Now that I’m getting so close to the end of my to-watch-list, and really to the series that I’ve been looking forward to the most, this really does give a different kind of expectation compared to usual. This goes in particular for Princess Tutu: aside from one particular series, it has been the series that you have recommended to me the most often (that other series is Monster, by the way). With such a critically acclaimed series, I went into this series with a completely different mindset than others and it generally leads you to expect things in a different way from usual.
What I mean by this is the following: after completely finishing this series, I’d have to say that Princess Tutu isn’t the best shoujo series I’ve seen. Normally for an average show, this really wouldn’t mean much, because you can say this for 99.9% of all of the series out there, but this statement does gain a different meaning for something with the caliber of Princess Tutu. That doesn’t however mean that this show isn’t awesome and if you even remotely like shoujo and haven’t seen this one yet, you’re doing yourself a great disservice.
First of all, Princess Tutu is about ballet. That alone gives this show an air of elegance unlike any other, and the creators make full use of this with some excellent choreography. This show doesn’t have fancy graphics, but it still looks gorgeous due to the time that went into portraying all of the different dances that are incredibly prevalent throughout the entire series. A good dancer is able to entice an audience, just by performing, and the creators of this series did just that.
What really caught my attention about this series however, was how well this show develops its characters. In particular the most important characters change tremendously throughout the storyline, and this change ends up being a very important theme throughout the entire series. These characters are round and dynamic, they change naturally, yet you can’t see them coming. Even the side-characters evolve subtly throughout the series. Everyone is well acted, and the cast is immensely fun to watch, both during the light hearted moments and the serious ones.
This series is also able to tell a great story, with a beginning and an actual ending, where it makes great use of its build-up. Where it left things to be desired for me was at some points while building up, where it tended to get a bit too formulaic. This series also depends a lot on brainwashing and using love as a plot device. It actually gets away with it quite decently, but there are times when in particular the side characters suffer losing their free will too much, so that they can’t really show what kind of character they actually are. Brainwashing in general is very tricky to do right and Princess Tutu remains one of the better examples to do it because it’s a major theme of the entire series, but it does lead to a lack of freedom that holds the show back at times.
Still, with the current state that shoujo anime is in today, it’s great to look back at how grand it was in the past. This show combines innocence with dark and deep characters really well and with the ballet, it turns turns into a wonderful emotional ride. Oh, and the soundtrack cannot go unmentioned here. The use of classical music in this show is just a perfect match.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 – Great use of build-up, original and clever plot twists, but a tad too formulaic at times, and makes a bit too often use of brainwashing and love as a plot device. |
| Characters: | 9/10 – Wonderful development, especially on the main cast. |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 – The animation may not be big, but the characters are wonderfully animated to life, and the soundtrack makes this show still a feast for the senses. |
| Setting: | 9/10 – Very creative premise with a deep setting and unique atmosphere. |
Persona has the potential to become great as it goes on. Its premise can get really good in terms of character development if handled well. At the moment it’s still a bit too stuck in its own formula to really take off, though. There is little time given to flesh out the characters, which is why the parts where they show their inner secrets lack the impact they could have had.
#14 (new) – Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – (7,75/10)
This series’ biggest asset is its creativity. It’s set in an original world and the cast of characters is HUGE and very colourful. The overall plot feels a bit random and silly, but it’s definitely building up to something. The character designs themselves are abysmal, there are some definitely annoying characters and a lot of time is spent on just goofing off, but there’s some definite potential here.
#13 (new) – Phi Brain – (7,75/10)
This is a rather silly show about puzzles. In particular the antagonists make really weird decisions and have really strange motivations, but it’s worth it to see what kind of puzzles the creators come with, and the overall cast is eccentric, yet fun to watch. There is a very real chance for this show to become TOO eccentric, though. The key will be good variety in the puzzles from this point on.
#12 (17) – Shinryaku!? Ika-Musume – (8/10)
Overall Squid Girl’s second season has been a little step down compared to the frist season, but for comedy sequels’ standards it isn’t much of a step. The animation has gotten slightly worse, and some stories are too forced, but there still are a bunch of really hilarious stories. It needs to keep this up, because getting worse from this point isn’t an option.
#11 (9) – Bakuman – (8/10)
I do have to say that Bakuman is currently the best Shounen Jump series out there. Unlike Gintama and Sket Dance it isn’t throwing a bunch of random stories around in the hope that it’ll get lucky and strike gold, while unlike Nurarihyon no Mago it isn’t breaking up the flow with constant training arcs. The second season does have fixed some of its pacing issues, but on the other hand it’s not yet Hunter X Hunter material, and things have been rather monotonous.
#10 (new) – Tamayura ~ Hitotose – (8/10)
The two big slice of life series are both very, very different, but they’ve got one similarity: they depend on characters with annoying sides, and they somehow make it work. For me, Tamayura does it the best of the two at this point. It’s really well animated, and it actually uses photos really well to flesh out its cast. The drama around it isn’t random, but tells a lot about the characters. Some parts like the whistling and the shota fangirls can get annoying, though.
#9 (new) – Hunter X Hunter – (8,25/10)
Here is the thing with this new season: it’s much faster than the first season. That has advantages and disadvantages. The story flows more, it’s easier to get into and as the result a lot of very interesting stuff has already happened in just four episodes. Now, the thing remains that this show skips a lot of time to flesh out the characters because of this. Out of all adaptations that feel rushed this season, this one actually does its best to hide it so far, but the real test for this show will be the point where the characters will actually show themselves off. Will these be as great as well? Right now, the only parts that really are worse than the first season are the music, and some of the voice acting.
#8 (new) – Mirai Nikki – (8,25/10)
Mirai Nikki is over the top suspense, and it realizes that. The characters are fun and well acted together, there’s a good whiff of romance without overdoing it, and the first three episodes have been very entertaining with a pretty good atmosphere.
#7 (new) – Fate/Zero – (8,25/10)
Fate/Zero stands out as the most solid series of the season. I refuse to watch Fate/Stay Night but this was completely different and much more interesting (and heck, we’re talking about actual adults this time). My big complaint about it is that it’s a bit boring with its exposition. There are long scenes of characters just standing in one place and do nothing but talking, and characters stop in the middle of fights to explain their moves. That breaks flow.
#6 (new) – Ben-To – (8,25/10)
What makes Ben-To so addictive is its direction. It has definite harem elements, but tis delivery is fresh and interesting. The jokes all work great, the timing of this show is perfect, and even when it’s not funny, the characters are interesting and well acted, rather than most other moe shows that have just boring characters. On top of that the fights are a lot of fun to watch, and the premise of fighting over half-priced lunches just kicks ass.
#5 (new) – Last Exile – Ginkyou no Fam – (8,5/10)
If you’re planning to watch this series, I have one message for you: watch up to the second episode. Both episodes are completely different in tone. The first episode is rather childish, where the second is very serious. It actually manages to blend the two together very well and most importantly it knows when to ditch its silliness. What really impressed me is how much the creators put into the setting. This show is full of creativity and the world it’s played in actually feels alive.
#4 (new) – Chihayafuru – (8,5/10)
This show has the best characters of the new season. They’re really well animated, very dynamic (showing both their young and old versions in full details really helps!), plus the karuta matches were really made exciting. The big challenge for this show is making the karuta matches this way. It’s a very simple game, so keeping up this pace will be a challenge.
#3 (new) – Un-Go – (8,5/10)
I really like the storytelling in this series. This show knows that it’s Noitamina and tries to stuff as much into its episodes as possible. The result is that it’s really fast paced, but not in a bad way. Episodes do require a second watch-through in order to get everything, but for me that’s not a bad thing at all. My only gripe is that the cast of characters is rather flat.
#2 (4) – Hyouge Mono – (8,75/10)
This month was all about character development. Naturally this was a great chance for the cast to shine, in a very weird arc that completely ditched the warfare in favor of esthetics. This is Bee-Train though, so I’m really looking forward to what they have planned for the ending.
#1 (1) – Mawaru Penguin Drum – (9,25/10)
Penguin Drum has definitely changed this month. I think that it’s for the better. It’s both become hilarious and the character development is really kicking in. It keeps finding new ways of showing symbolism and toying with its storyline. And yet, amidst the chaos, nothing is just thrown in at random. It would be awesome if the final third will be able to live up to the potential that has been built up so far.]]> 
Um… yeah. This movie…. I think I’ve just been trolled.
The first Macross Frontier Movie stayed very close to the TV-series, only in a much more streamlined version. It cut all of the unnecessary stuff that dragged out, and instead focused on the core of the series, which worked really well and I ended up really liking it (and this is coming from someone who was really annoyed by parts of the TV-series). The second movie is… different…
One of my problems with Macross Frontier was that some subplots took forever to get anywhere, and a lot of them were resorted rather half-heartedly, if at all. This movie isn’t like that. This movie wants to be exciting. This movie wants plot twists, and it delivers them no matter what.
It’s difficult to do this review without spoilers, but let’s just say that this movie wants to deliver plot twists a little too badly. Especially the second half shows this. The result is a story that has lots of twists and turns… that just don’t make any sense whatsoever. You are going to have to turn off your common sense if you want to be able to enjoy this. I did not, and was raging throughout half of them. This was in no way good storytelling! The creators just pulled whatever twist looked the coolest out of their ass, and completely disregarded narrative logic. And I’m not the strictest when it comes to not making sense, but what the creators pulled here was just deus ex machina after deus ex machina that only add to the style of this series, not the substance. Oh, and Shoji Kawamori shows his environmentalist side again. You know, the kind where the environmentalist messages are just shoved down your throat without any sense of subtlety.
*Ahem* when you do turn off logic, you’ll be rewarded by an utterly gorgeous movie. In particular the musical segments shine as ever. This is one part at which Macross Frontier has never disappointed, and this is o exception. The use of colours and camera angles shows how much budget and animation talent went into this. Both for the 2d animation as the CG as the backgrounds.
It IS a fun movie. Just don’t go into it expecting good drama, because the drama here is of soap opera quality.
The first Gaiden series was pretty much what you’d expect it to be: small and big side-stories focusing on Reinhart’s past. The second gaiden series promised to focus on Yang Wenli’s past (who by the way was my favorite character of the main series). It however did not turn out to be as I expected.
First of all, in Yang’s past there was always one event that really kept mentioned over and over again: the things he did on the planet of El Facil. It was one of the core themes of the series as it looked at what it means to be a hero. I expected a very detailed look at it, but instead the creators end up breezing through it in one single episode.
This is just a small nit-pick, though. Spiral Lbyrinth starts off with a huge 14-episode arc, and in that arc is invaluable for Yang’s character. It shows who he was as a kid and how he ended up in the military, along with how he grew. Where the big arc in the first Gaiden Series was typical LoGH, this one is far from it, and it turns into a historical analysis that’s very interesting to watch unfold. When the arc ended, I was really looking forward to see some more small back-stories of the guy to close off the series…
… and suddenly the show goes back to Reinhart again. In fact, Yang only appears in one more episode after that. It’s like the creators were thinking “No! The people want more Reinhart!” The last number of arcs of this series are still good, but overall they don’t match up to the rest of the series, especially when you compare them to the short arcs of the first gaiden series. They’ve got nice ideas, and especially the retriever has an interesting premise, but a little too often they just deal with Reinhart trying to deal with dumb nobles and officers. It doesn’t add as much as the first gaiden season. Thankfully the final two-episode arc is a great point to end the series with, and connect everything together.
Now, this series actually has a different animation team than a Hundred Billion Stars, A Hundred Billion Lights. The two Gaiden series were at one point actually produced right next to each other. The team behind the main series seemed to have taken care of the first, while the second has a noticeably different art style. This art style unfortunately is a bit less successful in hiding the animation flaws in the character models, and it’s also a bit too full of intrusive CG (yes, this was produced around the year 2000. 12 whopping years after the series started).
Overall LoGH can be divided into six major arcs, including the Gaiden series. Unfortunately, the final one seems the weakest one to me due to its reluctance to fully embrace its premise and how it didn’t set itself apart as much as the other arcs. I do have to say that the first half is a must-watch due to Yang’s background and I’d actually consider that one better than the big arc of the first Gaiden series.
They aired after the main Legend of the Galactic Heroes series, but make no mistake: the two Gaiden series are prequels. One Hundred Billion Stars, One Hundred Billion Lights tells stories about the past of the main character, Reinhart von Lohengramm. In theory, they could be watched at any point in the series after episode 3 of the TV-series. The benefit you get from watching it early is some solid characterizations, backgrounds and introductions before the series gets really fired off. The benefit you get from waiting to check it out until the series finishes is a very solid background arc.
Now, the main series did hint at various events that happened in Reinhart’s past that we never fully got to see. Surprisingly though: this OVA doesn’t address those at all, and creates a whole array of new stories throughout Reinhart’s teenaged years. There are three small arcs of four episodes, followed by a big one comprising of 12 episodes. The last arc is typical LoGH: it focuses on large scale tactics and strategies, while weaving the stories of all kinds of characters together while at the same time asking many poignant question about the nature of war and commanding an army. Reinhart here shows a version of himself that he did not show throughout the main series, so it’s definitely worth checking out.
And then there are the short arcs, which really surprised me. It’s here where Legend of Galactic heroes shortly dabbles into other genres than its area of expertise: large scale space warfare. Each of these arcs are completely standalone and surprisingly varied. One of them even turns into a murder mystery, but in particular the third arc is masterfully told: it combines Legend of Galactic Heroes’ signature style of thoughtful dialogues and complex motives, and throws it into a story that instead of being told by reason, is told by emotions. That was the highlight of this season for me.
Now, these side stories miss the grandeur of the main series, so I can’t rate it as highly as the first. The stories are all really good, and again very intelligent, but they don’t come together as well as the main series did with its 110 episodes. It’s not that this movie is as unconnected as the first movie was. It’s still pretty much the best you can get in terms of warfare on a much smaller scale. It lacks the politics that made the main series so unique, though, and they definitely add a lot of things to this series and its cast. In terms of the big picture it’s just a matter of comparing a panther to a gigantic lion with wings.
Towa no Quon 02 is an improvement over the first movie, which is good to see. The animation budget went down a bit, but everything else is more interesting than the first movie.
The characters are less annoying, Quon is less perfect, the main side characters are better fleshed out, the lead female is much less of an idiot. Overall it’s a good movie spent, and proves to be a good antidote for all of the optimism that was present in the first movie. This puts it at least above Break Blade, where all of the movies just looked too much like each other. This movie instead is about a supernatural murder mystery. It’s actually well built up and the movie has a clear structure. That helps too.
Having said that though… the culprit behind the murders turned out to be one heck of an emo. The acting for the culprit was very bland, one sided and done to death. And overall, this movie still hasn’t really solved the way in which most of the characters are just too one-sided. This movie fulfilled its purpose in building up well, but it’s not there yet. The next number of movies need to continue this upward trend.
Oh my god. I’ve finally finished the first part of this behemoth of a franchise. Legend of Galactic Heroes is completely unique. It took more 12 years for it to completely finish, from the opening movie to the final side-stories. It was un-rivaled at the time when it came out, and nothing like it ever appeared again. With amine being as it today, I don’t think there will ever be another series like it. I know that it’s long (it totals a whopping 162 episodes and three movies), however if you have the time to watch it and are tired of anime’s trends towards moe and cheap entertainment: by all means give it a chance.
This is one of those series that actually changed my perception. After finishing this series, my view of how to portray tactical warfare, strategical warfare and politics are completely different. In those three areas, this series just blows every other anime out there out of the water with its complexity, maturity and ingenuity. Instead of basing itself on weird logic, just about everything in this series is carefully thought through and fleshed out. The main cast of this series is intelligent, without being perfect: everyone in this show has his or her flaws to make up for it, ranging from hypocrisy to laziness and temper.
I remember that my biggest criticism for the first movie was that the creators tried to make the main characters smart by surrounding them by rashly thinking officers who can’t see the big picture. This thankfully also got fixed throughout this series. Not by just removing it, but giving it a very deep meaning within the story. Whereas the movie was just a depiction of a space battle, the TV-series has very strong themes about Autocracy versus Democracy, what it means to be a ruler and commander, and what it means to be a hero. The incompetent people who fail at their jobs are used perfectly in order to illustrate how difficult commanding an army can be.
And then, there is the character development. This series has 110 episodes, divided over 4 seasons. All four seasons stand on their own as different, and this particularly shows in the character development, and how the characters think and act. The main cast changes subtly, but significantly, but even the side characters grow throughout this series. And really: the cast of this series is ENORMOUS. What this show also likes to do is take minor side characters who haven’t appeared for what feels like 50 episodes, in order to put them a bit in the spot-lights and show how much they’ve changed.
Now, this series has undoubtedly parts that it does better than any other anime out there. Did it turn into my favourite series, though? For that question, I’m afraid that my answer is no.
At this point, Legend of Galactic Heroes is ridiculously hyped. Let me however clearly state what this show isn’t: it is not a roller-coaster ride. It’s also not a series that is easy to get into, it’s not a series that blows you away time after time, it’s not a series with an impeccable atmosphere, nor is it a series that’s very easy to watch and draw you in.
The storytelling in this series is very composed and polite. It’s so very calculated and the plot twists feel very natural, but I did have to force myself to really sit through such an emormous amount of 110 episodes. The direction delivers its plot twists as they are, and rarely adds extra spices to the storytelling in terms of inventive camera work, or passionate voice acting. The animation as well is very composed: it’s good enough to keep character models consistent, battles interesting, but only one out of 10 or so episodes really goes beyond that. And heck, the episodes with the best animation aren’t the most important ones to the plot, and there is one character death episode that actually suffers from very bad animation. It’s a bit like reading a history book, really: it is incredibly interesting to see how everything plays out, but it still feels like something is missing when you compare it to other forms of entertainment.
110 episodes is really long. Nevertheless though, I still believe that this was the absolute best that anime had to offer until Escaflowne came out.
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a young genius pilot.
Well, first things first: it’s awesome to see Gonzo back. It’s not just the series they make. It’s because of their balls: they like to take risks like no other studio out there, and that’s why I became a fan of them, even though they did release their fair share of crap. Now, as for this series: it looks just gorgeous. The CG is still up to Gonzo’s high standards and the creators didn’t just copy designs from the first season, but came up with a whole new set of eye candy that certainly does not stand out as inferior to its predecessor. As for the story of this episode: it’s definitely more childish than the first season, and shows a bunch of teenagers being able to disrupt an entire fleet. The first season had this too, but was a lot more subtle about it, especially with the enemy fleet having very stuck-up commanders and deploying no vanships whatsoever to intercept the main cast. There’s also fanservice, though thankfully not as much as was feared. The acting is overall very good, though it does have a number of weak points. The direction is also quite solid, despite the lighter tone. This is a typical example of a first episode with a lot of potential to become amazing, but also with quite a number of things that can hold it back and didn’t work out as well as you’d hope. Yup, that’s Gonzo alright.
OP: The OP of the first season was much better.
ED: A familiar voice. The song is a bit redundant after hearing it in other EDs, but the picture slideshow looks nice.
Potential: 80%
Guilty Crown
Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a half-naked girl.
That was absolutely gorgeous. The first episode of Guilty crown is a visual feast, in the way that just about every frame is meticulously detailed and well drawn, in the way that only Production IG can do for a television series. If they keep this up, then this will very likely be the prettiest Noitamina series of the year. As for the rest of the episode though: there were a number of issues I had with it. The biggest is that outside of the visuals, I miss creativity: the scenario of this episode had a been there, done that”-feeling, and the main characters are a bunch of walking cliches. On one hand you have the really bland male main character, and on the other hand we have this female who has special powers, is his childhood friend, and gives the male lead a special weapon that he can use to kick ass. There have been way too many shows already with that premise, and the only thing that this show really added to that was its gorgeous visuals. This is a show that needs to grow significantly. But heck: at least the characters are far from as stupid or annoying as they were in Fractale.
OP: Good idea to combine it with the content of the episode.
ED: A bit of a dull ballad with nice art from the promo images.
Potential: 75%
Un-Go
Short Synopsis: Our lead character solves mysteries.
Here is a very interesting one, and I don’t mean that in the way you might expect. At first this episode started off like your average murder mystery series: the protagonists happened to be stuck in a room full of people where someone conveniently got murdered. It was well built up, but strangely mundane. Then however the second half came around and this episode just kept switching moods, themes and atmospheres. This series is attempting to breathe a new wind into the episodic murder mystery genre. This episode had science fiction, horror, and the post-apocalypse all stuffed together. This was the strange case of not the culprit getting some surprise added depth, but the setting itself became a lot more intriguing once this episode started putting the pieces of its puzzle together. On top of that, this episode was well produced and well directed with very natural camera work. The creators definitely took creative liberties on the original work it’s based on, and the episodic set-up really allows them to try a wide variety of different stuff. Oh, and as an added bonus this episode had the best use of music and sounds of the entire season so far. My only warning for when you plan to check it out: the characters. They are not on the list of priorities for this series.
OP: A bit of a dull song, but lots of neat eye candy.
ED: By far the best ED of the seasons. Heck, even the OPs get nowhere as close to the imaginative visuals and music that was displayed here.
Potential: 90%]]> 
Short Synopsis: Our lead character receives a baby from out of nowhere.
Just… what the hell was that supposed to be? This was… so bad that it became hilarious again. This episode was five minutes long, and it featured some of the worst animation and most wooden characterization of the entire season. The plot where a bullied girl takes care of a devil baby who is literally dropped into her bed (I really do mean literally: there are two hands visible who really drop that thing from out of this random hole in the air) is just ridiculously stupid and the acting may be so stiff and wooden that it becomes hilarious, it’s the kind of hilarious that’s probably going to be fun one episode. Of five minutes.
OP: Those vocals! Make them stop!
Potential: 0%
Mirai Nikki
Short Synopsis: Our lead character has a stalker.
Ooh, I like this one. This one turned out to be an excellent suspense series, with a very creative premise of using diaries that can predict the future. This episode was especially good at portraying the main character, and especially relating in how he slowly realized how badly he has been screwed over; his reactions were just priceless, and it gives this show a whiff of psychological horror that I can really appreciate. This episode was well animated, which is also a plus and for once an episode was fast-paced, without rushing though everything. There was one part where this episode fell down, though: the bad guy of this episode. He was just… there and we really don’t know anything about him. The creators had better try harder for the next characters to run into our main character, because this has potential to become a really fun series. Oh, and finally a series has the balls to have school that doesn’t feature school uniforms. That gives the character designers much more freedom, and it shows: this show really has this unique look without having a particularly different art style.
ED: Clever
Potential: 80%
Mobile Suit Gunam AGE
Short Synopsis: Our lead character pilots a giant robot.
Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. The big selling point of Gundam AGE was that it would show a completely different version of the regular Gundam series. In the end though, all that that amounted to was a new coat. It actually did nothing to remove the most obnoxious parts of the franchise. The male lead still is a teenager who for very convenient reasons ends up piloting a giant robot stronger than all others, he instantly knows how to pilot it, the female lead is completely useless, and there is a lot of angst about how bad war is. Sunrise, for the love of god try something new for a change. Probably the most insulting part is how pathetic the military is: even though they have never been attacked, they’ve only got one capable pilot. On top of that, they allow a twelve year old boy to design new mobile suits for God knows how much money. Really guys: designing and coordinating such a large-scale project isn’t so easy that you can just take off to school at the same time. Oh, and another cliche: everyone is an idiot in order to make the male lead look smart. Throughout the entire episode he is the only one who worries about the incoming invasion. Please Sunrise: you’re mecha series rocked because of how creative they were. This is not the way to do it.
OP: You can see that a lot of budget was put behind this, but it’s just too mainstream to really work. The flying scenes are good, though.
ED: This is pretty decent, though.
Potential: 30%]]> 
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is hungry.
So, it’s finally time for my most anticipated harem show of the season, and this definitely is a step above all of the others. There is first of all the premise of this series, but on top of that it also had by far the best direction of the bunch. This first episode was well told, had some great ideas into it, and especially the way in which the creators used amnesia in this episode in order to introduce everyone worked well, but also the use of camera angles was quite inspired. David Production also delivers in the animation: they really have the talent to breathe life into characters who seem very generic at first. Also, here is the thing about the next-best harem shows this season: Horizon and Majikoi may be enjoyable, they’re also badly acted. This episode of Ben-To wasn’t. The acting was actually quite good. The male lead is one of the first to actually do impressions (including a bizarre Norio Wakamoto impression), the females are based on stereotypes, but their behavior tries to move away from that. and attempts to give them a more colourful personality. Oh, and the use of music also was very good: it was well timed, the soundtrack is creative and it helps building up the tension.
OP: It has energy, but still a bit dull.
ED: Not a bunch of images, but actually relates to the series, though it does seem rather cheesy. The song still is badly sung.
Potential: 80%
Shakugan no Shana III
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is gone.
Okay, so apparently things actually happened in the second season. I gave up on that one after its second episode so I wouldn’t know exactly how it happened, but what this episode seemed to hint at rather scared me a bit. Of course, it’s good to see that at this point Shana has predictably changed from tsun to dere, so there’ll be no more “urusai urusai urusai”, and this episode was admittedly better than Hidan no Aria’s opening(not that that says much, though), but seriously. Are the creators really building up to a cheese ball finale where Shana is forced to have to fight Yuuji? Is that what these 80 episodes are building up to? Such a soap opera twist?! Please tell me that I’m wrong. I mean, pulling such a thing for a novelty is one thing. but to make it the main focus of 80 whopping episodes!?
OP: Not bad, but nothing special either.
ED: This is dull J-pop, though, where the limitations of the singer are really shown.
Potential: 35%
Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi 2
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is gay.
Here’s the thing with this series: cut it in half, remove the two non-main stories, and you’d have a very good story about a bunch of manga editors. The only reason why I dropped the original series is because it switched over to the second story, which put fanservice and blushing bishies before story and characters. This first episode of Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi’s first episode reminded me again of why I originally liked the series: it’s good slice of life, it portrays the stress of being a manga editor quite well and it’s quite funny. There is progress: instead of dealing with manga authors, the main character now has to deal with colleagues and printers, which take a completely different set of skills. In terms of the romance though… I didn’t feel like I missed much actually. Only this episode developed the relationship between the two male leads further and really, they’re pretty interesting characters. The biggest thing that this series needs to worry about now is to avoid Junjo Romantica 2’s big pitfall of not going anywhere.
OP: Try to do something different for a change.
ED: Dull J-rock
Potential: 70%]]>