Techou's mid-season review

This winter season isn't so bad

Now that we are more than half-way through the winter anime season, let's take a brief look back at some of the anime this season. Note that I am not commenting on every winter anime as I have not watch every single one of them, but I will comment on the ones I'm watching.

Alright, let's start with the two I am currently reviewing every week:

Gosick

Moe-overload, every single week

This anime was off to a shaky start to be honest. On one end, characters, seiyuus, animation, fan service and scripting was done to almost perfection by BONES. On the other end, the mystery and story was so weak that it was draining away from the amazing production quality. The good news is, since the first arc the story had picked up and the mystery had gone from Scooby-Doo to more Sherlock Holmes, but not quite there yet. The anime itself is definitely worth a watch mainly because of Aoi Yuki and her amazing voice acting as Victorique, and also the pinpoint scripting of BONES bringing out the most moe out of a mystery. Every week there would be at least one moment where I thought to myself: I wish I have a daughter like her, damn. The cuteness coupled with the increasingly more interesting story really makes this one of, if not the best, anime this season.


Infinite Stratos

Oh, why am I in such a crappy harem?

 Unlike Gosick, this one had gone down the hill week-by-week. Leaving the 3D rendering aside (I've done enough ranting from my weekly reviews), the story gets weaker and weaker every week, the characters are flat, locked onto archtypes, and the protagonist is dense as Iridium. There were barely any character development thus far, which is sad because the girls were all well-designed and most definitely could advance from their archtypes. However, poorly scripted story and a terrible protagonist prevents such logical thing from happening. The only saving grace, I hate to say it but I have no choice, is the battle scenes, the intensity of the battle was well drawn out by the camera play and scripting, even with the crappy 3D rendering. Overall I would say this is worth a watch but definitely not something worth writing home about.


Rio~Rainbow Gate~

Rio + embarrassing outfits every week = WIN

Alright, this is one anime this season people love to hate. Reason? Very simple, lack of story, stupid premise, brainless fan service, etc. I have already written a rant about these needless criticism so I won't go into that again, but let me say this one thing: why on earth would you look for an epic story from a fan service mascot?

Rio itself is a horrible anime with no story and stupid ideas every week. So why is this anime even good you ask? Again, very simple, fan service. Nearly every week we get to see Rio, a mascot for Tecmo's blackjack games, in sexy or embarrassing outfits that fulfills one or more of the fans' desires. This anime really requires you to turn off your brain for 25 or so minutes and indulge in mindless stupidity that Rio is put through, and enjoy her sexy body enduring various embarrassing moments. Basically, it's like watching a reality show featuring an anime character. While this is not, and never will be, one of the top anime, it is plenty interesting enough if you are a Rio fan like myself. Unlike some others who walked in with unjustly high expectations, I walked in knowing this anime will be brainless so I was plenty happy with what I was treated. If there was one concern, I would say despite it being a fan service anime, the quality is very inconsistent and sometimes Rio and crew look...deformed. Sadly XEBEC isn't exactly known for their amazing quality work so I guess I'll have to bear with it.


Freezing

Blood and sex, it's like Hollywood!

Freezing would be the other big name fan service anime this season. The difference between Rio and Freezing is that this anime actually has a story! In addition, the service to turned up a notch with naked girls, breast, naked girl fighting and slashing each other, anything that would bring up testosterone level. Many have compared this anime to a futuristic version of Queen's Blade or Ikkitousen, and on the surface I would totally agree. However, once you start watching more than the first two episodes you would think otherwise. Freezing is about more than just tits and ass (well, it is about tits and ass), there are some interesting characters with some good back stories worth exploring and some plot lines worth getting into. Unlike Queen's Blade and Ikkitousen second to fourth season where the stories were epically terrible Freezing is much more interesting and could actually be a decent anime. If I have to draw a comparison I would argue this is like Ikkitousen's first season where it had the potential to be a good anime, whether or not the production team will be able to bring that out is really anyone's guess, and hopefully ACGT will not fail like ARMS did.


Kimi ni Todoke- 2nd

I was going to confess, then I remember this was a Shoujo

Was there an anime so frustrating yet so good at the same time? Kimi ni Todoke 2nd followed the first season as we continue to witness the painfully slow and frustrating relationship between Kazehaya and Sawako. The pacing is actually decent for a shoujo and no one can really complain about the art, but the frustration level had been turned up to 11, especially with the recent three episodes. I felt like going out to a pet shop and buying a box of kittens, then punching one after every single KnT episode because it's just so damn frustrating watching the two go at it. At the same time, this season still has plenty of laughter and drama that you just can't bring yourself to hate it.


Kore wa Zombie desu ka?

Surprisingly, the zombie isn't in this picutre~su.

This is one of the anime that really surprised me. In my original preview, I wrote this one off as another 'moe' anime and said I would briefly watch the first two. I now stand corrected as this was definitely a bad bad first impression. This anime, along with the next one, is definitely the most surprising anime for me this season. The characters are well-drawn out, development is plentiful and well-paced for a one-cour anime, and the humour is top-notch. The act of balancing silly humour and serious story is pretty difficult and I would say DEEN did a good job at bringing out the best from Zombie. I look forward to a new episode every week like KnT2 and Gosick and I certainly love to see more of Sera's bust (^_^). Equally surprising is how the quality seem to held up pretty well thus far despite this being a DEEN anime, I would've expected the animation to drop off substantially by now but other than the slight drop I have yet to see anything as bad as some of their other works. In case you were wondering, the only reason I'm not reviewing this is because I have two on-the-go already, and Vindictus is keeping me pre-occupied, otherwise I would definitely be reviewing this weekly.


Dragon Crisis

Another DEEN's work that really surprised me, although not at the same level as Zombie. This anime definitely has a bigger seiyuu cast than Zombie, with Yui Horie and KugiRie, and also a much better OP sang by Yui Horie. However, the anime's story is weaker than Zombie, much less humorous and more serious. Sadly, I don't feel the tension in the characters and it just did not deliver the drama you would expect from a serious story anime like this one. Also, I began to notice the drop-off in animation quality that is so typical from Studio DEEN. Still, it is a rather entertaining anime that is definitely worth a watch, if nothing else.


Yumekui Merry

Another loli~ yawn

Let me say this first: I have only watched the first episode due to poor judgment and going with Onii-chan, but I will do a small commentary based on my experience with first episode.

One thing that stuck with me is the weird style Merry used, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around it all throughout first episode. Other than that, the story seemed amazingly interesting and really intriguing. This is one of those anime I prefer to watch it all at once and I will likely review it once I'm done.

Onii-chan no Koto nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne!!

Yes, this is so bad I'm not even going to bother finding a picture for it. The first two episodes were mildly entertaining as we explore the perverted siblings daily lives, but as we head into episode three and four I can see that this story is going nowhere. The jokes are stale, the story is lame, the characters are flat, I stopped at episode six I likely will not pick this up until it finishes, and probably won't even review it since it's so run-of-the-mill.


Anyways...here's my mid-season review, hope you enjoy reading this wall-o-text!