Very much my situation.

Long story short: my computer done broke, time to get a new one.

Short story long: around the time Clannad and ToA were ending, out of nowhere, booting my computer led me to a black start up screen prompting me that my hard drive would need to be swapped due to imminent failure.  My subsequent actions: didn’t listen, didn’t do anything, didn’t care, continued to use it like nothing, boom, the damn thing failed.  So yes, the past three months I’ve been relatively PC-less, resorting to my other friend’s PCs and laptops to get by with my schoolwork (even used a netbook at one point, which I must say feels incredibly fragile).  This happened about a day after I had typed up my ToA 26 post, which still needed to be screencapped and FTP’d to our site.  Thankfully, although it’s unfortunate that it took 3 months to finally get up and people have probably stopped caring, I can safely tuck it under the “Completed Series” category and not worry to much about my future plans.  To be honest, I never intended to blog anything in the spring season anyway: the only shows I’ve been semi-watching were Hayate no Gotoku!! Second and FMA: Brotherhood, but Hayate is hardly blogging material to me since it doesn’t really have a overarching plot, and I didn’t want any obligation to compare Brotherhood to the first incarnation since I haven’t seen all of the 1st series yet.  Thus, I tried using the season to try and get a job, not just for a new hard drive but for a new computer/laptop altogether.

But damn, Blazblue is fun…

…And yet here I sit, penniless and still reliant on another friend’s computer (one who was willing to let me install Filezilla for a spell).  Job-hunting sucks, especially when you don’t get one.  And now, not having a working computer HAS impeded on my plans, as the shows I WAS planning on blogging are going to air, and the money I had hoped to gain to get to Anime Expo has now gone down the drain.  Thus, though I wasn’t as active and up to date as I’d like to think, it seems to comming months will be  slow on my part:  the following series may only get an entry every so often the same way Shirukii is doing, depending on how much free time I have to spend at a friend’s house hogging the computer for a few hours, but I hope you continue to enjoy them.  That said, the following series I’ll be following this season are…

CANAAN

My Type-Moon faggotry forces me to pick this up, since I’m a sucker for Takeuchi’s art. I know almost nothing about the storyline, other than it’s based on a scenario Type-Moon conceptualized for the Wii visual novel game 428: Fūsasareta Shibuya de. The game itself gained a perfect score to Famitsu, and the concept of switching to different protagonist’s and experiencing different scenarios is interesting, but since Canaan isn’t a direct adaptation, it’s hard to say what to expect. Also, I can give two shits about Famitsu, since their infamous notoriety seems to me to stem from a bunch of elitist faggots as well as whether or not their judgement can be trusted or not (see KHII’s “almost perfect” score and Dirge of Cerberus “somewhat good” score…and FFXII getting a perfect is a load of shit as well)…but I digress.  This is pretty much a blind dive, since there’s little about the Canaan part of 428, but the game apparently takes place within a 10 hour time span, from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM.  Leads me to think they might do a sort of “24″ One episode = One hour type progression, but we’ll have to wait and see.  Other than that…Canaan (titular character) has been the hardest trap for me whose gender is to discern, cause those boobs just look like pecks to me.

Takeuchi must REALLY like his Saber design. o_o

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni

Do YOU believe in witches?

Been meaning to actually get into the Visual/Sound Novel series, but since reading takes time and effort (clicking the mouse is only fun the first few hundred times and auto-read never scrolls fast enough or slow enough), I haven’t so much as downloaded it; not having a computer doesn’t help either.  Still, the premise reminds is very much the same charm Higurashi had: 6 mysterious murders with more to follow, and a battle between a witch and a man who does not believe in witches.  What’s intriguing to me is the concept of the two (Battler and Beatrice) overseeing the events in a parallel dimension, almost like a game of Risk or the Millenium World Arc of…ahem, right.  Beatrice is being voiced by Ohara Sayaka, and since learning that, I can’t help but hear Beatrice speaking like Yuko from XXXholic, without the alcoholic tendencies.

So there you have it:  both series are murder mysteries if Canaan follows the murder that happens in 428.  Therefore, prepare for mass amounts of speculations and hypothesi.  Also, I plan on doing a few more video game posts here and there, so please look forward to those.  And to spice up the lack of K-ON we’ve had…

Unfortunately, I’m NOT going to be doing a review on this, but you gotta admit, it is pretty clever… ;_;

If you’re still butthurt disappointed it’s not real…maybe potential DLC for Rock Band: Japan?

-Jay

We’re well past to midpoint of the Winter 07-08 anime season and since it’s Friday and there’s no Clannad to post about, I figured I might as well try out one of these mid-season impression things, a brief on my impressions on some of this season’s offerings and carry overs from fall 07.

Bamboo Blade

I suppose Bamboo Blade would fall under the category of sleeper hit, despite being fairly well known, it doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserves. It started out as a generic sports shounen-ish anime, with girls instead of guys, but grew into a respectable series with great character development and an interesting, albeit simplistic and repetitive plot foundation. The ending of this series is one I’m curious to see, specifically whether it will have a slice of life-ish ending where it sort of just cuts off, or if it will build to a climactic finale. Also, Lion-tan Kirino > Tama-chan. =3

Kaiji

ZAWA ZAWA

One of my most looked forward to releases during any given week (partially because with Triad you never know when that might be). Kaiji is based on a manga by Fukumoto Nobuyuki, the same author that did the Akagi manga. While I liked Akagi a lot more, Kaiji is awesome in its own way. In Akagi you had Akagi owning it up wherever he went, a master gambler with top notch mind games and insight that allows him to win pretty much uncontested. Whereas Kaiji is a bum who is down on his luck, nothing going his way, but by some miracle always manages to just scrape by in his gambles of life or death. Filled with insightful reverse metaphors and some unique games, Kaiji comes at a high personal recommendation, but moe lovers beware, the character designs in Kaiji are at polar opposites with what you may have come to expect in anime.

Kimikiss ~pure rouge~

Another series that leaves me wanting more at the end of every episode, Kimikiss is analogous to True Tears in its ability to leave the viewers hanging at the end of every episode, if only a cut below. However, it differs from True Tears and many other romance series out there in that it’s not really a harem, rather two separate love triangles that sort of weave together through circumstance. But despite not being a harem in its truest sense, there sure is a lot of fan division on this one, particularly with respect to Kouichi and Mao, there’s a lot of Mao-neechan hate going around, which I find unwarranted. But I digress, Kimikiss is a great series, one which nearly beat out Ef -a tale of memories- for my award for 2007’s best romance series.

Minami-ke Okawari

The fanbase division for Minami-ke Okawari is incredible and quite perplexing, with just as many people saying it’s inferior to the first season as those who think it’s superior. Personally, I’m of the latter group of thought, and I really don’t see why anyone would think otherwise. The animation change did take a second to get used to, especially Chiaki’s out of place gradient hair, but everything else remained essentially the same. Actually, scratch that, with an already developed cast and the dynamics of its jokes sorted out, Minami-ke Okawari wasted no time getting to the hilarity, and with more trap Mako-chan, more reverse trap Touma and more Hosaka, it got much funnier. Plus the ED consists of roughly 3 minutes of Kana shaking her ass, what’s not to love?

Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei Zoku

SUBS WHERE?!

The continuation to Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei continues to get the SHAFT treatment, meaning subtle references plastered everywhere that take an observant eye, cultural knowledge and probably two watches to fully digest. While I enjoy this series, it’s far too random, as are most of SHAFT’s productions, and when all is said and done I walk away with very little in terms of memorable footage. I do love the characters though, each representing a number of exaggerated negative personality traits.

Shigofumi

Absolutely amazing first couple of episodes, but Shigofumi has gone down hill from there. What started out as a satirical play on human emotions, opting to highlight the bitter emotions that sometimes accompany death lost much of its initial impact as the episodes passed by. The yuri tennis episode, despite containing yuri, was uninspiring, as was the cat episode (although, bonus points given for naming it Schrödinger). The bullying episode was along the lines of what I had expected from the series, but it was so cliche that it didn’t live up to its opener. So ultimately, while I wouldn’t call Shigofumi a bad series, in the end it fell victim to my suspicions that it would be unable to match the awesomeness of its two opening eps.

Shion No Ou

Nooooo! Not the trap ;_; Why would you do that!

I went into Shion No Ou thinking it would be another board game animu like Hikaru no Go or Akagi, but instead got a surprisingly deep plot about murder and the hardships of a cute elementary school girl with a traumatic past. The shougi is far from the central element in this series, it’s just sort of…there. While they do show shougi matches, very little concerning rules is explained and the actual matches themselves aren’t presented in much detail, far more important is the mind games that go on between the two players and the subtle growths in their personalities that arise from the game at hand. Great series that doesn’t get talked about much, though I’m slightly bitter about their decision to get rid of the trap.

Shugo Chara

Shugo Chara in a nutshell:

Episode 1: FUCK NO I’M WATCHING A GIRLY SHOW
Episode 2: Fuck…I’m watching a girly show
Episode 3-current: FUCK YES I’M WATCHING A GIRLY SHOW!

I have no idea why I continue to watch Shugo Chara, nor any clue as to why I enjoy it. It falls under mahou shoujo, which aside from MSLN, I usually abhor, the characters often come across as annoying and bratty, and the overlying plot is mindlessly generic. I guess I’m in it for the Amu, I really have no other explanation to offer.

Spice and Wolf

Economics animu! Except…not really. The further we go into Wolf and Spice, the more I realize that there’s not much about economics to be learned from this series, it’s just a loose base on which to build the Lawrence-Horo dynamic, which proves to be the show’s main selling point. Horo is awesome in all her 10% glory, and Lawrence is admirable for not having let his crotch area override his brain…admirable, or stupid? In either case, Spice and Wolf is a series that is being carried by Horo, without her lovable personality it would have nothing to offer, whether that makes the series worth watching or an utter waste of time will vary person to person.

They Are My Noble Masters

Damn lens flare

My guilty pleasure of the season, I have no idea why I’m watching it. It reeks of generic harem yet lacks many of the essentials of a harem. The characters are uninteresting for the most part, except for maybe Shinra. Also, the technical aspects of this series are sub par, the animation is inconsistent, crappy for the most part, the music is bland and forgettable, and the voice acting is terribly uninspired. Watch this only if you’re looking to kill some time, it’s saving graces are few and far between.

Dropped Series:

- H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~
- Rosario+Vampire
- Gunslinger Girl II – Teatrino
- Persona: Trinity Soul

And of course there are the series that are currently being blogged: ARIA the ORIGINATION, Clannad, True Tears and Shakugan no Shana II (…except, not).

And that’s how things stand for this season, admittedly a lot better than I thought it was going to be when it started, but considering that I didn’t put much effort into researching what was coming, I suppose that’s a given.

~ Shirukii ~

Another anime season is showing signs of coming to an end, which means it’s time to throw out another preview post, and for once, I’m early to the party.

Many will argue that the Fall and Winter seasons lose out in overall quality to their Spring and Summer variants, but judging from the upcoming lineup that theory is looking more and more like baseless conjecture.

	Da Capo II (Oct 17, 07) Genres: Harem, Romance Let’s get this one out of the way first because I’m sure it’s the series that will have the most diverging views. Yes. I like Da Capo, A LOT. No, it’s nothing revolutionary, but I don’t care. The original Da Capo was, in my opinion, harem done very right. Admittedly, it was generic harem, with only a slight touch of fantasy via the sakura tree, but the dynamics between the characters were excellent and I loved every minute of it. The sequel will be focusing on the lives of the descendants of the characters of the original Da Capo, I can only hope it will be reminiscent of the original and not the fail of DC:SS.
CLANNAD (Oct 4, 07) Genres: Drama, Romance Tomoya is a third year student leading a boring delinquent school life until he meets Nagisa. Suddenly he’s having dreams of a desolate world and meets a girl with strange powers, she makes Tomoya a makeshift body from junk parts. Together, they wander this bleak alternate reality, the only beings that could be considered ‘living’. It’s KeyAni, what else can I say. I loved AIR and Kanon, I’m probably going to like this. Expect high quality animation with a metric ton of moe and the recurring theme of miracles. I just hope KyoAni hasn’t gotten rusty from doing Lucky Star, and God help them if I spot a blatant Haruhi reference.
	Ef- A Tale of Memories (Oct 6, 07) Genres: Drama, Romance I wasn’t very interested in this series until I saw the prologue for it, but ever since, I’ve been very intrigued. The story focuses on Hirono Hiro, a high school boy who has a job drawing shoujo manga. One night he meets a strange girl in a church who tells him he will have a fateful encounter. Soon after he meets Miyamura Miyako and the two of them become friends, Miyako taking it a step further by falling in love with Hiro… I wouldn’t have guessed with the quality trailer, but the animation is by SHAFT. But more importantly, music by Tenmon, who does the music for a lot of Makoto Shinkai’s works. DO WANT! The only thing that scares me about this series is its low episode count (12).
Shakugan no Shana II (Oct 4, 07) Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Shounen I’m a rampant Shana fan, not so much of the series, but of Shana herself. I’ll be the first to admit that the actual anime was only moderately entertaining shounen, but I can deal with another season of that as long as I get more Shana. With the popularity Shakugan no Shana managed to gain, I’d hope that the animation budget for the second season procures some amazing quality. As for the story…I don’t see how they’ll be expanding on the first season, as it had a pretty conclusive ending and I can’t say that the scriptwriting was amazing in the first season, but hopefully they’ll put something half-decent together.
	Kodomo no Jikan (Oct ?, 07) Genres: Comedy, Romance I’m really sick of people dismissing Kodomo no Jikan as a manga whose sole purpose is to cater to pedos and lolicons. Is there A LOT of loli fanservice? Yes. But Ichigo Mashimaro has a lot of that too, albeit less explicit. The point is that there’s a lot more depth to Kojika than people give it credit for. From Rin and her complex and traumatic early childhood (paper crane scene anyone?) to Usa’s struggles with a blooming inferiority complex and starvation for attention to Kuro’s struggle with her societally forbidden love for Rin, there’s more than just loli! And I hope to God the anime does the manga justice.
Ghost Hound (Oct 18, 07) Genres: Mystery, Drama? This series looks like it has a lot of potential, but aside from that, I know little about its concept, plot and characters. What I do know is that it has the same director (Masamune Shirow) and animation production company (Production I.G) as Ghost in the Shell. What I’m hoping for with Ghost Hound is a really good mindfuck series. I don’t think anything can match the political, philosophical and ethical themes that Ghost in the Shell brought up (in the realm of anime anyways), but if Ghost Hound turns out to be half as good, it’ll still turn out to be a decent watch.
	Blue Drop (Oct ?, 07) Genres: Fantasy, Drama Wakatake Mari is the sole survivor of a tragedy in which all the inhabitants of Kamikakushi Island suddenly disappeared one night. Four years later she transfers to Kaihou Gakuen and meets Senkoji Hagino, the beautiful school council president school idol. It turns out that Hagino is an alien sent to Earth for reconnaissance prior to an invasion and was the one responsible for the incident at Kamikakushi Island. As Hagino interacts more with Mari, she begins to uncover more about human nature and begins to question the mission to invade Earth. I really like the premise behind this one, let’s hope they don’t screw it up.
Bamboo Blade (Oct 1, 07) Genres: School Life, Sports A completely broke high school teacher takes a bet from a colleague that he can assemble a kendo team consisting of five females that can beat his own team. The story follows this teacher who struggles to assemble and train capable of victory, for the sake of his wallet. Sports anime usually isn’t my thing (I had enough of it going through all 170something episodes of Prince of Tennis), but I used to practice kendo when I was younger and I still have the love for the sport. Plus bishoujos with swords = instant win. Okay, the real reason? Hinagiku <3

In addition to the series mentioned above, there are three OVAs which I’ll be sure to catch as well: ARIA The OVA ~ARIETTA~, Hidamari Sketch Special and the three hour Death Note special told from Ryuk’s point of view.

And that does it for the series that I’m sure I’ll be watching. Additionally I may watch the following series if time permits or if the reviews for them are exceptional:

- Dragonaut the Resonance, the trailer looks decent, but it doesn’t seem like the type of anime I’d enjoy.

- Minami-ke, I’ll probably give this one a look, it looks really slice of life, a genre which I happen to like a lot.

- Sketchbook ~full color’s~, Hidamari Sketch redux? I can only hope.

- Maple Story, LOL. Are they serious? What is this going to be about? Grinding? I’ll watch a couple episode FOR THE LULZ.

- Myself; Yourself, looks like more generic harem, might give it a shot if I’m REALLY bored.

As far as blogging schedule is concerned, I have no clue what I’ll be doing yet. There’s a strong possibility that I’ll stop blogging Sky Girls soon, not much discussion seems to come from the posts and the subs are too inconsistent to work into a schedule. The same can be said about Doujin Work, but there’s significantly less effort that goes into making a Doujin Work post.

With Claymore and School Days finishing, that means I’ll have an entire new blogging lineup. I’ll stick with my usual routine and blog three series ongoing. I’ll wait until the first episodes are out until I decide which ones I’ll pick, but if I had to make a tentative list, this looks about right:

1. Da Capo II
2. CLANNAD
3. Kodomo no Jikan/Blue Drop

But we all know how terrible I am at predicting the quality of series that have yet to air, I’ll be using first impressions posts as a more concrete judge of what shows to blog.

~ Shirukii ~

Summer is here! So I guess it’s time to follow the trend and throw out a preview post.

There are considerably less series premiering this season compared to spring, and although the line up in general doesn’t look as promising, there are a few series that have a potential to be really good depending on how well they emulate or follow up to their source material.

	School Days Genres: Drama, Romance Likelihood of blogging? Certain School Days is an H-Game adaptation that is well known for its many routes that are largely animated instead of still pictures with tons of text. But what made it even more famous is the obscenely gory BAD END sequences, ranging from rooftop suicide to severed jugular veins, it’s very much a love it or hate it approach, I happen to love it. I don’t expect the anime to match the levels of gore, but I’d hate to see it be cut out completely. School Days is without a doubt my most anticipated series of the summer.
Higurashi no Naku Koroni Kai Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery Likelihood of blogging? High Do you know Oyashiro-sama? Yes. Hinamizawa. Love them or hate them, the killer lolis are back for another season. I thought Higurashi started out great, although not as deep as many made it out to be. But then they hit the reset button again and again, and at that point it just became tedious. Supposedly the first season covered all but two arcs, so hopefully they take their time with those and don’t resort to spamming facial distortions every few minutes.
	Zero no Tsukaima: Futatsuki no Kishi Genres: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance Likelihood of blogging? High OH GOD SHANA LOUISE IS HOT! I liked the first season of Tsukaima. Admittedly, the beginning was full of pointless fanservice, but I thought they wrapped things up rather nicely in the end. Rather than trying to build a deep plot, I’m half hoping that the show will degenerate into a free for all between Louise, Siesta, Kirche and that tavern whore. But I guess the story of what happened in the aftermath of last season wouldn’t be all that bad either.
Sky Girls Genres: Mecha Blogging? Moderate A lot of people seem to have hated the OVA for Sky Girls. I actually thought it wasn’t that bad. The characters came off as a little generic, but that’s mainly because it was an OVA and there wasn’t much time to give them proper development. The mecha elements and plot foundations are no weaker than most mechas out there, so I don’t see where the hate is coming from. But I guess only time will tell if it was a good move to give it a dedicated series.
	Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan 2 Genres: Comedy, Magical Girl, Romance Likelihood of blogging? Moderate The OVA/first season of Dokuro-chan was completely mind boggling. I sat there for the full hour and a half wondering what the hell I was watching, but at the same time kind of enjoying it. I don’t know if I’d call it slapstick humor, as frequent impaling and decapitation isn’t exactly slapstick, but it was pretty funny. I have no idea how they are going to continue the mess of a plot they built in the first season, so I’m going into this with no absolutely expectations.
Doujin Work Genres: Comedy Likelihood of blogging? Moderate Based off a 4-koma, this series is about a girl who dives into the world of doujinshi. The premise reminds me of Comic Party, and it’s similarly labeled as a comedy, if they’re anything alike I’ll probably end up loving this. The art style and character designs look passable, so hopefully they don’t screw this up. However, I have a strong feeling that a large portion of the show will be a stereotypical mad rush in preparation for Comiket.
	Moetan Genres: Comedy, Mahou Shoujo Likelihood of blogging? Low A show about teaching otaku how to speak English using anime, manga and visual novel themed lessons. Reminds me of this. I’m on the fence about this show. On one hand it has the potential to be hilarious -IF- it doesn’t take itself seriously. But if it does, it’ll be made of lose and fail. I mean, people who use Japanese they’ve learned from anime in real life often sound like idiots, and it’s very much a two way street.
Nanatsuiro Drops Genres: Mahou Shoujo Likelihood of blogging? Low A mahou shoujo series about a boy who seeks the help of a magical girl in his class after he drinks a strange drink that turns him into a stuffed bear when it’s dark. The only reason why I’m even considering watching this show is because of the numerous times it’s been mentioned. I’ll give it an episode or two to reel me in. If not, this will probably be the first series up on the chopping block.

With the end of the spring season, Death Note and Sola will be ending, opening two slots in my blogging schedule. StrikerS subs have been nonexistent for the past couple weeks so I may decide to stop blogging it in favor of a series from this season.

I’ll definitely be blogging School Days and probably Zero no Tsukaima as well. That leaves one more slot that needs to be filled, any suggestions are welcome, whether they’re on this list or not.

Also, does anyone know if the Kodomo no Jikan anime really does start this season? ANN lists its airing date as sometime in July 2007, but I’ve heard no hype about it in the anime blogging community nor on 4chan. With the amount of controversy surrounding the manga, the anime going under the radar seems highly unlikely. So I guess this is just a case of ANN listing a bogus release date?

An important point to note: my record for sorting the good anime from the bad in past season previews is abysmal, so if any of you readers out there think I’m crazy for not previewing ‘x’ series or that I’m an idiot for even considering watching ‘y’ series, don’t hesitate to say so!

Much of the information for this post was derived from: Random Curiosity, Moe Moe Rabu, and BasuGasu. Feel free to read their preview posts for information on series that haven’t been mentioned here.

Aside: Some (un?)fortunate news, I found a job! It will start on July 4th and is a full time placement, from 8-5. This means that I’ll have a lot less time to watch and blog anime, but unlike during school time, there’ll be no homework or studying to be done, so I don’t expect much of a change in the pace or volume of posts.

~ Shirukii ~

Lucky Star

The amount of controversy surrounding this series is ridiculous. No sooner than it came out did multiple bloggers start attacking Lucky Star and its producer Kyoto Animation.

I did not like the first episode, it just didn’t live up to its “comedy” genre. However, I will admit that the second episode was slightly better, not by much, but it certainly was an improvement. I’ll stick with it for now, in hopes of gradual improvement, but will not hesitate to drop it if it becomes repetitive. (Or I may just skip to the Lucky Channel skit at the end of each episode, the only segment of Lucky Star that never fails to amuse me)

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

As one of the people who have been inexplicably drawn to the Nanoha series since the beginning, I had high hopes for this show. While it was far from being a let down, I can’t yet say whether I would classify the latest addition to the series a success.

There’s been a slew of new characters added to the already large roster, and this is make or break point for StrikerS. What it needs to do is develop these characters to the fullest extent possible while not relegating past characters to background scenery, all the while maintaining a reasonably sensible plot. Not exactly an easy task, but it seems to be coming along well, and I’m sure they’ll do their best to maintain their loyal fans and attract new ones.

On that note, someone find me an Alter Fate! The rarity of a place that stocks it rivals that of the original holo Charizard (I couldn’t think of a better analogy, orz ._.)

Sola

As lolikit-kun has repeatedly said:

The beauty of this show is better than sex

This series is mysterious in its ability to draw me in. I sit there with little idea of why I like it, but quickly realize that it doesn’t matter and watch in blind faith anyways.

Perhaps it’s the awesome characters (minus Aono), or the vague yet promising plot, hell maybe it’s even the well above average animation quality. But there’s just something about it that makes it win. Then again, I might just be a soraphile.

Hayate no Gotoku

THIS, my friends, is comedy done right. I have laughed through the better part of every episode so far. Whether it be because the comedy is much more direct than Lucky Star’s subtle cultural references and self-referential parodies, or the fact that it has a Shana clone, but I find myself enjoying this much more than any of the other comedy series this season.

Although the dynamic between Hayate and Nagi is the least impressive of the ShanaX______ series of late, it’s probably meant to be that way. Without any deep underlying connections between the two characters, their relationship is made pure love/hate comedy. That, coupled with the numerous anime references, conscious acknowledgment of the show being an anime (one of my favourite, yet underused, techniques) and general slapstick makes this show an excellent way to waste away 22 minutes of your life in weekly segments.

Nagasarete Airantou

I -HATED- the first episode of this series, but the problem wasn’t in its execution, it was a mishandling of expectations on my part. I went into Nagasarete Airantou expecting a harem type series, and was greeted with copious amounts of fanservice and a a recursive plot instead, needless to say I was sorely disappointed.

But I decided to give it a second chance anyways, because apparently I’m masochistic. This time I went in with a blank mind, ready to accept anything that was thrown at me, knowing that plot is a non-issue. And to my surprise, I found it quite entertaining. It was mindless, fansercivey and the plot didn’t advance an inch, but, admittedly, it was funny. If this doesn’t sound appealing but you’re curious anyways, I’ll save you the trouble, here’s the general template to any episode:

i. Girls compete for the right to bed Ikuto
ii. Suzu protects Ikuto, using her breasts in some way or another
iii. Nosebleeds
iv. Plot reset
v. Acknowledgment of plot reset

Touka Gettan

I once thought YamiBou was confusing anime I would ever see in my entire life. How naive of me. I should write in to Webster Dictionary and demand they add “WTF” to their dictionaries and list Touka Gettan as a synonym.

I dare someone to try and come up with a coherent explanation of what exactly is going on in this series.

Hitohira

Only one episode of Hitohira has been subbed so far, and I’m much too lazy to raw any further ones, but so far it seems promising enough. The premise isn’t exactly what I would call original, shy girls have been done in anime before, Mugi just takes it to the extreme. But with a cast of potentially interesting characters, decent animation, and yuri undertones, I’ll stick with it for now.

Claymore

I picked this one up on a whim and I must say, it’s surprisingly good. It has a typical shounen-esque plotline with evil beings and their slayers roaming around in the world of humans. But so far it’s tackled some interesting morality issues and its plot is developing nicely.

It was the swords and the gore that initially caught my attention, but the way the show (intentionally or not) deals with human nature is interesting. Human tendencies of hypocrisy, fear of the unknown and the moral issues of euthanasia are among those dealt with in the first two episodes alone. While it’s nothing really new in anime, it’s a nice change of pace from shows like Nagasarete so I hope the show stays it’s course and doesn’t end up being a mindless hack and slash.

* * *

I haven’t gotten around to doing: Seto no Hanayome, due to lack of subs, El Cazador de la Bruja, because I’m not done Madlax, and Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo, because lolikit-kun and Hinano said it sucked, my tastes lie somewhat close to them, so I can’t imagine I’d like it either. I may give it a chance in the future if I get extremely bored.

And on a closing note, I will most likely be dropping Lucky Star from my blogging schedule and need a replacement. I’m leaning to Claymore as the best candidate, but wanted to give the readers a say in it. I’ll throw up a poll, the choices are rather limited though, since Soda is thinking of picking up Hayate no Gotoku, I’m left with Hitohira, Nagasarete Airantou, Seto no Hanayome and Claymore as possible choices. Or if you think there’s another series this season that I should do, specify in a comment and I might give it a look.

EDIT* Added Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann since a few people seem to be recommending it.

~ Shirukii ~

Oshi…I may have jumped the gun with that one

I guess my own little contribution to the ever popular fad of previewing coming anime is in order. With Kanon a fading memory and Kyousora a traumatizing scar we move into the spring anime season, the season with a reputation of being slightly superior to the rest.

I don’t plan on picking up a whole lot, being more of a marathon watcher, I tend to leave some anime for the school-less days of summer. Among the 20 or so decent looking ones, I’ve picked nine or ten that I’ll watch ongoing, three of which I’ll be blogging, so let’s start with those.

	Lucky Star Genres: Comedy Blogging? Yes I have unreasonably high hopes for this series for it is being animated by Kyoto Animation. And…that’s pretty much it. I don’t know much about the series itself other than it’s supposedly based off a 4koma and will have Hirano Aya voicing the lead role. Character designs remind me of PPD. I’m hearing a faint cry of injustice from all Haruhi fans as this series is getting the full 24 episode treatment.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Genres: Magical Girl Blogging? Yes The Nanoha series is widely recognized as one of the best mahou shoujo series in existence, rivaled mainly by CCS. From episode eight of the first season, I was hooked, and for those of you who haven’t read my profile, know that I usually abhor mahou shoujo. Although disappointed by the absence of loli-Fate, my hopes for this series are incredibly high, which may prove to be its downfall, but with such a large following, I’m sure StrikerS will not disappoint.
	Sola Genres: Romance Blogging? Yes Being a rabid fan of both Da Capo and Kanon, seeing an anime combining the skills of script writers from both makes me happy south of the belt. I was never captivated by Da Capo’s character designs, and seeing them again neither excites nor disappoints me. Although the random sword wielding guy in the promo made me cringe in the thought of a Kyoshiro ver 2.0. On that note, seems like me and lolikit will be teaming up to blog this in parallel, a la kyousora. His take on it here. This is going to be epic.
Hayate the Combat Butler Genres: Comedy, Romance, Shounen Blogging? No A story about a poor high school student who is sold to the Yakuza where he rescues a rich girl and ends up working as her butler to pay off some debt. I’m picking this one up mainly due to hype, apparently its manga adaptation kicks all sorts of ass. Although the blonde loli Shana-esque character seems to have a gravitating effect as well.
	Hitohira Genres: Romance, Shoujo, Slice of Life Blogging? No This series is about a girl who has trouble speaking when she’s nervous, which is pretty much any time there are other humans within a 20 km radius, so naturally she goes ahead and joins the drama club. Not exactly the most original story concept in the world, but the promo video showcased some pretty awesome animation. It’ll be character development that will make or break this series, it shows some promise so I’ll be rooting for it.
Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo Genres: Slice of life Blogging? No This one just caught my eye for some inexplicable reason. Apparently it’s about a bunch of girls from an (all girls?) school whose student population is on the decline, possibly due to the fact its located on an isolated island…just a guess. I’m going into this one blind. Harem? Pseudo-yuri? It’s an eroge adaptation, so I’ll wager on the former.
	Nagasarete Airantou Genres: Romance Blogging? No A boy named Ikuto has a fight with his parents one day and runs away from home. He boards a ship but somehow manages to fall off while at sea, after a few days of aimless drifting he ends up on the island of Airantou. The catch? The island is inhabited solely by girls, oh whatever is Ikuto to do…-_- Don’t even ask why I’m picking this one up, I have no clue myself.
Seto No Hanayome Genres: Romance Comedy Blogging? No Seto no Hanayome is about a mermaid who saves a boy from drowning, however, law dictates that anyone who discovers the existence of mermaids is to be killed. There is but one loophole to the sentencing: if the two were to marry, the law would be overturned. Danny over at Novastorm says the manga version of this is pretty funny, so I place blind faith in his ability to discern the comedic.
	Touka Gettan Genres: Romance Blogging? No Another h-game adaptation, supposedly it was planned to be the sequel to a hentai series, but they dropped the idea and adapted it into a normal anime…well, as normal as anime can be. The series is being done by studio DEEN, the geniuses that brought us Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito, thus I expect some amount of yuri undertones and an incomprehensible, but awesome, plot pacing.
El Cazador de la Bruja Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Mystery Blogging? No The third in the “Girls with Guns” trilogy from Bee Train studio and Koichi Mashimo. If the plot is anything like its predecessors, which I’ll bet it will be, the general template is a female assassin duo fighting in a desperate attempt to find out more about themselves. I probably won’t be watching this one ongoing as I have yet to finish Noir or Madlax, the other two series in the trilogy. I want to finish those before going on to El Cazador, despite the fact that their stories are independent from one another.

And that’s the plan. Though, realistically, I have a striking suspicion that half of these will either not live up to my expectations, or not be subbed at all.

In the event that happens, I have backups!

Other considerations:
- Idol Master Xenoglossia
- Claymore
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shining Tears X Wind
- Kaze no Stigma

In the year or so that I’ve watched anime ongoing (ie. one episode per week) instead of just building up and marathoning, the list that I developed at the beginning of the season never looks like the list of what I ended up watching in the end. The only guarantees I have in this list are the top three, which I’ll be blogging. Nanoha because…well, it’s Nanoha. Lucky Star because of KyoAni love. And sola because of…uh, ask me this one again when it finishes.

Credits go to ANN for the info links, Anime DB for the pictures, Danny because I used his post layout as a template (please don’t hurt me T_T) and last but not least lolikit for another opportunity for link whoring XD.

Curls up in a corner and assumes fetal position

~ Shirukii ~

The girl on the right looks sorta a lot like Nemu O_O

With some shows in this season having already started, I know this post is kind of late. I shall remedy that by noting that this is NOT a preview post, but rather a: “What Shirukii is going to be watching” post =D Hah!

Edit: The formatting on this post went berserk once I posted it. Everything used to be neat, pics on the left, descriptions besides them on the right. But that went to hell and it looked like a jumbled up mash of words and pictures. I altered it very quickly to what it is now, which looks terrible, but it gets the job done. Given time, I may try to fix it later.

One thing I’ve noticed over the past few seasons is that you can never really tell whether a show is good or not without actually watching it. This may sound like common sense, but there are so many out there that try to make decisions and judgements based on previews, trailers, etc. I used to do this, but now I tend to adopt a “wait and see” mentality and figure out which shows are worth it an which are not. However, there are some things that catch my eye and some things that I just KNOW I’m going to be watching. And here’s a list of those ^^

Trinity of anticipation

Was there any doubt that I’d be watching this…along with the other millions of fans out there. Whether it be because of the original or just because KyoAni is doing the animation, this is the season’s gem, and I’m not about to pass it up!
Blog author? Me!

Alongside Kanon, projected to be the most oversubbed series of the season. I haven’t watched a good mystery/suspense anime since Monster so I have high hopes for this one. Apparently the manga kicks all sorts of ass so we’ll see if the anime can live up to the hype and the shadow of its inky counterpart.
Blog author? Soda

Rounding out the trinity of anticipation is Negima!? Despite the terrible animation and one of the worst endings in history, I still enjoyed the majority of the original. I have high hopes that this one will suceed in all areas the original failed. Whether it’s a remake, original or continuation still remains unknown.
Blog author? Leaning towards me

Harems galore

I’ll be 100% honest here, I know nothing about this anime and will be watching it only because there’s a Nemu look alike in it XD Sakura and Kotori clones also present.
Blog author? If anyone, me

Again, complete honesty, I’m only watching this because Nemu’s seiyuu is in it. My fanboyism for her knows no bounds! I also remember hearing mention that Yuko Goto (Asahina Mikuru) is in it too. Other than that it looks like it has the potential to be a great harem.
Blog author? Unknown

The moon and earth are connected at a point where the male lead, Tatsuya lives. And so, to supervise him, the Moon Princess Feena is coming to live with him. The premise sounds interesting enough, boosted by how cute Feena is. Insta win! I’m expecting a light romance comedy. Also, it’s an H-game adaption, so it must be good!
Blog author? Most likely me

Reverse Ouran! Guy dresses up as a girl and goes to an all girls school. I have a feeling this will be my Strawberry Panic replacement for the season. The premise enough is good, the animation and char designs are looking great too, I’m looking forward to this one.
Blog author? *sigh* Probably me, but I’ll try to force it onto Soda XD

I have on idea why I’m going to watch this, it just caught my eye. The hype behind it is pretty high, but I’ll trust my own judgement before that. I’m expecting a love-comedy, pseudo Sukuran type, we’ll see how it goes.
Blog author? I’m hoping Soda likes this one enough to pick it up

And that’s it, the harem load this season is incredible, it’s a dream come true for fans of the genre such as myself. I don’t promise to blog everything I said I would, 8 posts per week may not seem like a lot to most people…but I’m living through hell on earth (also known as Engineering) and Soda is also in uni, forensics I believe. Blogging is a hobby and WILL be put second to school work. I think out of the eight series posted here, Lovedol, Gift Eternal Rainbow and Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru don’t have fansub groups committed to them =( So those series are pending. And this is not to say that these are the only eight I’ll be watching, series will be dropped and added as we go along. Looks like I have my work cut out for me, but any season with this much Harem HAS to be good…and it has Kanon! Whoo!

Credits to ANN for the pics, I was too lazy to find some original ones =(

~ Shirukii ~