New Anime Season

Some people have been asking me which anime I've been watching & what I recommend, but the list is so long o_O I've liked the 2 past seasons, followed a lot of series. Until like last summer, I wasn't really into anime. Didn't watch that much, I only watched maybe 1-2 series per season or watched really oldschool anime.

Since my friends already know about the past anime I've watched, thanks to the "30 Days of Anime" challenge on Facebook, this blog post will be about the anime series currently airing. I didn't watch all of them, I only watched those with summaries that interested me. This is my first time rating stuff though, so I'll probably be really bad at it. xD;

A Channel
Genre: Comedy, Shoujo Ai, Slice of Life
Plot Summary: Series about four friends; Tooru (who has just entered the same high school as her best childhood friend Run), Run (who is now a second year) and Yuuko & Nagi (Run's friends) in their daily lives. Tooru takes a test so she can enter the same high school as Run, the girl she likes. She passes, but when she goes to tell Run, she finds her hugging a girl she's never seen before.
Review: The OP and ED are pretty normal, nothing special; the songs represent well what the anime is about. What I liked however was in the OP, the animation includes a view of the actual single containing the OP song, with the artist's picture on top and the CD coming out of it. I've never seen that in any OP/ED before. If I had to describe the actual anime, I'd say it's a mix of Lucky Star (every-day situations) with K-On (similar voices/personalities). However, I found this slice of life wayyy better than Lucky Star. The situations are less boring, and they're things I can actually relate to. Like in the 2nd episode, they show how changing a single thing about someone's appearance (like letting down your bangs if you pin them up or taking off your glasses) can change a person drastically, or even when they were caught under the rain and went to Nagi's house. As for the characters, Tooru is REALLY cute, she's the littlest one; she's protective of Run, she'd even bring a baseball bat to chase off boys who want to get too close to her. However, she's not really a Tsundere; she just a jealous little cutie pie. Run is pretty much like Yui from K-On xD Air-headed, clumsy, carefree. Yuuko is pretty much like Mio from K-On, she gets scared/intimidated easily. However, Yuuko spoke some heavy Osaka-ben, so I'd be screwed if I watched it without subs x_X She was the only one I couldn't understand fully. And Nagi...is pretty normal. She's smart, caring, but still occasionally teases Yuuko by scaring her. A refreshing slice-of-life that I can actually relate to. However, Tooru & Run's "relationship" is pretty much like the one I have with Chha, so I don't know how far the Shoujo Ai in this is going to go. xD;
Rating: ★★★★★ Definitely going to keep watching

Ano hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
Aka "The Longest Anime Title I've Ever Seen".
Genre: Slice of Life, Tragedy
Plot Summary: Six childhood friends grew apart in high school. One of them is Jintan, now a shut-in. He gets a request to fulfil a wish for Menma, the only one of their friends to have stayed the same over the years. In order to grant her wish, he will have to find and reunite their old friends.
Review: I cried, and it's just the first episode. ;-; Menma is actually a girl who died, which affected the friendship between the 5 other childhood friends. Anaru became a stylish gyaru with a whole new bunch of friends, Poppo is a "weirdo" with a particular fetish who stays at their old hideout with his porn magazines, and Yukiatsu & Tsuruko are the only ones who still hang together. I'm not sure how this fits as a Slice of Life though, so far it looks like it has a plot; for Menma to remember what her wish is, and for Jintan to help her gather everyone and make it come true.
Rating: I feel like I'm going to be bad at rating these things xD; But again, ★★★★★. The 1st episode was really good imo, and I can't wait to see the next one.

Astarotte no Omocha!
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Supernatural
Plot Summary: While job hunting, Naoya is taken by a mysterious girl to a magical land where he is installed in the harem of the succubus Queen Lotte. Thanks to trauma from her childhood, Lotte hates men and surrounds herself with lots of other women, who all have quirks of their own. In spite of her selfishness, when Naoya learns that Lotte is really quite lonely he agrees to stay in her world...if he can bring his daughter Asuha with him.
Review: The only reason I watched this is because I saw Julien looking at its official website a few months ago, saying it looked terrible. ...He was right. Well, maybe it's because I'm not into Fantasy-like anime, or over-excessive fanservice...but there isn't anything in it that made me want to watch more of it. :/ The plot is pretty basic; Queen Lotte hates men, but must "suck a life-seed" to survive, so her assistant brings a guy from the Human world without her consent. They tried to add some "drama" to counterbalance the fanservice, by making Lotte worry when her assistant was gone, wanting to save her from the other Realm...but it just didn't did it for me. Again, maybe because it's all Fantasy-based, and I'm not into Fantasy. xD; The most Fantasy I've watched in an anime are Mahou Shoujo and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu/Shoushitsu. Plus both the OP/ED songs were pretty boring to me, I wouldn't sing them at karaoke. They both contained pretty emotionless voices, plain melodies...but the animation was pretty. Loved the bright colours & contrasts.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Definitely not going to continue watching, unless someone convinces me that it gets better later on.

Deadman Wonderland
Genre: Action, Horror
Plot Summary: Igarashi Ganta finds himself in prison after the Red Man kills his entire class leaving only him alive to take the blame for it. Ganta gets thrown into Deadman Wonderland a prison/amusement park where the prisoners provide the show for the audiences. Ganta is now to avenge his classmates and kill the Red Man even if it means digging into the dark and horrifying secrets of Deadman Wonderland.
Review: Normally, I'm not into action/horror Shounen, but this one really caught my eye. I read a bit of the manga while I was waiting for the bus after my job, and I thought that I might like it. So far, I do. Last Shounen with this much gore that I've seen was Death Note, and I think this one might be even better. The summary got me intrigued, because I wondered how a prison could also work as an amusement park o_O Usually, you want to keep obeying citizens away from criminals. Apparently, the inmates participate into some crazy events in order to survive, and it serves as entertainment for those who come watch. Not to sound insane, but that sounds interesting. xD; I was scared that this might be a series that I can't watch, since I can't watch blood, but it seems alright. It's not TOO graphic. To give you an idea, I was able to watch Death Note completely, but I wasn't able to watch the first 2 minutes of the 1st episode of Higurashi. I guess it's the method of killing that matters. The more supernatural it is, the less it affects my illness. For those who don't know...I have an illness called "vagal shock", which basically means that my brain filters what I can and cannot see; aka, I cannot see blood. I'm not afraid of blood, I don't even have time to see the blood, my brain just automatically switches off and forces me to faint. Thus, I have to be really careful when choosing what I watch.
Rating: ★★★★★, Definitely will watch as much as I can, until my brain decides that I can't watch no more. I hope I'll be able to watch the whole series.

Hen Zemi
Genre: Comedy, Ecchi, Seinen
Plot Summary: Matsutaka Nanako is a normal university student, who happened to enroll in Abnormal Physiology Seminar. She tries to keep her mental state sound, but other abnormal classmates start to influence her personality...
Review: I liked how the OP presented the characters in a new, artistic way by showing their artistic process. For each of them, there's a blank notepad, a hand rips the page to reveal an inked sketch of the character underneath, and then the hands rips the page again to show the inked sketch fully coloured. No obnoxious electro pop song that I would possibly love, but just a little vocal-less beat during 25 seconds before the show actually starts. Besides, each episode is only 12 minutes long, so there would be less content if they made an actual 1-minute opening. The ending makes up for it though. xD Cute song, cute beat. As for the actual anime...it's WEIRD AS FUCK. I don't know if I'll keep watching, but I'll try to watch the following episodes xD;; Basically, they do "serious studies" on weird habits, fetishes or addictions that are usually considered gross/unclean/unaccepted in modern society. So there's one girl doing a study about the odor that emerges when you fart in a bathtub, another growing fly nests in her ears to note how they mature in an earwax environment, someone taking pantyshot pictures to evaluate what makes pantyshots exciting...When I read the description, I had no idea how weird this anime was going to get. However, since the protagonist is naive & modest, it makes it way more interesting than if everyone was corrupted, you know? I guess that's why I watched 2 episodes of it.
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Hidan no Aria
Genre: Action, Comedy
Plot Summary: The story takes place in Tokyo Butei High School, a special school where armed detectives — "Butei" — are trained to use weapons. Kinji Tooyama is a second-year-student who has a special ability, but he keeps it a secret to maintain an ordinary, peaceful life. However, when he gets caught in a bombing on the way to school, he encounters H. Aria Kanzaki, the most powerful S-Rank Butei student in Assault Studies.
Review: The beginning of Episode 1 really reminded me of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu because of its protagonist; a guy narrating what a typical movie/anime opening scene would be, how the protagonist would be the hero and a girl would fall from the sky and change his world completely...and then adds how he doesn't want to be part of that kind of world since it's too dangerous, but deep inside, I bet he loves it. However, he looks like he has more personality in him than Kyon did (if you base yourself only on Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, because he was AWESOME in Shoushitsu), so it's so far so good. The OP is something I'd probably sing at karaoke; catchy, fast-paced lyrics...and I knew right away that it was by May'n before I saw her name in the opening credits. xD So there's this moemoekyunshit character (Shirayuki) that I sense that I won't like. She seems to have no personality like Mikuru, aka she's only there because she's cute, praises the male protagonist and has huge boobs. So she's wearing a school uniform, which is supposed to cover pretty much everything (top-wise anyway), but she still manages to show off some cleavage, and the guy spots her black laced bra? Yeah, right. I want subtle fanservice, plzthx, I don't want to see boobs flashing when they aren't supposed to. The concept of learning to use weapons in school looks kinda interesting though, so as long I ignore that stupid moemoekyun character, I'll keep watching. The gun-wielding loli is kickass though, and I like the way they show the Kinji's "manly urges" xDD Kinji's ability is also SUPER AWESOME, I love how they animated it.
Rating: ★★★★☆

Nichijou
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life
Plot Summary: While the title suggests a story of simple, everyday school life, the contents are more the opposite. The setting is a strange school where you may see the principal wrestle a deer or a robot's arm hide a roll-cake. However there are still normal stories, like making a card castle or taking a test you didn't study for.
Review: This is the FUNNIEST slice of life I've ever seen xD EVERYTHING is unexpected. The OVA isn't that funny, but the actual series is. I've laughed out loud during all 3 first episodes, and I usually never laugh out loud. My favourite bits are with the android, the child inventor and the talking cat. My favourite 3 characters of the series so far :D Seriously, this is like no other slice-of-life anime I've seen before. Like in the 1st episode, there's this scene where the android is running super fast, and sees that she's going to run into a guy...so naturally, we all think "This is going to be like those cheesy shoujo scenes, in which the girl bumps into the guy, the guy catches her before she touches the ground and sparkles & sakura petals fall from the sky"...no. She bumps into the guy, causing a MASSIVE NUCLEAR EXPLOSION. Best unexpected scene ever.
Rating: ★★★★★

Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi
Genre: Yaoi
Plot Summary: Even though Ritsu Onodera hates to rely on family connections, he winds up taking a job as an editor at his parents' company, Marukawa Books. To his chagrin, he's assigned to the shoujo manga department in spite of having no interest or experience in it. And on top of that, he has an awful first impression of his high-handed editor in chief, Masamune Takano. What comes after is a story of first love full of tears and laughter.
Review: I didn't like it. :/ I guess I'm just not into yaoi? I don't see what the hype is, it's all fanservice. I watched 2 episodes, and the storyline is very basic; guy meets his sempai at the school library, he helps him pick up a book from a high shelf, instantly falls in love. They can't even tell why they love each other, they just do. Sex on the first date never impressed me, especially in this case, when the kohai can't even tell his sempai anything except appologising. If he can't even have a conversation with you, I would take things at a slower pace :/ Hold hands, hug, kiss, and only have sex when those first things become natural. But maybe that's just me, since I valued my virginity and all...
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (Animation was pretty cool and some jokes were funny)

Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san
Genre: Comedy, Supernatural
Plot Summary: Akutabe, a detective, summons devils to solve the troubles of his clients. One day, a low class devil Azazel Atsushi is summoned by Akutabe and is used harshly by him and his assistant Rinko Sakuma.
Review: Another series with 12-minute long episodes. No complaints about this one, but I don't have anything good to say about it either...some jokes are funny, so I guess it's entertaining when you have a little break. So far, only 2 episodes are out, and it seems like they introduce a new demon per episode. Episode 1 was about Azazel-san, the redheaded dog-like creature in the middle. He's pretty much a demon who specialises in sexual harassment. 2nd episode introduced Beelzebub, the classy penguin (who is actually a fly), who's "special ability" is to force organic beings to defecate.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆