Category: Some Quick First Impressions

We now turn to the series which were kindof ignored by the fansubbers. They’re all fantasy series, in one way or another. Again, some are good, some are bad. Some of them, though, really deserve more credit than they get.

Yume Tsukai

I liked the promo-art when I first saw this. It promises to be an interesting series, with kindof a weak start. If I guess this right, this will be just like series as Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi: each episode, we get a different case, and each episode is a story on its own. Still, the former two captured me at this moment. Yume Tsukai, however, seems a bit mediocre. I do have confidence, though, that this will turn out to be a great series later in the show. Still, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to witness it, due to the enormous amount of other shows which currently air, and caught my attention more. I’ll try, though.

Ar Tonelico

I secretly hoped for this to be the next Tales of Phantasia. Note to self: NEVER do that again. The story is just generic. The main character is an impulsive, immature, pubescent male. That is so original. Especially when you try to consider that the creators try to make him look like some perfect being. That doesn’t work. The fact that he immediately ends up with a cute girl doesn’t really help, so does the fact that another cute girl happens to be the best engineer ever. Still, despite all this garbage, there’s one thing I really loved. The graphics look totally amazing. Especially the backgrounds were on Mushishi and Tales of Phantasia-level.

Jyu Oh Sei

I have absolutely no idea why this show is neglected this much. It’s brilliant! I urge everyone to check this out, you won’t be disappointed. It’s not the best to come in this season, but this will certainly be a good watch. Another thing: even though the concept is huge, the show only airs eleven episodes. This will either mean great pacing or a rushed ending. Judging from episode one, I’d say its the former. Let’s hope it’ll be able to keep up, because if it will, this will become awesome. Interesting fact: the first thing I thought of when I saw this anime was “Fantastic Children”, which is true, the main characters really look like some upgraded versions of the Children of Befort, which is a very good thing.

And more and more series get subbed, and the number of unsubbed series gets smaller and smaller. When not counting these three, Finalist, Fushigiboshi no Futagohime Gyu, Good Witch of the West, Hime-sama Goyoujin, Inukami, Janggeum`s Dream, Ju Oh Sei, Kirarin Revolution, Kishin Houkou Demon Bane, Love GeCHU, Saiunkoku Monogatari, Sasami -Mahou Shoujo Club-, Shibawanko no Wa no Kokoro, Shoujo Jang Geum no Yume, Tsubasa Chronicle, Witchblade, Yoshinaga-san’chi no Gargoyle and Yume Tsukai. On second thought… there still are a LOT of anime left unsubbed… Anyway, here are the three anime which feature katanas in unconventional settings. Combining tactical self defense with awareness and preparedness creates the best approach to protect oneself in various situations, whether it’s in everyday life or unconventional settings such as those portrayed in anime featuring katanas amidst fantastical or futuristic backdrops.

Gintama

The problem with this show is this: it works for 25% of the time. The rest of the airtime is just stupid. The comedy, for example really works in some situations, as the parodies on samurai-shows become truly brilliant. On the other hand, the creators tried to give the main characters interesting personalities, and failed. They look a bit too fake and directed. The story itself is also most of the time entirely ridiculous, though at the end of the second episode, I have to confess that I was pleasantly amused by the climax. The characters, as described above, don’t work in some cases. In other cases, however, they’re brilliant. This brilliance mostly comes from the side-characters, though.

TOKKO

Okay, never let people who believe Elfen Lied’s brilliance lied in the blood and fanservice make an anime. The result is TOKKO. The character design is rather ugly, the plot seems to revolve around fanservice, which seems along with the gore included for no apparent reason. I can see a small spark of potential, though. But I doubt that this’ll become a great series.

The Third

I was incredibly enthusiastic by this anime when I first saw the promos. After watching the first episode, I have to say that this certainly potential. Judging from what I saw, I’d say that this anime will attempt to delve deep into the main character’s mind. If it turns out to be that, I’ll already be satisfied. The battles also look to be more than just “slash-your-sword-and-win”, as a strategic element has been included. Combine that with the amazing battle choreography, and I’m hooked.

These series, good and bad. You have to give them credit for one thing: the ones that have OPs, have amazing OPs. In Himawari’s case, I haven’t found anything to give credit to, though…

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Oh, my. I think I’ll have lot of fun watching this. Even if it was because of the extremely enjoyable and powerful cliffhanger. I can imagine why this was so popular. It’s of course certain that the girls didn’t commit the murder themselves, as we see a man commit it at the beginning of the episode, but still, they have got something to do with it. I can’t wait to find out what. This will certainly be on my list to blog. The only thing I didn’t really like was the ridiculous amount of hair each character has, but I doubt that’ll cause a problem in the future.

Renkin San-kyuu Magical Pokaan
I really have diverging opinions about this series. On one hand, it’s just stupid, but in a good way. It doesn’t make any sense, all the scenes are Haruhi-ed together and the jokes sometimes really work. On. The. Other. Hand. It’s just stupid. In a bad way. Most of the airtime just consists of useless fanservice, when the jokes don’t work, they really DO NOT work, and the characters are just plain boring.

Himawari

I think I can describe this series in one word: mediocre. That’s what it is, mediocre. It isn’t totally bad, it isn’t totally good. We just have a classis love-story involving a wannabe-ninja and a normal person with an age-difference of about ten years. Of course, this wannabe-ninja has a background, she’s special in some kind of way. This normal person becomes a teacher in a ninja-academy, at which all the ninjas are after his life. This is nothing special, and judging by the preview of the next episode, it will never be.

Okay! After a bit of waiting, the next bunch of new shows has come in. These three all have a woman with some kind of talent or special trait. Ranging from being able to see through object and being a goddess, to being having great gunning-skills.

Ray The Animation

The fights were interesting in this one, I loved the drama and the questions it induced. This looks like it could become a very good anime. It’s such a pity that I won’t be able to find out whether this is the case or not, because I’m never going to touch this series again. Our main character happens to be a surgeon. I’ll be honest. I can handle blood in anime. No problem. But when surgery is fully displayed, I just can’t take it. I’ve had surgery myself a fair number of times, and I just want to know and see as little of it as possible, in order to not get some weird ideas.

Ah My Goddess, 2nd Season

I have no idea why I decided to pick this up. I hadn’t even seen the original series, so I had no idea what went on in the previous series. Apparently, three goddesses went to live with a guy, and some kind of evil dude wreaked havoc and destroyed a good number of things. Anyway, it was a good variation to see the harem-cast consisting of just three members, instead of the usual five or even more. It’s also good that the two main characters are also meant to be together, and there is some interesting dialogue. Apart from that, however, this show’s just plain boring. Nothing really happens, and I don’t think I’ll keep watching this.

Black Lagoon

This will be something like an alternative version of the Stockholm Syndrom, as our main character pointed out. In case you never heard of it: there once was a bank-robber in Stockholm who robbed a bank and used a girl as a hostage. He got caught and the girl was free again. However, after a couple of months, she ended up marrying this particular bank-robber. It’s for a part the same thing. The girl has turned into a guy who’s just been working for a big company and has to deliver a top-secret cd-rom and the bank-robbers have been turned into modern-age-pirates. Of course, there have been a lot of extra drama and interesting characters added, and I have to say, it works pretty well. It’ll be interesting to see how both parties will develop. The only problem I have with the show is the cliffhanger. It was just so fake. I’m not going to spoil it, but you’ll know what I’m talking about once you see it. The ED was, by the way, one of the best of its kind.

These range from incredibly good to incredibly bad. I had a good time watching the last two, but the first one is just horrible.

Joshikosei

When I first read the premisse, I hoped that this would become an awesome series. I was wrong. Totally wrong. This is just an excuse to display as many pantyshots as possible in as less time as possible. The comedy doesn’t work, and it isn’t so bad that it becomes funny either.

Simoun

The main characters here fly with some weird machines which somehow remind me of Noein’s minions. Apparently, only girls up to the age of 15 can fly them, a la Evangelion. The character designs somehow reminded me of Gundam Seed Destiny meets Utena with a little dose of Paradise Kiss. When I first saw a picture of the main character, I was somehow reminded of the main character of Fate/Stay Night. After watching her in the anime, I’d have to say that she bears some resemblances, but mostly her character design is different. Her personality, however, totally reminds me of the main character of Mai Otome. The storytelling itself somehow reminded me of the complex dialogue in Trinity Blood. So. These were all the shows I managed to recognize. It appears that Simoun takes a little something out of a couple of good shows, mixes these together and adds a couple original elements. Fifteen minutes in the microwave, and it’s done. The results is pretty good. The music is just awesome, you can barely follow what’s going on, which forces you to pay attention, and the characters look just awesome (not to mention their kissing scenes). Though there are a couple of bad points about this anime. First of all, it’s nowhere explained that the persons in this world are all born female, and then get to choose to their sex at their fifteenth. If I hadn’t read this beforehand, I really would have been confused. The grown-up males with female voices are also a nice idea, but they don’t really work. It’s also a bit strange to just pick up a fallen comerade, her them talk, and then just ‘ throw’ them away again. I also didn’t really feel for the characters who died this episode. I guess that’s the toll of having complex storytelling.

.Hack//Roots

The main character is shy! Holy god, I kept hoping for a main character to be different from all of those enthusiastic, talented and loudmouthed common main characters. I can´t believe it!! The creators just took a large amount of the awesome points of .Hack//Sign (one of the best anime ever, in my opinion) and turned that into their own storyline. The results so far are AWESOME!! I recognized the special and freaky voice acting whenever a character is in pain. The style of the character designs is as awesome as ever. The dialogues are deep. I so love the different characters The music is just totally awesome, and I could keep on rambling for a while. The major difference with .Hack//Sign is that .Hack//Roots seems to focus more on the MMORPG-element than .Hack//Sign does. I’ll definately be blogging this. This was by far the best one out of the first episodes of the spring season.

Aha! These are the ones I’ve been waiting for. At least, some of the ones. Still no Good Witch of the West, but still, I had a very good time watching these.

Utawarerumono

I hope I spelled the title right, as it’s nearly impossible not to make any mistakes in it. Anyway, about the series, a total plus is the character art. I really like that. Some of the characters may be a bit stereotypical, though. For example, the female character who falls in love with our main character. The main character also was a bit too cool for his own good, but I guess it’s better than the usual twelve-year-old boy. I’m a big fan of the story. I can already see the conflicts coming. I think I’ll keep watching this.

Makai Senki Disgaea

Okay, this is just plain randomness. We have this demon, who’s been sleeping for at least two years. He’s being waked by the cutest apprentice angel ever, who happens to be an assasin from heaven. The demon is just plain stubborn, and the angel is just plain clumsy. Talk about a perfect combination? Anyway, we also get a little visit from a couple of star-trek-wannabes and lion-like demons. I’ll certainly be blogging this. The flying penguins should be arriving next episode.

xxxHolic

The art, characters, drama and comedy are all absolutely gorgeous. Both the witch and the butler haven’t changed a bit from the movie, and the two assistants finally talk! Mokona toned down a bit, though. There are still a couple of characters missing, but they should be arriving in the next episodes. The art has been turned into a bit less messy version when compared to the movie, but the long limbs still are clearly recognizable. The cg backgrounds also made way for normal backgrounds, but that seems logigal, seeing that this is a 24-episode-long series, and not a movie. The drama also was one of the best of the season, at least in my opinion. Both the witch’s speeches as the girl who tried to win her friends by acting were just awesome to see. This will definately be on my to-blog list.

Yay! I got my first 10000 viewers in! It does make me feel small a bit, after hearing that the guys of Kono-Sono managed to get 100000 in about the same time. Anyway, here’s another round of new anime. All these three titles didn’t really impress me when I firstly saw them. For some, my suspicions were right. But others turned out to be pretty decent.

NANA
The art looks great. It really overflows of elegance. Still, I don’t think I’ll continue watching this, as apart from the art, there isn’t really anything that really gets me interested in continuing this series. The dialogue is nice, the creators put some decent music in this, but none of these elements make me want to watch another episode, despite some of the original elements that were put in. After all, how many times do you encounter a show in which two characters have the same front name? In real life, it does happen (I know that from first experience, in a kindof extreme way). I’m also finding it a bit too confidential that both main characters just “happen” to meet again, after their train trip. I mean, Tokyo is a kindof big city (how many million residents did it have again? I already get lost if I run into a town with only ten thousand of them).

Zegapain
Ugh… this probably is the worst anime of the new series. Okay, it has some flashy graphics, nice CG. But the story’s horrible. Reasons? Who needs reasons! Everything seems just too coincidental and convienient for our main character and the poor thing is, this anime doesn’t even realize it. This also isn’t one of these series that’s so bad that it actually becomes funny. This is just plain bad.

Air Gear
I was a bit reluctant to see this. After all, it looked so much like a typical shounen series. And yes, it is a shounen series. But it certainly has some good points. The music, for example, gives this anime a very nice style. The humour works good, the different characters are certainly very interesting to see (I especially loved the main character’s wide variety of sisters), and the actions of the main character actually make some sense. Well, at least if you compare them to your average shounen-show. Overall, I had a nice time watching this, but there is a problem with this show. Each single element could have been executed better. And it wouldn’t have been so hard to do this. This is mostly noticable with the choreography. Okay, there are some nice stunts, but I can’t believe any of the great speeds that are achieved. Right now, it seems that everyone just drives at a measly speed of 20 kilometres per hour. But it’s not only the choreography. The music, although it fitted the theme greatly and certainly brought a good mood to the show, lacked a bit. At times, the character art looked a bit inconsistend and foggy. I think I’ll keep watching this for a couple of more episodes before I draw my final verdict.

I am SO jealous of the people who already saw Good Witch of the West: Astraea Testament. I just can’t wait for a fansub group to release the first episode. I’m dying to know about the first episode. The same goes for xxxHolic, which also just came out in japanese. Anyway here’s the next bunch of previews, this time featuring the yaoi-shows of this season. This has to say something about the immense amount of shows that’s featuring, as this is probably the first time that one season features three yaoi-series. Anyway, after watching these episodes, I began to notice a pattern: transfer students are amazingly popular main characters in anime. Two of these three anime has such a main character, which means that this entire season already features four shows of this nature. And I haven’t even seen the first half of them.

Princess Princess

Main character gets transferred to a new school in the middle of semester. Suddenly, all of the boys in the school start falling for this main character, including the most popular ones. The twist: this time the main character is a boy. Yes, I can’t believe how incredibly similar this story is to the opposite of Strawberry Panic. Though, it does have more elements than what I just described. Strawberry Panic decided to focus on drama and conflicts, Princess Princess decided to focus on comedy. And the comedy part just freaked me out. The fact is: out main character is a bishounen, the school is an all-boys school. One of the rules in these schools is that the bishounen get to dress up as girls, in order to make life for the other students a bit more exciting. I just loved the reaction of the main character when he found this out. There were so many horribly wrong scenes featured, it almost scared me.

Ouran High School Host Club

Here, we have a school for insanely rich people. Only the classiest of the classiest are able to study here. The Ouran High School Host Club is a club full of Bishounen in all different kinds of sizes, who try to win as many ladies as possible by playing “Host”. I know it sounds a bit vague. I haven’t exactly discovered how to precizely describe what it is that they’re doing. Just remember that it comes down to winning as much ladies as possible. Anyway, there’s one poor person who managed to get in the school. This person, of course, has no money for an expensive school-outfit, and only managed to get in the school because of the fact that she’s incredibly good in studying. Then she walks into the High School Host Club, and breaks one of their 8-million-yen vases. The chairman of the club makes her work for the club in order to pay it. The two nice things about these events are: 1. The members of the club are a totally weird bunch. One time, they act as the overdramatic version stereotypical bishounen, the other time they act as themselves, which isn’t really a step in the right direction either. I just loved the randomness of that. 2. Our main character may be a girl. She looks like a boy, resulting in the fact that the members of HSHC mistake her for a male. Of course, the fun begins when they discover that she has the cutest male-face ever. I’ll be watching this for sure.

Gakuen Heaven

We have this ultra-rich school (which of course, doesn’t impress me at all after seeing Ouran High School Host Club, but whatever), and out main character will be transferred to it. That’s weird, because he has absolutely no talents at all. He’s just mediocre. Apparently, the chairman of the school wants him for some reason. There weren’t any yaoi-scenes yet, but I’m suspecting that these will follow soon. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll continue watching this. There weren’t any things that stood out.

And another bunch has come in. This round is a bit meh, though. But ah well, I’d have a problem if every single series had some awesome points. Especially in this season. Anyway, here are some previews:

School Rumble, Second Season

What we have here is the second season of the popular series school rumble. I’ve seen up to episode 13 of the first series. Anyway, the main theme of this anime certainly involves misunderstandings in relationships. Person A likes Person B, but Person B likes Person C and believes Person A loves Person D while Person E loves Person D as well, meanwhile Person F also loves Person A. If this goes on, I’ll be running out of letters… Anyway, I don’t think I’ll continue watching this. There were some funny scenes, but it’s certainly not the best of its kind. I think I’ll stay with the utter randomness of Pani Poni Dash and Haruhi Suzumiya for my school-series.

Strawberry Panic

Main character gets transferred to a new school in the middle of semester. Suddenly, all of the girls in the school start falling for this main character without a reason, including the most popular ones. The twist: this time the main character is a girl. There’ll probably some heavy shoujo-ai in this. I don’t really like this, though. Everyone acts without a reason. Nothing really is explained. I’m not too big of a fan of the huge amounts of hair from the characters either.

Digimon Savers

Okay, this is just plain stupid. We have a fourteen year-old boy, who runs into Agumon. After a small fight, this boy happens to be the first person ever to acknowledge him. So Agumon decides to make the boy his master. Then a cute girl arrives, of course of the same age as the boy to stop the both of them, which doesn’t really work. The girl appears to work for some kind of organization, and she isn’t really doing the best of a job. You’d wonder why she was even hired. Anyway, a big digimon arrives, and because the boy is so awesome, he manages to knock it down with a single punch. Agumon evolves for a bit and sends the digimon back, happy ending. Blegh. I’m going to stay away from this.

The next bunch of first episodes of the new series got fansubbed. Both of these three induced some kind of hate/love-relationship in me. Anyway, here are some previews:

ARIA The Natural
This just is the most peaceful series ever. I felt totally relaxed afterwards. The art and music also are beautifully done. I’m just a bit scared that this was a bit too peaceful. The plot looks like it’ll be nothing really big, and I really can’t imagine tension in this show. I don’t think that I’ll keep watching this show. It’s not like it isn’t good or anything, but otherwise, I’ll end up watching too many series at once.

Soul Link
This could have become a good series. I feel a deep plot behind this. The only problem is that the creators somehow found it a good idea to throw in huge amounts of fanservice. In one episode, we manage to see our main character bump into cute girls for at least two times, we have a bishounen as rival, the women get more shots of their chests than their face, our main characters get to be featured in the famous shower-encounter, and let’s not forget the little kid that pulls up skirt. Sigh, what a pity. I’ll try watching this one more episode, in the hope of it getting a bit better. After all, in one episode, they used almost all of the fanservice cliché’s available, so next time should have a bit less of them. Shouldn’t it?

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
What kind of horrible series is this? The overuse of fanservice is horrible, the plot is horrible, how can this possibly be called anime? I found myself thinking these words during the first couple of minutes of this anime. Why did the creators even think about creating such a monstrosity?! At the end of the episode, I understood. I totally understood. I’m a bit scared to continue to watch this. The main character scares me. I mean, she must be totally evil if she manages to make her friends to these kinds of things. I’m really getting scared of her. *shivers*