Anime Q2 2009: The Springtime of Youth

Is the long Season of EPIC ANIME FAILURE finally over? Well, maybe. The lineup this season is certainly stronger than last season, stacked with big titles like Full Metal Alchemist, Guin Saga, Valkyria, et al. (and Haruhi? What the shit?) At the same time, however, none of the shows in the past year and a half have actually managed to deliver on their early promises; literally every series that should have been (could have been, would have been) excellent more-or-less failed (spectacularly, pathetically, etc.). By now, I should know better than to make recommendations, given anime’s bad habit of going sour the moment I GET HYPE; thankfully, I’m incapable of learning from my mistakes. After all, someday I might actually get one of these right.

BlazBlue Linkage

Blazblue has been confirmed for PS3 and X360 release (see G4’s coverage with Aksysgames). So those of you who, like me, were on the fence about buying a Taito X2 kit (or heck, the whole Vewlix setup), should step away from their checkbooks. Most fans have been following the JP arcade videos for months, but for those who’ve been out of the loop, take a look below.

First Look: Anime Q1 2009 (Part 2) Watch Rideback.

I’ve been consistently overrating shows for several seasons now, and with this season continuing strong in the Getting It Horribly Wrong department, it’s probably time for some refocusing. There were a number of shows I’d have recommended in Part 2 if I’d actually posted it a week after Part 1. Now, at week six, I’m withdrawing all of those recommendations.

Yeah, all of them.

First Look: Anime Q1 2009 (Part 1)

Several weeks ago, I thought about writing a summary post for 2008’s winners and losers, but after thumbing through the lineup I realized that it would be a pointless exercise. After all, there were no winners, and distinguishing between various degrees of failure in this case would be much like trying to rank piles of shit by their smell – even if it can be done, you’re still dealing with piles of shit. Pretty much every “watch” recommendation I made turned out to be mediocre at best, and most of the “skim” shows should have been filed under “skip”. One could have skipped literally the entire year of anime without missing anything really noteworthy (Macross fans will object at this point, but I’ve got a whole list of reasons for why Frontier was terrible overall.). What’s worse, a look at the release calendar for January 2009 suggested that the industry was on-track to deliver yet another decisively bad season. Would I have to wait until April 2009 to finally watch a good show, following five consecutive seasons of garbage?

Ga-Rei Zero: Prequel or Not?

The short answer is: we’ll know next week. Maybe.

First Look: Anime Q4 2008 (Part 3)

As it turns out, I get to skip most of the sequels this season because I didn’t enjoy – and therefore didn’t finish – the original series. These include: Gundam, Rosario to Vampire, Shugo Chara, Noramimi, Hokuto no Ken, and Junjou Romantica. I don’t care though, and neither should you. This (final) batch of shows contains the other new (that is, non-sequel, non-remake) show I originally expected to be good, as well as another stunning show from Mad House. Most of the other shows covered here are sequels, so the standard advice applies.

Ga-Rei Zero: I have no idea what’s going on, but I like it.

We’re at week two of the new anime season, and the consensus regarding Ga-Rei Zero at this point distills into two major themes:

1. It’s really damn good.
2. Nobody has any clue what the fuck is going on.

First Look: Anime Q4 2008 (Part 2)

The strongest shows for this season are in this batch, and a few of them are quite good. That said, none of them quite reach the level of the true greats at this point, although both Kurozuka and Ga-Rei have the potential. Also noteworthy are the crazy comedy shows; I’ve classified them both under ’skim’, but make no mistake: they’re total riots. Pretty much everything else can be summarily ignored.

First Look: Anime Q4 2008 (Part 1)

This season has a number of high-profile sequels and a major blast from the past that together crowd out the fresh, new offerings. That’s just as well, however, as none of the new shows really catch the eye. Does that sound familiar? I don’t think we’ve seen a single genuinely good show for three seasons; the industry desperately needs another Lucky Star, Last EXILE, Cowboy Bebop, etc. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this season at all; I’ve already read the manga versions of several of this season’s shows (e.g., Kannagi, Yozakura Quartet, etc.) and didn’t find any of them noteworthy. If we ignore the sequels, there might be only one or two watchable shows this quarter, which would be a sad way to welcome the holidays.

Comiket 74

No matter how high you pile it …

The stuff coming out of Comiket this year has been garbage upon more garbage. Sifting these collections for any rare gems is akin to clawing through a flaming pit of radioactive turds. The quality of doujin manga and doujin music is appallingly low in general; I haven’t touched any of the professional stuff or eroge yet. Combined with the standard minefield of deviant fetishes, the low quality makes it hard for me to feel that any of this was worth the effort. There was a lot more Macross F material than I anticipated; unfortunately, pretty much none of it was any good. Some older shows and games continue to make appearances, particularly in art collections, and these tended to be better. There were, of course, other surprises as well.