Incredible Nothing!

Someone is less than impressed by the rate I’ve been updating…

For those unfamiliar with how this excuse of an anime blog works, every once in a LONG while I’ll suddenly decide to repeat everything that has been ever said about a show over the internet in my own words spew random thoughts on the shows I’m following without warning. Wow, how very original you must be thinking – well, how’s this for a change? I’ll be RANKING them according to how much I’ve enjoyed each show so fa- Okay, fine, I’ll stop hiding the fact that I have no ideas on how to do an attention grabbing post atm, so live with it -_-”

*Disclaimer: My opinions, My rankings. Last I checked, it’s still okay to disagree, so feel free to do so =P

So starting from the bottom to top:

Guess how much I care about a show if I can’t bother to remember to screencap any random scene for the sake of a post and instead take something from my old stock that just seemed almost relevant?

Perfect for watching out of the corner of one eye while the other is focusing on homework/cooking/laundry: Saki – Because I’m secretly a big fan of boobies lolis yuri tacos DRAMATIC LIGHTNING AND THUNDER mahjong. And now that they’ve actually started playing (and I’ve finally been numbed to the fact that even beneath the B-rate moe and laughable special effects it’s still very much Generic with a capital G), this may just surpass…

And I thought I was the only one watching this show for the dessert.

Meh: CAKE-ON! -Let’s just say, with the somewhat half-baked introduction of Mini-Mio into the show, I have been pretty much kicked out of the target demographic for this series. I might’ve enjoyed the slice-of-life elements (but at most to an average extent and forget about the show completely afterwards) if I wasn’t distracted left and right by all the KyoAni Mio fapping worship -_-” Still, as the show progresses I’m giving it more and more of the Saki ‘out of the corner of a bored eye’ treatment, and I don’t actually like any of the characters (and really hated Yui at the start but now I don’t even care anymore), so meh.

“SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR JOHNNY” My expression upon realizing I enjoy this show more than I do K-ON!

Deserving of at least the corner of both eyes?:  Hatsukoi Limited – Take any one of the tales of ‘first love’ featured so far seperately, and you get something that’s straight-forward/ho-hum/generic/yet somehow acceptable in the realms of insipid school-life romance fiction. But together, they form an surprisingly well-put-together show – the way they keep switching the coupling in focus means that you get a mix of shallow yet amusing stories (tsundere X kappa face) to balance out the downright dumb ones (brocon in need of restraining order) and not spending too much time on any one of them prevents me from hating them or getting tired of them.

(The big surprise in me ranking Hatsukoi Limited above K-ON is that they’re BOTH shows where I’m almost hopelessly out of demographic for. I mean, god, pantyshots and green speedos??? Makes me want to stab the corners of my eyes -_-”)

Surprise Buttsecks No.1: Kannagi ep. 14 (DVD Special?) They should’ve just gone all the way with the Haruhi ep 00-esque video they were attempting to do (though it kinda felt like they didn’t dare to take it all the way. The last third of it bordered on WTF/nyeh for me unfortunately). Still, totally worth it to hear Jin telling Daitetsu to “Put it in!!!” the OP Motto Hade ni ne! again

Surprise No 2 (AKA Thanks KyoAn for the best excuse to not watch K-ON anymore): The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi (season 2??) Actually I was about to do an entire sell-out post on the one new episode but the only thing I could think of saying without sounding like a broken record echoing the entire internet (I already did, with that one line there, and I’m about to do it again) was: Yuki pwns as usual. The End.

And now… *drumroll* The Final Three:

Freakin Number 3??? Eden of the East – “What do you mean ‘Eden of the East isn’t the best show this season’?!?!” “Err, didn’t you get the memo that nakid mans =/= smexy?”

Lame jokes aside, there’s no doubting that everything  shown on Eden of the East -top-knotch animation, drawing suspense+intrigue, likeable character(s), broken record goes on…- gives it every potential of being a very damned good show, if not the best this season

but…

with supposedly a lot going on and a low episode count, that still remains to be seen. All I can say for now is that by the end of the supposedly planned movie all the praise will be justified or there’ll be a lot of grumbling about on wasted potential blah blah blah. Still, loving the ride so far, but just short of…

Mugi loses: Ristorante Paradiso -

“Only number 2???”

I don’t know what should seem more surprising, that I’d rank Ristorante Paradiso higher than Eden of the East – or that there’s still one more show I’m willing to rank higher than the sexiest show this season (and still holder of that title iMho at least =P). Still, this season for me has a particularly strong top 3 and I’d proclaim them a tie at this moment if not for the unpredictability factor in Eden. Ristorante Paradiso wins, not only for having a more overall smexier cast (and if you can’t agree, guess who’s out of the demographic this time ), but watching the show really feels like entering a high-class establishment and ordering a good bottle of slice-of-life and enjoying the subtle goodness of it (and I don’t even like wine! And neither do I know what I just typed there). Though it may be ridiculously pretentious of me to say this, it feels that there must be a ‘refined maturity’ in Ristorante which contrasts against the ‘youthful excitement’ of Eden (and it makes Hatsukoi look pretty damned juvenile), and I’m surprised that both can appeal to me at the same time.

But what then comes on top of both these shows??

Not the smexiest nor the best-animated yet possibly the most (secretly) charming male lead this season in: Cross Game - Read usagijen’s pimping if you didn’t get the message Cross Game has from the start maintained a strong stance in the slice-of-life and character departments, managing to be genuinely wholesome feeling without descending into boring – all without the use of moe or in your face gags. An amazing feat? But what should be more amazing is how it all adds up into drawing the interest of a baseball n00b like me just as the game starts entering the focus of the show and for a baseball n00b like me – now that should be considered incredible, if it hadn’t already happened once before.

But what OoFuri made me realize is that you don’t really need to fully understand the rules of the sport to enjoy it – via supporting a team and its players that you’ve learned to love (of course, all this is made possible by the delving into the characters of the players themselves through the wonders of 2D animation, but still). Odd that by default I’m apathetic towards sports in RL, yet anime can turn me into a raving supporter of a fictional team of a sport that I still fail to understand (Perhaps I should be somewhat worried about that…) And I can feel it happening again with Cross Game, only this time minus the ‘raving’ part – there’s something about Kitamura Kou that makes me confident that he will just pwn the dingheads on the official school team right now, yet I’m giddy for the outcome of the next episode already.

In short: Cross Game pwns. Yea, I may not be watching as many shows as I normally would’ve perhaps a year or two ago, but that’s what becoming jaded uni does to you. Still, I’m surprise I still have time to watch random shows that I can’t fully extract much entertainment value from while I’m doing housechores (wait, where did I find the time to do housechores? Oh, blame the one week break from school thanks to the swine flu scare -_-”), but on the plus side it elevates the already elevated status of the good shows that on the list. Also, I shall probably have to lower my expectations for next season now, what with the 3 hardhitters in this season’s list already. That or start doing more housechores.

P.S. : Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I’m not watching the new FMA – it’s because I’ve not watched the original one *collective gasps and murderous glares from around the room* Perhaps I’ll wait till this one’s over and ask to see which version is more worth watching – only by then I probably still won’t watch either because they’d be too bloody long for me to marathon during housechores!