For the quick first impressions, I’m always trying to find a small similarity between the three. It doesn’t always work, though. Just as with these three. I think the closest resemblance would be that each of the first episodes focuses around a female, instead of a male, but that isn’t really something extraordinary… But who cares! Good Witch of the West is finally fansubbed!

Witchblade

My, my! I never would have thought an anime like this would have good points! Okay, the main character’s designs are hugely fanservice-oriented, there are a lot of fast action-scenes, but holy god, the mother-daughter story was just too sad to see. We have this mother and daughter, who are fleeing for the Child Support Agency, which plans to separate the two of them. Both of them really want to be with each other, so when they are eventually separated, both parties become desperate to see each other again. That part was beautiful, although I’ll probably hate the parts which have nothing to do with this relationship.

Glass no Kantai

Apparently, this started airing recently as well. It’s a science-fiction series, with huge 18th century influences. Space has been filled with air, for some strange and unknown reason, and large battles between lots of big space-ships. This anime will probably about the leaders behind large-scale wars, with some ethics involved. The graphics look great. The CG to coordinate all of the different battleships on the battlefield also has been done pretty impressively. The theme is also fairly nice, though the story and the characters have yet to impress me. I don’t know if I have enough motivation to keep watching this.

Good Witch of the West - Astraea Testament

Woohoo! It’s just as good as I imagined! For one, the art looks truly beautiful. It can even challenge Tales of Phantasia if this keeps going on, which is a very remarkable feat, especially if you realize that Tales of Phantasia was an OVA, while this is just a tv-series. Anyway, the characters, the story, the dialogue, the music, everything is full of potential. It’s also a very nice addition that our main character is a fan of fairytales. We’re still bothered by a couple of common clichés (the larges one being our main character being member of the royal family), though. But I’m happy that they are using them right now, instead of at the end of the series. Yes, I’m looking at you, Esther. I think that with this, my top three of the spring season consists of Good Witch of the West, .Hack//Roots and Higurashi No Naku Koro ni. I’m really dying to see the next episode of each of these three.

I have no idea why I decided to pick up the raws for this anime. In fact, I have no friggin idea why I decided to pick up a raw in the first place. The only japanese I know is that which I unconciously picked up from two years of anime-watching. I think I’m just going to blame impatience. I’ve been waiting for this show for a while, and still no fansub group decided to pick it up.

Anyway, this is what I managed to understand: we have a girl, named Siurei (I think that’s how you spell it, please correct me if I’m wrong) who works as a grade-school teacher. She also plays a japanese violin-like instrument, I forgot its name for a bit, with which she tries to get a job. She plays horrible, so she isn’t much of a success. Afterwards, she complains to her boyfriend/friend/future boyfriend/servant/brother/whatever (whose name is apparently Seiran) about how she has to live in poverty all the time, that she hates being poor, et cetera.

When the two of them get home, they are visited by a strange old man, who has an offer for Siurei: she has to work for him, in excange for a fairly large amount of money. If I had to take a guess… it would either be five thousand, or five hundred Ryu, as the man holds up five fingers when he says the amount. Siurei is so stunned by this, that she accepts.

There are some catches to this, though. I still haven’t figured out which, but they aren’t pretty. Anyway, once appointed, it seems to me that she aquired quite an important function, as everyone seems to respect her and is in awe of her. A small girl, probably named Kourin, comes to bring her tea. She trips and falls, spilling tea all over her. Siurei comforts her. I guess that we will see this girl more often.

We then switch to two bishounen, one seriously annoying the other, to the point of yelling. Then Siurei comes across them, the three introduce themselves, and she brings them some lunch. Aparently, there’s only one thing that she can make, though she seems to be very good in this. She then takes some kind of book and leaves.

We then switch to Siurei in a small forest of sakura, awed by the beauty of them. She then meets up with another bishounen, and instantly begins to feel something for him. When she asks for his name, he gives a fake one, as it appears to be identical with one of the two bishounen featured earlier. She lets him have some of her lunch, and then she leaves. The screen zooms out, we see a couple of old men talking and the episode ends.

I think that Saiunkoku Monogatari has lots of potential. After all, its total amount of episodes consists of 39, and the first episode already features a lot of progress. I also like the art, it’s one of the cleanest I’ve yet to see, not to mention the great costumes. It doesn’t beat Tales of Phantasia, though. The music also is very fitting, it conists of ancient japanese musical instruments, which play about half of the episode. A bit too little, though, but it could have been done a lot worse.