Fall 2009 Season Anime
It’s about time I get down to business and write a State of the Tumblr post, and a Fall 2009 anime preview seems as good a time as any to do it. Noogz got the jumpstart on me and did a great breakdown of a dozen shows yesterday so I think I’m just going to link you guys over to him for synopses.
As you can tell from the heinous lack of posting here over the past few months, I totally missed the Summer anime season. I’ve been watching Gokujou Mecha Mote Iinchou and Cross Game all summer and absolutely nothing else. Haruhi burned me with Endless Eight and I haven’t been able to gather motivation to pick it up again just to see the damn Mikuru beam. I still have a tremendous backlog of half-watched classic shows on my hard-drive, and while I’d meant to pick up Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 and Taishou Yakyuu Musume this round I unfortunately didn’t get around to them. I’ve been outside making precious summer memories, ok?!? Leave me alone!
Autumn looks better though. And while I’m not making promises, there are at least three shows that I will be watching FOR DEFS. Two of them are sequels to series that I’ve watched and liked, and the third is an adaptation of my favourite manga. It’s all familiar stuff so I’m much more motivated to watch than I was this summer, which sort of depresses me regarding my capacity to take risks and discover new intellectual property but whatevs. ~shrugs~
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu II
She’s the hottest girl in school and she also happens to be a huge otaku. Did you just cream your jeans? I know a few thousand Akiba-nerds did. I watched the first season of Nogizaka Haruka when it aired last year and found it pretty cute - although the two leads have the tamest OTP relationship I have ever witnessed. It’s just nice to see a reliable non-ecchi male character in a moe title for once. Here’s hoping Season 2 doesn’t fuck that up.
Shakugan no Shana III
Speaking of fucking things up, the majority of the blogosphere seems to agree that Season 2 of Shana was utter garbage. It was almost unwatchable. Which was extra disappointing coming from a show with a first season as incredible as Shakugan no Shana’s. This franchise had it all - gorgeous character designs, a complicated supernatural back story, ultra-violent fight scenes, school life romance, MILFs and drunk gaijin women, massive swords, baked goods, you name it.
I’ll admit it - I’m a huge Rie Kugimiya supporter. I always root for the tsundere. I own a Shana cosplay uniform. I have Mami Kawada songs all over my iPod. I LOVED this show. And I couldn’t even get through Season 2. So here’s hoping they get it together with Season 3 and dig into some much darker material from the adapted light novels. Screw the harem stuff. I wanna see my tsundere idol with her hair on fire slaying some Tomogara back to back with her boy Yuuji and his big sword.
Kimi ni Todoke
Oh, you don’t even know how excited I am about this one. Kimi ni Todoke is my favourite manga series (along with the majority of Japanese women 15 and older, apparently?) The synopsis sounds a bit weak at first - Sawako is a gloomy looking girl who always gets mistaken for the main character from the Ring despite her sweet personality - but the manga is incredibly well done. The blossoming romance between Sawako the class reject and Kazehaya the most popular boy in school is shoujo manga at its absolute finest. Every chapter of this manga fills me with dokidoki shimasu kyaa. It’s super heartfelt, and unlike a lot of other shoujo titles the cast of characters are all extremely interesting. Even the love rivals are believable and twisted. I especially can’t wait to see Sawako’s best friends - the slutty but razor-sharp Yano and the tough-ass tomboy Chizu-chan - animated. This is a must-watch.
