Late, Late, Late Top 5

Well, as evilcat said, I planned on catching up on this season and posting my top 5. Well, I am just now caught up with most of it, and we're about 10 episodes in on most series... so I figured I could do it now. Anyways, danchou's top 5, with some extra sauce. The ordering is based by the beginning of the season. The number in parenthesis is the rating based on ~6-7 episodes.

No 5: Tasogare Otome x Amnesia-  Unlike Space Brothers, this is probably one of the most overrated series this season. It is good, but too many of the relationships seem forced and the directing of the series is just a little off. Other than that, the premise and the story are fairly interesting and the comedy usually delivers.


No 4: (Tied No. 3) Space Brothers (Uchuu Kyoudai)- This is probably the most underrated or under-appreciated show of the season. I see very little chatter about it, despite being an excellent slice-of-life story in an original setting. There are a handful of excellent characters that you can't help but love. The main character stands out even among these. The tension throughout the series is more than enough to prove how good the series is.


No 3: (No. 2) Jormungand- This series is fun, high-octane, and well thought out. Several characters are developed well. Most importantly, every episode (or arc) manages to stay interesting.


No 2: (No 2.) Fate/Zero- I decided to follow evilcat in saying that this series doesn't count as this season. However, this series manages to have great animation for truly gripping action while developing characters in a very interesting fashion.


No 2: (No. 1) Sakamichi no Apollon- This series started out really good and managed to go beyond that. An array of well developed characters put into an interesting setting allowed for a strong premise to be in the background of an excellent drama. The show has only managed to get better.


No 1: (Tied No. 3) Sankarea- This series had the most interesting premise and first few episodes out of any series this season. It had a unique feeling to it, several interesting characters, nice character designs, good music, funny comedy, a dark theme growing underneath, and just about anything else you could ask from this genre. However, a few of the newest episodes have not quite been up to par.

[Ended] Ozuma: Submarine Battles, in Sand

While the story has somewhat of a moral behind all that's been happening, what really makes it exciting enough to make you want to watch, is the intense naval battles...fought in liquid sand. I would almost say that for whatever they're trying to establish with this story, there are way too much focus on the mechanics of the submarine battle, not enough on building the central plot.

As far as the moral of the story goes, it's a very typical message about how mankind is responsible for destroying the planet and we have to stop it. A very typical message you see from the tree hugger. On the flip side, however, depending how you look at it, I think it's also pushing an idea from the opposite side as well: no matter how hard we try, human would never be able completely dominate the power of nature--if humankind does exhaust nature's resource and become extinct because of that, then that's nature's healing power at play to be rid of us like a bad infection. There is no need to fix what we do, because in my opinion, human greediness is incurable. I'd even go so far to say most if not all environmental activists are probably out there for political gain. We might as well all go back to stone age if we want to protect the environment. The only true way to protect the environment is to be rid of humankind. But since the most efficient method for such: war, is highly frowned upon by almost everybody, I'd say us humans as a race trying to survive in this planet forever are hopeless. So you might just enjoy you current way of living and not to worry about the inevitable. Or if you truly care about the planet's future, start a war to wipe the humankind. Raising awareness won't do anybody any good, period.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 83 (Submarine warfare)

Comedy: N/A

Action: 80 (Little bit)

Art/Animation: 81 (Old School)

Sound/Music: 80 (Eh)

Character: 800 (Not well defined)

Plot: 73 (Too much battle not enough plot)

Ending: 80 (What is that)

Re-watch value: 20 (Not really)

Overall: 78 - Too much battle, too little plot

Recommendation: Being only 6 episode long, I'd say it worth the time just to watch some exciting submarine battles.

Zetman: Typically Exciting

Currently finished: Episode 7

While the story is pretty nicely paced and packed with good actions, I just can't help but notice this is all too typical plot among the series with similar themes: some dude unintentionally got some badass superpower where almost everybody else with the same power is using it for bad things. Then our main hero half got tricked into and half out of his own will, starting to beat up the bad dudes.

Being typical doesn't automatically means bad, however, when you see something similar to what you've seen before, you just want to keep predicting what's going to happen next. And when you're able to predict almost every move along the way, it becomes less and less interesting. That's how I feel about Zetman in its current state. -_-'

[Dropped] Shining Hearts: From Bad to Terrible

Last Episode Seen: Episode 5

I thought it was pretty bad to begin with, but since then, they seem to have pulled hand break--it has just become unbearably slow. I'm sure these characters they're "slowly" introducing are probably somewhat important people that they would cash in their early favors to fight the grand boss, but there ought to be a better way other than this extremely slow one-per-episode business. On top of that, I had just about enough of these extremely nice talk of the girls.

One problem of typical RPG adapted anime is that sometimes they tend to follow the game too closely. These boring short arcs we've seen so far in Shining Hearts probably would have been a bit more interesting if it is in the game, since you're actually involved with the story. But when you're strictly an outsider watching what's happening, it's become almost unbearably boring. However I think this is rather localized problem that probably mostly caused by directors and screenwriters, because some anime series such as the Tales series are much better quality in terms of directing and the plot flow. Shining Hearts just so happens to be a badly written and directed anime.

Final Score: 43

Natsuiro Kiseki: the Unexaggerated Comedy

Currently finished: Episode 6

Comedies tend to be exaggerated. It's been a recent trend that funnier you want your comedy be, more and more exaggerated you should make it. Natsuiro Kiseki however, went the other direction, which showed us how comedy doesn't have to be bouncing off the top: a lighthearted story with some subtlety could do equally as well on making people laugh. It actually reminds me much of Hanasaku Iroha in style and varieties in characters, but with a bit lighter overtone. It too break out some melancholy moments once a while. So in certain way, it might feel more like Ano Natsu de Matteru, except it's womance instead of romance ^_^.  To me, it seems that they've gotten most elements right for a series like this, however, according to anime discussion sites, it seems that so far not nearly as many people are fond of this as Hanasaku Iroha or Ano Natsu de Matteru, which puzzles me quite a bit.

Nazo no Kanojo X: That's some...weird fetish

Currently finished: Episode 5

When I say fetish in the title, I don't really mean to say the characters in the story have some weird fetish (well, that's well known), what I want to say, is that the author of the story got some really weird fetishes. More I watch it, stranger it gets; stranger it gets, more intriguing I actually felt. While I'm definitely interested enough to want to see to the end of this, every time when anything scene involves spit exchange comes up, I just couldn't help myself but feeling some discomfort in my stomach >_<

Aside from that, I have to say this story is getting more a more weirdly interesting. More and more things start to show up to suggest that there are even more weirdly strange things hidden in the back. Unless you just couldn't stand this weird fetish, I'd say it's mostly worth it to  keep on going at it...for now

Tasogare Otome x Amnesia: A Refreshing Mix

Currently finished: Episode 5

While some of you may consider this to be just trolling around in a schizophrenic fashion, personally, I think this mix and blend of horror and comedy with seamless transitions is quite refreshing. Frankly, I don't think I've seen a good horror genre anime that is also a good comedy at the same time. If anybody know any, please do recommend, as I'd like to explore this rare genre a bit more.

One problem, as  I see it right now, is what this series is trying to achieve. While everything is amusing, I'm not sure where it's heading. Maybe it's still just too early and they're still in the character development stage, but I can't seem to recognize any grand plot it's trying to push. The few potential ones I can think of, are more or less voided in the first three episodes. As it is right now, it's just wandering around aimlessly. Consider this is only a short season anime, they'd need to develop some sort of plot soon, otherwise it'd feel extremely rushed towards the end or end up being incomplete.

Accel World: Rushing the Plot

Currently finished: Episode 5

Is it just me or does it feel like they're rushing a bit too much? Don't get me wrong, I'm liking this series very much so far, it's just I can't help but notice people's change of heart and emotional transitions are unnaturally fast. Like someone had their heart set on certain things, then it took only one blow for them to change their heart, I mean, genuinely (the keyword here is genuinely) change their heart to admit their wrong doing. I think they could have done a bit better transition on that or put more thought into it. But again, if they did, I might have been making a post criticizing they're dragging LOL.

Anyway, the bottom line is that so far I'm really liking this series. (Don't mind my ranting above, pretend I'm just trying to pick bones from eggs...out of respect, lol). Even it didn't initially pop into my top 5, I think in mid-season review, it'd definitely be in my modified top-5 list.

[Poll] April 2012 New Season Poll is Open

Now the last of the new season is out, let's take a look at what the best of the season has to offer. Compare to last couple of seasons, we have seen quite some amazingly good series coming out. It seems the good anime drought is indeed over--again I'm having trouble deciding what series to cut  instead of what to put on my top five. After quite some deliberation, I finally narrowed down my top 5 picks. Let's start from the bottom, shall we:

No.5: Sakamichi no Apollon. While it's not anything exciting, it has a very interesting beats to it. I can't quite grasp just yet what is it I'm like it so much for, it's definitely something I'd like to keep watching.

No.4:  Sankarea. The overall premise is weird yet intriguing, on top of that, it is just very well executed in terms of translating the manga to the screen.

No.3: Fate/Zero 2nd Season. Well, this technically isn't a "new" series, since it's only the second part of a long season series. Nevertheless, I need to mention it here because as far as quality goes, this would definitely seize the No.3 spot of the season.

No.3 (the real one): Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? of the Dead. I think there are many people out there just don't understand this series. Personally, I just think there are so much brilliance that are worked into into the series. One side note, I think you'll have to watch the first series to understand this one. Otherwise, I don't think you'd appreciate it nearly as much.

No.2: Tasogare Otome x Amnesia. I don't think anybody going to argue this series deserves to be one of the top 3 anime of the season. The character has great chemistry, the comedies are funny, and it's very well directed. The most intriguing part, is how they have mixed comedy and horror in the same place and you can distinctively feel them both very well.

No.1: Jormungand. My mind had quite some struggle on deciding who should take the top seat of this new anime season, specifically, deciding which of the top two should take the spotlight. They're both excellent animes (or should I say, animes with excellent first impression). Ultimately, I think the little extra action and explosiveness and the message it was passing off (about weapon is the the tool to keep peace instead of disrupting peace) won me over. It actually felt like an unique blending of CANAAN and Black Lagoon, which both are excellent action animes.

So those are my top 5 pick, feel free to cast your vote on the right side. I'd like to see how much my opinion deviates from my blog readers ^_^

p.s. my friend danchou (the guest author of this blog) (^_^)v may post his top 5 soon as well. I'm very much interested in what he has to say about them, since our opinions differed a bit over past several season.

[New April 2012] AKB0048

Info: http://myanimelist.net/anime/12149/AKB0048
Download: available through http://www.nyaa.eu/
Genres: ehrrr...Idol?
I've watched: 1 episode

Summary: After another world war, earth try to rebuild its society by eliminating entertainment so people's emotions could be easily controlled (I've seen something similar before...that's right, the movie Equilibrium). There's a however idol group performs rouge concerts named AKB0048.

First impression score: 73 - That's a Dumb Concept

Personal comments: The concept just sounds...retarded. But, I'll give it a chance to see where it's heading.

[Ended] Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam: Another Epic Journey

Now the new season surge is completed, I'm finally having some time to complete some series I wanted to finish from previous season and share some thoughts. 

While GONZO hasn't always produced top-notch series, Last Exile is definitely one of their flagship animes that showed us they indeed are a production powerhouse. However, after they made some bad decisions to produce lots of less-than-mediocre series instead of fewer good series, they were forced into bankruptcy. This new pseudo sequel to Last Exile, can be seen as the first real product of the newly reformed GONZO after they emerged from bankruptcy.

Overall, I have to say they've done a decent job. To make the plot less complicated, they chose to use two female lead characters so romance wouldn't be getting in the way of the central plot's development. The biggest difference, however, is that instead of a conventional villain, an antihero took the role to appose the heroines of the story. Though it's only a simple swap of role, the effect it had towards the overall feel of the story is actually large: in the original Last Exile, there's always someone everybody could hate on--the villain; in this case however, it's really difficult to place blame of the misfortune of everybody on the antihero because everybody, hero or the antihero all had noble intent. It's just that different people had different perception about what's good and what's evil, and how much evil is acceptable in order to obtain greater good. That has always been something people have struggled with, whether in history or in fiction. I'm really glad this story made this the focus of the plot because personally, I'm always intrigued about how different authors attack this topic. Even though the plot became increasingly predictable towards the end, what it built up to that point is still rather moving.

Because of the topic it touched, I think I tend to get a little excited about the story. Naturally my scoring of the anime would reflect that. So there is no need for arguing with me why this is not as good of an anime as I made it out to be--this is my person opinion, and may deviate quite a bit with others. ^_^

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 92 (Highly Dramatic)

Comedy: 83 (For what it had)

Action: 80 (Some CG are not well blended)

Art/Animation: 86 (Mostly good, with some less desirable CG blending)

Sound/Music: 94 (Love the music)

Character: 90 (Good blend of old and new)

Plot: 90 (Typical antihero plot)

Ending: 91 (Predictable, but wrapped nicely)

Re-watch value: 60 (So so)

Overall: 91 - An Epic Story, Renewed

Recommendation: This new Last Exile is a good story, and I found it particularly interesting about how they fit the casts of original series in. Criticize as you may, but I think GONZO had finally produced another worth while anime.

[New April 2012] Hyouka

Japanese title: 氷菓
Info: http://myanimelist.net/anime/12189/Hyouka
Download: available through http://www.nyaa.eu/
Genres: Mystery
I've watched: 1 episode

Summary: After he entered high school, Houtarou was forced to join classic literature club, where he met Eru Chitanda. Together with his friend Satoshi, they start to solve mysteries in the school.   

First impression score: 88 - Cute and Interesting

Personal comments: Five minutes into episode one, I can't help but to notice something distinctively familiar. After looking into the staff list, I found out where I felt like this before: the director of this series is same as the director of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The tone, the feel are all so very much like Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, less the craziness. I think this definitely holds potential to be one of the most interesting series of the season.