Little Busters Refrain
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a high schooler.
Yes! Yes! Now this is much more like it! This is what I’ve been waiting for. You know, for as bad as Little Busters was at times, there was one thing that it always did really well: friendship. It sounds cheesy, but it managed to create this tight group of friends who spend their high school days together and have a really tight emotional bond with each other, and this time it’s a reasonably sized one, rather than the usual four or five that you see everywhere. That point was used really well in this first episode of Refrain, as it had a bit of silliness and drama that played off it surprisingly well. There are bad characters. Good lord, there are bad characters. But thankfully we’re all done with their arcs now and we can start to focus on the good ones now.
OP: Lots and lots of hints that things are gonna end bad.
ED: The entire episode was chock full of hints that things were going downhill. So why such a cheerful ED here? It’s not even a good song.
Potential: 80%
Phi Brain Season 3
Short Synopsis: Our lead character solves puzzles.
I’m not going to deny: I thought this episode was awesome. It’s finally done something that it should have done long ago in its second season, but never got around to: focus on Jin, Kaitou’s mentor, who was one of the most interesting characters of the first season. Finally they’re taking his development further, and it seems like he will be a central character in this third season, as opposed to being completely nonexistent in the second. Like the second season, this start again was quite strong with great character-designs and atmosphere, plus the characters work together really well again. HOWEVER, I KNOW THIS SERIES. Please, Phi Brain: make good use of your time for once. The first season was excused to experiment a bit, but not anymore. Actually spend your time well developing your characters, and make the conflict worthwile. Don’t use such a stupid motivation in which characters just can’t think straight. It’s very unusual for a show of your caliber to get so many episodes. Now actually use them!
OP: Very polished. Perhaps not as good as the first OP, but still works quite well.
ED: The song is a bit too bright and cheerful here…
Potential: 75%
Meganebu
Short Synopsis: Our lead character wears glasses.
“Well, there are a ton of different series coming out today, so let me just quickly watch this random bishie show and get things over with so that I can focus on other stuff… holy crap what the hell am I watching?!” – Seriously, just the title “Meganebu”, or glasses club, is not enough to prepare you for what this series is. This isn’t just a series about a bunch of guys who started a club about glasses. This is about a bunch of morons whose entire universe revolves around the damn things. It’s incredibly camp and ridiculously cheesy, not to mention completely pointless. This show is bonkers, of the kind of “so bad it’s good”. Also for some reason it has very creative camera angles.
ED: Lots of cheese and bright colours.
Potential: 20%
As for Phi Brain s3, my only fear is that it’ll become the exact copy-paste of the first two seasons, only with different cast, and Raetsel as another Rook/Freecell… let’s hope it doesn’t happen, though and they’ll come up with some new and fresh ideas.