Anime Autumn Season 2012

 

The anime autumn season is going to end soon and it’s time to make a concluding post about it.

I will talk about all the shows I’ve followed in this season. It was an overly entertaining season packed with cool shows for me and I would consider the shows listed here as recommendable.

• Busou Shinki
• Medaka Box Abnormal
• Girls und Panzer
• Btooom!
• Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!
• K
• Zetsuen no Tempest
• Little Busters!
• Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo
• Shin Sekai Yori

 

In this post I will give my impressions about the settings and overall experiences I had with each of these shows with nearly over 3000 words this is one of my longest posts.

Busou Shinki

Production: 8bit, Sentai Filmworks – Started: October – Episodes: 13

After the Busou Shinki short stories Busou Shinki Moon Angel, this anime takes place. Tsubasa is now a high school student who lives on his own with his Shinki’s, tiny robots with a human like AI, they can be used as assistants or fight in virtual tournaments when equipped with their battle equipments. Tsubasa lives together with his first Shinki Ann and Lene, Ines and Hina who arrived later. The intelligent Shinki’s are acting very human like with all kinds of emotions but they are always quite attached to their “master” and love to get his attention and caring.

Busou Shinki is a futuristic slice of life anime and the viewer follows the lighthearted, entertaining and also diversified daily life adventures of Ann, Lene, Ines and Hina. It is fun and also enchanting how these small robots interact with eachother and their world. This anime offers a lot of fun and cute entertainment. Since Tsubasa don’t to use his Shinki’s for fighting, there is a reduced amount of fights, but there are also situations where they have to fight.

The Busou Shinki girls are totally adorable which is also influenced by their fantastic voice actors.
Studio 8bit offers a good animation style which is cute and pleasing for the eye with it’s cute character design. I like this show a lot and it was one of my favorites in this season.
It’s a very cute and enchanting anime with and about  the Busou Shinki characters.

 

Medaka Box Abnormal

Production: Gainax, TV Tokyo, Lantis – Started: October – Episodes: 12

After the OK first season, big boob heroine Medaka returns with more over the top action.
With all the intro coverage done in the first season, Medaka Box Abnormal is even more awesome and action orientated. New more powerful enemies surface at Sandbox Academy.
The Thirteen Party want to turn the students as samples for their Flask Plan experiments, to create the perfect human being. To save the students from danger the student council members Medaka, Zenkichi, Kouki, Mogana infiltrate the levels under the academy.

To access data about the Flask Plan the team has to face members of  the  Thirteen Party.
In a Dungeon like manner the student council members gets deeper inside and fight new opponents, who are equipped with creative and weird superpowers. The plot is very much author driven, he does what he wants. it’s quite awesome how logic defying the story is while still making sense. That might not be everybodies taste, but the explanations of all these characters superpowers is simply hilarious. I haven’t see anything likes this in ages.

This second season of the Medaka Box anime also takes a deeper look into Medaka’s past and her family situation with her brother and sister introduced. Also the relationship between Medaka and her friend Zenkichi is portrayed more detailed. A big part of this show are great fights, but the smart and cool dialogs are also an entertaining factor of Medaka Box Abnormal.

 

Girls und Panzer

Production: Actas, Lantis, Movic – Started: September – Episodes: 12

Girls are driving tanks, Yeah! In this anime girl schools around the world are taking part in  tankwondo tournaments where they fight tank battles against each other. The tanks are WWII vehicles and shoot with real ammunition, but to ensure that no person gets hurt and that the tanks won’t get too beaten up, they are especially modified. This sport is very popular and is advertised as as an martial art, that turns girls into polite, graceful, humble and brave women. The cheesy propaganda tone from military draft in times of WWII is intended.

Our main character Miho Nishizumi, the daughter of a famous tankwondo obsessed family joined Oarai High School to make sure that there was no tankwondo activities. Unfortunately as luck would have it in this certain year the school decided to revive their tradition in order to fulfill the ambitious goal of winning the tankwondo championship and to regain their value as school. Miho who already made some good friends, is forced to join the tankwondo team by the student council. In order to get ready for their first match, the girls have to find and repair the nostalgic tanks which were hidden somewhere on the school.

At first it is totally amusing how the very feminine girls get used to their heavy and rough equipment, but under the lead of Miho the Oarai High platoon takes shape and experience. In a number of battles they prove that they are no amateurs. The tank driving as well as the battles are portrayed in a very convincing way with nice portion of technical knowledge overall.

The members of tank “Anglerfish” Miho, Hana, Saori, Mako and Yukari good girls who support each other from the bottom of their heart. Everyone of these characters is portrayed nicely with their individual little quirkiness and background. Girls und Panzer somehow reminds me of K-on!!, Chu-bra and Upotte! but without the silly fanservice of the latter two, fortunately.

Another good point of this show are the detailed CGI tanks, of course it’s a little weird to see cute girls driving in partially former Nazi equipment. But the anime stays quite neutral about such things, it even makes cute parodies about national cliques. With the deadly purpose aside, I actually think that old tanks are somehow cute, they look like tiny beetles ^_^.

Girls und Panzer is funny, cute and charming and an interesting alternative version of “cute girls doing cute things” anime with enchanting characters (like Mako^^) and very good animation quality in terms of characters and tanks. Also the military march musing has a big appeal.

 

BTOOOM!

Production:  Madhouse Studios, Sentai Filmworks – Started: October – Episodes: 12

Main character Ryouta is an expert in the online game called BTOOOM!, but in real life he’s a lazy NEET, who lets out his social anger at his parents. One day Ryouta finds himself stranded on an unknown island, which alone doesn’t sound that bad, but he and a number of  other people have to play BTOOM! for real with the danger of loosing their life. All the people on the island have been nominated by other people ,who wanted to get rid of them for some reason.

So as a kind of lottery the game company choose a few of nominated people for this game. Each person is equipped with different kinds of bombs to kill other “players” in order to escape from the island. The players have a handy radar gem to locate enemies, these gems are the trophy and the person who collects 7 gems at first will be transported to Japan again.

Ryouta isn’t really willed to kill humans and rather wants to find allies, soon he is able to find two people who join him, first an old man named Taira and later a beautiful girl called Himiko. She is pretty weak and scared most of the time, but with her blue eyes and curves she’s really pretty eyecandy and triggers the protective instincts of Ryouta and the (male) viewer. Ok, now that’s a bit mean Himiko is an adorable character, she’ just not the type who likes to play with bombs.

This show feels slightly inspired by Lost and The Hunger Games, maybe partially inspired by Sword Art Online as well. This anime also shows what happens if producers of an online game gone mad. In comparison BTOOOM! manages it’s story in a less black and white manner.

These show portrays the ugly sides of human nature in a good way, a little exaggerated and really violent, it does a good job in creating a thrilling and ominous survival game scenario.

The animation style looks very appealing in terms of the beautifully island landscape as well as character design. The manga is fresh and still ongoing and therefore this show is only 12 episodes long, yet it offers a satisfying end with an indication of a possible continuation.

 

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!

Production: Kyoto Animation, Lantis, Pony Canyon – Started: October – Episodes: 12

The main theme of his anime is the 8th grade syndrome, where middle school students partially escape reality with creative  fantasy delusions. They imagine themself as warriors from a occult world who have superpowers. Main character Yuuta has ended his 8th grade syndrome before graduation and now remembers his delusional behavior only with sheer embarrassment.

On his first day of high school Yuuta gets in contact with Rikka, a petite, cute, eye patched girl who is on the climax of her 8th grade syndrome, also called Chuunibyou. She refers to herself as wielder of the Tyrant’s eye. Even though Rikka is really weird, Yuuta starts to hang out with her. Soon Rikka founds the “Oriental Magic Napping Society In Summer” club and a few more funny and interesting people join the club for different reasons. Kumin, Sanae, Shinka and Makoto.
All of the them are likeable, Shina who was a horrible person turned into a lovely caring girl.

At first Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! mainly appeared as hilarious comedy about her friends and Rikka’s crazy antics, but as the story progresses we also get sweet romance and touching drama, that explains why Rikka is still a Chuunibyou. The pacing is good, but with only 12 episodes one can’t deny that this anime is compressed storyline.  With Kyoto Animation in charge the visual quality is very good with nice surroundings and appealing characterdesigns.

Being a Chuunibyou appeared like a lot of fun in this anime, it was a show that I’ve enjoyed a lot, even though I’ve heard that it differed quite a bit from the Light Novel material.

 

[K]

Production:  Starchild Records, GoHands, The Klock Worx – Started: October – Episodes: 13

In a slightly different present a artificial created gene surfaces in certain persons DNA, they referred to as king of a certain color, they turn into leaders with special powers. This this story starts when the red king with his delinquent gang clashes the blue king with his military organized SCEPTER4 unit. But the story actually is more centered around main character Shiro, who lost his memories and finds himself hunted by several King factions, after a video was shown all around the city, where a person who resembled Shiro killed a certain king.

This show was my secret favorite among the others, while it excels in style and presentation there are some flaws due to a 13 episodes restriction. There is a real goth loli with foretelling powers, a sexy and energetic nudist cat girl and lots of other cool characters. From an objective point of view I can’t deny that the show fails at explaining things properly, it might not be a bad idea to leave some thinking to the viewer, but I expected a little more support, since the story starts in it’s second quarter. It was possibly intended like this, but turned out not that satisfying.

Overall it is a interesting shows, even though it feels too short it has a good pacing. The big city setting has it’s special charme and the state of the art animation style is made of awesome.
The characters are also interesting, but theres no time for a deeper portray of them, Neko for example keeps being an airhead with cat instincts most of time, I expected a bit more from a main character. Well, at least she is friendly, looks cute and has a sexy body nyahhh XD

 

Zetsuen no Tempest

Production:  Bones, Aniplex, Dentsu, Square Enix – Started: October – Episodes: unknown

In this anime a cult of magicians plans to revive the Tree of Exodus, what could destroy the world. Since their female leader Hakaze was against it, they exiled her on a lonely island. She could trick the cult by contracting with Mahiro, a boy who recently lost his sister and parents.

Hakaze promised that she would find the murderer of his sister, if Mahiro would help to the stop awakening of the Tree of Exodus. Mahiro does a good job as bishounen antihero, he is self centered, arrogant and overall a real delinquent, but pretty awesome. While not very sociable Mahiro has one friend he trust, it’s name is Yoshino, who later joins Mahiro and Hakaze.

Hakaze is still on the island, but she can communicate via a wooden doll telephone. To fight against the members of the cult, Mahiro and Yoshino make use of talisman which are hidden at certain locations. With these talisman they can perform magic tricks for a limited number of times. After they gathered enough items they head to the location where the tree of exodus should be revived.

What makes this anime special, is the very well done setting of a dying world. The gloomy, melancholic atmosphere is great. A few back flash scenes and the not so easy relationship between Mahiro and Yoshino accentuate the tension in this story in a very good way. The animation style looks top notch and also the epic orchestral soundtrack sounds very good.

Aside from some great action scenes Zetsuen no Tempest also has a lot of clever dialogues that portray the  ideals the characters believe in. There is also a number of interesting twist, surprises and revelations, so that you can’t clearly say who is right and who is wrong in this story.

 

Little Busters!

Production:  J.C. Staff, Key, Warner Bros. – Started: October – Episodes: 26

Little Busters! is probably one of the best known visual novels and this year it finally got and anime adaption. This anime centers around the very close friends Riki, Rin, Masato, Kengo and Kyousuke. Without question Riki is the main character, he lost his parents at an early age and suffers from narcolepsy. His friends helped him to overcome these hardships and their encounter with Riki draw all of them closer to echother. Now these kids are planning to build a baseball team as kind of fun activity, but they have to recrute more members to form a team.

At first fans were a bit angry because  J.C. Staff was in charge of the project, cause in general visual novels from Key are adapted by Kyoto Animation. But even though  J.C. Staff messed up the last season Shakugan no Shana, they are a good studio and so far they did a very good job with the Little Busters! Every episode so far was very nice and heartwarming.

As in most visual novels the main character solves the problems of the cute girls he encounters. Little Busters! also has this formula as well, Riki is in charge of recruiting girls members and comes in contact with interesting person, but a budding romance isn’t what this anime wants to tell in the first place. More obviously it portrays the worth of true friendship and persons you can trust from the bottom of the heart. Slowly the Little Busters grow in numbers.

Next to the plot and character driven episodes there are also some more fun driven episodes in between. In most case you would call these episodes filler, but it is really a lot of fun to watch these group of friends. There are many animes that portray friendship, but only a few had reach the quality of such a natural feeling and honest friendship like Little Busters! It is a touching show with a vey good animation quality. I’m looking forward to the next episodes to come.

 

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Production:  J.C. Staff, Genco, Media Factory – Started: September – Episodes: 24

The main character is Sorata, a second-year high school student at Suiko, because of his liking to stray cats he was thrown out of the normal dorms, since that day he lives in the Sakurasou dorm for students with special needs. Sorata  lives next to a womanizer, a shut in and a upbeat weirdo girl oh and of course his cats. These people might appear weird, but they are very talented in their department. A new inhabitant arrives, a girl from England named Mashiro.

She’s actually an exceptional art prodigy who came to Japan to learn how to make manga. The problem is that Mashiro always painted, but never learned much about common sense or how to take care of her own. So Sorata is assigned to take care of Mashiro, the mother of weirdness.

As Sorata’s tsundere childhood friend also moves into Sakurasou dorm, because of financial problems the chaos is perfect. The comedy is really entertaining with all these weirdness, misunderstandings and relationships. It’s really nice to follow the characters in this anime.

Aside from all the hilarious comedy this show also has a more serious side. Most of the characters in this anime are at a point in life, where they have to decide what they will do in their life. They go through many hardships, sometimes they fail at crucial moments and they feel inferior to people who are more gifted with talent in their degree. I guess it’s something the viewer can relate to. It’s one of the reasons why this show is so popular. This more real side of this anime is something I really didn’t expect after watching the first few episodes.

 

Shin Sekai Yori

Production:  Aniplex,  A-1 Pictures, Pony Canyon – Started: September – Episodes: 25

The story is set in a distant future, society as we know doesn’t exist anymore, now humans live in a simpler low technology world. Small numbers of people in small villages, it’s a Shintoism maybe it’s also is partially Budhism society were everyone seems to live in peace. In school the children are learning how to use their Cantus, a kind of  telekinetic and telepathic power humanity developed through selection. Even the younger pupil already can do impressive “tricks”. The main characters of this show are Saki, Satoru, Maria, Mamoru, and Shun.

As one of their classmates suddenly vanished, Saki sense that something isn’t right. Things escalate, after they broke a few essential rules of their society during their summer trip in the wildlife. There they’ve learned a bit about events from the past. With the progress of the story the characters and the viewer learns more about the not so peaceful new world. There is a timeskip in this show after the first big adventure of the kids we see them again as teenagers.

Shin Sekai Yori is a scary anime with a really creepy atmosphere, nearly more that I can handle.
But it is a really interesting show, where the viewer doesn’t know what will happen next.
The animation style looks kind of simple compared to other shows, but I have to say that it is befitting for this show. Also the ancient music does a good job in supporting the feel of terror.

Im also watching Magi, but I can’t write more for today *phew*

What were your impressions in the autumn  season?

Im wishing of you a Merry Christmas and relaxing holidays