Third Mid-Season Evaluation with TL

Hey guys, TL here, with a short piece on what I feel about the current season.

Tonari no kaibutsu kun started out this season as my favorite. The first couple of episodes were amazing, and in particular, I thought episodes 1 and 4 were some of the single best episodes I’ve ever seen. The comedy was funny, the romance was cute, and the interaction between the characters indicated progression towards a relationship-driven romance series – by the second episode, the two characters had confessed towards each other, and I honestly thought we were going to get a series about characters ACTUALLY in a relationship, as opposed to the typical romance series where two characters ‘struggle’ to discover their feelings, full of drama and ‘misunderstandings’. I was really excited to see where this series was going…

.. only to be totally disappointed. We’re at episode 9, and slowly but surely, the show has decended into your typical romance: Full of ‘misunderstandings, characters clearly like each other but try to deny it, oscillating between hot and cold. There are still many great things about the show, of course. I’m not too big a fan of Haru, but otherwise I love the characters, and the animation, while not big budget, is great (I love the way they draw the cartoony reaction faces and whatnot). I also like the soundtrack. However, I absolutely cannot conceal my disappointment in this show – The first 4 episodes were glorious, but I cannot deny that it has dropped off significantly from that.

6.75/10

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!, or, as I just call it, chuuni. The best show this sesason. Great animation, great characters, and absolutely hilarious. The show itself has kind of a suzumiya haruhi feel to me (except without kyon) – The first 5 or 6 episodes just plain silliness and pure fun. Of course, inevitably, the show had to turn to a more serious tone. How did it do? Surprisingly, not too bad. The romance seems pretty decent as well – for ONCE no harem or even love triangle. The drama wasn’t too overdone – I did have some trouble believing that a student in high school could realistically have delusions like that, but whatever – it makes for fun situations, so I’ll let it slide.

8/10

My feelings towards Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo would be, what I would say, opposite of what I feel towards Tonari no kaibutsu kun. I didn’t like it too much at first, but now it’s grown on me, and I enjoy it quite a bit. The drama and romance, while not spectacular by any means, is alright. Besides dealing in romance, they also deal in other issues like chasing your dreams (and how sometimes they’re not realistic), or dealing with success (and failure), especially in face of failure amongst your peers (or vice versa). Nothing incredibly original or amazing again, but still pretty decent, in my opinion. I think it’s also worth noting that this show is produced by the same studio as Little Busters, but the budget for this show is NOTICEABLY larger. While the latter is filled with still frames, the animation is for this show is, in my opinion, actually pretty amazing. A lot of care is put into detail, and backgrounds look amazing.
The characters are pretty cool across the board, for the most part – I’m not sold on the MC, and I’m not a huge fan of the genki-girl senpai (and I hope the loli imouto never shows up again), but to be honest, even the female main character, who I didn’t like at first, has grown on me considerably. Best character in the show (maybe season?) is still the following though:

7.5/10

If I had to describe magi in one word, it would be fun. It’s not deep or mind blowing, the characters aren’t very developed (so far). The writing, while not full of holes and stupidity, has it’s fair share of kinks. The show does a great job, though, with it’s adventuring atmosphere. I’d recommend this show as a ‘fun’ watch – don’t expect anything amazing, but I personally find it quite an enjoyable show.
7/10

Mid-Season Review! Starting with CardOtaku! :DDD

Hey everybody! CardOtaku here!

Recently, as you’ve probably seen… I lack motivation to post more often than I should, but that changes today (hopefully)! My good friend TL has re-sparked my motivation to post and came up with some very interesting things to write about.

First up! The members of Void.Canvas will be writing some mid-season reviews of animes that are currently airing and we will each give our opinions on them! So lets begin!

Psycho-Pass:
This anime really interested me when it first came out because due to various factors! First, it is written by Gen Urobuchi, the author of Fate/Zero and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika. For those of you who don’t know those two are some of my favorite anime and so I have some very high hopes for this anime. Secondly, the art style for this anime is the same as that of Katekyo Hitman! Reborn! which maybe a good or bad thing depending on your personal preference. Now, originally the anime started off quite slowly and the characters in the anime don’t really appeal to me. However, after the watching the recent episodes this show has again interested me. 🙂 (Also… I’m LOVING it’s ending theme! Egoist ftw! XD)

Art: 8/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 8.5/10
Story: 8/10
Music: 8/10

Psycho-Pass Mid-Term Evaluation: 8/10

K:
K is an anime that is very “fan-serviced” based in my opinion and it gives eye-candy to both it’s male and female audiences. However, for some people that may be a huge turn-off. For example, I always get goosebumps whenever Shiro (the main character), blushes infront of Kuroh (a pretty boy featured in K). However, I must give huge props to animation that is present in K because it’s probably one of the only things that’s keeping me interested in this anime. However, like Psycho-Pass, the recent episodes are starting to become more interesting, but still not quite up to what I was expecting. 😦

Art: 8/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 7/10

K Mid-Season Evaluation: 7/10

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!
Ah yes! Chuu2 is probably one of my favorites this year and I can list a number of very good reasons why. First, this anime is full of cute characters that have K-On like art. Second, the art and animation is top notch. Third, the main cast of characters are different enough that their interactions are interesting to watch every episode. These are only a few points that I will make, but after watching the newest episode, I feel that the anime will change in direction and move closer to the relationship between the two main characters. I hope this anime doesn’t disappoint me because I really like it. XD

Art: 8.5/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 9/10
Story: 8/10
Music:8/10

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shita! Mid-Season evaluation: 8.5/10

Robotics;Note
This anime has a lot of mixed reactions from my group of friends because many netizens are saying how bad the game was and how it doesn’t really stand up against it’s predecessor Steins;Gate. In all honesty, I loved Steins;Gate because I walked in to watch it without a very high expectation due to Chaos;Head being Steins;Gate’s predecessor. However, after being amazed by Steins;Gate I unknowingly walked into Robotics;Note with a high expectation. I try not to be too biased against Robotics;Note and just watch it for what it is and not what came before it. Now, getting back on topic, Robotics;Note features a cast of characters that are interesting to watch, but the more interesting character in the series are the minor characters because to me the two leading characters seem to generic. As of episode 7, Robotics;Note threw in a few cheap shots that gives us some very important information, but is interrupted by ongoing events which kind of “movie trailers” us into continuing to watch the anime. I don’t really think it’s a bad thing, but it’s one of the worse parts of watching ongoing anime because we wont ever know the answers until they air the episode. >_<

Art: 8/10
Animation: 8.5/10
Characters: 8.5/10
Story: 8/10
Music: 8/10

Robotics;Note Mid-Season Evaluation: 8.25/10

Keep in mid that all these ratings n’ what not is my own opinion and you do not have to agree with me >_<
Next, we will have Jampopo write about the anime of his choice this season and his mid-season evaluations!

-CardOtaku