Now that the winter season has finally begun it is time to look back on the fall anime season, and give my impressions of the shows that I was following, and how they turned out. As always I am only going over the shows I actually watched. There were many that for various reasons I chose not to follow, and some that I might have dropped or misplaced along the way. One such show being Inuyasha: The Final Act. This one I started out looking forward to, but I lost interest after about 5 episodes. This may have been due to the fact that I had myself a Ranma 1/2 marathon around Thanksgiving, and after 161 episodes of Rumiko Takahashi’s work it’s a bit hard to watch even a few more episodes, but I suspect that eventually I’ll get around to it.

Now let’s talk about the shows I have followed throughout the season.

Asura Cryin’ 2

Hmmm… What to say about Asura Cryin’ 2… It starts out right about where the first season left off, but things immediately get weird kind of like the beginning of the first season. It’s a bit hard to follow, but as with the first show after about half the episodes you start to figure things out, and by the end you pretty much understand what is going on. I think the show wasn’t quite as strong as the first season as it becomes obvious that they are rushing to wrap the entire story up, but that said it does have it’s moments, and some pretty interesting action scenes. I’d say that I have one real complaint about the show is the ending… Amazingly every character manages to show up all at once in a parallel world to join in on the final fight with no explanation of how they got there in the first place. Pretty hokey, but I guess they just wanted everyone involved at the end.

Darker Than Black 2

This show was done rather well, and the new character Suou was quite fun to watch, but the show itself was a bit short and rushed. It really should have gotten a 24 episode run. I also found the lack of Yin to leave me a bit unfulfilled. Although the story was short and somewhat predictable there was a definite hint to a possible 3rd season (or even a movie) at the end, so it is obvious that the story is not finished yet, and from the hint it might get even more interesting by introducing a new type of character. The OP and ED singles were also quite good and now reside on my ipod’s play list.

Sora no Otoshimono

This show was a real roller coaster. In the beginning it appeared that it was going to be another goofy show with no real point (which is not always a bad thing), but a rather interesting storyline does develop towards the end, and the looney-ness of getting to that story was quite fun to watch. Very good character development, and design in this show. Of course everyone is aware by now of the infamous panty migration ED from episode 2, but if that alone wasn’t enough to make this show epic then the rest of the EDs were. A different ED was used for each episode, and honestly there were some really great ones in there. If I were to fault this show it would be for the excessive use of chibi characters (Especially Tomoki who sometimes spent entire episodes in chibi form), and the shows sometimes overuse of anime stereotypes.

Kampfer

I have mixed feelings about this show to be honest. The show itself had a really great story, and some amazing characters, but the entire thing kind of fell through at the end. It seems almost like they had planned this to run for 24 episodes, but that for some reason it was changed to 12. I say this because it seems really odd that they got into a really rather complex plot near the last few episodes, and then just sort of ended the show without any true resolution. It seemed to me that they worked up to a big fight at the end which ended with the bad guys pretty much giving up without much of a fight. It really seems like there was a longer story planned out, but the studio just cobbled together a half assed ending when they maybe found out they weren’t getting more episodes. So in my opinion if this show was to continue it has potential to be good, but as it stands currently it’s a bit of a let down.

Kimi ni Todoke

Where to even begin with this show??? Amazing is all I can really say. A romantic comedy shouldn’t have such a compelling story. It really draws you in, and keeps you waiting on the edge of your seat to see what will happen next. The characters in this story are fantastic, and quite fun to watch. From gut busting humor to tear jerking moments this show runs the entire spectrum. The only downfall of the show is that it’s main drive is developing the characters, so at some point the show will become pointless. A simple matter of too much of a good thing can be bad. The show will continue through the winter season, and my hope is that they end it well. If it ends properly then this show has potential to become a masterpiece, but if the studios decide to try and drag it on forever to glean extra profit then there is the possibility of ruining a great show.

Nyan Koi

After the first episode of this show I was thinking that all my hopes for Nyan Koi were going down the drain. Thankfully after a couple more episodes the show became what I was hoping for. It turned out to be a really hilarious anime with an actual story underneath all the craziness. The characters are awesome, and I really hope this one comes back for another season seeing as how Junpei is nowhere near that 100 cat mark set in the beginning. If you are into comedies with a bit of ecchi then definitely check this one out, but give it a few episodes to start getting fun.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Purezza

Hmmmm… This show… It was not bad, but it didn’t exactly stand out either. It had some great humor, and a few really great episodes including the only episode of any show that I actually watched several times (and no it wasn’t either of the hot springs episodes). The thing about this series is that it really had no cohesive storyline. It was more like an episodic sitcom in which there is something completely different every week rather than a continuing story. They did manage to cover a whole lot of ground though… From Christmas, to New Years, pop idols, school plays, maid parties, comicon, and not one but 2 hot spring episodes. I think they pretty much got everything they possibly could in there. They also managed to get a little more screen time for some of the side characters that were introduced in season one. If you just want to watch a fun show, and don’t mind the lack of a real plot then definitely check this one out, and be sure if you do to keep an eye out for the Ranma 1/2 cosplay in episode 3 (I told you they got everything in there).

Sasameki Koto

This show was a really nice surprise. I was expecting the typical yuri drama like Aoi Hana or Maria Sama, but this show brings some fantastic characters, and some really amazing humor. I think this show came the closest to actually making me fall out of my chair several times (yes it really is that funny). Of course there is some drama because it wouldn’t be a yuri show without it, but the totally hilarious characters really have me hoping that they make more of this. Seriously… This is a classic case of not judging a book by it’s cover, and I can’t imagine many who wouldn’t enjoy this show. If it weren’t for my being completely taken over by Kimi Ni Todoke then this would have been my pick for best show of last season.

A Certain Scientific Railgun

Of course this is another show that is continuing through the winter season so I can only talk about what happened during the first half. For those expecting a sequel to Index you definitely didn’t get one. Aside from taking place in the same location, and having a few of the same characters (as well as some cameos here and there) this story is almost nothing like Index. That said… The show is really good, and while it has some humor I think the best thing the show has is a “cool” factor. You always wait for Misaka to use her power, and it so far has not disappointed. Mostly this time it’s all about the girls with very few male characters, and the few that there are aren’t on the screen for very long. Some have classified this as a yuri show, and while there are certainly yuri elements they don’t seem to be the main focus of the show at least not for the first half. As of writing this I’ve already seen the first 3 episodes of the second half, but I’m kind of left wondering what happened… They seem to have left a big chunk of the story behind that started really picking up during the last few episodes of the first half. I suspect it’s just a little break, and most likely they will get back to that story and finish it… At least I hope.

Needless

I hate to say anything negative about this show because I loved the first half during the summer season so much, but I have to say that it kind of let me down a bit. The show overall I still consider awesome, but the second half pretty much spent a whole season that encompassed one single fight that never seemed to end. Granted I understand that the manga was considered a fighting manga, but they literally stayed in one room fighting the whole time. As a person on one forum stated “I hope they at least break through a wall into a new room this week.” I felt the same way. Just anything to break up the monotony of that battle would have been great. The few flashback episodes unfortunately didn’t seem to help in that matter much. I’ll say it again… A great show overall, and possibly on a marathon viewing of the whole series would flow much better, but waiting for a new episode each week only to see the same fight continue started leaving me with an Endless 8 feeling.

Seitokai no Ichizon

I had extremely high expectations for this show thinking it would be way funnier than it actually turned out. The first episode was really great, but then the next few kind of dropped off. The constant stream of anime reference jokes gave way to an actual story, but a story about a group of people that sit in a room every day kind of leaves something to be desired. The show did pick back up a bit, and carried on fairly well through out the season, but it never got the magic of the first episode back it seemed to me. Not bad, but it could have been so much better. Now don’t get me wrong… The show does have it’s moments… The cat’s cradle panties in one of the later episodes made me spew soda through my nose, but I think the show just didn’t have a consistent enough momentum.

11 Eyes

I wasn’t actually expecting to keep watching the whole season of this show, but it managed to keep my attention long enough to make it through. A bit confusing overall, and I don’t mean simply the plot. The show itself didn’t seem to know exactly what it wanted to be. It started out as a mix of action, comedy, and ecchi. Then it became a way too serious almost mystery story. I never quite knew what this show was trying to accomplish. The story made some sense, but the way it was carried out just seemed to be a big weird fest. Not only that but I think the fact that there were a couple of characters I felt the overwhelming desire to slap senseless didn’t help things much. I would be really surprised if this show gets another season (that said, I’ve been surprised before). I personally don’t think I’d recommend this show, but I’m sure there are plenty who disagree. You know what the say about opinions…

All in all it was a really big season. A lot of really neat shows came out, and kept me completely from participating in anything that could even be considered a life. Someone actually complained that this was the “worst anime season ever” but in my opinion it was one of the best. Even the just starting winter season which I consider fairly sparse is not even the “worst ever”. I just wonder what some folks are thinking sometimes, or even if they are thinking when they say some of these goofy things. I guess that wraps up the fall season, and since I’m running late on this I will get to the winter season first impressions very soon.

For anyone wondering when they will be able to get a hold of the opening and ending singles from the Kimi ni Todoke anime you won’t have to wait long.

The ending single Kataomoi by Chara will be released on November 18,2009 and the opening single Kimi ni Todoke by Tanizawa Tomofumi will release on November 25, 2009.

The CDs themselves will be available from online stores like Play-Asia. They should also be available on Japan iTunes.

Okay, so here’s the situation… I’m sitting around having just watched the final episode of Ghost Hunt, and still waiting for new episodes of Black Cat and xxxHolic to be added to my OnDemand. So, After surfing through Funimation’s video portal for something to watch I happened across Rumbling Hearts. Well… I’ll check it out… Seems like a typical high school romance anime like To Heart, To Heart 2, or Shuffle. It’s also a short run anime (14 episodes) so perfect for the in between time while waiting for the anime I’m currently following to continue.

The rest after the jump…

After watching the first episode I felt my initial impressions were correct… Typical… One guy that several girls are interested in, and drama will ensue… Or so I thought… The first episode did confuse me a bit as normally with these types of shows the guy is inevitably clueless to the feelings of the girls around him, and you come to expect that it’s going to drag out until the end of the series when he finally realizes and has to make a choice. The situation here is different… These girls are kind of bold, and the male character is pretty much in the know about everyone’s feelings rather than just shuffling around aimlessly collecting a harem for himself.

Okay… So the main characters… Takayuki Narumi is the boy that is the center of everyone’s attention… Haruka Suzumiya seems at first to be the typical Akari Kamegishi type character that is cute and shy with short pink hair and ribbons… And finally Mitsuki Hayase who is the athletic tough girl character. There are several other interesting characters, but I’ll just stick to the main three here.

Of course you can see where things appear to be going, and I probably wouldn’t even be writing about this anime if it had turned out to be what it appears to be, but there is a rather nasty twist just a few episodes in that makes this story a bit different. I’m really trying to avoid spoilers in this review, but I can say that I haven’t been affected quite as much before as this. I’ll just say that the way the situation was portrayed made me feel like I’d been punched in the chest. The first time I’ve had an anime actually made me forget to breathe for a time.

Another thing that makes this story a little different is the pacing… After the above mentioned twist things get completely confusing leaving the viewer wonder just what is going on, and just as you start to understand everything is when the situation begins to fall apart thus you don’t get much time to get your bearing before the story moves on.

The story is based on the video game of the same name which was a dating sim… It was then adapted into manga, and finally the anime. Being based off a dating sim. The anime shows it’s roots by the story being decision based… Each choice the characters make affect the way the story’s path unfolds. Knowing this might make the story a bit easier to deal with as it’s kind of difficult to pick up that each action causes such huge consequences that seem to be occurring, and are rather unforgiving… Or in other words… The plot follows the style of a game in that everything carries the story forward with no going back to fix the wrong choices… What the characters do are stuck with them to the end.

Now… Speaking of the end… I was left very unsatisfied and rather angry with the original ending. I guess you could say that it was too much like real life… Even though they disguised it as a sort of happy ending where everyone reached closure it was blatantly obvious that everyone was left hurt, and that rather than resolving the situation everyone simply chose their path and moved on. Like I said… It’s kinda like things work out in real life… We just take what we get and move on… No noble acts, no truly happy endings. The problem here is that a fictional story is supposed to give us a short escape from reality… It isn’t supposed to end the way things really do, but the way we would like them to if given the power to control our lives.

Apparently I am not the only one who felt this way because after a couple OVAs that followed several of the side characters there was another 4 episode OVA titled: Kimi ga Nozomu Eien ~Next Season~ which goes back a bit before the original ending, and shows what would have happened if different choices were made. It’s pretty much an alternate ending to the original series, and in my opinion was very much needed. This is the way things should have gone, and personally it left me satisfied that the story was complete.

A bit of a warning… If you are a “manly man” who shuns all things cute and are of the belief that your manhood can be sucked out of you by simply watching a dramatic and emotional story then you may wanna pass on this. I consider myself a pretty normal dude, and typically laugh at people watching shows or movies with a box of tissues on hand, but this one made me tear up several times, and I think you’d have to be someone who’s heart was left out at the factory if this one doesn’t affect you at least a little. It’s actually the way it affected me that made me have to write about it.

So that is my spoiler free take on the story… It’s hard to write about it without giving anything away. The original story is concluded with the Kimi ga Nozomu Eien ~Next Season~ OVA… Which if you want to watch (and I recommend you do if you have watched the original series) you will have to settle for a torrented fansub as the OVA has not been released in the US at this point. Just so you know the fansub by BakaWolf is excellent.

There are also the spin off OVAs: Akane Maniax which are 3 episodes following Haruka’s little sister Akane. Also there is the 7 episode spin off called AyuMayu Theater which follows the antics of the two waitresses Ayu and Mayu who act as comic relief in the original series. I haven’t talked about those characters in this review, but I would like to say that in the English dub Luci Christian and Monica Rial did an amazing job with those two.

As for the future… While the main story wrapped up two of the characters there is still a possibility to follow some other characters who were just left hanging, so there could be a chance of more OVAs in the future.