First half Summer 2011 in review

So I have finally finished my backlog for this season. It was painfully long since my pace got destroyed for two weeks straight. It’ll probably be destroyed again this weekend and the following week but I’ll see if I can somehow prevent some of it by not repeating same mistake as I did for two weeks earlier this month.

The one series which I was able to perfectly keep up is Ro-Kyu-Bu! As an anime targeted for certain demographic, I find it easy to watch and as there’s always something to look forward each week. The story itself is pretty much normal if we throw out the loli factor – about a coach and his basketball team. It’s amazing how they were able to have two training camps in less than a semester. Without guardian apart of the soon-to-be-jailed coach. Anyway, if it’s going to be a 12 episodes series, I guess this will end after the, er, what was it? Sport tournament or something. There is not enough hint yet on who will be their enemy(ies?) though and there doesn’t seem to be any problems need to be resolving in the tournament – a depart from the first half where the problem was clear as the sky.

On other hand, having a relatively different schedule, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan: Demon Capital is quite good. Better than first season, IMO. The story went faster and there are more action scenes. Having Rikuo accepted his fate as leader of demons eased up most of my irritations about the first season where he refused to have such abnormal life. The start of Kyoto Arc showed that he’s still relatively weak though. A complete opposite of his usual portrayal where he usually shown as arrogant and relatively powerful demon. Demons at Kyoto are at Nightmare difficulty, I guess – whereas Rikuo can only handle Normal difficulty. Anyway, his training before going to Kyoto should be relatively entertaining – especially with the fact that his night form is kept at noon because of the demonic aura in where he’s training right now.

Apart of those two, I was only caught up with latest releases as late as today. It was a hellish weekend when seen from one side: I watched lots of anime this last few days. Thank God I had some health problem which accelerated my watching pace. As the result, I was able to clear my backlog and start fresh again starting today.

As I don’t really remember the order I watched it, let’s start from Bakatest 2. The summon fight felt more and more ridiculous and the two main heroines became more and more yandere. Also Hideyoshi sure is getting special treatment. Heck, Yoshii himself kind of declared that he likes Hideyoshi. Sure it can’t get worse than that. Main team got most of focus as of episode 6 and less on extras like Yoshii’s sister or that certain loli imouto. It’s certainly not my favorite – it still felt a bit tired after the first season. I’m not sure myself, I just can’t get myself interested watching this. I still watch this for some laugh here and there though.

While Bakatest 2’s story is relatively simple and understandable, I can’t help but getting confused by this Blood-C. I’ve never watched any of the earlier series but I can’t figure out what kind of series this is… until the fifth episode. It connected two unrelated parts – day time where the main character cheerfully goes to school and have random fun; and night time where the main character becomes a merciless demon slayer or something. Fifth episode ended with day time character meets one of the demon (or whatever it is). Let’s see if there will be an actual death in sixth episode.

While unclear, Blood-C’s basics are relatively understandable. That’s not the case with The Mystic Archives of Dantalian. Written by writer of Asura Cryin’, and animated by GAINAX. A hopefully better combination than Asura Cryin’ itself – Seven Arcs are just not really a good fit for this kind of series, I guess. Anyway, it’s got Latin opening. Japanese sure love their Latin. Despite my hopeful feeling, it still hasn’t showed its good side up to latest episode. Probably it’s just me but I can’t help feeling that it’s still in introductory phase: there’s no main villain shown as of yet and if I remember it correctly there should be another two girls like Dalian. And they still haven’t appeared. Wikipedia mentioned it’s a 12 episodes series but I sure hope it’s wrong.

Double-J, I don’t know why I still watch this. The latest episode isn’t even an actual episode with all the random interview with actual person(?). Probably to try finishing a flash-based (or flash-like) 5 minutes anime.

While Ro-Kyu-Bu! is more or less blatant loli fanservice, Ikoku Meiro no Croisée nicely covered this by actual innocence and hnnnnnnngh (wait). I haven’t watched Aria but apparently it’s on similar level. I believe the whole point is to be a heart-warming story and I guess it will fulfil this premise successfully – especially as shown from the latest episode.

Similar to its predecessor, A Dark Rabbit has Seven Lives started on confusing note and somehow managed to still be confusing six episodes later. Well, the latest episode answered quite a lot of questions without adding too many new questions. The introduction of new characters would prove interesting though this new teacher sure is weird hahahah.

After a bit boring second case, the latest case of Heaven’s Memo Pad is interesting again. Narumi somehow able to escape from being labelled as yet-another-generic-male-character by being a bro with two opposing (but previously friends) Yakuza (or simillar) leaders. Too bad Alice’s airtime is not as high as I hoped but her expressions sure are fun to watch.

Thankfully the flashback in Dolls of God only lasted one episode and tells a lot about the whole Aki vs Kyohei. In the end, the main problem is the village itself – the whole hierarchical system etc. Well, what can I expect from a village which actually created their own God – a functional, physical God no less. I only read up to this point so I kind of looking forward to next episodes and will hold reading the manga at least until this series finished broadcasting.

Mawaru Penguindrum, with its unique presentation sure is interesting. The Mirai Nikki-equipped stalker (eh I just realized both of the Mirai Nikki holders are stalker – this one and the original series) is… weird. But interesting. She’s pretty poor though with how the diary doesn’t write the detail so she can avoid her disappointment and how she’s being targeted by whoever this alien is. We’ll see if this original series can deliver non-disappointing ending. Apparently it will have 24 episodes so if done correctly, this should end up awesome.

After a bit of disappointment with incorrect expectation, Mayo Chiki surprisingly able to stay good. Or probably it’s just because of Kanade-sama with her sadistic and insane behaviour. She sure is one of the most fearsome ojou-sama ever. Better than one ones in Kimiaru, I would say. Though honestly, apart from her, there’s not much interesting character or story in this series, IMO.

Morita-san is Taciturn turned out to be relatively good for a 5-minutes series. The latest episode managed to squeeze a yuri atmosphere, even. There’s not much of story for this kind of series but at least it managed to give me some laugh which should help me finishing this series.

Departing from its relatively boring start, Nekogami Yaoyorozu managed to stay relatively boring to me. The onmyouji episode is the best one in my opinion and managed to increase my interest on this series. But apart of that, this series doesn’t really interest me. Probably the same reason I’m not too interested in Touhou? I’m not sure how I can even link to Touhou but I just… somehow felt both are similar. Note that I never play Touhou so I don’t know whether they’re actually similar or not.

No. 6 is one hell of story. Too bad it’s quite gay. Get past that though and it’s quite curious how the people outside No. 6 will be able to connect back again to No. 6. The upcoming rescue operation (I haven’t watched episode 7 as of this writing) probably will create the needed link. I went O_o upon seeing this Rat dressed as woman. Lol.

Yet another 5-minutes series, Nyanpire, actually delivered laughs and d’awwwws to me. I’m still not amused by the ending sequence though 🙁

The amount of censor in R-15 made me reconsider whether or not to continue watching this series from broadcast source. The clean Opening and Ending video from their respective singles’ bonus DVD showed much less censor. Though as I don’t know if I can maintain my interest after this series finished, I guess I will just finish this first and re-watch whenever the BD have released. Hopefully someone will bother ripping them…

Reversing opening and ending as happened in Sacred Seven, is quite unusual. There are many which moved the opening as ending but it’s usually accompanied with skipping opening entirely. As for ending used for opening… I don’t remember ever seeing one. Anyway, it turned out to be there really are three factions in this series. The focus seems to have shifted from Arma to Kijima. I still can’t accept how this Ruri Aiba able to spend lots of money for this Arma though 🙁 The requirement for transformation itself isn’t really new – Mai-Otome and My-HiME also had this. Though it sure is expensive.

I don’t have lots to comment on The Idolm@ster – good animation, good story. Finally a non-crappy (shounen-targeted) music anime. Yay. I still don’t remember most of the casts’ names, as expected.

Twin Angel…. @$#%!@$%. What is this I don’t even. Well, it’s crappy in unfunny way though I guess I’ll keep watching this just to listen to Noto-sama and Kugimin combo. Also Yukarin – it’s a weird depart from Nanoha’s intelligent behaviour to this uncomprehendingly dumb Haruka.

As I expected and hoped, Bunny Drop is serious business. I didn’t expect her mother to be a mangaka though. The presentation is well done this far. The characters are well-introduced and the pacing is easy to follow. Finally, with the manga having ended few months ago I sure hope the ending to be satisfying.

Finally, there’s YuruYuri. It’s… awesome. Yuri in fanservice way. In the way I like. And I guess in the way most actual yuri fans doesn’t really like… The characters are all interesting in their own way. Poor Akarin though as she still can’t handle Chinatsu’s drawing. Also being raped by exact same person. They don’t even attracted to each other – though it sure made good reason for that training.

Well, yeah. Good season overall. Lots of unknowns but they mostly turned out to be good.

Also, I still suck at writing this kind of thing. Or writing anything. This post is good training for me.

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