After having a few sick days off and boring weekends prior to the Hellgate release, I had some time to catch up with the rest of the unwatched anime collection of this season’s new releases.
Moyashimon : I didn’t mention this one in my last entry because I didn’t even knew the series existed. I was surfing the net when I came across several sources that recommended this series so I decided to give it a try. Basically it’s about a guy in an agricultural university in Tokyo that has the special ability to “see” bacteria. Not in the form of bacteria you’d see when you look through a micro scope, but cute little animated “things” that float around. It turned out to be quite an entertaining series that is funny and cute. I’d definitely recommend this one as well.
Dragonaut ~The Resonance~ : It’s kind of hard to describe this series. But lets just say that it’s about an alien invasions but the aliens are a dragon race. Humans breed their own dragons and try to fight back. It’s basically one of those mech-fighters with a twist. The story is acceptable even though the main characters (the two guys) are a bit annoying. They found the guy who designed the Japanese anime version of Witchblade so do expect… cleavage.
Blue Drop : I’m still entirely confused by this series. Apparently the main reason is because I haven’t read the manga series of which this anime is a prequel of. The reason this series is weird is that it feels like it’s two completely different genres of anime hatched together and even when you’re watching it feels like you’re switching channels every 5 minutes. It’s basically about an “alien” invasion onto earth but these aliens are actually humanoid (and happen to be all female). One of the recon ships of the alien fleet malfunctions and in the process wipes out an entire island as well as the crew of the ship. The captain then melds into human society and enters a girl school where she meets the sole survivor of the island she wiped out. It’s half battleship-action and half girl school GL drama. I’d say the action is fine but scarce, the GL is, well, GL.
Rental Magica : Based from the light novel series, this is about a company of magicians. The president is a high-school guy that doesn’t know magic but has an left eye with magical properties, who succeeded his father who was the owner of the company but went missing. The other members are all magic users from different schools, from Celtic witchery (but Japanese incantations… boo) to Japanese Shinto. According to a friend that has read the novel, the first few anime episodes don’t follow a chronological order. From my point of view, this was done to introduce the characters of the story one by one (i.e. harem anime style). Overall the art is acceptable and the story is ok, though it might be a bit confusing because the story jumps back and forth between episodes (even there’s no actual causal link between each).
Night Wizard : Based on the Japanese live-action RPG of the same name. Basically a modern setting magic hack’n slash series. The second episodes gives us the premise of the story, to collect the 7 magical gems that fit into Eris’ bracelet, which will grant her macigal powers to save the world. Nothing surprising, I know, and to no further surprise, the gang collects one gem each episodes for the next 3 episodes thereafter. They story is quite typical, and it does try it’s best to be funny at places. I’d barely rate this anime with a passing grade. The animation is mediocre, and the action scenes are lackluster. It’s not entirely boring, but it’s just not something that would rank amongst the must-watches this season. If you have a lot of time on your hands, this is OK.
Prsim Ark : Based on the ero-game, this is yet another sword and sorcery hack’n slash anime, but of course because of the ero-game based setting, expect lots of gals an only one or two guys. The story (other than the first episode), starts in knight-school where the main characters train to become knights for their kingdom and the story takes off from there. I’d mention that the character and costume design is quite unique, the story is kind of mediocre, but if you like the characters and costumes or is a fan of the ero-game (this one I haven’t played myself) then you might like this series. Otherwise it’s just a mediocre time-filler.
Shugo Chara : Another Peach-pit series. After the complete failure that Zombie Loan was last season I had serious doubts as to whether Peach-pit manga animated would be worth watching. Turns out this time they found a better animator and the series isn’t a complete disaster. Note that the manga is classified under shoujo-manga (manga for gals), but it’s basically a cute and lighthearted magical girl action series. I’d also note that the manga hasn’t gotten very far so expect either a very short series or a lot of original content.
I’d usually end these posts with “recommendations are welcome”, but seriously this season has been way too packed and trying to catch up on 10 or so series while at the same time playing both WoW and HG:L and having to go to work every day means taking way too many hours off sleep time.
