2011 Spring Anime First Impressions

So, what did I think of the season?

Firstly, these ratings are just based on the first episode of all the shows that I have watched – needless to say, this tells me nothing about the whole show. Secondly, if anything ties this all together (besides that they’re all 2011 Spring Anime), it’s that I always have something to say about explanations – and how none of these pictures have been edited by me. Finally, I’m away – so I won’t watch anything more until perhaps the sixth, seventh, or even eighth episodes. I have a feeling things will be hectic when I come back…

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai

Man, that’s a mouthful. Not as long as my tag list though.

Ano Hi Mata Hana something something something, or AnoHana, for short, is about this guy who dreams that something like this would happen to him.

It does, but obviously only he can feel his own delusions.

I just don’t get why Menma still sounds so childish even when she’s grown up; perhaps she was just in a state of coma while she was dead (no duh)? Anyways, about the explanations in my first paragraph; don’t you just hate it when an anime that doesn’t have to do with science adds science? Fractale was one. They tried to explain how the Fractale system worked, and failed quite a bit. Most spiritual works do the same – they try to explain how spiritual energy comes forth from humans when there’s no possible explanation

AnoHana was great in this respect as they didn’t bother explaining what the hell Menma was – they don’t need to. We don’t need to know anything about her. Cue speculah, but I’m sure the producers won’t ever tell us how Menma became Menma – it’s a plot device, that we all must just trust.

SIDNET

This drama is amazing; here’s one of those shows which tugs at our emotional strings, and whilst some are indifferent bastards, I think that this will be quite enjoyable. I shall follow this.

However, there were still two things that bothered me.

One: those cricket sounds. DOES EVERY SINGLE ANIME USE THE SAME TRACK OR WHAT? DO THEY HAVE TO APPEAR IN EVERY SINGLE SHOW, EVER?

Two: Jintan’s a hikikomori. Then how did he run so far? Shouldn’t he fall down after three steps?

Cover Rating: 6/10 (Amazing)

Ao no Exorcist

Notice how she blushes

The main (too many people are being introduced, I forget everyone’s names!) is just a normal guy trying to get a job when SUDDENLY, he becomes a DEMON who does BAD THINGS to LITTLE GIRLS.

Well, not the last part.

Ao no Exorcist’s first episode will stand out for some time – it’s basically a normal shounen shou, as far as I can tell, but the first episode is so very not shounen. He tries to get a job, fails, and really, it’s very slice of life.

In most other stories, the action begins in the beginning – a girl falls out of a tree, cue show. But this doesn’t start with him being revealed to be a demon – it starts before that, to build up the shock and suspense when a normal person finds out he’s a demon.

I haven’t seen something like this, and I really think this may be the big (long) hit for fans of stable shows; let’s just hope it doesn’t get bogged down in fillers, useless arcs, and nonsense…

Cover Rating: 8/10 (Masterpiece)

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

This covers a poor kid who drives through Platform 9 and three quarters, while a starving man with an unruly beard fights with impeccable, shining teeth and money.

I can just say that this will not end well.

However, I do love the cheesy English catchphrases and Japanese people attempting to speak English to ATMs.

Why won’t I watch this?

Firstly – how this works /does/ matter. You can’t fling him from a real life situation with so much real life history into the Financial District, which nobody knows what is. For realistic shows like this, you can’t just cast it aside and say ‘well, it’s the Financial District. We got a lot of money so we can do fancy stuff, alright?’. Think about how stupid that sounds.

Secondly – The OP has a lot of flags.

IT DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING CANADIAN. REMOTELY. THIS ANGERS ME.

Finally – I’m not an…

*business glasses*

Anturenpureneru.

Cover Rating: 4/10 (Good)

Deadman Wonderland

What is that?!

Deadman Wonderland is about this 14-year old boy. Apparently, one day, at school, with classrooms two metres away from them, he sat down to class, broke all of the windows, shattered all of the desks, and murdered every single student in his class.

Oh, of course the other classrooms didn’t notice the glass shattering, or the screaming, and actually every student in his class was sleeping, so none of them ran away. And they had earplugs on, so they didn’t hear the noise. Also, the teacher happened to be away that day, and she forgot to call a substitute in, so the teacher didn’t find out, either. And when the people from the classrooms outside found out, the main character already hid his murder weapon somewhere where nobody would find it, came back to the classroom, and fainted.

..I’m not going to question their choice of plot.

The art is horrible, the plot seems horrible, the entire thing looks like it’ll be a revenge-themed story where the main character levels up his fighting skills, makes friends, and discovers the power of love.

BUT HANAZAWA KANA IS PLAYING SHIRO SO I GUESS I’LL HAVE TO SEE HOW THIS TURNS OUT.

Yeah, I was lying about C. Seeing as I’ll be away without access to computers /anyway/, I guess I can just read some summaries and figure out how bad it’s gotten when I come back.

Cover Rating: 4/10 (Good)

Fireball Charming

It’s two minutes long, and I don’t understand!

Cover Rating: ?/10 (?)

Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai

That’s right, the sequel to last last season’s best show is back! Or, rather, here. Katsuragi Keima continues to try to get as many girls as possible so when the apocalypse comes, his family will rule the world!

No, not really, but.

“We’re broccoli, dammit”

I don’t care if the characters are too trope-y! I don’t care if the gangsters are stupid idiots that always get beaten so easily! I don’t care if Ryo is a horribly, horribly, COOL name!

It picks up the slack from last season and immediately engages in fascinating adventures!

THIS IS A GREAT ANIME AND YOU SHOULD WATCH IT

I’m telling you it’s more interesting than that

Cover Rating: 7/10 (Brilliant)

Lotte no Omocha!

On the other hand, this may not be so.

I have no idea why I decided to watch this (surely not because of the lolis and semen-sucking), but it turns out to be of a much more child-friendly nature.

However, I do think that further episodes are merely to try to please the moe-loving kinds of.. bricks (because that’s what their brains are like to me, no offense), and unfortunately, I am not a brick.

Nor am I extremely pleased with Japanese pronunciation.

Japanese Pronunciation: “Noru, Uruzaburun, Iruzu, Skurudu, Verudandi.”

Of course, I must question how the subbers got such words from that! Engrish should be made illegal in Japan. Don’t they teach English there, with real English teachers? Even the Chinese teachers in French-English Canada teach their students to speak proper Chinese, not Eng…nese? No white person wants to learn Chinese! It’s so sad.

This feels like KoreZombie (mind you, I didn’t watch that, so I wouldn’t know!) – a stupid show about stereotypical things solely meant to entertain the masses of bricks that need to be entertained.

And hey, I’m not against that (imagine a brick uprising! Shudder.), but I wouldn’t want to watch this either.

I mean, that guy’s 23? With a 9 year old daughter?

Cover Rating: 3/10 (Neutral)

Hanasaku Iroha

Want to know what this show is about?

It’s about old women.

And candy.

The main character moves from her city life to DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA in her Grandmother’s hot spring.

She gets slapped around.

I just can’t take those earphones! Trying to spite us poor people, eh? And she sounds so philosophical it’s sickening :(

I do like anime where the city-dweller is taught in the good old-fashioned Chinese way – but this girl is far too nice. This and AnoHana are going to be the drama masters of the season – however, I still don’t particularly like drama, and so I’ll only watch one of the Hanas (as I’ve said). Oh well.

I do have to admit, though – the art is absolutely gorgeous. Being not quite an artistic person myself, I can only look in envy:

Cover Rating: 6/10 (Amazing)

Hen Zemi

I was watching it expecting ‘wtf’, and that is what I got.

I have no idea what the fuck is going on.

It’s like Mitsudomoe, but /worse/. Simply a plethora of bad jokes that can only be funny because of how ridiculous it is.

There’s no way I’m watching this, even though the episodes are only 12 minutes long, each.

What was that, I don’t even

Cover Rating: 2/10 (Bad)

Hyouge Mono

…And here we come to the gem of the season.

Tea for Universe, Tea for Waifu is a story about..

…tea.

As many people have said, this is as not anime as possible. There are basically no tropes, no fanservice or crappily drawn faces.

This is the closest to moe you will get.

I feel for the translators – it’s going to be like hell, having to use old words (recreating Tatsuya’s God’s Spell has shown me that old language is, indeed, horribad). It really does sounds interesting, but seems to require too much knowledge of Japan!

I can’t really give this a rating now, but the first episode was painfully boring.

I shall see episodes 2 and 3 to discover whether this is the type of show that will be good or not.

But hey – it’s got murders, manliness, and the most ridiculous faces that I have ever seen.

Cover Rating: 4/10 (Interesting)

Moshi Koukou Yakyuu no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no Management wo Yondara

(I felt like this after watching this)

I had high hopes for Moshidora.

The first episode sucked.

The entire thing sounds like a worship of Drucker’s book. It’s told like a children’s book, even – there’s a narrator, and the mains talk to themselves and each other in such a fake manner.

Even the music is enormously cheesy.

I swear that is Suwako’s natural expression

Ah, I feel that this will get better from here on out – have a bad beginning and the ending will feel like a masterpiece, eh?

I do look forward to how they will present a rendition of such a boring topic.

Unfortunately, I won’t be here to see the other episodes as they air – as you know, Moshidora is airing at a very odd schedule, an episode every weekday for two weeks. That’s not really odd in normal television (every Chinese drama I’ve seen has done the same), but in anime, extremely.

Maybe this shows it’s not ‘mere’ anime…?

Cover Rating: 3/10 (Neutral)

Nichijou

:(

Wow, we have stupid shows and then we have STUPID shows.

Nichijou is the stupidest show I have ever seen.

I feel like I’m forcing myself to laugh at the randomness – it’s like at my old (horribad) class, where people would laugh at things just because they were ‘random’ – whereas they were not really random, and they weren’t particularly funny either.

I have to say though, there were some moments where I just couldn’t help myself

TheIshter has gracefully transcribed the BEST OP OF THE EVER, here.

I don’t understand anything, but what I do understand is better than Fireball Charming.

Selamat pagi~

Cover Rating: ??!?/10 (What is this I /can’t/ even)

Showa Monogatari

And a nice look back at the past.

Showa Story tells the Story of a family in Showa. Shocking, isn’t it.

This may be my favourite show simply because of how heartwarming it felt.

The cultural note at the end was pretty neat, too.

I won’t add more – we shall find soon whether this is a boring ‘old-peoples’ anime, or a dramatic drama of dramas – a drama that will undoubtedly outperform both Hanas.

Cover Rating: 7/10 (Brilliant)

SKET Dance

Somebody stabbed me in the head…

Dayum, I fully expected Bossun’s concentration mode to be fake.

SKET Dance tells of the (mis)adventures of a club as they sort through a school’s problems.

Here’s an anime without plot (hopefully), that should give as much as a laugh as Nichijou. Hopefully, it’ll be structured comedy, instead.

To be honest, I was expecting silly shenanigans from the beginning – think about the latest club-related anime you have watched, and how silly it was.

However, that transfer student’s plot was actually pretty damned badass.

Definitely better than C or Deadman Wonderland, based on first episodes – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Cover Rating: 6/10 (Amazing)

Steins;Gate

I have to say, wow the art looks terrible.

What the anime lost in art wins in style and presentation.

The manga could never present something in a way better than it has in this episode.

I made the mistake of trying to list out the plot in the manga – that was stupid.

There is no plot to list out; an anime of this calibre was made not to be read; but to be watched.

whos whos waifu

Here, back to the ‘explanations’ part – Dr. Pepper Okarin thinks a lot like me. If you can’t find something out, it doesn’t matter.

Really, it’s things like this that make it so much better than the manga.

I have high expectations.

I will not be let down.

Cover Rating: 8/10 (Masterpiece)

Tiger & Bunny

We’re almost done!

Tiger & Bunny is about superheroes that fight for justice.

No matter what other people say about sponsorship issues and the like, you have to admit – it’s nice to see superheroes arrest criminals (mind you: not kill them, arrest them), and the kids are really supporting things like this. Give them dreams and the like, right?

This show has the ability to make this, twist the ethics around a bit, and make something really good.

Or, it’ll become like any other superhero show and flop.

Perhaps this vacation is a good thing; when I come back, I can read and tell whether shows will die.

Perhaps not.

Cover Rating: 6/10 (Amazing)

Yondemasu yo, Azazel-San

If anything can compare with Nichijou in terms of stupidity, here it is.

Though it’s only 12 minutes, with this on my watching list, my comedy part of my brain shall be full.

A detective summons demons to do his will – and stupid things happen. Very stupid things.

I would not recommend this for the faint of heart.

Cover Rating: 6/10 (What)

Conclusion:

So, I guess I’ll definitely watch AnoHana, Exorcist, Kaminomi, Nichijou, Showa Story, SKET Dance, Steins;Gate, and Azazel-san. That’s a lot already (and we have to remember Gosick and Beelzebub too), but summer is near =3=

Whence I come back, I’ll check out whether C, Deadman, and Tiger & Bunny are worth watching – I have a feeling all three will be. I also have a feeling my grades are going to fall quite a bit.

Finally, I still don’t know about Moshidora and Hyouge Mono. I’ll check those out immediately; but on the whole, I have a feeling the season will be like this: