neko's thinkbox

Inspired by Brett’s last post, I decided to do something I have always announced yet never done before: a preview, or more appropriately, my “first impressions”.

While others are already dishing out summer previews, I figure it is just a little late for a preview per se. But since I haven’t started watching any of the current shows yet, it thought I should share my first impressions with you guys. (And probably get rebuked by some for badmouthing a series that might turn out epic. Especially K-ON fanboys. Oh, I’m so looking forward to it :D)

Since there are approximately 20 shows to take care of, and since I don’t want it to become an unprecedented case of TL;DR, I’ll do it in 4 posts. Which makes… uh, do the maths yourself.

I really don’t know where to start, so I’ll just go through the list in alphabetical order, numbers first.
Note that I will not list ALL the spring series, either because I didn’t watch the prequel (e.g. Hayate no Gotoku S2), or because I already have no interest in watching it^[1] (e.g. Dragon Ball Kai).

List of series in Part One:

• 07-Ghost
• Asura Cryin’
• Basquash!
• Cross Game
• Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood^[2]
• Hanasakeru Seishounen

07-Ghost

Who in their sane mind would bring porn magazines into class?

Who in their sane mind would bring porn magazines into class?

This first episode is relatively okay. It’s hard to adhere to yet another gothic church/army setting with magic/fantasy elements, and a gifted main character who has had a cruel past/his parents and family killed, an overpowered nemesis, etc; but I wasn’t very disappointed after this episode. The character design was okay. The ep was a little too fast-paced though, which made the different parts of the story look quite simplistic, especially that friendship concept between Teito and Mikage.

At some point, I imagined it’d turn out to be some kind of Boys Love stuff, not only because Mikage seemed to have the hots for TeitoAlmost expected him to lean over and hug + kiss him., but because there were so few females – pretty unusual for anime nowadays.^[3] But apparently there will be girls too later in the series, at least from what I can see in the OP and ED. Besides, Mikage seemed to be the type of disposable side character that would die in the first episode, but now it might turn out to be the usual “best friends become fated rivals” development… Reminds me of Code Geass.

Not sure if I’m going to watch this past ep1. Well, perhaps ep2 or so. We’ll see.

Asura Cryin’

So exploitable. Try touching it! ...Wait, you cant. Hold on, why would a ghost even need sleep???

So exploitable. Try touching it! …Wait, you cant. Hold on, why would a ghost even need sleep???

I like the concept of having a ghost float around you all the time, especially a female one, forcing you to do entertainingThe best thing is, you often encounter people talking to themselves anywhere. And this is exactly your reaction. soliloquies. Besides, Misao kind of reminds me of adult NanohaTakamachi Nanoha from Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha MelonS., and Kurosaki Shuri reminds me of CielCiel aka. Curry aka. Pooper-senpai from Tsukihime (P.S. There is no Tsukihime anime.). Hisui, however, is not what I had expectedCeci n’est pas Hisui.. But that’s me obsessing over a certain maid yet again.^[4] :|

Yup, story looks promising, although a little confusing. Plane crash. Ghost. Suitcase. Shrine maiden with heterochromia and double D cupsSeriously, what the fuck? Poor girl having to bear such a load. Also, yes, I do like them small, tyvm. chokes Tomoharu. Church appears. Mafia (?) appears. Ciel lookalike intervenes. Redundant chatter over the box, just open that darn thing already. Useless mecha bearing the most beautiful name emerges, what for? And all of this for a sea of black matter and a full-sized mecha? And the house is STILL STANDING??
Joking aside, I think this is going to be an interesting series. Can’t really say why, but yeah, it’s the first impression of mine. Perhaps I just find that Ann tomboy girl cute. Or even Misao, whose real body must be sponging up in a huge LCL tank.^[5]

I like how it tried, but did not fully use fanservice here. For now, at least. Sometimes, my eyes would shift towards Misao’s miniskirt and would expect to see a hint of pantsu, well nopes. And while others would be disappointed, well that makes me happy. Because deliberately trying to make anime more interesting by appealing to my animal instincts with such cheap stuff really aggravates me.

Basquash!

Basquaaaaaaaaaaash! This name is probably meant to be said, no, yelled out loud! BASQUAAAASHHHH!!

Basquaaaaaaaaaaash! This name is probably meant to be said, no, yelled out loud! BASQUAAAASHHHH!!

Wow. This anime is probably the biggest surprise I’ve had up until now. It’s awesome in almost every aspect: the fantastic story, the urban (graffiti) setting, the likable characters and their clean design, the flawless animation. The whole thing is quite over the top, which makes it extremely funny and enjoyable to watch. If anything, I would reproach Miyuki’s humongous jiggly boobsGirls sure must hate the law of gravity., but there are also so over the top (well, almost) that I can enjoy it’s frivolousness.

Throughout the episode, I had many bursts of laughter, often caused by Dan’s pet (eating the petOM NOM NOM OM NOM Dan bought for his sister Coco xD!), or Dan himself (screaming Big Bust! at Miyuki). I also enjoyed the epicness of the moment when Dan got into the court and made history by dribbling the ball with a Bigfoot for the first time. Just what did people think basketball was??

I absolutely loved this first episode, and I will definitely watch more of this quality anime. I’m interested to see what will happen in that post-jail era, and I’m also looking forward to having more of that cute blondeShe is cute, no doubt about that. And an almost-loli, too! Perfect!.^[6]
Oh and I believe the theme Fly Me to the Moon is quite fitting. Don’t ask me whyFly me to the moon and let me play among the stars… Unforgettable..^[7]

Cross Game

Lovely scene.

Lovely scene.

I haven’t watched nor played much Baseball in my life^[8], but honestly, I couldn’t really give a hoot about it either. Last time I watched a random ep of One Outs, and I was, yeah, pretty boring.^[9] Now, I thought this anime would bore me out as well, but, no. Not at all. Actually, I am most likely going to continue watching Cross Game.

The reason why is simple: This first episode made such a great impression on me with its outstanding emotional story. You see, there are many ways of depicting and explaining the loss of a childhood friend in a story. Sometimes, as important as such an event may have been to the main character, it’s just a mere flashback, or it’s barely worth a quick mention. But here, we are entirely taken into the daily life of this incredibly cute couple, and the sweet, innocent love that binds these kids. The story is touching in its simplicity, and by the end of the episode you feel completely attached to these realistic characters… which makes it all the more harder to accept the passing away of such a bright girl. This only episode managed to move me to tears, especially at the parts when Kou remembered Wakaba, and realized that it is much easier to bear the pain when crying.

I expected a sports series, but I got slice of life and romance. There wasn’t much talk about baseball per se, apart from Kou’s batting practices, and that small match he dragged himself in, and I can imagine it will pick up in the next few episodes – but I don’t mind it at all anymore. I want to see now how this young boy will evolve in his life after this tragedy, and apparently the next episode will be placed a couple of years in the future already. It’s probably going to focus on a Kou-Aoba romance in the making, and I guess she’s a tsundere and/or a tomboy, which might make things interesting.
Oh and I like the rather old-school character design. Proves that a great series doesn’t need to be exaggeratedly SD/moe-fied as is the custom nowadays.

Hanasakeru Seishounen

I'm so bored I can't even think of a witty comment.

I’m so bored I can’t even think of a witty comment.

Ugh. Boring. Uninteresting episode that’s completely unrelated to the actual story, which apparently is a “game” to pick a groom out of a handful of guys. So it’s some kind of love polygon romance comedy something, and that’s old and boring, especially in this case. Plus the soundtrack sounds completely dull, like from an eroge from 10 years ago or something. Definitely not gonna watch this.

Besides, the main character might very well be a Claymore in disguiseSilver eyes. That’s as far as the comparison goes, though. Note Kajika’s long neck. You giraffe..

—

Allright, that’s it for this post, the next one contains a couple of big names already, which I shall watch and judge. Stay tuna!

1. Either because it sucks balls or because it will span 5 years and 29847 episodes. [↩]
2. I realized I haven’t watched The Conqueror of Shamballa yet, and I can’t be bothered to do it now, so I’ll pass on this series for now. [↩]
3. Not necessarily a bad thing though! I like stuff that goes against the trends. REBEL! [↩]
4. HEY! It could as well just have been Mech-Hisui!! [↩]
5. Yeah, such water/matter-filled columns containing people always remind me of NGE. Hence LCL. [↩]
6. I loved how she cried tears of joyI almost thought she was sexually aroused. Maybe she was, after all? I wouldn’t mind. as the whole stadium was crumbling. [↩]
7. Screw you for that, NGE. Screw you. [↩]
8. mostly because of the poor/inexistent TV coverage of it here in Europe [↩]
9. Except for the main guy who looked like Pierrot from Yakitate!! Japan, or Hisoka from Hunter X Hunter. [↩]