I made my top 30 anime post about 2 years ago. However, as I watched more anime, more started to enter the list, which inevitably caused others to drop out. Instead of losing what I wrote about them forever, I created a ‘those who just missed out’ page, devoted to holding those that got kicked out of the top 30 in favour of newer, shinier stuff. But that list was starting to show its age itself. I was starting to watch anime that were not quite good enough to make my top 30, but better than those that had since dropped out. So to finally give those anime the credit they deserve, I decided the best method was to simply extend the top 30 further. So now you have this: 31–60.

60: Dominion Tank Police

There was a trend in the late 80’s and early 90’s of OVAs about a police force fighting cyborgs in a smoggy megacity set permanently during the night. Most of them are fairly forgettable, but Dominion Tank Police stands far above the rest. The adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s manga has an edge to it that makes it memorable. From the wild raunchy humour to the incredibly well-developed world setting, its biggest surprise is that it manages to combine both this goofy light-hearted tone while tackling some deep themes of searching for meaning in your existence. Oh, and it has anti-tank penis mines.

59: Future Diary

Future Diary operates on its own brand of unique logic. It states that if there is a story beat it needs to get to, all other logic barriers are considered irrelevant. Hence we get ‘Future Diary Logic’, in that completely fucked up crazy shit happens, but you roll with it because it doesn’t really matter in the overall scheme of things or the characterisation. And that’s a large part of the reason why it shines. In focusing on what makes these characters tick with this unrelenting action pacing, it continues to thrill episode after episode. Well OK, there are some rather dumb episodes in the middle, but the overall experience is a pretty thrilling one indeed.

Related posts: I blogged the show.

58: One Outs

One Outs is technically about baseball and how one mysterious American pitcher propelled a struggling Japanese baseball team to greater heights. What it’s actually about is Tokuchi Toua, the chain-smoking anorexic spawn of satan, mentally assaulting various muscled men until the collapse at his feet. Tokuchi carries this anime like no other. It’s his put-downs, his mental calculations, his terrifying stare, that keep you riveted throughout. It does have some pacing problems, and does lack any real depth, but makes up for it with Tokuchi fucking Toua.

57: Dennou Coil

There’s a little fallacy in anime fandom that fillers are bad. Episodes that don’t advance the plot and serve only as contained stories are inherently bad thing. There is no greater example of how wrong this can be than Dennou Coil. Honestly speaking, I didn’t care much for the plot nor the characters, the world they inhabit is such an imaginative and well-invented place that I loved any episode that explored the possibilities in contained. This meant that the best episodes were the ones that acted as stand alones. Nuclear warfare beards. Pleiso the shadow serpent. The giant fish that ate the town. It really does have possibly the best realised settings in anime.

56: Tatami Galaxy

While I’m not quite as big on this as many of my fellow Yuasa-philes (screw you guys, Kaiba is better), Tatami Galaxy is still an incredibly clever story. Like Groundhog Day meets Honey and Clover, it’s the way it plays with its formula that makes it so good. The juxtaposition of each plot element with each episode, shedding new light on the incident each time, made for an incredibly rewarding experience. Sure it has more unnecessary animation quirks than anything even Shaft/Shinbo have put out, but it’s witty, sharp and has such a brilliantly constructed story that its positives far outweigh the negatives.

55: Trapeze

Speaking of auteur anime directors, let’s move from Yuasa to the equally bizarre Kenji Nakamura and his incredibly strange Trapeze (or Kuuchuu Buranko if we feel like weeabooing for a bit). The story is about crazy psychiatrist and his solutions to dealing with various patients in a trippy environment where anything that isn’t polka dot is shunned for disgracing its family. Not all the crazy animation techniques work, such as the live action faces, but it’s how all these episodic heart-warming stories come together into this great overall picture that make it special. Try it if you really want something different.

54: Jellyfish Princess

Three Noitamina anime in a row, but while the last two were artsy stuff that anime hipsters cite as their favourites, Jellyfish Princess is josei at its goofiest. Following the story of a bunch of hopeless female shut-ins, devoting their lives to some of the strangest otakudoms, from trains to old men, it’s about how one particular jellyfish otaku finally grew out of her shell and started to do something worthwhile with her life. But what really stands out is how well-directed the comedy is. It has the brilliant way of timing events that makes what should be otherwise fairly standard comedy stuff become utterly hilarious material.

53: Seto no Hanayome

Seto no Hanayome sounds awful on paper. Generic teenage boy gets saved from drowning by a mermaid and, according to mermaid law, he now has to marry her. It’s when you realise they are actually the mermaid mafia that the real heart of this series comes out: A ball to the wall bonkers comedy. Some of the jokes don’t work, but it fires off so many and doesn’t linger on any that it’s tolerable, and some of the jokes are inspired in how they defy your expectations. A husband and son try to sneak away some mermaid porn, only to realise it’s just a video of a fish flopping about a bit. Our mermaid idol bursts into a lullaby song, only for it to be a ridiculous off-tune parade of la-lee-ho’s. It’s not a particularly clever anime, but damn is it ever funny.

52: Casshern Sins

Madhouse are probably my favourite animation studio, because no other studio is willing to attempt the stuff they do. Robot Hunter Casshern was originally a generic superhero anime about a cyborg dude Casshern and his pet robot dog. Casshern Sins, on the other hand, is a post-apocalyptic depression fest in which our titular character wanders around a desolate landscape with his fabulous 70’s hairdo, meeting various people in states of disarray and generally doing a lot of angsting. What makes it special is how each episodic story surrounding these characters has a ray of hope to each of them. Highly ambitious and experimental, while also being a touch narm-y at times, it’s an anime that has a remarkable amount to say, and one that I’ve grown to appreciate more over time.

51: Crest of the Stars

While all of the Banner of the Stars series are good too, the original is the best constructed of the lot, and the only one that remains completely focused on the true core that makes this series special. The story of how Jinto and Lafiel grow from merely travel companions to having to rely on each other when thrust into various life-threatening scenarios. What makes it stand above its peers is how well crafted it all is. It has a level of depth to the science-fiction world that rivals Star Trek, and actually uses this information to build up a more interesting relationship between the two lead characters rather than just for technobabble (OK, there’s a bit of pointless technobabble, but not much). For two such reserved personalities, Jinto and Lafiel stand above their peers as one of the best duos in anime due to how real their feelings and interactions feel.

50: Spice and Wolf

Speaking of fascination character duos, Spice and Wolf is Crest of the Stars except set in medieval Europe and with more sex appeal. While Jinto and Lafiel are reserved, Horo and Lawrence have this brilliant flirtatious back and forth, as though they’re trying to find the most roundabout way of getting the other to confess their feelings, complimenting each other without the other person realising it. It makes for endlessly entertaining banter, only occasionally broken up by obligatory plot and economics chat. The economics stuff isn’t bad, but it does feel like you sit through them just to give better settings for Horo and Lawrence to start flirting again. Oh, and if loving Horo makes me a furry, then I shall yiff along with the worst of them, but she truly is walking sex.

49: Gintama

Gintama is to anime what Simpson is to American television. A satire of a popular genre (Simpsons it’s the family sitcom, Gintama it’s shounen) that occasionally devolves into the very thing it’s supposed to be satirising, but when it doesn’t, it manages to be incredibly funny. Rife with mocking parody, probably their greatest strengths is how they managed to remain funny for so many episodes. I’ve only seen 100-odd episodes of Gintama, so maybe it too like the Simpsons starts to lose its comedic edge, but from what I’ve heard from those 250 episodes in, it’s still as funny as ever. I should probably catch up sometime…

48: Bunny Drop

I hate using words ‘charming’ and ‘lovely’ to describe anything, because it implies that the piece in question is so concerned with being sickly sweet that it has no bite to its message, which is absolutely not the case with Bunny Drop. The story is about parenting and how difficult and yet rewarding the experience is, tackling subjects from single parents to the difficulty in earning money to properly raise the child. It managed to single-handedly change my entire perspective on parenting, and it does all this while being, yes, charming. And maybe lovely too.

Related Posts: Why Bunny Drop made me rethink my opinion on parenting.

47: Roujin Z

I’m a massive fan of Katsuhiro Otomo. He has this wonderfully cynical, dark sense of humour, bringing out some of the best black comedy in anime (a medium not particularly known for its black comedy). He wrote the script for Roujin Z, a story about how an old man in his containment facility/caretaking machine goes berserk, prompting a massive military operation to try take it down. It brings together some great themes of the dehumanisation of senior citizens and the importance of human interaction, all in this incredibly entertaining piece. It’s an unsung gem that’s much more accessible and fun than my description could possibly give it credit for.

46: Haibane Remnei

I feel a bit mean sometimes for not rating Haibane Remnei higher than I do, because it really is a flawless piece. It has this wonderful old-fairy tale vibe to it. Not in the Disney sense, but in the Brothers Grimm way, in that the strange yet slightly frightening fantastic elements come together in this almost ethereal package. One of the things I loved about Haibane Remnei was there was this massive world out there to explore, parts of which were slowly told throughout the story, but we were only concerned with this small human story surrounding these two characters. I guess it didn’t quite give me the same thrill I want from my favourites, but for what it’s trying to do, it really is perfect.

45: Time of Eve

Time of Eve is like one of those indie movies that do incredibly well on the movie festival circuits, throwing away modern conventions with a unique take on camerawork and dialogue delivery with some off-beat humour while still delivering ultimately the same story that makes it connect with people. It has this wonderful flow to it all. The lines run into each other and the swooping camera angles give this effect that there’s so much going on at once that you are only catching snippets of these characters lives. It made me a permanent fan of Yasuhiro Yoshiura and Studio Rikka and I can’t wait to see more from them.

44: Bakemonogatari

What’s funny about the amount of critical acclaim Bakemonogatari (and its sequel, Nisemonogatari) gets is that it’s ultimately a wish-fulfilment fanservicy harem, complete with girls falling for the main character because he’s a Nice Guy, and a camera that is on near permanent perv-mode. But the artwork is so pretty, the dialogue so sharp and cutting, the characters so well-developed and hilarious, the story so carefully woven into these flirt-fests, that you come away massively entertained by the whole shebang. It may be artsy smut, but it’s incredibly cleverly written artsy smut.

Related Posts: I blogged its not-quite-as-good sequel Nisemonogatari.

43: Lupin III Castle of Cagliostro

Miyazaki’s Castle of Cagliostro is the only Lupin III piece I have really loved. Not necessarily because they tampered with the formula or anything. Yes, Lupin is more good-natured and the tone more whimsical than some of the darker, edgier Lupin stuff. But what makes this one work is how fantastic the directing is. Every element comes together with perfect timing, the cues with the music swinging perfectly in rhythm with the characters actions. Some of the best scenes in the movie are when the characters are just dicking about on rooftops. It’s such a hugely entertaining film, it’s only downside being no Lupin property after this will love up to it.

42: Steins;Gate

One half sci-fi mystery, one half ball-busting time travel thriller, Steins;Gate was the anime that forced me to change my opinion that everything that came out of Visual Novel land that wasn’t either porn or melodramatic crap. The story builds up to certain key moments, cranking up the tension with each episode, while never losing the sense of humour at its core. And then there’s Okarin. Possibly the greatest main character in anime, his grandstanding and desire to be this great Mad Scientist drove this show, turning his whole world upside down, breaking him and eventually building up a man who became his own persona. El. Psy. Congroo

Related Posts: Blogged every episode.

41: Hellsing

Not Hellsing Ultimate, that OVA that did away with the devilish style and character charm that characterised what I love about Hellsing and replaced it with sadism and overkill. No, this is that 2001 much-maligned Gonzo version of Hellsing, where the story just sort of drops off. But I love it regardless because it has a style like no other. This sort of dangerous suave charm, complete with some brilliantly strange relationships between the characters. From respected fear to controlled awe, between Alucard and Integra and Victoria, there was so much unsaid yet left implied that made it work.

40: Pale Cocoon

As far as short movies go, Pale Cocoon is the best. No, shut up, I don’t want to hear. Pale Cocoon is better than that. It was the second short movie Yasuhiro Yoshiura made, after Aquatic Language, and told this amazing story about a civilisation that had given up hope, all while focusing on no more than 2 key characters. The ending revelation stands up there as the greatest single shot I’ve ever seen in anime. Yasuhiro went on after this to make Time of Eve, an improved version of Aquatic Language. If his new movie, Sakasama no Patema, is supposed to be the improved version of Pale Cocoon, then holy shit will it be something special.

39: Redline

Redline is an experience. It has a rather stark lack of depth, and the plot is nothing special, but it does have this incredible attention to detail with each little character and element. Each touch tells a story about each of these characters. Little asides that give this picture of a much larger world this character inhabits. You get the feeling that there’s a story behind each little scratch on JP’s car. That is what I love about Redline. Well that, and the fact that it’s a thrilling, exhilarating journey through thumping soundtracks, massive explosions and swearing aliens.

Related Posts: A written review and a video review

38: Durarara

If you’ve been reading this post, instead of just glancing down to confirm the anime, you’d notice a few reoccurring trends. I like a suave style, a cast of characters with much larger stories than is told in the anime, and a focused story that centres on human emotions rather than grand plot elements. Durarara is all of that, to the point that you almost want to hate it for its own self-confidence, sashaying through character developments and plot twists, so assured of its own charm that you can’t help but be drawn along with it. It’s a shame that the arc they ended the first season on (and there WILL be a second season) was the poorest, because at its core, this is such a damn fine anime.

Related Posts: Probably the most fun I’ve had episodically covering an anime.

37: Kino’s Journey

Kino’s Journey is like Aesop’s Fables: The Anime. Each town and story that Kino visits and explores doesn’t make much sense on a surface, logical level. It’s the story beneath the surface meaning that’s important. How, through his probing questions and standoff approach, Kino draws out the thought process and belief system that created such a bizarre scenario as the one he had just visited. It’s one of those series you keep coming back to, realising how sharp it truly was, and how much of it applies to real-life serious issues. It’s unique in that sense; I’ve never seen anything else come even close to achieving what it did.

36: Nodame Cantabile

This is another one of those series that get by almost entirely on the strength of its main duo. What’s unique here is they work fantastically on their lonesome too. Chiaki is the uptight, devilishly handsome workaholic, whose harsh put-downs and persnickity attitude (always wanted to use that word) make him a hugely entertaining character in his own right. When paired together with the air-headed, dopey ball of moody energy that is Nodame, the two combine to create the ultimate entertainment pair. Gyabo!

35: Moyashimon

Moyashimon’s bizarre and eccentric characters and take on college life is, counterintuitively, probably one of the most accurate takes on how strange a small college life experience can be. The world is filled with young adults with attempting to create alcohol in their rooms, transgendered people trying to find themselves, covering themselves in dirt and grease for the sake of science. Oh, and bacteria floating around in the shapes of cutesy inch-high creature. Well OK, maybe that last point isn’t quite so realistic.

34: Arrietty

Ghibli have a few aspects to their movies that repeatedly bug me, but most of the time it comes down to how their magical worlds become too strained under the weight of what they’re trying to achieve and turn to deus ex machina and barmy town. Arrietty avoids this by keeping the focus tight and letting the directing, as good as Ghibli’s directing has ever been, tell the story. By doing this, it allows its magical elements and woven themes to shine all the brighter for it. What’s encouraging is that this was a directorial debut for Hiromasa Yonebayashi, proving that Ghibli has the talent behind it to survive beyond the days of Miyazaki.

33: Daily Lives of Highschool Boys

I hate those permanently in the present, bunch of cute girls being insufferably nice to each other anime. I hate pretentious idealistic highschool romcoms cloaked in nostalgia as characters narrate their dull fucking lives and comment on the weather. I thought Daily Lives of Highschool Boys would be that. In fact, it turned out to be exact opposite, satirising the very thing I thought it was going to be. For that reason, it was a godsend. Anime needed this. I needed this.

Related Posts: Why the satire in Nichibros is special.

32: Detroit Metal City

Detroit Metal City single-handedly ruined all music for me. Not just heavy metal music, with its tearing back of the jokes surrounding the desire to appear edgy and dangerous, but also in its mockery of other music types. The fallacy behind cheesy love songs. The ridiculousness of the myths told by over-enthusiastic fans. In one single stroke, I cannot take any music personas seriously anymore. I’m not sure whether to love it or hate it for that.

31: Porco Rosso

My favourite Ghibli movie, it does many of the same things that made Arrietty work. Porco Rosso is strangely down-to-earth, with very human characters and desires, telling a neatly compacted story that hints at a much more beyond what was told in this snippet. In a way, it’s a lesson in restraint. The lack on fantastical elements means that the one scene where they do embrace the magical, it’s made all the more memorable because of its brevity. That scene with the planes flying out of the clouds, leaving Porco behind. No other scene in any other Ghibli movie made quite the impact that shot did.

Continue to 30–1

Bunny Drop is about parenting — Yeah yeah I know - No really, it’s about the rewards and joys of parenting — Yeah I heard you the first time — Seriously, it’s about how parenting takes over your life yet you don’t mind because of how important it is to you — Yup , still got it, don’t have to keep repeating yourself — Get this into your head, it’s about PARENTING!

…oh, right.

That bizarre opening paragraph does actually mean something. You see, I knew Bunny Drop was about parenting from episode 1. But somehow this message didn’t truly drill itself into my brain until episode 7. Up until that episode, Bunny Drop felt like it was just repeating stuff I already knew. The struggles of having to raise a child and the rewards it brings you. That raising children was challenging, but kids are adowabubble so it’s OK. If anything, it’s a mark of my immaturity that it took so long for the real message to get into my thick skull.

Episode 7 followed Daikichi’s sister as she ran away from home with her child to stay at his house. She was getting sick of living with her in-laws and her husband didn’t come across as being particularly understanding. Their marriage wasn’t particularly happy to say the least. She relayed this information to Daikichi (who basically did nothing other than sit around and be useless) but simply being able to voice these feelings of hers was a great relief. So, the next day, her husband came to pick her and their daughter off at Daikichi’s house. She bid him farewell, saying she would ride through this for the sake of her daughter.

I was in shock. She was going to stay in a failing marriage? Live under the constant watch of her in-laws for the sake of sticking to traditional family values in helping her daughter? It was then that the message finally struck. She was staying because the rewards of parenting and raising her daughter far outweighed any problems she was having elsewhere. It was genuinely that important to her, and somehow the true extent to which people were willing to go for parenting hadn’t quite hit me yet. She was willing to give up her life for the sake of her daughter. In the same way that Daikichi gave up his single life of boozing and chillaxing, dropping down pay rungs in work for the sake of his adopted daughter, she was willing to give up her home life for the sake of her daughter.

That episode of Bunny Drop shook everything I had thought previously about parenting. To be honest, I’m still not sure I agree with it. The other characters in the show should be ample example of how single parent life can still raise a perfectly good child. But the very fact it challenged the entire way I thought about parenting, forcing me to reassess how important it really was to those involved, made it far and away one of the most important episodes of anime I watched this year.

Ya’ll ready for another round of Senjogahara Fascination?

Welcome to the world famous (not really) Cart Driver Season Preview. I usually kick off these posts with some sort of satirical mocking of the ‘everything sucks’ crowd, but since I shall be making a similar statement throughout the course of this post, it would perhaps be a touch hypocritical. So buckle in for this 6000 word long no wait come back you don’t have to read it all in one go!

Nisemonogatari

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You almost forget that, before the massive success of Madoka Magica, Shaft had another anime that embarrassed everyone else in sales. Now that Shaft have a considerable amount of dough in their vaults, they can finally focus on one project at a time instead of producing 2 anime every single bloody season. What also helps is that Bakemonogatari is, you know, actually very good. So hurrah for a sequel then? Well…hmm…you see, Shaft sequels, from Arakawa to Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei to Natsu no Arashi, have done nothing more than stagnate their respective franchises. Then there’s the fact Nisemonogatari’s story is based off Arararararagi’s sisters, who I felt only worked in the original because they were kept out the main story. They acted as a tool at the end of each arc to wake Arararararagi out of his ideal world where all the girls fell in love with him. Making them the main focus ruins that effect. Also from that trailer, I’m not sure how I feel about Senjogahara with short hair. That said, it is still Senjogahara, and there’s a guaranteed level of quality that comes with her brilliance. Ultimately I’m just being cautious, because Shaft sequels have burned me in the past, but this is still my most anticipated anime of the season.

Recorder and Backpack

A 4-koma adaptation eh? I’ve never really liked 4-koma adaptation myself, being barrages of repetitive jokes broken up by the occasional segment of girls being cute with no sense of narrative structure. But can Recorder and Backback break this trend? Firstly, does it have more than one joke? The premise is about a 12 year old boy who looks much older, and a high school girl who looks much younger. That’s a full two jokes! OK, good start. Is it more than just cute girls doing cute things? Yes, only half of the series is a cute girl doing cute things. The rest is big man doing cute things. OK, things are looking good, what else is there? Is it capable of breaking out of the 4-koma format and constructing a narrative? Hard to tell without actually watching the anime in question. The studio and staff aren’t much help either. The animation studio is called Seven, who have only previously made that dull 5-minute per episode skit Morita-san. The director has worked on quite a variety on different anime, from Haibane Remnei to Dance in the Vampire Bund, but he’s never directed something by himself, so not much help looking at his past portfolio. Honestly, not expecting much from this, and I doubt anyone else is, but sometimes these kinds of series can surprise if the creators really go crazy with their concept.

Daily Lives of Highschool Boys

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Seriously? This is a thing now? Cute boys doing cute things? Turns out Kimi to Boku was not just an unusual once off . Except it’s not really. It’s the exact same thing as cute girls doing cute things, except the target audience has changed. You know, I could respect fans of these types of anime if it was the relaxing nature of ordinary life that they enjoyed. If it was the cuteness of human interactions that they found appealing. It’s not my sort of thing, but I see the appeal. But that’s not it, is it? The only people I’ve seen who are fans of Kimi to Boku are girls and gay men. The K-ON/A-Channel/Lucky Star fans aren’t watching Kimi to Boku because it has cute men instead of cute girls, and vice versa. You’re all a bunch of fucking shallow morons, kept glued to your screens by nothing more than your most primal of instincts. You disgust me, I don’t even know why I—woah woah calm down Scamp calm down, forget to take your medication again, did you? Let’s try to be fairer on this new anime, right? OK fine. There’s actually a legitimate reason to be interested in this too, beyond the cute guys you bunch of vagina driven shallow twats ok that’s enough of that Scamp, calm down there lad …sorry. The director of Gintama and School Rumble is on this, which is pretty darn impressive as far as comedy resumes go. Of course, there’s no cute girls here, so you bunch of fucking halfwit shitfaces ok never mind moving onto the next anime

Black Rock Shooter

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Black Rock Shooter was originally nothing more than a Vocaloid song by Supercell with some accompanying artwork drawn by Redjuice Huke. The artwork inspired a crazy fan following, probably due to the fact it looked like a Dark and Edgy re-interpretation of Hatsune Miku. The popularity of it was so great that an OVA of Black Rock Shooter was produced, headed up by GREATEST ANIMATION DIRECTOR EVER YAMAKAN (actually according to ANN it was directed by a different bloke altogether and GREATEST ANIMATION DIRECTOR EVER YAMAKAN was just supervisor). It was 25% mute girls in black string bikinis having beautifully animated fights in a post apocalyptic bathroom, and 75% incredibly dull angtsy moeblob s’life. It didn’t exactly set the world alight, but Black Rock Shooter fans still hoovered it up, prompting the creation of this TV series. This time there’s no GREATEST ANIMATION DIRECTOR EVER YAMAKAN on board, but they instead decided to hire the rest of the key staff who worked together on SAVIOUR OF ANIME FRACTALE, including Mari Okada, the scriptwriter. Heck, even the director of this new incarnation of Black Rock Shooter was the same guy who directed the OVA. It does have Imaishi, the Gurren Lagann mastermind, doing the fight sequences. Which is cool and all, seeing his influence in the trailer, but it wasn’t the fight sequences that was the problem with the OVA. It was absolutely everything else.

Ultimately though, Satoshi Kon could rise from the dead to direct Black Rock Shooter and I’d still be inherently biased against it because it’s in Noitamina. Noitamina used to be a stronghold of anime that specifically weren’t aimed at the stereotypical early 20’s otaku male. But with Fractale, Ano Hana and Guilty Crown, the amount of anime in which a high school male lead has magical girl enter his life has been gradually on the uptake in that timeslot (for comparison, not a single Noitamina anime prior to Fractale had a high school male lead). Black Rock Shooter is the last straw. Everything the Noitamina timeslot had previously stood for is dead. Fuck this show.

Natsume Yuujinchou Shi

While I’ve been harsh on Natsume in the past, I suddenly find myself feeling charitable towards it. In a season as barren as this one looks like it will be, it’s nice to have something as reliably solid as Natsume poking around. Besides, the only reason I’m harsh on it in the first place is victim of circumstance. Because Brains Base are making Yet Another Bloody Natsume, that means they aren’t making sequels to all their other anime that need it more, most notably Durarara. Well OK, Natsume could be a better series. The characters, apart from Nyanko, are all rather dull, and Natsume himself still has this irritating tendency to break away from conversations to talk about the weather. But, behind all that, it still has an incredibly good sense of how to tell a story. So long as it doesn’t retread points it already finished up in previous seasons, then I’m more than happy to have Yet Another Bloody Natsume.

New Prince of Tennis

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Once upon a time there was an anime called Saint Seiya (bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this). Despite being a shounen anime aimed at teenage boys, Saint Seiya proved to be a massive hit with girls due to its cast of beautiful angsty men dressed up in skin tight leather plugsuits. It was then that anime producers realised that there was a female audience for shounen material. I’m sure Prince of Tennis wasn’t the first of these, but it’s certainly the most infamous. A shounen with absolutely no intentions of appealing to men and focusing its aim squarely at squealing fangirls.

I’ve had two experiences with this franchise in the past. My sister bought the first volume of the manga once, as a blind buy, and I can unequivocally say that it’s the worst manga we have in our rather large collection. Page after page of emotionless drivel as the main character has tennis matches while scores of bishies proclaim aloud how is this kid so good, with an added female character who serves no purpose for the (admittedly non-existent) narrative and is probably only there to give female fans a character to project into. My other experience was with the movie, which I’ll admit I only watched for terribad material. Suffice to say, with scenes like the above dinosaur apocalypse, it was several times more entertaining than that first volume of manga. Oh right, this new season? I think it’s a sequel. Whatever man, you guys don’t seriously watch Prince of Tennis, do you?

Rinne no Lagrange

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Did you know that, once upon a time, Xebec had ambition? Yeah I know, shocking isn’t it? Nowadays they are more well known for anime like To-Love-Ru and Ladies vs Butlers, but apparently producing Rio Rainbow Gate led the staff there to realise how low they had truly sunk and decided to actually try produce something of worth. So here we are, Rinne no Langrange. An anime original production with an admittedly quite interesting team behind it. Director Tatsuo Sato is most well known for Nadesico he made waaaay back in the day, as well as some other early 00’s series like Stellvia and Shingu. Thing is none of these series are…umm, particularly great. His proof of quality, Nadesico, is a full 16 years old by this stage. Plus he’s also directing Mini Skirt Space Pirates this season, so maybe his attention will be divided. That is, if you expect him to be actually expressing much creative control over this. He’s listed as ‘chief director’ with actual normal director being the guy who directed Heroic Age. Haven’t seen Heroic Age myself, and reviews have been kinda mixed (I believe it was the last time Xebec went all out and tried something ambitious). But since then he’s worked on some interesting stuff, most of which being Good Shaft Anime like Bakemonogatari and Arakawa. The script guy is top drawer too, working on everything from FMA: Brotherhood to Eden of the East to Darker than Black to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. If anything, the most off-putting part of this anime is the trailer. Why the pantyshots? Why does this feel like it’s inspired by Strike Witches? Why oh why the lack of noses on some of the characters? Are noses not considered moe or something?

Zero no Tsukaima Final

The fact that I can use the phrase “The original Shakugan no Shana clone” without irony goes to show how deep this problem runs. I’ll admit straight up here that I haven’t any of seen Zero no Tsukaima yet, but I’m going to hazard a guess at what it’s about. High school male lead with no distinguishing characteristics beyond the fact he’s kinda nice has tsundere girl with small breasts fall into his life and the male character gains some sort of special power because of this, that doesn’t, funnily enough, result in him gaining any more personality. Am I right? Actually no, from what I’ve heard, the main character here is a massive perv rather than being just kinda nice. Fucking swimming in originality here guys!

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes 2

I wonder why I cover sequels in season previews? There isn’t really any point. If you have seen the first season, you know what to expect from the second and don’t need me explaining what the deal is. If you haven’t seen the first season, there’s no point in reading previews because you will need to have seen the first season for context. I haven’t seen this anyway, so I don’t have anything to say, beyond perhaps marvelling that JC Staff are making an anime that isn’t a Shana clone!

Amagami SS+

I wonder why I cover sequels in season previews? There isn’t really any point. If you have seen the first season, you know what to expect from the second and don’t need me explaining…well this is eerily familiar. Besides, there is a point in explaining what the deal is here with this new season of Amagami, because the last season followed the unusual format of completely new timelines for each girl the main character chased. Copypasting from ANN “it will be an omnibus in which each heroine gets two episodes devoted to her. However, [the new season] will include more original story elements set after the events of the first season.” So there you go. No interest myself, I bailed after the first episode of last season, but good for all you guys who like this show. I at least appreciate the unique format this series attempted.

Mini Skirt Space Pirates

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The other anime Tatsuo Sato is working on this season, apart from Rinne no Langrange. The actual name is Moeretsu Pirates (which ANN is nice enough to inform me translates roughly to Bodacious Pirates), but the story is based on/inspired by the novel ‘Mini Skirt Space Pirates’, and that name is just so much cooler. This is the anime Sato is much more focused on rather than Langrange, where his job appears to be run into the office, yell at everyone for 5 minutes, then leave again. He’s full proper director on this one, as well as series composition. This series has been in production for a bloody long time too. Satelight announced they were animating this a full 4 years ago or something. I’m not sure whether this delay means they had extra time to iron out a perfect script, or if it’s because of disagreements that resulted in a botched production. There’s an almost old-school feel to this series, probably helped by the fact the original novels were written by one the guys who worked on Dirty Pair. It’s that kind of goofy anime space opera where you’d have to be a jaded cynic not to find the concept charming.

Taking a step back and looking at this season overall, the swing between memorable to barren really relies on whether Sato still has it. He has directed an anime more recently though, which I didn’t mention until now because it’s very different from his other space-themed series. He directed the 2008 anime Shigofumi. It was a bit full of itself and a touch pretentious, but it was otherwise a really well directed anime. If Mini Skirt Space Pirates and Rinne no Langrange can deliver, any talk of this season being lacklustre will be gone.

Dog X Me SS

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Based off a manga called (for those weaboos out there) Inu X Boku SS. So, as I always do, I checked out the first scanlated chapter of the manga. For some reason, I was under the impressions with would be a fanservicy comedy, as it runs in a shounen magazine. Which it is, but I mistook which fanservicey side it would be aiming at. The Dog in the title is the man, a butler who bows to his masters every whim, a generic female lead with some self-confidence issues. Yup, it’s shojo time! Reverse harem shojo time at that, as this girl has a variety of pretty boys protecting her. They’re all magical spirits or something. It is by David Production, that spin-off Gonzo studio who have done stuff like Ben-To and Level E, whom many people seem to like, but I’ve never really been able to get behind any of their works.

Listen to Me, Girls

I Am Your Father!

I remember when this anime was announced. It was at the time when Bunny Drop was airing. The synopsis was about a college student who has to raise his sisters’ children after she went missing on a downed plane. Sounds fairly similar to Bunny Drop, so maybe this too will be about the strong connections of family and the trials, difficulties but ultimately rewards of parenting. At least, that’s what I thought, until I saw the artwork. And I saw that the light novel was written by the same author who wrote Mayoi Neko Overrun, who also wrote for a few episodes of the Queens Blade anime. And my heart sunk. It’s the token pedobait anime of the season! They show up every 6 months or so. I mean, I’d like to believe that this anime won’t have a scene in which the main character walks in on his niece changing where upon she calls him a pervert and blushes profusely, but I’m not holding out hope.

BRAVE10

The bad: The synopsis includes the phrase “in Japan’s tumultuous Sengoku Era”, a line so tired and dull that Sea Slugs season previews have taken to ignoring the existence of any anime set in that time period. The good: The trailer indicates that this will be far from an accurate portrayal of said era. The only time I ever enjoy these kinds of anime is where they aren’t as dry as that one place in Chile where it hasn’t rained for a bajillion years. Stuff like Samurai Champloo. The bad: It’s fujoshi bait. I swear I saw half these characters in Hakuouki. What’s the bet that the person with the white hair in the promo pic is just an incredibly girly man? The ANN page for the manga has this hilarious picture of a man swinging a sword while proudly baring his smexy toned midriff. The director’s main previous work was the Vampire Knight series. The good: It would be rather hypocritical of me to dismiss an anime due to its sexual appeal not being to my own, especially after that rant earlier in this post. Besides, as I’ve said before, I often fare better with fujoshi anime than male otaku bait. The meh: Animation studio is a total newbie to the game. Gut feeling points to be a dull Hakouoki clone, but my gut feeling is normally wrong so it’s probably going to be the next Samurai Champloo or something.

Senhime Zesshou Symphogear

With the earth-shaking success of Hatsune Miku and the wave of popularity AKB48 are enjoying right now, idols are totally in with otaku culture. Symphogear is about two idols fighting of a mysterious bad guy using the powers of their voices, but really this is a platform for two aspiring idols to propel their careers. It’s not like this is the first time this has happened. I’ve done enough of those retro season previews to see this kind of stuff pop up time and time again through the ages. It’s not like this sort of stuff can’t end up good. That’s essentially part of how the Macross franchise was set up, and they work idols into their stories pretty well. But still, Symphogear is…well, total newbie studio, half of the staff members never having worked on anime before, nonsense sounding premise. My terribad antenna is responding.

Another

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Oh dear, not Another anime. Do we really need Another anime like this? I would recommend you watch Another anime rather than Rio Rainbow Gate.

Obligatory mucking about with the name out of the way, this is one of the few genuinely interesting anime out this season that isn’t a sequel. A quick check of the manga it’s based off (well, it’s based off a set of novels first, but there’s a manga too) and it’s that classic Japanese type of horror. Where everyone around you acts in slightly off and you get this feeling that you are completely alone. Animation studio is PA Works. Their works are limited to True Tears, Canaan, Angel Beats and Hanasaku Iroha. Asides from Canaan, which was a mess, all their works have been decently entertaining. Horror is new ground for them, so I’ll at least give them credit for experimenting. Director is Tsutomo Mizushima, director of…well, quite a lot of stuff. Hare Guu, XXXHolic, Squid Girl, Dokuro-chan, Big Windup, Genshiken OVA, a whole fuck ton of Shin-chan movies and so on and so forth. He’s better at comedy and, in my humble opinion, has never managed to come anywhere near close to his work on Hare Guu, which is over 10 years old now. What’s the most worrying thing here is his last attempt at directing a horror anime was the near universally reviled horrific mess that was Blood-C. But fuck it, let’s put that aside and be optimistic that he’ll work his…err, magic on yet Another anime. OK I swear I won’t use that wordplay again.

Ano Natsu de Matteru

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Over the course of the next month or so, plenty of other anime blogs will be releasing season previews of their own, and they may rank this as one of the more interesting anime of the season. Fair enough, it’s an anime original, which we could always do with more of. But everything about this just rubs me the wrong way. The creator is the same guy who wrote Onegai Teacher. At least, that’s what all the promo material has been proudly declaring. How about mention the fact he wrote the script for anime like Trigun or Honey and Clover or Big Windup or Infinite Ryvius? Why highlight the one massive turd on his resume? Also, it’s an anime original that went for the crazy new idea of being an adolescent romantic comedy. Thrilling stuff. Plus the last anime original that fell roughly into that category was Ano Hana. I know a lot of you like Ano Hana, but if you did you’re probably the kind of person who, if the anime consisted of a blue screen with the words “cry, you easily emotionally manipulated bitch”, would declare it a masterpiece and call people who didn’t cry to have no souls. Then there’s the watercolour promo artwork, which always rubs me the wrong way. Watercolour promo artwork means you might be kinda funny, but you’re really trying to be heartwarming and touching and will tug at your heartstrings and bleargh. I remember Sora no Woto did this, as did SAVIOUR OF ANIME FRACTALE. The cast list was released before who the director would be, always a sure sign that the creators of this have their priorities wrong. And then there’s JC Staff. What’s to bet the guy on the right is an ordinary bloke, maybe kind of nice, who happens to be really good at camerawork, while the girl on the left has some kind of magical power and appears into his life at the start of the story. But wait, instead of being flat chested, she has massive tits! Boy, we are sure swimming in fucking originality here!

Kill Me Baby

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Oh hi there JC Staff. What’s this? Another anime that’s not a Shana clone? Are you sure you guys are OK? Woah, it’s a 4-koma adaptation, is it? Trying to recover the respect you guys used to have back when you made Azumanga Daoih? Well, cycle through the 4-koma rules and requirements. Is it more than just cute girls being cute? It was serialised in the same magazine that ran K-ON and A-Channel, so that’s a nope. Does it have more than one joke in its repetoire? The story is about a girl who is a crappy ninja and her partner in crime. So nope, just one joke. Will it break free of the 4-koma format and be able to construct a cohesive narrative? Of course it won’t, because JC Staff are shit. Look, this is just kind of sad. JC Staff have 6 anime running next season. Bakuman and Shana are continuing from last season, along with the new Zero no Tsukaima, Milky Holmes, Ano Natsu and now this. Plus this will be the anime they put the least budget into, which must be pretty fucking embarrassing when you get a smaller budget than Bakuman. Bleh, JC Staff. It’s gotten to the stage where I’m more interested in Xebec’s new anime than yours.

High School DxD

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Boobies!

Welp, my work here is done.

No really, what do you want me to say? It’s a light novel adaptation about a pervy guy who gets embroiled in a situation with a large breasted and incredibly pretty magical girl. Along the way he shall meet various females, all of whom want to chomp on his meat and two veg, and there’s no point in watching it as it airs anyway because you’ll have to wait for the BD release to get rid of the censorship. Plus the animation studio doing this are the same guys who did Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka and, as I believe I’ve said many times before, there are few lines in existence more depressing than ‘from the creators of Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka’.

The Knight in the Area

Looking back over this post so far, I’ve made myself rather depressed. Do I even like anime anymore? Of course I bloody do. I’m just bummed out that my most anticipated anime from last season, Guilty Crown, turned into a pile of poo, so I’m scaling back the optimism this season. But let’s be happy and stuff for this new football anime. Sorry, I mean saawwcuurr. It’s based off a popular shonen manga that’s been running for 6 years now. It’s being adapted by Shin-Ei Animation, the guys who make all those ever-lasting series like Doraemon, Oishinbo and Crayon Shin-chan. Not quite sure what that means for this anime, maybe plans to be everlasting too? I checked out the manga and it was pretty good. A bit formulaic and shounen-y and, as psgels points out, does seem to be inspired a touch by Adachi (Cross Game, Touch). Far from a bad thing mind you. If you’re going to copy a sports mangaka, copy Adachi. Director isn’t up to much, even if he did work a bit on Gintama. Then again, these kinds of series tend to bring in new staff for each arc. My biggest worry is that nobody will sub the blasted thing, especially if it isn’t picked up for legal streaming. Anime fandom are a bunch of hopeless nerds who react to the sight of sports like the wicked witch of the west reacts to water, despite the fact they invariably end up enjoying the one sports anime they ever end up watching.

Aquarion EVOL

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Let us pretend for a second that there has never been an anime called Aquarion before. What we have here is an original mecha anime by the director of Macross Frontier, team up with some talented writers (and Mari Okada), with animation by Satelight and Yoko Kanno doing the music. Superstar line up if there ever was one. Problem is there has been an anime called Aquarion before. I’ve never seen it, and rather surprisingly never hear anyone talk about it either. Is it one of those early 00 classics like Infinite Ryvius or Wolf’s Rain where people have just sort of stopped talking about it because all that was needed to be said has been said, or does nobody talk about it because it was shit? So I went searching the internet for impressions and opinions and came to the conclusion that yes, Aquarion was shit. Bland, totally forgettable, mess of cliches without a single new idea. Sort of like Guilty Crown then oh ho ho. Good thing is this is a sequel in the same sense that Macross Frontier is a sequel. It’s set 12000 years after events of the original, which I found rather funny. Do you really have to go that far ahead in time to get away from the stink of the first season? Dissappointing perhaps to that one Aquarion fan out there who wanted to see the original characters, but a godsend to the rest of us who wanted to see if this team can produce something worthy of their names.

Movies and OVAs

Obligatory reminder that getting excited for movies coming out in Japan now is pointless as the rest of the world won’t see them until they are released on BD/DVD almost a year later. So all you gamers excited for the Dragon Age movie, all you cool people excited for the new Berserk movie, and all you losers excited for the K-ON movie, will have to wait. Instead, I’m going to highlight the anime movies that are coming out on BD/DVD over the next 3 months. Usual rules apply to OVAs too. No covering of simple DVD specials because there’s nothing more to say. If you really liked the Infinite Stratos anime, then the OVA is a little bit of extra fanservice for you.

Children Who Chase Voices

from Deep Below: 25/11

Definitely the most interesting movie of the lot. Shikai’s movie, coming out 25th November, so it’s probably already out for all you slow munchkins who aren’t subscribed to this blog on google reader yet (and now is the perfect time to learn how!). Speculating on whether it will be any good or not is a bit silly since as I’ve already seen it at a movie festival. It’s Shinkai abandoning his old formula (thank god) and trying to do a Ghibli. The big surprise is he does a rather good job of it, even though his fascination with clouds came along for the ride.

Lupin III: Blood Seal

Eternal Mermaid

Same TV Special episode that I talked about in the last season preview. Coming out 2nd December. No staff list in sight as of yet, although they did hire a bunch of new people for some of the characters voices. Most importantly was hiring a new person to voice Fujiko, because it was getting a bit silly when the voice of what was supposed to be an incredibly sexy lady was voiced by a 70 year old woman. She’s now voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro, probably most famous for voicing Celty in Durarara (a rather amusing person to be known for voicing considering Celty doesn’t exactly have a voice). I guess it’s a good fit, Fujiko is meant to sound sultry and sexy and her voice fits the bill fine. Oh what am I doing? You know I really have nothing to say when I start talking about the voice actors. Look, just watch Castle of Cagliostro if you want to check out the Lupin III franchise. I’ll give you a call if this TV Special turns out to be any good.

Kyousogiga

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There’s been some confusion surrounding this because it was listed on those charts that this is a TV Series. It’s not, it’s just a single episode web release thing. . The reason I’m giving it it attention is because the trailer looks awesome. It’s one of those imaginative short animation pieces that studios toss out every now and then. It’s being made by the Toei staff that normally make Precure stuff, except with a Yuasa inspired art style crossed with Summer Wars. No idea what to expect from it, and there’s always the chance it could be another Cencoroll where the trailer shows all the cool bits and the rest is dull, but these kinds of things are always worth checking out.

Ai no Kusabi 2012

Perhaps I should make a separate season preview for hentai one day. I know very little about the subject, but since when has that ever stopped people making season previews oh ho ho. The reason I bring this up is because Ai no Kusabi is a yaoi OVA, which is basically just porn for girls. I probably wouldn’t cover this sort of stuff, except Ai no Kusabi is kind of interesting. It’s a remake of the classic(?) 1992 yaoi OVA by the same name, except this time they’re extending it to 13 episodes long. That’s pretty big scale for a yaoi OVA. Plus the director also did an episode on Legend of Black Heaven, so clearly this will be the greatest yaoi series ever to grace the earth.

Ufotable OVAs

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These are the sort of projects animation studios throw up every now and then. There was the Young Animator Training Project that showed up earlier this year, which most people remember for the Oji-san no Lamp segment. There were also those two Sunrise CGI pieces, Koisento and Norageki, which weren’t particularly popular, but I liked them a lot. Now it’s ufotable’s turn, the studio who made Kara no Kyoukai and are currently working on Fate/Zero. First piece is Minori Scramble, the one featured in the trailer, about a girl who is afraid of penguins so her father builds a robot penguin to help her get over her phobia. It’s that kind of batty anime idea that I have a real soft spot for. Second piece is Gyo, which I know nothing about, but that single promo image that exists for it is striking enough to warrant checking out. Third piece is something called Yuri Seijin Naoko-san, which had a 10 minute OVA earlier this year and made hilarious jokes about how great child molestation is (hint: it wasn’t hilarious). There’s not a whole lot of info on them, but apparently the Gyo piece is meant to be an hour long, so hopefully that means the rest of them are that length too. We’ll see though, don’t quote me on that.

Sora no Kiseki

An OVA based off a JRPG. They show up every now and then. There’s also the continuation of the Tales of Symphonia series, another one of those JRPG adaptations. Because it’s just a OVA, they tend to be just for fans only. So I don’t really have anything else to say.

There are some other movies coming out, but they’re franchise movies that don’t hold my interest quite as much. Sengoku Basara is getting a movie, coming out 7 December. Rather more excitingly, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood is also getting a movie, coming out 8 February. Although from what I’ve heard, it’s just a boring old shounen flick where it has no effect on the personalities of the characters in question. Still, it’s FMA. There’s also the movie In the Forest of Firefly Lights coming out 22 February. This is technically a totally new film, but after watching it at the aformentioned movie festival, it’s basically a franchise movie for Natsume Yuujinchou. There’s also a brand new ToHeart OVA, but there’s always a new ToHeart OVA.

On a final note, ANN says that the new Code Geass Gaiden OVA is supposed to be airing on the 27th January. However that is because ANN are dirty liars. There has been no confirmed date for that eternally delayed OVA. Which is a shame, because I NEED TO KNOW IF HE REALLY IS THE CART DRIVER DAMNIT not really.

I didn’t really want to pick up Future Diary. I never like picking up series that already have massive fanbases of the source material or franchise in question. Problem is that, asides from Guilty Crown and Last Exile, the series that have impressed me the most this season are Persona 4, Fate/Zero and Future Diary. So I was going to have to suck it up and bear the constant remarks from manga fans who say stuff like “well in the manga what actually happened was this thing and I’m an insufferable twat who sees himself as the righteous bearer of The Truth from The Original Source”. No promises I’ll continue blogging Future Diary. I tend to like to stick to covering only 2 anime a season, so maybe Last Exile and Guilty Crown will blow me away with their astounding depth in their second episodes.

I know I should probably be blathering about what an utter nutcase Yuno is, but the star of the show in my eyes is our wimpy male lead. I loved this expression after Yuno fobbed him off to go to PE. It’s that look of utter dread at his own actions. He had seen what an utter nutjob Yuno was, yet he was the one to try open negotiations after their battle with Third. He knows the only way he can come out of this alive is to leave his future in the hands of Yuno. There’s something gloriously ironic in that, in order to become the Master of Everything, he first has to give up his own fate. It’s back to the total lack of control he has over his own life that I talked about in the first episode. This episode was an endless string of Yuukki with a look of helpless dread on his face and I loved it.

Another thing I like about Future Diary is the campy self-awareness it has. It plays the Battle Royal game and the themes at the heart of the story straight, but there’s just enough of a wink in its step to show that it knows how ridiculous it is. It manages to pull this off without being jarring about it (hello Kamisama Dolls, Angel Beats and every other anime directed by Seiji Kishi). That’s why the ‘wink in its step’ metaphor works. It still strides confidently towards its explosive, bloody finale, but it can look at the crowd midway through a booming speech and deliver a knowing wink. It can do both kinds of winks too, whether it be the dark humour of “lets just re-iterate how shitty Yuukki’s life really is” to the much more straight forward humour of the post-credit Murmur segments. That said, the first episodes Murmur segment was definitely better than this episodes. Yeah, I’ll talk about that a bit later.

While I like that Future Diary is a touch camp, this episode did get a bit silly at times. One-eyed motorbike nothwithstanding, there was also the need of a high suspension of disbelief when Ninth started detonating the entire school. How did she set them up? When did she find time to plant mines in the school yard? You’d think someone would notice, especially when they came into school in the morning. Her whole plan would have been ruined by a wayward dog. She hardly set the mines up while they were in class, seeing as the entire school overlooked that field. Also, with all those explosions going off a few metres away from the main characters, surely their hearing would have been shot by the time they reached the field, rendering Yuno’s shouted commands hopeless.

How did ninth and fourth find the main character so quickly anyway? Oh wait, we were explained that in the ending segment with Murmur. Her explanation aside, that has to be one of the laziest methods of exposition around. I guess Future Diary decided that, in order to speed up the action, they shoved all the uninteresting exposition to after the ending credits. I guess that works, but it is a very lazy method. Murmur’s explanation is a bit puzzling anyway. Did Norio Wakamoto just decide that the Master of Time and Space had to come from Japan? Maybe the Master of Time and Space Keyboard of his is in katakana. Also, isn’t it convinient that they were all within about 50km from each other. Maybe applying logic to Future Diary isn’t the best idea.

inb4 they explained it better in the manga

The final 5 anime airing this season are Future Diary, Gundam Age, Un-Go, Guilty Crown and Last Exile. The season is sure ending with a bang, as has usually been the case. Time to throw aside all previous mentions of lacklustre season and dive headfirst into hype central. Well, hopefully hype central. I’ve written this paragraph before watching any of the aforementioned first episodes.

There was one short piece of conversation between the main character and the CGI monstrosity, Deus Ex Machina, that won me over to Future Diary (not calling it by the weeaboo name). The main character had just discovered that this creature he had invented in his own imagination had just given him a powerful tool and was claiming he was the God of Time and Space. Our main character was understandably getting kinda freaked out about this, so he confronts the god, telling him in a panicked tone “you’re not a god, you’re just in my imagination!”. To which our god replies “if I was a god, could I not appear in your imagination?”. It’s an incredibly clever little piece of wording, single handedly destroying what the main character had considered his own little world, revealing it was part of a much larger picture.

Future Diary is sort of like Death Note or Eden of the East. Give a group of people some sort of power and make them compete against each other. There is a key difference between Future Diary and these two series though. Both Eden and Death Note try to get us to ask what would we do if we were given this power, the assumption here is that you are the one with control. For Future Diary, giving the main character the access to his own future, if anything, takes away from his own personal freedom. Even better, his life is also at the whim of crazy psycho stalker girl, who is the very one controlling his fate. Then there was the scene at the end, where the main character suddenly has a selection of people with a similar power trying to take him out, meaning his life will now be a never-ending attempt to escape from the death flags these characters set up for him.

I was wary coming into Future Diary because the studio in charge of adapting it was asread, the calamities in charge of previous quality titles like Shuffle and the Minami-ke sequels. The animation, to put it kindly, isn’t great. Characters faces look derpy as hell when we zoom out from anything other than a close up, and any movement the characters do is limited and full of shortcuts. But the artistry is great. Let me make a bold statement here: The CGI in Future Diary is possibly the most effective use of CGI I’ve seen in an anime. I tend to rag on CGI because it makes the characters look other worldly and strangely static. Future Diary embraces this fully and makes the single piece of CGI in the anime be Deus Ex Machina, precisely because he is meant to be other worldly. He’s eerie as hell, floating around in that semi-sphere of his, his movements appearing unnatural compared to the real humans in the series. His dopey looking hair looks like it was designed by someone who only has a vague understanding of what hair should look like, but doesn’t know how it works, which is probably what is actually the case when Deus Ex took on that form.

Future Diary works. The premise and the characters come together into this neat little package that just clicks. Our crazy psycho stalker Yuno is not only a massively fun character to watch, but she fits in with the overall story of taking away control the main character has over his own life. Also, this main character has something resembling a personality for a bloody change. People may dislike that he’s a massive loser, but I hugely prefer these kinds of characters over Yuji Everylead the Bland. Plus his personality, one who doesn’t want to interact with anything and remain an observer, clashes with his new position of having his life being controlled by outside forces. It all fits together and goddam works!

This upcoming anime season sucks compared to my ridiculously high standards.

The only ones I’m looking forward to is this adaptation of a manga I’m reading that isn’t finished yet so I’ll complain about the adaptation having an original ending, and a sequel.

Is it my imagination, or has every season been getting worse since I started to become aware of every title coming out instead of the single stand-outs each year?

Copypaste this into every forum whenever you see someone complaining about the latest anime season being rubbish. Once you’ve done that, come back here for a less pessimistic and more in-depth surveillance of the upcoming season.

Chihayafuru

Madhouse have had their reputation dragged through the dirt recently. As if the Madhouse X Marvel fiasco wasn’t bad enough, their failure to create something worthwhile from Chaos;Head has been compounded by the quality White Fox have achieved with Steins;Gate (even though the chief director on Steins;Gate is a Madhouse veteran, but whatever). With that tumultuous period out of the way, here comes their latest anime about children playing card games AARRGHHH OK not quite. Chihayafuru is a josei manga about a classic Japanese card game where you match cards to poems. I read a bit of the manga and it feels less josei and more a girlier version of Hikaru no Go, which isn’t really a bad thing. They’ve brought aboard the director of Nana and Chobits aboard, so I’m quite looking forward to this. It’s nice to see Good Madhouse return.

Tamayura ~Hitotose~

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There was an OVA of Tamayura a few months ago and I avoided it like it was the latest issue of Bestiality Monthly. This is director Junichi Sato, guy who did Aria, trying to replicate that feeling of ~healing~ anime, involving a bunch of girls being insufferably nice to each other while doing fuck all. I would probably die if I tried watching this, but good for you guys who like ~healing~ anime. Your only problem is Junichi Sato is directing a few anime this season, so a giant robot/mutant space creature/something fucking interesting might accidentally slip under his radar and into Tamayura.

Last Exile

Fam: The Silver Wing

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Do I need to have seen the previous season?

No. This is going to be set in the same world but with different characters and new story

If I am to believe my own Top 30, the original Last Exile is my 12th favourite anime of all time. So obviously this paragraph should be nothing more than incoherent fanboying at the prospect of a new season, right? Well, not quite. You see, one of the best things about Last Exile was how complete it was. It covered every character, every aspect of the world, and explored the adventure from little kid with big dreams to world changing hero. There was nothing that needed to be added. Gonzo returning to Last Exile strikes me more of a studio desperately scrounging through their backlog to find something of theirs that is guaranteed to turn a profit. Now this obviously isn’t entirely true, otherwise they’d just stick to pumping out Strike Witches iterations over and over. They brought back most of the original staff, and I have faith that those guys wouldn’t return to Last Exile without having a good story to tell us. The trailer looks good too, capturing the fantastical adventurous element to the original I liked so much. Well, it did, until that generic J-Pop song started playing. I know people like Maaya Sakamoto and the prospect of her warbling fills you with so much glee that your ears start melting, but the original Last Exile opening song is one of my favourite of all time. To have that replaced with generic upbeat J-Pop is so… *le sigh* I’m just being nitpicky. I’ll remain upbeat about this new iteration for now. Cautious, but hopeful.

Phi Brain: God’s Puzzle

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When I checked the Phi Brain ANN page, I was shocked to discover how much the original concept creator, Hajime Yatate, had done. Every from Cowboy Bebop to Code Geass to Mobile Suit Gundam to Votoms to Infinite Ryvius to Mai Hime to Escaflowne to…and then it finally dawned on me that Hajime Yatate is simply the name given to that den of pure evil that is the Sunrise boardroom. Anyways, Phi Brain is an original anime by Sunrise airing in NHK’s Educational TV station. That doesn’t means it will be simply educational fluff, the timeslot has previously held Dennou Coil amongst other things. Sunrise original in timeslot that veers away from otaku pandering sounds like a good combo to me. Then why am I not more excited? Maybe it’s the uninspiring trailer. Maybe because it’s Junichi Sato again, and I can’t help shake the feeling he’ll be concentrating more on his beloved ~healing~ anime Tamayura then he will on Phi Brain.

Un-Go

There’s a misnomer in anime fandom that says ‘because it is in Noitamina, it will be good’ (mainly a line touted by myself, but shut up). Un-Go is an anime by Bones with the key staff from the original Full Metal Alchemist, doing an adaptation of an old classic novel with their own modern take on it. I would be excited for this whether it was in Noitamina or not. If anything, the fact it is in Noitamina is irritating because that means it’s stuck to 11 episodes. On the flip side, no Noitamina would mean that these kinds of anime wouldn’t be produced in the first place. Anywho, after a stumbling start to the year with Fractale, Noitamina have regained their strength somewhat with No.6 and Bunny Drop, so I’m hoping they finish this year off with a bang (especially since 2012 gets instant flop status with Black Rock Shooter). Mind you, it’s the other Noitamina show this season I’m more interested in…

Guilty Crown

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I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating again: Guilty Crown is like God came down and asked me what anime I want to see made (but only after he rejected my proposal for a 24 episode TV series by Studio Rikka). A story by the two key guys at Code Geass, being directed by the man who directed Death Note, with animation by Production IG who, by the trailer, appear to be channelling the work they did on Eden of the East. Awesome multiplied by Glorious to the power of Fuckwin. Unless you are the kind of individual who prefers more down-to-earth series with simpler aims, you boring sods. The only problem is this is in Noitamina, and therefore restricted to that accursed 11 episodes again. Or maybe they’ll let Guilty Crown run for 2 cours, seeing as they haven’t announced the second of winter’s Noitamina duo yet. “Hey guys, instead of letting Guilty Crown run for 2 cours, let’s go against the entire philosophy of this timeslot and run Black Rock Shooter!” Yeah, I’m totally not bitter or anything.

Mirai Nikki

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Mirai Nikki is an insanely popular manga about a diary that you can write the future in and YANDERE YANDERE YANDERE. Yeah, the fact that it has a yandere in it is all I ever seem to hear about it. So, for all you Mirai Nikki manga fans, prepare to weep tears of rage as you discover who is adapting it: asread. An animation studio so shit they don’t even capitalise their own name. Previously producers of  Kiddy Girl And, the two Minami-ke sequels and both seasons Shuffle. Oh, and they brought back the director who did all those shows to adapt Mirai Nikki. Yes, the tears of you fanboys are delightful, if it wasn’t for the fact I was actually quite looking forward to this myself.

Bakuman Season 2

Do I need to have seen the previous season?

Yes

[sigh] Bakuman. When making that picture, I thought I would be oh so funny and scribble out that shitty female character. Then I realised I was probably scribbling out the wrong character, and should take my paintbrush and subject it’s digital ink all over Mashiro, the real reason I got sick of Bakuman. But then I might as well scribble out Takagi as well for adhering to Mashiro’s pratty ways. And then keep scribbling over the entire picture until all that’s left is Nizuma. I might as well check out this new season, in case some kind of miracle occurs and the Death Note creator I once knew and loved actually makes his appearance, but I might end up dropping it like an angry hedgehog. That has diarrhoea. And is on fire.

Mashiro-iro Symphony

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Once upon a time, an animation studio with grand ambitions formed and tried to recapture the popularity of Cowboy Bebop, by making Samurai Champloo. Champloo was a pile of fun, ingenuity, wit and sheer unbridled coolness, and one of my favourite anime of all time. That was 2004. In the following years they tried to keep up this ambitious high quality, with anime like Ergo Proxy and Michiko to Hatchin. After 2008 though, they discovered this method wasn’t earning them enough money, so they gave up all pretence of quality and pumped out Sacred Blacksmith, a banal and dull fantasy show with the only redeeming factor being how hot the female characters were. Afterwards they adapted The World God Only Knows, an otaku in-joke panderfest manga with aspirations of  parody but was really just another bland harem. Afterwards they made House of Five Leaves, a laid-back samurai anime for Noitamina, but it sold fuck all so they made another TWGOK. Next season, they’re doing Mashiro-iro Symphony, an adaptation of a visual novel by the man who also wrote Akane Iro Ni Somaru Saka. You are dead to me Manglobe.

Mobile Suit Gundam Age

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Do I need to have seen the previous seasons?

No. This is a totally new story, world and characters

This latest Gundam doesn’t have the Gundam fanbase out there too happy. This is largely because…well no, it’s entirely because of the rather childish character designs. Apparently having a 14 year old Gundam pilot actually looking like a 14 year old boy is license to lose your shit. I couldn’t really care what the characters look like, but that’s mainly because I’m not a Gundam fan. Mind you, I can see where both sides are coming from. From the director of Sergent Frog movies, to the story being penned by the creator of Inazuma 11, to help from the animation studio and staff who made Danball Senki, Gundam Age has a younger audience set firmly in its cross hairs. DVD/BD exclusive Unicorn/IGLOO and fujioshi-bait Seed/00 have obviously not done much to bring in the younger generation. I’m certainly interested in seeing what a Gundam with a younger skew while trying to retain the shows largely serious tone looks like, but I can’t say I’m bouncing in my seat in anticipation either. It is 50 episodes long though, and I always like seeing big ambitious mecha anime. I just wish it wasn’t always more bloody Gundam.

I Don’t Have Many Friends

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Prediction time! ‘I don’t have many friends’ will be touted as a a potential hit by certain light novel fans, while large swathes of the more elitist audience will remain sceptical. However, once the first episode airs, the more adventurous of anime fans will check it out and declare that, apart from a few kinks, ‘I don’t have many friends’ is a quality title about the loneliness of high teenage life and the anxiety and desire to fit in. Soon everyone jumps on the bandwagon, only for little things to start going wrong. As the anime proceeds beyond the first novel material, the original intent of the story starts to get lost. New female characters are introduced, and each one becomes less interested in being friends and more about wanting the male lead’s juicy manpiece. Soon the show starts introducing beach and hot spring episodes, leaning further and further into fanservice harem. The male lead starts accidentally undressing the female characters while falling onto them. Each character falls further away from what makes them unique and delve into cliche and stereotype, until finally the anime ends with some crowbarred attempt at conflict, no resolution and possibly some censored nudity. Call me back at Christmas when I’ve been proven correct.

C³

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Wait! Before you go running off at the sight of Yet Another Shana Clone, take a look at the trailer. The animation is from Silver Link, whose previous outings have only been the Baka to Test series. Not exactly world beating material, but the animation style was certainly imaginative. Silver Link are a spin-off from Shaft, with the director of Natsu no Arashi and ef, so they’re a studio willing to actually use what animation is capable of doing. The other interesting fact is the guy in charge of the script also wrote the script for 8 episodes of Cowboy Bebop of all things, as well as plenty of other quality series like Hare Guu and Big Windup under his belt. Obviously you have to remind yourself that, yes, this is another Shana clone, and bears all the annoying fan-pandering near-pedo tropes that such a series often has. I read the first chapter of the manga, and it included an accidental falling onto childhood friends boobs. That all said, keep your eyes on this. Just in case.

Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere

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Between Gundam Age, Phi Brain and this, Sunrise sure are busy this season. Mind you, they’re really only Sunrise in name, with none of the usual Sunrise staff apparently working on this. It’s based off a light novel, but with stuff like giant robots and fight scenes and fantasy setting, I started to get my hopes up. Then the trailer included bouncy boobs, absurdly large spiral twin tails, and a curious lack of noses. Worried, I checked the staff list and found the series was being directed by the people behind Dragonaut, Saki and Strike Witches. The cast of prats who produced Gonzo’s dying breaths! Argh nooooo, fuck these guys and their phobia of animating noses!

Invasion?! Squid Girl

Do I need to have seen the previous season?

Yes. It hasn’t got much of a plot, but it will assume you already know the characters

I’ve seen in season previews that people like to have a little whine about sequels to shows they’ve never seen before. Which always struck me as a bit of a silly complaint. Unless the show is ridiculously long to get through, why don’t you just watch the first season before the new version? You only have the right to complain about sequels when you’ve seen the previous season of unambitious trivial anthropomorphised  moeblob anime and know how crap it is. Ah shucks, I’m joking. I like Squid Girl. It’s nothing special, but it has a good sense of comedic timing de geso~

Kimi to Boku

JC Staff doing an anime about cute boys doing cute things…wait, what? What is this madness!?! Talk about crazy new ideas. However, from checking out the manga, in reality this is less a genderswapped Azumanga and more a generic shoujo with the bland eternally nice/shy female lead removed. It really was incredibly bland, but then I’ve been well documented to dislike shojo so take that with a pinch of salt. Director isn’t half bad, having previously done Elfen Lied and Sound of the Sky (Sora no Woto for you weeaboos out there), so I guess if bland shojo is your thing then you might as well check this out.

Persona 4 The Animation

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And the award to the most stylish anime trailer I have ever seen in my 3 years of season previewing goes to. Wow, does that ever look awesome. Persona 4 is based off a rather popular video game by the same name. No matter how many people try to assure me that the game has a great story, the words ‘video game adaptation’ send warning lights flashing everywhere. Asides from often paper-thin plotlines, trying to adapt the unique story-telling environment in video games to anime is a daunting and difficult task, one that often requires ignoring parts of the source material, much to the annoyance of the fans. So upon whom has this task of adapting this most daunting of games fallen on? Seiji Kishi, previous director of Angel Beats, Sunred, Kamisama Dolls and Seto no Hanayome. Now many people don’t like Kishi for his total ignorance of tone, but to my ADD addled mind, it’s something I’ve never really minded in his works. I personally like him, but I think he’s better suited for comedies, where his leaping between tones is best used for humour. That said, the trailer should show that the man also has a keen sense of style. Give him a game that is already stylish game to adapt and we have one of the most interesting anime of the season.

Ben-To

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Ben-to is about…oh look, I’ll just copypaste the synopsis

Satō goes to the supermarket one day and discovers a bento on sale at half price. Just as he reaches to grab it, he ends up on the floor unconscious. Satō has just entered the fierce, no-holds-barred “supermarket survival battle” for half-price bento

Yeah. It’s one of those nonsense school setting anime, like Baka to Test except without the promise of at least some neat animation. The studio doing this are David Production, whose previous works consist of Level E and Book of Bantorra. Neither of which are bad, I’ll grant them that. But in neither case did I feel they were improved significantly by the anime version. Of course, I’m speaking out of my ass here, not having read the source material for Bantorra or Level E, but whatever. I really have no idea what to make of this.

Fate/Zero

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Do I need to have seen the previous season?

Probably yes. It’s a non-canon prequel, but will probably require knowledge of the characters to understand the importance of their actions.

Now this is a genuinely interesting project. The Fate/Zero novel is essentially a piece of professional fanfiction from the Fate/Stay Night universe. Not that your average fanfiction writer could get their work adapted into an anime with animation by ufotable (Kara no Kyoukai) and music by Yuki Kaijura. It’s written by Gen Urabochi, the Nitro+ VN games writer and recently famous for coming up with Madoka Magica. All this comes together in this one big budget production Fate/Zero The Anime. So in anticipation for this, I started watching Fate/Stay Night and was shocked by how incompetent it was. I lasted a measly 2 episodes. I’ll probably still give Fate/Zero a whirl though. It’s meant to be a prequel of sorts, so you can probably jump in with no knowledge of the canon. Also, Urabochi is a much more succinct and capable writer than nasu, the Fate/Stay Night writer, in my totally biased opinion, so I’d prefer to see his iteration of the story.

Working’!!

Do I need to have seen the previous season?

Yes. Again, not much of a plot here, but it will assume you know the characters

Stop making sequels to anime I don’t like. Why don’t you make a sequel to this anime I like that has nothing to do with the creators of anime that did get a sequel, and didn’t sell very well anyway etc. etc. Yeah, I don’t like Working. Or Wagnaria, if we feel like reverse-weeabooing the name. Funny how the American title sounds more weeaboo than the Japanese title.

Maji de Watashi

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The game I play with eroge adaptations is find out how it is connected to Akane Iro Ni Somaru Saka so I can justify never having to watch it. Right, eroge company is MinaSoft. Their only previous eroge turned anime was They Are My Noble Masters, which I honestly thought wasn’t half bad. How about the animation company? Err, Maji de Watashi is made by Lerche, whose previous productions include nothing else whatsoever. Well huh, maybe this won’t be so bad after all. How about the director Keitaro Motonaga? Aha! Here we go. Director of Akane Iro Ni Somaru Saka, both TV series and OVA. Oh well, so much for that~

Shakugan no Shana III Final

Do I need to have seen the previous seasons?

Yes

Well, at least JC Staff have stopped pretending. Instead of simply releasing yet another batch of Shakugan no Shana clones, they’ve finally gone back and made the actual Shakugan no Shana. I notice they’re calling this Final. I wonder if that means that this will be the end of JC Staff produced Shana clones and they’ll start innovating and producing new and excitin-BWAHAHA ok I couldn’t keep a straight face typing that.

Maken-ki

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So, how many pantyshots did you count? I got 12. Pretty impressive for a trailer that’s less than 2 minutes long. Once you go beyond 3 in a trailer, that says all you need to know about the anime in question.

Hunter X Hunter Brotherhood

Do I need to have seen the previous season?

No. This is a totally new remake

Madhouse took a look at Bones remaking Full Metal Alchemist and though “hey, we can do that too”. Now if you had told me Madhouse were remaking a manga adaptation that never finished, I would have leapt out of my chair and proclaimed “CLAYMORE!?!”. But nope, that would be far too obvious and make them far too much money. Instead they’re giving the Brotherhood treatment to Hunter X Hunter. They didn’t even animate the first season to this. Oh well, at least it’s a remake, which means I can jump straight in. I tried watching the original TV series but I couldn’t get past the first episode.

World’s First Love Season 2

Do I need to have seen the previous season?

Yes

Hey girls, isn’t rape adorable~! Forcing yourself onto a weaker individual is totally OK because they can’t control their emotions, and it’s OK so long as the receiver enjoys it in the end. That’s what true love is all about!

Lupin III Thing

Do I need to have seen the previous seasons?

No. Every Lupin III special is written to be accessible to newcomers

There were some people saying this would be a new Lupin III reboot TV series. It’s not, stop getting your hopes up. It’s just another one of those specials Lupin III has every year. There were some other rumours going around that it would be headed up by a combination of Takashi Koike (the Redline director) and some Gainax folks, but again that’s just more wishful thinking rather than being based off any concrete evidence. I am a Lupin III fan, but the prospect of a new special doesn’t fill me with delight when there’s still 30-odd specials and the TV series I’ve yet to watch. While the good thing about the Lupin III franchise is that every one of these specials are made to be instantly approachable, the bad thing is that which ones are good and which aren’t are total crapshoots. Wait until reviews of this come out before you think about jumping in. For now, just go watch Castle of Cagliostro.

Busou Shinki Moon Angel

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Do you have a fetish for 6 inch high young teenage girls with robot joints wearing one-piece swimsuits? Well Japan has the cartoon for you! Oh Strike Witches, look what you’ve wrought.

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Battle Spirits: Heroes, Digimon Xros Wars – Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Hunter-tachi and Cross Fight B-Daman. I’m including them simply for completions sake. Yeah I know some of you folk out there like Digimon and are probably watching/watched Xros Wars. But I know fuck all about the franchise, so you’re better off searching elsewhere for information on it.

Movies

Normally I devote a measly single paragraph to movies, but this year I want to give some of these a bit more lipservice. Remember, while there are anime movies coming out in Japan this season, the rest of the world won’t see these until they come out on DVD/BD. With that in mind, I’m covering the anime movies that are coming out on DVD/BD over the next 3 months.

Towa no Quon

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This has been out for a while now, but nobody has subbed the blasted thing yet. Towa no Quon is a movie series in the same vein as Break Blade. 6 episodes, each 50 minutes long and getting a theatrical release before being released on home video. Like Break Blade (and Kara no Kyokai before it) these are beautifully animated big budget productions. It’s animated by Bones and directed by Umanosuke Iida, who passed away before he could see the movie reach the big screen. Shame, he was a really talented guy, working on Cowboy Bebop to The Big O to Hellsing to 08th MS Team. Admittedly a lot of the trailer and from what I’ve been hearing about it sounds awfully generic, but deliver tried and true concepts with enough flair and care and you’ll have a quality productions. Now we just need someone to sub the blasted thing…

Mardock Scramble

First Compression

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24th August

Feels like I’ve been writing about this thing’s release for ages now. Mardock Scramble is another one of these movie series projects. 3 movies long, it’s an adaptation of a novel by the same name. I’ve seen the movie already at a film festival and I really wasn’t that taken with it. It was all right, but delved into the unintentionally hilarious and stupid more than once. However the novel it’s been based off has gotten many rave reviews, so maybe I’ll turn out to be in the minority on this one.

There’s also Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha coming out on the 9th December, but that has gotten awful reviews so far, so I’m not particularly looking forward to that. There’s Fafner Heaven and Earth coming out on 21st September. So hurrah for that massive Fafner fanbase that exists out there…somewhere.

If this wasn’t Noitamina, you would be calling this lolipedo bait, right? Yeah, if you were the kind of person who also called Ikoku Meiro no Croisee lolipedo bait. As in, you’re the type of person who decides what an anime is about based on its labels rather than what it actually holds. Noitamina do not make Good Anime. People make Good Anime for Noitamina.

Except for Fractale. Fuck Fractale.

I read the first chapter of the Bunny Drop (no, I’m not calling it by the weeaboo name) manga before this season began, and I’m glad this episode kept the languid, laid back presentation. The episode is mainly the middle aged bloke watching the little girl be herself and helping her out at occasional intervals to reach the clock or pick a flower. I liked how they both said very little, yet their actions would show that they were still thinking of each other, such as the scene with the girl try to wave her hand to extinguish the flame, copying what he had done earlier. I also liked how it showed how similar they were without the main character having to give a voice-over narration of “we were so similar”. Compare the little girl trying to keep away from the other young brat to how the man would sit away from the table with all the bishies with multicoloured hair. Then a fat bloke voiced by Norio Wakamoto decended from the sky on a set of invisible wires, dancing and singing and…and…

…umm

…hmmm

Something is not quite right here…

Yeah, as much as I’d like to praise Bunny Drop, a lot of what happened in the episode was catapulted out of my mind by the episode I watched immediately either. I suppose you could use this as an example that Bunny Drop isn’t particularly memorable, or that it doesn’t hold much weight. And I think both these claims hold a certain amount of truth. But that would also do disservice to how friggin bad Uta No Prince-Sama was.

Let’s make a sliding scale of bishies with no top buttons on their shirts. On the far end of the self aware spectrum lies Hosaka from Minami-ke. For those who haven’t seen the show, he is a parody of a bishie. His top buttons are eternally open, stripping at every available opportunity, usually when something involving the girl he likes is involved. Not that he strips to her or anything. He simply strips while lost in his own thoughts. What’s great about it though, is that any girl who sees him simply thinks he’s a creep and want to get as far away from him as possible. It’s a show that points at bishies and says “haha, look at how utterly ridiculous the idealised form of these things are”. Hosaka from Minami-ke is an example of a parody done right. Then there’s the example of a parody done wrong, the Ouran kind. The ones that do all the types of things something like Prince-sama does, but acknowledges what it is doing. “Look at me! I’m doing bishie things! It’s funny because I’m pointing out what I’m doing”. Pointing out what you doing does not constitute humour. It just makes you self-aware, which is still preferable to what Prince-sama is doing.

Asides from the one good scene of the fat principal descending from the sky on invisible wires, everything else is played totally straight. The male characters line up to introduce themselves, their hair colour, the number of buttons they have on their shirt and their single defining character trait. There’s the genki one, the flirtatious one, the glasses one (actually I’m not sure if there was a glasses one, but I assume there was), the one with the dark past, and so on and so forth. It’s the exact same as your shitty regular harem cycling through the haremettes. Now you might say “hey, only one of these get made for every 10 shitty male orientated harem crap, so give us this one”. I would if I ever gave the shitty harem shows a free pass. But I don’t, because they’re shitty. And so is Prince-sama. The female lead has no personality. The plot that actually appeared was so laughable I started to eat my microphone. The dancing wasn’t even any good. This was a massive pile of rainbow coloured poo and it drove all memories of what happened in Bunny Drop out of my mind. Damn you Uta no Prince-sama!

::Note:: I won’t be including anime that I only watched one episode of. I’ve said everything I have to say about them in my first impressions posts.

A Grade: One of the tops of the year. Get ready for some fan­boy­ing here

A Dur­arara!!

I love this show. Absolutely bloody love the thing. Izaya, Shizuo, Celty, Shingen, Kida, Shinra ah, they’re such a crazy and diverse set of characters that I feel like I’d never tire of watching them getting intertwined in this plot. It will, unfortunately, never be a great as Baccano but I’ve never held that against it. It’s like complaining that every Brazilian footballer is not as good as Pele. It may be true, but by saying that you’ve proven yourself to be a total idiot.

A– Full Metal Alchem­ist: Brotherhood

I’m loving these fights! This is how you do action anime. None of your punchup power-ups that is nothing more than a contest of sheer strength. These fights have tactics and the characters have brains. Little things like Kimblee throwing pebbles into the air so can find where Al is is what makes these fights so entertaining. My problem with the series now though is that it’s starting to drag out this final day. The last episode in particular started to grate a little.

B Grade: Hugely enter­tain­ing stuff. Not amaz­ing but def­in­itely worth watching

B+ Arakawa Under the Bridge

My frustration with Shaft over the years has been mainly due to the fact that I know they are capable of making series like this and Bakemonogatari but are such a hit or miss studio that anticipating their latest anime is often a painful experience (f*cking Bund). This time it’s worked though. The feel-good hit of the season, Arakawa has been an absolute joy to watch. Shinbo is a bit of a one-trick pony but that’s one fine trick he’s able to pull.

B+ Angel Beats

A beautifully constructed masterpiece it is not, but that hasn’t stopped Angel Beats from being ridiculously entertaining. It’s just so much fun to watch and guess what the story behind this world is. The characters are such a nonsensical bunch, they feel like they could quite easily be a bunch of School Rumble minor characters. You can easilly imagine the girl balancing the broom to fit right into one of the nonsensical situations the School Rumble cast get into.

B– House of Five Leaves

I know there’s some people who might dry foul if I say this, but House of Five Leaves is best enjoyed with your brain turned off and letting yourself sink into the atmosphere. I’m not a fan of this mangaka by any stretch and I think she writes some of the most banal dialogue around, but Manglobe have done such a fantastic job of this that I’m actually not bothered by it in the slightest de gozaru~

C Grade: It’s good enough to keep watch­ing but it’s not that memorable

C+ Big Windup Season 2

I think my problem here is that this anime is better to marathon than watch weekly but I’ve become so entrenched in my weekly watching ways that I find it hard to actually marathon any anime anymore. It’s even worse now that I’ve started the series. The week break has the unfortunate ability to completely wipe my mind of what happened in the previous episode to the point that I’m incapable of properly following the game. Maybe I just need time to get used to this weekly format.

C+ Giant Killing

I think my problem here was my pre-season impressions for this show didn’t turn out as planned. The tactics aren’t as pronounced as I thought they would be, Tatsumi isn’t as badass as I hoped he would be and the football isn’t as realistic as I think it could be. A lowered expectations has helped though and I’ve certainly enjoyed the last episode more than the first few, although I think that may be more down to the Prince. I just have a thing for fabulous characters.

C+ Rainbow

Started very poorly but I think I’m finally beginning to warm up to Rainbow. There are some parts to it that are way too overdone but I’m actually starting to really enjoy this series, although I feel uncomfortable using standard phrases like ‘enjoy’ and ‘warm up’. The nature of Rainbow is that you don’t strictly enjoy the series the same way you do Arakawa or Angel Beats. Still, it has the manly An-chan and he alone makes this series worth watching.

C Hetalia World Series

Yup, it’s finally gotten to the point that Hetalia has lost its main charm and any laughs that come from this series are more of an episode by episode basis. If this was any other series I might have dropped it by now but at 5 minutes per episode I can’t see myself doing that anytime soon. Besides, when it does produce a good episode it really does light up my day just that little bit extra.

C Senko no Night Raid

I don’t know why I’m failing to warm up to this series. From an objective standpoint I’m able to look at plot twists, little revelations and so on and think ‘that was a clever twist’. But I just can’t get into the show. Episode 3 is a great example of this. It had a lot of the things that make me like an episode but never once did I feel that entertained except, typically, when the girl gave the little moe yelp when the other bomb went off in the distance rather than the one she was disarming herself.

D Grade: I’ve lost interest in this anime. If it’s a D then I’ve prob­ably dropped it

D B Gata H Kei

Just not a well made series. As amusing as the premise is, they’re so lazy with the premise that there’s little to no actual quality jokes coming through. It just felt like the creators phoned in on this one. If the people working on the show didn’t have the enthusiasm to work on this anime, how am I supposed to have the enthusiasm to watch the thing? Give me some Angel Beats where Mr.Maeda is convinced he’s working on the greatest anime ever over this anyday.

E Grade: Unlike D grades where I drop out of dis­in­terest, E grades are dropped in Disgust.

F Grade: Any F stand­ard anime I would only watch 1 or 2 epis­odes of so god only know how an anime could last to the end of the month and still get an F but I’m sure it will hap­pen some day

Or whatever the hell it’s nonsensically complicated and impossible to spell without copypasting from MAL is. Instead of being a weeaboo,  I’m just going to call it Big Windup from now on. I will not, however, start calling Seto no Hanayome ‘My Bride is a Mermaid’. Although I really should start calling her Holo. She even writes her own name like that. Guess I’m still a weeaboo.

So I decided to check out the first season of Big Windup for a few reasons. The main reason was because there was a new season on its way, obviously. The other was because I was slowly realising I had taken a liking to sports anime and this was one of the best rated ones that focused on the tactics and teamwork. Other is because it involved a lot of guys having bonding sessions and fujioshi bait and for some reason I seem to like those sort of anime (yeah, really). I watched the first 4 episodes on Funimations youtube channel but was actually a bit disappointed. If anything, it was too down to earth. The characters were so normal that they had pretty dull conversations. Oddly enough, Mihashi was by far my favourite character because he had the most extreme personality. I loved how whenever someone called his name he would do the typical Mihashi reaction of ‘shiver-spin-look for somewhere to hide’. But when the series turned to the epic 11 episode match it really picked up and became the proper team-driven sports anime I had been promised it was like. It was only then that the different elements of the story put themselves together to become an extremely enjoyable anime.

So history of my Big Windup fandom out of the way, welcome to the new season! Unfortunately it started being as down to earth as the early episodes of the first season were which as I said, aren’t actually that interesting. For example when the two guys were in the restaurant discussing Mihashi’s team it was a bit dull. Discussing tactics was interesting, discussing their baseball history was not. These scenes are obviously required to make later baseball matches work better so it’s not like they can omit the scenes but it is something that impacts my enjoyment of the series as a whole. It did give us the prospect of watching female cheerleaders this season that doesn’t require you to watch Heroman.

There’s not a whole lot to say about Big Windup though. If you’ve watched the first season you’ll watch the second, simple as. The only thing I want to mention is finally someone mentioned the coaches massive boobs! A team full of teenage boys spend their time round a women whose tits are so big she has the prop them up with her crossed arms and squeezes them together whenever she gets excited and yet they didn’t once make reference to them in the first season? It just didn’t make sense! Then they pointed out this season that the very reason they didn’t make reference to them is precisely because they don’t want to sexualise their coach. Ah well, if you guys don’t want to stare at them then I will.

So first up is NyanNyan blogging Black Jack episode 21. Err…there’s not much to say when someone is blogging an older series that you’ve never seen. It’s a Tezuka manga adaptation and judging by the screencaps it’s actually pretty new. I hate to admit it but I’ve never seen or read any of the God of Mangas’works. Can’t say much about her blogging of the episode though. 2 paragraphs of rehashing what we’ve seen in the episode followed by on sentence of her own thoughts on the episode. Still, it can’t be easy to go through blogging something like that through 21 episodes so props to her anyway.

Next up, Alafista. Merchandise photoshoot blogs bore me and this is just another one of those posts that says ‘hey, I saw this. Aint it cool?’. Actually to be fair, those Nanoha PSP cases do look pretty cool, even though I’ve never seen the show and don’t have any real intention of ever watching it. Mahou Shojo rubs me the wrong way.

Omohide is reviewing Eve no Jikan? Whoo~ I love that show. (off topic rant: Why use the Japanese name when there’s the perfectly good and more logical Time of Eve? It’s like people who call it Higashi no Eden when Eden of the East works far better. And don’t get my started on the Japanese name of Haruhi, urgh). It’s a straight-up review and he certainly likes the show. His only problem was it was too short? They did hint at a second season at the end. I dunno but straight up reviews on blogs bug me. Why not just post your review on MAL? It gets a bigger audience.

Shadows of Eternity has a post title that I couldn’t work out what it contained from the title. My guess was a review of the winter anime in a positive light? Nope, it’s someone talking about their bandwidth being poor on a beach with a Haruhi novel. It’s nothing more than a diary entry. Not exactly the most exciting, informative, funny or useful post in the world shall we say.

The guy from the Banzai effect is visitng a cafe and he’s armed with plenty of figurenes and a camera! Let’s just say I’m looking forward to the OEG’s visit to this site.

Nendo snow adventure…it’s kinda funny to note that this site looks very similar to Banzai effect. It even has that same effect on my screen, making it jerk as it’s weighed down by adverts and other stuff on the sidebar. Maybe they’re there to distract the reader from the total lack of readable content?

Hyper Parfait is one of the 5482305 blogs out there reviewing the second episode of Durarara. Actually she’s done a pretty fine job of it too, although a bit tl;dr. I normally associate Hyper Parfait with fangirling but that’s mainly because I see her Hetalia posts. It appears she’s read the books already but she refrained from any spoilers but what made her post stand out was the thoughts on the suicide in the episode. I’m always wary of taking what anime says about Japan as facts but suicide is a pretty serious problem there. She points out that an awful lot of old people commit suicide too, which kinda surprised me, but it’s youths that get media attention. Pretty good post all round.

Animemiz has managed to round up a group of people on twitter to give advice on how to review manga. Short, simple and smart, quite a good post actually. I like the person who reccomends using metaphors because that makes the review stand out. Omohide probably should’ve done that. His review did lack a bit of life and didn’t really say anything that wasn’t said before.

Random Curiousity is reviewing FMA:B episode 40. ARGH, SPOILERS!!! I never end up reading RandomC because they always review the episode long before I get the chance to watch it. All I can say is I saw the phrase ‘much better than last weeks, very compelling’. Looking forward to watching it and then reading Sea Slugs or Unmei Kaihen instead because their posts appear after I’ve watched it.

Metanorn with characters songs? Yawn, oh wait, it’s Hetalia! That means it has funny lyrics! Oh wait, no translation of the lyrics…

Star Crossed is blogging Letter Bee. I dropped this a few episodes back but does it get any better? Nope, it’s still in corny, badly written fillers. Psgels doesn’t seem too unhappy with the series but his review tells me all I needed to know. Letter Bee can remain in that dropped bin.

Not Cliche has some intersting stats on Modern Warfare 2 and its advertisement budget. The thing is, what the hell is this doing on Nano? Nothing to do with anime whatsoever. Stupid post~

Ah Fuzakenna, the blog that everyone seems to like. We’ve got another one hopping on the Durarara episode 2 bandwagon. He spends the entire post comparing it to Boogiepop, which was lost on me who hasn’t watched that yet. It’s mildly interesting, talking about the psychology of myths and stuff, but reads at times like that cursed academic journal style that too many bloggers fall into. Next thing you know his post titles will include the word ‘musings’ and uses the phrase ‘post-modernism’ and actually means it.

Lustrous Realm appears to be yet another person smitten by the beauty of Mikoto. Apparently the Railgun opening is awesome. I thought it was crap but I also think Chobits is one of the best anime of all time so what do I know.

Metanorn again, this time with the Fairy Tail soundtrack. It’s just a list of the songs and a download link. Cool for Fairy Tail fans I suppose.

Sunny side up gives us a barrage of the latest manga chapters. Everything is centre aligned and therefore impossible to read without your head exploding so I’m not trying.

The Null Set is offering a bunch of awards to anime, who I’m sure are all delighted to receive these awards. You can see the guy has clear favourites from the season. Erin, Railgun and Cross Game appear to be his favourites. Actually Cross Game kept coming second, which sums up Cross Game some what. Cross Game would get the award for ‘show that never exells in anything but does well in everything’.

Project Genesis. Never heard of it but they’re posting something related to Pokemon and that’s always cool. Someone decided to sub over Pokemon with their own humorous subs. The opening is actually pretty darn funny bit the rest is a bit meh. Actually no, I laughed out loud at the ‘a green pokeball? That’s rare, everyone seems to prefer the standard red and white version. Which probably explains why nobody can catch the legendaries’. Ah Pokemon~

Notdotq is doing its usual business of satarizing the blogsphere. It actually starts of pretty funny with the ‘best of the year’ bit but then falls into name dropping. ‘Cuz referencing is funny! According to baka-raptor it isn’t. OH LOOK, I MENTIONED BAKA-RAPTOR! YOU READ HIS BLOG AND KNOW THE NAME, THEREFORE IT’S FUNNY!

Finally Zone Otaku, which looks exactly like Banzai Effect and all those other otaku blogs. Bring on the OEG OH LOOK, I MENTIONED THE OEG. YOU KNOW THAT BLOG AND THEREFORE THAT’S FUNNY!

Urgh…I actually started this post with the intention of proving that Nano wasn’t full of crap. I was here to say ‘hey look, there’s some really interesting stuff out there if you just click on the links for a change’. But I’ve reached the end of this post feeling totally burned out. Maybe I just picked the wrong day. Any other bloggers out there are invited to provide their own snapshots of nano to see if you pick a better day than me.