The spring anime season's almost here! ^^ There are several upcoming shows that I'm interested in.
As with the past few seasons, I'll make my best guess estimate about what will be good or not-so-good this upcoming season. There are 27 shows listed in total. I'm only writing about the first 16 (in alphabetical order) in this post.
Angel Beats!- The plot superficially sounds like your typical Key school show (not an issue for me; I've enjoyed the Key game-based anime titles that I've seen so far) meets Kaori Yuki (bleh), with some gun action. Judging from the newest
PV, if
Angel Beats doesn't take itself too seriously, it could be a decent light action series.
Plus, it'll be the first Visual Arts/Key story animated by a studio that isn't Kyoto Animation. (Unless you count One.) Edit: Whoops- my bad. I forgot about Toei's 2002
Kanon adaptation, and the
Air and
Clannad movies. -_-; (I saw the
Air movie a few years ago, but I haven't seen the
Clannad movie yet. I tried the first episode of Toei's
Kanon a few years ago as well, but didn't finish it because it seemed like it was just going to play out the same story as KyoAni's version, only more condensed and with worse-looking art.)
Arakawa under the bridge- I'm really interested in this one. It's a "denpa-kei gag comedy manga", in which "An upper-class young man named Kō "Riku" Ichinomiya meets a beautiful homeless girl named Nino from the banks of Arakawa River, where many of Tokyo's most unusual residents live," (as described in
this ANN article). The denpa-kei sub-genre "revolves around quirky people's lives [wait, isn't that what pretty much every manga is trying to be? What makes this a unique sub-genre?]; the sub-genre is named after the premise that bizarre behaviors are caused by electromagnetic waves (
denpa)." The story isn't really the draw for me. My three big draws are that: A) it's based on a manga by Nakamura Hikaru, the creator of
Saint Oniisan (or
Saint Young Men); B) it's going to be animated by SHAFT and directed by (surprise)
Shinbo Akiyuki; and C)
Sakamoto Maaya is playing Nino, the female lead. XD Kō will be played by
Kamiya Hiroshi, and several of the other characters will be played by
Saito Chiwa, long-time fan-favorite
Koyasu Takehito,
Fujiwara Keiji, and
Sugita Tomokazu.
B Gata H Kei- "In the anime,
Yukari Tamura will play the heroine Yamada, a virgin high school student who dreams of having 100 casual sex partners. However, she ends up targeting and pursuing only one boy," says
ANN. Doesn't sound like my cup of tea, even though
Noto Mamiko,
Horie Yui, and
Kobayashi Yuu will have roles in it.
Bakugan: New Vestroia- The second season of a kid's show that I haven't seen. Something about kids fighting with cards that summon monsters.
Giant Killing- A series based on a shounen manga about a ragtag soccer team that's struggling to stay in Japan's top soccer league and the coach who tries to inspire them to make a comeback. It could be a good series, but it'll be hard- this type of story has already been done to death.
Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan- An adaptation of a romance adventure game, about "a female protagonist and the historical Shinsengumi samurai group [who all happen to be bishounen, wouldn't you know] in Kyoto during the 19th century." I'm not very interested in this one. It could be good, boring, or hilariously crappy bishounen-camp, like
Miracle Train that I can poke fun at with my best friend for an episode or so before getting bored. (Maybe a combination of the three?)
Heroman- Sorry about the crappy pic. ^^; There isn't even a website up for this series yet... It's a collaboration between massively famous American comic creator Stan Lee and studio BONES. I'm not interested in the story (a boy named Joey finds a robot named "Heroman" who he can pilot "against evil threats") nearly as much as what the reception for this series will be like.
Hetalia Axis Powers season 3- Like the first two seasons, the third season of
Hetalia will focus on different countries of the world (from what I saw of season 1, that pretty much means Japan, Europe, the U.S., and a strangely non-verbal China) anthromorphized as bishounen. While it was kind of funny to see France lusting after Britain, this series never appealed to me. As with previous seasons, it will only be available online. (It won't air on TV- so it probably doesn't belong on this list... but I decided to mention it because of its popularity.)
Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri- Another series
created to market a card game based on a card game for kids,
Lilpri is about "three elementary school girls who can change into idol princesses." Pass.
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou- Based on a light novel series about a boy who goes to a high school for magic users, learns that he will be the "Devil King" someday, and gets "resented by his studious female class head, desired by a girl with mysterious powers, and guarded by a beautiful female android." This looks like a winner. Here's the
PV.
Ikki Tousen: Xtreme Xecutor- The fourth season of the massively trashy, but surprisingly entertaining
Ikki Tousen franchise. A nsfw trailer can be seen
here. Here's to
Nabatame Hitomi returning as the yuri-riffic Kan'nu. (I still need to see season 3, though.)
Iron Man- The first of four series being produced by Madhouse based on Marvel superheroes. Even though it was
initially reported that all four series would premiere this spring, Marvel later gave a
press release stating that only the first of the four 12 episode series will premiere this spring, and it will (supposedly) include both Iron Man and Wolverine. (o_o ???) Marvel has a trailer
here, in which only Iron Man appears. I'll check it out.
K-ON! season 2- More slice-of-life fun with the Light Music Club. ^^
Kaichou wa Maid-sama!- An adaptation of Fujiwara Hiro's popular shoujo manga, about "the student council head named Misaki Ayuzawa who despises the mostly male, slovenly population at her school, which was once an all-boys school. However, Misaki's most handsome schoolmate just discovered her secret — that she works afterschool at a maid café." I haven't read the manga, but I'll give this series a try. (And I'll try not to compare it to
Kimi ni Todoke. -__-)
Ueda Kana has a role as one of the side characters. The PV can be seen
here.
Kiss x Sis- Pass.
That's it for now. ^^
10 comments:
Small correction, Toei Animation did the earlier version of Kanon in 2002 (awful character designs but IMHO a better ending, a less annoying, more believable Ayu, plus a bonus DVD special epilogue that really gave Sayuri and Mai a happy ending among other things) and the movie versions of Air and Clannad, so it's not a first at all. :)
@ ramiya- Thanks ramiya! ^^ I've corrected it. I'm tempted to give the first Kanon series another shot now, also. (I used to be into shipping Mai x Sayuri, so that special epilogue sounds interesting.)
@ furei kinoko- Nabatame Hitomi was born on August 4, 1976 (according to her profile on ANN), so she's 33 years old.
I was a bit miffed that KyoAni didn't resolve the series itself any better, and Nayuki had an interesting scene in the Toei one near the end that wasn't in KyoAni's version, though both series dropped most of her "arc" from the source material. The designs really take a strong stomach to get used to, lol. It's easier to go from it to the KyoAni version than reverse, I'd imagine. At least it's half as long (and as such really gets rushed in some places).
That said, the DVD special is called Kanon - Kazahana and can be tracked down separately and viewed on its own if you've watched the KyoAni one, since it takes place after it and doesn't contradict it any as far as I remember. :D
hahaha is anyone actually going to watch kiss x sis? Guaranteed to be horrible.
I'm interested in the anime where the girl has aspirations of becoming a slut. And learning that it has Mamiko Noto and Yui Horie in it just makes me want to see it even more.
Arakawa under the bridge looks interesting, but I get the feeling its going to become too artsy and pretentious for my tastes.
Ikkitousen on the other hand has tits. I am therefore morally obligated to watch it.
As an aside, have you heard of Hayate X Blades? I've been really into that lately, and figured if anyone else has heard about it, it would be you.
Oh wow, that Bakugan show is currently airing on the Cartoon Network channel in my country, lol. I don't watch it, but it does look awfully familiar. Ah, there it is on channel 22!!
Maaya Sakamoto!!! Well, it seems like the anime she's in is the only one that might interest me... I haven't finished the first season of K-On yet, and I dropped Ikkitousen after ep.1, lol.
@ ramiya- Ooh, thanks! :-) I'll definitely track down Kazahana. (And I'll probably still try the 2002 series again. It might be easier to watch now that it's been a few years since I watched the 2006 version.)
@ Glo- "is anyone actually going watch kissxsis?" Hopefully nobody I know. ^^; lol (Unless they simply must watch everything this spring season.)
Good luck with B Gata H Kei- it definitely sounds different.
@ Snark- Yes!! I love Hayate x Blade. XD I'm glad you're enjoying it.
And why am I not surprised that you're watching Ikki Tousen?
@ CJ- I've never seen Bakugan on TV (I think...), although I've seen the merchandise around.
And cool, another Sakamoto fan! XD She's going to be in two shows this season, which I'm excited about.
Hakuouki game is really good btw.
the MC is better than most female main chara I ever seen xD;
Really? Cool- thanks for letting me know how the game is. ^^ Hopefully the series adaptation will be good.
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