I think I’ll seperate a large number of these series into seperate posts but I’m focusing on getting these out for now so here we are.
Oh boy where to begin this season. Light personally told me that he doesn’t have too much to look foward to. Considering how he reads light novels a lot, it makes sense since he knows everything that will happen in the LN adaptations present in this season.
But here we go, prepare for an extremely long list of series. Realize this is tentative and I might drop any of these in any occasion if it starts annoying me rather than entertain me.
Blazblue Alter Memory (1): I actually played Blazblue before this series came out so I have a good grasp on the story. I won’t spoil it since Blazblue is actually praised for its story. I’ll remind you that this is from a FIGHTING GAME, so big surprises here. Like the game does, we see a glimpse of future events before moving back into the past to explain everything. Our protagonist is Ragna the Bloodedge and he faces off against this mysterious mecha-girl named Nu-13 (pronounced Mew cause it’s properly spelled in Greek). The fight is observed by Gin Ichimaru some green hair dude named Hazama (actually he has like 3 other names but whatever) and before production costs rise, Nu stabs Ragna and both fall into a pit and we shift scenes to a blonde girl drinking tea and then the intro.
The scene following the opening pretty much sums it up all there: Ragna is a badass and he’s got a large bounty on him. On his way to…well…somewhere, he meets the loli vampire, Rachel Alucard whose attitude however doesn’t seem loli-ish at all. She tells him to check out the town of Kagutsuchi and promptly vanishes. Hazama meets Rachel and apparently has things “on repeat” so something bigger is already afoot here. We then see the poster girl of the series, Noel Vermillion reporting to her officer, Jin Kisaragi. The latter goes off on a maniacal laughing spree when he hears the name Ragna and then storms out of his office. Ragna walks around town and stumbles upon mysterious cat girl who immediately tries to maul him, but turns out she just wants food. She reveals her name as Tao and wants to find a dude named Ragna and claim the largest bounty ever. The conversation continues but then we get flashbaaaaaaaaacks of Ragna’s past and his tutelage to a freaking cat. Ragna, Noel, and Hazama all enter the town of Kagutsuchi afterwards (After an unspecified amount of time). Ragna’s past literally haunts Ragna and he falls into a dream. Noel finds him here and he recognizes her as his sister Saya but it really isn’t her. Ragna quickly leaves the area and enters a building and is assaulted by Jin, who happens to be his batshit insane brother who also happened to cut off his arm in the past. Jin gets easily beat and Noel and Hazama arrive in chase. Ragna enters into the deeper section of the building and then meets yet another opponent, the samurai Hakumen.
As a guy who actually played the games (but still need to get some combos down) I was able to follow with happenings rather well but to anyone that’s new, it might be very difficult. The transitions resemble the game where X fights Y and then it moves on so they didn’t try too much to have uneccessary filler for an unecessary part of the presentation. Blazblue has an intriguing but confusing plotline so I hope I can double up my experience with the story through this. I’m also loving that ending
Magi Kingdom of Magic (1-2): The 4 protagonists are lauded for the dungeon clear and a humongous festival is held in their honor in Sindria. Even with the anime-only ending that sort of messed the series up for me, they plow through the rest of the events. It’s all celebration until we get to Dunya (and now I can’t get Crime and Punishment out of my head) and her opinion on Yamuraiha’s old affiliation: Magnostadt. Aladdin quickly befriends the pretty lady who nearly killed him a few days before (but she’s pretty and not insane anymore so it’s all good). While things seem to be fine, she gets injured due to her body using the black metal vessel and Aladdin is able to peer into her psyche to learn of what’s causing her this pain and it seems to be some torture ground. Later that night, Aladdin wishes to go on a journey alone.
So with Aladdin’s conviction to learn more of magic and the dark secrets in Magnostadt, Morgiana takes it upon herself to visit her homeland. Masrur states that he visited their homeland beforehand, but his wanderlust faded once he found out that most of the tribe have either left or been enslaved. Adding to that, Kougyoku and Hakuryu decide to leave Sindria as well, leaving only Alibaba alone. We do get to see Sinbad with his Djinns and he wrecks Kougyoku but that leads to her “Switching” interests (at least, I’d love to think so). Hakuryu finds Morgiana to confide with and then the same thing happens to Kougyoku and Alibaba who seem to share extremely similar pasts. The following scene also included me moegasming.
Log Horizon (1-2): I completely (and predictably) called that Log Horizon would be compared by the SAO fanboys to be inferior. I have no ultimate opinion as of yet but moving on. We have a considerably older and sort-of less of a real life loser protagonist in the form of Shiroe. His friend Naotsugu joins him and they’re quickly acquainted with Akatsuki, a ninja who turns out to be a girl. The one thing that I like about this already compared to SAO is that the main characters are forming PARTIES. Solo an MMORPG is like trying to say you buy any sort of FPS game for its single player mode’s plot. Granted some are decent but you get my point. I feel like Log Horizon feels a bit more technical. The main character is a mage so that makes for more tactical fights plus abilities exist instead of just glowing swords. That’s pretty much one way to get me onboard for now.
Machine Doll wa Kizutsukanai (1): A man and his cute loli doll stop a runaway train and the doll seems to have knowledge on human relationships (yes, that kind). Raishin the puppeteer and the doll Yaya enter the Walpurgis Academy in England so that Raishin may exact revenge on a certain person. He enters for the entrance exam and ends up somewhere around 1200th rank. He’s distraught and we learn of his ambition to get to the top (for whatever reason). Yaya makes it very clear and she’s extremely clingy (and loves to cuddle). Then we move to the female counterpart who has some social issues and we more or less get a fight. The duel however becomes a battle royale as other students join in but our two original contestants stand tall above the rest. The two awknowledge eachother but the girl is too tsun to do anything.
White Album (1-2): My brother was a big fan of White Album (now the only thing I think of when I hear it is either The Beatles or a Stand from Jojo). Thus I heard the theme a lot and it actually holds some sentimental value to me. Anyways, instead of the seperate idol works, we return to highschool. The main character, Kitahara Haruki, however is a smart and talented one so he isn’t a loser compared to every other high school protagonist. He’s a rather active helper and straight-laced sort of guy who appeals to me a bit better. He helps out the talented girl Setsuna Ogiso within his school with a bit of her troubles but he doesn’t give it too much thought. All that changes when he hears a beautiful voice sing the song he was playing on his guitar and in the classic Ichigo 100% like fashion, they meet each other in the rooftops and reveal both were oblivious to who the singer and guitarist was.
Well, more or less, Ogiso agrees to help out Kitahara with his music band problem and now the mystery is the talented pianist in the other room who never reveals their identity. Long story short, it’s that girl who Kitahara has trouble with. AKA, the girl who sits next to him that sleeps. Honestly though, anyone that watched the beginning seconds of the first episode and the opening know that she’s the girl with the piano. Well there you have it
Truth be told, I went on to find the character themes for Yuki and Rina from the original game and while I was never too big on it back then, the nostalgia hit me like a ton of bricks. I just need to find the PS3 versions songs along with the original game’s songs.
Freezing (1-2): I stopped paying attention to Freezing after concluding that it was just a darker Sekirei. While I thoughts haven’t changed drastically, I still have to admit that I find Freezing a lo prettier than Sekirei. The fact that it originates from a Korean artist just gives me that push to start watching again. I’m not sure where S1 left off but apparently, Pandoras (the female super soldiers) are shortening out due to attacks from those bigass Novas and an artificial Pandora project is being spearheaded and our useless male protganist and his two girls head there to meet with the other Pandoras.
The rest there is all about genetic superiority, artificial vs real, original vs clone type thing that goes on. Mock battles take place where Pandoras fight against the artificial ones (I think I’m not addressing them properly. These are girls given Pandora abilities) and of course, the artificial ones lose and there’s some animosity going on but that gets cleared up at the end. It’s a lot more gently and emotionally put than what I said but yeah.
Noucome (1): Did I just fucking see the Battle of Chi Bi up in here? Christopher Colombus, Caesar, Evolution, Assassinations, Nobunaga, E=mc2, the beginning part had me laughing but the rest is something I believe that I need to be familiar with Japanese puns for me to fully appreciate. The girls shown so far are pretty…strange. Yukihira is the really weird one while Ouka seems ditzy. I’m not too keen on the whole choice thing but the girls all look pretty so I’ll stick with it for now. Comedy series will usually be handled this way.
Little Busters (1-2): I keep hearing that Little Busters is one of those “great” series (in terms of VN’s) but I never really got into the 1st season. It’s the complete light-hearted mood of the entire series that warded the thing off for me but I think the whole drama thing starts at Refrain so I’ll be watching this and will probably watch Season 1 if Refrain really does strike me. Until the drama appears though, I’m just watching it for Yuiko (and the girls from Ecstasy probably won’t show up)
IS S2 (1-2): Brief re-introduction and reminding us that Ichika still needs to die. A trace of a plot exists but what kind of show dares to show plot in its second season? Anyways, the first episode ain’t all that great. It’s episode 2 where the newest character comes to be inevitably ignored as a romantic interest and only serve as either a plot device or walking fanservice (usually both). IS introduces Sarashiki Tatenashi as the Student Council President and she plans the highly overdue school festival (which I find strange because this is a military-esque academy for mechs right?). She decides to just not explain why she was gone in Season 1 and just decides to train our loser because he needs help (hormonally too). While she proves to be a decent instructor, she more or less wants it,
Yu-Sibu (1-2): After a fanservice filled intro much like Hataraku Maou Sama, the paradigms shift as the hero ends up working at a store for some reason. To up the similiarity, he works with an extremely busty highschool girl who’s a bit of an airhead. Actually scratch that, he’s the one dude amongst a lot of girls but he doesn’t seem too bad. Everything gets kicked up a notch when the demon lord’s daughter comes to work with the entire crew and it’s basically up the Hero Raul to bring everything together.
I’m watching it but since I’m not too sure on my thoughts on it, I’m not going to cover it but I’ll keep up with it for now.
Lair of the Idle 