La Corda d’Oro ~Secondo Passo~

Short Synopsis: Our lead character seems to have abandoned her magical violin.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (It just feels too much like an inferior shoujo Nodame Cantabile)
I remember how the first season was pretty much an insult to classical music, in which a ditz without any musical background acquires a magical violin and cheats herself into a competition among the top students of the school she’s in. Thankfully, the second season seems to have improved a lot on it, and the lead characters seems to have realized that it’s much more fun to be playing by herself. There’s quite a bit of potential in her growth. She now seems to be incredibly talented because she can play with lots of emotions in her violin, but I guess that that’s much better than the magical violin. I’m still not sold on the ridiculously looking bishies, though. Especially that blonde guy was horrible. He reminds me of Fuwa Shou from Skip Beat! In fact, I could swear that the two of them share the same voice actor, and I can’t believe that he’s being forced to play his character straight this time. Talk about overacting here…

Chi’s New Address

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to go outside.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (It’s a fun show and all, but I’d go crazy trying to blog it)
Awesome to see this series back. Chi is just as fun to watch as ever, and I’m surprised that the creators are actually continuing with the whole plotline of trying to find a new home for Chi. This is going to mean that dad, mom and Youhei are going to make way for a new family, and I wonder whether this new family has the charms of the original. Ah well, at least Chi will be the same. ^^;

Marie & Gali

Short Synopsis: Our lead character finds herself into some weird Italian-ish island.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Italy suddenly became a popular country to make fun of, hasn’t it?)
So… yeah. If you’re wondering what the “Gali”-part of the title means: it’s short for Galileo Galilei. What we have here is a bizarre fantasy setting in which a teenaged girl meets a very weird version of Galileo inside the tower of Pisa. I’m really not sure who thought of it, but for some reason it was kind of charming. It makes excellent use of its time of only 5 minutes to be either slapstick, make random historical references and be cute, and the combination works surprisingly well. It’s obviously never going to be amazing, but I have to admit that it was pretty amusing. Not to mention that Marie’s character-designs look very stylish.

An interesting month this time. It featured a lot of very awesome finales, but also quite a few disappointing or lacking endings, unfortunately. What surprised me is that most of the shows whose endings went right are the ones who still have some sort of second season or OVA waiting, or at least whose storylines aren’t finished yet. In any case, though, the past half year has been a very strong half year for anime, which aired quite a few classics and great shows. I have no idea what the spring-season looks like, since I again tried to avoid all previews about it, but the standard it has to live up to has been set really high with the past Winter-season.

#24 (12) - Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai - (7,25/10) - The ending was disappointing, to say the least. If only the creators went with a solid ending, I would have been at least content, but for some strange reason Yumemi and Munto started acting completely out of character in that final episode. What happened there?
#23 (20) - Gintama - (7,25/10) - I really wish I can just label episode 106 as a lesser episode in which the creators had a bad day or something, but the timing is just too coincidental with the arrival of the new director: characters suddenly act out of character, the jokes feel flat, the amount of penis-jokes increased fivefold and most importantly: the dialogue suddenly feels nowhere as creative as it once did in the first 100 episodes. Perhaps the new director needed some time to get used to this series, but please let him get in his element soon!
#22 (9) - White Album - (7,5/10) - The ending didn’t resolve anything at all, unfortunately. And yeah, I know that a second season is coming, but the creators should have at least brought in some kind of closure. This month of White Album was decent, I guess, but it’s just a shame that I completely lost my suspense of disbelief for this show.
#21 (21) - Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - (7,75/10) - The ending was too idealistic: bad guy dies and everyone is suddenly happy. Still, it sufficed in the action-department.Gundam 00 has been formulaic to say the least, but at least the action was solid.
#20 (11) - Druaga no Tou - (7,75/10) - The ending was cheesy and formulaic. It’s a shame, since the ending of the first season was so fresh and original, but this time… I think we could see what would happen from miles away.
#19 (23) - Kurokami the Animation - (7,75/10) - The show still is nothing special, but interestingly enough there is still potential for its second half, so I’m going to stick with this show for a little while longer. However, I really hope that the combat system stops being so arbitrary in this show’s second half.
#18 (new) - Chi’s New Address - (7,75/10) - Fun, fun, fun. There have only been two episodes released so far, so there’s not much that this series could have shown yet, but it’s nevertheless going to be interesting to see what a completely different setting can do for this series.
#17 (18) - Koukaku no Regios - (8/10) - With the first half over by now, the show’s really going to have to deliver at this point. While solid and decent, nothing has stood out yet, and I hope that I was right in sticking with this series.
#16 (15) - Tales of the Abyss - (8/10) - The ending was a bit underwhelming, especially with Luke rising from the dead again in the last minute (but hey, this is Sunrise after all), and the finale of this show felt a bit rushed. It would have benefited from one or two more episodes.
#15 (19) - Minami-Ke - (8/10) - The ending was perhaps a bit cheesy with the drama and all, but it was fun to watch just like the rest of this series. March again was a nice month for Minami-Ke to just sit back and watch, and that’s what the show has become good at.
#14 (22) - Hetalia: Axis Powers - (8,25/10) - The thing that stood out most this month was that very strange F-box. It’s so hilarious that nobody seemed to find it strange that it was there. Overall it’s still been an enjoyable little series and interestingly: it seems to be getting better.
#13 (16) - One outs - (8,25/10) - And this month was much of the same again, which is a good thing for this series. One Outs isn’t exactly going to become something memorable, but it’s definitely enjoyable.
#12 (13) - Natsume Yuujin-Chou - (8,25/10) - The ending was pretty good; it really brought together everything that the second season had been building up for, but it’s going to be a waste if there isn’t going to be some sort of third season in a few years.
#11 (10) - Tytania - (8,25/10) - The ending was surprisingly good, fun and solid, even though it only remains a question whether we’re going to get that second season. The finale took a looooong time to build up, but the end result was definitely rewarding.
#10 (2) - Clannad - (8,5/10)

The ending was a deus ex machina. While it makes sense when put in context with the game, it was badly introduced and came from nowhere. Apart from that, this month has been solid, though last month was much, much better.

#9 (14) - Skip Beat - (8,5/10)

The ending was really solid, but left the series with a HUGE cliff-hanger. It’s been a very fun month for Skip Beat, and the past few episodes really convinced me that this is an awesome series, rather than yet another average shoujo as Itazura na Kiss or Ouran High School Host Club.

#8 (8) - Genji Monogatari Sennenki - (8,5/10)

The ending was solid and one of the better ones I’ve seen this season. Again, Genji Monogatari has been a very consistent emotional journey, and I’m looking forward to whatever series Noitamina has to offer next.

#7 (6) - Hajime no Ippo - (8,75/10)

Hammer’s arc was yet again incredibly addictive. While not as good as the previous one, it still is an amazing series.

#6 (3) - Casshern Sins - (8,75/10)

The ending was rushed. It’s a shame that the creators couldn’t get themselves two or three more episodes, because if they did the ending would have absolutely rocked.

#5 (17) - Ride Back - (8,75/10)

The ending was very solid. The past month was definitely the best month of Ride Back for me, and it was awesome to see that everything did come together in the end.

#4 (5) - Shikabane Hime - (8,75/10)

The ending was a bit of a disappointment, considering the action-packed climax you’d be expecting. Nevertheless, apart from that it was a very exciting finale, and the height of the second season.

#3 (4) - Michiko e Hatchin - (9,25/10)

The ending was very realistic and I liked it, though it could have been better. The rest of the finale of this series, however, was an awesome one. Hatchin vs Satoshi rocked.

#2 (7) - Jigoku Shoujo - (9,25/10)

Seriously, what a fantastic month for Jigoku Shoujo! The finales of the different seasons always manage to push the series to new heights and the third season is no exception. The show might have had its issues in the beginning, but the finale really makes up for it!

#1 (1) - Birdy the Mighty Decode - (9,5/10)

The ending was without a doubt the best ending of the season. Birdy the Mighty has been really dominating the past Winter Season, and this month was no different. An utterly incredible finale that still manages to pay attention to those small details as the world that the characters live in, and the animation during the big action-scenes was simply fantastic.

The first season of Natsume Yuujin-chou was basically a string of random stories about the lead character, Natsume, meeting a bunch of Youkai. The second season forms much more of a unity as Natsume’s development starts kicking in. The random stories are more connected to each other, and instead of an episodic series, we’re suddenly treated to a character-study of a boy who grew up with being able to see youkai.

The production-values are as solid as ever: backgrounds are rich and detailed, the animation is crisp and the different designs for the youkai are very solid. The music is also very enjoyable again, with especially the ending theme standing out as a great song.

Unfortunately, despite this it did lose some of the charms of the first season this way. For me, the show has lost its novelty by now, and I don’t think that it’s really succeeded in making up for it, even though many people seem to disagree with this. For me, the height of Natsume Yuujin-chou still is the Hotaru-episode, and the second season did nothing to change that.

I think that one of the reasons for why the second season has made less impact is that it ends at a point where it’s simply still building up. There’s a huge part of the manga left to be animated, and the second season was mostly just setting the pieces correctly for those arcs. I that way, it served its purpose very well if there’s going to be a third season, but it doesn’t suffice as a finale here.

And don’t get me wrong here: Zoku Natsume Yuujin-chou is still a very enjoyable and relaxing slice of life series without any major flaws, but it just lacks the impact that the first season had, but there is still enough worth watching if you were also charmed by the first number of episodes like I was. Especially don’t miss the Tama-chapter.

Short Synopsis: Natsume finds himself having to choose between Kai and Natori.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Well, the creators did it, even though they had to stuff two chapters into only one episode. It makes a lot of sense to save this story for last, because it really forms a conclusion to the development of Natsume throughout the second season: for once, he’s being forced to choose between humans and youkai.

I also liked that little scene at the end, which symbolizes how much closer Natsume has gotten to his classmates now. It’s time for the guy to grow up and stop only interacting with youkai. It was a very nice idea for an ending, and while not the best ending I’ve seen this season, it was definitely a good one; something that most other shows this season can’t boast.

Overall, the second season wasn’t exactly among my favourites, but it was nevertheless enjoyable to watch and the character-development on Natsume was very nicely done. Let’s hope that there’s going to be a third season some day.