Spring 2006

Shows I'm looking forward to (again, no particular order within each category):

The A List

1) Makai Senki Disgaea - If it's half as amusing as the promos have been, I might have to run off and buy the game too.

2) School Rumble 2nd Semester - Probably the show I'm looking forward to the most. I love the manga, I loved the first season, and it's probably single handedly responsible for turning me back to anime at a period when there really wasn't much of it going on that I thought I would enjoy.

3) Tsubasa Chronicles 2nd season - Another one, loved the first season, love the manga. Can't imagine I won't love this as well.

4) XXXHOLiC - I actually like the XXXholic manga better than the Tsubasa Chronicles one, so I'm cautiously optimistic about the anime version.

The B List

1) Ergo Proxy - As others have noted, this carries a heavy Blade Runner type vibe. And that's a really good thing.

2) NANA - More to see what the fuss is then anything else. It's inordinately popular and the manga has just started up here in the US.

3) Shinigami no Ballad - Bleach with a cute little girl. Love her sickle.

4) Soul Link - If I were to guess this is probably one of the game-to-anime conversions I'll like the best, but then, except for the aborted ending to the Kaede arc, I actually liked the Shuffle! series as well.

The C List

1) Ah! My goddess: The second season- I've mentioned before that I didn't particularly enjoy the manga, I haven't even watched the first season, but maybe it's time to give it a chance.

2) Air Gear - I've never really read or watched any of Oh! Great's material, but I'm willing to give this a chance. I missed the boat on TenTen (and now it's licensed by a company that decided it would still be appealing if they edited it), but Del Ray is going to have Air Gear, so I might give this a chance to see if it would be worth buying the manga.

3) Finalist - Here's my prediction for the harem series. One of them I'll really like, one of them I'll really hate, and the rest will be amusing enough that I'll watch them when they come out. Interestingly this crop seems more based off of game conversions than manga (which was where the winter season mined gold for me). So I'm expecting less in the way of funny, more in the way of drama. If I'm going to pick ahead of time, I'm looking forward to this less than the others, but I doubt it'll end up being the one I hate.

4) Utawarerumono - I imagine I'll enjoy this somewhat, but not in a "OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WEEK?" sort of way.

The D List

1) Higurashi no Naku koro ni - Not only based off of a game, but a doujin game apparently as well. And a murder mystery one at that. Interesting enough that I will definitely give one episode a try.

2) Himawari! - Before Kage Kara Mamoru! this would have been on the F list, but now I figure if it's half as funny as that show, I can deal with the fact that it's about ninjas.

3) RAY The Animation - I know almost nothing about this show, but the description seems kind of neat in a Witch Hunter Robin sort of way.

4) Strawberry Panic - I fail to see how this can't be successful. Yeah, it's yuri, but my objection about yuri and yaoi has more to do with the overly angst-ful part then the nature of yaoi and yuri themselves. This seems to take itself less seriously.

The E List

1) Gintama - Samurai and aliens? I'll probably see what other people have to say about it and then decide based off of that.

2) Hack//GU - I'm going to have to admit that I've never watched any of the .Hack stuff (or read it either). But it has a pretty avid following, so I'll probably at least give this a try. Of course, the last time I said that I ended up watching Gundam Seed Destiny.

3) Hime-sama Goyoujin - Now I'm going to have to admit that I can't get past the first episode of the first season of Rozen Maiden either. Though I probably could at least try the rest of it (it wouldn't really take long as both seasons together are only 26 episodes I believe).

4) Inukami! - Sounds somewhat like Mai Hime or maybe Shakugan no Shana, either one without the serious parts. Have to admit I'm not really much of a fan of the character designs.

5) Joshikousei GIRLS-HIGH - Don't especially care for the overt Yuri overtones, but I said the same thing about Kashimashi and I've ended up liking that. I imagine if it spends a lot of time poking fun at girls (I've been married for ten years and have yet to see much in the way of comedy that pokes fun at gender differences in anything other than stereotypical ways) and snooty people in general it will be funny. If it's just an excuse to have yuri pillow fights, I'll probably pass. Unless they're really funny pillow fights.

6) Kishin Houkou Demon Bane - This is the anime-from-game that I'm betting I probably won't care for.

7) Ohran High School Host Club - I'm detecting a high yaoi/yuri probability here, but am holding off judgement until I see how well it's handled.

The F List

1) Aria 2nd Season - Didn't watch the first either. For me, exceptionally slow shows have to either be romances (see, Suzuka), or damn fine examples of anime (see GiTS:SAC).

2) Fushigiboshi no Futagohime Gyu! - Didn't watch the first season. Magical girls really just don't usually do it for me.

3) Ju Oh Sei - Neither the description nor the character design does much for me.

4) Kamisama Kazoku - Unless it turns out to be another Kamichu, which would be a good thing.

Midway anime season rankings

Well, the stuff I'm watching I've already seen half a dozen episodes of. So it's time to start calling out where I think the season is going. I have to admit that this has been a very surprising season, a lot of stuff I thought was going to be pointless and stupid is actually pretty good. Similarly a lot of stuff that I thought would be great has actually become very tedious to watch (Fate Stay Night, I'm looking right at you). Note that these aren't arranged in any particular order within the lists themselves (in other words, the number is there more for reference than indicating where exactly the rank within the list). Also, I've included my current ranking of shows that started in previous seasons for reference. So, here it goes:

The A List

1) Kage Kara Mamoru! - Out of nowhere. I almost didn't even watch the first episode. It's now moved into the pile of episodes that I watch twice, once in raw format and once after being subbed. Mamoru is likeable and amusing, each of his (rather large) harem is personable and funny.
2) Magikano - After my scarring experience with Amaenaideyo, I thought this would be a total miss for me, but surprisingly it seems to mix a lot of Pani Poni Dash type omega random plot points designed for maximum comedy. The interaction between the characters (particularly Maika, Ayumi and Yuri) is also particularly well played.
3) Canvas 2 - I'm hard pressed to point out what exactly about Canvas 2 I like. And, yet, I'm watching it avidly on raws. Frequently I watch it two or three times. I've already planned a marathon replay-all-of-the-episodes for two weekends from now (by which point the now-looking-to-be-pivotal Episode 21 should be subbed).
4) Shakugan no Shana - Yuuji's mom is the best mom ever, she's practically gift wrapping Shana for him. My mother, on the other hand, encouraged me to have lots of sex by simply being absent all the time. And Margery Daw is the best thing in a yukata since Matsumoto Rangiku.

The B List

1) Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora - Okay, this was pretty cute. Even better because it showed a non-standard happy ending. Rika is still dying young, she's just picked up a few years.
2)Kashimashi - The gender switching thing (especially the overt yuri-ness of it all) is not usually my cup of tea, but Kashimashi may be changing my mind about it (I've actually tried a little bit of Tenshi na Konamaiki since as well). Particularly amusing is how everyone EXCEPT Hazumu has a problem dealing with his new gender.
3)MAJOR 2nd season - Of all series on the list, this is the one that is most likely to make the jump to an A list series. I loved loved loved the first season of Major. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up loving the second season as well, but I have to admit that it's started pretty slowly. And I'm not in love with the redesign of the characters either, but that's a pretty small quibble.

The C List

1) Binchou Tan- Cute and no plot usually means the C list for me. Interesting to watch (the charcoal references are too cute), but I'd probably never buy it until it was thinpacked. Since it's not the sort of thing that even gets licensed that often though, I have been keeping my eye out for Binchou-tan plushies.
2) REC - This could move up a notch to the B list. And it has tickled my interest in trying to hunt down the manga, but right now at least I think that's based more on the promise of the concept than the actual execution. For a series that only has a very few episodes, it seems to be moving at a glacial pace.
3) Karin - Karin started off as a B list show and has moved down to the C list with the introduction of Winner. It could still move back up, but frequently it doesn't seem like much is happening and it's not funny enough to overcome that. It is very cute though, and I would be totally onboard with a thinpak of it. It has also stimulated my interest in the manga (coming to the US by thanks of Tokyopop). I wonder if Tokyopop, Viz, Del Ray, et al realize how much fansubbing has cost me in domestic manga releases? I'm sure they much have some idea as the mangas seem suspiciously timed pretty closely to the release of anime series in Japan.
4) Mai Otome - Well, it's no Mai Hime. It was down with the D list, but then moved up in honor of it's train-wreck-ed-ness. I have to watch each week to see exactly how many times I can wish that Mai would come bouncing along and knock out Arika.
5) Bleach - Filler, and not very interesting filler at that. But I could be let down after the greatness of the Soul Society arc. Bleach seems to be progressing very quickly compared to the manga, but that's probably what I like best about it. The so-called "mindless shonen" genre doesn't do much for me if fights last more than about 10 or so minutes of screen time.

The D List

1) Fate Stay Night - There's still time to get off the D list for Fate/Stay (I haven't given up yet). But it needs to have one of two things happen. Either actual servants need to get into battles to hike up my Bleach/R.O.D. the TV interest. Or else Sakura needs to go into all out hair-pulling Kaede mode on Rin. Luckily episode 8 showed that there could be a little bit of the latter coming up.

The E List

1) Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rinbukyoku - Yes, that's a mouthful. This series seems like a stock mahou shojo show. While I have no specific issues with it, it's not as funny as I would like. Nor does it seem possessed of a particularly interesting plot.

The F List

I haven't had an F yet (though I suspect when I finally get around to watching the first series in the below list, it'll rapidly make it's way there).

The Off List

1)Lemon Angel Project - I haven't started watching this yet, but I've been getting the episodes. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would appeal to me.
2) Blood+ - Little about this show excites me, but I've heard that it gets better later on, so I'm dutifully getting ready to watch it.

Ratings

Wow, work can suck. My boss just got promoted and we've been scrambling to pick up the work while they start interviewing replacements. In a way I'm very sad (I liked my boss a lot), but hopefully this will be a good thing.
Anyway ....
Generally when I watch/read/whatever, I like to divide things up into groups. I don't bother to say "top ten" or whatever because ten is an artificial number and usually there are several items tied for that last spot. So generally I just give them a letter grade. I was going to skip this post and go straight to my mid-rankings on the winter 2005 anime season, but I realized there's no real way for me to do that without explaining how I'm ranking them. It's important to note that I almost never talk about how "good" or "bad" a series is, I only ever talk about them in terms of how much I enjoy them. Cowboy Bebop only has a meandering notion of the term "plot", but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying it.
A LIST: To be an A list item, it has to be an item that I would consider paying full, marked retail price for. For anime, that's generally $30 every 4 episodes.
B LIST: To be a B list item, it has to be an item that I would consider paying what I call "normal" price for. For anime, that's usually $20 every 4 episodes (it's easy enough to get this price at Best Buy or DVDPacific).
C LIST: To be a C list item, it has to be an item that I wouldn't consider paying normal price for. I'm either going to get it from Ebay, or possibly on sale or in a collected edition.
D LIST: D list items I might get if I was getting a complete collection at a steal. For example, Hanaukyo Maid Team La Verite is cute. I would probably buy it if I found someone getting rid of their set for $15-$25 for all of the disks.
E LIST: I wouldn't buy an E list item, but if it was given to me as a gift, I probably wouldn't return it either. I wouldn't buy myself a copy of Burst Angel, but I probably wouldn't get rid of a copy if someone gifted it to me.
F LIST: Not only am I not purchasing F list items, I'm selling, regifting, or liquidating them.