I post about Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club, and suddenly, six months after it originally aired, the first subs appear. At times like these, you begin to question coincidence. ^^;

Anyway, I’m going to be blogging this series in a strange way. As I still have to catch up on the first series, I’m going to watch both seasons right through each other. At this point, I’m not having any hopes for more subs to come out, so the rest of the episodes I’ll be watching will probably be done raw.

About the series: I think I understand why so many people were turned off. First of all, the promo-art. It didn’t really manage to portray the cuteness in this show. In fact, it turned out rather ugly. And second of all, most of the ones who actually did see the first episodes were probably turned off by the first scene of the first episode. It’s not really a bad scene, but it was in a way a very childish one.

It also doesn’t happen often when the voice-acting in a series impresses me. If I recall correctly, only Disgaea did this so far. But I have to say that the voices used in Sasami Mahou Shoujo-club work great. They may take some time to get used to, but they fit the characters very well. I’m also surprised to see that even though this is meant for children, the girls don’t have such high-pitched voices. You don’t see that often.

Okay, a small summary. We start out at a regular morning, and it immediately becomes clear that Sasami likes cooking. What’s even cuter is that her mother actually tries to help her, but only ends up making a ribbon-shape carrot. This show also derives from most other shows when it seems that Sasami’s already able to use a bit of magic, instead of the whole “awakening”-process most anime attempt. It seems that her parents know about it, and she had to promise that she wouldn’t use any magic outside of the house.

Sasami’s father seems to be some kind of writer of books about a magical world (with a sloppy handwriting, by the way). In the second season, we see him on a deserted island. Was he collecting research material in there?

Sasami’s friends then come to pick her up to go to school. They’re starting a new grade, apparently (fifth grade). It also seems that a new infirmary teacher has arrived. On their way to school, they run into a very shy, blue haired girl (Shinohara). She avoids everyone, though Sasami tries to make contact anyway. Shinohara then runs away. A chase follows to a construction site, where the teacher is watching them. I’m not sure why, but she decides to drop a giant, bouncing black ball on them. Sasami tries to protect Shinohara, though as it was a “bouncing” ball, it just bounces out of view. Therefore, it seems that seems that Sasami (who had to endure some injuries, by the way) just tried to attack Shinohara.

We then switch to the opening ceremony. The teacher is about to be introduced, though then it seems that she can’t make it for some reason. Sasami wants to find out this reason, so she uses her injuries as an excuse to check out the new teacher. This turns out to be a rather frightful experience. ^^

Back to classes, the same boy we saw in the first episode of the second season appeared. I loved the parody on fanservice-anime the creators slipped in. We’ve got another one of those perverted boys, who try to find a sneaky way to get some free pantyshots of his teacher. Today’s plan: mirror on shoe. Then it turns out that the teacher forgot her skirt, rendering trick useless. I could be wrong, but this one was actually one of the first parodies like these which actually worked. Though I am worried why Sasami seemed to support the kid. The two could be childhood friends. After all, he is going to find out her secret at some point.

Also, any anime mentioning “Otoko no Romance” is pure win.

Later, the teacher hands out information about the different clubs which can be joined. Sasami and her friends will be joining the cooking club, it seems that they’re all good at it. We then turn to the school break. The guy from the second season seems to be the janitor of the school. Sasami always seems to eat lunch with him. He also loves her father’s books, and he therefore is very grateful to her that he gets the chance to see his works, before they even hit the stores. But then the first problem of the show appears. Sasami feels that these books somehow hurt her. It seems she doesn’t like the way he criticises her. Could be great for future moments.

Shinohara then enters the room. It seems she also liked Sasami’s father’s work, and she seems to be lending the books from the guy before (is it me, or was his name never given?) She then runs away immediately. We then switch to the cooking club. The infirmary teacher, or Kozuka Washuu, appears to be the one to look over things. She then decides to thin out the group by making them prepare a rather unorthodox dish: her pet. The little guy escapes (probably on purpose) and Sasami and Shinohara end up chasing it. The little animal will be in trouble if Washuu catches it first, so the two of them decide to catch it before she does.

The pet ran into the janitor’s house, does something strange and opens a closet which brings Sasami and Shinohara towards some kind of other dimension. Then, we get some background info about Shinohara, and we find the reason why she avoids everyone. She possesses some kind of black thingies who come out of her when she’s scared. Because of that, people at her previous school looked down on her. Quite interesting indeed.

They then come to another room, at which they find a door, painted on the wall. The pet then appears again, and suddenly starts turning into a huge size. Both Sasami and Shinohara (or Misao) try to use their powers, but they aren’t rather experienced enough to really do something. it then turned out that everything was a test by Washuu, in order to determine whether they’re good enough for the cooking club, otherwise known as the mahou shoujo club. And now we also know where the name of this anime comes from. ^^;

I never imagined how incredibly likable Sasami turned out. Not only is her character design very cute, even despite the fact that she wears very plain clothes, but she also has a very lively, three-dimensional personality. Okay, so what if this is an anime for children. It’s very fun to watch. ^_^

Another batch. This time with two shounen-fighting anime, and the final bishoujo harem of the season. Thank god I’ve done all of them now. I wish I could say the same of the shounen-action series, though. -_-

Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi

As I practice karate myself, the way this anime started really was an insult. One school with just black belts and one white belt?! What happened to the other colors? Also, all blackbelts team up against this white belt, and try to tease him out of the club? I don’t hope that that’s regular in Japan. In fact, anyone can learn karate, as long as they spend enough time to it. Our main character always loses because he obviously just started, and he’s just a kid. In any case, he meets up with a “beautiful” girl, she takes interest in him and he starts training at the school she’s training in as well. The women who appear also have character designs which scream “fanservice”. I was hoping for some kind of fighting-comedy, but even there this show fails. It’s just our main character screaming like a girl whenever he sees a strong guy.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Ugh… another disappointment. When I read the premisse, I thought that this could have been a nice comedy. Well, I was wrong. We’ve got a very small maffia-guy who bears suspicious resemblances to a talking baby in tuxedo and uses a chameleon for a weapon. Whenever he kills our main character, he gets reborn into some kind of hyperactive superman in underpants with a flaming forehead. After a minute, our main character changes back to nromal again. Good premisse? Horrible execution. First of all, the budget given for ths show is incredibly low. Second of all, our main character is a 12-year old brat. Third of al, this anime’s not funny at all. It just drags on and on, and even the small mafia-guy bets obvnoxious after three seconds. This is another one of those series to avoid.

Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru

Okay, I’m not sure whether to classify this anime as a yuri-anime, or a regular romance. During this first episode, we see our main character, who most definitely looks like a woman, get hugged by three different girls. But the fact remains that she’s a guy. The story’s like this: our main character has to enlist in an all-girl’s high school by his grandfather’s last wish. In order to do that, he has to dress up. One of his friends goes to the same school, and she offers to turn him into a girl. For some reason, he turns out more beautiful than most of the other girls on the school, thus becoming instantly popular. If there ever was an anime, aired in the fall-season, to introduce such a hate/love relationship, this has to be it. On one side, yuri’s always nice to see. For some reason, it works more often than it does with straight romance. On the other hand, this remains an anime in whihc a guy gets surrounded by tons of beautiful girls, there remains useless fanservice, and his friend, who knows that he’s a boy actually has a horribly horny personality. Right now, this anime can go anywhere, from incredibly good to incredibly bad. Why am I fearing that it’ll be the latter?

Time for supernatural “action” anime. Right now, I’m eagerly awaiting the subs for Red Garden and Jigoku Shoujo. I hope they’ll arrive soon. ^^

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

A samurai anime featuring supernatural monsters. I’m not sure whether this is going to be a success or not, but there’s one thing I am sure of: the music is awesome. If only because of that, I’m going to continue watching this show. I’m a bit worried about the main character, though. As things stand now, he doesn’t really have a clear, thought-out reason to be fighting monsters and saving children. I hope that this comes in the next episodes. The side-characters sound interesting, though. My level of Japanese couldn’t understand their exact role, but from what I understood, they’re a bunch of theatre-people who involve themselves with catching dangerous criminals.

Death Note

I’ve found most of the hyped shows to be rather disappointing (see Fate/Stay Night, Tsuyokiss, Kanon, Yoake Mae, etc). Death Note, however, deserves every single hype it’s got! Really, this show is awesome, and I’ve just seen one episode of this. The main character is so incredibly interesting, the soundtrack kicks ass and the theme of this anime has potential for so many interesting events. Seriously, if this quality stays, Death Note will turn out to be awesome.

Shounen Onmyouji

I’ve been looking forward to this anime. Too bad it turned out to be disappointing. It’s another one of those 13-year-old-going-to-be-the-best-things. Lots of flashy graphics, lots of action scenes, little substance. It’s a pity, as the character designs for the side-characters look appealing. The next episode doesn’t seem to be much better, as our main character’s love interest will be introduced. Oh, have I already mentioned the cute pet who keeps following him?