Specifically I wanted to do a quick run through of the shows from the most recent couple of seasons that I'm either watching at the moment or watched a bit of and dropped. These are actually all via crunchyroll - a site I still dislike, but that I've gotten used to. I've actually also got quite a lot of fansubs I need to plough through too, but for the moment I've been concentrating on crunchyroll.
Gosick
The mysteries are duffers, but the relationship between the characters is interesting. It's also nice that it didn't go down the harem or even the fan-service routes. Not that I dislike either (au contraire), but it really wouldn't have worked for this show. It could do with introducing a Moriarty, though.
Hourou Musoku (Wandering Son)
I have to confess I've found this a little confusing - the anime dumps you right in the middle of things and I'm pretty sure would work 100 time better if you're already familiar with the manga (which, apparently, starts at the beginning). But it's a very sensitive, poignant story that's boosted by some staggeringly beautiful imagery.
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? (Is this a zombie?)
This and the next show, Dragon Crisis are both based on Light Novels and it really shows - both are jam-packed with clichés and tropes so heavily used I could probably write them myself. However, I think over the years I've come to expect this from Light Novels, so my expectations have become suitably lowered, plus, and this is always a plus, they're available legally for free. If I was buying the shows, well, actually, no, I wouldn't buy them.
Dragon Crisis
Of the two, I think I prefer Zombie, because it takes itself less seriously, the fan-service is slightly better and the animation is more consistent. In Dragon Crisis you get bits of intensely good animation which have clearly been paid for by having entire episodes of people standing still and talking. However, Dragon Crisis does redeem itself by not really being a harem show. I think your mileage will vary, especially if you're a loli fan.
Level E
It turns out that Level E is a comedy/parody type show. Although I had no idea what it would be, I have to admit I wasn't expecting that. Neither was I expecting it to be so consistently good.
Beelzebub
Comedy is always the most subjective of things and unlike Level E, while a few things made me chuckle, the constant repeating of the same "baby cries and then electrocutes them" gag got very tedious, very quickly.
Rio Rainbow Gate
Oh dear. Looked like it was going to be a cheesecake fan-service show, and while that is there, it was weak, with poor character designs and cheap animation. The framing was also so cliché it was painful. this is one of those shows that's so average it's horrible - you can't even enjoy it for being bad.
Tantei Opera Milky Holmes
This really didn't do anything for me. It seemed to have a really jarring mix of fan-service and kid's-show style cutesy, but also it looked like it was going to involve mysteries (the "Holmes" in the title) but then didn't have any and was more like a crap magical girl show.
Demon King Daimao
I only watched one episode of this, as the crunchyroll is heavily and ham-fistedly censored. It seemed like it would be an okay fan-service / harem-comedy show without that, although the animation looked like a bit of a victim of a low budget.
I've also watched quite a lot of shows on crunchyroll that I've completed. I've decided to do more thorough reviews for these, almost certainly via this blog, rather than on trismugistus.com, but I though I'd do a bullet list and one sentence summary here:
- Giant Killing: Quite good, but flagged a bit towards the end. Also clearly a second season was intended.
- Asobi Ni Ikuyo: Didn't really get it. Is it meant to be parody? Poor one if it is. The ham-fisted fan-service censorship has the feel that it's meant to be a joke, but if so it's just an annoying one. Saved by a satisfactory conclusion.
- Occult Academy: Promising, but a little directionless.
- Omamori Himari: Enjoyable fan-service heavy harem show with a good conclusion.
- Chu-Bra: Rather weird - feels aimed at younger audience with a 'life lessons' style, but for perverts.
- Panty & Stocking: Meandering, unfunny, toilet-dwelling rubbish, frankly, until the demon sisters appear, and even then only really has flashes of quality.
- Fortune Arterial: When the vampire stuff kicks in it raises it above being a bit wet, but until then it's horribly dull. Even after it's not that much better. Rubbish ending.
- Time of Eve (Eve no Jikan): It's proper Isaac Asimov sci-fi stuff.
- Shinryaku! Ika Musume (Squid Girl): This is a fun, bubbly sort of comedy show, but I have to confess it all felt a bit aimless to me - if it had managed to get in some proper environmental stuff, which the first episode suggested might be a theme, then I think I might have liked it a bit more.
- Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai (The World God only Knows):- Manages to have it's cake and eat it - we get all sorts of moe tropes, but there's a clever, grown up element to it as well.
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