Winter 2009 Mid-Season Check

Author: nova

Once again it’s about time to check what’s going on this fine season. I apologize for the recent silence – I was busy spending my spring break in Austria with no chance to access internet before reaching Munich airport on the way back. Another reason for delay would be that I managed to trash my beloved companion and it took me quite a while to skim through the depths of BIOS and restore everything back to working order. In any case the things are now pretty much back to the usual here at Jinx!, so let’s get started.

Akikan!

A proud member of the category “so utter fucking shit that it’s good“. Akikan! is simply a horrible show with a shitty story, boring characters, ugly graphics and overall embarassingly bad execution. Don’t miss it.

Asu no Yoichi

A mediocre manga adapted into a mediocre anime. AnY’s saving grace is the existence of Akikan! which completely overshadows it in all aspects of fail. While it manages to dodge most obvious landmines, the series is also unable to pull off anything that would make it worth remembering. Three good things about it? Makino Yui, Tomatsu Haruka and Tamura Yukari.

Chrome Shelled Regios

Ambitious but unimpressive, CSR is bogged down by characters you don’t really care about, incomprehensible plot background and piles of clichés. Watchable for Felli, otherwise nothing to write home about.

Clannad After Story

Not much I can say. Clannad AS comes down the tubes kicking butt and taking names. Excellent and consistent audiovisual execution is something we all have grown to expect from KyoAni – no surprises there. But Clannad AS proves itself to be a bit more than just a fanservice ride for the fans of the visual novel and an advertisement for the rest. While its first season might not have been anything totally groundbreaking, After Story has evolved into a mature and lifelike drama fully capable of moving even cold-hearted elitist blogger fucks such as myself. Forget about the generic teenage highschool romance stuff we’ve seen a bazillion times – After Story boldly goes and explores the nearly uncharted regions of post-educational life with its ups and downs completely overshadowing its predecessor and many rivals. Bottom line: Watch Clannad so you can watch After Story.

Gundam 00 2nd Season

What I find incredible about G00 2nd is how the story stays solid as a rock while the whole thing is moving at a breathtaking pace. Not much to say here – Sunrise comes and shows how a sequel is done. Gundam 00 2nd may not be introducing any new tricks but it does one hell of a job with the old ones.

Kurokami

I have sort of mixed feelings about Kurokami but I’m quite sure I will end up disliking it. Although the story itself is decent and the characters not all that bad, there’s something about Kurokami that repulses me. Maybe it’s the obvious repetitiveness – seriously, pretty much all fights in the show are annoyingly similar. Proposition for a drinking game: Take a shot every time Keita shouts “Kuro!” during a fight. Two shots per every Mega Exe. All in all I get strong “haven’t I seen all this somewhere before?” vibes about Kurokami and can hardly prevent myself from comparing it to Fate/stay night. TL;DR: So-so for now, but it could be a whole lot better.

RideBack

Beautiful animation and background art combined with an interesting and almost unorthodox storyline had earned RideBack a well deserved place as my favorite of the season. Sure, the plot background is full of logical holes but that was exactly the case with Library War last year and definitely didn’t prevent me from loving it. The story has been taking a turn towards Gundam 00-ish development recently – is GGP the new A-LAWS and the unification of the world such a good idea after all? I must raise my hat to first-time director Atsushi Takahashi for boldly introducing something refreshing and original.

Sora Kake GIRL (Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo)

As random as a show can be without being SHAFT. Sunrise’s Sora Kake is beating all records in throwing buttloads of random and confusing stuff at the viewer to the point that even JC Staff would have a thing or two to learn from it. But the amazing part is that despite all this the show remains pleasant and simply fun to watch. The eccentric and narcissistic AI Leopard easily qualifies as the funniest anime character I’ve seen in quite a while, the animation is smooth, special effects are top of the line and the girls adorable as they come. Sora Kake is a huge mess of an anime show but hell, it works. Now let us hope that it will not attempt to take itself too seriously – that would be the biggest landmine the production team can possibly step on. In any case, recommended.

To Aru Majutsu no Index

I’ve washed my hands of this show so I’ll just say that Index sucks. JC Staff put the cruise control on and forgot that they will still have to steer.

Toradora!

This teenage romance behemoth from JC Staff has well earned its place as one of the few good adaptations from the production house. Although I have a feeling that I am going to be rather displeased by the ending, the ride thus far has been exciting and the sceneries nice. Toradora! doesn’t go too deep and introduces little new to the scene, but cooks up a nice soup out of traditional ingredients.

Tytania

Felli does not approve this shit.

White Album

Post-high school human relationship drama, more mature themes and decent animation managed to catch my attention but as the series has progressed it has become painfully apparent that under the gritty, realistic paintwork White Album is harem show following in the wake of Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. I can’t help but to dislike the male lead’s goody-two-shoes-attitude which has made him little more than a lap dog of all the females in the show. I was hoping for a Kimikiss-style multi-protagonist focus but that was most certainly not to be. White Album remains watchable and characters are interesting, but in my most humble opinion the harem-style is greatly undermining its chance of becoming something very memorable.

All done. I’m expecting to be rather busy with schoolwork this week but I will get to End of Evangelion as soon as the opportunity presents itself and write a little something about it. For any Finns reading this I suggest checking out niidel’s post on Bubukuuti for a nice intro to Finnish anime blogging scene.