The 5th edition of this series takes us to the recent past, where some series are currently airing. Fortunately, nothing I did not drop is currently airing, so I won’t have to make any changes to the format here. The best way I can think of this summer is that is wasn’t a terrible summer, nor was it absolutely fantastic.
On the OVA front there was the matter of the Minami-ke OVA which had a Valentine’s Day theme if I remember right. Maybe the animation not being horrible makes it a little less memorable. I’m masochistic in that way. There was also the part where Hosaka did his Hosaka thing, but convinced Chiaki to eat carrots. I don’t see how anyone can hate carrots to be honest, but I digress.
There was also the Akane-iro Somaru Saka OVA which can pretty much be summarized by the screencap I placed at the top of this post.
Taishou Yakyuu Musume did pretty much what any piece of sports fiction does these days, except without a training montage in the middle. A bunch of girls who are terrible at baseball eventually become good enough to take on a rival school at their own game. Plus, the series opens with a musical introduction to Taishou-era Tokyo.
CANAAN took the concept of combining different groups of people in Shanghai who come together and become part of a multi-national conspiracy. The parts where people had mysterious powers were probably underused, and the main characters were either horribly annoying or lacked personality in the slightest. At least the villains were interesting.
Princess Lover! had me wondering why something was made where the motivation for the villain is so ridiculous I was laughing when I got to it. I also have to say despite Arima’s difficult life before the series begins, he has it far, far too easy throughout the series.
Sora no Manimani serves as a somewhat educational series, at least when it comes to constellations and winter survival strategies of all things. Overall, it was a pretty fun series to watch though some of the relationships remain unresolved. Also, there’s the small matter of Roma’s inexplicable hook up in the end.
Then there’s the second season of Spice & Wolf. I can say at times the second season did a good job of beautifully shooting me to tears at points, it pretty much put in a shift as setup for a third season. I still can’t make sense of the fact they attempted to put in a credit spread. Will the 3rd season, when they do make it throw in collateralized debt obligations for good measure.
Highlights from Shows Unseen or Unfinished
Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is just sitting there waiting for me to finish the last two episodes. Maybe if I stopped writing these posts I would have time. Personally I would put this just a bit off the first season in quality so 3rd best overall of the 4 incarnations. Bakemonogatari is still running technically, but it has spawned some brilliant analysis of fandom. Element Hunters has the worst concept I have seen from anything that doesn’t show up on the channel that shall not be named. While Kanamemo makes yuri antics seem like a normal part of the workplace.
Lower Mid-Table 