The Coke Machine

It’s almost time for the Spring 2008 season! Historically, the spring season is one of my favorites, although it’s looking a bit weak this year. Nevertheless, the past month, I’ve finished off most of what I have been watching so its time for a quick review!

Minami-ke / Minami-ke Okawari

I was a big fan of Minami-Ke in the Fall season and so Okawari was a must watch for me. The two seasons were kinda related (as they had gags from season 1 continuing in season two) although I guess it IS possible to watch Okawari first. Its kinda strange having a different studio pick up half way through (Doumu did Minami-ke and Asread did Okawari)… I kinda bunched them together, but I’ll give them separate ratings. First on Minami-ke. Good animation by Doumu… it had some stuff I really liked… like the tear-drop shaped mouths, bible-black eyes, Chiaki’s adhoge. The cast was amazing, I mean the three sisters were pretty much just the standard brainiac/beauty (closet banchou!), the troublemaker (closet control freak) and the tsun tsun. But put them all in the same house and it just works! But the most surprising is the amazing supporting cast! We got the always-confused Fujioka, the fantasizing Hosaka (who likes to strip himself down), the really confused Touma and her brothers (this whole family was introduced waaayyy too late), the broken Mako-cakes, Maki, Uchida and the list goes on and on. Just an amazing bunch of characters that have real dynamic and dispite the large cast, each character has a role to play (unlike say… in Gundam where we have Saji who does NOTHING, Louise that does NOTHING, Maria something Ishmail who does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and this list also goes on and on).

Okawari just continued off where the first season stopped. The strange thing is that it was animated by a different studio, Asread. At first I was skeptical about Okawari, I was used to Doumu’s character designs … and Asread had everyone with different hair colors (like Kana going from a brunette to a redhead) and omg Fujioka looks like he got 4 years older ~_~. Overall I’d have to say I liked Doumu’s version more then Asread’s, not only because I saw it first and thus I was more used to the art style, but season 1 also featured more Hosaka fantasies and bible black eyes. To make up for it, Mako-cakes had lots … and mean LOTS of love from Asread (maybe TOO much)… However, much to my surprise, Asread ended Okawari very nicely with a very appropriate Hosaka moment… Actually Minami-ke also ended with a Hosaka moment too, but not as funny. Funniest moments: WAAAAYYY too many.
Minami-ke
Minami-ke Okawari

And ohbytheway, I want an I AM BOSS t-shirt… D=

CLANNAD

I had really high expectations for this show (any show Kyo Ani choses to do instead of a second season of Haruhi already gets super high expectations from me D=). I don’t know if it’s as good as I expected… on one hand I’m no fan of these Key games turned anime, on the other, I was expecting the next Suzumiya Haruhi (which is totally ridiculous for me to expect…but still). So mixed feelings here. Fuuko arc, although kinda long, was hilarious and probably my favorite. My least favorite? The Kotomi arc. The good thing is that she was reduced to a mere side character after her arc =) The random Fuuko appearances were actually kinda annoying (though I heard that’s actually what happens in the game ~_~; so… meh). And the Nagisa ending was probably not what I would of liked… but exactly what I expected. Needs more Tomoyo and Kyou. No seriously. Overall, Clannad was very enjoyable though it did kinda drop off a bit in the middle (I blame Kotomi >.<). And what ever happened to the electrician they meet early on (during Fuuko’s arc I think)? They kinda sapend some time to introduce him and we never see him again? Well apparently he’s suppsoed to be Fuuko’s sister’s fiancee ~_~; Funniest moment : too many to choose from, but “Lets wear matching boxers and run down the road to school” is up there along with those Fuuko hallucinations, and the straw up the nose act. Needs more Tomoyo. Needs more Kyou.

eww Nagisa ending. I’d of gone with Tomoyo or Kyou =/

Dozo! have a starfish!

Shakugan no Shana II

I had just watched the first season a few weeks before the second season started airing and so I was expecting something good off the bat since the end of season 1 left me with a pretty good impression. LOL how wrong was I. We get about 6 eps of weak harem-comedy and a few episodes of Shana no Yuutsu. High quality stuff, as expected from J.C. Staff kept me watching though and it did pick up midway thru. Caramel & Shana vs Sabrac was a great fight (though don’t put too much thought into why Yuuji can figure out his weakness in mere minutes while Caramel and Pheles hasn’t figured it out after how many years?). The last battle was somewhat … bleh.. they didn’t even try to explain why Hecate stopped ~_~; At least Yuuji finally made a choice (this gets +1 just because of that). Funniest moment was when Shana asked where babies came from. Yes yes.. its a old joke.. but given the circumstances.. it was quite funny.

Bamboo Blade

Like Square Enix’s Nagasarete Ariantou, Bomboo Blade was just mediocre, but at least it was different. I wasn’t going to watch this originally, but boredom got the best of me. Bi-polar bitch MiyaMyia and acorn man Dan-kun duo were definitely my favorites of the series. Nothing especially good stands out, but nothing really bad to complain about either. Funniest moment: the American woman and Dan-kun with their Engrish. Yeah, I know it’s not supposed to be funny -_-; Bambloo Blade gets an average score for being so average.

Bi-polar Miya Miya FTW! Rin is also cool tho.

Spice and Wolf

Anime and a wolf goddess, Horo, and a merchant name Lawrence. Had potential… I mean a quasi-fantasy anime about economics, trade, and peddling… high production values… and well animated. I had high expectations and Spice and Wolf just didn’t deliver. The story is somewhat confusing (lol its not a good thing when an anime about peddling is confusing) and weak at times. And at the end of the 12 episodes (well 11 episodes since episode 7 is a DVD special what doesn’t have to do with the main plot), we are pretty much left off in the same place we find ourselves back in episode 3 or 4. At least Horo and Lawrence had good chemistry.

KimiKiss ~ Pure Rogue

I bet she watched Kimikess

After the first two episodes I had a pretty good feeling about this and like Spice and Wolf, it really disappointed me. Sure we get a cute caste of harem, and it isn;t really the typical harem set-up as we have 3 male main/side characters. Oh course my favorite male character, Akira, got no lovin’ from JC Staff. What pissed me off the most was not how Yuumi got the short end of the stick, but it was how an episode would end with something amazing then it would get completely ignored, it like it never happened the very next episode. It got to a point where I had to stop watching for a few weeks only to marathon it at the end. Btw, its really incestuous when you say “I love you Mao-nessan” ~_~; Oh and the whole frog doll thing? I wanna strangle them… ~_~; Kimi-Kiss’ saving grace is the half decent animation,tsun tsun Erika and super shy Yuumi. KimiKiss is diet coke level stuff >.<

Kimi-Kiss ~ Pure Crap also wins the facepalm 2007 award

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 2:57 am and is filed under Anime, Anime Review, Clannad, KimiKiss Pure Rouge, Minami-ke, Shakugan no Shana Second.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.