Posts Tagged ‘crunchyroll’

Available via Crunchyroll

My Ordinary Life Eps 1-13 Released By: Crunchyroll Premiere Date: 4/2/11 Review Date: 7/22/11

Two anime for the price of one!

In this incredibly surreal comedy from Kyoto Animation, the gloves of comedy are off! On one side of town, there is a seemingly normal high school attended by Mio and her best friends Mai and Yuko. Filling their daily lives with insanity, within the first 13 episodes there will be deer wrestling, a plot to overthrow a king, a camping trip from hell and the more mundane forgetting of homework, fights with friends and keeping BL manga drawings a secret at all costs.

On the other side of town lies the Shinonome Laboratory where a loli professor has invented her own robot Nano. Constantly fitting her with new and consistently pointless updates and features, the pair live together with their talking cat Sakamoto dealing with every day situations including the consequences of the professor’s inventions, snacking and how to kill a bug trapped under a cup.

Good and the Bad

I had such a difficult time when it came to write the story synopsis for this series because really, how are you supposed to describe this one? In the latest outing from Kyoto Animation, the gods of comedy are smiling gracefully on this series as every episodes pulls out the stops and unleashes a tidal wave of sight gags, overreactions and set ups that will last for entire minutes on end just to get the audience laughing. From where I’m sitting, they’ve succeeded.

What I found so hilarious about My Ordinary Life is its willingness to go the extra mile to get the laugh. To be a fan of this series, audiences are going to have to get used to one thing very quickly and that is incredibly long set ups. Ranging anywhere from 30 seconds to 8 minutes, most of this series is when its in a period of setting up whatever joke its going for. Once you get to that moment however, sometimes you’re going to find that your moment is actually just an illusion that was never coming to begin with. The absence of a punch line is the punch line and I couldn’t help but laugh every time.

When this series is on its mark however (particularly throughout the Hakese/Nano scenes), the comedy in this series is a rain of gold down upon your brain. Going to extreme lengths, My Ordinary Life will never stop with the incredible reaction gags and physical comedy which pits woman on man, man on psychic medium or even principal on deer.

Music

What shocked me the most about My Ordinary Life is the incredibly strong musical score that goes along with this series. From deep dramatic tones to more whimsical horns, the orchestra behind this series really does an amazing job of playing up each scene to epic proportions and when you have incredible reaction gags like this series does, having a background score that can play it up to 11 is always a good thing.

Overall

This is the surreal comedy of the year that should have everyone laughing. While a good sense of patience is required for this one, there is little else standing in the way of anyone having a good time with this series. This is another comedy gem!

Available via Crunchyroll

Hanasaku Iroha Released By: Crunchyroll Premiere Date: 4/3/11 Reviewed: 7/19/11 Rated: 13+

Ohana is a teenager in Tokyo with a woman who vaguely resembles a biological mother. I mean, she IS her biological mother but she doesn’t act like it. Left completely to her own devices, Ohana has learned to take care of the house while her mother did nothing but work and go off with her boyfriends. On one night, Ohana is shocked to learn that her mother is running off with her current boyfriend in order to duck some bad debts that he is piled with. Since Ohana can’t go on the run with them, she is being sent off to the traditional inn run by her grandmother in the country.

Once she arrives, Ohana receives a rude awakening as she meets a grandmother who wants a new worker, not a new boarder. Now faced with coworkers who don’t particularly like her right away and a much harder life, Ohana must grow up while learning about herself along the way.

Good and the Bad

The 10th anniversary project from PA Works didn’t have a lot of buzz surrounding it if I recall correctly. Once it premiered however, people started talking and it became hard to dig through the praise in order to find the few negative words scattered about.

In particular, this is a beautiful series. From the opening frames to the soft background scenery that fills each episode, there will never be a time when there isn’t a feeling of pleasant comfort as Ohana goes about her days at the inn. Matched with warm tones and colors, Hanasaku Iroha has a sweet style to its artwork that goes out of its way to help create a charming world with warmth at its center.

As the series progresses, things move forward with a gentle grace. Once you meet Ohana, you know a girl who has had a rough life growing up. Her mother is completely uninvolved with her life. She’s even been trained to believe people are completely untrustworthy and undependable. Despite this, Ohana is a strong lead character that is worthy of carrying an entire series on her back.

Not a person to let her new situation get her down, Ohana breaks the mold on dramatic female leads for constantly working hard to improve herself and her situation. Unlike others in her life who are out for the easy ride (such as an aspiring famous novelist staying in the hotel), Ohana is out every day getting things done and trying to do her best along with her young coworkers.

Every Sunday morning since this series premiered I have been able to enjoy her life and feel like I’m growing a little bit along with Ohana as she discovers who she really is. Unfortunately that’s one of the places where Hanasaku Iroha fails is that this is not a series that is meant to be marathoned. Every week, the adventures of Ohana play out but very slowly in order to create a fuller episode. Very rarely will this series tell a story that lasts more than one episode but generally this works in its favor when you’re taking it one episode at a time.

There is only so much teenage drama you can watch in one sitting and Ohana will stretch that limit to the extreme. While a strong character, Ohana is prone to her own crying fits and outbursts when she really feels the need. Between figuring out how she feels about the male best friend she left behind or her mother suddenly appearing in her life again, Ohana’s life is one of drama through and through.

Overall

A slow piece but a moving one filled with plenty of wonderful affection. A well written coming of age story, this is a soft drama that everyone who complains about moe can enjoy. Well produced and put together, this has been a wonderful weekend treat for the last few weeks and I can’t see me having any issues with continuing further. Please enjoy this one!

I admit it, the second half of the season wasn’t nearly as impressive as the first. While there are still a few gems poking out from the rough, it’s hard to tell with all of this fluff and rough around the edges comedy. In this half, we’ll be talking about series ranging all the way from the very boring Sket Dance all the way to the sporty Moshidora. Luckily for me, we’ll also be hitting some of the highlights of the second half including Deadman Wonderland and A Channel.

 

Sket Dance
Premiere Date: 4/7
Studio: Tatsunoko Production
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: The sket dan is in charge of making sure the students in their school lead trouble free lives. If you have a problem, they can solve it.

Where I Started: So every episode is going to be like this? This makes my head hurt.

Where I Ended: It gets better which is more than I can say for a lot of other series this season. However, when I say that it gets better I mean that in the sense that it hadn’t really set a high mark for it to beat to begin with. It’s definitely a school comedy for those who love that sort of thing but the jokes are generally so on the nose that it’s hard to consider it particularly clever. It’s a nice attempt and some people are going to respond to it. Most are going to wish that they had looked the other direction.

Verdict: Not going to do it to myself. Fail!

 

A Channel
Premiere Date: 4/7
Studio: Studio Gokumi

Summary: Four cute girls doing cute things with some occasional yuri overtones.

Where I Started: Oh yeah, I can see myself watching this.

Where I Ended: This is K-ON with music replaced by yuri. It’s the slightly racier alternative to this season’s My Ordinary Life. It’s all of those things plus a little extra thanks to being hilarious! Yet another fluff series, this is the series for those who love their moe and need another strong dose of it in comedy form. Four girls in high school doing cute things in their everyday lives isn’t going to satisfy every otaku in the audience but if you do enjoy moe comedy, this is not going to disappoint you.

Verdict: Moe comedy win! Pass!

 

Softenni
Premiere Date: 4/7
Studio: XEBEC

Summary: Four other girls have ecchi comedy fun while training to reach their next tennis tournament.

Where I Started: I have to watch more of this? 

Where I Ended: There’s a line that certain series can toe around in order to remain a fun ecchi comedy. Some series take awhile but eventually they find that line. SoftTeni found that line almost right away but ignored it anyway. From the first few minutes you know exactly what you’re getting into with this one. Bottom of the barrel humor that isn’t afraid to rely on whatever tropes it can think of to get its point across, this isn’t even ecchi comedy for those who like it to enjoy.

Verdict: Fail, fail, fail.

 

Pretty Rhythm: Aurora Dream
Premiere Date: 4/9
Studio: Tatsunoko Production

Summary: Two girls are randomly chosen to be the new stars of the Prism Show which involves magical jumps, ice skating, dancing and being an idol.

Where I Started: It doesn’t always look great but I can see where it’s going.

Where I Ended: If it weren’t for this series being such a commercial, I could actually see myself watching and enjoying this. However as someone who looks at this series and sees a price tag on everything in sight it’s hard to enjoy it nearly as much. While the animation is questionable at times, this is still a not bad shoujo series aimed at selling toys to little girls.

Verdict: I won’t be following it but this was a solid introduction and deserves a pass.

 

Astarotte’s Toy
Premiere Date: 4/10
Studio: Diomedia
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: A 10 year old succubus princess must suck life juice from men in order to survive and is given an adult human male to become friends with.

Where I Started: That wasn’t bad but still…

Where I Ended: I tried to like this one and by the end of 3 episodes I had even chuckled a bit at the various antics. This is still just a premise that I can’t get behind and won’t be continuing with. For the record, you’d expect a series of this nature to rely on fan service and sex humor a lot more than it does. This is still just far beyond the line of what moe and ecchi fans should look for in a series. Cute in its own way but be sure that you’re the type who can ignore character ages.

Verdict: Not as bad it could’ve been but still a fail.

 

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control
Premiere Date: 4/14
Studio: Tatsunoko Production
Available via Funimation

Summary: A poor college student is offered a chance to enter the seedy financial district where he could have all his money problems solved. All he has to do is sign over his future and take part in weekly battles without going bankrupt.

Where I Started: This could be interesting.

Where I Ended: I was right, it could have been interesting had they tried just a little bit harder. While the tsundere asset was a nice addition, there isn’t enough here to make this unique premise into what it could have been. With more time, this series might go somewhere but during its initial impression it left me with little curiosity to find out more. If there is a chance that it’s going somewhere I might catch it on DVD someday but for now, this is a rainy day series at best.

Verdict: Fail

 

Ano hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi Mada Shiranai
Premiere Date: 4/14
Studio: A-1 Pictures

Summary: A dead girl comes back with a wish to bring together all of her old friends who have all grown apart.

Where I Started: Wow, powerful and beautiful.

Where I Ended: Another coming of age story, this one is one of the more powerful of the season as the lead character is just instantly likeable. Compelling writing brings together a sympathetic cast of characters in order to create a beautiful landscape of detail to get lost in. There is little about this series that one can complain about and is one that everyone should be checking out.

Verdict: A Noitamina series for everyone. Pass!

 

Aria the Scarlet Ammo
Premiere Date: 4/14
Studio: JC Staff
Available via Funimation

Summary: In a high school where students are trained to be international police, a guy runs into the elite Aria who wants him to become her partner (or as she calls it ‘slave’).

Where I Started: Where have I seen this before?

Where I Ended: Leaving behind the many times the series decides to steal the plot from the movie Speed, the series itself is a rehash of action series you’ve seen in the past. The tsundere lead is a cookie cutter of heroines who have come before her and the action is hardly worth getting excited about. The one place where this absolutely succeeded was in its music but I’m not watching a series for its soundtrack.

Verdict: Another cheap action that’s not even visually impactful. Fail!

 

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
Premiere Date: 4/14
Studio: Shaft

Summary: A high school student moves in with his aunt and cousin, the latter of which believes that she is an alien after going missing for six months.

Where I Started: I really want to like this but damn is it hard.

Where I Ended: It took awhile but I finally came to a certain peace with this series. After so many dark series, director Akiyuki Shinbo returns with this comedy that never quite finds its footing. The artwork is the first hurdle to overcome with the writing coming in on a close second. I have faith that this series is going somewhere but these first three episodes aren’t giving me much evidence of that beyond my healthy (hopeful?) hunch.

Summary: I continue out of faith that it’s going to get better but still fail.

 

Deadman Wonderland
Premiere Date: 4/16
Studio: Manglobe
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: A kid is framed for the murder of his entire class and sent to a twisted amusement park where convicts battle for their lives in front of a live audience.

Where I Started: The grittiest series this season and I love it.

Where I Ended: Every season needs an incredibly dark and twisted series that leaves you captivated with just how far it’s willing to go. This season the title of that series is Deadman Wonderland. Dark and twisted, at one point I cursed that this series was so heavily censored but as I saw just how dark it was willing to go with its ideas, I became more and more grateful for it instead. Once you start getting into the violence and twisted story behind this series, it’s hard to take your eyes away.

Verdict: Pass!

 

[SinglePic not found]Moshidora
Premiere Date: 4/25
Studio: Production I.G

Summary: A high school baseball manager accidently picks up a business management book and uses it to coach the team towards the nationals.

Where I Started: Alright, I’m getting your point. Now make something happen.

Where I Ended: Once it stopped trying to introduce itself, Moshidora turned into a fun baseball series about doing your very best. Bringing together the best elements of sports and dramedy, this turned into a fun drama about thinking outside the box and doing something different. Then you add in some nice animation and a wonderful orchestral soundtrack and you have a surprisingly fun little treat.

Verdict: Shockingly this one is getting a pass.

So I am supremely late with this. Like really freaking late. How late am I? My deadline for this is usually the first of the month. I have a really good excuse though and that was there was just too much good anime coming out this season! Between the slice of life series proving much more interesting than previously imagined, the comedies being off the charts hilarious and the action providing more than enough to keep your eyes bugging out, I’m willing to call this the second good season we’ve had in a row. If this is what the first half of the year has brought, what will summer and fall bring?

For the first part, I’m taking a look at all of the series I was able to hit from the first half of the month ranging from Dog Days to Steins;Gate.

 

Dog Days
Premiere Date: 4/2
Studio: Seven Arcs

Summary: A foreign teenager living in Japan is summoned to an alternate world where dog people and cat people are fighting an endless war of cute. After being recruited to the dog side by the beautiful princess, he is crushed to learn that he won’t be able to return home.

Where I Started: This is so cute I think I just went into diabetic shock.

Where I Ended: This is my absolutely mindless series of the season. I can be totally upfront about this though; this is a monumentally sugary series and beyond that I can’t think of any real redeeming qualities. The story is laughably silly and the writing is shallow at even its best of times. It’s just that Seven Arcs has created such a beautiful looking world and adorable characters that it’s hard to care.

Verdict: Pick this one up! I’m going all the way!

 

Tiger and Bunny
Premiere Date: 4/2
Studio: Toei
Available via Viz Anime

Summary: Super heroes backed by corporate sponsors fight crime in a city where it is all televised on on reality TV. When an old veteran and a rookie are forced to team up, aggressive sparks fly between the two.

Where I Started: Wow, not amazing but still worth a wow.

Where I Ended: Anime mixed with western super heroes and buddy cop movies creates quite the impressive offspring. Helped in no small part by its amazing visuals, this is a series that caught critics and fans completely off guard. Unlike anything else this season, the witty writing and unique premise has won over plenty of fans including myself.

Verdict: It passes and lives to see me continue.

 

My Ordinary Life
Premiere Date: 4/2
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: Imagine Azumanga Daioh with edge that only comes from a weekend bender.

Where I Started: I love this series.

Where I Ended: I still love this series. I love just how far outside the box this series is willing to think in all of its scenes, I love the very simple animation style and I love the two separate stories telling student life and the world of the child professor living with her robot. This is the best random school comedy since Azumanga Daioh and is easily the comedy of the season you should be watching.

Verdict: Pass!

 

Toriko
Premiere Date: 4/3
Studio: Toei
Available via Funimation

Summary: In a fantastical world, Toriko is the greatest gourmet hunter there is. With his assistant, he travels the world finding the most dangerous, exotic animals to kill with his bare hands and create his ultimate dinner.

Where I Started: Well, that was definitely a shonen series.

Where I Ended: This series is filled with so much manly gar I had to shave after watching one episode. The comedy is juvenile but the premise keeps this series clever and fun. While I’ve never been one for shonen shows, I was getting into this one by the time I was done with it. I won’t be continuing this one but anytime I need a fix of weekly manliness, I know exactly where to find Toriko.

Verdict: Pass.

 

Hanasaku Iroha
Premiere Date: 4/3
Studio: PA Works
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: A young girl is ditched by her mother and forced to live with her estranged grandmother who puts her to work in her inn.

Where I Started: This might end up being the best looking series of the season.

Where I Ended: A great looking series that is telling a strong story about growing up. As the focal point of the series, Ohana is serving as a memorable heroine that is growing up before the audience’s eyes. The emotion of the series is sweet and endearing even. The beauty of the animation only serves as a strong helper of the slowly forming story. This is worthy of being called PA Works 10th anniversary piece.

Verdict: Pass and I’m going all the way.

 

Without Wings – OreTachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai
Premiere Date: 4/3
Studio: Nomad
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: 3 stories about couples coming together under the most different of circumstances including the handyman on the search for a girl’s lost bike, an angel who doesn’t want to leave his girlfriend and cousin behind and the restaurant worker who can’t stand her her co-worker.

Where I Started: Ok, didn’t expect those panty shots.

Where I Ended: Jumping from story to story, I was hoping that this series would have something that stood out as special. No such luck even with three different tries. All three of these stories are not nearly as interesting thanks to its reliance on fan service and terribly unlikeable male leads, it can’t even write a decent romantic hook. The angel story was the closest this series ever came to hooking me in but since most of these episodes were focused on the lesser two of the three, it became a struggle to even get through three.

Verdict: Cheap drama that relies on pointless fan service. Fail!

 

Battle Girls
Premiere Date: 4/4
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: Teen girl gets transported back to alternate feudal Japan that is made up entirely of women. She then proceeds to act like an idiot and gets rewarded for it with a quest.

Where I Started: I hate this and I hate those in Japan who made me watch this.

Where I Ended: I predicted an odd mix of Sengoku Basara and Queen’s Blade, I was not disappointed. Battle Girls wants to be a lot of things: it wants to be a fan service series but can never quite pull the trigger, it wants to be a comedy but only knows how to write jokes for the idiot female lead, it wants to be an action series but doesn’t do anything memorable with the sequences. There are just not enough things in this series to make it worth anyone’s time. The writing is poor and the story has been done better.

Verdict: Fail!

 

Steins;Gate
Premiere Date: 4/5
Studio: White Fox
Available via Crunchyroll

Summary: A mad scientist accidently creates a time machine with his microwave and sets about to discover its secrets before he is killed for his discovery.

Where I Started: If this finds some focus it could really turn into something.

Where I Ended: Yeah so much for that. Never finding a focus, Steins;Gate tells a haphazard story that is meant to keep everyone guessing and searching for answers. Instead it left me confused and wondering if there would ever be a point to this series. All I knew for certain is that after a couple of episodes I was ready to say that I didn’t care about the answers. It’s hard to judge if this series will be any good but then there lies the underlying problem: it never made me care to find out.

Verdict: Maybe it’s going somewhere but I’m not sticking around to find out. Fail!

Astarotte no Omocha
Astarotte’s Toy
Studio: Diomedea
Premiere Date: 4/11
Genre: Ecchi Comedy
Available via Crunchyroll

First Impression: That… wasn’t terrible?

The main character of this episode is the 10 year old succubus princess Astarotte who is just starting to come into maturity for her race. Unfortunately this means that she needs to start sucking the ahem life juice from men of various races in order to survive. Also unluckily for her, she hates men and absolutely refuses.

Pushed to the brink of frustration, the princess finally relents by saying that the only way she’ll accept a man into her harem is if they are the fantastically mythical race of human. Taking on the challenge, one of her caretakers opens a gate to the human world and retrieves one just for Astarotte in the form of a Japanese boy named Naota who was the first she saw looking for a job.

Good and the Bad

This was supposed to be the throw away series of the season. The one that everyone pretty much figured was going to be only for the hardcore otaku who needed loli fan service. I had pretty much written it off as soon as I started in on the premise. Then I watched the episode and lo and behold, Astarotte’s Toy is actually kind of cute.

Getting it out of the way, this is still a fan service series with an overly youthful female lead. It proves this almost right away by delivering all of its exposition during a bath scene. It didn’t really need to be a bath scene but there it is anyway. Interestingly though, despite the very obvious connotations of the premise the fan service and innuendo is very rarely overt. The animation is bright and steamy to begin with but as I watched I found that there really wasn’t a whole lot to be covered up to begin with. This caught me off guard early but still I kept forward.

Then I ran into surprise number two; this series tried to tell a decent story and manages to do just that. While I’m sure as the roles are further developed this will change, at first very few of the characters really stand out as cardboard cutouts. Instead they act a little more decisively and take actions that bring about change to the story instead of letting it happen to them because of strange, unforeseen events. Sadly this isn’t as true for the lead characters but I digress.

The biggest place where Astarotte’s Toy manages to fail is in its comedy. This is a series that is not trying to be clever in the slightest. Any humor you take away from this series is going to be directly proportional to how moe you find the princess to be. If you can get behind the latest blonde female tsundere lead character (played by Rie Kugiyama, naturally), this could be one of the funniest series this season for you. A lot of very cute things happen to her this episode which I could have seen myself laughing at if I found her to be a bit more likeable.

To be fair though, I’m already wondering if my enjoyment of this series could have been heightened if I hadn’t been spending the entire episode trying much harder than usual to read the subtitles on the screen. Very bright animation paired with unbordered white text can make reading very difficult and I would love to see the subtitler to make a new font decision before the end of the series.

Music

As with the story and animation, I also found myself surprised at the high quality of the music throughout this episode. While occasionally letting itself drift into the cartoony, there were also just as many places where the music played a great role in the episode. The OP (Tenshi no Clover sung by Aimi) is a mellower piece and the fantasy flutes and strings that follow Zelda are a nice touch. I can see myself enjoying this series for the music for at least a little while longer.

Overall

I admit it, I liked this episode more than I thought I would. That still doesn’t mean that I liked it a lot though. It was cute in places but this doesn’t feel like a breakout moe romance just yet, it feels much more standard than that. If you need to know where to find the latest tsundere, this is where she is. This will get its full 3 episode test run but I’m not expecting greatness from its future.

Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai
We, Without Wings
Studio: Nomad
Premiere Date: 4/4
Simulcast Premiere: 4/8
Genre: Romance
Available via Crunchyroll

First Impression: The moe is strong with this one.

In the first episode of OreTsuba, three stories are introduced. In the first story, the hero is a high school boy who belongs in another world. He knows that he must return to that world but he’s tied to Earth thanks to his cousin, girlfriend and the various other girls who want a piece of him. In the second story, a café owner is headed for marriage and wants one last night to end his bachelorhood with no regrets. With the help of a friend, a mixer is arranged with a couple of the waitresses and the ‘way too cool and sullen’ character. Finally, a man wanders around Tokyo doing odd jobs for whomever needs one done. He calls himself a handyman but even his friends scoff at that. What he doesn’t realize is that the big break he’s been looking for will finally be appearing soon.

Good and the Bad

Within this first episode, three stories are introduced. Just to make sure everyone is on the same page here we’ll take them in order. So first off, there’s the harem story (a not entirely impressive harem but 5 members isn’t bad). The boy who wants to leave it all behind but is tied by his emotions to those he would have to leave behind. Following that, there is the story of a bartender who can’t keep it in his pants and needs to avoid his impending reality for a night. Then finally there is the handyman, the jaded guy who is just trying to get by from day to day.

All of the stories here are introduced as their own separate stories. None of them have overlapping characters, beyond the similar art style, there’s nothing to really tie these stories together so far. Treating each story like its own series, the problem with this debut lies in the pacing. Every story has its own unique setting and characters and all of them have to be introduced within only a matter of minutes. Treating every character as though they were important, every one gets their own name card introduction and unless you’re taking notes, it becomes quite the confusing mess by the time the second story moves around.

The pacing also shows a really poor effect on the writing of the series as well. No matter how serious the story or fantastic the theme, the one thing that all of these stories have in common are that they love to rely on their panty jokes and quick gags. This creates a pace that goes a mile a minute and makes it even harder to keep up with everything that is happening in each story. With the crew attempting to cram in so much story within such a limited time, it’s almost as though you can see a little scale on the screen marking how far away from their story goal they are compared to the time left.

No matter how busy OreTsuba is with its story however, there will always be time for panty shots. 4 of them to be exact (they are quite obviously glorified shots so it’s hard to miss them) with nice slow motion captures. Why exactly these needed to be in the series isn’t clear but with the amount of screen time they receive, it would seem that they are quite important.

Based on a visual novel, the characters and art design are steeped in moe tropes which might be a turn off to some viewers. Every character has a pretty clear character archetype attached to them with no one standing out as particularly unique or different. However, the moe factor in these characters already feel pretty high with Asuka in story 1 and both waitresses of story 2 standing out early as moe idol choices of the season. With that in mind, there is no getting away from the fan service the series occasionally needs to interject and once viewers get into the category of loli pantsu flashing that’s going to be a big red flag.

Music

What I liked about this series however is that even though the music was placed for filler, there was some extra care taken in putting it together. Throughout the episode, there is a serious sense of playing towards ambiance and the music composed here is very good at this. A great example of this is the soft jazz theme that plays throughout the restaurant scene. It’s just a perfect piece that melts into the background and sounds like something that belongs in the setting.

Overall

The storytelling felt a little disjointed but I’m in for a couple of more episodes. What makes this such a difficult series to penetrate right now is that none of the stories have enough time to really introduce their concepts. I’m hoping that once a couple of more episodes have passed, it will have found a rhythm. If you’re looking for a new moe romantic drama, this is feeling like a pretty take or leave it entry to that category.

Sket Dance
Studio: Tatsunoko Production
Premiere Date: 4/7
Genre: Comedy
Available via Crunchyroll

First Impression: I just feel like I’ve seen it before.

At Kaimei, the students are protected and supported by the Campus Support Group also known as Sket-dan. Within this club is the fearless leader Yuusuke being supported by the ex-hoodlum Himeko and Switch, the human encyclopedia that speaks through his computer. In this first episode, a new transfer student arrives and is a prime candidate to be the newest member of Sket-dan. Before he can join though, he has a request: find the person who attacked him with paint!

Good and the Bad

So here we have another campus support group; this time its made up of three members who want to help everyone and be supportive of people’s lives. But alas, no one wants to get their help and so they spend most of their time in the club room just hanging out.

For what it is, Sket Dance doesn’t get off on a completely wrong foot. Another episodic series, this series relies entirely on its characters to keep things moving and so it spends this entire episode introducing each character’s unique quirks and why they’re funny. There’s boss Yuusuke who has incredible concentration when he’s wearing his goggles but too bad he has such a problem with words. Acting as his comedic foil, we have Hime Onizuka who carries a large pipe everywhere she goes, I’m guessing to prove that she used to be a tough fighter in the block. Then finally there’s Kazuyoshi Usui who is capable of finding any information about anyone but communicates entirely through his computer.

And for 25 minutes, it’s pretty much these three running around fighting and trying to solve the paint case. For what it is, Sket Dance is pretty below average attempt. While occasionally the dialogue manages to get a laugh, there’s just not enough new here to make it feel like a particularly fresh take. You can obviously tell that people wanted this to be a strong first episode but the pacing just makes everything go past in a not that funny blur. It’s just that writing and jokes have all become so trite that it’s hard to give this one a laugh even out of nostalgia of watching a male and female lead make fun of each other and get pissed off about it. For new, Switch stands out for being the robot character of the bunch.

Music

As with others this season, this isn’t a series that is aiming to blow you away with its musical pieces. It’s there to be background filler and it does that very well in its own standard way. While the character introductions were matched with a high energy rock piece, most of the episode had cartoony background music similar to an Azumanga Daioh episode.

Overall

I wasn’t entirely bored by Sket Dance but I can already tell you that I’ll be leaving this one behind. While occasionally getting a chuckle, there are few things here that make me believe this series can support an entire season. You can call it boring but I’d rather go with uninspired. This is an easy one to just let pass by.

Steins;Gate
Studio: White Fox
Premiere Date: 4/5
Genre:  Sci-Fi
Available via Crunchyroll

First Impression: Alright, I know I just watched something.

Okarin is a self professed mad scientist ready to change the world his inventions along with his assistants Mayuri and Daru. While visiting the lecture of another professor, Okarin is pulled aside by a girl who claims to have cornered by him with something important to say just a few minutes earlier. Naturally Okarin has no idea what she’s talking about and suspects that it’s the secret Organization that he is convinced is out to foil his every move.

Then the world changes. The girl that he saw stabbed in a hallway is now alive, the lecture he attended is canceled due to a mysterious satellite crashing into the building and a text he sent went into the past.

Good and the Bad

In the first episode, Steins;Gate really tries to be a lot of different things. In the first half, the series wants to be a simultaneously hilarious and creepy. In the lead character, the audience gets a man who is obsessed with his inventions and convinced that there is a conspiracy out to get him. Everything he says, no matter who he is speaking to, is based around these two simple premises which lead him into a serious amount of mad rants.

In the second half, the mood changes as Okarin starts to realize that things are different. Now suddenly Steins;Gate wants to be compelling and creepy. The memories people have of the past are different from his and the text he sent alerting Daru that a girl had died were sent to a completely different time.

The problem is that no matter which half of the episode is playing, and in spite of moderate amounts of success late in the episode, it always feels like the episode is supposed to be funny or supposed to be serious. Instead of feeling natural, the mood of the episode always feels forced instead. 

Allowing the characters to almost completely carry the story, Steins;Gate has little in the way of exposition here beyond introductions. If you were looking for a clear explanation of what is going on, you’re going to be in a world of mental pain as things very slowly unravel in front of you. That is unless you consider the initial outbursts from Okarin as exposition in which case you’re probably onto something before the rest of us. Once again though, they may seem funny but really they are just a random guy shouting conspiracy theories to someone that he barely knows. As I mentioned, once things begin to calm down a little in the second half there are moderate amounts of success to be had. There really is a compelling story here, it’s just that it’s currently so jumbled up that it’s hard to tell what it is. 

Music

One thing that I did like about this episode is that there is very little music. In fact, it’s almost an entire 8 minutes before the first music can be heard. Only catering to mood, Steins;Gate is happy to let its characters completely fill things in by themselves and I gather that this is going to be a running trend throughout. While the mad rantings of Okarin fill more than enough of the foreground, there are also quiet moments when the lack of music really captures the moment such as when the mad scientist looks up and finds himself in an empty city.

Overall

While the early comedy felt entirely too forced, Steins;Gate manages to find lots of early traction once it gets into the second half. Curiosity is mostly what’s driving me forward at this point but with so many shows appearing this season, anything that makes the audience move forward is a good thing. This is a series with a lot of initial promise and I’m already curious to know if it will be able to live up to its potential.

Hanasaku Iroha
Studio: PA Works
Premiere Date: 4/3
Reviewed: 4/4
Genre: Coming of Age
Available via Crunchyroll

First Impression: This won’t be an easily earned coming of age.

Ohana is searching for something. While other kids in her high school are trying to find their careers, she wants to find a new path that will lead her to herself. One night that path is created for her when her mother has to leave town with her debt ridden boyfriend. Not willing to take Ohana with her, this leaves her with no choice but to move in with her distant grandmother at her Taisho style hot springs inn.

What she thinks is going to be a dramatic meeting between her and her grandmother turns out to be hard labor as she gets off on the wrong foot with everyone she meets; whether they’re family or her new co-workers.

Good and the Bad

For the last few months, PA Works has been hailing this to be their big 10^th anniversary project and watching the first episode I can see why. Just the look of this episode is enough to create an amazing feeling of grandeur that pulls you into the world. Throughout the episode, it’s impossible to not watch this and be completely pulled into the lifelike world that the residents inhabit. The backgrounds are clear and the city views are detailed to the point that you can imagine all of the people as real instead of just characters on a screen even if they don’t say a word.

Beyond the beautiful animation, Hanasaku Iroha sets up what is seemingly going to be an interesting tale of self discovery. The lead heroine, Ohana, is already more than a little jaded with life but doesn’t show it with a grating personality. The first few minutes of the series she spends her time staring out with an annoyed look and speaking poetically of her future. Sadly the audience is watching her do this while completely missing out on the life that she does have due to a demanding mother who wants to live her own life with her boyfriend.

You would think that in this circumstance, the heroine would have a right to be completely whiny and self obsessed. For once though you’d be wrong. Ohana is a heroine who just wants to find out what it means to live life without being tied down. She isn’t obsessed with just wanting to have the latest fashions or other shallow things, she wants to see life beyond the city and find out who she is and what she is made of.

Facing her challenges head on (and there will be plenty), her biggest crime is arriving at the inn expecting her grandmother to be a kindly old lady who will treat her warmly. When she finds that this isn’t her fate, she instead finds herself less than ready to work hard and walk down the new path that life has been given to her.

Music

Matching the entirely not typical animation, the music composed for this episode is a gorgeous mix of arrangements. In the beginning the city scenes are filled with soft European tracks filled with soft guitars and accordions. In the latter part of the episode, the mood changes again to soft tones that evoke the relaxing nature of the inn without giving away the tension behind the scenes. A wonderful time for the series to just completely sync with each other that makes things work so beautifully.

Overall

I didn’t know what to expect from the debut episode but I feel like I’m on a hot streak. This was another gem that really made me stop and take notice. The animation and landscapes give a feeling of breathlessness as you watch which only compliments the dramatic story and strong writing. While I remain uncertain for its future, people who are looking for another strong coming of age story should be making time for this release.

Reposted from Ani.me

Nichijou
My Ordinary Life
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Premiere Date: 4/2
Reviewed: 4/4
Genre: Slice of Life Comedy
Available via Crunchyroll

First Impression: I love this series.

 

In this very surreal slice of life, we follow the every day lives of students in high school, Yuuko and Mio. Their lives involve walking to school, getting motivated to do work and getting random food stuck on them in someway. Meanwhile on the other side of town there is a loli inventor leading her life along with her wind up robot that she invented that does all the cooking, cleaning, toe shooting and exploding.

Good and the Bad

Before I even knew what hit me, My Ordinary Life had me hooked in. Within seconds of the series beginning, I was feeling so taken in by the animation. While most fans who follow Kyoto Animation are used to bright, shiny moe; this series takes a much different tact. Using an older animation style filled with muted colors and lines, the style seems like it could be almost out of place against the moe landscape of today. But the easy going nature and sense of humor makes this style work.

Once I was done being pulled in by the art style, it took only a couple of minutes before I realized that I really enjoyed the sense of humor in this series. From there, I was hooked and knew I would be watching this series. Completely off the wall in a style reminiscent of Lucky Star (only without the otaku humor), this is a very surreal series that isn’t afraid to make the absurd into the completely normal. In the first two minutes, we’re introduced to a loli professor and a robot that looks like an entirely normal girl except for the wind up key in her back. It’s not that she needs it but it is there for a purpose. But just moments later we’re also already witnessing a massive explosion that will send everyone and everything (or 3 things in particular) right back to Yuuko and Mio.

There is a quiet genius in this first episode that always managed to keep me laughing throughout the episode. Everything is a short gag that rarely takes much more than a minute or two to complete. Some towards the middle are even shorter vignettes that don’t even appear to have relevance to the overall episode (the eggheads with the jump rope was my favorite) but still manage to get chuckles or even full laughs just for their absurdity.

Where My Ordinary Life fails however are when the jokes start to delve even further into the culturally absurd. While much of the humor are sight gags that anyone can laugh at, there are an equal number of cultural gags that only natives are going to understand without liner notes. While still retaining some of the visual humor that can get some laughs, there aren’t many fans who are going to genuinely understand what it means to be randomly hit with raw food.

 

Overall

This is a quiet winner that I already know I’ll be following all the way. A comedy that will catch you off guard with its wit and off the wall sense of humor, this is going to be a fun series. While sometimes going a little too far into the obscure, this is a series that also knows how to time its jokes to get the best possible impact. This is the quiet and capable comedy that will have everyone laughing and smiling along the way. This is worth looking at!