Bloggin’ for the first episodes this season. Judging books by not covers, but by their animated advertisements! And I say this in a literal sense; the light novel adaptations all seems kind of interesting…if all I had to go by are the anime. But we’re making calls on anime, so that’s the figurative judging-book-by-cover schtik that I despise so much but still have to do.
Gosick – I can’t believe I”m saying this, but I think if I dropped this show, the biggest reason would be that I didn’t like how Yuki Aoi sounded in it. I guess I have Sawashiro ingrained in my brain and her hard-edged voice just sets the bar too high for little Yuki. I’m putting this nicely, but let’s just say that she couldn’t sell Victorica for me. It all felt too artificial and I was laughing at her half the time.
On the bright side, her voice isn’t annoying and the show itself is not horrible. Mysteries are fine by me. The setting doesn’t really bother me either except I have a hard time trying to pin down the tech level. Maybe I’ll try to novels.
Freezing – It’s freezing because those guys have some power they unlock when they do something with those girls, basically. Not because Mamiko Noto plays this super-cool cool-dere who melts when the protagonist male jumps on her. When I mean super-cool, she is Terminator cool, when she literally kills off a couple dozen people. Blood and splatter and all.
I think elementally Freezing is right up my alley with near SF setting and aliens and what not. Seiyuu cast is strong, and it seems like a show that will have a real plot. Based on a Korean manga, at any rate. It might be a little too azn-cheesy, but I think I can overlook that if the story gets a grade above C- and there are surprises in the show. I suppose the fact that everyone’s got a huge rack helps, but the lead girl’s rack is just way too big.
Yumekui Merry – I like the backgrounds, but the rest I’m not sure. Reserving judgment on this. It feels like this show has a cool concept and direction if it wasn’t produced like a half-assed semi-slideshow. Tug of war between good and bad elements ensues over my continuing patronage.
Infinte Stratos – I don’t enjoy the way the guy puts down the girls, but it is entertaining to see how this show so teeters over the edge of the abyss of trash, and makes me appreciate better anime (Star Driver, for example). I don’t think IS is a bad show, though; it’s a game of expectations. And I didn’t expect much besides cool mecha combat. I got funnels from episode 1, so I really can’t ask for a lot more, especially so early in the game. If I had to liken it to a crap anime from the near past, it would be favorably compared to Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, especially with Hiyocchi playing lead chick again and its light novel origin.
Rio – Rainbow Gate – I think Freezing might take over that role this season. Especially if Marinajou gets more lines. She’s got a lot in episode 1. Of course Rio is all Marina Inoue so there is no way we’ll get a shortage of her if we all watched this show. Honestly it was better than I expected, but the last pachinko tie-in I saw was WAY better than I expected, so I’m not sure if this matches up. I did expect T&A, and I got those. I didn’t expect someone out of pages of One Piece, but hey, it ain’t all bad. I definitely didn’t expect the metaphorical card battle sequence, and I guess that’s as far as it goes. Some say it’s so bad that it’s good, I don’t think it’s that bad for me, which is too bad for Rio.
Wolverine – Welcome to Tokyo, Logan. Yeah. Well, Logan is one of the most popular, if not the most popular Marvel character for a reason, and this anime shell works just fine on the weeaboo-y old man/mascot. Fans of Wolverine probably should check it out. While it was nice to hear Fumiko Orikasa for once, I’ll pass.
January 8th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Despite having just re-read the book this morning, I can’t quite put my finger on the year which Gosick is set. It’s right inbetween WW1 and WW2, though.
As for trying the books instead, they’re a fun read. They’re pretty lightweight as far as mystery fare goes (they don’t try to do anything as interesting as, say, Zaregoto and it’s unreliable narration), but strength of character does carry it further than most translated novels. Well, I say strength of character, but I’m mostly referring to the relatively witty dialogue. I’ve no idea how much of that the anime manages to capture (since I’ve not had a chance to watch it yet), or how much of it was down to good localisation work, though.
January 8th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
If you say witty dialog I think of SpicyWolf. Is it at least better than that?
The anime explicitly says 1922. And there are stuff in that show that just don’t belong to that era. Tech as well as social advances.
January 8th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
I’d probably call a “mileage will vary” on that one. From a personal standpoint, I find the writing to be funnier than SpicyWolf, but at the same time I wouldn’t really say it’s as clever about it as SpicyWolf is – ultimately, it’s mostly just Victorique being extraordinarily condescending to people in an amusing fashion.
To reiterate what I said before in a different fashion, though, Gosick is totally one of those light novel series which rides more on having an amusing character than it does particularly good stories.
January 8th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Most of these books seem to be that way.
January 8th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
I suppose that’s why they’re called “light” novels. Most of the non-Kodansha-box/Faust-esque stuff seems to be fluff like that.