Hidan no Aria
Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a cute girl.
Oh GOD no. Not another Kugimiya Rie tsundere!? When will they ever stop!? I mean, at least Lotte no Omocha cast her as a ten year old. This Aria is pretty much a yet another Shana clone. There is nothing new or fresh about her; everything is pretty much copy pasted from your standard uninspired moe show. Only the lead character stands out because of how he treats her like a kid, but that’s not really a positive thing to say here because it only made her into an even bigger tsundere. Now, as for the rest of this episode: it really tried to be a fun action series, which I can understand. What I can’t understand however was the huge amount of really boring moe antics around really boring characters that dominated the rest of this episode. I’ve heard that the manga this is based on gets really good after a while, which is something that I’m willing to believe. However, I have two problems with that. First of all: is there any guarantee that the anime will reach that point? With such a trollish director I doubt it, and this episode wasn’t really in a hurry to get to that point. My second problem: is it really worth it to sit through a ton of crap, just to get to those good parts? I mean, the action scenes in this episode were fun enough, but random action scenes only stay fun for so long unless you build up, and I know that I’m not going to be able to sit through any more of the moe antics of this series. The lead female is just that annoying. I’d really like to congratulate this season: I was nearly getting over my bias of Kugimiya Rie, but Rose, Lotte and especially Aria reminded me of why I hate that voice.
OP: Actually not bad, and they tried to be a tad different here. It’s still a very typical OP once the voice starts, though.
ED: Nice visuals. Again, not bad.
Potential: 10%
Yugioh Zexal
Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays a children’s card game.
Oh, this wasn’t actually as bad as I expected. Okay, obviously the main character looks incredibly stupid and all (really, this guy’s looks are on a completely different dimension), he’s pretty much a moron and this is the umpth show about a young guy who plays some sort of game, but it did it with the kind of cheese that actually made it a bit watchable. The background music was actually surprisingly good, and the bad guy in this episode was so ridiculously over the top that he actually was kindof fun to watch with his angry flying sharks and all. I have to say that the monster designers got pretty creative for this one. Oh, this is cheese. But the very least it knows how to build up tension.
OP: I would have expected much worse from a kids’ show.
ED: Actually decent if you ignore the cheese.
Potential: 30%
Seikon no Qwaser
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an unregistered sex-offender.
Oh, lord. I’ve just been watching four new bad series in a row… that really was too much for my sanity. Especially since this one takes the cake: it has completely stopped pretending now. Why isn’t this labelled as porn yet? Just… watch this if you want boobs. It’s got plenty of them. The rest of this episode was just stupid beyond belief. I have no energy anymore to rant about this thing.
OP: Boring, badly sung, the usual.
ED: Is that Aya Hirano singing through her nose?
Potential: 0%
don’t be so sad for this bad season :P,in the world of asian entertainment,if the world of anime this season isn’t very good then ,you can go to the world of korean dramas :D,to me they are the best asian tv series,i enjoy them and anime,some good stuff are the dramas of: dream high,giant,joseon x files,my girlfriend is a gumiho,emperor of the sea,jejoongwon or dae jang geum
Hey, at least season 1’s OPs were actually… oh.. I don’t know… EXCITING!. Stuff was going on. This OP was shit. The content was… weird… and the ED tried to copy the firsy ED from season 1, and failed. BADLY.
I still can’t believe crap like this is being approved for anime adaptations! I mean COME ON! Look at the FREAKING PROMO ART for that matter!!! ALL the girls look like they just had orgasms of epic proportions!! At this point, I’m actually praying for more World Masterpiece Theater anime or at least more shows like Hana-Saku Iroha or Madoka Magica or any of those anime. WHY CAN’T THOSE TITLES BE MORE APPRECIATED THAN THIS MALARKEY?!?
Since I watch this series purely for the boobs, how was the censoring for this broadcast?
Since AT-X airs next week wondering if this is the censored one or if they’re both going to be censored and there will be a webcast version or whatever.
I love this show for the plot and the PLOT!
Seikon no Qwaser II eh? Turning my brain off for a second and watching this for the fanservice, because what this series calls a plot is nonsense.
@jose: imo it’s actually the best season of anime in a while, and considering there are alot of shows..one has to expect to come across pure crap.
They made a sequel? To *that?* Oh g-d…
Look at it this way, a season with only a few worth blogging means a season with more time to catch up with the many, many series that were released before you began.
Where’s that worthless Tokyo Ordinance FUckban (TOFU) when you need it…
Damn it, my eyes. I should have waited. I’ll never watch an insta-raw again. NEVER AGAIN.
I’m surprised at Zexal too. I thought it was going to be way worse, but it’s really just kinda cheesy, not all that bad at all.
@jose andZ.N. Singer
There’s 47 shows this season,not all can be great,and considering it looks like this season I’ll be following the most shows since spring 2007 so I can hardly call it a disapointment.
I’ve checked qwaser without subtitles, weren’t needed, and yes, it’s about boobs. The main character is in a quest to find some particular boobs and so he assaults, cross-dressed as a girl, one by one all of the residents of the female girls school. His knowledges about boobs helps him a lot. He defeats his first opponent in a virtual fight by reading the rival’s boobs movements in the “epic” battle climax of the chapter.
I suppose first season sold well. XD
>I have no energy anymore to rant about this thing.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo-
Qwaser 2 opening and ending are probably in my top 10 worst songs ever in an anime. Which is saying a lot. Especially the ending is like stabbing your ears with a pencil.
Subs for qwaser out- so There mr negativepants!
YGO Zexal was so…stupid. It isn’t THAT bad when I had the first impression of its art…but still stupid. This is definitely a kid’s show. So sad. Psgel, watch Yu-Gi-Oh, not the crappy sequels q.q
Well, you missing another show due to Rie is nothing new. It’s pretty similar how you decided to skip on Toradora despite it turning out to be one of the better written animes within the recent decade.
As for Hidan no Aria, admittedly, JC Staff probably will mess this up long before reaching the good.
In Kugimiya’s defense, her Alphonse Elric was absolutely fantastic (and lovable). I have no idea if her range is really as limited as the roles she generally plays, but yeah, the tsundere roles are getting to be a bit of a joke.
It’s just my opinion, but honestly, Rie, while good at voicing tsundere lolis, is not a perfect match for all tsundere lolis she voices (Just because her voice for shana will never be forgotten).
Aria in particular, I think could have been voiced better by Ayana Taketsu or Haruka Tomatsu (ie. some new voices).
In Rie’s defense, I believe there was something said about how she’s just cast as the tsundere by the staff. It’s already a standard, “if you’ve got a loli and she’s a tsundere, get Rie to voice them.”
She’s got a lot of experience in those rolls after all and she can pull it off REALLY well(Taiga), Haha.
Ah, rumor has it that she’s actually not a big fan of being constantly cast as a tsundere but directors/staff/god/whoever keep casting her in those rolls, I guess she decides: “Well, it’s not like I COMPLETELY hate it, and at least it pays the bills…”
Even better if she says it in a tsundere way:
“D-Don’t mistake me, I’m not voicing this character because I like them or anything, but if you MUST have me cast in those rolls, I guess I have no choice. Be grateful.”
For the record, I like her voice acting, especially her tsundere characters. There’s a reason she’s the “queen of Tsundere” and not just because half of us tsundere fans might be closeted M’s who secretly desire to be beaten and yelled at by cute girls……
As for Hidan No Aria, I agree that there was actually not much that happened in the episode but they kind of dragged on, so the pacing is a little too slow…but when the pacing is too fast, that tends to be worse. It’s the first episode, so it’s too soon to say, but I think this anime actually has some interesting potential, I want to see where it goes and make my judgement of whether it sucks or not when it’s over…or at least 3-4 episodes in.
Also, saying it’s just another Shana clone is…just wrong. :/
With Shana’s personality and mannerisms, she might seem like a tsundere…but she comes off as more of a Kuudere to me. I mean, when comparing to LOUISE, Shana is pretty tame.
Not to say that I’m a fan of all tsundere…I f**king hate Kirino (Oreimo). To keep this already long post from turning into an “I-dislike-Kirino” rant, I’ll just say this: “Mary Sue” That is all.
But I don’t approve of passing over an anime just because the love interest is a tsundere. :/
But that’s enough of the tsundere defense.
Since Zexal will wind up on 4kids/FOX/WHEREVER here eventually, I’m not gonna watch it…
The dubs are probably going to RAPE the series…but at this point they’re just milking the franchise like game developers are milking the CoD franchise and it’s clones.
Also, I’m not a particular fan of animes that last longer than 30 episodes (there’s exceptions), though if it’s beyond 30 episodes…it’s probably filler or worse…WILL NEVER END!!!!!
I watched a few episodes of Seikon’s first season.
My overall reaction:
“Meh.”
The fight scenes are…
………
Heh-heh. I do intend to finish the series someday…because I love to torture myself (I watched Kampfer after all).
Well, I should probably wrap this up before this gets any longer.
TL;DR VERSION:
Tsunders are awesome.
It might not be Rie’s fault that she’s constantly cast as tsunderes.
It’s probably not a good idea to pass on what’s PROBABLY a good anime because you dislike a certain voice/character archetype.
I’m gonna skip the milked franchise known as YGO Zexal
And I’m gonna finish SQN…..when I’m bored and feeling masochistic.
Interesting read there, Arc! It’s somewhat refreshing to see real hardcore otaku love for the tsundere hereabouts.
“Tsunders are awesome” — hehe, was that spelling intentional? ‘Cuz I like it.