Mid – Month Impressions [MAY]

How is animu this season lately? It seems that crazy shit has been happening this season. Let’s take a look.

Dropped for a while

Beelzebub -I forgot to DL one episode, now I can’t find time to download so many episodes.

Steins;Gate- Will get back to it after 10 episodes. This type of series is better to marathon than watch weekly.

Hen Zemi – Got bored a bit. I still find it good though so I’ll get to it later

Gosick – I got bored again? I marathoned half the show about a month ago. . . I’ll marathon this again once it finishes.

Tiger and Bunny – Derpy CG. I actually stopped watching C for two weeks because of these derpy CG.

Hidan no Aria – It sucks so badly yet why am I tempting to press the download torrent button on this?

Plan to get into

Astarotte no Omocha – I heard some good comments about it. Is it any good?

Fireball Charming – Again, lots of praises.

DOG DAYS – Yeah. . . Maybe later. . . a lot later. But I am mildly interested.

Dropped Completely

TORIKO – The type of thinking injected here will endanger so many species.

Oretachi Tsubasa wa nai – All I see is a bad game being badly adapted.

Hoshizora e Kakaru Hoshi –I facepalmed watching Akasaka and facedesked when watching its ending. NO WAY WILL I FINISH THIS.

30 Year old Virgins – I actually love B Gata H Kei. This one just. . . sucks.

Sofuteni – Tennis my ass. Tennis Porn.

NOW FOR THE REAL DEAL

My list of the series I’m actually watching in a weekly basis:

11) Kami Nomi II

It’s getting more interesting but it can really get dull sometimes. I like Hacqua though. Nice addition.

10) Deadman Wonderland

Manglobe doesn’t know how to animate action. It feels like Angel Beats where people die as a joke but in Angel Beats they survive and here they don’t. I thought that part of Angel Beats was funny but not in here. Also they can’t get the mood right to this series .One thing they do get right on is the torturing of Ganta. Episode per episode, I just feel sorry for him.

9) Maria Holic Alive

SHAFT SEQUEL. It’s not that funny anymore.

8) [C]

It’s not as breakthrough as I thought. The Pokemon battles got duller; same animation wise. But the plot’s getting along and it’s getting more interesting. The 3D Clown dude maybe more evil than I thought. JUST LIKE KYUUBEY IN THE FIRST FEW EPISODES OF MADOKA. Speaking of 3D, the CG here just suck.

7) Denpa Onna

Again not as breakthrough as I thought. It’s definitely a good series and I’m still very intrigued about the mysteries here especially Erio’s past but all in all I’m lukewarm about this series. It’s very cute and moe though, I’d give you that. The twintails on episode was just overload. Damn Aunt.

6) Azazel-San

Lol Series is Lol. Fucking crazy series this is. It just shits on you.

My TOP 5

5) Hansaku Iroha

It’s gone a bit downhill these past few episodes I must admit. The writing has gotten a bit duller but it hasn’t gotten uninteresting at all. I definitely appreciate the effort of fleshing out each of the characters in this series. I’m sure it will be something to be appreciated once the big plot of this series kicks in which I predict in A few more episodes. They don’t just show Kou in the preview next week for nothing amirite?

4) Ao no Exorcist

Also focusing on the characters a bit these past few weeks, Ao no Exorcist has gotten a bit peaceful. Not a bad thing at all since it’s nice knowing Rin more and also those other exorcist students. This series feels like a Soul Eater/FMA mix.

3) Nichijou

Don’t get me wrong, it still one of my favorite series right now. But dammnit why is Anohana so perfect? Well getting to this series, I must say, as I’ve always repeated, I LOVE THIS SERIES. This is my type of comedy. Random Jokes, Random Characters, Random everything. People are way too harsh on this series. The reason I’m not blogging this is because I do think comedy gets ruined if you start nitpicking every single part of it. Yeah. . . I’ll just enjoy this piece of awesomeness. I am waiting for more Tsundere-chan and her guns + Those soccer team duo that’s always in that room. Also more SAKAMOTO please!

2) Moshidora

A bit unfair to put it here since it finished but yeah. I’m just gonna say that this series is awesome. These baseball animu, are all of them good? I enjoyed this, Ookiku and Cross Game very much. I’ve blabbed about this too much in the Moshidora category on the right. Go click it if you want.

1) Anohana

Again, my rage on why I put this here! It’s just that. . . it’s so perfect. Everything in this series is done perfectly! The likeable characters, the very real emotions, the goal of having Menma’s wish granted, everything. I’m just putting a wild guess here but it seems that all the friends think it’s they’re fault Menma died. Well I did take a wild guess with Yuki-chan and I was WAY TOO CORRECT. I guess it’s too early to call it a masterpiece but it’s completely headed towards to becoming one.

Addendum

So yeah everything’s all and well. There’s already Moshidora that went in my Top 30 series, and there’s many more legendary series here. If right now, I were to pick which series I would think would go to my recommended list, there would be about 5-6 series. A lot more than last season’s two. Though the only ones with even a dearth of potential to go near Madoka Magica is Nichijou (Favorite Comedy) and Anohana (Favorite drama).

Moshidora (END) 90 points

So much feelings nailed her to the ground. I mean when your happy and sad at the same time, what the hell do you do?

Wow I can’t believed I actually like this show. I mean I was very off put by the first episode calling it dull and a bit of a Cross Game copycat with less interesting characters. The special thing of this series is of course, that damn “Management” book. It managed to put the baseball team into Nationals. Now if you’ve watched truckloads of anime, you’ll realize how much a big of a deal Koshien is to these high school players. It’s like some dream for them to be there. The catch of this series is of course how this Management book put the baseball team there.

I could care less about this Management book, but then when Minami used it, it felt like it gave this Management book a bit of a heart. I mean she completely colored it out with stuff like marketing turning into a very moving interview of each players and all. You can’t help yourself but be moved by it especially when you saw how they started improving and winning games. I did think that the “No-bunt-no-ball strategy” was dumb and will never work in real baseball, it worked well with what the series is trying to convey. Use this damn Management book!

For the characters themselves, while I don’t find them particularly interesting except for Minami, they are well developed considering this is only ten episodes. Also consider that this is only one novel so developments that were shown here where particularly outstanding like the coach, Asano, Yunosuke and co. Even the green haired side character turned to be useful.

A particular scene from episode 9, explained more in episode 10, was probably the most moving scene I’ve seen in a while. Minami shouting, “Gambatte” to the players even though she’s supposed to hate baseball and think it’s all useless. . . that was just godly. Actually the entirety of episode 10 gave me goosebumps. Even the OP and ED theme songs were used properly and I really liked that.

Aesthetics wise, while I finally appreciated it by the end, it was pretty dull. I like water color effects, but not one introduced here in Moshidora. It felt a bit too simplistic, not as horrible as Kaichou wa Maid Sama, but definitely nowhere neare Kimi ni Todoke’s. Considering this is Production IG we are talking about, it’s one of their poorer productions. Nothing against the directing itself though since the pacing felt perfect and everything (The OP and the introduction used in episode 9 and 10 felt a bit insulting though. . . I mean something worth crying about is already happening and you still put that introduction. . . I never liked that introduction anyway or the narrator).

Now I totally get why it sold over a million copies. It’s one of those series that spreads fast because it actually has a good title. It’s promotion came from word-of-mouth which really meant that it was widely appreciated. I rarely get goosebumps from an anime and this is one of a few that did.

Rational Rating:

Story: 47/50 (I just considered the slow first few episodes a bit but it’s one of those series that the total is more than it’s sum.)

Production: 16/20 (While I consider the directing almost perfect, the animation is nothing to talk about really. It works fine though since it’s never intrusive.)

Characters: 17/20 (While the characters are not to my liking except for Minami and a few others, great character development was really shown even with its short 10-episode run)

Overall Feel: 10/10 (Rarely does Anime give me goosebumps. A certain scene in episode 9 really won me over.)

Verdict: 90/100 (Just. . . EVERYONE WATCH THIS!)

Moshidora – 09

When she started shouting, “Gambatte” , it kicked in to me on how awesome this series is.

I knew Minami was going to have her emo phase after Yuki’s. . . I mean she even got a bit irritating there on the bus scene. When she came back though, it dawned to me how much she cared about Yuki and the baseball team. She really wanted them to go to Koshien. Her shout of encouragement in the dugout is one of the most moving scene I’ve seen in a while. I just hope they don’t lose.

Yuki death flag only dawned to me when I read some posts on ASuki forum. Damnit why do I keep looking for spoilers?

Moshidora – 08

BASEBALL’S INTENSE

I’ve been actually watching this episode per episode since last week. It really turned into something else. Now I know why this became an instant novel hit. It really is inspiring. PLEASE LET THEM GO TO KOSHIEN ALREADY AND DO NOT KILL YUKI. Although that’s almost redundant seeing the ending of this episode. Please let a miracle happen.

Actually I’m noting on how the story of this series are great. Aesthetics wise, not that very impressive. In the end though, isn’t it the story that’s important?

Moshidora – 01

I had to put a picture so yea. . . 

To be honest this first episode is pretty dull. Maybe they’re just trying to get the exposition out for more awesome but I got a bit tired in the end. There’s a lot of potential though and I like baseball so I hope this gets better. The catch of this series really is on how that Management book will help the baseball team go to Koshien. It’s only ten episodes and it would be an interesting experiment to blog this so I will.