A Quick Look at the Spring 2009 anime season

It is the April and that means brand new anime for the spring/summer season. Unfortunately this season’s selection leaves a lot to be desired. Here are a few of the new series I have watched and/or skimmed through.

Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood the eagerly anticipated follow up to the immensely popular shonen adventure series from 2004 proved to be mysterious (at least to me) in what it was actually going to cover. The original series had wrapped up neatly once the movie was released and there seemed to be no room left to expand the story. Everyone wondered what this new series was going to give us, could it possibly life beyond the movie? Then as the previews started rolling out it became obvious that it was going to be a remake of the original series. This was only partially true. The new series is based on the manga, which apparently was based off of the original series. So in a way we are seeing a rehash of the original story, but the manga is still on going. So we have a completely different canon now with the series in the form of the Brotherhood TV show. This brings to mind two things, we have to go through some of the same boring parts that were slow in the original (like their origins and leaving their country life in search of salvation) and the fact that we pretty much know most of what is going on, at least if you can consider the story to be similar to the original anime. You know who all the bad guys are; you know the major twists, what else is there to find out? Know, not having read the manga, I’m not sure how different it is from the original anime, but to some extent I don’t see some things changing, like the identity of King Bradley and the location of the brothers missing body parts. On the other hand, I truly enjoyed the original anime and it will be nice to spend time once again with comfortable characters, especially the ones who died prematurely in the original anime. One question remains to be answered above all else; if this is based on the still running manga, how long with this anime last and when do the fillers start?

It is Full Metal Alchemist, the animation is the same, the people are the same, you know what’s going on, but it is still nice to return. It’s like rewatching the original and catching things you missed before and not actually rewatching the original. I will be happy to indulge until it becomes oppressive like Naruto and Bleach have become.

Higepiyo is one in a list of new, odd-ball comedy shorts that shows the slice of life day to day events of the plutonic Japanese family (mom, dad, and son) and their new adopted pet chicken. There is just one problem; the chicken has a beard and acts in every way shape or form like a surly unemployed old man. So for 500 yen the family has acquired a sake drinking, ass scratching, morning news watching chicken.

If you don’t think this is funny there is something wrong with your sense of humor. Sure if you don’t understand the subtle jokes about how the chicken behaves it could be due to inexperience with certain Japanese specific mannerisms. There is the danger that the show can get old quickly, you really only have so far you can go on the premise of the story. You can only introduce the odd poultry to new people so many times before it gets boring seeing new people over react about its human like tendencies. You can only show the foul acting like ji-chan so many times before enough is enough. What might really make the series carry on for a little longer is to find out that he’s a Yakuza chicken as well. It would be highly entertaining, for a while anyways, to see Higepiyo (literally bearded cheep) pullout some Yak moves. If he produces a chicken sized wakizashi I’ll be on the floor. I don’t foresee the mafia thing, but for now watching the chick act like a 70 year pensioner with no qualms about his attitude is fun. It also helps that the episodes are around 5 minutes long.

Chi’s New Address is the second series of the sweet, entertaining, kid friendly slice of life story about a lost kitten and her new human owners. The series picks up where the original one left off. Chi’s humans are faced with either moving form their apartment or getting rid of her, since they can’t have pets where they live. Now they must make the decision and life on from there.

Nothing has changed from the first series, the episodes are drawn the same, are still about 3 minutes in length and feature cute, funny and endearing adventures in this adorable kittens life…my kids are ecstatic with the shows return.

Basquash! is another title to ad to the ever growing cross genre of sports mecha anime. For me it pretty much stops there. The animation is sub par, although the mech designs are pretty cool, if only they were used for good as opposed to evil. The show is about basketball mechs. For some unholy reason crap like this gets very popular, see Eureka Seven, not only do these shows suck because its combining mechs with sports they really suck because the rely on every horrible shonen plot device in existence. A quick flip through the first episode proves that this show will not disappoint in the shonen suckyness area either.

Queens Blade is the epitome of televised fan service. This fantasy, in more way than one, is based on a semi popular ero video game and deals with a cast of scantly clad, obscenely well endowed women warriors as they do what ever it is they do to allow them to sleep better at night. While the show is on TV, I admit it must on cable, because it is semi graphic in the nudity department and sticks to its hentai roots by having anatomical weapons as part of its character offensive line up.

This show really stinks of bad mid 90’s hentai, and looks like it too. I hate fantasy anime to begin with, so make it look like something that came out 15 years ago, have it be directly from the ero empire and you really have yourself a steaming pile of celluloid garbage to fester on your hard drive. In fact the only reason I still haven’t deleted the damn thing is to mess with people with…but soon it will meet with its digital demise and I will try to repress any memories of what I have watched by watching Chi again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and aga