Thingle’s Spring Mid-Season Review

Thingle

Spring 2009 is undoubtedly one of the weakest in recent history. I know that everyone is suffering a decline due to the global recession, but there’s no excuse for a season that’s quite frankly, full of crap.

These are the titles I watched. I dropped most of these already.

Natsu no Arashi - I thought this title had potential, but I was wrong. After three episodes, I already knew what this anime will be about… another run of the mill magical girl series. Clearly targeted for the 12-15 year old crowd, this series is filled with the typical adolescent stuff which I already outgrew. Am I too old to enjoy this series? Certainly not. I’m just 19, but the atmosphere (magical girls and puberty heroes) are things I have left behind in my childhood. Anyway, it does not have a thought -provoking plot to keep me watching Status: Dropped.

Eden of the East- Somehow this series survived my cuts, I’m even blogging it per episode. Eden of the east is one of the passable series’ for me. It has obvious flaws though, but there is a great chance that these will be resolved, as the flaws are mainly about the characters. As usual with I.G, Eden of the East brings us promising technology in the form of a phone-embedded ID software and laces it with a mystery story Jason Bourne would be impressed at. Status: Active

Shangri-la- A mediocre series chocked full of archetypes. We have the renegade, the tranny, the evil kids, the mediocre guys and whatnot. Not even the pretentious covering of environmental politics could save this series from being thrown into the crap list. There are ways to inject political themes to sci-fi anime. Ghost in the Shell: SAC and Real Drive are examples of well-executed blendings. Shangri-la however, is not. Status: Dropped

Phantom -Another crap anime. It’s really a disgrace because Bee Train had made much much better stuff in their collection. Phantom is about this assassin who apparently had his memory wiped and all that. predicatble shit Tell you what, there are 9371037903 films involving amnesiac assassins. It’s cliche. Grow some originality. Status: Dropped

Ristorante Paradiso – This darkhorse survived and is currently blogged by the episode. I like it. There are a lot of so-called slice of life series which aren’t really slice of life for its own sake, but just to establish a corny romance between mediocre loser and Ms.Moe. This is an exception. Aside from being female, the show’s hero has a stronger characer than most wimps out there, and the show itself places a higher importance on fleshing characters out rather than playing the romance card. The characters are very well developed, their imperfections nicely blended with their strengths and there is an air of sentimentality among them as well. Status: On-and-off due to inconsistent releases.