The shift from Ric’s perception of being an outsider looking in to an active participant changed the way the anime felt. Before all of the crazy things that everyone did was so weird and awkward, but in the second season the viewer comes to expect things that normally would not have crossed the mind of someone new to the series. It’s like the more you watch Arakawa, the more you associate with Ric and how he has moved from being an outsider to someone who understands and knows what to expect from the other characters.

There are still plenty of surprises in hand though. From boy bands to muscle men and gangster chickens, you never know what the anime is going to throw at you next. While this unpredictability keeps things interesting, it also has a downside: lack of a coherent plot. The first season remained plotless until the end with the events surrounding Ric and his father. I thought that they were going to continue with that in the second season, but except for a couple of jokes, Rics father is never mentioned again. Instead, Ric’s relationship with Nino comes to the fore as the two of them try to work out any misunderstandings. Unfortunately, Arakawa Under the Bridge did not stick with this plotline for long as it quickly changed focus to include all of the other characters. Since only a few episodes at max were ever spent on one plotline, it was very difficult to see where the series was heading.

They did manage to develop closer bonds between the characters at the end of the series, but I was disappointed that there was not enough time to develop them any further. The relationship between Ric and Nino still hasn’t moved past the “yay, we’re going out” phase, the Hoshii x Amazoness pairing was only just introduced in the last few episodes, P-Ko still hasn’t gotten anywhere with the mayor, and everyone else’s relationships seem to be the same as before. I certainly hope that this means there will be more episodes coming out, because leaving things the way they are now would not make for a very good ending.

While the plot was lacking, at least the animation was consistent and lacked any major flaws. One of the things I was surprised over was how they could change the animation style in order to reflect the actions of the characters. When it comes to anime, you can usually sort them into the categories moe, non-moe, and scary ugly; Arakawa Under the Bridge managed to switch between all three. Whenever Ric and the other guys would switch into their girly modes, they would turn all big-bright-eyed and would be classified as moe if it weren’t for the fact that they were guys. Most of the time the anime stays in the non-moe category, but every once in a while it’ll move into the scary ugly category for effect. Whenever Stella turns into a hulking giant or when they zoom in on Amazoness are the main examples of when it goes into the scary ugly category. I applaud the animators for being able to switch between these styles.

Arakawa Under the Bridge certainly is unique with its wide cast of misfit characters and wacky plotlines. That awkward feeling that it gives viewers by creating unlikely situations and altering the animation will make it memorable, but it falls short of being a great series. Without a coherent plot or proper ending, the series is simply relying on its wackiness to keep it afloat. Hopefully they will release a third season that wraps up the loose ends (such as everyone’s past regrets) and sees at least the relationship between Ric and Nino go beyond just spending time together.

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

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.