Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Thank goodness the overall quality of this batch is better than the previous ones, with major thanks to Night Head Genesis for this. It’s great to see that for each bad show, there also is a good show during this season.

Night Head Genesis

Despite the cheesy title, this definitely is one of the better series to air this season, aside from Otogi Juushi Akazukin perhaps. Especially the first episode is beautiful. Two young brothers, both paranormally gifted, are shunned by everyone throughout their entire life. One of them can make things blow up when he’s angry, while the other can read people’s minds if he touches them. When the oldest one was about ten years old and the youngest five years old, they got separated from their parents, as they became too dangerous. Especially the reaction of the oldest brother when he found out about this was just too sad to see. Another MAJOR plus of this anime is the terrific music it features. The tunes are extremely simple, but I think it’s because they’re so simple that they work perfectly. I’m really recommending this show.

FLAG

This show already is extremely popular, after only its first episode got subbed. I think, however, it’s still a bit too early to label this show as good or bad, as the first episode was just one big introduction to the anime. The background story got explained, the characters introduced, but nothing really happened. I think that that’s up for the second episode. In any case, this anime tries to be as realistic and believable as possible. The story features around a small country, in the middle of civil war. A young photographer makes a picture which later turns into the symbol of peace. When the peace negotiations are threatened to get interrupted by extremists, this photographer gets sent back to this country, in order to report for a local army, which plans to fight the ones who oppose the peace. I’m not sure whether it was a good idea for the creators to include mechas for this army, when the anime clearly focuses at photography. Still, a lot of thought was put in the design of this mecha. For once, things actually made a bit sense, as the creators tried to show how the mecha works from the inside. It’s better than the usual techno babble we see in most mecha-shows.

Mamotte Lollipop

Okay. This is just stupid. Not necessarily in a bad way, but unfortunately not in a good way either. It’s definitely the shoujo-series, from beginning to end. The story’s like this: our main character’s dreamguy is someone who protects her from anything bad coming her way. What does she get? Not one, but *gasp* two pretty bishounen who protect her from anything bad coming her way. All because she swallowed a magical pearl they need in order to succeed for their magical exams. If we ignore the very unorthodox final exam the magical world features, the anime’s decent. Some funny jokes are made, some of the characters are interesting, but overall, it doesn’t really add anything new. It seems that the entire show will be focused around these two guys, protecting the girl. I’m not planning to follow this one, as I doubt that I can endure more of the same for twelve more episodes. Still, the flying car was hilarious.

The Summer Season continues once more with a huge load of garbage. Thank goodness Binbou Shimai Monogatari managed to change the flood of bad anime, but I’m really getting impatient now. Much of the gems of this season have yet to either air or get subbed, so I’m hoping for Kemonozume, Flag and quite probably Angelique and Night Head Genesis to arrive quite soon.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari

Binbou Shimai Monogatari is one of the better series we’ve seen this season. Okay, that doesn’t really say much, but the fact remain that this series remains entertaining. It’s indeed a slice-of-life series, about two sisters, who have lost their mother and their father has run away because of huge depts. They now have to live together. Most of the time, I’m not really into slice-of-life series, though this series managed to keep me interested. The fact is that the two girls love each other. A lot. But because of their situations, they doubt a lot, making mistakes and solving them again. It works very inspirational this way. Still, I do have to admit that there are a lot of boring scenes, but the overall picture was good enough for me to keep watching.

Innocent Venus

I’m probably one of the few persons who didn’t like this one. This anime has achieved lots of popularity since it aired, though I’m not able to see the good side of it. Basically, what this anime tries to do is provide the action scenes with as much darkness and tension as possible. It tries to for the picture of a horrible world, in which the main characters have to survive. Unfortunately, it tries too hard. The action scenes are dull, they’re not exciting at all. They only consist of a bunch of mechas killing each other and people shooting innocents in the head, while trying to spill huge gallons of blood with each shot. Like I said before, the main characters have to survive in this world. So far, they’re uberpowerful for some reason, and uberannoying as well. The only good character was the clown-like person. Some elements also don’t make any sense at all. For example, why did the military name the girl “Venus”? Venus is a yellow plannet full of sulphur, or she was a greek goddess (who wasn’t really what you’d call innocent). Huge hurricanes also have gotten the names Hyper Hurricanes, which which sounds more like a bad name for a fighting-move. A map of the current world, after it’s been flooded also gets shown, and it doesn’t make any sense at all. Right now, it seems like tectonic plates have been moving, instead of a bunch of huge hurricanes.

Project Blue Chikyuu SOS

But when you think that Innocent Venus is bad, just wait till you see Project Blue Chikyuu SOS. This anime is just horrible. For starters, the two main characters are a fourteen-year-old brat who holds the position of company president, with the massive amount of 200 billion somethings in assets and a guy who graduated for the MIT at the top of his class. To make things even duller, they’re able to beat any ordinary adult who comes their way, and they even manage to outsmart entire armies. Yeah, right. Well, then, the plot isn’t really what you’d call exciting. Aliens have been preparing for five years, in order to start an invasion. They, of course, conveniently start with just one attack, instead of going all out at once. The plot consists of convenient meetings and events that make as much sense as an igloo in the desert. Seriously, stay away from this anime.

Holy god… I never knew that this season contained so much rubbish. Ah well, a bad season once in a while doesn’t hurt either, as it gives me the chance to concentrate on the good stuff from the previous seasons. So far, I’m still hoping for Angelique, Night Head Genesis and Kemonozume to produce something worthwile. Let’s hope they do. Anyway, we now turn to the next batch of new shows, and it isn’t really exciting. All feature bland relationship between a boy and girl, destined to be together.

Boku ga Ita

We have this girl, who falls in love with an extremely popular guy. And well, that’s what this anime’s about. Some people might like such a love-story, though I found it incredibly boring. Nothing really happened in the twenty minutes of this episode and seeing the girl be embarrassed was so annoying to watch. And why are the characters missing an eye at times? Budget savings?

Tonagura!

I was indeed fearing for this series, and my fears have been confirmed after watching. Stay away from this series at all costs. We have a girl who still remembers her shildhood love from ten years ago. The boy meanwhile moved away, though now, ten years later he’s coming back. She’s so longing to see him again, until she finds out that he’s a horny bastard. The side-characters don’t really help either, as each and every one of them fits into the fanservice-clichés perfectly. The entire series seems to be aimed at fanservice, and of course the two main characters will be ending up together.

Chottoko Sister

If I had to describe this series, it’d be something like “Chobits goes loli”. The description of the anime really turned me off: a guy wishes he has a little sister, and on one Christmas Eve, his wish gets fulfilled when Santa personally brings him a little 10-year-old sister. Still, it works better in the anime. First of all, the guy was seven when he wished Santa for a new sister, after it became clear that his mother would never be able to have the sister he so longed for. It’s indeed very hard for a seven-year-old boy to deal with things like deaths, and especially premature deaths. The eccentric Santa also made up for a lot of things, I really appreciated that. Still, the fact remains that the guy has a new cute sister, and the sister keeps clinging to him. The focus of the anime indeed is clear. I might watch it, though this show will never be able to step out of the boundaries of mediocrity.

We now turn to some more heavily anticipated anime, and one show which seems to have been lost in the shadows. I was fairly surprised when I saw the latter of the three appear on Tokyo Toshokan. In any case, all of the main characters in these shows are interested in some way in a character who stands or stood high above them.

NHK ni Youkoso

This show is about a NEET, or Not in Employment, Education or Training. Ever since his first day at college, he ran to his apartment, and stayed there for more than three years. When you stay for three years inside a single apartment, it does very strange things to you. And indeed, the main character gets some very interesting theories. About how the NHK (actually a Japanese broadcast company) is actually the source of all evil. Another major plus of this series is the music. It really works along with all of the scenes. Overall, this seems like a very interesting series. I like the main character and his theories, though the girl has to have some very good reason to come to him.

Le Chevalier d’Eon

Another very anticipated show. I have to say, that so far, it lived up to its hype. The most notable aspect of this anime is the incredibly fast pacing. You really can’t afford to miss even five seconds, otherwise you’ll have no idea what’s going on. Though if you do manage to follow it, the effect it gives is great. Still, I wonder where this anime is going. It’s only been the first episode, and they already killed off half of the cast before the end of it. Still, this anime will probably become very interesting.

Kirarin Revolution

This still is from the spring season. Yes, spring season. It actually took more than three months before this show got its first subs. It’s a shoujo-anime. It’s got a lot of annoying elements, though I have to say that I enjoyed it in the end. We have this incredibly energetic young girl (Kirarin), who falls in love with an idol while she doesn’t know that the guy is an idol. In the eyes of the idol, Kirarin, is just one of his many fans. I think the anime will follow Kirarin, trying to win the idol’s respect. her first step: becoming an idol herself. Even though she knows nothing about singing. This anime reminded me a lot of Full Moon wa Sagashite, so I decided to give it another chance. Kirarin’s voice-actor is incredibly annoying, and she may be a bit too energetic at times. The idol’s costume looks totally ridiculous. But the few serious moments in the first episode were really convincing. Let’s hope that this anime doesn’t ruin itself.

We now turn to the second batch of summer-anime. These were the shows which were the most hyped for the summer-season.

Coyote Ragtime Show

This is a science-fiction action series which just oozes with style. The first episode was more focused on the side-characters, instead of the main characters, which means that we haven’t seen too much of what this anime will really be like. We did get the chance to take a good look at the bad guys, though. It seems that they’re an army of twelve extremely dangerous cyborg-sisters with highly developed artificial intelligence. Only that was enough for me to keep following this series, though the best part of this anime is the action sequences it features. A lot of things happen at once, events succeed each other in a rapid pace and the music is awesome. It did have some boring parts, but overall, I liked this first episode.

Tsuyokiss

When I first heard about this show, I feared that it would probably become horrible, with each character as a tsundere. Still, it was better than I expected. Then again, my expectations weren’t what you’d call high. I’d describe this series as plain mediocre. It’s not nessecarily good, but not bad either. It wasn’t scared to throw all of the harem-cliche’s on one pile, the little brat, the silent girl, the annoying student council member and the big-breasted teacher. But the brat was okay, I guess. I also like the orange haired girl. Though my main problem with this series were the main characters. Both the male as the female one. Whenever the two of them were together, this series became predictable as hell, and not in a good way. Actually, I think that if Tsuyokiss would have been a yuri-anime, it would have stood a chance (the hug was about the only effective scene in this), but the male main character will probably ruin things. Still, I’m really recommending this to you if you have some sort of sleeping problem. Just watch the episode right before sleeping, and I’ll be a definite help.

Zero no Tsukaima

Now this is the real garbage of this season. What we have here is a pretty good concept, being handled by the guys who produced Shana. The result is a horrible mess. Everything that could have been messed up has been messed up. The backgrounds feature some fancy CG, but in exchange for that, they lack in so much detail. A room feels more like a cheap movie-stage now. The main characters aren’t any better, as they fit every stereotype in existance. The bishounen could have been so much funnier and half of the scenes just seem aimed to display as much fanservice as possible. The anime also shows that there hasn’t been any research put into the world, as the concepts just seem totally random and convenient. My advice is to not even touch this series with a ten-foot pole.

Okay, and we now turn to the first batch of the summer-season. The first patch is very a very light-hearted one. The comedies work at certain times, though Akazukin is amazing.

Otogi Juushi Akazukin

First of all: OMG CUTE!!! Second of all: I really enjoyed the first episode. It’s got a very light feeling, and the character design is amazing. The story’s got a good base, though it remains incredibly simple. It’s a kid’s show, after all. I have to admit, though, the first episode of the OVA was better than the first episode of the anime. Overall, I certainly recommend this if you’re looking for a light-hearted fairy-tale story.

Demashitaa! Power Puff Girls Z

This show, is just stupid. It’s incredibly low-budget as well. Except for the transformation sequences, the major part of the budget seems to have been put in these transformation sequences. There have also been a lot of changes made to the original cartoon. The main characters weren’t made, they just were normal girls who were exposed to Chemical Z (a stronger version of Chemical X). Professor Utonium seems to have a son (who’s the mother?), and both he and his son have the ugliest character designs ever. His son also attempts to use the humour of repeated scenes, but he fails miserably. The major also isn’t the incredibly stupid guy he used to be before. The girl also seem to be 2-D stereotypes with just one personality. Still, there is one character which manages to save this show: Mojo Jojo. He actually was quite funny to watch and really brightens up the show.

Muteki Kanbanmusume

What we have here is a pure non-ecchi slapstick comedy. Characters try to act as outrageous as possible, mostly this goes along with lots of screaming. It was pretty funny at times, though I think this is missing something. This show feels like it’s Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, without its brilliance. It’s a fine attempt at comedy, but it could have been so much better.

And here’s another batch of the spring-season anime which were horribly ignored by the fansubbers. All of them are low-budget. They’re all incredibly cheesy. And when I say cheese, I really mean cheese. The OPs all are ridiculous, though catchy. Strangely enough, despite all this, I enjoyed watching them.

Hime-Sama Goyoujin

This certainly is a low-budget comedy anime. Was it funny? Yes, it was. I had some good laughs, which could easily compete with Ouran High School Host. The show knows how to use utter randomness, along with a couple of horribly wrong jokes. Still, this certainly won’t be one of the smart anime out there, as each member of the cast has the same intelligence of a dog, chasing its own tail. This show knows what it is: a comedy-anime and nothing more. Overall, I liked it. The jokes were funny, and I’ll be recommending this to anyone who’s in for a few good laughs.

Gun Doh Musashi

From now on, the term extremely corny samurai-show” gets to be the equivalent of Gun Doh Musashi. If I didn’t know that this show came out this spring, I would’t have guessed it at all. The show follows the life of Miyamoto Musashi. It’s based on history, though the creators made thankful use of artistical freedom. It’s also entirely directed at children. I mean, Musashi likes to use weapons that hurt, but don’t kill. He’s a brat who’s an expert swordsman and he’s able to take down entire armies if he wants to. Still, why am I so drawn to this incredibly cheesy show? Despite they look incredibly corny, the art of the main characters somehow looks very interesting, and the OP is just totally awesome, in a funny kind of way. No other show would attempt to include an OP like that. Overall, if you’re into cheesy japanese samurai-shows, I might recomment this. ^^;

Spider Riders

This show was so unknown that the dubs got out even sooner than the subs. Okay, this may be an extreme case in which an american company and a japanese company joined together to make it, but still. In any case, what we have here is a standard show for six-year-old boys. Think guy-gets-transported-to-other-world-and-gets-to-fight-alongside-giant-creatures-sort-of-plot. Still, the bad thing is the dubs. I totally agree with the people who say that english dubs don’t fit anime, and this show proves it. The voice-acting has experienced yet another horrible miss-cast, everything sounds horribly ugly, especially in american accents who show absolutely no signs of emotions. The jokes also fail 50% of the time because of this. Still, the show remains interesting. I think I’ll continue watching this when the subs get out, as it certainly beats shows like Kiba, Elemental Gerad and MAR, despite it being horribly cliché.

And here we have the latecomers of the season, either in terms of air date, or in terms of late fansubs. I’m kindof curious about the series which still have to be subbed. There are about six of them left, but there might be something very interesting among them.

Yoshinaga-san chi no Gargoyle
An example of good shows almost totally ignored by the fansubbers is Yoshinaga-san chi no Gargoyle. The story’s about a very energetic, young girl, who won a living, stone gargoyle by accident. Ever since, the gargoyle has been protecting the little girl’s house, but he’s a bit too enthusiastic in this, trying to burn everyone who comes close. The little girl does not like these events, so the’s often yelling at him, resulting in some awesome scenes. The case introduced in the first episode also was a beauty. it’s about the daughter of a blind man, who comes to understand the blind man’s guard dog. Greatly excecuted. Yoshinaga-san chi no Gargoyle certainly isn’t the best show around, though it will definately be entertaining.

Kamisama Kazoku

When I first heard about this title, I kept hoping for this show to be centered around lots of puns. The main character also looked relatively old, so I kept hoping for him to be the only mature, while his family was something around the lines of the Kami-sama in the Law of Ueki. That really would’ve been awesome. Alas, I was wrong. Totally wrong. Our main character remains a 12-year old brat. His entire family is crazy, but it isn’t centered around puns, it’s centered around perverts. Ugh. What could’ve been an amazingly cool hippy turned into an old pervert who grants his son any wish he wants. His mother and sisters don’t make this a lot better, as they’re the standard harem-cast featured in all of those other anime. Our main character also has someone who loves him, namely an angel sent from the heavens in order to protect him. Just when I thought this couldn’t get any worse, this angel (named Tenko) managed to save it, right at the last possible moment of the episode. If this show will revolve around her mental breakdown, I’ll be happy. I also have to say, that the character art, although messy, looks good.

Demonbane

Garbage, garbage, garbage! This SO contains every single fantasy-harem cliche, puts it into one series, and thinks it’ll be succesful. Apparenly, destiny plays a big role in this thing. Our main character is destined to drive the most powerful mecha ever, he’s destined to meet up with a beautiful girl, merge with her, and he is certainly destined to save the world. There’s one thing that cracked me up, though: the beautiful irony of a statement that was made at the end of the episode: “Does a hero become a hero from the moment he’s born? No, a hero is one who follows a path of bloodshed with an iron will.” Oh, the beautiful irony. This show doesn’t even know it sucks. On a side-note: the art looks horrible as well.

These all feature an episode in which a female tries to do her best. The first two fail horribly, though the last one succeeds.

Inukami

Okay, I think we’ve identified the worst anime of the season. And I thought Joshikousei was bad. Seriously, stay away from this anime. Far, far away. It’s that bad.

Love Get Chu

I was hoping that this would become something very insprirational. Well, my guess was wrong. There’s nothing exceptional with this anime. Just an ignorant little girl who wants to become a seijuu and happens to have a very strong voice. She’ll probably make it to some of the best seijuu ever, and live happily ever after with the guy she happened to meet in this episode. The side-characters also are one cliché after another.

Tsubasa Chronicle 2nd Season

Aah, I missed this. It really is just as good as the previous season. The music is the same awesomeness as before, with a couple of extra tunes added. This time, the feather is the grand prize for a racing event. The racing vehicles are some kind of flying-chibi-cars, not optimally aerodinamic at all, but somehow, they manage to fly. This episode is about the qualification for the final race, as only ten people may enter it. I can’t say anything but the fact that I loved this race. All of our four main characters enter. Kurogane and Fye both manage to come in first, Sakura still has difficulties driving her flying car, and Syaoran has engine problems. The two of them do manage to get the ninth and tenth place, though. Even though this was totally predictable, I really liked it. Especially when you consider the humor thrown in, and the fact that someone’s cheating in order to win the feather. I’m expecting a lot of goodness from this.

For the quick first impressions, I’m always trying to find a small similarity between the three. It doesn’t always work, though. Just as with these three. I think the closest resemblance would be that each of the first episodes focuses around a female, instead of a male, but that isn’t really something extraordinary… But who cares! Good Witch of the West is finally fansubbed!

Witchblade

My, my! I never would have thought an anime like this would have good points! Okay, the main character’s designs are hugely fanservice-oriented, there are a lot of fast action-scenes, but holy god, the mother-daughter story was just too sad to see. We have this mother and daughter, who are fleeing for the Child Support Agency, which plans to separate the two of them. Both of them really want to be with each other, so when they are eventually separated, both parties become desperate to see each other again. That part was beautiful, although I’ll probably hate the parts which have nothing to do with this relationship.

Glass no Kantai

Apparently, this started airing recently as well. It’s a science-fiction series, with huge 18th century influences. Space has been filled with air, for some strange and unknown reason, and large battles between lots of big space-ships. This anime will probably about the leaders behind large-scale wars, with some ethics involved. The graphics look great. The CG to coordinate all of the different battleships on the battlefield also has been done pretty impressively. The theme is also fairly nice, though the story and the characters have yet to impress me. I don’t know if I have enough motivation to keep watching this.

Good Witch of the West – Astraea Testament

Woohoo! It’s just as good as I imagined! For one, the art looks truly beautiful. It can even challenge Tales of Phantasia if this keeps going on, which is a very remarkable feat, especially if you realize that Tales of Phantasia was an OVA, while this is just a tv-series. Anyway, the characters, the story, the dialogue, the music, everything is full of potential. It’s also a very nice addition that our main character is a fan of fairytales. We’re still bothered by a couple of common clichés (the larges one being our main character being member of the royal family), though. But I’m happy that they are using them right now, instead of at the end of the series. Yes, I’m looking at you, Esther. I think that with this, my top three of the spring season consists of Good Witch of the West, .Hack//Roots and Higurashi No Naku Koro ni. I’m really dying to see the next episode of each of these three.