Spring 2011 Anime

[Great Rumbler]

Tiger & Bunny

Corporate-sponsored superheroes fight criminals on live TV for points to determine the greatest superhero. The action is tight and impressive, the writing is sharp, the characters are just the right kind of over-the-top, the animation is pretty good though a bit inconsistent in a few instances, and...well...it's pretty awesome.

Streaming on Hulu and ANN.

Hanasaku Iroha

A girl with a flaky mom is sent to live with her estranged grandmother who owns a hot springs inn. The animation is great, complimented by some wonderful backgrounds and character designs that, while not entirely realistic, have a much more appealing and detailed look that a lot of slice of life-style shows are using these days. The show isn't entirely slice of life though, as that implies it's mainly about carefree doings of a group of friends. There's drama here [and slaps] and Ohana does not immediately becomes friends with everyone at the inn upon her arrival, in fact those that don't outright hate her tend to be at least distant and cold towards her. It shows far more promise in its first episode than a first glance will provide.

Streaming on Crunchyroll

[A Black Falcon]

Nichijou 01 - A comedy show in the vein of Azumanga Daioh. It was great, so much funny and weird stuff... I like this kind of show. Plus, it's actually got male characters, even if they're second tier so far? And one of the girls actually has a crush on one of the guys? That's different... and I mean that in a good way, it's interesting to see one of these shows not follow the usual "girls only" policy. And the guy she likes is a guy who's a farmer's son, but acts like an aristocrat, and rides a goat to school? Yes, this show is amusing. :lol

But yeah, very funny episode all around. Almost all of the segments were funny and made me laugh. Not all were equally good -- the fire alarm one wasn't that great (but at least it was short) -- but many were quite good, so that's alright.

So, now we learn that the girl with the key in her back is a robot. Alright, makes sense. I didn't guess that the little girl was actually the professor, though, that's an amusing twist... :)

Also, the part with the piece of food going flying around was maybe the funniest part of the episode. All of those serious, action-anime-esque scenes, for that... good stuff. :lol And then after all that she ate it... ick. :)

Oh, and that the craziness isn't some separate thing from the world of the show is something I like about it. I mean, the robot sort of explodes when she runs into that guy, sending them both flying far into the air, and it's not just completely written off, but actually factors into the plot. That guy rides his goat to school, and at the school announcements the teachers try to tell him not to do so, but he refuses. Etc. I know that one of the points of the show is the contrast between the name ("normal life" or something like that) and the weirdness of the stuff that goes on, and the fact that the show takes the weird events somewhat seriously helps that contrast work.

So yeah, good stuff. I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of this series. :)

[A Black Falcon]

Bakatest Matsuri OVA 02 - Yeah, that wasn't very good at all. Painfully generic and bad at the better parts, just boring at the worse ones, there wasn't much here about what's good about the series... the idea of morons winning a primarily knowledge-based tournament through cheating is not something that I am going to like. Blatant cheating like that should get you disqualified... "they're going to reveal it, we need to stop them"? As if you didn't in several rounds, when you used stupid, underhanded measures out in public during battle to get your opponents to quit? Ugh. And as for the good fighting ability they have in this episode, I don't remember them having that before... there's a one line attempt to justify why they have it now, but it was lame. This episode was so bad, the plot completely fell apart but because it fits enough of the stereotypes they decided it was good enough anyway, I guess. I knew they were going to win but were rooting against them in every round.

As for jokes, I think I might have laughed once or twice... no more than that, though. It wasn't very funny. At the beginning I was hopeful it'd improve after it got to the main plot (it starts with an incest segment about how his sister loves him but is a bad cook), but it just went downhill from there...

Oh, and as I suggested above, it was incredibly predictable. Everything that happens could be guessed a mile away, there are no surprises. I imagine some people are going to like this episode, but I didn't.

[A Black Falcon]

Sengoku Otome 01 is pretty bad. It's apparently based off of a pachinko franchise, like Rio Rainbow Gate, so expectations should be very low, and that's what it is. It was so bad, I just couldn't force myself to watch the whole episode. It's basically another "person from the modern world gets pulled into the past/an alternate world of fantasy", with gender-swapped versions of the characters. You know, like other things in the genre, except awful. The main character's a not too smart girl who acts (in ep. 1) like one of the stupider characters in a group-of-girls comedy series. She's somewhat annoying at times. She gets pulled into the Sengoku era through a portal in a shrine she was visiting, except in this Sengoku era all the leaders are gender-swapped, like Koihime Musou (except not as good as even the worst season of that show, and with a person from modern times, which there wasn't in the Koihime Musou anime.), etc.

On that note, Oda Nobunaga? But Nobunaga is usually evil in anime, Japanese videogames, etc... it's funny, the winner (of the wars of the Sengoku) is considered a villain, but he is. I wonder if this one will end up that way too, opposite gender or not. Wouldn't surprise me. But overall, based on the part of the episode I watched, annoying main character, not too good plot, etc, etc... it was pretty bad. But considering what it's based on that shouldn't be surprising. Not sure if I'll go back and try to finish the episode.

Oh, the English title apparently is "Battle Girls: Time Paradox" but changing "Sengoku" to "Battle", while maybe linguistically accurate, loses the specific reference that it's referring to, the decades of warfare in the 16th century called Sengoku, or "the era of the country at war" I believe. The reference should be left in, I think.

Dog Days 01 - Basically the same thing as the above (earth person taken into a fantasy world), but with a guy main character, which means I imagine he'll have a harem soon enough. All of the people in this fantasy world are animal-people, so the main goodguys are dog people, the villains (in this episode) lion/cat people. That's just wrong, cats are good and dogs are evil... :)

The show is generically bad as expected... that is, until we see the nature of the "combat" in this world. That was amusing, I admit. They don't kill anyone, they fight without actually hurting people and turn into a chibi animal form when "hurt". There's an announcer too, and points depending on how far the attackers can get into the defender's territory... but apparently this game does have real consequences, for you lose your castle if you lose. Um, maybe. Maybe not, and it's just the psychological damage of losing a lot that they're worried about. I'm not entirely sure really.

Anyway, it's definitely bad, but at least it's a little bit amusing.

[A Black Falcon]

Evangelion 2.22: You Are [Not] Alone - First half of the film - Hmm, I'm not sure what I think... I wasn't sure if I'd like this or not, based on what I'd heard about the movie, and my fears were confirmed when I watched it. Sure, it was mostly good so far, but it had some real problems and I wouldn't say it's better than the series. It's alright, some decent changes and some bad. Mari's not in it much, but seems like maybe a decent character. My main complaint with her addition is that now Shinji has a harem, pretty much. Ugh. Asuka's mostly alright so far, though they don't explain her backstory (and I know some of what comes next), but seem to expect you to know it anyway. Mari gets no backstory explanation at all, she's just there to fight. I know time is limited, but it does leave her shallow. Overall though she's alright, maybe she's an interesting character (if they ever tell her backstory) and she had some good fight scenes. The new aquarium trip bit was kind of good too. The "cooking contest" aspect was on the lame side though, adding in some generic anime stuff instead of the longer but more interesting Asuka/Rei story of the original series. It shortens things but makes them worse. Rei acting a little more like a human was nice, though ultimately she's still Rei and thus the ultimate in passive obedience.

Second half - So bad, so very bad... it starts out with something like half an hour of fanservice for people who hate Asuka, then gets a little better for a while, and then just gets completely stupid as Shinji makes an emotional 180 in the space of about five seconds (he cares that much about Rei, really?), going from rightly depressed and angry at his father -- on that note, Shinji's reaction to the whole Eva 03 thing, and how mad it made him at his father, was the one and only good thing about that whole section of the film -- it's good motivation for him to want to leave. Of course though, he's male and the main character and the other pilots are (just) girls, so it's not like he'll actually be allowed to go. And so the ridiculous 180 and some ridiculously stupid scenes of very angry Shinji attacking the 10th, and nearly invincible, angel. I laughed some at how bad this part of the movie was... like the most stereotypical anime thing ever, pretty much. On that note, on top of the previous part, they're changing the story quite radically -- that 10th angel was ridiculous, the city's completely destroyed, the NERV base wrecked... quite different from the series. Not better though, just different. Then Kaworu, yet again. He's not a very effective Angel, is he, stopping the Third Impact like that...

But overall that's just the way the movie went, bits and pieces that were nice additions to the franchise, mixed with others so poorly thought through that it leaves me with an overall negative opinion of the movie. It took a few days to force myself to finish the film, after starting it (this is part of why I hadn't posted for a few days I think, I'd wanted to finish this first, but couldn't do it...). It might have been worth watching, I can't entirely decide, but yeah, it has real issues.

Of course though, I did have some issues with the original series as well, so it's not like it's a bad remake of a perfect show or something... each has its own flaws. But the movie's are worse. The fight scenes are better, sure, but otherwise, not as good, and not as original, as the original series, even in comparison to it.

The first movie was just a little bland, because it changed nothing, but this time they probably went too far the other way... at least it's different, sure, but making something different just for the sake of it being different doesn't make sense, you should only make it different if you're actually going to make it better. :)

And then the final blow at the end, seriously, it ends with the reveal of eyepatch Asuka? No, that's not okay. Of course considering what happened to her during the episode it's not so bad, they really do a good job of ruining her character completely, but still, no, Evangelion does NOT need an eyepatch girl...

... I need to watch something I'll like more...

The Twelve Kingdoms 15 - There we go, this was good. :) So that guy is actually a Kirin, huh? Interesting... I liked this episode, more backstory explaining the world, and an interesting plot too. If they were trying to keep you in suspense about what he actually was it didn't work, as it was pretty predictable, but still, overall, a good episode.

[A Black Falcon]

Have you seen Eva 2.anything yet?

A Channel 01 - Zzzz... yeah, that was about the most boring and generic thing around. Sure, it's got a little more (lesbian) romance than many of the shows it's ripping off, but on the other hand it isn't very funny and is often quite dull, so that doesn't exactly make up for it. Also, assaulting people just because they're too close to the girl you like isn't right, and this episode repeatedly plays the younger girl chasing people away with a baseball bat (happens twice in the episode) and ... doing things off camera ... with one of the object of her affection's friends' breasts (I think) off for laughs (happens three times in the episode)... not that funny. It's blandly watchable I guess, but it's very far from being good. Oh yeah, and the main girl is a complete idiot. I didn't have any hopes for this, and yeah, it's poor. I won't be watching much more of this.

Gosick 12 - No mystery this time. Instead it's the start of summer break, and the hero and Victorique are staying on campus for the summer while all the other students go off to their summer homes (reminding us that this is a school for the rich). So, instead of a mystery, we get some parts of the main character's backstory, showing some of his childhood (he was weak and his father often got angry at him for it, while his mother defended how he acted. He's also the youngest of four children, he has two older brothers and an older sister.) and lots of Victorique being cute. The latter point is clearly the main purpose of this episode -- Victorique being cute by getting stuck in a tree and refusing help until it's raining and he comes back for her (she jumps on him feet first, why not just do that sooner, you'd have been fine...), Victorique refusing to see him unless he has candy with him, so he almost goes on vacation with Avril and without her (until he thinks of her at the train station and decides to stay), etc... yeah, lots of Victorique being cute/probably somewhat tsundere. She does solve a riddle one of his older brothers sent in one of the packages the main character got from home (it takes her one second, I certainly would never get it that fast). At least at the end of the episode she admits that he's better at climbing trees than him and sort of says some words of encouragement.

Hen Zemi TV 01 - So that's how they made a TV version of this, by removing a lot of the more sexual content. It feels like a reboot (starting over for people who hadn't seen the OVAs) and was still amusing, but it's not as good as the OVAs are. The subjects were tamer -- upskirt shots, farting, and mild NTR (guy liking seeing his girlfriend and another guy hit on eachother); OVA 01 in contrast had a panty thief, full NTR (the guy getting off on 'secretly' watching his girlfriend and another guy have sex, while a third guy filmed them), etc. Also each of the OVAs had at least a scene or two in a bar, with the main character girl drinking; that doesn't happen here either. Instead they added gross-out stuff the OVAs didn't have, like the farting and flies stuff. I've never liked that kind of stuff in comedies, and that's part of why I like this less... it was alright though, parts were amusing and it's certainly still quite weird.

[A Black Falcon]

Softenni 01 - Group of four girls and their male coach fanservice-filled (tennis) comedy series. The setting's slightly different -- it's rural, and at least some of the characters live on farms, with cows and all. There's even a field with cows in it right next to the tennis court. Other than that though, expect lots of underwear shots and fantasy sexual references (the excuse for the latter being that the main character girl apparently has an active imagination). Parts of it are enteritaing, parts are dumb. The way the main character girl turns everything the coach says into sexual references gets annoying after a while... Still there were some amusing parts though, such as when the food-obsessed girl (who can't hit a tennis ball at all pretty much) manages to grab a rice ball out of the air with her teeth when the girl tossing the balls throws one of those instead.

The Twelve Kingdoms 16-18 - Long, slow sidestory arc, telling the backstory of the guy from ep. 15, a person from Earth who's actually a Kirin and is brought to the Twelve Kingdoms at age 10. Almost nothing happens most of the time and it's definitely on the dull side. It's not actually bad really, it's all done well and I mostly liked it, but this is a very, very slow part. This could have compressed all three of these into one episode I bet. But I guess they couldn't think of enough other stuff to fill out 50 episodes with, or something... oh well, it's alright, just not nearly like the story arc that came before it.

[A Black Falcon]

Madoka is apparently actually going to resume (with its last two episodes) soon... we'll see.

Also, I watched this, up to ep. 12 now. I'll post what I said about the earlier eps later sometime, once I find them; this one I can post now. But I should say, this is actually a pretty good show. It's just that this part of it is really messed up.

Cardcaptor Sakura 10-11 - GAH! Yeah, I knew it was coming (I'd seen these two episodes before, just not 5-9 before them), but finally I got to the bad part, the most disturbing thing about this series that I know of -- the relationship between Sakura's parents.

I mean, honestly, who thought that this was an idea that they should go with? It's so disturbing and messed up, what in the world were they thinking...

So, when he was a beginner highschool teacher (started as a highschool teacher, then moved up to college professor? Huh, I don't think it usually works that way... maybe once in a while I guess.), her father met her mother, Nadeshiko, who was a student at the school he taught at. She was at most 16 at the time, perhaps younger. She was a ditzy airhead bad at sports (yeah, Sakura's a much better character than her mother...), and fell out of a tree onto him. He responded by hitting on her, asking if she was an angel. They started dating sometime after that. Despicable behavior there from him.

Their relationship moved quickly, and they got married when she was 16. The next year, she had her first child. I mean, she has to have. They said that she died at age 27. Sakura (currently 9 or 10) was three when she died. That means Sakura was born when her mother was 24. Her older brother is a high school junior, seven years ahead of her in school. So, he's most likely seven years older than her, and thus was born when his mother was 17. The series mentions none of this of course, though.

Somehow, the fact that marrying and then impregnating a student in your school is illegal in, as far as I know, the entire first world doesn't even come up. Sure, she may have been of legal age to marry, but not when he's her teacher... but the show makes it VERY clear that they married while she was still a highschool student and he taught in that school. They brought lunches they'd eat together, etc -- it wasn't hidden. He should have gone to jail for that... okay, so this is Japan so maybe they wouldn't (maybe they would, I don't know, could go either way; such relationships are illegal in Japan, thoug, whether or not they'd prosecute it enough.), but at least he'd have been almost certainly fired, and probably have trouble getting another higher position like his current professorship, with that kind of history (and maybe criminal record).

But in the story, so Tomoyo's mother, who was Nadeshiko's cousin, liked her cousin (very much like how Tomoyo likes Sakura, some nice parallels there), and was very angry at him for taking Nadeshiko away from her like that. There was probably then a fallingout between the couple and her family. Then she died some years later, how they have not said. On that note Tomoyo's mother isn't a great character. She acts so, so childish most of the time, it's absurd... but, when asked what Sakura's father's biggest character flaw is, what does she say?

That he's perfect, that's what. Yeah.

All the show has to say about the age and teacher/student issues is "but they loved eachother, so it's okay!" The message is that Tomoyo's mother should forgive him for what he did and accept that her sister loved him and that what they did was fine, because it was love (Oh yeah, and she probably likes him too, as the "he's too perfect, that's his only problem" line implies.). NO. That is absolutely false, couldn't be much less true considering the actual situation... Who cares if you fell in love at first sight? She's 16 or less and your student. As I said, despicable.

Overall, that's so disturbing that it's kind of hard to believe someone would actually put a plotline like that in a modern anime aimed at children... I mean, a plotline like that in a late-night, otaku-centric series would be one thing (though heck, even Onegai Teacher, as horrible as it was, has the two of them having to keep their relationship a secret...), but in a series like this? Seriously?

And I mean, it'd have been so easy to avoid, too! Just have her be a couple of years older and not still his student and presto, still somewhat problematic, but not nearly to the degree that it is.

I mean, other than the relationships it's a very good show, but why did they have to make them so messed up...

[Great Rumbler]

You always pick up on the strangest things to rant about.

[A Black Falcon]

What, teachers marrying their students should be considered completely normal stuff, nothing wrong with that at all if they're in love?

[Great Rumbler]

I'd consider it a far lesser crime [within the context of narrative fiction] than the sorts of things that are gotten away with regularly in half of modern anime.

Also, it's funny because you always are able to take some minor plot point from a random episode of an anime series and turn it into some massive sociological rant.

[A Black Falcon]

It's not a minor plot point. It's the entire central focus of two episodes of the show. It makes a big deal about explaining the relationship, and then tearing down Tomoyo's mother's dislike for Sakura's father because of his incredible perfection, all while describing, with absolutely no negative tones ever used, how he hit on, married, and had a child with his own student. (They don't mention that last one, I will admit, you have to figure that out for yourself by subtraction, but saying that that relationship was a good and right one is the entire purpose of those two episodes, pretty much.)

As for the "far worse things" point, I think I addressed that by saying that if it was some late-night anime I would consider it more expected, but this is something for kids. There should be different standards... and even though in other ways they're often worse, certainly, on this specific point even those ones don't usually have open (everyone knows about it), entirely unpunished teacher-student marriages...

Clannad 01 - Hmm, is this main character a nice guy or kind of a jerk? He's not so nice to that male friend of his, but on the other hand that male friend is also sometimes an idiot, picking fights he always loses like that... Apart from that though, he's "generic harem nice guy main character #1". Apart from his deadbeat father, in ep. 1 he doesn't show much of an original personality, just generic "being kind to random girls for no apparent reason" harem protagonist stuff. Kanon and Air's protagonists did some of that, but both had more independent characters, the Air guy with his puppets and Yuuichi (Kanon) with how he kind of teases the girls sometimes, his dislike for the cold (in winter, in a snowy part of Japan), etc. And apart from that, generic wacky harem hyjinx. At least it was amusing. Few signs of the sadness and depression to come in ep. 1, though.

Also, there's way more action in this than in Air or Kanon. Those both have very little amounts of fighting, apart from specific sections of each series, but this had several generic anime fights right from the start. Trying to make this seem more like a normal harem show than Air or Kanon are or something, I guess, at the beginning? I don't think that's an improvement, quite the opposite. At least some of the characters are potentially interesting, as always with Key.

Clannad 02 - Yeah, the main character's pretty broken isn't he. His relationship with his father is really bad, the guy's usually a jobless drunk and even when he does sort of try his son just gets angry at him and flees the house.

During this episode this main character goes between broken, being a jerk, and being a generic harem protagonist. He covers all three at different points, it is a little odd. The generic harem comedy parts are decently done if generic, but that's most of the show so far, so I can't say much about the drama side.

[Great Rumbler]

Here's my season so far:

1. Tiger & Bunny
2. C
3. Hanasaku Iroha
4. Deadman Wonderland
5. A-Channel
6. Denpa Onna
7. SKET Dance
8. Nichijou

[A Black Falcon]

You mean just of TV series? Of what I've seen, hmm...

The order for the first two is tentative, 12 eps vs. 2+1 OVA isn't a fair comparison.
(good)
1. Nichijou (easily the best new show this season)
2. Gosick (it's 24-26 episodes, so it can count I think...)
(medium, will see)
3. Hanasaku Iroha
4. Dog Days
5. Softenni
(definitely poor so far)
6. Hen Zemi (the OVAs are quite a bit better than TV ep. 1)
7. A-Channel
(worst easily)
8. Sengoku Otome (Battle Maidens: Time Paradox)

Movies/OVAs
1. Nichijou OVA
2. Evangelion 2.22 (sorry, I have to punish it for what it does to Asuka...)
4. Hen Zemi OVAs 1-2 (2 is probably better than 1)
5. Bakatest OVAs 1-2 (the first one would go above #4, maybe, the second well below it)

[Great Rumbler]

I'm basically the opposite of you. I liked A-Channel, but found Nichijou really boring and too "1-minute gag scenes over and over".

[A Black Falcon]

A bunch of people (not everyone, but a bunch) at GAF also are calling Nichijou boring, and I don't get it at all... it's a great sketch comedy series in the vein of stuff like Azumanga Daioh, PaniPoni Dash, etc, but unique. It's quite funny, plenty of weird and interesting scenarios... :) Not everything works, sure, but a lot of it does.

Also, the war for "show of the season" mostly seems to be between Hanasaku Iroha and AnoHana (Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai). I haven't watched the latter yet though, but I will. My current choice is, as I said, Nichijou.

As for A-Channel, it's so, so tediously generic and uninteresting...

[Great Rumbler]

No, you're wrong about it being like Azumanga Daioh. See, what Azumanga Daioh did so well was taking a series of four-panel gags and weaving them together and fleshing them out so that it provided a seamless 22 minutes of characters, jokes, and story. Nichijou constantly jumped around from one scene to the next, often without any seeming connection between them.

[Great Rumbler]

Steins;Gate episodes 1 and 2

Interesting show. Lots of technobabble, which I have nothing against, and lots of quirky characters too. I'll certainly be watching more of this. Not really a lot else to say, really, since the show doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sure if fun to watch though.

Ano Hi Mita

Not at all what I was expecting from the brief synopsis, but it's a very pleasant surprise. The first few minutes were a bit shaky, but it gets much better as things start to become explained and you realize what the show is actually about. Definitely a nice change from the kinds of high school aged protagonists shows that we usually get.

1. Tiger & Bunny
2. C
3. Ano Hit Mita
4. Hanasaku Iroha
5. Steins;Gate
6. Deadman Wonderland
7. A-Channel
8. Denpa Onna
9. SKET Dance
10. Nichijou

[A Black Falcon]

The Twelve Kingdoms 20-22 - This (19-22) was the worst disc of this series by far, so far... ugh.

20 - Finally, the end of Taiki's story! No real ending here though, just an "and his troubles continued, and somehow bad stuff happened, and he's still in Earth and doesn't know it". Do they ever actually resolve this, if it doesn't return full time to his story? They had plenty of time, but decide to make his arc glacially slow instead of actually keeping up any kind of pace, so instead of actually getting through it they only get partway and then quit... great.

21 - What, it's not over? Oh, a RECAP episode? Of Taiki's arc? Who thought THAT was a good idea? Beginning-of-episode recaps are one thing, but an entire episode that is a recap, mixed with a few bits of new info so I couldn't just skip the whole thing... THIS is a recap that I agree with you about really disliking. Awful, just awful.

22 - So we finally return to Youko's story! Great! But wait, nothing happens in this episode. Instead it's about Youko and her troubles with being a queen now in a world she doesn't understand, and the mouse guy's troubles at scholar school. Very slow episode and nothing happens. Amazingly enough I think episode 19 was actually the best one on this disc, and that's saying something... There were some good things about this episode, it sets some backstory and provides more information about the world, but this series is just so uninteresting sometimes when nothing happens for so long... there are good shows where nothing happens and it works well, but this isn't one of them.

As for the actual plot though, not surprised to see Youko and her ministers having issues. On that note, this episode did a good job of making me dislike monarchies (though of course I did already). In my opinion they need a revolution, democracy > monarchy! :)

[Great Rumbler]

Denpa Onna

It's basically a classic harem set up, complete with a bevy of cute girls for the main character to be loved by. Of course, it's Shaft and Shinbo, so obviously there's going to more going on that that. What really makes this work is that it's just so delightfully weird. All female characters are totally cute [big surprise!], but each one is just a bit...off. Although they fall into established archetypes, they each have an additional aspect of their personality that runs totally counter to the way that harem shows generally do their female characters. Two episodes in, it works. There's also the fact that the male character isn't totally bland and clueless, he has a bit of genre knowledge and has some role in the show other than to simply be a blank slate for the audience. An overall lack of ecchi-ness also helps.

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, a review of something new(ish)!
Dog Days 02 - :lol So awesome, this show is so bad. I'll be watching this for sure, for a while at least. :) It's awful harem junk, but it's right in that "amusingly bad" niche. Full of generic harem stereotypes, some humor that shows that the creators have some understanding of how stupid this is, the announcer calling our hero stupid, for instance, after it was shown on video how he accidentally hit his ally instead of the enemy, which did a hit which later destroyed her clothes... yeah, harem main characters usually do things like that, but it's not usually then shown on screen for all to see while an announcer calls the guy dumb. :) Also, (Princess) Leonmichele is amusing, and kind of awesome. So will there be a new, third threat that gets the cats and dogs to work together or something, or will the girls in this show stay on opposing sides? (Dogs are bad, he should switch sides. :))

So he can't return home, huh? Now we have a plot, he's got a few weeks to figure out how to get back...

Oh, and I do like that they gave an actual reason for some of his abilities -- he's a gymnast. That doesn't explain his fighting skill really, of course, but at least they actually explained his crazy athletic and jumping ability.

Nichijou 03 - Most of it was pretty funny, but by the arm-wrestling part I was starting to get a little tired of that part (Yukko v. Mai)... still though, when she pulled out that broccoli, earlier on? Hilarious. I laughed for a while at that one. :D

Also, so Hakase is eight (and the robot one). Is she actually a professor, or does her robot just call her that? Seeing Sakamoto's backstory was nice, though. Kitties are cute. The part where he allowed them to pet his belly without complaint, though? Yeah, cats are probably going to claw you when you try that...

(something older)
Galaxy Angel 01-02 - What, this generic and average looking sci-fi comedy show is indeed generic and average? I'm shocked! Meh, it's dumb, but entertaining enough to watch I guess. That girl's luck is pretty sillily good. I mean, bullets never hitting the goodguys is common, but an asteroid hitting the casino right as the casino owner cheated again to beat them, wrecking the place and causing them to win instead? Yes, it happens. :)

[Great Rumbler]

Episode 2 of Galaxy Angel was great, too bad the rest of the show wasn't so much.

[A Black Falcon]

So the casino episode's the high point? Too bad... it was amusing though, I agree. :)

[Great Rumbler]

I watched about 8 episode of the first season. It was okay, but that episode was definitely the high point.

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

Softenni 02 - Losing no time reminding us why this show exists, are they... is there even more fanservice in this episode than the first one? Plus, this episode, lots of "girls x tennis teacher" suggesting, just great! Make it go away. The censoring's pretty random too, a few pantyshots are censored while plenty of others aren't. Odd. This show's pretty bad, doubt I'll be watching for much longer (might drop it now). Even just finishing this episode was a chore.

I didn't know that soft tennis was a real sport in Japan, though (separate from normal tennis itself, I mean). Huh.


Hen Zemi TV 02 - Bad and somewhat creepy, this is pretty bad compared to the OVAs. They're keeping it up with the gross stuff, and I don't want to watch that.

[Great Rumbler]

Moving Steins;Gate to the top of my Spring 2011 list. Yep, it really is that good. Lots of weird characters, lots of weird technology and technobabble. Really solid writing too. Unless it flames out before the end, I could see it becoming a favorite of mine.

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

Moshidora (the show about the female highschool baseball team manager using Drucker's Management book as a guide for how to run the team) 01 - Noo! Bill Buckner, why are you now in a Japanese high school?

Other than that, applying business management to baseball is pretty odd, I assume the series exists as much to push knowledge of that stuff than anything else... but while decent, this isn't exactly the business management equivalent of what Spice and Wolf was to economics. This seems more blatant about that focus for one thing, and isn't as interesting either. But decent? Yeah, sure, it's okay. I'll probably watch some more of it at least.

[A Black Falcon]

[Great Rumbler]

This season of anime has probably been one of the best in years. There's Tiger & Bunny for superhero bromance action, Steins;Gate for weird characters and conspiracy laden technobabble, [C] for over-the-top battles with money and general weirdness, Ano Hi Mita for tear-jerking childhood drama/trauma, Hanasaku Iroha for strict, early-Showa period grandmothers, Deadman Wonderland for Deathrace 2000 in anime form, Denpa Onna for Shaft/Shinbo weirdness, Toriko for the manly eating of endangered animals, and Moshidora for Peter Drucker spinning in his grave like a helicopter.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, I agree, it is a pretty good season.

Hen Zemi TV 03 - Best episode of the TV series yet. It's still weak and uninteresting compared to the OVAs, but at least this one wasn't as bad as the first two, and had some amusing moments. A new character is introduced.

Lotte no Omocha! 01 - Adorable and sweet, about as expected. Pretty decent. I will watch more.

[Great Rumbler]

Denpa Onna Episode 3

The course of the show's plot starts to become a bit more obvious here and I'm getting interesting in seeing how it all works out. I think there's still very much a question going on about Erio's past that's not quite as simple as "she believe's she's an alien to cover her insecurities about her lost memory", although I'm not quite willing to believe that that actually means she IS an alien. Either way, it's a fun show and a unique take on a worn formula.

A-Channel Episode 4

More of the same kind of thing, but I do like the musical interludes that started with the previous episode and have continue here. Provides a nice break from the gag-anime stylings that are present everywhere else. Overall, it's pretty cliche, yeah, but I still enjoy it [though mostly as a guilty pleasure, it's not one of this season's shows that I'd recommend to others].

Moshidora - Episode 4

While the problems of the show are solved a bit too quickly and some of the situations and resolutions are a bit too...unrealistic, it's nevertheless an interesting take on the "down on it's luck baseball team improves through radical thinking". I like watching the show and seeing how Drucker's management tactics are applied to a distinctly different setting than they were originally intended.

High school student council anime based on the writings of Machiavelli? Yes, please, Production IG!

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

Gosick 13 - Another great episode from one of this year's better animes! This episode starts a new arc, about Kujo, Victorique, and the philosopher's stone. Or rather, an alchemist who claimed to create gold and blue roses with said stone, and who also is a murderer still killing even decades after his death. Victorique will have to unravel the mystery. It's a good setup, and I have no idea where this is going to go, as far as the mystery goes... it was definitely a good episode both in terms of plot and the new story arc.

The sidestory, of Avril being jealous of Kujo's feelings for Victorique even though she hasn't met Victorique herself, is just okay, but the main story's good. They explore a dilapidated clock tower, which is still running despite not being in good condition. A man is murdered. That alchemist's book just happens to get Victorique's attention. And from there the mystery is on... it promises to be a good arc, maybe the best one yet set on or near the school campus? :)

Oh, there's a new ED animation, and maybe OP too, for the midpoint of the show I assume. Gosick really has very good art direction, in this episode the clock tower in particular has a great, appropriately creepy look to it. There was also a lot of darkness in this episode, which fits the tone well. Very good series.

[A Black Falcon]

[Great Rumbler]

A-Channel doesn't have any more fanservice than Lucky Star did, which is to say that outside of maybe one or two scenes in particular there's really not much at all.

A bit off tangent, but much of the problem with fanserive in modern anime is the way such things are presented [essentially, panty shots and cleavage and whatnot are shoved as close to the viewer as possible and given as much detail as possible]. A-Channel, and Lucky Star, don't present what little fanservice there is in such a manner, thankfully.

[A Black Falcon]

No way, Lucky Star had some bits of humor like that, but nothing with that much stuff of that kind all in one episode... plus, Lucky Star is actually funny, and not boring.


Nichijou 04 - The first 80% or so of this episode was fantastic and I was thinking that it should indeed stay in its top spot as best anime of the season, but the last sketch, yet another "Mai trolls idiot girl" one, brought it down a little -- there are simply too many of those. Some of that is amusing, too much gets old.

Other than that though, this was a fantastic episode full of great jokes. I loved it. So many funny things in this episode...

[Great Rumbler]

No way, Lucky Star had some bits of humor like that, but nothing with that much stuff of that kind all in one episode... plus, Lucky Star is actually funny, and not boring.

There was like an entire episode of Lucky Star with the girls at a bath house.

[A Black Falcon]

Sure, but it didn't have no-panties jokes where one of the girls forgets to wear any and then exposes herself to another one, and bath scenes in the same episode, with touching to be mean (because of the girl jealous of the other girl's larger breasts), etc.

I'll agree that that show had fanservice too, there, but Lucky Star didn't have as much as you might expect; I think A-Channel's shaping up to certainly be more focused on fanservice. That bath scene in Lucky Star wasn't in the second episode, for instance...


Lotte's Toy 03 - so cute... also, his daughter is pretty good at being decisive. Good for her, mostly.

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

[Great Rumbler]

Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san

Blew through four episodes yesterday and went from "I don't know what this show is" to "ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMG SO GOOD". It's absolutely hilarious.

[Great Rumbler]

Sket Dance Episode 2 and 3

First episode was okay, nothing really that great, but the second and third episode were much better. 2nd episode was a lot funnier and had better situations for the group to get in and the 3rd episode presented a nice bit of drama to give the characters a bit more...ahem...character. Nothing really mind-blowing, but both episodes were enough to elevate it a little bit in my mind. I was close to dropping it, but I'm willing to watch some more to see how things go.

Enma-kun Episode 2-4

One of the two demons-doing-funny-stuff shows this season. It's not as good as Azazel-san, but still has some pretty funny moments in it, and some decent action scenes. If you know anything about Go Nagai, you know pretty much what to expect content-wise. In that respect, Enma-kun certainly doesn't disappoint. There's plenty of disturbingly sexual scenes, scantily glad girls and women, and tons of sexual humor. Somehow, though, it manages to not quite cross the line from "funny sexual" to "creepy, off-putting sexual", but that line is incredibly narrow and Enma-kun often rides very, very close to the line.

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

Twelve Kingdoms 24-26 - Okay episodes, but this series continues being somewhat uncomfortable to watch. I don't like how long it keeps the suspense going before it finally allows anything to happen, I can't take it and just want to know what's going to happen but in this show it's likely that it'll be way too long until it'll tell me. Not fun.

As for the plot, Youko is the main character but there are also bits about the stories of two other female characters we've seen some of before, the former princess Shouhei from ep. 23 and a Japanese girl who got caught in a storm and pulled to the Twelve Kingdoms a century ago and is now a servant at a quite nasty woman's palace. She's immortal and can understand their speech thanks to the servant contract, but hates her mistress and is miserable. Understandable, with the not very nice stuff the mistress makes her servants do.

Youko's story is the best of these three by far, so far. She's the queen now of course, but she's having a tough time with learning how to be queen of a fantasy kingdom. That makes sense, how many modern-day high schoolers would be able to cope with suddenly being tossed into a very strange fantasy world and abruptly made their ruler? It's kind of absurd to expect her to be able to get it all without problems, she just doesn't know how this world works and nor would anyone. I'm not sure exactly what's going on yet, entirely, because the show's keeping it hidden, but there is obviously a conspiracy. Probably several conspiracies. So far one has been revealed, in part; it remains to be seen if these people really were evil, I'm not sure, but I guess they were conspiring against her. The question is why, is that lord who escaped behind it or is it deeper? I expect there to be multiple conspiracies soon. Youko's doing what she can and she's doing a decent job of it, but it's really hard for someone to be tossed into a tough job like that, particularly when they know nothing about how this world works. I'm sure she will figure out things better as the series continues, she's smart enough. But yeah, it's an interesting story of conspiracies and Youko learning about how the kingdom works and how she should run it. This part was the best side of these episodes.

As for Shouhei, she's a serious pain. Sure, up to this point all she'd ever done was been cute and danced and stuff, without another thought in her head, and now she has to suffer and deal with being mortal, but seriously, I do think that she should be more able to rationally think about what people are saying about the things her parents did. She hears the innumerable horriffic stories of their crimes, but she somehow manages to mostly ignore them and just keeps defending his actions. Sure, she was sheltered in the palace and not allowed out, but now that the truth has been revealed to her, that she continues to be in denial and defend them is awful! Even if it's sad and hard to take, the truth is the truth, and she's not just denying it, she's making false, stupid accusations on others in her attempts to cling on to the lies her parents told them about what she was doing.

I can understand her bitterness at suddenly being mortal now and having to work instead of living in the palace, but her awful attitude, defense of her father's actions, etc. make her very, very hard to take. That Kei guy was being pretty admirable when he ignored her numerous stupid insults and just banished her, instead of having her killed like almost everyone else in the country wants...

[Great Rumbler]

Here's my watching list/ranking:

1. Steins;Gate [technobabble-laden conspiracy theories, love it]
2. Tiger & Bunny [bromance action, can't go wrong with that]
3. C [noitaminA doesn't disappoint often and this looks to continue that trend]
4. Ano Hi Mita [see above]
5. Azazel-san [almost passed this one up, but the first 4 episodes were hysterical]
6. Deadman Wonderland [Fun, but kind of annoying at times, will see how it goes in next few episodes]
7. A-Channel [huge guilty pleasure, wouldn't really recommend it to others]
8. Denpa Onna [Shaft+Shinbo is always a good combination]
9. Hanasaku Iroha [kind of wavering on this one, it might drop depending on next few episodes]
10. Enma-kun [not as good as Azazel-san but still funny, also almost missed this one]
11. Moshidora [Kind of boring/generic, but I like seeing how Drucker's techniques are applied to baseball]
12. SKET Dance [almost dropped after 1st episode, but 2 and 3 brought me back]

That's a dozen shows that I am watching this season and even the show at the bottom of my list is still a pretty good watch. There have been some recent seasons where I've only watched 2-3 shows.

[A Black Falcon]

I'm watching like one or two of those shows. :)

(Not saying I wouldn't like all of them, I just haven't cared enough to look them up.)

In addition to the below I did also watch AnoHana 04 today; I'll write about that one later.

Sengoku Otome (Battle Girls) 02 - This was better than episode 1, I thought. I almost dropped the series after ep. 1 because of how bad it was, but now I think I'll continue... The main character is still annoyingly stupid and mostly useless, but I liked a few things about this episode and found it moderately entertaining.

First, the main character girl (she is, remember, a complete moron) starts out sleepy, and looks for her toothbrush before remembering where she is. Then she complains that the only clothing she has is her school uniform and school gym uniform; she wants other clothing, apparently. This has got to be one of the first times in a "girl pulled into a fantasy world" anime that I've seen the main character complain about only having a school uniform, and want other clothing... good stuff.

She goes with Nobunaga and underling to look at the nearby village, which was destroyed in the fire in ep. 1. The women there are picking up what they can of the rubble of their houses. The main character tries to inspire them by playing a song on her cellphone (she also checks for reception several times in the episode... see my above comment about her being an idiot. And I wonder how long those batteries are going to last...). Nobunaga likes that she inspired the peasants. Underling woman is angry.

Also, she asks the talking dog for an explanation of why (among humans) there are only women in this world. He claims that there are indeed no males here, and that children are found in places like where they are in classic stories -- in bamboo shoots, floating down the river, etc. Who knows if he's telling the truth, but it is kind of amusing if true. :)

After that, the angry woman who's Nobunaga's underling challenges our heroine to a set of matches testing her combat skills. She loses, badly -- no super awesome all-around combat skills here. She does do a little better in the last round, the fight with staffs, by using a move she saw on a TV martial arts show she used to watch, but still loses.

Hyuge Mono 01 - Pretty good show! I will definitely be continuing with this series. It's got fairly decent historical accuracy, Sengoku combat, Nobunaga being a good leader and also a jerk, a guy obsessed with tea, and more. The main character's faces when thinking about tea, and that special teapot, were pretty awesome... he's an interesting lead. :) Solid plot too. This is good, I'd been meaning to watch it for a while and it's good that I finally did.

[Great Rumbler]

You're basically watching all the shows that I passed over after one very brief glance. Dogs Days, Sengoku Otome, Aria the Scarlet Ammo, Lotte's Toy, Hen Zemi, Softenni...just got no interest at all, not one bit. Maybe if I was bored and there weren't a dozen other shows that were infinitely better, I might check out an episode or two. MAYBE.