The spring anime season is well under way, my blogging, however, is not, haha. I guess this is the downside of heading into new seasons blindly, on one hand there are no expectations when viewing newly released series, but on the other, it leaves me with little idea of what to write about. But I suppose that’s what first impression posts are for, so here are some more.

Blassreiter

What a weird opener. The first half of the episode concentrated on the racing career of Gerd Frentzen, a championship motorcycle racer who stands pretty much uncontested at the top of the pack. However, a terrible accident leaves him paraplegic, robbing from him not only the ability to race, but the respect of his former teammates and his girlfriend, as his “Hero of the circuit” image vanished.

But of course, this is anime we’re talking about, so it was no regular accident we’re talking about. It was caused by monsters which come into existence due to the spread of demonic blood, turning the infected into violent killing machines. Just as Gerd thought his life was over, he is offered a drug by a random passerby, with the promise that it will make his body stronger than it was before, however, it carries with it the risk of death. The drug restores Gerd’s body, with a neat added side effect, it turns him into one of the aforementioned demon monsters, however, with the ability to control his powers. So as any self righteous anime character would do, he uses his newfound powers to fight against the monsters that almost ruined his life.

I’m a little disappointed that the series veered away from the whole racing aspect so fast, the first half of the episode with the racing and Gerd’s fall from glory reminded me of Days of Thunder, I hate Nascar but i loved that movie. I think they could have managed a full 24 episodes on Gerd’s return to glory and rivalries on the racing circuit. But alas, I guess we’ll have to make do with the whole demon thing, which isn’t the most original of plots, but seems like it could be an interesting watch.

Animation is pretty good, character designs are nice and it looks like we can expect lots of pretty CG.

To Love-Ru

Did Japan just unanimously agree that the new method for censoring boobs in anime would be using convenient rays of light/lens flare? It was rage inducing in KimiAru and it’s rage inducing here, I dare say it’s worse than the black blood epidemic that plagued many a series in the time of School Days.

Anyways, I digress, To Love-Ru is like DearS, ie. alien with large breasts invades the house of some random Japanese guy. However, unlike DearS, To Love-Ru doesn’t have redemption melon pan (as in the bread, not breasts). There’s no semblance of a real plot nor indication that we’ll get character development over the course of the season. About the only thing that To Love-Ru will accomplish in its run is giving Kanokon a run for its money as the most fanservicey anime of the season.

Animation sucks, but I guess you can’t expect more from a series like this. Character designs are passable, but there’s something about Rito’s design that annoys me.

Itazura na Kiss

Itazura no Kiss is awesome. No, lolikit, you weren’t the only one who loved Bokura ga Ita, and I’m not just bandwagoning here, I have proof of my existing love for it.

Itazura na Kiss follows the high school love life of Aihara Kotoko. She’s had a crush on Naoki Irie, the student representative of their year and all around genius pretty boy. However, the system in their school emplys a class ranking of sorts, Class A being full of prodigies and Class F on the other extreme of the spectrum, housing the less academically inclined students, it’s known by all as the “leftover class”. I don’t think I need to tell you where our two protagonists fall with respect to each other.

Regardless, Kotoko decides to confess her love to Irie, only to have him reply with “I don’t like stupid girls”. Kotoko’s image of Irie as the posterboy of perfection crumbles around her, and if that wasn’t bad enough, her living conditions follow suit, her newly built Japanese style house leveled by an earthquake. The gears of fate lock in place and Kotoko conveniently finds herself residing at Irie’s house, their parents being good friends. But to Kotoko, who not only got rejected by Irie, but lashed out at him for his cold hearted nature, the situation couldn’t be any worse.

I love shoujo. Despite the sometimes generic plotlines and its heavy reliance on coincidence and events of circumstance, it’s approach to romance drama is arguably superior to the male oriented harem counterpart. Whereas in harem you’ll have several girls fall inexplicably in love with a single male lead, forcing the guy to angst for a good 24 episodes over who to pick, shoujo pairs two seemingly incompatible candidates for love and flushes out their characters to the point where romance between them becomes justified. Which of the two is the better approach is subject to debate, but in terms of plot substance and entertainment value, both comedic and dramatic, I prefer the latter.

Animation is pretty fail, but that’s ok, shoujo doesn’t really need good animation to back it up. As long as the story delivers and we don’t descend too far into QUALITY, it can be overlooked.

Bonus trivia: Irie’s voice actor is none other than Hirakawa Daisuke, who some of you may recognize as Itou Makoto from School Days. Just in case you needed a reason to hate him :3

Kure-nai

Kure-nai is made of win and loli. Aside from that, I really don’t know what’s going on.

From what I got from the first episode, the Kuhouin family is based on a strict economic heirarchy where the rich rule and the poor serve the rich, it also seems very misogynistic. Hoping to save the next generation from the cycle, Kuhouin Murasaki is kidnapped from the household and placed under the protection of Kurenai Shintaro, who does odd jobs on contract to the organization that kidnapped Murasaki. Or…that could be completely wrong and the whole thing might just be some elaborate ransom plot, there wasn’t enough information given to form a coherent plot just yet. It’s pretty much “Here Shintaro, have a loli, make sure no one kills her, kthx”

But that’s alright, the loli makes the show. Murasaki is hilarious, she has an air of arrogance around her from having been raised in a pampered “oujo-sama” lifestyle, so she thinks she’s a know it all. But once cast into the outside world, her lack of common sense becomes painfully apparent and quickly leads her to build a sort of reliance on Shintaro. We’re also given hints about her tragic past, one of those deals where she was conceived by her father’s mistress, something like that, I’m sure it’ll be expanded on down the road.

My only real complain so far is that they made Murasaki almost TOO loli. I know, I didn’t think it was possible either. I love my loli as much as the next anime fan, but I tend to draw the line somewhere around CCS Sakura or “NINE YEARS OLD!” Feito/Nanoha.

But that being said, the character designs in general are pretty good, I love the attention they put into hair detail. Overall animation is nice as well, weird, but nice. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s like the illigitemate love child of Shion no Ou and Ghost Hound.

There are a few more shows yet to air, but I think with this I have a good idea of what I’ll be blogging this season. I’ll be announcing my tentative schedule on Friday, but nothing is set in stone yet. If there are any series that you’re particularly interested in or think would make good blogging fodder, feel free to leave a recommendation.

~ Shirukii ~