Another year finished and another year the wannabe buzzards prognosticate the demise of anime even when the empirical data continues to defy their constructed narratives. I’d compare these people to climate scientists who close their eyes to the last decade plus of weather but I don’t want to get political here .

Instead I’ll point out that this year saw two young studios P.A. Works and Silver Fox create series which signaled their emergence as top quality anime studios. Also, this year saw two studios – Shaft and Brains Base –  take the plunge with original works and the resulting masterpieces pushed these already well-respected studios into the stratosphere.  Nor could it be forgotten how Kyoto Animation and Satelight, two veteran studios, stretched their creative legs and produce great series in genres that their not known for. Or how a quirky little studio, david production, that spun off from Gonzo a few years ago produced not one but two quirky quality series this year and finally attracted the attention of a large number of anime fans.

So, for those reasons and others, it’s easy to see that this was a banner year for anime –  one that I want to reminisce about and remember. There’s various formats that can be used to do so but the one I like involves ranking the anime in various categories because it just seems more orderly this way.

Before starting into the “nice” awards I first wanted to list the anime series that I watched from 2011 that are eligible for the various awards and to hand-out a few “not-so-nice” awards.

Winter Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (2): Star Driver, To Aru Majutsu no Index II

New shows watched this season (10): Fractale, Gosick, IS: Infinite Stratos, Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?, Level E, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu!, Moshidora, Rio – Rainbow Gate, Wolverine

Shows that got dropped (4): Dragon Crisis, Freezing, Onii-chan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne!!, Yumekui Merry

Spring Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (1): Gosick

New shows watched this season (20): X-Men, Dog Days, Tiger and Bunny, Nichijou, Yondemasu yo Azazel-san, Hanasaku Iroha, Fireball Charming, Steins;Gate, Hyouge Mono, Hidan no Aria, A Channel, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera, Maria+Holic Alive, Ao no Exorcist, The World God Only Knows II, Seikon no Qwaser II, C – The Money of Soul and Possibility Control, Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai, Deadman Wonderland

Shows that got dropped (8): Hen Zemi, Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai, Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi, Sengoku Otome – Momoiro Paradox, 30-sai no Hoken Taiiku, Sket Dance, Sofuteni, Astarotte no Omocha!

Summer Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (6): Ao no Exorcist, Hyouge Mono, Steins;Gate, Hanasaku Iroha, Tiger and Bunny, Nichijou

New shows watched this season (13): Mawaru Penguin Drum, Kamisama no Memo-chou, Dantalian no Shoka, Nekogami Yaoyorozu, R-15, Sacred Seven, Ikoku Meiro no Croisee, Natsume Yuujinchou 3, Yuruyuri, Kamisama Dolls, Blood-C, Mayo Chiki, Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi

Shows that got dropped (3): Usagi Drop, No. 6, The Idolm@ster

Fall Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (2): Hyouge Mono, Mawaru Penguin Drum

New shows watched this season (15): C3 – Cube×Cursed×Curious, Fate/Zero, Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!!, Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon, Hunter × Hunter, Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle, Tamayura – Hitotose, Chihayafuru, Persona 4, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, Shakugan no Shana III (Final), Last Exile — Ginyoku no Fam, Ben-to, Un-Go, Guilty Crown

Shows that got dropped (3): Shinryaku!? Ika Musume, Working’!!, Mirai Nikki

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Total New Series Watched 2011:       78

Total New Series Completed:              53

Total New Series Dropped:                  18

Total New Continuing Series:             07

Now it’s time for the Anti-Awards. These are awards that the winners probably wouldn’t like winning and instead of spreading them out in the various parts, I’m going to put them here. Also, the awards will have a higher level of spoilers then  I normally use but I will still try to keep them to minimum.

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Best Half and Half

Winner:  Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
Runner-up: Blood-C

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko was improved by having Shaft/Shinbou adapt it but it was also hindered by being attached to Shaft/Shinbou. Hindered because so much of what Shaft/Shinbou does occurs admidst finding the fantastic in the common everyday hustle-n-bustle of life to the point of this being the expectation. There was Natsu no Arashi:  about a boy whose first crush is a girl he meets working in a café who just so happens to be a ghost of a girl who died in WWII. Sore de mo Machi wa Mawatteiru features a normal high school girl that encounters time travelers, aliens, and visits the afterlife. Bakemonogatari has a typical high school boy getting turned into a vampire (then mostly back to human) meeting gods, spirits, and curses. Arakawa Under the Bridge has a typical salary-man fall for a woman that lives under a bridge and declares that she is from Venus (and might actually be an alien). So, when Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko started with the main female character saying that she was an alien, this primed the viewers a certain way but then to throw this out for most of the series made it difficult to not compare it to other Shaft/Shinbou series and find it feeling a bit shallow.

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Worst Half and Half

Winner:  Fractale

Saying half of Fractale was okay is probably stretching it a bit but among all the problems that it had there were several good ideas and positive aspects floating about. It’s just that these ideas and aspects were very poorly put together and then buried under a mountain of incompetence. I’m still wondering how the creators were able to take one of my favorite voice actresses – the very talented Kana Hanazawa – and made her voice about as appealing as screeching fingernails on a blackboard.

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Most Disappointing Ending

Winner:  IS: Infinite Stratos

Why, oh, why did the creators of Infinite Stratos chicken out and try to tack on a boring “serious” ending to this show? Here’s how the show should have went – the climax should have been the reveal of Charlotte’s true gender and the build-up should have involved the generic male main character having to go to greater-and-greater lengths to hide the truth. It would have complimented the nature of the show much better and not have been such a letdown.

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Most Disappointing

Winner:  Guilty Crown

Any questions? Okay, moving on…

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Most in Need of Being Longer

Winner:  C – The Money of Soul and Possibility Control
Runner-up: Un-Go

One can’t look over the year in anime without complaining about the episode counts that noitaminA series get. Un-Go actually accomplished a fair amount over it’s 11 episode run which allowed C to slip past to win this dubious award. C had some very interesting things to say but the silly CG battles and the compression artifacts from trying to squeeze C into 11 episodes just overwhelmed those interesting ideas.

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The You’re-Doing-It-Wrong Award

Winner:  R-15
Runner-up: Nekogami Yaoyorozu

Both of these shows should have been fun, light entertainment – perfect for the hot summer season – but both failed on a fundamental level and left the viewers saying, “you’re doing it wrong.” The bigger failure was on the part of R-15; the set-up was that this anime took place in a school of geniuses but somehow these “geniuses” were just a pack of boring, cliché characters. (And the one that plays the clarinet, if she’s such a genius then why does she spend the entire series practicing the same simple piece of music?)

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The Best Almost Good Series

Winner:  Dantalian no Shoka
Runner-up: C3 – Cube×Cursed×Curious

In different hands I think both of these series could have been fabulous. C3 probably needed more work to get there since the source material needed a touch of help and the style was trying too hard to look Shaftian without adding anything unique to the animation style. Dantalian no Shoka was so very close. More episodes would have helped but if that was unobtainable then trimming down the number of cases covered and focusing on fleshing these cases out and developing the characters probably would have been all it needed. Even so, Dantalian no Shoka was an interesting experiment in visual style that will probably help Gainax in the future be a better studio.

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The Series That Most Left Me Wondering “Why Did I Waste My Time Finishing This?”

Winner:  Deadman Wonderland
Runner-up: Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi

Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi had the characters and story of a really generic fan-service series and the low level of fan-service that’s typically found in a “serious” anime. Watching it every week left me confused and wondering when it would decide to fully commit to being one type of series or the other. This series was topped by Deadman Wonderland, however. I should have seen the signs early that the creators wanted to make a “dark” anime – like what all the cool kids are doing now – but lacked the ability and talent to do so. I even remember getting a chuckle over how the creators wanted to vilify private prisons but thought nothing of the implications to how the story would unfold. I did learn, though, when Mirai Nikki started resorting to implausible, silly turns-of-events to advance the story and I quickly dropped it.

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Best Series I Dropped

Winner:  Usagi Drop

Usagi Drop was, is, and will be on many lists as a top 10 anime for 2011. Not mines and that’s because I broke a personal rule I have about not checking out the source material before the end of an anime series. Objections to how it ends was just part of the reason for dropping it. The other part was watching a few more episodes after spoiling myself and seeing how the author clearly had the ending in mind when laying out the story and how she forced the characters into that path instead of allowing the characters to develop naturally and organically. Which is a shame, there was much to like about Usagi Drop.

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And on that note, let’s end part 0 and tomorrow I’ll put up part 1, the character awards.

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Top anime 2011 Awards Part 0: Introduction and Anti-Awards <- you are here
Top anime 2011 Awards Part 1: Cast and Character Awards
Top anime 2011 Awards Part 2: Genre and General Awards
Top anime 2011 Awards Part 3: VMA Awards
Top anime 2011 Awards Part 4: The Misfit Awards
Top anime 2011 Awards: Top 13 Anime – #13 – #7
Top anime 2011 Awards: Top 13 Anime – #6 – #1

Filed under: anime, awards

Rin is over her cold, but now Yukari has a cold, and Rin is feeling guilty over possibly giving her cold to Yukari. Rin, Kouki, and the kids of Daikichi’s father friends practice jump rope where they talk about containers that hold their kid’s baby teeth and Daikichi thinks Rin would love that. Daikichi soon decides to join Rin in jump rope after seeing that he’s gained weight. The pair then visit Daikichi’s parents, where one of Rin’s teeth finally comes out.

Rin and Kouki practicing jump rope was another DAWWW moment, partly because I think I remember doing some of the stuff they did while trying to jump rope too. I also liked how Rin teased Daikichi by acting all depressed over screwing up the jump rope contest but then being like “I kicked ass at the backwards jump rope!*” (* not actual words Rin used). I also LOLed at Rin stepping on the scale when Daikichi was weighing himself later.

As I said last time, I really hope they continue this series later. It’s cute and full of DAWWW and it’s fun to watch Rin growing up and seeing Daikichi having to deal with it, but still loving it himself too. I guess if one wants a series is a strong and defined story line, this isn’t a show for them, but this series still manages to be great. If you like this type of series, I’d definitely recommend trying to see it the first chance you get. I’m just sad it’s over.

This is the third and final series I had been watching in the summer season. There isn’t necessarily a complex story line here. Mainly it’s just Daikichi taking care of one of his late-grandfather’s illegitimate children, Rin, as no one else in the family wanted to, and the trials of rewards of that undertaking. Also, there is a major DAWWWWW factor in this show.

One day, Daikichi is visiting Rin’s school during some sort of art day and meets a couple of the other “fathers” there, both of which he finds he has some sort of indirect connection with. He then runs into Yukari, who gets nervous because it’s becoming colder and she’s afraid of Kouki getting sick. On the way home, Yukari notices that Rin has a fever. Daikichi takes her to the doctor, who says it’s not the flu. Rin, however, refuses to take her medicine and her fever gets higher, and Yukari helps Daikichi to get Rin over her fever.

This was another great episode, just expanding on Daikichi’s role as acting-father. First he meets some other “father friends,” as he put it, and joked with Yukari that he feels weird telling kids (mainly Kouki) not to do all the things that he did when he was little himself. Then Rin gets a cold, and Daikichi starts freaking out, but once again it’s Yukari that comes to save the day.

I really, really wish Yukari and Daikichi  ended up getting together. They’re so perfect for each other, but I still don’t think that will happen. Yukari seems to have “friend zoned” Daikichi, so that’s probably that there.

In any case, the next episode is the last one, and I don’t want this series to end. Maybe they’ll make a second season. This is certainly a series that seems like it could keep going if it’s popular enough.

The weather announces a typhoon is coming, which worries Rin, but Daikichi just remarks that they come every year. At school, Kouki is acting up, and the teachers can’t seem to get him to stop. However, after Rin tells him to stop or else he’ll get in trouble, he behaves (amazing both the teachers and the classmates). Rin’s girl friends are afraid that Kouki will start bullying her, but she reassures them he wont. That evening, it starts raining harder, so Daikichi decides to bring Kouki home from daycare along with Rin, where Yukari meets up with them later and they end up having dinner together.

Rin appears to be getting into the “boys!” stage a big, especially when Kouki acts up, though it appears like she already successfully has a leash on him given how he behaved after she yelled at him. But she’s still sighing whenever Kouki goes off and does something boyish.

Of course, the typhoon set up the situation where Yukari ended up coming over and having dinner. It seemed like Yukari didn’t really know how to react at the end. I don’t know if that’s because she has a thing for Daikichi and is just trying not to show it, or if she just doesn’t know what she’s feeling (or if she’s somehow jealous that Kouki gets along so well with Daikichi).

In any case, the lull in the DAWWW seems to have only lasted one episode, as this was another good one.  It’s too bad there are only 2 episodes left after this one. I think this show is begging for a 2nd season, at least.

It’s approaching Obon, so Daikichi decide that he and Rin should visit Soichi’s grave. Once there, Daikichi notices Masako’s already been there so he runs after her and asks if she wants to look on Rin secretly, which she does. The pair then go to Soichi’s old house, only to find the yard graveled over. At home, Daikichi presents Rin a chocolate cake to celebrate her 7th birthday.  Meanwhile, Masako is taking on even more work so she can try to put everything else out of her mind.

This was an OK episode I guess. It’s nice to see something like Rin’s birthday and Obon, but there wasn’t particularly anything “new” per se in this episode, except Masako working herself to exhaustion, partly because she’s afraid that her time in the limelight will pass her by as well as to help her forget some of the choices that she probably regrets to get her where she is.

Otherwise, I’m not really sure there was much to say about this episode.

Daikichi’s cousin Haruko suddenly shows up, having run away from home, where she lives with her husband and his parents. Apparently she can’t stand any of them anymore so she ran away to Daikichi’s until she figures out what to do next. This is generally a blast for Rin and Reina, though Reina does confess to Rin that her parents are fighting all the time, but she pretends to be asleep.  Daikichi also has a run in with Yukari at the grocery store, which causes Haruko to tease Daikichi over his obvious crush for her. In the end, Haruko decides the best option is to go back home, even though she doesn’t particularly like it.

This was like, the greatest episode of anime ever to air in the history of the universe lol. Reina and Rin’s discussion about adult affairs (and right in front of Daikichi and Haruko) was hilarious, with Kouki just piling on top in the way only he can. And then Haruko teasing Daikichi about Yukari just made it even better. I was having a hard time not grinning in amusement through most of this episode.

This episode did display a nice contrast between the troubles of the life of the adults – living with a husband you don’t particularly like as well as trying to raise children on one’s own – with the innocence of the children, who know what’s going on, even if they don’t know why.

Of course, this whole ordeal brought up the issue of Yukari’s divorce again, which we didn’t learn anything new about, but Daikichi just reaffirmed that he’s pretty sensitive to the subject. However, I still have to think that we’re eventually going to find out what happened, either because Yukari needs someone to talk to about it or because Kouki ends up spilling the beans on what happened, though he hasn’t even really done that with Rin yet.  I still think Yukari and Daikichi should get together, but I somehow don’t think Yukari sees Daikichi in that way.

In any case, this show just keeps rolling and rolling and rolling.

This is a pretty bouncy song and colorful opening, which I guess goes pretty well with the show. I like it anyway.

It’s time for Rin to start elementary school, which she attends with Kouki. To commemorate this, Rin and Daikichi plant a loquat tree outside their house after Daikichi tells her about he and his sister getting trees when they were born. That makes them wonder if Souichi planted a tree for Rin. Daikichi asks Masako and sure enough, he did. When Daikichi finds it, it’s a fragrant olive tree, just as his tree is.

So Rin starts elementary school, but we don’t really see any interactions at the school, at least yet. However, we get to see more Kouki and his friendship with Rin. And of course he acts like a typical boy and Rin has the typical female frustrations about it.

This episode kind had more to do with the idea of Rin growing up. She and Daikichi talked about the planting of trees and growing up with the tree and so forth. However, Rin seemed to get depressed over the fact that she didn’t know whether she had a tree from birth, which upset Daikichi as well, because he hated bringing up the topic and then seeing Rin get down because of it.  And this, of course, led to another merry meeting between Daikichi and Masako.

Otherwise, there really wasn’t much going on. I expect we’ll see Rin’s and Kouki’s friendship grow (and we may end up seeing them get into some trouble eventually, thanks to Kouki), and hopefully we’ll see some of her interactions at school as well.

Truth be told this is a pretty anemic season of new anime. There’s a couple really good shows with a couple more that have the potential but the majority of the new anime shows seem to be merely shooting for being generically average and, it turns out, many are having trouble reaching that feeble goal.

On the upside, I might actually have time to write more since I’ll definitely be spending less time this season watching anime .

(16) – Usagi Drop (Dropped)

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 2/12  F

With a heavy heart I have to start out with an anime that I was really looking forward too and thoroughly enjoyed over the first couple of episodes. This would easily be sitting in the top 5 right now if I didn’t break one of my personal rules about watching anime – never read the source material for a currently airing anime or upcoming anime until after the end of the anime series. I saw a spoiler about something that happens in the middle of the manga series which I thought was an ill-omen and, against my better judgment, I looked at how Usagi Drop ends and my head almost literally exploded. In a bad way. If the anime actually gets to the ending then Usagi Drop will go down as, quite possibly, the biggest troll anime ever. It’ll make Endless Eight look classy.

I tried to unsee what I saw and just enjoy the anime because I want to critique all anime independent of it’s relation to source material, personal bias, and assumptions but that’s a very difficult ideal to live up too and so I found myself examining every line of dialogue and action by the characters for how the ending will be justified. Then I tried to just force myself to keep watching but when a trip to the dentist becomes preferable to watching another episode then it’s time to move on. (I do have a nice dentist but it’s still the dentist.) I think this is the first time I’m hoping that the animators make up their own ending; maybe then, I’ll be able to finish Usagi Drop.

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(15) – R-15

Rating for episodes 1 to 3 – 3/12  D

By rights, I should be dropping R-15 since it’s not a very good show but there are extenuating circumstances that will give it a reprieve for a few episodes. AIC, the production company, had been on a real tear of late making well-polished, above average fan service/comedy/(fill in the blank) anime series and I was hoping to see this string continue. So, on the strength of past successes, it’s getting an extended shot but I don’t think it’ll make a difference in the end.

The biggest problem is there’s no pizzazz to the characters; for a school supposed full of geniuses, you’d think the students wouldn’t be so generic and boring. The comedy isn’t really there either but, in R-15’s defense, sometimes the comedy of a series takes awhile to get going. The censoring is also annoying; not because I actually want to see yet another pantsu shot but because using huge white bars to censor is inelegant, visually jarring, breaks all sense of immersion, needless, inconsistent with past shows by AIC, and a cheap trick to attempt to drive up sales which almost assuredly doesn’t actually work.

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(14) – No. 6 (Dropped)

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 4/12  C

For the preview of this anime season I mentioned how I was worried that Bones perpetual problems with pacing wasn’t going to mix well with the short 11 episode count that No. 6 was getting. As we near the halfway point, it appears those fears were justified. To be fair, there’s nothing glaringly wrong with No. 6, so far, that couldn’t be fixed with a proper episode count. However, for a show that’s almost at the halfway point there hasn’t been enough quality character development to make me actually care for any of the characters (except maybe the Mom) and the world building has been too shallow and featureless for me to actually care what the dark secret behind No. 6 is. For a much better take on this type of show, I recommend watching the live-action movie V For Vendetta.

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(13) – Nekogami Yaoyorozu

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 4/12  C

The other show from AIC this season and, while it’s a little better then R-15, Nekogami Yaoyorozu still falls dreadfully short of it’s potential. With the right execution this should have been an easy homerun for AIC but, like R-15, it creates a setting (this time about a disgraced cat-god that lives in the home of an antique dealer) and doesn’t seem interested in fully utilizing the setting or the characters. Compare that to Mayo Chiki which exploits it’s characters and setting to the maximum and is a much better anime because of it.

The last episode I watched, episode 4, was a definite step up in quality from the first 3 which might signal that Nekogami Yaoyorozu will improve with time (or it was a fluke ), so I’ll give this anime a few more episodes. Even if the show ultimately is a bust, the catchy opening song might just be enough to keep me watching until the end.

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(12) – The Idolm@ster (Dropped)

Rating for episodes 1 to 3 – 5/12  C+

The Idolm@ster performed at almost exactly the level I guessed it would going in, which is to say almost average. (A 6/12 B- is what I consider a completely average anime.) The first episode, with it’s documentary style setup, reminded me of The Office and momentarily gave me hope that the animators were going to do something different with this anime but the next two episodes dashed those hopes. There’s nothing really wrong with The Idolm@ster but there’s also nothing really compelling about it that makes me want or need to continue watching this 2 cour (season) anime.

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(11) – Sacred Seven

Rating for episodes 1 to 5 – 5/12  C+

Sacred Seven is another mediocre summer anime series that fells to deliver what the premise appears to promise. It’s failings are all the more apparent when compared with the other series Sunrise is currently animating – Tiger & Bunny. The characters here are weak, one-dimensional and cookie-cutter. The mechs are uninspiring and the action scenes are boring and the narrative flow so far has squandered much of it’s time that would have been better spent on building an interesting plot. The only reason I’m placing Sacred Seven this high is because of the value that the fansub group gg adds to Sacred Seven. There’s the one character’s trait of ending each sentence with oni which gg approximates by placing some variation of the word “hell” in the sentence. And there was episode 5 where they swapped the music out of the opening sequence and replaced it the song Riding Dirty which synced with the animation surprisingly well.

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(10) – Yuruyuri

Rating for episodes 1 to 5 – 5/12  C+

At one time knowing that the principal people behind Yuruyuri were who they are would have gotten me excited and would have ensured that I covered it in my seasonal preview. I absolutely love season 1 of Minami-ke, the first series of theirs that I watched, and I still consider it my top anime comedy. However, they eventually followed with 2 seasons of  another comedy series called Mitsudomoe and it wasn’t even close in terms of quality. So much so, that I decided that Minami-ke must have just been a lucky accident. This conclusion combined with an animation studio that doesn’t have much credibility for doing good anime and a yawn-inducing story kept me from listing it in my preview.

So why is it here?

In the end I figured I’d give it a chance, if only to confirm my conclusion and because I had the room to pick up another series because this season isn’t exactly overflowing with quality. The first few episodes where even worse then Mitsudomoe and I was prepared to drop it but decided to give it a few more episodes since by now I knew that I’d be dropping at least three other anime series in my already small pool of new anime series. I watched episode 4 and saw definite improvement and episode 5 showed improvement over episode 4 (even if they had to recycle a joke skit from episode 1 of Minami-ke). I still don’t much care for the cast except for the glasses-wearing, nose-bleed-over-imagined-fantasy character; she’s voiced by Aki Toyosaki, best known for voicing Yui from K-On!(!), and she’s doing it with such an over-the-top gusto that she steals every scene she’s in. It’s still not perfect, not by a long shot, but there’s some actual hope that Yuruyuri becomes a decent comedy series.

And a final point about Yuruyuri, I hope I’m not the only one who thinks the school uniforms look like they were designed to be maternity school uniforms.

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(9) – Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi

Rating for episodes 1 to 3 – 6/12  B-

I have to be honest, I don’t know what to make of Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi nor do I have a good read on if it’ll end up being worth watching or not. In cases such as this I stick to the grade that all anime start out at – 6/12 B- – until it starts earning a higher or lower score. Most seasons these undefinable shows are far enough down my list that I don’t have to worry about the appearance of recommending them but this time Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi is ranked relatively high at number 9.

The basic gist of this anime is that the male main character (of high school age, naturally) made a deal many years ago with someone not human and as a result he’s given the ability to come back from death as many as 6 times over a 15 minute period before truly dying. Through various incidents he forgets all of this and lives a normal life until one fateful day.

What’s making it difficult to really measure this anime at this point  is that there’s many different thematic parts to Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi – comedic, fan-service, horror, and serious – and they really haven’t gelled together yet. And it’s being done by Zexcs, not the greatest studio to be handling an anime.

It’ll be interesting to see where Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi will end up by the end of this season.

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Part 2 will be coming in a day or in a week depending on if I can get it posted before I go on vacation or after I come back.

Filed under: anime, first impressions

Daikichi arranges to meet Rin’s mother Masako. She ends up being a pretty young manga author who basically left Rin with Souichi in order to continue her career, and as a result, their meeting goes a little rough. Daikichi thinks about adopting Rin, but Rin objects, saying “Daikichi shold stay Daikichi.” Rin also graduates from nursery school.

So we finally meet Masako, who seems to be somewhat torn between keeping up her job as a manga writer and caring for Rin, though Daikichi is still clearly not happy with her for choosing her job over her own daughter, probably especially so because he was willing to get transfered at work in order to better take care of Rin.

I found it interesting that Masako and Daikichi’s mother both thought Rin wouldn’t have a problem changing her name, but Rin was the opposite: she thought having her father’s last name was important for her identity.  Rin seems pretty mature and able to take things in stride, though she obviously still has normal worries that someone her age might have too. Daikichi is still rather confused about how she views him, however.  He takes care of her like her father but their relationship seems to be somehow different from that too.

The nursery school graduation was full of more DAWWWW as I guess was to be expected. I still think Daikichi and Kouki’s mother should get together, but I somehow don’t think that’s going to happen.

Up next (or at least soon) it seems like it will be time for Rin to start elementary school, which I”m sure will be yet another adventure for her.

Some of the kids at daycare are making fun of Rin because she doesn’t know who her mother is, and she calls her father “grandfather,” when another, kid, Kouki, comes to her rescue. Later, Daikichi find a clue in Rin’s health booklet that ultimate leads him to a paper written by Souichi about Rin’s mother.

So Rin and Kouki, who are both kind of anti-social, get along pretty well, as seemingly do Daikichi and Kouki’s mother. They seem to hit it off, though one wonders whether that will work out.  It’s kinda interesting anyway.

Most of the rest of this episode was more DAWWWW along with learning a bit more about Masako.  Apparently, she thought herself a failure as a parent, and was perhaps too immature to be a parent.  This has apparently led Daikichi to try to contact her, which he just gets an answer on the phone when this episode ends.  It’ll be interesting to see whether Masako is interested, or still feels in adequate or what.

Also, it’s almost elementary school time, huh? That should open up a new chapter in the life of Rin, and I look forward to it.

The time Daikichi has left before needing to find a permanent day care for Rin is running short, so he decides to ask another worker in his office, Gotou, for her advice about that and other child-rearing things.  Daikichi also goes to Souichi’s house to see if he can find anything out about Rin’s mother.

So Daikichi finds out from Rin that Souchi had a maid – who just happened to have the same name as Rin’s mother as listed in her health booklet.  But Rin doesn’t like her because “she hated Rin and was always angry.”  He also discovers that Rin is confused about death and is worried about her or Daikichi dying, but he reassures her that everything is OK.  He also asks for a transfer at work so he doesn’t have to work overtime. He also finds a permanent day care for Rin.

The best description for this series so far is still “DAWWWWWW!”  I love it when Rin gives Daikichi the Stare of Doom whenever he does something she doesn’t like. Even though she’s only six, she sure is full of personality, which just makes this series all the better so far.

The bit about Rin’s mother apparently being Souchi’s maid – and the fact that Rin doesn’t like her – adds in a little bit of intrigue into the series.  It probably will make it easier for Daikichi to contact her, but will Masako be interested? Did she really hate Rin and was she always angry? And if so, why? Maybe she was mad because Soichi only ever treated her like a maid, I don’t know. I guess we’ll probably find out eventually.

Daikichi starts his new life with Rin, and it doesn’t take him long to find out just how rough that life can be. First, he has to find a temporary nursery school for Rin to stay while he’s at work.  Meanwhile, he has a job with long hours which causes him to have to pick Rin pretty late.  Meanwhile, the distractions are starting to affect his work as well.

This episode was just full of daaawwwwwww. Though I was kind of expecting Daikichi to actually find a permanent nursery school by the end of the episode since that was the problem established at the start.  Though this episode also did a good job just showing how difficult raising a kid can be for him, especially being single.

Daikichi seems to have an interest in finding Rin’s real mother, Masako, so I wonder if that’s a direction the story will go in the future. Also, what was that at the end about the sweat? I don’t know if that’s something that is going into the next episode or what.  In any case, Rin appears to be very strong willed but also very smart, and it makes her a very interesting character, especially when she fusses at Daikichi for one thing or another.  Two episodes in and this is still a very interesting looking series so far.

I don’t mean to always blog shows in the noitamina slots, but really, they are usually some of the best looking shows at the start of the season. That plus some other shows that just weren’t very interesting looking plus a lot of hype for quite a while lead me to blog this show.  I really honestly don’t know what to expect.  I’ve read the synopses but that’s about it.  I’m assuming it’s going to be about this guy getting used to raising a kid, though even that is kind of broad.  I guess I’ll find out…

I guess it’s hard to say whether this episode really presents a true flavor of what this series is going to be like.  I mean, I think it kind of sets the tone and introduces the characters, but Daikichi just started taking car of Rin, which is going to be the heart of the show, so in that respect, we haven’t really seen anything yet.

Daikichi and Rin seem to be somewhat similar in personality, which is probably partly why they were drawn to each other.  I’m sure that taking care of Rin is going to be a bit harder than Daikichi anticipated, but at least he was good enough to take up the task in the first place, unlike all the other relatives who didn’t want to be bothered with the grandfather’s illegitimate child that they hadn’t known about before.

In any case, just the atmosphere for the first episode gives me optimism for this series going forward.  I just seems like it’s in the grain of a well written part-serious, part-humorous drama.

Woah, time sure flies. Before I knew it, it’s already time for next season previews! And this next seasons has a great lineup of anime which piqued my interest. Summer is looking pretty good! Following are the five I look most forwards to. No.6 –From studio Bones, animation looks like that of Eureka Seven, which [...]