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「Untouchable Queen」
If you were only expecting big-breasted girls getting their clothes torn up in battle, you only have part of the picture for this adaptation of Dall-Young Lim‘s manga. Not only do the Void Texture “stigmata” embedded in their bodies regenerate their clothes, the female warriors known as Pandoras have to cope with getting their limbs chopped off, throats slit, and eyes gouged out too.
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「黒い死神は金色の妖精を見つける」 (Kuroi Shinigami wa Kin-iro no Yousei wo Mitsukeru)
“The Black Reaper Finds the Golden Fairy”
Set in a fake nation smack dab between almost all that is Europe, a made up school with made up char- oh wait, did I go too far? Let’s just say it’s not a high school in Japan. I don’t know who or what was more serious about mysteries in this production, but someone out there wasn’t kidding around when they wanted to adapt GOSICK. The story does not wait for you, the characters do not wait for you, and you will get a mystery in the first episode, like it or not.
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「夢現」 (Yume Utsutsu)
“Half Asleep & Half Awake”
Hello ladies and gents. Look at Madoka, now back to Merry, now back to Madoka, now back to Merry. Sadly, it isn’t Merry, but if you ignore the Shinbou and SHAFT and purely look at the story, it could be like Merry. In all seriousness, they’re obviously both completely different shows. However, one thing does link them, and that is the theme of dreams. Dreams can make interesting concepts, and if you’ve never imagined such a thing, a certain movie proved it can be quite the plot device. Yumekui’s spin on it might not be as mind bending, but dreams becoming reality can be a scary thing.
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「夢の中で会った、ような……」 (Yume no Naka de Atta, You na……)
“As If I Met Her in My Dreams……”
From the great people at SHAFT comes an original work that looks like it’s going to blow my mind away. After being pleasantly surprised with their work with Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru last season, I was ecstatic to see that SHAFT was going to put out their own original series. While it is a “Mahou Shoujo” or magical girl show, I dove in head first, ready for anything.
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「クラスメイトは全員女」 (Kurasumeito wa Zenin Onna)
“The Classmates Are All Girls”
As with most premieres, the start of Infinite Stratos was primarily about character introductions and establishing the plot, most of which I already mentioned in the Winter 2011 Preview. What was nice though was the cold opening of some IS training that helped offset the lack of any scrimmages for the rest of the episode.
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「片想い」 (Kataomoi)
“Unrequited Love”
Before you burn all your Kimi ni Todoke merchandise like the rebellious fans I know you all are, let me calm you down a bit. Yes, this is a recap, but I can give you a couple reasons not to shoot your next door neighbor in rage. And thus, we begin the Winter Quarter.
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beelzebub 07:00 NTV (1/9) |
Dragon Crisis! 25:30 CTC (1/10) |
Bleach 18:00 TX |
Starry☆Sky 16:00 animate.tv (12/23) |
Wolverine 22:00 ANIMAX (1/7) |
Cardfight!! Vanguard 08:00 TX (1/8) |
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| Suite PreCure ♪ 08:30 EX (2/6) |
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? 25:30 TVS (1/10) |
Rio -RainbowGate!- 23:00 MX (1/4) |
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica 25:25 MBS (1/6) |
To Aru Majutsu no Index II 23:30 AT-X (10/8) |
FREEZING 09:30 AT-X (1/8) |
|
| STAR DRIVER Kagayaki no Takuto 17:00 MBS/TBS (10/3) |
LEVEL E 25:45 TX (1/10) |
Kimi ni Todoke 2ND SEASON 24:59 NTV (1/4) |
IS Infinite Stratos 25:25 TBS (1/6) |
GOSICK 25:23 TX (1/7) |
Bakuman. 18:00 NHK E (10/2) |
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| Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector 22:00 MX (10/3) |
Moshidora 22:55 NHK (3/14-18, 3/21-25) |
Yumekui Merry 25:55 TBS (1/6) |
Tegami Bachi REVERSE 23:55 TX (10/2) |
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| FRACTALE 24:45 CX (1/13) |
Onii-chan no Koto ga Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne!! 24:30 tvk (1/8) |
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| Hourou Musuko 25:15 CX (1/13) |
Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! 26:58 MBS (1/8) |
* Others: SUPERNATURAL THE ANIMATION, Houkago no Pleiades
| Legend: | 7 | Divine | 3 | Kiiragi | 4 | Takaii | 2 | Prooof | Not covering |
|---|
The start of the winter 2011 season is only days away, so here’s the quick rundown on what me and the writers will be covering. As I mentioned in the Winter 2011 Preview, I’m reducing my personal load to about half of what it was last season by only picking up a couple more series — Infinite Stratos and FRACTALE. To help compensate, both Kiiragi and Takaii have offered to pick up an additional series to cover, adding GOSICK and Kore wa Zombie Desu ka respectively to the ones they decided on in the preview. Prooof on the other hand is still too busy to pick up new shows, but will continue being the resident Bleach specialist like he’s always been.
* More after the jump on some plans for the new season.
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The new year is rapidly approaching and the winter anime season along with it, so I’d like to present my detailed look into all the upcoming series. As usual, I plan to watch all the ones that interest me to a certain degree and have listed my intentions in the entries below. This season, I only plan to pick up a couple more shows to blog though, as I’d like to take more time away from the site for personal reasons. The past year has been an ambitious one given the number of shows I covered every season, and it’s set some unrealistic long-term expectations on what comes out of the site. Rather than continuing at the feverish pace of 12-16 shows per season, I plan to drop my personal load to a much more reasonable 3-5 shows and take on more in some seasons if time permits. I had only planned to cover four shows this winter, but with STAR DRIVER and To Aru Majutsu no Index II added to my plate, I’m going to make time for six. That will still put me at post a day if I include the Naruto manga, which combined with Kiiragi, Takaii, and Prooof’s coverage, means there shouldn’t be any noticeable shortage of new content.
Happy Holidays! Please note that this preview will be kept at the top for the next while, so be sure to scroll past it or check the Recent Entries on your right for new posts.
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As a treat for manga readers, the trend these days seems to be bundling Original Animation DVDs (OADs) with volume releases that animate a few parts of the original source material. In the case of ones that had already seen an adaptation like Yozakura Quartet, these bonus episodes also tend to please the purist crowd, who strongly feel that the anime should be an exact moving and talking version of what they read.
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「セックス・アンド・ザ・アマーズ」 (Sekkusu ando za Amāzu)
“Sex and the Amars”
Almost as weird as Manglobe taking on The World God Only Knows, Brains Base also steps out of its usual genre territory and decided to do an adaptation of the shoujo/josei series Kuragehime.