Thoughts of Summer 2010 Anime Titles

Right now I am thinking of just "going with what I know will work" and only watch Strike Witches 2 when it starts.

The first fansub of Seitokai Yakuindomo has hit the web, but I know I will just compare it to Seitokai no Ichizon and find it lacking as I did with Mayoi Neko Overunn! compared to Nyan Koi!.

Bah... I don't think I'm going to be watching much this season, sadly. Since I moved house I've been on a 3GB-per-month bandwidth limit, and as the univeristy network blocks torrenting, there's little opportunity to actually get hold of material. Which is a great pity, because there's a real good buzz about this summer with a lot of shows that I'm interested in.

Ah well. There's always YouTube and Crunchyroll...

Seitokai Yakuindomo ,just watched it,set in what used to be an all girl school, the first ever male students arrive,unfortunately the student council is of course all girls who have obviously led a somewhat sheltered life up to now and have formed some unusual perceptions of the male half of the species.

the unfortunate lead male character has to deal with these girls and as he is normal behave himself,going to school on the train having to hold his hands in the air to prevent any accusations for example !

Awinnell wrote:Seitokai Yakuindomo...

Watching it now. Looks like your standard "ecchi comedy", except it's the girls who are perverts instead of the guys. It's based on a serialized manga, but the episode kind of played more like a 4-koma as it was broken up into multiple vignettes.

Surprisingly, there was no fan service, but it is absolutely packed with sexual innuendo so perhaps that is the fan service angle they are taking.

If they play it like Rosario + Vampire I shall stick around, but if it becomes more like Chu-bra!! I will probably drop it early.

Seitokai Yakuindomo (Episode One): It didn't make me give up in disgust the way that some more fan service laden shows do, but it also seemed pretty lame and uninspired. The characters are pretty bland. Also the artwork, OP, and ED all seemed second rate. I think the student council president suddenly saying crude things out of the blue was supposed to be funny, but I didn't really find it very funny. And this is coming from a guy who liked a rather crude manga called High School Girls that was written primarily for the purpose of ripping stereotypes about girls who go to all girls schools being prim and proper to shreds.
Actually, one thing that I think seperate series like High School Girls and B Gata H Kei from this one is that for all that they may be pretty massively exaggerated, they do kind of feel like there's a grain of truth to them. Additionally, while many of their characters are kind of one note-ish, they manage to be a bit less obvious about it then this show is. They also seem to have more energy to them.
Of course it may be partly because of series like High School Girls and B Gata H Kei that this show doesn't work all that well for me. After those two series "this wallet is obviously not a girl's because it doesn't have a condom in it" doesn't seem like an assumption that should be made. Also, are the girls at this school really that sheltered? Surely some of them have like, you know, male siblings. For that matter a fair number of them should realistically have boyfriends from outside of their school. Admitedely many of the girls in High School Girls were not exactly experts on the male half of the species either, but still...

Told you you'd hate it.

0utf0xZer0 wrote:Still, it's a fun watch for the sheer over-the-top factor. Semi-loli maid levelling a bar during a fight? I'm in.

Looks like the Agency is loaning out Generation 1 girls.

Damnit it's early, but I'll give High School of the Dead episode 1 a review. I only meant to watch a little bit of it, but it seems that went down the drain.

To start off, the artwork is very good, in usual Madhouse fashion, and is very similar to the manga. In fact, the whole thing so far is a very faithful adaptation. The action is well-paced and awesome, as well as over the top in a cool way. The fanservice isn't too heavy so far, but it is there. I'd say it's more than most, but less than, say, Strike Witches. It's at a "gravy" level right now; it's not an annoyance, but rather a nice touch. It's slightly toned down from the original, I believe. It's very easy to get into, as I implied earlier, and it's just plain fun to watch! The OP ("High School of the Dead") and ED ("Them") are both pretty awesome, but they haven't become notable tunes, not yet at least. Finally, the voice acting, even though it's Japanese and I can't quite comment on the quality properly, is very solid. Notable voice actors include Junichi Suwabe (as the main character), who voiced Archer in Fate/Stay Night, a very good job might I add. There's also Eri Kitamura, known for Ami Kawashima in Toradora! and recently, Yui in Angel Beats! And, awesomely enough, Kouta Hirano the gun otaku is voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama, the voice of Link in the Legend of Zelda games. He doesn't talk there, but his shouts brought smiles to many a gamer. So, all in all, it's an awesomely badass show so far. A great first showing, and I'll definitely continue watching it.

I highly recommend it, especially if you're a fan of GARcher or the original manga.

I think you're being a bit harsh on the show, Piero. While it pretty obviously wears its 4-koma strip origins on its sleeve (what with one character being introduced three times in the same episode), I thought it fair enough. It's bright, colorful and energetic with good art and animation (whereas even HSotD cheated a bit with CGI and some long stills), and the OP/ED are both lovely. It's not laugh-a-minute, but it's pleasant to look at, and the quickfire pace means that even the flat jokes are drained away quickly and don't have time to go sour.

Robert Frazer wrote:I think you're being a bit harsh on the show, Piero. While it pretty obviously wears its 4-koma strip origins on its sleeve (what with one character being introduced three times in the same episode), I thought it fair enough. It's bright, colorful and energetic with good art and animation (whereas even HSotD cheated a bit with CGI and some long stills), and the OP/ED are both lovely. It's not laugh-a-minute, but it's pleasant to look at, and the quickfire pace means that even the flat jokes are drained away quickly and don't have time to go sour.

You can probably chalk a lot of our difference in opinion on Seitokai up to personal taste. I didn't find the rapid fire humor very effective because for the most part I found it to be one long chain of misfires that I didn't find very funny. I also felt that the delivery lacked something compared to last season's B Gata H Kei. Seitokai certainly changed scenes a lot, but I didn't find it very energetic. As for the animation, I remember some of it seeming kind of off to me.

Sorry if my review seems harsh, but honestly... about the only good thing I can think of to say about the show is that it didn't get under my skin enough to make me really hate it.

High School of the Dead (Episode One): I have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, the first episode had some very good action scenes and was pretty exciting overall. It was also -as FiveX noted- pretty easy to get into. I didn't find the fan service too big a problem for the most part, although there were a couple times when it strayed into fan desservice territory.
There was one issue with this show that really bugged me though. I may be opening myself to accusations of being too politically correct by saying this, but the portrayal of female characters in the series thus far is extremely unflattering. Of the four girls who stood out a lot and struck me as main cast, one seems to be kind of dumb and has colossal boobs, the main character's probable main love interest can't get a grip when she needs to, one is smart and has it together but is really bitchy, and the other is a hot chick with a sword who gives the impression of being coldly unemotional. Combine that with the fact that the two guys who strike me as major cast seem to be in control but also give off a strong "not popular with the girls" vibe, and... yeah. There's also the series lead slapping his probable love interest in order to get her to get a grip. On one hand, this is pretty understandable given the circumstances, but combined with the portrayal of the female cast members in general (both the aforementioned four and some zombie fodder) and the fact that this girl happens to be the guy's former childhood friend who he's currently on bad terms with after she started dating his best friend...
Actually, I guess the reason this rubs me the wrong way is that rightly or wrongly, it sort of comes across as having an appeal for "angry young males who aren't popular with the girls and aren't willing to change their attitudes in order to fix that." Which may be a grossly unfair impression considering how little has been revealed about some of these characters at this point, but it still ended up being one of defining parts of my impression of the show thus far.
That being said, it was pretty fun, and this is coming from a guy who generally doesn't like zombie stuff very much.

I can't decide whether I like Amagami and Seitokai whatever... I liked the pacing of the latter and actually kind of enjoyed the dirty jokes, but I'm really hoping there's a bit more to it than that. As for Amagami, I normally like shows like it, but even given my fairly lax standards it's not resonating with me. It feels bland even for a show where the characters are normal high schoolers. And the "four episodes per arc" kind of thing doesn't give me great confidence it will go anywhere.

Oh, BTW, I also watched Shufuku no Campanella. One blogger summed it up as "Aria the erogame", and that seems pretty accurate so far. Despite the fact I wasn't big on Aria, I kind of like this because I'm a tremendous moetard.

@Piero:

Considering we haven't really met three of the girls, I wouldn't be too harsh on them. Besides, the "unemotional sword girl" thing could apply to a huge number of sword girls in anime, I don't see why it's a big deal here.

I do agree that the male lead is an angry asshole though, and that the characterization of the girl he likes is pretty freaking irrational and annoying. Would have preferred to see the other guy survive. And yeah, panty shots of girls getting eaten by zombies is fan disservice.

I actually enjoyed the action in this quite a bit though. I really enjoyed the visceral, up close and personal nature of the fighting. Not sure if that's common in zombie flicks, I'm more familiar with zombies in video games where you tend to use a shotgun.

Black Lagoon OVA 1 = Awesome. Loved Fabiola's long awaited animated entrance. Just as enjoyable as I expected.

High School of the Dead 1 = Having been a long-time follower of the manga (and a rabid fan of all things zombie), I loved every second. My second most anticipated anime series in a long time. The fanservice is there, but it was in the manga as well. Frankly it's not more than any other series out there with panty-shots such as Rosario. I'm not going to sit here and write post after post why people should watch HSotD, but I would say if you like action oriented scenes (and don't mind fanservice) then to give the show a try. It follows the manga pretty closely, just like Black Lagoon has. If you're a gun-nut - and I know there are a lot of them here - HSotD has some of the best depictions of weapons I've seen since GsG or (again) Black Lagoon.

Takeshi (the asshole guy everyone is talking about) mellows out pretty quickly in the manga after he realizes how messed up Rei is in the head from the ordeal. I could go ahead and generalize some of the opinions in the before posts, but I won't do that and instead go with "less is more." The guy is really only an asshole at the beginning.

Hirano turns into one of the biggest badasses the series has to offer, so keep an eye on him.

Also, did anyone else notice the music from 28 Days Later at the final scene?

Yeah, it's really awesome for people who've read the manga. It's cool to see an adaptation that sticks so close to the original yet isn't too similar.

rusty-spring wrote:Takeshi (the asshole guy everyone is talking about) mellows out pretty quickly in the manga after he realizes how messed up Rei is in the head from the ordeal. I could go ahead and generalize some of the opinions in the before posts, but I won't do that and instead go with "less is more." The guy is really only an asshole at the beginning.

If he develops as a character than I think I can deal with it. I was kind of wondering if the author was setting something like that up, actually.

Is Hirano the otaku guy? I seem to remember him being mentioned in a number of blog posts regarding the manga way a couple years back, although I've forgotten what was said beyond him being an otaku of some sort (military otaku?).

Yes, Hirano the Hellsing reference is the gun otaku, as I believe I pointed out in my review post.

Occult Academy's first episode did enough to grab me despite my prior hesitation with it thanks to Anime no Chikara's past works not hooking me. Pretty much, the show is a supernatural action-comedy where the female lead Maya doesn't believe in the occult despite the fact she has knowledge on such creatures and can do well at kicking ass. And she has reasons for her arrival at the academy and disbelief of the occult. If this grittiness can hold up for the show's run, this might be a surprise hit for me this year with how skeptical I was of Anime no Chikara's works so far.

I didn't find the rapid fire humor very effective because for the most part I found it to be one long chain of misfires that I didn't find very funny. I also felt that the delivery lacked something compared to last season's B Gata H Kei. Seitokai certainly changed scenes a lot, but I didn't find it very energetic. As for the animation, I remember some of it seeming kind of off to me.

Sorry if my review seems harsh, but honestly... about the only good thing I can think of to say about the show is that it didn't get under my skin enough to make me really hate it.

Well, I wouldn't call the show a masterpiece by any means - I'd agree with you that few of the scenes were actually all that funny. Still, I felt that the show did compensate by having strengths in others areas (i.e. art/animation/music) to make it nice enough, although I suppose you could say that that only makes it a curate's egg.

Occult Academy: The first episode of this was rather hit and miss. It was a very rough ride due to the main character contradicting herself all the time and the show throwing in a lot of ridiculous, kind of comedic stuff during dramatic parts. Things did smooth out more towards the end of the episode though. Artwork was also a mixed bag, with some parts looking really good and others not looking quite so good. The show seemed to have some internal conflict with regards to it's art style at times; a few of the scenes leading up to the female lead's arrival at the Academy seemed kind of sterile looking. Though then again, that could have been intentional.
Speaking of the female lead, I'm not sure I agree with Ggultra about her not believing in the occult. I think the contradiction between her knowing exactly what's going on and how to deal with it during certain occult situations versus her total denial of the occult at other times is not so much her not believing in the occult as her hating it and wanting to destroy the school. She knows damn well its real, she just denies it for her own ends.
Anyhow, the series has some promise, but it also had a very rocky start. So I'll probably watch it a bit more and see where it goes (just like with a lot of the other shows I've seen this season).
I do have to admit that the series has a great "disclaimer" though. "This program is a work of fiction. Dead spirits, psychic abilities, aliens, UMAs, etc., do not exist. Unless you believe in them..."
Actually, one wonders if that statement is of more significance than it seems. Perhaps belief in the Occult is linked to the existence of the Occult in the series? That would be an interesting twist.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into things.

This isn't a current anime, but I recently picked up the 1994 OVA of You're Under Arrest in the bargain bucket at Forbidden Planet. It's really quite nice - lovely hand-drawn art, and it's something that the denizens of this forum would definitely enjoy as there's lots of car porn for the motorheads. It's also one of the most upbeat anime that I've ever seen - have you heard this OP? It's so relentlessly cheerful that if it was any more positive it'd be a parody of itself!