Fall Preview 1

October brings the newest, hottest anime to the networks in Japan, seeing as how it is a few days into the month I need to go over some of the new series that I have begun checking out. Now keep in mind, some of these episodes have yet to be subtitled and nothing is beyond episode 1 and sometimes I didn’t even watch the whole thing. So, as I have been mislead before, my judgments might not be completely accurate on certain titles.

Kannagi is the first new series of the season that I watched both subtitled and all the way through. It is a slice of life, school aged, comedy potentially romantic/drama, about a young boy named Jin, who is sensitive to the super natural. While he was a young child he would frequently play around a nearby shrine. The shrine was soon relocated and the ceremonial tree was cut down. A friend of his gave him a portion of the tree, which he carved into the figure of a girl for an art exhibit. Many years later, said carving suddenly comes to live right in front of Jin as he is on his way to school. The no living girl is actually the spirit of the land that inhabited the sacred tree. She has come to life to help protect her land, only to find that she is no longer on the land and her tree has been destroyed. Since Jin is the one she initially has contact with and he has abilities uncommon in humans, she elects him to be her assistant in her job of destroying the things that wish to tarnish her land. Now Jin must live with the vessel that he created which is inhabited by the land god, Nagi and help her with her duties.

OK, so after the first episode this series seemed semi promising, especially the way they handle Nagi. She really does not know what’s going on, it has been a long time since she has been in a vessel and she has also been asleep for quite a while. She knows of the goings on of the human world to some extent but was unaware that the shrine on her land was being relocated and her tree cut down. What’s really funny about this so far is her learning about the current human world, like TV. Her first glimpse of it happens to be of a magical girl anime and she gets the idea in her head to build an exorcism fetish that looks like a magical girls wand, complete with giant pink heart. She then goes through her own magical girl saying while banishing the creatures back on the shrine grounds…pretty funny stuff. She sees the human world as full of quirky oddities and is excited when she discovers something new. Her attitude also seems like that of some god as well, she’s pretty straightforward and commanding, which is nice since I was afraid they were going to portray the character as some fish out of water character, although she seems a bit tsundere too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere). Jin on the other hand is mildly sad sack teenage boy, typical. He lives with his father, but so far his father is never home and he even says he mostly lives alone…are there really that many independent teenagers in Japan? Seriously. His character is still tolerable but he does elicit strong pervert tendencies, fortunately the artists have yet to show Nagi in overly perverted ways, not even a panty shot yet, woohoo. Not that I have anything against that type of stuff, its just way over used and annoying fan service that doesn’t need to be in every single anime that’s about teenagers. All in all, the series seems decent, but if it turns harem I’ll check out and banish it to hell. At this moment it’s hard to tell exactly where it’s going, it can easily become a shonen adventure series like Buso Renkin, but it feels more like a goof ball comedy like Seto no Hanayome. Only time will tell with this one.

Speaking of stereotypical high school tales, I find myself watching another romantic comedy that seems to come directly from an erotic dating sim game; Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka. This is the description from Anime News Network In order to protect the girl Yuuhi Katagiri, a new transfer student, from danger, Junichi Nagase is forced to kiss her. Not understanding what happened, she screams at him, not knowing that her father has arranged for her to marry him.

Ok, so I skimmed through this one and a few things, all related, hit me on the head. This thing really seems like something adapted from an erotic dating sim. There are plenty of odd angle shots, like those found in the sims and hentai, shots of the characters, from say crotch level, angled at a 70 degree angle and looking up. The school girl’s uniforms are incredibly ornate and out of the bounds of even realistically normal, also like those found in Suzuka. Everything else just pretty much falls into place. Now, I have watched at least one entertaining, not necessarily good, anime adapted from an ero-dating sim, School Days. This doesn’t seem like a School Days to me, it doesn’t even seem that good…yet the end of the episode held some comedic promise, but I don’t know how much more I can take of the arranged marriage thing between high school students, especially if that is the main plot device for a fly by night cheap high school, fan boy riddled, romance title. Sure Ranma ½ was fun for a while, Final Approach is incredibly crack headed as well as Seto no Hanayome and Sumomomo Momomo. Yet it’s also incredibly boring and dull, such as with so many forgettable romances. This one seems to fall in the later category but I’ll give it a few episodes, if it gets picked up for subbing, before dumping it. I’m always on the look out for new romances, god I hope this isn’t a harem title…too many already exist.

(This thing is based off of an ero dating sim)

Hokuto no Ken Raoh Gaiden is a spin off of Fist of the North Star. Why this series even still exists is beyond my comprehension, no I take that back, I get it but I won’t elaborate on it. Japan is still so crazy over this adventure title that they have staged a funeral and a wedding in recent years to coincide with events in the still running manga. I don’t know the details of the story line for this series and I don’t care. The original movie is considered a classic by my generation of American anime fans, I own the damn VHS, but that’s as far as I’ll go. I skimmed through the first episode and came to this conclusion, the art still looks like crap. I am not watching this so don’t expect anything else except maybe for some rage and spit to be directed towards this series existence.

Yozakura Quartet is an odd shonen aiming supernatural action series that follows a group of super powered ‘kids’ as they fight off evil. I didn’t watch too much of this and have yet to see the subtitled version, but my initial reaction isn’t good. One of the characters is a childlike cat girl. Another is an over the top girl who summons stuff and crazily acts out her attacks. There’s a girl who wields a large lance/spear and does some crazy super powered stuff as well, memory hazy too much heckling. The series looks pretty annoying, filled with plenty of fan service and typical super natural action stereotypes. I’ll give it a couple subbed episodes, but it doesn’t look promising. I already have a back log of interesting, non fan service super natural shows I need to finish, like Ghost Hound, Mononoke and Mushi-shi.

Series that I did not get a good enough feel or have not watched are; one of the biggest buzz on the otaku circles, Toradora, Hyakko, Casshern Sins, Shikabane Hime: Aka, Tales of the Abyss, another buzz series Linebarrels of Iron, Gundam 00 season 2 and To Aru Majutsu no Index. So over the next week or 2 there will be more posts going over these series…well maybe not Gundam 00 because its just the second season.

 

Anime I will not be watching or even thinking about watching; Rosaria + Vampire 2, Clannad After Story(honestly another one?), Shugo Chara Doki, EF – a tale of melodies, Inazuma Eleven or anything related to Jigoku Shojo. There are a number of other new series that I will watch and won’t but you get the point.