Category: Some Quick First Impressions

And the fall season has started. So far, it’s promising to be a load of garbage with a few good shows. I SO hope that the coming month will prove me wrong, though the current batch hasn’t really managed to change my opinion.

Black Blood Brothers

It’s got hate, it’s got angst, it’s got despair, but it’s also got a main character with absolutely no sense of fashion and an annoying little brat who is annoying for the sake of being annoying. The anime also plays in a world in which hundreds of bullets can be stopped by a single swing of a sword. Not really that realistic. Even though the angst was nice to see, I decided to drop this show. The decisive reason for this happened at the end of the first episode. We first see our main character on a ship, moving things (including the annoying brat) with just the power of his mind. Then, the brat falls into the water, and suddenly his power stopped working, and he actually jumped after him, sustaining significant damage as the water seems to dissolve him. Why couldn’t he just zap the brat back to the ship?

Sci-Fi Harry

Yeah, I know. This series aired in 2000. But as this section is called “some quick first impressions”, and not “newly aired anime”, I might slip in an old one once in a while. And this one was just a tad too good to ignore. The anime plays around Harry. He’s been alienated from society, and he’s an extremely shy boy. Then, it seems that he’s a psychic who can’t fully control his powers. People are now obviously after his powers, and the few people who did spend time with him then will probably get entangled in this. The series immediately starts out very intense. And by the third episode Harry already killed about fifty people at once. Overall, it’s a very good, but the series does have its own annoying moments. The main female character’s feelings towards Harry are nothing short of obnoxious, and a lot of scenes show some facial expressions which just don’t work. It does give something unique to this anime, though the fact that looking at these characters’ faces is annoying.

_Summer

Okay, things can’t be good when this anime immediately starts with a perverted onsen-peeking-scene. And indeed. This anime has one of the most WORST. SETTINGS. EVER. A male who’s been copied and pasted right from any other random harem is surrounded by a huge load of “beautiful” girls. Of course, each of these girls absolutely loves our main character and they all perfectly fit the stereotypes. The anime is about a very difficult choice: which girl does the main character want to spend the rest of his life with. Seriously, I hope that this isn’t some kind of sign, regarding the overall quality of the rest of the season. Anyway, thankfully some small details prevented this anime from becoming a total disaster. There were some funny moments (the teacher and the evil girl were rather funny) and also, at times whenever we see characters talk, you can see rather random things go on in the background. I do admit that it was a nice touch. Still, I’m not really recommending this to anyone. (Oh yes, and in case you were wondering, I watched this one raw. You need to wait a bit before the subs appear, but you’re better off forgetting about this series)

A strange patch we have this time. All of these shows were especially made for the fans of one certain niche. These shows are mostly for the yaoi-fans, lolicons and people who like to gouche their eyes out with a spoon.

Angel’s Feather

This is an ova, set at an all-boys high school. It remains shounen-ai, but it’s one of the first of its kind which managed to have caught my interesting. For an OVA, the creators have thrown in a fairly large amount of characters, and all of these characters interacting with each other does provide interesting scenes. Especially if they’re filled with doubt, betrayal, angst and love. Still, the plot isn’t flawless. Only descendants of kings are said to have wings, but right now, it seems that every single character has them. The reason why wings give you superpowers also is oblivious.

Sky Girls

This series is like, 35% action, 60% fanservice and 5% plot. Or in other words, garbage. It’s basically an excuse to please all the lolicon fanboys out there. The plot makes no sense at all and remains uninspired. The graphics are nice, but not something to make you jump up from your chair. The characters also don’t seem to have any personality. About the only good thing was the time pressure given from the government officials.

Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyousei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro

Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was to go down as the worst anime of the century. We´ve got a secret agent who’s probably the richest, bravest and coolest person in the world who fights against corrupt government official. A decent premisse, but it has been executed in a horrible way. For example, our hero gets introduced while flying in a jet fighter. He then uses the ejection seat and lands on the ground with a parachute. What happened to the fighter, we never know. The rest of the episode featured even more of these strange events which don´t make any sense at all. The art isn´t much better. Everything looks incredibly low budget. Seriously, though. Stay away from this one.

Aah, finally we get another good batch. It’s good to see that this season does actually have some good series. All of these anime feature something different from normal anime. One is co-produced with Koreans, another is entirely made with flash, while yet another has a very messy art style.

Kemono no Zume

Ah, this is what I’ve been waiting for. A monster hunter falls in love with a monster and vice versa. Quite an interesting premise, and I’m happy to say that the first episode left me with a good feeling. Our main character isn’t invincible after all, as he seems to have an indigestion problem when facing monsters, and our female protagonist/antagonist was actually introduced in quite a funny way. In fact, this anime succesfully managed to produce some very funny moments, while the serious moments were kept sortof light, though full of content. The art style is indeed something which immediately catches the eye. It’s incredibly messy, especially the animation. Still, in the end, it works. It really contributes to the overall style of the anime.

Hanoka

This anime is completely created in flash. While others may find it ugly, I kindof appreciate the fact that people are experimenting with different art styles. And indeed, this anime looks quite unique. With also five minutes per episode, in which 90 seconds of this are occupied by the OP, leaving only 3,5 minutes left, you also can’t say that this anime bores you. But that doesn’t nessecarily mean that it’s good. In this case, however, it does have potential. It’s an anime about a war, which is being fought. Our main characters has special powers, though she’s held captive, only to serve in the war. She was quite sad, and these emotions did surprisingly well. I have no idea what the rest of this anime will be about, though. It can go anywhere, from incredibly bad to incredibly good.

Shoujo Yang Geum no Yume

Okay, why did this show take so ridiculously long to get subbed? It’s quite good. In case you’ve never heard about this series, it aired during the spring season. Now, a massive five months later, it has its first episode subbed. It’s about a very energetic girl, who loves cooking. Her late mother inspired her for this, before she died. She used to say that seeing Yang Geum (our main character) eat her dinner would make her really happy. Yang Geum is now aiming for about the same thing. Meanwhile, a lot of interesting things are going on in the background. It seems that the prince of the country is rather inexperienced, and goes hunting with only one guard. Assasins take advantage of this and actually attack, while Yang Geum and her cousin happen to be near. They actually manage to scare away these assasins in a very creative way, and they also manage to see their faces, which immediately gives this story a good start. Our main characters also are very likable. They’ve got interesting personalities. Another interesting point is that this is one of the first, if not first Japanese-Korean co-productions, hence the Korean names. Overall, if there ever was an unpopular show which deserves way more attention, it’s this one.

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.