It feels like it’s been a year since I’ve actually written about Megami Magazine in the month that a particular volume is for. When I asked what you guys wanted to see more of on Nopy’s Blog, many of you said you liked the magazine posts so I’ve been churning them out recently. Megami Magazine volume 124 is the last magazine I have right now since it’s the September issue, but I’ll be getting October stuff sometime next week. The cover of this volume has Yoshika and Lynette from Strike Witches riding some brooms. It makes so much sense (witches ride brooms after all), but seems so wrong without those leg propeller things.

This volume has a lot of swimsuit posters, which I found kinda weird considering it’s the September volume, the month when summer starts to end.

The first poster is of Ryouko from Ookami-san. Considering her nickname is supposed to mean wolf, there is a surprising number of cats in her room. The poster itself it decent, but Ryouko’s left foot looks like it belongs to a gremlin or something with toes that long.

This Asobi ni Iku yo poster is rather simple, but nice. I can’t remember what this activity was called, but it looks fun.

I think this is the first time I’ve seen an Amagami SS poster of someone other than Haruka. I can’t tell if Kaoru is supposed to be dressed as a nurse or not here.

If you like bikinis, then you’ll definitely like the following posters:

This one is from Sekirei,

and Mitsudomoe.

Mio’s usually very stylish, but I think Mugi wins in that category here. I like her white bikini and her braids, Mio just seems a bit clueless.

Chise’s face seems a bit off in this poster.

Here’s one for the Index/Railgun fans.

This is a funny poster of Shino from Seitokai Yakuindomo. I’ve never seen those breast pads in real life, but they show up in anime sometimes.

I was a bit disappointed with this Kowarekake no Orgol poster. The concrete wall seems too plain (ie: not enough cracks), and the buildings outside look really vague.

This volume comes with the BRS OVA on DVD.

There’s also a booklet with some info on huke’s BRS illustrations. You can see more pics of the BRS extras in Ari’s post.

The large poster included this time is of Kanade from Angel Beats looking very geeky.

On the back is the same image from the cover of the magazine.

There was also a Chaos card included in this volume. In case you’d forgotten, Chaos is short for “character operating system” and is a card battle game that you can play with other people.

For hidden images, read this post (numbers 04, 07, 12, 14, 16, 17).

Image 12 was featured in this volume’s Girl’s Avenue. It was illustrated by Mamoru Naruse (成瀬守) of a circle called The Flyers. They seem to illustrate mostly moe and eroge characters. Image 14 was kinda ecchi, but I liked all the vines and flowers.

This volume is really the summer volume of Megami with all those swimsuit posters, though in my opinion they should have released it earlier in the year. It’s a good volume to pick up if you like anime girls in bikinis or if you simply want a copy of the BRS DVD.

–>Subscribe to Megami Magazine

The cover of the August 2010 volume (124) of Megami Magazine is one of the sweetest I’ve seen in a while. Those of you who watched Angel Beats will surely remember the graduation episode; the cover of this volume features Yuri and Kanade at the ceremony together as best friends. It’s nice to see former enemies make up and clear up their misunderstandings. This volume of Megami has some impressive posters that you can see below:

I loved everything about this first poster, from the spectacular night-time background to the yukatas, and the way the moonlight shines on the characters.

Here’s Musubi in three different outfits. I like the hat she has in the middle.

This Ookami poster was interesting. The girls are dressed in some fancy clothes and dancing on stage. The outfits actually remind me of the AKB48 uniforms:

I’m kinda lost as to what the K-ON girls are doing here, but it looks cute.

I was considering whether to hide this poster  or not, but since nothing’s showing and they’re not in suggestive poses, I figured no one would have any problems with it. That bed must be huge to be able to fit 4 people on it. The pink-haired girl looks a bit awkward with her head tilted at that angle and her right arm missing.

Haruka from Amagami SS appears here, but also in Nyantype. I haven’t seen any posters of the other girls so is she the  most popular girl from the series?

I really liked this BRS poster, but then again, most BRS posters are good. The art style is very unique to the series. I think it would’ve looked a bit better if the chains were tighter and not just hanging off BRS.

This is a nice action shot, the expression on each of the girls faces fits exactly with their character.

Once again, here’s the image from the cover of the magazine but without all the text around it. I was impressed with how detailed the flowers are, and Yuri and Kanade look so cute together. The only bad thing about this poster is that the background’s so ugly.

Waterslides are fun.

This poster is part of the Girl’s Avenue section. It was illustrated by the artist Osamu Otani (尾谷おさむ). From what I’ve seen, he likes to use a lot of textures, making colours fade into each other rather than be separated by a clear line.

There wasn’t anything too special about this Kissxsis poster. I do like the dress that Ako is wearing though, she seems to be the more feminine one of the two.

There were several pages in this volume showcasing some collectable K-ON cards that are now available. I’m sure hardcore K-ON fans would want these.

This little extra was stuck into the front of the magazine. It’s a dust jacket for the first volume of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Movie 1st The Comics (that’s one long title). You just cut it out and put it around your manga. Unfortunately, I don’t have any Nanoha manga so I’ll be leaving this inside the magazine.

Those of you are are collecting those K-ON cards I mentioned earlier may want to pick up this volume of Megami because it contains one of the cards needed to complete the collection.

The details from the maid outfits to the restaurant set-up were well-done in this large poster. I wonder how Francesca managed to get that high up in the air though. You’d have to be running very fast to end up like that.

The back of the poster has Fate from the Nanoha series in a cute beach outfit. It looks like one of those images you’d find on bedsheets rather than a poster.

For hidden images, read this post (numbers 05, 11, 16, 17, 18, 19).

I was really impressed with 16, it was so detailed and it has that fantasy world feel about it.

My favourite posters in this volume were the first one with the Working!! girls, the one of Yuri and Kanade, and image 16. They all had really nice details and just looked great in my eyes.

–>Subscribe to Megami Magazine

Nyantype Magazine Volume 10 was released at the end of July. They have Fate on the cover of the magazine, but she looks a lot meaner than I remember. I don’t know much about the Nanoha Force series, but from the looks of illustrations I’ve seen, the characters aren’t as cheerful as they used to be. This volume costs 880 yen which is 100 yen more than a regular volume, but I’ll talk more about that later.

The first poster in the magazine is more of an infographic than a poster. It shows Fate in various poses and the diferent forms that her weapon, Bardiche, can take on.

Hayate looks weird with this hairstyle, but it does make her look older. Reinforce still looks really young.

I liked Hayate’s outfit in this poster. Signum, on the other hand, looks like she’s going to the club rather than the beach. The planets in the sky also look cool.

There’s nothing spectacular about this poster of Index. I’m curious how she can sleep with her left arm twisted like that though. Then again, she could actually have a broken arm and just be lying there unconscious.

I thought it was cool how the girls from K-ON painted “keion” on themselves, it looks like something you’d see on a CD album cover.

When I saw this poster I just wanted to tear it out. Overall, Nyantype’s illustrations have been improving with time, but then they go and print something like this Seitokai Yakuindomo poster. Except for the “SYD” on the fan and the hairstyles, the characters are barely recognizable, especially Shiino. Some body parts are also the wrong size/shape which makes it look even weirder.

For a lolicon anime, I would’ve expected Mitsudomoe posters to be on the ecchi side, but this one is pretty innocent.

This is a simple but nice looking poster of Haruka from Amagami SS.

It’s really hard for me to comprehend how Nyantype can have something as terrible as that Seitokai Yakuindomo poster be in the same volume as a great poster like this one. There are no super-thin limbs or deformed hands here, the shading is good, and the textures are excellent.

Shouko fans would probably enjoy this poster.

The mecha musume at the back of this volume is Kanade (aka Tenshi) from Angel Beats. It would’ve been really cool if she made something like this for herself in the series. If you look at her blade thing, you’ll notice there’s even two little pilots inside it.

As I mentioned earlier, this volume cost 100 yen more than the usual magazine, and that was because of this box. I know Megami Magazine increases their prices whenever they include something extra, but I was hoping that Nyantype would stay with a flat price of 780 yen.

Inside the box was this pillow case of Sanya from Strike Witches. The pillow case is really soft, but a bit wrinkled from being inside the packaging for so long. On one side is Sanya’s top half.

On the other side is her bottom half. I found the pillow case to be really small as I couldn’t find any pillows that would fit inside without tearing it. So if you had this pillow case, which side would you sleep on?

For hidden images, read this post (numbers 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 12, 15, 19).

As always, hidden images contain ecchi/provocative content. I found the Highschool of The Dead poster to be a bit strange. Why is it that Rei and Saya’s clothes are all torn from fighting zombies, but there isn’t a single scratch on them.

Despite that one poster that I didn’t like, this volume wasn’t too bad. My favourite posters were the one that had the girl in the forest, and the one of Hayate and Signum.

–>Subscribe to Nyantype Magazine

Volume 9 of Nyantype was released at the end of June and features Mio in her black bikini on the cover. Since this volume comes in the middle of summer, it’s full of swimsuit and summer-related posters as you can see below.

The first poster is of Subaru and Teana from the Nanoha series cooling down with some water. The use of see-through wet clothes is common in anime so I would’ve expected the artists at Nyantype to have been able to make this one look better. Some parts, like Subaru’s pants, look like they’re melting rather than just being wet.

I liked this Yuri + Kanade poster.

The first of the swimsuit posters has all the members of Houkago Tea Time on the beach.

Misaki from Kaichou wa Maid-sama seems to look cuter in these posters than in the anime. I like how they drew Sakura’s hand a bit larger to show distance, as well as the flowers in the back.

Here’s one for the Strike Witches fans out there.

I thought Mizuki looked weird with a tan. I also found it a bit strange that there’s a shadow of a palm tree, but Mizuki herself doesn’t have a shadow.

I really liked this poster. If you’ve been following my blog posts for a while, you’ll know I liked the character designs fro Mayoi Neko Overrun and that Chise was my favourite character. I’m glad to see Nyantype was able to keep the same artstyle here.

Seeing this Shana poster reminds me of how long I’ve been watching anime now. The season that Shakugan no Shana came out was the time when I started reading about anime before they aired, rather than just watch whatever people recommeneded. The thing I like about this poster is Shana’s wavy hair.

Another cute poster.

The Working!! girls seem to end up on the floor a lot when it comes to Nyantype posters. I guess it’s easy to draw floors for a poster, but do they actually fall down a lot in the anime too?

Included with this volume was a CD with some of the seiyuu from Strike Witches. I don’t know Japanese so I can’t tell you what’s on it.

For hidden images, read this post (numbers 05, 08, 09, 10, 13, 15, 18).

I wasn’t too impressed with the hidden images, they were all focused on fanservice.

If you like having swimsuit or summer-related posters, then this volume of Nyantype would be a good magazine to pick up. It snowed for a bit the other day so I know a lot of people here are wishing for summer to come back.

–>Subscribe to Nyantype Magazine

It’s been a while since I covered a volume of Megami Magazine and I had some time today, so I figured why not take a look at volume 122, the July 2010 edition (I’m only 2 months late). The cover features three popular characters from K-ON: Yui, Yui, and you guessed it, Yui. The only real difference between the three Yui’s besides the clothes is her hairstyle. It looks like she had her hair tied up as a baby, twintails as an elementary schooler, and her regular hairstyle as a high schooler. I guess the amount of blush gets lower and the length of her eyebrows increases with age too.

Continuing on with the K-ON theme, the first poster in the magazine is of Mio and Azusa at the beach. It’s an OK poster, but I’m kinda wondering what they were doing to end up in that position.

Fate (or is that her “sister”?) looks really cute back when she was a little girl. I still see her mother as an evil character though, I don’t know if they changed that in the movie or not.

This was an interesting poster. You’ve got the three most popular cosplay types all in one shot: a nurse, a cheerleader, and a maid. In addition to that, you’ve even got some shima pan.

Here’s the uncensored version of the image found on the front cover. When I saw it I thought “Is Yui holding a broom and doing some cleaning!?” a blasphemous thought, I know. Then I saw the position of her right arm and the way she was holding the broom and realized she was pretending to play the guitar. That’s more like the Yui I know.

For the 104th edition of Girl’s Avenue, they featured the artist Wadaaruko (ワダアルコ). This illustration reminds me of a bunch of berries for some reason even though it’s of a girl in a field of flowers. Maybe it’s because of the way the flowers are coloured, they look like giant berries from afar.

I remember seeing a store actually selling this poster in Akiba. While this is the July issue of the magazine, keep in mind that Megami is actually realased a month before its issue month, so the July issue would’ve been available in Japan in June (which was when I was there). It’s a nice poster and all, but I don’t think it’s worth buying by itself.

The Japanese never cease to amaze me with how much they can twist a story around. For example, if you give them the story of Sherlock Holmes, they’ll turn it into an anime called Tantei Opera Milky Holmes. One of the main characters is Sherlock Shellingford, a moe pink-haired girl aiming to be a great detective.

There were two extras that came with this volume: a radio CD, and this Nanoha fan book. I don’t know what’s on the radio CD since it’s all in Japanese, but this fan book has some nice illustrations by various artists.

My favourite illustration was this one on the right of fate. She looks really cool with all the lighting around her.

Here’s another illustration that I thought was pretty good.

Volume 122 also came with this large Angel Beats poster. Now that the anime is over, they’ve switched from posters showing Yuri vs Kanade to posters showing the both of them as friends. I think I like the latter ones since they’re so much more peaceful.

On the back are the girls from the anime Working. I don’t know about you guys, but to me it seems like Poplar’s oppai are sagging a lot…

That’s pretty much it for this volume. In total there were only 14 posters and most of them were on the ecchi side. It’s disappointing considering Megami Magazine usually has around 20 posters in each volume. I guess this time they had to cut back on them to be able to include the radio CD and fanbook. As someone that doesn’t know Japanese, I could’ve gone without the CD, but I’m the minority when it comes to Megami’s customer base. Perhaps this was why that BRS poster was being sold separately, the magazine just doesn’t feel as worth it with fewer posters.

For hidden images, read this post (numbers 03, 04, 07, 08, 11, 12, 14, 15).

–>Subscribe to Megami Magazine

Since a lot of people have asked for more Magazine coverage, I will be reviewing more of them this month. This time I will be covering Megami Magazine volume 121 from June of this year. The cover features Mahiru from Working!! holding up cute chibi versions of Poplar and Aoi. Now for the posters:

The first poster is of Yui and Ui. It looks like Ui is busy preparing lunch, but Yui couldn’t resist taking not taking a bite.

Here’s another Working!! image, with the focus being on Mahiru again.

This poster brought back some memories, mainly of the episode in Mayoi Neko Overrun when they had the swimsuit competition.

I don’t remember Haruhi and Nagato ever cosplaying as cops in the anime. The police probably don’t actually wear skirts like that though, so they might actually be cosplaying as security guards or something. Either way, I like it.

After the previous volume, it seems they’ve gone back to girls lacking clothes when it comes to Ikki Tousen posters, like this one of Sonsaku.

One thing that I’ve noticed about anime is that baths sometimes have green water. I think they do that because it’s hard to draw clear water, but I could be wrong. Maybe they do bathe in green water in Japan, who knows.

This looks more like a promotional poster without the text. It actually doesn’t look that good without any sort of real background.

This amazing piece of art was done by Bun+Bun. I love the little glowy lights and how the shadows look in this poster. The only thing I would complain about is the foot of the girl in front, it’s a bit too small to look right.

Here’s a poster of Tomo from Seikon no Qwaser.

I only recognize this poster being from Bungaku Shoujo because Touko is in it. I’m not sure who the other girl is, but I’m assuming she was in the movie. Her spikey hair looks kinda cool.

I never got into Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, it seemed like a regular harem series to me. The shading in this poster seems to be a bit weird to me, kinda like a mix of pastels and digital colours.

I’ve been meaning to watch Strike Witches for the longest time, but I just never got around to it. I have to admit, the characters do look pretty cute.

As expected, Nanoha is in this volume as with every other volume. Nanoha and Fate look nice in this illustration, but I wish they’d gone with a battle pose instead.

This is the same image that was used on the cover of the magazine, but without the text. I’m not too fond of the background, but at least now Poplar isn’t half covered up by something.

Illustrations like this are hard to draw, so I’m impressed with whoever did it. Except for a few things that look a bit awkward like Mizuki’s right arm and Akira’s right leg, everything looks right to me.

This volume came with a little booklet with some details about the Nanoha movie.

All of the screenshots that they had inside just makes me want to see it even more. I hope it comes out on DVD soon since I can’t watch it in theatres here.

Seeing this large poster brought back some memories. For those of you who don’t know, Nanoha was originally a side-character from a series called Triangle Hearts. I watched Triangle Heart – Sweet Songs Forever a long time ago and really enjoyed it. Nanoha made a brief appearance in the cafe that her family runs called Midori-ya (which you can see on her apron).

The image for this poster looks like something from a dakimakura. It’s cute though, and not too ecchi.

I didn’t think this volume was anything too impressive. There were some good posters in here, but most of them were dull or just lacking in anything special. In my opinion, the best poster was the one by Bun+Bun.

–>Subscribe to Megami Magazine

Angel Beats

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about Angel Beats from when the character designs were revealed up to the last episode of the anime. A lot of them were about how Angel Beats was just copying other anime, but you can say the same thing about almost any other series, so I just ignored those. When I started watching Angel Beats, I was expecting another drama-comedy with the theme centering around “rebirth”, just like its predecessors: Kanon, AIR, and Clannad.

My expectations were met, but I was a bit disappointed with the delivery. While previous Key works started out with comedy and slowly moved into drama, Angel Beats seemed to be mostly comedy with drama bits thrown in here and there. Otonashi’s reaction at the end of the last episode also made me go “wtf”. For the whole series he was a cool, level-headed guy similar to Yuuichi, Yukito, and Tomoya, then all of a sudden he just breaks down at the loss of his love. I know they wanted to show him as not being a perfect person and having some insecurities, but I thought they went too far with how they handled Otonashi.

Besides the delivery, and that last episode, I actually enjoyed most of Angel Beats. When the series focused on comedy, it made me laugh, and the action scenes were pretty cool. My favourite episode would have to be the one where Yui passes on. I loved the “this is how our lives would be if we were alive” scenes and I thought it was absolutely sweet how Hinata would visit Yui every day and eventually ask her to marry him.

One word to describe Angel Beats: pwahahaawwww (this is me laughing and crying at the same time).

Arakawa Under The Bridge

I was a bit sceptical when I first heard of Arakawa. All of the summaries that I read just said that it was about a guy that meets some people under a bridge and didn’t go further into the plot. What intrigued me though was reading about a character with a star for a face and another that’s always dressed as a kappa. I decided to give Arakawa a shot and I’m glad I did. For the most part, there isn’t really any continuous story, but the show is hilarious. Each of the characters in Arakawa is unique to the series and they all add their own flare to the anime.

Not only is the show funny, but it also has something that a lot of anime are lacking nowadays: character development. At first, Arakawa looks like one of those anime that you can watch in almost any order and still understand *cough* K-ON *cough*, but something happens in every episode that changes the characters’ view of the world, each other, or themselves, but only ever so slightly. The greatest change is with the main character, Kou, who first sees the residents of the Arakawa river bank as a bunch of crazy weirdos, but by the end of the first season, starts to view them as friends who he’s willing to fight for. When it comes to good anime, character development is a must, and Arakawa Under The Bridge delivers in that department.

One word to describe Arakawa Under The Bridge: wacky

Mayoi Neko Overrun!

OK, I admit that I started watching Mayoi Neko Overrun simply because I liked the character designs and artwork, but it wasn’t a total flop of an anime. I have started watching series like Akikan and Tayutama for the exact same reasons and ended up dropping those a few episodes in, but for some reason I continued to watch Mayoi Neko. I think the thing that kept me going was that I actually found the show to be funny. Two of the girls in the show, Fumino and Nozomi, are your typical harem members so I wasn’t too interested in them, but I loved Chise, a super-rich otaku girl with the same stature as Taiga. I thought that Chise, along with a male otaku character, made the show worth watching because of their crazy antics and stupid ideas. My favourite episode would have to be the one where they parodied a mecha anime and all of the girls were mech pilots. Besides the art and comedy though, Mayoi Neko doesn’t really have much else going for it. In contrast to Arakawa, there is very little character development, and any sign of a continuous plot doesn’t show up until near the very end of the series.

One word to describe Mayoi Neko Overrun: fanservice

In this episode, Otonashi befriends Kanade and treats her to Mapo Tofu during class, for which they both get locked up in a sort of prison cell by the new student council president. While the two of them are locked up, Yuri discovers that Ayato Naoi is a human and he has launched an all-out assault on the SSS using the NPCs as his pawns. I bet no one saw that one coming.

After Kanade’s fall, I thought we’d finally get to see God’s true representative in this world, but instead we get Ayato, who is a Nazi-like character that actually reminds me a lot of Lelouch from Code Geass. Ayato even has a special power in which he can hypnotize people (including NPCs) and order them around. That’s how he was able to build a small army against the SSS.

With the SSS defeated, Ayato was ready to claim victory and send the SSS members out of that world by hypnotizing them to feel no more regret about what happened during their lives, but then Otonashi and Kanade show up, having just broken out of their prison cell. Here I was hoping for some big show-down between Ayato and Kanade, but I was very disappointed with what ensued. I don’t know what it is about anime, but the bad guys seem to like to talk a lot and Ayato is no exception. He starts blabbing on about being God and so on up until it looks like he’s going to rape Yuri or something and decides to hypnotize her instead. (Note: Yuri’s voice actress, Harumi Sakurai, voiced some characters in 18+ anime before, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they put her skills to good use -.^)

Preoccupied with hypnotizing Yuri, Ayato lets his guard down, allowing Otonashi to approach him and land a good punch. I guess all those NPCs standing around with pistols forgot that they were supposed to stop anyone from approaching Ayato. After that, we go into this long flashback about Ayato’s life and how he couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations and so on. Then the episode ends.

At this point I was just angry at this episode. Not only do we not get to see Kanade face off with anyone, the new enemy has already been defeated and subdued. It wasn’t even in a grand manner; Otonashi just walked up and punched him in the face, we don’t even get to see the punch, just a hat flying off. I know Key isn’t known for having much action in their stories, but to build up the viewers’ hopes that there’ll be a big fight scene and just end it with a punch and a long flashback is just cruel.

It also seems that the SSS are back to where they were near the end of episode 5, with no more enemies to fight and no way to get their revenge on God. I’m hoping that Ayato’s past is supposed to be some clue as to how this world came to be and why everyone is in it, otherwise it feels like I’ve been wasting my time watching the SSS fight with someone that doesn’t have anything to do with the story. One thing I am happy about with Angel Beats is how Key has put some weird food in it like all of its other anime titles. Kanon had Akiko’s jam, AIR had Misuzu’s really thick juice, Clannad had Sanae’s bread, and Angel Beats has Kanade’s tofu dish.

Angel Beats

I think it’s safe to say that Angel Beats was either the most or second-most (after K-ON) anticipated anime of the season. The main reason is probably because one of the collaborators was Key, which also wrote Kanon, AIR, and Clannad (all of which were very successful). There are three other companies working with Key on Angel Beats, but it manages to retain a common theme with Key’s previous works which is life and death. In case you forgot where this theme showed up in Key’s previous works, they were most prominent in: Ayu’s arc in Kanon, the Summer arc in AIR, and Ushiro’s arc in Clannad. The humour usually found at the beginning of Key’s stories was also in Angel Beats with all of the traps that the SSS fell for in the second episode. Some people have complained that the animation quality is poor, character designs were plagiarized, or that the music band was just an attempt at gaining more music fans. I won’t argue that these things aren’t true, but the main selling point of any good anime should be its story. With the way Angel Beats has started out, it looks like it’s following the same pattern as Kanon/AIR/Clannad with the exception that there’s no harem. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series and hoping it’ll stand up to its predecessors.

Arakawa Under the Bridge

I’m not really sure what to make of Arakawa Under the Bridge. The characters are so weird that sometimes you can’t understand their train of thought. With that being said, they all appear to be homeless except for the main guy, so that might explain their mental health. I’m sure anyone living in a big city and who has spoken to some “bums” will know that a lot of them live in their own little fantasy world. That’s exactly what Arakawa Under the Bridge seems like to me, a depiction of the world from the point of view of some bums. Then again, this is an anime, and the girl could really be a Venutian, and the guy in the green suit could really be a kappa. I’m really interested in seeing where this anime will go, it looks like it has a lot of potential.

B Gata H Kei

The plot summary for B Gata H Kei is probably one of the most messed up ones I’ve heard of. Seriously, what kind of female high schooler just decides that she wants to do 100 guys? Anyways, I gave this anime a shot and I’ll admit that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. Despite what the summary says, the main character is actually a virgin and it looks like she’ll stay that way for the remainder of the series (thank god). The anime is actually a romantic comedy wrapped up with some ecchi and topped off with one crazy sex-starved girl. Some of the scenes were pretty funny, but I found the ecchi just overwhelmed the comedy and makes B Gata H Kei look even more fanservice-focused than Love Hina, but not as funny. In my opinion, it doesn’t seem like an anime worth waiting around for.

Giant Killing

Focusing on Football (a.k.a. Soccer), Giant Killing looks like your standard team sports anime. A new guy joins an underdog team and helps them to reform and win against the best. It’s not really my kind of anime, but I guess if you really like Football or sports anime in general, this would be a decent choice.

Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan

For the first ten minutes of Hakuouki, I was extremely confused as to what gender the main character was. Luckily I wasn’t the only one, since most of the other characters couldn’t tell either. I’m glad that she turned out to be a girl though, or else this anime would  freak me out even more. It’s basically a reverse-harem (one girl, lots of guys) anime where all of the guys are bishounen and carry swords. There looks to be some action in the form of swordfights, but those are just minor scenes. I won’t be watching this since it’s obviously targeted at a female audience and lacks comedy, which would be the only thing that would make me reconsider.

Heroman

A mix of anime and American comics, Heroman looks like something I would have really enjoyed as a kid. Sadly, I’m in my 20s now and superheroes saving damsels in distress just isn’t as appealing as it once was. If you’re curious though, the anime is most like a fusion between Spiderman, Medabots, and aliens. The situation with the poor nerdy kid and hot babe is just like Peter and Mary-Jane, there’s a robot that the main character can control, and there are evil aliens thrown in for good measure.

House of Five Leaves

House of Five Leaves has horrible character designs, but the animation is beautiful and the plot seems decent. The anime is about a shy, cowardly samurai that agrees to work for a stranger before discovering that his new employer is actually a criminal involved with kidnapping. It looks like the series will mainly focus on character development and debate ethical issues like whether it is wrong to help someone by committing a crime. The plot may sound kinda boring, but the first episode went by a lot faster than I thought it would. I haven’t seen anyone write about this series yet, but it could turn out to be very good.

Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou

This is one of the more disappointing anime of the season. Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maoh is essentially a harem anime with magic involved. There’s a lot of panty flashing, clothes being blasted off, and tons of “oops” scenes. It wouldn’t be so bad if they had been a little bit more creative with this anime, but it seems like everything has already been done before. In these kinds of anime, everyone knows that whenever there’s an explosion at least one girl has to be naked afterwards, and whenever the main character goes into a private room, 90% of the time there will be a girl with her panties down or shirt unbuttoned. The main female character also hates the main male character, which seems to be common nowadays after Love Hina. With the lack of anything new or creative, you’d at least expect the animation to be good, but it was just utter crap. I definitely don’t recommend this anime to anyone.

K-ON Season 2

The best way to describe K-ON is that it’s like crack. You know it sucks and is bad for you, but you just can’t get enough of it. There’s absolutely no continuous plot, the humour is only mildly funny, and the characters are basically just blobs (hence the term moe-blob). Seriously, I really don’t know why I can’t stop watching this. Maybe Mio’s “moe moe kyun”, or Azu-nyan, or Mugi’s eyebrows have something to do with it, but I just can’t pry myself away from this epic waste of time.

Kaichou wa Maid-sama

I was a bit skeptical at first, since the summary made Kaichou wa Maid-sama sound like a reverse harem, but it’s actually a good anime. While right now it seems to be focusing on the comedy, it looks like it’ll turn into a romantic comedy. The main character is very gun ho and anti-boy so it’s funny to see her dress up as a maid and serve a guy from school at a maid cafe. Overall, the anime is cute (in a personality sort of way, not character designs) and funny. It’s definitely worth the watch if you like light-hearted shows.

Kiss x Sis

I’ve written about the Kiss x Sis OVAs before, but this is my first time writing about the anime. While I was expecting the anime to be along the same lines as the OVAs (ie: tentacle rape and incest), it was actually watered down a bit. The incest portion of the story is still there, but scenes aren’t as suggestive as they were in the OVA. I think the most extreme scene in the first episode was when the sisters flashed their bras, which is a lot tamer than a giant octopus wrapping its tentacles around some sensitive areas. Although the anime isn’t as extreme, it’s still a fanservice anime and really only aimed at people that wanna see some panties and brother x sister action. Not recommended for the average anime watcher.

Mayoi Neko Overrun

I’m on the fence on this one. Mayoi Neko Overrun looks like it should be funny, and while I admit some scenes were amusing, it didn’t have me actually laughing. It does have some unique characters; one of them is an orphan that says the opposite of what she means, one guy seems to always be making comparisons between the 2D world and 3D world, another girl is a rich otaku, and there’s a giant cat that looks like a hot girl. As of the first episode, there doesn’t seem to be much of a plot yet since they spent most of the time introducing characters and chasing the giant cat around. Ecchi content is present here, but not a big component of the anime. I’ll keep watching it for the time being just to see where it goes.

Rainbow

This is probably the darkest anime of the season. Prisons in the past really were horrible places, and Rainbow does a good job of depicting just how bad it can get. The main characters are imprisoned for stuff like petty crimes and standing up against abuse, but they’re treated like the lowest of the low, being subjected to torture and physical abuse. One thing to note is that this is a “bro” anime, so if you’re looking for pretty anime girls, this isn’t the place. If you like anime about sacrifice, overcoming hardships, and standing up for one another, then this is a good one to look into.

Senkou no Night Raid

Set in China in the 1930′s, Senkou no Night Raid isn’t what you think it is. Japan and China don’t have the best of relations, so I think a lot of people may have dismissed this anime as Japanese propaganda and not given it the chance it deserves. While it’s  true that the “good guys” are Japanese, keep in mind that this is fictional and should be enjoyed as just that, fiction. The main characters even have special abilities like x-ray vision, deflection, and teleportation, which takes away the realism from the anime. All of the special operatives have some sort of special ability, which helps to add a lot more action into the anime (and yes, this is an action anime). Since the first episode was mostly action, not too many details regarding the plot were given other than the fact that the group of main characters are secret Japanese operatives in China. Like some of the other anime this season, it can turn out to be good or bad, but it’s hard to tell with only one episode.

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitte Iru

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitte Iru has hot guys everywhere you look. It’s really not my cup of tea so I’ll be passing on this one.

Working

Cute and funny, Working seems to stem from what I call the Lucky Star class of anime. It feels like there should be some sort of plot, but there just isn’t one (at least not one that I could tell). This is something that you would get and just leave on the shelf until a dull Sunday morning when you’ve got nothing better to do except watch anime.

Final Thoughts

I thought this season was very impressive in terms of the quality of anime being aired. Whereas last season I was struggling to find something decent to watch, I find myself trying to decide which ones not to watch right now in order to fit them into my schedule. It looks like the moe boom is also finally coming to an end, with K-ON and maybe Working being the only two anime that you could really classify as moe. As much as I enjoyed the boom, it was killing the industry, and I swear that too much moe kills brain cells. I’ve still got to take care of stuff in my life so this will probably be my only post for another week or so, but I’m not dead so I’ll be back.

With only one month left before the start of the spring 2010 anime season, I’m disappointed at the anime that have been announced. The only series that I’ve been looking forward to for a while is Angel Beats, mainly because Key worked on the story, but also because of how good the trailer looked. Key’s stories have always brought a tear to my eye, but so far they’ve mostly been focused on the relationships between characters (ie: Kanon, AIR, Clannad, Planetarian). The trailer for Angel Beats looks like it contains a lot of action though, so I’m curious to see how Key integrates that into their usual formula.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DryAxOFNWEM

The other anime that I’m considering watching are Senko no Night Raid, which sounds like it has some potential, and to a lesser extent, Working. I watched the first episode of Working and it looks decent, but it might turn out good or bad depending on how the rest of the series goes. The seeming lack of a plot is a downer, but it’s pretty funny at times.

A lot of people are probably really hyped up over the 2nd season of K-ON, and I might just watch it so I’m not left out of the loop, but I don’t think I’ll enjoy it. After some time without K-ON and reflecting back on it, I don’t think it was a good anime and sometimes wonder why I watched it. Actually, I do know why I watched it: Mio + mini-top-hat, Tsumugi’s eyebrows, and the ending song. If it weren’t for those three things, I would not have watched the series to the end. After all, there was no plot, no drama, no action, and it wasn’t that funny. It’s scary how easily they drew me in with just a few cute things.

Arakawa Under the Bridge just made me go “wtf” when I saw the picture for it. The guy with a yellow star for a head and what looks like another guy in a green costume has got me wondering what’s going on. I guess that’s a good way of getting people to watch an anime, make them curious.

B Gata H Kei looks like it belongs in the last season along with other crazy anime like Chu-Bra and Seikon no Qwaser. Seriously, what kind of girl aspires to having 100 sex partners? I’m not saying it’s not possible, pornstars have way more after all, but they’re usually in it for the money. This anime just looks like an excuse to put in fanservice everywhere.

As for the Iron Man and Heroman anime, I actually want to see how the Japanese will manage to distort the American concept of superheroes fighting for justice. Considering a lot of anime have really emo main characters and a hot chick thrown in there for fanservice, I predict these two anime will be like that too.

I don’t have anything to say for the other anime that are being aired this spring. Of course, I’ll check out the first episode for all of them like usual, but my expectations aren’t very high. Hopefully there’ll be a few gems to look forward to.