“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…

A new season has arrived. As usual there are a lot of shows and even more bad ones. There are still a few shows I’m trying to catch like Hatsukoi Limited, 07 Ghost and Eden of the East. But the season is starting out better than I thought, and here are 8 shows that are standing out so far.

Kugimiya Rie is busy again as usual this season with 3 very different roles:  the rich loli Nagi, the living armor Al and the mahjong player equipped with a fang, Yuuki.

Hayate the Combat Butler (2nd season)

Still as brilliant as ever, although I do wonder about some of the color changes. But it doesn’t really bother me that much since the main cast were not touched. Gotta love the summary of the first season at the start – short and sweet. Was disappointed that the OP wasn’t done by Kotoko

Unless I’ve been dreaming during season 1 (or I just totally forgot about it), there appeared to be a short skip in the story involving Nagi and Ayumu’s younger brother. Guess that means I’ll have to read the manga to find out what really happene.

And Maid Max Hearts FTW!

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Unlike most who thinks FMA is one of the best anime/manga around, I didn’t think it was that good. Don’t get me wrong, FMA is good, but to me it wasn’t up to the level many others hailed it as.

One of the things I liked about FMA was the great supporter of mini skirts for uniform Roy Mustang. Having the surprisingly perverted colonel come out as if he could shout “nerai wa utsu!” at anytime dampens that. It will take some time to adjust to the new Lockon Colonel Mustang.

But as long as it’s not going down the exact same route the original series did, FMA Brotherhood will be an interesting watch. I don’t really like waiting week after week to watch a “rerun” when we can just rewatch the original series from start to finish in a couple of days.

Salutes to Kenji Utsumi for still being able to pull off an awesome Major Armstrong at nearly the age of 72, one of the oldest seiyuus around today.

Apparently, FMA Brotherhood will be showing on Animax Asia very soon as well.

Saki

It’s like a dream come true. I had really enjoyed xxxHolic’s mahjong episode and it was then I found out about Saki. However, the manga was difficult to find and I only managed to get a few chapters of it, which discouraged me from reading. So when Saki was announced to make its debut as an anime this season, it easily became one of the series I looked forward to most.

And I love it! I play mahjong for fun every now and then with a few friends, and it’s always a barrel of laughter. The kind of things you do just to screw up a single opponent even if it meant losing the round, it’s all good fun – if you consider this twisted kind of fun as good like me.

Unless Gonzo somehow screws this up really bad, I will enjoy this very much.

K-ON

The first 10 minutes or so was kinda boring – my first impressions of Konata’s chocolate cornet was loads more entertaining. The real fun only began after Yui stepped into the club room.

Maybe my expectations were too high after reading and hearing good things about K-ON, but I was slightly disappointed after watching it. Animation is pretty fluid as expected from KyoAni, but I’m sure they could have done a lot better especially the colours.

Slap Up Party -Arad Senki-

I like spirit Roxy. She’s just so cute and adorable, a lot different compared to when she was a demon knight. It looks interesting enough, but at the same time it feels like a ticking timebomb waiting to blow up and go very wrong.

Pandora Hearts

I’m curious about this series. Like how Pandora was curious enough to ignore Zeus’s warning and opened the jar to unleash evil and misery to the world, I find myself attracted to what evil and misery Pandora Hearts will unleash.

Asura Cryin’

If the first episode is anything to go by, the original summary that this series is about a boy and a ghost girl doesn’t do any justice to it. Secret societies, religious wars, scientific experiments, a mecha hidden in wormhole stuffed inside a small metal casing -Asura Cryin’ might actually end up as one of the best this season.

Valkyria Chronicles

I haven’t played the game (yet) but something tells me I’ll be playing it sooner than I thought. The animation style kinda resembles a painting, especially the shading. You can easily tell it looks different from other shows but personally I think it looks pretty good. One of the most impressive looking series that came this season with a cast of likable characters. I think I have the hots for Alicia already <3

Out of many of the newer anime from the last few seasons, I think To Aru Majutsu no Index is one of the best. I’ve always had a soft spot when it comes to magic and science mixed together. That alone made Index worth checking out for many.

Although the pacing of the story could use some work, overall the show was great. It could have used more scenes with Index explaining things like she did during the first arc, but otherwise it has a pretty good of balance between telling the story, giving each character enough screentime and great action scenes.

The ending was quite sudden (again, the pacing sucks) and even after Tsuchimikado explained it, I still didn’t get what the Imaginary Numbers Sector or whatever it’s called actually is. Not to mention it seems that the one controlling Academy City, the upside down guy in a giant tube, was a magician called Aleister Crowley.

Guess that means we’ll just have to wait for the new season to come out, which doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon. Most likely To Aru Kagaku no Railgun will be released first – not that I’m complaining. Misaka is such a brilliant character and she just doesn’t get enough screen time

I mean, who would refuse more of this!