First Impressions: Fall 2010 Anime I've Tried

When I first saw the chart for the Fall season I was pretty psyched, I thought it was going to be a lot better than the summer season, which was the best ever for me. It's not so much that I'm dissapointed, because there's some really great anime, but I expected more. Sorry I didn't do a post watching for all the Summer Anime, but I just didn't have the time. Also Starry Sky and Goulart Knights won't be on this list because they weren't airing in the fall like some of us thought, they're slotted for Winter. Anyway, without further delay (since this post has been delayed enough already):

Bakuman:

I was actually very pleasantly surprised with this one. I didn't think an anime about two kids drawing manga would be that interesting, but I was proven wrong. Not only is it pretty interesting, but the two main characters are simply brilliant, they felt real and believable within the first episode, both with unique personallities and quirks.

Along with the purely superb characters, the art is pretty great too and the way they carry out the story is nowhere near as plain as I was expecting. This definately holds to the Sh

ounen Jump way of turining something potentially boring into something great, along with having fantastic characters. I really can't think of a Shounen Jump anime that doesn't have mostly great characters.

Needless to say I'll be watching this one all the way through, and I highly reccomend others give it its fair chance.

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku:

The fangirls are most likely going to strongly disagree with me on this one, however I really don't

like the western uniforms. At all. The only one who looks semi-decent in his is Heisuke. That and I'm really sad Okita is still insanely sick and bedridden, I want him to have a bigger part again.

Either way though, this is far from unenjoyable, the action is still just as gripping and just as well done as the first series and each episode leaves you satisfied, but still craving more. Sure it has its annoying aspects, but overall it's still the same great historical Samurai anime, strange that it has so many bishies, but whatever, that's not my focus.

Two points of warning though: 1. You must watch the first series first otherwise none of this makes sense at all because it (thankfully) picks up almost exactly where the first series left off. And 2. Chizuru has MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR useless-female-lead-syndrome, much like Orihime and Sakura. All she seems to do is cry and cry summore about how she wants to help everyone and cry out any of her male companions' names "Hijikata-san!!!" mostly so far, some major HijikataxChizuru going on in this one. Either way, I'm sure it'll be a great watch, again, this is one I'm going to finish.

Psychic Detective Yakumo:As

expected this one is

pretty awesome, coming from the point of view of a mystery lover. The story is executed pretty good, though I think it's about to get better because it seems as though they're getting into a major mystery part of it. The opening animation is nothing short of epic, just like Yakumo's character design.

In fact Yakumo's entire character is epic, enigmatic a lot of the time, but a solid character. The female lead isn't too bad, there's a small romance seemingly bubbling up in the works here which just adds to the story. It reminds me a little of Spiral actually, in feel anyway, not in content. That and Yakumo's attitude is pretty similar to Ayumu's. The story is going great and seems to be getting greater in the way that a little more depth has the posibillity of forming, honestly in this kind of a series I can't really see how depth wouldn't form.

Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto:

As purely awesome as the character designs look, in my opinion this is pure garbage, fairly cliche

mecha series. One person capable of controling this super-powerful mecha, eh, just not doin' it for me.

I tried this one on a whim seeing as how I like the character designs, despite not being a fan of mecha, I figured that I liked Code Geass so may as well try my luck with another mecha anime. I can't say I was expecting much, but the little bit I was expecting sort of dissapointed me, I thought at least in the first 2 episodes something

majorly awesome would happen, or the characters would have at least a little depth to them.

Speaking of the characters, from what I saw the main character, Takuto if I'm not mistaken, was a terribly weak lead, he really didn't have a lot of character depth and he was that annoying 'clueless character from another place' type, which really bothers me. Actually clueless characters in general bother me, but especially if they're leads.

Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls: Again, I was highly surprised with this one, though not in

a pleasant way. From the time I saw the trailer I kinda figured I wouldn't like it due to ecchi, but I had my hopes. Strangely it wasn't the ecchi that put me off though, that, ironically enough, wasn't too terrible. What really put me off of this series was the shitty animation, a cross between normal anime art and really suckish cell-shading almost, and EVERYTHING had a huge thick black line as on outline and it looked dumb. That and the random black liquid splotches everywhere, not even just as censors, they'd show up randomly and it was very obnoxious. It's like if Crona of Soul Eater had really bad bronchitis and kept coughing up blood all over this anime. It was horribly distracting, it looked stupid and it was just annoying.

As if that wasn't enough, up through episode two the characters are so shallow it's about as annoying as small children on candy...lots of candy. I mean litterally, the characters made no sense...at all, some of them aluded to having a backstory, especially the main hero, the maid was a creepy yuri freak and there's people getting pissed at each other for no known reason. 'What could make that weirder and harder to follow' you ask? Well how about a random pink-haired super powerful samurai girl with amnesia falling naked from the sky, stealing her first kiss and then turning homocidal?

Otome Youkai Zakuro:

I honestly really wanted to like this one, however I simply couldn't get into it, I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was that eventhough the whole idea of it seemed cool, with the demons and everything, it just was executed in a more girly manner than I thought. That and the bishies -.- Oh God the bishies, they weren't even good bishies, they were just strange, especially the black haired stoic one. And the blonde one threw a childish fit at any encounter of a demon, it was truly pathetic.

Not only that, but see how Zakuro (the center girl) is holding a dagger and it looks pretty bad-ass? Yeah she doesn't use that, it turns into a branch with sakura flowers on it, so much less epic. Zakuro herself isn't a bad lead, she has a slight backstory established in episode one or two, however she just irritates one of my pet peeves, Tsundere characters. I really can't stand the girls that are normal

usually, but they go all defensive whenever a guy talks to them or someone suggests they might be in love, it's just really annoying and overused.

So sadly I wont be watching this one, but for anyone who was even slightly considering this I'd still give it a chance if I were you, it's not completely terrible, it's just not something I would personally spend my time watching, but for fans of the shoujo genre/demographic it's probably pretty good.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume:

First off, as an anime that takes place on a beach and involving the ocean with lots of vibrant colors, this totally should've been slotted for the summer, or at least early to mid September, not the fall, it just totally strikes the wrong mood.

That aside however, this anime was just far too little kid-ish for my tastes, everything from the plot to the animation to the attitude of the characters just really seemed to be aimed towards little kids, thus making it terribly boring to me. That and I hate overly naive characters, in this case, the overly naive one was the lead, Ika Musume (Squid Girl), but that one's just a personal pet peeve of mine.

The only thing I can honestly say is neat about this anime is it's very original, I for one have never seen anything involving squid as a lead character in any way, much less a girl with squid abillities. So it gets originallity points on that front, that and loli points just because of the sheer kawaii-ness eminating from Squid Girl.

However, neither originallity points nor loli points are enough to make me want to watch this one all the way through, it's just too immature and simplistic for me.

Tantei Opera: Milkey Holmes:

Milky Holmes? Gentleman Thieves? Toys? MORE LOLIES?!?! Not for me thank you very much. I had limited hope for this anime to begin with and a very large sense that it was going to turn out much the same as Ika Musume, way

to little kid-ish. Turns out I was sadly proven right, very little of the mystery aspect that I was hoping so much for.

The characters are true to they're designs, they're very immature, the only cool characters are the bad guys...well...two of them anyway. Seems this season's pretty big on lolis and bishies.

But yeah anyway, this anime is absolute crap, it's just extremely immature and the characters act like spoiled little children and it's annoying and makes it terribly hard to watch through so obviously, I won't be watching this one.

The World God Only Knows: Strangely, this one is a lot better than I thought, I kind of had

a feeling that it might wind up as an ecchi or with Keima being really piggish but it's not. The story is quite a bit more entertaining that it sounds at surface value, especially for those fans of strategy. I know I know that sounds extremely strange, but it's true because of the way Keima goes about getting the girls to fall in love with him, he's very strategic about it.

With that, there's only about 3 recurring characters, Elsie and Keima who are the leads, very good leads thus far I might add, and Keima's mom who is also Elsies adoptive mother due to a series of very strange and comical events. Those three characters are very believable and their personalities are great, which personally I think is extremely important in any work of fiction.

This is another I'll be watching till the end and most likely the second season as well that's slated for...I believe sometime in the spring. I'd highly recommend checking this one out because it has a little something for everyone...well except hard-core action fans who watch nothing but action, there's very little of that, but if you are that type of person I'd still recommend broadening your horizons and then trying this out.

Togainu no Chi: Hmm...well this one's a toughy, actually I even had trouble deciding whether

or not I wanted to watch it because of my mixed feelings about it.

Bottom line is it's good, good enough to watch, but not awesome like I was hoping. Strangely it's not even so much the yaoi that's the problem because that hasn't been really kicked into high gear as of yet, thank god. It's there, but not to the point where it's impossible to ignore. No, my main problem with it actually is the lack of good fight scenes, they're few and far between and whatever good ones they do have, are really short. It's an anime in which the setting is a s

treet fighting ring! C'mon! There's gotta be better fights than that. For some unknown reason though, it's still enjoyable to watch, for now.

Akira is a pretty good lead, thankfully he's not gay so far and generally get's annoyed with Rin's homosexual advances...though I guess Rin doesn't really bother me because most of the time he's just screwing around about it. What really bothers me though, is Keisuke -.- He's so annoyingly gay and has this creepy fetish for Akira and has a very motherly, yet gay obsessive attitude towards him and it's obnoxious. Actually the best thing I can compare this annoying infatuation to is that of Sakura with Sasuke in part 1 of Naruto, Keisuke being Sakura of course. Either way though, as long as the disturbing obnoxiousness that is yaoi keeps at bay, I'll watch this one all the way through. Oh! Be warned though, it's pretty angsty with very very drab colors, so if you're looking for a fun watch or something light, stay very far away from this.

Yosuga no Sora: Last and least is this disgusting thing. I was horrifically scarred watching this.

It's a disgusting, disturbing, twincest harem in which the little sister is a whore for her shy and introverted big brother. I cannot even tell you how purely puke-worthy this anime is. Not only is the twincest aspect absolutely horrifying, but the harem aspect isn't even well done, EVERY SINGLE RANDOM GIRL in the town seems to be hopelessly in love with the male lead the first time they meet him. This accompanied by an instant orgasm and blushing profusely at the sight of him!? It's retarded.

Quite possibly the worst aspect of this anime is the younger sister Sora, she's angsty and doesn't go to school or talk to anybody but her brother because of that, she has these constant sexual fantasies about him and gets really annoyed whenever he's with another girl. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for possessiveness in a relationship, but not if it's your sibling! In addition to all that she's a slut! She's an absolute whore! At the end of the first episode she wakes her brother up in the middle of the night, strips for him, and begs him to make her cum in this annoyingly submissive desperate voice.

As if that ending wasn't disgusting enough, there's an omake at the end with a maid masturbating to the thought of the older brother! It's freaking ridiculous! And you know what else is ridiculous? The nipples! If you're gonna do uncensored ecchi at least do it right -.- The nipples in this show look like giant shiny pink mounds of clay loosely plopped on top of a breast, they don't even look attached. As if that didn't look stupid enough there's like a freaking crater in the center of the nipple! It just looks plain idiotic. There's absolutely no reason for anybody to watch this anime, honestly, there's much better harems out there, there's much much better ecchi and much better incest...I think...that's generally something I'd stay away from, but I'd imagine there is.