My first impression of K-On wasn’t very good…

I enjoyed the first few episodes, but had a few doubts.

I thought the animation quality was poor for a KyoAni production and that the show was only held up thanks to Mio.

I was naive…

K-On turned now turns out to be one of the best the season had to offer and is my favourite this season. In the end the animation style turned out to fit the show almost perfectly and while Mio is still the darling of K-On, the rest of the cast had proved their worth too.

I can’t really decide whether this is a good thing or not because they had to cut down on Mio’s screen time for Azusa and Ui… Oh well.

The K-On club performed Brush and Ballpoint Pen and even more Fuwa Fuwa Time in the last gig. Can’t really complain about that but I was actually hoping for a Don’t Say Lazy finale.

But with a winter special extra episode coming up, it may not be too much to hope for a new season to do just that. After all, they’re all only 2nd years and one first year. There’s still a whole full year to go before any of them graduates and series like this often goes all the way to the final year.

WE NEED MOAR MIO!!!

Kudos to Sawa-chan sensei for finally breaking her!

I knew from the start that Eden of the East will end hanging. I thought I was ready for it, but I was wrong!

Damn it.

Did Takizawa wiped his memory again?

The sound from the phone and the way his mouth gaped was the same as in the first episode when he wiped his memory the first time. It’s safe to assume that’s what he did and then pre-programmed himself to slip his phone into Saki’s pocket.

What does he hope to achieve as King?

So all the hints about Takizawa being a Prince was referring to this moment. He became the King of Japan, or would it be more accurate to say the new Emperor.

And wouldn’t he be taken out by the Supporter for finishing up his money?

It happened to the good doctor. But since Panties is still alive after being presumed dead, it’s possible that the Supporter did not kill the doctor and that he is merely being held captive. Just a hunch.

What exactly is #1′s plan?

He seemed quite glad that Takizawa managed to stop the missiles, even though he was the mastermind behind it. He was also there when Takizawa first wiped his memory. It’s possible that there’s more to him than he’s letting out right now.

When will those of us outside Japan get to see the first movie?

It’s probably going to be a long, long time before we get to see it… And it’s probably going to be another cliffhanger ending that leads to the 2nd movie…

“Which cake is better?”

You know sometimes a friend who isn’t into anime comes up to you and asks if you could recommend them an anime to watch so they can see what’s so great about it.

This happens more often if most of your friends are fans of anime and manga, and he or she always seem to get left out whenever one of you start bashing about this guy called Kishimoto for ruining someone’s fishcakes or something (yes, they probably know what fishcakes is in Japanese, especially since they’ve been dragged by you to the nearest ramen every week).

There will be at least a time when they will start to wonder what’s so great about these Japanese cartoons known as anime. You will then be approached by said person with the question “Hey, maybe you can recommend me something to watch.”

The usual response would be recommending your favourites, whatever that’s currently “hot” or recommending a random show based on their preferred genre.

I actually had a few friends asking me just that and it got me curious about how others go about it. Would you recommend your favourites or do you take a different approach to recommend something?

Is Lucky Star a top choice?

At the top of my head, I can easily suggest some of my favourites like Cardcaptor Sakura, Ranma, Lucky Star and Haruhi. But thinking about it, I doubt someone who has never been exposed to anime would want to watch a mahou shoujo and a show like Lucky Star would only alienate them. A parody is not a parody unless you’ve seen the original, and let’s just say that even right now I haven’t been able to catch all the jokes yet.

Ranma might be a good place to start, but with over 160 episodes, it might be too much for someone completely new. Haruhi is shorter (so far) very popular and are light novel adaptations, but I still wouldn’t recommend it for a newbie.

Instead I find myself recommending shows that are mostly slice of life or comedy and are short (or have short season), such as Minami-ke, Ouran Host Club and Honey & Clover. Then depending on what they like, I would recommend obvious choices like Gundam, Black Cat, Initial D or Slam Dunk.

It’s quite interesting to see how some would immediately recommend Lucky Star or Gundam to someone who just wanted to have a peek at what anime has to offer out of curiousity and that the last mecha show he watched was Robotech about 20 years ago.

I believe it’s important to recommend something you know the person will enjoy, and that is not necessary what you yourself find enjoyable. Lucky Star is one of the best shows in recent years, but it’s a heavy hitter. First, you gotta bait the poor soul into the dark side with easily digestible snacks… then you bring in the heavy artillery and forever corrupt a pure soul…

Haruhi-sama will be so proud of you.

The original Full Metal Alchemist anime was good. But I didn’t quite like it all that much. The main attraction was definitely Mustang and his love for mini skirts.

When the first episode of Brotherhood came out, I was disappointed that Mustang was now Lockon. Took a while to get used to, but I still strongly prefer the original. The new voice just doesn’t have that sarcastic feeling anymore.

But after 8 episodes, I find that I’m enjoying Brotherhood a lot more than I did the first time. Brotherhood goes straight to the point instead of dilly-dallying around and letting the solemn atmosphere sink in deeper than the South China Sea.

The first FMA was way too gloomy and I hated that. Some liked it for that, but not me.

The only reason I continued watching was because the story was quite interesting, and with majority of the people around saying that FMA is a must watch, that probably helped me finished the entire series – except the movie.

With Brotherhood, I find myself somewhat looking forward to the next episode. While the main plot remains, the execution is different, although I admit that my memories of the original plot is rather hazy.

But whatever.

I had my doubts at first, but Brotherhood will be a lot more enjoyable, for me at least. One way they can improve it even better is by killing the voice-over during the mid break.

Following through my post on the most promising spring series this year, it’s time to re-evaluate that list. It’s already about a month into the season so I’ve managed to catch all the series I wanted to.

Some were not as good as I originally thought, while some proved to get better as the episodes roll out.

Here are the best 8 this season in no particular order…

Hayate no Gotoku (Season 2)

Season 2 is beginning to look a lot better than the first and that’s really saying something since the first season is regarded as one of the best anime in the past couple of years. And the OAV suddenly made more sense after watching the first few episodes of the second season.

The debt-ridden butler continues to attract more new suitors while getting into even more trouble. Even Maria was tempted to give him some Valentines chocolate, which ended in some unexpected and really brutal chocolate destruction from the usually kind and gentle Maria.

And Hayate in female a girl’s seifuku and miko costume = priceless and always more than welcomed! (crap, did I say that out loud?)

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Eden of the East

Excellent in almost every angle – story telling, character design, animation, pacing, you name it, although I don’t really find the soundtrack to be that good. And for once they actually had proper seiyuus who could speak English to actually speak it! *gasp*

The first episode took off interestingly with Morita Akira running around naked and flashing his “Johnny” everywhere. He is certainly the most enigmatic character to show up in an anime for quite some time. The more we find out about Akira, the more mysterious he becomes.

Why did he chose to wipe out his own memory?

Why was he standing naked with a gun in front of the White House?

What are the Selecao and who is the Supporter?

The more answers Akira finds, the more questions he starts to have. So many questions and the episodes aren’t coming out fast enough. Eden of the East will easily be one of the best shows this year if it keeps up the momentum.

 

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Cross Game

Besides Eden of the East, Cross Game is one of the most well crafted show this season. The first episode captivating to say the least, at the same time it was quite cruel. I say cruel, because I really thought the story was cruel. Not cruel in an evil, bloodstained kind of way but on an emotional level.

 

A nice build up between the relation of the main character and his love interest that was suddenly and unexpectedly pulled to a halt.

You seldom feel sad when a character dies off in the first episode. There’s just too little time to build up a strong enough emotion to actually do that. Cross Game did more than that with actually leaving a hole in your heart and the feeling that something really important has suddenly gone missing.

I call that top-notched story telling.

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Valkyria Chronicles

I really was planning to buy the game only after I’ve finished playing a few other games, but after watching the anime, I decided to buy it now rather than later.The animation style still takes a bit to get used to, but there’s a certain elegance in it. From screenshots of the game, it looks like the style is actually taken from the game itself.

Welkin is still very much a mystery and no one can really tell what he’s really thinking. He looks naive at first glance and while he does act weird, he’s always able to think about things calmly and logically when it counts – even though some of his thoughts and actions are based on whims. But that’s what makes him such an interesting character.

There are few game-based anime that are good or memorable, and even though it might be too early to say this,Valkyria Chronicles looks set to be one of the best adaptations in recent years.

“I am Kana. Fear me!”

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 07-Ghost

The first thing that caught my eye in 07-Ghost is how well the character designs were.

It’s really interesting how the story started off with Teito being in a military academy where students are able to use some sort of ability that manifests some sort of runic words and use it as a weapon against enemies.

But the setting quickly changed and Teito found himself in the care of a church said to be protected by the 7 ghosts. What exactly are the 7 ghosts are still kept hidden but I can only guess that the 3 bishops are very closely related to them. They might even be the ghosts themselves in human form.

07-Ghost keeps coming up with new questions as well but it seems that everyone involved in it knows whats going on except Teito.

The only thing I really hate about 07-Ghost is Ayanami. He’s most likely to be the final villain, so I’m just counting the episodes until Teito totally tears him apart for all that he’s done.

What a scary place, it even managed to turn the no-nonsense Teito into comic relief…

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Saki

Non-mahjong fan who skipped this should give this a try. It’s a fun series thats really entertaining even if you don’t really understand everything that’s happening on the mahjong table.Trust me on this, I play mahjong a little myself and I can barely understand the wa they play. My only conclusion is that Japanese mahjong uses a very different scoring system compared to the rest of the world. Even so, it’s still fun to watch.

The anime is beginning to take a slightly different path than the first volume of the manga I’ve read, but that might not be a bad thing. That’s not really a bad thing, considering the anime appears to be trying to get the series to move forward faster to the good part – the mahjong tournament.

Give this a try, and you might just be tempted to start playing mahjong yourself. Or you might just want to watch it for this:

 Yummy…

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K-ON

One word: Mio.She has swept the guys off their feet and instantly became the new darling of otaku-dom. She is Tsukasa with a brain and will be one of the toughest competitor in the upcoming Saimoe.

K-ON has a cast of likable characters, there’s the rich and well mannered Mugi (who apparently has a thing for yuri), the energetic little devil Ritsu, the complete airhead Yui and the moe moe kyun~ Mio.

K-ON is without a doubt a great show, but I have a feeling that its popularity shot up mostly thanks to Mio. That’s not a bad thing really, since it just gives more exposure to the series.

I really was expecting a lot more from K-ON in terms of the animation quality especially since KyoAni is behind it. It’s still good, but nowhere near the level of Lucky Star or Clannad.

If anyone dies of moe overload this season, the culprit will be Mio.

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Scythes must be the “in” thing this season.

Pandora Hearts

First episode was so-so, but had that certain attraction to it. True enough, each episode just gets better and better.I was afraid that the whole series might take place in the crappy abyss, simply because it would get boring real fast. But Oz managed to escape to the real world with the help of Alice.

From Gil’s actions, I can guess that one of the Death Gods could be Oz’s father. I might pick up the manga once the anime is over if I can find it. Right now, I’m happy enough to watch the anime.

It’s just sad that the quality for Pandora Hearts is so poor…

I think I’m in love with Alice…