Anime Summer Season 2012 – Judgement Day

posted in: Anime Related, Anime Seasons, Featured | 12

Hi people don’t worry or should I say don’t be pleased too quickly, Wieselhead.de isn’t dead yet. Studies, figure delays and a completely messed up time management put my blogging activities on hiatus, how sad. But let’s forget about it, today I will share my impressions about the shows I’ve watched in this Anime Summer Season which is more or less over.

I’ve followed Rinne no Lagrange 2Oda Nobuna no YabouJinrui wa Suitai ShimashitaHagure Yuusha no EsteticaTari TariKyoukaisenjou no Horizon IIYuru Yuri ♪♪ and Arcana Famiglia.

I’ve heard that Kokoro Connect is very good, but I had no time for more shows.

Arcana Famiglia

Ah this one was the dissapointment in this season, Im not known for being picky with my anime, but this show completely went downhill after it’s first episode. The Arcana Family is a kind yet mafia like organization who rule on the island of Regalo. The first episode started quite promising, where the main heroine Felicità and her loyal henchman chased some criminals through the streets. Later that day Felicita’s father, also the head of the Arcana Famiglia announces a game, the arcana duello. Every member of the Arcana Famiglia has mystical powers that are derived from tarot cards. The winner will be the new boss and also marry Felicità, the only daughter of the current boss, against her will of course. Well, this duel only takes place in the last episode.

This anime has a reverse harem setting so the majority of the cast are males. All of them have different personalities and are kind of quirky, but calling that show a reverse harem would be too much, aside from her attendant Luca, Liberta, Nova and the cool Debito who would jump on any senorina, no one is really interested in getting close to her. They are too old for her, anyway.

Before the arcana duello happens the story mainly follows  Liberta, Felicita and Nova through pretty random events where they try to get better control over their arcana powers. It feels more like the writers stumpled until the final than a good paced show with an interesting storyline.


It’s not the fault of the characters, that this anime felt so disappointing, with a different more action orientated setting this could have been something far more interesting and entertaining.

 

Yuru Yuri ♪♪ – Second Season


Shortly before I started watching the second season, I quickly marathoned the first one. It was a quite amusing slice of life comedy, even though not the best out there. Next to the daily life adventures of the 4 girls, Akari, Kyouko, Yui and Chinatsu, who have the occupied former tea ceremony club room, Yuru Yuri shows several examples of friendship and one sided affection between middle schoolers with a little Yuri (lesbian) influences here and there.

This time the side characters Himawari and Sakurako play a bigger part than in the first season.

Yuru Yuri was always more of a lighthearted comedy, while there were a few scenes which portrayed the friendship between the girls in the first season, in the second these scenes became even more rare in favor of more comedy. Personally I liked this kind of humor a lot, only the scenes where Akari was mistreated annoyed me. I became quite the Akari fanboy, she’s so cute. I’ve fallen for this kind and cheerful little girl who gets no real attention of her friends.

In case you liked the first season, you should enjoy this second season as well, except you expected some character and story development, that doesn’t really happens, but it’s hilarious comedy nevertheless.

 

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita


In the future decreasing birthrates downsized the number of humans who are living on earth. Now there aren’t enough skilled people to maintain the former high tech infrastructure and the people live in a low tech environment. The niche the humans once had was taken over by fairies, tiny, shy but friendly creatures. Our main character is Watashi also called Okashi-chan, she works for the UN as mediator between humans and fairies.

She is a very pretty kindly voiced girl but also very smart and able to easily look behind peoples facade. A nice character trait of Watashi is, that she isn’t as friendly and innocent as her outer appearance implies her sarcastic remarks are fun to watch. In her job she is guided by her grandfather who has an affection towards firearms, she also gets help from her silent asisstant.

In the first half the viewer is introduced in the crazy world of this show. The fairies can do several unbelievable things, which are helpful for humans, but sometimes they also like to play little pranks. The fairies are a pretty weird bunch, at first they appear very creepy, but as the story progressed these creatures turn really adorable. Not only the fairies are portrayed, there are also crazy individuals under the human inhabitants of the town where Watashi works.


Most stories are told from in a narrative fashion from Watashi’s point of view. In general each episode contains a single story, but there were also stories which filled two episodes. The episode aren’t really in order, so the second half mainly centers around Watashi herself, these episodes portray events from the past where the viewer learns how she became the person she’s today.

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita was an refreshingly creative, surreal and crazy anime with nice pacing and good timed comedy moments. I found it to be very entertaining with it’s queer characters, unique settings and strangely funny dialogs. The animation style is nice and bright with pastel colors and offers an appealing character design. It was one of my favorites in this season.

 

Hagure Yuusha no Estetica


In every season there is one anime with lots of ecchiness, Hagure Yuusha no Estetica is one of such shows, but handled things in a slightly different manner. The anime starts when the main character is going to leave the world of Alleyzard after he helped the Queen. Back in our world Akatsuki is accepted at a kind of shady international training organization named Babel which protects and makes use of young people who returned from different worlds. Akatsuki took something from Alleyzard with him, Miu the daughter of the demon king, he ones defeated.

Akatsuki promised the demon king to protect his daughter. In the new world Akatsuki wants to give the shy and insecure Miu a normal life with fun and friends. His methods to accomplish that are more than just odd, even though he has good intentions, he always involves Miu into embarrassing situations where he gropes her boobs or does slightly sadistic things to her or other girls from the cast, ecchi fanservice galore. The first few episodes are rather lighthearted with some comedy and fanservice here and there, but in the middle it starts to get a little bit darker with some more action. The main character was quite unusual to see in an anime.

In the last few years, anime has tortured us with a number overly wimpy and pityful male lead characters but in this show we get to see a different kind of lead character. Akatsuki is a pretty strong, skilled and confident guy with a cool, alpha male delinquent attitude. He can’t use any magic, but he can alter the flow of energy around him. The female lead character is Miu, she’s cute, but she’s quite clumsy and a not very confident girl, seeing her falling for Akatsuki ecchi tricks makes her a bit pityful as well. I’d really that she gets more confident in the future.


Aside from the manly main character, the anime was nothing really new, but entertaining at least. It ended in an open more promising way, another season would be interesting even though it seems as if there could be material for more than 12 further episodes since this anime is based on a light novel. I liked to watch this show even though it had some flaws.

 

Tari Tari

This anime of the summer season, portrayed the daily life adventures of five teenagers before their graduation, we followed Konatsu, Wakana, Sawa, Wien and Taichi.

Most of Tari Tari’s storyline consists of these teenagers who are pursuing their dreams and ambitions and overcome many obstacles which get into their way during these last months of their highschool life. The story begins after one of the female main characters, Konatsu was bullied by the choir club advisor who won’t allow her to sing anymore and so she quits the club.

Being someone who loves to sing, she wants to create her own club. Konatsu, Wakana, Sawa, Wien and Taichi end up in this club. At first they barely know eachother, but soon they grow together as friends. At first it appeared as if Konatsu would be the main character, but her position was taken by Wakana very soon, who seems to have lost her liking for music and any other sorts of fun a girl of her age should have after a tragic turn of events in her past.

The story of Tari Tari had a very good pacing, these 13 episodes felt quite long in a positive way. Aside from Wakana’s story there were even more touching moments, but also entertaining comedy. One of the bad parts of the the anime is that it doesn’t take it’s male main characters seriously, even though they have their own stories they remain bystanders for most of the time. Due to its length of just 13 episodes it would have been difficult to cover even more events, but nevertheless I would have liked to see some more group activities and also some romance. Anyway it has been a nice anime with a very appealing animation style and touching stories.

 

Oda Nobuna no Yabou

One day during a battle in the Sengoku period a boy from the future named Sagara Yoshiharu finds himslf in the middle of two fighting warlords. He was saved by the Oda Nobuna party, unlike in other animes that took place in this period like Sengoku Basara, Oda Nobunaga is no devilish bearded man,  it’s a pretty blonde tsundere girl voiced by the lovely Itou, Kanae.
In these alternative most famous warriors and warlods are young female’s of different age.


Because of the many historical games he played, which took place in the Sengoku period, he has a huge amount of knowledge about battles and the outcomes of certain decisions. After showing good results Sagara becomes an advisor of Nobuna in order to make her dream of uniting Japan come true. Except two girls all of them approach him in a tsundere fashion and is always called monkey. After he showed good results he is still monkey, but Nobuna comes closer to her goal, but the higher she comes the more enemies gather in the rest of Japan, who are after her life.

When going outside Sagara is often grouped with the loli warriors of the Nobuna clan, Oda Nobuna no Yabou has quite adorable loli characters in the cast, well thats an understatement.
I’ve rarely seen anything as adorable like them, but aside from being cute they are capable individuals with nice personalities and impressive fighting skills. Aww Goemon and Hanbei were my favorites. The older ones were quite adorable as well, but aside from being strong warriors most of them are still girls with innocent and fragile feelings.

This anime is categorized as romantic comedy, which is true most of the time, but in the battles it can get quite serious and people die.

I was loking forward to this anime from MADhouse since it was announced and I wasn’t dissapointed by it all, it was a very cool and entertaining the setting was also a good part of this show, the only thing I could complain about is the short length of 12 episodes I expected it would be longer. I hope there will be a 2nd season and nice figures of the Nobuna Clan girls.

 

Rinne no Lagrange Season 2

This was the final season of Rinne no Lagrange with the story of Madoka and her extraterrestial friends Lan and Muginami. I admit that I don’t really remember much from season one, to give an entirely fair judgement to the overall anime I have to rewatch all the episodes again, soon.

Anyway shortly after Lan and Muginami left earth in the last episode of season, the conflict between Le Garite and De Metrio escalated and both sides want to use Madoka and the power of the Vox unit for their purposes. Lan and Muginami have been kind of brainwashed by their brothers, the rulers of these two planets, to catch Madoka before the other party does.

Rinne no Lagrange always was a mix of cute girls doing cute things and mecha, while showing less action than before this anime is still very cute, it’s very nice how the friendship of these three is portrayed. This anime has its serious moments with some mental faces and blood, but overall it’s quite lighthearted and fun to watch most of the time. The first season left some open questions most of them were answered even though these revelations could have had more impact.

With “Marble (マーブル)” as Opening Song and “Jersey-Bu Tamashi!” as Ending Song,
Rinne no Lagranne provided great songs befitting the atmosphere of this show.Juding from my impressions from this second season I liked Rinne no Lagrange a lot, there was no real villain and no yuri marriage in it this anime which might have been nice, but aside from that it was fun to watch and it had a very satisfying Happy End.

 

Kyoukaisenjou no Horizon II

I really underestimated Kyoukaisenjou no Horizon at first and labeled it as weird and shallow anime with ridiculously big boobs dropping it after 3 episodes. Well, after I’ve heard about a second season I gave it another try and realized that my first judgement was totally wrong.

The creative concept of it is just awesome. It’s quite the infodump at first, but once you understand the setting a bit, there are rarely shows that reach this level of entertainment.

Aside from showing an new chapter the second season isn’t much different from the first season. This seasons events center around the floating city Musashi that arrived at England in order to make an alliance or at least getting another Armor of Deadly Sins in order to restore the emotions of Horizon. Aside from Musashi and England also Tres Espana is involved, in order to follow the Testament Tres España is preparing its own armada for war against England.

A very good point of Kyoukaisenjou no Horizon is how it’s characters are portrayed, even though 13 episodes don’t appear to be much to give screentime to a large number of characters, but it works surprsingly good. Most of them even some of the (evil) Tres Espana ones are very likeable. With Mary Stuart we get a very sweet and appealing new character ^^.

It is fun to follow the sidestories of these individuals, like Tenzo’s love story or Malga who lost her confidence for example. The interaction between the characters of Musashiit really feels lika a real close class community. Next to the actually serious plot this anime has a lot of comedy in between, be it funny dialogs, slapstick or some Otaku culture references.

Kyoukaisenjou no Horizon also offers very good action scenes in combination withe impressive animation style this looks really wow! I also like the different fighting styles and special abilities each character has. This anime has a fast pacednot to be confused with rushed storyline, if you pay attention it all makes sense, even though it’s nearly impossible to get a hold of all these small and big events on first watch, so I will watch it again like I did with the season before.

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This were all the shows that I followed through this season, I had some entertaining weeks.

Let me know about your impressions in this season, which shows did you like and which shows made you suffer while watching?

12 Responses

  1. Zai

    I haven’t finished Kokoro Connect yet (I’m really behind this season, ugh) but what I’ve seen has been pretty good!

    You know my thoughts on Arcana Famiglia, lol.. glad I stayed away from it by the sounds of your review.

    I watched the first season on Yuru Yuri and while it was cute, I found it got a little dull in the end so I didn’t bother with the second season. It’s not a bad little comedy though, there are just other things I’d prefer to watch instead!

    Jinrui has been my favourite of the season! I absolutely adore Watashi’s cynical character as well as how the show pokes playful fun at humanity itself. It’s such a gorgeous show to watch too with the pastel colour palette. I wish there were more shows like this.

    I didn’t watch Hagure Yuusha no Estetica but saw some of Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai which sounds kinda similar being ecchi with demon things.

    Tari Tari was a sweet anime with really nice animation, I think I preferred Hanasaku Iroha just a little bit more though. I wish there had of been more romance too but it was still a nice watch. ^^

    I’m not very far into Oda Nobuna no Yabou or Rinne and haven;t seen any Horizon so I can’t really comment on those ones. Other shows I’ve been enjoying are Natsuyuki Rendezvous and Joshiraku. Also watching Muv-Luv, Eureka Seven AO and SAO out of the longer running stuff. No wonder I have trouble keeping up, lol.

    • wieselhead

      Like every season I try to limit myself at the number of shows I watch at once. I only picked the shows that caught my interest the most and ignored the other ones.
      I will start to watch rewatch Kokoro Connect soon, I heard many good things abioutit.

      Indeed I know you were so right about, I should have watched another show instead 🙁
      Once more I was dissapointed by a show from JC Staff

      Thats true Yuri Yuru was pretty dull, in general I stay away from comedy shows that nearly lead to nowhere.
      But I liked it nevertheless since it’s so funny. My little crush on AKari is another reason why I kept watching it =)

      Jinrui was auch a lovely show, wasn’t it? I love such charismatic weird animes. Watashi was an enchanting main characterand her traditional clothes were so pretty.
      My favorite episode(s) was the one were she stranded on an island with the Fairies and built a big nation. What a mess afterwards XD

      Hagure Yuusha no Estetica was a show of that kind, but it felt less silly and more grown up ^^

      Since I prefer longer shows Hanasaku Iroha would be my favorite as well, hionestly it was also more elaborate than Tari Tari.
      It was a short, yet nice and simple anime, I actually wouldn’t have mind more episodes.

      Oda Nobuna no Yabou and especially Rinne no Lagrange had nice ending episodes, you should like it.
      I also watched these long running shows, but I will probably write about them in a another post, If I find the time.

  2. hoshiko

    I still have not finished Rinne no Lagrange yet. Need to get around to it real soon. Hopefully before the new season gets busy. >.<

    I think we've roughly shared our thoughts on Arcana Famiglia so I'll just leave it as that. As for Tari Tari, it was nice. It wasn't outstanding or anything, but nice. The characters are likeable and the songs are soothing. I enjoyed it!

    You didn't watch Kokoro Connect?

    • wieselhead

      Oh not yet? Then have fun you should spare some time for it, since it has a really nice end imo ^:^
      Haha yeah new season is already knocking at the door *scary how the time flies*

      I still don’t know who of us disliked it more, I guess I did XD
      Tari Tari was nice and simple, but I would have liked more episodes of it.

      No, unfortunately not, but I will start watching it very soon probably.

  3. exilehero

    Ah, it seems I didn’t see many of the anime you saw this season. It was an interesting read.

    I almost watched Arcana Famiglia just because the main girl looked really cure with thigh highs haha. The reverse harem part kind of made me not want to watch it though.

    Poor Akarin gets mistreated a lot, but they all love a lot, really!

    Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita always looked really weird every time I saw screenshots of it (I mean talking headless chicken), but it actually sounds interesting.

    It seems everyone but me watched Tari Tari haha.

    Oda Nobuna no Yabou always looked interesting but I never watched it. I should, I like historical dramas, even more so when they’re little girls!

    Horizon sounds interesting and has a lot of cute girls, but I’m saving it for another time since it seems pretty complicated for just casual watching.

    Only other show I’d mention is Binbougami Ga! it’s a gag anime with 2 characters that hate each other’s guts, it’s fun seeing them argue and fight.

    • wieselhead

      Aww thanks for writing that, now I think it was worth the work.
      It’s always difficult for me to make these kind of posts.

      Indeed Felicita looked damn hot, her dress wasn’t matching her personality at all though.
      It could have been an interesting show, bhut it turned into a real mess. I laughed in agony in the last episode *facepalm*

      Akari is very popular despite her directed lack of presence in the anime, I love her 😀

      When you liked weird stuff like Milky Holmes you should like Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, the weirdness feels a bit toned down, but it’s great like that.

      At first I hated the Tari Tari hype, but it portrayed the lifes of these teenagers very well.

      I wholeheartly recommend Oda Nobuna no Yabou to you then, it was awesome and had supetlolis *cute* *cute* *cute*

      Horizon is the best action anime since ages, but yeah it’s really complex at first, take your time, but don’t miss it ^^

      Mhh I never see that, maybe I will give it a try, thx for your comment

  4. Miette-chan

    Oh noes! The only show that coincided was Tari Tari! As for that I pretty much share your same opinions, my only problem is that I wish it had been longer so that everyone in the choir club could have gotten as much attention as Wakana.

    I should really go finish watching the first season of Yuru Yuri. If anything I should do it for Akarin since she is a good girl.

    I also watched Dog Days’ which was more of the same stuff as the first season, I just wish it had an underlying serious plot like the first season. I do suppose all fun and games were nice too.

    Yes, give Kokoro Connect a go, I was surprised with how nice the characters turned out to be.

    I also watched Joshiraku because of the involvement of the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei author but sadly a good chunk of the humor goes over my head since it is all word plays.

    Over all for me I think it was a nice season, not full of super amazing shows but not overly bad either.

    • wieselhead

      Oh haha maybe I had a weird way of choosing my animes, but I regret nothing except Aracana Famiglia XD
      Tari Tari was really too short, they could have done a lot more in this show.

      Ah you couldn’t made it to the end, Akari will be sad about that, I really got attached to the show with the last
      few episodes, season 2 is a lot funnier though.

      What there was no real story in Dog Days 2, is it even watchable like that? Well it’s cute but no plot XD

      I will ^_^

  5. feal87

    Horizon and Gin Tachibana are simply the best! 😀

    I hope they’ll eventually make a third season, because we need to know how the story will finally end…*_*

    • wieselhead

      Mary Stuart was it fpr me in this season, but yeahGin is cute, I was surprised that she has slender arms under her Mecha claws as well, definitely a plus point for her.
      Yeah third season give I can’t get enough of it ^^.

  6. BioToxic

    Of the series you watched I followed Horizon 2 and Oda Nobuna no Yabou.

    I didn’t plan to watch Oda Nobuna, but the first episode sucked me in. The story began to grate towards the end, but the characters were all super adorable. It’s just a shame they had to focus on Sagara and Nobuna rather than some of the more interesting characters. Second season maybe?

    Horizon 2 was more of the same – which is good. The world and setting is just so over the top that I’ve given up trying to understand. I can simply switch off my brain for half an hour and enjoy some crazy non-sense. They actually make stock market manipulation a valid means of combat which I find hilarious every time xD.

    I tried to watch Hagure Yuusha no Estetica but just couldn’t get into it.

    There are 2 series I followed that you haven’t listed. Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate was… okay I guess. I liked the characters and some of the story, but some of the things going on were just mental. It’s supposed to be a regular school setting yet you’ve got folk getting run over by other students all for some silly election, spies in school clubs, kidnapping of fellow students. Maybe if it was a little more grounded some of the scenes could have had a better impact. By the end I was just rolling my eyes, which is a shame since it could have ended so much better than it did. Actually the end was rather abrupt, I’m almost expecting a 13th episode.

    I’m half way through Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai. Not enjoying it all that much but I’ll fight my way to the end eventually.

    Even though it’s still airing I’ve been following Muv-Luv. I must say after the second episode it’s become rather slow and dull. Maybe they’ll kick it up a notch this season, probably not.

    • wieselhead

      Ah good at least two ^^

      The characters were really nice and interesting, combat loli’s GO 😉
      There might be a second season since Japan wasn’t conquered yet, it would be a real shame if not!

      Haha what!? At firstI also thought is complete senseless, but surprisingly it’s smarter than your average action anime.

      I only watched one episode of Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate, guess my mind decided it was enough XD
      The Game appeared more promising.

      Muv Luv really grown on me, so far it delivers what I expected.
      Ok it could more frontline like instead of following the Test Pilot team.

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