Hakushaku to Yousei
Short Synopsis: Our lead character can see fairies and gets kidnapped by a bunch of bishies.
Highlights: Is too busy trying to make its characters look “cool”.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
It’s a shame that this series started right after a bunch of awesome cat-shows as Chi’s Sweet Home and Natsume Yuujin-chou: the talking cat in this episode is nowhere near as awesome as Chi or Nyanko-sensei. In any case, this is your typical shoujo-series: female lead goes on an adventure and meets lots of bishies. There’s hardly anything that stands out, though. This series is way too busy with hairstyles that gently wave in the wind, and trying to look cool and charming. Terms as “Fairy Doctor” are needlessly translated to Engrish in an attempt to sound cool. The bishies all look way too much like each other, and none of the character-designs was really that appealing. What can save this series is that in the next couple of episodes is the way that it’s going to explore the European Folkore. If it can explore that in an interesting way, it might still stand a chance, but something tells me that our female lead is going to be too busy being saved by whatever bishie that comes near her.
Toradora
Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live next to a cute tsundere girl who tries to beat him up (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).
Highlights: Parrots are awesome. This one isn’t.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
Oooooh… Kugimiya Rie… please stop doing these annoying tsundere roles that all look and sound the bloody same. They don’t get less annoying if you do more of them. I love your work at Gintama, but stop working yourself into a corner with these Shana-clones. In any case, I think it’s pretty clear that I didn’t like this series. It’s nicely animated, but that’s just about the only positive thing I can say about it. Nothing else stood out, the humour felt flat, and just about every female character annoyed the hell out of me. Considering that we’re still missing one of the lead females (I don’t even want to guess what her role in this series will be…), this promises to be one of your typical high-school romances/harems. I’ve seen enough series with overly cute females for the past summer-season, so I really doubt whether I’m going to continue watching this thing.
Hyakko
Short Synopsis: Our lead character… is lost.
Highlights: Cute.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
My first thought on seeing this series, with yet again a bunch of high-school-girl was “oh god, here we go again”. And then the episode actually started, and it actually proved me wrong. Hyakko is really a breath of fresh air after Toradora and Hakushaku to Yousei and their stereotypes, with genuinely interesting characters, with good chemistry between them. Nothing feels forced, and instead it’s just a lot of fun to just watch them interact. The characters may seem like stereotypes at first, but already within this episode, they managed to turn into something beyond the clichés. I first imagined how this would turn into some sort of Bamboo-Blade-Lucky-Star clone, but this episode proved to be really enjoyable. Let’s hope that it can keep it that way!
You’re mixing up your Rie’s.
Not Tanaka Rie, get your voices right.
Ack, you’re right. Why do these people’s names all look like each other?
Rather un-surprisingly, the obscure slice-of-life show is better than other hyped anime. Wow.
I too feel the “Hyakko” will be the best at least out of those three you mentioned here, it reminds me of Bamboo Blade characterization ( characters who seem cliche then turn out to be more than that ), and the chemistry between the characters is one of the reasons i liked BB, so Hyakko will surely be on my watch list for this season ^_^
I think you should rename this section to “Some quick first unimpressions”, looking at the first two.
Hyakko looks promising in comparison. Though it’s not necessarily an optimistic statement ;/
Wow…
No wonder I keep hearing Shana’s three shut ups
while reading Toradora’s summary 0_0
Hyakko sounds interesting might check it
Without checking anywhere, just by reading the synopsis, I fuckin knew Rie Kugimiya was going to dub that chick. I fuckin knew it.
How original~
Heh, with Toradora, it is my first anime with the Rie + Tsundere combo. First episode wasn’t too bad (that’s what I said for Kanokon too), but this will probably turn into a generic High School romance/unfunny comedy/harem anime that does nothing new, and I’ll lose interest.
I wasn’t going to give Hyakko a chance, but I’ll consider it now.
Meh, you gave Toradora such a low Score.
*Scratches that one of the list: To Watch.* 😉
Hey, why am I the only one that liked Toradora? I know the protagonist hasn’t been shown too far past his quirks yet, but I kind of liked him. Definitely beyond any harem lead.
And after checking tags at various places, I can at least assure you that it isn’t harem. I think. Though that doesn’t mean I have any idea what the blue-haired girl will do.
Hey, was it me or was the voice of NonoMura Ayumi rather annoying? Hyakko :p
Although it’s really easy to tell what’s going to happen in later episodes, I really like the main character with his scary, ‘delinquent’ face. I’m not really tired of this sort of character-play yet since I dropped Shakugan no Shana a long time ago. Love-triangles turn me off, usually, and it was turning into a not-so-good ecchi-comedy, I thought.