Winter Anime - Very Brief Impressions
So after doing my usual season preview I felt kinda deflated as nothing bar sequels appealed to me. Nevertheless, I resorted to my usual tactic of watching almost everything in the (vain) hope of unearthing a gem. So if there’s anything even remotely wrong within those first 23 minutes it’s an instant bye-bye from me.
I’ve never been into analysing episodes in depth, (un)fortunately - I’m sure I’d hate watching anime if I had to force myself to write half-hearted, unfunny comments about them every week.
Rosario + Vampire
-Tits.Pants.Tits.Pants.Tits.Pants.
-GONZO, die.
-Mizuki’s COSMIC LOVE isn’t that hot.
-Another rubbish role to add to her long list of voice acting career missteps.
CONCLUSION: GONZO, die. Die. Die.
H2O~Footprints in the Sand~
-Koshimizu Ami still sounds like a girl. Reminds me of Noto Mamiko’s attempts at voicing male characters.
-I like Shimotsukin’s ending song Kazahane but Katayoku no Icarus is crap. Not Agematsu Noriyasu’s finest hour.
-The rest of the music in the first episode was very nice…..
-…..pity the anime itself isn’t that great. I mean, poking a stick up a girls’ ass? Is that supposed to be an inventive attempt at fanservice?
-Hamaji…..trap…..Yui-nyan, weird ero voice. Again.
CONCLUSION: Ain’t touchin’ this with a 60-foot long barge pole.
Hatenko Yugi
-Rahzel’s one of the more interesting female leads I’ve seen in a while. Somewhat reminds me of a certain Pacifica Casull…. sort of.
-Kobayashi Sanae and Sakurai Takahiro are awesome.
-Though Rahzel sounds a bit older than I’d imagined.
-The episode’s direction jumped here and there so many times I got dizzy. Or is it dazzled?
CONCLUSION: I can actually see myself watching this for a while longer. God knows how long I’ll last….
Persona -trinity soul-
-Gets my vote for most bloody boring anime of the season so far.
-The opening song sucks.
-The Persona games never appealed to me at all. I’m a happy, sunny Dragon Quest and Golden Sun kinda person…
CONCLUSION: Dropped, into a deep, dark hole somewhere.
Zoku.Sayonara Zetsubo-sensei
-So the CM did indeed lead to a Nami episode after all. Well, half an episode anyway.
-The opening & ending themes are seven shades of awesome.
-Dear God, please bestow upon Aipon a decent singing voice. Amen.
CONCLUSION: No other complaints, it’s just more of the same randomness and that’s good enough in my book.
true tears
-The art is damn nice.
-Best OP of the season for sure, both animation and songwise. The ED with all those SD characters was pretty cute too.
-All that fuss over a friggin’ chicken?
-The only tears that the show got out of me was tears of laughter.
CONCLUSION: Hey, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. Still think the preview episode with the 3 seiyuu was more entertaining, but at least I didn’t fall asleep when I was watching this (Psst, Persona).
Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de
-It’s like an ugly version of Hayate no Gotoku!.
-At least it’s not taking itself too seriously.
-We all worship Shinra/Shizuka-sama!
CONCLUSION: I’m not that hard up for a laugh really.
Shigofumi
-Matsuoka Yuki as a talking stick? I’m sold.
-Yonaga Tsubasa (Ren in Oofuri) seems to be making a career out of voicing whiny losers like the rocket dude here.
-It wasn’t sad at all. In fact it was pretty awesome, lamer yandere asides.
CONCLUSION: Watch! It’s only 6 episodes anyway. I guess I’m still gonna watch it anyway…..
Minami-ke:Okawari
-Opening was awesome…… Galileo ‘tharmometer’ included.
-The chara designs still bother me. Fujioka looks retarded, Toma is no longer cute and the teardrop-shaped mouths! (sob). Oh, and those ain’t her friggin’ knees, they’re her damn superhuge papayas. WTF.
-Otherwise it was business as usual.
CONCLUSION: So far so good.
Porfy no Nagai Tabi
-Apt name, as anyone watching the show is in for a bloody long ride at 52 episodes…..
-Old school, simplistic art style FTW!
-Music and voice acting are nice too.
CONCLUSION: World Masterpiece Theatre shows are a nice idea but always way too long, I’d rather go read the books tbh.
ARIA the ORIGINATION
-ARIA is back!! (tears of joy)
-Athena’s SD faces are fantastic!
-Why the sudden need for episode previews?
-The fact that this will very likely be the last season of ARIA ever makes me weep.
CONCLUSION: Only fans will love this, so those who hated the first two seasons shouldn’t even bother - nothing’s changed and nothing will.
Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-
-Animation gone down a slippery sliding slope.
-Everything seems so bright and colourful, which is just WRONG.
-And the new designs are teh suck.
-I miss Sendai Eri, Amisuke and Nanri Yuuka. Henrietta’s CV sounds way too squeaky & cutesy for my liking.
-Koyasu Takehito was cool though.
CONCLUSION: I have little desire to continue with this one, it was a complete letdown. I’ll just pretend that this never existed and go back to watching the original…..
Okami to Koshinryo
-8 minutes of Horo prancing about in her birthday suit was…. not fun.
-Koshimizu Ami is awesome in this.
-The ED song by ROCKY CHACK was amusingly nice; I think listening to similarly bad Engrishy neo-Shibuya kei bands has increased my love for cutesy songs sung in intelligibly.
CONCLUSION: This turned out a lot slower than I expected. Hopefully it’ll start to pick up in the next few episodes or my attention span will fly out the window.
I try to keep the number of shows I watch at a given time down to around 8 or so; and with Gintama, Mokke, Shana and the Hachikuro live-action occupying 4 of those slots I only have room for 4 more on my schedule. None of the shows that start airing from the 8th onwards even remotely appeal to me and I am ever so grateful for that ^^;
So at the moment, it’s Hatenko Yugi, Z.SZBS, true tears, Shigofumi, Minami-ke:Okawari, ARIA and Okami to Koshinryo for next week at least. I’m pretty sure in my mind which 3 of those 7 I’ll eventually be dropping though I hope they’ll prove me wrong. The winter season seems to be turning out a lot better than I expected.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
No half-hearted, unfunny comments? You’re missing out.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Wait, where did you hear that Shigofumi only has six episodes?
January 9th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
>Wait, where did you hear that Shigofumi only has six episodes?
Er well….come to think of it - It’s been changed to 12 episodes hasn’t it? Damn. It was supposed to be 6 when they first announced it ^^;
January 14th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I guess the studio dumped alot money for Aida Yuu to look the other way even though he’s suppose to be more involved in the anime this time?^^; The remake Gunslinger Girl is bad… Is it really 2nd season? Feels like they started it from the beginning especially all the charcters seems way youngr than before…so seems like a remake to me.
The only decent ones in there were Claes and Jon. Maybe Rico was ok or at least to me. Might be blasphemy to say this but I kinda like the new Rico with more expression and brighter personality. Not enough for me to keep up with it either. I wonder if BS11 reair the first one on purpose…^^
Just a quick pointless question, is it just me or Haruka seems less busty in Okawari when clothed?^^;