17 different shows from the summer ‘09 anime season, analyzed and ranked from the bottom up.

Disclaimer: These rankings are purely a reflection of our own opinions and tastes, which are admittedly rather different from your average anime fan. Just because we don’t like a particular show doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. Your mileage may vary, etc etc. However, if you do have a different opinion about a show, by all means post a comment so that people reading have more than one opinion to go by.

Summer often gets a bad rap as the “filler” season in between the generally much more packed spring and fall anime seasons. This season, however, summer boasts an excellent crop of new shows for fans of all different genres. Although I’m ranking these shows numerically according to my favorites, almost all of them are enjoyable in at least some respects.

Almost all. Read the rest of this entry »

Korosu!

Poor Lawrence Craft may be a genius at business, but he sure is dense when it comes to other matters.

I haven’t kept up with the Spice and Wolf manga or light novels much since the first season of the anime aired. Fortunately, the first anime season was brilliant and captured most of what I liked about the series, and the second is now following in its footsteps. I had hoped to blog this second season from the beginning, but due to lack of time I’m only just now starting to post about it.

This second season, now animated by Brain’s Base (although still with a lot of the original staff)  and with a more generous budget, has noticeably better quality. The character animation especially is more frequently on model than in the last season, and the animation seems a bit more fluid.

For reference, Brain’s Base also has to its credit several other visually excellent projects, including Kamichu, Baccano, and Kurenai. It should come as no surprise that their work here is just as excellent. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: This post refers to episode 2 of the first season of Spice & Wolf, not to Spice & Wolf Season II. If you’re looking for season 2, try here.

OK, time to nitpick. Having read the first of the Ookami to Koushinryou novels, as well as read a bit of the manga, it is now my contractual obligation to tell you how the anime sucks and is nothing like the original, which is of course a paragon of excellence, prosaic and beautiful in ways this adaptation can never be!

Just kidding, of course. The Spice and Wolf anime has thus far been excellent, and I continue to look forward to each new episode. That said, I feel it has several distinct shortcomings. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite being a recent fan of the light novels this show is based on, I had a lot of reservations about the series going into it. After watching the first episode, however, I’ve been solidly convinced – this show is going to be epic. So sit back, cut yourself a slice of sunshine pie*, and I’ll tell you why.

* For those who haven’t seen the episode, I’ll explain that line in a bit.

First a quick story synopsis. The only thing I hate more than writing episode summaries is reading them, so I’ll keep this brief. Read the rest of this entry »