It’s July and we’re way deep into summer, but the summer shows are barely starting so I figured we should close the book on spring 09 definatively. I’ll do that by taking a look at the “Dengeki Top 2009 Spring Anime Rankings.” Usually, news items are tucked away in the bottom left corner since I don’t want them drawing too much attention away from the actual blog itself. I have a few comments to make about these rankings, however, so here’s a dedicated entry. Oh yeah, the source is Sankaku Complex.
- K-ON!
- Eden of the East (Higashi no Eden)
- Saki
- FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST
- Sengoku Basara
- Dragonball Kai
- Valkyria Chronicles
- Basquash!
- Asura Crying
- Cross Game
I’m glad to see Eden of the East so high, which is no surprise if you’ve seen my (very long) article on the series. K-ON! is also no surprise either–no matter how much we hate K-ON! here at Moe Sucks, it’s really perfectly designed for otaku tastes. Last I heard, Sengoku Basara is real popular with the girls. Maybe Fin will write something on the series; I tried watching it and it just isn’t my thing. Not a fan of samurai, not a fan of “fighting spirit,” and definitely not a fan of loyalty to one’s lord kinda deal that they got going. What’s really offensive to me though is Saki. K-ON! is easy to troll but it at least looks nice and the girls are tastefully drawn. Saki is like the Hustler to K-ON!’s Playboy. And last I checked, the mahjong wasn’t even realistic.
More about skinship than mahjong.
As for the rest of the list, what does it say when two remakes are in the top ten? Or that yet another generic baseball anime somehow manages to squeeze its way into the list. Lemme guess, scrappy team full of nobodies loses for a while but rallies around one talented player who discovers the meaning of teamwork. Scrappy team finds its way into Koshien somehow, either upsetting the heavily favored team (who coincidentally has a dirty manager) using small ball tactics or losing in the final moments but it’s okay because the journey is what matters. No, I haven’t seen nor read Cross Game and if I’m wrong, I don’t really care.
As long as there are manchildren in the world, DBZ reigns supreme.
Hayate the Combat Butler 2 is designed to win these things, right? I’m also amazed Queen’s Blade is nowhere on the list. Will Juden-chan fare the same fate? I figured Hatsukoi Limited would be more popular too, but I guess not. I hated it, but it has to be better than fucking shoe advertising Basquash! Seriously, it’s a show about mechas playing basketball.
It's a show about basketball(s) in more ways than one.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the spring 09 season and I haven’t seen Ristorante Paradiso nor Guin Saga yet (no time), but those two have to be fucking better than Basquash! or even Asura Crying. As for Valkyria Chronicles, I’m biased since I really liked the game. For the sake of a full season, they had to make some changes for the anime, but I thought they did too much, especially making Alicia a tsunderekko when there was really no hints of that at all in the game.
Considering I only followed one show (Eden) all of spring 09 to the bitter end, I can’t really say it was a success, but summer 09 is dragging on at the moment so who knows how much worse we can go. I haven’t seen Bake Monogatari (we’re supposed to watch it as a group but blame Fin again) but I’ve heard good things. And I guess I’m curious if Winter Sonata will be decent. Besides those two, nothing else even screams “WATCH ME!” like Eden did and at least K-ON! had me for four episodes before I dropped it. Sure, the Higurashi clone might be amusing just for epic faces, but I don’t have high hopes. And no, I won’t watch Haruhi for reasons I’ve long delved into. Summer 09, please prove me wrong.
Moe Sucks 