That's what we are watching this season: Mawaru Penguin Drum, Natsume Yuujinchou San, Usagi Drop and Ikoku Meiro no Croisee.
F: Mainly of the slice of life genre, except perhaps the first mindfuck multigenre one...As I've already written, I will try blogging the latter two. Though I am late again... I am so lame =.=
N: This season we have decided to watch many different kinds of anime. We
have literally no time for anything more, because there are so many good
stuff to actually watch this season.
Let's go see some general things about the series.
These two anime plus RAINBOW Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin, that hasn't a trailer yet and has no announcement of air date, will be on the must watch list. Stylistically they seem very well-worked and quite refreshing from the usual anime style. But the plots are very promising as well: a student's (bizarre?) life, a samurai gang's life and deliquents' after WWII lives. And all of them are adaptions from novel and manga, meaning good quality of characters and story- dialogues. The two first hosted in Noitama slot that gave us masterpieces like Mononoke. Slice of life at its best- that's my hope.
Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei involves Masaaki Yuasa (Kaiba, Kemonozume, Mind Game- from which I and Neko-kun have watched only Kaiba and it WAS a masterpiece) and Yusuke Nakamura's character design. Plus the main character resembles Ikuhara-sensei! (see Revolutionary Girl Utena)
House of Five Leaves comes from the author of Ristorante Paradiso. I must admit that her character design with the many edges and the big pupils isn't something I like very much, but back in Ristorante's anime adaption these features were slightly decreased thus I watched it with delight. The House seems to preserve her manga style, so I'll see how much I can enjoy it. Plus the opening theme surprised me with the selection of a pop song. I was expecting something more traditional japanese. I believe that the plot structure will be similar to Ristorante's, so at least I'll enjoy the serenity of life stories.
The RAINBOW's title made me think at first that it was an anime with overdose of moe and silly fanservice or an art series with lolis, but when I saw the poster and read the summary, I totally changed my mind. I don't know a lot of facts about this one, but the manga won an award, so I have high hopes for a historical slice of life. The setting is the years after WWII and I am going to read The bread of those early years by Heinrich Boell with my Neko that's also set in this time period, so I'll get two different views on the same historical events and in different places. Let's see how it'll turn out.
School- life shoujo at its best: lots of laughters, lots of tears, lots of sparkles floating, many chibis and a huge dose of innocence. What makes it so good though is its sweetness. It warms your heart like no other anime. Sawako and Kazehaya are one of a kind, so very kawai and so very shy and gentle. The word 'yasashii' appears already from the opening and it's one of the reappearing words along with the 'thank you' , 'hajimete' (=first/ beginning) and 'I am happy' that come from the lips of Sawako :)
