Impressions on the anime recently coming out.
Asu no Yoichi: (Watched 2 eps) Total lose. It’s about as generic as you can get. It’s about a samurai boy from the mountains coming down to live in the city and he’s staying in a dojo belonging to 4 sisters. Extremely generic harem fare of the Love Hina variety. Art and designs are decent, but about the only interesting part of the show is the comic relief (the resident school bully guy) due to his crush on the oldest sister. Otherwise, everyone’s bland and the main guy is sort of annoying. Give this a miss.
Maria-Holic: (Watched 2 eps) Something to keep an eye on. The first ep was kinda bland. Nice voicing and art though. I was disappointed to find in ep 1 that contrary to descriptions of the show that say the main co-star of the show (Maria) is “sadistic”, she’s actually more mischievous than sadistic. But anywho, ep 2 is solid. Maria’s gone from mischief to bully, but what makes the second ep good is that it’s totally channeling the spirit of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. There’s even SZS style sound effects and art shifts. I’m gonna keep up with this for now. Also, Maid Guitar on Expert Mode rocks.
Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger: (Watched 1 ep) I skimmed ep 1, looked decent. But watched ep 2. It certainly handles the fights much better than season 1. There’s more exposition and they aren’t throwing Hokuto no Ken style punches (that don’t explode brains). Though I’ve read the comic, I’ll probably follow this. It’s much better than season 1 from the looks of it.
Sora e Kakeru Shoujo: (Watched 2 eps) Otherwise known as Sora Kake Girl. First ep was neat, I liked the world and technology they showcased, and of course, the robotic AI Leopard stole the show in the second half. Second ep was actually not that good but I was so psyched to realize that Leopard was voiced by Lelouch (in Large Ham mode), that I enjoyed it anyway. Another show to follow, at least for the timebeing.
Akikan: (Watched 1 ep) Another miss. It’s about a girl who appears when you drink a can of soda. An anthropomorphic carbonated green melon soda girl. Yeah, it’s pretty much another lame and generic kinda show. I ain’t even giving it a second episode chance.
Tower of Druaga: Sword of Uruk: (Watched 2 eps) So far so good, ep 2 in particular was cool because it used the signature Tower of Druaga: Aegis of Uruk humor. I wonder if you’ll have to have seen the first season to enjoy it fully/sufficiently? But that aside, it’s probably the best new show I’ve seen thus far.
Minami-ke: Okaeri: (Watched 0 eps) It’ll probably be good. It’s Minami-ke after all. It’s kinda hard to futz things up (though they almost did in season 2, fortunately they recovered), but I’ll have to find some time and watched the eps to confirm. Oh, and for those who might not have heard of Minami-ke, it’s just the plain depiction of the lives of the 3 Minami sisters. It’s kinda like “Today in Class 5-2”, only with less emphasis on fucking 11 year olds.
Putting aside cool shows that are already in the middle of their runs, like Sunred or Skip Beat, this season looks to be relatively strong as compared to… well, 2008. 2008 was a relatively weak year in anime for me (especially following a strong 2007), but looks like there are some new shows worth watching this year. Coolness.
Turquoise Version 