Another
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a transfer student.
To the people who claimed that the season sucks after only half of the shows had aired: perhaps a bit of patience would have been in order, because this season also has a very good horror series. Another again doesn’t have the best premise. Heck, it yet again takes place at a high school. If there’s one flaw of this season, it’s that everything is centered around bloody schools. In any case though, this show understands horror. This episode built up this wonderful horror atmosphere with a good script, neat camera work and some subtle mystery that combined all really drew me in. This was the kind of horror series that combined the ordinary life with a lot of creepy hints. This episode was very uneventful, but it slowly revealed more about what was going on, which will very likely get continued into the next episodes. The ordinary parts about this episode in any case were a neat way to flesh out the cast, and in particular the script gave them some character that made them interesting to watch. They all had something interesting to say here.
OP: Ah, the ALI Project. That’s long ago. Their style still doesn’t really match here though…
ED: Dull ballad with dull images.
Potential: 85%
Ano Natsu de Matteru
Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets killed and then revived again.
Here is the thing with this season: its premises are crap. In fact, it’s been years since we had a season with less interesting original series. And yet, it’s got so many big names, there are so many talented people working on all kinds of different series this season. The best example of this is Ano Natsu de Matteru. Here we have a show which follows all of the romance cliches… only it actually is well executed. What does this mean? The characters act and feel real. The animation and acting is realistic and believable, rather than the overacting moe stereotypes that you usually see in those types of series. On top of that, this doesn’t feel disjointed, but introduced a few different subplots that should keep the show interesting, rather than having it hang apart from random incidents. This show has a degree of believability that a ton of other shows of the genre lack. And yet the lead character is wimpy, there were quite a few romance cliches, there is the ditzy blond girl. And yet it feels strangely interesting when it’s delivered so much better than usual.
OP: Finally some J-pop I like this season. The really good use of instruments did it.
ED: Simple yet interesting graphics. The j-pop was a bit dull, though.
Potential: 75%
Aquarion Evol
Short Synopsis: Our lead character can pilot a mecha.
There is one way in which this season stands out: the amount of teenaged sci-fi mecha epics in it. Rinne no Lagrange, Mouretsu Pirates and Aquarion Evol are all ambitious action/adventures, while they still all pursue a different direction with a different kind of execution. Rinne no Lagrange focuses a lot on its direction and script, Mouretsu Pirates placed emphasis on its characters, and Aquarion meanwhile has gorgeous action and a ton of eye candy. I mean, this is the kind of big budgeted flick you’d expect in the big seasons, not the small ones. Besides that, Aquarion has the least interesting characters of the three, yet they’re still an interesting bunch. Their biggest problem is that most of them blend into each other due to the cast being huge. A long show can fix that nicely (and it’s Mari Okada behind the script. She has shown often enough that she’s able to do this). The plot had these interesting elements of males versus females. I haven’t seen the first season, but heck, I’m curious where this will go.
ED: A well produced song that fits the epic nature of this series really well.
Potential: 80%
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%]]>