Fall 2009 Season Watchlist and Railgun Impressions

All right, it’s time for a new season. This time I’m not gonna go that much into details as the first shows have already started airing and thus I’m going to have to push out a first impressions post out in the near future anyway. I had a chance to check out the first episode of JC Staff’s A Certain Scientific Railgun (To Aru Kagaku no Choudenjibou) so let me say a word or two about it first.

JC Staff brings us back to the Academy City with this spin-off of To Aru Majutsu no Index, on which I have already expressed my opinions several times. Now what makes me think Railgun is going to be any better?
For starters: No Index. Index was the biggest eyesore I’ve seen in a while and getting rid of her is definitely a good thing.
Secondly: Lead character is not a generic “Protectin’ ma friends”-fag a la Touma.
Thirdly: Mikoto was the hottest girl as well as the most badass esper in Index and now she has her own show.
And lastly: Railgun isn’t an attempt to create a groundbreaking epic story about a conflict between magic and science, so chances of it falling flat on its face are nowhere near to those of its hapless predecessor.
That all said, it’s not like there are no looming problems around. Now I don’t know what you think of the shower-fondling scene in the first episode but seriously, I think JC Staff went a bit GONZO this time. I don’t really mind the fondling itself but they could’ve made it a bit less blatant. Also, there may be no Index around but Kuroko makes admirable effort to make up for her. Although at least there’s the difference that Kuroko is annoying only half of her screen time whereas Index never ceased being a rotten bitch – except when she was trying to kill Touma in which by all rights she should have succeeded. This was only the first episode though so I’m hoping to see the Kuroko x Mikoto-fanservice toned down a bit as the series progresses and there’s less need to lure in fans.
Audiovisual execution was pretty much the only truly strong point in Index and Railgun does not lose an inch to its predecessor in this department – quite the opposite. The scene of Mikoto blowing the bank robber sky-high with a coin and enough electricity to run half of Botswana for a week was stunningly well done with extremely smooth animation and boomy sounds. All in all the graphical department is well done and JC Staff isn’t as prone to declining over time as for example GONZO (just look at Shangri-la! God damn…).
I’ve only read a couple of chapters of the source material so I have little idea how the series is will progress in the long run but the start seems rather decent. Just cut down on the fanservice and make Kuroko less obnoxious. Railgun probably won’t be an epic show, at least not right after Bakemonogatari, but as long as JC Staff doesn’t screw up the writing and try to stuff half of the Catholic dogma into 25 minutes of air-time it stands a great chance of becoming one of the better shows in the season.

Now on to the watchlist:

11eyes
An eroge adaptation with a background story trippy enough to make 1200 Micrograms look like a folk band. Since a bunch of people I know seem to be all over this, I’m following the crowd. I don’t really expect much out of this one – the animation studio Dogakobo’s recent productions include rather sub-par eroge-adaptations Koihime Musou and Myself;Yourself.

A Certain Scientific Railgun

Natsu no Arashi 2
Saw the first one, it was decent.

Kuuchuu Buranko
Based on a novel about an eccentric doctor, this seems like House if the Japs did it. Very interesting.

Kämpfer
The stupidest thing I’ve heard of since Akikan! and Google Wave, but can hardly match Jewden-chan. Checking it out for now, it’s good to have one retarded show on the list so the rest will look better. Okay, this show is fucking horrible. DROPPED.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms
A joint project between Chinese and Japanese animation companies about an old Chinese novel. Since I haven’t read it (although I should have), I might as well give this one a try.

Seitokai no Ichizon
I’ve heard about this but I’ve still been unable to determine what exactly it is about. Sitting around in student council room drinking tea and talking shit about other students? Oh well, seems worth finding out.

White Album 2
Ooh, the RAGE Album continues. Since I managed to stomach the first season, I might as well go for another run.