Category: Other:

It’s an interesting batch this time. Each of these series has the potential to become great, but each of them has one or more major flaws. It’s interesting to see how these three turn out. Also, with this, I think I’ve managed to cover the largest part of the autumn season. All that’s really left to get subbed is Jigoku Shoujo (seriously, I can hardly wait for it) and a Spirit of the Sun. Oban Star Racers seems to be aired at some kind of special location, as no raws have appeared at all. It was the same case with FLAG, I think we need to wait for the Japanese DVD’s to come out in order to see it. Same with Silk Road Boy Yuto. Master of Epic seems to have delayed its anime a bit, such a pity. And Bikkuruman Hikkariden will probably never really get enough attention to even get its own raws. Next up is waiting for shows like Souko no Strain, Tokyo Tribe, Freedom and Afro Samurai.

Bartender

I’m a big fan of the various episodic case-based anime (Mushishi, Jigoku Shoujo, xxxholic), so I was looking forward to this anime. It follows a bartender who can make the god’s glass, a way to people’s hearts. Unfortunately, the first episode has yet to display anything special. It follows a stressful bar designer, but the entire story lacked emotion. Still, I’m probably going to end up blogging this. Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi showed that you have to warm up to stories like these a bit for them to become really effective.

Kekkaishi

I have to admit, when I read the premises, I feared the worst. It’s a nice surprise that this shounen series actually turned out above average. It’s still got the cliché of having a fourteen year old brat as main character, but he’s been given unusual character depth. Especially the part when he was just a nine-year old boy was pretty impressive. If this anime loses the fourteen-year-old brattiness, things actually could get pretty good. I just hope that the creators manage to actually bring the love relationship between the main male character and main female character in a good way. Right now, all signs point to the fact that the main female character will end up being a simple damsel in distress. If this anime can avoid this, we’re in for something worthwhile.

La Corda d’Oro: Prima Passo

There’s one thing that always annoys me with anime like this: the important characters are the only ones with obscure hair colours. Anyway, this anime is sortof like learn to play the violin, the lazy way. We’ve got our main character who seems to be the only one who can see a special fairy because of no reason. The fairy then grants her a special violin which can make anyone play beautiful. Yeah, sure. I think that this anime doesn’t want to be taken seriously. Both the main male character as the main female character are as standard as possible, though the side-characters can prove to be interesting. Of course, our main character ends up winning the music competition, but seeing how the side-characters will face of against each other will probably be worth it. At least, if the creators give them a chance for this. Overall, it’s not exactly a bad anime. It’s just got some hugely annoying flaws which sortof ruin the mood. At least let the main character be someone who’ll work hard to achieve her goals.

I tried watching the raws for Bartender, though after only seconds I knew that I’d be better off with the subs. Seriously, that narrator had one strange voice. It sounded like a butler who likes to speak as polite and soft as possible with way too much enthusiasm. I’m hoping for subs to arrive soon, as I’ve heard lots of good things about this anime. I’m also still waiting for Jigoku Shoujo.

Ghost Hunt

It’s strange. On the surface, this revolves around another one of those arrogant boys who teams up with some kind of high school girl. Most of the times, this is a recipe for failure, but in Ghost Hunt, this premises actually works out pretty fine. We’ve got this guy who works as a ghost hunter who blackmails an ordinary high school girl who likes telling ghost stories into becoming his assistant. Their first case is solving ghost rumours which revolve around an abandoned building right next to the school. The side characters also were a pretty nice additions to the cast. It seems that more people have been put on the same case, which makes sure for a large amount of theories coming from different persons. But won’t they just disappear again once this case is over?

Hataraki Man

Okay, so this is a slice-of-life series about a rather enthusiastic workaholic. She works for a local magazine, and takes her work rather seriously, up to the point where she doesn’t really have an outside life. At times, she also changes into “Hataraki Man”, in which her work speed increases even more. Of course, this does lead to huge amounts of stress, and she indeed starts to hear things that don’t exist. Her co-workers are also interesting. Overall, it’s a nice series, though the fact remains that this is a slice-of-life. That isn’t really my genre, so I doubt that I’ll follow this to the end unless this turns out to be really good.

Code Geass – Lelouch of the Rebellion

Okay, and here we have our big-budgetted action-mecha anime of the year. It’s promising to be epic, with a world empire as the enemy. The character designs are done by Clamp, which means that each of the characters looks very appealing. I’m not too sure yet of the main character. The way the creators depicted him as a chess champion was rather bad. We’ve got this impossible setting and he manages to win without any trouble at all. If you’re going to use chess, at least try to explain a bit more. Also, by looking at the OP, the cast of characters seems to be huge. This can be a good think, if they’re used well. I’m not saying anything yet. You need to see more than just one of two episodes for shows of this kind to really tell their quality. Still, my initial verdict is good. It’s got great music, the terrorists seem interesting, and the way the Britannia officials are treating their subordinates just screams potential.

And another batch. The latter two turned out really well. But please ignore the first one. Still, all these three have in common that they’ve got a great soundtrack.

Super Robot Wars OG – Divine Wars

Heh, I think we’ve found the winner of the most cheesy fighting anime of the season. We’ve got a guy, who’s an expert at a video game in which giant robots battle each other. And guess what? This game has exactly the same controls as the mechas who defend the country. So, when he gets the chance to sneak in one of these mechas, without any permission or thinking, he just abandons his friend who’s been buried under a pile of rubble to go and fight evil bug-like mechas. Seriously, I’m feeling real pity for the girl to be that guy’s friend. What idiot would choose flying in a cool mecha kicking bad guys without any reason over helping a friend in trouble?

Red Garden

This is awesome. I’ve been looking forward to this show, and it doesn’t disappoint at all. Yes, okay. The character art looks different from usual, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. In fact, the characters look great, and unique. The anime follows four girls, who somehow have something to do with the murder on one of their classmates. So far, they look like they’re going to be great characters. The song in the middle of the episode also surprised me. Even though it’s obvious that the girl can’t sing, it was quite touching. This will definitely be a very fun series to watch. Oh, and this deserves to be awarded with “Best ED of the Season”.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

I’ve heard from all kinds of sides that this anime rather ruined the manga it’s based on. But, having not read this manga at all, I don’t care. I’m glad to say that this anime really cracked me up. The main female character really promises to be an awesome character, and the four bishounen provided some really funny moments. The story is like this: four guys live in a mansion, and they get free rent if they turn the niece of the landlady into a lady. The only problem: this girl is an extremely dark, gloomy, solitary and scary girl. Another thing I really like about this anime is the soundtrack. Especially the OP, ED and the rock tunes which occasionally appear. One thing I don’t like is the male character design. Especially in close-up. Okay, it’s unique, but it’s also annoying. Overall, this promises to be a great series. Now let’s hope it won’t mess up like a certain Ouran.

More shounen-action series. Not exactly the best genre out there, is it?

Busou Renkin

There’s one thing I like about this series: its pacing. Okay, it’s a shounen-series, in which a boy gets superpowers because of a beautiful girl, and the two will probably fall in love, but it’s the little details which managed to save this show. Because of the pacing, the fights are nice and short, the main character’s whining doesn’t take forever (same with the main female) and the creators made very clever use while switching between scenes. But then again, apart from the pacing, this show doesn’t have much else to offer. The attempts at comedy are decent, but none of them actually made me chuckle, the fights, although short, lack any substance as well, and like I said. The main character will be falling in love with our main female character. One thing I did appreciate was the cast of side-characters. For probably the first time ever, our male main character actually has a sister who looks about the same age, instead of a obviously older or younger one, and his roommates actually tried to differ from the stereotypes.

Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the first episode of this anime was about the character designs. They just look so plain. The anime itself turned out mediocre. Perhaps the next episodes will be better, but this first episode wasn’t a good sign. My main issue with this is that our main character seems to have superpowers for no apparent reason. He just “awakens” when a big, scary monster comes charging at him. Ah well, at least his personality actually has been developed well. The kid-samurai also was a nice touch, except for the fact that you’d wonder how he managed to get such a high position at his age with his skills. I’ve also been asked about my opinion between Ayakashi Ayashi and Bakumatsu, as they both involve samurai-people who slay demons. If you don’t know which of the two you should check out: go for Bakumatsu.

Gin-Iro ni Olynsis

You’ve got to be kidding me… The fact that so little was revealed about this anime made me somewhat curious. I can’t believe how disappointing this one turned out. First we’ve got a bunch of kids who drive mechas. Shouldn’t they be going to school? Second of all, one of these kids is the main character. One of his team-mates is in love with him. He then runs into a beautiful girl, who probably aims to manipulate him. Then, yet another beautiful girl appears (our main female character) and she (guess what) suddenly starts acting all lovey-dovey towards him. Supposedly because he did something he can’t remember anything from. It involves a giant robot. Seriously, I’ve got so many issues with this anime, it’s almost impossible to list all of them. Stay away from this one, it’s garbage.

Another batch. This time with two shounen-fighting anime, and the final bishoujo harem of the season. Thank god I’ve done all of them now. I wish I could say the same of the shounen-action series, though. -_-

Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi

As I practice karate myself, the way this anime started really was an insult. One school with just black belts and one white belt?! What happened to the other colors? Also, all blackbelts team up against this white belt, and try to tease him out of the club? I don’t hope that that’s regular in Japan. In fact, anyone can learn karate, as long as they spend enough time to it. Our main character always loses because he obviously just started, and he’s just a kid. In any case, he meets up with a “beautiful” girl, she takes interest in him and he starts training at the school she’s training in as well. The women who appear also have character designs which scream “fanservice”. I was hoping for some kind of fighting-comedy, but even there this show fails. It’s just our main character screaming like a girl whenever he sees a strong guy.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Ugh… another disappointment. When I read the premisse, I thought that this could have been a nice comedy. Well, I was wrong. We’ve got a very small maffia-guy who bears suspicious resemblances to a talking baby in tuxedo and uses a chameleon for a weapon. Whenever he kills our main character, he gets reborn into some kind of hyperactive superman in underpants with a flaming forehead. After a minute, our main character changes back to nromal again. Good premisse? Horrible execution. First of all, the budget given for ths show is incredibly low. Second of all, our main character is a 12-year old brat. Third of al, this anime’s not funny at all. It just drags on and on, and even the small mafia-guy bets obvnoxious after three seconds. This is another one of those series to avoid.

Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru

Okay, I’m not sure whether to classify this anime as a yuri-anime, or a regular romance. During this first episode, we see our main character, who most definitely looks like a woman, get hugged by three different girls. But the fact remains that she’s a guy. The story’s like this: our main character has to enlist in an all-girl’s high school by his grandfather’s last wish. In order to do that, he has to dress up. One of his friends goes to the same school, and she offers to turn him into a girl. For some reason, he turns out more beautiful than most of the other girls on the school, thus becoming instantly popular. If there ever was an anime, aired in the fall-season, to introduce such a hate/love relationship, this has to be it. On one side, yuri’s always nice to see. For some reason, it works more often than it does with straight romance. On the other hand, this remains an anime in whihc a guy gets surrounded by tons of beautiful girls, there remains useless fanservice, and his friend, who knows that he’s a boy actually has a horribly horny personality. Right now, this anime can go anywhere, from incredibly good to incredibly bad. Why am I fearing that it’ll be the latter?

Time for supernatural “action” anime. Right now, I’m eagerly awaiting the subs for Red Garden and Jigoku Shoujo. I hope they’ll arrive soon. ^^

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

A samurai anime featuring supernatural monsters. I’m not sure whether this is going to be a success or not, but there’s one thing I am sure of: the music is awesome. If only because of that, I’m going to continue watching this show. I’m a bit worried about the main character, though. As things stand now, he doesn’t really have a clear, thought-out reason to be fighting monsters and saving children. I hope that this comes in the next episodes. The side-characters sound interesting, though. My level of Japanese couldn’t understand their exact role, but from what I understood, they’re a bunch of theatre-people who involve themselves with catching dangerous criminals.

Death Note

I’ve found most of the hyped shows to be rather disappointing (see Fate/Stay Night, Tsuyokiss, Kanon, Yoake Mae, etc). Death Note, however, deserves every single hype it’s got! Really, this show is awesome, and I’ve just seen one episode of this. The main character is so incredibly interesting, the soundtrack kicks ass and the theme of this anime has potential for so many interesting events. Seriously, if this quality stays, Death Note will turn out to be awesome.

Shounen Onmyouji

I’ve been looking forward to this anime. Too bad it turned out to be disappointing. It’s another one of those 13-year-old-going-to-be-the-best-things. Lots of flashy graphics, lots of action scenes, little substance. It’s a pity, as the character designs for the side-characters look appealing. The next episode doesn’t seem to be much better, as our main character’s love interest will be introduced. Oh, have I already mentioned the cute pet who keeps following him?