Category: Other:

Autumn Season Preview

by psgels, posted in Seasonal Previews

The next season: 36 new series, and that’s probably not even the total amount, since I’m quite early with my preview this time. There will probably be a few more announcements next week for the latecomers. What sets this season apart is how relatively little bad series there are. I mean, there are a number of kids series and bad fanservice shows and all, but much fewer than usual for an Autumn season. Plus, for some strange reason the kids’ shows nearly all have really good people working on them, do not ask me why. That’s another theme of this season by the way: really talented people working on relatively dull or just outright questionable premises.

With most of these previews, I usually have a clear one that sticks out. This time though, I don’t. I’ve got about 7 shows that all intrigue me equally, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg here. Seriously, this season is definitely going for the quantity, because there were a lot of shows that piqued my interest. On the other side of the coin though, it does have one major weakness: everything looks the same! There are a lot of very similar premises out there and series with the exact same genre. On top of that, just about every show deals with teenagers again. We definitely don’t have the sheer amount of imaginative premises that we’ve gotten used to from the past half year here, unfortunately.

Also, do note that I’ve decided not to include Kyousogiga for now. We just don’t know yet whether it’ll be an OVA or TV-series. However, I do want to note that if it does turn out to be a full fledged TV-series, helmed by the same director, then it will immediately rise to the top of the list of shows I’m looking forward to.

Onii-chan Dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankei Nai yo ne—

Summary: “The story centers around Akito Himenokōji (Ryota Ohsaka), a boy who was separated from his twin sister Akiko six years ago, but they end up living under the same roof together during high school.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Silver Link
Director: Keiichiro Kawaguchi
Series Composition: Kazukyuki Fudeyasu
Original creator: Daisuke Suzuki
Other Notable Staff: Kyousuke Kawamura (Character Designs)

The Positives: Kazuyuki Fudeyasu… in theory could make this into something enjoyable, after what he did to Milky Holmes.
The Negatives: If you don’t understand what the title means: BE GLAD!!!

First-Glance Potential: 0%

To Love Ru Darkness

Summary: ” The story is about Yuuki Rito, a high-school boy who cannot confess to the girl of his dreams, Sairenji Haruna. One day when coming home and sulking in the bath-tub a mysterious, nude girl, appears out of nowhere. Her name is Lala and she comes from the planet Deviluke, where she is the heir to the throne. Her father wants her to return to her home planet so she can marry one of the husband candidates, but she decides that she wants to marry Rito in order to stay on Earth.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Xebec
Director: Atsushi Ootsuki
Original creator: Saki Hasemi

The Positives: I see no positives about this one whatsoever.
The Negatives: Good lord, they’re still going with this show? This makes 52 episodes of mind-numbing fanservice. Or am I really missing something beyond the boobs that makes this worth watching?

First-Glance Potential: 0%

Hiiro no Kakera 2

Summary: “Tamaki Kasuga has supposedly gone to live with her grandmother after her parents are transferred overseas. But the real reason for her arrival is that she must continue the role, handed down from her ancestor Princess Tamayori, to seal the sword Onikirimaru. Five young men serve as her guardians against the mysterious Logos.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Studio Deen
Director: Bob Shirohata
Series Composition: Yoshiko Nakamura

The Positives: It has bishies.
The Negatives: Studio Deen, for god’s sake stop making these crappy bishie series and get back to actually doing justice to the shoujo genre.

First-Glance Potential: 0%

Monsuno

Summary: “Chase Suno and his friends, Jinja and Bren, are on a search for Chase’s father, Jeredy Suno. However, they soon become involved in something else upon reaching their father’s lab and becoming involved with an organism known as Monsuno. Chase, choosing to side with his father’s work, denies S.T.O.R.M. access to the Monsuno and escapes. They are now on the run from the military organization, S.T.O.R.M., while still looking for Chase’s father. However, a mysterious organization also has his eyes set on Chase and the group’s Monsuno.” – (Taken from Anidb)
Produced by: Jakks Pacific
Director: Yoshiaki Okamura
Series Composition: Michael Ryan
Other Notable Staff: Michael Tavera (Music)

The Positives: An American-Japanese co-production…
The Negatives: … about spinning tops that summon monsters. Yup, it’s another kiddie show. The director also isn’t looking good, being the director of Element Hunters and all. Moving on…

First-Glance Potential: 0%

Seitokai no Ichizon – Hekiyoh Gakuen Seitokai Gijiroku

Summary: ” The series, which is also called Hekiyō Gakuen Seito-kaigi Jiroku (The Records of the Hekiyō Academy Student Council’s Activities), revolves around a private high school whose student council is chosen entirely by popularity vote. Because of this, Ken Sugisaki is the only male representative, in the otherwise all bishōjo student council, that may enter the “sacred sanctuary” of the council’s meeting room. At the behest of Council President Kurimu Sakurano (pictured at right), Sugisaki records the minutes of the council meetings, which devolve into daily conversations about the students’ lives and interests.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: AIC
Director: Kenichi Imaizumi
Series Composition: Reiko Yoshida
Original creator: Sekina Aoi

The Positives: Staff change! This season is handled by AIC, adapted by Reiko Yoshida (a very experienced writer) and directed by the director of Kateikyo Hitman Reborn.
The Negatives: I did not like Seitokai no Ichizon. It was like, funny for one episode and then it lost all of its charm. Most of the jokes were bad moe jokes anyway. Do I think that this will change with the new people working on it? Not really, bad moe jokes is everything that this show is. The creators are going to have to try really hard to make this consistently hilarious, and I don’t see that happen.

First-Glance Potential: 0%

Battle Spirits: Sword Eyes

Summary: “The story is set 14 years after Atlantia, the largest country in the world of Legendia, was torn apart by riots. The protagonist Tsurugi Tatewaki was secreted away from the chaos at a young age. Oblivious to his true birthplace, Tsurugi grows up as a spirited boy in the neighboring rocky land of Pacifis. One day, Tsurugi suddenly comes across the ‘Shining Sword,’ and his great adventure begins. An army of darkness is hunting down the 12 Sword Braves, and as the army pursues Tsurugi, a figure appears before him. Bringer is a Card Battle Droid entrusted with the duty of protecting Tsurugi. Trained by Bringer in the ways of the Battle Spirits combat, Tsurugi joins the other Sword Braves in rising up against the army of darkness with his Key Spirit ‘Shining Dragon’.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Sunrise
Director: Masaki Watanabe
Series Composition: Atsuhiro Tomioka

The Positives: The thing with the Battle Spirits franchise is that Sunrise keeps enlisting actually competent writers and directors to its installments (heck, Dai Sato worked on one of them). This time they got the director of Bartender. I am not kidding with that. Atsuhiro Tomioka, many of you may know him better as as the guy who adapted Zetman. The potential is definitely there.
The Negatives: The thing however with this franchise is that even though it isn’t among the worst of the kiddie series, it’s clear that the creators are forced to dumb themselves down a lot. From the few episodes that I did watch, they were trying way too hard to conform to the standards of kiddie series that really limits creativity, for the sake of selling toys through a business model that has proved to be lucrative. But then again, I only watched the first episodes of these series, so perhaps they got better later. With so many episodes however (all previous four seasons had 50 episodes, this one will likely have that as well), this franchise is just way too long for me to actually give it a chance.

First-Glance Potential: 0%

Bakuman 3

Summary: “Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi have come a long way since they started making manga in middle school, but trials still await them as they head towards their goal of getting an anime adaption for one of their manga. As they continue to grow as artists and as people, they will be faced with new friends, new rivals, and new hurdles to overcome.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: JC Staff
Director: Noriaki Akitaya, Kenichi Kasai
Series Composition: Reiko Yoshida
Original creator: Tsugumi Ouba

The Positives: For those of you with enough time and patience this will be a treat.
The Negatives: Sorry Bakuman, you could have been a nice series for me. But there is no way I’m going to watch 75 episodes of you dragging on. You’re just not worth it, especially after you pulled a bunch of soap operas in the second season. This might be bearable for a series with a regular length, but not one that is as long as this one. Zero potential, because I already know that I’m not going to continue watching it.

First-Glance Potential: 0%

Haitai Nanafa

Summary: “?”
Produced by: Passione
Director: Hiroshi Kimura
Series Composition: Takeshi Konuta

The Positives: Passione is relatively new, and this will be their first full series to produce. Nice.
The Negatives: The thing is, that this is like Recorder and Randsell: it’s got five minute episodes and even the same director, so I really fear that it will be as dull and under-produced as that series.

First-Glance Potential: 10%

Hayate the Combat Butler: Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

Summary: “Abandoned by his parents and given a monumentally large debt as a Christmas present, 16-year old Ayasaki Hayate is at the lowest point of his life. Desperately trying alter his hapless fate, he decides to kidnap someone to hold for a ransom. Due to an ill choice of words, the girl he tries to kidnap misunderstands the action as a confession of love. His plan is totally crushed when he gives his real name out. Realizing his wrongdoing, Hayate proceeds to rescue the girl from the yakuza, who had instead kidnapped her. The girl, as a token of thanks, offers Hayate a job as her butler. Hayate, overwhelmed by her kindness, vows to protect her even at the cost of his life.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Manglobe
Series Director: Yooichi Ueda
Director: Masashi Kudo
Series Composition: Rie Koshika
Original creator: Kenjirou Hata

The Positives: Manglobe is… well, I guess I can’t use that argument anymore, can I? Anyway, the character-designs at least look better now, although I’ve heard that they really don’t work in animation-form.
The Negatives: Hayate the Combat Butler has been recommended to me quite a few times now, but really: with this instalment it will probably have 100 episodes. Is such a huge amount really worth it? Does it really stay hilarious enough for its entire run? Is it really fun enough to make up for Rie Kugimiya in yet another of her tsundere roles? On top of that, this season will be directed by the director of the ultimately very dull Asobi ni Iku Yo.

First-Glance Potential: 10%

Aoi Sekai no Chūshin de

Summary: “All the characters are parodies of Nintendo or Sega games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda etc. Segua Kingdom has been losing the war against Ninterdo Empire but the tables are turned by the appearance of a boy called Gear (a parody of Sonic the Hedgehog).” – (Taken from MisaoFan)
Produced by: ?
Director: Tetsuya Yanagisawa
Series Composition: ?
Original creator: Anastasia Shestakova

The Positives: Perhaps this has potential for a few classic game jokes or something?
The Negatives: It’s very hard to find something about this series, but basically we have an adaptation of a parody manga with a lot of fanservice, adapted by the guy behind Kannadzuki no Miko and High School DXD. I’m not expecting much from this one.

First-Glance Potential: 20%

Teekyuu

Summary: ” Even though the four high school girls are in the tennis team, they hardly play any actual tennis.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Mappa
Director: Shin Itagaki
Original creator: Tsugeo Terada

The Positives: This is a case of awesome people working on… what!? I mean really: Mappa, the people who broke off from Madhouse studio that did Sakamichi no Apollon is now going to work on somehting that sounds like K-On with tennis. It’s also directed by Shin Itagaki, who is someone who really knows how to make exciting action scenes, as shown by Ben-To and Basquash.
The Negatives: What really worries me is the original source material here. Looking at some of the other works of Tsugeo Terada, there is a lot of hentai doujin among them. This is not looking good and I predict a lot of bad fanservice.

First-Glance Potential: 30%

Hidamari Sketch × Honeycomb

Summary: “Yuno has been accepted to her dream school: Yamabuki Arts High School. To attend the school, Yuno moves and starts to live in a small apartment building named the Hidamari Apartments located near the school. Once there, she starts making new friends like her classmate Miyako and the second year students, Hiro and Sae. Surrounded by good friends, Yuno starts moving towards her dream of being an artist.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Shaft
Original creator: Ume Aoki

The Positives: Hidamari Sketch is not one of my series. I tried watching it, but after around four episodes, I came to the conclusion that just too little happened. It was just too slow and boring to hold my attention. I can understand the appeal though.
The Negatives: However, there is one thing that I’m wondering about: how can series like this last for four entire seasons? Is there really enough material to warrant 50 episodes, or are the creators just repeating themselves over and over? I mean, me and Shaft sequels have a very bad relationship, so I’m very sceptical about this one.

First-Glance Potential: 30%

Aikatsu

Summary: “In the card game, players use collectible clothing cards to help their idols pass auditions in pursuit of becoming the top national idol singer.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Sunrise
Director: Ryuichi Kimura
Series Composition: Yoichi Kato
Other Notable Staff: Seiji Mizushima (Supervision), Hiroko Yaguchi (Character Designs)

The Positives: Oh great, another show based on a card game. Prepare yourselves, because this season really has a ton of them and… Seiji Mizushima?! The Director of Un-Go, Natsuiro Kiseki, Hanamaru Youchien, Full Metal Alchemist, Gundam 00… what’s he doing here with the supervision? And you know about the director? He was the assistant director for Natsuiro Kiseki and Hanamaru Youchien.
The Negatives: And on the other side of the coin we have the guy who wrote the utterly terrible Miracle train. This season is bizarre in these choices, really.

First-Glance Potential: 30%

Busou Shinki

Summary: “The slice-of-life battle story is set in a future that has neither World War III nor an alien invasion — just an ordinary future set after our current age. In this world, robots are part of everyday life, and they contribute in various aspects of society. “Shinki” are 15-centimeter-tall (about 6-inch-tall) cute partners made to assist humans. Equipped with intelligence and emotions, they devote themselves to serving their “Masters.” These Shinki can even be equipped with weapons and armor to fight each other. Such Shinki are named “Busou Shinki” (literally, “armed divine princesses”). In particular, the Shinki Ann (Arnval), Aines (Altines), and Rane (Altrane) serve a high school freshman named Masato. Things change when a new Shinki, the bellicose Staarf, joins them.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: 8-Bit
Director: Yasuhito Kikuchi
Series Composition: Masahiro Yokotani
Other Notable Staff: Ryouma Ebata (Character Designs, Chief Animation Direction), Takahiro Kishida

The Positives: To think that they actually made a full fledged anime about this. And take a look at the character-designer, Takahiro Kishida: he also designed the characters for Baccano, Durarara, Noein and Madoka Magica, so the producers are definitely gambling on this as an advertisements for their action figures (because yes, that’s what this series is).
The Negatives: So yeah, this basically requires an original storyline to be written for these figures. So who do the producers get? The director of Infinite Stratos. Sure, he also directed Macross Frontier, but that was under Shoji Kawamori. But I guess that he’s not all bad, with that series and Kurogane Communication under his helm. My real worry here lies with the guy who is going to have to write everything: This is the guy adapted World Destruction, Beelzebub, and Maria Holic. His one original story is from Reideen, which was more wasted potential than anything and saved by good directing. Add that to the story of the OVA which just involved a boy finding one of these girls, even though it did have really good staff behind it, and it seems that on top of that these guys will probably be facing a lot of restrictions in this adaptations from above. To be honest this isn’t sounding too good.

First-Glance Potential: 40%

Chou Soku Henkei Gyrozetter

Summary: “The card game this is based on depicts battles between cars that transform into robots. The arcade machine for the game features a steering wheel for controlling the game’s cars, but the machine “transforms” into a lever control setup for piloting the robot mode. Square Enix claims that this is the first physically transforming arcade machine.” – (Taken from )
Produced by: A-1 Pictures
Director: Shinji Takamatsu
Series Composition: Dai Sato
Other Notable Staff: Naoki Sato (Music)

The Positives: My very first impression when I saw this was: great, not another kiddie show to promote toys. And then I found out who were involved: the director of Daily Lives of High School Boys and the first 100 episodes of Gintama will direct, and Dai Sato will be writing it. On top of that it also turned into a show to promote various cars, the soundtrack is composed by the same person who composed the awesome soundtracks of X and Blood-C and they got a lot of different designers together for the various mecha designs. And on top of that A-1 Pictures will animate it. That’s a lot of ambition for a kids’ series, don’t you think?
The Negatives: As much as I’d love to see more Dai Sato (this is the guy who wrote Eureka Seven, Ergo Proxy and various episodes of Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell, and he’s characterized by his very intelligent dialogue), I want to see him do an actual non-kiddie show again: one that can take itself seriously. Because he already did this before with Battle Spirits and also with the Tekken movie. After he went off and created his own writing studio, he unfortunately had to take a lot of jobs for the heck of it in order to make some money, it appears. It’s a bloody shame, because a writer like him really needs to get his chances.

First-Glance Potential: 50%

Girls und Panzer

Summary: “The “military teen battle action” manga is about “high school girls x battles in tanks.”” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Actas
Director: Tsutomu Mizushima
Series Composition: Reiko Yoshida
Other Notable Staff: Takaaki Suzuki (Military Advisor)

The Positives: From the creators of Squid Girl: a series with a bunch of girls and a tank. Okay, fair enough. These people know what good comedy is, and this time they’re dealing with an original story so they can go all out. Just don’t let this get a sequel.
The Negatives: Reiko Yoshida is busy this season: three series at the same time. Also, it’s a bunch of girls with a tank! I can just imagine the creators coming up with this “Quick! We need another premise! What do people like besides girls?” “Uh, tanks?” “Good enough! Let’s go!”

First-Glance Potential: 65%

Suki-tte Ii na yo

Summary: “Mei Tachibana has spent her 16 years without making either boyfriend or friends. One day, she drop-kicks a popular boy in school, Yamato Kurosawa, because of a misunderstanding but for some reason it seems that he takes a liking to her and one-sidedly claims that they’re friends. Furthermore, he not only protects Mei from a stalker, he does it with a kiss…?!!” – (Taken from Mangaupdates)
Produced by: Zexcs
Series Director: Toshimasa Kuroyanagi
Director: Takyua Satou
Series Composition: Takuya Satou
Original creator: Kanae Hazuki
Other Notable Staff: Yuuji Nomi (Music), Yoshiko Okuda

The Positives: This most definitely looks unlike anything Zexcs have ever done before. I think we can blame Yoshiko Okuda for that, who has an interesting track record as an animator so far with experience on episodes of Casshern Sins and Shigurui. Yuuji Nomi also did the soundtrack of Bokura no and Hi no Tori, so that also sounds very promising. On top of that, this will both be directed and adopted by one of the two directors of Steins;Gate. The series director meanwhile is completely new. He worked as an animator for a few years, after which he moved on to a few series for episode direction (Ao no Exorcist, Inu Boku, Working and Kimi ni Todoke) and this will be his first chance to direct an actual series. Interesting.
The Negatives: For the negatives, I unfortunately have to turn to the original source material. Looking at the author’s other works, she seems very fond of smutty shoujo romances, and to be honest, that’s exactly what this series sounds like. It’s so entirely typical, so the execution really is going to have be good here to prevent us from watching yet another couple of paper bags in a “will they won’t they” relationship.

First-Glance Potential: 65%

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

Summary: “The romantic comedy centres around Shizuku Mizutani, a girl who has absolutely no interests except for school and her plans for the future. One day she delivers print-outs to the chronically absent Yoshida. After delivering the school materials to Yoshida, he believes the two of them are friends.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Brains Base
Director: Hiro Kaburaki
Series Composition: Noboru Takagi
Original creator: Robico
Other Notable Staff: Masato Nakayama (Music), Chikako Shibata (Art Direction), Hitoshi Tamura, Norihiro Naganuma

The Positives: It’s a bit difficult to explain what a director of photography does, but he basically is in charge of the camera work, and making everything look good. Now, the guy who does this for Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun also did this for the various seasons of Natsume Yuujin-chou, Durarara and Kuragehime. Add that to the director of Kimi ni Todoke and we’ll probably have a very pretty looking series here. Noboru Takagi is also a very good writer, having adapted Baccano, Durarara, Koi Kaze and Sankarea in the past.
The Negatives: Now the question is: can they make this story work? I’m glad to see more shoujo romance, but if it’s just going to be like “will they won’t they” like with Kimi ni Todoke, then I’m not feeling like sitting through that again. The set-up is really clichéd for a shoujo series: especially dating a bad boy has been done to death, so something definitely needs to set this one apart in its progression or execution. I’ve taken a look at some of the other stories that Robico, the writer of the manga this is based on, has written and they’re typical romances, although all of them aren’t as plain as what Kimi ni Todoke was: from what I could gather she always tries to at least give a side or story to her character. She also seems to like to use irony in some of her short stories, so let’s see whether her longer ones can also make use of this.

First-Glance Potential: 70%

IXION SAGA DT

Summary: “The game and anime follow Kon Hokaze, a boy who embarks on a journey from our world to an alternate world known as Mira, which is full a mysterious energy known as Alma. After saving Princess Ecarlate from attackers, he soon finds himself in the middle of a struggle around Alma.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Brains Base
Director: Shinji Takamatsu
Series Composition: Akatsuki Yamatoya
Original creator: Capcom
Other Notable Staff: Shinji Takeuchi (Character Designs, Chief Animation Director), Junpei Fujita, Hiroshi Fujima (Music)

The Positives: So here is the thing: Ixion Saga is based on an MMORPG. Since these games are known for their plots, the main creators will need to put a lot of new and original stuff to make it work. And wouldn’t you know, they happen to be the people behind the Gintama anime: its series composition guy and the director of my personal favorite first 100 episodes, so be exact. That series had some really good fillers, so they have shown that they’re able to create original content. Atsuki Yamatoya also worked on the series construction of Simoun, which I found to be utterly brilliant.
The Negatives: The downside is that these two don’t always try to deliver good stories. Akatsuki Yamatoya is just as well fine with doing stuff like To Love Ru and Blue Dragon. Also, how on earth did they succeed in making this show this ugly? Shinji Takeuchi is the character designer of Gintama, so he should know how to correctly portray colourful characters.

First-Glance Potential: 75%

Medaka Box 2

Summary: “Medaka Kurokami, a first year student at Hakoniwa Academy, excels at everything she does. She becomes the Student council president and along with her childhood friend, Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, she plans to solve all of the student body’s problems that are submitted to a suggestion box, dubbed the “Medaka Box.”” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Gainax
Director: Shouji Saeki
Series Composition: Shouji Saeki
Original creator: NisiOisin

The Positives: Well, even though this involves Gainax’s worst director and Nisioisin, I enjoyed the first season. It was nothing special, but the craziness it evolved into… I could appreciate that, and the second season is promising more of that, if you liked that, then you’ll probably like this sequel as well.
The Negatives: It remains a shounen jump adaptation that needs to squeeze in 52 chapters in one year. That rather scares me, because that gives this series the danger of dragging on horribly, like so many other of its predecessors have done as well. When I see the first signs of this happening, I’m bailing out.

First-Glance Potential: 75%

Chuu-2 Byou Demo Koi ga Shitai!

Summary: “In the novel, Yuuta Togashi, a boy who used to suffer from “chuu-2 byou” (adolescent thoughts that teenagers commonly have — especially delusions of grandeur or the belief that one is special compared to everyone else.), and Rikka Takanashi, who still has the syndrome, made a true contract with each other (that is, they are dating). They are in the middle of enjoying “real life” to the fullest … or should be. However, Satone Shichimiya a.k.a. “Sophia Ring SP Saturn VII,” a friend from middle school and the one suffering the most from “chuu-2 byou,” appears and turns Togashi’s life upside down. And so, a battle between “Saturn” and “Jaou Shingan” (True Eye of the Devil King) begins.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Kyoto Animation
Director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Series Composition: Jukki Hanada
Original creator: Torako
Other Notable Staff: Kazumi Ikeda (Character Designs, Animation Director), Hiroyuki Takahashi (Setting)

The Positives: Trying to find information about light novels is really hard on the internet. I’m surprised nobody has yet set up some kind of AniDB for light novels yet. Because of that, I also have no idea what the source material is going to be like. It does sound interesting if it goes in-depth to what that “Chuu-2 Byou” actually does to teenagers, despite the really bad title. Jukki Hanada is a good choice to adapt this material, and on top of that Kyoani put its best director on the job: Tatsuya Ishihara was behind Air and Clannad, whose adaptations I really loved.
The Negatives: But it can just as easily turn into yet another show in which cute girls fight and a male lead is in the middle of them. There are too many of those, so this show will have to set itself apart, and not just with Kyoani’s trademark really good animation. Is this the right type of material to make Kyoani shine, or have they just gotten more generic?

First-Glance Potential: 75%

Magi

Summary: “This story is about the flow of fate and the battle to keep the world on the right path. Aladdin is a boy who has set out to explore the world after being trapped in a room for most of his life. His best friend is a flute with a djinn in it named Ugo. Soon enough, Aladdin discovers he is a Magi, a magician who chooses kings, and he was born to choose kings who will follow the righteous path, battling against those who want to destroy fate. Follow his adventures as he meets others from 1000 Arabian Nights, like Ali Baba and Sinbad, and fights to keep the balance of world in check!” – (Taken from Mangaupdates)
Produced by: A-1 Pictures
Director: Koji Masunari
Series Composition: Hiroyuki Yoshino
Original creator: Shinobu Outaka
Other Notable Staff: Toshifumi Akai (Character Designs, Chief Animation Director), Takashi Hashimoto

The Positives: Oh god, this will definitely be the eye candy series of the season. A-1 have really managed to improve themselves even more, and with this they also brought in Takashi Hashimoto in for the special effects. The list of series this guy has worked on is HUGE, and includes things as direction the animation of Mononoke and Bake Neko, including their conceptual designs and the Special Skills director of Karas. And then there is the director: the guy who directed the really imaginative Read or Die, Risky Safety, and Kamichu. Whole premise is loosely based on the Arabian Nights. Interesting!
The Negatives: Oh god no! Not Hiroyuki Yoshino! The guy behind the script of Guilty Crown, Macross Frontier, Mai Otome, Seikon no Qwaser and Code Geass. This guy’s name is nearly synonymous with train-wreck. Thankfully he is adapting a story this time, but when I look at who wrote it, I’m not really positive either: he’s the guy who wrote Sumomomo Momomo before this, a series whose only redeeming quality was its catchy name (Plums and peaches too!), otherwise it was just a run off the mill romantic fighting school comedy. Magi thankfully sounds much more creative, but can he really do justice with a story based on the Arabian nights? I mean, such a setting sounds really promising, but not when it’s chock-full of shounen cliches. Especially not with Hiroyuki Yoshino having to adapt it.

First-Glance Potential: 75%

Jormungand 2

Summary: “The series follows Koko Hekmatyar, a young arms dealer who sells weapons under HCLI, an international shipping corporation that secretly deals in the arms trade. As one of the company’s unofficial weapon dealers, she secretly sells weapons in many countries while avoiding the local authorities and law enforcement as most of her work is actually illegal under international law. Traveling with her is her team of bodyguards who are mostly composed of ex-military veterans. Her latest addition to her crew is Jonah, a seemingly emotionless child soldier who is skilled in combat yet ironically hates arms dealers. Jonah joins Koko as he wishes to find the arms dealer responsible for his family’s death. What follows is Koko and her crew’s escapades around the world.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: White Fox
Director: Keitarou Motonaga
Series Composition: Yosuke Kuroda
Original creator: Keitarou Takahashi

The Positives: Well, those who watched this series know what to look forward to: snarky military action with a lot of intrigue.
The Negatives: The first season for me missed something. The characterization was just one-sided, especially on the villains’ side. That’s something that this sequel is definitely going to have to fix.

First-Glance Potential: 75%

Initial D New Season

Summary: “High school student Takumi Fujiwara works as a gas station attendant during the day and a delivery boy for his father’s tofu shop during late nights. Little does he know that his precise driving skills and his father’s modified Toyota Sprinter AE86 Trueno make him the best amateur road racer on Mt. Akina’s highway. Because of this, racing groups from all over the Gunma prefecture issue challenges to Takumi to see if he really has what it takes to be a road legend.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: ?
Director: ?
Series Composition: ?
Original creator: Shuuichi Shigeno

The Positives: I’ve actually never watched anything of Initial D, but who knows? A hot blooded racing anime has potential, especially now that the creators are giving it a modern touch. This series will air twice every month, so it’ll follow the same formula as Wangan Midnight, allowing the creators to just take their time. Nice choice.
The Negatives: I’ve heard that Initial D was not the best looking series (to the point where the car CG stood out way too much, and one particular character resembling a potato more than a human being), so I wonder if this new series will have the same problems or not.

First-Glance Potential: 80%

K

Summary: “?”
Produced by: Gohands
Director: ?
Series Composition: ?
Other Notable Staff: Gou Nakanishi (Producer)

The Positives: This is an original project by Gohands, and the only thing we know so far is a bunch of voice actors, a bunch of promos and that it’s got a producer who worked on most notably Fafner, Stellvia and Heroic Age. Based on the promo images, this seems like an action series with good animation and a lot of different characters walking around. The trick will now be to give them all character and make them all interesting, so I hope they went with the right people behind this.
The Negatives: One warning sign though was that everyone looked around the same age. If you want to have a diverse cast, then go for it. Switch up the ages as well. Also, make sure not to go overboard on the CG, Gohands.

First-Glance Potential: 80%

Code:Breaker

Summary: “Riding the bus one day, Sakurakouji Sakura looks out the window to see people being burned alive with a blue fire as a boy her age remains unharmed and stands over the people. When she goes back to the site the next day, there are no corpses or evidence of any kind of murder, just a small fire. When Sakura goes to class, she discovers the new transfer student is the same boy she saw the day before. Sakura soon learns that he is Ogami Rei, the sixth “Code: Breaker,” a special type of assassin with a strange ability and also a member of a secret organization that serves the government” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Kinema Citrus
Director: Yasuhiro Irie
Series Composition: Yasuhiro Irie
Original creator: Akamine Kamijou
Other Notable Staff: Masayuki Sakoi (Assistant Director), Yukie Akitani

The Positives: Kinema Citrus, with the director of Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood and Kurau Phantom Memory. Hell yeah! This guy knows how to portray action scenes and how to do characterization properly, and he’s doing both the direction and series composition.
The Negatives: This does seem like the least interesting story he’s worked on so far, though. The original mangaka seems to have written Samurai Deeper Kyo before this. The premise for Code Breaker just seems… plain in comparison to what Yasuhiro Irie and Kinema Citrus did before this, so let’s hope that it at least has some good character development.

First-Glance Potential: 80%

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Summary: “This is the story of the Joestar family, and their battles against bizarre enemies. Jonathan Joestar’s battle against the vampire Dio Brando starts it all, and it continues into roughly each second generation of Joestars through all parts of the story.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: ?
Director: ?
Series Composition: ?
Original creator: Hirohiko Araki

The Positives: Finally a show that doesn’t look like the others! I tend to love remakes of classic series, so I’m very interested what the creators can do with this, and the character designs at least look very artistic. We still have no bloody clue who will end up doing this, but they definitely plan to make it interesting to look at.
The Negatives: However, try to look at that trailer on the official website and you get treated to some very jumpy and awkward animation, showing that character designs like this are hard to move around.

First-Glance Potential: 80%

Btooom!

Summary: “Ryota Sakamoto is one of the top-ranked players of BTOOOM!, an online battle game. But no amount of simulated warfare could have prepared him for what is to come …Ryota wakes one evening to find himself dangling from a tree by a parachute with no recollection of how he got there. Before he can orient himself to his unfamiliar surroundings, Ryota is attacked. As a barrage of explosives rain down on him, Ryota realizes that he too has a pack of bombs …bombs that look very similar to the ones used in BTOOOM! Ryota may have mastered the online game, but can he come out on top in this real-life game of survival?!” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: Madhouse
Director: Kotone Watanabe
Series Composition: Yosuke Kuroda
Original creator: Junya Inoue

The Positives: Yosuke Kuroda as the scriptwriter is a really solid choice. This guy is really experienced. The director is also very interesting: he hasn’t done much, but the episodes that he did work on were really, really good: A Spider’s Thread of Aoi Bungaku, plus a few episodes of Madoka Magica, Chihayafuru and Supernatural. I wonder what he can do with the actual series here.
The Negatives: So… basically we have Sword Art Online again here, only this time with a survival theme and instead of an MMORPG the focus is on an action game. Okay, sounds promising. The mangaka of Btooom seems to like a lot of horror as well and his stories definitely have potential. There is that fact that the manga isn’t finished yet though…

First-Glance Potential: 80%

Robotics;Notes

Summary: In Robotics;Notes, the player assumes the role of Kaito Yashio, someone who enjoys fighting games. He is in his school’s robot club. The story begins when the protagonist finds out that one of Robotics;Notes’ main heroines is actually a genius programmer who created the game engine for a world renowned fighting game. The main character then decides that he wants to create a robot based around command inputs and motion capture technology. He decides to go to the karate club to look for someone to perform the motion capture sequences. – (Taken from Wikipedia)
Produced by: Production IG
Director: Kazuya Nomura
Series Composition: Jukki Hanada
Original creator: Chiyomaru Shikira
Other Notable Staff: Chikashi Kubota (Animation Character Designs), Tatsuya Matsubara (Producer), Naotaka Hayashi (Scenario)

The Positives: Well, so after Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate there is Robotics;Notes. The whole futuristic approach really reminds of Eden of the East. And yes, for those wondering: Naotaka Hayashi is a member of 5pb, the company who published the game that this is based on. He’ll be able to keep Jukki Hanada in check, who sometimes manages to lose himself in his own scripts. Beyond that Jukki Hanada managed to turn into a very solid writer who manages to deliver when he needs to in his adaptations recently, as shown by Level E and Steins;Gate. This is also necessary for Kazuya Nomura, the director of Sengoku Basara 2 and its subsequent movie.
The Negatives: So yeah, the big challenge will be to stuff everything into just Noitamina’s 11 episodes. This is pretty much tackled by people with pacing problems. Sengoku Barara’s second season for example had its awesome moments, but near the end you could see that Kazuya Nomura was unable to make everything come together due to his excessive focus on build-up. Also, Noitamina is for adults, put them in there for god’s sake!

First-Glance Potential: 80%

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Summary: “After being kicked out of the main dorms for bringing in a stray cat, Kanda Sorata is forced to live in the smaller Sakura Halls where problem students are sent to live. Although he doesn’t mind his room-mates, Sorata can’t wait to move out of Sakura Halls. But when Shiina Mashiro moves into the dorm, everything changes. Mashiro is an artistic genius who, at a young age, won many awards for her skills, but due to her childhood being so focused on art, she has no common sense and social skills. Forced to take the role of taking care of Mashiro, Sorata learns about himself and begins on a path of self improvement” – (Taken from Mangaupdates)
Produced by: JC Staff
Director: Atsuko Ishizuka
Series Composition: Mari Okada
Original creator: Hajime Kamoshida
Other Notable Staff: Masahiro Fuji (Character Designer)

The Positives: Mari Okada! That definitely gives it a plus, because even though she writes really good original script, she is also brilliant at adapting other works, as shown by Hourou Musuko, Gosick and the Armed Librarians. What’s also good is that there is character-development in the premise of this series. And to make things even better: they got the director of the final two stories of Aoi Bungaku, and half of Supernatural, both which were really artistic and well directed. And on top of that she worked on a ton of awesome episodes of series like Mouryou no Hako, Monster, Nana, Chihayafuru, and Himitsu. My favorite female director out there is Sayo Yamamoto, but damn: she comes close.
The Negatives: So of course the next move for these two would be a seinen romance. A bit strange when you consider that they’re both women, and from the outside this does look like wish fulfillment for the common fetish of helpless girl (pretty much like Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko). On top of that, JC Staff is a lot more conservative than the companies that they usually work with. The thing with both of them is that they need freedom. But something tells me that Mari Okada is going to grab that anyway. Also, I don’t really like the character-designer: she was the one behind the IMO ugly designs of Zero no Tsukaima and Hayate the Combat Butler.

First-Glance Potential: 85%

Zetsuen no Tempest: The Civilization Blaster

Summary: “Yoshino Takigawa is visiting his friend’s family grave. After getting there, he encounters Evangeline Yamato, a woman in search for his friend, Mahiro Fuwa, who left a month ago to find his family’s killer without any clues to who it might be. Evangeline informs Yoshino that two places where Mahiro has been spotted have been quarantined, due to an epidemic. When Evangeline is questioning Yoshino at gun-point, Mahiro comes out of nowhere and swiftly saves him and can stop bullets in mid-air, claiming to have a deal with a sorceress; not just any, but the strongest sorceress, Hakaze Kusaribe, who promised to help find his family’s killer with her magic so he can kill the killer himself. After saving Yoshino, Mahiro informs him about the epidemic, a curse that turns living things into metal, claiming the Kusaribe clan plans to revive the Tree of Zetsuen that could destroy the world.” – (Taken from Mangaupdates)
Produced by: Bones
Director: Masahiro Ando
Series Script Editor: Mari Okada
Original creator: Kyou Shirodaira
Other Notable Staff: Michiru Oshima (Music), Hiroki Kanno (Chief Animation Director)

The Positives: From the original author of Spiral, very interesting. This guy knows how to write mind games really well. But what about the rest? Well, the plot for this story definitely sounds much more interesting than that of Spiral. Add that to that it’s going to be adapted by Mari Okada, who is excellent at adapting stories, along with a chief animation director who previously designed the characters for Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood and Rahxephon, along with none other than Masahiro Ando, the director of Sword of the Stranger, Hana-Saku Iroha and Canaan, and you might just have something that can surpass Spiral very easily.
The Negatives: Unfinished manga alert! Abort! Abort! With Spiral this ended in a disaster where this caused the series to be unable to answer just about every single damn question that it asked.

First-Glance Potential: 85%

From the New World

Summary: ” In the future Japan has become a fractured country, and small towns now exist. The rulers of this world have the cursed power of Telekinesis. When an incident occurs, 5 children come to realize the world is not as it seems, and learn the bloody history behind this world. These 5 children unite and help the world as it falls into a downward spiral of chaos.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: A-1 Pictures
Director: Masashi Ishihama
Series Composition: Masashi Sogo
Original creator: Yuusuke Kishi
Other Notable Staff: Chikashi Kubota (Character Designs)

The Positives: A-1 Pictures adapting the work from an award-winning novelist about a dystopian science fiction mystery story. Count me in! The director is a very interesting guy. He doesn’t direct often, but he did the really stylish OP for Senkou no Night Raid, he did half of Speed Grapher (which I unfortunately didn’t watch), he was the chief animation director of Read or Die and directed the animation for Welcome to the Space Show. This guy needs some freedom (he also designed the characters for Eiken of all things), but he can really make this work. Masashi Sogo meanwhile is a decent scriptwriter for this. He worked both on good and lesser series, but he can really make this work I feel. I especially enjoyed his work for Yukikaze.
The Negatives: The big potential pitfall: the 5 children. The promotional material already made it clear that they’re just a small part of this world, but make sure that they can play out their role, instead of forcing them in the midst of struggles they don’t belong, having to pull deus ex machina to get them out again.

First-Glance Potential: 85%

Little Busters

Summary: ” The story follows the life of Riki Naoe, a high school student who has been a member of a group of friends named the Little Busters since childhood. Riki brings multiple girls at his school into the Little Busters to have enough people to play a baseball game.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: JC Staff
Director: Yoshiki Yamakawa
Series Composition: Michiru Shimada
Original creator: Maeda Jun
Other Notable Staff: Magome Togoshi (Music), Maruko Iizuka (Character Designs, Aimation Director)

The Positives: After Air, Kanon, Clannad and Angel Beats, this will be the next Key work. This one’s another adaptation, and this time it’s JC Staff’s turn to have a go at it. I’ve heard from various sources that the original story is even better than Clannad, so I’m definitely interested here. Michiru Shimada can make it work. On one hand she did a very botched adaptation of Before Green Gables, but her adaptation of Kaze no Shoujo Emily was amazing and very well thought out.
The Negatives: I haven’t seen Hatsukoi Limited enough, but I do wonder: is the director of that one good enough to make this work as a tear-jerker? Beyond that he also directed Kill Me Baby, but such a gag manga isn’t really comparable to something by Key. And here is the thing: what made Air and Clannad stand out (both with the movies and the TV-series) was that there were some amazing people working on it. Can these people live up to that in their own way?

First-Glance Potential: 85%

Psycho Pass

Summary: There is a gun involved. And it’s about a Ministry of Wellfare Public Safety Bureau Criminal Investigation Department. And Psychopaths (Psycho pass -> Psychopath, get it?)
Produced by: Index
Director: Huh?
Series Composition: Wut?
Other Notable Staff: Where?

The Positives: The creators are being really mysterious with this one. And it’s really working as well. This will definitely be some sort of police series, an interesting new direction for Noitamina, and the way in which it does this will probably involve some sort of science fiction. But the exact how and what are still completely unknown. This is unique for a Noitamina-series, but goddamit whoever the people behind this are: they definitely wet my appetite.
The Negatives: The only promotional material was of a gun that looked very CG-ish. Be sure to use your CG well, Psycho Pass!

First-Glance Potential: 85%

Litchi DE Hikari Club

Summary: “Nine sexually frustrated teenage boys build a robot fuelled by lychee fruit to help them kidnap girls and aid them in their plot for world domination.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: ?
Director: ?
Series Composition: ?
Original creator: Usamaru Furuya

The Positives: And the winner of the most creative premise of the season: Lichee Light Club. I mean, this just looks bizarre from start to finish, and with such ideas behind it it’s bound to have a few laughs. A horror comedy isn’t done often, so this definitely has potential, and it also definitely stands out from the rest. Good job.
The Negatives: We still don’t know who will adapt this, nor if it’s actually going to be able to make it on October, since there is no official art yet on the website to be found. The above image was either that, or some strange live action picture.

First-Glance Potential: 85%

Kamisama Hajimemashita

Summary: ” After her father having run away due to gambling debts, and being evicted from her apartment, Nanami meets Mikage, a strange man who is afraid of dogs. Nanami “saves” Mikage from a dog and tells him her story. He gives Nanami his house as a thank you for saving him. Nanami accepts the offer, due to having nowhere else to go. Mikage draws her up a map showing her where to go. Upon arriving, she finds that it is a rundown shrine. Nanami is then almost killed by Tomoe, who was expecting Mikage to finally return after his 20 year absence. She is then greeted by both Onikiri and Kotetsu, as the new land god of the shrine. Unable to accept Nanami as the new land god, Tomoe mocks her then leaves the shrine, which, without Tomoe’s power transforms back into a run-down state. Not wanting to rob Tomoe of his home and realizing that her powers as a god are too weak anyway Nanami leaves, but eventually is brought back by Tomoe after she seals a contract with him, making him her familiar.” – (Taken from ANN)
Produced by: TMS Entertainment
Director: Akitaro Daichi
Original creator: Julietta Suzuki
Other Notable Staff: Junko Yamanaka (ANN)

The Positives: YES! YES! For more than three years I have been waiting for Akitaro Daichi to actually direct a proper series again. I mean, he’s doing a wonderful job with Poyopoyo right now, and his adaptation of Gag Manga Biyori also was hilarious, but remain just random gag series. For those who are unfamiliar with him: I consider him to be the single most consistent comedy director out there, who at the same time gets even better when he has something serious in his hands (he was the guy who directed Now and Then, Here and There for example). On top of that, the premise here sounds like we’ll finally get another good shoujo series again, and Julietta Suzuki has potential as a writer: her short stories won a few awards and her stories overall seem much more imaginative than what I’ve been used to from most shoujo-series of the past years. TMS Entertainment, I really like the complete change in direction you took this year.
The Negatives: My one worry is TMS Entertainment, in the way that they’re obviously taking a huge risk this year. Now don’t get me wrong: I really like that, but I fear that like with Zetman, they won’t have enough support to fully animate it. Especially considering how the manga has 13 volumes currently published… and is still ongoing.

First-Glance Potential: 85%

July Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

So, this season had a really tough job to live up to the previous season, that was just filled with really good series. It’s definitely much smaller, but on the flip-side it did deliver with a bunch of very interesting series. In particular the dramas are better than ever, but there are also quite a few series that overflow with creativity. I consider this a succeeded season at this point.

Manga Recap:
So, this month I finally started to get into manga. Unconsciously, this mostly turned into an exploration of various one-shots, one-shot compilation, or short manga. Most of what I’ve been able to read are just introductions, and there was some nice stuff amongst them, but there were three things that really managed to catch my attention with their excellent introductions, and carried them further with excellent storytelling.

#3: Hotel
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Hotel by Boichi. This is a mature Osamu Tezuka-esque take on science fiction and the apocalypse, all paired with the most crisp art I’ve encountered this month. Its first chapter shows an interesting portrayal of the apocalypse, but what really blew away was the Tuna story. That really was unique and unlike any other science fiction story I’ve read.

#2: Hito Hitori Futari
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Hotel really only let me down on one area: its characterization. This all felt a bit flat. Hito Hitori Futari however, packed a ton of charm in its two characters. This really was drawn with emotion, and together with the down to earth dialogue, it really managed to bring its cast to life. It’s also got a beautiful art style.

#1: A Million Pound Love
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This is an anthology by the same author of Himitsu the Revelation, and you can definitely see this. This is truly excellent mystery with brilliant character-development put in very short stories. Like Himitsu, she knows exactly how much to reveal at each page to keep you interested.

#33 (new) – Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru – (1,75/10) – Add some gender-swapped historical figures, and then this series would have been everything that is wrong with modern anime. I mean, Dakara Ecchi was bad, but this is one level beyond that: completely shameless and stupid without any hint of inspiration or effort.
#32 (new) – Hagare Yuusha no Estetica – (2,5/10) – This show was incredibly stupid and sexist, I just can’t remember why anymore.
#31 (new) – Dakara Boku wa H ga Dekinai – (2,9/10) – Why don’t these guys just make straight-up porn?
#30 (new) – Chitose Get You – (3,25/10) – This series was just cheap and poorly delivered. And I can understand lacking budget and all: but there is no excuse fo the completely uninspired writing and jokes.
#29 (new) – Oda Nobuna no Yabou – (3,5/10) – It’s one thing to gender-swap famous historical figures. But really: why does it always have to be with the same people? First there was the romance of the three kingdoms, now this.
#28 (new) – Campione – (4,5/10) – It looked like for a minute this series had potential to become an entertaining action series. But no, it had to focus on harem clichés instead. This show got quickly dropped once I found that out.
#27 (new) – La Storia Della Arcana Famiglia – (5,5/10) – Look, I used to be a huge fan of shoujo series. When good, they can deliver some of the most heartfelt stories out there. But it’s the series like Arcana Famiglia that make it really hard to remain a fan by reducing most of the cast to mere stereotypes who keep repeating one single gimmick. Chiaki Kon, you in particular should know better.
#26 (24) – Yuruyuri – (6/10) – Yuruyuri was very funny when it started with that gimmick of a first episode. When that ended though, it completely bored me. It’s still girls talking and making bad lesbian jokes. If that’s what you like, then by all means give this one a chance. I just tuned out immediately.
#25 (35) – Dog Days – (6/10) – I was hoping that Dog Days’ would improve on the formula of its predecessor. What I wasn’t prepared for however, was the end of that second episode. Just.. why? Why on earth would you want to do something like that in a series like this?
#24 (new) – Joshiraku – (6,5/10) – Joshiraku was too static: it entirely was about characters sitting in a room discussing wordplay. It got to the point where they weren’t characters anymore, but rather that this became an essay about wordplay from the author.
#23 (new) – Ebiten – (6,6/10) – Well, this one wasn’t the worst of this season, it had some nice jokes and all. But ultimately it’s just random fluff that has way too little potential. Also, those eyes!
#22 (27) – Hakuouki – (6,9/10) – I have to grant it to Hakuouki that out of all of the bishie-series to appear during the past few years, it has been the best. It at least tried something different from the usual cliches. But it just doesn’t seem to really try to stand out. It’s just there. I gave several seasons a try now, but never did I really encounter something that caught my attention.
#21 (new) – Binbou-Gami ga! – (7,4/10) – Comedy is incredibly subjective, but I do recommend watching the first episode of this series: that one was very well-balanced and quite funny. As for what happened afterwards, though: it just wasn’t funny enough for me, and the random references for the sake of references, stereotypical characters and lots and lots of yelling just didn’t do it for me.
#20 (24) – Phi Brain – (7,5/10) – I can live with Phi Brain being stupid, but what is a bit harder to accept is how this series has been systematically ignoring any good potential character-development. This month thankfully wasn’t as bad as the previous one, and there even was a very good episode with the Ana Gram episode, but can someone answer me why the single most pathetic villain of the first season was brought back?
#19 (new) – Tanken Drilland – (7,5/10) – Tanken Drilland has the makings of a really good kids show, but it really needs to try harder for that. It’s really quite charming, and the two leads work too good together, but the third main character is a bit too stupid. Yes, I know this is aimed at kids, but that is no excuse. What happened to the days of the World Masterpiece Theater in which kids series really took their audiences and their characters seriously?
#18 (22) – Saint Seiya Omega – (7,6/10) – Saint Seiya has been dabbling on like usual. Some episodes are a bit of a waste of time, while others are a bit more interesting, but it never really stood out, nor did it ever get annoying enough for me to drop it. Whether I’d recommend this show to others to marathon though… that’d be a different story. It’s good enough to watch weekly, but for now it doesn’t really have enough staying power to be worth it to marathon.
#17 (new) – Total Eclipse – (7,75/10) – Total Eclipse is a strange beast. I actually like that it took its first two episodes specifically to show the background of one of the main characters, but afterwards things went a bit wonky with strange nationalism and stereotypes, along with a lot of yelling and random fanservice. Seeing this, I can imagine that the director was about to break down, but the writing staff also is to blame for some of the strange design decisions.
#16 (new) – Sword Art Online – (7,9/10) – For me,the gist of Sword Art Online is: really interesting setting, gorgeous visuals, rather boring characters. At this point in the story, none of the characters really stand out yet: there were moments in the first episode in which they did, but in the episodes afterwards this series has been very gloomy and particularly bad in portraying its side-characters, on top of being surprisingly formulaic (Hello, girl of the week!).
#15 (new) – Tari Tari – (8/10) – Tari Tari is a charming slice of life series, that has yet to really stand out. The closest it has gotten is with episode two, but afterwards it really made clear that that was just a one-off issue. The blond lead girl in particular tends to get on my nerves, and is a bit too simplistic and clichéd. They still could make this work though, because there definitely is potential here.
#14 (14) – Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – (8,1/10) – Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon makes no sense whatsoever. But the ideas it has really make up for it. It’s completely crazy this way, and that’s what I really appreciate from it. Now if only the characters themselves would get a bit better: in particular the male lead is trying too hard to be comic relief. And no, I don’t care if this is explained in the plot. This is Horizon, they can just pull something out of their asses to turn this down.
#13 (new) – Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita – (8,1/10) – Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita has one thing that makes it stand out, and it does that really well: its setting. There is so much interesting stuff going on in this series, and it’s all just so inspired. Beyond that though, it doesn’t really have anything that stands out: the graphics look pretty… and that’s it. The characters are… there I guess, but that’s all So yeah, it’s a one trick pony, but that trick it does is damn great.
#12 (new) – Uta Koi – (8,25/10)

Thank you, whoever made this show possible. This series shows that anime can still make series that have no commercial potential at all, and instead are there to teach their audience new things and show their own interpretations of a unique part of Japan’s history. The acting is a bit simplistic, but heck: the content, soundtrack and pacing make up for that.

#11 (13) – Moyashimon – (8,25/10)

Bizarrely enough, the central character of the past month changed to a germophobe. Because of this, the germs have turned into narrators. A bold move, and do the creators have enough to make up for that? I’d say yes: the lectures in this series are very interesting, and the characters all have a very good chemistry together.

#10 (9) – Rinne no Lagrange – (8,25/10)
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Rinne no Lagrange continues its strong formula of mechas and charming characters. With this, we’re heading into the real mysteries in this series, and the themes of reaching out to the enemy still remain, although the main villain of Ran’s brother could do with a bit of character-development at this point.

#9 (15) – AKB0048 – (8,4/10)

This month, AKB really won me over completely. The second season announcement, on top of the characters getting even more charming really did the trick for me. The finale was incredibly cheesy, but it worked due to the excellent direction and musical numbers. Definitely looking forward to that continuation.

#8 (25) – Kokoro Connect – (8,4/10)

This was by far the surprise of the season, after that first episode that left me woefully unimpressed. From out of nowhere, this series suddenly started delivering with excellent dialogue and voice acting, and the characters suddenly revealed complex issues that they all discussed with each other in great detail. This is one case in which my first impressions have been totally wrong.

#7 (18) – Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – (8,5/10)

I love this show. It’s all just so down to earth. This month was entirely dedicated to Summer, and what followed were a TON of short sketches about the different characters living their daily lives while it’s too hot to really do anything. Seriously, the episodes are only 2 minutes long, and the creators still manage to stuff in enough content as if it was five times that length.

#6 (11) – Shirokuma Cafe – (8,5/10)

This show surpassed itself this month with a number of classic scenes. It’s still incredibly corny, but because of how true it is to itself it really doesn’t matter, and this actually becomes a selling point. Some of the characters, especially Penguin and Polar Bear, were just priceless.

#5 (10) – Hunter X Hunter – (8,6/10)

Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally Hunter X Hunter has arrived at the point that I’ve been looking forward to ever since it got announced (nearly a freaking year!): the Yorkshin arc. This is where the original series really went: “Shounen conventions?” Who cares about these bloody shounen conventions! I’ve got a story to tell!”, and it would be wonderful if this new season would also be able to achieve this. The early signs are all good: sure, the acting is a tad more over the top, but they can really make this work. They really nailed the introductions of the key characters in their own way.

#4 (9) – Hyouka – (8,6/10)

The school festival arc is really big. For how many episodes has it been going on now? 4? Because of that though, it really as been able to put in an attention to detail for the small things, That was great build-up.

#3 (4) – Eureka Seven Ao – (8,75/10)

To those who were planning to check out Eureka Seven Ao without having seen the original Eureka Seven: don’t. You really need to have seen the first Eureka Seven in order to be able to enjoy this to the fullest, that definitely became clear this month. And how! This month just delivered twist after twist after twist, and it all works together. The big ones in particular were just amazing, and this series doesn’t even show signs that it played all of its trumps already.

#2 (new) – Natsuyuki Rendezvous – (9,25/10)

This show is just amazing in every single way. It’s been a long while since in a season there was just one show that immediately blew away all other series that debuted that season so massively. Its voice acting is just fantastic, the characters and their chemistry is just amazing, the soundtrack rocks, the animation is incredibly detailed, the story doesn’t beat around the bush. It really is refreshing to see such a mature romance, in which the main female character actually is in her thirties: these characters are even rarer than male leads of that age.

#1 (1) – Uchuu Kyoudai – (9,25/10)

The thing with Uchuu Kyoudai is that the only criticism I might have for it is that its pacing is a tad slow: it really takes a while to get from A to B. But dammit, it brilliantly makes use of this, by using this time in order to flesh out its cast to the fullest. Mutta has become a classic character at this point, but the rest of the cast members are also awesome at this point. Everyone just feels so real and down to earth, and on top of that they all pack a ton of charm in their own way.

AKB0048 Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Anime Reviews



So, AKB was a series that not many people seemed to like, so with this review I’ll try my hardest to explain why it managed to win me over. And let me get one thing straight: it’s not like I’m some sort of idol fanboy. In fact, I hate the idol business. I really dislike J-Pop as a music genre. And I’m really not a fan of abusing moe and cute girls to pander to an audience. So yes: how on earth did this show manage to win me over?

For the people who aren’t familiar at all with AKB0048: AKB48 is an idol group, consisting out of a huge amount of teenaged girls who sing songs and do other cute things. This series is meant to promote them: the main characters are all played by various members, most of whom have no voice acting experience, and the plot is about a world in which music has been outlawed and the girls run around and perform guerilla concerts as a sort of resistance. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Yeah, but here is the thing: the two main creators, the chief director and the main writer, are two of the biggest trolls around in the anime business: Shoji Kawamori and Mari Okada. And they were given a lot of freedom. I still don’t know who found that a good idea, but bless this person.

Now, to fully appreciate this series, you’re going to have to need to read inbetween the lines a bit. It’s indeed true that we have a bunch of idols who sing and fight evil enemy soldiers at the same time. But at the same time this series does some really surprising things as a show that’s meant to be a promotion of an idol group. I mean, usually these things are incredibly cheap and superfluous: cartoonified members of the group go on random adventures and try to be as cute or cool as possible. AKB0048 however, completely throws these conventions out of the window and starts to focus on the uglier sides of being an idol; how unfair the business can be sometimes, how hard it forces teenaged girls to work and how it forces some dangerous mindsets on them. This series, on one half is indeed cute girls doing cute things, but that other half is really dark to balance all of that out, with some really cynical messages at times.

Beyond that, this show also is just very well executed. The thing with this show is that nearly all voice actresses are completely new, so they don’t have a stereotype that they all try to fit in like what you’d have if people like Kugimiya Rie were cast and all. There are a lot of characters in this show, but none are unlikable or try to force their cuteness down the viewer’s throats. They’re all well-developed and all have engaging issues that actually differ quite a bit. Beyond that there is excellent animation and musical numbers: the performances in this series really work and its use of music is really excellent.

Having said all that though, the overall storyline of this show IS completely silly. The people who outlawed entertainment are nothing more than shallow villains, and somehow they keep getting beaten by a bunch of little girls despite being in armored tanks and mechas. For as much attention this series gives to entertainment and idols, so little it spends on the actual bad guys of this series. That really is the biggest weakness of this series: at times it will be really, really hard to maintain your suspense of disbelief. The sign whether you’ll like this show or not is probably at episode number two: if at that point the characters don’t interest you, then you’ll have a very hard time with this. That episode however does have the power to really capture its audience though, so if you’re interested in this series, do give it a chance and don’t be put off by the whole premise… too much.

Storytelling: 7,5/10 – An excellent animated musical, but the action scenes make no sense!
Characters: 8,5/10 – Large cast with actually likable characters, rather than characters who put too much emphasis on moe stereotypes. They actually got a balance here.
Production-Values: 8,5/10 – Eye candy! Great use of music and songs.
Setting: 8,5/10 – A very cynical and interesting look at idols that you would not expect from a show that’s meant to promote idols.

Suggestions:
– Aquarion Evol
– Macross Frontier
– Nerima Daikon Brothers

Some Quick First Impressions: Ebiten

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Ebiten

Short Synopsis: Our lead character strips innocent girls to their underwear.
So, Ebiten has immediately won the “Worst character-designs of the season”-award (those eyes!), but what about the rest of the episode? Well, I guess it wasn’t that bad. Of course it wasn’t anything amazing, and don’t ask me why that one girl had to be stripped and tied up all the time, but when the characters in this episode started role-playing, things got fairly amusing. Ebiten is a show that thrives on meta-fiction: its set up is similar to the bad parts of Haruhi, and there were a lot of Saint Seiya references in this episode. And not the kind of references that are there for the sake of having references, but they were actively used. I think the best series to compare this with is a Joshiraku minus the wordplay and with a ton of random fanservice added, but unlike Joshiraku the characters were trying to be actual characters, rather than vehicles for the author to show off his sense of wordplay. Does that make up for the fanservice? I dunno? That depends on the next episodes.
ED: Why are you trying to make live-action girls substitute for the characters? It’s not like they look alike or anything; bad use of idols
Potential: 50%

Kokuriko Zaka Kara Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

Agh! Stupid laptop! I was nearly done typing up the review for this movie, and then it crashed, taking forever to start up again. I don’t feel like writing it up entirely again, so here is a crash review on Goro Miyazaki’s Kokuriko zaka Kara. There also isn’t going to be a rating table this time, because if that’s longer than the actual review it would defeat its entire purpose.

This felt real! I mean, for a long time I wasn’t sure where this movie was going, but at the ending everything fell on its place and this was a huge improvement over Tales of the Earthsea’s Deus ex Machina ending. The creators created a very interesting movie here with very restrained drama. No overacting whatsoever, even for movie standards. Goro Miyazaki is completely different from his father and he definitely fits quiet drama better, which is probably why he put so much of that into Tales of the Earthsea.
Suggestions:
– Mai Mai Miracle
– Whisper of the Heart
– Chocchan’s Story

Some Quick First Impressions: Hakuouki – Seimei-Roku, Oda Nobuna no Yabou and Sword Art Online

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Hakuouki – Seimei-Roku

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a cute guy.
You know, after watching hordes of bishies in Brave 10, Hiiro no Kakera and Arcana Famiglia, it’s at least good to see some of them with actual emotions, rather than one-dimensional stereotypes who keep repeating their own gimmicks. As much as I dislike Hakuouki, I have to admit that out of the bishie series to come out in the recent year,s, it is the most solid. And I have to admit: in terms of storylines this episode had the best plot of the episodes I’ve seen of it so far. It’s a simple but effective story about being indebted to a bad person and the politics around this were solid enough. And what’s more: the single most annoying character, the female lead, was actually nowhere to be found here, which definitely made things more bearable. Yet, Hakuouki, I miss energy. Try to have some passion, because you’re still really boring to follow: put some effort in your delivery and your atmosphere. Make things seem interesting. There are enough tricks for that, but you hardly use any of them. Is this really going to be the future of the shoujo series? In which the best selling entry isn’t really trying?
OP: A decent singer, albeit still a bit dull.
Potential: 50%

Oda Nobuna no Yabou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has been sucked into his favorite game world. Please… allow me to believe that…
You know Fate/Zero, in which the creators actually turned the famous King Arthur into a female? That was good! The creators made great use of the mysteries behind King Arthur and they made us believe that this was actually pretty plausible. So seriously, what is up with all these incredibly stupid historic gender reversals? In other words: Odu Nobuna no Yabou is the worst TV-series I have seen from Madhouse in the seven years I have done this blog. Yes, even worse that Kamen no Maid Guy, Stitch and Iron Man. Even these series at least had a premise. Even these works had more dignity than this thing in which it makes a complete mockery of history and keeps throwing in the most useless and annoying jokes and moe cliches. I’m not really sure who it was who got the idea to turn Oda Nobunaga into a typical tsundere, nor the guy who found it a good idea to greenlight this. And the bad thing is that the production values are pretty good. they wasted a wonderful soundtrack from Yasuharu Takanashi and the camera work also is pretty good here.
OP: Another OP that is exactly like all other OPs out there.
ED: FANSERVICE
Potential: 0%

Sword Art Online

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays games.
At the start, I just couldn’t help but compare this to .Hack//Sign (one of my favorite series ever) but already quickly into the episode it turned out that the focus of Sword Art Online would be entirely different. Where .Hack focuses on social interactions, this series is more of a thriller, with its emphasis on the combat aspects of an MMORPG. And yeah, this episode was well made: the characters were well acted and this episode did a good job in outlining the overall concept of this series, without playing all of it trumps right at the start (I like how we’re only introduced to two members of the main cast here). The creators also got some really good background artists for this series, so that also definitely is a plus. Perhaps it’s not .Hack//Sign levels and Yuki Kajiura doesn’t really feel like she’s at her best with this series, but as for this being the most solid fantasy of the season? Yeah, pretty much.
ED: Nice animation, but it misses something, plus the song is bland.
Potential: 85%

Some Quick First Impressions: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon II, Dog Days’ and Tanken Drilland

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon II

Short Synopsis: Our lead character walks around naked.
Well, this was pretty much what you’d expect: this first episode continues immediately with Horizon’s formula in which the creators pull the most creative and nonsensical powers and plot twists out of their asses, all combined with some really bad fanservice jokes. As much as I’d like the creators to tone things down a bit so that it can focus on what it’s really good at, I can’t deny that this episode wasn’t fun and exciting to watch. The plot itself continues at a pretty steady pace as well, which is also good to see. Yeah, if you like the first season you’ll like this.
OP: This OP also took cues from “how to make a generic OP 101”.
Potential: 80%

Dog Days’

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights a bunch of cats.
Ah, Seven Arcs: you have shown in the past that you know how to take a second season, and have it improve vastly over its predecessor with Nanoha, Sekirei and the big one: White Album. And for this show you also brought in a director I really like, Junji Nishimura, who directed Simoun. Whether that really lead to a better series… I can’t say yet, especially since I didn’t watch the first season. I do have some observations though: the screenplay and animation seem better and crisper. Also, what exactly has happened in the story-department in this series? I mean, I could see quite a few changes in the characters compared to the first episode of the first season, but we’re still at a point in which there’s a war between dog and cat people with overpowered leaders. Does this show actually move anywhere?Other than that, this episode was pretty dull and didn’t really capture my interest, and it felt too much like a copy of what I saw of the first season. A second season should evolve, not stay the same with only slight character variations.
OP: The song for this OP has been pretty much directly copied and pasted from every other generic OP out there.
ED: Generic J-pop with a slide-show.
Potential: 35%

Tanken Drilland

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wields a sword and kills evil monsters.
This.. was actually surprisingly cute. The drawings are very childish, but this is a take back to the classic 90’s fantasy series. what made this stand out was the surprisingly good characterization, rather than having the same band of adventurers, or the same old harem participate as the center of the story. The lead female is acted well, and Toei has put some good effort into making the action-sequences stand out. The big potential pitfall of this series will be placing too much focus on combat. This IS a game adaptation after all, which often favor random combat scenes over everything else, and this episode looked like this series was willing to spend extra time into the characterization, but not the story, because that one really is generic: things are happy, evil comes along and threatens things, the lead party goes on adventuring and fighting evil monsters: it’s all so bland there and this episode gave away no hints that it’s going to deviate from the norm in terms of that, and that will prevent this series to really stand among the greats of the RPG adaptations like Popolocrois.
OP: Cheesy fantasy.
ED: Helium voices with cheesy slide-show and running images.
Potential: 70%

HagaSome Quick First Impressions: Hagare Yuusha no Estetica and Natsuyuki Rendezvous

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Dakara Boku wa H ga Dekinai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to have sex.
So, the second of the shows with a really bad premise this season. I can be pretty quick about this: unlike that incest show, this as least does have some impressive production-values to back it up, but that’s all pretty much nullified by this show being a poor excuse for action and porn, and any charm left in this series is completely sapped away by its characters. The male lead is this new type who popped up recently: the pervert who constantly thinks of sex and boobs whenever he’s with a female character and keeps raving on about how he wants to get into a girl’s pants. The lead female is a typical tsundere and the side character is a typical childhood friend. There’s nothing creative or interesting about this show whatsoever on top of all these problems. Yeah this one’s bad.
ED: Bad recap ED with a bland song.
Potential: 0%

Hagare Yuusha no Estetica

Short Synopsis: Our lead character steals the underwear from teenaged girls.
Wll, this is really a series that could have been good, if it weren’t produced by the single worst production company out there: ARMS. Its concept of a world in which it’s normal for people to travel back and forth does have potential, but that’s not really going to work when you throw in some really bad fanservice jokes around, and where every single female is just complete fodder for the male lead. Even the almighty daughter of the demon king needs to be protected by this guy. Granted, this episode was better paced than the usual stuff of ARMS, but that’s like comparing an Uwe Boll flick with an Adam Sandler flick: they’re both still bad.
OP: Unimpressive J-rock with random fantasy images.
ED: Really uninspired images of the lead female. And her boobs.
Potential: 0%

Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in love.
With these first impressions, it’s obvious that some episodes make a bigger impresion on me than others. However, it seriously has been a while since an opening episode completely dwarfed all of the other series, especially for a non-sequel. This first episode of Natsuyuki Rendezvous and in particular its acing completely flew out all othe shows so far out of the water. The hints are definitely there that the voices are recorded before the animation, and this gives the voice actors so much more freedom. The voice acting in this episode was incredible and the actors have a huge range, varying between very subtle and restrained to strong voices perfectly. The parts in which two characters were talking to each other also had that flow unique to Matsuo Kou’s series as Kurenai and Red Garden. These characters feel more real than any other characters this season, this show knows when to be funny and how to be funny, and on top of that the animation also really succeeds in bringing the characters to life. Now please: keep this up, because this series can become an incredible romance if every single episode is of this standard.
OP: Gorgeous images.
ED: Wonderful song, and again gorgeous art. Dogakobo, where did you suddenly get all these amazing artists from?
Potential: 100%

Some Quick First Impressions: Joshiraku and Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Joshiraku

Short Synopsis: Our lead character talks a lot.
Joshiraku: put a bunch of girls into a room and have them talk to each other non-stop about random stuff. I can be very quick about these types of series: I don’t like them. This episode could not hold my attention at all, and this episode just didn’t go anywhere. It was all too static compared to the slice of life series that I do like, like Moyashimon and Poyopoyo in which everyone’s moving around. I will have to give it to this series though: the actual dialogue wasn’t the worst. Compared to your average Shaft or Silver-Link series it was focused and it actually did bother to throw in some characterization and interesting traits of the lead females and as expected from the original writer of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, it did play cleverly with language. If you enjoy this genre then Johiraku is something you should check out. If not though, then stay far away, because this isn’t going to make you see the light.
OP: The random images work, but the song itself is boring.
ED: Obviously is trying really hard to be catchy
Potential: 40%

Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has a sister.
The three worst things to base your anime on: porn, incest and turning famous historical figures into girls. This season has managed to produce a series for each of those. “There is a sister among us” is the first of this bunch, and like expected, it is insultingly bad, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this would end up as the single worst series of the entire season. This wasn’t necessarily because of the incest though: that part of the series is so bad it becomes funny, because it attempts to create some bizarre horror show and makes the sister seem like this creepy delusional stalker. No, the problem with this show is just about everything else. It tries to take itself so seriously, with really cheesy romantic music, and yet every characters acts incredibly stupid. This series is an incredibly forced harem, and this episode was filled with the most boring dialogue that according to the hints in the OP and ED only seem to want to lead to getting the female in this show naked. Also, this has the single worst use of a truck I have ever seen. Seriously, it comes speeding right out of bloody nowhere, hits the lead female full frontal without even any signs of slowing down, completely disappears again… and she stands up like nothing happened. GIRL, YOU WERE HIT BY A SPEEDING TRUCK! YOU SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO STAND LIKE THAT!
OP: Cheesy harem OP = blegh
ED: Okay… if there was any doubt on where the mind of the creators resides… this one cleared that up once and for good…
Potential: 0%

Some Quick First Impressions: Moyashimon Returns, Binbou-Gami ga! and Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu – Uta Koi

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Moyashimon Returns

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a college student.
When the second season of Moyashimon was first introduced, I was glad (obviously, after Guilty Crown), but I couldn’t for the love of me remember why I liked the original series so much. Yeah sure it had a very creative premise and all, but was it really that good? The only thing I could recall was that a cross-dresser appeared halfway through. After watching this episode however, I remember again: this show is fun. This probably sounds really vague, but that’s really the thing: this how is just a bunch of oddballs at college doing various experiments, nothing more. But here is the thing: these creators captured college students. This was hectic, fun and surprisingly educative, and all of the characters are just a whole lot of fun to watch. Noitamina definitely is on a nature streak this half year: first there were fish, now there are germs and flowers, but the series that I see as the biggest parallel is Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita. Overall, Moyashimon has by far better characters, they’re about equal in terms of creativity, but Jinrui gives it the extra edge with its storyline and sense of adventure, and it’ll probably be much more versatile than this series.
OP: Not as memorable when there are humans put in.
ED: This is more like it: if you’ve got a unique gimmick, then make use of it. Good song as well.
Potential: 85%

Binbou-Gami ga!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is very popular and has big boobs.
So this is the big comedy of the season, made by the Sunrise Comedy team, and I must say: I’m very impressed by this episode. This episode had a very good combination between jokes and sad drama, and the jokes themselves were also pretty varied, ranging from slapstick to parodies to references to tsukkomi-boke (someone jokes and someone else yells at him) jokes to hyperactive jokes. This may just have been the first episode, but this was actually really well balanced together. It also helps that the jokes were quite funny, and that the drama focused immediately on the lead female character, so we actually really got to know her in just one episode. My question right now is: how on earth are the creators going to top this? The OP is hinting that it’s going to introduce a large cast of wacky characters, with probably eve3ry episode focusing on one of them. The trick will be to remain fresh on all of them, while still making this about the two lead characters, who both pretty much already played their big trumps into just this first episode. How will the creators solve this?
OP: Generic J-Rock that didn’t impress me.
ED: Lots of random character art.
Potential: 80%

Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu – Uta Koi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character compiled a bunch of poems together for a children’s card game. And no, he’s not Pegasus.
Okay. This wasn’t what I expected this series to be. I mean, the concept is about the poems of the Karuta game all-right; but before now, all of the historical series based on mature themes all lacked one thing: forced and out of place comedy. And here this episode came with a narrator who talks to the audience as if they are stupid children, and the episode itself threw in these incredibly out of place facial distortions that completely destroyed the mood. On one hand this series tries to be beautiful and artsy, but the facial distortions are completely ugly and badly drawn. So yeah, despite being a romance, this series is not going to end up relying on its characters. Nevertheless, it still has the single best premise of the entire season, and the background behind this series still stands rock-solid: covering the small stories behind the poems of Karuta. This episode covered a whopping two of them, so the success of this series is definitely going to depend on its total picture. And in the meantime, the atmosphere was good. The soundtrack also is the bet of the season so far, so that helps too.
OP: This singer needs a bit more experience; try not singing through your nose. She has potential though.
ED: Why??! OH DEAR GOD WHY!?!?!
Potential: 75%