Star Driver
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the legendary pretty boy.
Hell yeah! This is the series I’ve been looking forward to the most this season, and it does not disappoint. It’s a bit silly and nonsensical, but it really turned those would-be flaws into a really charming series, full of neat ideas, homages and a diverse cast of characters. You can really see the influences of the guy who wrote Utena, and at the same time this series packs enough new stuff with a delightfully refreshing and upbeat mecha series. The direction is also excellent, and makes optimal use of its time, the characters and really manages to make their charms stand out as much as possible. And the animation! Without a doubt the best of the season so far. Characters move very smoothly, and the show is chock full of interesting poses, and especially the mecha fight in this episode looked absolutely gorgeous. This episode was stylish, adorable and while the story may not make the most amount of sense, that really doesn’t matter in the big picture here.
OP: Great to see an OP with some actual visual inspiration, rather than doing what every other OP is already doing.
ED: Neat animation, though that pop song is rather generic.
Potential: 90%
Yumeiro Patissiere
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a high school student of a pastry school.
I watched about five episodes of the first season of Yumeiro Patissiere, but ended up dropping it because it was getting repetitive and I saw no real future in it. I did not expect this second season. At all. I’m not sure whether I’ll end up watching the first season (50 episodes is really long), but this episode nevertheless was really good, showing just about every character significantly grown up, heading into the direction of their dreams. The cast surely looks a lot more diverse, interesting and colourful than what I watched of the first season. I’m really surprised here. There are some downsides, though. the most notable is the portrayal of Americans: what the heck was that?! I guess I’ve been spoiled a bit too much by Giant Killing and all, but the American in this episode had just about every stereotype you can get with the portrayal of Americans in anime. And he’s supposed to be a major love interest? On top of that, I also don’t quite get the premise of this new season. Despite what the title of the title may suggest, the lead character is only in high school, but she and three other students are asked to run a street full of pastry shops. Now, this has some interesting potential as you never see series about managing a large amount of shops and all, but I really wonder how the creators are going to solve this without introducing a a huge amount of shop employees (we saw absolutely no hints in the OP about it), and why they would leave such an important task to a bunch of high school students, despite their talents.
OP: Probably the biggest surprise in terms of OPs this year. It’s rather weird, yet surprisingly good and lively.
ED: Again, I expected something really generic and instead got a bunch of bicycles flying around in the air. Definitely better than your average ED.
Potential: 65%
Letter Bee Reverse
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is still an incredible crybaby.
I know that this series is cheating a bit and all, but I see no way in which Letter Bee Reverse is not going to have my favourite opening episode of this season. I mean, after such an incredible cliff-hanger, the creators made this episode into an aftermath that worked better than I could have expected. I seriously teared up at seeing Lag Seeing and Nichi, after what happened at the end of the first season, and this episode really gave both of them the time to really develop their feelings. I mean seriously, Letter Bee is a unique little shounen series that’s mostly plagued by the fact that the fillers are a bit annoying to get through. The plot, the setting, the characters: they’re all much more interesting than your average shounen series, and this episode could have been no better proof to that. I mean, I can only imagine how amazing this second season will be if the creators end up toning down the fillers here.
OP: I can only imagine what kind of spoilers this OP is trying to refer to.
ED: Screw Naruto, screw Bleach, I’m really glad to see that Studio Pierrot have finally found themselves another series to show off their creativity in art. This ED looks absolutely gorgeous.
Potential: 100%
YAAAY LAGU.
I completely agree with everything you said here.This series has the potential to be among the best i’ve seen if it keeps the fillers away.
Is this season scheduled for 26 or 13 eps?
I guess I’ll have to pick up the first series again. I stopped watching after the Christmas filler episode.
Whoops, sorry. I see it has 13. Well, that actually bodes well for reducing fillers. Very exciting! Loved this ep too and can’t wait for next week.
Renren: where did you read this exactly? If it’s Anime News Network, it just means that there are airdates kown for at least 13 episodes: there could be more, but not less.
Never let Lag meet Cirno
The anime was animeted close to the manga, that has its own fillers anyway, so let’s not complain ^^
Hey! wtf Cirno’s link wasn’t displayed properly??
Anyway here is it
http://img844.imageshack.us/i/cirnoscreen1.jpg
I still have to watch the first season of this lol.
The fillers scare me so…. :/
I just watched this episode for the ending theme sung by Piko.
Seems like he used his girl voice in this onee
I really wonder when he will use his guy voice in his newly started professional singer career. o3o;;
@Elky: I’d advise watching episodes 1-11, 13, 17 (which was an OVA from before the series started but very good), and then 21-25 (21 and the first half of 22 are anime original but since they’re written by the manga-ka they don’t feel like it and they’re a great seque into the last arc). That should cut out all of the filler and it’ll be less to watch before the second season.
Yeah, I got the info from ANN. So it isn’t known for sure yet? Good to know, thanks.
Here’s hoping for 13 so that there’s little to no filler, cause I can’t see how they’d stretch the currently available material to 26 without resorting to it. (Unlike my poor Oofuri.)
Wow, Takuto’s mech in Star Driver is really elegant.
Concerning Star Driver: While you say “the story may not make the most amount of sense”, why not add a “right now” into that? ^^
Remember Utena? It started about just as cryptic as this (strange girl with magical powers, battles in another dimension hidden in the forest behind a school, mystical boarding school…) and the story became great in the end.
I think they really have the chance to pull off something great with this series. At least for people with taste like mine…
A good aspect this has over Bôkyaku no Senritsu (and is similar to Utena) is the fixed school setting, therefore even the villains of the day can become important side characters later on.
And was I the only one linking certain events and phrases to Utena here and there? Honda was just so much like Saionji (down to being the first opponent) and Makina was just like Wakaba translated into modern anime (if she falls in love with Honda I will laugh).
Yume Pati S2…I…like Johnny. :’D He amuses me.
I haven’t watched half of the first season, but it’s full of fillers and really different from the manga. Henri/Tennouji is canon (What is this I hear about lost love!? ;__;) and Ichigo is only STARTING to develop feelings for Kashino. ^q^ Along with other stuff yada yada.
Hnngh Star Driver. * 3*
By the way, do you want to watch the Yume Pati summer special shown at the Ribon festival? It’s less than 7 minutes long and just a bunch of hilarious scenes thrown together.
Also…Hiyo Koi…hnngh not at home atm (renovations) and I’ve gone through a few failed uploads of it. orz Internet keeps disconnecting or there’s some other reason. Ahahaha three more hours for this try. :’D
But I need your e-mail. :U
^Screw that it disconnected just as that comment was being posted. ^q^
“the guy who wrote Utena”
Suddenly, I am interested in Star Driver.
Kiseki: Oh, don’t worry, take your time. My email address is pgels(at)yahoo(dot)com. Good luck uploading it.
Chounokoe: no, you weren’t the only one. Especially Honda versus Saionji stood out.
So seems like this fall season is turning out to be better than predicted 😉
The first season of ” Yumeiro Patissiere” was also absolutely fantastic and sensational! It may have slowed things up a little bit in the beginning , but then it developped all its potential and became a great show throughout the lenght of its episodes. What I’ve liked the most here were the animation and the art ( in the preparation and confection of different sweets, pastries, cakes of all sorts made with various ideas and by resorting to a great deal of different techniques of preparation) , all the accuracy of the designs , the infinite amount of colors used and the sparkling lights, but all that aside, the characters were also interesting,amusing , evolving all the way through , especially Amano Ichigo, setting off as an unexperimented clumsy girl and honing up her skills progressively without losing her genuine personality and innate clumsiness completely.
Yumeiro is underrated
So far Star Driver is my “wtf did I just watch and why is it so awesome” show of the season.
Star Driver to me seems to be Utena meets shonen mecha show with an added extra dose of fabulousity for now.
btw,I thought Star Driver character design was by Takeshi Obata(Bakuman’s artist),but it seems that I’m wrong.Though they still look awfully similar..
PSgels, I’m surprised you dropped Yumeiro.
Sure, first few eps was mainly the typical shoujo affair with a bewildered main character girl in an unfamiliar setting, but the episodes quickly takes off.
Also, the one big aspect of your adoration: character development, is pretty huge with Yumeiro Patissiere. Every character, even including ‘villains’ have solid characterizations, pasts and character growth.
In the last year, I’d say Yumeiro was probably one of the strongest in that regard. I thought the show would actually be your favorite, but I thought wrong.
Oh yea, a new series to look forward to! A likable cast and a…GALACTIC BISHOUNEN
WOW!!!it’s me or the painting in STAR DRIVER is like the one in Rahxephon ??
Ah, I teared up again after seeing the part where Gauche doesn’t remember Lag and he starts crying and all. T_T
Next episode looks like a filler .__.
The OP is nothing much special, but I’m surprised to see a lot of animation compared to the usual anime EDs.
Star Driver is kinda like TTGL… i hope this will be a nice anime!!!
@Sket – I was instantly reminded of Rahxephon too when I saw the painting. 😀
Huh and I thought I was the only one who thought of Rahxephon when I saw the painting.
Anyway, Star Driver was very…umm…unqiue.
The show is like a combination of TTGL and one of those magical transformation girl shows. The show is flamboyant and full of energy so I guess that’s good enough, however there are some moments when I don’t know whether to laugh or cringe (galatic pretty boy). Can’t say I’m a fan of the mecha design, but it does fit the nature of the show and it’ll probably grow on me. However, I’m really interested in the characters as there seems to be a very diverse amount.
Anyway the episode did enough to have me looking forward to the next one.
‘Galactic Pretty Boy’ made me laugh like heck. XD But it was this phrase that got me curious to watching it, ironically… Not really into mecha show but Star Driver might pull me in just as TTGL did.