Natsume’s Book of Friends 4
http://www.nasinc.co.jp/jp/natsume-anime/
Studio: Brains Base
Genre: Round Cats
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 2nd

Summary: 
Sequel sequel sequel series. Natsume’s continuing adventures trying to return the names to all the spirits in his book and give them their freedom.

Personal Thoughts:
I’ve successfully watched only two or three of the previous 40 or so episodes and I’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much. Even when I see people actually talking about this show, I have a hard time discerning what the draw exactly is. Same general staff as the last couple seasons, so no surprises or real changes expected there at all. Maybe if there was more eye-gouging… What doesn’t that make better?

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
It’s glistening with what could be absolutely nothing.

The New Prince of Tennis
http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/shin-tenipri/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Sweaty Balls
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 4th

Summary: 
Sequel series. Ryoma is back in Japan after his trip to America to continue perfecting his tennis whose-its.

Personal Thoughts: 
Aaand I’m ‘behind’ approximately 200 episodes on this one. Oh yeah, it’s also Jump, and you know how I absolutely adore everything that they spew out. It is a completely new studio and staff from the old one, but then again, it’s IG. I doubt they’ll be putting their own ‘special’ touch on it though, so that just leaves it as the endless cavalcade of tennis plus "believe in yourself/the heart of the cards/felt balls" without even the miniskirts of women’s tennis to liven up the sport.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Has both the excitement and staying power of bran.

Detective Opera Milky Holmes 2
http://milky-holmes.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
The continuining advetures of a group of less-than-successful detectives ‘solving’ crimes and fighting against phantom thieves while trying to regain their lost magical powers.

Personal Thoughts: 
While I won’t say that the first season was perfect, it was definitely one of my favorite comedies in a long while. Delightfully energetic and offkilter, only rarely trying to flirt with sense while the girls were ravenously devouring giant squid. The same staff’s working on it again, so I hope they don’t even bother with all the angstiness and attempts to be serious and just get right into the wacky comedy and Twenty’s Twentiness from the start. The CM has his nipples spinning like fanblades, so yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

A worse crime-solving team than the KISS Pigs^tm.

Kill Me, Baby!
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/kmb/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
Sonya is a trained and active assassin. She’s also attending regular school and has a very difficult time differentiating between the two areas. Her assassin training kicks in every time her clueless but incorrigible friend Yasuna tries to play with her.

Personal Thoughts: 
While pure comedies are one thing JC Staff has consistently done very well with (one of the few things…) and energetic slapstick is always welcome in the anime world of angst, slow pans, and repeating the joke to make sure everybody understood it, the staff here really doesn’t inspire confidence. The director’s basically a newbie with only Hatsukoi Limited (ugh) under his belt and the head writer is the genius behind Merry and Aria TSA. Who knows, maybe if they just give up trying to make sense, they can produce something that’s actually intentionally funny instead of having invisible trombones during the moment of climax. The PVs are also a tad bit… undermade, using that same style as they did in Hatsukoi Limited where they only bothered to draw about a third of the screen in half the shots. So yeah… can’t say I’ve got too many hopes for this one.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
Let the swarms of comedies past fly.

Amagami SS+ Plus
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/amagami/
Studio: AIC
Genre: Phone Sex Ad
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
Sequel series. Junichi always gets depressed around Christmas and ends up spending the romantic holiday alone. However, it’s his last year of high school and this year, he’s not satisfied to spend it by himself. Except at this point he’s already won all the girls in their own individual timelines.

Personal Thoughts: 
And the awards for both the Most Redunant Title and Premise Most Likely To Be Mistaken For a Phone Sex Ad. "Lonely? Hot singles in your area eager for action are just waiting to talk to you!" This’ll be also following the same omnibus format of the original and resetting itself after every other episode to focus on each girl in turn, all in their own separate timelines like the show’s trying to be Quantum Leap. Between Milky Holmes and Guilty Crown, Thursdays are already stupid enough. I barely even managed to stay awake through the first episode of the first season anyway.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
DVDs will come with complimentary tissues for easier enjoyment.

High School DxD
http://www.haremking.tv/
Studio: TNK
Genre: Action
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th (Evening)

Summary: 
Hyoudou’s an incorrigible pervert but somehow finally manages to get a date. When he shows up, he’s killed by a mysterious girl. He awakens with new devilish power and begins to learn that many of the people around him are devils, angels, and all manner of preternatural creatures and is thrust into the middle of a violent power struggle.

Personal Thoughts: 
Well, it’s an evening show, so that means that I’m usually already been sedated by food and willing to plop myself down in front of just about anything. It seems okay, I guess, at least as far as Yet Another ‘Fighting’ Harem shows go. Given the PVs, I can’t imagine it becoming anything more than that. The staff is ‘solid’ too, or at least has a copious amount of experience with this kind of show, from Ikki Tousen to Demon King in the Back Row. TNK themselves are probably the weakest link in the chain, as they really don’t do much on their own and rarely better than average production. Of course, this chain is forged on little more than T&A, so it’s not like expectations are particularly high to begin with.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Mara’s pick of the season.

War Maiden Epic: Symphogear
http://www.symphogear.com/
Studio: Encourage Films
Genre: Action
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 6th

Summary: 
Mysterious monsters have begun appearing in the world that humans call Noise. Tsubasa and Kanade are a pair of idols who fight against them as the idol pair Zwei Wing, but Tsubasa freezes during a fight and Kanade gives her life to protect her. Tsubasa has to carry on the fight against the Noise with her new friends, never forgetting Kanade’s last words to her.

Personal Thoughts: 
The first episode was screened earlier ‘today’ (well, the 26th in Japan) and reactions to it have been hilarious to read. Mainly because few people were expecting a supposedly main character to die about 10 minutes into the first episode. Unfortunately, most of the other impressions seem to be "Haha, this is bad, but lesbians!" Not that I put much stock in any Non-Aroduc, but it’s not really something you want to hear. Well, aside from wanton violence. Still, with no marketing and the summary on their website apparently around 50% a lie, one has to wonder if they have any idea what they’re doing. Then again, it did work out pretty well for Ga-Rei Zero.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
       
Let us dance the dance of idols…

The Knight in the Area
http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/knight/
Studio: Shin-ei Animation
Genre: Drama
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 6th (evening)

Summary: 
Kakeru thinks he’s useless at soccer and his brother Suguru got all the talent. Suguru disagrees, but Kakeru’s life is thrown into chaos when they’re in a severe car accident. Suguru dies and Kakeru needs a heart transplant to save his life. He receives Suguru’s heart and takes over his dream to reach the national championships.

Personal Thoughts:
…What. I’m not sure if that sounds more like a supervillain backstory, or a plot twist of Twilight. Well, I suppose it could be both, Metal Gear Solid. When you’re taking "My dead brother’s heart lives on… inside me" and your twist on it is to make that statement literally true… well… we’re not exactly starting at the pinnacle of great writing here. Angsty sports dramas aren’t my thing anyway. It’s also being done by Shin-ei, whose finest piece of animation to date may very well be Shin-chan. It is soccer, though. How hard can it be to animate a 0-0 tie? Take that, rest of the world.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Would be more promising if it was a stolen kidney granting super powers.

Zero’s Familiar F
http://www.zero-tsukaima.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Adventure
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 6th (Evening)

Summary: 
Sequel sequel sequel series. Saito is accidentally summoned to a world of magic by a mage who can only blow things up and is drawn into the struggle of the bourgeoisie against the proletariet. Also elves or something.

Personal Thoughts: 
Yet another evening show, and yes, it airs on the same day as Shana. I think it’s part of JC Staff’s insidious plan to drive everybody mad with Rie’s harpy-like shrieking. I actually do think this will be significantly better than the last couple seasons though. The director from season 1 is back in charge of it and the original creator is handling the writing himself this time around instead of one of JC Staff’s trained monkeys. Will it be good though? No, probably still not. But aside from Rie’s ear-piercing whine, likely a suitable way to pass Friday evenings.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Two melonbr… wait, wrong show.

Bodacious Space Pirates
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/mo-retsu/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Adventure
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 7th

Summary: 
Marika leads a relatively normal space life in space school when one day, her dead father’s crew shows up and tells her that to keep their writ allowing them to be privateers, their new captain has to be a direct descendant of their old captain. Now she has to split her life between being both a regular high school girl and being captain of a space pirate ship.

Personal Thoughts: 
Damn it. Who taught the Japanese the word "bodacious?" Is it 1980 again? Why am I not full of cocaine then? Ahem. I’m not really sure what to make of this actually. Despite the title and 90% female cast, there wasn’t really any T&A in the PVs besides a couple shots from between the legs in cockpits which are required by law for all female pilots in Japan. I guess Marika working in a maid cafe could count, but again, that confuses me more than leads to any sort of cohesive expectations. Can’t say that I’m excited about all the CG spaceships lazily drifting around space though. Satelight and this director have done plenty of garbage as well as some better stuff too so… really who knows?

Preseason Swing Rating: 
       
More tubular and whack than 5 neon lava lamps.

Brave 10
http://www.brave10.com/
Studio: Studio Sakimakura
Genre: Action
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 7th

Summary: 
Saizou is a wandering ninja without a master. He joins with a priestess on his way to meet Sanada Yukimura, who is putting together a team of ten warriors to be an unrivaled force that nobody can stand again.

Personal Thoughts: 
Another hard one to predict. Sakimakura has only done Cardfight Vanguard (oi), while both the director and writer are longtime vets with tons of decent and not-so-decent things under their belts. The promos look fairly average as well. I’d hope that’s not the best of the fights in the show, but I have the sinking sensation that they probably are. They’ve also replaced members of the Sanada Braves (which was an actual group) with penis-hungry women to be draped over Saizou as he blushes and squirms awkwardly from ovaries being within 20 feet of him so… also not really a great sign.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

"My name is Nobushige, you dicks."

Nisemonogatari 
http://www.nisemonogatari-anime.com/
Studio: Shaft
Genre: Talking
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 7th

Summary: 
Sequel series. Ex-vampire Araragi continues solving the various supernatural problems afflicting the women around him.

Personal Thoughts: 
I lasted until the episode that was approximately 15 minutes of stills and pans before giving up on the first season and really have little interest in being a part of this one either. Yeah, I’m sure I’ll miss out on people having spaghetti shooting out of their heads, minute upon minute of shots of a CG jungle gym, panty shots, and "THIS ARTWORK WASN’T FINISHED IN TIME" cards, but I’ll find some way to bravely carry on. I’ll have to find the strength somewhere.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
%#%@*%#@%#%*&@#*%#!!

Aquarion Evol
http://aqevol.com/
Studio: 8 Bit/Satelight
Genre: Action
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 8th (Two episode broadcast)

Summary: 
12,000 years after the events of the first Aquarion, invaders from another dimension begin to appear. It’s up to a new set of heroes, carrying on the reincarnated souls of the first series heroes (who were carrying the reincarnated souls of previous heroes…) and new Aquarion mecha to save humanity.

Personal Thoughts: 
Same director as the original Aquarion, but with a new writer, the master who was behind such masterpieces like Canaan, Gosick, Fractale, and Hanasaku Iroha. So let me guess… a strong start that fizzles about 2 episodes in, goes nowhere… continues to go nowhere… and then ends. I haven’t watched the original anyway and there’s no love lost between me and all the angsty and nonsensical core cliches that combine like brain-damaged robotic lions to form the mighty Mechagenre (also Godzilla’s fiercest foe), so I personally don’t have much interest. Fans of the original will probably like the first few episodes until Okada’s writing ‘talent’ kicks in.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Mechataiyaki, roll out.

LAGRANGE
http://lag-rin.com/
Studio: Xebec
Genre: Action
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 8th

Summary: 
Madoka’s a normal girl with a healthy interest in sports. One day, she sees a girl drowning while on her way to school. She saves the girl and in return, the girl brings her to a high-tech facility which comes under attack. Madoka is forced into the pilot seat of a mech to protect them all.

Personal Thoughts: 
This show already has a Japanese title, an English subtitle, an official English localized title, and a subtitle to that. Frankly, I don’t even care what it’s called anymore. The first episode also had a pre-airing special on Nico-Nico’s live channel on December 24th. Nobody recorded it though, and I pay little to no attention to ongoing events, so… *shrug* What I’ve read from impressions though makes it seem average at best. Xebec has handled plenty of sci-fi in the past before they took over the business of churning out T&A and this has their old Stellvia/Nadesico director handling it. Their stock has been rising lately too, although this shares none of the usual staff members associated with their comedies. Again though, mecha really isn’t my thing, even with heavy lesbian overtones whilst fighting against the evil invading men. It is on a slow day though and the promos were about 60% shots of asses, crotches, or girls stripping. Silly Xebec.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

"Just let my penis soothe what ails you, ladies."

I’ll Wait For That Summer
http://www.ichika-ichika.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Romance
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 9th

Summary: 
A nostalgic love story of three girls modeled like an old folklore.

Personal Thoughts: 
Yeah, this is completely original and JC Staff is never good about putting out any kind of marketing, even for their high profile shows. If you’re keeping count, this is also the SIXTH JC Staff show that’ll be airing this season. SIXTH. The director is pretty awful though (Railgun, Xenoglossia, H&C2) and the head writer’s not too much better. The single commercial didn’t really show anything all that exciting either. So basically, there’s not really much of anything known about the show so far and what is known doesn’t look good. Stellar.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
                  
Nice, uh… scenery?

Daily Lives of High School Boys
http://www.danshinichijyo.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 9th

Summary: 
The comic adventures of three less-than-intelligent boys going to an all-boys school and getting into all manner of trouble .

Personal Thoughts: 
They’ve been releasing ~4 minute shorts for awhile now and I barely managed to stay awake through them. Thankfully, I could get up and make myself lunch while missing absolutely nothing. There was literally nearly five minutes on "That girl has a mole… but I can’t work up the courage to tell her." If the actual show is anything like them, it’s going to be an under-produced collection of empty space. There’s about 30 minutes of those shorts but if you remove all the blank space of slow pans and people staring, it only amounts to about 4 minutes of content. So yeah, if the goal was to be funny, then they’re going to need to work a hell of a lot harder than that. Maybe by averaging more than one joke every other minute. Or at least toss up a little eyecandy. Even Deen’s regular boytoy shows at least have some manner of substance.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Down with gender equality!

Another
http://www.another-anime.jp/
Studio: PA Works
Genre: Thriller
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 10th

Summary: 
After spending a month in the hospital because of illness, Kouichi transfers into a new school. Things immediately feel wrong to him though. He finds himself drawn to a mysterious girl who keeps to herself and learns that something terrible happened in the past that nobody dares talk about. Then one of his classmates dies a brutal death and the mysteries of his new school only deepen… 

Personal Thoughts: 
Another bit of an odd duck. The director’s been around for a long time and done a number of things, but mostly comedies and Blood-C is the most recent thing he’s done. The writer’s a complete newbie, and PA Works is… well… PA Works. Solid production at the start that quickly peters out. Getting a new writer and director will probably help them a bit there, but still… The PVs were all practically nothing but close-ups of people looking surprised too… at least when they weren’t just zooming in on eyes. If that was the best they could do to try to hook people in on a thriller/mystery show, I doubt the show itself will be much better. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

THE SPHINX HAS SPOKEN.

Listen to What Papa Says!
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/papakiki/
Studio: Feel
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information 
Premieres January 10th

Summary: 
Yuta’s just a regular freshman at college. His parents died when he was young and his older sister got married to a middle-aged man years ago. One day, the plane his sister and her husband is on mysteriously disappears, so he has to take custody of their three daughters in his tiny apartment so the family doesn’t get split up while still surviving his college life.

Personal Thoughts: 
And here’s Feel, with their usual Feel thing, making what is basically Japanese Sons of Tucson with quasi-incest vibes between step-cousins. On the other hand, this is Zexcs’s main director and a writer that has done almost nothing but little kid’s shows and Yosuga Sora. Try parsing out what the hell that adds up to. I dare you. The best thing it has going for it is that Monday through Wednesday are looking like a vast wasteland of absolutely nothing at all. Who knows, maybe Zexcs can act as a good influence on Feel, but since the promos involve the girls rubbing their breasts on him and/or him falling and groping them… well… let’s just leave it at "Monday through Wednesday looks awful." 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Imprinting apparently happens within seconds.

Dog x Me SS
http://www.inuboku.tv/
Studio: David Production
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 12th

Summary:
Ririchiyo is part of a prestigious magical family and has always hated that her own will and how she’s seen is always overshadowed by her family. They agree to let her move out if she lives at a hotel for half-demons which requires every guest to be accompanied by a secret service agent to protect them. Ririchiyo tries to reject hers, but then learns that it’s a fox spirit that she has met before in the past. He begs to be allowed to stay at her side, even if it’s just as her dog.

Personal Thoughts: 
The title’s actually written as "Fox" and pronounced as dog so… Japanese. David’s track record is pretty poor and the staff here is pretty new as well. Then there’s the promos, which are more cherry blossoms than characters, and almost nobody actually moving. So yeah, you could say that I have my doubts as to whether or not this will be worth watching. It airs on Thursdays too, which already look packed.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Invulnerable demonic dogs

Black Rock Shooter
http://www.noitamina-brs.jp/
Studio: Ordet
Genre: Drama
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres February 2nd

Summary: 
Continuation of the OVA. Kuroi had to merge with the mysterious Black Rock Shooter in the otherworld to save her friend from an evil creature that was possessing her. However, the battle and the mystery isn’t over yet.

Personal Thoughts: 
The OVA as a massive disappointment, consisting of only about 10% of the action that every single promo showed, and the only real change to the staff here was to add in Okada as the lead writer. I believe I’ve already mentioned my admiration for her past set of works. At least expectations are sufficiently low. The Otherworld stuff was nicely done and stylish, but if they keep to the same split as the OVA did, that’ll be only about 60 seconds of every episode and dull, empty nothing for all the rest.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

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Smile Precure!
http://www.asahi.co.jp/precure/
Studio: Toei Animation
Genre: Cellphones and Cellphone Accessories
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres February 5th

Summary: 
Miyuki’s late to school when she finds a fairytale book. A strange animal jumps out of it and begs her to become a Pretty Cure warrior in order to save Fairy Tale Land from the Bad End Kingdom who are trying to stop everyone from having a happily ever after ending.

Personal Thoughts: 
It made my brain ache just writing that. It’s just the yearly reboot of PreCure with new animals, new girls, new cellphone toys, new dolls, etc. All the things that they need to sell to little girls. It’s still probably going to be better produced than it has any right to be, but I cannot imagine it being significantly different from any of the ten or so previous PreCures. I’m just mad that they didn’t use my idea for Suite PreCure’s sequel, Suite and Soirée PreCure. Jerks.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Tickle Me PreCure to air in 2013.

Invasion!? Squid Girl
http://www.ika-musume.com/
Studio: Diomedea
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres September 26th

Summary: 
 The continuing adventures of the Keroro Platoon Squid Girl and its ineffectual attempts to conquer the planet, or chase after whatever shiny thing that caches its eye.

Personal Thoughts:
While I did finish the first season, I’m often not sure why. Some parts were certainly fine, but it doesn’t have a particularly wide variety of jokes, nor the sheer zaniness of Keroro, where it steals a good 98% or so of its jokes from in the first place. Mondays look pretty bleak all around though. Maybe I’ll just get really really drunk before every episode. At 10am in the morning. Mimosa Mondays. I like the sound of that.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Splash was ineffective.

Bakuman. 2
http://www9.nhk.or.jp/anime/bakuman/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Insomnia Cure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 1st (very early mornings)

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of a writer and artist struggling to create a hit in Shounen Jump so they can fulfill their dream of getting laid..

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh boy! A sequel to a Jump show that I didn’t watch because it… surprise… had godawful pacing and production. Here’s a spoiler for you. It’s not going to end. It’s never going to end. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
This show makes kittens sad.

C³
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/c3/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Action, Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 1st

Summary: 
There are cursed items, known as Worse, that are full of the negative feelings of humanity. Some of them even manifest themselves in human forms and can attack humans. Haruaki’s father collects them, and one day sends home a particularly powerful one that turns into a girl and asks him to help lift the curse of all the negative feelings inside her.

Personal Thoughts: 
The promos to this are… odd to say the least. There’s the one that’s just cutesy and looks like it came straight from a Bakatest episode, and then there’s one that looks like Silver Link animated an episode of Dragon Crisis. It is Bakatest’s director and his touch is easy to see, although the head writer is a little more eclectic. Basically, I’m not really sure. Hopefully they do a better job matching the tones of the PVs here than God’s Dolls did with its spasticness last season.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Accept the dark side. Let the hate flow through you.

Working’!!
http://www.wagnaria.com/
Studio: A-1
Genre: Poplar’s Chest
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 1st (Rebroadcast of episode 1, new episode on October 8th)

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing antics of the employees of the Wagnaria restaurant and the Claw that binds them all together.

Personal Thoughts: 
This show ended up being more fun to write about most weeks than actually watch. Plus it was on a slow day, which is as far from the case as you can get for this season. It has a new staff behind it (although not a good one), so maybe they can avoid the main thing that dragged down the first season, Inami, and focus instead of the more amusing members of the cast and the real harem leader, the Claw. I’m not holding my breath though.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Featuring this season’s special guest: Qr’shn!

Fate/Zero
http://www.fate-zero.jp/
Studio: UFOTable
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 1st (One hour broadcast)

Summary: 
The Holy Grail War is a magical ceremony pitting seven mages with seven heroic spirits against each other in a battle royale with the last survivor having a single wish granted. This is a prequel to Fate/Stay Night, telling the story of the fourth Grail War.

Personal Thoughts: 
Considering that I’ve translated a fangame based on the Type-Moon series, I’m pretty sure that I get a pass on having any kind of intelligent opinion here. UFOTable does remain one of my favorite studios regardless, but lest we let our optimism get too far out of control, let’s remember that the Rakkyo and Symphonia adaptations have had a few real dog episodes/movies and UFOTables last two TV series were A.) Half a decade ago and B.) Coyote Ragtime and Manabi Straight. Not exactly the cream of the crop there. I am optimistic though.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Contains 5% as much food as its successor.

Fall Seriously in Love With Me!!
http://www.anime-majikoi.com/
Studio: Lerche
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 1st

Summary: 
The city that Yamato lives in is proud of its warrior ancestry and many of the fighting traditions and trainings are passed on even today. He and his close-knit group of friends enjoy their daily lives, screwing around, fighting, and falling in love.

Personal Thoughts: 
It’s not only hilarious because it has a terrible pun in the title, but also because it’s based on porn! I’m not certain what a Lerche is either, but they did a pretty good job with Carnival Phantasm, so maybe they can keep up that same visual creativity and energy with a regular show. This is kind of a weird one in staffing too. Bakatest’s head writer with a director who has only done one comedy before, a certain lanky Zexcs ‘incest’ comedy. The promo does look fairly well-made though, and I’m weak to action-comedies. I just wish it was airing on a less busy day.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
I think this is what a Lerche is.

Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere 
http://genesis-horizon.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 1st

Summary: 
In the distant future, humans left into the heavens, but eventually, they recreated the Earth of the past and returned to build a new society. However, war is engulfing the new land as it develops and the students in the city of Musashi  are about to be drawn into it.

Personal Thoughts: 
What amuses me the most is that they’ve felt the need to practically release a pamphlet trying to explain this messed up setting the show uses. Hopefully that means that they’re not going to spend much time actually dealing with it in the show itself. Aside from Sunrise themselves, the rest of the core staff comes from… A Channel of all things, so try and puzzle out what the hell that means. Promos look good though, and while the male lead looks like an insufferable ponce, at least that hopefully means that he’ll have an actual personality. Always a bonus. The abundance and focus on heaving bosoms does worry me. Not that they’ve ever turned me away, but I can see this quickly forgetting the action and into an endless explanation of the bizarre world with brief montages of bounces breasts.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Sunrise knows what’s most important.

Hunter x Hunter
http://www.ntv.co.jp/hunterhunter/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 1st (Evening)

Summary: 
Gon’s father is a famous Hunter who he has not seen since he was little. He decides that the only way to find him is to become a Hunter himself. However, being a Hunter brings prestige and status, so there are countless applicants, and Gon has both allies and enemies to deal with as he searches for his father.

Personal Thoughts: 
I’ve actually seen a non-trivial number of episodes of the original Hunter x Hunter series. Not by choice, mind you, but I have seen parts, and most of what I remember is that it takes quite a long time to actually get to anything interesting, not to mention that people have seen it all before, so I’m really not sure what this is supposed to be for besides squeezing some more blood from the stone. It’s a Jump show too with everything that comes with it, plus it airs on Sunday mornings in Japanland which is not exactly generally a time when quality shows air. And now I just reminded myself of ZKC and made myself sad.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Let’s all do the happy dance for yet another Jump show.

Phi Brain – God’s Puzzle
http://www9.nhk.or.jp/anime/phibrain/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 2nd (Very early morning)

Summary: 
Kaito stumbles into some ruins beneath his school that contain a supposedly unsolvable puzzle. When he manages to solve it, he becomes aware of a secret organization named POG that is forcing other puzzle-solving geniuses all over the world to stake their lives to solve different puzzles and drawn into the battle of wits for his life.

Personal Thoughts: 
POG’s back, in Alf form. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But if the show’s antagonists turn out to be cat-eating aliens living in the attic, that would be… just darn perfect. Aaaanyway, anything involving actual puzzles, particularly supposedly impossible ones, can be tricky to handle, and Japan hasn’t really impressed me with its writing lately. There are a lot of vets behind this, but since the head writer’s the same as the one behind the Homeric epic, Rio, I can already imagine that the puzzles will involve water slides and space sharks.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 

But can he deduce why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

Tamayura
http://www.tamayura.info/
Studio: Hal Film Maker
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 2nd (Evening)

Summary: 
Fuu is a shy girl who is often completely focused on taking pictures. She moves back to her childhood home at the start of high school and meets both old friends and new friends in the city that she grew up in.

Personal Thoughts: 
The OVA put me to sleep and was only 10 minutes long. Since this has all the same staff… but is twice as long, I can’t imagine anything but being put to sleep twice over. I’m just hoping that the eyecatch and ED are loud enough to jolt me out of my reverie.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

This swaying was more captivating than the entire OVA.

You and I.
http://www.kimiboku.tv/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 3rd

Summary: 
This is the story of four boys who grew up together, helping each other in school and life, and generally just enjoying themselves.

Personal Thoughts: 
You know… one of the promos here has one boy grooming another one and cherry blossoms everywhere. There really aren’t that many different kinds of shows that feature one guy picking through another guy’s hair. That’s the promising part though. That I can laugh at. The total lack of energy or basically anything at all besides "boys standing in wind" is what tells me that this is most likely going to be a whole lot of… boys standing in wind.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The only way this could be more straight is if they were oiled and muscly.

Chihayaful
http://www.ntv.co.jp/chihayafuru/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 4th

Summary: 
Chihaya never had any ambitions for herself, until a transfer student introduces her to the card game called karuta. She discovers her passion for it and decides to become a world famous master of karuta with his help.

Personal Thoughts: 
I can’t say much… if anything… about the premise excites me in any way, and this is the only show without any real promotional material out. Madhouse tends to completely phone it in on shows like this though (and most shows period for that matter). Surprisingly enough, this has a very good director behind it with a large resume, although the writer’s a complete nobody. I still doubt that much of anything will come of this show. Everything about both the source and adaptation screams unambitious.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Look into the heart of the karutas.

Maken-ki!
http://maken-ki.com/
Studio: AIC
Genre: Action, Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 4th

Summary: 
Takeru accidentally enrolls in a school where magic and combat are commonplace, even though he believes that he has none. However, when he’s drawn into a fight, he discovers a strange power inside of him and he’s quickly surrounded by girls, some wanting to kill him, others madly in love with him. He needs to quickly master his new abilities in order to survive high school.

Personal Thoughts: 
Yes, yes. Action, comedy, breasts. Plus it’s on an otherwise very slow day. My attention is its to lose. Ikkitousen’s director and a very established writer too, so it may turn out to be fairly decent anyway, although from the promos, it looks like AIC is not exactly sending their A-Team to animate this. Ew. With its only Tuesday competition being Chihayaful and Mashiro though… well… Tuesdays!

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
What’s wrong with naked fighting?

Mashiro-iro Symphony
http://www.mashiro.tv/
Studio: Manglobe
Genre: Manglobe
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 4th

Summary: 
An all-girls school is scheduled to be combined with another school, so a male representative is selected to attend the girl’s school prior to consolidation to start smoothing over any issues. Shingo is selected as that representative and has to work hard to make sure all the girls in his new school learn to trust and be comfortable around guys.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh boy. Here’s the Type-Alpha porn game adaptation featuring Insert Personality Here forcibly surrounded by a bunch of girls that need to be in close-proximity to his penis in order to have whatever ails them healed. And it’s the roving disaster Manglobe doing it with a terrible director? I think the best to hope for is that it’s really really bad. It’s worked for terrible porn games in the past, I don’t see why it can’t work now.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Symphony to be accompanied by convenient gusts of wind.

Persona 4
http://www.p4a.jp/
Studio: AIC ASTA
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th

Summary: 
Yuu has just moved to a sleepy, rural village where it’s rumored that if you watch TV on a rainy midnight, you will see the person destined for you. However the people seen begin turning up mysteriously murdered and Yuu discovers that he has the power to enter any TV and bring others with him where they gain special powers. It’s up to him and his friends to stop any more murders from happening.

Personal Thoughts: 
Do I have any confidence that Angel Beats’ director and SoraOto’s head writer will be able to turn out the first overall good console RPG adapation ever? No. Do I have to watch it anyway? Probably. Like Tales of the Abyss, I figure I owe it to Atlus. The promos do look good, but let’s not forget that 99% of the plot in P4 is delivered by people standing in a circle and talking, and when Japan can cut out action to focus on talking heads, you better believe that they will. Or focus on terrible Social Links about band girls whining about how they have heads shaped like apples.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
    
Four magical dogs.

I Don’t Have Many Friends
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/haganai/
Studio: AIC Build
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th

Summary: 
Kodaka can’t make any friends because of his looks, and Yozora can’t make friends because she’s always mad and talks to an imaginary friend, so the two of them get together and create a club for people to hang out in, but it soon attracts all manner of people and spirals out of control.

Personal Thoughts: 
The episode 0 OVA for this was awful. Devoid of any kind of humor or fun and just a montage of various forms of T&A. It’s actually kind of surprising how bland it was given that this is SoraOto’s director. Maybe the series itself will show a lot more energy and some actual jokes, but given the wafer thin and completely inane premise that I’m willing to put hard cash down on as being completely forgotten by episode 4, I wouldn’t count on it being anything more than Yet More Shameless Pandering To Lonely Shut-ins^tm.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

W-Why doesn’t it ever stop!?

The World’s Best First Love 2
http://sekai-ichi.jp/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing struggles of a gay editor who has to work with a guy that he had a crush on in high school.

Personal Thoughts: 
Since the first season was an epic masterpiece that revolutionized the very landscape of anime, nay, the core of my own soul, I see no reason why I would not follow this season with the same burning fervor and passion as I did the first one.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
                            
Six and a half free-range guinea pigs.

Shana Final
http://www.shakugan.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th

Summary: 
Sequel sequel series. The continuing adventure of the Flame Haze, Shana, and her boy-toy Yuuji as they continue their endless quest to milk as much money out of the franchise as possible.

Personal Thoughts: 
I survived the second season, so I imagine that I can survive this one as well. Hopefully they’ll try a tack this time that isn’t 13 episodes of almost total padding and useless crap followed by 13 much better episodes. JC Staff has been having a hard time getting its ducks in a row for the last year or two when it comes to action shows though and the Shana S OVAs were pretty awful. Hopefully they’ve figured all this crap out.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Three Melon Bread-ＲＸs.

Last Exile Fam, The Silver Wing
http://www.lastexile-fam.com/
Studio: Gonzo
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th

Summary: 
The Adess Commonwealth has all but conquered the world. As one of the last kingdoms desperately fights for its freedom, the battle is interrupted by a small light ship trying to hijack on of Adess’s battleships. Fam, that tiny ship’s pilot, becomes the key to the world’s freedom from Adess.

Personal Thoughts: 
Sigh. I don’t know what’s worse, that Gonzo’s back, or that they’re dredging up the corpse of one of their more successful shows to try to claw back to life. I did watch the original, although was not a fan, particularly with the collapse of sense throughout the second half. Plus, Last Exile is the only ‘good’ thing this director’s ever done at all, and the head writer has a portfolio similarly full of less-than-successes, I can’t imagine this is anything other than a shameless attempt to ride the coattails of their previous success and then coast on nostalgia. Of which I have little. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
I don’t think relying on dark magic to revive dead shows is a good idea, Gonzo…

Ben-to
http://ben-to.net/
Studio: David Production
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 8th

Summary: 
Students have to buy their own lunches and dinners, so poor students like Satou have to wait until food goes on sale. The problem is that the moment it does, the store turns into a battle royale where everybody fights to be able to eat. Being weak and poor, Satou needs help getting stronger so that he can finally eat.

Personal Thoughts: 
And since David is made up of mostly ex-Gonzo folks, here we have pseudo-’Gonzo.’ One of the promos makes it look not so bad though. The writer here does know his comedy too (Kampfer, Milky Holmes, Maid Guy), so there’s a chance that the totally inane premise could end up working well for it. Not a great chance, and Saturdays are packed as hell already, but perhaps. David has been very poor so far though, so that little action in the promo may be all that the show actually has.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Pre-emptive nominee for the Blinding Lights of Censorship award.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE
http://www.gundam-age.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 9th (Very early morning)

Summary: 
An unknown enemy suddenly appears and destroys a space colony, starting humanity’s war for survival. Years later, the enemy appears again and  three generations of a family of pilots will take to their giant mecha in order to fight off the unknown and save humanity.

Personal Thoughts: 
The only giant robots I like are super deformed and in SRPGs. Oh sure, some mecha shows will occasionally tickle my fancy briefly, but they’ll mostly just remind me of how many of them, particularly when it comes to Gundams, seem to be powered by teenage angst and plot convenience. Should you be reading this drunk and be under the impression that I am some kind of impartial writer, let me assure you that I am most certainly not. This one does seem to be a little more transparent about being made just to sell more model kits though. Maybe Sunrise is getting lazy.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The invaders are from the tomato kingdom.

Future Diary
http://www.future-diary.tv/
Studio: asread
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 9th

Summary: 
Yuki doesn’t like interacting with other people, instead choosing to just chat on his phone with his imaginary friend. However, his friend turns out to be real and forces him into a battle of survival against a bunch of other people with each participant having a special diary that can tell the future in different ways. The last one left alive becomes the new god of the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
I wasn’t terribly impressed with the ‘pilot’ OVA for this back when it was released, mainly due to the lead character spending almost the entire thing staring into the air or crying. I can’t imagine that suffering through all of that is worth whatever the minority may be, crazy girl or otherwise. I’d like to think that studios learn and improve, but data thus far would seem to indicate otherwise. There’s not much else to do on Sundays though, so who knows.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow…

Un-Go
http://www.un-go.com/
Studio: Bones
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 13th

Summary: 
Almost every freelance detective has been put out of business by a massive single intelligence agency run by one man. But there are rumors that not everything is as it appears and Shinjirou, one of the few detectives left still working, intends to get to the bottom of the intelligence mogul’s success.

Personal Thoughts: 
And finally, we reach our two noitaminA shows. What’s with Bones and ’mystery’ shows lately, anyway? Gosick, No.6, and now this. I really can’t say that this sounds promising at all, particularly after how boring the opening episode of No.6 was, and then hearing what a fiasco it ended as (BEES!), along with how inane Gosick was all around. Bones only seems to have a good grasp on action shows aimed at teens. They should probably get back to those instead of just playing mix and match with the genders and ages of the crime solving duo.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Spoiler: The mastermind is cyber-Rasputin or a giant unlucky cricket god.

Guilty Crown
http://www.guilty-crown.jp/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 13th

Summary: 
About twenty years from now, a virus will ravage Japan. Law and order breaks down and the entire city is placed under harsh martial law. Ten years later,people with special powers have begun to emerge from the wreckage. Shuu is one of those people, and he joins the resistance fighting to free Japan. 

Personal Thoughts: 
Production IG’s always a wild card for production. Sometimes you get Blood-C, sometimes you get xxxHOLiC. The director here was in charge of Death Note, and only Death Note, so I’m not terribly confident that he can handle an action show, but it is on noitaminA, whose action shows to date have largely consisted of… [C]. The head writer though… that’s where things get amusing. Direct from Sunrise, it’s the Code Geass/Mai series guy, so it’s already almost guaranteed that every single episode will end on some kind of inane cliffhanger and probably end with them fighting a cyberized version of the moon from an alternate future. Is that a good thing? Perhaps.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
Let my people go! …Boing!

Blade
http://www.animax.co.jp/marvelanime/blade/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres July 1st

Summary: 
 The Daywalker vampire Blade travels to Japan where he confronts Deacon Frost, the vampire that killed his mother, and encounter Existence, an organization of enhanced vampires.

Personal Thoughts:
Oh thank the heavens. Our year long nightmarish journey through Madhouse’s Marvel adaptations is nearly over. And they’re ending on such a high note… with… Blade. I see little reason this would be any better made than the others. In a way, it’s almost impressive. They’ve had a completely different staff working on all of these and they’re three for three on being terrible in basically the same way each time. Let’s see if they can hit the cycle.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Marvel x Madhouse has been the worst idea since robosexual marriage.

Ro-Kyu-Bu!
http://www.ro-kyu-bu.com/
Studio: Studio Blanc
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 1st

Summary: 
When Subaru joins his high school basketball team, he finds out that the team was disbanded due to rumors that the captain was a pedophile. His only chance to stay in touch with the sport he loves is to take over as coach for a local elementary school’s basketball team.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oi. Why? Although what’s really weird about this one is that it’s Seven Arcs’s director working on this. That’s just one of the many very weird staff matchups this season. Of course, since in the promos and art involve the camera shoved up the girls’ butts, maid uniforms, panty flashes, one of these ‘elementary’ school girls has breasts nearly as large as the basketballs, and a wet t-shirt contest, it’s hard to assume that this is going to be focusing on trying to be funny instead of panning up and down little girls’ sweaty bodies while they gasp and pant… while draped all over their balls.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
      
Something unholy this way comes.

God’s Notebook
http://www.kamimemo.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Mystery
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 2nd (One hour broadcast, episode 2 doesn’t air until July 15th)

Summary: 
Narumi is a loner at school until he stumbles into the life of Alice, a young girl detective that refuses to leave her home. He ends up embroiled in the cases that she has to solve, acting as her liason to the rest of the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
So. A mystery series. Let’s just see who ol’ JC Staff got to write this. …The writer behind Occult Academy and Railgun… And the director of adaptations, Tsukihime and Betrayal Knows My Name. Well then! Although considering its rivalry in the mystery category with such powerhouses like GOSICK… You know what? I don’t even want to finish. This is just getting depressing. I’m not even a big fan of mysteries to begin with and if nothing else, recent years have convinced me that Detective Conan is as close as they’re going to get.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
Protagonist is probably denser than four planetoids combined.

The Prince’s Song – It’s Really 1000% Love!
http://utapri.tv/
Studio: A-1
Genre: Delicious Boys
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 2nd

Summary: 
Haruka’s only friend has always been music, so she enrolls in a special academy to train to become a great songwriter. However, the school also trains singers, and she gets partnered up with three boys studying hard to become male idols.

Personal Thoughts: 
Based on one of the most shamelessly obvious Mary Sue games ever made. The most hilarious part of this is that it has Wakamoto as the idol school’s principal who hates love… and is named Shining. Nothing interesting about the staff either. At least you can say that they really really know how to make sparkly beautiful men. It is somewhat funny that A-1 is making two idol shows this season unashamedly targeted at each sex exclusively.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Three male Idols… every 1980s teenage girl’s wet dream.

Sacred Seven
http://www.sacred7.jp/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres July 2nd

Summary: 
Arma doesn’t like being around people and refuses his fellow classmates’ attempts to get along with him. Then, Ruri, the young CEO of a massive business, appears on his doorstep and tells him that he has the power of Sacred Seven and has to help them fight off encroaching monsters.

Personal Thoughts: 
If you’re wondering who the writer behind this is, it’s because he’s been writing Yu-Gi-Oh. For the last eleven years. It must be nice to have a steady paycheck at least. Otherwise, it sounds like your generic Jump Action in a Can Story^tm right down to the sullen teenager who won’t even go out for milkshakes with you but is the only person apparently fabulous enough to fit into the stretch pants and shiny tiara needed to save the world. Huzzah.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The second fruitiest Sunrise show for the summer.

Nurarihiyon’s Grandson – Millenium Demon Capital
http://www.nuramago.jp/
Studio: Deen
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 3rd (Very early morning)

Summary: 
Sequel series. A boy with demon blood is the successor to his family’s clan. He has to balance his human life during the day with the demonic side of him at night.

Personal Thoughts: 
The actual token Jump show for the season… and a sequel at that! Double bonus! Didn’t make it to the end of episode two of the first season due to low production values and mountains of terrible cliches. I doubt I’ll do anything more than glance at it to see the OP and ED… no, wait… they’ve got Hirano Aya singing again. Well, there goes that.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Bidoof approved.

Crossings of A Labyrinth from a Foreign Land 
http://ikokumeiro.com/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 3rd

Summary: 
Towards the end of the 19th century, trade is thriving between France and Japan. A young Japanese girl finds a job at a metalworks shop in Paris and begins to learn about France’s culture as well as sharing Japan’s culture with everybody around her.

Personal Thoughts: 
It’s always amusing to see Junico Sato’s name in the credits just because he’s done everything. Most notably the Aria series (the gondolas, not the segways), but has also directed and composed when the mood takes him. Anyway, he’s writing here, and the promos are all the soothing, relaxing affairs that tend to knock me unconscious generally are not to my taste.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

It’s a labyrinth because France contains minotaurs.

Natsume’s Book of Friends 3
http://www.nasinc.co.jp/jp/natsume-anime/
Studio: Brain’s Base
Genre: Friend Making
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 4th

Summary: 
Sequel sequel series. Natsume’s continuing adventures trying to return the names to all the spirits in his book and give them their freedom.

Personal Thoughts: 
A series that seems to inspire one of two things in people, an intense love that crosses time and space and brings them to a fervor usually reserved for the love between harp seals and trout, or the compelling urge to take a nap. I belong to the latter category. I’m technically 23 episodes behind and I cannot imagine giving this anything more than a cursory glance.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

You must be at least this classy to watch the show.

Twin Thief Angels – Heartthrob Paradise
http://twin-angel.tv/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Who Knows
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 4th

Summary: 
Haruka and Aoi are schoolgirls by day, but magical girls by night, fighting off the villains from Black Auction.

Personal Thoughts: 
What is it with shows using pachinko characters lately? It’s like anime producers discovered a rich untapped vein of potential and eagerly began mining pure drek. What’s next? Shows based on gay anthropomorphisms of their train stations? Wait a minute… crap. The title alone here makes me uneasy for both its redundancy and its length. "快盗天使ツインエンジェル 〜キュンキュン☆ときめきパラダイス！！"  I feel like I’ve watched an episode just by reading it. I can’t say that I haven’t enjoyed making fun of them though, and if this is anything like the others, it’ll have more lesbian undertones than Wonder Woman getting tied up and licked by Cheetah while Batgirl watches.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Being a magical girl used to mean something.

Yuruyuri
http://yuruyuri.com/
Studio: Dogakobo
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 4th

Summary: 
Four girls take over the tea club’s room to use as their own hangout to screw around and have fun after school.

Personal Thoughts: 
Somewhat oddly, outside of the studio change, this is all but Mitsudomoe’s staff. That does give me a little hope that they know their comedy, but Mitsudomoe also started out strong, then ran most of its jokes into the ground and in the later going, only seemed to get all its ducks in a row once or twice a month. Besides all that, their eyes creep me the hell out. They look more fish than human.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Lesbots… roll out!

Dolls of God
http://www.kamisama-anime.jp/
Studio: Brain’s Base
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 5th

Summary: 
Kyouhei’s village treats robot-like dolls that the people there use as divine creatures. He leaves the village to go to college in the city, but witnesses a murder soon after arriving. His sister and her doll show up in the city and tells him that someone from their village is the killer.

Personal Thoughts: 
Okay, so… one PV is about a cute little girl scampering around and using her giant golem to play Ace Combat. The other PV is a shakey cam of corpses and shouting. It’s not promising that they’re advertising this in two completely different ways before it even begins. You know how turgid I get over consistency in style and presentation. The be-all, end-all though, is that I’m not sure which side is going to be the primary focus and I don’t know that either one of them looks particularly strong, particularly when diluted.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The gods must be crazy.

Bunny Drop
http://www.usagi-drop.tv/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 7th

Summary: 
Daikichi’s family learns at their grandfather’s funeral that he had a very young daughter that none of them knew about. Nobody else will take her in, so Daikichi decides to adopt and raise her himself.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh boy! Here’s noitaminA’s first show! A drama about a middle-aged guy adopted a girl and learning the true meaning of family. Spoiler: They live, they grow, they decide that the most important thing is each other. I can feel the bile rising already. Every time I give a noitaminA show a shot, it ends up hurting me. I don’t see this healing my black tattered soul any more than any others of its ilk.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

This is what happens when you drop bunnies.

No. 6
http://www.no-6.jp/
Studio: Bones
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 7th

Summary: 
No. 6 is meant to be an ideal city, and Shion was allowed to live in luxury due to his talents. However, when he took in a refugee from the poor quarter of the city, he was banished to live in the city’s slums. Four years later, a strange accident occurs that starts to unravel the secrets behind No. 6.

Personal Thoughts: 
Here’s show #2 for Railgun/Occult Academy’s writer for the season. What joy. The other noitaminA show as well, but that’s just adding insult to injury. The writer of the original source is also the person behind Telepathy Girl Ran, a show that was so dull that it is currently used to euthanize frogs for dissection. The main thing in this show’s promos that seem to set it apart from anything else is its abuse of CG. Plus, after the last couple season, I trust no show that claims to have a genius character and after GOSICK, particularly not Bones.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Spoiler: The city is run by an evil lamp.

The IDOLM@STER
http://www.idolmaster-anime.jp/
Studio: A-1
Genre: Insert Songs
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres July 7th

Summary: 
A bunch of girls train hard to be the greatest idol in the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
Isn’t the whole point of the IM@S fandom to find a character and then fight everybody else over which is the best? How they’re going to work with that and having an ensemble cast of with more main characters than episodes. I think their best bet would be to pull a Galaxy Angel or Milky Holmes and ignore the source entirely to send the girls on wacky adventures that make no sense. Of course, with A-1 doing the writing, that’s going to happen anyway… but it probably won’t be on purpose. Then again, this does have GA Art Class’s writer, but I would bet on A-1′s influence over hers.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
    
I bread this show.

Blood-C
http://www.blood-c.jp/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 7th

Summary: 
Kisaragi Saya lives a normal life with her father until The Old Ones attack and attempt to devour humans. Her power is the only thing that can defeat them.

Personal Thoughts: 
I can’t say that I was a fan of Blood+ with its overwhelming angst in the later going, and adding Clamp to do the writing… the same Clamp who spent the last few years writing stories about how fourteen Syaorans running around through their multiverse falling in love with their mother’s clone… doesn’t exactly excite me either. Unfortunately, Production IG has really been slipping on the technical quality of their tv series in recent years, which only gets all the more noticeable in their action shows like Basara. Either their movies or Xebec have been monopolizing all their animation talent. Consider my expectations low.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Mankind ill needs a savior such as you!

Mayo Chiki!
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/mayochiki/
Studio: Feel
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 7th

Summary: 
Kanade employs her classmate Subaru as a butler, but one day, one of Subaru’s classmates discovers that Subaru is actually a girl. If her secret is let out, Subaru will be kicked out of school, so Kinjirou is sucked into Subaru’s life to help her keep her secret.

Personal Thoughts: 
Another show with an odd fit. The director usually does action shows, the writer does dramas (and K-On, ew), and lately, Feel is all but incapable of doing a show that goes two minutes without the camera being up someone’s skirt. Well, at least that last bit fits the show. Still, I feel like this show was set up with Madlibs. –Name1– discovers that –Name2– is secretly a –Noun– and must keep their secret or –Unpleasant Event Involving Badgers–. Just because they elevated the girl unconvincingly pretending to be a guy from a side character ala Stratos to the main one doesn’t really make it any more new or interesting.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

All the colors of the rainbow.

Idiots, Tests, and Summoned Beasts 2
http://www.bakatest.com/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 7th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of the idiots of Class F and their summoned beast battles based on their grades.

Personal Thoughts: 
I did enjoy the first season (aside from the godawful last episode), but the best parts were always the battles. Unfortunately, there were only a few of those through the entire show. It’s still a decent comedy without that, but hopefully we’ll see a lot more of them this season, or at the very least, Himeji will finally melt down and kill her main rival for Yoshii’s heart, Hideyoshi.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Four drink minimum.

The Black Rabbit of the Occasional Demon
http://www.itsu-ten.jp/
Studio: ZEXCS
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 8th

Summary: 
Taito dreams of a girl vampire that claims to have infected him. He’s run over while saving a girl from being hit by a truck and discovers that he’s immortal. The girl from his dream reappears, and monsters begin emerging from all around him threatening their lives.

Personal Thoughts: 
So… KoreZom’s premise with Zexcs in charge instead of Deen. Well, the writing can’t turn out worse, right? Right? And Zexcs is Zexcs. They’ve been so very very average in the past couple years. Dragging good premises down and elevating the ones that look awful. They do bring relatively consistent action and decent production to their shows, so I’m optimistic that this will probably be watchable, but I’m not expecting much more than that. Completely new staff at the helm for this one too, which will probably help it more than hurt. The promos for this are also hilarious. Zexcs dragged their English speaker out to tell us how this is a "fierce, magnificent battle for love" and a "reverse battle action." Uh, okay Zexcs. Whatever you say.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Whatever kind of rabbit is related to this show is a foul mutant beast.

Countless Cat Gods
http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/nekogami/
Studio: AIC+
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 8th (evening)

Summary: 
Yuzu’s shop is inhabited by Mayu, a mischevious cat god that wants to spend every day playing with all the other gods that come to visit.

Personal Thoughts: 
Almost a 100% carryover in staff and cast from GA Art Design Class, one of my favorite comedies from recent years. I’m hoping that they can bring just a fraction of the same charm and energy that GA had, instead of reverting to their prior exceedingly boring ways. The promos have the gods dueling with cardboard swords and fighting tanks, so that’s a good start. I’m optimistic about this one, so AIC+ better not betray me, especially with it airing in the evening with no competition whatsoever.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Gods are getting ready to play. Please wait warmly.

R-15
http://kadokawa-anime.jp/R-15/
Studio: AIC
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 9th

Summary: 
Despite his young age, Takuto is already a well established pornography writer. He uses that to enroll in a school of people with special talents where he dreams of building the ultimate harem for himself. The only catch is that he’ll have to use the talents that got him into the school to also help his class win its competitions with the other classes.

Personal Thoughts: 
I don’t even understand how one becomes a celebrated porn writer. It’s just like being a normal writer, but you add "and then they screw" at the end. That goes triply true for Japanese media… thank you years of playing eroge. Or if you’re Anne Rice, call everybody vampires and substitute "penis thrusting" for "fangs thrusting." Also, how does the mime genius compete? Or the clarinetist? Aaaanyway, AIC’s been mostly a good bet lately, OreImo notwithstanding, but there’s still plenty of reason to be wary. The director’s resume is full of things like Da Capo, Fortune Arterial, and Kiss x Sis, while the writer’s resume is full of drama about girls sexually assaulting other girls, mostly so laughably bad that they ended up funny. Otoboku is the only thing between the two of them even approaching a passable comedy, so I expect this to run high on the fanservice and low on anything else.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Disturbing… and yet… intriguing…

Tale of the Secret Blade of Witch’s Milk
http://oppaidaisuki.jp/
Studio: Hoods Entertainment
Genre: Boobs
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 10th

Summary: 
In this world of warriors, breasts are everything. Those with the biggest breasts, have the most power. The Manyuu (Witch’s Milk) clan is one of the most powerful, but its latest successor hates the boob social order and has taken their scroll containing all their secrets on how to grow the biggests breasts, as well as how to destroy the breasts of others, in order to restore proper order to the land.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ah, Hoods. They’re really carving themselves out a giant breast shaped niche here with shows involving lactation, aren’t they? Actually, I had never heard the term witch’s milk before. A possible cause is fungal infection! Aaaaanyway, straight from Qwaser to this, substituting only the writer. For the one behind Railgun and Occult Academy. Awesome. And yes, that’s right, it’s her third show this season. Who knows though. Maybe it’ll be enough of a flaming disaster that it’ll be impossible to look away.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The day of a show about strippers stripping is fast approaching.

Dantalian’s Bookshelf
http://dantalian.tv/
Studio: Gainax
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers July 15th

Summary: 
Hugh inherits a mysterious mansion when his grandfather dies. In its basement, he finds a mysterious girl who calls herself a dantalian. She shows him a magical bookshelf full of demonic books and asks for his help in fighting against the other demonic books in the world that threaten its delicate balance.

Personal Thoughts: 
The original source here is by the same writer as Asura Cryin’, a show that did have a fairly strong plot when it wasn’t tripping over its pacing and production issues. Still, Gainax doesn’t make many (any) shows like this, and it’s a complete newbie director too, so something here doesn’t quite add up. The promo for this was very underwhelming as well, especially for containing a dragon. How can you screw up a guy with a pistol fighting a dragon?

Preseason Swing Rating: 

One badass evil overtome.

Spinning Penguindrum
http://penguindrum.jp/
Studio: Brains Base
Genre: Penguins?
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres July 15th

Summary: 
Twin brothers live with and take care of their sickly younger sister… who was never meant to have a future.

Personal Thoughts: 
Man, don’t look at me. Anybody who claims to know anything definite about this show is a liar. The only real info they’ve released is "this is being done by the director behind Utena"… who then apparently retired to his mountain abode to stew for the last decade and a half… and some art showing Himari using a slingshot the size of a Buick. If it’s like Utena, it probably fires volkswagons as a metaphor for sex with her brothers who end up being God. And contain 5 minutes of stock footage an episode. Also, there’s a penguin.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Real penguins are smelly, not cute.

X-Men
http://www.animax.co.jp/marvelanime/x-men/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres April 1st

Summary: 
When Armor, a Japanese mutant, goes missing, Professor X sends his team of super heroes to Japan. There, they encounter the U-Men, a cult who believes that the world is unclean and that they must steal the body parts of mutants to raise themselves to supremacy. 

Personal Thoughts:
Given how atrocious Iron Man and Wolverine have been, do I even need to say anything? Sure, I’ve heard people say that Wolverine isn’t as bad as they thought it’d be, but that’s a far cry from being good. And you know what would make it even better? Putting a former Gonzo director in charge of it. Well, it does air on April 1st. Maybe the whole thing is just one giant very sad joke. Seeya back here next season for the same comments about Blade! And hopefully the last we ever have to speak of Madhouse and Marvel’s doomed venture.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
This monstrosity has no business existing.

Dog Days
http://www.dogdays.tv/
Studio: Seven Arcs
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 2nd

Summary: 
War erupts between the kingdoms of Garrett and Biscotti. Desperate to save her kingdom, Princess Millhiore summons a champion from another world, Izumi Shinku of Japan, an energetic action loving kid. Now it’s up to him to save the Biscotti people from the invading forces of Garrett.

Personal Thoughts: 
God, Seven Arcs. If you wanted to make more Inukami or Nanoha, just do it. Don’t make both at the same time. This is a completely original story, not that Seven Arcs has ever really cared much for closely adapting source material anyway, but with next to no promo material released online (the first episode was screened in stores today to mostly very glowing reviews though), there’s not much to talk about but the staff… which is almost boringly Seven Arcs being Seven Arcs. Like all their action shows, I imagine that it’ll be fairly light hearted, every third episode will be extremely well animated with really dodgy art in between, the pacing will be god awful, and at some point, a giant phallus will have a central role into the plot. I am counting RH as Nanoha’s giant phallus. I foresee no arguments with this assertion.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
    
The STRONGEST Combination!

Tiger & Bunny
http://www.tigerandbunny.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 2nd

Summary: 
In Sternbild, companies advertise by sponsoring super heroes called Next on TV who go around doing good deeds. One of the best of these super heroes is teamed up with a cocky young newcomer who is more concerned with looking good than doing good.

Personal Thoughts: 
Another original series… with a completely newbie core staff, unless you count directing the Karas OVA… six years ago. Aaaand to make matters worse, it would appear that 100% of the action in this show is clumsy CG with faces occasionally pasted on top of it. In short, yuck. Maybe it’ll be amusing for the homoerotic undertones that invariably accompany every single thing that Sunrise makes, but I’m expecting little more than that. Although, I will admit that I found Viz’s official subtitles on the promo amusing. Great work, guys.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Least probable pairing since the Anglo-Sino alliance for the seizure of Japan.

Everyday Life
http://www.shinonome-lab.com/
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Genre: Commercialism
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 2nd

Summary: 
The ‘wacky’ antics of school girls going about their daily lives as well as a professor with her talking cat and robot attendant.

Personal Thoughts: 
The episode 0 OVA for this aired already. I was not impressed. Queue up another prepackaged show from KyoAni, this time with even less effort spent on making it than usual. Comedy relies on presentation, and from the OVA, KyoAni made it clear that they don’t give a crap about how they present this. They did bring in a new head writer, although looking over his past works is like taking a tour through the gardens of failure with only a couple things to be hopeful about.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

RAWKET LAWNCHAIR!

Toriko
http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/toriko/
Studio: Toei Animation
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres April 2nd (Late night)

Summary: 
The most delicious cooking ingredients exist in the most dangerous places. Toriko is one of the top hunters of these ingredients, ready and willing to defeat any monster in his dream to create the ultimate meal.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh boy! Jump! You know how I love Jump shows! And it’s Sunday morning? Even better! Let me take a swing at guessing how things are going to go. Toriko does something, a useless sidekick screams in disbelief, repeat 15 more times over the episode, someone has a huge power level cooking level, children rush off to buy the comic, and Toei rolls around in a pile of cash.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
How about just frying food instead? That’s delicious yo.

Hana-Saku Iroha
http://www.hanasakuiroha.jp/
Studio: PA Works
Genre: Drama 
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 3rd

Summary: 
Ohana is forced to move to her grandmother’s old-style hot spring inn where she meets all sorts of people. She decides to make the most of it and works hard to transform the inn to a much better place.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is the Canaan staff again, down to a T. And because that’s what Canaan did really well, drama. And if that doesn’t depress you enough, let me remind you that this writer is the genius behind GOSICK and Fractale. At least PA Works makes pretty shows. Almost always terribly written… and with a truly godawful writer at the lead here…… but pretty. Unlike Angel Beats or Canaan though, I don’t see this having anything else to fall back on when that bites them in the face.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Ohta su marvalic plesodoro!

Showa Story
http://www.showa-movie.jp/
Studio: Wao World
Genre: Talking Heads
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 3rd (sort of) / May 1st

Summary: 
The story of the everyday lives of a family in the Showa years (1926-1989).

Personal Thoughts: 
I debated even mentioning this because its first four episodes already aired as a movie and/or series of specials at the end of January. No new episodes will air until May 1st. The first five minutes of the first episode was four boys sitting in a circle rambling about nothing. A toy in a magazine they read I think. Flipping through the rest of the episode, it seemed like I had already seen the high point so decided it wasn’t even worth making a post about. It’s not particularly well made and has all the excitement and interest of a weekend at Aunt Ida’s potato farm. Not the one with the potato guns. The one where you shovel manure into the potato patch all day.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Fooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Under The Innocent Sky
http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/oretsuba/
Studio: Nomad
Genre: Romance
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 3rd

Summary: 
This is an ordinary winter story of different people laughing, playing, and falling in love.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is another one of those ensemble romance stories split between multiple couples. It’s based on a rather well-regarded game, but then again, this is Nomad, who hasn’t really made anything particularly strong since Rozen Maiden… with Campanella’s director and Abnormal Phys’s writer. If this were a comedy, I might be a little more hopeful. As heavy drama and romance though, not so much, especially when it’s split so that each set of characters gets about four episodes. Also, Moogy tells me that this is doomed and I did technically lose my right of attorney to him in a game of Baccarat on Scaramanga’s island.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Hey kid, I got some stuff that’ll make you fly.

Silver Soul
http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/gintama/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 4th (Very early morning)

Summary: 
Continuation of the sci-fi comedy where aliens have conquered the world. A trio of misfits in this world take on whatever odd jobs come their way.

Personal Thoughts: 
At 200 episodes into this, I’m pretty sure that even without the fact that Jump and I are anathema to each other, I would not be qualified to say much. I did watch the first few episodes of this a long long long time ago, but like Keroro, my patience with long running comedies quickly runs dry. I’ll give it a spin though. I hear it likes making fun of Jump almost as much as I do. Of course it is Jump itself too. It’s not like any of those actually have a plot or cohesion.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Magister mundi sum!

Sengoku Maidens ~Pink Paradox~
http://sengokuotome.com/
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 4th

Summary: 
Hideyoshi is summoned back in time to Japan’s warring era where every warlord is now a woman. This strange world’s Nobunaga needs his help collecting the Crimson Armor so that she can conquer the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
As Koihime is to Ro3K, Dynasty Warriors, and Ikkitousen, this is to the Japanese warring era, Samurai Warriors, and Samurai Girls. The main thing that concerns me here is the writer. It is the person who did a great job with GA Art Class, but has cocked up every single show she’s worked on that had a plot. Buuuut, I’m not even sure that’s relevant in an ‘adaptation’ of a set of pachinko characters. TMS is a bit of a wild card too. I’m really not sure what to expect, but it can’t be any worse than the other recent pachinko game adaptations… can it? Maybe I should hope it will be.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Do not pursue Lu… uh… Honda Tadakatsu?

Ultimate Survivor Kaiji – Illegal Chapter
http://www.ntv.co.jp/kaiji_hakairoku/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 5th

Summary: 
The continuing adventures of Kaiji, a genius gambler whose genius only comes out when he’s backed into a corner.

Personal Thoughts: 
I made it most of the way through the first iteration of this by becoming increasingly belligerant. I don’t think that’ll work again. My main problem besides the poor production that accompanies all of these Madhouse shows is the pacing. I have watched movies that consumed less time than Kaiji spent walking over balance beams, decrying how evil man before immediately forgetting what happened five minutes ago because this time will be different. Add in some Rio level ‘gambling’ that lasts episodes on end instead of one drugged up three minute sequence and I think it’s probably best if I just stay out of this one entirely.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Talk to the hand, cause Big R ain’t listening.

STEINS;GATE
http://steinsgate.tv/
Studio: WHITE FOX
Genre: Thriller
Information Links: ANN Entry
Premiers April 5th

Summary: 
A group of kids hacks their microwave so that they can send messages to the past. As the timeline starts to become more muddied, they have to stay ahead of the organization after them and keep their time microwave out of the wrong hands.

Personal Thoughts: 
A time microwave? Seriously? I can barely get mine to defrost chicken breasts. White Fox didn’t exactly impress me with Katanagatari’s production either. This is Everyday Life’s writer too… amongst all the other failures I alluded to. I don’t have confidence in leveraging that into a convoluted story centered around a time microwave. The promo was rather underwhelming as well. Hopefully they’re bringing a lot more than they showed there.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Please do not microwave the hamsters.

Sket Dance
http://sketdance.jp/
Studio: Tatsunoko
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 7th (Very early morning)

Summary: 
Yusuke and his friends are part of the Sket Club, dedicated to taking on odd jobs and helping other students in whatever way they can.

Personal Thoughts: 
YAWN. JUMP. Need I say more? Well, I probably do since this is Tatsunoko who doesn’t do many Jump adaptations and they’ve been doing a really good job on OVAs lately. That’s very different from adapting a prime time Jump show though, but still enough to give me a little hope for this. The staff is also comprised of a lot of former Synergy SP people from back when they made shows worth watching. Still, being Jump, and primetime at that, is a tough obstacle to overcome.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Actually has nothing to do with dancing.

Tea For Universe, Tea For Life
http://www9.nhk.or.jp/anime/heuge/
Studio: Bee Train
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 7th

Summary: 
Sasuke is a samurai under Nobunaga, but he’s more interested in learning to master the art of tea brewing than becoming a mighty warlord.

Personal Thoughts: 
Let’s all say it together. Bee Train. Bee Train writer. Bee Train director. Bee Train disaster. They can’t even decide if they want to spell it Hyouge or Heuge. I prefer the subtitle anyway. Not that it sounds even remotely interesting to begin with even before Bee Train got their filthy mitts on it. What is with Japan and all these protagonists in action settings that want to sit in the corner and pick their noses? Let’s do it the other way around. Have some tea maker discover that he’s actually a badass and wants to go cut some berks up.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

This show would be greatly improved if all the characters were eggs

Pretty Sunshine Brawlers ZEXAL 4D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercialism
Studio: Adam Smith
Genre: Selling Toys
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres April 7th

Summary: 
One day, a regular girl finds a magical pet that transforms her into a singing top, and now she must collect all the cards to battle against the alien invaders who have come to Earth to steal the world’s rhythm.

Personal Thoughts: 
Actually, I think that might have been the plot for Space Channel 5. Anyway, nearly half a dozen new kid shows about the latest/greatest cell phone straps, tops, collectable card games, etc. At least Japan seems to have never developed the US’s eternal fascinationwith toys that shoot ooze. I can’t imagine what kind of horrific show they would make with that premise.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

A-Channel
http://www.a-ch.jp/
Studio: Studio Gokumi
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 7th

Summary: 
A story of the everyday lives of a group of friends at a prestigious high school.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh boy. Another four panel comic about girls doing nothing. And you know what would make a dull and generic premise like this even better? If the show was made by Gonzo. Oh, hey! It’s all former Gonzo staff members! Score! Okay, so it’s not the core Gonzo disaster staff, but these guys have produced well more than their fair share of disasters and in particular, there isn’t a single successful comedy among them. New studios tend to be ambitious out of the gate and then wane quickly, so we’ll see if they can keep up the weirdness in the promos or if they’re going to flop.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Is the horse dead yet?

A Delusional Woman and a Young Man
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/denpa/
Studio: Shaft
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 7th

Summary: 
Makoto is forced to live with his aunt and cousin, Erio, who after disappearing for six months, reappeared, claiming to be an alien.

Personal Thoughts: 
Arakawa was a financial bust, so let’s make it again with the exact same director and ramp up the fanservice about 8 levels. You sure that’s a good idea, Shaft? Oh wait, they tossed in a newbie writer. That’s bound to make things… uh… make things……… Shaft, what the hell are you doing? I can’t wait to see them zoom in on Makoto’s eyes, followed by zooming in on Makoto’s eyes, followed by zooming in on Makoto’s eyes, followed by zooming in on Erio’s giant ass, which is a metaphor for Makoto’s eye.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

STOP DOING THIS, SHAFT.

Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/dororon-enmakun/
Studio: Brain’s Base
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 7th

Summary: 
Remake of a 70s series based on a trio of demon hunters from Hell who hunt down escaped demons.

Personal Thoughts: 
Brains Base… making a fanservice comedy? Who are they and what have they done with… I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop myself from making a joke as old as this franchise if I tried. I do appreciate the Lupin specials year in and year out, but I’m really hoping that they actually update this for the common era a lot more than the promo seems to indicate. At the moment, it looks very much like a throwback that’s going to try to sell itself on mostly nostalgia.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 

3.5 BA Baraci.

Maria † Holic Alive
http://www.mariaholic.com/
Studio: Shaft
Genre: ‘Comedy’
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 7th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of a lesbian looking for romance at an all girl’s school forced to room with a sadistic male crossdresser and his snarky maid.

Personal Thoughts: 
Tis the season for Shaft to recycle things I guess. Same staff, same everything. I found the original series dull aside from the OP and barely made it to episode 3. So, uh, I guess if you enjoyed the first season, then here’s more! I highly doubt that I’ll give this more than a cursory look to check out Shaft’s always interesting OP and ED and maybe quote some 80s power rock ballad in lieu of a real post. Then again, word on the grapevine (which feels far less nerdy than saying Twitter) is that production was already far behind schedule before the tsunami. Silly Shaft. Why is your management so horrible?

Preseason Swing Rating: 

This is not the show you are looking for.

Softenni
http://www.softenni.com/
Studio: Xebec
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 7th

Summary: 
The story of a high school soft tennis club training to take the national championship.

Personal Thoughts: 
I wasn’t even aware that ‘soft tennis’ existed as a sport, and the sole difference seems to be that they use softer balls. Please titter about the Japanese and their need for soft balls now. I can’t imagine tennis will actually play any part of it other than an excuse to get them all into short breezy skirts anyway. As much crap as I like to give Xebec, they’ve actually be doing a pretty good job making even their trashy fanservice shows watchable for the last couple years, Rio notwithstanding, and this looks to be little different. It’s a little different staff from usual though, so maybe not. They have one of Shaft’s old folks in charge of directing this though, which is a little confusing, but from the promo it looks like the same kind of fanservice comedy as all of Xebec’s other ones, for better or worse.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

I don’t remember tennis having this many panty shots.

You’ve Been Summoned, Azazel
http://kc.kodansha.co.jp/azazel/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 8th

Summary: 
Akutabe is a detective that summons demons to help him solve cases. However, he only summons a small part of the demons, so they’re weak and almost powerless, letting him use them as almost slave labor to get his work done for him.

Personal Thoughts: 
There was a 10 minute OVA of this early last year that I didn’t find interesting enough to post about. Most of the staff here comes straight from Production IG’s xxxHOLiC adaptations… so… you know… not exactly a group I would endorse for their comedic abilities or production. The high point of the OVA was when they turned the woman into a half-cow with giant…. udders. I use the phrase ‘high point’ very liberally. Plus, the OVA was rather poorly made too, so factor in an expected drop in quality above and beyond that and… Besides, the Kampfer demon things are far more unsettling, and prone to breaking out in German odes at random. These… things… can barely compare.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

I prefer my paganism with fox ears.

Abnormal Physiology Seminar
http://kc.kodansha.co.jp/hensemi/
Studio: Xebec
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 8th

Summary: 
Nanako joins a research group full of people with perverse sexual behaviors and is forced to continually write and report on various fetishes and abnormal behaviors.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is one of those cases where I really think that a good deal of censorship can only help things. And I barely batted an eye at Juuden’s urine flowing like the Nile. I found the first episode of the OVA rather repugnant, mostly because about 50% of it was showing people masturbating and another 25% talking about how they masturbate. The remaining portion was shots of Nanako looking aghast when people ate pizza that other characters had just jacked off onto. So… yeah. Since the promo includes yet more masturbation, I’m not holding my breath.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Is it safe to come out yet?

The World’s Best First Love
http://sekai-ichi.jp/
Studio: Deen
Genre: Delicious Boys
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 8th

Summary: 
Ritsu takes a new job as editor, intent on proving himself capable. However, his new job is editing girl’s comics and his boss is a guy that he already dated and broke up with before in the past.

Personal Thoughts: 
And here’s Deen spitting out yet another one of these. Same staff as they use for all their bishie on bishie romance stories too. If you’ve (not) seen one, you’ve (not) seen them all. The only thing left is to make some jokes about who the prettiest bishie of the bunch is. Besides, I find these things far more amusing when I just get to joke about latent undertones ala anything made by Sunrise or Clamp. It’s no fun when they’re being utterly shameless about it.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Four true pretty boys.

Put It All In The Ring 1 — World Tournament
http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/sp/rin-kake1_wcs/
Studio: Toei Animation
Genre: Sports
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres April 10th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing boxing adventure of Ryuuji and his friends. They’ve made it to the world tournament where they face even tougher opponents from… wait for it… around the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
Apparently they’re going to be spitting out a season of this a year for awhile. I safely ignored it last spring, so I might as well ignore it again and make it into a tradition along with the yearly Seiha cow tipping party. They never show the epilogue to these boxing shows either, where everybody has become mildly retarded from taking repeated blows to the head. I love a happy ending.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Another show that’d be improved by making the characters more egg-like.

Astalotte’s Toy!
http://www.rotte-omocha.com/
Studio: Diomedea
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 10th

Summary: 
Astalotte is the queen of succubi and needs semen to survive, but she hates men. She tries to get out of making her boy harem by declaring that the first member has to be a human, since she believes the connection to the human world is broken. However, her assistant returns with a young man and his daughter who take pity on Lotte and agree to help her overcome her issues.

Personal Thoughts: 
And if you’re wondering what Arakawa’s writer is doing instead of Shaft’s alien girl show, look no further. Newbie director too, and Diomedea has been nothing if not wildly inconsistent between the production of each of their shows, so… WHO KNOWS. I can’t say that the promo makes it look very exciting though, and certainly nowhere near the energy level of Diomedea’s last show (Squid Girl). I’m just hoping that they completely drop the angle of a ten year old needing to consume semen within the first two minutes of the show and never ever bring it up ever again.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
    
I just got a ring toss when I was ten.

A Bridge to the Starry Sky
http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/hoshikaka/
Studio: Dogakobo
Genre: Dogakobo
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 10th (Late night)

Summary: 
Kazuma is forced to move to the countryside because of his brother’s health. Once he arrives there, he accidentally has an embarrassing encounter with a girl, immediately complicating his new school life.

Personal Thoughts: 
Aaaah, Dogakobo, you and your antics. The VN this is based on is the spiritual successor to AkaneIro. Beyond that sin, this has a newbie director and Dogakobo’s Koihime writer. Fun! Well, maybe it’ll turn out so bad or so lesbian that it’ll be amusing. Those are really the only two directions that I see this going, and I give equal probability for both. Still, it does air in its own little timeslot with absolutely no competition. Maybe I’ll break out the cheap vodka and make it a party night. On Sundays… yeaaah.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

T-minus three episodes before they’re all deepthroating festival food.

The World God Only Knows
http://kaminomi.jp/
Studio: Manglobe
Genre: Bad Music
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 11th

Summary: 
Sequel series. Keima continues to be forced to heal the hearts of troubled girls to capture the demons inside of them.

Personal Thoughts: 
The first season was extremely underwhelming and by all appearances, they’re going to be slowing down the pacing even more for this one. That’s about the exact opposite of what I would have wanted to hear. Now they can fit in at least four insert songs into each arc. It has actual competition this time on its day (Sengoku, Aria, and arguably Qwaser) so it better bring it’s A game if it wants my attention. Maybe Manglobe did learn from their mistakes and shot their musical director. I did barely survive to the end of the first season, but time has not improved my disposition towards this show at all.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Because as everybody knows, the best VNs are all on the PFP.

Aria the Scarlet Ammo
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/aria/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Action, Comedy
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 11th

Summary: 
In order to deal with the rising crime rate, a high school for training armed detectives has been established. Kinji is enrolled there, but decides to transfer out. However, he’s attacked soon after and is dragged back into it by the detective school’s top student, Aria.

Personal Thoughts: 
This looks like a completely by-the-books JC Staff action/comedy… old JC Staff, not the JC Staff of Index and ZnT. It even has with their Slayers/Shana director. I do like him quite a bit (he’s doing Freezing right now, which for all its sins, its action direction isn’t one of them), but his shows for the past few years have had some fairly major writing issues… and the writing here is is being handled by one of JC Staff’s weaker folks. I’m still tentatively hopeful. JC Staff shows tend to usually at least be watchable and comedy is where they’ve traditionally done their best work. Adding firearms can’t hurt either.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Student council approved.

Qwaser of Stigmata
http://www.qwaser.jp/
Studio: Hoods Entertainment
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 11th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventure of a super powered young man fueled by breast milk and all the women he suckles off of. This time, Sasha has to infiltrate a new all-girl’s school in search of a magical widget.

Personal Thoughts: 
The thing that impressed me the most about the first season was its censorship. Of course, I lost interest by the second episode and I’m not really eager to catch up. The breast feeding schtick doesn’t even bother me compared to the brain dead cast and a protagonist with a personality of dried mildew. All the breasts in the world can’t make up for that.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Sasha’s got a billion problems, but…

C
http://www.noitamina-control.jp/
Studio: Tatsunoko
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premieres April 14th

Summary: 
When Japan was on the bring of financial disaster, a corporation stepped in and saved it, but life has not improved for the common man. Kimimaro studies economics to try to save his family from the financial turmoil, and one day, is offered unlimited money and entrance into the parallel ‘Financial World.’ In return, Kimimaro must give up his future.

Personal Thoughts: 
On one hand, it is Tatsunoko, which as I said, has been doing well lately. It’s another original show with a fairly unusual staff. This director is very experimental (Trapeze, Mononoke), but the writer comes from Brains Base (DRRR and Baccano). On the other, it’s noitaminA, which I never get along with. The setting is too bizarre for me to even get a good read on whether he’s going to be fighting evil in this financial parallel world, solving mysteries, or collecting the 8 magical Dragon Yen to grant a wish. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Give up your dreams.

We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day
http://www.anohana.jp/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Long Titles
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 14th

Summary: 
Six friends all went their separate ways when they reached high school. One of them wants to rekindle their old friendships and bring them all back together again.

Personal Thoughts: 
The other noitaminA show. Aaaaaaand being written by GOSICK’s writer as well. Because I really trust her to write an original story. And it’s directed by the genius behind Railgun. With A-1 in charge of production. Be still my beating heart. The promos look nice, but A-1′s promos always look at least three or four times better than their shows end up actually being… pluuuuus, I seem to remember them touting how they were going to make awesome new shows last year with all of them being complete wrecks. Hiding yet another one in noitaminA doesn’t fool me, A-1.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Have you tried looking the flower up on the internet? Could help.

Deadman Wonderland
http://dwl.jp/
Studio: Manglobe
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 16th

Summary: 
Ganta is wrongly convicted of massacring his classmates and is sent to a gladiator-like prison where he has to fight using his newly gained special powers in order to obtain the antidote that he needs to live. Meanwhile, the real murderer is in this prison with him.

Personal Thoughts: 
Manglobe has dicked up a lot of adaptations lately. In fact, they’ve dicked up just about everything they’ve made other than SamCham. This director hasn’t done anything before this, and the writer is… well… let’s just say that they do a lot of porn. A lot of porn. And Sengoku Basara. Which was not exactly known for its stellar writing either. Maybe Manglobe will remember that the action show should have action, but given their past record, I wouldn’t be hopeful.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Only 35% as Goth as it thinks it is.

Blue Exorcist
http://www.ao-ex.com/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 17th (Very early morning)

Summary: 
Humans and demons are supposed to live in different worlds, but some demons still transgress. Exorcists hunt these demons. When Rin discovers that he’s the son of Satan and a human woman and is meant to be the vessel that Satan will use to invade the human world, he decides to become an exorcist and fight back.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is taking over Star Driver’s coveted time slot, so A-1′s been clearly sinking a lot of budget into it. Or at least it appears so. Like I said before, A-1′s promos always look far far better than their shows actually end up being. Heck, remember how good and action packed the trailers for TogaInu looked? Ha. What a joke that ended up being. The staff is fairly unimpressive, as is, again, the fact that it’s A-1, who has become the new Gonzo in recent years. I predict an impressive first couple episodes followed by a speedy decline in writing and production, then a completely nonsensical ending. And that’s me being optimistic.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
    
What about Kali? Where’s the love for Kali?

What If a Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker’s "Management"?
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/anime/moshidora/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Sports
Staff/Cast Information: ANN Entry
Premiers April 25th

Summary: 
Minami is the manager of her school’s baseball team, and despite how bad they are, she wants to take them to the nationals. To that end, she begins using Drucker’s Management principles to guide them.

Personal Thoughts: 
Worst title ever. Don’t let the contractions fool you. That is seriously what the show is named. This was originally scheduled to be broadcast over two weeks, one episode a day, but was pushed back a month and to a normal schedule due to tsunami, and after a few more scheduling hiccups is back on the original schedule. This is Production IG’s F-team (Wellber, Library Wars, Erin, etc), so that’s already depressing. Plus, the episode 0 preview was… as exciting as Drucker, let’s say. Beyond that, it’s a show about baseball… and Drucker’s management techniques. Because if there’s nothing more interesting than Project Management 101, it’s Project Management 101 plus baseball. Nice to know that all people need to do to be better at sports is to read a book on decades old management techniques. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Learning is fun and not boring at all!

Starry☆Sky
http://sta-ska.com/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers December 23rd/February 3rd

Summary: 
12 pretty pretty boys each with their own Zodiac sign seduce a generic female. Over and over and over again.

Personal Thoughts: 
The first ‘episode’ already aired, and it’s on some kind of bizarro webcast schedule until February, whereupon terrestrial broadcasts begin and will pass the webcasts around the start of March. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Luckily, the first episode was really really bad, so it’s all a moot point anyway. On the other hand, the main character’s lesbian parents were kinda hot.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
…Wanna do it?

Rio RainbowGate!
http://riorainbowgate.com/
Studio: Xebec
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 4th

Summary: 
Mint is brought by her multi-millionaire grandfather to a resort island. She’s quickly bored by the ‘kiddy’ attractions there and wanders into a casino where she becomes infatuated with Rio, the fabled Goddess of Victory. When a man takes Mint’s prized stuffed animal hostage, it’s up to Rio to win it back in a high stakes game of poker. That’s only the start of Mint’s adventures with Rio.

Personal Thoughts:
It pained me just reading that, let alone writing it. Don’t get excited for this being Xebec and their stock on the rise lately either. This is Xebec’s trash squad, best known for TLR and almost a decade’s worth of Rockman.EXE. It is basically an original work based off of character designs from old pachinko games and I fully expect it to be about as deep and intelligent as them.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Now let’s paint us a happy little rainbow.

Reaching You – Second Season
http://www.ntv.co.jp/kiminitodoke/index.html
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 4th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continued waffling of a shy ‘scary’ girl who just needs some penis, any penis, to make everything right in the world and change her from a social reject to the belle of the ball.

Personal Thoughts: 
Wanted nothing to do with the first season, I cannot imagine I’ll want anything to do with this one. I believe the word ‘hackneyed’ entered my original impressions multiple times, as well as swearing at Noto spewing out breathy wallflower female role #424 for her.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Get drunk and get laid already, you twits.

Magical Girl Madoka ★ Magica
http://www.madoka-magica.com/
Studio: Shaft
Genre: Shinbo
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 6th

Summary: 
There are girls. They sign contracts with talking rodents to become magical girls. Assumably, they then go to rehab for meth addiction.

Personal Thoughts: 
They’ve been oddly tight-lipped regarding anything relating to the plot or scenario for this series. Given Shaft’s recent production woes, I assume it’s because they still haven’t finished the first episode. I’m not even sure why people are excited about Phantom’s VN writer being involved. Haven’t we learned already that VN writers don’t transition to anime composition well, or do we need to forcefeed another Angel Beats viewing? Besides, he already tried writing for anime once. It was called Blassreiter. Ew. Shinbo can (sort of) do magical girl though, at least assuming that he learned anything from doing the first season of Nanoha, which was (sort of) okay. And now the bar is set low enough to maybe make this show okay again.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Four magical… girls.
     

IS <Infinite Stratos>
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/
Studio: 8-Bit
Genre: Action, Comedy
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 6th

Summary: 
Ten years ago, the advent of Infinite Stratos, a near invincible exoskeletal weaponry system, revolutionized the world. However, IS can only be activated by women, causing gender conflicts to erupt once again. Orimura Ichika accidentally becomes the first male to be able to activate an IS and is then forced to attend a specialized IS training academy filled with nothing but women, disrupting his desired peaceful life.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ahh, the love child of Duel Savior and Dual! The characters come off as the most generic thrown-together mecha cliches imaginable, right down to the ace male lead fighter who turns into a bumbling twit whenever he’s within fifteen feet of a pair of ovaries. It does have KyoAni’s old writer at the helm. I’m not sure experience with Air and Kanon will help, but the FMP experience should. Still 8-Bit’s a newbie to actually producing a full series. The promos do look good, but new studios traditionally splurge on the first episode/promo material and then collapse shortly afterwards. That puts this as a giant question mark with a lot of potential at both the good and bad ends of the spectrum.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Nodamiki IS: ENGAGE.

Dream Eater Merry
http://nightmare.ponycanyon.co.jp/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 6th

Summary: 
Yumeji has been haunted in his nightmares by cats contiuously attacking him. He meets a girl named Merry who says that she’s a nightmare that has somehow been transferred into the real world. His dreams are other nightmares trying to escape by consuming people. He’s drawn into the battle between the real world and the dream world to protect his friends thanks to his ability to see the colors of people’s recent dreams.

Personal Thoughts: 
Head director’s a vet of lots and lots of brainless action, so that’s a little promising. Then again, JC Staff has not exactly excelled at action series lately. Exposition series pretending to be action series, sure. Plus, they’re practically rubber stamping every "slender possibly-magic girl paired with normal boy" series they can get their greasy mitts on. I expect it to be watchable, but not too much more than that.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Five nightmare cats.

Wolverine
http://www.animax.co.jp/marvelanime/wolverine/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 7th

Summary: 
Logan’s search for a woman leads him to Japan where he’s attacked and loses most of his mutant powers. The battle between him and the crime syndicate that kidnapped his ladyfriend is just beginning.

Personal Thoughts: 
Iron Man and Wolverine’s first episodes were both screened at some US con about six months back. Iron Man was the one everybody was excited for while Wolverine was universally panned. Now where does that leave us? Doomed, I say. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED. I do admit some morbid curiosity seeing how the highly individualistic Wolverine will be rewritten to appeal to a collectivist culture, but I imagine that I can simulate the experience by growing mold on tapioca in my fridge and inhaling a great big lungful of spores once a week.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Nobody gets between Japanese Rape-Spiderman and his poon!

GOSICK
http://www.gosick.tv/
Studio: Bones
Genre: Mystery
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 7th

Summary: 
Kazuya transfers to a new school where he meets Victorique, a beautiful girl who spends every waking moment in the library reading. Her idiot detective brother uses her keen intellect to solve cases that have the police baffled. When Kazuya becomes the primary suspect in a murder, he’s forced to turn to her for help.

Personal Thoughts: 
Do note that ‘Gosick’ is an incorrect transliteration of Gothic, which would be a sensical name for a gothic show. Sigh. Sometimes I think Japan does this specifically because it annoys me. The director’s a total nobody (Heroman being the only major work), and this is one of three (three!) shows that the writer’s working on this season. She’s known for awful endings to her shows anyway, so it’s a perfect fit for Bones. I can’t say that I’m a fan of mysteries in general, but if there’s one thing that I’ve learned, despite numerous overtures towards ‘mystery’ series, Japan has little idea how to pull off a mystery anyway.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
But can she discover their true identities?
        

Cardfight!! Vanguard
http://cf-vanguard.com/
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Genre: Advertising
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 7th (late night)

Summary: 
In the near future, Bushiroad decided that they needed a new franchise to sell cards to small children. They set out on an ambitious adventure to advertise the hell out of their little pieces of paper with dragons drawn on them.

Personal Thoughts: 
Let’s not mince words or have any illusions about this. This will clearly be the awesomest of awesome awesomeness and cannot be contained by some any mere description. Jam Project are such corporate whores these days.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Three and a half true game masters.

Freezing
http://freezing.tv/
Studio: ACGT
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 7th (late night)

Summary: 
The Earth has been invaded by aliens called the Nova and only super powered teams of a male and female can fight them; the female Pandoras acting as the fighters while the male Limiters suppressing the Nova’s abilities. Kazuya is a brand new student in the military academy and accidentally makes the stern Pandora, Bridgette, lose her first training battle ever. To make it up to her, he decides to look past her reputation as a heartless terror and be her Limiter when no other man would.

Personal Thoughts: 
Staff’s experienced with a wide array of both good shows and bad, so there’s not a whole ton interesting to say about that. I’ll keep the snide comments about male leads with powers to suck the energy out of battles to a minimum. …Yeah, right. What I’ve picked up, this is kind of like Regios in that the monsters are there as an afterthought and most of it is various psychopaths running around school attacking each other for no reason. Sounds fine to me. Besides, it airs in its own little evening time zone anyway.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
How many shows about schools training magical girl psycopaths do we need this season?

I Don’t Like My Brother All, You Know!!
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/oniichan/
Studio: ZEXCS
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 8th

Summary: 
Nao is madly in love with her perverted brother ,Shusuke, and when she learns that she was adopted, there’s nothing left holding her back. Except that he still sees her as his sister, as do all of their friends, and are going to do everything they can to keep her from her pseudo-incestuous desires.

Personal Thoughts: 
Experienced director, newbie writer, and Zexcs. Big Z’s been backsliding the last year or two, but they still make mostly watchable shows. They’ve reached this bizarre middle ground where they either make terrible setups better or good setups worse. This is part of the former, but these kind of horrible setups still require solid execution to be tongue in cheek instead of just plain horrible. I’m really hoping this ends up more like Tarou’s family life in MM than… other shows which are better off not named. Other than the half-assed incest twist, which is already ingrained into the harem setup half the time anyway, this really looks like just another brainless T&A comedy to me.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
"Stop touching your brother or I’m turning this preview around!"
                                                

Mitsudomoe Expansion
http://www.mitsudomoe-anime.com/
Studio: Bridge
Genre: Comedy
Information Links: ANN Entry
Premiers January 8th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures misunderstandings of the perverse Marui triplets inflicting various forms of torture on each other and the people around them.

Personal Thoughts: 
My patience with the first season was running pretty thin at the end. It started off hilarious, but then production plummeted and they recycled the same very forced misunderstanding joke week after week after week, just shuffling around which characters were involved. Every now and then, a glimmer of creativity would come back, but soon got buried under the introduction of a new character just so they’d have another character for the cast to cycle through the same joke with. I’m hoping Bridge learned from their mistakes, but I’m not holding my breath. Not that this is a short ‘season’ of just 8 episodes too.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Marui harassment is smalltime.

Beelzebub
http://www.shonenjump.com/j/rensai/beelzebub/
Studio: Pierrot
Genre: Being Terrible
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 8th (late night)

Summary: 
Oga’s a punk that loves to fight and pick on his classmates. He discovers a man floating down the river who splits in half and the son of the Devil crawls out and bonds with him, causing instant death for Oga if the two ever seperate. Oga now has to fight to protect and raise the baby Beelzebub even though using his newfound demonic powers threatens the fate of the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ewwwwww, Jump. Pierrot’s spewing out yet another Sunday morning Jump action show with terrible staff at the helm. Can I just leave it at that? No? Damn. It’s not the crappy characters, it’s not the juvenile humor, it’s not the poor production for 95% of the show, it’s the pacing. Months spent going nowhere seems to be a virtue for the rag with flashbacks of exposition tossed in to explain how these power levels are totally different from the last power levels. And to be completely honest, it is also the characters, humor, and production too.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Classification not applicable.

Is This a Zombie?
http://newtype.kadocomic.jp/zombie/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Comedy, Action
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 10th

Summary: 
Ayumu’s life seems to end when he’s murdered, but he’s revived as a zombie with superhuman abilities by a mysterious girl and agrees to take her in and act as her bodyguard in exchange. Soon after, he also accidentally depowers a magical girl in her unrelated fight against otherworldly monsters and has to take over her job as well.

Personal Thoughts: 
This premise reminds me entirely too much of Guardian Hearts. Now there’s a bad memory. In general, I think that at some point in this piece’s development, the editing process was tossed out the window and literally everything got let through. This is Macademy’s director though and one of the few things that Deen consistently does well is comedy, so I am cautiously optimistic that they’ll run with the mess instead of trying to turn it into a sensible setting.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Six disgruntled mobile dolls.

Dragon Crisis! 
http://dragoncrisis.jp/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 10th

Summary: 
In a world of magical artifacts, Ryuuji’s cousin forces him to help her steal a crate out from under a criminal organization’s nose. When they open it up, they find a girl who immediately becomes infatuated with Ryuuji and is supposedly a mythical dragon. As word of the escaped dragon spreads, different organizations begin trying to kidnap her for their own uses.

Personal Thoughts: 
DEEN, inexperienced director, and the writer for TWGOK and OreImo. I can barely contain my excitement. Well, I’d like to say that, but since it and Zombie are the only non-Jump shows airing on Mondays, I don’t want to think about what that’s going to do to my sanity when I try to watch it simply for something to do. This is also the sixth of seven new shows this season about magical/pseudo-magical girls with witless male protagonist sidekicks. That doesn’t even count Index. Give it a rest, Japan.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Organized crime? In my city? I don’t think so.

Level E
http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/level-e/
Studio: Pierrot/David
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 10th

Summary: 
Yukitata has finally moved out on his own, but when he arrives at his apartment, he finds someone already there. The man calls himself Prince Baka (sigh) and claims to be a crash-landed alien with amnesia and declares that he’ll be sharing the apartment with Yukitata and demands to be waited on hand and foot.

Personal Thoughts: 
Because if there’s nothing better than Jump, it’s old Jump. And if there’s nothing better than old Jump, it’s old Jump being worked on by Gonzo’s refugees at David. At least they’re experienced, and not the dregs of Gonzo’s dregs. The source this is based on also consists of only 16 chapters, so a healthy chunk of it will be original anyway… or stretched out thinner than the cels it would have been animated on if this was made back when it was… not even that popular?

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Not fabulously naked enough.

Fractale
http://fractale.noitamina.tv/
Studio: A-1
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 13th

Summary: 
One day, Crane finds an injured girl and falls in love with her. She mysteriously disappears, leaving behind only a pendant which houses an artificial being called a Doppel named Nessa. The two set off together in search of the mysterious girl and to hopefully find a way to restore the failing Fractale system that maintains their idyllic world.

Personal Thoughts: 
Another totally original show with very little promotional material. This is a noitaminA show though, so I’m anticipating this about as much as I do all noitaminA shows, which is to say, only slightly less than a Justin Bieber/Mick Jagger sex tape. A-1′s been having some… issues, shall we say… lately as well. I wouldn’t hold out much hope for this as anything more than some vapid piece where the only things of note are the backgrounds and the ‘atmospheric’ music. The main notable things are that this is the second of three shows Okada is writing for this season and that the director’s said he’ll quit if it fails, which is less of a threat than one might think since he’s only actually fully directed one series (Kannagi) and was already kicked off another for sucking (Lucky Star).

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Fractale System’s 100 Year Warranty is Vault-Tec Approved!

Wandering Son
http://www.houroumusuko.jp/
Studio: AIC
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers January 13th

Summary: 
Nitori seems to be a shy boy and Takatsuki seems to be a tomboyish girl. However, both are transgendered and they turn to each other to help in growing up and dealing with the issues that confront them.

Personal Thoughts: 
And here’s the third series Okada’s writing for. Luckily, she has the director of Girls Bravo and Ga Rei:Zero in charge of this so… uh… wherever I was going with this, it was not going to end well. This would be the other noitaminA show, so everything I said above still applies. I’m not even sure how this stuff works. It’s effectively an after-school special on gender dysphoria that lasts four hours. In the same time, you could learn how to use an entire library. Those things have books! And the Dewey Decimal System!

Preseason Swing Rating: 
HRRRRRRUUUNNNKK
   

Suite PreCure♪
http://asahi.co.jp/precure/
Studio: Toei
Genre: Selling Magical Cellphones
Staff/Cast List: ANN Entry
Premiers February 6th

Summary: 
Another in the endless Pretty Cure reboots. This time we’ve moved onto musically themed magical girls.

Personal Thoughts: 
I again point to the year I spent watching ZKC live, which was preceeded by about 3 minutes of watching PreCure girls elbow drop giant scorpions with the power of hitting buttons on their cellphones. As far as magical girl series directed at 10-14 year old little girls go, you can do worse, but I have the feeling at this point that they use the PreCure name just to hide the fact that they’re recycling the story with new characters over and over and over again.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
Calling it now, next one’s going to be Suite and Soeur PreCure.