In no particular order: Jinki: EXTEND The first episode was fun, the second much less so. Aoba is too submissive and unable to eloquently express her supposed love for robots, evil stepmother is an abhorent character, and while the male lead looks somewhat promising he’s likely to be sucked into formulaic genre conventions down the […]
In no particular order:
Jinki: EXTEND
The first episode was fun, the second much less so. Aoba is too submissive and unable to eloquently express her supposed love for robots, evil stepmother is an abhorent character, and while the male lead looks somewhat promising he’s likely to be sucked into formulaic genre conventions down the road. Also, his punning “Aoba” into “aho baka” is painfully forced. The ED eyecatch girls better show up soon or I’ll be dropping this. Unlike some others I enjoy the robot designs of the show, preferring blocky, ugly functionality to excessively streamlined and/or unnaturally humanoid designs (yes, Gundam, that’s you). I’ve always prioritized character designs over mech designs, though, and neither provide enough of a draw to keep me here if the plot doesn’t shape up mighty quick. Oh, the ED is by Angela of Stellvia OP/ED fame, so that’s probably worth a download.
Ah! Megami-sama TV
I’ve listened to the OP of this four or five times, and each time it startles me with its unconventional quality. It’s not Yoko Kanno, I don’t think, but it sounds like something she’d produce. The quality music and animation are an effective one-two punch that are pulling me back into the story in spite of myself. I enjoyed the OAVs and movie and am a fan of the current designs, so I’ll be watching this until it starts to piss me off. It might actually grow a plot this time around, and even if it doesn’t, Belldandy may be enough to keep me tuned in. I’ll treat it as ratcheting up my Inoue exposure prior to Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo.
Xenosaga the Animation
I haven’t played the games, so this is my first dose of KOS-MOS. She definitely carries the show. When she’s not on screen things become rather boring, but the designs are pleasant enough eye candy to tide me through until she shows up again to blow holes in things and walk slowly through them. I’ll watch this until the boredom/KOS-MOS quotient becomes excessively unfavorable. The OP here is pretty awesome as well.
Magical Kanan
Failure, failure, failure. Terrible animation, recycled footage beneath an unremarkable OP, formulaic magical girl tripe. I’ll pour a fifth for my homie Yokota Mamoru over at Terios and move on.
Ultimate Girls
m.o.e. strikes again. The concept here is solid for its genre, but after watching the first episode I’d say they still have a lot to learn from the masters at TNK. Ultimate Girls doesn’t fail in production quality, but in direction – the first episode came off as somewhat limp-wristed and directionless, and the timing was subtly off through the whole thing. I’m not much of a fan of the 12-minute episode format either. I’ll watch for a few more episodes to see where this goes, but I’m not too optimistic. If nothing else, I’m sure we’re all looking forward to the raft of bizarre doujinshi this show will assuredly spawn.
Raimuiro Ryuukitan X: Koi, Oshiete Kudasai
I don’t know why I spent the time even skipping through the first episode of this. I vastly prefer the character designs here to those of the original, but it’s still just a cheap Sakura Taisen knockoff. Nobody touches Sakura Taisen. Nobody.
Starship Operators
Though rather rushed to establish the setting and get to the action, this is perhaps appropriate for a show about reality television. Starship Operators boasts the most interesting concept in science fiction anime since Planetes, and while it doesn’t seem to be destined for that stratosphere of exceptional quality the premise still leaves a lot to work with. The dialogue is rather thick with political and technical jargon, making it hard to appreciate the raws, but I’ll be hanging on with this one for awhile to see just what Mizuno Ryo has up his sleeve. The character designs are solid and should provide a body of attractive doujin and cosplaying material, and there’s a Kotoko ED here that’s pretty nice. The animation quality isn’t as high as it could be but it’s certainly decent.
Mahou Senshi Negima
Ken Akamatsu, the dark side has won in the struggle of love and hate I have for you in my heart of hearts. Negima sucks, and if this means the end of our relationship, so be it. Your wife will probably be happy to have you back in bed. I have to hand it to you for lowering the harem genre to new depths, though – a 30:1 female to male ratio is unprecidented, as is the apathetic lack of libido in your prepubescent protagonist. You’ve made me alliterate. Bastard.
AIR
:downs:
…I will never know whether this franchise is worth anything or not.
Mahoraba ~Heartful Days~
I skipped through the first episode and it didn’t do anything for me. Mediocre character designs and characterizations, a gimmick not quite good enough to grab my attention. The eerie resemblance of the title to that of the OTHER (non-Negima) Harry Potter knockoff assures I won’t be watching this beyond episode one. Pick a better name for your show next time dudes.
Peach Girl
I won’t watch this, but I sort of like the lips. It appears to be occupying the time slot (Sunday/7:00 AM/TV Tokyo) formerly held by Marimite, so let the conjecture begin. The only conclusion that can safely be made is that as long as Peach Girl runs Marimite won’t be running in that slot, but I fear further-reaching repercussions.
Gallery Fake
Is this any good? All I can divine about it is that Relin is watching, which is not the most shining of recommendations. I am currently too lazy to dig up an episode but perhaps that will change.
Agreed on most counts.
Ultimate Girl felt really tepid, especially the voice acting. I love the chara designs, more so than the whole Cosprayers/Love Love/Smash Hit trilogy, but this show isn’t doing anything with them. For an Ultraman parody it should be full of overacting and overdramatization, but it delivers neither. And the disintegrating suits thing is pretty tasteless and a poor excuse to get them naked. Just give them racier costumes to begin with!
I hold a “so bad it’s good” attitude for Ryuukitan. It’s just soooo bad, especially that abomination of a kunoichi, and the terrible terrible acting of the tall theater girl. It’s an even more shameless Sakura Taisen ripoff than the first one was. On the other hand the new sensei is sorta likable.
Insert test comment here.
Well, the Negima manga is heading towards Mahou Senshi anyway. However, I have a bad feeling that the anime, which appears to be centered more on the girls despite their questionable decision to not even draw the panties on the characters themselves, may not actually deal much with it. Since that would require some actual animation. I’ll probably stay and hope for the one episode… But, really, what a disappointment.
Peach Girl’s first episode did away with the “dozen(s of) episodes of being unable to confess” crap at least, so I’ll wait on a couple more episodes to see if which other gimmick they might be using instead. J2xC can probably say more on the other parts.
I am glad someone else realized that Air is a show about downs syndrome.
my only post in the air thread was :downs:
I need some screenshots of this new raimurio show, I’m curious how the designs could be better (!)
I owe the :downs: to you, Hannibal.
Note that I wasn’t a particular fan of the original Raimuiro designs, so in my opinion it wasn’t very hard to best them.
Where did you get that Relin was watching Gallery Fake? I don’t think anyone around ADTRW has watched it yet; there isn’t enough information available to make it worth Winnying, and it hasn’t popped up on Tokyo Toshokan yet. That comment he made in my thread was just that it might be more interesting than the rest of the stuff.
Oh, you’re right. My mistake.