Review of Autumn 2008 anime

(sorry, Winter 2009 is not yet ready)



The Autumn 2008 anime season has ended with the Winter 2009 around the corner. Some are 22-26 series that would continue into the Winter 2009 season (hence, fewer new anime) but I would still count them as Autumn 2008.

In no particular order, I would group these anime according to my likeness. (OVAs and live versions are not counted)

Didn't watch at all or dropped at the first few episodes:
  • Penguin Musume Heart 2nd Club: It's a second season of something I didn't watch.
  • Battle Spirit & Mach Girl: Just looking at the pictures alone tells me not to watch
  • Bonen no Xamdou & Hakushaku to Yousei: Doesn't seem to be my type to watch.
  • Noramimi 2nd season: Looks like a kid's show and I never watched the first season.
  • Rosario and Vampire Capu2: Had dropped in season 1 as there is no real storyline and the colours used were awful. It had a colourful opening though.
  • Casshern Sins: remake of a 1970s anime. Good storyline, but the picture seemed somewhat blurred and the character design had funny looking eyes.
  • Yozakura Quartet: Dropped at the first few episodes. Character design was ugly, and the episodes I watched were boring. Except for a brief history at the first episode, I don't understand why there are ugly tall pillars marked 壱 (1), 弐 (2), 参 (3), 肆 (4), etc. other than them "bringing peace to the town with the demons".
  • Kuroshitsuji: A more scary/serious version of Hayate no Gotoku, but I already lost interest of the latter by then.
  • Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka: Uniform design was ugly, stopped watching as it was so boring (compared to Toradora). Ending songs gives me a headeache.
  • Tales of the Abyss: Not really interested on the theme.
  • Tentai Senshi Sunred: ...men in superhero suits doing normal daily activities? Animation looked rather flat...
  • Hokuto no Ken & Kurogane no Linebarrel: Never watched them
  • Shugo Chara 2: Targeted for kids.
  • Kemeko Deluxe: Ugly character design and no real storyline
  • Shikabane Hime: Aka: I don't see the logic of dying and then being revived just to attack the undead.
  • Live on Cardliver Kakeru & Macademi Wasshoi!: Looks like a show for kids. Character design of the latter title is as ugly as Kemeko mentioned above.
  • Vampire Knight Guilty: In some ways similar to Kuroshitsuji. I have watched most of the first season, but got bored by how slow the pace is.
  • One Outs: It an anime based on baseball. I don't watch sports-related anime at all as they are so boring and follow the same storyline.
  • Kurozakura: Never watched it.
  • Mouryou no Hako: Boring character design. What I expected when watching the trailer and the actual show were different.
  • Stich: It's based on an American animation film some time ago for Disneyland Tokyo.
  • Tytania: not the kind I would follow...
  • Tetsudou Musume ~Girls Be Ambitious~: Except for a live action of the same name, I never saw this appearing on TV at all.
  • Junjou Romantica 2: Yaoi themed, which is why I didn't watched the first.
  • Michiko to Hatchin: I like it at first, but the fact that it was first aired more than 2 weeks after the first anime for Autumn followed by delays in broadcasting not long afterwards reduced my interest a lot. This is also partly because it folows a prison escapee and an ill-treated orphant in Latin America instead of the usual High School students in Japan.
  • Bihada Ichizoku: A "cosmetic love story"... huh?
Dropped midway or didn't like after watching the entire series:
  • Jigoku Shojo Mitsuganae: I have watched the previous 2 seasons, but I don't see a real plot and each episode has full「一遍、死んで見る?」 (Would you like to see what death is like this once?) and the same old boring things happening. The only exciting thing happens is at about the last quarter of the season based on past experience.
  • ef - a tale of melodies: The style it's presented in is unnique that is rarely seen in a typical anime. However, it can get annoying at times and something seems to be lacking and wasn't really looking forward to watching it.
  • Nodame Cantible: Paris Chapter: Though classical music is nice, had watched the entire previous season, and one of the few rare anime featuring people at college level, this was somewhat of a letdown compared to the live-action drama special as it seemed to skip or shorten several things.
Watched casually:
  • Skip beat!: A girl who was dumped after he became a superstar and wants to take revenge on him by her rising to fame.
  • Gundam 00 Second Season: I know it's one of the popular anime, but I can't seem to follow it even after watching some episodes of the first season. I gave up watching around midway.
Started watching midway:
  • To Aru Majutsu no Index: I had actually dropped this after the first few episodes since there is mostly lenghty talk and hardly any change of location in an episode. I picked it up later on and actually found it interesting.
  • Ga-Rei: Zero: The title 「喰霊-零-」did not attract my attention at first, but it did after watching it for a while.
Watched since the beginning:
  • Toradora!: Despite the charactrer design being different and the colours somewhat dull as compared to the cover of the light novels (which I had never read before), everything seems to fit in place nicely
  • Hyakko: Not sure why I was watching this... Was it because it's one of the few anime that looked nice in HD?
  • Clannad After Story: I watched the previous season last year and I actually liked it. In fact, it faithfully follows the visual novel by Key. Other visual novels by Key that became anime that are also hits are Tomoyo: After (alternate route of Clannad if Tomoya had chosen Tomoyo instead of Nagisa), Air, and Kanon. (Character design of Kanon in 2002 looked horrible compared to the 2006 remake)
  • Kannagi: Might not be as exciting as Toradora, but it's enough to have me wanting for more.
  • Kyo no 5 no 2: They are just so cute! XD
  • Chaos;Head: The storyline is very much comparable to "To Aru Majutsu no Index". But the last few episodes of this is not satisfying.

Well, this should conclude this post and the last post for this year. So until January 2009 (which is just tomorrow), have a Happy New Year!

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