Day: January 3, 2009

Sorry this took so long to get written up – leaving for a week set me back a week in terms of working on this. Regardless, the new year is upon us and with it is another new season of anime. Since this isn’t a spring or fall season, there are relatively fewer new offerings, but that still leaves around 24 major titles, not including the kiddie shows and some long-running shows. As usual, I’ll try to watch the first episode of most shows within certain parameters (in other words, not the kiddie shows), and what I list here are the chances of me actually blogging something based on my initial impressions from promotional material. However, even if I list the chances for a show as good or guaranteed, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll stick with it for more than a few episodes.

By no means does this list reflect every single anime series that is going to be aired, though I did try to be as comprehensive as I could. Check out MOON PHASE for an entire listing, syoboi’s calendar for specific air-times, and Fansub Wiki’s Winter 2009 page for who’s tentatively subbing what.

Technical Note: All times are given in a 24-hour, relative-day format where times are extended to show which day they belong to. For instance, Friday morning at 1:30AM would become Thursday at 25:30 to show that the episode aired late Thursday night.

RIDE BACK http://www.rideback-anime.jp/ Premiere on January 11th, 2009 Airtime in Japan (JST, GMT+9): Sundays at 24:00 Airtime in U.S. (EST, GMT-4): Sundays at 10:00 Information Links: ANN Encyclopedia, AnimeNfo, AniDB, MyAnimeList, syoboi RIDE BACK is a very intriguing story about a time of great political turmoil in the not-so-distant future, but it focuses on a girl who was raised as a dancer and is attending a university. She accidentally gets involved with the Rideback club – Ridebacks are a cross of motor bike and mecha – and puts her dancing skills to use on a Rideback just as things start to erupt politically. The original manga is very good, and I’m really looking forward to this anime adaptation that’s being done by Madhouse and Digital Frontier and has Mizuki Nana in the lead role. Trillian is just as excited about this series as I am and might be blogging this instead of me since I have a fairly busy Sunday schedule. Odds I’ll Blog This: Good

Hetalia Axis Powers http://hetalia.com/ Premiere on January 24th, 2009 Airtime in Japan (JST, GMT+9): Saturdays at 25:52 Airtime in U.S. (EST, GMT-4): Saturdays at 11:52 Information Links: ANN Encyclopedia, AnimeNfo, AniDB, MyAnimeList, syoboi It’s hard to describe Hetalia Axis Powers as anything but cute. Based on a popular webcomic, the series follows the adventures of the male personifications of various countries of the world, including the cowardly Italy and hard-working Germany, in a comedic parody of history (not always WWII-era and not always the Axis side). Studio DEEN is animating this, and each episode is only five minutes long, so it might be worth watching as just a quick dose of humor. Odds I’ll Blog This: Decent

Note: This is a rather long and fairly comprehensive list of January shows. Much much more after the jump, including a bunch of promo videos.