天下制覇

Summary:
The sequel series to the original Moonlight Mile, about a team of rockclimbers who try to harness a new form of energy that would make space travel efficient and available to all.

Personal Outlook:
The first series came and went without me giving it even more than a cursory glance, so don’t expect even that much for this one either.

Final Preseason Rating:
Two and a half Mets to assist in space construction.

Summary:
Koujiro is a poor, broke school teacher… who gets the deal of a lifetime. If he can field an all girl’s kendo team capable of beating the guy’s team, his superior will buy him free meals for a year. Trying to find enough girls to even form a team is only the start of his problems.

Personal Outlook:
I like swords. I like comedy. I’m not really certain what to think of the thin harem veneer here, but who knows. As I understand it, the manga’s had pretty lukewarm reaction from most people, so… maybe things will transition well to anime form. Or maybe it’ll be a terrible half-assed sports comedy filled with people going “Coachi!”

Final Preseason Rating:
Swords good. FIRE BAD!

Summary:
An adaptation of a 4-panel comic based around the life and times of a set of girls at an art school.

Personal Outlook:
As SHAFT was to Hidamari Sketch, Hal is to this. If you’re an Aria fan, you may want to take a look since the cast list is nearly identical, but I can never really get into the pastoral slice of life stuff.

Final Preseason Rating:
Two cows out of five to graze on the endless landscapes in the PV.

Summary:
Nobody knows, but I bet it’ll be hilarious to hear the Japanese try to pronounce “Labyrinth.”

Personal Outlook:
I have no clue whatsoever. Nobody knows a damn thing about the show.

Final Preseason Rating:
I’ll have a hamburger, a shake, and a large order of fries.

Summary:
A mystery erupts at an all-girls school and some of them suddenly find themselves embroiled in god only knows what involving mecha, kidnappings, and a healthy dose of yuri. Don’t let other people fool you, this is a prequel to the pre-existing manga, and takes place about three years before the mysterious disappearances.

Personal Outlook:
It’s hard to really tell what they’re doing with this one. If it’s similar to the existing manga, there’ll be a lot of fanservice and yuri with a healthy dose of some sci-fi thriller. I’ll check it out a little bit at least because BeSTACK (Tokyo Majin) is at the helm, but otherwise, the PV didn’t really excite me much.

Final Preseason Rating:
Three blue dinosaurs with nothing left to lose.

Summary:
Yako Katsuragi’s father was murdered in a completely locked room. Enter the demon Neuro Nougami, who unravels riddles and then eats the dark energy it releases. Tired of the demon world, he enters the human world and takes on Yako as an apprentice in order to solve the ultimate mystery of the world.

Personal Outlook:
I make no illusions about having a great deal of disdain for the vast majority of Jump titles. It might be okay, but the endless exposition crammed into every possible crevasse that is the hallmark of a Jump series combined with an already talky genre? On its face, I’m not seeing the appeal. The demon angle might be enough to change things, but I’m not really excited for this one at all.

Final Preseason Rating:
Five Mr Saturns to get to the bottom of this mystery. BOiNG!

Summary:
Two sisters and their grandfather can see ghosts that other people can’t. The younger one is very easily frightened by what she sees as they learn all about the spirits of Japan.

Personal Outlook:
The premise is basically xxxHOLiC with a pair of girls instead of whiny screaming Watanuki. The manga itself is a lot more sedate and less overall sinister than Clamp’s work though.

Final Preseason Rating:
A magical nonconfrontational imp to train them past level 2.

Summary:
Hidaka Sana comes back to his hometown after five years away. Everything is exactly as he remembered it. He returns to school and rejoins his old friend and first crush in restarting his life at home.

Personal Outlook:
Yawn. Even as a music buff, and apparently this having musical themes (the musical staff through the title and other places), I can’t really bring myself to anticipate this one. Although the leading lady does look quite a bit like Tsugumi from Ever17.

Final Preseason Rating:
A Snorlax to do my sleeping for me.

Summary:
In an alternate version of the present, strange monsters called Emulators are invading the world and it’s up to those who can wield magic, the Wizards, to stop them.

Personal Outlook:
The game this is based on was eminently forgettable, so I really don’t hold too much hope for this one either. I have a soft spot for fantasy though, so I’m sure I’ll manage to make it at least an episode or two.

Final Preseason Rating:
Two grumpy Dorcases out of a possible ten.

Summary:
The gambling genius Kaiji takes on the debt of somebody he barely knew, but the problem is that it compounded insanely and unless his life is on the line, Kaiji will never bring his formidable abilities to bear, and at that point, it may be too late.

Personal Outlook:
Akagi was a sleeper hit about a year and a half ago, and as the picture may clue you in, this is by the same guy who did Akagi, plus pretty much an identical staff for the adaptation. Akagi was a rather fun ride, though I didn’t get into it as much as most. I’ll at least be giving this one a fair shot.

Final Preseason Rating:
My life’s a chip in your pile.

Summary:
A completely original production about a future world with monsters, people with magical powers and fighting mechanized dragons.

Personal Outlook:
Strike 1: Mecha. Strike 2: Gonzo. I looked for a strike 3, but I don’t think I’ve got one, maybe we can make the giant mecha stingray fill that void. Anyway, my general antipathy towards Gonzo’s near total inability to maintain a plot past episode 6 and even more towards mecha does not… how to say… put me in an anticipatory mood.

Final Preseason Rating:
One preemptive Screw Attack.

Summary:
Ninomiya is a normal student with something of a phobia around girls, when his sister decides to cure him of it and prepare him for the real world by having the beautiful Mayo move in with them, including sharing the same room, bathing together, etc.

Personal Outlook:
Wow, are those some generic looking characters. Sounds almost exactly like Girls Bravo 2.0, minus the rampant fanservice and plus (maybe) a male lead that doesn’t physically cause me pain. Surprisingly though (at least to me), I’m kind of looking forward to this. With almost all of the comedies I’m watching ending, there looks to be almost nothing to fill in the gap, and I could use something with guns and girls to relax. This is a case of “any port in a storm” though, so… who knows.

Final Preseason Rating:
0.5 bread is better than none.

Summary:
Aoki Daisuke is a brand new 3rd grade teacher. He has some problems with his class though. First and foremost is the girl Rin, who seems far more mature than she should be at times and has declared herself to be his girlfriend and tries her best to… attend to her womanly duties.

Personal Outlook:
No. Just… no. If they made it excessively over the top, with Rin occasionally kidnapping him and hoisting him over some candles in bondage gear for people to walk in on, perhaps. When your jokes are “Rin hugs Daisuke and he gets an erection” or “Rin is covered in vanilla ice cream and holding an empty condom,” not so much.

Final Preseason Rating:
Three Butz out of seventeen. You know why.

Summary:
The continuing times and adventures of female cop partners steadfast Miyuki Kobayakawa and out of control Natsumi Tsujimoto as they deal with life as policewomen.

Personal Outlook:
I love stuff like Gunsmith Cats and Burn Up, but YUA is far more mundane than the other super cop shows out there. It is by the A!MG writer afterall. If I want a cop drama, I can just turn on the TV and 23 hours of the day, Law and Order will be on and I can let Jack McCoy’s rebellious prosecution or Lenny Briscoe’s tough jaded cop voice soothe that need.

Final Preseason Rating:
A Bub for Miyuki’s braided hair, and a Bob for Natsumi’s green eyes.

Summary:
Tomoyo’s mother died three years ago, and not long after, he got into a physical fight with his father, severely injuring his arm. His depression made him aloof until he met a girl named Nagisa and his life began to change. He also suddenly begins to have dreams about a desolate world where he is a disembodied spirit. He meets a girl who can build him a body out of the junk and the two look for a way to return to the ‘real’ world.

Personal Outlook:
The fourth and final in Key’s quartet of seasonal games. I like Key stories, but even for me, I found Clannad’s overally plot to be extremely sappy and more than a little excessively strange in places. Still, I’m sure Kyoto will do a decent job adapting it, and taken in individual chunks, it’s all pretty quality. It’s just putting everything together that makes things seem very contrived and nonsensical. Mostly though, this just makes me want a real adaptation of One already, dammit.

Final Preseason Rating:
One New Age Retro Hippy per pound of weed Key smoked while writing this.

Summary:
The continuing adventures of the Flame Haze Shana, along with the everburning Torch, Yuuji as they fight monsters out to devour the existence of the world.

Personal Outlook:
I did mostly enjoy the first season. The start was pretty weak, and the ending fairly anticlimatic, but the middle was excellent. I’m sure I’ll follow it, but since it’ll be getting more than enough attention from other blogs, I’m pretty certain that I won’t be posting about it myself unless they manage to really drag their asses on it.

Final Preseason Rating:
“We encountered a wild Flame Haze!”

Summary:
Girl’s comic artist Hirono Hiro is spending Christmas alone. A strange woman tells him that his life is about to change though, and a chance meeting with a girl who tries to steal his bike turns to romance and changing his whole life.

Personal Outlook:
ef was made to be an evolutionary visual novel, using camera pans and detailed facial animation, and all sorts of other tricks to create a more cinematic experience. Critics loved that and wish every visual novel could be like that. The thing that people seem to miss is that the story and writing were almost universally panned as uninspired and uninteresting. So, what do you get when you move into a presentation where the same visual effects are common place? I’m not sure either. It’s in the hands of SHAFT though, who has shown that they can do a great job changing writing and adapting material, so we’ll see.

Final Preseason Rating:
This -is- SHAFT after all. Six Chuchus.

Summary:
One year from graduation and Kyouichi has still never been kissed. He decides to make it his goal to rectify this before the school festival in a month.

Personal Outlook:
Kimikiss is my dark horse pick for a sleeper hit. The game was wildly popular and JC Staff is at the helm too, with their Honey & Clover/Nodame Cantabile team. The premise seems a little trashy, but there are a shitloads of visual novels every year, and this one rose to the top, so there’s gotta be something there. I do find it funny that JC Staff hasn’t revealed the casting for Kyouichi yet nor shown him in the PV. Hell, maybe they just nuked him entirely.

Final Preseason Rating:
Four delicious steaming pots of borscht.

Summary:
Hundreds of years in the future, the planet is reliant on solar power from three gigantic space elevators, each controlled by a different faction. As with all things, this quickly leads to war between the factions, as well as those outside of them, and a fourth faction appears, trying to use the new Mobile Suits called Gundam to end all the wars.

Personal Outlook:
Gundam! Ha HA! I’ve tried to watch various incarnations of Gundam at least three times, and could never make it past about four episodes. I highly doubt that I’ll change my ways for this one.

Final Preseason Rating:
Remember when wildly popular Japanese media had heterosexual characters?

Summary:
Everybody is jealous of super cool Hinamori Amu. Little do they know that it’s all an act and she’s really shy… until she finds three eggs containing magical spirits with the power to change a person. Thus, with the ability to change herself, she starts to learn who she truly is.

Personal Outlook:
Honestly, this sounds like a far less sinister and more saccharine Uta~Kata. I’m pretty sure that I’m not equipped to deal with an uplifting magical girl show about being yourself when it doesn’t involve blaster cannons though.

Final Preseason Rating:
As many molemen as it takes to add lasers.

Summary:
Taking place 50 years after the first Da Capo, the eternal blossoming sakura tree still flowers. Sakurai Yoshiyuki, growing up next to his two totally non-blood related ‘sisters,’ goes out into the world of girls who want to bang him and the minor magical abilities they all hold.

Personal Outlook:
I’m going to come clean. I detested Da Capo. I got about 9 episodes in and had to throw up my arms and give up. Every single character except the oblivious robot was a self-centered, clingy, demanding little wretch. If the characters in the sequel are a bit more charismatic, I can see myself enjoying it, but the fact that it once again goes right for the sister complex angle isn’t a particularly good start. What I do know of the story does indicate that it’s quite a bit better than the first’s version of “your bitchiness is ruining everything, but we can’t help you being bitchy, so now we have to destroy the giant magic tree,” but on the other hand, nearly every character is thematically a carbon copy of ones from the first. Banana robot, telepathic singing idol, dream entering, etc.

Final Preseason Rating:
Four copy Kirbies for the rehash and half a Waddle Doo.

Summary:
Based on the Korean MMO of the same name. Bright, colorful, and with the grind from hell. Your guess is as good as mine as to anything beyond that.

Personal Outlook:
Ah… good old marketing. Toss out something bright and colorful to attract the children to watching it, which gets them into playing the game too. It’s airing early mornings… so I really have no reason to think this is anything but a bad commercial for the game.

Final Preseason Rating:
One Masterball to catch an Articuno and just skip the damn grind.

Summary:
The three Minami sisters could not be any more different, one motherly and easy going, one energetic and dumb as a post, and the third a deadpan cynic.

Personal Outlook:
Every time somebody says something about this, I’m reminded of the Amazon episode of Futurama. “Humor here funny in different way. It not reinforce stereotypes. Comedy come from character, real situations, not abstract craziness.” “Translation: Not funny.” I actually am open to this one, but I just find people trying to play up its “this is funny in everyday situations” angle to be humorous.

Final Preseason Rating:
Three Jacks out of five for “Real comedy is serious business.”

Summary:
The sequel to Prism Heart (never adapted), this takes place years later when knight in training Hyaweh travels to a school for mages and their knights. His ‘peaceful’ training is soon interrupted by a devestating war and the revival of ancient machines of annihilation.

Personal Outlook:
Prism Ark was mainly memorable to me for having opening vocals that made me want to punch babies and for putting giant hats and beads on lolis. I swear, the hat to loli ratio was at least 2:1. Anyway, the story was pretty forgettable fantasy RPG drek, so I don’t really hold out too much hope for this one either. Still, I have a weakness for fantasy. *sigh* On the other hand, the character designs look quite a bit younger than I remember them…

Final Preseason Rating:
Four Lemon Gels to cure each member of the party by 60% of their max HP

Summary:
Iba Itsuki lived totally ignorant of magic, until he inherited his father’s company Astral. Now he’s in charge of responding to comissions from other people to solve magical problems with his team of magicians and his own new magical powers.

Personal Outlook:
Lots of magic this season. This actually looks like one of the better ones though. Character designs are painfully generic, but the PV was nice enough, albeit filled with speedlines and Photoshop filter backgrounds. My mind is a blank slate here.

Final Preseason Rating:
The stacks of books that they pillaged for those character designs.

Summary:
Taitou was born with the power of the Hokuto, the seventh star. He, along with his sister Laila and his friend Ryuukou set out on a journey to find the legendary sword that will let him stand up against the evil ruling empire and fulfill his destiny.

Personal Outlook:
It’s by the FMA artist, so it’s got that going for it at the very least. The PV didn’t really excite me for it too much though. Studio Flag too… the last thing they seriously worked on was Koi Koi 7, which was abysmal. It might turn out to be decent, but looking at the staff list, you certainly wouldn’t think so.

Final Preseason Rating:
Now, if he could turn into a dragon, I’d be sold.

Summary:
We return again to the Society for Modern Visual Studies, Genshiken, and the life and times of the collection of otaku, weirdos, and those sleeping them.

Personal Outlook:
There are two things that keep me from being overly excited about this despite my general love for doujin culture. A.) In the later going, the manga drops all otaku angles and turns into painful romantic drama, and B.) The art and animation of the first season was a sin unto heaven and Zeus. Both are pretty annoying selling points, but when there are faceless people wandering around in the background, or someone’s hand is the size of their ear, it kind of distracts me from being able to focus on the humor, which I didn’t really find to be amazing in the first place. It had its moments… but… eh. The first episode will actually be streaming online on Friday (9/15) on a broadcaster’s website, so you may see (a terrible quality version of) it in not too long.

Final Preseason Rating:
One 8-bit goomba per million yen spent on sake and whores that could have gone into the budget.

Summary:
When she was four years old, Ishiwatari Shion’s parents were murdered and the only clue was a shogi board with the pieces arranged perfectly. Eleven years later, she’s attempting to enter the professional shogi world with the help of her adopted father when she starts to receive anonymous death threats, strangely reminiscient of her parents’ murder.

Personal Outlook:
Chess! Plus a murder mystery! I have trouble getting excited about either on its own. I’m not sure the combination of the two is more than the sum of its parts.

Final Preseason Rating:
Four Yugis and two Kaibas out of fifteen to get to the bottom of the mysteries of chess.

Summary:
Another cypher of a show. Shirow is involved as the original creator, plus a lot of other people commonly involved with more spiritual type shows.

Personal Outlook:
Who knows. It has the same director as Kino’s Journey, so it should have the spiritual side down okay. There’s not much information though, and the PVs pimp the staff more than show anything useful for forming an opinion.

Final Preseason Rating:
Four Eddies, each containing a random powerup.