Sorry this is up rather late, today has been busy, tomorrow will be so busy that the word "busy" won't cover it and Tuesday will be just plain hectic, wheee. So, onto the other four shows I've tried out this season! And, for those curious, I only had one show carry over from the winter season and that was Gosick which I'm starting to warm up to (characters are now established and the mysterious aren't so laughably simple anymore).
Hanasaku Iroha
Initiallythis wasn't on my to-watch list since the promo art wasn't that interesting but the first episode got a lot of good reviews over on ANN and I do like slice of life so I decided to give it a shot. After the first episode I disliked almost every character in the show (which is a bit unusual for me, can't remember the last time that happened actually) and after episode two I only disliked some of them and was rolling my eyes at the idea that one girl could come into their lives and (eventually) change all of their attitudes. And then I read the reviews about the mood whiplash in episode three and decided that I'd stick with AnoHana for my slice of life story for the season. I may come back to it at some point, it's a 2 cour series so it'll be running until October, but I already have so much to watch that I don't have time for a show that doesn't grab me from the start.
This one is streaming on crunchyroll.com in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Brazil, and Portugal.
Sekaiichi Hatsukoi (The World's Greatest First Love)
Sometime I just want to watch fluff and for some reason, BL (boys love, shonen ai, NOT to be confused with porn^) seems to work nicely for that purpose. Ritsu, a jaded 25 year old who has recently switched jobs, finds himself somehow working as an editor for shojo manga (NOT what he wanted) and his boss seems to find him familiar, HMMMMM. So far the story still spends quite a bit of time on the manga-making business (which I find pretty cool) although the romance is a little well, your mileage may vary. My problem with it is that I really don't like the "forced kiss/sex upon one partner who later enjoys it and that makes it all okay!" trope at all, regardless of genders involved. The story hasn't done too much of that yet so as long as the romance progresses to the point where both parties are happy with the situation I'll be alright with it.Also streaming on crunchyroll.com in North America, South America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Netherlands, Portugal, Middle East, Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia.
Steins;Gate
The concept of a "microwave that can send text messages through time" intrigued me when I first heard about the show (and then baffled me when i wondered how a microwave was supposed to send text messages in the first place). The first few episodes didn't grab me but by the third episode the show had found it's stride, all the main characters seem to have been introduced and the plot was moving forward. The show is also really good at making it's characters feel very human (seeing them do laundry, hacking feels more realistic than it usually does, just a lot of small details). Now I'm really curious to see where the story will go so I'll be sticking with this one for the whole run (I believe it's confirmed at 2-cour like Hanasaku Iroha).
Again, streaming on crunchyroll.com in North America, South America, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Netherlands, Middle East, Africa.
Tiger and Bunny
I had zero intention of even checking this story out when the listing of spring anime came out, never been a huge fan of superhero stories and what the heck do they mean by "geared towards a Western audience," less moe more boobs? But this one also got a lot of really good reviews on ANN so I checked it out and was bemused with what I saw. A bit of a deconstruction of the superhero genre, in the city of Sternbild superheros (also referred to as NEXT, no idea if that's short for something or means "next type of humans" or such) are now saving the city on live tv for everyone to see and are sponsored by corporations (who also pay for some of the damages they cause). Kotetsu is an older superhero whose sponsor goes out a business and his only option to stay in the biz is to accept the offer from another corporation who pairs him up with a younger superhero (with the exact same powers) and they become teh firs superhero due. Hilarity ensues, from the characters simply having completely opposite personalities to hanging lampshades on all the older superhero tropes. You don't need to be a fan of the superhero genre to enjoy this (as I said, I'm certainly not) and I'll be sticking with this through the rest of it's run for sure.
Tiger and Bunny is being simulcast through Viz in the US which means it's streaming on their site, hulu.com and animewnewsnetwork.com (which I believe also has simulcasts for other countries as well but I'm not 100% sure).
Whew so, I'll be trying to follow everything from the past two days, with the exception of Hanasaku Iroha, as well as catching up on Torchwood, finishing my Last Exile re-watch, starting a Natsume Yuujincho rewatch sometime, starting Angel and continuing the new season of Doctor Who. Oh and you know, read actual books and comics for this blog and see whatever random movies I can dig up at the local/college libraries this summer plus finish sewing three cosplays by the end of May. I have absolutely no clue how I'm going to pull this off but it'll be interesting at the very least....
*funny note, they both share a scriptwriter, Mari Okada, so it's funny to watch people make comparisons between the writing.
^I have seen yaoi porn, I didn't like it.
