So Shaft and Shinbo’s hightly anticipated original magical girl show has started, which means we finally get to see what all the hype was about. At the same time, this was still just the first episode, so the “wait and see” approach would be the right one to follow at this point. Still, what was shown was unique and displayed a lot of potential, leaving me excited for more.

Story-wise, nothing presented here should make anyone even raise an eyebrow. It strictly followed well established cliches and tropes of schoolgirl anime, although it did it to such a fault that I can’t help but think that it was on purpose. I was inclined to facepalm when Madoka Kaname (Aoi Yuuki) ran out of her home with the toast hanging out of her mouth but was delighted to see her quickly munch it down just seconds after exiting the premises. Was that a casual wink and nod about that particular trope and how the show was using it but also destroying it?

Then, of course, there was the attractive transfer student, Homura Akemi (Chiwa Saito, channeling Hitagi Senjougahara with a heavier, more masculine voice than her usual cutesy one) around whom everyone clusters instantly. And like any attractive transfer student, there’s something mysterious about her (see: Itsuki Koizumi), such as the fact that she appeared in Madoka’s dream during the cold open, and that she already knows who Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki (Eri Kitamura) are, as well as the general layout of the school. Oh yeah, and it turns out she’s the bad guy, some magical girl trying to kill the ferret Kyubey (Emiri Kato) who also appeared in Madoka’s dream.

But enough about the plot. Again, nothing special here. What really struck me about this episode was the art. First of all, the character designs obviously reek of Aoki Ume, she of Hidamari Sketch fame. Though the faces aren’t quite as wide as in that show (for shame), the soft, rounded faces and simple and solid colored hair styles reminded a lot of the characters from Hidamari Sketch. The key was in the large, widened eyes, though, with the subtle pencil strokes for shading visible during the close ups.

But, as was the case before with Shaft’s Bakemonogatari, the backdrops were what really stole the show. Shaft was clearly going for the super-clean near-future aesthetic with the designs of various locales from the episode. It started with the Kaname house (speaking of near-future, we’ve got a working mother and a stay-at-home husband in this one, a very modern nuclear family) with its hard rectangular lines, wide open spaces with huge windows. The bathroom scene with Madoka and her mother could’ve been terribly boring without all that architectural eye candy (and, of course, Shinbo’s favorite visual trick, reflections). There were some subtle touches here and there as well, such as the presence of the staircase in Madoka’s parents’ bedroom, or the changing digital picture frame behind Madoka’s mother just as she leaves for work.

The same aesthetic was pushed hard at the school as well, with all of the walls surrounding the classrooms being made of glass, and the use of digital whiteboards instead of the traditional chalkboards. Same goes for the CD shop at the mall, with its glass shelves and walls filled with square shaped windows. All in all, the super-clean near-futuristic look made for a very appealing world, one very pleasing to the eyes.

And all that served as a strong contrast to what would happen when the magical girls actually entered the picture. As the battle started in an unfinished portion of the mall, the style took a distinct shift in a more dirty, lived-and-worked-in direction. Even with the daylight peeking through the large windows, the place was oppressively dark and dirty. What really pushed that was Mami Tomoe’s (Kaori Mizuhashi – played Miyako in Hidamari Sketch) entrance, when the scenery became full-on psychedelic collage, the same type seen in some episodes of the later seasons of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei as well as parts of Bakemonogatari (it is displayed well here in the OP to the 3rd Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OVA).

We’re talking some really disturbing stuff, the stuff nightmares are made out of. Creepy chanting butterflies with clouds with handlebar mustaches. I’ve never seen a magical girl show, but I’m guessing that the art style during their transformations and fighting are a lot cleaner than what was shown here. At the same time, the contrast levels took a huge jump, painting the characters with far more stark and harsh colors, away from the soft, more pastel tones from during the everyday scenes.

So even though Magical Girl Madoka Magica isn’t exactly taking things to The Tatami Galaxy or Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt levels, it’s doing some very fun things with its art style. And so far, the eye candy alone intrigues me enough to be excited about seeing more. Again, the story is strictly run-of-the-mill, and the music isn’t much to write home about. The tune during Mami’s transformation scene (one that was wonderfully short and to the point, I might add) was quite nice, but the rest of it was forgettable. Yuki Kajiura‘s music has never done anything for me in the past, other than fitting in wonderfully with the dark horror theme of the Kara no Kyoukai movies. And the opening theme, usually a strong point of Shaft’s shows, might have been good if it didn’t sound exactly like Irony, the opening theme to last season’s horrendous My Little Sister Can’t be This Cute.

This was a strong first episode overall, certainly stronger than the first episodes of any of Shaft’s (new) efforts last year (Dance in the Vampire Bund, Arakawa Under the Bridge, and Yet the Town Keeps Going). Even though we’ve yet to see any of the story unfold, the distinctive and pleasing art style makes me see a lot of potential for the rest of the show.

The next anime in the spotlight comes from one of the hardest working directors in anime today, Akiyuki Shinbou, and his cohorts-in-crime, Shaft animation studio. Since coming off last summer’s monster hit, Bakemonogatari, anime fans have been eagerly waiting for the next big thing from the Shinbou/Shaft team. Which leads us to the $64,000 dollar question; is Arakawa Under the Bridge the next hit or the next miss from Shinbou/Shaft?

Rating for episodes 1 to 5 – 11/12  A+
Anticipation Level: 4/5  Medium to High

The Story

Kou Ichinomiya is the heir and chairmen-in-training to his father’s vast fortune and ginormous multi-national conglomerate company. Ichinomiya has been the eager sponge and is all set to step into this wonderful life when something unexpected happens; a woman saves his life and, when asked what she would like in return, she asks for him to live with her under the bridge as her lover. She didn’t want the offered money, car, or mansion and as crazy as the it sounds, Ichinomiya can’t simply blow her desire off. Every fiber of his being has been imprinted with his father’s creed to live wholly independent of everyone which includes paying off any debts incurred to other people; if he doesn’t follow this creed then he’ll get violently ill and will probably die. The debt of one’s life is so large that Ichinomiya can’t do anything else but accept her wish and his life, as they say, will never be the same.

The Fine Print

I think I got Shinbou pegged now. He’s normally weakest when doing a plot-driven show like Dance in the Vampire Bund and normally strongest when doing a character-driven show like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei or Hidamari Sketch. There are exceptions, Maria+holic should have been awesome but never quite made it and Natsu no Arashi was strongest when he focused on the plot, but it’s a useful generalization and Arakawa Under the Bridge fits the pattern: character-driven = awesome.

The most important thing for a character-driven show is it’s characters and it turns out setting the show under a bridge full of homeless people is a stroke of genius because you can populate the show with very interesting and very odd characters and it doesn’t stretch believability since these are the supposed rejects of society. If they were normal they wouldn’t be here. There’s the mayor of this community, he is a guy that dresses up as a kappa and wants everyone to treat him as if he really was one of those mystical Japanese creatures. And pointing out the zippers on his suit doesn’t do any good since he acts as if they’re supposed to be there. Nino, the woman that takes Ichinomiya (now named Recruit) as her lover, proclaims that she’s from Venus and seems unaware of many societal norms so we’re left wondering if somehow she’s really an alien or just “crazy” like the rest of the inhabitants. Either way she has a heart of gold and a sweet personality so I can’t help but think that Ichinomiya aka Recruit is giving up very little by leaving his former lifestyle and gaining so much. My favorite character, though, is the seven foot tall gun-toting ex-mercenary that goes by the name of Sister since he’s dresses as a nun and is responsible for the spiritual welfare of the community.

One of the important things to figure out for a Shinbou anime is will the “Shaft being Shaft” moments help or hinder the show. In the right amount and used correctly, these Shaft moments help make a show memorably and so far it seems that Arakawa Under the Bridge is hitting it about perfect. The animation is stylized  but not overly so, if I’d have to describe it I’d call it Bakemonogatari lite. There’s been no abstract backgrounds and no real objects inserted into the anime that I remember, which I think fits the show well since it allows the characters and story to take center stage.

Speaking of the story, one of the parts of Arakawa Under the Bridge that has pleasantly surprised me is that underneath the crazy characters and silly comedy, there’s a couple messages it’s trying to convey and this lends a depth to the show that I really like. The one message is about how the truly important things in life are free and a lot more satisfying then the stuff money can buy. Corny, I know, but that doesn’t lessen the truth behind it. The second message is about the intrinsic worth and goodness all people have, even those people that society tries to forget about. Some part of me enjoys seeing Recruit humbled by life under the bridge where he meets truly happy people and discovers how much of a loser he is.

And I’d be loser if I didn’t mention the other good stuff about Arakawa Under the Bridge before finishing. I already praised Nino’s voice actress in my Tatami Galaxy impression post and she’s really good as Nino here. I also love that Chiaki Omigawa is doing the voice of P-Ko, she hasn’t done much work but enjoyed her as Maka in Soul Eater and Jun from Natsu no Arashi. Sister’s voice is perfect and so is Maria’s and Stella’s; in fact, the entire cast is a great cast. The only slightly sour note is Recruit’s voice, not because it’s a bad performance, but because Hiroshi Kamiya is everywhere this season and this performance really sounds like he’s doing Goodbye, Mr. Despair season 4. There has to be some equally capable male voice actors out there that could have done this role. Also a plus, it appears that Shinbou/Shaft is going the route they did with Bakemonogatari and are having multiple opening songs. I’ve liked the two done so far a lot and hope the others will be as well done.

I should explicitly mention, since I might have made the impression that this was a slice-of-life type show, that this show is full of comedy and it’s really good comedy. The merry band of misfits is the cause of much of the humor but there’s also the fish-out-of-water comedy from Recruit learning to live under the bridge and there’s the gag contest at the end of some of the episodes.

To review, Arakawa Under the Bridge follows a pattern that I think I see with Shinbou/Shaft shows which is plot driven shows = meh and character-driven shows = win and Arakawa Under the Bridge is definitely win. It has great characters and an abundance of comedy but it’s the subtly done deeper messages that really make me adore this anime. I highly recommend giving this show a chance, if you haven’t already done so.

Filed under: anime, first impressions

Along with this realization, I think I solved a question I’ve been pondering for years now – namely how can one best differentiate between a kid and an adult. The answer is that a kid thinks time does not go fast enough and an adult thinks time goes too fast. I fall into the latter category; I’m appalled that I haven’t posted anything in slightly over 2 months but it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been 2 months. Where does the time go???

For those that are interested in why it’s been so long since I last wrote something, I’ll get to later down the page. First, let’s do some anime blogging and we might as well start with my thoughts on the new shows that made up the Winter 2010 season.

Sora No Woto

Status – Finished
Final Score –  8/12 B+
In Short – A-1 deserves praise for attempting a show of the caliber but it really needed to be a 24 episode series. It wasn’t, though, and as a result the pacing is too hurky-jerky, the story-telling is too compressed, and the characters are too flat for the viewer to really enjoy Sora no Woto as much as it should have been. Which is a shame because the world that A-1 created was a really interesting one that truly begged to be investigated more.

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Chuu Bra!!

Status – Dropped after 4 episodes
Interim Score –  2/12 F
In Short – I knew I shouldn’t have bothered with this show but there was so few shows this season I figured what was the harm in watching a couple of episodes. Mistake, I could live with a merely poorly constructed fan-service show but I was not ready for this show. It was a poorly constructed fan-service show with a quasi-realistic portrayal of young teenage girls as they grapple with self-image issues. Each episode left me feeling unclean and wondering who exactly thought animating this show was a good idea. Thankfully, I could legitimately drop Chuu Bra after 4 episodes when it became apparent that the show, even without accounting for the creep factor, was a lousy show.

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Katanagatari

Status – Waiting for the next episode
Interim Score –  8/12 B+
In Short – The first 3 episodes of Katanagatari aired this season and while it started off very shaky – each subsequent episode has shown a marked improvement over the previous. I think the key to liking this show is to not create the wrong expectations. This is a NisiOisiN story so even though it’s about sword fighters and medieval Japan – the emphasis is on the characters and their conversations and not on the blood/ gore/ action scenes that one might assume a show like this would focus on.

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Seikon no Qwaser

Status – 12 episodes watched and still reluctantly watching
Interim Score –  3/12 D
In Short – For a show that tries to push the envelope in terms of fan-service, you’d think the animators could come up with something that wasn’t so boring. Scenes that should shock or titillate more-often-then-not leave me yawning, wishing that I could bean some sense into the manga/anime creators that think T&A is all that’s needed to carry a show. Sometimes I think they forget that the internet exists. The sole saving grace to Seikon no Qwaser is that one character is being voiced by Aya Hirano (aka Haruhi) and she’s absolutely awesome – truly one of her best efforts to date. It’s not enough to make this show a worthwhile watch to the vast majority of anime watchers but it is something.

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Omamori Himari

Status – Dropped after 7 episodes
Interim Score –  5/12 C+
In Short – I continue to be weak against anime shows that feature the supernatural/Japanese religious elements so when a show like Omamori Himari comes along with it’s generic blandness and it happens to have a supernatural element to it – I end up watching it longer then it deserves and having a higher opinion of it then it deserves. It wasn’t a horrible show and I’d probably have finished watching it except that I decided one day that I was sick of the all the not-really-horrible but not-really-good shows I was watching and dropped it along with a few others.

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Ladies versus Butlers!

Status – Finished
Final Score –  4/12 C
In Short – And yet somehow I finished this show,  though in my defense this show did have some potential and I found the opening song catchy. If they had skipped the harem of girls with one-dimensional personalities and focused on the triangle of the main guy and the two girls – drill hair and childhood friend it might even had been a good show but this is Xebec were talking about so that was just wishful thinking. This was probably the least painful fan-service show to watch of the season so if you absolutely needed your fix this was your bet.

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Durarara!!

Status – 13 episodes watched and impatient for more
Interim Score –  10.5/12 Strong A
In Short – One of the best new shows of the season. For those that wanted Durarara to be Baccano 2, this first half of the show was probably a big disappointment. The very minimal body count and focus on character/story development was just two ways Durarara felt unBaccano-like. I’ll admit that this desire clouded my feelings for a while but I eventually got over it when I realized that Durarara was going to be 24 episodes long and it had the time to develop it’s characters in ways that Baccano didn’t and because the animators started to reveal parts of the larger plot of Durarara and it became interesting in it’s own way. I totally psyched for the second half.

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Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

Status – Dropped after 7 episodes
Interim Score –  6/12 B-
In Short – Another casualty along with Omamori Himari; I thought it started strong but it began to bog down in the middle and I wasn’t in the mood that day to put up with a show that could obviously being doing much better. Since then I’ve kinda felt bad about dropping it but I’ve yet to feel the urge to pick up where I left off so I guess it’s just best to let sleeping dogs lie.

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Dance In The Vampire Bund

Status – 9 episodes watched and a desire to finish
Interim Score –  6/12 B-
In Short – I really had high hopes for this and I thought the first episode was brilliant but my disappointment grew as I kept waiting for the show to settle down and start telling a story.  since I like the Shaft/Shinbou combo I didn’t want to give up on it so after the sixth episode I decided to put it aside till I had all the episodes and had the ability to watch them together. Some shows, I’ve realized, work better when marathoned and just the other day I watched episodes 7-9 together and I liked it more than I was expecting. I hope this bodes well for the rest of the series.

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Ookami Kakushi

Status – Dropped after 7 episodes
Interim Score –  6/12 B-
In Short – Another not-really-bad but not-really-good show that I decided to drop. In it’s favor was the fact that a competent animation studio was animating this and not Studio Deen who had done the previous Ryuukishi07 shows (Higurashi, Umineko no Naku Koro ni). This positive is negated by the larger problem of the source material recycling so much of the show’s content from those previous Ryuukishi07 shows. Also, I’ve gotten tired of how all these shows are placed 25+ years ago – I’m starting to think Ryuukishi either lacks the will to figure out how to do a mystery/horror series where the characters have access to cell phones, GPS devices, and the internet or lacks the intelligence to write a new story that doesn’t rip off his/her/its one other story idea.

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Hanamaru Youchien

Status – Finished and Wishing for Season 2
Final Score –  12/12 Perfect
In Short – Saved the best for last. I can still remember how utterly stupefied I was when it was announced that Gainax’s next series was going to be Hanamaru Youchien. This series had J.C. Staff written all over it, why was Gainax doing this? I checked the manga out and was decidedly underwhelmed after reading the first 10 chapters. With absolutely no confidence that Hanamaru Youchien was going to be good, imagine my surprise when Gainax cranked this out of the stadium. Who knew the studio known for it’s hot-blooded action series could do such a warm, relaxing, cute, funny series. I think Gainax just became my preferred studio to do the anime for Yotsuba if/when the creator ever allows one to get made. Gainax also deserves tons of praise for having a different ending song/animation for each episode; I loved all the different songs and subjects. (Now if only KyoAni could do the same thing with K-On.)

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I really should add one final show – Hidemari Sketch x ☆☆☆ (aka season 3) – since it aired this season as well but I’ve just seen the first couple of episodes and so I don’t have a firm opinion on it yet. After purging all the bad – mediocre shows of this season, I needed something to fill the space and decided it was time to catch myself up on this series and started with the first series. I plan on making a post about all the series I’ve been watching instead of the current crop of shows so look for my thoughts on this Shaft/Shinbou series soon.

And maybe I’ll even get around to doing my top shows of 2009 already and talking about the new spring 2010 shows as well. Now onto where I was for 2 months.

If it was just up to me, I’d probably just pretend nothing happened and keep blogging but I’m pretty sure there are at least a few people who were wondering what happened to me and so I’ll give a condensed version of the various reasons and we can go from there.

A normal February is a pretty depressing month already but this one was a bit harder to get through than most. The weather was truly atrocious; it wasn’t so much the almost unending amount of snow we got (about 45 inches) but the complete lack of sunlight we had. I checked online and for the entire month of February we had 7 hours of clear skies. It didn’t break down how much of those 7 hours occurred during daylight or at night but even in all 7 hours happened during daylight hours and I happened to be awake – it still essentially meant I went a month without seeing the sun.

Also weighing on my mind was that this February was the one year anniversary of my grandma passing. I’ll get myself wound up in anger if I think about it too much so I’ll just say that I consider my 3 aunts the reason why my grandma isn’t living today. Also, it’s very important for everyone to decide how much or how little medical care they want and get it in writing because you can’t rely on your family to have your best interests at heart – you could get admitted to the hospital for a serious but not life threatening reason and in the course of treatment your family could decide to remove your feeding tube and let you starve to death over the course of 3 weeks.

Factor in a really weak anime season and I just didn’t feel like talking about anime or do much of anything. March rolled around and almost like a switch the weather turned gorgeous. Temperatures shot up into the 60’s and 70’s and it was wall-to-wall sunny. I spent as much time as I could outside and the sight of the first flowers of the season  – crocuses – went a long way to improve my mood. I started to feel the urge to write again but I kept getting blocked.

I volunteered to be the Dungeon Master in a 6 part campaign for my sister, brother-in-law, and friends in Dungeons & Dragons. We were going to use a printed campaign but we were not satisfied with the quality of writing so I further volunteered to write one myself and it takes an amazingly large amount of time to create a halfway decent adventure. I also picked up a temporary job working for the census and it’s been leaving me really tuckered out when I get home at night. And of course to blog about anime I first need to watch anime. And I’ve also been slowly working on my top anime of 2009 posts because I’d like all the parts to be done or almost done when I start posting them. And once it got to be a long time between posts I felt reluctant to explain why it’s been a long time because I started a blog talk about anime and a little SF, not to be a personal blog.

As a result, even though I’ve been meaning to start writing again it’s been almost a month before I had the chance to sit down and write something I could publish. I guess at this point I should just listen to the wise words from Manabi Straight and say, “Forward, Go!!” and get back to blogging.

Filed under: anime, anime rants/views, meta/office keeping, series review

That’s right. The final episode of Dance in the Vampire Bund is titled Dance in the Vampire Bund, and (spoilers!) it ends with a dance in the Vampire Bund. Story-wise, this episode had to explain a lot, and it managed to accomplish that, tying the series together nicely, even while introducing new plot points that remain as mysteries to the viewer.

To quote M. Night Shyamalan on Robot Chicken, “What a twist!” I didn’t see that one coming. The true vampires’ inheritance being that there are multiple Minas? I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around this. It was nice to finally have that gap in Akira’s memories filled. I enjoyed the grotesque imagery in the scene when all the Minas were being burned. The music in that scene reminded me too much of the underworld theme from Super Mario Brothers, though.

But even though Akira and Mina are the protagonists, Meiren really stole the spotlight this climactic episode.

As joker76 had theorized, Meiren was indeed the 3rd assassin, and beyond that, she’s also a part of Telomere. That explains why she stopped Mina’s final strike in episode 7, and how she was on the other end of the phone in episode 9.

She explains to Akira pretty much everything. She was a slave who was given freedom and a purpose by that other Mina from the first scene of the episode. And she wants that Mina to be the queen of the world. That’s why she joined Telomere, that’s why she was undercover this whole time until all the vampire heads were gathered under one roof, and that’s why she now has the same kind of bomb inside her as was featured in episodes 8 and 9.

But of course, Akira doesn’t see things the same way. Their fight had its moments, but it was overall underwhelming. Mostly just bright flashes of light flying around the city. The best moments were those before and after the fight, when the tension between Akira and Meiren builds and builds, and when it is all finally released. Meiren had some very poignant things to say in these scenes, which made her into a tragic character, a real foil to Akira, instead of a simple villain.

But she still was the villain, and Mina was the heroine. She had her moment as well. When Akira was clearly overmatched by Meiren and down for the count, and Yuki was already beginning to mourn his coming death, it was Mina who sat with confidence. She firmly believed that Akira would keep his promise to return to her, against all odds and evidence. And in the moment of truth, he does defeat Meiren, even though he loses his arm in the process.

Once the action began to die down, Mina was great as she put the clan heads in their place. I loved the call-back to episode 10, where Mina had seemingly joked to Yuki that they could fill any room in that building with sunlight. Turns out she wasn’t lying. Thanks to the magic of fiber optics. And she was adorable when she was walking away from the meeting room and couldn’t help herself from breaking into a run to meet Akira.

The denouement was fitting, though it felt somewhat rushed. It was nice to see Mina and Akira honoring Meiren’s death, as she had proved to be a great and very likable character in these last few episodes. In the end, the story came back around to end with another promise, as Yuki’s narration had alluded to throughout the show. I didn’t like how they conveniently had Akira’s arm reattached. I wanted Akira really to lose something, to put a greater permanence and sacrifice to the battle he fought. I like it when the hero has to lose something in his journey to success, like, for example, Mikiya and his left eye in Kara no Kyoukai (or, on the subject of eyes, Snake and his right eye in Metal Gear Solid 3).

There’s still the unaddressed issue of the second Mina. There was just a quick little scene showing her at the end, so even though the current story had wrapped up neatly, there is still a thread open for a possible sequel.

And I think I’d like that. I can’t honestly say the show was great. The first half was aimless and, to be frank, pretty boring at times. Though the show got very strong in the second half, the ending didn’t blow me away. Which is pretty much what it needed to do given the first half. But the whole build up to the ending was so strong, and it got me so interested in the story enough that I’d like to see more. And the way Meiren’s character and story were handled was brilliant throughout.

This show leaves me with mixed feelings. Being an action/thriller, it was a very big departure from Shaft’s recent works, which have either been talk-heavy comedies or romance dramas. I was a little skeptical about how they would handle the action, and I was right to be skeptical; though the action exceeded my expectations and was even great at times, it was inconsistent and the climactic action scene wasn’t directed very well at all. And I’ve already gone on too much about how the story was weak until the second half.

At the same time, there were parts of the show that Shaft handled very well. When the action was good, it was GOOD. The stories of the main characters, including those of Yuzuru with Nanami and of Meiren were excellent and left me feeling… something when each of their stories ended. And Shaft tied the overall story together very well in the last 2 episodes, neatly wrapping up something that seemed to be in complete disarray halfway through.

I can’t heartily recommend this show to everyone, but if you’ve got the patience to sit through the whole thing, I think you’ll see those flashes of brilliance that made the show enjoyable. Here’s to hoping for a second season, in which Shaft has a better budget and has learned from what worked and didn’t in this season.

Anyway, this series is now over, and I’ll be moving on to Shaft’s Arakawa Under the Bridge in this coming season. The first episode actually airs today (don’t know the exact time, so it may have already), so look for impressions on that soon.

Pixiv Sauce I haven’t done one of these in a long time! I’m not cut out for reviewing stuff, I suck at them so I take the easy way out and just say a few sentences and get it over with. That will be the disclaimer, these reviews are not SUPAH in any way. The title [...]

There was more talk and less action in this episode than I expected, but I found that to be alright, because the talk brought back that very important issue that had been ignored for the last many episodes: Akira’s continued amnesia. And it ties it together with Telomere; what Akira still doesn’t remember is what Telomere wants. And Telomere comes back in this episode to get it from him. With just 1 more episode left, all the loose story ends have come together, for one last Dance… in the Vampire Bund (sorry, hate me if you want to for that).

The plot thickens! It seems that the 1st assassin was with Telomere, which means that one of the 3 clans, or all of them, are in bed with Telomere. It did put her in an awkward position, as it was her job to kill Akira for her master, but she also needed to get information out of him before doing so (explains why she didn’t kill Akira outright when she ambushed him at the border to the Bund). It really saved Akira’s butt a few times, as he got repeatedly stabbed due to his inability to transform. That was a nice little plot point, as it showed how much he really loved and was in love with Mina, despite him being in denial about it.

Speaking of impossible love and saving Akira’s butt, Meiren was pretty phenomenal in this episode. I found it humorous that she came in with a shotgun, and it had predictably little effect on the 2nd Assassin, managing just to knock him away for a little bit. But she took care of him using melee in the end, which gave us a chance to see that she was a wolfman – or rather, wolfwoman – as well. Her confessing to Akira – for serious this time instead of her usual playful flirting – was very sweet. I wonder how much of her emotions were driven by the fact that she’s supposedly the last of her kind, though. She’ll have to come to terms with her feelings just like Yuki did halfway into the show.

I enjoyed most of the action, seeing the 1st assassin’s true powers, her ability to shapeshift to really insane proportions. She was really the star of the episode, and I liked how some of her personality shone through, through her speech, her facial expressions, and her choice of attacks, making her a more complete character than just another enemy. Which is kinda what the 2nd assassin ended up being. Given his awesome weapons from the previous episode (naginata and claws), I was hoping for some good fight scenes involving him, but he was taken out very quickly by Meiren. Pretty disappointing, though it did emphasize what a badass Meiren is.

Both of the 1st 2 assassins were dispatched in this episode, which leaves the 3rd as the only obstacle lying between Akira and a happy ending. I wonder if Meiren is indeed the 3rd assassin, as joker76 posited in his comment on my post on the previous episode. Would make for a very interesting fight, especially with Akira finally having regained the ability to transform due to his anger at seeing Mina’s image dirtied by the 1st assassin.

And Mina has put everything on the line now. It puts an even greater weight to the outcome of the finale, but at the same time, it pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of whatever doubt you might have had that Akira wouldn’t pull through. I mean, I think it was pretty clear from the previous episode, but they won’t really have Mina lose everything in one fell swoop at the end… will they?

As for the creepiness factor, they showed again the final scene of the previous episode, and also some short clips from the actual verification ceremony itself. We also learn that Mina knew Akira since his birth 17 years ago, which puts a whole new twist in the creepiness factor of their relationship. She’s the one who’s “robbing the cradle” – almost literally. It reminded me a lot of the very unhealthy relationship between Buster and Lucille 2 in Arrested Development (“She changed him as a baby!”).

I’m looking forward to seeing what Akira’s still hidden memory is, and why Telomere wants it so badly. There were some hints that he was starting to regain this memory towards the end, but I found the flashbacks to be confusing. They brought back imagery from the nightmare at the beginning of the previous episode, and the flashbacks did seem to imply that Mina might be dead or something. And what Alphonse said to Akira implies that this was a piece of information that could change Akira’s behavior drastically, to the point of making him an enemy. It would be great if Akira’s remembrance forces him to make a Sophie’s choice in the next episode. But at this point, I just have no idea, and my approach is just to let it come to me, let the director tell me the story without theorizing needlessly. And so it’s with great anticipation that I await the finale of this show. There’s a lot that has to happen, but this show’s pacing has proven to me that 23 minutes is more than enough.

An aside:

I went to Pax East today for the final day. There wasn’t much in terms of cosplay, but I’ve added what I took to the Picasa album. I attended a panel by members of OverClocked ReMix, a site in which people upload their own remixes of video game music. I was a big fan of the remix “Save Me,” a remix of the save-point theme from Ico (the only parts in the game that actually had background music), which is why I attended. But that whole community reminded me of the microcultures that were mentioned in the Memes talk yesterday.

Speaking of which, I also saw Alex Leavitt, the researcher from that Memes talk, cosplaying as Ash from Pokemon attending a panel on geeks. He also made a comment on my post from yesterday!

Besides the panels, I spent a lot of time on the show floor. I got to play The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and talked with its sole developer. Turns out he was a big fan of DMC3 and Bayonetta, which I figured from playing his game. I also got to play some DeathSmiles for the XBox360, and that game just might get me into shmups like Touhou.

After getting 3 consecutive action-heavy episodes, we get one that is slower paced and more subdued. We learn a bit more about Meiren’s past and the clans that make up the vampire world. The episode also brings to the forefront the impossibility of the relationship between Mina and Akira in this class-based world and clearly sets up the conflict that will be the focus of the last 2 episodes.
The episode starts with Akira having a nightmare that Mina is killed, a silver stake through her heart. The silhouette of someone who appears to be Meiren appears and says, “I’ll kill you!” before he is awakened by Mina who is watching him sleep. Now that things have settled down and the railway in the Bund has started going up, she invites him to hang out that weekend. Unfortuantely, Akira has another appointment and must refuse. It turns out he had promised Meiren that they’d meet.

So the first half shows the main characters enjoying some down time. Mina, Vera, her maids (including Nanami, who became one after last episode), Yuzuru, and Yuki play around in an indoor pool, while Akira takes a long walk with Meiren. This gives us a chance to earn a bit more about the past of Akira, Mina, and Meiren, though we still don’t get anything concrete.

In the opening scene, according to Mina, the flowers that keep showing up in the flashbacks are apparently cleome. When Meiren and Akira are talking, Meiren mentions the flower and tells him an old story regarding the flower: because the flower looked so much like a butterfly, a butterfly fell in love with it and flew around it constantly, trying to mate with it, until it finally died from exhaustion. She alludes to how Akira’s relationship with Mina is very similar to this story. Meiren also mentions how the cleome is the favorite flower of the person most precious to her, and we are shown a flashback that suggests that she may have been saved by Mina in the past.

Everyone is enjoying their relaxation when they’re interrupted by the visit of the “3 clans.” Mina explains to Yuki how besides her own royal bloodline, there are 3 clans that serve as subordinates to her own, though she calls them simultaneously her “blood relatives, vassals, and old enemies.” They’re named Li, Ivanovic, and Rozenmann.

Mina gets into a very princess-ly dress (which she calls her “battle uniform”) and meets with the heads of each of the houses (these are the same 3 who were talking over video at the end of the previous episode). It’s immediately clear that these 3 don’t have much respect for her authority. They quickly turn the subject to the fact that according to ancient orders, it is their duty to continue the pure vampire bloodline, and the only ones qualified to do that are the 4 present in the meeting, with Mina being the only female. They grew tired of waiting for her to pick one of them, so the 3 came that night with a contest: they each brought over their best assassin, and whichever one kills Akira wins its master the right to marry Mina.

Meanwhile, Akira, who was informed by Yuki that Mina needed him, is ambushed as he tries to re-enter the Bund, by one of the assassins (who looks very similar to Lady from Devil May Cry 3). He runs away, but each of the other 2 assassins comes at him. And because it matters which of them kills him, the assassins fight one another as well, which gives Akira enough of an opening to run away and back towards headquarters.

Obviously Mina is very upset over this situation, but she can’t fight back, because as the vampire princess, she can’t admit that her romantic interests lie with a wolfman like Akira and that she likely has no plans of choosing any of the 3. The episode closes on a pretty wicked note: an old lady enters with a chair with restraints at the wrists and ankles while saying that she must perform the verification of Mina’s virginity. The last thing we see is Mina voluntarily having her “battle uniform” ripped off her by a couple of guards.

So, one thing that’s clear is that I was mistaken in the last episode; I had assumed that the man with the eye patch was using the royal “we” when he called Mina “our” fiance, but he was actually talking about all 3 of them. The turn of events regarding them should make for a nice way to close out the show. The issue raised by the difference between Mina’s and Akira’s statuses in society had been in the back burner for most of the show, but they’re dealing with it head-on now. One way or another, it’s going to be resolved before it’s over, and I’m excited to find out how.

I’m not sure where Meiren sits in all this, but I’m glad we got to learn more of her past. The nightmare at the beginning seemed to suggest that she might be someone against Mina, but her flashback and the way she talked with Akira suggests that she’s on their side. I wish Akira had been more inquisitive in their conversation. I wonder if, like some other characters in this show, Meiren has responsibilities that go against her personal wishes: i.e. that she wants to help Mina, but whoever she’s working for has its own separate agenda.

The amount of action was minimal, and the quality of what was there was okay . Knowing what Shaft did in the last few episodes, I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the action unfold in the next 2. I think they’re setting up for a series of one-on-one showdowns, as it was just the 3rd assassin who was shown ominously watching over Akira at the end of this one. I’m sure Meiren will get involved as well. Each of the assassins fights a little differently, with the first one using what appear to be wind-based projectiles, the second one using a naginata and claws, and the third one just fighting without weapons. A lot of potential for good eye candy there.

I’m finding myself enjoying the creepiness factor that this show just keeps up. It was bad enough that we have 3 fully grown men discussing mating with a loli while alone in a darkened room, but the show took it over the top with the bit with the chair and the virginity at the end. Instead of letting it be just a shock factor, the show exploits Mina’s perceived age to create a real feeling of discomfort and unease that add to its already high tension scenes.

This episode, like the last, starts with some very NSFW stuff, this time between Nanami and Hysterica. I don’t think I can post any screenshots of that here. Instead, have Yuzuru and Nanami close to the end of the episode:

Mina sends out a message to Hysterica by broadcasting herself on TV to the Japanese populace while speaking ancient Sumerian, but with false Japanese subtitles. She issues a challenge, asking her to meet at an agreed upon location that night.

Researching the contents of the vial found in one of Hysterica’s underlings reveals that it is a chemical that turns vampires’ blood into a powerful explosive. Mina briefs the Beowulf Elite Eight, theorizes that Hysterica is planning a mass suicide bombing in the subways, as there is a high concentration of people there, and it’s away from the sun. It will be their job to track down the vampires hiding in plain sight and kill them before they can blow themselves up.

There’s a brief but important scene that shows Yuzuru still in Mina’s office, being taken care of by Vera for now. He’s curious as to how/why she became a vampire, and she explains that it was because of her love for Mina’s mother, Lucretia, who was the former princess before she died. Vera wanted to protect her forever. She tells him that she has not once regretted the decision.

That night, Hysterica does come, along with Nanami and a small posse of the undead vampires, via a couple helicopters, to meet Mina on the roof of some skyscraper in the Bund. She says that she has no intention of fighting Mina. Rather, she tries to coerce her to get onto one of the helicopters with her with the threat of the aforementioned suicide bombing vampires distributed throughout the subway. But in a surprise attack, Vera shoots down the helicopters and sets off a chaff explosive on the roof, sending all of them falling down to the bottom of the building. Mina explains that the building has also been thickly lined with radio shielding material and hooked with multiple jamming devices. All the exits have been sealed, so the only way out is back through the roof, which Mina and Vera are ready to protect.

The situation doesn’t phase Hysterica much, as she still has her suicide bombing vampires to take on Mina. She orders Nanami, who fell on a walkway a little above them, to head to the roof and trigger the suicide bombers in the subway, while she and Vera fight it out. On her way up, Nanami runs into Yuzuru, who had been briefed by Mina that he, as Nanami’s obsession, would serve as their last line of defense against her. The strategy works, as Nanami drops her cell phone and can only obsessively clutch on to Yuzuru.

Meanwhile, Akira and the Beowulf Elite are doing just fine killing the suicide bombers, until Akira realizes that one of them is his classmate, Hiko (I don’t recall seeing this character before – he may have been the kid who always got bullied and turned into a vampire to turn things around on the bullies). He hesitates, letting him get away into a leaving subway car. Akira transforms into wolf form to chase down the car and to jump into it, before catching up with Hiko at the very front car. Hiko is visibly distressed and conflicted about his role, and Akira tries to talk him down, telling him that it’s not too late.

I’ll stop the summary here, because I don’t want to spoil the events in the rest of the episode. I’ll say that it does end with Mina and Vera defeating Hysterica, and the story between Yuzuru and Nanami does close out. It’s just that it’s worth watching just how it all goes down. Meiren (I’ve decided to use that name, as both Anime News Network and My Anime List call her that, although Wikipedia lists her as Mei Ran) plays a key role yet again at a critical, almost climactic moment of the episode, just like in episode 7.

The episode closes out ominously, showing a man in an eye patch talking via video to 2 others (whose faces are obscured), calling the Bund a toy castle and commenting on how it has been troublesome of late. The man in the eye patch asks one of them to pay his “fiance” a visit.

This was my favorite episode by far. I said in my post about the last episode that I didn’t expect the show to have too much action, but I am glad to have been wrong. With just enough setup, the action started almost right away, and it was GOOD. Even though the action has been good up to now, none of Shaft’s recent works had nearly as much action as this one, so it continues to impress me. Then again, Akiyuki Shinbo, the director, was also the director of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which I’ve heard has some decent action (haven’t seen it, though).

Starting with the fight for the cell phone between Mina and Hysterica in free-fall, continuing with the battle between Mina and the vampires at the bottom of the building, the encounter between Yuzuru and Nanami on the walkway, and ending with Hysterica’s defeat, the action never let up the intensity. The direction, cinematography, and timing were just spot-on. Having the camera move around so much – unusual for anime – made things look weird early in the show, but it works very well for the action scenes. The return of Mina’s adult form was a surprise, and she appropriately dominated the scene. And the subway sequences reminded me of some episodes of 24, including the really cheesy part when Akira is trying to save his classmate.

Beyond the action, the story had me d’awwwwing. Yuzuru appeared for the first time only in episode 8, and Nanami’s character was almost ignored until then, but their story and the way it closed out at the end had a real effect on me. Even if it was rather creepy in that shotacon sort of way. His conversation with Vera at the beginning about why she became a vampire not only served to fill in more of Vera’s back story, but also was integral in making the way this episode ended feel so genuine and heartfelt.

Meiren’s appearance keeps building up the mystery surrounding her character. I’m still waiting for the payoff, to see what her motivations are, though. Despite her helping Akira and Mina consistently along the way, I wonder if her motivations might not align fully with theirs. And, of course, there’s the mysterious man with the eye patch at the end, who seems to be the true antagonist in this final arc. Being the apparent fiance to Mina, he will obviously not see eye-to-eye with Akira.

Just a great episode overall. I had been a little down on this show in the first half, but if the final 3 episodes end up being as good as the previous 3, Dance in the Vampire Bund could become one of my favorite shows in recent years, creepy loli/shota and all.

Before I begin, one thing I forgot to write in the catch up is that there is an organization of vampires called Telomere that was behind all of the assassination attempts on Mina. One of the members was a student who lead the charge against the human students in episode 7. I mention this now because they take a central role in the plot of this episode and presumably of the episodes going forwards.

Well, the Vampire Bund has now been established, so a new plotline begins to develop. The episode starts off almost like a hentai, with a young boy waking up to find his “older sister” trying to jump him. The young boy’s name is Yuzuru, and the “older sister” is actually Nanami Shinonome, the former student council president who was turned into a vampire very early in the show. The scene ends with her fleeing after forcing herself to stop from biting the boy.

It has been a month since the events of episode 7 and the opening of the Bund. It has a very strict border policy, with vampires not being allowed to leave as they please. Vera, the head vampire bodyguard/assistant for Mina, reports to her that some vampires have been breaking this rule, and so she is order to investigate.

At the high school, the students who had been victimized in the previous episode have all been “vaccinated” (they never do explain how they can “vaccinate” turned vampires ex post facto), but all of them have still opted to leave the school. Yuki considers quitting the student council as well because it hurts her to see Mina and Akira together. But after she and Mina talk things out about Akira and learning that there are some aspects of her relationship with Akira that Mina is jealous of, they become friends.

Mei Ran makes a brief appearance early in the episode. She visits Akira in the classroom, flirts with him a bit. It is revealed that she has a pendant which is a replica of one that Akira vaguely recognizes. It will probably become significant later.

The real meat of the story starts when during her investigation, Vera catches Yuzuru trying to break into the Bund. When he reveals that he’s looking for Nanami, Vera takes him to Mina, who decides to set up a net to catch her in the act. The net is successful, but Nanami does not listen to Mina’s orders, making her realize that she has a different master. After a short chase, they run into the master, a vampire by the name of Hysterica (va: Rie Kugimiya ). Vera recognizes her, and they seem to have a history that stretches at least a 100 years. Last time they met, in 1918, she had been known as Francesca.

She also has with her a sizable army of undead-like vampire followers, also immune to Mina’s words. A fight scene breaks out between Beowulf Elite Eight, Mina’s royal guard team made up of wolfmen, and the rogue vampires, while Vera takes on Hysterica herself and Akira goes chasing after Nanami. When they catch up, they see Nanami in pain over her love for Yuzuru, not wanting him to see her this way or to turn him into a vampire, but still having the urge to do so. Yuzuru suddenly appears, and tries to chase Nanami who starts running away from him, but not before Hysterica also appears, pushing him away and grabbing Nanami.

She decides to retreat for now, realizing that she’s outnumbered and outmatched, but not before giving an ominous warning that she is planning on something that will show the “fragile humans” the power of vampires. She escapes by creating a diversion by exploding 2 of her undead vampires, who had been rigged with explosives.

Well, this episode was really filled with a lot of content, and it was a lot more intelligible than most of the previous episodes. I’m glad to see even more of Mei Ran and to get a glimpse at what her story is all about. Still nothing concrete yet, but the pendant tells us that unless it’s just a red herring, she will definitely play a bigger role in the rest of the episodes. Yuki seems to have gotten a mostly happy ending, as she learns that she can let Mina have Akira without having to give him up.

But given the more interesting stuff that happened in this episode, I hope that there isn’t too much time spent on Yuki and the love triangle. Nanami was a character whom I wrote off as dead after she first got attacked by vampires, but she had returned in episode 6 and now plays an even bigger role, although I predict she’ll step aside to Hysterica and the bigger Telomere organization that’s behind it all. The opening scene with her reminded me a bit of the latest episode of Baka to Test. The anime industry definitely went through a little sister phase for a while; is it now going through a big sister phase?

I liked how Hysterica was presented as a character. I didn’t realize Rie Kugimiya was going to be in this, and it’s nice to hear her play a character so unlike her usual roles. Besides her voice, the sharp angles of the features of her face, the stark contrast between her thick eyebrows and her skin, and her maniacal facial expressions worked well to present her as a very sinister character. Her former relationship with Vera interests me as well. It seems that they used to be on the same side until some event or decision they made split them apart, and I hope the show explains that a bit more.

The fight scenes were short, but were again pretty well done, like in episode 7. Shaft isn’t traditionally known for using a lot of action in their animation, but it was quite fluid and, more importantly, very well directed. Mina’s take down and destruction of Hysterica’s weapon was beautiful to watch. I don’t expect action to be a major portion of the show going forwards, but if there are little scenes like the ones in this episode, I’ll be happy.

This episode finally had a legitimate ED sequence. Same song as before, but there’s actual animation and stuff going on instead of slowly zooming out of a slowly colorizing picture of Mina in lingerie. The imagery reminded me of some of Shaft’s other OPs and EDs. The high-contrast, very dark imagery reminded me at times of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s final ED (Omamori), while the moving gears and chained up Mina was reminiscent of the OP from the 2 Ef series. Overall, it was a pretty standard Shaft ED, but nothing to write home about.

To start, I’m lvlln, a new writer for Borderline Hikikomori, and I’ll be blogging Dance in the Vampire Bund for the rest of this season. You can read my profile, if you wish.

7.5 is a recap episode with no new content whatsoever, as far as I can tell. But I figure this is a good chance to play catch-up, as no one at Borderline Hikikomori has been blogging it since the first episode. My subjective thoughts on the series, I already wrote about on a post in my own blog, so this post will be mainly a recap of the story so far.

Mina Tepes is the queen of vampires who outs their existence to the human world. Due to her large holdings in some Japanese companies, she blackmails the Japanese government into accepting her demand that some island off the coast of Japan be reserved as a haven for vampires, the so-called Vampire Bund.

Akira Kaburagi Regendorf is the male protagonist, a high schooler who lost all his memories when he was 16. It turns out that he’s a wolfman (he can transform at will) and had made a promise with Mina a long time ago, a promise she considers to be very important. He starts to regain his memories as the episodes go along, and he begins to act as Mina’s bodyguard.

There have been a couple parallel  threads that mix together in the episodes so far. One is the political intrigue that takes place behind the scenes, as Mina negotiates her demands with the Japanese government. There are also a couple assassination attempts against her. The other is the high school story: turns out that the high school Akira attends is one founded by Mina, designed specifically to cater to vampires. Once the existence of vampires become public knowledge, a conflict starts brewing between the vampire and human students of the school.

Both protagonists play important roles in both stories, but it wasn’t until episodes 6 and 7 when things started getting interesting and the 2 stories really intertwined. Akira, who had been completely loyal to Mina up to now, becomes angry when he learns that the grandson of the prime minister of Japan had been kidnapped and turned into a vampire in order to coerce his agreement to the establishment of the Vampire Bund. Meanwhile, the conflict has reached a tipping point at the high school, where vampire students freely bully and even convert the human ones. Akira, convinced that Mina and the vampires are the enemy of humans, leads the human students in a sort of rebellion at the school.

Episode 7 was the climax, as the vampire students manage to get into the human ones’ hideout, and Akira and Mina come just in time to save them. Turns out that Mina also takes the side of humans, as she doesn’t condone the behavior of the prejudiced vampires and is, in fact, cracking down on them throughout the world. Mina, upset at Akira’s insubordination, fights him, but Akira ends up saving her life once again, so they make up. Episode 7 ends with Akira returning as Mina’s bodyguard, as the latter announces the creation of the Vampire Bund.

There’s a lot of stuff I glossed over for the sake of brevity, but that’s been the main plot thus far. Beyond the protagonists, there are a couple other significant characters. Yuki Saegusa is a classmate of Akira and seems to hold romantic feelings for him. She also has a promise with Akira, and she had given him a ring before he had lost his memory. Though she and Mina did argue a couple times, in the end, she seemed to have surrendered Akira as belonging to Mina.

The other, Mei Ran, is a female vampire who appears in front of Akira to help him at the most opportune moments, using her hard candies as weapons. She’s saved Akira on a couple occasions and played a brief role in episode 7 without appearing, as her hard candy deflected one of Mina’s blade stabs. She’s an anime-only character, so no one really knows anything about her or what her motivations are yet.

Anyway, episode 7 ended very much like a series ending with a pretty tidy conclusion and credits during the final scene instead of an ED sequence, so episodes 8-12 will likely be a new “arc” with a whole new story. I believe/hope they will reveal more about Mei Ran, and explore further the history of Mina and Akira. I think Yuki’s story is pretty much over, because Akira belongs to Mina now, although I’m still curious about the state of their relationship before Akira had lost his memories.

Episode 8 is out already, so I’ll be watching it soon and reporting back.

I didn’t even have an idea of what was airing in the Winter 2010 season until most of the new shows already started airing, so I’m having to make decisions about what I want to watch based on less information and time thinking than I usually do.

From the Fall Season, Kimi ni Todoke, Fullmetal Alchemist, Kobato, Railgun, and Letter Bee are all continuing, so I’m looking for 3 to 4 shows to replace the shows that have finished up.  Here are some quick thoughts on some of the series airing in the fall.  I’ll skip anything that looks too kiddie or which is a sequel to something I haven’t seen:

Chu-Bra!!

A show about a middle school student starting an “underwear club” to spread the merits of wearing sexy underwear.  Um, double triple quadruple super duper duper hell no.

Sora no Woto

So basically, this looks like it’s like K-ON!, except worse, because they’re in the middle of a war.

Ladies vs Butlers!

I’m not even sure what to think about this series.  It definitely looks like a harem, and it’s along the “girls go wild over young-looking-boys” type.  I guess that’s better than the young-looking-girls shows. Maybe.

Omamori Himari

Another orphaned-boy-taken-in-by-neighbor-girls-parents story.  Except this time the magical girl who pops up is a cat girl. And the boy is allergic to cats.  This at least sounds mildly interesting.  At least far more interesting than any of the shows so far.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

This kind of sounds like Special A, except in reverse.  I’m not sure about the summoning creatures part of this show though.

Dance in the Vampire Bund

I’m not really one for Vampire shows, but this show actually looks (visually) interesting, and it’s done by SHAFT, which definitely helps it.

Durarara!!

Basically sounds like gangs looking for a mythical head of a headless motorcycle rider.  Mmmm…not the worst show I’ve seen this season but I still think there are better things to watch.

Ookami Kakushi

This is a show based off of a game made by the people who did Higurashi.  I’ve never seen any of those series, but I’ve been curious about them.

Seikon no Qwaser

A show about people who can manipulate iron and who draw power from breast milk fighting each other.  That sounds like there is too much that can go bad here.

Hanamaru Kindergarten

This is by GAINAX which, of course, means this show won’t have a proper ending.

Katanagatari

An actually somewhat decent looking Edo-era sword fighting show.  I’ll have to see if it ultimately makes my cut or not, though.

So, My Watch List Is…

I wasn’t planning on picking up another series to blog this season unless there was just something that looked fantastic, and there isn’t, so I’ll only add shows to watch.  I think this time, I’ll only add 3 shows.  I felt like I was going to add either 3 or 5, and I didn’t want 5 new shows, so I went with my top 3, and they are:

Dance in the Vampire Bund
Omamori Himari
Ookami Kakushi