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Winter January 2008 Anime Impressions

10 01 2008

The first month of 2008, second half of the winter season, and as a tradition wannabe, here are my early impressions of the first 15 new anime after watching/scanning through the first episode. In chronicle order, from oldest to newest sorted by air dates, click on title for screenshots.

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Best

RECOMMENDED

PASSABLE

FAIR

DROPPED

Worst

Sisters of Wellber Dai ni Maku: A sequel of "Sisters of Wellber". I never watched the first one before as it was pretty bad and unfortunately, the sequel doesn’t seem to be an exception. Tough luck for the first new anime of the year. [DROPPED]

Rosario to Vampire: Adapted from a manga. I am quite a follower with the manga and I can’t help but think that, the anime adaption could have done better. The first episode was like a shorten version of the first chapter with unnecessary details (transformation sequence, panty shot, tentacle, etc.) added in merely for fan service. Fan service wasn’t bad but it made the anime felt rather more overly unrealistic and lacking the more important details. The dialogues between Tsukune an Moka were hyped up quite a bit as well when you consider that they just met not long ago. I know this is an anime but well, the manga is just better so. Anyway, the visual was well done and the music was quite funny to listen to. [PASSABLE]

Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de ~They Are My Noble Masters~: This is just another mediocre anime or you can say that this is an extremely skimmed down version of Hayate, cheaply done. It’s a butler show alright but it’s nowhere hear as good as Hayate. They both have a similar cause though, problematic family. Nothing impressive. [FAIR]

H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~: Adapted from a game. Like most other game based anime, this is just another cheap, boring adaption. My first impression was that, wah, this is one very scary anime. The bash up screen scared me, the girl scared me, the guy scared me and especially, the horse scared me. Everything about this anime is just decent, and unless you’re a fan of the game, then, I really don’t recommend this show. [DROPPED]

Hatenkou Yuugi: Adapted from a shoujo manga. This anime does feel a bit cheap at first but it’s not bad actually, the characters did caught my attention, especially the girl. Lets see, this anime is in the range of Ghost Hunt or Tactics, one of those anime that deal with ghost and such, I think. Hopefully, the following episodes will be more interesting. [PASSABLE]

Persona ~Trinity Soul~: Set 10 years latter after Persona 3, a Playstation 2 game. I played the game before and it was good despite the fact that I haven’t finish it yet. The anime disappointed me a bit, I thought that battle was going to have a fast paced action feel to it like the game and I was wrong (for now at least), it was pretty slow and static. It could be that I was expecting to much from the first episode. There seems to be just one returnee from the game so far, the long-nose old man, forgot the name. Lets wait for the next episode. [PASSABLE]

Major 4th Season (no screenshots): Adapted from a shounen manga, the third sequel of "Major". Feel just like the first 3 seasons, takes place in America now. I like the first 3 seasons, not because of an outstanding visual, character or story but because of the spirit, the spirit of baseball ;]). Recommended only if you like the first three seasons. [RECOMMENDED]

Shigofumi: Adapted from a light novel. Wah, this is one big surprise, I knew it was coming but didn’t expect it to be aired this month. It’s a whole lots better than I thought too, the story, the character. This series is a bit like Shinigami no Ballad except that the girl (Fumika) doesn’t take life here, her job is to deliver the last message of a deceased person to his or her loved ones in form of a letter called Shigofumi. I am not entirely sure how it really work but I think that if the person who suppose to receive the letter open it before the "deceased" person’s death, that person end up killed by the "deceased" person. <–does that make any sense? Unless I misunderstood the whole episode (poor Jap skill). Twisted end. [RECOMMENDED]

True Tears: Adapted from a game. This is a rare great game based anime, in the rank of Air, Kanon, Clannad, in short, Key’s stuffs. I knew it was going to be good after hearing the Eufonius’s song, "Reflectia" early in the Preview. Despite it being game based, none of the characters look anything like the ones from the game to me, and in opinion, the whole anime looks better than the game, from visual, character to possibly story and music (never played the game before). This series does have a very addictive OP&ED songs to listen to btw. Looking forward to the next episode. [RECOMMENDED]

Zoku Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei: Adapted from a manga, a sequel of "Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei". This is the source of the "I am in despair" phenomenon. I can’t really say much here, you have to watch it to feel it for yourself. You got to have a fairly good knowledge and a bit (or a lot) of Japanese to understand most of the jokes and humors though. No particularly theme, brilliant visual. [RECOMMENDED]

Porfy no Nagai Tabi (no screenshots): I got nothing against this anime really but I dislike it. It got good visual, fine music, decent characters and a boring story. Yes, a boring story, there is nothing interesting in the first episode there. It was so normal and slow that I decided to dropped it half way. [DROPPED]

Minami-ke Okawari: Adapted from a manga. This not a sequel of the "Minami-ke" that ended a week ago, this is another adaption animated by Asread instead of Doumu, still have the same voice actors though. Asread was responsible for a number of very good visual anime and this Okawari Minami-ke is not an exception, it actually looks better than the other one. Everything about this anime is great, from the characters to the jokes. [RECOMMENDED]

Gunslinger Girl ~Il Teatrino~: Adapted from a manga, a sequel of "Gunslinger Girl". I was looking forward to this and I was disappointed. Artland did a way less than expected job to the animation, completely different from their previous work, Mushi-shi. Everything from the guns’ details, characters’ designs to the overall animation, voice actors were way more worse than the prequel by Madman. The serious tone, atmosphere and color are no longer exist, they instead, felt rather cheap in now. This sequel features the Pinocchio arc and will have a quite drastic end. The opening is pretty good, sung by KOKIA. [PASSABLE]

Aria the Origination: Adapted from two seinen manga, Aqua and Aria, a sequel of the Aria series. Never watch any of the previous series before since they all have a pretty boring story and this one isn’t an exception. [DROPPED]

Ookami to Koushinryou: Or more commonly known as Spice and Wolf, adapted from a manga. The manga is great, Horo is great and the anime is well, pretty good. It has good story, character and music and that all is enough to continue watching it. As for the ending song, it’s in English but I did not notice that at first, I wonder if it’s just me since I have to listen like ten times to figure out the lyric. Great OP&ED songs nonetheless. [RECOMMENDED]

[SS-Eclipse] Hayate no Gotoku! - 39 (1280x720 h264) [0CF5A9C0]02-tn

Well, that’s it, all the airing series this month that I wanted to check out. I might change my opinions at a later time, who knows. I might write something like this again when spring season arrived in April.