{"id":3319,"date":"2009-07-25T13:47:09","date_gmt":"2009-07-25T17:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/?p=3319"},"modified":"2009-07-25T13:48:25","modified_gmt":"2009-07-25T17:48:25","slug":"summer-2009-anime-season-first-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/2009\/07\/25\/summer-2009-anime-season-first-impressions\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer 2009 Anime Season First Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

This may be the weakest season ever (or rather, since I started paying attention to such things.) The recession is probably a factor. Fewer anime<\/a> series are being produced (though still an amazing number by American standards.) Also the studios seem less willing to take a chance on crazy new ideas, preferring to stick with tried and true formulas which are inherently less interesting but probably have a guaranteed audience.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless there are a few shows that may be worth a look:<\/p>\n

Likely Winners<\/h3>\n

Bakemonogatari (Ghostory)<\/em><\/strong>. Probably the best of the lot, distinguished by the arty animation expected from Shaft. Stories of the supernatural, more amusing than scary, enlivened by extensive though mostly tasteful fan service<\/a> and a sharp-tongued tsundere<\/a> armed with a stapler.
\n<\/p>\n

Reserving Judgement<\/h3>\n

Sora no Manimani (Sky Mania)<\/em><\/strong>. This seems like a fairly routine high school slice-of-life, but I like the relationship between the two main characters. Think of Kyon and Haruhi, but with nicer people.<\/p>\n

Umi Monogatari (Sea Story)<\/em><\/strong>. Cute story with two magical girls. One is a mermaid (actually she looks more like a nereid), the other is a grumpy human girl. They are forced to fight a twisted lesbian evil spirit whose plan to conquer the world involves sending nasty sea creatures that try to kiss them.<\/p>\n

Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou (Properly Understood Modern Magic)<\/em><\/strong>. More magical girls fighting some sort of evil power (I think). The episodes are presented out of sequence and I’m still not sure if there really is a story here. Crunchyroll is streaming this but unfortunately omits “Episode 0”, which at least serves to explain who the characters are.<\/p>\n

Interesting, but Probably Not for Me<\/h3>\n

Taishou Yakyuu Musume (Taisho Era Baseball Girls)<\/em><\/strong>. Nicely drawn, and probably a very inspirational story for preteen girls. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a lot to offer for anyone else. If only it were darker or funnier or more interested in historical accuracy this might be pretty good.<\/p>\n

Still Watching<\/h3>\n

Cross Game<\/em>, Kemono no Souja Erin<\/em>, Mainichi Kaasan<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may be the weakest season ever (or rather, since I started paying attention to such things.) The recession is probably a factor. Fewer anime<\/a> series are being produced (though… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[296,297,300,298,299],"class_list":["post-3319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anime","tag-bakemonogatari","tag-sora-no-manimani","tag-taishou-yakyuu-musume","tag-umi-monogatari","tag-yoku-wakaru-gendai-mahou"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3319"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3326,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions\/3326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}