Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Let’s cut to the chase. I watched a shit load of the new shows, most of which with no prior impression of what they were going to be like.

Yoake Mae Yori Ruri Iro Na
This is great. With cute females, adorable SD scenes and a Lafiel-ish lead, this harem anime seems to follow the Zero no Tsukaima route to success - aptly applied cliches that tickle that sense of familarity. Be it the resident pervert, the osananajimi, the forgotten-promise, the imoutou, the Ara Ara neesan or the average Joe lead, Yoake has the scent of formula but in a good way. After all, formulas are things that work. And any anime with SD scenes gets a thumbs up!

Lovely Idol
Holy shit this is so bad I almost puked. But the final 30 seconds of the episode saved it from instant deletion with a tsundere rocker. All the character designs look utterly similar though.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge
Man, when I saw the OP I thought this was going to be a lame shoujo. Turns out Ouran has a new friend! Seriously, this is absolute gold. Shoujo it may be, with all that disgustingly pretty boy characters, but it makes them complete retards and the main female lead a Kiyohara-Sensei/Nekozawa clone. LOL. This will be greatly looked-forward to.

Shounen Onmyoushi
This, like Coyote Ragtime’s episode 1, has sandworms! In fact, it’s a total reference/tribute to Tremors. Anyway, with great animation, Onmyoushi seems to be the usual story of young hero’s journey to become stronger and protect his loved ones. But there’s lots of fighting and fighting is great. The setting is the Heian period probably, that’s about 1500 years ago where Onmyoushi were still in power. One issue I have is the pretty boy guardian shikigami who looks a bit like the Chrno from Chrno Crusade. I hate pretty boy charas.

Ghost Hunt
This is like the anime version of Stephen King’s Rose Red. A lot more kiddy though. We have exorcists, scientific ghostbusters, mikos, monks, reibaishi (spritual mediums) and high schoolers competiting to kick ghost butt. Wooo. This show goes to rather great detail, specifying the technical aspects of the ghost hunt. I love pseudo-science, so this is a must-watch. And JC Staff has hired Kugimiya Rie (Shana, Louise) yet again.

Pumpkin Scissors
This is typical GONZO powerfare. Stylish, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi with an angsty middle-aged lead. Hurray for GONZO! The cute girls seem to be lacking though, with only the main chara girl a looker. The last GONZO and AIC collaboration was GunxSword, which had Van with his weird eating habits. PS’s lead shares this trait. Actually, I love this show. It has tanks, weapons, fighting and blood! The weaponry are all WW2-styled and the character designs and uniforms remind me of Full Metal Alchemist. The main chara girl, Lta Alice, is a feisty girl who shouts of passion and guts, with the ability to back it up. In contrast, the main chara guy is a soft-spoken man mountain who gains an eerie silently murderous appearance when he turns on his blue latern. MUST WATCH. It’s in HDTV too so the animation is hot hot hot.

D’Gray Man
I read the manga but this is a good refresher. The anime is pretty good, with enough of the dark elements that make the manga stand out in Jump. I did find the scene where Allen almost became a mahou shoujo to be rather out of place. Probably would’ve been better to do a insta-change for his claw, rather than all that chanting and shit. Naturally, I’ll watch this. The excessive presence of that katana guy (Kamida?) in the OP and ED is disturbing though, when he gets so little time in the story. I wonder if it’s going to be a changed storyline, since the original pretty much isn’t ending at all.

Galaxy Angels 2
The animation is A LOT better I have to say. But grrr I love the old cast too much to like the new ones. Perhaps it’ll take some time for us oldies to warm up to the 2nd generation of Angel-tai. I do find the fanservice a bit off though, since GA never had that much of these. The lack of a Nomad-creature also lessens the entertainment value. The Angel Frame designs though, are still godly. What irks me is that the characters aren’t memorable, lack distinction and totally don’t have chemistry. And the fact that Hirano Aya is a totally overrated is all but apparent, with her UGGGH performance as Kalua. UGGGH. Her other personality, Dekira or something, sounds a bit sexier so that sort of neutralises the bad part. Forte’s replacement captain, Liri, is my favourite so far. I love cool asymmetrical stoic chicks with burning insides. Ok truthfully, this sucks BAD!!! WTF WTF. The upside is the GA 1 had a horrible first episode too so I’ll still watch this. But while GA1 had random 15 minute episodes which didn’t lead to anything but fun, GA2 takes the more common approach of having the girls actually pilot their ships and defeating enemies. Seriously, what’s the point?

This is where I gave up last night and went to bed. Today, I will catch the rest of the episode 1s, that is about 5-6 of them. Lost track already.