(note that I’m still experimenting with rating scale, so the numbers are meant to be low, though GSZS deserves it somewhat)
Junjo Romantica 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets Usagi’s brother.
Highlights: Nice banter.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
This season really is the season of sequels for Studio Deen (APART FROM AMATSUKI!), where their only new series are continuations of some of their past franchises. Junjo Romantica pretty much continues where the first season leaves off, and introduces Usagi’s brother, who was mentioned a few times in the first season. I’m looking forward to more of this, because it’s one of the few series that takes a realistic view at being in a relationship with someone as it explores the give-and-take aspect of dating someone. Okay, so what if the characters are gay. It might make for a few disturbing scenes, but nonetheless there’s some nice chemistry between the characters, just like in the first series.

Michiko e Hatchin

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets picked up by someone who claims to be her mother.
Highlights: Rather one-sided.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5,5/10
Well, so far it really looks like we’re dealing with the spiritual successor of El Cazador here. Both feature a strong woman, travelling with a weaker girl, they’re both about gunfights, they both have a strong emphasis on music and they both play in Mexico. The big difference is that the music is rather jazzy with Michiko e Hatchin, and it’s much more dramatic. And that’s my problem a bit here: the whole abuse of Hana is just too one-sided. It’s already established that Hana’s family abuses her after one minute. We don’t need 20 more minutes of this same abuse if that’s all that these characters do. Flesh them out a little more than that! Les Miserables did this the right way: even though Cosette was abused, there was a lot more going on inside the family than just that, while with Michiko e Hatchin, the whole life purpose of that family seems to be to abuse Hana as much as possible.

Goku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in despair.
Highlights: Much of the same, but with this series that’s a BAD THING.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 4/10
Well, so for this OVA, I decided to not wait for the subs and just watch it raw. The disadvantage of that obviously is that it becomes much more difficult to understand (especially with a series as focused on dialogue as this one), but the advantage is that the visual direction stands out more, since you don’t have to frantically try to keep up with the huge lines of dialogue. In any case, this pretty much was a standalone episode of the series, and that’s my big problem with it: this series has already gone way past its expiration-date, and it still tries to squeeze some cash out of the viewer. The jokes that once were hilarious have become stale because this series simply refused to develop its characters. And am I the only one who feels that the Otaku-jokes have passed their freshness by now? I mean, it was nice and all when they appeared the first time, but what the heck do the Lucky Star and Haruhi-references in this episode really add? Why show a bunch of stereotypical otaku when a truckload of other series have already done the same? I appreciate how Chaos;Head is trying to make an original story out of them, but this OVA was just nothing. It contributed in no way, and was overall just pointless.

Short Synopsis: Ariabart screwed up, so he now has to face the consequences.
Highlights: No battles this time.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
Okay, first of all, about the rating. After dunno’s comments I got thinking a bit, and I’m experimenting right now with a different rating-scale for episodes, that uses a bit more of the available numbers. I still need to tweak this a bit, but in a nutshell:
5 - lacking
6 - solid, good, but nothing special
8 - excellent

So yes, this episode was pretty much a good one, and I liked it, although it mostly was an episode of building up without any real battles. Over the next few episodes, I’m going to tweak that rating a bit.

In any case, for those who remember my little contest: this series ended up winning it, so it’s going to be blogged Tytania is most likely going to be my “why the heck am I watching this raw”-series of the season, with the huge amount of political dialogue and all.

In a way, I was pretty surprised when I found out that Artland is handling the animation for this series. Still, it might actually be the perfect company for this series: we’ve already seen in Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino that they pretty much suck at fluid and high-budget action-scenes, but these guys really try to make up for it with some excellent fight coordination, which is EXACTLY what this series needs. With this, we’re assured that this series isn’t going to feature some impossibly moving spacecrafts, but instead a very large focus on tactics. I mean, the animation of To Aru Majutsu no Index was nice and all, but in essence it’s just about a bunch of people who throw a bunch of photoshop-filters at each other until one of them goes down, which isn’t really my idea of an excellent action-series.

And there’s also that strange talent of Artland to choose the exact soundtrack that fits their series the best. Apart from perhaps Happiness or Hakushaku to Yousei, each of their soundtracks has fit the mood of their series perfectly: the very subtle natural sounds in Mushishi, the dreamy music of Bokura ga Ita, the folky music for Il Teatrino. And Tytania really has a soundtrack that screams “build-up” and “epic”, which basically is the essence of this series.

In any case, about this episode. I managed to pick up that Fan Hulic was supposed to lose his battle of the previous episode, because of some deal that his superior had made with the Tytania-family, which brings even more shame to Ariabart. If I understood correctly, this means that Ariabart will be degraded in ranks, and he’s going to have to keep an eye on Fan Hulic. The question is of course: if any other member of the Tytania-family would have commanded that ship, would he have lost as well?