Spring 2008– Everything looks horrible
It’s that time of year again. Yes, the spring season is fast approaching and… wow, it looks terribly lacklustre. 2006 had Haruhi, 2007 had Gurren Lagann and 2008 has… man porn? Well, I guess there is the sequel to that Gode Ceass thing, but that’s a sequel. There doesn’t seem to be any earth-shattering original titles on the horizon, but despite that, I have managed to throw together a list of stuff even longer than my picks from last year. I guess the selection isn’t too bad then, even with the horrible excess of sausage. I guess some execs somewhere noticed that girls where reading manga. What a horrible discovery.
Anyway, picks listed from most important to garbage.
Gotta watch it… GOTTA WATCH IT ALL!!
- Code Geass R2: Yeah, yeah, yeah– I give this show a lot of shit, but I do enjoy it. It’s a simple, ridiculous action story that’s good to turn the brain off to. Season one left its viewers off on an unforgiving cliffhanger, but given my experience with how the Japanese handle such cliffhangers, this second season will start off as if nothing has happened and only reveal to us WHAT HAPPENED NEXT at like episode 13.
- Golgo 13: Guys. It’s mother fucking Golgo 13. What other reason do you need?
- School Days: Magical Heart Kokoro-chan: Yeah.
Gotta… check it out! CHECK IT OUT!!
- Kamen no Maid Guy: Dom, of Megatokyo fame, wrote about the manga for this years ago and it has always sounded wonderfully quirky and crazy. Hopefully the anime adaptation doesn’t suck, since chances are I’ll never read the manga, ever.
- Kure-nai: The promo art for this one caught my eye immediately. If a show uses a picture of a little girl holding the hand of some tall faceless dude to promote itself, you know it has to be good. Story wise, it seems it’s kind of a dark-ish, violent tale of a high school kid who has to protect the young heir to a corporate syndicate. Character designs are good, even if the noses are a bit hueg. Animation is by Brain’s Base, known for Kamichu, Baccano! and… Innocent Venus? Also, from the trailer, the dude sounds like a pushover and the loli sounds more bratty than your typical rich-girl-loli. Hmm.
Don’t really gotta… do much of anything, but these shows could be ok
- Allison to Lilia: By the Kino’s Journey guy. I’ve never seen Kino since it sounds horrible, but this has 1930s technology and stuff so I guess it could be ok. Don’t really like the colour scheme.
- Chi’s Sweet Home: Show with a cat. Will never get subbed, but it’ll probably be totally watchable raw. If raws surface.
- Kaiba: Some random arty thing by Madhouse.
- Kyouran Kazoku Nikki: Should be something of a cute comedy. Has nice character designs.
- Real Drive Sennou Chousashitsu: Production IG has been doing a good job of making shows that either don’t look interesting at all (D’eon, Reideen), or are just boring as shit (Seirei no Moribito.) They’ve kind of regained my trust with Ghost Hound, but only by a bit. This show could either be extremely interesting or another snorefest.
- Toshokan Sensou: Why would you not watch a show called Library Wars?
And the rest of it
- Blassreiter: A Gonzo show with CG that mostly looks kind of not shitty. Has potential to be an awesome action show, but also has potential to be totally and completely horrible.
- Crystal Blaze: Could be awesome but could also be manporn. The only image we have so far is of a gun, bullets and a glass of random alcoholic beverage.
- Kanokon: Raunchy harem thing with nice character designs. If it has a budget it just may be watchable.
- To-Love-Ru: Because I can’t get enough of horrible Jump adaptations. Maybe this’ll have more of a budget than Rosario + Vampire.
- Zettai Karen Children: Could be funny, but the character designs look old, and I mean in the bad way.
If people start saying various other shows are good, I may give them a look, but I think I covered all the potentially good stuff already.
> I’ve never seen Kino since it sounds horrible
kino is really really good imo
er, actual content:
Kaiba looks like Masaaki whatever his name is has reached the final level of crazy artist and has turned into Osamu Tezuka, so I guess it should be good.
Blassreiter demonstrates that Nitro+ doesn’t actually care about originality like at all. Just like Gonzo! They need to make a Song of Saya anime instead.
>>kino is really really good imo
Yeah, “horrible” wasn’t the right word. I was running of my dissatisfaction with the current selection of shows, so I was kind of bitter when writing this whole thing. Kino certainly sounds like a quality show, just not for me. People have described it as a show about some girl who rides around observing the cruelty of the world, and she doesn’t really do much of anything. Doesn’t really sound like something I could get into. I may give it a shot one of these days, though.
And I guess it does have a talking motorcycle.
The only thing we need here is Magical Heart Kokoro-chan, right?
Oh, and Code Geass.
I haven’t heard of the rest.
>and she doesn’t really do much of anything.
She kills people. And bunnies.
AND SHE’S JUST SO CUTE.
Um, what about Macross fucking Frontier?! ;)
>>IcyStorm
Well that’s why I included the SA link, so you can educate yo’ self!
>>beefy
I don’t like girls who kill :(
>>tomoyo
Yes, I know. Before I watch Macross anything I want to get around to DYRL. I have it downloaded, just a matter of watching…
>>I don’t like girls who kill :(
But if they drop a box cutter on you it’s pure love, right?
You betcha
Yeah, um, I don’t want to learn about the other new anime when I still have a massive backlog to watch.
Oh, and Shuffle! was decent, heh. Not fantastic but not terrible.
No summary of Kino’s journey could really do a good job at describing it. It;s different and strangely awesome. Not much to say besides that.
They’re animating Zetai Karen Children ?!? That might be actually good. The manga wasn’t translated up to much but it had somewhat of a 20th century boy feeling, where there’s the past story (everyone’s young cute and innocent) and the future story (where everyone’s badass and wants to conquer the world).
>>I don’t like girls who kill :(
Henrietta, Rico, Claes, and Triela are going to be VERY sad to hear you say that.
I’ve read what manga for Kure-nai thats out. Its ‘ok’ so far, but nothing particularly cool or ground breaking, the loli is cute though. I wanna see/read a bit more before I pass total judgment upon it.
Wow, Golgo 13, there’s something I haven’t heard about in years. I remember first hearing about that when they had original NES games in Nintendo Power(they had a walk through), years later I watched the streamline pictures dub for it. I remember NOTHING.
Yeah, I agree spring seems pretty bad but we’ll see.
I’m hoping the rest of Mnemosyne will be good but what I’m really looking forward to is the anime of Detroit Metal City. If they stay faithful to the manga, it will be awesome, if they don’t, it’ll probably be a disgrace.
>School Days: Magical Heart Kokoro-chan
…wtf…must watch…
Allison to Lilia seems pretty promising, and as everyone else stated, Kino’s Journey is awesome. More for good its good story telling/direction than anything else. Not sure if you enjoyed Mushishi but pretty much the same format imo.
You’re not checking out the lolicon show of the season, the Naisho no Tsubomi OVA?
I actually… wasn’t aware of its existence. I may as well check it out, then!