Some quick first impressions: Keitai Shoujo, Idolmaster Xenoglossia and Hitohira

Keitai Shoujo Short Synopsis: Ordinary schoolboy has a childhood-friend who’s in love with him, he’s in love with her as well. Good: Finally, a harem that’s short! Only 4 minutes per episode. Bad: Harem; Childhood friend; Annoying classmate; The usual. Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10 Well, the spring-season started out quite horribly with Ketai Shoujo. But then again, it’s not like I expected something different. And at least it’s an OVA-harem. Those usually have a bit more creativity than the usual TV-Series-harems. _summer, for example, was horrible, but it did feature some interesting direction. Keitai Shoujo on its turn only has 4 minutes per episode, excluding OP and ED, so at least it won’t be able to bore you to tears. But then again, four minutes per episode, with only five episodes in total. There’s no way the creators are going to get some good development out of this. And heck, Keitai Shoujo, the phone who turns into a girl has yet to even appear. Anyway, It’s not like I’m going to continue this one. Dropped. Idolmaster Xenoglossia Short Synopsis: Girl auditions to be an idol, gets selected, but doesn’t know that she’s actually going to pilot mechas Good: Some funny characters, solid animation. Bad: Cast of stereotypes, useless fanservice-jokes, why are these girls the only ones who can pilot mechas? Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10 Idolmaster Xenoglossia got aired on its website for its first lucky 1000 visitors. Obviously, this had to leak out somewhere, resulting in raws getting posted for everyone to view. After watching this episode, it’s clear that we’ve got ourselves a sunrise-anime here, as it just screams “Mai Otome”. Not that that’s a good thing, though. The main character is your usual clueless girl who will end up piloting a mecha without any prior experience, she’s joined by a rather shy girl and a loudmouthed one. So far, these characters didn’t really catch my interest, though I do admit that the loudmouthed one was funny. I wish I could say the same of the small fanservice-jokes which slip in occasionally. Those who are into solid animation could check this one out, but don’t expect the character-designs to be memorable. Dropped. Hitohira Short Synopsis: Extremely shy girl gets recruited for the drama-club Good: Charming main character, some very interesting side-characters. Bad: Other side-characters, though, were rather clichéd. Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 I’m glad to see that Hitohira actually turned out good. The first episode definitely showed that Mugi is more than just the standard shy girl of a harem whose only goal is to get into the harem lead’s pants. She’s got a really cute personality, especially if she doesn’t know what to say. She’s more versatile than I imagined, which is always a good thing. This series comes accompanied with quite a few interesting side-characters as well. My main problem lies with two characters: the head of the drama-club and the Mugi’s love interest. The first is a bit too nice to her, while the second just screams “harem lead”. While it’s good to see the latter being abused and chased around, and his sense of humour is nice, I just can’t help but fear that his relationship with Mugi will be too forced.]]>