2008 Spring Season Anime (Part 2)

I’ve finally had the time to finish all the new anime series that I wanted to watch, though I’ve dropped Nabi no Ou, Itazuna Kiss, and S.A. Special A from the watching list simply because I didn’t have enough time (and 1 Shoujo-series is enough for a season).

Library War – The name itself is instant win. Though the setting is eeringly strange, and the character introductions “turn” way too fast, Library War is still one of the gems of this season. It’s about a world where librarians are soldiers, and different media corporations are in a state of war. The lead character is a newbie in a library force and the story depicts her entry into this war. It’s got a serious background to the story but it has still remained lighthearted and is good entertainment to watch. Definitely recommended.

Kurenai – Based on the light novel. I though I read somewhere that it was about this old guy with a loli. But it turned out to be a teenager with a loli. I’m not a lolicon but this series turned out to be surprisingly good. The basic premise is that a teenage guy with a special body and is dead broke was given the task by his “employer” to look after the runaway child of a superpowerful family. Ofcourse the little girl is all full of herself and feels that the rest of the world is her servant; she learns otherwise, quickly. The interactions between the people are interesting to watch and just within 2-3 episodes you can already feel the character development between the lead characters. You’d already be watching this if you were a lolicon, but for those who don’t have this “special” interest I still recommend this series for its high quality.

Soul Eater – Based on the manga. The manga itself was pretty mediocre but I must say that the anime has been superbly done. This will easily be one of the smoothest action anime you will see: the combat scenes are spectacular and all the characters actually look ‘cool’ fighting. The story is about “weaponsmiths” who are on the quest to create “deathscythes” for the god of death, except these weapons are actual humanoids that can transform into the weapon and have souls and a conscious. The interactions between the weaponsmiths and their weapons are quite interesting and this series is worth watching alone if not just for the action scenes.

Vampire Knight – Based on the shoujo manga. The lead female character is caught between a struggle between humans and vampires. She’s got a crush on the powerful and handsome vampire “leader”. It’s a pretty typical shoujo manga I’d say but the animation is well done and the series is fun to watch. Fortunately they haven’t overdone their bishonen so it wouldn’t be too unacceptable for guys to watch.

Kyouran Kasoku Nikki – Based on the light novel. A guy is given the task of raising a family of… aliens and supernatural beings. Proceed to complete chaos. Kyouran is definitely a wtf lol series, with a cast of weird and varied characters. I’ve only watched one episode so far but it looks like it’s a fun series… although the cat girl is kind of annoying. Looks like a comedy show but as all comedy anime are (aside from Minami-ke) they tend to get into serious episodes near the end; we’ll see.

Real Drive – New series from I.G. Productions. To be honest I’ve watched two episodes of this series and am still kind of confused as to what it’s talking about. Apparently in the future humans have been ‘computerized’ in that all brains have been somehow connected to the digital world. By this the protagonist (a 70 year old guy) is able to “dive” into the digital world and perform tasks there. It’s a huge cloud of mystery beyond that. Whoever did the character design has a fetish for chubby girls, so take note of that. It looks like the series could get interesting but at the moment I can’t tell because I have no idea what it’s trying to do.

Amatsuki – Based on the manga. Two guys from the real world are somehow taken to the edo-period -Japan-like world, they meet a female samurai with a mysterious past and they are faced with the dangers of monsters that are preying on them, as well as trying to get back to their own world. Seems like a pretty typical “out of this world” series, but seeing how the protagonist use modern day science in edo Japan is good fun. The computerized voice which belongs to one of the monsters that keep appearing every episode is annoying; but for some reason it’s part of the backbone of the story: fail. Nonetheless this isn’t all that bad a series and should be worth your while if you have time on your hands.

Crystal Blaze – A serial killer has been rampant: but when “it” kills all that’s left of the victim is a glass statue of the person, and signs that show a great blaze that occurred (hence the name Crystal Blaze). The protagonists are part of a detective firm and they are given the task of protecting certain ‘cargo’. It turns out that the cargo is a girl (which one of the protagonists saw was originally laying there as a crystal doll) with supernatural abilities. Again, I’ve only seen 1 episode and it looks like the story will be about how they protect the girl and find out that the serial killings are linked (duh) and will slowly reveal to you whats all this fire and crystal about. Apart from having a nakid chick running around for most of the 1st episode, this series is mediocre at best.

Thats about it for this season. I’ve already decided to drop Crystal Blaze (it’s not too bad, but I simply don’ t have that much time for this many series at once) and Blassreiter (I’m just not interested in this) I’m going to go a bit further this season and give “awards” based on the first few episodes:

Best anime
Macross Frontier

Must watch
Library War, Kurenai, Soul Eater, Code Geass R2

2008 Spring Season Anime (Part 1)

Last season ended many of the bi-season series I’ve been watching so I’ve been left with a relatively loose schedule as to how many new series I can pick up this season. Do note that Part 2 of last season is apparently missing because the only series that I didn’t cover was Mnemosyne, which I will cover along with Kite Liberator, both OVA series at the end of this post. I’ve watched only about half of the new series I intend to give a try this season, so there’ll definitely be a part two.

I’d say that this season started off pretty bland. Even with big names like Code Geass, Macross and the likes in the line-up none of the first episodes of any of these new series were awe-inspiring (Other than Druaga). Hopefully some of these series will pick up somewhere and we won’t be left with a boring three months of anime.

On with the rundown.

Code Geass R2 – The long anticipated 2nd Season is off to a rather plain start. None of the questions left hanging in the air at the end of the last episode were answered – apart from everyone present at that island were alive (as if any of the main characters would die off without you seeing it anyways). Of course the first season was a huge hit and is a very fun and action-filled series to watch. If you haven’t watched the first season, go see it now so you won’t miss out on one of the best anime series these few years.

Macross Frontier – It’s Macross. The robo-anime series who’s fame is only surpassed by that of Gundam. The thing that took me most with this first episode is the superb animation quality. The CG, animation, characters, and special effects are all top notch quality – very much a surprise when most anime series nowadays are known for how poor their quality is. I’d say this series is worth watching if not just for its animation quality. The story starts out pretty typically as other robo-animes, and my major complaint is that whoever designed the singer female lead for the series deserve to be shot.

The Tower of Druaga - Druaga is actually a very old video game which they unearthed now and are turning into both an MMORPG and an anime series. They split the first episodes into two episodes, episode one (front) and episode one (back), which is really a parallel of events. What really happens in the story is depicted in the back side, showing what the characters were doing while the protagonist of the story passed out and was dreaming; his dream being depicted in the front side. What took most us anime viewers by surprise was the front side episode, which was a hilarious laugh-fest for 20 minutes that made everyone’s stomach hurt by the time they got to the end.  I think they took every nonsensical hero-anime element and put them all into the protagonist’s dream to make it one of the funniest anime episodes ever seen. The “normal” side of the story seems pretty typical dungeon crawl anime, but the character designs are interesting and it’s not your normal fighter-mage-priest combo. I suggest giving this series a try.

Blassreiter – this is the “other” anime series by Gonzo this season (Druaga is the first). While Druaga put our hopes up as to Gonzo finally putting their act together, Blassreiter reminded us of how bad Gonzo can get. Put together a bland and uninteresting story, an annoying protagonist, and overdone, shitty CG all put together into 20 minutes that I could barely stand. If you really like motorbikes I guess you can give the 2nd episode a try before you ditch this series.

Kanokon – Derived from the light-novel series which has also been translated into manga. Hundreds year-old fox spirit takes the form of a high-school gal with significant cleavage and falls in love at first sight with a transfer student that came from the rural parts of Japan. Proceed to fanservice galore. Not exactly the comedy-fanservice fest Ninomiya-kun was, Kanokon is more focused on the relationship between the couple as well as the fox spirit trying to live in human society. It’s light comedy + romance. If you don’t like fan service series, stay away.

Allison and Lilia – Derived from the two light-novel series (Allison being the first and Lilia being the second), the series is about a war-torn continent that is split between two factions that have been at arms for centuries but recently reached a cease-fire agreement. Allison is an air-force pilot and the story goes on to talk about her adventures with her plane and her partner between the two tension filled countries. At the end of her adventures, her daughter, Lilia, pick up and continues the story. This is a pretty well-acclaimed novel series so at least the plot side of things of this series should be guaranteed.

Wagaya no Oniri-sama - Derived from the light-novel series (lots of these recently) about a fox spirit (yeah another fox spirit) that has been the guardian of a certain powerful sorcerer family and has been awakened to protect the youngest decent of the family. I haven’t read the light-novel and have no idea where this series is headed. Probably magical combat and the normal comedy. The interesting thing about this series is probably the fox’s identity – it’s so old it forgot about its gender, and when it takes human form it has both a male and a female form (which is just reason for comedy). This series I’ll follow a few more episodes to decide if it’s dropable.

Kamen Maid-guy – Fanservice and random comedy galore #2. Derived from the manga. The first episode is full of WTF moments and if you’re a maid-con and can’t stand a muscle guy in a maid outfit, stay clear away from this series. It’s pretty fun series and should just provide for some comic relief. I mean, you won’t get to see a guy-maid rip apart his master’s blouse to comment on how poorly washed her bra is anywhere else.

To Love Ru – Fanservice and random comedy galore #3. Also derived from the manga; the author of which wrote Black Cat (which had nothing to do with fanservice). Alien gal appears naked in a guy’s bath tub escaping her captors and decide to stay with the guy. Go to youtube, find a the OP and you’ll see just how fanservicing  this series is. I’ve never read the manga but something tells me it’s one of those series to put beside Girls-bravo, Airantou, and the likes.

xxxHolic Kei – 2nd season of the Clamp manga series. Starts with the manga arc of Watanugi losing his right eye. I do suggest starting off with the first season to get to know the characters and the style of the story first, as it is quite a weird series. It also operates in the same series of parallel universes as Tsubasa, so it’s worth watching if you want to have a more complete view of the entire setting.

Those are the new series I’ve managed to watch so far. Some I’ve planned to see are Soul Eater, Real Drive, and Nabari no Ou. I’m also considering if I want to pick up one or more of the gal-manga series (vampire knight, Itazuna kiss, S.A Speical, etc).

There’s also two OVA series that were aired recently that are worth watching:

Mnemosyne - I’m not sure if this is an OVA series, but it’s aired monthly and only has 6 episodes, so I’ll consider it as such. It’s about gals who were “blessed” by the goddess of time, and have undying and unaging bodies, as they fight in the normal world against some sinister plan as well as their nemesis: men blessed by the goddess of time who have supernatural physical abilities but a short life span. The story itself is intriguing and the series comes with large doses of violence and naked women. It does get ugly at places (S&M) so it’s not exactly for the feint-hearted.

Kite Liberator – It’s a sequel to the violence and sex filled “A Kite”, but the one episode that was released only managed to have healthy amounts of violence and no sex (other than seeing Monaka change clothes). The story itself is also fine and the special effects are pretty nice. Blood is aplenty. Seeing a high-school-girl assassin killing men and monsters means you definitely have to see this.

Only if I had more time to watch all these new series that are being aired… So while I’d love to see them all, I can only see those that interest me upon first inspection. Therefore, I’ll always miss gems here and there: Recommendations welcome.