Phew! What a way to kick off the semester! Quite a wild ride, right guys? I mean, spectating Amnesia really had me jumping out of my seat…

Wait. We showed anime, too? I don’t believe you.

Alright, I kid, I kid. It definitely wasn’t that bad, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say any of these shows were awful in the slightest, though none of them exactly leaped out at me, either. I seem to keep hearing from a couple of people that they’re looking forward to my rage reviews for the semester. I’m really hoping the forecasts for this season’s shows aren’t totally true, but I guess the showings will tell.

Also, I’m not that picky of a viewer. I mean, Amagami-SS was one of my favorite shows from last year, and I can honestly say I enjoyed every arc. So I’m not too demanding, right? So on with the first impressions.

To remind everyone, the three shows we watched were Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, The World God Only Knows, and Kuragehime.

There are only so many things I can think to say about Soredemo, the first and most obvious being: it’s definitely by Shaft. Also, Hotori is definitely voiced by Hanazawa Kana Chiaki Omigawa. Beyond that, it was definitely a funny, ADD sort of show. It’s endearing in some ways and annoying in others, but mostly it’s just a relatively easy show to watch and laugh at, like these comedies usually are. Beyond that, I find that there isn’t much to say about this show. Like other shows of this type, I don’t know if I’ll go ahead and watch the rest, but I certainly wouldn’t gag at having to see more.

The World God Only Knows I had pretty high hopes for, since it had been on some top-ten lists. I think I’ll have to reserve judgment until I’ve seen more, even though I would be lying by omission if I didn’t admit that the only reason I want to see more is because it was on a couple of the top-ten lists here. Not to imply that it was some horrifying show, or something. Like with Soredemo, I did laugh, and the romance was sometimes interesting, but not exactly as… engrossing. For me, none of the characters seemed ‘likable’. Well, except maybe our resident magical girl demon janitor.

I did like the appreciation of fandom that the show seemed to express, and like Gene said in his description of it on his list, it seems to really know what kind of people are watching it. It feels like an anime for anime fans. It’s satirical and seems to lampshade every trope it can think of. That said, though, injecting satire into a show is only ALMOST enough to get me to watch it. But I will be watching more.

And then there was Kuragehime. I have very mixed feelings about Kuragehime. On one hand, the jokes can be clever, and the references were occasionally nice–not to sound like a jerk, but I internally lol at the gentleman who only exclaimed when Lu Bu was mentioned, when as someone who’s read The Three Kingdoms I can say there was a lot more meat to enjoy than just Lu Bu’s name; I am also only a little ashamed to admit that hearing Zhou Yu and Zhao Yun’s names within the same 2 seconds of each other tickled me, since Zhou Yu was my ‘main’ way back in Dynasty Warriors 3, and Zhao Yun’s was my friend’s. I’m also inclined to believe that the yellow jumpsuit is a reference to the Game of Death, not Kill Bill, considering the jumpsuit in Kill Bill is a reference to the one in Game of Death. I also don’t remember the Bride using nunchucks, but maybe my memory is fading.

So anyway, Kuragehime. It has stuff like that: references that amuse me and whatnot. But then the rest of the show is so… shoujo. Okay, Wiki describes it as josei, but I call it shoujo, and the overall style of the show grates on me a little bit. The idea that the more timid, bespectacled man could turn out to be the love interest does intrigue me a bit, but something tells me it’ll end up being Kuranosuke who ‘gets the girl’. I don’t want to say I hate Kuranosuke because he’s a cross-dresser, because that sounds callous, but I hate his place in this show. With the overall shoujo feel, it seems like he’s just there to be a pretty face for fangirls to obsess over.

I’m also getting tired of shoujo stories about unreasonable shut-in girls who shun the ‘outside world’ even more than it shuns them. First there was–what was it called?–Wallflower. Then Kimi ni Todoke (though this gets points because she isn’t TRYING to be an unpopular shut-in), and then this. It makes it difficult for me to care when the main character herself doesn’t. It’s like when I was watching Clannad and the first lines were ‘I hate this town’ and I went, “Oh, great,” rolled my eyes, and reluctantly continued (but then it turned out to be good, so don’t let that discourage you from Clannad).

Anyway, those are my first impressions. Feel free to comment or disagree or spit on my taste in anime below. In summary, though, I didn’t hate any of these shows, so hopefully it’s still quite awhile before we get to the bad anime night.

P.S. The pictures may disappear. That is because I am a nublet who direct links.