Fall 2013 Anime: Yowamushi Pedal

When you look at Japanese and American anime fandom, no subject polarizes the two more than sports anime/manga. While sports manga can grow to be insanely popular in Japan, they've never really exploded here in the U.S., despite the efforts of Viz media. One theory for why anime and manga based on sports aren't really popular in America is because of the stereotype that sports and nerds go together like oil and water so, to your average western anime fan, having sports, those things you hate that have left you ostracized from your peers, combined with anime, those things you love that have also left you ostracized from your peers, can lead to some pretty conflicting emotions. Never the less, this fall season brings us a number of sports-related anime. Some are new seasons for old favorite's like, Kuroko's Basketball and Hajime no Ippo while, others are new to the scene like, Ace of Diamond and Yowamushi Pedal.



ANALYSIS: The basic set up for your average shonen sports anime/manga is pretty simple. You take a protagonist who has no interest in the sport the story revolves around, despite have an uncanny potential to be super good at it, a rival who eats, drinks, sleeps and, dreams said sports, a supporting cast of quirky characters and, boom, you have yourself a winner. This show has all of these qualifications fit perfectly. Our protagonist, Sakamichi Onoda is a bright-eyed and cheerful mega-nerd who uses his bicycle to trek to and from Akihabara, the anime otaku mecca located in Tokyo. However he fails to notice that his excursions to Akiba and back are well beyond the scope of what someone should be capable of doing with a bulky old bicycle commonly ridden by old housewives. Sakamichi's soon-to-be rival, high school cycling aficionado, Shunsuke Imaizuni,takes notice of his uncanny cycling abilities and challenges him to a race. After that, it's only a matter of time before Sakamichi is embroiled in the fast paced world of competitive cycling.

My Progress This Season

Well, I figure that my dear readers deserve to know how I have been occupying myself recently with anime, so I have decided to write a post on my general progress.Some older shows with which I have been dallying are Hunter x Hunter, a series of shorts named Sparrow's Hotel (completed in one evening), Majestic Prince, The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye, Solty Rei, and Tower of Druaga: The Sword of Uruk.At last, I've almost finished with the original Hunter x Hunter, having just watched Kurapica's major battle with one of the Spiders gang.It was so pleasant to see the god-like and glorious victory over a certain murdering blackguard-whatever his name is-that I have difficulty putting my feelings to words.Sparrow's Hotel is a great comedy about a kunoichi working at a midsized hotel, which I heartily recommend to anyone needing a laugh.I'm still trying to finish off Majestic Prince, which has to be one of the greatest mech shows of recent years-I place it next to Code Geass.You might know that two of those last three shows figure on my top fifty list, and hence deserve their own posts.Tower of Druaga is a great fantasy, and the first episode alone, which parodies fantasy anime in a grand style, suffices to give it a large place in any otaku's heart.



But, now onto some brief descriptions of this season's shows.I still have to get around to Samurai Flamenco and Coppelion, but I expect to accomplish this soon.At any rate, my ability to keep up with new shows is much the highest since 2009.That says something about the quality of this season!

Autumn 2013 Kaleidoscope

Gingitsune - 03: Not blogging this episode because nothing much really happened, but still an adorable little episode to dream away to. I stand by my case that that fox is adorable. The turtle was a one-off character, but he did illustrate the concept of time really well, which is quite important for our white friend's development.



Golden Time - 03: I was surprised by the weird cult that appeared out of nowhere, but I guess that weird obsessions are a theme of this series. However, what happened afterwards was quite interesting: two characters just sat down and had quite a long talk for anime standards, in which they got to know each other much better. Lots of interesting stuff happened there.

Zola's Initial Thoughts on Fall 2013 Animes!

Hiyo! It's been a bit busy with midterms and all that (psh all Pokemon!) But as I said on the podcast 2 weeks ago, I'll be doing a small writeup on the shows that I started. Before I begin, some of these animes I only watched ONE episode of. As such, I might not be the best judge and should it actually get better (or potentially worse?), I'll make a note of it in a future post. Also, I won't be going over the "sequel" animes just because I feel that if you're curious about it, you probably watched the previous seasons. Also, I feel like I harp on the same idea too much when it comes to these. Therefore, no talk on Kuroko no Basuke, Hajime no Ippo, Little Busters (WATCH IT!), etcNow then let's begin!



btw, picture is of Hanazawa Kana's new role in Tokyo Ravens at Nastume. Kawaii deshou!? HAHAHAHA

My thoughts on Sports anime

i've made it fairly clear that i'm not the biggest fan of aport anime.

i never got into prince of tennis.

anything that has a tournament in it tends to bore me to tears (sport or otherwise)

Autumn 2013 Kaleidoscope

PHI BRAIN 03 - 02: Kaito, Rook: if you were in a giant room that was turning and moving aroundyou should have noticed that. I see that this series starts off well by pushing your suspense of disbelief to its limits. Everyone's taking puzzles even more seriously here. The villains are basically "mustdestroyall puzzlers in the world!! All Puzzlers must die, so let's beat them by using puzzles!" - I'm not kidding! But yeah, for the things that really mattered, this episode delivered. The characters were as fun as ever.



ORE NO NOUNAI BLAHBLAH - 02: Unfortunately a lot worse due to some bad direction and animation issues, but there still were plenty of good jokes in this episode.

Introduction to the Anime Grab Bag

Ani-Column is done from the blog. I'll still write them, but it's no longer going to be a weekly thing and will now happen randomly whilst this new weekly installment takes its place: the Anime Grab Bag.



I've been trying my hand on the episodic blogging thing, but ever since Sword Art Online, I realized that I'm just not good at coming up with something new to say about an episode every week. The fact that I keep picking shows that end up disappointing me or don't give me anything new to talk about each week works against me a bit, and whilst I thought about doing things in batches, I decided after a year of failure to combine my dropped "monthly summary" project with weekly episodic blogging in order to create the "not at all new because I've seen some blogs do his before" grab bag section. Basically, I just talk about a few random episodes I saw throughout the week and I might even toss in some older series I'm watching into the mix as well, just because. Simple, short, and effective, right?

Anime Grab Bag #1

So with all the new Fall 2013 shows out, let's sample some of their second episodes. BTW, picture captions are back.



KYOUKAI NO KANATA: EPISODE 2

2013 Fall Season (R) Spring smurfs 3d Season (R)

Confirmed the arrival of the autumn season and the screen has not been given a guide prepared by animelerle neregate.com on. You can open a new tab to see the image in full screen size of 5.66MB. For any comments and suggestions on the subject of re-l124c41 + out or you can contact me by. Renewed and updated list of fragments in this title add to the blog. Season smurfs 3d interpretations



can be found here. Complete List of Characters Series: Aikatsu! 2 Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio-Arpeggio of Blue Steel-BlazBlue: Diabolik Lovers Alter Memory Coppelion Galilei Donna Diamond no Ace Crusher Freezing Vibration Gaist Gingitsune Golden Time Gundam-Build Fighters-Hajime no Ippo: IS-Infinite Stratos-2 Kakumeiki Valvrave Rising 2 kikou Kizutsukanai-Unbreakable Machine Doll-la wa Shoujo Kill Kill Kuroko no kyoukai no Kanata Kyousougiga Basuki 2 Little Busters! Log Horizon ~ Refrain ~ Lupin Sansei: Princess of the Breeze - Kakusareta Kuuchuu Toshi Magi: The Kingdom of Magic Meganebu! Miss Monochrome Nagi no Bushi Road Non Non Biyori smurfs 3d Kairiku Asukara Neppu ga Ore no nouna Sentakushi, Gakuen de Jama Shiteiru smurfs 3d Zenryoku Oshiri it Kajiri Lovecome Mushi 2 Outbreak Company Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle 3 Pocket Monsters: THE ORIGIN Ginga Saikyou Pupa Pocket Monsters Ultimate XY Zero: Battle Spirits Samurai Sentai Flamenco Seiyuu Voice-Torm 7 Sekai de Ichiban Narita Tsuyoku! Strike the Blood Brothers Super Seisyun Teekyuu 3 Tesagure! Walkure Romanze Bukatsu-mono White Album 2 Yowamushi Pedal Tokyo Ravens Yozakura Quartet ~ Hana no Uta ~ Shibushibu Shuushoku Yuusha wa Ore ni wo Narenakatta Shimashita Ketsui. OVA: Chihayafuru Fate / Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Free! Genshiken Nidaime IS-Infinite Stratos-2 Kill Me Baby KissXsis Maken-ki! You can `yuu Miyakawa-ke no Kuufuku Seitokai Yakuindomo. Dai 2 Ki Suisei no Gargantia Terra e ... Machigatte Iru wa Ore no Seishun Lovecome Yozakura Quartet Yahari Movies: ARISE: Ghost in the Shell 2 Captain Harlock Code Geass: Akito 2 Boukoku no Eiga Dokidoki! Precure:

Autumn 2013 Kaleidoscope

I'll try to post these entries on Sunday Evening. They're just a collection of impressions about the series I watched that I didn't blog. No rankings, no systems, just raw impressions and opinions. Enjoy.



HUNTER X HUNTER 96 - 99: Hunter X Hunter reached another one of its annoying phases again. The context of these four episodes was wonderful. I love what the creators are trying to do here in the big picture. The inrigues that come from all kinds of sides, some characters being really careful in their approaches in order to win. Great. But what happened in these four episodes was completely inconsequential in which the named cast just one-sidedly takes down a bunch of ants with weird powers. The part with the spiders was fine: it actually showed lots of new things about them, and gave them much appreciated depth, and the ants they took down were ants we know. However, Gon's battle against that snake, bat and was really annoying to sit through and just served to kill some time. Not to mention that that fight just made no sense and it was way too overcomplicated for its own good.

Completely Baseless and Completely Accurate Assumptions About the Fall 2013 Season

Skipping over a bunch of new season stuff in favor of getting to some other new season stuff I can actually talk about. Don't have much to say about Gingitsune. It's perfectly acceptable but nothing I care about. I won't be watching any of this season's sequels, save for Teekyu 3, due to never watching or completing any of the previous seasons. So no Keroppi's Basketball or Valvrave or Hajime no Ippo or Pie Brain or Beatles White Album: Hard Day's Night Harder.



Also, no Gundam Model Builder You Will Buy More Toys Consumer Lackey, because Gundam sucks.

Kill La Kill

I'm going to hijack this post in order to write down my thoughts on a question that has me stumped in nearly every season: What the hell am I going to blog?



So with my mind on the past first episodes, I need to figure out: which series are interesting to talk about on a weekly basis? This season is exceptionally difficult, because there are just so many good series. It usually takes me quite a while to figure this out. Usually I keep this outside of the blog and to myself, but what the heck, this time I'm going to write down my thought process here.

First Impressions: Fall 2013

the new season has finally started and i play to watch one episode (or at least as much as i can stand of one episode) of every full length show i can get my hands on.



I did also watch Diabolik Lovers i'm not going to talk abotu it here... also it's only 15 mins long so it doens't fit under 'full length.'

First Impression: Hajime no Ippo: Rising

"Haha, time to watch my light-hearted favorite sports anime!"



"Hey! Guys! Guess who's an important character! Ippo's father! Whom you've never seen before! Well, ever wondered why? Because he's dead! Here! Have a flashback on that! This is relevant because just like Ippo's father, Ippo's upcoming opponent is a man of the sea!"

Rise of the Anime Titan: Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)

This past year started out like any normal one for otaku worldwide.The spring calendar was full of colorful moe shows, a few comedies, a chunk of fan-service shows, and a couple of surprises.However, out of the few surprises, which included three mecha shows, no one saw this one coming. Written by Hajime Isayama and published by Kondansha (Kodansha Comics USA stateside), Attack on Titan (Called Shingeki no Kyojin in Japan), animated by Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex)made its debut and did more than conquer Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook for a few days.Attack on Titan has managed to do the one thing that hasn't been done since the heyday of Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist, and even Spirited Away: Make fans of anime, new and old, care again.



Hailed by many as "The Game of Thrones of Anime," Attack on Titan is a dark fantasy series focused on humanity's fight for survival against the indomitable gargantuan creatures, The Titans, which loom over the populace in their domed cities and rain down havoc and destruction at each turn. Eren Yaeger, a young man from the first city hit by the Titans, rises to oppose the creatures after watching his mother die at the hands of these monsters.Hell-bent on revenge, Eren, along with his adoptive sister, Mikasa, and their friend, Armin, join the military with a number of others to combat the beasts, using equipment and skills to perform action-packed feats that would make Spider-Man proud.Although it seems like a simple premise, there is more than meets the eye here (Yes, I went the Bay route).More twists than a pretzel and surprises abound in this series that is currently at 25 episodes. It's a mystery wrapped in thrilling action.Even the fans following the source material (the comic book) have been left guessing what happens next.

Fall 2013 Anime: What's Worth Watching

Fall is here and it's packed with some very good titles to watch. I haven't been through all of them but this list might help you to keep an eye on the most anticipated series.



* KUROKO NO BASKET 2: 2nd season of one of the best sports anime.

Hajime no Ippo Rising New Cast List, OP and ED Confirmations, and Trips to the Past!

Hajime no Ippo, or Fighting Spirit, was my first sports anime of any kind. It's a genre that's been incredibly kind to me with other works like Rookies and RRR, so I've always held Ippo close as one of the only long running manga, over 1000 chapters now, that I actually follow. It has it's ups and downs, as long running shonen tends to, but I've stuck with it and it remains good to me even now with fights like Volg vs. Mike.



So a new anime comes down the pipe, Hajime no Ippo: Rising, and we're all pretty interested. The news that the anime will run is actually pretty old, but all we've really gotten is that it will be made. It wasn't until just now that we've gotten a huge rush of new info with the translated version of Chapter 1032, riding the cusp of Ippo's world rank match. We've got all the new cast members:

Hajime no Ippo Rising Episode 1 "The Strongest Challenger" Teaser Episodes and First Impressions

Once again, I made these this time. I ran a better quality video, but I still apologize for any lacking quality in the images.



Welcome to the new season of Ippo!

Autumn 2013

October marks the beginning of the final anime season of 2013.The Autumn anime season is typically a heavy one, marking the beginning of many new shows and the return of a number of favorites that were lucky or popular enough to be brought back.And Autumn 2013 is no exception, seeing as the line-up for this season has numerous amounts of potentially good or great anime to choose from.And as is the case with every season, these next few weeks are crucial to deciding which shows are worth keeping and which ones can be forgotten.And as with every anime season preview prior, I'll take a quick but largely complete overview of all the shows airing this season while also including my thoughts and plans for each show.So onward, to the Autumn 2013 Anime Season Preview!



Starting off with the returning anime for Autumn 2013, a dozen anime will resume, beginning each franchise again with a continuation, sequel, spin-off or some other type of series revival.Of course, this doesn't even mention all the OVAs and movies coming out this season too, which continue to expand and grow at an amazing rate.Nevertheless, the line-up for TV anime returning this season are: FREEZING VIBRATION, HAJIME NO IPPO 3, INFINITE STRATOS S2, KAKUMEIKI VALVRAVE 2, KUROKO NO BASKET S2, KYOUSUGIGA TV, LITTLE BUSTERS!: REFRAIN, MAGI: THE KINGDOM OF MAGIC, PHI BRAIN S3, POKEMON XY, TEEKYUU S3, WHITE ALBUM 2, and YOZAKURA QUARTET: HANA NO UTA.Of course, I'm unfamiliar with a number of these franchises, so if you've seen them and plan on continuing to watch them, I have nothing of value here.And if you're watching to watch them without any prior knowledge, I recommend you look elsewhere since other sources would be much more valuable and experienced than what you'd find here.However, about half of these anime I am familiar with and have plans to continue this season.So with that, here is my outlook on the sequels I plan on following this season: