Category Archives: 2008 Anime

Blogging and Watching slate

Sunday, October 5, 2008 – 5:34 pm

I didn’t get around to doing a Fall preview post like usual just because I didn’t have the time, but I did want to go through the series I was going to blog and watching.

Blogging

  • CLANNAD: After Story
  • ef - a tale of melodies

I had forgotten about ef when I said I was only blog one series due to time.  Unfortunately, the one season when I wanted to only pick up 1 series is the season which has two must-blog series in the second seasons of CLANNAD and ef.  Damn them!

I don’t really think these series need much explanation.  If you need it, go look at the episode reviews for the first seasons.

Watching

  • Yozakura Shijuusou ~Yozakura Quartet~
  • To Aru Majutsu no Index
  • Toradora

So we have

To say that the top series I’m merely watching is the top series in that group because it looked “somewhat interesting” doesn’t say much about the series airing in this season.  Unfortunately, while there weren’t a lot of series I was drooling to watch, there were probably a half dozen series in the “somewhat interesting” category, so I still had to decide which ones to put on the list.

First, ones I didn’t put on it:  First up was Hyakko.  I almost put this on the list, really.  But it looks too much like Lucky Star/Azumanga Daioh/Hidimari Sketch and I’m both kind of worn out on random comedies with no plot, and I think my expectations for such series is so high that, if I had the choice, I’d rather pass on a series which has a good chance of disappointing me.

The next one I almost added but left off was Kannagi.  It looks interesting enough: tree girl turns into spirit.  But then again, the set up for this eries suggets a type of series which I’m also somewhat burned out on.  If this was the Spring 2009 season, maybe.  But I don’t feel like this one now.

Finally, it’s Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka.  Anime based on eroge is hit or miss.  I usually find that they’re either a) dramatic and good or b) lame.  Unforunately, after looking at the art and OP and ED, it appears like this one chose door #2.  Whenever people try to do a comedic eroge or a half-heartedly serious one, it doesn’t seem to work out all that well.

Next, the series I am watching, but not blogging.  The first is Yozakura Shijuusou ~Yozakura Quartet~.  I’m a little iffy about this series, but the supernatural/comedy premise plus the character art sold me on this one.

The second series I’m watching is To Aru Majutsu no Index, just because it reminds me of Shana.  That probably means I’ll go into the series with a set of expectations which totally aren’t met, but whatever.

Next: Toradora.  Yes, I know, everyone else is watching it too, but it does look interesting.

To be fair, most of the big hyped-up series are sequels, including the two I’m blogging, and most of which I haven’t even seen the first season.  It’s the original series which give me the yawns.

All of this is on top of the fact that I still has Two episodes of Maid Guy still not subbed, 2 episodes of Someday’s Dreamers, and 3 episodes of Nijuu Mensou left to go, not to mention Candy Boy and KimiNozo: Next Season which seem to get released whenever they’re ready.

I’m also catching up on some series I was only watching from past seasons, though at least those are easier to do (I can just sit down for a couple of nights and blow through those).

Update

I’m now just catching up on The Secret of Haruka Nogizaka.  Any series which pimps Shana so much is an instant win.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

First Impression: The Secret of Haruka Nogizaka

Friday, July 18, 2008 – 7:30 pm

The third non-blogged series I’m watching in the summer is Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu a.k.a. The Secret of Haruka Nogizaka.

This one is about, shockingly, Haruka Nogizaka, the quintessential perfect girl in the school - rich, good grades, great looking, good at sports, etc., etc., etc. Meanwhile, there is Yuuto Ayase who is kind of your average nerdy boy, but more in the mold of Ike from Shakugan no Shana in the sense that, yes he’s a nerd, but he isn’t really a loser. Yuuto also has just about 0 interest in girls, largely thanks to two girls who I’m not totally sure what their relation to Yuuto is who live at his house and basically do nothing but drink.

One day Yuuto finds out Haruka’s secret hobby - that she’s an otaku. She’s afraid that he’ll tell everyone but, of course, he’s too nice of a guy to do that (unfortunately she runs away from him for a while, making everyone else think he’s done something horrible to the queen of the school). She is largely afraid of being picked on “again,” which makes me think that she’s become this super-girl person in response to bad teasing, which I’m sure we’ll get into later if that’s the case.

I think this series definitely has potential, since the “queen of the school” type girl is a huge otaku, and I can see a lot of laughs from that, though Haruka seems to be a little too ditzy to be one supposedly so good at everything, but maybe we’ll be shown otherwise later.

I also get strong vibes that this is going to be in part a parody otaku series. First off, the ending theme and the name give out vibes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I’m sure the OP made fun of several shows, many of which I’m not catching, and I’m sure the same is true of the Clumsy Aki-chan cartoon from the beginning.

And especially since this doesn’t seem like a series which is going to rely on fan service for most of it’s laughs (at least based on the first episode), this series definitely looks like it has some potential.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime | Tagged | Comments (1)

First Impression: Birdy the Mighty: DECODE

Friday, July 18, 2008 – 7:21 pm

This was a “I’ll wait what I hear about it first” show, but enough people recommended it on various websites that I decided to check it out, especially since I ditched Strike Witches.

My main worry was that this looked like it would be a fan service fest show, and things didn’t necessarily start off extremely promising with Birdy’s fairly revealing outfit as well as the photo shoot scene at the start. Luckily the fan service isn’t really bad, and this is the only place it exists in the first episode.

The rest of the episode shows the series to be a rather promising comedy/action show. While Birdy may be a tad on the ditzy side, she looks like she would be a rather competent female lead, while the boy she possesses (due to accidentally killing him in a battle) Tsutomu doesn’t seem to be your normal loser male lead either, which may this series interesting as well.

I loved Tsutomu’s last line of the episode, though: “Is this the next part of my nightmare? I turn into a beautiful girl?” because, of course, a boy turning into a beautiful girl (even one that does modeling as a cover) is typically one of those fantasies that turn out being not so much of a fantasy.

Having seen the first episode, I can see why people recommended it, as this series may be the most promising of all the summer series I’ve seen so far.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime | Tagged | Comments (0)

First Impressions: Natsume Yuujinchou

Thursday, July 17, 2008 – 7:33 pm

I’m finally getting around to watching some of the other series from the summer season which I wanted to watch, and the first one is Natsume Yuujinchou.

The premise of this show sounds interesting: basically some person who can see supernatural things finds a book which several spirits are bound to via a contract, and he tries to go around freeing them all.

The first episode was largely all about the main character, Natsume, trying to run away from these Ayakashi things (that, naturally, only he can see) because they think that he’s his grandmother and they want the so-called Book of Friends, since anyone in possession of it has control of all the spirits bound by the book.

However, three things in this episode happened which made me wonder:

1. Why does Natsume decide to release all the spirits, even though Nyanko (a spritit he accidentally releases) warns that many of them are evil?

2. Why does he feel so strongly about it to the point that he’s willing to die in the process?

3. Why on the friggen’ earth would he promise to Nyanko (a spirit that Natsume accidentally released) that he can have the book if he dies in the process, when Nyanko has basically already said he wants the book for himself?  Isn’t that basically asking to be stabbed in the back?

I’ll have to see how I like the rest of this series.  The part where he actually freed a spirit from the book took all of about two minutes, so I’m not sure how that will work, but I guess we’ll see eventually.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime | Tagged | Comments (1)

Strike Witches: First Impression (or, What horror has Gonzo Wrought?)

Thursday, July 3, 2008 – 7:33 pm

Strike Witches logoOK, since BOST TV actually allowed PC sized downloads of their series, I thought I would check out the first episode of Strike Witches. Now I kind of wish I didn’t as both my ears and eyes may never be the same again.

First off, the best way to describe Strike Witches is probably Sky Girls meets Moetan meets a dash of Kanokon.

First, the Sky Girls part: loli opposed to war is lured by cool military gadgets into fighting for humanity against evil invaders of some type.

Next, the Moetan part: Blatant loli fanservice. A lot of it. Apparently they’ve living in a time where pants of any kind are banned for all women except seniors. And I mean that. All women wear only panties or bloomers (with optional pantyhose or thigh-highs) below the waste. I’m guessing whomever rules the world at the time is a hard-core pedo.

Finally, the Kanokon part: apparently whenever the girls activate their magic, they sprout something that looks like a fox ears and tail. Not sure why yet, but it probably has something to do with trying to pander to every fetish known to man. I wouldn’t best against some lovey-dovey twin sister pair showing up or something at some point either.

I just had to face palm multiple times as the only battle sequence that was in the first episode had more panty close-up shots than actual shots of the battle, I think.

Oh yeah, and the acting and writing is horrible. And I mean horrible.

While this is a first impression, it may be a last impression as well as I would be hard pressed to put down over $30 to watch this series. It’s almost bad enough that I spent the $3 that I did.

I’m sure the loli and fanservice fans will eat up this series, but I can already tell that this would easily be a contender for worst series of the year if I kept watching it.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime | Tagged | Comments (12)

Strike Witches: Crunchyroll vs. BOST TV Round 2!

Thursday, July 3, 2008 – 4:05 pm

In the first round of the Crunchyroll vs. BOST TV battles, it seems to me that Crunchyroll had a clear advantage over BOST TV. While BOST had a better quality stream of the video, you had to pay to see it while, at the same time, you could “donate” as little as $0.01 to download a PC resolution video from Crunchyroll while such a download wasn’t even available from BOST.

However, that has changed now with Strike Witches, with Crunchyroll now giving options to download the episode for $3 or for $5 (you get an added animated badge plus ipod and psp versions if you pay the extra $2).

Meanwhile, they may get more competition from BOST TV this time around, as BOST TV not only offers a better stream of the episode, unless Crunchyroll has improved theirs (though their stream is still free as far as I’m aware), but BOST is offering a PC-sized download for 150 bost points or, conviently, also just about $3 ($2.99 to be exact, I think, though you don’t get any badges or anything with it).

The primary reason I stopped using BOST for Tower of Druaga was the lack of a quality download, and I didn’t feel like putting down $2 to watch it streamed at BOST and then put down another $1 or $2 at Crunchyroll so I could download it. This time, with the better download and an equal price with Crunchyroll, I can feel better sticking to BOST, who I think is much more worthy of my money than Crunchyroll is.

BOST release is a .mp4 file in H.264 at 872×480 resolution while I assume Crunchyroll’s is once again offering a .avi file in Xvid at 854×480 or similar resolution.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Summer 2008: Blogging and Watching Series

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 – 2:59 pm

So, in a shock to no one who read my Summer Review, I’m going to blog the series Someday’s Dreamers: Summer Skies. I liked the first Someday’s Dreamers, and it was really the only series which really caught my attention this season. And since I was only planning on picking up one new series to blog in the summer, it made the decision easy.

Someday's Dreamers: Summer Skies

Now, as to the series I’ll be watching, but not blogging, all of these series have the possibility to be good, but also have signs that they might be iffy, so hopefully they’ll be the former rather than the latter.

The first series I’ll watch is Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu which appears to be a harem comedy, though with a little twist: the main loser boy finds out that the hot super-popular girl in the school is actully an uber-Otaku in secret.  This just begs hilarity to me, and I hope I’m right.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

The second series series I’ll watch is Natsume Yuujinchou, which is about a boy who discovers a book which has a binding contract with some spirits, and his quest to release those spirits from the contract.  Now, I assume the story will be deeper than that, but I sounds interesting.  Part of the reason why I’m picking this up is that the director has worked on some series I’ve liked before too.

Natsume Yuujinchou

As for whether I’ll pick up a third series to watch, I’m not sure.  The first season of Hidamari Sketch was kind of borderline, and if the second season is going to be the same, I don’t know about watching a series which I know will be borderline.

As for Strike Witches, this probably would be on my list, if it wasn’t for having to pay to download copies to my computer from Crunchyroll.  BOST TV has promised some “new things” for this series, and if one of those is being able to download an actual high quality version (i.e., like what one could download from Crunchyroll) for the $1 it costs to watch the episode, then I might watch that one as well.

Other than that, the landscape is pretty barren after taking out sequels to series I haven’t seen.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime, Someday's Dreamers | Tagged , | Comments (2)

Summer 2008 Anime Preview

Monday, June 30, 2008 – 10:00 am

It’s that time again: It’s time to look at what anime is airing in the Summer 2008 season. Shows are listed in alphabetical order.

There are 7 possible levels of ratings that I’ll give a show:

  • Will definitely blog it
  • May blog it
  • Will definitely watch it
  • May watch it
  • May watch it if I hear good things about it
  • Probably Won’t Watch it
  • Won’t watch it

As usual, I’m leaving out anything that seems to obviously be a children’s show. Like always, thanks to the Fansub Wiki for keeping a great list of upcoming shows.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…here we go!

Read More »

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime, Someday's Dreamers | Tagged , , , | Comments (8)

Funimation Licenses Strain, Shigurui, RxJ, and D. Gray Man

Saturday, May 17, 2008 – 7:26 pm

On top of the 3 licenses earlier this week, Funimation has now announced licenses for Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry (a.k.a. Soukou no Strain), Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Romeo x Juliet, and D. Gray-Man late last week and today.

That brings the total number of series licensed up to 7 this week. Funimation also reportedly said that they would announce Ouran High School Host Club’s release date on May 30th and also said that Darker than Black’s production has been delayed due to a materials dealy from Japan in their Anime Central panel today.

By Josh | Posted in 2006 Anime, 2007 Anime, 2008 Anime | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

April 2008 Impressions

Thursday, May 1, 2008 – 8:56 am

I used to (try) to do this quarterly (as in every 6 to 7 episodes), but it tended to not go too well since I was at various stages of watching different series, and so shows often were not on a quarter mark at the same time, resulting in my putting off, and in the end never actually doing, this. Thus, I shall do what everyone else does and do it monthly, so hopefully I’ll actually do it this time.

In any case, here are my thoughts on the whopping 7 anime series I’m watching this season. Subbed episodes watched in ():

First Tier

1. Nijuu Mensou no Musume (3)

A.k.a. The Daughter of Twenty Faces, a.k.a. Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief.

I like this show. I really like this show. I’m not exactly sure why, as the genre isn’t one I typically watch a lot, but there is just something about shows set in the mid-1900s (but with some fancy technology! who can say no to futuristic dirigibles?) about a mysterious thief and a girl who tags along with him just makes this an interesting show, and it’s being executed beautifully so far I think.

I still think it’s still largely in the pre-story, if you will, three episodes in, but I’ll be really interested to see how this series goes once Chiko actually starts getting into some action.

This probably wins out over Kurenai as the best show so far based on animation, as I think the animation in this show is a little cleaner.

2. Kurenai (4)

And speaking of Kurenai, it comes in 2nd so far this season, albeit a close one. Much like Nijuu Mensou, this is in a genre which I don’t typically watch. So far this has been interesting, and the interaction between Shinkuro and Murasaki is a highlight of the show, though there is still quite a lot which has been hinted at, but not revealed yet.

I think the main weakness of this show is it’s animation. This is kind of an odd topic as the animation is pretty good, but at times it just looks…weird to me.  I’ll probably get used to it eventually, though. Also, I think this series is on a little shakier ground in that I think it has a better chance of falling into something I don’t like, though it hasn’t shown much indication that it will yet.

Second Tier

3. Soul Eater (3)

This is a late pick up on my part based on how well received it appeared to be by other bloggers.  The best way I can describe this show is “kookie,”  but I mean that in a good way after 3 episodes.  The premise seems interesting enough, though the show itself has said that it’s just finished with the prologue, so we’ll see how good it is now that we’re into the real part of the show.  At least this show has been reasonably entertaining.

4. Maid Guy (3)

Maid Guy is in the 2nd tier, but just barely. I think I gave it the benefit of the doubt in that it wasn’t supposed to be much more than a comedy where Maid Guy torments the female lead, and it has definitely been that. The fact that I’ve found it more entertaining than the other series blow this also helps it out (though that doesn’t say much about those other shows).

Having said that, this series is still teetering on disaster and can still become a bore if it’s creators let it. Right now it’s doing fine, but it can definitely go either way at this point.

Third Tier

5. The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk (4)

After a hilarious first episode, this series settled down into what it intended to be: a fantasy, adventure series. That led to a hard landing after the 2nd episode, but I think it has since at least brought itself back to the point where it has a potential to be a good series. It’s not there yet, but it can be. Now that they’re actually in the tower and going around, I’ll have to see whether this series heads up or down itself.  It definitely looks like they’re trying to infuse some comedy into it here and there, but they just haven’t quite hit the mark yet.

6. Real Drive (2)

You know it’s a bad sign when you’ve watched two episodes and you don’t have much of an idea of what is going on.  It has great animation, though that can be a negative when you have a 70 year old man-service scene in the first episode.  Also, if you need to start creating definition cards at the end of the episode which are paragraphs long, perhaps you need to rethink how well you are explaining things in the show itself.  This series definitely has one of the more interesting premises this seasons, but it’s also off to one of the worst starts as well.

7. Special A (3)

I’m invoking the “Shakugan no Shana II rule” and putting my most disappointing series so far in the rear. After a promising first episode, this series has seriously gone downhill fast. I can see the jokes. I know they’re intended to funny. But they just aren’t. Also, who has heard of a school-based romance comedy with no school related activities, no significant romance, and very little actual comedy (at least that makes me laugh much)? That’s what I thought.

By Josh | Posted in 2008 Anime, Maid Guy, Nijuu Mensou no Musume, Special A | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)