Fall Season – Three Episode Test

At the start of the fall season, I was pretty excited. It seemed like there were a lot of shows whose first episode I really enjoyed. I was really tempted to make a post about how awesome all these shows were, but I realized I’d have nothing of substance to say. Out of 12 first episodes that I watched, I liked 11 and was indifferent about 1. So, instead of just hyping every show up just based on that first episode, I waited until I was able to watch three episodes of each show to give every show I was watching the ‘three episode test’ and see where things stood after that.

Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls

Well this came as a surprise. I remember reading about this back near the start of the summer season and thinking it would likely be terrible, but I’m really enjoying it. Kugimiya Rie as a lolified Sanada Yukimura is pretty hilarious, especially after seeing Sengoku Basara. I’m not expecting much from the story, but the characters so far have been endearing and I’m really loving the art and animation style. It really reminds me a lot of Claymore, especially when Jubei’s eyes turn gold and she promptly tears people apart.

MM!

Amae Koromo, is that you? When I looked at the fall preview chart, I wasn’t even planning on giving this a shot. A masochistic male lead? As if male leads don’t get abused enough as is, this one enjoys it. Well, some of them deserve it, but still, I didn’t really want to have to deal with it. But a friend said it was great and kept pestering me about it, so I gave it a whirl. The first episode was decent enough to keep me watching. The humor was good and didn’t seem too trashy or too over the top seeing as they could beat up the protagonist as much as they like. The second and third episodes were really great though. I figured there was going to be some really stupid and contrived reason for Arashiko’s fear of men, but they actually handled it pretty well in my opinion. She actually had a better reason than Inami did. Also, I was expecting the whole thing to be really trashy with tons and tons of fanservice and random upskirt shots, but those have been pleasantly absent. I don’t even think we’ve had a flash of pantsu yet. It probably won’t be some great romantic comedy masterpiece or anything, but it’s been entertaining and enjoyable without being too crude so far.

Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto

Having just finished Ouran, I was really looking forward to seeing Miyano Mamoru in another completely fabulous role. I found him to be hilarious as Tamaki and was really looking forward to another silly show I could just watch without taking seriously at all. Yes, if you’re watching Star Driver and trying to taking it seriously: UR DOIN IT RONG. Also, the fish girl insert song is really awesome. Do want full version.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume

I wasn’t sure what to expect out of Ika Musume from what I read in the preview, but nothing could have prepared me for the first episode. The first episode of Ika Musume had me nearly dying from laughing. The squid ink was just icing on the delicious cake. That segment still has me cracking up every time I watch it. The second and third episodes were not quite as good as the first though. I didn’t really find the birthday part to be very funny, aside from the ink. The introduction of Sanae was great, though I can’t say the same of Nagisa. It was funny seeing Ika Musume thrilled at the fact that someone took her seriously, but Nagisa herself is pretty lame. Oh well, hopefully we’ll have more Sanae than Nagisa. Also, I love Fujimura Ayumi in the tsukkomi role. She does those outbursts perfectly without being loud and obnoxious.

The World God Only Knows

Holy hell Elsie is so adorable. I may be slightly biased (<3 Itou Kanae <3), but still, she is the selling point of this show for me. The ‘romance of the week’ set up makes it hard to really play it as a harem and ship your favorite couple, because you know the girl is gonna lose her memory anyway. Oh and the whole premise of applying game tactics to real life is a bit silly. Although people getting up in arms about the show portraying it as working as simply as a game are equally silly. Similar things happen in romance movies. Hitch is a pretty good example of that. Anyway, as long as we keep getting more adorable Elsie, I don’t care about anything else.

Sora no Otoshimono: Forte

I just recently marathoned the first season of Sora no Otoshimono so I could watch the second. It has its moments, but it also has plenty of complete flops, not to mention regularly crossing over into downright sexual assault. The laughs are good, but honestly it sometimes makes me a bit uneasy with how far Tomoki goes. He’s usually pretty hilarious but sometimes it’s just wrong. On the plus side, Nymph is just all kinds of awesome. An Electronic Warfare platform with stealth functions and jamming all packed into a lovely loli. I’m sold on that.

Fortune Arterial: Akai Yakusoku

I was expecting terrible and cliche harem antics and I got terrible and cliche harem antics. Yet for some reason, I wanted more. There’s absolutely nothing new or interesting here, but still I found myself enjoying the show and the characters. Erika in particular had me rather smitten after the first episode and kept me coming back for more. Although, I have to say the third episode was just absolutely awful. Ten minutes of let’s go out on the town with lots of montages and touching speeches at sunset followed by ten minutes of king blockhead being an idiot and Erika being angsty. Erika activating her powers was the only upside to the retarded amount of waffling and conjured up drama in that second half. Oh well, I did know what I was getting in to, I was just hoping the male lead was going to be a little less retarded. He seemed to show promise at handling very strange situations in the first episode, but I guess I misjudged him.

Ore no Imouto ga konnani kawaii wake ga nai

Kirino is pretty cute. She doesn’t hold a candle to Elsie, but she’s not bad. Whether this one goes incest or not, I really don’t care. It would probably be played off for laughs anyway, so as long as they keep me laughing all the way through, it’s all good by me. So far, I think it’s stayed away from incest though. Nothing in either of their actions screams indecent. Kyousuke is helping his sister, Kirino is grateful for his help. Speaking of that, though, the third episode was by far the worst. Having read a bit of the manga, I knew the dad was going to find out eventually, but I still didn’t like it. Kyousuke’s speech was pretty awesome though, especially when his dad asked him to explain how he was playing eroge about little sisters in his little sister’s room on his little sister’s computer. That said, the drama just felt so heavy handed and forced that I was cringing the entire time.

To Aru Majutsu no Index S2

Even though my first try at the first season of Index ended up with me dropping it until it was nearly over, I figured I’d give season two a shot. It’s really a shame that such a decent atmosphere is wasted half the time. We have magic and science coming to a head and clashing with each other, mysterious factions plotting behind each others’ backs, yet the second episode was complete and total fanservice filler. Seriously, save that sort of thing for the DVD extras. I love the humor sometimes, but it’s just so oddly placed. They could have given us a better look at the antagonists for the next episode. Instead, we got nun’s pantsu. It’s fun every now and then, but you need to kick off the season strong. Don’t waste one of the precious early episodes on that garbage.

Otome Youkai Zakuro

If there’s one show I can say I’m indifferent about after the three episode test, it’s Zakuro. Zakuro is cute, helped greatly by Nakahara Mai, who I love. But there’s nothing else really gripping me about the show. The demon/spirit setting is really not all that intriguing to me, so I’m not really feeling it so far. I like Zakuro and the way the other girls tease her about Agemaki, but nothing else feels all that compelling. Ah well, maybe if it bores me I’ll just save it for later and marathon it after it’s over.

Yosuga no Sora

And finally, the show I’d been eagerly anticipating, especially after Stripey got me so excited that my black cat tail became striped. Sora, the God-Empress of Imoutos finally came to us in anime form. It was a divine experience. But the wrath of the God-Empress is mighty. She mercilessly strikes down those who dare to stand in the way of the reunion between her and her Onii-chan. Or so I hope.

Dramatics aside, I was really excited to finally see what Yosuga no Sora was about. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a really good romantic drama, so I’m really enjoying this. With the crazy developments in episode three, I’m not even sure where things are going to end up. I’m even questioning whether or not there really will be an incest end. Aside from the flashback where we see Haru kiss Sora when they were younger, Haru has acted as a brother the entire time so far, never stepping over the line. Although, the hallucination scene in episode one still seems open to interpretation as to whether it was Sora’s imagination or Haru’s. Could it be that Haru is trying to hook up with Kazuha to keep his mind from straying towards thoughts of Sora? There’s just so much meat to the drama that I can’t stand it. Every time I think about something else in the story, another possibility comes to mind. Really, the story could go anywhere here and that’s what makes it so exciting.

Omake

Here’s just some random extra thoughts. First, I tried to give Shinrei Tantei Yakumo a chance, seeing as I do have a soft spot for Fujimura Ayumi, but the first episode just did nothing for me so I haven’t given it another shot. Panty & Stocking has been related to me more than once as being similar to Ren & Stimpy, a show I despised when I was a kid, so I won’t be going anywhere near that. I’ve also heard a lot of people fawning over Kuragehime, but the art style is such a huge turn off that I just can’t watch it.

Shiki continues to frustrate the hell out of me. The entire cast is a bunch of freaking morons. It’s got some atmosphere and some decently developed antagonists, let’s get something going here. It’s too bad Natsuno is too busy throwing his only weapon on the ground and then running away from it and the safety of his home to actually be useful. You can’t say you don’t see the BL there now.

Amagami seems to be getting worse as the arcs go on. Kaoru’s arc wasn’t too bad, but it was so rushed. Sae’s arc, well, ok, I hate Sae so I hated Sae’s arc. Ai’s arc was terrible and I have to wonder what the writers are smoking, but at least Ai herself was enjoyable. Now that I’ve seen Fortune Arterial, I’m really wishing that Junichi was more like Kohei. Junichi really needs to relax a bit and go with the flow instead of freaking out and being a perv. It’s too bad, because I think the omnibus format would work, but it would need a smaller cast and more time devoted to each arc. It’s a shame too, because I want so much for Tsukasa’s arc to be a smash hit, but now I know better than to expect that. Speaking of Tsukasa though, she seemed rather depressed at not being with Junichi during the Founder’s Festival. I wonder if he’ll man up and help her out with that in her arc.

Strangely, Legend of the Legendary Heroes seems to be the only carry over from last season that I’m really fully enjoying. Ferris is great and has awesome chemistry with Lyner. I just wish they’d focus more on them though, because they’re way more fun to watch. Although, Miran does have his moments too.

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. I’ve got a great idea for something at the end of the month, but you’ll just have to wait until then to see what it is.