19th August 2014, 11:58 AM
This season so far (the numbers are the episodes I've seen so far, of course) --
Hana Yamata 1-4 - This is a drama/shoujo-ai series about girls in school who form a Yosukoi (traditional Japanese dance form) team. The main character is an extremely shy girl (she's also a fan of fairy tales) who gets dragged out of her shell by a foreign girl who is an enthusiastic fan of Yosukoi, and wants to set up a team while she's in Japan. So far though, it's mostly about the problems that have kept them from getting started -- only two girls are in the team and no one else wants to join, the student council president is making things difficult for them, the other two interested girls have issues, etc. So yeah, lots of drama, to a somewhat annoying degree. Still, this is a decent series and I will keep watching it. I just hope that they can actually get the other girls to finally join the club soon! Four episodes in, and there are still only two of them, dealing with constant opposition... argh. The MC's two friends need to admit that they want to join the club already! Ep. 4 seemed to set up one of them as working through her problems, so I hope that the next episode moves that forward. Then they can work on that student council president, who the OP shows as part of the team.
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun 1-3 - This is a shoujo I presume. The main character is a somewhat generic girl, but she's too shy to confess to the guy she likes, so instead she says "I'm your fan", and he turns out to actually be a shoujo manga author (using a female pseudonym I believe). So she ends up being an assistant, filling in black areas in his manga. The series is about them and the other somewhat crazy characters in their school. It's amusing, most of the time, but I didn't like some of the themes in episode 3 (the new "prince" girl and the guy who likes her, I don't like how he treats her), so I don't know if I'll stick with this or not. It got off to a decent start though, and definitely is funny sometimes; it is a comedy first, potential romance second.
Himegoto 1-6 - This is a 3-minute anime about a crossdressing boy who is being forced to crossdress (and join the student council) by the three girls who are the rest of the student council. It's usually amusing, as are the mangas. I wish that this show had more than two or three minutes per episode, because it's entertaining. Of course the crossdressing guy is more feminine than the actual girls... :p
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal 1-4 - This is a remake of the first season of Sailor Moon, supposedly more based on the manga this time. I haven't read the manga, so I wouldn't know, but it's definitely a lot like the original first season of the anime... but with some changes here and there. Perhaps most obviously so far, Rei is indeed different from how she was in the original anime; this Rei seems a bit less interesting, I miss the tsundere one from the original series. Ah well. Otherwise, well, it's Sailor Moon, except with the transformation scenes in painfully mediocre CG this time. I'm not a fan, of course -- never liked Sailor Moon much -- but it's moderately amusing.
Momo Kyun Sword 1-5 - This is a fanservice series. It's set in fantasy ancient Japan, and is a retelling of the classic Momotarou story, except with a girl lead character and lots of fanservice. Well, at least it's not a harem show, that's a big plus! Momo is the main character, not some guy. There is also a evil princess rival girl who Momo regularly fights with, and various other generic monster villains, as both sides try to collect all of the pieces of the thing which shattered and was scattered all over Japan. Also, Momo's three animal companions (a monkey, pheasant, and dog, of course, as per the original story) can merge with her, to turn her into enhanced forms for better fighting ability. Yeah, it's not exactly original, but it's mostly entertaining in that fanservice action anime way. Nothing too bad here either, thankfully. On that note...
Majimoji Roromu 1-2 - THIS is bad. BAD BAD BAD, and I have most definitely dropped it. I only watched episode 2 to see how awful it really would be, and yeah, it was terrible. This show goes down the list of some of the worst TV anime tropes. So, the main character is a Nice Pervert, and also a massive White Knight of course. The main girl is a Naive Actually Hundreds Of Years Old Pseudo-loli Witch. Because of the stupid goingson of episode one, she lost her powers, and can only use them when he says so byu using a ticket from this book of tickets. If he gets through them all she gets her powers back, but this will supposedly kill him, so he tries not to... but because of how he's a white knight, of course he can't resist protecting her through ticket use, etc. I imagine in the end he'll use up all the tickets but not die, but I will most defi8nitely not be watching to see, this is a horrendously unpleasant thing to watch. Of course part of the problem is that I greatly dislike the lolicon thing as a concept regardless of how old the show "actually makes the character", but the main characters' behavior is probably even worse. This guy is the most frustratingly awful protagonist in an anime I actually watched since... I don't know what, maybe Maken-ki?
Hana Yamata 1-4 - This is a drama/shoujo-ai series about girls in school who form a Yosukoi (traditional Japanese dance form) team. The main character is an extremely shy girl (she's also a fan of fairy tales) who gets dragged out of her shell by a foreign girl who is an enthusiastic fan of Yosukoi, and wants to set up a team while she's in Japan. So far though, it's mostly about the problems that have kept them from getting started -- only two girls are in the team and no one else wants to join, the student council president is making things difficult for them, the other two interested girls have issues, etc. So yeah, lots of drama, to a somewhat annoying degree. Still, this is a decent series and I will keep watching it. I just hope that they can actually get the other girls to finally join the club soon! Four episodes in, and there are still only two of them, dealing with constant opposition... argh. The MC's two friends need to admit that they want to join the club already! Ep. 4 seemed to set up one of them as working through her problems, so I hope that the next episode moves that forward. Then they can work on that student council president, who the OP shows as part of the team.
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun 1-3 - This is a shoujo I presume. The main character is a somewhat generic girl, but she's too shy to confess to the guy she likes, so instead she says "I'm your fan", and he turns out to actually be a shoujo manga author (using a female pseudonym I believe). So she ends up being an assistant, filling in black areas in his manga. The series is about them and the other somewhat crazy characters in their school. It's amusing, most of the time, but I didn't like some of the themes in episode 3 (the new "prince" girl and the guy who likes her, I don't like how he treats her), so I don't know if I'll stick with this or not. It got off to a decent start though, and definitely is funny sometimes; it is a comedy first, potential romance second.
Himegoto 1-6 - This is a 3-minute anime about a crossdressing boy who is being forced to crossdress (and join the student council) by the three girls who are the rest of the student council. It's usually amusing, as are the mangas. I wish that this show had more than two or three minutes per episode, because it's entertaining. Of course the crossdressing guy is more feminine than the actual girls... :p
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal 1-4 - This is a remake of the first season of Sailor Moon, supposedly more based on the manga this time. I haven't read the manga, so I wouldn't know, but it's definitely a lot like the original first season of the anime... but with some changes here and there. Perhaps most obviously so far, Rei is indeed different from how she was in the original anime; this Rei seems a bit less interesting, I miss the tsundere one from the original series. Ah well. Otherwise, well, it's Sailor Moon, except with the transformation scenes in painfully mediocre CG this time. I'm not a fan, of course -- never liked Sailor Moon much -- but it's moderately amusing.
Momo Kyun Sword 1-5 - This is a fanservice series. It's set in fantasy ancient Japan, and is a retelling of the classic Momotarou story, except with a girl lead character and lots of fanservice. Well, at least it's not a harem show, that's a big plus! Momo is the main character, not some guy. There is also a evil princess rival girl who Momo regularly fights with, and various other generic monster villains, as both sides try to collect all of the pieces of the thing which shattered and was scattered all over Japan. Also, Momo's three animal companions (a monkey, pheasant, and dog, of course, as per the original story) can merge with her, to turn her into enhanced forms for better fighting ability. Yeah, it's not exactly original, but it's mostly entertaining in that fanservice action anime way. Nothing too bad here either, thankfully. On that note...
Majimoji Roromu 1-2 - THIS is bad. BAD BAD BAD, and I have most definitely dropped it. I only watched episode 2 to see how awful it really would be, and yeah, it was terrible. This show goes down the list of some of the worst TV anime tropes. So, the main character is a Nice Pervert, and also a massive White Knight of course. The main girl is a Naive Actually Hundreds Of Years Old Pseudo-loli Witch. Because of the stupid goingson of episode one, she lost her powers, and can only use them when he says so byu using a ticket from this book of tickets. If he gets through them all she gets her powers back, but this will supposedly kill him, so he tries not to... but because of how he's a white knight, of course he can't resist protecting her through ticket use, etc. I imagine in the end he'll use up all the tickets but not die, but I will most defi8nitely not be watching to see, this is a horrendously unpleasant thing to watch. Of course part of the problem is that I greatly dislike the lolicon thing as a concept regardless of how old the show "actually makes the character", but the main characters' behavior is probably even worse. This guy is the most frustratingly awful protagonist in an anime I actually watched since... I don't know what, maybe Maken-ki?