May Summary

I noticed that this season, there are a lot of really good 13-episode series. Much more than usual. This trend seems to become more and more popular. In some cases, it’s unfortunate, because some series would be able to show their potential even more with 26 episodes.

#23 (16) – Allison to Lillia – (6,9/10) – Ugh, what a disappointment. In this month, the continuous amount of hard-to-take-seriously plot twists has destroyed my suspense of disbelief. A few errors in storytelling are okay, but in my opinion, Allison to Lillia is way too lazy in this.
#22 (12) – Persona – Trinity Soul – (7,6/10) – Persona is overplaying the traumatic parents way too much. Heck, did any of these teenagers grow up in a normal way? It’s a shame, but this series still feels like it’s missing something, and I doubt that the finale will be good enough to make up for this…
#21 (25) – Code Geass – Lelouch of the Rebelion – (7,7/10) – I’m finding it hard to force myself to not take this show seriously (why did nobody in the Britannian army for example get the idea of intercepting Lelouch’s phone-calls? How the heck did Lelouch collect 2 million zero-suits?), but Gode Geass is still good enough mindless entertainment.
#20 (11) – Blassreiter – (7,8/10) – Blassreiter: stay away from emo! The action scenes are still amazing, but the amount of emo-scenes has been getting out of hand now. Emo-distorted faces do NOT make a good anime.
#19 (15) – Wagaya no Oinarisama – (7,9/10) – The dialogue is surprisingly hard to understand, so I switched to the subs for this series. The episode about the main character’s love interest was really pointless, but apart from that Wagaya no Oinarisama has been enjoyable.
#18 (21) – Toshokan Sensou – (8,1/10) – I can’t help but thinking that Toshokan Sensou could have been better if it focused more on its plot, though it still can make up for this if the first half was just a simple build-up and it finishes with a strong finale.
#17 (13) – Macross Frontier – (8,1/10) – Macross has mostly been strange fluff this month, though the one action-episode that was included was pretty entertaining.
#16 (18) – Vampire Knight – (8,2/10) – Now I know what this series reminds me off: this is basically just the shoujo-version of Mushiuta. They also share the same strengths and weaknesses: both are solid and have a continuous melancholic atmosphere, and both hardly have any moment where characters are not angsting: so far, Vampire Knight has been all about angst angst angst angst, and nothing else. Angst can be great, but it shouldn’t take up the central focus in an anime!
#15 (23) – Chi’s Sweet Home – (8,2/10) – It’s getting a bit predictable here and there, but overall this turned into such a charming series. Much better than I originally expected.
#14 (17) – Soul Eater – (8,3/10) – It’s not deep, it’s not anything special, but it is fun, charming and it manages to keep my interest. Let’s hope things stay that way.
#13 (24) – Junjo Romantica – (8,4/10) – Well what do you know? Junjo Romantica is actually pretty good: it’s got a great sense of humour and it knows how to develop a romantic relationship. Seriously, I’m a bit baffled to say this, but a lot of straight romance shows can learn something from this series. :S
#12 (22) – Druaga no Tou – (8,4/10) – This turned out to be a surprise: it knows exactly how much it should take itself seriously. It’s not pure silliness, which would leave no room for a storyline, and it’s also not pure seriousness, as that would be rather hard to take seriously, considering the male lead and all. Thumbs up for Gonzo.
#11 (10) – Nijuu Mensou no Musume – (8,6/10) – Well, I think that episode six says it all. The beginning of this series was a bit buggy, though Nijuu Mensou no Musume has been getting better and better

#10 (9) – Itazura na Kiss – (8,8/10)

Excellent shoujo romance. I especially loved the end of episode 7.

#9 (8) – Kurenai – (8,8/10)

This was probably the quietest month for Kurenai, but it’s turned out to be a lot of fun. The characters are deep, and episode 6 was downright hilarious.

#8 (6) – RD Sennou Chousashitsu – (8,9/10)

Okay, so what if RD has turned out to be the opposite of what I expected. It’s fun, intriguing, varied, and clearly building up to something and I’m dying to know what that is.

#7 (7) – Crystal Blaze – (9/10)

Solid plot, both the main characters and villains are fleshed out well enough, great storytelling that doesn’t waste a single scene, great use of music, sympathetic characters. What more could you wish for? Great example of a great low-budget series.

#6 (14) – Gintama – (9/10)

And we’ve entered another serious arc of Gintama, and as usual with arcs like these: the quality increases drastically, and one moment will have you crying with laughter while the other will have you on the edge of your seat. Oh, and Kagura is the best hostage ever.

#5 (4) – xxxHolic – (9/10)

The different random stories on xxxHolic have been excellent so far. This is exactly why I’ve fallen in love with the first season.

#4 (5) – Amatsuki – (9/10)

I’m still not sure what it is with this show, but the dialogue has been incredibly well written so far, even though I only understand 60% of it.

#3 (3) – Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – (9,2/10)

This series is masterful in terms of storytelling I’m still not sure exactly how, but every episode feels complete once it forces you to see the big picture at the end. This becomes all to apparent when the more disturbing roots of the series come to surface (episode eight!)

#2 (1) – Porfy no Nagai Tabi – (9,2/10)

And so Porfy has started travelling. This series continues to be innovative, and it makes every single person Porfy runs into count. Such amazing attention to detail.

#1 (2) – Kaiba – (9,5/10)

Kaiba was simply incredible. A master in storytelling was clearly at work here.