Last fall Sora no Otoshimono had the element of surprise when it shocked anime fans around the world for being an intelligent fan-service anime that weaved in a compelling story and an inspired sense of humor. At it’s conclusion, I hoped it would get a sequel because I genuinely wanted to see where the story went and because Tomoki is one of the most awesome male main characters of the last few years. I must not have been alone because here we are a year later and Sora no Otoshimono is back.

Rating for episode 1 – 10.5/12 Strong A
Rating for episode 2 – 10.5/12 Strong A
Anticipation Level: 4.5/5 High

The Story

From the first season we learn that high above the Earth is a secret domain where supremely powered beings live in extreme comfort, a truly heavenly paradise. These gods, little g, are not the enlightened beings we’d imagine and act more like demons; they’re cruel and hold only contempt for the lower beings known as humans that inhabit the world far below them. It’s little surprise, then, that when one of the attendants to these hedonists, an angel by the name Ikaros, is sent down to Earth that her elimination is ordered.

In the meanwhile, Ikaros is found by Tomoki – a normal, hot-blooded teenage boy – on Earth and since she lacks a master, he instantly becomes her master. As a heavenly attendant she’s been given immense power to fulfill any request of the gods and now Tomoki has this power at his command. In-between assassination attempts, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Tomoki does with Ikaros’ power nor is it surprising when he sometimes goes a little too far.

The second season starts with the revelation that Tomoki’s dreams have been interacting with this heavenly realm which should be impossible and the gods are not happy about it (guess what they want to do with this “Downer”).

The Fine Print

With any anime that gets a sequel, fans of the first season always worry that the second time will not measure up to the first season. Sora No Otoshimono is no different so I was happy that AIC A.S.T.A. made the effort to reassure the fans within in the first 3 minutes of the first episode that the second season was going to be at least as epic as the first season.

And AIC A.S.T.A. hasn’t slowed up yet; they might just be able to surpass the first season and push Sora No Otoshimono 2 into the top slot for the fall season of anime. So far, by every meaningful measurement, the second season has at least matched the first season. The animation looks slightly better this time, still not quite Kyo-Ani or Bones quality but well above average. The first two episodes have already featured 2 different OPs and 2 different EDs. The vocal work is top-notch; Souichirou Hoshi (Sanada Yukimura, Keiichi Maebara)  is great as Tomoki, Saori Hayami (Saki Morimi) plays Ikaros divinely, Mina is pitch perfect as Sunohara, Kaori Fukuhara (Tsukasa Hiiragi) doesn’t disappoint as the new angel character, etc. The humor remains fresh and inventive. The story keeps getting more interesting and my desire to see those gods brought low in defeat continues to strengthen.

I highly recommend Sora No Otoshimono Forte. The only groups of people who might not enjoy this is those that dislike anime with fan service at any level or the “cultured” anime fan that would never admit to actually enjoying anime. Since this is a sequel, I know many people reading this will not be able to immediately start this series but I think Sora No Otoshimono is well worth catching up on.

Filed under: anime, first impressions

Steven called this week the lull week and that so fits; the old season has just about totally ebbed away and the new season is still rushing towards shore. I never look forward to this week in the season but I can’t deny that it presents a good opportunity for a little change of pace. So with this abundance of time I have, I wanted to share what anime-related things I’ve been doing this week instead of trying to watch 17 different anime.

I finally had the time to marathon an anime series and I had a couple in mind. The first was the first season of K-On!.  I’ve mentioned in the past about how I fell into the very small group of people who neither rabidly loved or rabidly hated the first season of K-On!. I wanted to see if I still felt like that or did my feelings change after watching the second season and falling completely head-over-heels for it. If I was a betting man, I’d’ve guessed that I would like it more; much like how the start of Lucky Star was so much more enjoyable the second time around because I could draw from the empathy and love of the characters that developed later in the series.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I still liked the first season of K-On! about the same as I did the first time. I originally found it very difficult to really get into the show because it felt like it couldn’t decide which type of show it was. The pacing was too fast for K-On! to be a relaxing, slice-of-healing anime but a lack of focus on really trying to make it as a rock band made it near impossible to take it seriously. This inability to decide what type of show it was still intruded on the enjoyment of the series during the rewatch, even with all the love the second season added to the franchise. The pacing also muted the best part of the series – the characters and their friendship. For example, I remember not really liking Mugi in the first season and being shocked how much I got to like her in the second season. Rewatching the first season I realized the sole purpose of having first-season-Mugi in the show was to have a walking ATM machine that could advance the story along rapidly with the use of her magic money and connections. It was only in the second season that Mugi becomes  real,  she’s a sheltered girl looking for friendship and to stuff as much fun into her high school life as possible. She quickly becomes one of the best characters of the show int the second season.

If I was scoring the first season, which I’m about to do, I’d give K-On! season 1 a Final Series Score of 8/12 B+ with Rewatchablity: 1/5 – Low, Ending: 2.5/5 – Average, Animation: 4/5 – Excellent.

With that mildly disappointing experience under my belt, I went to the next show on my rewatch list – Sora no Otoshimono. I wanted to see how well it would hold up the second time and to make sure I remembered the important parts for the second season that is about ready to start. Last time, I gave Sora no Otoshimono an 11.5/12 (Near Perfect) for expertly cultivating an absurdist, over-the-top feel that repeatedly surprised, delighted and entertained. For the rewatch, it no longer had the element of surprise so it was going to have to work harder to earn the same level of success and I anticipated that it just couldn’t meet the much higher expectations. So, no surprise, when Sora no Otoshimono didn’t live up to being a 11.5/12. I still really enjoyed it though; the comedy was killer, I liked the characters even more, I could still appreciate how intelligently put together it was, I still got sucked into the plot and Icarus’s crowning moment of awesome was still just as awesome. Upon finishing, I still felt like the show really needed a sequel and this time I only need to wait about a week to see it.

Since I’m in the scoring mood, Sora no Otoshimono Season 1’s amended Final Series Score is 11/12 A+ with Rewatchablity: 4/5 – Medium to High, Ending: 4.5/5 – Sublime, Animation: 4/5 – Excellent.

The final anime that I marathoned was completely by accident. I wanted to check one little thing out in Asobi ni Iku Yo! but I found myself popping the next episode in as soon as the previous one finished. This one was definitely better the second time through much like Lucky Star was. If I had to summarize the difference in viewing experiences I’d say Asobi ni Iku Yo! was just easier to enjoy the second time. I liked the characters from the moment they were first introduced and the early plot twists made much more sense this time around. I was also able to better catch and enjoy the references to science fiction that infused the series this time as well as see how the fluffy exterior hid a rather well thought-out story of first contact between two cultures. I’ll forgo the grading Asobi ni Iku Yo! here since I plan on rating it in my seasonal anime top pick award posts that I’m already starting to work on. I hope AIC Plus+ decides on doing a sequel since I think there’s plenty of interesting ways the story for this can go but it’s, probably, really up to DVD/Blu-Ray sales as to if we see Asobi ni Iku Yo! Season 2 or not.

The other thing I did this week was spend time excited over the new anime announced.

I know there’s always been anime movies but doesn’t it feel like lately they’ve become even more popular? Don’t get me wrong, word of a Sengoku Basara movie and a K-On! movie leaves me feeling very excited, especially if the K-On! one will feature all new material like the Sengoku Basara one will have. The two seasons of Sengoku Basara have been fun but they could have been really fun if they had been paced better and more fighting was involved. Which is why I think a movie might just be the perfect form for Sengoku Basara – they won’t have the time to draw the talking and angsting out.

I’m really curious about the K-On! movie. The second series ended absolutely perfectly but since this is a slice-of-life series there’s no reason the story needs to end with them graduating high school. I’d like to see what happens to Yui, Mugi, Mio, and Ritsu when they go to college and I want to see what happens to Azu-nyan, Ui and the light music club. Can one fashion a good, super laid-back, slice-of-life movie or will the movie be more plot focused – maybe on the college version of Afternoon Tea Time making it big or Azu-nyan’s efforts to save the light music club. I hope more details are forthcoming soon!

The third newly announced anime project that got me excited is Berserk. I’m not a fan of Berserk, per say, but I’m curious about the franchise after learning my one sister (the D&D playing one) loves the manga and the original series. When I first heard of a new “animation project” for Berserk, I started thinking about who I’d want to work on the project from my limited understanding of the source material. The name I kept going back to was Madhouse. They have the animation quality and the experience with darker series like Mouryou no Hako, Rainbow, Death Note, Paranoia Agent, Blue Literature, Kurozuka and they have many of the best anime production people in the business working for them. It appears, after a couple of days, that Studio 4˚C will be doing the animation and my guess was completely wrong  . This is a very interesting choice; on one hand I’ve been very impressed with all the works of Studio 4˚C  that I’ve seen but on the other hand they don’t seem very prolific and I wonder if they have the expertise to plan out and execute a long running series (which I’m hoping the announcement is for). I guess we’ll just have to wait a few more days for more information.

That’s how I spent this lull week, what did you do?

Filed under: anime, anime news, general anime interst, series review

This afternoon, Right Stuf International announced that they had licensed the anime series El Hazard: The Wanderers.  In addition, as opposed to some more recent Right Stuf announcements, El Hazard will be receiving a dub, per the website.  Right Stuff is releasing it in a single 26-episode box set on September 7th.  El Hazard was originally aired between October 1995 and March 1996.

Meanwhile, this past weekend, Funimation announced several new acquisitions, including:

• Rosario + Vampire (both seasons)
• Chaos;HEAd
• Chrome Shelled Regios
• Rideback
• Heaven’s Lost Property (Sora no Otoshimono), and
• GUNxSWORD

GUNxSWORD and Regios will be released late in 2010, while everything else is slated for release sometime in 2011.

Edit: El Hazard is apparently a rescue from Geneon, not an entirely new acquisition.

The final part of my look at the surprisingly decent fall season is the countdown of the best titles of the season. This is always a difficult process since I enjoy so many different types of shows and there’s no clear-cut way of comparing a slice-of-life show to a shounen action show to a thought-provoking SF drama set in the near future but at the same time, it’s fun because it helps me focus on exactly why I like certain shows.

The first step in the process is to figure out how many places will this season’s top list include. The number changes from season-to-season based on the number of quality shows that I feel deserve to be mentioned. This narrowed the field down to eight shows and now the task turned to ranking these shows that I considered great shows of the season. Picking the number one spot was fairly easily but the rest of the list felt like pulling teeth so; whereas, I’ll argue that all eight of these shows belong on the list, I won’t argue to hard over the exact order.

And with that, let’s head to the countdown.

8 – Blue Literature

The use of classic modern Japanese literature as source material pretty much assured that Blue Literature was going to be this season’s most unique and thought-provoking anime. And because it was Madhouse animating this, Blue Literature also had this season’s best production values as well as high quality storytelling. So, with all that going for it, it might seem strange why this isn’t ranked higher; I’m even a bit shocked why I just couldn’t place this higher and believe me, I kept trying. In the end, I realized what stopped this from going even higher is that, while it’s obvious the stories picked are very well written, only one of the five stories used ended happily and it’s much harder to really get swept away by sad or depressing stories. I know that sounds shallow, and maybe it is, but I read plenty of depressing books and it’s not like current events have looked positive in a long time so is it so bad to gravitate towards those anime that make me laugh or feature characters that are just a bit better/heroic then the vast majority of people walking this planet, myself included.

7 – Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

I continue to deeply love where the story of Full Metal goes; the conspiracies get deeper and more insidious, the dangers get more threatening, and the world of FMA gets more complex as new characters and their ambitions get introduced. The majority of this season, however, had the show in build-up mode with very little pay-off which explains why this didn’t get ranked higher; I expect next season to contain much more pay-off in the form of super-awesome confrontations/fights and resolutions to at least some of the plot threads that have been introduced and will probably rank much higher.

6 – Sasameki Koto

At first, I wasn’t expecting too much from Sasameki Koto but I was quickly won over by the quality of the characters and the show became one of my favorites that just happened to be a yuri show. The main character, Murasame Sumika, was dealt a very tough hand – she likes her best friend, Ushio, in that way and Ushio likes girls as well, just not tall athletic girls like Sumika so Sumika has to bite her tongue and be the caring best friend after Ushio gets rejected by the cute girls – and her struggle to do the right thing over what she wants to do help made Sasameki Koto a great show. Other memorable characters included the boy who fell for Sumika and started cross-dressing (and became a female model) because he knew she liked girls or the girl who always, and I mean always, had some sort of food in her hands. Sasameki Koto could have finished higher if the ending had been better.

5 – Sora No Otoshimono

The biggest surprise on this countdown is the presence of Sora no Otoshiomono on it; not because it’s a terrible show but because it wasn’t a terrible show. It should have been just like almost every other ecchi comedy series – generic and not very good or funny. Instead, Sora no Otoshiomono expertly cultivated an absurdist, over-the-top feel that repeatedly surprised and delighted.

4 – Cross Game

What can I say, Cross Game just continues to chug along making awesome look easy. The highlight of this season was to see how a new character shook the show and it’s characters up but that was hardly the only thing that made this cour of Cross Game good. We got a marriage proposal whose answer depends on if Kou’s team can make it to Koshien, new possible pairings like Azuma x Aoba, general Kou coolness, and new storylines like Aoba trying out for Japan’s national female baseball team.

3 – To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

After the second episode of Railgun I was ready to drop it because I was sure that the manga author had once again screwed up; this time focusing on shoe-horning as much Kuroko antics as possible into a manga and disregarding such important items as plot, characters, and story. Then a funny thing happened, the show started to actually work. The four main characters were fleshed out and developed a great chemistry between them, a deeper story was first hinted at and then expertly told, and let’s not forget how cool Misaka’s rail gun ability is (especially when J.C. Staff has the budget). I think I actually squealed in joy when I realized that Railgun was going to run past the fall season into the winter season.

2 – Astro Fighter Sunred Season 2

Okay, I admit to holding this list up so I could watch enough of this season of Sunred that I could place it on this list and feel justified in doing so. I just love this show to bits. I was a little worried that the second season would start to feel a little stale but each episode seems to offer a different reason why this show is so awesome. For example, one episode featured the leader of evil organization explain how they have to itemize all their expenses so the worldwide headquarters will reimburse them, another episode featured both the hero and evil leader attending the neighborhood meeting and the hero get called to task for not properly sorting his garbage like the evil leader, another episode featured a gadget the evil organization created that allowed them to pinpoint where the hero is but all this did was force them to attend a funeral, go to a very high-end restaurant, and almost receive a very serious beat down by two other heroes when they finally realized that they could just call the girlfriend of the hero (who has made friends with the evil organization) when they wanted to know where he was located. I’d go so far to say that once I get around to rewatching this show, I think there’s a good chance that Astro Fighter Sunred would earn a spot on my top 5 comedies list.

1 – Kemono no Souja Erin

And as much as I loved Sunred, it still didn’t get real close to unseating Erin from this season’s top spot. Once I realized how good this series was, I just knew that this last cour of episodes when all the various stories were threaded together would seriously rock and it did. What I didn’t expect was the little tease they did at the very end for the next two books of the source material that’s coming out this summer. It’s a great scene by itself but I’m already salivating over the idea of Kemono no Souja Erin getting a sequel. One of the ways this show really sets itself apart from a lot of other anime is the process in which the show’s hero is tried and tempered before stepping into the role as hero; it made her an especially memorable character and made her convictions that she fought for all that more real and worthy to fight for. I’ll say right now that Kemono no Souja Erin has better than a 50% chance of getting named my top anime of 2009 when I get to that list.

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Links to the other parts of my Fall 2009 Season Awards

Part 1 – Cast and Character Awards
Part 2 – Genre and Misfit Awards
Part 3 – VMA Awards

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So this fall season turned out better then I initially thought it would but I don’t see myself saying the same thing for the winter season. There’s a couple of good shows but it’s just a couple and I’m be talking about them soon.

Filed under: anime, awards

The final set of awards before going to my top shows of the season cover the music, vocal actors, and animation aspects of this season’s anime. Or the three parts to anime that are heavily dependent on the preferences of the individual viewer.

Best Male Seiyuu

Winner: Souichiro Hoshi as Tomoki from Sora no Otoshimono
Runner-up: Masato Sakai as many roles from Blue Literature

I often wonder how much does a great character improve how I think of a seiyuu’s performance and, conversely, how much does a great job by the seiyuu go into improving that character. One way to separate the two is to look at other roles that the seiyuu has done and see if they’re consistent. In the case of Souichiro Hoshi, I adored his voice in Sengoku Basara when he played Sanada Yukimura (the hot-headed red guy) and in Phantom when he played the scheming brother Toru Shiga and I still remember another role he did as K1 from Higurashi. So, I have some confidence to say that Souichiro Hoshi does a great job injecting the right level of manliness into Tomoki’s character and thus earns the fall season Best Male Seiyuu award. Here’s a video of him singing from episode 10:

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Best Female Seiyuu

Winner: Saori Hayami as Ikaros from Sora no Otoshimono
Runner-up: Satomi Arai as Kuroko from To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

If I apply the same test to Saori Hayami, I find that I loved her voice as Kou, the shrine maiden, from Wagaya no Oinarisama and Saki from Eden of the East. And more importantly, for the purposes of this award, her work as Ikaros impressed me. Which I found odd at first because Ikaros comes off as very emotionally flat but thinking about it more, that might be the reason why I’m impressed with her work so much. Namely, Saori Hayami does such a good job making Ikaros feel emotionally detached and then does an equally great job voicing Ikaros as she tries to learn what it means to be human. So Saori Hayami wins this award and here’s a video of her singing from episode 10.

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Best OP

Winner: Astro Fighter Sunred
Runner-up: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Sasameki Koto

A good crop of openings this season which made it hard to pick just one. Sunred squeaked past everyone else based on the superior use of the animation to channel the humor of the series and distill it down into a minute and half of hilarity.

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Best ED

Winner: Sora No Otoshimono
Runner-up: Kemono no Souja Erin, Hetalia Axis Powers – America version

Sora no Otoshimono had a different ending song and completely different animation to accompany that song for each of it’s thirteen episodes. My favorite was the one that ran a blooper reel of “mistakes” made during the filming of the show. So for going well above-and-beyond what one expects for even the best anime, Sora no Otoshiomono easily wins this award.

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Best Background Music

Winner: Blue Literature

Blue Literature holds the special place as the only anime that my sister has ever wanted the soundtrack album for. Of course, I can’t seem to find any information if one is going to released which is just my luck because I had the very same reaction to the background music as I watched this show the first time. My favorite piece was the one that the woman played at the beginning of Kokoro and elsewhere.

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Best Dressed Characters

Winner: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

It was obvious that J.C. Staff received a large enough budget for Railgun that they could attend to all the small points. And a large wardrobe for it’s characters is definitely a small thing but it correlates well with high-quality anime. I also think it’s a great non-time consuming way to let the viewers know more about a character’s personality.

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Best Animation Style

Winner: Kimi ni Todoke
Runner-up: Blue Literature

The lovely animation style to Kimi ni Todoke made it a difficult show to drop but eye-candy does not automatically make a show a high quality one. So, eventually, I just couldn’t stand watching more of Kimi ni Todoke but that does not mean I would deny it an award that it deserves. And Kimi ni Todoke’s lovely, lush watercolor style does deserve this award.

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Best Animation

Winner: Blue Literature
Runner-up: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

While each story of Blue Literature displayed a varying amount of animation style which made it difficult to pick it for Best Animation Style, each and every story displayed a high level on animation quality. I’m not surprised by this because, after all, Madhouse animated Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, all of Satoshi Kon’s works, and a bevy of other high quality animated shows. It inched past Railgun mainly because Madhouse was able to make all the varied animation styles work.

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Top Animation Studio

Winner: AIC

AIC is not one of the anime studios that get talked about often; they lack the star power that a Gainax, J.C. Staff, or Kyoto Animation has and at the same time they lack the negative attention that a Sunrise, Studio Deen, or Gonzo has. They’re probably best known for the Oh My Goddess franchise to most people though maybe some know them from animating Bamboo Blade, Asu no Yoichi, or Ga-Rei: Zero. This season they released four shows: Sora No Otoshimono, Sasameki Koto, Nyan Koi, Astro Fighter Sunred; and a glance at the awards I’ve given out so far sees all four getting mentioned and winning a fair number of them. The weakest show of the four, Nyan Koi, was still a pretty good show and better than much of the rest of this season’s shows. Therefore, they were the easy pick this season with Madhouse a very distant second.

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That’s it for part 3 of my summer 2009 anime awards. Stay tuned for my top overall picks of the season.

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Links to the other parts of my Fall 2009 Season Awards
Part 1 – Cast and Character Awards
Part 2 – Genre and Misfit Awards
Part 4 – Top 8 Shows of the Fall Season

Posted in anime, awards, youtube

For this next set of awards, a surprise show is making an appearance. (Maybe not so much of a surprise if you realize where the top picture comes from .) Based on how much I was loving Sora no Otoshimono this season and GA: Art Design Class from summer, I decided to give another show from AIC ASTA a chance after passing it over before. After devouring the first season over the past couple of weeks, I’ve just started on the second season – which started airing during this season – so while I’m not far enough into it that it has a chance to rank as one of my top shows of the season, there’s a few awards that I know it deserves to win.

Enough rambling, let’s head to the next batch of awards.

Best Action

Winner: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
Runner-up: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Neither of these shows is a true action series because a significant amount of the series is devoted to character development and story development. I know this disappoints some but I greatly prefer it this way; caring about the characters and worrying about what happens to them makes their fights much more attention-grabbing and emotional. In both of these cases, though, when we get a fight – it’s a good fight. Railgun edges out FMA mainly because I liked how varied the character’s powers where used in Railgun and stay slightly disappointed by a lack of variance in the alchemy of FMA.

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Best Fight

Winner: Railgun vs. Multi-skill and Monster from ep.11-12 of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

This fight is a great example of what I mean in how a character will use their power in many different ways. Misaka uses her power to stick to the side of a bridge column, as a taser, as a way to read someone else’s memories, as a way to pull iron from the ground and use as a shield and a weapon, as a way to literally cook her opponent, as a cutting blade, and of course as a rail gun like her nickname implies. And when all this is going on we’re still getting character development and plot development.

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Best Comedy

Winner: Astro Fighter Sunred

I had to give this award to Astro Fighter Sunred; it’s simply one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen. The basic setup to the show is that Sunred is the local hero tasked with keeping his city safe from the clutches of General Vamp and the evil organization Florsheim. A typical setup but the twist, and the reason why it’s here, is this show subverts what we expect from this sort of setup. Sunred is a lazy, good-for-nothing jerk that mooches off his live-in girlfriend Kayoko and General Vamp is a kind, considerate guy who always sorts his trash and helps old ladies cross the road. Kayoko considers Vamp a friend so she gets Sunred to help Vamp move and Vamp will invite Sunred/Kayoko over to dinner. And so on. It initially took a few episodes to get used to the animation style and show’s sense of humor but that’s common for many comedy shows. I’ve really glad I gave this show a shot and I think many other people out there would also like it too.

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Most Entertaining

Winner: Sora No Otoshimono
Runner-up: Kobato

One of the easiest picks this season. Oftentimes this season I’d have 7-8 anime episodes to watch and invariably I’d pick Sora no Otoshiomono first or second to watch. At first I was surprised when I found myself picking that one but eventually I realized that I was guaranteed to enjoy my time watching this show.

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Most Interesting Setting

Winner: Tatakau Shisho ~ The Book of Bantorra

While I really wish that this show’s storytelling was done better (it feels very disjointed), the show’s setting has been a constant source of interest and a main reason why I continue watching.

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Best Plot

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Runner-up: Kemono no Souja Erin

This season of Full Metal has been full of plot revelations and twists. It’s really kept me on the edge of my seat and I’m really glad that the decision was made to remake this series.

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Best Story

Winner: Sasameki Koto
Runner-up: Cross Game

Since Sasameki Koto follows on the heals of Aoi Hana (last season’s best story winner), it needed to distinguish itself from Aoi Hana if I was going to think highly of it. It did, as you might guess, in part by adding a comedic bend to the show and being able to switch from drama to comedy and back again without the show feeling awkward. Sasameki Koto would have easily won but I disliked how there was no resolution at the end, hopefully that means there’ll be a sequel in the future.

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Best Villain

Winner: General Vamp from Astro Fighter Sunred

When I say best villain, I don’t necessarily mean the most evil, the most devious, etc. Oftentimes I’ll pick that truly evil villain like the Demon King from Sengoku Basara and if that was case this time I’d’ve picked somebody from Full Metal but the single most memorable villain from this season is General Vamp, even if he’s a poor villain and a pretty nice guy. (And there’s so many villains in FMA maybe that’s the problem, it’s hard to focus on any one villain.)

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Most in Need of a Sequel

Winner: Kemono no Souja Erin
Runner-up: Sasameki Koto, Sora No Otoshimono

In the case of Sasameki Koto, I want to see the story advance and for Sora no Otoshimono, I want to see more of Tomoki being manly and those supposed higher beings getting what they deserve. Neither of these, however, was able to dislodge Kemono no Souja Erin from the top spot as most in need of a sequel. It is true that the ending of Kemono no Souja Erin was truly satisfying but the author of the original two books that Kemono no Souja Erin is based on is releasing the next two books this summer and just that thought (and the one scene that the animators slipped in from these books) makes me giddy for a sequel.

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That’s it for part 2, the next part is the VMA awards.

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Links to the other parts of my Fall 2009 Season Awards
Part 1 – Cast and Character Awards
Part 3 – VMA Awards
Part 4 – Top 8 Shows of the Fall Season

Posted in anime, awards

I’ll admit that I was a bit surprised how much I liked the first episode of Hanamaru Kindergarten. It fell far outside of what Gainax is known for – more reminiscent of a J.C. Staff show then a Gainax show. For the second episode, Gainax was able to keep the warm, slice-of-life, cuteness feel but they also slipped in some awesome stuff that reminded the viewer that they’re watching a Gainax show. Look below to see what I mean.

It appears that Gainax might go the route of Sora no Otoshimono and do different ending songs for each episode. For episode 2, we got, presumably, Hiiragi’s closing song. I love the Gainax feel to the animation.

And of course the episode was full of cuteness.

Next episode seems to involve a love triangle:

Posted in anime, episode review

I remember complaining about this season and how weak it was, and it was a pretty weak season, but now that we’re into the second week of the winter season I look back at the list of shows and can’t help feeling a little sad that many of these shows have ended. I’m sure there’ll be shows this season that I’ll get attached to (Hanamaru Kindergarten is a strong possibility) but they’re not there yet. So, maybe, it’s a good thing that I waited this long to do my seasonal anime awards.

Below is a listing of the shows that I watched this season and are the pool from which the picks for all the awards are coming from. Also a reminder, I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum but there’ll be some because of how they’ll relate to specific awards and for the continuing shows, only the part of the series that ran during this season is under consideration for this season’s awards.

Carry-over shows watched this season (5): Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Cross Game, Kemono no Souja Erin, Hetalia Axis Powers, Umineko no Naku Koro ni

New shows watched this season (12): Natsu no Arashi! Season 2, Kobato, Sasameki Koto, Sora No Otoshimono, Nyan Koi, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Tatakau Shisho, Seitokai no Ichizon, Miracle Train, Trapeze, Blue Literature, Kampfer

Shows that got dropped (2): Kimi ni Todoke, The Sacred Blacksmith

Best Female Main Character

Winner: Erin from Kemono no Souja Erin
Runner-up: Kobato from Kobato, Sumika Murasame from Sasameki Koto

There is no qualms this season about picking Erin as my best female main character and, truth be told, she pretty much blew everyone else away. She had always been an excellent character but it wasn’t until this season where she was able to step onto the world stage that she was able to shine at her full brilliance.

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Best Male Main Character

Winner: Tomoki from Sora no Otoshimono
Runner-up: Kou from Cross Game

Tomoki was able to stop Kou’s quest for a three-peat as Best Male Main Character by pretty much being the most epic manly character in ages – running on the same level as say Kamina, Hosaka, or Maid Guy. He was so manly that even getting turned into a woman didn’t damper his burning manly soul.

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Best Supporting Character(s)

Winner: Kuroko, Uiharu, Saten from To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun did a very good job of spreading the limelight out to all the characters so it almost feels like Kuroko, Uiharu, and Saten are on the same level as the main character – Misaka aka Railgun but I don’t quite think they’re on that level; hence, that’s why they’re showing up here. I tried to narrow my pick down to only one character but that proved impossible since I equally love all three characters for their strengths, weaknesses, personal motivations and quarks that so enriched the show and made it one of the best shows of the season.

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Best Screen-grabber

Winner: Nagi Ichinose from Nyan Koi
Runner-up: America from Hetalia Axis Powers

Nagi was to Nyan Koi as Hosaka was to Minami-ke and if that’s not a good enough reason for picking her then I don’t know what is.

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Best Couple

Winner: Erin and Ial from Kemono no Souja Erin

Up until the final half of the final episode this pair would have been more of a viewer pairing based on a handful of scenes that Erin and Ial were onscreen together but I’m almost positive that we are to conclude that they do in fact become a couple and marry in the future. The closest competition in this category was from Cross Game but with the addition of a new character there seemed to be a reshuffling of the couples/potential couples in Cross Game and it’s not entirely clear if the new pairings or the older ones will eventually win out. Personally, I like the idea of a Aoba and Azuma couple but I also still like the pairing of Aoba and Kou.

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Best Character Ability/Power

Winner: Kuroko’s teleporting ability from To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

Misaka’s Railgun ability is most definitely the flashiest power of the season but I just love what Kuroko can do with her teleporting ability. It may be that I’m surprised that Kuroko is more than just a joke character that she appeared to be after the first couple of episodes which helped make her ability more impressive than it is. However, at most, that’s probably just a very small part because there was multiple times where Kuroko was able to show off how cool being to teleport herself and others can be. And also, we’ve never really seen Kuroko get to go all out with her power like Misaka was able to do.

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Best Cast of Characters

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Runner-up: Cross Game, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

This season of Full Metal Alchemist saw many new and varied characters introduced to compliment an already great cast, both on the good side and on the evil side. And not only are these quality additions, these characters have pushed the show down very unexpected and delightful avenues. As someone who became very disappointed with Full Metal Alchemist after how the first show ended and consequently stopped reading the manga, I love that this series has rekindled all my excitement over this most worthy show.

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Best Character Development for Cast

Winner: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
Runner-up: Cross Game

One of the ways Railgun was miles better than Index was how well the characters were put together and how much time was focused on developing the cast. I don’t know if it’s strictly from the change in directors or if giving the original creator a second chance at getting the series right accounted for the difference but I love the changes and thrilled that Railgun will continue into the winter season. It’s a shame that the first two episodes will make many people drop the series and miss out on a finely crafted show.

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Best Character Development of a Single Character

Winner: Erin from Kemono no Souja Erin

Erin wins this award again for pretty much all the same reasons why she won it during the summer season. What so impressed me was for every awesome thing she did as the hero that saves the day we could look back and remember the events that she had to endure and overcome to be able to do those awesome things.

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That’s the end of part 1; I hope to have the second part up within a day. Comments and feedback are always appreciated – I’d love to see what others would pick.

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Links to the other parts of my Fall 2009 Season Awards
Part 2 – Genre and Misfit Awards
Part 3 – VMA Awards
Part 4 – Top 8 Shows of the Fall Season

Posted in anime, awards

The idea for this post came from the result of several shows from the season either over performing or under performing after my first impression post and my desire to ensure the readers of The Null Set knew of my updated (and more accurate) opinion of those shows.

Listed below are the fall shows that I wrote about, sorted by grade and I’m going to start at the top and work down, giving some final/almost final impressions and say how well my first impression of the show held up.

Natsu no Arashi! Season 2

First Impression Score – 10.5/12 after 3 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 7/12 B
In Short – Every now and again the show lived up to the first season but those moments where few and far between

The first season of Arashi was a wonderful blend of comedy and drama that kept me enthralled and I was very excited about this season and after 3 episodes of this season, I was sure that this season would be another winner. It didn’t turn out that way; pretty much the entire rest of the season was fluffy comedy without the seriousness that helped make the first season so good. Now I don’t have anything against the fluffy comedy but what helped set this show apart from other shows was the time-travel aspect of the show and for this season, it was like this part was no longer important.

It really felt like Shaft was treading water with this season – not willing to finish the plot but desperate to fill the episode count up. This was a very disappointing turn for a show that I had felt was one of the overlooked gems of the year. I assume Shaft will be doing a third season and I will watch it because I like the characters but it’ll be far down on my list of priorities when it does air.

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Kobato

First Impression Score – 9.8/12 after 3 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 10/12 A
In Short – Kobato’s slowly deepening story is just icing on an already delicious cake

This is one show that has started off strong and has kept on performing at the same high level. Kobato is still the charming, genki girl that warms our heart as she tries to help the people around her and that’s plenty to make this a must watch show. I can’t wait to see the second half of Kobato.

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Sasameki Koto

First Impression Score – 9.6/12 after 6 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 11/12 A+
In Short – A character-driven and character-focused show that knew when to be serious and when to be funny

I waited awhile to write my first impression post for Sasameki Koto because I wanted to sure that the show was as good as I thought it was so my final impression of the show matched up with my first impression very closely. One of the reasons I really liked this show was how character driven and centered it was. The result was that the characters and their problems felt real and I wanted to see what happened to them. It would have rated even higher but the very non-ending ending was a bit of a letdown – easily remedied if AIC does a second season.

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Sora No Otoshimono

First Impression Score – 8.4/12 after 5 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 11.5/12 Near Perfect
In Short – Epic!

Remember in The Matrix how at the end when Neo had his powers fully awakened and he was operating on such a higher level than the agents that killing them was easier than squishing a bug. That was the level that Sora no Otoshimono was operating on by the final episodes. I feel sorry for all the fan service shows coming out in the coming seasons because I highly doubt any of them will hold a candle Sora no Otoshimono and I’ll have a hard time justifying the time spent on watching these inferior shows when I could rewatch Sora no Otoshimono. I also feel sorry for any other type of show that comes out that doesn’t display the creativity and energy that this mere fan service show was able to display. I’m really hoping 2010 brings another season of Tomoki and crew.

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Kimi ni Todoke

First Impression Score – 7/12 after 6 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 3/12 D, dropped after 11 episodes
In Short – What could have been a great show was tripped up by the lack of a compelling story and reason to watch

I had hoped that something would come along that would shake up the show’s formula and make me want to watch this but that wasn’t the case. Instead the effort needed to watch the next episode became exponentially greater as the series continued and after 11 episodes it became too much and I dropped it for good. One of the big problems, I think, was that Kazehaya – the boy who likes Sadako and is the boy who Sadako likes – had about as much testosterone flowing in his veins as Mikuru from the Melancholy of Haruhi has. Another big problem was the complete lack of a realistic reason why the two of them hadn’t started dating by the end of episode 2.

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Nyan Koi

First Impression Score – 7/12 after 7 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 9/12 A-
In Short – Good characters but a somewhat weak story – the cat curse needed to be a more important component to the show

Nyan Koi slowly wormed it’s way into my heart; it wasn’t perfect but it was good enough. Yuu Kobayashi was one of this year’s best seiyuu and her character here – Nagi – was easily my favorite of the show and much like Hosaka from Minami-ke was able to put a smile on my face by just getting onscreen. A second season was confirmed at the end of the final episode and I’ll be sure to tune in when it airs.

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To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

First Impression Score – 7/12 after 4 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 11.5/12 Near Perfect
In Short – Vastly superior to it’s parent show Index, Railgun finishes a year that has repeatedly show J.C. Staff at the top of it’s game

After 4 episodes of Railgun I wrote my first impression post and mentioned that the show had the potential to become a decent show. It turns out I was underestimating J.C. Staff by a large margin and Railgun turned into one of the best new shows of the season. One way to prove the prowess in the storytelling is to point out how both my sister and I felt that we should have completely hated Kuroko (the girl with an overly affectionate attachment to Railgun) but somehow neither of us did. I have high hopes for the second half of this series and I’m dying to see Uiharu’s power.

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Tatakau Shisho

First Impression Score – 6/12 after 6 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 8/12 B+
In Short – Storytelling continues to be very disjointed which makes it hard to really get into but it also continues to be interesting and different

If the story arcs flowed together better and if the show had a better feeling of the overall story going somewhere, I think I’d be raving about it; instead, I’ve just been mildly positive about it. Watching Tatakau Shisho, or Armed Librarians, has been worth the time and I remain interested to see what happens as we move into the new season.

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Seitokai no Ichizon

First Impression Score – 6/12 after 6 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 7/12 B
In Short – At best Studio Deen can make a mildly entertaining show and Seitokai no Ichizon is Studio Deen at it’s best

From the time of my first impression post to the end Seitokai no Ichizon got a little better but it never really hit the zone like an A level show would. Slightly entertaining but very forgettable.

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The Sacred Blacksmith

First Impression Score – 5/12 after 6 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 4/12 C, dropped after 9 episodes
In Short – The completely generic show was completely generic and a waste of time (which makes it perfect for the domestic anime market, never mind Manglobe’s vastly superior Michiko to Hatchin remains unlicensed)

As long as it was relatively painless I was going to try to keep watching The Sacred Blacksmith but when my preferred sub group dropped it, I figured that I would take it as a sign to drop it for good since it didn’t show any improvement. And I’ve had absolutely no urge to pick it back up. If Manglobe wanted to do an anime on the cheap to try to make money there’s still plenty of good material that could have been adapted; they didn’t need to settle for the mediocre.

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Miracle Train

First Impression Score – 4/12 after 6 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 5/12 C+
In Short – Never a great show, Miracle Train improved in the second half and at times was a pretty decent show

Another title that I said I’d drop but I kept watching and actually finished. There was one episode, I think it was the eleventh, that was genuinely good and I remember thinking if only the rest of the series could have been this good. This is in no way an endorsement to watch Miracle Train but I did want to say that it did get a little better later on.

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Kampfer

First Impression Score – 2.8/12 after 5 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 1/12 Epic Fail
In Short – Garbage

I finished this just so that I could have at least one really low series review. Watching Kampfer was about as much fun as getting a root canal without any Novocaine.

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Trapeze

First Impression Score – 2/12 after 5 episodes
Seasonal Ending Score – 6/12 B-
In Short – After finding some actual nice characters to feature and showing that there was some connection between the different people, Trapeze didn’t turn out as bad as I first thought it would

The second half resurgence to Trapeze was something I wanted to mention since I gave it such a low first impression score. I had thought that 5 episodes was enough to be sure that Trapeze lacked redeeming qualities but, of course, the next episode didn’t suck as much. Which lead to my continued watching of this show and I was shocked when, by the end, I was actually getting into the show. I credit how it was revealed that many of the patients where actually connected in some way and having more sympathetic patients to my increased liking of the show (and the Christmas episode didn’t hurt either). I’m actually on the cusp of recommending this to other people, especially if they’re looking for something a bit different. At the very least, I’d suggest giving this a shot if a person is looking for something different and won’t mind watching half the series before it starts to come together.

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Well that’s a general look at the fall season, expect my award picks shortly and my overall 2009 picks in a couple of weeks (I’m going to try to finish up a couple series from 2009 first).

Posted in anime, general anime interst, series review

Polaryzed – Now this series threw me for a loop.  I came into it knowing that it’d be a fan service comedy.  The premise/synopsis from ANN made it sound very similar to To Love-Ru.  I enjoyed watching that show, in a mindless zombie way, and I’m never one to shy away from fan service, so I gave this a try.  After two episodes, I’m VERY surprised by this show.  The production quality is much higher than I expected, and it was REALLY FUNNY.

What I usually don’t like about most fan service comedies is the male lead.  They usually are trying to adhere to some mythical ‘higher moral standard‘ that keeps them from acting on their impulses the way that (IMO) most other teenage males would.  For that reason you get the old: “Lala-san put some clothes on!  I don’t want to see that!”, or something similar.

Sora no Otoshimono is handling it differently, which I like.  When an oppai andriod angel falls from the sky and says that she can grant wishes, what does he do?  Wish for money and to be invisible so that he can watch/grope his hawt neighbor.  Perfect!  This is an animated fantasy, so dammit show me some fantasies.  It’s a funny and off the wall show that doesn’t seem like it’s really supposed to make much sense, but who cares?

The clinching moment for me came at the end of the second episode.  After all that pantsu nonsense the whole episode, the show has an ED of beautiful panoromic scenery with pantsu flying in a goose flock formation.  Absolute win.  Definitely going to watch this one to see what else pantsu can do that I didn’t know about.  I’m out!