Gorgeous, delicious, deculture!

Spring premiers continue to pop up left and right, and things to be shaping up decently. From the first round of fanservice heavy shows lacking in content I was worried that this season would be complete fail but with the bulk of new shows out, we’re about level in terms of quality compared to any other season.

Soul Eater

Did you know that in Kubo Tite’s original character designs, Rukia had a badass giant scythe? Soul Eater’s first episode brought nostalgic memories of the humble and, comparatively awesome, beginning of Bleach (inb4 Bleach was never good). Before all the power level bankai crap, it was Ichigo and Rukia running around cleansing the world of hollows, and it was actually pretty entertaining.

Soul Eater follows the story of Maka, a Shinigami Meister and Soul, her scythe, in their quest to become fully fledged death gods by turning Soul into a death scythe (read: bankai, but probably not as lame). To do so they must gather up 99 demonic souls and one witch’s soul. We’re thrown into the story as the team has acquired their 99th demon soul, afterwards, they track down Blair, who they think is a witch. However, after defeating her and absorbing her soul, she reveals that she’s not a witch, instead just a cat with strong magical powers and apparently the ability to reincarnate even after having her soul eaten. An unfortunate consequence of making a mistake in the collection of the witch’s soul, their previously collected 99 demon souls are all taken away. And so, starting from scratch, Maka, Soul and Blair’s (who’s now stalking them, with a thing for Soul) begins.

I was slightly annoyed that they pulled a reset at the end, bringing Soul and Maka back to the beginning, but I figured the development would be the same either way, and at least this way they don’t have to pull another power upgrade out of thin air to push the story forward.

I may be going nuts, but stylistically, Soul Eater kinda reminds me of FLCL, which is always a plus. The character interaction is interesting and the plot, though basic, is enough to keep me interested. And fanservice is actually used properly and in moderation (so far), rather than being the focal point of the series, it adds comedic relief and did well in playing up Blair’s personality.

If only this show didn’t span a full fifty-something episodes or it’d have secured a spot in my blogging lineup already. It’s rare that I enjoy shows like these.

Allison and Lillia

Although this show betrayed my expectations, it looks like it has the potential for a really great story. When I first heard about it and saw screencaps, the laid back atmosphere made me think that Allisson and Lillia would be a slice of life type show. While it held up its own under that category for the first half, it took a rather drastic turn towards serious business. The story so far is set in the country of Roxche, which has had a long history of war with the neighboring country of Sou Beil, though the two have been under a cease fire for some time. Our protagonist, Will, is a child prodigy in almost everything he does, he is diligent, calm, and cautious in his demeanor.

But that gets shaken up when his childhood friend Allison returns, now a transport pilot for the military. Contrast to Will, Allison is reckless, impulsive and brutally honest, but it is perhaps thanks to her personality that the two get along so well. Their lives take an unexpected turn when they meet an old man, famous for telling fantastical tales to passing students, which turn out to be complete lies. However, his story this time is no fabrication, he tells the two of a treasure that lies in a territory governed by Sou Beil, a treasure so great that its value cannot be measured, a treasure with the power to bring the war between Sou Beil and Roxche to an end. Before finishing his story, the old man is kidnapped, and so begins an adventure. On Allison’s suggestion, she and Will take to the sky to pursue the old man, his kidnappers, and a treasure like no other.

Apparently, this show will be split into two parts, the first half will be the adaptation of the Allison novels and the second on the Lillia and Treize series, both written by Keiichi Sigsawa. The animation style of this one vaguely reminds me of Kino no Tabi, I’m not exactly in love with it, but Allison’s character design is nice, so it’s not bad. I liked the whole premise of Allison stealing a vehicle, wrecking it and landing Will face down in a lake, the interaction between the two is excellent so far, which is a good sign. The series has a lot of potential from its opener, let’s hope they can capitalize on it.

S.A. Special A

Long legs are loooooong.

Ever since they were kids, Hanazono Hikari has always come second place behind Takishima Kei, whether it be in sports or academics, Hikari has never managed to beat Kei, not even once. The two attend Hakusen Academy, which is run as a normal school for the most part, but has a completely separate division known as the Special A which is open only to the students ranked in the top seven of the school. Naturally, at the top of the list is Takishima Kei, with Hanazono Hikari right behind him in second place. Despite the animosity the two display for each other on the surface and the frequent competitions they engage in, usually resulting in Kei’s arrogant victory and Hikari’s spiteful defeat, the two are great friends. But of course, what sort of shoujo would it be if they weren’t also secretly in love with each other!

The premise of Special A is reminiscent of Hana Yori Dango in that Hikari comes from a relatively humble family compared to the other members of the Special A who are heirs to national corporations or famous musicians, similar to Makino finding herself friends with Eitoku Gakuen’s F4. The Special A has a nice mix of characters, from the down to earth Hikari and the arrogant Kei to ones like the sadist Akira and Megumi, who has the whole, mute-moe thing going on, which I’ve only seen in Shion no Ou otherwise.

I’m a little wary about this series, no, not because of the noodle limbs, but rather the fact that it spans a full 26 episodes, and I really can’t see it running for that long without falling into mediocrity, But hey, who knows, I managed to watch LoveCom for that long, so who knows.

Bonus trivia: If the emanation of FABULOUS rays wasn’t a good enough clue, Kei is voiced by the same voice actor as Lelouch from CG.

Macross Frontier

Ah, the source of the nyan nyan girl at last. So I’m about 4 months late reporting on the first episode of this series, but whatever.

Macross Frontier focuses on one of the many colonies in the Macross universe, namely, the 25th colonial fleet, appropriately named: Macross Frontier, which is currently traveling towards the center of the galaxy. The colony is attacked by these biomechanical alien things and the colony finds itself unable to stop their advance, the aliens effortlessly pushing past their defense lines. To combat the invasion, the colonial defense force authorizes the intervention of the S.M.S., a civilian military organization which possesses equipment superior to the local army, its main weapon being the VF-25 jet/mecha hybrid.

That’s a pretty brief overview of the story, not really going into characters and such, but there hasn’t been much to base things off of so far. The only two seemingly significant characters introduced so far are Ranka, the nyan nyan girl, and Alto, pseudo-trap pretty boy and ace pilot.

I have the entire Macross series on my HDD at this very moment, but I just can’t find the time to make my way through it, IT’S MASSIVE! Apparently, aside from some universal terms used in the Macross universe, each series is a separate entity, so although they have a chronological order, they can be watched individually without much punishment to the viewer. Hopefully watching Macross Frontier will leave me with a good impression and will inspire me to devour the rest of the series, I’ve heard nothing but good things about it.

Animation is great, lots of “IMA FIRIN’ MY PEW PEW LAZORS” going on, and the character designs are nice too, and I say this with the assurance that I am not gay for Alto. From what I’ve seen from the opener, I like Macross so far, I generall don’t enjoy mecha, but Macross is different, rather than superpowered robots going at it, a la Gundam, Macross has stock production models duking it out in dogfight style, which is infinitely more interesting to watch in my opinion.

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So my planned blogging schedule for the season so far is:

- Code Geass R2 (Screw the oversaturation, I have money!)
- Macross Frontier (lolwut, another pseudo mecha?)
- Kure-Nai
- ?

The only two series in my blogging career that you could argue fall under mecha would be Code Geass R1 and Sky Lolis, the latter being really iffy, I bailed on both series half way through. Seeing as I favor the romance/harem side of things more often than not, I figured I’d try my hand at some other stuff and see how it works out. This season will be a journey of learning of sorts, as I’m comfortable with rambling on and on about why Noe is better than Hiromi or why Tomoya should have ended up with Kyou, but find it a challenge to talk about space colonies, intergalactic wars or why Lulu is gay for Suzaku.

It’ll be interesting to see whether I can keep my objective outlook on Code Geass intact through the following months, or will I succumb to its mysterious ability to foster blind fans.

As for that ‘?’, that will be up to you readers to decide. I can’t think of any show that deserves it over another to shove into that last spot, so I’ll throw up a poll and let you guys decide, only leaving out the series that I’d sooner die than blog, or series that I have yet to watch due to either lack of subs or preempted fail, ie. Da Capo II SS. This time I’ll adhere to the poll result, unlike other times where I overrode the winning choice in the end anyways.

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And one final announcement, AniAri will be on a brief hiatus for the next week, which has in store for me three of my five final exams. After that, the spacing of the remaining two gives me ample time to study and blog, but that luxury will not be available in the following week. I might throw a random post out in the middle, if I’m inspired, but episodic posts will be on hold until next Friday. See you then.

~ Shirukii ~