The Long Wait Update: 2

The 1st Major oav is subtitled. The 2nd should be by Monday. That's one series down. Yay!

In other good news, Bake-(etc)-monogatari has had the entire rest of the book series green-lit. This is incredibly good news. Not just the next book, or the next two, but a promise to animate the full story to its end. Now we will get to see a series end properly, unlike Full Metal Panic or Haruhi Suzumiya, which both inscrutably ended, despite their popularity, in the middle of the light novels. Perhaps some surveys of viewer response to Nisemonogatari were positive enough to give them the confidence to make this unprecedented step. Nisemonogatari was way better than Bakemonogatari, because it stuck to its central theme in a poetic, beautiful, unforeseeable way:

Not only are his little sisters only 'fake' heroes of justice because they aren't strong willed enough to overcome scary and dangerous situations, not only is their opponent a 'fake' expert of the occult because he doesn't even believe in the occult and just cons people out of money, but his own little sister is a 'fake' little sister because she's actually a cuckoo phoenix that stole his little sister's place in his mother's womb before she was born. A nisemono-immouto!

That is so classic, so amazing, so 'whoa I never saw that coming,' and yet it was hinted at from the very beginning, by the very title of the series. The story was about his little sisters, it was 'fake story.' So one of his sisters had to be fake. That is the god of all wordplays.

I can't wait to see the rest of this series. It has so many interesting characters and such a fun world, that I really have no idea what might happen next.

The Bake-(etc)-monogatari series can now join the 'highly anticipated' list alongside Little Busters.

Now to turn our attention to this spring season anime:

Acchi Kochi: The characters are cardboard cut-outs. They aren't lifelike or realistic at all. It isn't even funny.

Medaka Box: Some cute artistic elements and wordplay, but I don't like the main characters. It's watchable but not actually good.

Saint Seiya Omega: I like the art style, but the plot and characters are way too shallow. Despite the surface resemblances, this is nothing like Pretty Cure.

Kuromajyo-san: I like the art and humor, but it's short and rather lacking in seriousness.

Sengoku Collection: This show was surprisingly good. It had a lot of humor based around culture shock, and I like that the main characters are both fundamentally good people. It gets tiresome when the story is about an unbelievably rude/obnoxious/stupid girl and an angelicly nice guy. I prefer couples like this where both give as well as receive in a relationship.

Sankarea: This show was funny and had good art. I'm very uncertain about the main characters though. They seem, psychologically, a little off. The plot twist of her becoming a zombie lover by episode two seems a little much, too. Reminds me of Itsuka Tenma. . . No, I mustn't think of that evil show. Sankarea deserves more chances to impress me than Tenma did.

Accel World: Good art and an interesting world. The minus side is I don't like the main characters. I'm going to suspend judgment for now.

Ozuma: Terrible. Ugh.

Space Brothers: A rocky start. It had some humor and some depth, but I don't like how depressing the story was. (No matter how skilled you are at work, even if you win 1st prize in an auto show, if you try to defend your family's honor not only will you be fired, but no one else in Japan will hire you, and your family will blame you, resent you, and make you feel guilty for being a slacker despite the fact that you sacrificed yourself for them. Talk about ingratitude. Plus random rude jerks will spit in your face if your new job is lower class. This is too dark a portrayal of life. Or if it is accurate, the last thing we need to do is compound the misery of reality by making even our escapist fantasies miserable too.) I also dislike the involvement of the supernatural in what was supposed to be a realistic portrayal of astronaut-ing. Or at least I thought it was supposed to be. Hopefully it gets better from here.

Natsuiro Kiseki: The main characters were somewhat annoying, especially Yuka. I don't understand the plot either. I'll give it a little leeway to develop into something because the girls are cute, but I don't harbor any high hopes. (Despite the fact that all four girls randomly flew into the air at the end.)

Kimi to Boku and Kore ha Zombie Desuka -- These were both typical continuations of their earlier, perfectly entertaining series. No surprises, both are still worth watching. Kore ha Zombie moreso than Kimi to Boku.

Zetman: The protagonist has got to be the most naive person to ever live. He's the only non-retard who seems to have no clue about anything concerning the world. Even so, the story has a pretty cool premise. Monsters lurk among us and only specially bio-engineered heroes can fight them. Go, Zetman! Fight, Zetman! You're our only hope!

In short, not a single series galvanized me. Some might be entertaining, but none of them are food for the soul.

Still to come:

Saki Achiga and Fate/Zero, which will of course be good.

Dusk Maiden, Jormungand, Nazo no Kanojo, Kuroko no Basuke, Haiyore, Hyoka, Upotte, Tsuritama, Shining Hearts, and Sakamichi, which are all unknowns.

Maybe next week I can see the rest of this spring lineup. But so far it's just as I thought, a huge dropoff in quality compared to the winter 2012 season (Just think, just this winter we were watching Nisemonogatari.)