Tales of the Abyss

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a prince and has special.
Highlights: Bad first half, second half with promise.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
I’m pretty much a fan of the Tales of-franchise, but I’ve never played Tales of the Abyss or Vesperia, so this was all new to me. At first, this promised to violently ruin my love for this series. The main character is incredibly annoying; he’s a prince with generic servants and a generic master, and worst of all: he’s got special powers. The setting also screamed “epic”, so there was no doubt that our little prince and his female friend will end up saving this world in the end. Then, however, he was removed from his cosy little palace, and the creators actually showed that they knew how to develop the guy: he acts like a total idiot when he’s not amongst his servants. Now that can prove to be some great character-development. Still, the reason why I became a fan of the Tales-series is that they all were thought-provoking somehow, and knew how to tell a story. Let’s hope that the creators can stuff that in. For now, I’ll remain sceptical, as I don’t want to see yet another World Destruction. And most importantly, I really think that the creators should have done a bit more effort in trying to hide their spoilers from the OP. Really, if that’s what this series will boil down to, I’m quickly going to drop this thing. I also really have to say that out of all the Tales-stories, this really has the worst character-designs of the bunch. Who the heck fired those awesome character-designers?

Tentai Senshi Sunred

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is super sentai who fights for justice.
Highlights: Horrible! Terrible! Not an ounce of potential!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
For this season, I managed to avoid all the previews, so I had no idea what the selection of new series would be. Still, even if I did end up preparing myself for the upcoming season, I don’t think I would have ever suspected that my favourite first episode so far would come from such a god-awful series. Sarcasm aside, the parodies in this episode were absolutely brilliant, and it’s quite possibly been one of the funniest first episodes of this year. The way this series took the premise of a super sentai series and made the main characters a yakuza characters and the villains a bunch of incompetent fools was hilarious, but the best part about this episode was the awesome sense of timing that the creators have. They knew EXACTLY when to deliver their jokes. Really, the rest of this series had better really good, because I don’t want this series to go down as the one that made the best impression of the entire season! There’s also the issue of potential with this series: how long can it remain funny? Still, whether it’ll turn dull or remain brilliant, I’m happy enough that I’ve watched just this episode.

Kurogane no Linebarrels

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a cute girl who can summon a giant mecha.
Highlights: Typical bad Gonzo.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
Oh, Gonzo; what have you done? You had Blassreiter, and you go back to Dragonaut. You had a number of adults who fought each other with passion and lighting-fast action scenes, and you go back to an angsty teenaged couple who can summon an overpowered mecha with horrible CG-sequences and action-scenes. Seriously, even when talking about first episode, I can’t think of even one thing that Kurogane no Linebarrels did better than Blassreiter. The thing that stood out the most was the following: the main character stands right where the main female is supposed to crash. We see a huge blow, and he’s fine. So far, I guess it’s excusable, BUT the guy has huge blood-stains, all over his clothes AND HE DOESN”T EVEN NOTICE THEM. In fact, nobody pays attention to them. I don’t know about you, but if I saw an explosion, and later someone with blood all over his shirt, I’d freak out, or at least find it strange that someone drenched in blood walks around. Okay, so this has a bit of potential left, but this time, I just don’t feel like giving this series another chance. Goodbye Gonzo.

Yozakura Quartet

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a human with superpowers that fights against youkai.
Highlights: Excellent soundtrack.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
The thing that immediately catches your attention for this series: it’s awesome soundtrack. This series also has a nice sense of style, but I’m not sold on its premise yet. My big problem with this episode was that the powers of these main characters are a bit too uber: in order to give them a challenge, you need to give their opponents even stronger powers, and I’m a bit afraid that it’ll just lose itself in its own superpowers. The bad guys in this episode were decent, but nothing really special. What I did like was these huge wooden pillars that are all over the town. That’s original and has some nice potential.

Noramimi 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a mascot who works at a mascot agency, if that makes any sense.
Highlights: Very childish, but charming.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
If I recall correctly, I dropped the original series not because it was bad, but because I had to drop something. Nevertheless, it’s good to see this series back again, because there definitely are a few things to like about it. The creators know how to write children surprisingly well, and a lot of this series is a nostalgic trip back to the time when we were still children, and the world seemed so simple. But yeah, this series will never become popular. The big problem with it is the following: if it works, it really works: it’s hilarious, charming and fun, much like the first half of this episode: that radish was just SO adorable. However, when it doesn’t work, it really becomes embarrassing to watch. This series has the nasty tendency to be a bit too sentimental and soppy for its own good, and at those times, you really want to turn this thing off as soon as possible.

Hokuto no Ken Raoh Gaiden Ten no Haoh

Short Synopsis: Is a big manly man who takes control over a country.
Highlights: A very manly series.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
After Noramimi, it’s good to watch such a manly series as this one. Still, I do have to wonder, since this series is based on such a huge franchise, then why didn’t the creators get a hold of a bigger budget? I mean, I’m not asking for much, but when the blood starts to look like ketchup, then you have to wonder what the creators were thinking. In any case, this probably is the first thing I’ve seen of the Hokuto no Ken franchise, and I can understand where its reputation came from. If it wasn’t for that bad animation, then Raoh really would be able to kill his opponents in the most violent ways imaginable. The rest of the episode was decent: nothing bad, but nothing special either. It merely served to set up the story for this series, but at the same time, it didn’t really show me anything that made me want to keep watching. It’s just a bunch of oversized men killing each other. Still, it’s in any case good to finally see a series that’s NOT ABOUT TEENAGERS (or children, in Noramimi’s case).

Clannad ~After Story~

Short Synopsis: Our lead character and his friends enter a baseball match.
Highlights: Fun episode to start the second season.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
And so the second season of Clannad has begun. This episode basically shows the lead characters as they play a baseball-match against a professional team, which is a fun way to start the series and get familiar with the characters again. This episode definitely beats Haruhi’s baseball-episode. Overall, the new OP is better than the first one, while the ED has become much worse. The graphics still look solid, although the few instances of CG looked horribly out of place. Ah well, the thing I liked about Clannad were its climaxes, so we may have to wait a bit for this series to get really good. I loved Air, I hated Kanon and I liked Clannad, so let’s see what the after story can do once it catches steam.

Kuroshitsuji

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the butler of a mysterious kid.
Highlights: Ah, the cheese!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, you know that anime creators are getting desperate when they start to rip off Hiroshi Watanabe’s works! Seriously, anyone who’s even remotely seen Suteki Tantei Labyrinth will recognize the obvious resemblances: both Mayuki and this series’ kid live in a huge mansion and lost their parents. Sebastian is Seiran, Hatsumi is the clumsy maid, Sanae is the gardener, the kid has powers, the butler too, and let’s not forget THE TEA. I mean, this just begs the question: if you’re going to pick a series to rip off, for god’s sake: Why Suteki Tantei Labyrinth?! But I digress: this series will be plenty enough to satisfy my inner-cheese-fanboy. The over-exaggerated glamour of Sebastian the butler was hilarious, and the three servants were just awesome. The background music was just awesome and over the top, fitting the cheesy mood exactly. Seriously, don’t watch this series unless you want to laugh at it. Not with it. This series does have to live up to its expectations, though. I’d better see something that surpasses a pet alligator in a closet and unfortunately placed dog poo (you’ll understand these references if you’ve seen Suteki Tantei Labyrinth). But what probably baffles me the most about this series: people were actually looking forward to it!?

Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live with a cute girl (no, really).
Highlights: Horrible character-designs, but at least the dialogue is nice enough.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
I keep wondering why the creators of these harem-anime spend so much time to make their female character-designs as extravagant and ridiculous as possible, while it’s most often the simple designs that look best. I mean, Real Drive showed this perfectly: even though you don’t have main characters with the perfect bodies, they still can look great. Really, in this series, it just seems like the creators took one body, copied it about twenty times and gave them different ridiculous hairstyles and eye-colours in an attempt to make them cute. Still, I have to admit that this series isn’t all bad. I enjoyed it more than Toradora, and the director seems to be good at the slice-of-life moments. The problem, however, is that he’s pretty much terrible at everything else, including setting up his story. Having cute girls swarm over you is one thing, but letting all of them be the most popular girls in school is a whole different story. The comedy is funny, but not for the reasons it’s supposed to be; the action downright sucks and the drama makes no bloody sense at all and feels forced. Overall, this episode was enjoyable enough, but it just doesn’t have any potential at all, and I suspect it to go downhill very soon.