Angel Beats! and Durarara!!

So both of these finished in the past week. While they were both amazing shows in their own right, I think Angel Beats was better overall, if only because it was shorter.

You'll have to let me explain that last bit. All of Durarara!! was amazing, especially compared to almost every show that aired this or last season. The ending just didn't grab me at all. It didn't really have much of a climax, it just sort of wrapped up all (or most) of the remaining story-lines so it could end.

Angel Beats! on the other hand, had a great ending, even if it did feel just a tad rushed. I always know a shows was amazing when it ending leaves me with mixed feelings of joy and disappointment. I'm happy, because the show was amazing, and the ending even more-so (fairly predictable from around episode 8 on). However, I'm slightly disappointed because there will be no more Angel Beats! and there was a good amount of material they had to build side-stories, mostly dealing with each character's pasts. I hear the DVDs will have an unaired special, and I really hope that either explores other characters pasts, goes into Hinata/Yui's relationship more either in the afterlife or when they're reborn, or is an adaptation of part of the light novel, and explores the founding of the SSS.

Several other shows I'm watching are ending with a week or two, so I'll give a bit of an overall review when that happens, if I liked/disliked it enough to be bothered about it. Probably won't be doing that for Arakawa Under the Bridge, because while it was funny, it had just enough of a storyline for me not to get fed up with it.

House of Five Leaves

So I haven't actually watched any of this show myself, but I've read a lot of comments on it, and there seems to be a lot of argument over the unorthodox character design.

There are two main camps here. First, you have the pretentious morons who seem to love the show, but won't say more than how much they love the character design. This group also claims it to be "art", and yet contrasts it against other shows, such as Angel Beats, which is apparently not art? If you consider one anime to be art, you have to look at all anime as art. Now, some art is good, and some is bad, but you can't have it both ways. The most common assertion they have of the other side is that "They are 7 years old and have no taste in art."

The other camp are the shallow idiots, who claim the character design is "ugly", and can't seem to grasp that not everyone has the same taste they do. Indeed, they are willing to write an entire show off based entirely on it's character design. Now, they do have the right to do that. It's perfectly normal to make a snap judgment on whether you'll watch something based on how it appears. It's anime for god's sake, it's not that important. The problem with this side then, is not that they dislike the show due to appearance, it's that they feel the need to go and post online about how hideous it is. I even saw one person go so far as to say it made him nauseous. Why is it people can't just quietly dislike something and let others enjoy themselves?

The funny thing about this argument is that both sides have the same argument, in essence: "If you don't like what I like, you're (insert shallow or pretentious here)." Now, I am personally not a huge fan of the character design. I hear it looks better in motion, and it might. However, the character design isn't even the reason I haven't watched it. I haven't watched it because I can't find it for the life of me. Not that I really have the time to watch *another* new show this season.

K-ON!! Season 2

It's K-ON!!(Yes, the !! is part of the title), and thus awesome. Review over.

Seriously though, season 2 seems to be shaping up much like season 1 did, although if it's 26 episodes long, it might get stale.

K-ON!! is awesome, but I really liked Sora no Woto better. They had pretty much the exact same production team/studio, which is why K-ON skipped a season.

I liked Sora no Woto better in part because it wasn't such a moeblob show. I'm not being very fair there, K-ON did develop into more than moeblob later in it's first season, but they seem to have lost their momentum or something. Really episodes of K-ON can do two things: focus on music, or focus on moe. The first two of season 2 focus on moe, and the show is much better when it focuses on music.

For those not anime-savvy, a moeblob show is one in which at least the main character (In K-ON all 5) is not so much a person as a blob of moe. It's probably best you look that word up on Wikipedia or something. Technically, moe translates to "budding", and moe can be roughly translated as "a turn on" depending on usage, but it's very hard to describe accurately. It's one of those things you just kinda pick up from watching a lot of anime. Not even Japanese otaku can define it in less than an essay and do it justice.

In fact, a real definition of it is widely debated in the anime community, particularly in Japan. I would agree with Joseph L. Dela Pena when he argues that moe is a pure, protective feeling towards a female character, without the sexualization of lolicon. But even that doesn't really capture it.

Mayoi Neko Overrun

If Kaichou wa Maid-sama is a fujoshi show, Mayoi Neko Overrun is the opposite. It hasn't got a ton of fan service, but it's definitely there. The main character, Takumi Tsuduki is the childhood friend of one main heroine, Fumino Serizawa, and the adopted younger brother of Otome Tsuduki, who runs the Stray Cat patisseire where he works. He is often in charge, as Otome is frequently out of town. Both Takumi and Fumino are technically orphans.

The other heroines are Chisa Umenomori and a mysterious cat girl that Otome brings home at the end of the first episode, but is not yet named.

So far, there's really not much of a storyline started, so it's hard to tell how it will turn out. Although, the only way Fumino could be more tsundere is if she was voiced by Kugimiya Rie.

B Gata H Kei

So another new show this season is called B Gata H Kei, and it really needs very little explanation.

The basic premise is that the main character, Yamada, (They never give her first/given name) is the most beautiful new first year at her high school, and she wants to find 100 fuck buddies but she has never had a boyfriend, let alone lost her virginity.

This is for one very... odd reason. She thinks that despite her otherwise amazing appearance, her vagina looks funny/strange, and would turn off any guy that sees it, or at least make him laugh. This is compounded by the fact that she thinks any guy she tries to have sex with will laugh at her for being a virgin.

Her solution? Find what she calls a "cherry boy", or a virgin to lose her virginity to and build her confidence. When she finally finds one (Like 2 minutes into episode 1) who sits next to her in her class, she proceeds to mock him for his virginity, throw him in a closet and show him her boobs (With her bra still on, so not really I guess), steal one of his schoolbooks, and get him to rub her stomach. Either she's quite insane, or simply the most awkward person on earth.

Now, the show never really explains why she is so obsessed with sex, except that she's 15 and given her goal of wanting 100 fuck buddies, aspires to be a whore. I guess it's important to have goals?

Honestly, as retarded/ecchi as this show sounds, it's much cleaner than you might imagine. It's clearly trying to build up a real relationship between Yamada and the boy previously mentioned, and will likely evolve into a fairly average shoujo, albeit one that is so focused on sex it could easily turn into porn.

Will I watch it? Probably. But remember I also watched Kampfer, which had the rare quality of being consistently terrible.

Angel Beats

So I finally got a chance to watch the first episode of a couple of shows airing this new season.

The first I watched was a show called Angel Beats. The first episode opens with the main character waking up with amnesia, in a world a nearby girl named Yuri (Who happens to be aiming a sniper rifle at something) calls the afterlife. He confirms that he is unable to die after essentially asking Yuri's target to prove he can't die, at which point she stabs him in the chest.

When he wakes up, a few minutes of exposition take place and a few basic ideas are put into place. In this world there are three types of beings: the "dead" students at the school, the "npcs" which seem to be there to make the world seem more real, and "Angel" as Yuri refers to her. Angel also appears to be the student council president of the school this all takes place at.

Basic plot is that the dead people have two choices: follow Angel's wishes by following along with regular school life eventually being "erased", or resist Angel by joining the "Afterlife Battlefront", a group of "dead" students who don't want to be erased. The main character, Otonashi, chooses the later. (At least for now, he makes a point of telling himself he isn't really a member)

One thing I noticed is that the characters of Yuri and Otonashi are like much mellower versions of Haruhi and Kyon from "The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi" (Otonashi being more accepting of his situation, and Yuri being less... Haruhi). Yuri even looks a little similar to Haruhi. In the above picture is Otonashi (Left), Yuri (Center), and Angel (Right).

I think this show could have a lot of potential, as long as it doesn't have too much filler or fall into the same pit that Kampfer did, and largely ignore the main plot. The animation for the show is also very high quality, but high quality animation can only make a good show better, it can't make a bad show good. One deciding factor could be what the nature of the world they are living in turns out to be, as well as the nature of Angel.