Spring 2007: First thoughts

Spring is traditionally the strongest season of the year, and I can’t see any indication so far why that won’t be the case again this year. There’s a real plethora of entertaining titles out there, and while we haven’t had an entry of the calibre of Suzumiya Haruhi (which really took the anime watching world by storm this time one year ago), what we have seen are a mixed bag of varying amounts of promise, with very few titles that are obviously going to fail. My default optimism in relation to anime makes me think that signs point to a good season. It’ll be interesting to see, no matter how it goes.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

I have to chuckle at this one. What began as an innocent, yet deceiving marriage of mahou shoujo and shounen sci-fi has turned into one of the most popular franchises in modern otakuism. I remember an anonymous quote on the appeal of Lyrical Nanoha: it’s a bunch of really cute little girls… blowing the shit out of everything and each other. I’m probably the odd one out on Nanoha… I actually think it has some good examples of drama (good, not great), but it’s very uninventive as far as action is concerned. Not that it’s trying to be inventive, I’d imagine… it’s aiming to tide over action fanboys and they’re not a group that tends en masse towards inventiveness or ingenuity in action sequences. People shouldn’t have to think while watching action anyway.[/sarcasm]

Fanboys aside, people seem to be approaching this series with a certain amount of caution. The focus seems to be on a new cast of rather generic archetypes, reminiscent to Mai-Otome (a series which I actually thought was quite good for popcorn theatre), and while I didn’t mind that show, I can see the reasons for cautious pessimism. On the flip side of the coin, the franchise does have a history of making good out of its generic archetypes. If I’d have a guess, I’d say the series probably wouldn’t be doing bad by playing to the strengths of its predecessors, and at the end of the day, that’s probably the path it’ll go down. Not a huge point in being innovative when the same formula will inevitably win the fans at the end of the day.

Heroic Age

I can see this being a real stinker. Generic sci-fi premise with inane characters and a mecha with godlike powers (DEM, anyone?). Granted, the animation is outstanding, but the action sequences are (so far) boring. The characters are worse though. Pretty much all of them with the exception of the male lead are cut from oft-used molds. Having the antagonists being zerg-like space creatures means they’ll be fighting against a faceless opponent, killing any chance of creating an interesting, complex antagonist. Sure, it’s still early days, but this series has much to do to make itself interesting, and given the premise and characters, I’d be very surprised if it could do it.

Touka Gettan

Apparently a sequel to one of the hottest hentai I’ve ever seen, Moonlight Lady, Touka Gettan is director Yamiguchi Yuji‘s (Fate/Stay Night, Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito) latest project, and boy was its first episode a doozy. Pretty much no one walked away with it with much of an idea what had happened. But it left me really intrigued. The thing sells itself as a mystery, and I think the key to this will be whether or not it can explain itself properly and answer all unanswered questions by its end. If it can, Yamiguchi will earn my respect (something he doesn’t have right now, since I’ve been continually disappointed by his work). If not, this will end up being utter fail. But, this seriously intrigues me. The mind-fuck, the beautiful animation, the bizarre, screwed up characters; it seems like the potentials there for something epic… if they can pull it off. And that’s not a small “if” by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll be watching this closely.

Claymore

For obvious reasons, I’m reminded of Berserk. There are hints here of something decent, provided they stay away from the episodic yoma-of-the-week formula, but I am hoping it’ll be a winner, since the fantasy genre has lacked a strong title for a long time. The atmosphere is fitting for something set in a fantasy world that mirrors medieval Europe, but I don’t think the animation is great, which is disappointed considering this is a Madhouse Studios series. Not much else to say about this series. There’s potential, that’s for sure, but we’ll have to wait and see on whether or not it’ll reach it.

Hitohira

I dug the first ep of this series. It’s shoujo, so that automatically demands that the focus will be on the characters, and they seem quite interesting at this stage. The premise surrounds a girl that gets massive stage fright, but is forced into the drama (research) club, so the series will inevitably be about how she overcomes her character flaw, but provided the characters are likable, there’s no reason this won’t be enjoyable. That’s it, though, for these types of series: how likable the characters are pretty much makes and breaks them. This (among other things) is why I’m somewhat reminded of Nodame Cantabile, a series that is almost completely carried by it’s incredibly likable cast, and while I don’t think this will be as good that, it probably has that to look for as the basic model to follow. Although, I could be proven wrong: I knew Nodame Cantabile would be a good series pretty much from the beginning, but I never could have predicted how good it ended up turning out.

Hayate no Gotoku! (aka Hayate the Combat Butler)
Oh God, I lol’d! Here’s one of those self-aware comedies that has an incredible amount of wit and timing. The plot is silly, but the way it relishes in its ridiculousness works brilliantly. In that respect, it reminds me of Yakitate! Japan before that became repetitive and stale. The seiyuu cast is just outstanding. Kugimiya Rie just cannot be more fitting for these types of roles (even if she is being typecast… but the way she owns these types of roles leads me to not care all that much). And I just love hearing the godlike Wakamoto Norio in a comedy again… although I do feel he’s wasted as a narrator. This should be good. It’s comedy, so as long as it makes me laugh, I consider it a winner, and provided the rest of the series is as funny as the first ep, it shouldn’t have much trouble doing that.

Idolm@ster Xenoglossia

Sunrise‘s latest hapless-girls-with-super-powers-and-mechs anime. Reminds me of My-HiME, for obvious reasons. I’m not sure what I think of this series so far, but the generic start and monster-sized mostly female cast makes me think that it’ll remind me of My-HiME even further on in the series. If this series manages to pull off what Sunrise did with My-HiME (what was that, over two years ago now) without going down the exact same path (since they’ll start getting predictable if they keep going down the same path), I’ll be very impressed. Else… well, the girls are cute, and the seiyuu are all-star, so it’ll make for a redeemable generic moé anime.

Nagasarete Airantou

Speaking of fanservice, here’s another series with seiyuu goddess Horie Yui (she reprises her role as Siesta in Idolm@ster, btw). This is a fairly generic harem, with a huge cast of inane characters. With a premise of a lone man stuck on a deserted island full of women, one can only have limited expectations for the plot. But, comedy and fanservice is where an anime like this should deliver, and I really can’t see it happening on either front. I can see the mainstay joke in the first ep (ie, insane-women-chase-hapless-man) getting very old and stale very quickly, and the animation is subpar, so the fanservice will probably not be very good. There really isn’t all too much to look forward to in this series. If I dropped series, I’d probably drop this one.

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So, these are the eight series I’m following so far, and with Gonzo‘s Romeo & Juliet and Bones‘ latest offering, Darker than Black to come, I’ll have quite a bit on my plate, anime-wise. But, that’s good, since there’s quite a bit of potential in a lot of these titles. I’m optimistic about this season, and with reason, I’d suggest.