Booyah. About two weeks or so too late, but whatever. No way I am skipping out on this when there are THOUGHTS TO BE SHARED.
Spring was a decent season overall. I kept up with seven series throughout the season; unfortunately, Valkyria Chronicles and Souten Kouro are in limbo for me right now because my preferred fansubbing groups have stalled a bit with those series. (I am giving a bit of thought to switching over to Doremi for Valkyria, although I don't know how good their releases are, and I'll probably have to put Souten Kouro on hold since Lunar is basically the only group subbing it.) However, while there is some strong quality at the top, once you get to the middle of the pack, the series begin to have a common theme of starting off strong and then tapering off in the middle or near the end. Bit of a frustrating season for that, unfortunately.
Dropped series: 07-Ghost (4/25), Basquash! (11/26), Dragon Ball Kai (1/?), Pandora Hearts (1/25), Shangri-La (6/24)
1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (14/?): Maybe a bit of n00b bias here, but Brotherhood is the series that consistently grabbed my attention and would not let go this season. As I have said before, I have never watched the first series, nor have I read the manga, so everything here is completely new to me. Everything in this series seems so intriguing to me -- I love the world, the characters and all the twists. I love the action and the sheer visual awesome of the fight scenes. I love the relationship between Ed and Al (even Al's emo moment is not so bad because Ed and Al make up in such an awesome way). I even appreciate the swift pace that was brought about by BONES wanting to work through the first series recap part of Brotherhood in a single season. (Really, the quick pace works to the show's detriment just once -- during the episode where Hughes dies. Just moves past that a bit too quickly for my taste.) Now we're in the part of the series where the behind-the-scenes machinations are starting to reveal themselves, and I am more excited than ever about the direction in which the show is heading. Hell, my heart was pounding like crazy throughout the most recent episode! That, my friends, is the mark of a damn good show. (9/10)
2. Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ (14/26): You know, I am actually a bit surprised that I am ranking Phantom this high. Part of it is because some series lower on the list have disappointed me a bit, but part of it is also that Phantom became so genuinely good late in the season. The series starts off in a solid way with Ein and Zwei doing work for Inferno and busting caps in fools, but once everything goes to shit (not really a spoiler, because you just know it will happen eventually), Phantom ratchets up the tension and excitement to 11 while really pounding its themes of choice and identity. (And it does not do this in an obnoxious way, for which I am thankful.) And, above all, Phantom just has such a cool, slick style to it. I mean, it is really easy to make assassins look cool, but this show makes them look really cool. (Right now Zwei is just a stylin' bastard. It is ridiculously awesome.) After a bit of release in the episode that closed the spring season, the show is getting ready to kick it into high gear again, with some inner turmoil at Inferno and Zwei being confronted with a bajillion things threatening to make him go nuts. Good stuff. (8/10)
3. Cross Game (12/51): Picked this up near the end of the season on bell's recommendation and have not been disappointed at all. The first episode has a wonderful mix of childhood whimsy and genuine tragedy, and the slice-of-life that develops works so well when you consider how the events of the opener have touched the lives of the main characters. I think my favorite character right now is Akaishi; I love how he develops from a rough kid to a patient, wise sort of baseball badass. You definitely want your catcher to be the most thoughtful, composed guy on the team, haha. I am also intrigued by Azuma, mostly because he doesn't seem like the typical blind, overly arrogant elite rival, even if he is an asshole right now. The first big baseball game, which runs about three episodes, is pretty awesome as well. You know what the final result will be, but despite that, the game is still tense and exciting, mainly because the underdog B-team comes in with a strong gameplan and plenty of surprises that knock some of the wind out of the varsity team's sails. (Kitamura's first few strikeouts are great because of that.) The baseball game also juggles some interesting storylines (the last game of the B-team seniors, the B-team trying to crack the A-team, the coaching styles of the respective managers, etc.) while doing wonders for the development of certain characters. I hope the rest of the games will be as good. (8/10)
4. Higashi no Eden (11/11): This is where we starting getting into "somewhat disappointing" territory. When I watch/read/listen to anything, I try to block out hype as best I can -- after all, I'm watching the show, not the hype. But it's tough to concentrate on that when a series like Higashi no Eden ups the ante with its opening episodes (which are as good as anything else aired this season) and then sort of plods toward a finish. Now, I do not mind that this series tried to take a different approach to the Bourne Identity style of amnesiac thriller. It has its own weird sense of humor and often deals with a subject (NEETs) that is completely foreign to this type of story. But where Higashi stumbles is when it focuses too much on delivering its social commentary and not enough on the story. There are entire episodes dedicated to social commentary about NEETs and their relation to the larger society, which is all well and good, but that leads to the ending feeling terribly rushed. Higashi doesn't wrap everything up in a sloppy bow, but the end of the series cannot really be called an ending, with two movies looming on the horizon. The show looks great, has good characters and has an interesting concept, but the execution just feels a bit flat in the end. The show has enough good points to justify it being this high, however. (8/10)
5. Sengoku Basara (12/12): When the season began, I called Sengoku Basara great trash, and if the show was going to succeed, that's the route it had to take -- big, flashy fights and epic levels of GAR. But the show gets away from that for a couple of episodes (mainly during the Hisahide storyline, which is dull as hell) and good lord does it ever suffer for that. Story and character development is not this show's strong suit at all. Basically it's awesome good guys must defeat awesome bad guys, and the characters are pretty quick sketches who never really deviate from their basic personalities. Hey, as long as its entertaining I don't need it to be Ghost in the Shell levels of deep. And the show really does roll along with increasingly insane levels of battle, and it's just awesome to watch ... until the brick wall that is the Hisahide arc. It sucks away all the momentum the series had built up to then. The ending regains some of that steam and ends in a pretty kickass battle, but man, I really wish the series could have pushed along the whole way through. Not really sure what to make of the show having a second season, though. (7/10)
6. Valkyria Chronicles (8/26): Ranked somewhat low mainly because I have not watched an episode in nearly two months. It's a solid show up to this point -- looks great, has fun characters (the give and take among Alicia, Welkin and Faldio is especially entertaining), and I like the world. Some intriguing elements are coming into play around this time, so it is very frustrating for me to have halted for so long. I assume had I continued with this up to the current point, then it would be ranked a bit higher. (7/10)
7. Hatsukoi Limited (12/12): Picked this up in the middle of the season on Des and Kimmeh's recommendation and was quite pleased with it at first. Although it isn't really groundbreaking in any way (high school love comedy ZOMG!), the series keeps things fresh and funny through the first 2/3 to make it a highly entertaining watch. I especially enjoyed Koyoi's episode (her brother complex is hysterical), Ayumi beating the crap out of some thugs and pretty much anything involving Misaki (<3). But in that final third ... holy crap, there is WAY too much Kei x Kusuda, which is the most irritaing pairing in the series by a country mile. Kusuda I am mostly fine with, since he is at least funny, but Kei is incredibly frustrating and annoying; she is everything that is wrong with tsunderes. Just the basic tsuntsun and deredere modes and not much else. Can't you give her at least ONE other character trait?! Make her strongly devoted to her friends, or more complexly worried about her worldview coming into question, or anything for fuck's sake. Her development is just so lazy and boring. Ugh. For me, it really sucked all the life out of this series. It had been so fun and carefree and even surprisingly dramatic at times; then it becomes a by-the-numbers romance. Blah. (7/10)
8. K-On! (13/13): Oh, K-On! You started off with such promise. A great OP and ED. Fun characters who have immediate chemistry and whose interactions get funnier with each episode. Good musical performances. Stories that, while not exactly complex, are quite funny. It even manages to build to a solid emotional climax with the Light Music Club's performance at the cultural festival. The problem is that performance comes roughly halfway through the series. It is all downhill from there, starting with the arrival of the Light Music Club's victim freshman, Azusa (dubbed Azu-nyan by Yui). Now, Azusa is a decent enough character, and it is not her fault that the series takes a 180 in quality upon her arrival, but I think her conception is a result of the author saying, "Oh shit, I don't have any decent ideas anymore! But the girls are only one year into high school ... I don't want to end things right now. I know! I'll throw a freshman into the group and rehash everything from the beginning of the series! Genius!" I am not exaggerating when I say this is what happens. The second half of the series is almost identical to the first half, except Azusa is with them now. Just the laziest way of continuing a story I have seen in quite some time. It's just absurd. In a way, I am more disappointed with this than I was with Munto, because at least Munto never raised my expectations in any way. (7/10)
9. Souten Kouro (7/26): Hit a bit harder than Valkyria Chronicles on the fansubbing front because it is just starting to get into the larger story. (It's forgivable that Lunar has fallen behind, though, because this series is probably incredibly tough to sub.) I am enjoying this right now. Mamoru Miyano gets to be badass and cut people up, and other people get to be badass and cut people up as well. There's not that much behind it at the moment, but hey.
