Phantom ~Requiem of the Phantom~

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wakes up with amnesia and becomes an assassin.
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (BEE-TRAIN ROCKS)
Okay, so I said before that this season was disappointing so far. After Phantom, though, I’m going to take that statement back: this season rocks, if only because this show’s in it. I’ve SO been dying to see another Bee-Train series, and this series was everything I could have hoped for: a fantastic soundtrack, very addictive and slow storytelling, lots and lots of mystery and two already likable lead characters. This quite possibly was one of the best first episodes I’ve seen this year. The entire episode just screamed style. And even though the graphics look simple and down to earth, what I liked about the action was that everything is so much down to earth: sure, the main characters so have strange powers, but still you can see that without them pulling ludicrous powers or regeneration out of thin air: the battles here are realistic: a gunshot kills people; knives make wounds. Now that’s my kind of action!

Pandora Hearts

Short Synopsis: Our lead character finds a strange watch.
Chance of me Blogging: 60% (Nice potential)
Ooh, nice. Pandora Hearts is promising to be quite the interesting anime. This first episode had a very nice combination between quiet slice-of-life scenes and tenseful drama. This episode was very nicely told with charming characters and a pacing that didn’t drag at all. There’s a nice soundtrack, solid animation and even though the character-designs look a bit childish, they do the job they’re supposed to do. It’s also good to hear Yuki Kajiura again, although this show isn’t her best work by far. My only worry so far is how the creators are going to use the fact that the main characters are a bunch of teenagers: it’s clear that they know hardly anything about fighting, so please don’t make them grow into battle experts by the end of the series.

Higepiyo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is supposed to be a cute chick (as in bird, not girl)
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (Uh… yeah)
As if this season didn’t already have enough series of five-minute episodes, there’s more! Higepiyo is… some sort of bizarre bastardization of Chi’s Sweet Home, in which an average family takes in a chick. The twist? The chick has the mentality of your average middle aged guy in his midlife crisis. With such a ridiculous concept, I do have to agree that out of all the five-minute episodes this season, this one made me laugh hardest. The hilarious thing about this show is the incredibly deadpan sense of humour that the titular Higepiyo has. He never changes expressions, and that makes the contrast to the things he does (reading the newspaper, eating curry, etc) hilarious. The reactions of the family he’s adopted might be a bit exaggerated, but it’s going to be a fun show if the creators manage to keep the rest of the series fresh.

Infinite Space

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets a space-ship from a mysterious lady
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Again, only if the rest of the season is bad)
Well what do you know? Yet another show with episodes of only five minutes. This one seems to go for a fully fledged storyline, though. That makes me wonder a bit whether it’s trying to bite off more than it can chew, but the potential is there at least. What it really needs to do now is make optimal use of the fact that it only has a very limited airtime, and seriously improve on the bad GC here. There’s actually quite a bit of potential in the story, but after only five minutes there’s hardly a lot to say about it. I do hope, though, that it’s going to last longer than simply 13 episodes that really is going to be the recipe for disaster.
EDIT: oh crap, it’s just a generic promotion for a video game of only 4 episodes long. Scratch all that I said above. This thing sucks.

K-On

Short Synopsis: Our lead character joins the light music club at her high school.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (Waah waah I hate mainstream anime waah waah)
Well, there you have it: this series yet again has the typical flaws of a Kyoani-show: it just consists out of a rip-off of some of their other franchises, most notably Lucky Star and the concert episode of Haruhi. The personality of the four main characters in this series can quite effectively be mapped to the personalities of the four lead characters of Lucky Star, and it’s a series about a school band. Granted, the one thing that was new here is a much more messy style of animation: at least that’s something new from them. The show could grow into an enjoyable slice of life series, but my big problem with it so far (aside from the lack of originality) is the female lead character. There’s actually lots of potential in a school band, but instead of choosing a lead character with a passion for music, the creators here went for a clueless and clumsy ditz without any musical talents whatsoever. I foresee some forced developments here.

Basquash!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has spiky hairs and plays basketball in a huge car-like mecha.
Chance of me Blogging: 25% (Depends on what the heck it’s going to focus on)
Well, so this is incredibly stupid: here we have a spunky spiky-haired teenager… who is playing terrorist with a basketball of all things as a weapon. Seriously, he takes out an army of police officers with that thing. But hey: at least it’s fun! This was at least the best episode I’ve seen in this so far lackluster season, so at least that’s something. Even though there are huge amounts of bad logic and questionable plot twists (kids being able to control mechas better than trained adults? of course!), there are actually huge amounts of ideas in this series. The lead character may very well be your typical lead, but what I liked about him was his fiery passion for basketball. And I also loved the random ducks that showed up every once in a while. The visuals also looked totally sweet, but then again the question remains whether the creators can keep this up. My question for this series is the following: is the rest of the series just going to be a string of random basketball matches (very likely, considering his rival that got introduced in this episode), or is the basketball just going to be a vehicle to the real meat of the plot? Is this going to be a Buzzer Beater or a Gad Guard?