Very brief thoughts on the upcoming Fall anime season

Every day that goes by I regret more and more the unfortunate circumstances that have seen my return home. Reading about how awesome other peoples lives are going is not really helping. Really I should simply avoid social networking sites until my humour improves, as it would prevent me thinking terrible things that make me feel like a cunt. You’d think the free time would make up for it, but in reality I have rarely been so entirely unproductive. But while doing some file housekeeping (exciting!) I did a customary search to see what anime series I was waiting to watch have finished (no way I’m watching week to week like a peasant!). While doing so I came across a preview of the Fall season in the ever useful chart form. My thoughts on whats coming up can be seen below. Though likely it’ll be late Spring or early Summer before I get to watch any of these.

The aforementioned chart:

http://chartfag.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/fall-11-chart-1.jpg

What I’m really looking forward to

Persona 4 – I love the Persona games, Persona 3 and 4 are among my top five games of all time. I love the world theyre are set in, the character design, the animation, they way they present the world, etc. So I was fairly fucking disappointed when the first Persona anime had nothing to do with any of that. It was also fairly shit in its own right. But this looks set to make up for all that, its even done by the same animation studio that did the in-game animated sequences. I might even watch this one week to week, thats how excited I am to see it.

Tekken: Blood Rebellion – The CG sequences in Tekken have always been great (another black mark on Tekken 4 was its shitty semi-animated endings), the storyline has always been packed with the borderline ridiculousness that permeates the story line of all fighting games. This should have been an obvious move ages ago, but no, we got the shitty Tekken anime, followed by a live action movie so bad that only the least discerning “movie fans” could bear to watch more than a few minutes of it. The thorough slating it got from the games creators should have been clue enough of the quality. Hopefully this will make up for those mistakes (though somewhat amusingly the creator of Tekken said in a press conference that this wasnt to make up for the live action film, as nothing could and he simply wanted to distance himself from hit). The team behind this looks pretty impressive as well, directed by Youichi Mori, screenplay by Dai Soto (who’s screenwriting credits are pretty fucking impressive – Ergo Proxy, Eureka 7, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell SAC, Samurai Champaloo) who noted he was given a lot of freedom with it, animated by the studio that did the CG for Tekken 5 & 6, in production for nearly two years. I dont want to say it cant fail, but I’ll be surprised if it does.

Shinryaku!? Ika Musume – The first season of this was amazing. A total surprise and an extremely pleasant one, I just threw it on to pass to some time but got treated to one of the best slice of life comedies I’ve seen. Hopefully this lives up to the first season or I shall be DEVASTATED! So, looking forward to this, but with an element of caution.

Fate/Zero I really liked the anime version of Fate/Stay-Night, I think it was the first anime I ever watched weekly releases off. A few years later I played the visual novel it was based on and I think it made it retroactively worse. But as I was into the franchise I found out about a sequel to the story, but it was only available in a) novel form and b) in japanese. But based on summaries of it I found it sounded much cooler than the Grail War presented in Fate/Stay-Night. So I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it animated and in a form I can understand.

What I’m likely to watch

Hunter X Hunter – Hunter X Hunter is good, but I’ve never managed to get all the way through it without getting bored. I watched the majority of the first anime and its sequels and read about half of the manga, but for some reason I always get bored with it. Perhaps a more modern stab at it will be the key?

Guilty Crown – Not a huge amount of details available. But its from Production I.G. who are generally quite decent and it looks to have mecha action. Being a simply man nice animation and impressive action usually does the job for me. Ah, I just found a PV for it, animation looks very nice and it has a Code Geass type vibe, but really the bit at the end where he summons that weapon sold it for me. Definitely going to give this a watch.

Working !! – The first season was solid if unexceptional slice of life comedy, hard to pick out any awesome moments, but I enjoyed it overall. I’m expecting the same from the second season.

Last Exile:Ginyoku no Fam – I really enjoyed Last Exile, not least because of the universe itself. But unfortunately that seems to be the only thing returning for this series. It seems most of the creative team are the same and GONZO’s animation is generally decent, so I’m cautiously optimistic that this will be good.

s-CRY-ed alteration – I quite enjoyed the original series when I saw it back in the day so I think I’d be happy enough to watch a feature length summary/re-master

Mirai Nikki – The manga its based on was both enthralling and disturbing in equal measure. It featured one of the better realised sociopaths I’ve seen in fiction. If the anime can retain the same tension it should be well worth a watch. But to be honest I’ve a feeling it wont.

Phi Brain:Kami no Puzzle – The animation in this looks rather ropey, but I am a fan of these whodunnit/puzzle anime and manga. Especially as its a genre that we dont really get in the west. As long as the brain teasers are decent I’ll keep watching.

Shakugan no Shana III – Really liked the first season, got bogged down in the second, will probably re-watch both and this just so I can write it off.

Unlikely but a possible watch

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – Everything about this screams “by the numbers!” and while I dont mind a genre piece done well theres just nothing here to catch my interest. I do like the airship and character design from the trailer so I’ll possibly watch it if Ive nothing else to watch/do.

C3 – Seems to be a series created by listing “Here are things anime fans are into”, I’m hoping to be surprised.

Listening to: Psychedelic Furs - Pretty in Pink

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