I’d like again to hijack this post for a bit to post up some impressions of the past half year of anime. Now that most of the series of the past Spring and Summer Season are about to end, it’s time to reflect on them again, and how they matched up to previous years. My general impression of the past Spring and Summer Season is that they’ve been completely different from those a year ago.
The spring season of 2008 was all about fooling the viewer: making the viewer think that the focus of the series will be on something completely different from what it actually is, and this air that you never know what to expect of an arc or episode, for the good and the bad. This spring and summer however, have instead been about consistency: delivering, and doing so over and over. Even the series which focused on surprising did so consistently.
Because of this, there’s no way to say “Spring 2008 was weaker/better than Spring 2009”. The individual highlights of the Spring and Summer of 2008 were better than of the current season. As much as I like Tokyo Magnitude, Phantom, Shangri-La and the Guin Saga, their highlights simply don’t match up to Kaiba, Himitsu ~The Revelation~, xxxHolic and Amatsuki. However, at the same time I have a lot less to get angry about this season: 2008 had a lot of disappointments, and series that ended with a bitter taste for me (*ahem*, Allison to Lillia, Soul Eater, Macross Frontier, Mission-E, Nijuu Mensou no Musume, et cetera, et cetera). The current season of course has shows with a lot of flaws, but you could have seen all of them coming. I’ve watched 30 episodes this season, and only one of them was offensively dull (Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei), and the good series have really been consistently good, with hardly any weeks that didn’t deliver.
The reason why I’m hijacking this post of all things to write this down is because I’ve had this strange feeling that something was missing this season, and now I finally know what it is. The biggest reason why the Spring and Summer of 2008 were so inconsistent was that they featured a lot of case-based series: in them, characters either had jobs that involved meeting lots of different people, travelled around, or just met different people, allowing these people to tell their stories. while episodic and fillerish at first sight, it resulted into a number of amazing and really well written episodes, and because of that I’ve become a really big fan of those sorts of series.
to my surprise, the past half year only featured one such series: Bakemonogatari. And that one turned out disappointing for a whole set of reasons involving Shinbo. Guin Saga and Tokyo Magnitude may seem like it, but the people that the main characters run into don’t really get an in-depth look, and their main purpose is instead to bring the setting alive, rather than standing out as a character with depth. And really, while there are a lot of very enjoyable series currently airing, I’m missing these quick series in which you never know what to expect. It’s those kinds of series that I’m going to look for especially in the upcoming fall season.
Anyway, to segue back into this episode, the epitome of consistency this season is of course Cross Game. This episode shows the first matches of the local tournaments, that will eventually lead to Koshien. However, I KNOW Adachi: Kou isn’t in his final year yet, so they’re going to lose at some point. The question is: when?
I liked how this episode also subverted a very common trope: “prettyboys are awesome”. This episode really proved that that isn’t necessarily the case, and it’s really good to see a group of people with normal looks in the centre, rather than a bunch of bishies or overly moe girls in the spotlights.
Other events in this episode showed a small glimpse of what happened to the members of previous year’s baseball team. They’ve all picked themselves back up in other teams, including Miki who’s looking much more healthy. This episode also marks what would have been Wakaba’s birthday, so Kou is out to collect another birthday gift for her.
One thing I didn’t like about this episode is that it was a bit too un-subtle about the Kou vs Aoba relationship. Especially the point in which Aoba looks at the camera and a soft wind conveniently starts blowing… that could have been done more subtle.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Cross Game – 24
Mmm…so overall which year Is better?
Hmm, while strictly looking at my top two of both seasons, I’d say 2008: although I like Phantom and Tokyo Magnitude a lot, I liked Himitsu and Kaiba better.
no deny kaiba is indeed awesome , the emotional stuff in kaiba is well directed and brilliantly executed
Himitsu still not finish fansubing 🙁
Himitsu is slowly coming along x_x. Cant wait to start watching this series once I forget about the 60 chapters of the manga I read =P
I have to sorta disagree about last year. It still had its own great crop of anime, and Macross Frontier was fine. Too much hype for it being the Macross sequel. And Zetsubou Sensei was funnier last year IMO.
But yeah, this year, so many anime did really good. The bad part was that too many of them only did earlier arcs of the stories like Taishou Yakyuu Musume, Aoi Hana and quite a few others. Can’t wait for the second seasons -_-;;
I have to sorta disagree about last year. It still had its own great crop of anime, and Macross Frontier was fine. Too much hype for it being the Macross sequel. And Zetsubou Sensei was funnier last year IMO.
But yeah, this year, so many anime did really good. The bad part was that too many of them only did earlier arcs of the stories like Taishou Yakyuu Musume, Aoi Hana and quite a few others. Can’t wait for the second seasons -_-;;