Fall season overview part two killing time

Fall season overview part two killing time

If there is anything I am surprised by this season it is just how fast everything is coming out. This time there are four shows that debuted in the past two days and I will have to three similar posts in the next three days just to keep up. This time I am short reviewing the new darling of the western anime community and three less well received shows even though I am probably going to stick with all of them for a couple of episodes at least.

Coppelion

In the future a nuclear disaster caused Tokyo to become uninhabitable to normal human beings. However there are three high school girls who have been genetically engineered to withstand radiation. They have been tasked with recovering people trapped within the disaster site. Overall I found this first episode to be a bit of a head scratcher as I can tell this is supposed to be a somewhat intellectual show although I can’t really get a bead on exactly how intelligent this show is.  While I am still a bit ambivalent about this show I can that it will turn out better than Sunday without God so I will stick with it for a few episodes at least.

Kill la Kill

Honoji academy is a police state ruled by an iron fist and super powered school uniforms. Enter one drifter by the name of Ryuko Matoi who wields half of a giant scissor blade which can cut the super uniforms apart. This show is a hyper kinetic action show that is really popular with certain sections of the anime community. While it does seem to have a strong hook to it the show has difficulty modulating tone and having any sort of depth of character. However this is only episode one and this could be added later.

Golden Time

Banri Tada is a new college student who is eager to start a new life. He runs into several students including Mitsuo and his childhood friend Koko who has followed him all the way to law school. I will have to admit that this show didn’t start off to the strongest beginning. However there are small hints of what the show will become and this is where the source material being by same writer as Tora Dora that the transitions could be pulled off believably. I will keep watching this.

Infinite Straos season 2

There isn’t much to say about this as it is a continuation of a show that wasn’t much of anything other than a fan service show. There are hints at new girls which will probably be fully introduced in a couple of episodes. However the majority of the show was dedicated to moving Charlotte and Laura up to a one or maybe two on the Kinsey scale. I will keep watching although not for good reasons.

Fall Season overview part one Beyond the Pale

Hello dear readers, it is that time of season again when everyone who writes and podcasts about anime talks about the new shows. If for nothing else it gives us something to talk about for a couple of weeks every three months.

Miss Monochrome 

Miss monochrome is a slightly robotic girl who longs to be an idol. So she gives all of her money to a girl named Mana who runs off. She finds a new manager and starts working at a convenience store. This show is only four minutes long so that is all there is. This is a random sort of short comedy but there isn’t much to say about it yet.

Diabolik Lovers

One day Komori Yui is sent to live in a mansion. No sooner does she arrive there than she runs into the Sakamaki brothers one by one. She quickly learns three things, one they are vampires, two they are all very abusive and three she is their prisoner. Let me say this up front unless you really want a show about vampire bishonen you should probably stay away from this show. There is a good chance you will be turned off or offended by this show.

Beyond the Boundry

One day while Akihito is walking home from school to find a girl standing on the ledge looking as though she is about to commit suicide. He tries to save her ultimately saying that a girl who is as cute in glasses as her shouldn’t die. In response she back flips over the fence and stabs him with a sword made from her blood. Good thing he is immortal. The first episode of anime show is mostly spent setting up the relationship between Akithito and Mirai (the girl on the ledge) even though it is abundantly clear that there will be some action in the future. I for one really enjoy the character dynamic and look forward to seeing more of it in the future.

Review Fantasista Doll

Uzume Uno is a pretty normal middle school girl who was into card games as an elementary school student. One day she had a strange looking cellphone put inside of her school bag and then she is confronted by a girl but manages to fight her of when a girl that comes from the cellphone defeats her. It turns out that she is only one of five girls, or dolls, that can be summoned from her cellphone and now refer to Uzume as their master. 

As I have stated before Fantasista Doll is a magical girl show which is aimed at a male audience even though it kind of pretends it is aimed at girls. It has an uneven amount of fan service that is slightly too much for something like Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure but inadequate for something labeled as an ecchi or fan service show. Other than it’s summoning and battling gimmicks this feels like a fairly bog standard magical girl show.

If this show can be said to have a philosophical leaning to it, it has an internal discussion on the meaning of friendship. In particular there is some thought placed on the relationship between Uzume and her dolls. It is made clear that even though they are called dolls, the girls summoned from Uzume’s phone are not poke-slaves (episode 4 makes this very clear) and it is very clear that they have abandonment issues. These give this show a small amount of intellectual weight.

 Let me make this clear, this is not a very serious show. This show interspersed with things such as whale punch, Uzume turning to half a tank and of course the team attack, the friendship cannon. This show is often stupid, but it is a fun kind of stupid.

Overall this is show you might want to watch if you like the magical girl genre but it isn’t one of my top picks in said genre.

Rating bronze The bronze Icchan (Angelic Layer) for pleasant diversion in the magical girl battling genre.

Review Daybreak Illusion aka Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou

Hanging out in a graveyard

Akari Taiyou is a generally normal girl who has fortune telling as a hobby, something that she has inherited from her dead mother. She lives with the rest of her family including her cousin Fuyuna who has a secret resentment towards Akari. One night Akari was attacked by a strange monster and a new power awakens in Akari which allows her to defeat the monster. This is not without consequence as when the dust settles Fuyuna is dead. It happens to be that Akari has inherited the powers of the elemental tarot and that she is fated to fight monsters called Daemonia, which appear from human negativity and consume their hosts just like the Daemonia that consumed Fuyuna. 

The technical staff of this show trying too hard to be Moe

Daybreak Illusion is a dark magical girl show that has just finished airing as of this writing. One of the first things that you hear is how it is compared with the acclaimed anime show Madoka Magica and how this show is just a knock off. I would say that this show goes in it’s own direction and that it can stand on it’s own. 

Like Seira I believe we must all fight a naked, insane, lesbian werewolf sometimes

What it is lacking is the show’s inability to handle tragedy properly. Very often characters will lose all common sense in order to facilitate drama. This is especially true starting in episode eight and from their on the plot starts to go off the rails and never get’s back on track so to speak. I know this is supposed to make the show feel like it’s building to a climax but it just feels messy and poorly thought out. Also while I don’t have a problem with a cute art style normally I found the art style of Daybreak Illusion to be a huge mismatch with the tone of the story and it is not in a way that attempts to be a juxtaposition. 

I end this review with a picture of hammering a screw

Overall I had some early hopes for this show although given the train wreck it that turned into it is something that I can not recommend.

Rating The tin pompadour for being the Red Line of magical girl shows.

Uchuten Kazoku audio review

the podcast file of this

I decided to do something a bit different with by Uchuten Kazoku review. I hope you like it.
the audio file

update 3/13/14
Also I now have a working youtube link here
As for the rating (I forgot to include in the audio review)
The silver Tanuki for surpassing Pon Poko to become the best anime with a large Tanuki presence

Review The World God Only Knows The Goddesses arc

The World God only knows is a franchise that I am rather fond of and I wasn’t expecting a third season of this show but I can tell you this, I am very glad that it came out and if you get into this show at all, so should you.

You can get my arc animated, right?

Keima Katsuragi has been capturing the hearts of girls in order to release the evil spirits that hide in their hearts for quite some time now. One day Kanon, the classmate of his who also a famous idol, confesses his feelings for him. This is quite odd as even though he captured her heart long ago, when a heart is captured the girl should forget all about Keima. What’s more she gets attacked by some strange demons from hell and put into a coma. It is the start of a great change in Keima’s normal routine.

Keima being Keima

As one could probably expect given that this is the third season of a said anime series this anime season is something you need prior experience to understand this anime. There is some consternation that the material adapted skips a lot of manga material. However as someone who has seen the anime but not the manga I can say that you don’t need to see the manga to understand this season, even during the episodes that Yui and Tsukiyo (the characters whom have arcs in the manga material that was skipped) appear.

obligatory Haqua

What this makes this anime season really good is how it upsets the status quo for the anime. While the first half of the season is something of a greatest hits of the show; the second deals more with the consequences of Keima having to convince multiple girls to fall in love with him, namely a love triangle between Keima and two previous girls.  While the manga story goes onward I found the conclusion to this season to be something really special and well worth watching.

So many feels

As for my recommendation If you managed to make it through the second season (or even the first season, just watch episodes 3 through 7 and the Tenri Oav for the necessary information) you should watch this season. 

Rating  The silver Alabasta (One Piece) for being that really awesome arc of an anime that takes things to a whole new level.