Showing posts with label Reverse Harem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reverse Harem. Show all posts

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Summer Season Anime Halfway Report

Ah, who doesn't love summer? Time off from school, the pool, hanging out with friends, and for me, a whole bunch of anime. This summer brought me one of the most massive anime seasons I have ever done, with a grand total of ten new airing series, in addition to the one continuing from last season. 

Arcana Famiglia 

The scenario for this anime not unique, but the way it is done sort of is. Felicità is the daughter of the head of the organization Arcana Tarocco, a group of people bestowed special powers by the tarot cards. However, her father is going to retire and the next person to lead the Arcana Taracco will decided by a few duels. Not to mention, he threw his own daughter as a part of the prize, and the winner has to marry, into the mix. She is not alone, because with her two friends, Nova, and Libertà, who refuse to marry her if they win, and together, they have to face the other family memebers.

The scenario is, at the core, a case of the girl not wanting to marry a guy because the father proposed it. Along with that, they decide to throw in a reverse harem, which adds for bishounens everywhere. With that, the art is very pretty, making the guys the main attraction. I hope for good things from it, but right now it seems they are just dealing with side quests. 


Binbougami ga!

We all have that one friend who is super lucky because they have good looks, talent, brains, and excels at everything they do. Sakura Ichiko is that girl, but she has so much luck that the world is being thrown out of balance. That's where our hero, Momiji, our Goddess of Misfortune, comes in, trying to take Ichiko's luck and restore balance to the world. 

Honestly, I like this anime a lot more than I thought at first. It has a lot of slap stick comedy, false fan service, and is just plain funny. It's a different pacing than ecchi comedy, and it had had me laughing. The characters are well done, and the art is vibrant. Honestly, this has exceeded expectations so far, and I keep hoping to have those expectations broken.


Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai

Ryousuke is your typical high school guy, hormones raging and is horny as a guy can be. However, when Lisara, a girl from the world Grimwald, comes to him needing energy to sustain her self in the real world, she comes to him and uses his energy. The catch is though: he looses his sex drive. 

I will admit, I picked up this anime due to the translation of the title: Therefore I can't Fuck. I'm not kidding, and the fact that the plot sounded interesting. The anime lives up to expectations, but in different ways. I will give them credit: they air it uncensored (tits or GTFO) and to boot, the air is good. May the perverseness continue, and hopefully this anime doesn't pull what High School DxD did, and have a crap ending. 


Dog Days' 

The summer also brought us some sequels, and one of them is the second season of Dog Days. Cinque (or Sink or Shinku, depending on subs) returns to the other world, along with his childhood friend, Rebecca and his cousin, Nanami, where they all become heroes and fight alongside each nation in the art of war.

Honestly, this should have never been made. The whole set up of "war" in this anime is not even portrayed correctly. it's like a game, and they need "heroes" to help bring them to victory? No, they just need a tribute really good game show contestant. Despite all this, the art work is good and the music is just barely passable. The characters, like in the first season are decent, but there is honestly just too many. It's twelve or thirteen episodes, we don't need fifty characters!


Hagure Yuusha no Estetica 

We have all seen what goes on when a hero rescues a princess, the hardships he goes through, but what about after the job is done? What is the hero supposed to do? For Ousawa Akatsuki, this is his delima. He has the princess, Miu, and he is living happily ever after in a world where there is nothing but girls, girls, girls.

This anime is basically all the ecchi adventures one guy could ever have. Between helping a girl try on a bra, to swim suit snatching, Ousawa has it lucky. This anime, like Dakara, is aired uncensored, and it provides for some laughs. Honestly, I don't know why this was made, but I like it.


Jinrui wa Sutai Shimashita

In the near future, humanity is dying off, being replaced by a superior race called the faeries. These little guys are adorable, chibi, and honestly, I don't know how they replaced humanity. The main girl in the series, who we just know as "I"or "Watashi," serves as a mediator between the faeries and the humans, even to the point she has a few living at her house.

Why was this even made really? From episode one, it has been one of the weirdest things I have ever seen, and I have seen my fair share of weird things. Episode one brought us the bleeding bread scenario, followed by the buzzing chickens in episode two.  The art for this series is washed out color, similar to Usagi Drop, which isn't a bad thing, just makes the anime different. 


Joshiraku

We all have those days where the original conversation and the ending conversation are not the same thing. In the anime Joshiraku, the girls have random conversations, from moon viewing to how the moon looks like inappropriate things. 

If you're in the anime of "cute girls doing cute things," then you have hit paradise. Coming from the author of Sayonra Zetsubou Sensei, it is an amusing watch. The girls don't really do anything beside sit around for amusing conversations. The art for this anime is top notch I'll admit. Honestly, I hope for a lot for this anime.



Kono Naka Hitori ni, Imouto ga Iru!

Shougo has just lost his dad, and now he has to attend a new school, which is stressful enough as it is already. However, as it turns out, his younger sister also attends the school, but he doesn't know who the sister is. In his search for his sister, he meets a lot of girls along the way. 

Oh, dear lord, this reeks of incest. Along with the fact that he has to meet his illegitiment sister, she also wants to get married, and since his sister can beany girl at the school, the probability for incest is high. Other wise, the characters are semi likable, but they also seem rather flat also. The art work is decent, but otherwise, this anime just seems generic in almost every way it can.


Sword Art Online

As technology develops and advances, there is one thing they have seriously looked over in the gaming industry: virtual reality. However in Sword Art Online, they have developed it to a point that they have not only got virtual reality games, but it is so real that death in the game is actually death in the real world. After Kirito and a whole bunch of other people get trapped in the game, they must not only beat the game to get out, but they must be careful not to die in the game because the virtual reality machine will kill them in the real world. 

Interesting concept for this anime, I  must admit. It's almost every gamer's dream, if not worst nightmare. One of the things that I have found weird about this anime is the fact that it paces out so weird. In one episode, they might cover ten floors, and in the next, they hardly cover two. Another weird thing is they don't seem to take the death thing too seriously. Almost every episode someone dies, and they don't seem to show that they care too much bout auxillery characters. The art is good, the scenries almost look like real world scenarios, and the characters are well drawn. I can only hope they even out the pacing and work on some things (like actually caring that the characters die!). 


Yuru Yuri ♪♪

Like Dog Days, Yuru Yuri also received a sequel. WhileI was more thrilled about this sequel being announced, in the actual series, I feel let down a bit. While we still mainly follow our main four characters, it seems that there is a different feel this season. Maybe it's due to the fact we are seeing more of the the side characters, such as Himawari and Sakurako, or maybe it's the fact they seem to be leaving out Akari a lot more than usual.

The art for this series is as good as the last season. One thing that was a let down for me was the opening and ending themes. In the last season, I could barely get the song out of my head, and this season, I barely notice them honestly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All in all, I feel like this season has it extreme good points and the extreme bad points. However next season should not be a let down, and I look forward for more anime to come

I have to thank Mike for watching Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai and Brendan for watching Sword Art Online with me. 

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Uta no☆Prince-sama♪ Maji Love 1000%

In anime, it feels that there is never enough reverse harems. Sure, you might have Hetalia and the failed Starry Sky, but it seems they all lack one thing in particular: a good plot. When I found Uta no☆Prince-sama♪ Maji Love 1000%(UtaPri for short) I had almost zero hopes for it due to the fact it was based of an otome game and it had art similar to Starry Sky.However, I was actually pleasantly surprised by this anime.

The story is a simple one in my mind: a young girl, Nanami Haruka, wants to make music for her dream Hayato, and thus enter Saotome Academy, a school for idols and their composers. There she meets an array of boys, from the childish Kurusu Syo (Shou), to the serious Ichinose Tokiya. While at Saotome Academy, as she works with each of the boys, she soon discovers her true talent for composing songs, along with the bonds of friendship that are tried through and through.

To be honest, the story was the weakest point in the anime. It was simple yes, but the whole thing with the boys falling one after another for Haruka was just a bit unnatural. True, while they might have been trying to make it possible for the viewer to glimpse the potential for all the routes, it still felt jumpy, but had a nice wrap up at the end.

The art was very well done and each character was well drawn. The character designs were well thought out, and the characters were very bishounen or pretty boy. Also, the characters were brightly colored and some of the characters reminded me of characters from another   There was thing that irked me about the art, and although it was something minor, it irked me none the less: Haruka's eyes. When I first saw them, I honestly flipped. Eyes should not look like that, and why the artist had to do that is beyond me actually. I actually had to avoid looking at her eyes in order not to be creeped out.

The characters were probably one of the best aspects of this anime. Although they are all idol-wanna-bes, they all have distinct personalities, and they are likable. The guy's personalities range from the young ignorant, but lovable Kurusu Shou, to the guy that loves small and sweet things Shinomya Natsuki, to the cold and indifferent Ichinose Tokiya, to the rich, playboy character, Jingugi Ren. Though the guys were the shining point in the anime (as I expect them to be, since this anime was based off an otome game), Haruka was probably the let down in the cast. She is supposed to be that girl everyone can relate to, however she does come across sometimes as boring, and her character role is almost unimportant, but yet, everyone falls for her faster than a rock to the bottom of a pond. All the other characters felt flat, and needed some improvement, but seeing how this is an anime based off an otome game, I'll give them some slack.

The music was something else very notable about the series, due to the fact one, it was a music style anime, and two, in my mind it was very very catchy. Each song was also well written in the fact that they matched the characters' personalities very, very well. The music was well written musically, for example the melodies were well laid out and blended well with each other.

Overall, I would highly recommend this to any of my female otaku friends.  The guys were to swoon for, and they had all had their credits, and they were all likable. I will say this anime was not perfect, but despite its flaws, I still enjoyed the anime immensely. I hope that you can enjoy this anime as much as I did, and not just for its flaws.