...what are you watching...

ACCA 1-2! builds an interesting world where a monarch rules 13 independent districts. Jean works for ACCA as a sort of government auditor who inspects the various districts. Madhouse still produces top-notch, visually interesting animation and this fits that bill. The episodes are a little sleepy. A day in the life of Jean in an unreal world should be more interesting that it appears. Episode 2 introduces us to his best friend who is spying on him since his bosses think Jean is planning a coup d'etat. Each district seems to have its specialized food and oddities which makes this intriguing despite the slow pacing.



Youjo Senki 1-3! The first episode shows us a seemingly psychotic little girl, Tanya, who is the most powerful mage in the army...like seriously, if she can blow up the enemy like that, why are there so many non-magical ground troops? Anyway, it's a crazy anime, but the first episode spent a little too much time on the army leaders just standing around talking 'army stuff'. In episode 2, we see Tanya in her former life as a ruthless Japanese businessman who lays off an employee. The employee pushes him onto an oncoming train. At his moment of death, he converses with 'God' and God decides to see if he will learn faith...or something like that. He is reincarnated into a magical little girl in an alternate Europe-like world in the midst of war. She still retains his former life's memories and moves up the ranks quickly.



3-gatsu no Lion 12-14! I usually enjoy Yuki's anime pop songs, but her new song has a little too much autotune and cuts off oddly. We pick up after Rei has recovered from his flu. He starts a new competition and we get to see some new players. I continue to love the detail in the animation; they really try to make Chica Umino drawings come to life.



Tales of Zestiria the X 13-15! picks up where it left off with Sorey traveling with Rose. The episode focuses on her general likability amongst the people of hometown, and her darker side as an assassin. We learn a little about Dezel the wind seraph who is loyal to Rose. So far, the 2nd season is rather lackluster.

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Saga 1! In the first episode of this season, Yukio heads off to pursue an exorcist-turned-demon who steals the Left Eye of the Impure King while Rin plus classmates go after the Right Eye in Kyoto. Hm, this is only mildly interesting despite the nicely animated episode. Other than Rin's cat, all the characters are stuck in a rather teenage-y drama. Dropped. Will not stick it out this season.

Spirit Pact 1! I would think that a Chinese-Japanese collaboration would be a tad more interesting, but this is pretty mediocre. A young pseudo-fortune teller gets hit and killed by a truck. He wakes up as a spirit, and a exorcist tries to recruit him because of his innate spiritual powers. I think this is trying to be a comedic version of Mirage of Blaze, but most of the jokes fail. The production was quite bad. Dropped.



Doukyuusei jmovie! was something I forgot to write about last year. It apparently was the first full-length BL anime movie shown in theaters....or that's what the internet says. Anyway, it's a standard boy-meets-boy/first love/opposites-attract story. The only conflict being that both boys have differing plans after they graduate. It's pretty charming and the highlight is that the anime captures the mangaka, Nakamura Asumiko's unique drawing style. ~8/10~ for a cute and sweet time-waster.

Ao no Exorcist: Kuro no Iede OVA! is about Rin's cat, Kuro. Rin makes Kuro mad. Kuro goes looking for food, and runs into various characters. Adorable & funny one-off episode. Kuro is the best cat mascot character after Nyanko-sensei.



Fate/Zero 6! Irisviel's driving is cute. Saber meets Caster. Kiritsugu strategically blows up Lancer and his Master...or at least thinks he has (excellent scene). Kirei has a conversation with Archer which gets him thinking about why he was chosen in the Grail fight. Smart plot-driving episode. Any chance that this production company will remake Fate/Stay Night (so that it is watchable)?

Hunter x Hunter 2011 6! features the gourmet hunters. They skip the sushi-making test and the spider egg test went a little differently. I don't think there was a updraft in the first version.

Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de 2! basically the same as episode 1. Cute, yet predictable. Dropped.

Wrapping up the summer season...

Ouran High School Host Club 11! the end (until the movie). Tamaki has to quit the club after the club's anniversary party when his grandmother interferes. He also tells Haruhi that she should leave the club. At the party, Kyouya is able to show the benefits of the club to Tamaki's grandmother; totally cracked up when Morinozuka was playing the harp with the girls' mothers fawning over him. And with a push from Haruhi, Tamaki stands up to his grandmother. ~8/10 rating~ The drama contained absurd acting and dialogue, and was actually funny. Yuusuke Yamamoto does an over-the-top job as Tamaki. Haruna Kawaguchi was cute as Haruhi. The supporting characters also did a decent job in their roles though sadly, the live-action BL fanservice was not convincing at all.

Ao no Exorcist 25! the end (until the movie). Well, Yukio, Rin and the black cat were cute. Satan was defeated by convenient logic and a couple sword slashes. ~7/10 rating~ The characters and production were great, but the story didn't make any sense when it diverged from the manga. The students had no training, and no growth in skill or strength, but defeated the big evils. Satan, Mephisto and the Vatican's plots were too flawed to be believable. Like Soul Eater, the anime just ran out of story to end satisfactorily. (will we get remakes in a few years?...zzz..)

Natsume Yuujinchou San 12! the end of another season. The reocurring youkai characters throw a party for Natsume. Natsume plays shadow tag with them, and finds them equally important as his human friends. Very sweet way to end this season. I gave the first two seasons 10/10s, but the animation quality suffered a little this season, so it gets a ~9/10 rating~ There's a couple good manga story arcs that the anime hasn't reached yet, so I look forward to season 4. :)

Ao no Exorcist 24! Yukio turning on his brother was fairly predictable, and both brothers 'beating' Satan with love was also predictable. I'm guessing that their mother didn't want Satan to kill off her children trying to reach their dream, but Satan tries to anyway. Never fear, Satan still has some big climax waiting for the boys in the next episode as he tries to bring hell onto Earth.

Tiger and Bunny 25! the end. I am thoroughly amused at how well they played that opening scene; glowy light and tears. And gotta love the little bit of doujinshi material that was thrown in at the end. ~10/10 rating~ for a well-balanced, excellent show. I'm pretty sure this was a family-oriented show as most of the story arcs were on the fun, light-hearted side where good always triumphs over evil. I thought the company-sponsored reality tv hero competition was a fresh idea--perfect for today's audiences. And even though the overall arcs were predictable, there were enough twists and humor to make every episode entertaining. I kinda want Yun Kouga's fanbook...


Ao no Exorcist 23! A flashback to Rin and Yukio's mother. I figured their mother somehow sympathized with Satan to have his kids if the mangaka ever wanted to make Satan a deeper, evil-for-a-reason character. So that part of the original anime story kinda makes sense, but the rest of the anime's developments are plain wtf.

Natsume Yuujinchou San 12! A story of how Natsume came to live with Touko and Shigeru. Not sure why, but it's always interesting to see how Natsume dealt with youkai before he met Nyanko-sensei. Great episode.

Tiger and Bunny 24! Talk about feeding fuel to the fire; is pixiv and nico exploding yet? Have to admit the episode was predictable; Kaede saving herself, Kotetsu sacrificing himself, the heroes choosing to believe in the duo. It was still fun to watch, and the fanservice made it better. Hope all is well next episode.

Ao no Exorcist 22! So there's a new pope and Yukio is named the new Paladin. Operation Jacob's Ladder is set in motion where the pope orders the exorcists to go on the offensive and kill all demons. As far as original anime ending, this is the overkill type. There's a Ghibli moment where Yukio kills the god of the forest/boar who is mad that they are killing his friends. Rin confronts Yukio when he goes after Rin's cat and gets sentenced to death. Overkill? Yes. Bad? Yess.

Ouran High School Host Club 8! was Nekozawa and Kurumi's story; not as funny or believable as the anime version. The episode also brought some of Tamaki's family background up. Tamaki's father was amusing to watch.

Towa no Quon 1 (out of six ~47 minute movies)! Randomly watched this because it's from Studio Bones and featured Hiroshi Kamiya voicing Quon. Another X-men-plotted show is born. There are humans who awaken with supernatural powers. Quon and his cabbage-loving friends try to save them and teach them how to control their powers. There's a dark organization that uses humanoid robots to try to capture the awakened humans. In movie 1, Quon saves a little boy who can make bubbles of void and a young girl with a magical voice. It's an uninspired story, but the animation production is nice. And the cabbage theme park was cute.

Tiger & Bunny 23! Again, Kotetsu cracks me up. Gotta love the interaction between him and Barnaby. Maverick decides to use an android robot to attack the heroes now that they've all got their memories back.

Ao no Exorcist 21! Throwing in some more character discrepancies and odd plot directions to finish up the series. Just as well. Although the manga has gone in an interesting direction, there isn't enough to feed the anime. At least the beginning of the anime got a large audience interested (judging by the way the Blue Exorcist manga has topped NYTimes sales ranking), but it's a little too bad this has gone the way of Soul Eater and the first Hagaren series. You'd think that the anime production team would realize that more DVD sales would be had if the end of the anime was as good as the beginning. Anyway, in this episode Yukio joins some anti-demon laboratory group after an older masked man gives him some sort of sob story. Rin apparently doesn't need training anymore.

A tad amused at the 48 hour hurricane news coverage on all local channels. Do they really need to cover every single tree that fell over? It's good that there wasn't significant damage, but funny to see the news teams scrambling to find something to talk about.



Tiger and Bunny 22! I enjoy how the seiyuu try to introduce the next episode's english title at the end. Kotetsu's seiyuu has given up trying to speak english. :) Good episode. Kaede's part was heart-warming, and the cgi was in top condition.

Ao no Exorcist 20! Yukio and Rin's monastery is attacked. Yukio really wants to be stronger than Rin to protect him, but Rin proves that he's ok on his own.

A little disappointed that the new Rurouni Kenshin series is a retelling of the Kyoto arc in OVA form, but hey, the Kyoto arc was pretty darn good.

Ao no Exorcist 19! is a very cute birthday filler.


Redline jmovie! is a fanboy's anime. The recent Madhouse production is about an intergalactic underground racing sport. 'Redline' is the ultimate race which is taking place on a planet where the inhabitants are a war-happy species who actually don't want the race taking place on their planet. So in addition to competing against each other, the racers have to defend themselves against their host. The main character is JP. He is nicknamed 'Sweet JP', since he does not use weapons against his competitors. There's not much story to the movie outside of the race and random fighting. JP mildly reminds me of Spike from Cowboy Bebop though it might be the lanky character design and big hair. The visuals are all sorts of impressive, and may be the only reason to watch this if you aren't inclined to watch testosterone-based action anime. It had the signature Madhouse rich and dark palette plus very detailed alien/monster designs. The animation was impressively fluid and entertainingly exaggerated. Pretty awesome overall. ~7/10 rating~ for visuals and simple story, but I doubt it's worth rewatching.

Tiger and Bunny 20! So fond of the clue-less hero. Maverick uses his memory-altering power to get Kotetsu out of the way. I hope Kotetsu's daughter gets to help save him.

Ao no Exorcist 18! Konekomaru is possessed. Rin saves him. This is an example of an anime full of promise slowly going down the drain.

Couple PVs for this season's anime themes:
Puffy's Sweet Drops PV - opening to Usagi Drop features that typical Japanese humor.
Fiction Junction's stone cold PV - opening to Sacred Seven features the group standing around posing their arms like Celine Dion.