This can be properly categorized as a ‘witch show’, but this is no ‘magical girl’ show. It might be closer aligned with “Black Rock Shooter” in the caliber of despair that it generates, but I get ahead of myself. This is an unhappy show. Not a sad show. A sad show is like “Air the Series” or “5 Centimeters per Second”. This one is unhappy is that everyone…it looks like I’m taking the chute back to Square One, as I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Brynhildr in the Darkness” (“Gokukoku no Buryunhirude” “Extreme-Black Brynhildr”) is an odd cat of a story, mainly because it doesn’t know what it wants to be.

Ryouta Murakami is head of the astronomy club. They even have this far out observatory to use. (No, I mean far out; he has to take a couple of bus lines to get to the thing) Too bad there isn’t a single other person in the club. I mean, what gives? I know if there was an astronomy club at my high school, I’d be there (we had a chess club. If I had joined, I’d be called ‘Carpet’, as I’d have been laid out the entire time.)

He comes across this girl, who tells him not to go to the observatory or, if he does, miss the last bus down from it. He does neither (he’s a guy; like he’s going to listen to some odd girl he just met?) As it happens, a sudden rain storm causes a massive rock slide and he is killed…or would have been if Neko hadn’t shown up to use these bizarre powers to hold the rock back. Neko Kuroha is that black-tressed number at the far right. She looks similar to a friend that Ryouta had many years ago, but died in a tragic fall. Still, there is something about her that piques his interest. (more…)

This is one fabulous show. “No Game, No Life” is a variant on the ‘stranger in a strange land’ approach, but does with far more intelligence and viewer involvement than you normally get or see in most animes.

You are an MMORPG player. You have a pretty good guild and you do well in your game. Then, you come up against Blank. You are dead. Sign out now and avoid the humiliation.

Blank is a team that has NEVER lost a game. They speed, their skill, their dexterity is phenomenal. How these four people work this well as a team lead some to think that they employ some kind of cheat. Well, it doesn’t matter; you are rabbit pellets when they are done with you.

Here’s what you don’t know: it’s only two people! The brother-and-sister team of Sora & Shiro, are classic NEETs. The only time they see the sun is if they are playing on the Sunny Field level. This is how good they are: not only can they play two characters at a time, they even have the ability to have one member play all four characters, using hands and feet with amazing deftness. Me? I can’t even cross the room without stubbing my toe on the table. (And why is it ALWAYS the baby toe?) (more…)

Although I should have expected a second season of “Silver Spoon”, it was one of those shows that could have easily stood on its own just as it was, as Yugo Hachiken (the guy with glasses, if you forgot), learned quite a lot about himself and others.

It’s just that it was decided to ‘up the stakes’, as it were, and, this time, it’s double the prizes and double the risks.

The first story arc is the Yezo Agriculture Festival. Now, remember, this is an agricultural school so, by its very nature, is located way the stuffings out in the boonies, as it HAS to be the boonies. Yugo has ideas to make the festival the best one ever, but that means he has to take on more and more tasks and more and more responsibilities. This leads to two more story arcs.

The second is that he belongs to the Equestrian Club and has major problems with his horse (yup, that arrogant nag up there), but he still wants to put on a performance for the Festival with a jumping event.

That leads to problems at home, as Dad is as big an arrogant nag as his horse and Dad wants him to quit this nonsense and come home (so he can be as big a loser as his loser older brother? Just asking). (more…)

This is another idol show, along the lines of “AKB0048” and “Long Live Project” and it follow more or less the same arc, although presentation is a bit different. The full title is actually “Wake Up, Girls – Seven Idols”, but, like them, we’ll truncate it to WUG.

We have to start with not the girls, but the group that supports them, which are the two ‘adults’ (I’ll explain later).

Green Leaves Entertainment is a tiny production company on the verge of going out of business. It is located in Sendai, the biggest city in Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region, in a rather questionable office building that could double as an auto repair shop. Not particularly inspiring. The agency once managed the careers of magicians, photo idols, fortune-tellers, and other entertainers, but its last remaining client finally quit. In danger of having zero talent (literally and actually), the president, Juynko Tange, (she’s at the end there) hatches an idea of producing an idol group. On the brash president’s orders, the dissatisfied manager Kouhei Matsuda heads out to scout raw talent. (more…)

This is a strange series, as you really are left in the dark for most of it. We are telling a story that has no real purpose as to why we are telling it, but it needs to be told. I’ll explain as we go along.

“Haibane Renmei” (“Une fille qui a des ailes grises” and/or/either/both, “A girl who has grey wings”) has us look at angeloids in a different way. I mean, no one ever says the word “angel”, but they have wings and a halo, but if we took away those two features, they are no different than you or I. There are male ones as well, but the whole mythology behind it seems confused.

OK, I watched it, as it was On Demand and I needed something to see while I did the ironing, and it was there. It’s a show with a lot of promise, but it stagnates to the point where we are just going through the motions.

We are in the city of Glie. Although the time feels modern, there is still something kind of backwards about the town, as I don’t recall ever seeing a TV set, for example. And there is a huge stone wall that surrounds the town and environs. It appears that no one ever leaves the town, and certainly the haibanes can’t at all. (more…)

“Chronicles of the Going Home Club” is another in a long series on ‘nothing’ shows, although they eventually decide to do ‘something’. Closer aligned with “Joshiraku” and “Nichijou”, it tells the stories of five girls who just want to have a good time.

For those unfamiliar with the term, the “Going Home Club” refers to students who do not belong to any club, ending up going home to study or read anime or take a trip to Akihabara. But for this series, the Going Home Club is an actual club. Sure, they may play video games or eat snacks, but they eventually talk about stuff, things that have a bearing on their lives. So the first three or four episodes are spent setting up things, so nothing happens and what they talk and do is disconnected. So there is no real direction. But someone decides they need to have some degree of focus and that’s when the show really takes off.

Our Slacker Sisters are (left to right):

Sakura Domyoji, president of the club and the ‘ordinary’ one.
Karin Tono, supervisor and a tad of an airhead (more…)

I recently gave a review regarding “Princess Lover”, a rather standard romantic comedy anime. It was a fan-service heavy eroge game, which became a fan-service heavy manga, which became a fan-service heavy anime. OK, the above picture never happened in the anime, but it skated pretty close to it.

They later came out with two OVAs. The first one was a six-episode offering. If you didn’t have the time to invest 300 minutes to watch the entire series, you could cough up 16 minutes to get an overall sense of the show, but not get a good feel for it. Look, if you don’t have the time to watch anime in its entirety, then go watch something else, like “Schoolhouse Rock” or “Foul-Up, Bleeps and Blunders”. Anime does require your attention.

It was the second OVA that bothered me. Now, I have seen a lot of things in anime that bother me, but this one really sticks in my craw, as it doesn’t make any real sense. The second OVA is a two-episode excursion into hentai. (more…)

OK, this is another standard entry into the Wonderful World of Romanic Comedy anime. Now, this started out as a fan-service heavy eroge game, to become a fan-service heavy manga to arrive at a fan-service heavy anime. “Princess Lover” tells the story of Arima Teppei (Mr. Akimbo in the center). He is just your typical high school student with two standard parents. Or so you think. Sadly, Mom and Dad are killed in a car-jacking and the real truth comes out.

Mother Kanae is actually the daughter of Isshin Arima, president, CEO, COO, LSMFT of the Arima Group, potentially the most powerful corporation in Japan. Mom was slated to take over when Isshin became worm food. Well, that got knocked into a cocked hat, so gramps adopts Teppei and sends him off to Shuuhou Gakuen, a high school only for wealthy students, so he can learn to take control off the company when the time comes for him to take control of the company.

However, on his way to the presentation dinner in his honor, he has to stop bandits from trying to hijack a….horse and carriage? Really? What does the calendar say it is? The person he saves is Charlotte Hazelrink (the one grasping his arm), a princess from the principality of Hazelrink, who just happens to attend Shuuhou. At the party, Teppei meets the girl that he is betrothed to….much to the shock of both parties. That is Charlotte van Hossen (off his left arm) who is very skilled with a sword (short blondie next to her is her little sister, Maria). (more…)

Another magic show, this one takes a different approach to things as we are not interested in levitation or flying a broom, but justice, justice for all.

“Wizard Barristers” takes place in an alternate universe. It is 2018, in Tokyo. Wizards are an established fact, now and in the past. We have humans and wizards trying to live together. Police continue to protect order in society, but wizards (known as Wud, but that is never made clear WHY they are called that) are tried according to magical law through the Magic Prohibition Law, in special courts, defended by wizard barristers via the Court for Magic.

Wizards (and I am not going to call them WUD; that’s the sound 1960s Batman made when he hit criminals) are prohibited from using their magic and barred from certain public positions (and if you wish to draw any real-life analogies to this discrimination, take your pick). (more…)

Part of the problem with magic shows is that everything is eventually going to link back to ‘Harry Potter’, and “Witch Craft Works” does have some touch-and-go moments to Harry, but it can’t fully commit to what it wants to be.

Takamiya Honoka is a regular student at Tōgetsu High School. He is a standard, typical anime male, in the fact that not only is he clueless, he pines on endlessly for the Most Popular Girl in the School. He also lacks the spunk or the desire or the lead in his pencil to speak with her. The person in question is Kagari Ayaka, the school’s “Princess”. She is everything you want your girlfriend to be: she’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s adored, she’s tall and (although you can’t see it in this shot), build like a brick chicken house. They have never spoken to each other and any small interaction between them immediately results in her fan club beating him for his insolence.

One day he is attacked by a quintet of oddly-dressed girls called the Tower Witches, who had been covertly making attempts on him. However, the attack is thwarted by Ayaka, who turns out to be a Workshop Witch and has been protecting Honoka for quite some time. No longer having to hide her mission, Ayaka decides to become friendlier with him, though their relationship earns Honoka the ire of a lot of his class mates. She also decides that he needs to become her apprentice so he can at least learn how to defend himself from these almost daily assaults. (more…)