Things I watched in the past weeks:
From Up on Poppy Hill
Luckily it was screened in the cinema here in Italy. Visually it's really gorgeous, usual Ghibli class. The story is very nice, I would say it's the missing link between Only Yesterday and Ocean Waves. It seems this style fits much better to the young Miyazaki.
Score: 8 / 10
Michiko to Hatchin
Fun series, with a personal style and setting. I appreciated the various references to other anime, like the famous braking in Akira or the Ergo Proxy style library. It's not an all time favourite, but it's well worth a watch. Nice ending too, which is a plus.
Score: 8 / 10
Piano Forest
Got the BD on a sale, visually it's a really good movie. The story is fine and nothing more, it's well directed but it's just another rehash on a usual theme.
Score: 7 / 10
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (second season 2009)
About the E8: from the few things I read (I try to avoid spoilers, but couldn't escape this one) I thought it was totally the same episode repeated over and over, so I've been quite surprised to see each episode was re-drawn from scratch and directed with a different style. I really appreciated this idea and paid attention to try to catch all the different nuances in each repetition. Too bad I already knew what was going to happen, I'm sure I would have appreciated it much more if I didn't know anything because I like this kind of pseudo-trolling, classy stuff.
The "sigh" arc left me unimpressed: what I liked about the first series was the various styles from an episode to another, realizing a season with 2 huge arcs was not a wise choice in my opinion. Besides this, I already watched the episode 0 with season 1, so I already knew what was going to happen in this arc. Fine arc but nothing more.
Overall a decent season.
Score: 7 / 10
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
I started watching this without expecting that much, so I've been really surprised! Great story, great animation, one of the best anime movies I've seen. My only complaint is that there is not much Haruhi.
Score: 9 / 10
Teo