Pointless Ramblings and Brief Spring Preview

Normally one does not see beautiful sunset and contemplate on current state of anime, but I can’t say I have been happy with what little I’ve dropped watched lately. As my taste is not as refined as the most esoteric bloggers I can think of, I do often indulge in mainstream titles and have greatly enjoyed series like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Higurashi, Hayate no Gotoku and The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, which all have their fair share of fanservice. I however can’t say the same for their unfortunate offsprings. Higurashi Rei was pointless and painful, Hayate episode 00 destroyed any nostalgic desire I had in following the sequel, and Shinbo’s atrocious lesbian failure of Maria Holic has been so comprehensively documented elsewhere. And ugh, those youtube clips posted by Kadokawa…

I’m not saying they are crap (although arguably they are) and people shouldn’t enjoy them. As a general rule I simply appreciate fanservice more when used as a minor distraction and not a driving force. Anyway enough with crap titles, there seems to be quite a selection from spring season worth looking forward to. Here are several that I’ll be ‘keeping an eye on’, whatever that means.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Loved the anime but apparently the manga is better, and this seems to be following manga’s storyline.

Souten Kouro: This could be my last chance to see a decent anime adaptation of Romance of Three Kingdoms. Apparently it’s going to be based more on Record of Three Kingdoms (historical facts) and not Romance of Three Kingdoms novel, and making Cao Cao the hero while panning out Liu Bei in a not so positive light. We’ll see how this turns out. At least it’s guaranteed to exceed its previous anime titles inspired by RoTK *shudders*

Ristorante Paradiso: Looks kind of gay, but seems like a bunch of Gankutsuou staff are working on this so the potential is there.

Cross Game: A wise connoisseur of anime and manga recommended this, simply because it’s one of Mitsuru Adachi’s top 3 stories.

Shangri-La: Murata Rang’s design is the selling point. My biggest worry is that Gonzo’s Gin’iro no Kami no Agito has set a spectacularly good precedent of how not to do a flashy environmental anime. Terrible characters, and potentially epic story gone down the drain. There were exactly two amazing scenes in the movie, one at the beginning, and the other at the climax, which makes me question what happened in-between but the only answer I could come up with was “that’s Gonzo for ya”. Hopefully that won’t happen. Anyway, I’ll conclude this rambling with the opening clip from Gin’iro no Kami no Agito, which basically shows how men’s experiemnts on the moon to control the nature backfired.