2012 Winter Anime Part Three

So, what did I learn from writing season previews?

Rule 1 of writing season previews: Don’t write season previews after everybody else does.

Rule 2 of writing season previews: Do not write season previews after the previous season has already ended.

Rule 3 of writing season previews: DO NOT write season previews after the season’s shows have already started.

Rule 4 of writing season previews: DO NOT WRITE SEASON PREVIEWS after all the season’s shows have already started.

Rule 5 of writing season previews: DO NOT WRITE SEASON PREVIEWS AFTER THE SEASON IS OVER!

[Disclaiming Disclaimer: Here’s THE CHART in all capital letters stolen from @COWBOYBIBIMBOP. Open it and keep it open in a new tab or something. Here’s other posts from THE METANORN in all caps; THE UK ANIME in all caps (by Hanners of Hanners’ Anime ‘Blog, not all in caps); THE EMORY ANIME CLUB in all caps; Star Crossed Anime Blog crossed out; Cnoysud aRritimo all randomized; and Sea Slugs! Anime Blog all slugged out. This disclaimer disclaims all disclaiming disclaimers that disclaim other disclaimers that disclaim all other disclaiming disclaimers.]

I really don’t know how to continue this post properly from last post, so let’s just wrap up some loose ends that I left loose and didn’t end last time.

IT’S TIME FOR THE MAHAHAHAHAHELL VERSUS ANNING ANNY ANNA ANNE BATTLE FIGHT DISCUSSION CRITIQUE SHOW SCENE OPERA DUCK LAKE SPRING ROBOT MOUSEPAD PENCIL BEAR COMPETITION COMPARISON!!!

Last time, we left off at ANN with 1.5 points, and MAL with… 2.5 points! What a turn of events; MAL, the community-run cesspool of the anime ‘community’ defeating the professional, journalistic, licensed, adept ANN of professional editors?!

How could ANN be losing? Let’s find out why…

Rinne no Lagrange
(English Translation: Rinne no Lagrange: Flower declaration of your heart)

ANN: “Madoka is the lone member of her school’s Jersey Club. She is one day recruited by a mysterious girl named Lan to pilot the robot “Vox” and protect her city from space invaders. They are joined by a third girl, Muginami, who has a different goal than Ran. Meanwhile, they still don’t know their enemies’ true goal, or what “Rinne” might be.”

Yeah, so, uh. Jersey Club. So, this Muginami girl, she has a different goal than Ran. Who’s Ran? I think that’s a typo – it was supposed to be ‘she has a different goal than ran’. That’s just bad grammar; ran isn’t a noun, ran’s a verb. So, ‘she has a different goal than running’. I assume the Jersey Club’s just a running club, then, because Muginami’s goal isn’t Madoka’s goal, which is running.

Then why don’t you just say so?! “Madoka is the lone member of her school’s Running Club. She is one day recruited by a mysterious girl named Lan to pilot the robot “Vox” and protect her city from space invaders. They are joined by a third girl, Muginami, who has a different goal than running. Meanwhile, they still don’t know their enemies’ true goal, or what “Rinne” might be.”

Yeah, I don’t know what Rinne might be either. You know what? This makes no sense at all. I’m not even going to READ MAL’s entry, because I know it’s better. Taking off another point from ANN…

MAL 2.5 – ANN… 0.5

Anyways, apparently the producers are so confident that this isn’t going to suck that they’ve already announced a second season. That’s… pretty confident. I might even say that it’s OVER-confident. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA THAT WASN’T EVEN A PUN!! The producers, Xebec, actually have two ulterior motives in producing this anime. The first one is to stop sucking, because that’s what Xebec currently does – suck. I mean I haven’t even watched any of Xebec’s shows besides Occult Academy and Occult Academy was distinctly awesome, but everybody else says that Xebec sucks so I’ll say that too! Everybody else is also saying that Rinne no Lagrange is going to make Xebec stop sucking so I’ll say that too too.

The second ulterior motive is to attract visitors to Kamogawa City, the setting of the anime. This will provide a large boost to Kamogawa’s tourism industry, as 10 fat otaku visiting every month will certainly bring much economic benefit to Kamogawa’s 35,000 residents. Even if 1000 fat otaku visit every day… well, let’s just say that I wouldn’t want 1000 fat otaku to visit my city every day. ‘Kamogawa: Esteemed Tourist Location of Fat Otaku Worldwide’ just doesn’t sound right.

(warning: strike witches)

tl;dr: nissan designing the mechas for this anime

that’s nice

get it

niece

Potential: 3/5

In case you guys didn’t notice, all of those warnings are warnings of trailers that won’t trail warnings because they’re not forward-thinking enough. That’s why they’re trailers. They trail behind. Just like this post.

Inu x Boku SS

If you were to translate this to English, it’d be something like ‘Dog x Me SS’.

What the heck is a Dog x Me SS?

Here, another MAL vs. ANN battle:

ANN: “Protected by the highest security, the Maison de Ayakashi is rumored to be haunted, where only eccentrics could live. In reality, it is a place for humans with non-human ancestors to live. The socially-inept Ririchiyo has come here to improve himself. She meets secret service bodyguard Soushi, who is assigned to protect residents. He has a request of her: ‘Please make me your dog.'”

…Yeah, this anime sucks. A reverse harem? Normal harem anime are targeted towards guys, so guys are supposed to like that more, right? Reverse harems are targeted towards girls, so girls are supposed to like that more, right? But if I don’t like hate normal harem anime with a burning passion, why the well would I watch a reverse harem anime?! And really? ‘Please make me your dog’? Dude, I’m not into that kind of stuff. Go away. Shoo. Also, wait, where’d the girl come from? There’s a Ririchiyo who has come to the Maison de Ayakashi to improve himself. Who’s the girl?

MAL: “The Shirakiin house’s daughter, Shirakiin Riricho, who has a complex about being unable to live independently and unprotected, feels the need to move out and live on her own under the condition of residing in the mansion named “Ayakashi Kan.” In this mansion, only those who have cleared a very strict examination could reside in it, and for each resident, they are accompanied with one agent of the Secret Service (S.S.). Although Riricho has rejected the company of the S.S., while residing in the mansion she finds out that the agent dedicated to protecting her is actually the Fox Spirit whom she previously rescued.”

OK, that made a tiny bit more sense. Riricho is a girl. She has a complex about being unable to live independently, so she moves out and lives on her own.

…Cutting off a point from both for being stupid.

MAL: 1.5 – ANN: -0.5. That’s right, ANN currently has a score of negative 0.5.

Why the heck am I rating this above Lagrange, again?!

(warning: dogs and bitches)

Oh right.

David Production.

Level E.

Ben-To.

tl;dr: wait those anime sucked too OH WELL

Potential: 3/5

I admit, there’s a reason I’m just copy and pasting MAL/ANN entries. I think that my summaries are too biased when they’re not copied from a reliable, trusted, third-world source. Or third-patty. Y’know, how in double big macs, they have four buns and three patties? Yeah, MAL’s that third patty. It’s made out of chicken. Or maybe koi-ken!

Also, since in my previews, I never actually talk about the plot of the anime… yeah, now you can see why I just use ANN/MAL all the time.

What? You can’t see? Well, now you will…

Senki Zesshou Symphogear

two idols fight noise

(warning: noise)

tl;dr: I THINK SYMPHOGEAR IS A STUPID WORD

here, here’s my ‘symphony gear’, if you know what I mean ;)

P.S. symphogear gets a bonus point for being about cake

Potential: 3/5

One of the mistakes I made in my previous season previews was separating my summary from my opinions. I mean, you only do that for team blogs, and as houraiguy has so eloquently stated, “””O-New is a very unteamlike blog.””” I tried actually making O-New into a team blog, even doing a team season preview, but that person doesn’t actually watch anime so I guess it didn’t work.

Anyways, what I’m trying to say is, without separate parts for the plot summary and my own opinions, things get really disorganized. BUT OH WELL THIS SITE IS DISORGANIZED just look at my site design gosh darn it

Brave 10

What I’m trying to say is, Hyouge Mono is FUCKING AWESOME.

So it’s wrong for me just to cast shows off because they’re set in the Sengoku era, namely because the only show that I have watched that is set in the Sengoku era is FUCKING AWESOME.

Am I going to expect Brave 10 to be as FUCKING AWESOME as Hyouge Mono? No, no way. For one, everybody in Hyouge Mono is a real character. For two, everybody in Hyouge Mono seems like a real character. For three, everybody in Hyouge Mono acts like a real character.

On the contrary, everybody in Brave 10 is a real character (how contrarian). On another contrary, everybody in Brave 10 seems fake. On a final contrary, everybody in Brave 10 acts fake.

Even that scene where Oda Nobunaga is cut in half, but survives long enough to make tea OUT OF HIS OWN BLOOD – that’s not unrealistic. That’s Hashiba’s subconscious coming in to relieve the deep shock that Oda, the great near-unifier of Japan, is actually, well, dead. Whereas, just from the trailer in Brave 10, you have people jumping all over the place attacking each other with swords, instead of, y’know, stabbing somebody in the back while they’re walking on the street, or cutting their legs off, or firing an arrow at their knee.

The Sengoku era didn’t have white-haired bishies swinging fat-ass swords all around the place. The Sengoku era’s ‘brave heroes’ were fat, balding old men that sat around drinking tea and eating food. The Sengoku era wasn’t about duels where a person sufficiently brave enough just wouldn’t die. The Sengoku era was about killing everybody, regardless of whether you were the Shogun or not (see: Akechi). You were lucky to not die of dysentery.

(warning: white-haired bishies swinging fat-ass swords all around the plates)

Maybe I’m just biased, because Hyouge Mono is FUCKING AWESOME.

Besides – these ten braves actually are real people. If Hyouge Mono could make real people realistic yet FUCKING AWESOME, then Brave 10, which although seems far less FUCKING AWESOME than Hyouge Mono, may also be able to.

We can only hope…

tl;dr: nope.avi

Potential: 3/5

Y’know, maybe I shouldn’t have rated Lagrange so high. Or is this season really that good? I think it’s an average season. Actually, I think it’s a crappy season. Maybe my ratings are wrong. Maybe Bodacious Space Pirates shouldn’t be after Lagrange, because now I’m forced to give a show with as horrible a name as ‘Bodacious Space Pirates’ at least a 3/5.

Mouretsu Pirates
(English Translation: Bodacious Space Pirates)

Maybe the naming is just wrong. Because ‘モーレツ宇宙海賊’ (‘Mouretsu Pirates’) means ‘Ferocious Space Pirates’, or ‘Violent Pace Irates’, or ‘Vehement Ace Rates’. Once, I was vacationing down south in America, and the motel I was staying at offered ‘Vehement Ace Rates’. Thankfully, their rates truly were ace, otherwise I might have ‘Violently Paced Irately’.

I’ll actually talk about the plot of the anime now, referencing neither MAL nor ANN.

Bodacious Space Pirates is about Bodacious Space Pirates. Bodacious, according to Dictionary.com, means (as slang), ‘audacious; bold or brazen.’ Now, everybody knows what Audacity™ and boldness are, right? But ‘brazen’, hmm, that’s a hard word. How will we find the definition of ‘brazen’?

Oh, right. Dictionary.com. Brazen, adjective: ‘made of brass.’ Well, uh, that was unexpected. So Bodacious Space Pirates is about… space pirates made of brass.

On the other hand, Mouretsu Pirates is also about a girl, Marika, who is part of the space yacht club. It’s like the jersey club, except instead of jerseys, it has to do with space yachts. I still don’t understand how a club can be about jerseys. One day, Marika finds out that her father was a space pirate captain, and that her dad is ded. She also finds out that when space pirate captains die, their space pirate spaceship pirate-ship must be inherited by their direct descendant. As you may have deduced, Marika is her father’s direct descendant. As you may also have deduced, her father was a space pirate captain. As you may also have deduced, her father is dead.

Thus Marika abandons her space yacht club and joins the jersey club now she’s a pirate. A space pirate. A space pirate captain. A space pirate captain of a space pirate spaceship-pirate-ship. Unfortunately, because she’s just a useless little girl, all she can do is play a sad trombone. The entire time. This anime will be a sad trombone looped for six hours non-stop.

Thus the ‘brass’ part of ‘Brass Space Pirates’.

What a crass anime.

(warning: noise) sorry that was a sad trombone being sad :'(

(warning: main character’s face was squeezed through a spaghetti machine multiple times before being sucked close enough to a micro black hole to permanently stretch its features several feet that-a-ways)

There! That wasn’t so hard! Actually, it was really hard. God, it took me seven hours just to come up with this one little segment. Now you know why my season previews are always so late. :( And I really didn’t reference MAL nor ANN. I referenced Dictionary.com. Nobody references Dictionary.com in a season preview. I’m a radical aniblogger~!

dunno how that tilde slipped in

tl;dr: ‘black holy’

Potential: 4/5

So I guess I didn’t rate Bodacious Space Pirates as low as its title ought to have made me rate it. Probably because everybody else is rating it high. My guess is that everybody else is rating it high because everybody else is rating it high. By the way, I’m a hipster. I rated things high before everybody else rated things high, even though I rated things high because everybody else rated things high. You can’t spell hipster without hi. Or P-Ster.

Anyways, here come the best shows of this season. I guess Bodacious Space Pirates also counts. But it can only count to seven. Because that’s the number of positions on a sad trombone.

:(

Area no Kishi
(English Translation: The Knight in the Area)

Jesus Christ, I hate English translations. ‘Bodacious Space Pirates’? ‘Dog X Me Secret Service’? ‘Rinne no Lagrange – Flower declaration of your heart’? ‘Rinne no Lagrange’ isn’t even an English translation! What happened to your capitalization, Mr. Declarer of flower hearts? If you didn’t know ‘Dog x Me Secret Service’ was a Japanimation, you’d be laughing your heads off, and for good reason – the titles make no sense! What the heck is a ‘Dog x Me’? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that that was some French experimental zoophilia film about man-on-dog sexual behaviour. But I do know better, and realize that ‘Dog x Me’ Secret Service’ is about woman-on-dog sexual behaviour. Or dog-on-woman. Actually, dog-on-girl, because as you all know, there are no adults in anime. EXCEPT FOR HYOUGE MONO WHICH IS FUCKING AWESOME

A title like ‘the Knight in the Area’ makes me think that this was originally a chess manga. But it’s not. It’s about…

wait for it…

…FOOTBALL.

Of course by football I mean soccer, but we all know what a negative connotation ‘soccer manga’ has. Every soccer manga that I know sucks (i.e. Light Wing). On the other hand, every football manga that I know rocks (i.e. Eyeshield 21). So let’s say that it’s about football.

The Knight in the Area is about… uh, yeah, my ADHD is kicking in. I CAN’T TALK ABOUT THE PLOT SUMMARY ANYMORE here’s a knight in the area

remember, a knight on the rim is grim

a knight on the side cannot abide

a knight on the corner is a useless stupid foreigner

and a knight in the center area is a good attacker-aerial. Which is like an aerial attacker but reversed through reversed anti-inversion. here’s a knight in the center which is a castle because castles are medieval community centers, seeing as everyone in a community was inside a castle

(warning: M. Knight Shyamalan)

tl;dr: horse-cannons shoot laser beams out of their mouths

Potential: 4/5

There’s a lot of shows this season, but halfway through the third and final post, you realize that… uh, this season doesn’t really have a lot of good shows. There’s 22 shows according to reliable sources, and I added 8 more shows from the chart to make a nice, round number of 30 shows. The first 10 shows were all sequels that I didn’t watch. The next 10 shows all sucked. This post contains the final 10 shows, and right now… most of them aren’t looking so good. I might even doubt the quality of the Knight in the Area, one of the better shows (a 4/5!) in this season.

It’s going to be a small season. Is having 22 shows even big, at all? Reliable sources are saying that it’s the second largest Winter lineup since x years ago, but… didn’t we just have 45 shows last Spring? Maybe I just forgot to count the two-cours, because I didn’t watch any shows in Fall. Perhaps my reliable sources are not reliable sources.

:(

Ano Natsu de Matteru
(English translation: Waiting in the Summer)

Wow! An English title that actually makes some damn sense! Amazing! Controversial! Fashionable! Desynchronizing! Rehabilitate-able! Joint-muscle-joint-flexibility-improving! Torrential!

What I’m trying to say is, WELCOME BACK TO MAL VS. ANN, THE FINAL BATTLE!!!!!! or maybe third last final battle. Which is still a final battle. There’s just three of them. And this is the FIRST FINAL BATTLEK!3`1jkl31j2;li472831723… i honestly don’t know how that k slipped in there~ AND THERE’S THAT DAMNED TILDE AGAIN JUST DIE

MAL: “When a group of friends decide to make a movie over a long summer holiday, they end up learning a little about filmmaking and a lot more about each other and themselves. What begins as a simple way to avoid the summer doldrums quickly turns into something much more complex, intimate and revealing, as the maturing relationships between the members of the young cast take on new, and sometimes very unexpected, turns.”

What this tells me: “Hi my name is AnoHana. I am good anime I give mucho mucho money to producer and licensor. But J.C. Staff is animating sequel and J.C. Staff suck amd will make fail sequel. Also noitaminA too stupid to earn mucho mucho money from capitalist on sequel so sequel take by Sentai Filmworks. Also J.C. Staff suck.”

ANN: “While testing his new 8mm camera at night, Kaito Kirishima is caught amid a mysterious explosion in his small town. Strangely, Kaito wakes up the next day perfectly fine, but with no recollection of what exactly happened the day before. Unfazed by what seems to have been just a dream, he heads to school not giving much thought to the incident. Discussing with his friends about the camera, they decide to make a movie during summer break. They invite two upperclass students to participate in the project: recently arrived Ichika Takatsuki and the odd Remon Yamano. In a strange twist of fate, Ichika starts living with Kaito as his sister has to work overseas. Summer days are about to get exciting for the small film crew.”

What this tells me: “Hi my name is text wall. I hate you. You should die. Die die die. I hate you so much that I will make myself longer so that you have to read me more and more until you die. Also I still hate you. Did I mention that I hate you. Yes I did because that was not a question of whether or not I hate you because I do. Hate you, that is. OH NO THE WORD ‘EXCITING’ IS COMING UP NO EXCITEMENT IS MY IMMORTAL ENEMY NOO DON’T COME CLOSER ‘EXCITING’ GO AWAY! EXIT YOU ‘EXCITER’!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooOoOoOOoooOo”

“Hi my name is EXCITING I am EXCITING ok bye.”

Yeah, I think ANN wins. Even though they have a text wall that hates me to the point of hating me, they say that this anime is EXCITING. MAL says that this anime SUCKS.

MAL 1.5 – ANN 0.5

(warning: math) (get it? summers? sums? math? sigh… SUMone doesn’t understand…)

tl;dr this anime excitingly sucks

(Did you click that Noo000oooO_o0Ooh~ link expecting a clip from Star Wars? Yeahahaha sorry about that)

Potential: 5/5

Hmmm, the next one is hard. Whereas Waiting in the Summer made me Wade (this is a pun) through walls of text, alike this post, the entries for the next one is not only short, but succinct. It’s also brief. And laconic. And terse.

JUST HOW I DON’T LIKE MY SEASON PREVIEWS

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

ANN: “A glimpse into the lives of Tadakuni, Yoshitake, and Hidenori; three friends attending a boys-only high school.”

MAL: “The original gag comedy manga follows the humorous yet “realistic” everyday life of Tadakuni, Hidenori, Yoshitake, and other students at a boys’ high school.”

Well, for once, all the names are right. There’s no Lan or Ran or Hyoudou or Hyodo or whatever random Japanese names Japanese people Japanese have. One day, I’d like to see an anime about, say, Romans, and see how the Japanese people Japananize his Roman name into a Japanese Roman Japanese name Japanese. Japan. Knees. I once was Japanese but then I took an arrow to the Japa. Now I’m just knees.

:(

However, what does MAL tell us about this anime? It tells us that the anime is an original gag comedy manga, as opposed to an Aboriginal choking tragedy manhwa. It tells us the main characters’ names. It tells us that it takes place in a boys’ high school.

What does ANN tell us about this anime? It tells us that the anime is a glimpse, as opposed to being wimps. It tells us the main characters’ names. It tells us that it takes place at a boy’s high school.

If you’re going to be efficient, abridged, and dense, be succinct, compact, and concise TO THE MAX! What’s the point of being condensed and pithy if you’re not the briefest and sharpest? MAL, you obviously don’t understand the point of summaries. If you’re going to summarize, SUMMARIZE! If you’re not going to summarize, DON’T SUMMARIZE!

Here, I’ll summarize it even more, just for you:

“Nichibros.”

(warning: bros)

As Jesus1591591598765432159876543219512345678951234567891598765432159159 would say:

*BA DUM PSH*

(ANN 1.5 – MAL 1.5)

Potential: 5/5

You know how I was complaining about Japanese names and how Romans were rowing men?

Neither do I. Or maybe I do. It’s all going to fly, and it’s all up to you.
– Medieval coin, koaned by Mushyrulez in the late January 2012s.

Thermae Romae

You know how I was complaining about flash animations being stupid, and five-minute animations being even worse? About how Morita-san wa Mukuchi sucked so much I didn’t even bother trying to start to try to start to watch it, and how flash animations are even worse than Morita-san wa Mukuchi and Nyanpire which suck even more than themselves? I mean, Nyanpire sucks Blood-C and not much is worse than Blood-C except Morita-san wa Mukuchi which is worse than Nyanpire. It’s an endless cycle of suckiness! Yet, flash animations are at the bottom, with things like Nyaruani. They suck more than everything else! In fact, I haven’t ever watched any of these and I’m in no position to judge them at all but DON’T JUDGE ME I’M JUDGING OTHERS’ INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THIS IS ALLOWED AND LEGAL

Thermae Romae is a flash animation.

Thus, it sucks.

That’s the prejudice I came into this preview with. ‘Thermae Romae sucks, I’ll put it at the very end of this post just to shock everybody because up to now the Potentials have just been increasing.’

Too bad Thermae Romae is FUCKING AWESOME. I mean, you have this guy from ROME who is NOT from Japan and does NOT have a Japanese name and he’s BLOND and people don’t say ‘wow, you’re blond, you must be a gangster!’ and he doesn’t cut dead people to death. HOW COOL IS THAT?!

Then, you have TIME TRAVEL. You guys know how much I liked Steins;Gate. What did Steins;Gate have? TIME TRAVEL. Sure it was flawed and confusing and didn’t actually have anything to do with my enjoyment of the show or even the main plot of the show but it had TIME TRAVEL and since Steins;Gate is awesome then TIME TRAVEL must be awesome too.

GUESS WHAT THERMAE ROMAE HAS

(hint: it begins with a ‘t’, is two words long, and ends with an ‘l’)

THAT’S RIGHT, Thermae Romae also has THE ACTUAL. ‘The actual what?’ you might ask. Well, Thermae Romae just has the actual.

DO YOU KNOW ANY OTHER ANIME THAT HAS THE ACTUAL?!

YEAH, I THOUGHT NOT.

(warning: the actual actual)

tl;dr: ‘So,’ I thought:

Potential: 5/5

Well. Some (cough cough flare) may accuse me of inflating ratings, but as I tell you over and over and over and for the SECOND TIME NOW (the first time was several years ago in a post nobody read) – these ratings are just guessing at how ‘good’ these anime will be if the anime actually lives up to its premise. Too bad the premise is always better than the anime, and the anime never lives up to it. Except for Madoka. Madoka’s premise sucked. But Madoka was awesome. Before you accuse me of confusion, think back to a year ago, last Winter, before Fractale aired. Weren’t you all hyped up for it, and infinitely more than you were hyped up for Madoka? Yes. You were. Admit it. Deal with it.

Because another Winter’s rolled by, and Another anime’s here.

Another

I’m getting lazy now.

All I can say is that I watched the first episode in Anime Club and it was FUCKING AWESOME. I think I’m overusing that phrase.

I can’t give this a Potential because I’ve already watched the first episode, thus violating one of the great laws of galactic distortion and spacetime balance and if WARNING WARNING NUCLEAR MELTDOWN REACTION MELTDOWN MELT DOWN MELT UP DOWN SHUT DOWN MELT NUCLEAR EXPLOSION SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE WARNING WARNING OH NO SHIT WHAT HAVE I DON-

tl;dr: >4,400 words, yeah it was too long wasn’t it (total of ~11,000 words; over a fifth of a nanowrimo)

If, for some reason, you’ve read this post without reading the previous posts, here’s my 2012 Winter Anime (Preview) Part One, primarily about lame sequels that nobody watches, and my 2012 Winter Anime (Preview) Part Two, primarily about lame non-sequels that nobody watches.