Winter 2011 – Our Thoughts and Plans

Hi All!

It is that time of the season where all the shows are starting to reach their end and new shows are going to pop-up on our screens.

As many of the shows that we have been reviewing this season will be carrying on through to next season, we won’t be able to cover as many new series as we would like. As such, we would like to give a shout-out to all of you who are interested in joining the team.

But before getting onto that, here is the list of shows that M0rg0th and I will be reviewing, as well as a short impression of what we expect out of the series this Winter.

Nisemonogatari

Sypnosis: The black swindler Kaiki Deishu, who once deceived Hitagi, returns to town and spreads the incantation which cursed Nadeko before.

Koyomi’s sisters Karen and Tsukihi try to capture Deishu but… -MyAnimeList

M0rg0th: I’ve marathoned Bakemonogatari a while ago and I’m a little bit curious how this one will turn out. Bakemonogatari wasn’t flawless and it favoured style over substance. But while in a 13-episode-series I’m ready to forgive a series for being one-sided like that and even would say it’s a decision you have to face at some point making a one-season-series, when it gets more I also want more. If the sequel is just another ‘in the spirit of…’-copy of Bakemonogatari then I won’t be as forgiving for being that one-sided. Also there’s the fact that I don’t know any Shaft-sequel that was better than the original. There isn’t one. And another thing I fear in this case is popularity putting pressure on how imaginative this series will be. In the end this may be the series I’m most interested in for the winter season but I’m still not sure whether it will really answer my expectations.

Saranaufogus: I had loved the abstract approach of Bakemonogatari when I had first seen it and my hopes for Nisemonogatari is going to be relatively high in that aspect. Hopefully this series will follow through with the same execution as what was done in Bakemonogatari. The short-stories style of Bakemonogatari was probably one of the most attractive aspects of the series and I look forward to seeing more of the same. In short, although I doubt this would be anything revolutionary, I do expect this to be a solid series.

Area no Kishi

Sypnosis: Believing himself to be useless at football, Aizawa Kakeru opts to become the manager of his school’s football team, while his brother Suguru is its ace, and is even good enough to represent Japan. However, Kakeru may be harbouring a strong talent within himself that only Suguru can see, and the two often get into arguments over Kakeru’s denial of his skills. Things are made more complicated with the return of Nana, an old playmate of theirs that Kakeru has a crush on. Join the brothers in their journey to the national and even international championships! -MyAnimeList

M0rg0th: I like some sports anime, especially Adachi’s and I always feel that sports anime are somewhat underappreciated. So for this one I read the beginning of the manga and… well, it wasn’t very interesting. With the subtlety of a sledgehammer the cast was introduced and the whole thing was pretty obvious. I doubt that I will watch that one as there wasn’t much promise in what this story had to say. Maybe it’s well-told but the ideas weren’t that great and the characters lacked individuality.

Saranaufogus: I am a sucker for sports anime filled with those team spirit building moments and underdog situations. However, it’s hard to find a decent sports anime that one is able to take seriously or appreciate, and I do hope that this series would fill the gap left behind by Cross Game and Major. I had really loved the adaptation of Cross Game with it’s pastel tones and laid back mannerisms and I am hoping that this show wouldn’t turn out to be some over-the-top shounen sports anime since we already have The New Prince of Tennis to fill that particular spot this coming season.

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

Sypnosis: The original gag comedy manga follows the humorous yet “realistic” everyday life of Tadakuni, Hidenori, Yoshitake, and other students at a boys’ high school. -MAL

M0rg0th: I don’t really like 4-koma-slice-of-life. It’s entertaining once in a while but most of the time I watch only a few episodes and end up talking to my ceiling (it plays golf on Sundays but doesn’t call it a sport, can you believe it?). The premise sounds as boring as you would expect from this kind of series. But the trailer has some charm and that’s what it’s all about with series like this one.

Saranaufogus: This just reminds me of Kimi to Boku. A bunch of high school guys doing a slice-of-life comedy series, filled with a feel-good atmosphere. However, the small “mini-episode trailers” that have been released does give off a decent impression of the show and I would expect it to be a fun watch. Sadly, despite the fact that the show is looking interesting, I still feel that the “feel-good” anime of the Winter Season will definitely have to be Natsume. There’s a reason why Natsume is being given a 4th season (and hopefully even more to come).

Aquarion Evol

Sypnosis: The story will take place 12,000 years after the first Aquarion television series at a city modeled after Hong Kong. A new cast of characters, piloting a new Aquarion robot, will fight enemies from another dimension. -MAL

M0rg0th: It’s, well, shounen. It’s THE shounen-series of the winter season, I think. That hasn’t anything to do with its quality, though, but more with the kind of bigshots working on this one. We have Shoji Kawamori coming back from the original series to direct the sequel and Mari Okada taking care of the series composition. Kawamori is heavily involved with the Macross-franchise so when we’re talking about shounen and mecha combined with his direction you should know what kind of direction this show is taking. The trailer didn’t really inspire me to watch this show because it had the main-character in a flashback-scene having a bad childhood and his female sidekick was the kind of unimaginative female character you’ve probably seen a dozen times in other animes. That’s the feeling I get from the trailer and somehow I doubt the first episode can surprise me by not being this typical mecha-anime with a huge budget.

Ano Natsu de Matteru

Sypnosis: The October issue of Gakken’s Megami Magazine is announcing on Tuesday that Onegai Teacher/Onegai Twins story creator Yousuke Kuroda and Onegai franchise character designer Taraku Uon are collaborating on a new original anime called Ano Natsu de Matteru. The anime will be an adolescent romantic comedy. – MAL

M0rg0th: It isn’t really clear where this one going. Its story is anime-original and the staff working on it are decent enough so yeah, potential is there. But it might as well be another been-there-done-that love-triangle-story (we do know that it’s about three teenagers). It’s certainly one to look out for, though.

Black Rock Shooter

Sypnosis: While each piece of media takes place in its own universe, they each focus around Black Rock Shooter, a mysterious black haired girl who possesses a burning blue eye and a powerful cannon that can shoot rocks at high speed. – Wiki

M0rg0th: It’s interesting to see that the (deserved) outrage in the blogosphere over how this anime landed in the noitanima-spot has led to low expectations for this series. But even aside from that, the staff behind is very similar to the one for Fractale and that one was crap. It’s very unlikely that this series can deliver although it would be quite ironic if like Guilty Crown the series would develop to be the complete opposite from what predictions say.

Saranaufogus: To be honest, the only thing that is interesting me about the series is the backstory behind how this franchise had came to be. The trailer has left much to be desired with it’s weird textures and funky colour tones. I have this feeling that the art for this series is going to turn out a bit too abstract for my liking. The upside to it all is that we can bank on the main character design being a good eye-candy.

Rinne no Lagrange

M0rg0th: The trailer made the series seem like a shoujo-story with mechas. As long as it doesn’t think that having a lot of girls in the cast means having lots of pointless fanservice this could be an interesting series. It depends on how good the characterizations are handled because the story itself isn’t very original or interesting.

Another

Sypnosis: 26 years ago, in a third-year classroom of a middle school, there was a student named Misaki. As an honors student who was also good at sports, the charming girl was popular with her classmates. When she suddenly died, her classmates decided to carry on as if she was still alive until graduation. Then, in the spring of 1998, a boy named Sakakibara Kouichi transfers to that classroom, and he grows suspicious of the fearful atmosphere in that classroom. In particular, there is a beautiful, aloof girl named Mei Misaki who wears an eyepatch and is always alone drawing pictures. -MAL

M0rg0th: The story sounded interesting and the staff was kind-of promising (even if it involved some who worked on Blood-C which I hated) but then I saw the trailer. It plays in a high-school (again) telling you the story of ordinary boy (again) who finds out that one his female class-camerades has a terrible secret (like we didn’t hear that one coming…). In contrary to what the soundtrack in the trailer believed the whole thing got more boring with each second as the presented story ended up being so ordinary and unoriginal that I’m rather skeptical whether I will watch this one.

Saranaufogus: This was the anime that had piqued my interest the most. Sadly, after having seen the trailer, I was forced to lower my expectations of the series.  To say the least, I doubt I would be getting the intense, dark and horror-like atmosphere that I had expected out of the series. Instead, I expect it to be a disappointing mediocre show executed in a not-that-interesting manner but filled with slight hints of “hope for better things to come”.

Natsume Yuujinchou Shi

Saranaufogus: Need I say anything about this series? If you’ve seen the first 3, you should know what to expect out of this. The only disappointing fact (thus far) is that the ending theme won’t be sung by Kousuke Atari. (T^T) Since I am a strong believer that the reason why this series always ends in such a nice bittersweet nostalgic manner is greatly due to the Ending Song, I hope that Marina Kawano will provide us with a good song to keep up the trend of good EDs for Natsume. I am going to look forward to a more kickass version of Natsume since his Season 3 self was a tad too weak for my liking.

The New Prince of Tennis

(aka, Shin Tennis no Ouji-sama)

Sypnosis: In Japan an “All Star Team” is being formed, containing the 50 best tennis players from the entire country. -MAL

Saranaufogus: Do I smell a fangirl moment coming on? I think I do. I still remember how I was so obsessed with this series when it had first came out. Sure, the material is mediocre, sure the plot is repetitive, sure there really isn’t anything to it. But, I just love the characters in this series and the fact that Ryoma is always No.1. =P The one thing I can count on in this series is the fact that I wouldn’t have to worry about things turning out badly for the characters. Overall, I am simply looking forward to an entertaining watch while I laugh about the absurdity of the “moves” in the show. =D

Inu x Boku SS

Sypnosis: The Shirakiin house’s daughter, Shirakiin Riricho, who has a complex about being unable to live independently and unprotected, feels the need to move out and live on her own under the condition of residing in the mansion named “Ayakashi Kan.” In this mansion, only those who have cleared a very strict examination could reside in it, and for each resident, they are accompanied with one agent of the Secret Service (S.S.). Although Riricho has rejected the company of the S.S., while residing in the mansion she finds out that the agent dedicated to protecting her is actually the Fox Spirit whom she previously rescued. -MAL

Saranaufogus: Don’t be fooled by the sypnosis and trailer, this is not a Shoujo series but a Shounen series. I know, it doesn’t seem that way does it? I am definitely looking forward to all the bi-shounens that will be filling our screens in this show but I am not sure what my expectations ought to be, should I expect something mediocre, or should I hold out hope for more? As much as I am anticipating this series, I am going to treat it like it is meant to be a Shoujo series and keep my expectations down as I haven’t seen anything “Shounen-like” about the show thus far (apart from the genre tag). If we end up getting some awersome school fighting moments, or a well developed plot, then all the better for us.

Brave 10

Sypnosis: The story reimagines the legendary adventures of the 10 brave warriors assembled by the warlord Sanada Yukimura in the year 1600, in the middle of Japan’s tumultuous Sengoku (Warring States) era.-MAL

Saranaufogus: The trailer of this series reminds me of Sengoku Basara. =P I am expecting a lot of action scenes and some fun.

Recorder to Randoseru

Sypnosis: Miyagawa Atsushi is an 11-year-old boy. Since he is 180 centimeters tall and has a grown-up looking build, he has always been running into troubles. On the other hand, his 17-year-old elder sister Atsumi is only 137 centimeters tall and has a childish looking build. Atsumi takes good care of Atsushi, who acts his true age.

Saranaufogus: From the way the series sounds, I am leaning towards dismissing it as being just another SoL. An overgrown brother with a stunted sister sounds like it might make for a sentimental show, but nothing else apart from the art in the poster is grabbing me thus far. Since we all know that all SoL shows heavily depend on their air in order to appeal to the crowd, this doesn’t say too much. Hopefully my impression would turn out to be wrong, and this would end up becoming something that would stand out from the crowd.

—

Series We Will Be Blogging:

M0rg0th:

Winter

• Black Rock Shooter
• Nisemonogatari

Fall

• Guilty Crown
• Shakugan no Shana III
• Last Exile: Fam

Saranaufogus:
I don’t want to over promise since this season was proof that having too many series on my plate meant that I had to dropped many along the way, and I really didn’t like doing that.

As such, this upcoming season will be a fluffy blogging season for me. Which means that I can take a break from the “heavy” stuff and rest my brain when it comes to reviewing them. XD

Winter

• Skip Beat Live Drama
• Inu x Boku SS
• Natsume Yuujinchou Shi

Fall

• Hunter x Hunter
• either Mirai Nikki or Chihayafuru
  (Hopefully I will be able to manage both. I just wonder if there would still be much to talk about for Chihayafuru)

—

So back onto the recruitment of new writers. Otakuness is now recruiting, so if you are interested please apply!! =D

I will put the details of the recruitment for new team members in a separate post so please check it out!

Naturally, let us know what you expect out of the new writers and what your thoughts are on the Winter Season Anime and what you would like to see the blog accomplish. =)

The Otakuness Team

(M0rg0th and Saranaufogus)