I thought the last couple of seasons were pretty weak. Maybe most of 2007 for me, personally…

However, it looks like there’s more than a few shows that have an interesting premise and I managed to watch the first episodes of a few of them. I’ll be updating this post if I get around to watching any more. A few shows I really intend to watch have not been subbed yet, that being: Kaiba, RD and Library Wars.

Staying Power

1. Himitsu - The Revelation
I had a problem with the music accompanying the show. Some of it really didn’t fit the scenes, for example the scene where Maki meets Aoki - with the swiveling and the magical sounding music in the background. It was like a failed parody of shoujo moments when the girl and boy meet…except obviously it wasn’t meant to be. That odd marching/off kilter jazz music was also quite strange. Suffice it to say, Maki’s got the personality of Naru from Ghost Hunt, know-it-all, probably has some super mad skillz and runs a whole team (of course) of experts. I enjoyed this almost accurate representation of “science fiction”…with the MRI and the hippocampus and cerebrum mentioned. The pacing was also pretty good - with all the ethic issues of such anime mentioned (privacy, etc) but it wasn’t … terribly suspenseful which is OK, it’s just the first episode. It’s definitely somewhat of a serious show. Maki looks totally like a chick, I kept expecting a medium toned woman’s voice to come out whenever he talked but hey…
I will definitely watch this show, unless it turns into Dragonaut…which is unlikely. I’m drawn to sci-fi and mystery no matter what.

2. Itazura Na Kiss
I watched the Taiwanese drama of it a few years ago, the sequel They Kiss Again is actually out but I wasn’t impressed with the first episode and a half. However, I’m very glad this great shoujo manga was finally made into an anime. It’s pretty well…shoujo, it’s classic and it’s light-hearted. I’m not a huge fan of shoujo but I liked the story a lot from watching the drama so I intend to watch this too just for the hell of it. Plus this story is very character driven like most shoujo school romances (Hana Yori Dango, Hana Kimi, Kare Kano, etc) which makes for interest. The first two episodes aren’t terribly great, mainly because I already know what will happen due to the drama, but aside from that - nonetheless relatively entertaining.

3. Kurenai
I kind of watched this while waiting for more episodes of the other shows to come out, but it was a very pleasant surprise. The animation is excellent; I like the colours and style. The story seems unimpressive on the whole, but actually, the way they paced the episodes and introduced the characters are interesting. There’s also an element of something mysterious about the main character’s arm that I’m curious about. Murasaki is also a very likeable little girl, even though she has what seems like the stuck-up attitude of a rich girl but she’s willing to learn and adapt and listens. All in all, if they continue with the quality of the first two episodes I’ll be watching this show for sure.

4. Real Drive
Wow, I’m glad Shirow and Production I.G. collaborated to produce another series related to the GitS universe. This isn’t just a “milk the franchise” thing (that I cal tell so far). The first episode has excellent animation, ONE OF THE FEW NON ANOREXIC FEMALES plaguing the whole show (Red Garden anyone?) and another step beyond GitS with this show’s premise of the metal real (metal) network. The chief Kuruma must have a cyber body because after fifty years, Haru definitely aged whereas Kuruma looks exactly the same. If Haru has a cyber brain, isn’t it easy for him to get a cyber body too? And if he can afford a top notch cyborg to dive for him on the off days…you’d think he’d get a cyber body. Perhaps my questions will be answered in the coming episodes…

Note: Kaiba and RD will definitely go here because I hear good things about the visuals for Kaiba and well, I can’t pass up Shirow!

Possibly, Maybe

1. Vampire Knight
The only shoujo manga I can probably admit to liking is by Chiho Saito with her wacky wacky Utena. Otherwise, all that dramatic “Yuuki” whisperings behind curtains and pining away in the corner and male vampire angst and a unimpressive female lead (so far…you’re not special that you almost got attacked by a vampire, you can have snowy reminiscing all you like, but it doesn’t show anything…) and a gothic looking school and random rose petals in the OP sequence just kind of annoys me, mildly. However, we’ll see…if it gets too angsty and whiny, especially in the “romance” section I’ll have to ditch it.

2. Crystal Blaze
Jesus Christ, the orange haired girl is an annoying brat. Her voice is annoying, her attitude is annoying…and the male characters are really 2D. The brooding asshole and his wimpy seeming brother. Then there’s that timid … strange girl with the spectacles. Not quite an appealing team in shows like these, but I’m curious how they’re going to develop the characters (if any) and what the crystal girl is - if it’s going to be something akin to Elfen Lied (I have powers and a dark past blah blah blah).

Dropped

1. Blassreiter
OK, what the hell is wrong with GONZO? Last Exile was really well done - the animation, characters, story…everything. Their transgression includes Dragonaut, the boobs aren’t as gigantically disproportioned here but the ugly CG is still ugly. I didn’t mind the action scenes, but I did mind the awkward ugly CG things. Ugh…unless this turns out to be amazing, it seems to be just Dragonaut toned down. SOMEONE tell GONZO to quit with the CG.

2. Golgo 13
I understand this is an old detective manga. I just didn’t really enjoy the episode, it’s very manly and all that. Which is fine, just not terribly interesting to me.

3. Soul Eater
Update: Due to time, I’ve decided to not watch this show at least until I hear really good things about it. It is a hefty 51 episodes and although I liked the designs, the animation - I don’t intend to watch more of it until later.
After seeing moderate to good reviews of this, I decided to watch it - after all, it’s BONES and the animation looked pretty funky. Square Enix is also in on this, not that that’s necessarily a good thing (Prism Ark anyone?) but after watching a bit of it, it started to give me Kingdom Hearts background design vibes. In fact, it would probably translate well to a Square Enix Kingdom Hearts-esque game where the characters had giant transforming scythes instead of keys but eh…
I get a bit of the Ouran humour from this, but not as extreme. It was amusing and yes “funny” but not absolutely hilarious. I do like the way it’s directed though, it’s definitely well done if not amazing and I hope it starts going somewhere so I suspect I’ll bother watching it for at least a few more episodes.

4. The Daughter of Twenty Faces
Yikes…some serious “issues”. Is this supposed to be magic realism? That scene when Twenty Faces faces turns out to be Kawai is like “day dream of oppressed little girl imprisoned by evil relatives”. And then later on, you discover it was a dream…and the girl’s just crazy and delusional. But nope, this show asks you to believe that a Robin Hood trope exists and he’s kind hearted enough to steal from the rich (and probably do something good?) as well as rescue poor little girls. I don’t know about Twenty Faces, but I’ve had enough of very 1D characters. Other than the fact that, Twenty Faces just HAPPENED to feel sorry for the poor little girl while stealing that ruby and decided to save her…or unless there was a twist (long lost relative? friend?) - there’s no way this first episode made it believable for me that the girl’s conflict can be resolved so easily. Even if Twenty Faces pretended to be Kawai (either by signing up for the family for a while in disguise to figure out the girl’s situation - which I don’t understand why he would or if he knocked the real Kawai out at the last minute), they did a poor job of explaining how and if there’s a reason, it better be explained or else it’s … just not credible.
In fact it’s such a cheap deus ex machina. Someone is trapped - add a genius, generic looking thief with his people and a blimp and super car driving skills! Since Twenty Faces is such a generic looking character, is he not a central member of the show? I didn’t care to watch the ED. The twist was kind of interesting but the gimmick was bad.
I’ll consider this dropped actually but I’m going to read summaries of the next one or two episodes to really drop it. I do like the animation and design, even if the main character is a bobble head.

Tags: previe, spring 2008 anime

Category: Episode Synopsis

A. Papillon is not amused.