Everyone slacks off sometimes, and for me it was last month. Between being busy and being out of town, I totally fell behind on Shikabane Hime and Michiko to Hatchin. I was strongly considering blogging FMA: Brotherhood, but Kungfucius has volunteered to take that series on now that he’s done becoming Dr. Kungfucius and has more time. This frees up a lot of slots for me, and I think I’m going to drop SoraKake. It’s not that it’s bad; I just don’t see that series getting much better, and I am growing tired of the Leopard and boiled-potato jokes. All in all I found March to be a rather lackluster month, so I’ll go ahead and list some of the new series from Spring as well.

I’m going to be picking up Valkyria Chronicles and possibly Hatsukoi Limited and Eden of the East. I had one slot reserved for Shangri-La, but now I am not so sure I want to commit 2-cour to the show, especially since I figure the animation quality will slide even more as the show goes on. I’ll probably just try to catch up on Michiko to Hatchin and Shikabane Hime until about mid-season and then play catch-up on any Spring show that generates good buzz.

Top Five This Month:

1. ToraDora: Considering all the loose ends, I guess the ending was decent. I didn’t feel like the final few episodes had that same oomph, but I am happy that this show exposed strangely-genki people as really sad weirdos who don’t get what they want in life.
2. White Album: I was surprised that there was no cliffhanger to finish the season, but even bad animation couldn’t stop this show from delivering barrels of unintentional comedy. When I think about how easy it is to mock these characters, I feel like smiling brightly.
3. Maria†Holic: It’s not revolutionary, but Maria Holic has been very consistent.
4. The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk: The show was moderately entertaining, but the ending of season 2 was just not that great. The Ishtar-Tower of Neeba battle felt like something out of an old space anime starship battle with all the beam-spam and shounen-ai.
5. Gundam 00 Second Season: This ending was terrible, but I didn’t watch that much anime this month, so Gundam sneaks onto the list one last time. I applaud Sunrise for finding a way to shock even the most cynical viewers with unbelievably loose writing, but as long as there are exciting flash-forwards no one complains.

Rising:

• Valkyria Chronicles: First episode had nice art with likable characters. I have a feeling, however, that the military tactics will be rather silly.
• FMA: Brotherhood: This was the best-looking first episode I watched. Everything felt right and looked great. There were also enough changes that I didn’t feel like I was watching a rehash of the first season.
• Queens Blade: I think you deserve credit when everyone expects you to be horrible and yet you are even worse than expected. The acidic breast milk cannons really made this first episode memorable. I’ve seen shirts explode before, but it’s not often that you see breasts explode.
• Saki: I didn’t understand any of the mahjong explanations, and the fanservice was weird and out of place. Still, something about the CG and the strong tile choreography made the experience somewhat exciting.

Falling:

• Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~: This was very standard Bee Train stuff, and yet I was completely bored by the episode. The puppet poses totally turned me off, and I was kinda mad that Zwei could go in with a silenced pistol and take out all the SMG-toting bodyguards.
• Shangri-La: I was really disappointed by the animation quality of the first episode. The colors were so dull and a lot of the art just seemed off. I had this show pegged for a sure-fire hit, but now I am not so sure. I do give props for all the drag queens and the guard who tried to tap before getting kissed into unconsciousness, though.