As you may have noticed, I don’t exactly tend to be on the cutting edge of JAT when it comes to anime blogging. Still, never one to pass up an easy post (particularly given I’m too lazy to hunt down some pictures), I figure that I may as well browse a bunch of websites for the sake of getting some quick content up here.

Hey, everyone else is doing it!

Anyway, lets start with the Winter stuff.

Saint October
The first episode of this show is called something like “A Loli is Born! Super Goth-Loli Girl!”. I can kind of respect a show which is honest enough not to hide what fetish its aiming for, but this sooo isn’t for me.
Interest Rating *

Kyoushirou to Towa no Sora
Hang on a moment, didn’t I see this show about three years ago? Ah, no, that was Kannazuki no Miko. Really, though, those character designs and that logo look similar enough to be really taking the piss. Anyway, given that I only watched Kannazuki no Miko to laugh at how bad I thought it was (much the same reason I survived the BBCs recent production of Robin Hood – the Sakura Taisen-esque victory pose at the end of the last episode was hilarious for all the wrong reasons) my interest in this is pretty much none existant.
Interest Rating *

Koi suru Tenshi Angelique ~ Kagayaki no Ashita ~
Sequel to some reverse-harem show I’ve never seen and know nothing about. Ho-hum.
Interest Rating *

Deltora Quest
Wikipedia says this is series of Australian children’s books. It sounds like generic swords and sorcery fantasy – whilst I’m a serious RPG gamer, that just means that I’ve seen pretty much everything the genre has to offer many times over. I’m also at a loss to think of the last time I saw this kind of material actually work well in anime. I guess it might be OK, but I’m not holding my breath.
Interest Rating **

Himawari!!
Another sequel to a show I’ve never seen and know nothing about.
Interest Rating *

Les Miserables
Being something of an uneducated fellow, my main knowledge of Les Mis extends about as far as knowing Maaya Sakamoto played Eponine in a stage production of the show, and the doujin fighting game Arm Joe. Anyway, this is a return to the World Masterpiece Theatre productions of old, and whilst I’ve not actually seen any of them, my tolerance to Oldtastic anime is higher than most. This sounds right up my alley, actually.
Interest Rating ****

Shuffle! Memories
So, this is some kind directors cut of that show from last year with some new bits shoehorned into it? Once again, I’ve not seen the original nor do I particularly know much about it. The character art does look quite nice (though I find those pointy elf ears rather off-putting), and it does seem to have something of a following, but this is pretty much outside of my usual sphere of anime interest.
Interest Rating *

Manabi Straight!
So, this is some kind of highschool slice ‘o life comedy set in the future? The promo material I’ve seen for this seems to be all over the place tone wise – no surprise that this is from ufotable then. Maybe if Coyote Ragtime Show hadn’t happened I’d be more open with this, but frankly I find the cutesy character designs a little too offputting.
Interest Rating **

Master of Epic
If I’d just seen the art I might have mistaken this for a new Tales game. As it is, I know better and know it isn’t Tales – it is, however, apparently based on an MMORPG. I guess what I said for Deltora Quest counts here, only doubly so.
Interest Rating *

Nodame Cantabile
I’ve been reading and love the manga, though I haven’t taken a look at the LA series. Still, I think my usual stance with manga adaptations will end up applying here – I’ve read the manga already, so I already know exactly what happens unless they veer off radically. Since its not an action series (therefore won’t have kickass action scenes scattered across it), it probably won’t have a huge amount to hold my interest. Still might be worth a look though.
Interest Rating ***

Hidamari Sketch
Argh, so cute! Anyhow, it looks to be yet another slice ‘o life school comedy. I’m not really sure I need yet another of those (seriously, there seems to be three or four of these a year these days), though the fact that Akiyuki Shinbo is attached to the project in some fashion bumps up the interest rating. I really do with AS would go and do another Petit Cossette or Soultaker, though. He’s wasting his talent on this stuff.
Interest Rating ***

Venus verus Virus
More goth lolis with guns, but it at least looks and sounds to be a touch darker than Saint October. The production staff does particularly sway me either way, but it does at least look like it might be decent. If really going to depend on how the animation quality holds up and what it delivers in the way of demon-busting pyrotechnics.
Interest Rating ***

Getsumen To Heiki Mina
Everybody loves Densha Otoko, and I have to admit I’m more than a little curious to see what they make of this if nothing else. The only problem is that, inevitably, previous attempts at taking a fictional show and making it into a real one haven’t really been all that successful – the Kujibiki Unbalance OAV series was alright, but then you have things like Space Travellers…
Interest Rating ***

GR -GIANT ROBO-
I’m really torn over this one – the old OAV series is a classic, but that pulled elements from all of Mitsuteru Yokoyamas work and mashed them all together in a fast-paced whirlwind of brilliance. This one looks rather more like a straight reworking of the original, without the awesome heroes and even more awesome villians. The director for this series hasn’t really done anything to sway my opinion, though it is being written by Chiki J. Konoka.
Interest Rating ***

Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho Tou
Errr, I actually kind of liked the anime version of Tenjou Tenge, and I get serious TenTen vibes from the website. Also, those scythe-like flicks of hair amuse me. Like VVV, though, interest is going to depend on how the animation for the action sequences holds out.
Interest Rating ****

Rocket Girls
Hmmm, I’m getting Stratos 4 vibes from this. In any case, I can’t help but think that this is just an excuse to have cute girls in ludicrously tight-fitting flight suits, and I can tell I’d hate Akane without even having to watch a single episode.
Interest Rating *

Ikkitousen Dragon Destiny
I watched the original series, but I kind of found it to be little more than a guilty pleasure, where the “guilty” part should be weighted heavily, and “pleasure” rather lightly. If I ever find myself really struggling to find something to watch I might give it a look, but thats pretty unlikely.
Interest Rating **

Well, I think thats about it for the Winter season. Its looking kind of like slim pickings for me, but thankfully there is a whole bunch of stuff coming in Spring and slightly beyond…

Idolmaster Xenoglossia
I’m pretty sure this has been confirmed for April now. Its Sunrise going all ZHiME again, but rather than taking characters from a bunch of their own previous shows, they are transplanting the cast of an Idol management arcade game into a post-apocalyptic mecha show. I’m, errr, getting kind of obsessive about the videogame version, having an import 360 and a copy of the game on preorder, having been downloading all the HD trailers of marketplace, importing assorted CDs and the like. Unsurprisingly, I’m rather looking forward to this show now, and the trailer from Comiket has done nothing but rasie my interest. Sure, I’m really not sure why they make odd design choices like changing the colour of Ioris’ hair, but I can cope.
Interest Rating *****

Nanoha StrikerS
Just when I thought I could watch this without feeling all pedo, they go and introduce a whole bunch of new lolis to make up for them having aged the original cast. I have a few worries about this one, actually – the rapidly expanding cast might end up being unwieldy, and with the current artwork pushing the returnings into the background I have to worry a little about the possibility of them marginalising their roles. Still, which this some looking to be rather more on the TSAB side of things it should hopefully have less of the moe-moe school days side of things and considerable more of the super-robot-with-mahou-shojo side of things which actually makes Nanoha worth watching.
Interest Rating ****

Baccano!
The website for the TV series exists somewhere, but I don’t think we’ve actually been given an ETA on this yet. The fact that a website exists make me hopeful for Spring, though. Andrew Cunningham, the translator for Tokyopops release of Kino no Tabi, and Seven Seas release of Boogiepop, raved about the novel (I hate his website, by the way – it just makes me wish I read Japanese well enough to read all these novels, as they sound an awful lot more like the stuff I’d enjoy then the stuff I end up reading in English). This, along with the wonderfully odd premise, inspires me with confidence that this one will be worth a look.
Interest Rating *****

Seirei no Moribito
Fantasy series which differentiates itself from the shows I dismissed previously by being of a rather more eastern styling (whilst, mercifully, being nothing like Fushigi Yuugi). The trailers look great, and the production staff working on this instill me with a great degree of confidence. This is going to be epic.
Interest Rating *****

Anyhow, that’s just about everything on my radar at the moment. Spring is looking to be a frankly epic season as far as new shows go.