Yakitate Japan is your standard “born tensai (genius) in something -> wants to become best in that something -> plot revolves around the development of said genius -> genius rarely, if ever, loses -> genius has really l33t and mad (literally) skillz” anime series a.k.a. shounen anime. If you really need a prominent comparison, I’d say Prince of Tennis comes close.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:

Yep. Natural super-heated hands hot enough to allow you to knead even goddamn hard dough and ensure that our precious yeast stay active. Don’t worry, Blizzard Hands exist too.

I doubt you need any commentary on that.

Yet, despite the seemingly derisive stuff I’m saying about Yakitate Japan and unlike many shounen anime, you’ll find that it’s really some funny stuff (yep, besides the crazy techniques). But before we progress to even more rolling-on-floor laughter, let’s look at our plot.
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Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday. I was just a little too engrossed in relocating and redesigning my personal blog. I’m redesigning it live, so it’s still rather incomplete.

But anyway, back to the main topic. At last count, I’m following 36 ongoing anime series (or OVAs), which I rank into four classes: Tier 1 (must watch no matter what), Tier 2 (must watch when I have free time), Tier 3 (will watch if I’ve watched all the Tier 1 and 2 series already), and Tier 4 (will skim through only).

Here’s the list (BTW, within Tiers, they are listed in no particular order):

Tier 1

1. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
3. Ouran High School Host Club
4. Akagi
5. xxxHolic
6. Simoun
7. Fate-Stay Night
8. NANA

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This may not be the very first doggy-focused anime series ever, but it is my first doggy-based anime series since American and UK cartoons don’t count. So, I didn’t really know what to expect from the series. Light hearted comedy? Or an anime series fit only for those still in primary school (eeks… a little harsh)?

But after watching the first episode, my interest was piqued, and I thought I had another potentially good light-hearted comedy series (with some plot) on my hands. One that would fill in those dead boring hours, and just maybe end up being interesting enough to watch during “prime anime time”.

The characters were okay enough. The series features a sometimes mature, pretty street-smart, male dog (with a girlfriend dog that has a huge imagination and lurvs melon pan) as the lead character.

Besides other dogs, we even have the kind, cute and shy teenage mistress plus her equally shy boyfriend as supporting characters in this “ordinary life of a dog” anime series.

Yet, the next couple of eps were rather boring. Jokes were being reused and a plot line wasn’t appearing - though it is probably unfair to judge based on this since the series, given its comedy roots, was always going to be episodic in nature. The below average animation quality didn’t help either.

So, overall, I can’t say it has enough appeal for viewers to watch each and every episode. But certain episodes might just be good enough to slot in right after an episode of Higurashi no Naku Kori ni to avoid having dreams (nightmares?) of killer lolis in your sleep.

P.S.: Copied the last phrase from somewhere. Can’t seem to remember where though.

One of the most well-received episodic-type anime series of last season (ARIA The ANIMATION) continues with a second season: ARIA The NATURAL. And so far, there is no indication that the second season will deviate from the calming theme of the original series.

Even our new (temporary?) character, Ai, has already been assimilated into the natural scheme of things:

But it does seem like ARIA is taking a turn for the more supernatural:

Yeap, a giant King of Cats - Cait Sith. However, this could be a good thing if it is a signal for some future change of pace in the series. After all, even a winning formula can be improved.

You’re probably not going to see another year with so many yaoi, yuri and gender-bending anime series popping out of the fansubbing engines. You might ask: How many series are we talking about? Well, you’ll have to stick till the very end of this post to find out.

In no particular order, we have:
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I’ve seen some crazy hybrid (multi-genre) anime series (I think…), but Dai Mahou Touge must be one of the craziest. On a first look basis, you might think it’s a typical “princess to undergo trial on Earth” shoujo anime (Sugar Sugar Rune anybody?).

Yes, our princess summons vegetables to her aid. But watch a little longer and you’ll see the weirdness begin… Our cute little princess has a pretty (extremely?) violent side.

That, of course, isn’t helped by the fact that we have some rather violent-looking characters in the first place.

And while you might expect magical rods to have some really “cutish” activation commands, our princess’ rod is an exception (see screenshot below).

But so far, it’s a pretty amusing and fun series, though only time can tell how long the director can keep things going.

P.S.: This series is definitely not suitable for children.

Unlike the recently reviewed Da Capo Second Season, I had barely any expectations for Black Cat. While the premise initially seemed pretty interesting, especially after Train Heartnet’s first real friend – Saya –  dies, the plot seemed to be moving towards the standard action-based anime series. A super-powered protagonist, super-powered enemies, and of course, a battle royale at the very end.

But given the relatively large amount of spare time at my disposal, I finished the series, only to find that I had to revise my opinion of the series mid-way into the series. Well, I can’t say that Black Cat was very good (just me I think, since a few other anime bloggers have made it a must watch), but it was much better than I expected. It had an involving plot that continued to introduce new surprises throughout the series (something like Kiddy Grade IMO). The various characters were interesting, music was pretty good, and animation quality was pretty high.

The ending still ended up being rather predictable, with a standard battle royale between the good (sweeper alliance) and the bad (nano-tech-empowered Taoists), but I guess you can’t expect a dramatic about-turn for a predominantly happy series like this. But… I really, really wanted to see Saya reintroduced into the series, somewhere around the end perhaps. Guess she was only meant to push Train towards the side of “good” (that is, if you consider Chronos to be bad).

So, overall, I’d recommend Black Cat as a should watch, but I’d stay away from the R1s.

P.S.: Just like my DCSS review, I’ll attach the screenies later.

Quite a few series I’ve been following ended recently (well… not so recently, maybe about a few weeks back), so I thought I’d post a few thoughts I had about them. I’ll start with Da Capo Second Season because I’ve only found uhmm… 3 or 4 reviews of it so far.

Anyway, Da Capo Second Season somewhat continues where the first season left off, where Nemu has disappeared to nursing school - leaving Junichi open to advances from the rest of the girls in the series. Here, most fans (at least if you read the comments flying around on various anime blogs, e.g. Random Curiosity) actually expected the other Season 1 characters to come into the limelight, especially Kotori, when Nemu left the scene, but a completely new character was focused on instead: Aisia.

As a witch-in-training, Aisia is the only reason there’s a plot in Da Capo SS (not that the first season had much though), as she ends up not only resurrecting the mystical cherry blossom tree, but also dominating almost every part of DCSS. Of course, Nemu was eventually reintoduced to the competition for Junichi’s heart. Not that the competition was very stiff of course, with Nemu very clearly regaining top spot after some misunderstandings with her adopted brother in the middle of this sequel. But besides Junichi and Nemu, no other character was developed as much as Aisia, if at all. A source of irritance for long standing fans of Da Capo definitely, but I found Aisia’s presence to be a nice divergence from the oh-so-obvious Junichi & Nemu ending.

Unlike many DC fans though, I was actually perfectly fine with the Junichi-Nemu ending, probably because I’ve alwas preferred Nemu over the rest of the girls. When Aisia’s reawakening of the tree caused the rift between Junichi and Nemu, I had really, really evil thoughts aimed at cute little Aisia (not unlike another anime blogger).

So, overall, I’d say Da Capo Second Season successfully brings a conclusion to the basic Da Capo plot, with Junichi eventually marrying Nemu in the last episode. But given DCSS’ simplicity or perhaps, lack of plot (IMHO, more plot than the first season though), I can only recommend it to those who have watched the first season of Da Capo, have spare time to “waste”, and are willing to tolerate the Aisia-focus of the series. There are definitely some good episodes within this 26-episode series, but if you’ve watched DCSS, I’m sure you’d agree that 13-episodes would have sufficed.