There has been less anime for me this month since Code Geass and Macross Frontier both took a week off, and the subbing of Kamen no Maid Guy and Nijuu Mensou no Musume seems to have slowed to a crawl (with a little activity this week). I was out of town for several stretches as well, but I did take the chance to marathon Kurenai, and it was glorious. In spite of Ender’s best efforts to convince me that it was boring and frustrating (damn… reverse psychology…), I really enjoyed the first 10 episodes, and I am ready to see some ass-kicking bone of my sword now.
Top Five This Month:
- Code Geass R2: Obviously Li Xingke is the child of Lelouch and Sumeragi Kaguya, who has come from the future. This explains his physical and mental prowess. It seems that Lelouch was unable to bed Suzaku and settled for Kaguya instead. No matter how over-the-top Code Geass gets, it never fails to entertain.
- Kurenai: Here is my fail-proof plan for maximum ownage: Operation Loli Switch. Bust Murasaki out and end the Kuhoin line with one stealthily placed body double. Although Murasaki and the new Wurasaki would have to wear different hair pins for viewers to tell them apart, I think this could really work.
- Macross Frontier: It’s been a bit of a mixed bag this month, with some interesting character development but fewer exciting battles. The tension makes it seem like romances could spring up at any moment, but Alto is such a weak lynchpin due to his complete apathy for anything without wings. Sheryl and Ranka think they’re in this race, but wait till Alto-hime gets a load of Strike Witches.
- Toshokan Sensou: It has been a fantastic month for TS, with plenty of Asako screen time and wonderfully mushy Atsushi x Iku moments. At the same time, will we actually get any conflict or meaningful plot before the end of this season? As hilarious as Hikaru’s bro-con is, Satoshi does not really make for much of an antagonist (yet).
- Soul Eater: We had to sit through some Black Star scenes, but at least he was less annoying than usual. Also the scenes featured more Tsubaki than usual, except for the one episode where they were on a relationship-vacation.
Rising:
- Shakugan no Shana-tan: It’s funny how the Shana franchise works. The start of every season is so damn boring that sometimes the promise of awesome flashbacks and eventual super-paced ending episodes is not enough. In those dark times, it is the importance of the crappy early episodes to the jokes in Shana-tan that keeps me going and paying attention.
Falling:
- Nabari no Ou: I feel like this show is permanently in my doghouse. And yet, I keep up with the manga and the anime. Yae’s Izura Shingan reminds me of both Arael and What Women Want.
- Nijuu Mensou no Musume: Enough with the poisoned soup already! Just hire a lawyer and get that bitchy soup nazi out of your life! Chiko’s non-thief life is way boring, and the return of yoma powers makes me fear for the worst.
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But Lelouch x Nunnally would better explain the coughing up blood part. orz
Plus the unintended hilarity of guessing which parts will be parodied. Must have Wirhelmina pulp novelist animated!!!
And somewhere Miharu’s evil bat wings are flapping.
OTL OTL OTL at ‘Everything but the kitchen Xing Ke’
I thought the last episode of 20 Faces was really great, even seemed to bump up the animation.
I’ve learned to rule nothing out with this show.
Zyl: It can be really hard to guess, though! I never predicted any of the Sabrac gags. I think I am like 1/50 or something now… The twister call was my only correct prediction, aside from really easy ones like Kazumi throwing away Phele’s cross.
otou-san: Maybe I am just angry that Chiko ate the soup the first night. And what are the odds that the lawyer is working to make himself the next in line for the family fortune as soon as Chiko and the aunt die from poisoned soup?
I was waiting for this illustrous entry, Kabitzin’s monthly lists, to plug the huge surprise winner of this season, a show which I never expected to get SO strong, and which is virtually unknown.
Blassreiter.
Yes, I’m serious. Yes, it’s GONZO. But yes, this show is _fully_ first-tier right now, easily holding its own against the big guns like Geass R2 or Macross Frontier.
So, since it seems clear that right now I’m almost solo on this show, I’ll take a few lines for another sales pitch. What is Blassreiter really about? The first 2-3 episodes were a bit misleading, so I’ll try to roughly summarize up to 5.
In general, Blassreiter is hard drama, occasionally even melodrama. In a slightly futuristic setting in Germany, some creatures called “Demoniacs” appear off and on. They have the ability to fuse with machines, like bikes/cars, are very mobile, very destructive and dangerous. This is the prime unrealistic premise you have to accept for story’s sake. Most of the rest is pleasingly realistic.
The show begins about XAT, a special weapons team whose task it is to hunt down these Demoniacs. The thing is – we soon learn that demoniacs were formerly human, which alters XAT’s task a bit. Who or what is behind this, and what should be done? Over time, several people close to the XAT members fall prey to the Demoniac disease, until it reaches XAT themselves. Things smell incredibly fishy, and once some XAT members become too curious abous disturbing clues, they are first warned and then apprehended and replaced…
What looked like some silly CG-slash-and-burn show turns out to have a long-running storyline going. It does many things very well, like for example weaving character introductions very seamlessly into the action parts. Example: Two XAT members who seemed like relatively unimportant cannon-fodder-to-be early on suddenly become important actors with extra background added as late as in episode 10, and it ABSOLUTELY fits. Not the old “team of 6 people, so each one gets his/her episode till episode 6″ nonsense, the pressure is high right off the bat.
Blassreiter is no pleasant show to watch. The undertone is dark, gritty and bitter. Someone remember Mai HiME? Episode 8, when all of a sudden, Kazuma dies, like a slap in your face? The same happens in Blassreiter, multiple times. Characters you NEVER expected to die so early bite the dust. The backstories are pretty nasty. So, it DOES take a strain on you. I’m not sure if this is marathon material ^_^;
In the end, we’re getting into the setting I personally love so much. A nasty conspiracy in the background, well-defined characters (some likable, some annoying) trying their best to survive and protect those dear to them, drama up to the hilt and (sorry) I even like the CG battles.
10 eps down, 14 more episodes to go! I love it! ^_^b
Holy crap, really? The first episode was kinda stupid (I was so turned off by the motorcycle fusing) so I gave up, but if what you say is true…
Well, let me put it like this:
o I went into the show hating GONZO. I yucked at the first ep of Dragonauts when many loved it. GONZO screwed up several shows I worked on. So I expected the worst. I only decided to try it for Shizuka Itou (Amanda, also Hinagiku/Wilhelmina/Shinra etc) and the German background.
o Neither me nor anyone I like is working on the show, so I have no personal interest in pushing it.
o I was ripped off. After donating a sizable sum for the first ep to support the new distro approach, I got the message that due to licencing issues they couldn’t give me the promised file.
o I dislike mecha-fighting-slasher shows
In other words, Blassreiter had a really bad point to start from. And right now, if a fairy was offering to me to give me all remaining episodes of one currently running show, I’d pick Blassreiter over Geass and Macross, and probably marathon it till 7am in my morning.
If you decide to give it a try: The show is getting better and better. 1-3 were okay, 4-7 were “err… that’s not supposed to happen… cool!”, but 8+ really take off. The atmosphere reminds me of the Mai HiME 17+ end run. And the pacing gets really fast. It’s weird, almost like pacing for a 13 ep series, but Blassreiter is definitely 24.
I’ll blame it all on Nitroplus. And I’ll give every single show this storyboard writer works on a fair shake.
Hmmm, since you have a lot of political capital with me, I will take what you say seriously. Thank you for warning me about the crappy first episodes so that I can prepare myself mentally.
Wow, that tickles me quite a bit, tnx
In a nutshell: I can’t guarantee you’ll like it, it’s definitely not for everyone’s tastes. But I’ve seen my share of animes, and this is a totally underrated show, and I somehow would consider it sad if it lost 90% of the potential viewership by the bad GONZO reputation and slightly misleading initial eps. Those few who follow it and discuss it on boards agree that it really is the dark horse of the spring season.
I believe I said that Kure-nai had “slice of life elements”. Somehow you automatically translated this into “boring”?
Haha, Kabitzin I can’t believe you’re still following Nabari no Ou! I stopped it at episode 5! XD
this Blassreiter talk is all very interesting. I watched the first episode too, and the effects made me want to yak. Plus, it was about motorcycles, which interested me 0%. Gonzo doesn’t bother me, they get a bad rap when they’ve done as much good as bad.
Turns out the final couple episodes of Druaga had the same type of horrible CG and I thought that series was really decent.
Sounds like maybe it’s worth a shot.
So like… after 9 episodes, I realized Mentar was totally right.