Anime Roundup
Jan. 29th, 2011 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teddywolfI have been watching some simulcast subtitled anime over at Crunchyroll over the past several months. It's taken up a fair bit of my online media time and I have been pleased as punch. It is very nice to see anime where I can hear the original voices and original voice-acting, see a good translation and do it nearly the same time the citizens of Japan do. I pay a bit extra for that privilege, along with no commercials. The most anybody pays for that with the anime is $7 a month. Alternately you can wait and watch most of these free a week later with commercials, except for Fairy Tale.
Bleach has been running on Crunchyroll. The stuff on Cartoon Network is about 2 years old, near as I can tell, and just might be more filler. Admittedly, though, the series is starting to remind me of Dragon Ball Z with the near-constant fighting and the sudden power-ups. DBZ at least has the occasional pun tossed in; Bleach does fanservice for the boys instead, especially with Rangiku. I'm looking for some resolution here.
Naruto Shippuden is running here as well, and again more advanced than you can find on DisneyXD. I have to say that the dub job for this series and the original Naruto is actually amazingly good, especially given how many voices sound so similar between the Japanese original and the English dub. However, I am currently annoyed with current Shippuden. They have been running backstory filler set in the time of the original series for Twenty. Straight. Episodes. Part of me wonders if they will ever get back to the main storyline enough to finish the series. If the writers needed a break to figure out how to advance things, fine, but they could have taken a break instead. Also, at times they have let the animation quality suffer. Not cool.
Koreha Zombie Desuka is a new series. The protagonist, a high school student, has been turned into a zombie. He's not the traditional zombie in that he has his brain and his memories and still moves fine; nor is he a modern zombie who infects anybody he bites or claws. I am looking to see where this one goes. It's a harem anime - he was living alone as his parents always travel but quickly got one, then two, then three girls who said, "I'm living here now!" There's fighting, magic, humor, some crossdressing, some reasonable fanservice and so far good plot. I'm looking forward to more. Did I mention the chainsaws?
Dragon Crisis! is also new. The Earth is much like ours, but magic exists in the shadows and dragons walk undetected among men. A young teenage who has great potential to use magical artifacts gets hauled out of class by his (rather sexy) female cousin to help her recover a "precious", the codeword for any magical artifact. She does this for a living. Much to their surprise the precious they found this time was... a young female dragon, who is utterly smitten with the young teen. There is potential for cross-species romance here. The cousin does seem to like sexually teasing the protagonist a bit. Make of that what you will. All told I am looking forward to more.
Fairy Tale has been going on since 2009 or so, and is don by the same people who did Rave Master. Hopefully this series will get to come to a conclusion. There is a lot of battling here, but so far they've kept each battle to a maximum of one episode with perhaps an introduction to it in the previous one. I can live with that. There is plot, there are touches of humor, and there's a world with magic and some hints of technology. If you liked Plue in Rave Master, well, sometimes you get to see him here too. And apparently it is indeed the same Plue. Current plot: keep the dark guild Oracion Seis (six) from unleashing magical destruction and chaos on the world one hamlet at a time. The flying cats who carry people are cool. This series is only for people who pay the site, and even then they do not keep an archive past the previous four episodes per contract. This makes me sad.
Rio - Rainbow Gate! is a new series about the gambling adventures of a beautiful young dealer named Rio. Before I go any farther I want to say I have watched four episodes and plan on never watching another one. Now that I have that off my chest, I will say that the animation is very good, the stories are generally engaging, and the protagonist Rio is extremely sweet. Loads of fanservice for boys who like it, much of it even reasonable. Opening and closing music is too electronic poppy for me - meh. The reason I will not watch another episode is her boss, the Owner. He is routinely dumping Rio into games without her permission and sets them up so if she loses she might lose her clothes in public. She is not keen on this. And yet she still works for the pig, who never seems to garner any bad consequences for his piggishness. I gave it a few episodes to see if it would improve. No. Just... no. I will not put up with behavior like that in my anime, especially when it is simply rewarded.
Mitsudomoe 2 is, as you can guess, the second series of these characters. Take three young sisters, tweenage or so, and make them somewhat like early South Park, and that's about what you find here. Animation quality is fine, story just isn't it for me. I've lost that snark, or at least time to revel in such. It should appeal to some people though.
Gosick is the last title here, but definitely not the least. It's another new series and it has excellent animation. Plotline: in 1924, there's a long-standing small country between Italy and France where a young Japanese man has gone to high school. He is somewhat feared in his class because of his dark hair and eyes, reminding his classmates of the ghost story of the Dark Reaper. One day he enters the library and meets a small blonde girl at the top. Her name: Victorique (pronounced 'vik-tor-i-kah'). She's small and a bit dainty in a Victorian style, but she also has a mind like Sherlock Holmes and does in fact occasionally chomp on a small empty ivory pipe. No magic so far, no superscience, no robots, no fanservice, appropriate tech for 1924, and a simply excellent series so far.
There are several new series there I have not had a chance to review. Time might be a bit fleeting for that. The series I will recommend wholeheartedly are Gosick, Dragon Crisis!, and Koreha Zombie Desuka. I enjoy Fairy Tale as well, but there is no way to currently see the backstory there so you might not want to come in at the middle. Bleach looks to be possibly at least heading toward a conclusion of the current storyline and it might just end the series. If you like South Park go see Mitsudomoe 2. You can skip current Naruto Shippuden without missing out on any current plot and this is probably the case until Episode 200 in a month or so. Rio - Rainbow Gate! gets my definitive thumbs down.
Bleach has been running on Crunchyroll. The stuff on Cartoon Network is about 2 years old, near as I can tell, and just might be more filler. Admittedly, though, the series is starting to remind me of Dragon Ball Z with the near-constant fighting and the sudden power-ups. DBZ at least has the occasional pun tossed in; Bleach does fanservice for the boys instead, especially with Rangiku. I'm looking for some resolution here.
Naruto Shippuden is running here as well, and again more advanced than you can find on DisneyXD. I have to say that the dub job for this series and the original Naruto is actually amazingly good, especially given how many voices sound so similar between the Japanese original and the English dub. However, I am currently annoyed with current Shippuden. They have been running backstory filler set in the time of the original series for Twenty. Straight. Episodes. Part of me wonders if they will ever get back to the main storyline enough to finish the series. If the writers needed a break to figure out how to advance things, fine, but they could have taken a break instead. Also, at times they have let the animation quality suffer. Not cool.
Koreha Zombie Desuka is a new series. The protagonist, a high school student, has been turned into a zombie. He's not the traditional zombie in that he has his brain and his memories and still moves fine; nor is he a modern zombie who infects anybody he bites or claws. I am looking to see where this one goes. It's a harem anime - he was living alone as his parents always travel but quickly got one, then two, then three girls who said, "I'm living here now!" There's fighting, magic, humor, some crossdressing, some reasonable fanservice and so far good plot. I'm looking forward to more. Did I mention the chainsaws?
Dragon Crisis! is also new. The Earth is much like ours, but magic exists in the shadows and dragons walk undetected among men. A young teenage who has great potential to use magical artifacts gets hauled out of class by his (rather sexy) female cousin to help her recover a "precious", the codeword for any magical artifact. She does this for a living. Much to their surprise the precious they found this time was... a young female dragon, who is utterly smitten with the young teen. There is potential for cross-species romance here. The cousin does seem to like sexually teasing the protagonist a bit. Make of that what you will. All told I am looking forward to more.
Fairy Tale has been going on since 2009 or so, and is don by the same people who did Rave Master. Hopefully this series will get to come to a conclusion. There is a lot of battling here, but so far they've kept each battle to a maximum of one episode with perhaps an introduction to it in the previous one. I can live with that. There is plot, there are touches of humor, and there's a world with magic and some hints of technology. If you liked Plue in Rave Master, well, sometimes you get to see him here too. And apparently it is indeed the same Plue. Current plot: keep the dark guild Oracion Seis (six) from unleashing magical destruction and chaos on the world one hamlet at a time. The flying cats who carry people are cool. This series is only for people who pay the site, and even then they do not keep an archive past the previous four episodes per contract. This makes me sad.
Rio - Rainbow Gate! is a new series about the gambling adventures of a beautiful young dealer named Rio. Before I go any farther I want to say I have watched four episodes and plan on never watching another one. Now that I have that off my chest, I will say that the animation is very good, the stories are generally engaging, and the protagonist Rio is extremely sweet. Loads of fanservice for boys who like it, much of it even reasonable. Opening and closing music is too electronic poppy for me - meh. The reason I will not watch another episode is her boss, the Owner. He is routinely dumping Rio into games without her permission and sets them up so if she loses she might lose her clothes in public. She is not keen on this. And yet she still works for the pig, who never seems to garner any bad consequences for his piggishness. I gave it a few episodes to see if it would improve. No. Just... no. I will not put up with behavior like that in my anime, especially when it is simply rewarded.
Mitsudomoe 2 is, as you can guess, the second series of these characters. Take three young sisters, tweenage or so, and make them somewhat like early South Park, and that's about what you find here. Animation quality is fine, story just isn't it for me. I've lost that snark, or at least time to revel in such. It should appeal to some people though.
Gosick is the last title here, but definitely not the least. It's another new series and it has excellent animation. Plotline: in 1924, there's a long-standing small country between Italy and France where a young Japanese man has gone to high school. He is somewhat feared in his class because of his dark hair and eyes, reminding his classmates of the ghost story of the Dark Reaper. One day he enters the library and meets a small blonde girl at the top. Her name: Victorique (pronounced 'vik-tor-i-kah'). She's small and a bit dainty in a Victorian style, but she also has a mind like Sherlock Holmes and does in fact occasionally chomp on a small empty ivory pipe. No magic so far, no superscience, no robots, no fanservice, appropriate tech for 1924, and a simply excellent series so far.
There are several new series there I have not had a chance to review. Time might be a bit fleeting for that. The series I will recommend wholeheartedly are Gosick, Dragon Crisis!, and Koreha Zombie Desuka. I enjoy Fairy Tale as well, but there is no way to currently see the backstory there so you might not want to come in at the middle. Bleach looks to be possibly at least heading toward a conclusion of the current storyline and it might just end the series. If you like South Park go see Mitsudomoe 2. You can skip current Naruto Shippuden without missing out on any current plot and this is probably the case until Episode 200 in a month or so. Rio - Rainbow Gate! gets my definitive thumbs down.
