Spring Animus Roundup

[joiedecombat]

I finished FFXIII and Seirei no Moribito just in time for anime nite to start sampling new spring anime series. The prevailing theme appears to be 'crazy'.

Heroman: If Stan Lee Made An Anime. And by "if" I mean apparently he did, complete with obligatory first-episode cameo. Aliens are about to invade California, but before that happens, a somewhat androgynous gearhead teen named Joey picks a toy robot up out of the trash to rebuild after it's run over by a car. Then it gets struck by lightning and turns into a giant robot. So, yeah.

Arakawa Under the Bridge: Wealthy up-and-coming teenaged boy with a pathological aversion to incurring any kind of debt falls off a bridge and is rescued by a crazy girl who lives under the bridge. When he insists on being allowed to repay the debt, she asks him to fall in love with her. I can't help but think the premise would be more interesting if they played it a little more seriously. Instead it's used as an excuse for crazy people to be crazy at each other, the novelty of which will probably wear off pretty quickly.

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama!: Will be filling my sparkly shoujo manga needs for a while, probably. Extremely tsundere female Student Council President of a newly-coed high school Does Not Like Men and is Highly Motivated to make her school, which used to be all-boys, more welcoming to female students. She also secretly works part-time at a maid cafe to help support her family. Hijinks ensue. There's a background of interesting gender politics to this one, between Misaki Vs. The Male Student Body, Misaki's on-and-off discomfort with her cafe job, and the occasional bouts of cross-dressing on the parts of several characters.

Angel Beats: Quirky teenagers are dead and waging war against the Angel who (possibly?) wants to reincarnate them into new lives. Ehhhh.

Ichiban Ushiro no Daima: Sort of a higher-tech Japanese Harry Potter, if instead of sorting Harry into Gryffindor, the Sorting Hat had announced that he will become a Demon King. An intriguing premise ruined by a truly staggering number of pantyshots.

And, although it's not a new spring anime, annwyd has convinced me to start watching Toward the Terra (accurately summed up as "Wall-E's X-Men"), mostly on the basis of Koyasu Takehito playing a brilliant, charismatic, slightly emotionally retarded anti-villain/anti-hero/????. I'm so predictable, sob.

Comments

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

I might watch Heroman, just for kicks. If I can get through some of my existing backlog.

From my episode 10 vantage point, I'd say Keith is a lot more than slightly emotionally retarded. But I won't say anything more than that; it should be enough to get you excited for the next few episodes. ;)

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

Well, I have only seen up to episode six, so I have only seen enough of Keith to conclude that he is emotionally retarded enough to not quite understand the concept of "having friends," but not so emotionally retarded as to fail to rescue people in trouble and thank Sam for his help afterwards.

But I am sure his computer mommy will screw him up plenty over the coming years, or something like that. In any case, you know how much I like them emotionally stunted.

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that his emotional retardation doesn't manifest in the typical way of Being A Jerk Without Realizing It (Or Knowing Why He Should Care). He is vaguely aware that he should care about people and that whatever it is he feels for Sam is worth more than the approval of his peers, and he acts on that vague awareness with certainty instead of dwelling on it. But despite his lack of hesitation to take action, and despite his brilliance, and despite the kindness he can show, he's an absolute blank when it comes to understanding why he does what he does. It's like he has decent code but no programmer's notes.

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

My feelings on this matter can more or less be summed up as "aw, punkin."