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.
Watch
» Kuro Shitsuji. This is a candidate for the best show this season, although it’s not entirely without potential pitfalls. Right away, it’s glaringly apparent that this is a tier-1 production. While the character designs and overall Victorian style aren’t to my liking, the art is sharp and detailed as only seen in high-budget work. The overall atmosphere is serious and even somewhat sinister, but there’s a fair amount of random humor that clashes badly with the main themes; I have a feeling I’m going to get tired of the clumsy maid pretty quickly. The paranormal elements were well-done in this episode, although the foggy alien face could rapidly become corny. I’m not entirely thrilled about the animation either. There’s a scene where the butler pulls the tablecloth off of a long dining table while leaving everything on top of it relatively undisturbed. This is clearly supposed to be one of those ZOMG H4X moments, but the animation is uninspiring and ultimately far too slow, which completely kills the effect. If this is the sort of performance we’ll see in action scenes later, I might as well drop the show now. OP and ED are great; it’s obvious someone paid good money for them.
He probably bought the mask at Wal-Mart.
» Casshern Sins. This is a remake of the 1973 classic, which I only saw bits and pieces of as a kid. Remakes and sequels of old classics have been rather strong lately, partly, I’m sure, due to nostalgia, but also because studios seem to be willing to pour a lot of money and effort into them. It’s too early to say whether Casshern will run into the same quality problems as Macross Frontier, but the first episode isn’t bad at all. Although I don’t personally like the drawing style, there’s nothing objectively wrong with it and the animation is fluid. The combat scenes aren’t particularly engaging, but that’s entirely because there’s never any question as to who the winner will be, rather than due to any aesthetic problems. Note, however, that although this show airs in HD, it doesn’t seem detailed enough to really benefit from the higher resolution. The plot and characters are well-known at this point – that’s one of the benefits of remaking a classic – so I’m not expecting any major deviations in those areas, good or bad.
Wal-Mart mask with LEDs.
Skim
» Kannagi. I’m going to say this upfront: the first episode is good. Production values aren’t incredible, but the artists do an excellent job with what they’ve got, the voice acting is spot-on, and character interaction just naturally clicks. Even the comedy works: I laugh even when I don’t want to. Unfortunately, having read the manga I know how this shit is going to go down. I know, for instance, that all of the girl-boy comedy gets very stale, very fast; there’s just no variation in it. I also know that Nagi herself becomes incredibly annoying in a variety of different ways, for a variety of different reasons; don’t expect any salvation from the supporting cast, either. On top of all of that, the OP animation seriously worries me. In the interest of fairness, I’m going to give the anime a shot, but unless it can escape the pitfalls in the manga there’s simply no saving this one.
/lol or /facepalm?
» Toradora!. To be honest, I’m hesitant about rating this show here, because I’m keenly aware of how quickly a show like this can go south. Provisionally, however – that is, based on the first episode – I’m willing to bet on this getting better rather than worse. The genre isn’t compelling, and the female lead is such a typical tsundere I almost can’t bear to watch, but there are a few strong points. For one, the premise regarding the male lead has potential: he’s a nice guy, but he naturally looks and sounds like a total badass, thus unintentionally scaring the shit out of his classmates and teachers. Further, his mom is totally awesome, although she only gets a few minutes of screentime in the first episode. To be honest, I think the biggest knock against this show is that the female lead is drawn and voiced like one of those shitty angry chibi girls. If you can get past that, the rest really isn’t too bad. If.
Rawr. This about sums it up.
» Yozakura Quartet. Decent superpower anime; this would actually be a contender for the “watch” category if I didn’t think it would drown itself in anime stereotypes. The first episode was fairly good as far as the characters were concerned, but utterly failed on the most important point: combat. Superhero shows live or die by their coolness factor, and the first episode rated poorly in that regard. There’s very little action in the first episode, despite there actually being a “fight scene” – that is to say, the villain was defeated, but there isn’t anything in this episode that I could call “fighting” with a straight face. That said, the characters’ abilities have potential, even if they are somewhat silly, so if they can get the choreography and animation quality to decent levels this show could actually deliver. OP and ED are pretty good, too.
Oh look, she can deflect bullets. I would never have predicted that.
» Shikabane Hime: Aka. I’m not sure what to think of this show. On the one hand, the art style and fluid fighting remind me somewhat of Tokyo Majin Gakuen, which I rather liked. And while the entire undead hunter angle is tired, it usually makes for pretty good combat scenes as long as the animators have good sense and imagination. On the other hand, the voice acting is extremely poor, the characters we’ve met are all terribly boring, and the female lead uses guns rather than, say, swords. We haven’t been properly introduced to the eponymous heroine yet, but aside from her fighting there’s precious little to see (Note: there are multiple shower scenes in the first episode, if that happens to be your thing). I’m keeping my eye on this show for now, but I’m not expecting it to improve significantly.
Hey, at least there's respectable muzzle flash.
Skip
» Hyakko. This looks like a slice-of-life high school comedy show, but I’m not certain because the art is so goddamn irritating I couldn’t watch it for more than five minutes. It’s a shame, because the production values are actually quite good, and a few of the scenes I skimmed through were reasonably funny. I just can’t get past the ugly.
That's right, I just called you ugly.
» Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka. While my policy is to at least skim the first episode of each show, there are always a few shows each season that I’m tempted to make exceptions for. Let’s review the AniDB tags for this gem, shall we? “Harem, High School, Love Polygon, Romance, School Life, Sudden Girlfriend Appearance.” Hmm, sounds like a real winner, right? The only studio that can pull even a halfway decent show out of crap like that is KyoAni, and they’re not responsible for this one. I won’t keep you in suspense: this show is exactly the steaming pile of shit I expected it to be. I waste my time, so you don’t have to! I accept gold and silver tokens of appreciation.
Nothing to see here, move along.
I’m saving the new sequels so I can do them all at once; as I mentioned at the beginning, there are quite a few of them this season, and most of the prequels were at least decent shows. Clannad, Jigoku Shoujo, and Nodame Contabile should be good, if not excellent. KyoAni was mostly absent last season, and they’ve been sorely missed. We’ve also got Hokuto no Ken, Gundam 00, Rosario to Vampire, and a handful of others, none of which excite me, frankly. Sequels aside, there are also about a half-dozen more new shows; Linebarrels might be good.
