I’m getting more and more impressed at Sunrise’s lesser-known mecha series. Sure, they have made plenty of series that just consist out of a string of random action-scenes without much substance, but on the other hand there also are series as Overman King Gainer, Zone of the Enders, Zegapain and Votoms, which all sparkle with creativity. Brigadoon is yet another one of those.

Brigadoon is one of those series with a cute and brightly-coloured outside, but a dark and lethal inside. It starts off pretty innocently, in which a 13-year-old girl suddenly gets hunted down by evil aliens and needs to be protected by some sort of combat android. The series is at these points fun to watch, and a very energetic action-series, but as the series goes on, the dark side of the series shows up more and more, and isn’t afraid to put the lead characters through hell and beyond in order to get its points across. The formulaic setting of the series is also completely abandoned in the second half, for a far more interesting plot with a lot of twists and turns along the way.

This series is especially good with its characters. Not just the main characters, but also most of the side-characters get their own share of depth that makes them engaging to watch. Especially Marin strikes as an excellent lead character for this series: she has plenty of flaws as a character, and yet her energy carries the series and prevents it from dragging.

This series also has a unique visual style. The animation during the light parts is very quirky, and during the dark parts it’s detailed and intricately shaded to get the best out of the seemingly childish graphics. The soundtrack is also unique, and has a number of very noteworthy tracks.

Granted though, this series does have its share of flaws. One of the most notable is the regeneration powers that the androids (called Monomakia here) in this series seem to have. I’m really not much of a fan of those sorts of powers; after all, why care about a character getting injured if he can easily be zapped back to good health. And yeah, because of this the characters get injured to near-death a few too many times. Not only that, but sometimes the regeneration rules also go inconsistent with their own inner logic.

This becomes mostly apparent in the ending, which really wants to bring everything to a happy end a little too badly. Revelations are pulled out of thin air, deus ex machina make sure that everyone gets to have the easy end, and all in all it’s just one huge rush-job that the creators didn’t put much thought into. Nevertheless, this remains a pretty good action-series. There are some really neat ideas stuffed into it. Sure, there is a bit of fanservice here and there, but it never gets in the way of what’s really important.

Kimi ni Todoke

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is that scary girl from Hyakko. No seriously, the two are introduced with exactly the same examples!
Ah, finally we have a series that goes with its own art style, instead of one that has been copied from a thousand other series already. That’s definitely a plus. Kimi ni Todoke is a shoujo-series, which you forced me to blog back here. Overall, compared to the first episodes of other shoujo-series, it doesn’t really stand out: the humour hardly got any chuckles out of me and the set-up is pretty basic. However in this season it really has been the best teenaged romance so far. with those standards it’s of course not that hard to achieve this, but the female lead is nice to watch, and doesn’t feel like a stereotype at all. There’s a nice bit of drama that doesn’t try too hard and has a sense of subtlety, and overall it was pretty nice. Although the creators really need to work on making that male love interest less perfect, because right now it’s nothing more than your average shy girl’s fantasies of dating the hottest and most popular guy in school.
OP: Nice art, but the song is standard J-pop that doesn’t interest me.
ED: Nice albeit a bit dull, ballad.
Potential: 50%

11Eyes

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets woken up every morning by his childhood friend.
I swear, I’m getting dejá vus from all of these moe shows this season. This feels like the umpth time I’ve seen fanservice, childhood friends becoming lovers, obnoxious classmates and generic moe character-designs. Nevertheless, for these first impressions I mostly look at the execution, and for this series it actually rocked. The slice of life scenes were still pretty dull and cliché, but whenever this series gets serious it gets dark and brutal, and the creators are immediately able to switch from a light and boring atmosphere to a very tense and dangerous atmosphere with a small touch of horror and mystery, and I really have to praise this series for that. Now all that remains is to wonder whether the creators can keep this up, and whether this show has a premise that can really get the best out of this direction. Agh, I have no bloody clue!
OP: Actually one of the best OPs this seasons. Energetic, varied and fast-paced, fitting the dark mood of this series.
ED: Again, a very nice track that nicely ties in with the cliff-hanger.
Potential: 50%

Kobato

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has to help other people.
After watching X, this was about the last thing I expected from the next Madhouse Clamp series: a cute shoujo series. And granted, the lead character Kobato is sickeningly cute. There’s a nice dynamic between her and her stuffed animal side-kick what made this episode worth watching. However, the side-characters felt rather flat and one-dimensional. Seeing as this is going to be a series that’s going to focus on Kobato helping out other persons, it’s going to be a bit pointless if the creators can’t create engaging characters for Kobato to help. In this aspect, Miracle Train did it much better. Kobato also was portrayed a bit too angelic during this episode: she can somehow take the worst ingredients and make a delicious dish out of it, she can sing perfectly, etc. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable episode and knowing Clamp, at least you can be sure that the characters are going to be developed as the story goes on but based on first impressions both Clamp and Madhouse have done better in terms of cuteness.
OP: Standard J-pop song that didn’t catch my interest.
ED: Quiet song that again didn’t catch my interest.
Potential: 50%