Summer 2011 Anime

[Great Rumbler]

Mardock Scramble

Nothing cleanses the palette quite like some dark, serious, intelligent, cyberpunk scifi, which is exactly what Mardock Scramble is. It remind me of the old OVAs from 80's, short and to the point with lots of nudity and violence along the way. But it does this in a way that doesn't feel like its unnecessary or pandering, by virtue of taking it's plot very seriously and dealing with some pretty heavy issues. Animation-wise it looks great, barring some CG here and there that's a bit jarring. Stylistically it's dark, dark, dark, but that fits quite well. My only complaint is that is needed to have been twice as long [60 minutes just isn't enough] and it ends on a huge cliffhanger. The second movie came out last month in Japan, so hopefully an R1 DVD isn't too far away.

It does a nice job of feeling the void left by the unfortunate absence of new Ghost in the Shell in recent years.

[A Black Falcon]

Ben-to is great, yeah. That and Last Exile are the best shows so far this season. Maken-ki is the worst. The others I'm watching are in between (Horizon is pretty bad in some ways but interesting in others, Majikoi generic harem action but sometimes amusing).

[Great Rumbler]

Guilty Crown is basically a challenge from the producer to see how much garbage you'll willing to put up with if they pair it with great animation, thoughtful worldbuilding, and an interesting conflict between idealistic terrorists and a super-corrupt government. All that sounds pretty awesome and it is. Here's where the garbage comes in. The main character? Bland, boring, annoying. He's cut from the same cloth as Shinji Ikari, but without the deep psychological wounds to make things interesting. He pairs up with a girl who barely wears any clothes and shoots weapons out of her chest, also she's cut from the same cloth as Rei Ayanami [emotionless, falls in love with boring main character for no discernible reason]. The main guys gets some crazy powers and destroys the bad guys. Then the show throws in lots of cheap fanservice sandwiched between scenes of innocent civilians being gunned down like animals. There's also an excitable loli who wears a skintight bodysuit and is the subject of 50% of the cheap fanservice [gotta bring in those otaku dollars!]. For good measure, they also throw in the bog standard insane villain who loves killing people because it's fun and it just plain evil for evil's sake, don't need any logic or reasoning here nope! Also, the end of episode 2 is absolutely dreadful: main guy gives up his life of heroism to go back to being a bland loser in school BUT OH WAIT the one girl transfers to his school! GUFFAW!!!

The really bad thing is that this is one of the noitaminA shows and it's produced by Production IG.

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Maken-Ki 6 - There are two reasons to watch this show.
1. You want to make yourself suffer.
2. You like pantyshot-heavy animes with annoying jerk MCs.

... I'm not in category 2, so I guess category 1 it is...

Anyway, in this episode, we learn about the not-so-tragic past of the girl who calls herself his fiancee. (First - it's raining through most of this episode, and the flashback too.) Apparently, they met once before when they were children (she was already doing martial arts then, her father owns a dojo or something), and during the conversation she ended up saying she wanted to marry him, and he responded with something like 'sure, and I'll get stronger too." He's forgotten, but she won't tell him about it; instead, she wants him to remember, even though he doesn't. Oh, and naturally, she's mad at him for not remembering, as if people all remember things they said when they were five. ... Yeah, we need a :rolleyes for that one...

Anyway, after leaving her alone, because she told him to, a while after getting home the MC is convinced by the other two girls to go out and look for her, because they're worried. Of course they don't bother going though, just him, because this show is stupid/sexist like that. She's fine of course, but he does manage to save a cat that she had found, but had run away from her, from falling rocks with his powers, before almost getting crushed himself, and she saves him.

In conclusion, another moronic and awful episode in this season's worst show. ... So why am I watching anyway? Apart from what I said at the beginning, also at least it's not depressing... way too much anime is too sad.

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Seitokai Yakuindomo 11 - 12 - :lol, this show is such good stuff... :) It just stays consistently funny, in every episode. Yeah, as I said last time jokes repeat, but overall it works really well. This show isn't as good as 2011's best comedy series (Nichijou), but it is very good.

There are some more suggestions of romance in this anime than in the manga, but it's still a small part of the show, heavily overshadowed by other stuff, which was good; romance isn't what this show is about.

As for the contents of these episodes, in ep. 12 the MC's sister passes her entrance exam and gets into Seitokai Yakuindomo (the school). That was pretty funny stuff, that interview... her and the horrible teacher get along perfectly! :lol

[Great Rumbler]

Almost finished up Mawaru Pengruindrum, just two episodes to go. It's been an insane ride and I can't help but feel that the ending is going to be just as insane, if not more so.

[A Black Falcon]

Seitokai Yakuindomo 13 - The last episode already... :( This episode isn't like the rest though, and honestly I don't think the change was entirely a good idea. Instead of being more jokes based on the manga, this chapter is mostly new, particularly in the second half, which is half a recap episode, half a fourth wall ignoring sequence. It felt like they were going for something from a random comedy show, not what this show usually does, and while it was kind of funny, overall, the way the show usually is is definitely better than this.

There are a bunch of random little bits, like a "promo" for a generic-looking magical girl show, "credits" from some romance anime or something starring the MC's sister, that aforementioned "recap episode", etc. The alst of those is the funniest -- it was annoying at first, I mean, do we REALLY need recaps in a show this short, but partway through it goes off the rails and starts being new random bits, which was amusing. Still, the show's better than this other times, when it's doing the kinds of humor it usually does. Those may repeat, sure, but they're funnier than this episode is even so.

Oh, the first half of this episode was probably better than the second half, that "credits" sequence at the end aside. Before then there were some more expected, typical SYD jokes. And on that note, I've got to say that I like the OP. It's interesting how they tried to make it sound like a school song, and not just a generic anime OP; decent concept there, and it's a good OP too.

So yeah, overall, season one of Seitokai Yakuindomo was great. The last episode wasn't entirely successful, but the first twelve were great fun. I'm hoping the two OVAs (both from this year) are good... I'll watch them soon. :)

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]