Anime! Ah-aaaaaaah!

Yeah, decided to make this an anime post considering the fact that we are already five weeks into the Spring 2009 season, woo!

Of note of the Winter 2009 season is the fact that I have finished watching Rideback and was just a tad disappointed with how they ended the series, it's not that I don't like how it ended I just feel that it could have been done slightly better. Overall, I found the series to be great.

Anyway, on to the Spring 2009 shows I'm watching!

- K-ON! -

At last! KyoAni gets to do their High School girls band anime! And I'm kinda liking it. It's a slice of life anime, much like other KyoAni series Luck Star and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, that focuses on the Light Music club, it's members, Akiyama Mio, Hirasawa Yui, Kotobuki Tsumugi, and Tainaka Ritsu, and their adventures in trying to be a band. I was pretty much hooked by the first episode and plan on watching the series until its conclusion. Moe, moe! Kyun!

- Higashi no Eden -

Eden of the East I just kinda stumbled on, I blade Sankaku Complex for my interest in it. They had an article about how one of the main characters, Takizawa Akia, made his initial appearance amnesiatic, a pistol in hand, and completely naked with a white scribble as the censoring. Now, context is everything for me and I was wondering what the hell the context was so I sought out the first episode. So far I find it to be quite intriguing and at three episodes in I'm going to keep watching.

- Queen's Blade -

Now, I'm not going to lie about my reasons for watching this. No, Hirano Aya isn't one of them. Honestly, I'm very much here for the oppai, glorious oppai. Yeah, shallow I know but it's pretty much the truth. However, there is some semblance of a plot, somwhere under all the scantily clad women, so there may be more of a reason to stick around. However, I might not be able to because It would seem that Media Factory feels the need to be a bunch of pricks and do IP trolling in torrents, which is honestly of dubious legality right now, and happened to nail me for downloading. A C&D letter to my ISP and my internet was out for a day and I now have a DMCA violation strike against me, two more anre my internet goes bye-bye. I want to continue watching, only managed to get to episode two, but it seems that the power that be don't want me to. Bastards.

Knowing Your Roots... Anime Style

Lately I've been watching a number of newer anime series. Ride Back, in particular, is the most recent one that I picked up and I'm enjoying it quite a bit and await the 11th episode. My girlfriend and I have been watching To Love-Ru together along with Rosario + Vampire Capu2 as the episodes are released. It's the absurbity of the series, and the fact that they're the new evolution of the harem-style, we're liking.

While some people might toss them off as crap I like to think of them as charming in their own way. Yes, Rosario went even more into a fanservice anime with Capu2, and the censorship overlays went crazy, but there's still a charm to it. To Love-Ru is along the same lines, the absurdity of teh situation is what makes it great though. While they're about at the same level I find that Rosario gets a bit of a better rating because it has Mizuki Nana.

I've also been watching Tesuwan Birdy: DECODE and Kamen no Maid Guy.

As for knowing my roots, I know the roots of my being an anime fan very well. The first series I watched, and knew was Anime, was the Battle Angel OAV. Akira and Neon Genesis Evangelion furthered my brainwashing into a north american otaku along with a healthy does of Gundam, 0080 and 0083. It was in the late 90s, as evident by NGE being one of my first big exposeures that I found anime for what it was and learned how to adore it. The first tape I bought, and consequently the only, was of the subtitled version of Second Devil Hunter Yohko OAV, I think I still have it somewhere. When Yohko came to DVD I bought the whole series. I've also watched Evangelion: Death and Rebirth as a shitty chinese sub and the laserdisc version of the first part of End of Evangelion, Air.

So, I do know a fair amount of my roots. However, there is much more out there that I would like to see and I keep going back into the history of anime to watch things that are new to me. As I type this, I go into Gainax's past and watch Top O Nerae! Gunbuster. I have plans to watch more of the original Macross, actually finish watching Z Gundam as a series, I stopped at episode 22 then saw all three movies, and then maybe I'll watch Southern Cross or Mospeda to see how bad of a bastardization Robotech really is.

For now I've got Gunbuster to watch and enjoy.