Mochine Verhadit

Big week for new shows, five new shows from my list (actually four and one addition) to preview, and they’re pretty good, so you know, that’s a plus and everything.

That’s right, kids, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai back with NEXT, complete with more of that wonderful Neighbor’s Club fun you’ve come to appreciate. Can’t say the formula will be any different or not, frankly it will probably be the same as last season, but this is a show you watch for the lighter side of just about everything, or the characters within, specifically Yozora, Meat, and KUKUKU. There are many hints being tossed in of a Yozora-Sena affair, mostly if you believe Sena fingering herself to Yozora’s scent and pictures of her means something, that and the ED animation. Poor KUKUKU though. She’ll be heartbroken to be passed up.

TLDR Watch This: Meat, KUKUKU, the naughty mind of Rika
TLDR Don’t Watch This: If you hate life
Sub Group: Commie
First Rating: 8

I have to say, I was not expecting the tone this show set in the first half of the episode. Kotoura-san is billed as a comedy and romance, and from every angle you believe it will just not take itself seriously, but to set up a character that can read minds in the first ten minutes? I hate to re-use the tired, old, cliche line of “With great power comes great responsibility” but clearly Kotoura didn’t have wise old Uncle Ben around to let her know that reading minds and blurting out things to people can lead to tragic consequences. Honestly, I am glad they chose this route, and showed us before launching into the lighter-fare of the show, because I think it’s important to know where the character came from and the difficulty she overcomes, even if it means having to defend herself from mental rape by sweet, innocent Yoshihisa.

TLDR Watch This: If you hope a bus hits Kotoura’s mother at some point in the show, steamy mental sex
TLDR Don’t Watch This: You were mind raped by a esper, you think I thought the first ten minutes was DEEP.
Sub Group: Horrible
First Rating: 8

Oh SHAFT, sweet, sweet SHAFT, once again you’ve given us something nearly as absurd and eccentric as Madoka in the form of Sasami-san@Gabaranai (Sasami-san@Unmotivated). Never mind the cast, which includes hikkimori Sasami, her faceless brother, and three sisters who he attends the same school as, one being a teacher the same as him, presumably. Let’s just cover the crazy backgrounds, scene changes, things warping and melting around, and all the crazy shit you remember from Madoka. Yeah, that. Now add the characters. Truth be told, as impressive as this episode was, and it was impressive, it’s too premature for me to call it AOTY 2013, not by a long shot. Assuming SHAFT didn’t blow their entire budget on the chocolate scene, each episode of this show is going to have to top the next for me to consider it anime of anything 2013.

TLDR Watch This: You expect Homura to pop out of nowhere and shotgun a bitch, Sasami’s sweet rig
TLDR Don’t Watch This: If you are, quote, tripping balls
Sub Group: gg
First Rating: 8

Set sail for booty town, gentleman and gentleman, Vividred Operation is going to ass it up good and hard. Despite that, this was a hell of an opening episode for a show that promises us some Strike Witches-like awesome, and plenty of cliches are in here, including familiar scenes from Strike Witches like climbing trees for animals. The premise isn’t anything to hit home over, it’s been done by Witches, Eva, Sky Girls, Godannar, Lagrange, you name it. Aliens come to invade Earth, Earth responds with crazy weapon designed for cute girls to pilot/use by the main character’s living or dead relative. This one is living. In a squirrel. So there is that. But you get an obligatory transform sequence that ain’t half bad, and a scene we only wished happened in Symphogear, so this one might go places. Or we hope so.

TLDR Watch This: BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS
TLDR Don’t Watch This: If you’re a tits man. So far, not looking good on that front.
Sub Group: Commie
First Rating: 8

Last, but not least, a show I added to the roster due to the terribly short nature of Ai Mai Mi, is KyoAni’s Tamako Market, a SoL show about Tamako, the daughter of a Mochi shop owner in a shopping arcade. I’m not sure what else to say, that really is kind of the crux of the show, she goes to school, and comes home to a shopping arcade and her family’s mochi business, only there is this strange talking bird who proclaims to be from a faraway village in search of a bride for his princess. He fattens up on mochi, random hijinks, hilarity ensues. I come to expect KyoAni things from a KyoAni show. That’s okay by me.

TLDR Watch This: names containing mochi, GITAH face
TLDR Don’t Watch This: If you like your groups with more or less than four
Sub Group: Commie
First Rating: 7

Other posts on the horizon to look out for, I’ve been watching Dragonball for some ungodly reason, and decided to grab and watch Kai. It’s pretty good, and not being jesus long really helps me not have ADD and pan through the episodes a bunch, even though I am just because I’ve seen the first half a million times, but I could never sit down and watch all of Cell and Buu, which is silly because Cell is probably the best saga out of the entirety of Z, if only for SSJ2 Gohan alone, fuck. I also downloaded GT. I know, >GT but I thought as I have never watched it, I’ll give it a fair shot. At least until I can find the original Dragonball to watch.