Recorder and Randsell
Plot Summary: The series is mainly about the Miyagawa
siblings: Atsushi—an elementary student whose build and appearance is the same
as a typical adult man; and Atsumi—his sister and a high school girl whose
appearance is like an elementary student. They live everyday encountering
misunderstandings and misadventures, most to be blamed to their ironic
age/looks.
The series ran for 26 3-minute shorts. And I don’t think it
could have worked any other way (unlike Poyopoyo, which I believe might have
been able to work as 13 10-minute shorts or something). The show was fun and
lighthearted, but didn’t really get farther than that. It’s the kind of show
where you understand exactly what it’s doing in the first episode and you know
that it’s not going to go out of that comfort zone. I don’t think this show is
necessarily bad, it’s just not anything special or even anything that I would
want to watch again.
The high point in the series isn’t Atsumi and it isn’t
Atsushi. In fact, they’re fairly forgettable and cliché driven characters. What
was pretty good here was Atsumi’s friend Sayo (voiced by Aya Hirano). Her
child-like naivety when it came to Atsushi was actually pretty funny and
captivating at times but her misunderstanding drug on for way too long.
Overall, it was probably Aya Hirano herself that made the character interesting
rather than Sayo as a character.
Basically, if you want 68 minutes of random crap happening
to these characters with no real memorable moments, go ahead and watch it. I
used it as an introduction into a marathon of anime that was to come (Thursdays
were high release days or catch-up days) and that worked out really well for
me. But I can’t say I’d want to marathon through the series myself…
Saki: Episode of Side
A
Plot Summary: Nodoka Haramura’s appearance on television
playing in a high school mahjong tournament inspires her old Jr. high school
friends to reform their schools club so they can meet and play her in the
National High School Mahjong Tournament.
Saki clearly has
more to go (given that it ended in the middle of a match and ANN confirmed that
it was given three more episodes) and I’m glad that it’s finally taking the
time to go through something like the original Saki did. Up until this point, it’s been blasting through story
after story just to get to this point faster and the show itself really
suffered for it. Like, the first episode jumped forward several months and then
three years just to get to high school. It was unbalancing as a viewer because I
was missing all this information that could potentially be important (as it
turns out, it wasn’t very important, but it could have been handled a lot
better).
What it does do well, just like its predecessor, is show
mahjong in enough detail that someone who has no idea about anything in mahjong
can potentially follow it and not dwell on it so much that its bogged down by
expository dialogue. But it’s also clearly a continuation of the original Saki story rather than a spin-off of it,
like it claims to be. Fans of the original will be glad to see old characters
pop up and love the new characters that are appearing, but those who haven’t
watched the original may be turned off by the influx of information that it
gives you just to recap what happened in the original.
I’m not sure when those last three episodes will air, but I
am waiting with anticipation for them. The show didn’t look like much from the
outside, but I picked up and finished the original Saki to understand everything (and I’m super glad I did) and it
quickly jumped over shows like Lupin
in my Sunday catch up days solely because of the excitement value of the show.
It is by no means better than Lupin
or tsuritama or even You and Me, but it provided with fun
mahjong (that I could barely follow, if at all) week after week. It’s not
something to pick up if you get lost easily, but it is fun for fans of sports
anime.
tsuritama
Plot Summary: In Enoshima, Yuki is a high school student who’s
never been good at making real friends thanks to his abnormally poor
communication skills. Haru is the self-styled alien who decides to teach Yuki
to fish. Natsuki is an irritable born-and-raised local. Akira is the mysterious
Indian who watches them all from a distance. These four meet, fish, and find
big adventures on their little island.
tsuritama did one
thing better than every other series on this list: visuals. Kids on the Slope certainly had the best
looking visuals, but the color palette is bland in comparison with tsuritama (as well it should be
considering the content of both shows). Kids
on the Slope impressed, but tsuritama
stunned.
But aside from that, the show fell flat compared to its
first episode. The first episode showed promise to be one of the best of the
season, but the continuation of the alien sub-plot (much like Ano Natsu of last season) didn’t really
fit in with the rest of the story, in my opinion. It was a lot better than the
way Ano Natsu handled the alien
sub-plot, but I was still turned off by it in the end.
The most interesting part was watching Yuki grow and
watching Natsuki’s relationship with his family unravel and eventually
reconcile. While I felt these stories played themselves out to my satisfaction,
I felt they could have been included more into the actual plot of “catch the giant
alien-fish that’s making people do that hilarious dance” main plot.
Overall, I felt it was a strong series with definite rewatch
value. But it’s not something I’d pick up immediately after it comes out (like
I would with Space Brothers or Bunny Drop). I’ll wait until Sentai
finally releases a Funimation-like sale (which I haven’t seen yet, by the way).
Upotte!!
Plot Summary: For those of you out there that remember the
OS-tan manga and anime mini-series, this is a bit along the same lines. In this
case the characters are not representing computer operating systems, but
firearms from around the world. The general storyline is quite funny, and a bit
“ecchi” in nature but is well written and not overy silly.
The first victim of the spring 2012 anime season. It ended
first but you probably aren’t reading this review first (if at all). Overall it
was probably the biggest disappointment in terms of shows I watched this
season. But I kind of expected it out of a show like this, where the premise is
girls are guns. Literally.
I think the most disappointing part of this series was that
it was very informative (often overly so) but it did not need the amount of
fanservice it got. It’s like the Japanese got together and found the one show
that could serve only for promoting the subsequent merchandise. It’s
disappointing when it gets to that point, but it has for a while. I’m just sad
to see it continuing down that road.
What I did like about this show was…was…There wasn’t really
anything redeemable about this show. I kind of kept watching it because it
wasn’t a complete waste of my time and the final episode almost (almost) made
it all worth it. If the entire show was like the last episode, I would’ve
enjoyed this show a lot more. But there’s this very creepy scene in one of the
episodes where SAKO Rk 95 Tp is…yeah…Not that, but if you’ve seen the
show…yeah…
I wouldn’t suggest anyone to watch this show unless you
really want to learn about guns, you really don’t care about mindless
fanservices, and you really want mindless fanservice. But I allow myself one
stupid fanservice-y episode per season. I guess I should have gone with Mysterious Girlfriend X.
You and Me. 2
Plot Summary: (From season 1) About 4 friends, twins Yuta
and Yuki Asaba, the cute and girly Shun Matsuoka, and the class head Kaname
Tsukahara, who have known each other since kindergarden. When a half-Japanese
transfer student named Chizuru Tachibana joins their group, he brings a new
dynamic to their friendship.
I didn’t expect much out of You and Me because, honestly, the first season wasn’t all that
impressive. There were a few episodes out of this season that were mediocre and
are easily glanced over, but it quickly became the dark horse of this season,
but easily outshined by Space Brothers,
Kids on the Slope, and tsuritama.
Despite its downsides, You
and Me has some of my favorite moments of the season and I think I can
confidently say that some of the character interactions between Shun, Yuki,
Yuta, Kaname, and Chizuru were more genuine and all around better than some of
the interactions between Kaoru, Ritsuko, and Sentaro in Kids on the Slope. I loved the love triangle between Shun, Chizuru,
and Masaki was funny, touching, and simply fun all at the same time. And even
Kaname’s little love stint in episode 12 was one of the most loveable moments
of this season, in my opinion.
You and Me’s only
downside, I think, is that it isn’t really about anything. It’s just about
these five friends going through high school. And while I do love stories like
that, it’s a big reason why a lot of people are turned off from slice of life.
And this isn’t even the best slice of life show I’ve seen, and certainly not
the best of this season. Even Honey and
Clover and Usagi Drop had more in
the way of plot compared to You and Me.
But seeing the growth of these characters over now 25 episodes was a fun
experience, but not one I’m sure I’d like to see again, or at least any time
soon. It was fun while it lasted, and I’d definitely watch a new season if it
were to come out, but the show leaves a lot to be desired in a lot of ways.
It’s one of those shows were you don’t look forward to it every week, but
you’re also pleasantly surprised by its arrival every week.
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