I thought it was about time for my thoughts on the current anime in Japan that I’m watching. I’m currently watching 10 series currently airing in Japan, 4 from the spring, and six from the summer. Here are my current rankings for all 10 shows. Number of episodes I’ve seen are in parenthesis:
1. Idolmaster Xenoglossia (15 episodes)
Idolmaster has seemed to be a very interesting show to me. Of course, I can’t ignore some of the parallels to Evangelion, but the story has seemed interesting so far, with interesting characters and excellent animation. I wouldn’t necessarily rate this as a fantastic series because it does have several weaknesses - lack of actual action being one (knocking down meteors gets boring after a while - but compared to the other shows I’m currently watching, I think this is easily the best.
2. Sky Girls (3 episodes)
Moving from mechas that wanna-be-idols are piloting to quasi-mechas that lolis are piloting, Sky Girls seems to be one of the better shows that started in the summer season. I’m hardly a fan of loli-themed anime series, but the story has been able to overcome this so far. I saw somewhere that this was going to be a full 26 episode series. I’m not sure if this is true, but I kind of hope it is, though. After 3 episodes we haven’t even had a whiff of the supposed villains in this series, and if it’s only a half-season, that’d mean we’re a quarter of the way through and we haven’t even established the conflict yet.
3. School Days (4 episodes)
School Days is a series that is kind of plodding along right now, but it is rather different from your normal harem anime. First off, I think the two main girls act more natural than in most harem series: they’re unsure of themselves and of what to do next. There is always the fact that we may get one of the messy endings from the game it’s based on concluding the series. And finally, there is the main “protagonist” himself. Most boys in the center of harem anime are usually clumsy or otherwise classified as a loser, but well meaning. Makoto in School Days is not only clumsy, but he’s a jackass as well. Basically all he wants is some T&A and, whether he realizes it or not, he’s basically taking advantage of the girl’s feelings to get towards that end. Usually in most harems you want to beat the center boy for just being clueless. In School Days, you want to beat him because he’s being a jerk. It sets up a situation where I think the series can go off down some unpredictable paths.
4. Doujin Work (3 episodes)
Doujin Work airs as half-episodes of between 13 and 14 minutes each. This story is about a girl who, after losing her job, decides to follow the path of one of her friends and create Doujinshi. Of course, this is rather humorous since this girl is hardly perverted at all, and seems like that type who has had little or not experience of her own. Her friend has her do “research” such as buying porn and and playing erotic dating sim games. It’s still early, but I think this has good potential of being a pretty good comedy.
5. Lucky Star (16 episodes)
Ah yes, now we’re getting into some series that fall into the “what could have been” category. Lucky Star, which started out pretty well, now seems to just be dragging on. This is a series that is meant to be carried almost completely by it’s comedy ala Azumanga Daioh. Unfortunately, while it does have it’s funny moments, it’s hardly enough to carry the series by itself. With minimal character development and virtually no actual plot, this is a series that, unless it can revive itself, may end up dying a rather gruesome death in the end.
6. Nagasarete Airantou (16 episodes)
For those who have read my episode reviews of Nagasarete Airantou as it’s aired, you already know my general feeling about this series, and that is that this series can’t decide whether it wants to be good or bad. It has good episodes which are of quality and explores the characters, but at the same time has some rather brain-dead episodes and moments as well. It’s humor is sometimes pretty good, and sometimes over the top. It’s a series that isn’t painful to watch, but is clearly stuck in mediocracy. I keep expecting for it to make a movement either upwards or downwards, but it’s kept riding the fence through almost 2/3 of the series so far, so I’m not sure if that will ever change.
7. Umisho (4 episodes)
It’s time to move from those series that “could have been” into the series that “never were.” Umisho is about a girl who moves into the town of the same name. She loves swimming. Naked. And she joins the swim team, and is a great swimmer, and all the other girls want to know her secret. You can already see where this is headed. We haven’t had an episode yet where just everyone starts swimming naked, but we’ve been close, and I kind of feel like it is inevitable. There is some back story that is yet to be revealed, so the series may get more interesting over time, but so far it’s largely just been a boob-fest.
8. Seto no Hanayome (16 episodes)
Sinking deeper into brain-numbness is Seto no Hanayome. In this series, a boy, Nagasumi, is saved from drowning by a mermaid, San. Unfortunately, if a mermaid is ever found out, either both the mermaid and the person who saw them has to die, or the witness must join the mermaid family. Well, the choice here is obvious as to what to do. When Nagasumi goes home from vacation (where he saw San), San goes with him along with, unbeknownst to her, the rest of her family, the head of which is her father and hates Nagasumi. We meet a collection of, shall we say interesting, characters along the way. Most of the humor in this series ranges from over the top to way, way over the top to the point of being just plain dumb.
9. Nanatsuiro Drops (3 episodes)
Finally, on to the final two shows, which transcend just being brain-numb and dive into the realm of full brain-deadness. In Nanatsuiro Drops, Masaharu accidentally drinks a potion that turns him into a stuffed sheep at night. The only way he can turn back to normal (other than it never being night again), is for a classmate of his - Sumomo - to collect the 7 stardrops. However, collecting these stardrops seem to be a rather simple task, and these stardrops also appear to fall at random, and there appear to be 7 types of drops rather than 7 drops period (from what I can tell). Yes, an opponent showed up in the 3rd episode, but I’m still trying to figure out, considering the situation, how this is much of an obstacle. On top of this, the main male character is someone that you can hardly sympathize with. There just doesn’t appear to be much if any appeal to this show at all.
10. Moetan (3 episodes)
However, the winner of the brain-dead anime show of the year so far goes to Moetan. Basically take Nanatsuiro Drops and change the magical girls into lolis and make the magical creatures that go along with them complete and utter perverts. Just add a dose of Engrish to the top and you basically have Moetan. About the only funny part of this show is laughing at it because of how horribly bad it is. And exactly how dense is the main guy in this show. You have a short loli girl in your class called Ink Nijihara who is good at English. Then suddenly a magical girl shows up who is good at English, looks just like your classmate except with blue hair, and is named Pastel Ink. The boy either is less aware than a rock, or he knows and just hasn’t revealed it yet.
So that rounds out the 10 series I’m watching. I’ll probably start watching Baccano! soon, and the Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan 2 starts airing in a little more than a week (and I’ll be doing episode reviews for that one). After that, I’m not sure if I’ll start anything before most of the shows I’m currently watching end. It depends when and what starts up in the fall.
