Excluding anime that seem to go on forever (eg. Bleach) or targeted at children (eg. Doraemon), I have watched new anime, since 2006. Of course, I had watched some older ones like Kahimashi, Cowboy Bebop, and Lain.
I never noticed it unless I looked back (for anime since 2006) or watched older ones, but character design and background details in general has improved. Or it could simply because more recent ones looked better in widescreen in HD over the older lower-definition letterbox standard.
The early 2000s was a transitioning period for animation studios for doing each frame using computers over a cell sheet. To the viewers, this means that higher detail could be inserted, and scenes with things moving would not have everything else on the scene to be "moving".
Character designs can sometimes be timeless or be specific to the general era, but you can generally tell. The differences between the original Kanon (Winter 2002) and the remake (Autumn 2006) is an example of a big improvement of design. Not just visually, but how the story is executed too.
Death Note (Autumn 2006)
The main thing that tells you about an anime is its opening and ending, and the segments surrounding it. While I do agree that Death Note is the odd one out with the use of (very) heavy metal music, the best ones to me are ones that do not have scenes from its episodes, something that you wouldn't dread looking at many times. Another one, which I don't mind if it's not used, are the way the text of the credits are displayed being anything other than the generic one. Speaking of generic, I noticed that the animation of the ending of some anime, like Hanasaku Iroha (Spring 2011) and Durarara!! (Winter 2010), seems to have very minimal animation. I'm also not a fan of having new ending song in every episode, though I don't mind those once-in-a-while things that reflect a sad atmosphere (eg. the death of a major character). As for those that use a song that has been used in several anime, it's a mixed bag. However, songs like Secret Base: Kimi ga Kureta Mono, is the most often, and the most emotional, one I know of by singers used in Kyou no Go no Ni (Autumn 2008) and Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (Spring 2011).
Kill Me Baby (Spring 2012)
Nowadays, anime having an opening some minutes after it started instead of the very beginning seems to be the norm. From my observations, those that don't, or always have a flashback, or have something that repeats every time like Yakitate!! Ja-pan (Autumn 2004), generally don't have a good storyline. On the opposite end, anime that do not have an opening (most commonly the first and last episode), replaced with credits in its place, or have the main episode overlapping with the ending in certain episodes are quite good.
It's hard for me to decide what is a good anime between a slice-of-life anime with simple design with playful schoolgirls in a school as main characters (eg. Nichijou), or lots of action with serious men and highly detail things (eg. Gundam series). Generally, it's easy to tell a bad one, and I seem to find a lot of anime with little content in the middle of the series falling into this group. It's also hard for me to watch one with a good story, but not-so-good in the character design part.
In the past, I used to be able to tell the kind of anime that would be produced just by looking at the name of the animation studio. Before Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Winter 2011), I used to think that animation studio Shaft would be only be producing slapstick-like anime like Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei (Winter 2008). Madoka was a big surprise as they suddenly have moe characters, and a plot that's a big departure from what they (or those with magical girls) normally have. Actually, not really sudden as they produced Bakemonogatari (Summer 2009) in between: still have elements typical of earlier Shaft anime, but a bit more to the serious side.
Angel Beats (Spring 2010)
Speaking of animation studio, I heard that Angel Beats could have been produced by Kyoto Animation instead of P.A. Works as most of the works written by Jun Maeda (Canon, Air, Clannad) are usually produced by former. The reason possibly being that KyoAni was already busy producing K-On! at production time.
What would the the most ideal anime for me? Protagonist being a smart girl that should not be ugly or extremely sexy. She is a serious girl who could accurately tell if she's lied to, which you can't tell unless you paid attention to her tone of voice. These days, character design seems to be based on that of K-On!. Of course, that won't happen, would it?
Having watched several different anime, I'm starting to notice something that has been rather common: a whole episode dedicated to playing by the beach in the summer with a group of people. This theme has been used too much.
So, why the dislike towards it? Here:
too common
always takes place during the summer vacation
a lot of emphasis on the girl's swimsuit
the whole episode (and maybe the ones around it) is focused mainly on it
no meaningful storyline development
etc.
On top of that, I'm starting to watch more of the more serious ones. Love comedy ones are also fallen out of favor.
Since I wrote the mid-season summer anime review, there has been some changes of opinions of the anime I had reviewed that aired in the Summer season. This includes episodes 13 to 26 of an even earlier Spring anime and Summer anime that still continues on into the Autumn season.
Occult Academy (世紀末オカルト学院)
For the third straight anime released released under TV Tokyo's Power of Anime (アニメノチカラ), it still fails to keep my interest despite the nice graphics and original storyline. Maybe it's the storyline part that is the main reason.
For one thing, it started off in July 1999 as the academy principal's death and his daughter, Maya, not caring about him even at the funeral until something strange happened. Then a guy from the future (2012) wanting to fix the bad things from his time that started happening in 1999. Apart from the character designs, I decided to tolerate because of what I saw so far was interesting.
Then, things start to go downhill.
It became filled with boring filter episodes, a love story, family problems, going out with friends, and whatever that has nothing to do with the main character or the academy. This is the point around where I dropped. When I took a sneak peak of the second last episode, it made me at a loss of words: two of the secondary characters were hidden good and evil witches, fight each other, and... you get the idea. I stopped watching at that point. Couldn't stand it.
The other two anime under the Power of Anime are So Ra No Wo To (Winter 2010) and Senko no Night Raid (Spring 2010).
Ms. Okami & 7 friends (オオカミさんと七人の仲間たち)
As mentioned before, this anime has bizarre character designs to the extent to being ugly (though not as ugly as that senior citizen-looking high school girl in a maid-themed autumn anime I watched earlier today) and have useless secondary characters. I don't get what's going on other than a so-called bank that has a posh lounge hidden behind the small, poor-looking room. Oh, the ending animation is a pain to watch with that 8-bit music and the curtain repeatedly opening and closing. It's just summarizes on how awful I find the anime to be, especially when I'm watching K-On!! season 2 ending 2 at the same time too.
Seitokai Yakuindomo (生徒会役員共)
Besides K-On!! and Amagami, This anime is relatively decent enough for me to be able to tolerate during the Summer season. It has somehow kept me away from even thinking of dropping it and wanting for more. In contrast, the other student council I have watched, Seitokai no Ichizon (Autumn 2009) was boring as 85% of the time takes place in the room and lack something to look forward to.
Amagami (アマガミ)
I was just happily watching when suddenly, out of the blue, there is a narrator for Nakata Sae's arc (episode 9-12) and then mysteriously disappears. What was that about?
Anyways, from what I see featured in the opening, it seems that the better (-looking) girls would be featured from episode 13 with the second half, and a newer, better opening from episode 14. Since I last talked about it, it didn't follow exactly the pattern I mention then as some started from the present summer instead of Christmas of 2 years ago or things like that. However, the girls do appear in all of the arcs that doesn't focuses on them, but relatively minor. This anime is still ongoing now.
K-On season 2 (けいおん！！)
This ever-popular anime ended with 26 episodes. The graduation in episode 24 marked the end with the graduation ceremony. It was sad after knowing them for a long time and not seeing them again. Episodes 25 and 26 covers the gap between episode 21 and 23. I was expecting the epilogue and what they are doing outside instead like what was promised in the first episode of the first season (Spring 2009). Maybe we would see it for the OVA later on, but that's a long time from now.
I find it good that they went into detail of the girls' daily lives to show a more personal side of them. What is lacking is Tsumugi's house being featured, as the 4 other main characters had already shown theirs. From the hints of the summer training, and how excited she becomes over seemingly normal things, that's probably enough to know what she lives in. Anyways, the visual quality, attention to detail, and the opening and ending themes are the things that are usually missing in most anime.
The summer and spring seasons had limited amount of anime worth watching on TV, but among those, they are quite good to watch. Due to work constrains and how late anime are usually aired, I had to record them (which explains the channel logo) and watch them at a later time. Sometimes, almost a week later.
The new autumn anime has just started, and I need to watch a few episodes, and maybe that episode a few times, to get what is going on. This would be enough to see what anime to drop, and what to continue watching. There's an anime I saw of a boy who is very obsessed of playing visual novel games and then some crazy things happen. I don't remember what the title is, but it doesn't give me a good first impressions and not something I would continue with.
I haven't been doing any MAD on my YouTube channel lately mainly because I'm not good with creating something new, and the copyright take-down crap going on is unmotivated me to do more. The way copyright law is enforced these days are more of not allowing creativity, and only concerned of their target audience, which is made worse by the people who are outside of it having knowing nothing. Any anime by Kadokawa would at least have ads pasted on it (it's strange that a video footage of students doing the Hare Hare Yukai dance fall into this group too since there's no footage from the anime and the sound is muffled mixed with background noise), but the worse culprits block/remove the video completely are mainly Aniplex (or any company owned by Sony), TV Tokyo, and quite recently, Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). You could tell from the credits and the 10-sec sponsor screen after the opening and ending animations. A good example is that you don't see anime under those titles. Videos blocked/removed means that far fewer people would know about it and popularity would drop sharply once the first TV airing has ended. An example of this is BakaTest (Winter 2010) as, despite being popular when it was aired, seems to be relatively forgotten as compared to an older popular series that did not remove the unofficial videos. These companies see it as a hindrance to making profit, but they are making it worse by letting fewer people know about it and actually killing themselves. Why would a customer support something they know nothing of unless they are involved with it's production? Previews and low-quality legal online streaming sites (which is not available in all countries for the above reasons) are not enough.
Except for Azusa, it's graduation day for everyone in the Light Music Club.
Yui: "It's the graduation ceremony isn't it?"
Girl on the left: "See you later"
It is this day that the third year students making their final departure from the school. Will they see each other again?
These are the seniors' graduation diplomas, isn't it? (cries) Please don't graduate...
Don't worry, Azu-nyan. I'll give you a picture of us when we were in our first year.
Hokago (After-school) Teatime's last music performance in the school's music room
(For sub-less or closed-captioned Japanese lyrics, refer to the Japanese version)
Azusa is crying.
Although this is the final episode in the K-On series, I don't want to write about it in detail: it's too sad to write about. The next two episodes are extras outside the storyline.
To put it simply, this is my review of the Summer anime that survived the filtering of what I would had watched and the latter half of 24-episode Spring anime. For the summer ones, I am review them from the point of knowing more than what I didn't know at the beginning and watched it long enough to know the direction it's taking. For anime that I might drop in the near future, this would at least serve as to how I found it to be like before it happened instead of just tweeting it and not get noticed or just quietly remove it. Doing a review at the end of Summer instead (beginning of Autumn actually) means that I might not recall it accurately since I don't have reference material for it as I might dropped because of something persistent that I didn't like or something I was hoping would happen not happening.
Light Music (season 2) Japanese name: けいおん！！ Characters: Very good, but background characters are strangely better Background Detail: Very good, people and items are not lazily simplified/omitted and there's action even though the focus is elsewhere. Lacks people walking around, but there is interaction between the main character and a non-primary/secondary character. How clear does it look in 720p?: Very good, 1080p + the above Status: Watching
Well, I'm sure everyone knows what this is about or at least how popular it is, so I'm skipping the background story.
I'm glad that they paid more attention to the minor characters and explore more perspectives that were absent in the first season. For the first season, they squeezed two academic years into 12 episodes, but for the second season, it was the third year spread over 24 episodes, a 4x increase. What I'm disappointed is the lack of new songs (though Angel Beats that was airing during the first half was an overkill), and... how good the background characters are over the main characters themselves. What we have yet to see is Yui and the others graduating or performing at the Budokan, though we did see that happening at other places or to other people.
Just to add on, the opening and ending animation for the second half of this season was among one of the best I have ever seen since the 2006 airing of Haruhi Suzumiya. Those in-between seem to lack the X-factor even though they can be visually quite good. Also, visual-wise, I've never seen other anime that are at that level.
Okami and Her Seven Companions (Top image too) Japanese Name: おおかみさんと七人の仲間たち Characters: What's with the bizarre character designs and personalities? Why does every heroine in anime by JC Staff/Genco look like Aisaka Taiga? Background Detail: Good, almost the same as K-on season 1. They do detail posters and bookshelves, but the wordings on them are not. How clear does it look in 720p?: Not good, appears upscaled. Does all anime produced by JC Staff look like this too? Even the BD versions of anime released by them (eg. Railgun) seem to lack something, like contrast levels. Status: Watching, but thinking of dropping
So, next up is "Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakama-tachi" that I'm not exactly sure what it's about.
In the first scene of the first episode, we see someone being confronted by... er... what? Who would wear that? And then there's... the annoying narration who is voiced by the same person as the annoying Kuruko of "To Aru Majutsu/Kagaku no Index/Railgun" (another JC Staff produced anime). To add that, we have a shy guy with long bangs hiding in the shadows and abruptly confesses to... her. Then there's a one-sided loving couple, a crossdresser, and a useless magician.
To add on to the bizarreness they put on (ugly) costumes and attack students of a rowdy school just to meet the student council president that was just elected. We see a flashback of a heroine during a particular summer that looks a lot different than her current self. Another flashback scene shown was her being toured and bullied by classmates. It's not known when that was, but she did transfer out to where she met the little red hood . She mentioned that they were in the same class since middle school.
This is too generic mixed with things that I'm tired of seeing. Let's drop this: I don't want to waste time with it hoping what I was expecting that doesn't seem that it might happen. Also, must they put "Ookami-san" in every episode title?
End-of-Century Occult Institute Japanese Name: 世紀末オカルト学院 Characters: It's worse than Ookami-san above in terms of design that I have ever seen for a post-2005 anime. Background Detail: Better than K-on actually, but lacks that warm and fuzzy feeling How clear does it look in 720p?: Quite good. Somewhere between the above two anime mentioned above Status: Watching, but I'm not sure if I will
Occult Academy is the 3rd anime under TV Tokyo's アニメノチカラ (The Power of Anime) collaborating with people to produce anime originals that have no prior basis on light/visual novels, manga, video games or drama. I think of it as something similar to Fuji TV's ノイタミナ ("Animation" written backwards). Past shows under the Animenochikara brand include Sora no Maninami and Senkou no Night Raid, which, I've both dropped for different reasons.
The anime begins with Maya (heroine; pictured) to attend the funeral of her father that she's not really close with at an academy he founded that is obsessed with the occult, as showed by the "this is a waste of time" look on her face. It should be noted that Hisaka Youko, who voices Maya, also voices Mio of K-On and Shino of Setokai Yakuin-domo too.
After the above, the storyline starts off with some guy who literally came from the sky, well, the 13 years in the future, and tries to stop the things that are happening in the future. Recent episode seems to add in some filters and stray off from what it seem would happen at the beginning. It's hard to watch this with character design that are... err, different from what I'm used to.
Student Council Staff Members Japanese Name: 生徒会役員共 Characters: Girls that have dirty thoughts in their minds. Background Detail: Almost at par with K-On season two actually. You could see words on posters in the background, nice background characters to make up the atmosphere. Well, look at the second image in this section. How clear does it look in 720p?: Appears upscaled too, as visible with the stack of papers in episode 3, but background details make up for it Status: Watching. Despite the themes featured, I don't find it disturbing unlike certain people
The school Seitokai Yakuin-domo takes place in Ousai Gakuen, which is a former all-girls school that has recently become co-ed. Despite that, the population of male students there is still a handful that Tsuda's (protagonist; that tiny dot in the center middle in the sea of girls on the right image) class only has 2 boys, including himself and, during events like end-of-semester ceremony in episode 6, you can still see that more than 90% of the school population are females. Tsuda chose it only because it's close to where he lives. His sister is planning on joining that school too in the following year.
On the first day, he is unnecessarily stopped by Shino (left of first image), a member of the student council, and held him there long enough until the chime of the first lesson. To "make up for it", she asks him to join the student council as the male representative.
Since it's a slice-of-life genre like K-On and have not read the manga it's based on, there's not much I can say about it in term of storyline. Also, I find this way better than Seitokai no Ichizon of Autumn 2009
Play-Biting Japanese name: アマガミ Characters: ... a little better than Ookami-san, i guess Background detail: Building structures are detailed, but not books or posters How Clear Does it Look in 720p?: Not bad, but background and character designs Status: Watching. It "resets" with another girl every 4 episodes, so it's annoying to see the same thing again
Amagami is based a visual novel where the protagonist would choose one of the six girls from his school, including his own younger sister, and try to win their heart.The story is repeats itself after every 4 episodes, but with a different girl and with very noticeable patterns:
Waited on a Christmas night 2 years ago for a girl, but she didn't show up
Just as he's about to give up the girl he will get along for the next 4 episodes would show up
Protagonist did something to make the girl fall in love in him
Some talk among other girls
At some quiet corner, the girl would offer the protagonist to lick her belly (Erm, what?)
Some talk among other characters again
Relationship reaches climax around christmas
Time forwards by 10 years where they are apparently married
back to point 1, but with a different girl
Well, this is the pattern it seems to be taking after 6 episodes. It reminds me of "Endless Eight" episodes in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. Number of girls (6) + number of episodes focused on each girl (4) = 24 episodes, so with season 2 of Index coming up in autumn, I don't think I would watch all the way until the end of the year.
Well, that's all that I had picked up for the summer season, with the rest being already dropped or never picked up, including "High Shool of the Dead" during mid-June you might have seen on my anime watch list before then.
Looking at the upcoming list of autumn anime, I can already see that there would be a large amount that I won't pick up, but I would look at the trailers and the first few episodes to be sure. To end this post, here's a hint of the latest anime episode episode I am at time of publishing.
(note the extra examination mark in the title for the second season)
They actually paid more attention to the background characters more
K-On is now back again after last year's Spring 2009 season becoming popular that KyoAni was too focused on its sequel (and "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya") that they indirectly lost the bid to do Angel Beats as they had previously done other "Key" visual novels (Air, Clannad). Well, to be fair, PA Works studio wasn't too bad either as they had done "True Tears" some time ago.
New opening theme: The cake is a lie
To remind you, this is a slice-of-life anime with no real storyline to follow.
Background characters. Though we might be more focused on the more important characters that is the main focus, have you ever wondered why do they look better than the main characters?
This includes Autumn 2008 anime that has episodes aired in 2009. However, it does not include 2009 anime that are still airing currently. Anime with images are the ones I would wish to highlight the most. The rest are anime that were also aired and may have my comments on them. Some anime (mostly targeted at kids), OAV, and movies are not listed here.
Toradora(Autumn 2008, 25 episodes) Though the chracter designs were somewhat erm different from anime I've watched prior to this, I really looked forward to this anime. From Yuuji's sacry face, to Aisaka reducing from fierce to rather shy.
To Aru Majutsu no Index(Autumn 2008, 24 episodes) Well, it's great, but the long draggy scenes in the first few episodes made me drop this once. I mean, 75% of those episodes at the same spot talking about the same thing. Did picked it up later on and its spinoff (Railgun) though. Related anime:To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (Autumn 2009)
Skip Beat! (Autumn 2008, 25 episodes) I did watch some of this. A girl who follow a guy she likes after graduating from middle school to be a star by heading to the capital, only to be dumped. She takes her revenge by climbing up the stairs to fame and blah blah blah... You get the rest.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Second Season (Autumn 2008, 25 episodes) Despite being how popular this is, Gundam series are hard for me to follow. Related anime:Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985), Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986), Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (1993), Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994), Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (1995), After War Gundam X (1996), Mobile Suit Gundam Seed (2002), Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny (2004), Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (2007)
One Outs (Autumn 2008, 25 episodes)
Michiko to Hatchin (Autumn 2008, 22 episodes) The fact that it took place in South America attracted my attention. But the first episode airing a lot latter than most of the other anime, irregular timeslots, and reasons I can't really explain that made me drop this.
White Album (Winter 2009, 13 episodes) White Album 2nd Season (Autumn 2009, 13 episodes) The setting is in the early-mid 1980s. No mobile phones and no email. How do you contact someone who is on the move and be sure the person you want to contact is there or not someone else? That seemed to the the (over-)emphasis theme of this anime. As for the fashion of this era? Let's just say it's scary since I wasn't born in the decade (well, the last 5 months of 1989).
Minami-ke: Okaeri (Winter 2009) The third season of this slice-of-life anime. I've watched the first two, but not sure why I did not watch this. Could be because of Toradora and some others that was airing at that time... Related anime:Minami-ke (Autumn 2007), Minami-ke: Okawari (Winter 2008)
Asu no Yoichi! (Winter 2009) Well, the first episode looked promising, but then it remain stagnant or went downhill. Since it was on TBS just before another anime I liked ("Clannad: After"?), I watched it with a grain of salt. The last episode was... let just say it's not what I liked and doesn't seem to have progressed since the first episode. I just don't like "the main hero is an idiot" type of anime. (This also applies to anime like Sora no Otoshimono, and Natsu no Arashi!)
Birdy the Mighty Decode:02 (Winter 2009) I really enjoyed the first season, until I go WTF with the end of the last episode of that season. So I'm not watching this and I don't care what happens in it. Related anime:Birdy the Mighty Decode (Summer 2008)
Shikabane Hime: Kuro (Winter 2009) Related anime:Shikabane Hime: Aka (Autumn 2008)
Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th Season (Winter 2009) Related anime:Maria-sama ga Miteru (Winter 2004), Maria-sama ga Miteru ~Haru~ (Summer 2004)
Zoku Natsume Yūjin-Chō (Winter 2009) Related anime:Natsume Yūjin-Chō (Summer 2008)
Sora Kake Girl (Winter 2009) Didn't watch this. My previous experiences with ALI PROJECT music as the opening music since I first heard it being used for Shigofumi was...horrifying. Maybe that was the reason I didn't watch it.
Viper's Creed (Winter 2009)
Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger (Winter 2009) Related anime:Hajime no Ippo (Autumn 2000)
The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk (Winter 2009) Liked the first season a lot and actually looked forward to this second season, but it was a big disappointment. On top of that, most of the episodes don't take place in the tower itself. Related anime:The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk (Spring 2008)
Sora o Miageru Shōjo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai (Winter 2009) The pace is too quick for me to follow.
Clannad After Story(Autumn 2008, 25 episodes) Continuation of the previous season, focusing on Tomoya's working life after high school, Nagisa's death, and Ushio's birth. I wonder what happened to that old man? Or, what Ushio looks like when grown up? Related anime:Clannad (Autumn 2007)
Casshern Sins (Autumn 2008, 24 episodes) The character design alone make me not want to watch this. Related anime:Shinzo Ningen Casshan (Autumn 1973)
Genji Monogatari Sennenki (Winter 2009)
Hetalia - Axis Powers (Winter/Summer 2009)
Ristorante Paradiso (Spring 2009)
Sengoku Basara (Spring 2009)
Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ (Spring 2009)
Basquash! (Spring 2009) I never liked sports-themed anime. They all have the typical "do your best" theme too. I've also heard it was made to promote a well known international sports brand too.
Queen's Blade: Rurō no Senshi (Spring 2009) Queen's Blade: Gyokuza no Tsugumono (Autumn 2009) Seriously, what were they thinking?!
K-On!(Spring 2009) Featuring the cutest characters I've ever seen in all of the anime I've ever watched. It also indirectly helped music stores to see an unexpected boost in sales, particularly those featured in the anime. Just as I thought the "Live Alive" episode of Haruhi was good enough, this was way better. There even was an announcement of a 2nd season.
Pandora Hearts (Spring 2009) Since this replaced Asu no Yoichi and K-On! took over Clannad:After's timeslot on TBS, I've had to watch this before K-On!. Was not interesting though.
Slap Up Party: Arad Senki (Spring 2009)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Spring 2009 renewal, 28 episodes) Everyone has been waiting for a 2nd season since 2006.What did they give us? A chronological order of the 2006 episodes (plus minor extended scenes), "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody", 8 different versions of "Endless Eight", and a 5-part "The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya". Yes, 4/7 (more than half) of the new episodes are coincidentally called "Endless Eight". I was expecting more of the uncovered parts of the novel. The good news is that they are making a movie for the Disappearance arc that is 150 minutes (2hr 30min) long. Related anime:The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Spring 2006, 14 episodes), The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (2010 movie)
Hayate the Combat Butler!! (Spring 2009, 25 episodes) (Note the extra examination mark) This was a big letdown. Sure it continues more of the storyline from where the last season left off, but the first OP was a headache. There also seem to be noticeable changes in the character design (since it was done by a different animation studio that ironically also did Nodame and Shana) that made it look as though it was even more worse. Sure it seems to have improved in the later episodes, but first impressions counts. Related anime:Hayate no Gotoku! (Spring 2007, 52 episodes)
Shinkyoku Sōkai Polyphonica crimson S (Spring 2009) Related anime:Shinkyoku Sōkai Polyphonica (Spring 2007)
Gokujō!! Mecha Mote Iinchō (Spring 2009)
Valkyria Chronicles (Spring 2009)
Natsu no Arashi!(Spring 2009) Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-chū (Autumn 2009) As mentioned above for Asu no Yoichi, I don't really like anime whose main character is an idiot. I've watched the entire first season and found that SHAFT (animation studio) seem to like to add a lot of references to other anime and "too quick to see" shots that was displayed in all the anime they made all the time. For Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is okay, but Bakemonogatari too??? Anyways, the only part I like is the part they time-traveled back to the second world war, but the rest is... a lot of filters. The last episode of the first season had the characters do the moves that we had always seen in the opening, which are redundant and pointless. I didn't watch the second season due to my dissatisfaction with the first.
Tayutama -Kiss on my Deity- (Spring 2009)
Shangri-La(Spring 2009) A mixed bag. The animation was good and the opening theme was sung by May'n (featured in Marcross Frontier). But then there are these 2 transsexuals for no particular reason with the Tokyo as we know becoming an overgrown ruin submerged in water. Inhabitants around there live in a village-like settlement. "Carbon-offsets", "largest tropical city", and stuff that was not explained well. I wasn't the only one who didn't liked it. They even canceled its DVD Volume 7 and later.
Tears to Tiara (Spring 2009)
Saki (Spring 2009) Mahjong-themed anime. Hard to follow something I'm not familiar with that you can say that what I do with sports-based anime might apply here. Oddly enough, side/secondary characters introduced some episodes later are more popular than the main characters themselves.
Guin Saga (Spring 2009)
07-Ghost (Spring 2009)
Sōten Kōro (Spring 2009)
Eden of The East (Spring 2009) An anime original (I think) that seems to pay attention to minor details. My first impressions was that this would take place mostly in Washington DC, with the heroine's university in New York. Well, with the anime taking place mostly in Tokyo and Osaka, I was slightly disappointed. Still, it being in ways better than most of the anime I watch, I would rate this high (but I don't) and highly recommend it and its movie sequels.
Since it was on Fuji TV, it conflicted an another anime (don't remember what it was) I wanted to watch too. I didn't need to wait long (less than an hour) for an another popular anime to air on TV (K-On!, TBS).
Hatsukoi Limited (Spring 2009) Since it aired shortly before my "drop any boring anime since I have insufficient time" frenzy, I didn't, but I would have if it aired later. There wasn't really anything to talk about this anime, except that the opening and ending credits typeface (font) resembled a lot like Toradora! mentioned earlier and the voice talents are doing the main characters of the more popular anime too.
Umi Monogatari ~Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto~ (Spring 2009) I stopped watching it at episode 2: couldn't stand it. I actually got confused the title with Bakemonogatari and Umineko no Naku Koro ni too.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni (Summer 2009) Well, this would have looked a lot better if it were to be produced in HD instead of web-streaming quality. Anyways, this started off well and... went downhill from there. By Episode III-? (ep10+), I don't even know what is going on anymore. It's worse than Haruhi's Endless Eight episodes mentioned earlier. Character designs were inherited from the visual novel of the same name though. Ugh, let move on... Related anime:Higurashi no Naku Koroni (Spring 2006), Higurashi no Naku Koroni Kai (Summer 2007)
Sweet Blue Flowers (Summer 2009) I don't feel comfortable on the subject of yuri...
Taishō Yakyū Musume. (Summer 2009) Replaced K-On!'s timeslot on TBS. Though I don't like sports-themed anime in general (or not-produced-for-HD quality), what I found interesting was that it took place 84 years ago, where women were restricted in a lot of things that aren't today and their struggles starting a girls' baseball club in a time where Japan was just starting to adopt western things.
Bakemonogatari (Summer 2009) ***k Anyplex for the removal of that thing and causing my opinion of this anime towards the negative side. I won't buy stuff from you with no thanks to that. Though the overall anime is actually quite good, the characters looked somewhat flat from the non-anime-based official artwork. It was one of the better anime produced by SHAFT and the first I see by them produce in HD (1080p). Related anime:Katanagatari (Winter 2010)
Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahō (Summer 2009)
Zan Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei (Summer 2009) This is where all SHAFT's jokes and parodies fit in the most. Sad to say it wasn't produced in HD though. Had watched some of this and it's prior seasons, but as for reasons similar to Hatsukoi Limited mentioned earlier, it wasn't the must-watch anime I picked up. Related anime:Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei (Summer 2007), Zoku Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei (Winter 2008)
CANAAN (Summer 2009) First episode was impressive, but I don't remember why I stopped watching it...
Princess Lover! (Summer 2009)
Kanamemo (Summer 2009)
GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class (Summer 2009)
Sora no Manimani (Summer 2009) This anime is actually quite good, but since I'm living in a light-polluted area for quite a long time, I never get to see the stars in the sky for a long time. What I found odd was that they introduced a new character towards the end of the anime.
Spice and Wolf II (Summer 2009) Related anime:Spice and Wolf (Winter 2008)
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (Summer 2009, 11 episodes) Replacing Eden of the East comes a highly rated anime made by the same studio that produced Darker than Black and Fullmetal Alchemist is a Bones original production. It features Mirai and her brother in a situation based on the possibility of Tokyo being struck by a 8-magnitude earthquake and making it real. It starts of shortly before the quake happened when the siblings went to a robot exhibition. They had a toilet break when it happened. While Mirai was waiting, the earthquake happened. The mass evaluation and collapsing buildings made it harder to reunite, but not without the help of a woman they met earlier. Using the Tokyo Tower as a guide (which they could also see from home), they start their long way home as transport and telecommunications are out of service due to damaged infrastructure. Sadly, along the way, her brother was killed by a collapsing building, but did not realize it until she reunites with everyone when she realizes that it was a spirit when people said he wasn't there even though she is seeing him. (That's a lot of text for an anime I dropped at episode 2)
Nyan Koi! (Autumn 2009) It's quite obvious from episode 1 that it would be focused a lot on cats and would not get anywhere.
Kämpfer (Autumn 2009) (When I first saw this, I thought someone copied my ideas since there are too many things similar to my 2nd blog story, from the idea of transformations, to the (unexplained) use of German words, to the publishing date of the first manga volume this anime is based on being 21 days after I published my first part of my 2nd story (23 September 2008), the idea of weird-looking-dolls being somewhat involved (1st story), and whatever I can't think of now. What it doesn't follow, though, is the direction I wanted the storyline to go. There's just too much similarities to not attract my attention.) This follows Senou Natsuru who's just your average high school guy who was chosen to be a Kämpfer (German for fighter) to fight with other Kämpfer with weapons. The catch is that you can't choose, and would need the body of a girl to use the powers. Since Natsuru is a guy... you know what this means. Anyways, it wasn't obvious at first, but since the episode on preparing for the school festival, this anime went downhill with too much fan-service and dropped around when the white Kämpfers make an appearance.
Seitokai no Ichizon (Autumn 2009) I don't know what to say about this, since I've dropped this twice. It's about a school's harem student council committee with most episodes taking place in the same room (reminds me of Genshiken). There were a lot of parodies and references to other anime (reminds me of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Natsu no Arashi!) that you might not understand if you have never watch the anime in question. They even said so themselves at the first episode that the anime would not be following the novel of the same title. There's inconsistency all over. The ending has, um... many different versions of the same song in each episode that has the same (boring) animation. The mysterious girlish-guy (well, that's how I would describe him) seen in most of their imaginations appears in the last episode. Heck, WHAT IS THIS???!!!
The Sacred Blacksmith (Autumn 2009)
Miracle Train ~Ōedo-sen e Yōkoso~ (Autumn 2009)
Sora no Otoshimono (Autumn 2009) Another "the hero is an idiot" kind of anime plus things that makes me uncomfortable watching. The interesting thing is that the ending has different song and animation, depending on what the episode in question is about. (Episode 2 ending made me go ROFL)
Shin Koihime†Musō (Autumn 2009)
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza (Autumn 2009) Another other-anime-reference/fanservice anime? Well, though I liked the first season, this is something I wasn't looking forward to, from the title, to other Autumn anime that are alot better. Related anime:Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Summer 2008)
Kimi ni Todoke (Autumn 2009) I've heard from many people that this is actually quite good.
11eyes (Autumn 2009)
Sasameki Koto (Autumn 2009) Besides Aoi Hana mentioned above, this is one of the few yuri-themed titles for this year. Well, this is more watchable though. What's even more unique from all the other yuri (or yaoi) series is that it takes place in a co-ed school instead of an all-girls school. Wait... why was I watching this, knowing that it's yuri-themed?
Darker Than Black: Ryūsei no Gemini (Autumn 2009, 12 episodes) I was expecting this to be 24 episodes long, but it instead being 12 was a big shocker and unexpected. It's also one of the few anime (including Eden of the East) that I thought would take place mostly in a foreign country, but headed (back) to Japan in the first few episodes. Hei, Yin, and Mao (the main characters of the previous season) don't seem to be of any significance in this season. Makes me wonder if this is supposed to be an OAV-like anime to the unanswered questions raised in the first season. The fact that I mentioned it to unexpectedly end means that it's quite good. (Speaking of a good ending, the ending of Railgun ep12 and episodes leading up to it looks like it's a good place to end the series, but it's only halfway) Related anime:Darker than BLACK: Kuro no Keiyakusha (Spring 2007, 26 episodes)
Kūchū Buranko (Autumn 2009) (or Sky Swing or Trapeze or The Strange Methods of Dr. Irabu, whatever you want to call this) Irabu Ichiro is a psychiatrist who lives in a colorful alternate version of Tokyo. Patients would visit him to have a counseling on their problems. However each of the patients feel perplex about Ichiro's behavior. Ichiro wears a bear head mask & is able to change change his appearance from an adult to a kid. Despite Ichiro's zealous attitude, he does succeed in helping out each of the patients who come to his office. This is one weird anime to be in the noitaminA timeslot on Fuji TV, known to have anime like Nodame Cantabile and TokyoM8. Let's just say it's unique.
Well. that's it. That's a lot of anime I've listed. Since I've mentioned Autumn 2009 anime above, I won't be doing an autumn review. I plan to do the upcoming Winter 2010 lineup soon. Yes, I know it's late, but I'm busy, so it can't be helped.
It's nighttime at Mio's house with her bedroom windows appear to be covered by something. She's working on writing with the lyrics. It seems that the cold winter has arrived.
On a morning, Tsumugi rides the 1-car train at a deserted station terminus. Ritsu walks along sidewalk, but stops for a while to look at 2 girls from the same school who walked past her before continuing on. She turns around to see another pair of girls together and walks again. Azusa walks across a bridge and finds a white cat, but when she tries to pat it, the cat hisses. So she walks away. The Hirasawa sisters are walking together on the way to school too.
OP
Everyone is in the clubroom table having tea, but not talking with each other. Yui walks in and joins them, complaining about the cold. Yui suddenly placed her cold hands on Ritsu's cheeks. As payback, Ritsu does the same thing to Yui.
番外編 冬の日！
The cold makes it hard for Yui to play the guitar. She tries to play it with the gloves on, but the pick keeps slipping off. When she does manage to get a hold of it, it keeps getting stuck by the strings. Ritsu says that that is obvious and asks Ritsu if she agrees, but is staring blankly. Yui then asks everyone to have hotpot at her house on Sunday, but sighs filled the room: Tsumugi has something to do, Ritsu had promised her younger brother to see a movie, Azusa has to stay at home. By this point, Yui is already disappointed. She asks Mio too, but she can't too as she's writing a new song and blames Yui and Ritsu for distracting her and shows her a notebook full of scribbles as proof. There was a slight pause before those two apologized to her. In the end, Yui would have it with just Ui (and Gitah).
While everyone walks home, Tsumugi suddenly calls out that she has to leave and runs towards the fast food restaurant (the very same restaurant featured in most K-On episodes), leaving everyone puzzled as to what she was up to, like meeting up with a boyfriend. Ritsu feels uncomfortable when the word "boyfriend" is mentioned. At that point, Ritsu & Mio and Yui & Azusa go their seperate ways. Not long later, Azusa says that she has some shopping for "some toys" to do near the station before heading home, but doesn't want Yui to come along and excuses herself from there.
Meanwhile, Mio asks Ritsu about something, but Ritsu suddenly stops and turns around. Mio wonders if there is something wrong.
Yui walks out of the convince store with hot meat buns in her hands.
Morning has arrived. A girl is seen opening the sliding door with her legs while she shivers in the cold. She walks out of the door and takes the newspaper from the mailbox. She looked at the mailbox closely, but finds nothing else in there. She looks around for something before walking back in and closing the door.
At Azusa's house, she took out something she bought earlier. The gray cat in the scene belongs to her classmate (who is seen mostly with Ui in school) whose grandmother was supposed to take care of, but caught a cold. It's still a kitten, so she's afraid to leave it by itself. However, Azusa has never raised a cat before. She takes it in anyway as there was no one else who would do it.
Tsumugi is in her work uniform and punches in her card. Mio is on a train, bringing her notebook along. Yui has only just began to wake up.
Ritsu lies on the bed, reading a sheet of paper that sounded like a poem. On the line "But I want to see how you look with your bangs down" made her deep in thought. She removes her headband (that unknown girl from earlier was her), added some hair cream, and looks into the mirror: she looks weird. Her younger brother called if she was ready go head out. Ritsu puts her headband back, grabs a coat, and heads out of the room. She enters back a short while later to take her mobile phone.
Azusa is sitting on the couch with the cat curled up while taking a nap. The cat meowed as she patted it, With that, she names it "Azu-nyan #2".
At the restaurant, Tsumugi is serving a customer, with a Trainee tag on, repeating their order. A colleague reminded her to smile.
Mio walks along the cold rocky beach with a canned drink, finding a nice spot to sit on to come up with a good song. The place has dark clouds, strong wind, and strong sea waves.
At the dairy section of the supermarket with Yui, Ui is disappointed that nobody is coming. Yui came up with the idea of creating a new style of hotpot that would be used when everyone comes. She suggests marshmallow soy milk hotpot and chocolate curry hotpot, but Ui doesn't think that it would work. Yui argues back by saying that they might be tasty. On that, Ui suggests strawberry milk.
CM
At the beach, the cold and the strong winds made it hard for Mio to come up with anything and wished that she should have just went to Yui's house for hotpot, but everyone else had something to do and wonders what they are up to.
Ritsu and her younger brother has left from the movie theater. All of a sudden, she touches his cheeks and finds them worm. The brother (named Tainaka) is horrified by this but is saved by a friend who is on the way to Suzuki's house (Wonder who's that? Ui's friend?) and joins him. After Ritsu's younger brother left, she looks at the reflection of herself in the glass window.
At Tsumugi's workplace, she placed a cup of cola on the tray, but the customer ordered coffee instead. At that she takes the drink away, but bumps into her colegue and spilling the drink onto her. Although the latter apoligized, Tsumugi panicked and deeply applogized repeately.
Azusa woke up from her nap and finds out that the kitten is unwell and is chocking out something.
Back to Ritsu, she is reminded with the mysterious piece of paper placed in the mailbox and belives that it's a love letter. It was at that moment that everyone received a message from Yui asking if they would rather have a marshmallow soy milk hotpot or a chocolate curry hotpot. Everyone is puzzled as to what the message meant.
The Hirazawa sisters are now at the vegatables section. Yui wonders why nobody is replying, before she receives a call from Azusa. Azusa said not to send weird messages at "times like this". Yui did not understand what she meant by that. Azusa explained that the cat a friend had she had been entrusted with is not feeling well and there is no one else at home. She's at a loss at what to do.
The Hirazawa sisters are now at Azusa's house with the cat sleeping. Azusa didn't know that cats coughed up hairballs. Yui then feeds Azusa with a marshmallow and says that it's better to have it as it is. She checks her phone to find that everyone has repiled to her.
Everyone is now gathered at the restaurant where Tsumugi works at. Jun, who gave Azusa the cat, has now collected it back. Mio did not come up with anything to write. Yui is amazed at how they could do things by themselves and leaving Yui behind to become adults. At that, Mio asks Ritsu about the lyrics she had handwritten and left it in her mailbox. Ritsu was shocked when she said that: all the while she thought that it was a love letter from a mysterious sender. She feels uneasy on the thought of having a same-sex relationship before strangling and said not to do things the old-fashioned way. In defense, Mio said that she had informed in advance, but Ritsu continues on.
At the clubroom, everyone wonders why Tsumugi is playing the keyboard as usual while everyone else is having difficulity playing theirs. Yui touches them and finds them warm. Ritsu and Mio joins in. Tsumugi has a high body tempreature.
Everyone is having a nice warm cup of tea and some cakes. She would be working at that restaurant until the end of the year (How long is that? 1 month? 11 months? Has Christmas and New Year's alerady passed?). Yui then wonders if it's expensive to rent the Budokan, as they can't do a live performance if they don't. Tsumugi comments that it's good to have big dreams. As they are not professionals yet, they could do with some practice.
ED
[insert "大正野球娘。" episode 1 trailer here instead of the usual "Next Time" trailer here]
The whole series in 7min 17min (basically, a collection of the 36sec summaries up to episode 12)
Overall review of the series: "K-On!" is a great series to watch as a whole and meets almost all of the requirements that would have me to look forward to it and watch it to the end. It has nice character design and a great storyline to go with it. No offense, but most of the other anime I had watch either have great storyline, but questionable character design, or very moe (萌え) characters, but horrible storyline. It's strange how I can write a lot based on how little there is in this special. I started writing this on Friday, but the Spring 2009 anime review and the news ofMJ's death delayed it further.
I was thinking of doing Haruhi too, but I already had trouble doing this already, and multiplying what I had done for "K-On!" by 2 and add another 2 episode is torturing if not willing to do it. You might have probably have seen some kind of pattern on the way I wrote. If I start now, I would have 13 episodes' worth to catch up with. However, the time spent doing this could be better spent doing other things like my stories on my main blog, which I have not put up anything (not even in draft) for quite a while. On top of that, I have to head off to somewhere from July onwards, with more details on my main blog. Since I'm writing this like out of leisure, it has been great. Due to me being away, I probably won't be able to watch from 10th July onwards and maybe the 2 days before that as I need to do some packing and sleep early. (The time of this post tell you how messed up my sleeping hours are.)
