animu fansub catch-up

No DVD rental this week either, so I'm posting a fansub viewing summary thing.

Having been focusing on crunchyroll I've been building up something of a backlog of fansubs so I tried to have a few session where I focused on them, as the hard drive I use to hold them was getting a bit full. The good thing about the rise of legal streaming is of course that a lot fewer shows are only available via fansubs, although it can be a bit puzzling as to why certain shows don't get picked up. OAVs are perhaps the most obvious thing that streaming doesn't lend itself well too, so a lot of the fansubs I've got are OAVs.

Anyway, I've done one of my summary thoughts things on the sample of eps I watched.

Freezing

I have to say I'm not sure I quite see what all the fuss was about. I'd been given the impression this was going to be full of balls-out Guro (I think that's the term - fetishization of violence and gore), but actually it's just a slightly more gory version of Ikki Tousen or Queens Blade. It didn't massively appeal to me, but equally I'd probably watch it if there was a cheap box set.

Infinite Stratos

This seemed to receive quite a drubbing in the initial reviews I read of it. I can kind of understand why, because it was very generic stuff filled with all sorts of stuff I've seen loads of time, but even so, I didn't hate it. I think the difference here compared to Okami-San or even Rio: Rainbow Gate is that the stuff it's rehashing is core to the sort of stuff I generally enjoy in anime - action, mecha fighting, fan-service. Not that it was great, just distinctly average.

Fractale

I've only the one episode to go on with this, as it was announced for streaming by Funimation very quickly and a) Funi's streaming is appalling; b) the rights don't cover the UK anyway and c) fansubbing licensed shows defeats the point. I have to say I had mixed feelings - the artwork was lovely and the fantasy world created seemed interesting, but it did smell very much like a remake of Laputa. Now Laputa is obviously great, but I dunno, seems a bit lazy.

Okami-san

If I was guessing, I'd say this was based on a light novel. I can't be bothered to actually check, but it has those hallmarks of re-using tired old clichés and an overly familiar tsundere main character. One thing I did really hate about it was the use of a narrator who talks over the top of the onscreen characters, which is just horrible to read in subtitles. If it were available via streaming, I'd probably watch it, but I wouldn't buy it.

Kuragehime

This one seemed interesting. It appears to be very much a girl's story and had the feel of being quite predictable, likely involving the ugly duckling main character finding love with, well, it would be a bit much of a spoiler to say with whom, but despite what familiarity I could enjoy it. All anime seasons are awash in shows that are aimed at men, so stumbling across the ones aimed at girls can sometimes give me a rose tinted view due to the contrast, but this one did seem like it would be good.

Bakuman

I've actually started reading the Bakuman manga. It's by the same team that did Death Note, which I both loved and hated. So far I've been enjoying the Bakuman manga more than I thought I would, so I was expecting the anime to be good too. I wasn't disappointed and if anything I think it improved slightly on the manga. Because of the style of the writer, the manga tends to be very wordy, and animation really helps even this out, plus they've made a few tweaks that do genuinely improve things.

Star Driver

From what I watched Star Driver seemed to be a very typical shounen show. It also seemed to be infected with a type of problem I hate, where all sorts of bonkers fantastical stuff happens and everyone just accepts it. This can sometimes be ironed out by having a narrator essentially explain it's an alternative world or by having the other characters explain everything to the main character, but here it just dumps you in without even bothering to try to explain stuff. Also, the main character seemed to win his fights so easily it made you wonder why the bad guys are even bothering.

Seitokai Yakuindomo

If you know what a double entendre is and whether you find such things funny, then you'll pretty much know whether you'll like Seitokai Yakuindomo. It's essentially a gag anime (I've not checked, but it feels like it was probably based on a 4-panel comi - it's certainly structured in that style) where the characters twist everything so that it becomes a double entendre. Well, and one of the characters is very small, so there's lots of gags about her being confused for a grade schooler.. What kinda makes it work is that the idea is that it's about a boy going to a school that used to be all girls and is now co-ed, so they're all girls and they're fixated on sex. As I say, if that sounds like your cup of tea, you'll like it (I broadly did), but otherwise probably not something to check out.

Megane na Kanojo

Megane is Japanese for glasses. I've no idea what the Kanojo bit means, but the first episode was about a girl with glasses and according to the description of the series I read, the other eps are too. The ep I watched was rather short (less than 15 minutes) and I'm not sure it's meant as a taster for a proper series, but it seemed okay to me. It was essentially a romantic comedy, but I get the impression each episode is different. About the only thing I didn't like was that the boy didn't like girls in glasses, which is diametrically opposed to my own viewpoint, but there was a good reason he didn't like glasses, so it wasn't a biggy.