Spring/Summer 2009 Anime review

Related Links: Winter 2009 review, Spring 2009 preview

Hmm... I forgot what I had watched since I didn't write a review for Spring or preview for Summer despite Autumn just started.

Where did I put it....


Oh here it is. I would like to put images from the episodes, but I don't have them. Umineko is the only exception among the dropped anime with screenshot since I just dropped it at the time of typing.

Oh, I did hear that anime that I had highlighted in bold is quite good, including those that I did not watch.

Anime I didn't watch at all
Well these were anime that were stated to air for both Spring and Summer seasons, but didn't watch them mainly due to lack of interest.
  • Senkoku Basara
  • Queen's Blade - Rurou no Senshi
  • Asura Cryin'
  • Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~
  • Arad Senki ~Slap Up Party~
  • Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica crimson S
  • Senjou no Valkyria
  • Guin Saga
  • Tayutama -Kiss on my Deity-
  • 07-GHOST
  • Needless
  • Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahō
  • Elementhunters
  • Cobra The Animation: Rokunin no Yūshi
  • Princess Lover!
  • GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class
  • Spice and Wolf II
(Didn't expect it to be that long)

Anime I had watched, but dropped
These includes anime that were dropped at the first episode, where they caught my attention, but did not get a hold of it for long, and anime that were aired before or in-between popular anime.
  • Basquash! (バスカッシュ!)
    • Sports (Basketball) themed, I-don't-know-how-to-describe environment and storyline. Heard that it was made to advertise an internationally well known sports brand.
  • Pandora Hearts 
    • Medieval/Magic themed. Was aired between Eden of the East and K-On!.
  • CANAAN
    • Forgot why I dropped this... Character design? No, they are okay... What was it then?
  • Hayate the Combat Butler 2nd season (ハヤテのごとく!!) 
    • Storyline progress is too slow, too much fanservice. Except for ED1, music was not of my liking. Character design seem to have dropped. (Ironically, it was by the same animation studio that did Nodame Cantabile, Shakugan no Shana, Toradora!, To Aru Majutsu no Index) Though I had watched the 2007 season, I dropped this only at the last episode of season 2.
  • Gokujou!! Mecha Mote Iinchou (極上!!めちゃモテ委員長) 
    • It looked as though it was made for kids....
  • Shangri-la (シャングリ・ラ)
    • Liked the OP and ED and the storyline, but those two transsexuals creep me out...
  • Natsu no Arashi! (夏のあらし!)
    • Character design, too much SHAFT jokes and references, only a small portion of the entire show is worth watching.
  • Tears to Tiara 
    • Medieval + Magic themed. Didn't watch enough to compare this with Pandora Hearts.
  • Saki (咲-Saki-) 
    • Mahjong themed. Non-main characters (eg. Kajiki Yumi and Touyoko Momoko) seem to be more popular than the main characters themselves, seeing that I have come a lot of illustrations of them.
  • Umi Monogatari ~Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto~ (うみものがたり ~あなたがいてくれたコト~) 
    • Everything seem to be going fine until the heroine transformed...
  • Umineko no Naku Koro ni (うみねこのなく頃に)
    • Watched it because it was from the same company that done Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. HD version appeared to be up-scaled (obvious from the sponsor screen). Show was going downhill: arc 1 was okay, arc 2 was "so much talk and so little action" and "why am I watching this?", arc 3 was "WTF?" and "zzzzzz...", and dropped it there.
  • Sweet Blue Flowers (青い花)
    • Potential yuri theme. If it weren't for Bakemonogatari and my tight time schedule, I might have continued watching this.
  • Taishō Yakyū Musume. (大正野球娘。)
    • Pre-WW2 Japanese baseball theme and setting (read: Things that are before my time are too alien to me. eg. Tramcars, right-to-left words). Title and credits appear to be pasted on. Strange that this took over the timeslot of ever popular K-On! for the summer season.
  • Zan Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei (懺・さよなら絶望先生)
    • Including all other anime done by SHAFT (eg. Natsu no Arashi!, Bakemonogatari), too many references and on-screen text were used. Overloaded text, lots of them. Also, why am I reminded of this when watching Seitokai no Ichizon even though it's by Studio Deen (and Kaokawa)?
  • Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (東京マグニチュード8.0) 
    • Replaced Eden of the East's timeslot and done by the same studio that did Darker than Black and Fullmetal Alchemist. It's quite good actually, but disaster-themed anime too depressing for me to follow. Did try watch it later on, but I mysteriously became sleepy.
Oh, and here's one of the WTF scenes mentioned above:


Completed watching Anime
These included 24+ episode anime that are still airing now. Sometimes, they are too great to describe with words that I let images speak for itself.



K-On!
(けいおん!) 
First anime in a long while that had cute character designs and great music that actually kept me wanting for more. (Clannad was nice too, but the eyes...) One of the few anime that actually has the characters singing the song (other anime: Marcross Frontier, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya ["Live Alive"]) and not as a background music by an another artist. I heard that Kakifly (かきふらい), the creator, is working on a story based on Ritsu and Mio when they were kids.



Eden of the East
(東のエデン) 
I was amazed on how much detail they had paid attention to the details of places like the area around the White House.I didn't know that Saki (main heroine) narrating at the beginning of the first episode actually happened after the last episode. I also thought that her university was in New York until a few episodes later where she was at the Eden clubroom of a local (Japan) university instead. (Speaking of University, how many anime take place at college level instead of junior/senior high level? Quite few. In fact, the large majority of the anime I watch takes place in Senior High School. Death Note seem to only have a brief mention of Senior High and there appers to be no significance to college he's in except that he's studying law and where his (short) encounter with L.) Oh, this is also one of the few anime that is an original that is not based on an existing manga, visual/light novel and is still quite good (Code Geass is the other).


Hatsukoi Limited
(初恋限定。) 
(note: Girl focused on the right is not the main character of the main series, though the girl on the left is on of them)
Focusing on each of the girls in each episode that may overlap each other is confusing or made this anime seem short, but what I can't help to notice is the resemblance to Toradora! even though it's not related at all because of the animation quality, thick hair, font used for the credits, same seiyuus (some of which are from K-On! too) among other things. It's been quite a while since I last saw this (not counting OVA), so I don't know what to say about this. I also don't know why I'm describing as though I had dropped it even though I didn't.


Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

(鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST)
(note: series is still ongoing)
Too awesome to describe it. Did I say that it had took over the timeslot for Code Geass and Gundam00 on Sunday early evening?


The Melancholly of Haruhi Suzumiya
(2009 renewal)

(涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱(2009年))
(Note: Ongoing, but it seems that all the new episodes in the "Melancholy" chapter is done. Who knows if they would do "Disappearance"? Quite possible, since it's in chronological order and stuff I already mentioned.)
Except for some new episodes, next episode preview, sponsor screen, and extended scenes, there really isn't anything new to the existing episode. If you were to stitch all the "Sigh" episodes together and remove the sponsor screen, OP, ED, etc, it actually joins quite nicely. I was disappointed that 8 of the 14 new episodes are "Endless Eight" that except for the last, everything seems to look the same with some minor variations. What were they thinking?

PS. Is it me or has the KADOKAWA  (角川書店) logo on the sponsor screen gotten larger since this Haruhi renewal? This enlargement also appears in Setokai no Ichizon and Sora no Otoshimono too.


Sora no Manimani

(宙のまにまに)
Stargazing, friendship, etc. What I'm puzzled is why did they introduce a new character (not in above image, but they are looking at her) in episode 9 when it's more than halfway through? I would like to look at the stars, but since my area has a lot of light pollution, I could see only the moon. And it's rare to get out of it and actually look up. Oh, when people point to me the stars that form something, I have no idea where to look even though they may be pointing at it unless it's on a screen or print. I don't even know why it even reminds me of Bakemonogatari ending theme to the point that I even made an AMV of it. (Would like to link to the less restive and higher quality version at Youtube instead of NicoNico Douga, but the account it's uploaded to is prone to being suspended after one more red notice of an unrelated video.)


Bakemonogatari

(化物語)

Since it's a SHAFT anime, they slap on unnecessary jokes and lots of too-fast-and-numerous-to-read on-screen text. However, they did become serious by not having parody references and weird characters, to other anime like Zetsubou and Arashi that it made me wonder who made this at first. I actually thought that each arc could have been longer and would be 24 episodes instead of 12 (14 if you count the online/BD-only ones) The continuation of this is Kizumonogatari, but we have yet to see an announcement of it being made into an anime.

Well that all for now, though it feels that I have left some out. I will be doing the Autumn preview later. Since some had already started, I would also mention which I had chosen and which I had already dropped. For an up-to date of what I'm watching, keep a lookout for the "Anime watch List" at the sidebar on both Japanese and English versions of my main and anime blogs.

Once again, apologies for not doing the reviews/previews in June-July.

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