Friday 17 June 2011

rollycrunch round up

After yesterday, I thought I'd do a round up for everything on crunchyroll that I've watched from this season. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I was getting a bit off-course with the scanning, so last week (and the weekend especially) I decided to concentrate on it. I ended up doing all 4 of the animages that mean I've now finished scanning everything from 2010 (yes!) and even did a couple of nyan types from 2011.

I watched crunchyroll stuff while I scanned, so I've done some round ups of my opinions so far. I've not really been watching stuff on AOD due to the size issues I mentioned before, and of course there's a bunch of stuff only available to me on fansub (I grow increasingly miffed with the anime companies for not embracing streaming for the west).


Gosick

Did I cover this last season? Think I did, but my opinion hasn't really changed - it could do with stronger mysteries for Victorique to solve. She is daawww cute, though.

Battle Girls - Time Paradox

Basically, this is inoffensive, time diverting pap, which is both its strength and its weakness. It's odd - I hated Rio Rainbow Gate, which was also from the same background (adaptation of a Pachinko game!) but this I've found watchable. I mean, I wouldn't buy it, but it's okay to watch on crunchyroll. It's really difficult to pin down why I like this, but nor Rio, though.

Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi (A Bridge to the Starry Skies)

This was total rubbish. It seemed to be trying to do "Harem, but realistic" and fails. It reminded me in that way of Winter Sonata. I mean, it's nothing like it story wise, but that pretty much failed too.

Hanasaku Iroha

This is a series that's clearly trying hard, but has left me a little unengaged so far, if I'm honest. I've let it slip a bit, so maybe I'll like it more when I get back to it.

Nichijou (My Ordinary Life)

Essentially this is a more surreal version of Azumanga Daioh. Mileage always varies with comedy, obviously, but I've been enjoying it on the whole. I find it works best in small doses, though. It's also a very nice production.

SKET Dance

Really this is a been there, done it series. Also, two of its main characters are of the shouty, hyperactive variety that usually turns me off. However, I actually quite like the show. I think it's mainly because it has an oddly subversive and self-deprecating element to it that sneaks in every so often.

Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai (We, Without Wings)

Without wings tried way too hard to be interesting and ended up being confusing dribble.

Deadman Wonderland

A new manglobe series, which is always worth watching, and this is no exception. I'm not entirely sure what it's about yet, which I'm not sure if that's intentional. There seems to have been a few info dumps, but not really explaining what's really happening, just giving you enough to be going on with.

Astarotte's Toy

Really not sure about this one. The premise has paedo-bait stamped over it, but the episodes themselves have quite a few nice, touching bits in them, and the story isn't actually all that bad. In a way it's a similar struggle I had with Chu-Bra, except because this is in paedo territory, I'm much less comfortable with it.

World God Only Knows 2

More of the same, really, which isn't any sort of a complain - I enjoyed the first season. It's probably best to actually think of this as one of those shows that's actually a full 20-odd episodes long, they're just making it in two halves.

Sekaiichi Hatsukoi

I was a bit surprised by this - it's clearly a shoujo romance job, but nobody got raped! Well, somebody got kissed against their will, but I found it difficult to dismiss this out of hand as I was expecting to be able to. I mean, it's not high on my to watch list, but I couldn't just dismiss it as not worth keeping going with.

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