Last season was not as bad as I thought it would be, but there weren't too many stellar series. Unfortunately, at first blush, it looks like a better season than the current one.

I need to clear the decks and make room. Quick summaries to follow. I am not spending much time on plot descriptions. merely closing thoughts:

D-Frag
One of the better comedies, and one I did not hold much hope for. There were some genuinely side-splitting moments and the writers did a good job at building each moment on top of the previous one. The characters were well drawn, and because I was fairly new to the "art shift to chibi" trend it seemed frsh to mne. That seems to be a trope that will get tiresome very soon, unfortunately.

The worst part is the MC tended to operate on eleven most of the time. Some more dimension would have been nice. The other characters made up for it.

All in all worth the time. Not the kind of show that had a big resolve, so no problems with an unfinished storyline. Could have a second season. I would probably watch. Possible buy.

Buddy Complex
Most of the shows I followed were worth a watch and told an interesting story, but stopped short of excellence, or in most cases of anything better than good. Buddy Complex was a good example.

Mecha sci-fi that indulged in time travel paradox, the show at least attempted to deal with the inherent problems, at least at the end, and did it's best to resolve the loop problem. Main Character is brought to the future by a girl who tells him to seek out a certain boy so that destiny will do its thing. When he gets there it turns out that this future timeline, she is the enemy and the story is the path taken to make her an ally. The gaping flaw is how things got started in the first place, since he was the reason she she migrated over in the first place. The resolve is how he recognizes the loop and breaks it.

At least the story gets resolved, and it was a decent ride to get there. Definitely not a buy.

Z/X Ignition

Again, an interesting series that revealed character backstory well, but holds out promise of a more important backstory over all which was only hinted at. I would follow this if they had a second season, if only to find out the truth about the five different types of invaders that occupy territories on Earth.

For some reason, it is possible to capture and manage individual members of the invading species using a card shaped device. What makes this possible, and who created these devices are subjects for future seasons. The focus characters have myriad reasons for wanrting to use the creatures, but there is usually a shred respect between Human and alien.

Again. the story is way too big for one season to flesh out all the ideas, and they do an okay job with the time they have, but it hurt the story a bit not getting to all this. It's a dilemma they did not resolve well. Worth the time, but that's about all. Not a likely buy.

Tonari no Seki-kun

A fun seven minute series entirely based on a schoolgirl's observation of the boy who sits next to her in class, and the various ways he wastes class time. I lasted about ten episodes, but considering the low time investment, and the creativity of the writers, I may go back every so often and waste some of my own time.

Definitely not a buy.

A Pilot's Love Song (Toaru Hikūshi e no Koiuta)

Another decent story set in no certain time line concerning a pilot trainee who has a dark past. He meets and fall in love with a girl who is connected with this past and, once he realizes this, he has decision he must make.

There is a jarring reveal concerning both enemy and possible ally airframes that would have made for an important story reveal, but seemingly nothing is made of this. This is a shame, because the visual head smack becomes nothing more than something that pulls us away from the world we are getting used to. It ends up serving as a spotlight on the odd ball technologies that inhabit the series. This is not enough to ruin the story for me, but it is not a small flaw by any measure.

The story is not well resolved, but the only remaining arc is nowhere near enough to warrant a full season. Maybe a few OVA's might do the trick?

Meh, I didn't feel that my time was wasted, but they did not manage the story well. Not a buy.

Sekai Seifuku Bouryaku no Zvezda

A young girl (?) conquers the world. Pretty much, anyway. A young man finds love and purpose in his crappy life.

The show starts at the end and spends its time getting there again. It was creative, had interesting characters and was well written until the creators realized they were rapidly running out of time. All of a sudden the whole thing took a huge turn to the dark and raced towards an ending that should have been run for at least three more episodes.

Almost no time was taken to develop the Big Bad, and the story rushed more in the last three episodes than it did in all the previous nine, which was mostly exposition and character fleshing.

it did resolve, but it was erratic in the way it got there.

Might be a buy.

Witch Craft Works

A teen boy has powers he is unaware of and people around him reveal to have been protecting him for a good portion of his life. Not the most original idea, but told fairly competently. The series has a very familiar structure, with exposition combined with plot arcs that last two to four episodes. It has a decent rsolution, but also indicated it is no wahere near finished. I would watch additional seasons and I am following the translated mangas.

the biggest problem is the female protagonist. She has as much emotion as a soap dish and as much as I am no fan of crazy mannered women, I would li8ke to see some more out of this one. I know it is central to her character that she be this way, but that does not make it a forgivable offense.

While the male protagonist grows quite a bit, and we see his growth in emotional attachment to the female lead, it would be nice if his proclamations to her do more than give her a slight blush.

Depending on the future of the series, this one might be worth a buy. Only if there is more development with more seasons.

Mahou Sensou

Interesting beginning that tended to fall of the rails at the end. Ordinary students become entangled in the world of magical instruction and warfare that will inevitably spill over to their world.

Interesting concept handles poorly. So many events happening with not too much order. An ending that begs for another season that it will not likely get. This could have been something so much more but stumbled badly.

There were plot lines about friendship turned fake romance turned real romance. there were issues concerning one brother's angry attitude towards the other brother over a mistaken accident. there are moments when the antagonistic side makes a convincing case that they are in the right. All of these are either dropped from further consideration, or are resolved in ways that confuse the plot rather than help the plot.

The term that comes to mind is: a shame. Not a buy.


Kill la Kill

Audacious and unrelenting in its over the top story line and energy level. clothes take over the world, or at least try to.

There is absolutely no point in talking about where things worked or didn't here. Most things did not suffer any kind of analysis, and that was totally besides the point. The phrenetic pace is easily on par with Excel Safga and FLCL. The characters were about as deep as a scotch brite pad. it was a fun ride that I would say fell short of it's goal if I thought it might have had one. having said all this, it was an interesting concept and was worth the ride. Once.

Golden time

The main character has an accident and suffers amnesia. The series revolves around moments of (re)discovery, as well as an approaching fear about the reversed affects that he might face should his memory get restored. It goes where no other series has gone in this, and explores it fairly well.

The story had wonderful moments, but generally did not have a satisfying ending. It well out paced the translations of both the light novel and the manga, so I have nothing to compare it to, but one major question was answered at least (what was her reply?), and an all too cute resolve between the two female interests resulted in a less than satisfying conclusion.

Same as all the others - interesting enough to watch, but nothing to crow about. Not a buy.


There are some ongoing shows, and some I have mentioned down blog, such as Mikakunin de Shinkoukei, but I needed to clear out the cobwebs and this was the easiest way to do it. I do fear that this season will not even live up to the past season, but I thought the same about that one. we'll see.

Posted by: topmaker at 06:56 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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