Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Everyone has done some. Let’s do all!

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth - Honey-senpai from Ouran gets his own spinoff series and Tokiha Mai (Maihime) and Hitsugaya Toshirou (Bleach) x 2 join in the party! This series has one saving grace - my beloved Sawashiro Miyuki is the lead. C.

Night Wizard - The concept, derived from Nightwizard the tabletop RPG, is not bad. But they had to pick the most rubbish job class, swordsmaster, for the lead male. Fuck that! There are a million better classes out there. The bracelet shield is cool. B.

Bamboo Blade - Feels like Sumomomomomomo meets Umisho but minus the fanservice. One thing I love and hate at the same time is unrealistic sports series featuring women. I think women should just leave the sports to the men, since they can’t do it as manly after all. I struggle to think of any sports series of women which are even decent. B.

Jyushin Enbu - The author of Full Metal Alchemist is responsible for the character designs and it screams her style. But FMA’s art style is unique, not pretty. I hate ancient Chinese settings done by Japanese anime, they always make it look like shit. This action series is probably even worse than Shinhakkenden, with a similar concept. c.

Dragonaut - People talk about the cancerous boobies, I count only 3 pairs. These detract too much from the show and should be given a full masectomy. Otherwise, everything is quite good, there’s action, hot girls and Nagato Yuki fighting scenes. Probably dragons too, and dragons are about 5/6 as cool as elemental powers. A-.

Blue Drop - Skimmed through, skipped. X.

You’re Under Arrest Full Throttle - See previous post. A.

Myself;yourself - Can’t be arsed to watch this, skimmed through. X.

Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro - Wow, this takes the cake for the worst detective series I’ve ever seen in my long life. I reckon I’ll keep watching because there’s food involved and I like to see foodie shows, due to my major. D.

Mokke - Epic boring. Imagine Binboushimai Monogatari, and replace "poverty" with "ghosts which have no elemental powers". D.

Rental Magica - Alright. There are some well animated scenes, and a couple of interesting characters. But the awful harem lead gets the girls despite his face being the devil’s backside. WHY? Also, best OP of the season so far. A-.

Clannad - Funny on the chuckle level, cute girls (the twins), some really good scenes (the Tomoyo fight) and overall a first episode that has gotten me interested. But knowing how people will die and be all soppy later, I should brace myself for the droppng of this show. A.

Kaiji - Wow, the biggest gripe I have with the Akagi series is how perfect the A-man is. And Kaiji is basically a retard who stumbles his way through the evil world of gambling. Perfect. A+.

Minamike - Best comedy this season. This has Ichigo Mashimaro, Kyou no Go no Ni and Yotsubato seemingly all rolled into one. I fully expected the middle child, Kana, to have the middle child syndrome but strangely, she exhibits the symptoms of an extra 21st chromosome rather humourously. In a way, this feels like Gintama, with Chiaki playing the role of Shinpachi, Kagura being Kana and the oldest girl, whatever her name is, being Gintoki. A+.

Sketchbook - It’s so boring my beard grew a civilisation and nuclear wars. The only thing I can praise is the sweetness of Hanazawa Kana, who is sweeter than Sucralose, Fructose and Invert Sugar all added together. D.

Shakugan no Shana 2 - FAIL. I keep getting all confused with Louise, and wondering "Huh haven’t these guys confessed their love yet? No? That was Louise and whatshisface? What about the boat sex? Them too? So what have Yuuji and Louise, no, Shana, been doing? Nothing?" URUCHAI^3? C.

Goshusho Sama Ninomiya-kun - There was a time when I could watch bad series, laugh at how bad it was, and enjoy its badness on the scale of badness. Those days have since gone, with my passage into the halls of adulthood. WHAT IS THIS SHIT? D.

Kimikiss Pure Rouge - With the director and studio who brought us the beautiful Honey and Clover, as well as Nodame Cantabile, this show is just like that. One would argue that the original source was a rubbish renai game, but the anime adaptation is so lovely. A main reason is the cutting down of the dreaded harem effect, by separating the main character of the game into two different characters who go after different girls. A+.

Magister Negi Magi Drama - I took on the challenge and watched this in fast forward. I now suffer some mild form of retardivitis proving that what works in anime does NOT work on the live action scene. F.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - See previous post. It’s a good A-.

Prism Ark - It took me a reading of an episode review by DarkMirage to realise what was going on. I was wondering why the osananajimi looked different from the swordsman boy. Right, so they are two different people in a completely different time period. And once again, this has shown exactly why game to anime conversions have a 6 percent success rate. The only ever good G-A conversions (I mean non-visual novel ones of course) are Tokyo Majin and Gatekeepers, possibly Sakura Wars as well but the latter is a point of contention. D.

Some series yet to be watched but I’m looking forward to are: Genshiken 2, Moonlight Mile 2, Ghost Hound.

There is a HUGE shortage of mecha, action and sports series this season. Which is unfortunate because these happen to be my favourite genres. I guess its Karma for that wonderful spring season eh? While the moe-mongering emo-philic otaku were moaning about the lack of "sentimental" shows during spring, I was enjoying myself with the likes of Geass, Darker than Black, Oofuri, Major and so much more. Thankfully, Kekkaishi still remains a strong stalwart of traditional shounen values. And Major is restarting next season along with Code Geass IIRC.