11.16.07

Impressions - Fall Season

Posted in Impressions, Anime at 5:13 pm by RexRox

So the Fall Season’s at its halfway mark about now, with most series airing their sixth or seventh episode recently. It’s been a strange season, just like last season, with no really obvious excellent shows (beyond CLANNAD). I’ve been watching quite a few of the series (far from all) and feel like giving some basic comments on them all (seeing how I’m too lazy to blog them all individually). But first, some basic awards (for comparison purposes):

Best Show Overall: CLANNAD

• This was a real no-brainer. No other show has this level of comedy, characters, plot, hype, presentation or animation quality.

Best Comedy: Minami-ke

• This was a toss-up between Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun and Minami-ke. In the end I went for Minami-ke because it has a more consistent and less clichéd type of comedy.

Best Action: Shakugan no Shana Second

• I’ll be honest, this is the only action show I’m watching this season. I just couldn’t bear watching some of the others and the descriptions of others just didn’t pique my interest (like Gundam 00 and Dragonaut)

Best Drama: Myself;Yourself

• BLue Drop was immediately out due to slow subbers, and CLANNAD doesn’t focus that much on the drama so much as the romance, family and comedy themes. Plus M;Y is pretty darn good for drama, though far from the best.

- - - - -

Blue Drop - Unfortunately, due to slow subbers, I haven’t watched more than the first 4 episodes of this. It’s an okay series but far from stellar. It’s biggest weakness is its ridiculously slow pace - we’ve covered next to nothing in four episodes; it could’ve been covered in two if need be or three if they wanted to retain all the character development scenes. It still presents some interesting mystery and drama plus good characters. The animation quality is very good and so is the art. I simply wish they would get things done a fair bit quicker - it moves slower than M;Y, though that’s also due to the fact I’ve seen more episodes of it. I give it a 6.5/10 so far.

Myself;Yourself - Better than School Days (because I hated that show) and Blue Drop, but far from perfect. It seems to suffer from diversions to the loli character which serves no appreciable purpose for the plot (so far), and dips into mystery just as much as the drama, romance and comedy. The series has virtually no idea of what it’s meant to be, but still manages to be pretty good. The biggest weakness is how easy it is to guess the mysteries - it’s horribly predictable, though not terribly clichéd. The quality has been rising sharply lately, despite the diversion to Hinako, and although the pace is still slow, I expect that things will become a fair bit more coherent. If it figures out exactly what it is, it will do very well, but so far it gets a 7.5/10.

Shakugan no Shana Second - Urgh. This show had a fair bit of promise but quickly became bogged down with the romance side of things and forgot all else, even the fact that Shana should already know her bloody feelings. I feel that if they’d skipped or compressed the anime down by about two episodes, it would be much better, but they haven’t. I can only hope things take the turn for the better like they did in the first season after the 10th episode. So far, I give a 7/10.

CLANNAD - KyoAni’s done it again. They keep churning out high quality series that tantalise multiple tastes that feature an excellent protagonist supported by a much less 2D group of girls. The comedy is excellent, and the pace seems to be pretty good, considering how much they’re packing in (about half of each episode seems to be comedy or non-plot related). Tomoya’s definitely one of the best male leads I’ve ever seen, with a good backstory and believable behaviour - he also isn’t a jerk to the girls and seems to be genuinely kind. A near-flawless addition to KyoAni’s lineage - I give it 9.5/10.

Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun - My guilty pleasure. Stupid; absurd; shameless; clichéd. It’s funny and fills in a spot that most shows don’t dare to try to aim for nowadays. I have no real complaints about the series as it does what it set out to do. The main character’s pretty cool though. 8/10.

Minami-ke - Comedy (not slice-of-life like I previously thought - silly me) at its best. This is near Azumanga levels, IMO. It does, however, use quite a few dynamics and jokes that Azumanga didn’t (like family life, boys and shouta-cross). The Bible Black faces are ridiculous(ly funny) though. Only complaint is that they’re finding it hard to easily balance all the girls school lives and those characters - the problem with having the female leads at different schools. I want to see more of Hosaka and his hilarious fantasies. A well-earned 8.5/10.

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