

The episode itself continues Ore no Imouto’s downward spiral into nothingness. The episode was pretty much devoid of a narrative, beyond maybe the fact that Ayase is warming up ever so slowly to Kirino’s hobby. There’s no rhyme nor reason behind these episodes anymore. It lacked humour as well. Sticking characters in embarrassing outfits only ever works when we have some sort of emotional attachment to the characters and understand the embarrassment they are feeling. It’s a pretty weak attempt at humour in any case, as the inevitable maid cosplay in the next episode will show, but even the very basis of the humour fails when it involves Ayase and Kayako, two characters the show hasn’t made me give a shit about as of yet. The only grin I really got from the episode was Kyousuke’s cosplay as a member of the Men in Black.

Looking pretty suave there Kyousuke.

But let’s not just dismiss the episode at take a proper look at the message. Back when the show began, people were comparing Ore no Imouto to Genshiken, on the basis they were both about coming to terms with your own hobby, both cases being otaku-ism. For the most part, that theory has dropped off as the show progressed, but there was some basis for that theory. Ore no Imouto was giving off this message that you should be more open about your love for your hobby, especially in episode 2 where Kirino an Kuroneko opened up to each other when they couldn’t in front of the yaoi fangirls (surprise surprise, the best scenes in the anime involve Kuroneko yet again). But with the more recent episodes have put what happened in that episode into a different light. It was never about being more open about your own hobby. It was about being more open about your love of moe.

The part that set me off on this train of thought was a comment by Landon back on episode 7.

Maybe OreImo is attempt­ing to mock the fans that think like Kur­oneko, and the only reason why people think it’s the oppos­ite way around is because they’re far closer to Kuroneko’s point of view. More often than not, the tar­get of the joke doesn’t real­ize he’s being mocked.

That’d explain why OreImo goes right back to being an otaku pan­der­ing series: it expects you to find Kuroneko’s stance ridicu­lous while sid­ing with the per­vert sister.

Ore no Imouto is an otaku-pandering series. Anyone who still thinks otherwise is delusional to the extreme. You can still draw entertainment from some other parts of the series, and it’s true that there are still parts of this anime that are incredibly well written and witty Kuroneko exists. But the intention of the anime shapes the direction it takes, the messages it gives out and in turn can tear down what other entertainment you had drawn from the series.

There is no mocking of moe otaku here. The quality leap in animation for Kanako’s Meruru long, along with the attention and adoration they put into her song. The line afterwards about how she thought it was a good thing that the crowd were so enthusiastic about seeing Meruru. Moe is a good thing. This is where the plain and simple moe-hate on my part comes in. This isn’t a flaw in the writing anymore. This is just me reacting negatively to what I disagree with being placed on a pedestal for praise. The celebration of emotionally immature man-children who sexualise children (she wears a friggen elementary school backpack) because they can’t handle older women. I’ve heard the argument before that being a lolicon doesn’t mean you’re a pedophile. Biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard, they’re cheering for a real-life version of Meruru here. There’s no pure-intentions here either, they showed the Meruru porn earlier in the episode. They showed Kirino, who is simply the intended audiences persona inside a middle school girl, getting a nosebleed watching IRL Meruru. Ore no Imouto is celebrating all of that.

It disgusts me. I know people will try to argue that there’s more to moe than lolicon, but that’s what it was born from. It’s similar to how you can garner entertainment from Ore no Imouto even when you’re not it’s intended audience. You can derive entertainment from other areas, but the driving force behind moe is this sexualisation of innocence. A genre based entirely around sexual titillation is bad enough. Combining this with the fantasies of immature men who can’t grow up and face the world, you have the moe genre. If anyone wants to know why I don’t like moe, it’s all here.

The divide between good Ore no Imouto and bad Ore no Imouto has never been so clearly divided as it was in this episode. They basically split the episode in two between the otaku pandering siscon crap and the budding friendship between Kirino and Kuroneko and how Saori-shi gets Kyousuke to play as the diplomat between the two, clearly believing that he’s more capable of bridging the divide between the two and preventing the two from gouging each other’s eyes out. At least when he’s around, they refrain from directly attacking each other and leave it to portraying the other in fiction as being sexually violated.

I do love the dynamic created between the 4 characters. As 2DT said, it can all be taken as every girl being in love with him and using their own methods to try get his attention. Not necessarily a bad thing though, because each method is different and fairly-well constructed so that it’s actually entertaining to watch. Harems get a lot of stick but anything can be entertaining if written well. Bakemonogatari is the best example of this. That anime is a massive construction of a perfect world for Arararagi and, by extension, the otaku male viewer. But it’s done so cleverly and often not noticeably until someone points it out to you that it’s a great feat of story-telling. It’s when you replace crappy writing, plot, characterisation and all other parts that make a good story with pandering that drives it down. You can create a harem anime that panders to the viewer so long as it isn’t a substitute for engaging writing. You can write moe so long as it isn’t a cover for your other flaws.

Which is why Kuroneko’s existence in the anime is baffling. She exists in the show to point out how the type of anime Kirino likes is the otaku-pandering crap that it is. That the moe is covering up for the other flaws. Notice how Kirinio is far too preoccupied with dancing away and performing a KIRABOSHI~♥ than actually paying attention to the show itself, and recoils when Kuroneko points out the contradictions the show has. Yet the show then goes and performs exactly what Kuroneko pointed out as being a bad thing right throughout the second half of the anime. Why? Like, why? You’re clearly a more intelligent show than this Ore no Imouto. Why must you insist on then reverting to type and become the very type of anime you’re mocking? I just don’t understand.

Anyone who still thinks this anime is a genuine depiction of a heartwarming brother and sister relationship has the self-deception capabilites to rival a member of the Flat Earth Society (they went to a love hotel on Christmas Eve for fuck sake. Read the bloody signs). But it’s not the squickyness of incest I’m bothered about anymore. If Ore no Imouto actually went the full way with an incest end, my respect for it would actually increase for having the balls to do so. But it won’t. We all know it won’t. The Ore no Imouto dating sim game has a siscon end, but in a story in which every ending is canon, none are. It’s just too busy pretending it’s a genuine bro/sis relationship while pandering to the siscon crowd at the same time. It doesn’t have the balls to actually go one way or the other. I’d love to be proven wrong. For Ore no Imouto to have a Cart Driver ending. But it won’t. We’ll end on a ‘heart-warming’ scene, followed by the brother walking in on her in the shower and then falling on top of her, in much the same way something like Kannagi ended.

Why yes. Yes I am, and shame on you for not doing the same thing. Anime is serious business, don’t you know. Blogging anime even more so.

Episode 122: Message from Venus

Why hello there Pioneer plaque. Didn’t expect to see you here. Wonder how some Venusians got hold of it. Wasn’t it supposed to have gone outside the Solar System, not back towards the inner ring planets? One thing that always bugged me about the plaque is the people being naked. If aliens did come to earth expecting to see these creatures, they’d see nothing of the sort. They would view these fully clothed creatures as some sort of evil creatures who had killed off the previous, hand-waving inhabitants and were therefore a war-mongering nation that should be destroyed at all costs. Way to go astronomers. Thanks for dooming our species.

btw since when was there a child on the plaque? Way to get basic facts wrong Shaft.

Or did they?

I’d say many of you have already come to the conclusion that the peolpe on the tape are Nino’s parents. Telling your child to brush your teeth and wash your hair is very parental things to do. The train of thought I’m on at the moment is the whole Venusian thing comes from Nino’s parents, who appear to be quite obviously as batty as Nino is. The tapes must be their way of keeping in touch with her. If they are still alive that is. Maybe they’re just mementos Nino keeps.

Either way, the kid on the plaque? Well, the man and women are Nino’s parents and the kid is Nino. It’s a symbol of parents sending messages to Nino using a famous reference to aliens. It all makes sense now!

You knew as soon as Recruit said this that he’d jinxed it. If there’s one thing you can be guaranteed about Arakawa, it’s that nothing will ever go exactly the way Recruit thinks it will. In fact, more often than not it will go the total opposite way. As soon as he thinks Nino won’t get too angry, she will go and do exactly that.

Also Nino’s eyes when she saw Recruit were creepy. In fact, Nino’s eyes manage some of the strangest expressions I’ve ever seen anime characters pull. For a character who’s often rather monotone and blank, her eyes really do tell you a lot of what’s going on in her mind. Albeit what’s going on in her Nino-warped mind, which means you have to read her expressions in a slightly different way to how you’d read other characters’ expressions.

Episode 123: Up the telephone pole

Angry Nino is a difficult thing to envisage. She obviously wouldn’t slap anyone or yell. That’s just not Nino. But neither do I think she would hold it up inside her with a cold silence. She needs to express her anger in some form. Perhaps pretending she was a space cruiser and shooting down Recruit? Nah, her space version has been prised open a bit here so she couldn’t resort to that. In short, her comfort zone of pretending to be from Venus has been cracked. So instead she acts like a cat who has just found out its going to be taken to the vet. The turn around and hiss as she’s running away from Recruit was fantastic.

Sister really could be the saviour for the Catholic Church. I’m sure the younger generation would be much more willing to attend church if they were

1. Only 5 seconds long
2. The communion was chocolate chip cookies instead of that shitty unleavened bread
3. The priests were masochists instead of pedophiles

(I swear that will be the only ‘priests are pedophiles’ joke I use for the whole year. Not because it’s tasteless or controversial, but because it’s been done to death that I no longer find any of them funny. The shock factor has long since gone, go make jokes about something else that’s been joked about less often. Like airplane food)

Episode 124: Message

Shaft making fun of crappy fanservice moe manga. Although such is the state of the industry at the moment that you’re far more likely to hear these words coming from a Light Novel. Manga doesn’t have as many moecrap coming out of it, outside of 4-komas. You’re much more likely to find the old-fashioned harem featuring large breasted girls who fall over a loser main character instead of flat-chested moeblobs who blush when they see the generic main character. Honestly, I prefer the older haremshit to this moeshit, even if it’s just the lesser of two evils.

Episode 125: Weighter than words

Now that is scary. Nino’s anger earlier on in the episode was just her desperately trying to release her feelings in what felt most natural to her. This is controlled anger Nino. This is Nino and Recruit having something akin to a couples argument. It’s strange to think of it this way, but Arakawa Under the Bridge is one of the few anime that focus on a couple’s relationship after they’ve gotten together. It’s just easy to forget about because they’re such an unconventional couple. Remember, the story doesn’t end when the couple gets together.

Think about it Recruit. What if she’s a mass murderer? Could you really accept that? What if her parents called themselves Vesuvians to hide from their child the truth behind what they were really doing? What if she genuinely was an alien sent to destroy the earth and will activate after she’s been there for 10 years? Or as soon as she loses her virginity? Or that Nino is actually a hermaphrodite? Could you really accept those kinds of facts?

Although I’m guessing what’s really on those tapes is something so stupid and trivial that Recruit will pull a shouty loud face over the whole debacle. I kinda hope it isn’t. I would like a good reason behind why Nino is so afraid of revealing her past. But I can’t see Arakawa heading in that direction.

Nino~! Aww, come here Nino, please cheer up. I’ll bake you some cookies, buy you a better fishing rod, give you a hug, anything! Just stop making that defeated face!

(does this count as moe? I’m not even sure anymore)

Oh Hoshi. If you ever had even the slightest chance with Nino, all hopes have been dashed right there. That would be like someone taking my collection of downloaded anime and taping over them with ‘Home and Away’, saying he just taped over some stupid cartoons. Except 10 times worse, and that’s saying a lot.

Episode 126: Pajama Party

Forgive me for this one, but the rest of this post might be a bit of a P-ko pic spam. She stole the show for the entire second half of the episode. In an environment as bizarre as the community under the bridge, having P-ko acting like a normal women and pulling all the girls into doing women things was fantastic. Complaining about men and how they listen to what women are saying and not doing what they actually mean for them to do. Or how about her becoming the mouth of Nino, telling Recruit what Nino really wanted. Nino may be the princess for everyone under the bridge, but P-ko is the one you really need to win over if you want the women on your side.

Nothing in particular to say about this picture. Just stuck it up for the contrast between the subs and the image. Stick it up as the lead image to an /a/ thread and watch the results. I don’t want to do it. I’ve found myself reading 4chan recently. Originally it was just to read the Season Preview Chart threads to see what people were saying and how to improve them, but I found myself drifting towards other threads. I’ve got to eradicate this infection before it becomes incurable. I should be OK. I’ve caught it at a very early stage in its development.

Maria stripping for the pajama party brought to mind how Arakawa doesn’t really do fanservice, which is strange for a Shaft anime. It does occasionally like to accentuate how pretty Nino is, but normally it’s done deliberately when Recruit finds himself thinking about Nino in a sexual manner. More often, it’s just showing her lips more clearly than usual. As I said, very strange for a Shaft anime, who are often more than happy to focus in on cleavages and crotches and hugely disturbing underage lotion rubbing scenes.

P-ko taking charge. Well, Maria is hardly going to take charge. She just wants to insult men whenever they enter her vicinity. Stella is too young to take charge of anyone who isn’t one of the metal heads. Nino is totally spaced out and incapable of saying much at all. P-ko is the only one left to take charge. Good on ya P-ko! You’re a man’s worst nightmare: A girlfriend’s scary best friend. Well no, there’s plenty of things scarier than that. A girlfriends scary mother for instance. But this certainly isn’t something you’d be seeing in your more pleasant dreams. Except maybe the more adventurous sexual ones. Hmmm, I better get off this train of thought now.

Episode 127: Ric’s secret tape

It is a well known fact that bishies all look like women, but I think Recruit may have taken it a little too far in this picture. Err, I might just be seeing this in my nightmares. While I’ll be seeing that other one with P-ko and Nino in my slightly more pleasant drea–no Scamp, get off that train of thought now!

Episode 128: With a heavy heart

To get to Nino you have to first pass her three guardians. P-ko should be pretty easy to defeat. Make sure you don’t get hit by projectile gardening implements and carefully toss a banana skin in her vicinity. Victory is assured. Stella is more difficult to defeat because of her Fist of the North Stella mode, so more indirect tactics will have to be employed here. Shouldn’t be too difficult because she’s not the most emotionally stable. Tell her Sister has some cookies or something. Maria would be the toughest and only could be defeated through sheer endurance. Your only option would be to take her punishment until she got bored. Only then would you be able to save your Queen.

Nino isn’t a normal girl. Her facial reactions can’t be read the same way as you read others. But there’s still similarities there. Anger gave way to worry, but worry that she would lose the life she was currently enjoying. Which is exactly the same thing poor old Recruit was worrying about. An understanding is reached and Good End is achieved. Also, that cynic side to me that surfaced back at the start of the episode? Not sure where he’s gone by now. Probably off sulking in a corner as my love for Arakawa shoved it to one side, mumbling drearily about how you know perfectly well there’s nothing worthwhile on those tapes.

I’ve said it before, but I’d be shocked if Nino’s past did include something genuinely worth hiding. I like the idea that there’s some method behind the madness to everyone under the bridge. That Sister is here because he couldn’t fit into modern society when his brain was so war-warped. That Hoshi is here because he wanted to sing his own music. That the metal heads are escaping from a orphanage where they were bullied and treated poorly by the staff. That Nino hides her past behind a facade of being from Venus. I doubt there’s a good reason, but I really hope there is.

Almost 3 hours writing this bloody post, and you lot had to read over 2000 words of me rambling on. Here’s an awesome t-shirt to make up for it.