Most of my interests and hobbies run fairly hot or cold -- I'll be intensely interested in something for a while, then slack off for a period of time, only to return to it again many months (or years) later. Anime fits into this category - for the past couple of years, I've been mostly uninterested in most anime shows, largely ignoring most of the 2007, 2008, and 2009 shows. At times, going a few months between watching anything anime-related.
But as I fall into a regular work schedule, and as I search for less expensive entertainment alternatives, I've been looking back at the past few years of anime shows, and looking forward to what is coming ahead.
And, unfortunately, there's just not much worth seeing. The Fall 2009 season was particularly weak. And, alas, the Winter 2010 season appears to be even weaker. Here's the chart:
Click to enlargeOut of the crop, I see one solid prospect and one maybe.
Durarara looks genuinely intriguing. The trailer is here:
The other "maybe" is
So-Ra-No-Wo-To, which has already been dubbed as
"K-On Joins the Army". But despite that (and the obvious character design similarities), I sorta got a sneaking suspicion there's more behind the series plot-wise than just some sort of cute giggly girl show, enough to give it a sampling. But if they suddenly crank up the moe factor to eleven (
like they did on K-On), I'm outta here.
There's a couple of other shows which might be good, but I'm tending to avoid unless everyone goes crazy over them - notably the
vampire show and the
samurai show. However, those subjects are big turn-offs for me - much in the same way that giant robots, giant monster anime, harem themed shows and magical girl shows are big negatives in my book. Alas, add those all together and that's something like 80-90% of all anime shows these days. Oh well, I know I'm not the target audience, I can deal with that.
Going backwards, in my recent spate of anime-show-watching:
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Nyan Koi! - Big thumbs down, turned into a run-of-the-mill harem gag show quickly.
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Shigofumi - Moderate thumbs up, reminds me a bit of Paranoia Agent with some of the what-the-fuck plot twists, although the ending was weak.
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To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Thumbs up - it really doesn't have much to do with science nor railguns. But the plot is surprisingly tight, and characters interesting.
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To Aru Majutsu no Index - Thumbs down! - on the other hand, the preceding series is a jumbled mess with annoying characters. And the story flow is more like an action-fight show, y'know, where the characters spend several minutes yelling at each other as they fight, and before you know it the episode is over. Blech.
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Darker Than Black - Slight thumbs up. Very well done, but I'm trying to figure out whether it is more "cool" or more "pretentious"; I'm leaning towards the former.
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Bakemonogatari - Not yet decided - just a few episodes in, and I'm trying to figure out whether there's some evil genius behind this show, or if it's all just mental masturbation on the author's part. Very stylized, and I can see why
Senjougahara is so fascinating.
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Soul Eater - Not yet decided, but leaning towards thumbs down. Unless there's more plot development and less pointless fighting, it's not worth continuing.
Anyway, considering how much of a barren landscape the current anime seasons appear to be, I think I'll turn further back to 2008, 2007, 2006 and earlier for the shows I missed instead.
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