Winter/Spring 2013 reviews:
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Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai 2 - Season 2 of one of my favorite anime shows ever finally started airing, and we are already seven episodes into its 13-episode season. I will admit that Oreimo 2 started off a bit slow, but episode 3 of this season was one of the best all-time episodes for this series. Plus, since then, the shows have been quite solid. Lots to love. Wonder where they are going to take this by the end considering how much closer Kirino and Kyosuke have gotten, but now Kuroneko-chan being a bigger deal.
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Hentai Ōji to Warawanai Neko - Translated to "The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat," this series is about a high school boy named Yōto Yokodera who wishes upon a statue to get rid of his façade. The statue does this, but it always gives the attribute to someone else who currently does not have it. The results of removing this trait causes Yōto to not be able to lie anymore. Regretting his decision, he decides to find the person who received his trait with the help of a cute girl who asked the cat statue to not show her emotions so easily, causing her to be unable to show any sign of emotion. There is a lot of promise in this plot, and the characters are super cute, but nothing has been incredibly attention grabbing so far. I'm sticking with it, but we'll see.
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Aiura - Japan has these anime shows which are sometimes only a couple minutes long. I don't understand the reasoning for doing this too much. Aiura is another slice-of-life show based on a 4-panel comic strip. That's the way K-On started as well, but this is not K-On. I do like this series a lot though. The characters are kawaii and the comedy is actually really, really funny. I just wish it was longer than three minutes. It seems so silly.
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Sword Art Online - Sword Art Online is a series that completely snuck by me last year. It aired between July and December of 2012, and I think the reason I didn't hear much about it is because I don't pay attention to action-oriented anime series so much anymore. It's a shame because SAO is super, super good and I've been recommending it to folks non-stop for the past few weeks. If you enjoy action series where the character gradually gets stronger and stronger, like in Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, or even DBZ, you should check this show out. Thankfully, it doesn't drag on as long as any of those shows, so that might be why I like SAO even more. This show takes place in the near future, where a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG), Sword Art Online, is released. With the Nerve Gear, a virtual reality helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, players can experience and control their in-game characters with their minds. On November 6, 2022, all the players log in for the first time, and subsequently discover that they are unable to log out. They are then informed by Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of SAO, that if they wish to be free, they must reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, if their avatars die in-game, their bodies will also die in the real world. The story follows Kirito, a skilled player who is determined to beat the game.
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Girls und Panzer - This is another show that I've decided to recently pick-up because I've heard good things, as well as caught lots of pictures and posters of it while I was traveling in Japan. It's an original show that takes place in a universe where girls participate in Sensha-dō (lit. "Way of the Tank"), the art of operating tanks, as a traditional martial art. Miho Nishizumi, a girl who has had a bad experience with Sensha-dō, transfers to Ōarai Girl's High School to get away from it. However, soon after joining, the school revives Sensha-dō and Miho, being the only student with any experience in operating a tank, is ordered to take part. Despite being initially reluctant, Miho soon comes to enjoy Sensha-dō again and, joined by her new friends, Saori, Hana, Yukari and Mako, enters a national Sensha-dō championship where they face off against various other schools. The show has very unique qualities about it and it's about a bunch of moe girls, so there's not much to dislike here. I've been enjoying it and wished I had caught it while it aired late last year.
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Mirai Nikki - Here is a show that took some time for me to get used to. I don't really watch violent or sadistic anime much, so a lot of the initial episodes of this show really turned me off. Also, let's face it, Yuno Gasai is really freaky when you first meet her and see what's in her house. Her yandere (psychotic stalkerish) personality really took some time getting used to, but now that I am half-way through the series, I kind of think it's cute. Weird. But the concept of this show is so good, and that is the main reason that I slowly came around to it. Mirai Nikki, or the English title, Future Diary, is about 12 individuals who compete in a battle royale where the last person standing becomes the next God of Time and Space. Before you go, "Hey, that's similar to The Hunger Games!" First off, no, you are wrong. Second, Mirai Nikki's manga came out in 2006, two years before The Hunger Games in 2008. Anyway, the unique aspect of this story is that each individual has a diary that tells them the future. It makes things a bit more tense and interesting.
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Click picture to enlarge.
Summer 2013 previews:
Kiniro Mosaic
Plot: Shinobu Omiya is a young girl who once stayed in England, where she met Alice Cartalet, enjoying the time spent with her. One day, Shinobu receives a letter from Alice saying she is coming to Japan. Sure enough, she appears and joins her at her school.
Lots of moe going on in this one. The blonde girlies are pretty cute.
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Blood Lad
Plot: Blood Lad follows Staz, a vampire that is obsessed with the human world, and Fuyumi, a human girl that was killed and turned into a ghost after wandering into the demon world. Staz promises to help Fuyumi regain her humanity by bringing her back to life, as it means that he would be able to visit the human world.
Sure, it's love between a human and a vampire just like Twilight, but it'll also have a bit of a Warm Bodies vibe to it. In the sense that, this girl should be scared and freaked out about this guy, but she sees something in him. I read the first chapter of the manga and was immediately hooked.
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Love Lab
Plot: The comedy manga revolves around the girls at the elite Fujisaki Girls' Middle School, which has tsundere (initially aloof and abrasive, but later kind-hearted), meganekko (eyeglasses-wearing girl), and other kinds of students.
This anime is based off of a 4-panel manga and it has cute girls. Still searching for my new K-On.
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Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyō
Plot: The absurd mystery comedy centers around Kazuhito Harumi, a high school boy who is obsessed with reading books. One day, he is killed in the middle of a robbery and resurrected as a dachshund dog. Unable to read in his new form, the hapless Kazuhito now belongs to Kirihime Natsuno, a sadistic novelist who uses scissors on Kazuhito to abuse him.
This anime just screams "WTF!" If I still did Obscure Anime Time on my podcast, this is a show I would talk about.
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Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyōbi
Plot: This fantasy is set 15 years after humans stopped being born and the dead stopped dying, since the world was abandoned by God. That left "Gravekeepers" with the unique task of giving the would-be dead peace. A girl named Ai is the only Gravekeeper in her village; she was born from a Gravekeeper mother and a human father 12 years ago. One day, a boy named Hanpunii Hanbaado appears and begins firing his pistol indiscriminately and setting the village on fire. Hanpunii confronts Ai with the shocking truth.
Also known as Kaminai, this has an intriguing premise. Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men was half of this show's plot. There seems to be more action in this one and the settings really remind me of Final Fantasy X for some reason.
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Danganronpa Kibō no Gakuen to Zetsubō no Kōkōsei
Plot: At a special, elite high school called Kibōgamine Academy, only students of the highest caliber in various fields are accepted. To this effect, each student has a title in akin to "Super High School Level." However, every year it accepts one average high school student chosen by raffle and given the title of "Super High School Level Good-Luck." The protagonist of the series is Makoto Naegi, one such average student.
Well, the Japanese certainly love their battle royale movies. Okay, picture this. You are leaving high school to head home, but you pass out just before leaving school grounds. Then, a sadistic half-white, half-black teddy bear tells you that you and your fellow students are stuck in the school until you "graduate." However, in this instance, graduating is when you commit the perfect murder. Meaning, you murder another student and make it so that no one can ever figure out that it was you. Interesting, huh? That's what this show is about, and that's why it has my attention.
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Chō Jigen Game Neptune
Plot: Set during 1989, this show takes place in an alternate continuity where Planeptune is a small country, Lowee as a Japanese styled area, and Leanbox as an invading overseas country. Lastation is an area connected with Planeptune. Neptune is thrown into this continuity and embarks her adventure to get back. Because this is not the world/dimension or time she's supposed to live in, she is not in charge of Planeptune; a new character called Pururut also known as Iris Heart is.
I don't know much about this show other than that very simple plot, but you will notice that there are some names here that sound suspiciously like game consoles.
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Tokurei Sochi Dantai Stella Jo-Gakuin Kōtō-ka C3-Bu
Plot: Centers around high school girls ("who look super good in mini-skirts") playing survival games with airsoft and BB guns. Yura Yamato has just arrived at the high school division of Stella Girl's Academy, and Sonora Kashima invites Yura to join a club called "C3." Sonora is the third-year student who became the new head of this club for survival games. The other members include two second-year students (part-Japanese Karira Hatsuse and G36K-wielding Honoka Mutsu) and two other new students (Rento Kirishima whose family runs a Japanese sweets shop and the really short Yachiyo Hinata).
This sounds similar to Girls and Panzer to me, so I'm going to check it out.
You is liking the animes?
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