Favourite shows of the spring season

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
So it's been three or four weeks since Japan's new anime season kicked off; what's everyone enjoying?

I think NANA has so far been the best I've seen. The animation is suitably stylish and grown up and the story itself, being grounded in shoujo melodrama, has been sufficently romantic and heart warming.

I have a weak spot for shounen adventure so I find myself quite interested Kiba despite it being a shockingly by the numbers genre effort. We have an annoyingly depressed and angsty lead character and a fantasy world in which people battle with monsters ala Pokemon (except it's slightly more mature than that!).

TOKKO was cool if you like seeing monsters rip stuff up; I do, so while this is undoudtedly trash, I had fun watching it anyway!
 
Well so far i've seen the first episodes of Ray, School Rumble 2, NANA and Strawberry Panic.

Strawberry Panic was easily the worst but I think Ray would probably be my favourite at the moment, I'll stick with it. School Rumble was still good like last season but i'm dreading the end. NANA was ok, I might keep getting it.
 
Y'see this is a big problem for me, I tend to never start watching a show until I have all episodes then I'll watch them back to back in a week or so

No one else do this?

Saying that I did watch the first 2 eps of 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya' coz I heard good stuff about it, now that's a surreal show!
 
RichB06 said:
Saying that I did watch the first 2 eps of 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya' coz I heard good stuff about it, now that's a surreal show!
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I've been wanting to check that out since I read neptune2venus's review of it.
 
RichB06 said:
Saying that I did watch the first 2 eps of 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya' coz I heard good stuff about it, now that's a surreal show!
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I'm trying hard to avoid anything connected to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's just too hyped to be that good; today I even read someone comparing it to having the same impact on viewers as Evangelion. I'll probably wait until talk of it dies down before taking a look because right now I know I won't like it, it's looking like yet another school girl series.
 
it's looking like yet another school girl series.
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Well your completetly wrong there but whatever.
Theres allmost too many great shows to mention, definetly my highlights so far have been the previously mentioned Haruhi and Nana and School Rumble, but also the SJ parody filled comedy Gintama, the homo (their words not mine) filled Bones comedy Ouran and the rather unsettiling Higurashi.
 
Not many other people like them but my favourite shows of the new season are Simoun and Strawberry Panic ;). Simoun is certainly my favourite anime this season overall.

Im enjoying Ouran and Joshi Kousei too (although the latter started off very badly).

Haruhi just was dull to me, I didn't find it funny and I'm a little amazed at just how hyped up it is. It's not an "awful" show, just...well... boring.

Ray's been ok so far not a bad little show. Black Lagoon wasn't my kind of thing but again wasn't exactly bad in fact the only bad show of this season Ive seen so far was Air Gear. But even Air Gear I found bad in an amusing way.

Probably not going to try anymore shows now though from the new season (at least not for a while).
 
This season of anime has been poor to average. No groundbreaking stuff here but I liked one at least.

Ray The Animation - Hands down the best so far. No competition!

Simoun - The shoujo-ai/yuri aspect was over done and cheapened the whole story, if someone could figure it out from the confusing first episode. :p

Strawberry Panic! - Not great and not entirely bad. Average.

Ouran High School Host Club - It was alright. Not something I'd watch.

Zegapain - Again it was ok but didn't hold my interest.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Shizuma - I'm sure everyone knows how I feel about this. Worst anime of 2006 so far imo. Boring.

I have one or two others to see, but it looks like I'll only be watching Ray The Animation and Strawberry Panic this season. :?
________
Clay regazzoni
 
xXxholic is all I have time and space to keep up with... I'll probably catch up a bit over the summer, after exams.

But holic is great, and with each episode it's getting better. It's a bigger deal for me though because I'm a fan of the manga. Watanuki has such a long way to go - still it's Yuuko who's the star for me ^__~
 
Ow, there are so many i'm enjoying out of the new season.
My favourites though are Host Club and NANA. But i'm also enjoying XXX Holic and Princess Princess. And i'm still to watch a secon episode of these, but i'm hopeful of them also, Gakuen Heaven and Utawarerumono.
And i'm still not yet decided on a few of the others
 
I'm trying to check out everything from the new season, so far may favourite is School Rumble.

I'm loving Haruhi Suzumiya, although I don't find it laugh out loud funny its an amusing show thats also very well made. I think the best way to enjoy it though is just to try and separate it from all the hype its getting, since some people are really taking it a bit far. Its a great show, but its not like the messiah or anything.

I've found quite a few good stuff this season, so I'm happy. Its a lot better than last season.
 
Its kindof hard to say. There are a lot of shows that look very interesting. Its possible that Juuosei (sp?) could be the Spring season killer, but I only have the opinions of RAW watchers to go on.

The good:
Haruhi Suzumiya is off to a strong start. A very fresh approach to schoolkids anime and its not even properly started yet.

Ray the animation. Its too early to tell yet, but so far Ray is a good introduction to a good manga. The episodic nature of its source material, and its length, may mean that it may not be possible for the anime to fully deliver in the limited running schedule.

Ouran High School host club - quite familiar shoujo stuff, but the execution of it is pretty damn good. It also seems to be sneakily subverting the boys-love overtones. Special mention to the over all look and production.

Higurashi - cookie cutter schoolkids drama, with off the shelf character designs with a nice creepy horror undertone.

Himawari - surprisingly attractive production values in an underdog ninja show, that make me think that future episodes might be worth paying attention to. Too early to say where this one is goign though, could be action, harem, comedy etc.

Undecided:
Air Gear seems to go straight for the predictable low-budget Oh! Great manga adaption. I don't think its goign to be bad, but the format is watchable enough underdog/fights/fanservice (but with sk8ers).

Simoun made a mess of its first episode which was distinctly average at best, even if you approach it very apologetically. Weak dialog, disposable characters, and a low budget that doesn't merge the strengths of its mechanical design with interesting backdrops (totally clash) and the poor character design. Dialog is poor. Action atrocious in a series that needs it. I will give ep 2 shot to see if it recovers any. The first episode simply failed to introduce the series effectively.

The Third - too early to tell. Tomboyish fighting protagonist, dystopian desert setting, nice tank.

Magical pokan - this isn't going to win any converts. Pure ecchi fanservice, but its got an interesting look to it. Think of Popotan crossed with Bottle Fairies. Seeing as I liked those titles, and anything with Haruko Momoi (Komugi chan) as VA I like this, but I expect a lot of people to really hate it.

Gintama - well it was funny, but possibly too overkill on the parody and 4th wall jokes for my taste. It was also plain silly.

Haven't watched/reporting general consensus
Nana - what everyone is talking about. Very high potential. Very good and popular manga with a huge budget behind it.
xxxHolic - looks like a good anime adaption of a better manga than tsubasa.
Disgaea - won't win over new fans, purely for game-fans, may run out of energy quickly, animation quality very poor
Soul Link - by the numbers space-school anime done cheap.
High School Girls - this series underwhelms initially but improves as it develops
Zegapain by the numbers Sunrise mecha anime. Though thats not necessarily a bad thing if its all you want. {Production seems to be decent too.
Glass no Kantai Potentially decent but looks to be typically front-loaded GONZO animation quality and unlikely to be as good as its ancestors.
 
I'm enjoying Nana.
Reallygot into episode 1 of Black Lagoon and I've yet to see episode 2 as I'm 'saving' it.
After episode 2, Higurashi has hooked me with its huge sense of menace.
And the first episode of Yume Tsukai impressed me.

My hits of the spring so far.
 
easily Utawarerumono apart from .hack and kiba nothing of the new series interests me. personally i think nana is terrible i couldn't get past 5 mins of it
 
Strawberry Panic is easily the most hilarious thing I've seen so far! Watching it as a comedy and trying to spot all the things it appears to parodying is rather fun. Then again I was in a rather hyper mood so maybe that's a bias opinion :wink:

Simoun...well I wrote my thoughts on that in Your Viewing Journal. Not one I have any intention of continuing.

Have also watched half the first episode of Black Lagoon. Usually I love that sort of thing, but somehow this seemed a bit "style over substance". But again, it was probably a mood thing.
 
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