Monday, 24 January 2011

Winter 2011

as per Fall season, i will be blogging each new Winter series as i watch them. all biased opinions ahead, so please don't flame me for what i feel.

all biased opinions are up!


Fractale
taken from ANN: The story takes place in an island, where a "Fractale System" is beginning to collapse. One day, Clain (CV Kobayashi Yu) finds an injured girl called Phryne (CV Tsuda Minami) under a cliff. She disappears leaving a pendant. Clain sets out for a journey with the girl-shaped doppel Nessa (CV Hanazawa Kana) to look for Phryne and discovers the secret of the Fractale System.

had to take the summary from ANN as Ep1 was an introductory episode about the world where Fractale is based on. most who watched it would definitely see the Studio Ghibli similarities, except, obviously, that this isn't hand-drawn like Miyazaki-sensei's works. Nessa's appearance in Ep2 would've definitely injects much smiles to everyone watching, with her quirky and unpredictable nature.

as of Ep2, the Fractale system is still up and working, so there's not much development in plot yet. it is always interesting to see how animators project the possibilities of the future existence of mankind. with the increased use of the web and social networking sites as a means of "connecting" to one another, i agree that it is much simpler to stay in contact with friends who are overseas. but, is it possible to eventually come to a state where you can raise a kid remotely on another country just because you have an available avatar/doppel?

i hope not. the world would be a less lively and warmly place to be in, don't you think?

Hourou Musuko
Nitori and Takatsuki looks like two normal teenagers starting middle school, except they are both transgendered. the series follows their struggles with family and friends as they decide to take the first steps to becoming their true selfs. and because of their common secret, Nitori had confessed to Takatsuki before but was rejected. maybe he was thinking along the lines of, if eventually they do undergo a transgender operation, who better to be with than each other.

at first look, it reminds me of F. Compo, without all the jokes since it is so serious drama-themed. personally, i find it hard to believe that Nitori can still be friends with his best friend. unless of course, said best bud has the same sexual tendency as him. especially when you're going into middle school with all the raging hormones. i mean, come on, let's face it, most straight guys are homo-phobic. if you're a guy and had a friend telling you he wants to become a girl, i'm sure the first reaction would be "WTH?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!", before staying as far away from him as possible. much less telling you that how cute you look in a dress.

while i do enjoy my BL works, i've never watched anything like this before, so i will be skeptical even as i try to follow through with the series with an open mind. sounds complicated right? HA! and with only an 11-episodes run, i wonder how the animators expect to cramp 11 volumes of materials into them.

posted 18 Jan,

Level E
an inter-galactic accident caused alien, "Prince" (CV Namikawa Daisuke), to make an emergency-landing onto earth. losing his memories during the crash-landing, he happily makes himself comfortable in the apartment of Tsutsui Yukitaka (CV Hosoya Yoshimasa) who just moved to the countryside to play baseball at the local high school. the show continues with Prince's extended stay on earth, causing troubles only an alien would do. Yukitaka is already at the losing end of any argument since Prince has the sharpest tongue and the fastest ability to adapt to any given situation.

supposedly a gag comedy about aliens encounters on earth, it's still somewhat lacking in the "gag" department. in fact, the setting became more serious at the end, with the revelation of Prince's true form as some creepy shape-shifter.

creepy shape-shifter is actually just Prince's pet!

Winter 2011-03

i take back what i said about the lack of gag, because Ep1 was just something to throw us off-track as Ep2 was just brilliantly funny! this could turn out to be as good as Sunred or Arakawa. and with the appearance of Prince's bodyguards, especially his hot-headed Captain (CV Koyasu Takehito), nothing is bound to go as they plan.

Infinite Stratos
Orimura Ichika (CV Uchiyama Kouki) is the only male able to pilot a weaponized exoskeleton known as Infinite Stratos (IS). because of this, he is forced to attend an all-female academy specializing in training IS pilots. besides reuniting with his childhood friend Houki (CV Hikasa Yoko), he is now surrounded by a huge number of girls, all of which, have some interest in him at some point in time.

a typical female harem type of show, and while i've not been watching much of these lately, the mecha-theme was enough of a pull to encourage me to continue watching. the battle scenes in the first 2 episodes were pretty impressed, so i'm quite excited to see how the rest of the battles will go.

posted 12 Jan,

Beelzebub
Ishiyama High's strongest yankee, Oga Tatsumi (CV Konishi Katsuyuki), accidentally picked up the Demon King's son, Beelzebub (CV Sawashiro Miyuki) from the river. Beelzebub is "sent" to the human world by his dad to destroy the human race because the King is too "busy" to do it. but he has to be raised to adulthood before he can complete his task. that's where Oga comes in, to raise Beelzebub together with his demon maid, Hilda (CV Itou Shizuka).

a series i never expect to enjoy so much but had me laughing throughout Ep 1 and the special JUMP episode, i will definitely be looking forward to this every week. another reason for watching is Toyosaki Aki, voicing a female yankee, Kunieda Aoi, potential love interest of Oga. can't wait to see more of her, since i've never seen her in this sort of character before.

and did i mention that Beelzebub is super cute too?

check out that cuteness!
Winter 2011-01

his antics, electrifying everyone every time he cries, a vise-like grip (on Oga), and just general cuteness, will most certainly win the hearts of all, especially the females.

posted 09 Jan,

Mitsudomoe Zōryōchū!
the Marui triplets are back and ready to terrorize everyone in their paths again. but instead of heading straight into the terrorizing, Ep 1 had the triplets watching an episode of the infamous Gachi Rangers that Hitoha is crazy about, only to watch them do everything a super hero should not be doing. Hitoha is mortified and furious, to say the least, especially since Mitsuba is laughing her head off about her favorite show.

so while it is an interesting start to the second season, i'm more interested getting the focus back to the triplets. with a very short season, only 8 episodes, i'm wondering how much of the crazy antics we would see from the girls. especially since this is probably not the last we would see from the Gachi Rangers, seeing how they show up in the preview and all.

posted 06 Jan,

Kimi ni Todoke II
AKA the most anticipated series this Winter. even with a Kurumi recap episode (Ep 0) starting us off, i'm more than psyched to start watching the main story, especially given how faithful Production I.G. is to the manga.

some screencaps from Ep 1.
Winter 2011-02

and besides looking forward to the return of Sawako (CV Noto Mamiko) and Kazehaya (CV Namikawa Daisuke), we have another contender for Sawako's affections, Miura Kento (bottom right), voiced by Miyano Mamoru!!

one can only say, there's no such thing as too much of Mamoru-kun.
ohohohohohoho~ keep him coming!

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