The winter season is (mostly) officially closed, with only one more series finishing next week. Spring is fully in swing, as X-MEN aired yesterday and Dog Days just a couple hours ago. Hanasaku Iroha airs today and Steins;Gate later this week. Let’s kick off the season’s final reviews:
Kore wa Zombie ended on a wind-down, with plenty of fanservice and some heavy singing, including Yuu who apparently does not speak again, but is able to using one of the teacher’s magic machines that makes Ayumu the new Yuu for the moment, that is until he uses her power to put skimpy suits on all of the girls. Overall, this series was consistent from start to finish in being crazy, funny, serious, and awesome. One of it’s qualities is not taking itself too seriously, even as they remind you in the beginning of each episode that Ayumu is a zombie and to not try running in front of trucks at home. Characters were solid throughout, never disappointing and always engaged in either what they do best, or belittling the main character. The main character held his quasi-harem and wasn’t a whiny bitch, instead adopting TouMAN-style moves with Magical Girl powers inbetween. Korean wa Zombie Deskcar is like watching a much funnier version of Zombieland where there is only one zombie, a lot of fucking magic, and a Japanese high school. Looking forward to a second season, and honestly, between this and DEEN’s other series Dragon Crisis, I really hope someone there is paying attention.
Title: Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible, Underwater-Commie, Doki
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 9
Favorite Character: Eu
Least Favorite Character: Orito
Favorite Vampire-Ninja: Tomonori
Not enough screen time: Kyoko, seriously, DAT TITS and her batshit crazy attitude was pure gold
No character development: The Dyson Fan
(takes a deep breath)
Alright, I’ll be fair. Fractale in it’s entirety was excellent, it really was. The overall premise made it look like you were viewing a world in the future that past the point of technological achievement so much that it regressed back to a simpler lifestyle. Had it continued like that, it might’ve been somewhat boring, but depending on the characters and their disposition, it might’ve had a chance to shine. However instead we got a quasi-religious overtone that led into what amounted to a similar story to The Matrix, where the world is controlled by a system that cares and provides for it, and those outside the system who elect to live as humans did before the system, and rebel against the system. The pacing in this series was the worst, as they spent the first half of the series dwelling on unimportant or less important things without advancing the story much, until the last half where it took off and just sped out of control, until the inevitable conclusion that Phryne and Nessa were essentially Neo, Lost Millennium and it’s leader were Morpheus, and the fact that they’ve danced this dance several times over the past couple thousand years meant they’ve gotten exceedingly good at it. In the end, Instrumentality happened and Clain got the girl. Both girls. Well, that’s not fair, there was ever only one to begin with. It’s worth a watch, but don’t put all your doppels in one transmitter.
Title: Fractale
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible, UTW
Episodes: 11
Rating (1-10): 7
Favorite Character: Enri
Least Favorite Character: Phryne
Why.jpg: The death of Butcher. You broke up the Blues Brothers goddamit!
Who gets to be Trinity? …well?
Matrix? Don’t you mean Inception? Don’t you mean Madoka?
Considering the scope of the original novels, I didn’t expect great things of Infinite Stratos. It was a harem, a harem with humanoid robots, and when you consider the conversation Chifyuu had with Tabane at the end, you probably would be quick to invalidate the entire plot of this series, but really, the plot of this series is Ichika is the biggest pimp who doesn’t even know his own pimp-master power. That’s why we call this Infinite Jelly because you’re jelly he has them all around his finger. The whole class. As for the sub-story, it was pretty amusing and awesome in some parts, though I feel the bulk of the good stuff happened in the first half of the series, as they established the characters. The last half seemed to waiver a bit, between his leaning for Char, Laura’s meddling, and Houki’s Pouki. The battle at the end with the Gospel, which you see a glimpse of in the beginning, was a bit of a let down because you assumed they would be thrusted into a battle worth something more than simply Houki’s Pouki. IS is a series you watch for the comedy and fanservice, and touch the plot like you touch that side order of vegetables you thought you’d eat with your steak and potatoes, and found it to be unneeded to enjoy the meal as a whole. I smell second season material in this show, and judging from the ratings, likely to be the case.
Title: Infinite Stratos
Sub Group I Watched: Ayako
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 8
Favorite Character: Charlotte (France)
Least Favorite Character: Rin (China)
Final IS Ranking France > Germany > Teacher > Britain > Pika-tan > Japan > Tabane > Chifyuu > China
Favorite IS Cecilia’s Blue Tears
Why No Houki Love? Partly the series fault for not spending as much time on her as Char and Laura, but also because her tsundere didn’t dere-up until the last two episodes, and by then, it was too late for me.
Studio DEEN had the chance to really make something of Dragon Crisis, and I felt they missed the mark greatly. A lot of companies have been chasing JC STAFF’s success lately, and I don’t blame them, they have written the book on moeshit and SoL anime in the past several years, but Dragon Crisis was a bad attempt at executing that style while trying to maintain that cute-as-buttons-comedy routine that’s better suited for American live-action trash like That’s So Raven. The premise was simple, a world where supernatural and magic exist, a group formed to collect and control this phenomenon, and elements above it, dragons, mythical creatures, sought by many, encountered by few. The first flaw in this show is that Society and Breakers were useless to the plot. Ryuji could have very well been an ordinary Japanese high school kid and encountering Rose, Oynx, Maruga, and the others would have played off exactly the same, but my guess is they felt that would be too much like Shakugan no Shana, which brought the supernatural to the normal world, even though it was always there. The basis for this is, even with Society and the Breakers, they played no important role in Ryuji and Rose’s relationship other than he had the latent power to fight her aggressors, and “engage” with her should he need more power. The whole story revolved around understanding Rose and her previous encounter with Ryuji, but even that was barely explained nor did we see nothing beyond the backs of his parents in the end. Onyx avoids the middle of the series only to come back, pussy-whip our protag into giving up his girl, and then ultimately be beaten in a one-shot POWER OF LOVE move at the end. There was little suspense, little buildup, and little conflict, it took Ryuji what, three seconds to realize he was a douche for letting her go? Dragon Crisis is about a teenage faggot and his older sister who encounter a goddamn dragon, and spend twelve whole episodes trying to figure out what she means to him. Everything else is fluffy slice-of-life service to keep you interested in the weak plot long enough to find out what happens, only to be Kubo-style trolled in the end and open the door for a second season that might do the franchise proper, or at least that’s what Kampfer fags want you to believe.
Title: Dragon Crisis
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible, Underwater
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 6
Favorite Character: Ai
Least Favorite Character: Ryuji
Favorite Dragon Maruga
Underdog Character of the Series Misaki, poor kid got cunt-blocked by Rose the entire series and honestly, she at least had a personality
Why.jpg? I knew from the first few episodes that this wasn’t going to end well, and I stuck with it because a few episodes were in fact good, or they seemed to go someplace, and they would ruin it the next. Overall, it simply lacked consistency. Kudos to you all who like it though.
Toaru Majutsu no Index II comes to a close and it was an awesome ride from start to finish. My concern for lack of Accelerator in the series was answered with the last half, and his inclusion into GROUP made for an interesting finale. One of the interesting things about Index was it was a little rocky to start, as I recall watching the first series and not understanding what was going on, but after watching both series and Railgun, it’s a damn interesting world of magicians and espers and everything in between, and they included some fanservice and comedy as well to offset the battles and action. I’m working on catching up with the novels and awaiting a third season, as they no doubt will do, and really, they can keep making more of this series as much as they want, always up for MISAKA says MISAKA says, TouMAN, Index CHOMP, and Accelerator.
Title: Toaru Majutsu no Index II
Sub Group I Watched: Ayako, UTW
Episodes: 24
Rating (1-10): 8
Favorite Character: Last Order
Least Favorite Character: Awaki
Favorite Catholic Church Sister: Angelene
Kanzaki ;_; There was clearly not enough of her in this series except for the fanservice parts, but honestly, I can live with that. Still, didn’t need so much Styil.
Why No MISAKA Sisters Love? While they made a few appearances, my only complaint was not enough action for this girls. Plenty of Last Order, but not a lot of Sisters action, especially in the end, but keeping with the plot of the novels, you understand why.
Now for this week’s reviews on currently airing series:
Yumekui Merry 12 trolls you once more as Yumeji vs Mistletine Round 2 ends in a still-shot showdown after she takes out Engi and Merry. I doubt he will accomplish anything, unless he intends to drive that sword through rice fucker instead, but I expect Merry to go berserk like the last time and probably awaken as some sort of dream demon nullification thing, because I am pretty sure no one established that the people she removed demons from early on lost their dreams, only they realized who they were. I dunno. Either way, shaping up to be an awesome finale.
GOSICK 11 resumes the series this week with a little glimpse into why Grevil went from pretty-boy to pretty-ridiculous, along with some more backstory on the relationship between Grevil and Victorique as other bits of chaos swirl around. The “Grey Wolf” moniker of Grevil’s has come up a little more now, possibly hinting towards another mini-arc that explores Victorique’s unique abilities in solving cases, or how Kujo will be the key to unlocking her past. Either way, this series is starting to get a little more interesting after a somewhat cookie-cutter first half.
The last two of the season to end are Yumekui Merry next week and Super Robot Taisen OG: The Inspector this week. GOSICK runs for 24 episodes and goes into this season. The official list I am following for this season includes:
Moshidora
X-MEN
Dog Days
Hanasaku Iroha
Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi
Steins;Gate
A Channel
Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
Hidan no Aria
Sket Dance
As of this writing, X-Men still does not have a sub, and Himatsubushi-Ayako has a quite large (almost 900mb) sub of Dog Days I am currently downloading. Horriblesubs has confirmed on their site they are doing Hanasaku Iroha, Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi, and Sket Dance. gg has not announced anything that I can find, and I am too lazy (hint, cool people can let me know) to find out specifics on anything else. No idea when Madoka’s final two episodes will air either, sometime this month is all I have gotten at the moment, and it rather sucks given that everything else is finished, but given how some of the series had somewhat lackluster finishes, I can only hope the extra time will make this the best series ending of the season.
The next couple of weeks will be a little odd, as the premiere dates are all across the week this season as opposed to the majority being on Friday before, with Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko starting on the 15th, so I’ll likely be using the time to do some internal cleanup on the site and my Dropbox folders, which are messy with images and shit from this past season, and maybe put out some new Saimoe related news as I missed a chunk of the ISML preliminary coverage.
Or I will just play more Pokemon White. Always a good decision.
One Comment