What the heck happened to the subbage of Futakoi Alternative? I was looking forward to some hot calimari action, but oh well. This month marked a return to quality that the spring had been sorely lacking (outside of one or two good series). I also marathoned Honey & Clover this month, and I’m really sorry I didn’t get to it sooner! It definitely would have made the top three the last few months, and would have given Futakoi Alternative a run for its money. Meanwhile, the lack of Futakoi Alternative and Sousei no Aquarion episodes leaves this month wide open for the new summer series. Naruto continues to be bad, but damn that Frosted Flakes transformation was funny as hell.
Top Five This Month:
- Honey & Clover: Honey & Clover is just so damn good that after every episode, I find myself wondering where it ranks in my top 10 favorite recent anime series. You know, while I sniffle around with a box of tissues and a pint of ice cream.
- Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo: Why is everyone hating on this series? I know that the fanservice is just absurd, and the show seems really silly, but beneath the stupidity this series is really deep! Not only are there no dumb talking animal sidekicks, but there is tremendous angst and romantic drama. Plus the subject of over-the-hill mahou shoujo really perks my interest =D.
- Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid: Awesome, heart-pounding action, and plenty of Melissa Mao (the fake eyebrows cracked me up). The last few episodes have been outstanding and exciting, and now Twincest has hijacked some AS units in hopes of getting more screen time.
- Gundam Seed Destiny: There have been so many funny moments this month that I don’t even know where to start. Also, Kira and Athrun take turns beating down on dopey Shinn, while Jibril’s cat uses Sith powers to cause Lunamaria to miss the shuttle. Preview of episode 45 shows Kira shoving Athrun aside to teach him how to haxx0r. Good stuff!
- Gun X Sword: Over-the-hill sentai is not quite the same as over-the-hill mahou shoujo, but this series has a lot going for it. However, I can’t quite shake the feeling that Gun X Sword could be doing more to live up to its potential. I’m willing to be patient, and Wendy has established herself as an important and useful piece of the dynamic duo.
Rising:
- Bleach: Yoruichi was cool when I thought she was just a mean talking cat, but then she turns into a hot chick, and then she shows that she has ninja skillz! Not even Ichigo powers up this fast.
Falling:
- Suzuka: The story continues to be fairly solid, but damn this show is getting fugly fast. The production values in Episode 7 really detracted from the experience, and Suzuka looks to be trying to challenge Dear Boys in the Good Story-Bad Art category.
- Naruto: Why don’t they just make funny fillers that follow the side characters? Those ninjas will never get really deep storylines, so you don’t have to worry about messing with the manga storyline. If I were in charge, I’d start working on an episode where the Konoha village holds a contest based on redesigning the chuunin and ANBU uniforms with more fanservice. I could go for some Tsunade acting like Roy Mustang fillers, too.
BTW, on a side note, is there anyone who can challenge the skillz of Kira Yamato? I think only Shima Katase could take him down, since she has saved the universe twice with programming (and using a way crappier mech), whereas Kira’s had several Gundam units and hasn’t succeeded in saving the universe yet. The only X-factor would be if Shima had an emotional breakdown and Kira went SEED for the win.
And what would Kira’s handle be? Killah Tomahtoh?!?!?!
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This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1940 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent post! Certainly, I’ll agree with Bleach, Gundam Seed and Honey & Clover, but I’m not so sure about Full Petal Manic — although the action is certainly good, the show doesn’t seem to be cohesive at *all*, and seems to be attacking too many fronts at the same time — so far, we’ve got Tessa & co. versus (1) the enemy unit Amalgam (?), (2) internal spies (i.e. Blueno), (3) Mithril’s own intelligence unit, (4) Tessa’s older brother, (5) the wierd twins, and (6) the guy ‘advising’ the twins. And in addition to this, it seems like Sagara is planning to leave Mithril with Kaname, thus shaking up this wierd enemy schema even more. I didn’t particularly care for the first iteration of this series, but it was much more straightforward, given that there was only one primary enemy.
PS: Why aren’t there any reviews of Honey & Clover T_T
Eh, I never liked FMP. But I totally agree with Gun X Sword. I can’t explain it, I don’t understand why, but I really like the series. WHY?! Aaargh.
>>Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo: Why is everyone hating on this series? I know that the fanservice is just absurd
Not that I’ve seen this but I thought this is the one that is less fanservicey in comparison to the other ‘Oku-sama’ title. But then again I often confuses the two despite one of them has ‘magical girl’ in the title and the other doesn’t.
Anyway, seeing your list made me realise that I haven’t watch that many anime lately. I guess I should try watching FMP!TSR and Gun x Sword since they look kind of fun at the very least.
Has AnimeYuki dropped Futakoi Alternative or is it just on hiatus? It was such a great show.
Speaking of Gun X Sword, I just watched episode 6 and I couldn’t help but notice that the Mafia leader looks like Don Corleone from the Godfather movie ^O^ The episode was helarious compared to the gloomy previous episode.