A-Channel
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in high school.
This was a surprise here. A-Channel is a step above the likes of Sofuteni, Nichijou, Oretsuba, Maria Holic and all those other shows where we just follow a bunch of high school girls. I mean, there is moe and all, but unlike the above mentioned series, the characters are more than just excuses to show cute girls. The lead character for example is an air-head, but she’s more than just that stereotype: she actually has quite a few male friends and has great social skills. The other lead meanwhile is your average deadpan snarker, but this episode made her actually quite charming by making her just a tad socially awkward, along with incredibly devoted to just one friend of her (and at the same time not having this overshadow her entire character). The animation also supports all this. I’d even argue that the animation here is better than in Nichijou, because it succeeds even more in bringing the cast to life and it’s much more efficiently used. In short: the characterization of A-Channel is actually good here.
OP: I’ve heard much worse this season.
ED: This is the kind of song that I feel will get really annoying after listening it for five times.
Potential: 60%
Maria Holic Alive
Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a cross-dresser.
For most anime, a sequel means the chance to expand upon their universe, use their build-up to bring more depth to their storyline and character and push them to a new height. For Shaft however, it stands for pointlessly dragging out a show that fitted perfectly in 12 or 13 episode and being really boring in the process. Because of that, I am not going to bother with this series unless someone comes with a really good reason to do so. I’ve given these endless sequels too many chances to impress me, and every time they ended in disappointments. It also doesn’t help that Shinbo is working on three series at the same time this season. There’s no way taht that’s goign to work! This episode also was… obnoxious. It has the kind of lead character whose voice actress thinks that good acting is continuously yelling. A lot in this episode also had a same problem that Nichijou is currently having: there was a lot of randomness, but all of it just felt like randomness for the sake of having randomness. There’s nothing coherent about it at all and the creators were just seeing how many random things they could throw at the viewer. Nichijou still has a pretty decent cast to back up this flaw, but this episode of Maria Holid… none ofe its characters stood out. Especially the lead character was bad, but the rest of the cast also just failed to stand out. It also feels that a lot of characters were just there for the heck of it. In fact, everything about this episode just felt done for the heck of it.
OP: I hope that they didn’t really think that this kind of rambling would work as an OP…
Potential: 0%
Sofuteni
Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays tennis.
Yeah, this is Xebec and its moe again. This show seems to believe that if you can just show a bunch of random teenaged girls with here and there some fanservice do stuff together you have done enough to be interesting. It really doesn’t bother to be more than what it advertises: moe, fansevice and tennis. This entire episode was pretty much a random day at the tennis club. This could have worked in theory, but the characters are just too weak. They’re all one-sided cliches, fanservice material and completely unlikable. The deadpan snarker was forced, the big boobed pervert’s entire character is just based around one joke, but by far the worst was the main character. I mean, I know that some teenaged girls can’t be too bright and all, but that girl was just way too much of an airhead.
OP: The usual obnoxious J-pop
ED: What? No fanservice ED? That’s at least one plus.
Potential: 0%
You are a little too hard on sofuteni. At least the fanservice here is not as forced as other Xebec’s moe/fanservice anime. And I like the Hokkaido atomsphere. The first episode knows it is discribing a normal ordinary here, and delivers it. I am interested to see what can Kamitsubo Ryoki do with the following episodes. Yes, I think this series has potential.
Don’t let the fact “Hen Zemi’s director is shifted over to generic Sofuteni in favor of the director of Rio RainbowGate!” block your judgement. I tend to believe he himself choose this position because he thinks there is more space for him to explore. In fact, maybe you already noticed, he is also in title of series editor now. Look back on his resume, this is something he would do.
But I do have something to say about the staff change of Hen Zemi. I wish Nagasawa Tsuyoshi was assigned. He is more suitable for a chaos like Hen Zemi.
A Channel: I don’t think the animation is very good. It’s certainly not as fluid as Nichijou. It’s more emotive, but then it’s trying to be. This show seemed pretty boring and generic to me, and I doubt the males will be anymore significant than they are in Zetsubou Sensei. Here they’re obviously just tools for humor.
Maria Holic Alive: There is more material than was shown in the first series, so it’s a little provincial to draw the line at where the anime ended and declare further things unnecessary. I also don’t blame the voice actress for playing the part she’s assigned. She’s an instrument and I’d say she plays her character pretty well, it’s just that her character is annoying. The exasperated delivery is supposed to be funny, like when Gintoki or Nozomu do it.
The timing for this episode was really bad, and as a result it wasn’t funny at all. It also played all of the tricks in the SHAFT formula that I am really sick of, and would like to see die. That karaoke quality opening song was also a complete disaster. I’m inclined to cut them a little slack, because who knows when this was put together, and you know, earthquake and such, but it was not a very good showing.
truthfully, i wasn’t really expecting more depth into a series like maria holic alive, i was expecting randomness, with a dash of shinbo’s awkward directing style. some comedy shows derive their humor form this sort of randomness, which is somewhat refreshing after watching a load of serious series. (bad alliteration)