Guilty Geass: Attack of the Vampire Mecha – aka – Kakumeiki Valvrave

Guilty Geass: Attack of the Vampire Mecha (Aka, Valvrave The Liberator) is a truly wonderful series, one that plays with the giant mecha genre in a way that is both entertaining and self-aware. I have never been a massive fan of mecha anime, with the Gundam franchise, and a few other seem far too serious minded for my taste. There is something truly brilliant, but also rather ludicrous about giant robots fighting each other with flashy weapons and special moves, unfortunately, by taking themselves seriously, the comedy that could come from such things is often lost. This doesn’t mean that I dislike mecha, just that I tend to gravitate towards the more light hearted side of the genre, where giant robot series like Gravion and Aquarion reign supreme. What Guilty Geass: Attack of the Vampire Mecha does is take the more serious elements of global politics and super weapons and present them in a far more self-aware form that is serious enough to be entertaining.

Suisei no Gargantia – Giant robots and water worlds

I have to admit that I was rather cautious when approaching this series, largely because of Gen Urobuchi’s involvement. As a writer he comes up with some interesting ideas and settings, but over the years I have watched series he has written and been consistently disappointed or generally bored by his approach to character and plot development, and largely horrible dialogue. So with this in mind I was wary of something similar happening to Suisei no Gargantia, and the first episode surprised me with its energy, colour and overall feel that made me want to watch it again. The first half of the episode was well directed, although the space battles felt oddly lifeless, without the same sense of energy and life that battles in Macross frontier, Vandred and Mouretsu had. Not that it’s a bad opening first half, but more that it didn’t grab me in the same way that other series have, and while it looked very pretty, it felt slightly like a throwaway scene, one whose purpose was to set up Red’s back-story so that we understand his actions on a strange, and to him, dangerous new world.

Hataraku Maou-sama! – Conquering the world one burger at a time

Hataraku Maou-sama took me a little by surprise actually. I had expected it to be silly, but the first episode was truly entertaining and the series really plays its jokes as straight as possible. As a premise it is far from unique or new, but in terms of execution, this series seems to take what could have been a slightly bizarre idea and turned it into one that was genuinely funny and entertaining to watch. The episode started with a nice introduction, similar to other fantasy anime, one that set out the laws of a strange world one full of magic and all manner of curious creatures. The shift from fantasy action to the everyday of life in Tokyo was fascinating to watch, not least because Maou and Ashiya truly acted like fish out of water. This is where the enjoyment of the episode came from actually, because, instead of tying together hundreds of gags, these characters played it perfectly straight, with the humour coming from their various misunderstandings and strange reactions to what many consider normal.

Chihayafuru Season 2 – The Triumphant return of Chihaya!

Chihayafuru was one of those special series that managed to fit high school romance together with a traditional Japanese card game called karuta. Part of the fun of the first series was watching how oblivious Chihaya was to the increasing affection from both Taichi and Arata, even though the later spent half the series as an invisible force without any physical presence. It was a series with complicated character that were all struggling with their own view of the world, and karuta acted as a way to bring them all together under a common cause. The brilliance of the original series was how much tension an apparently simple game could produce and the increasingly complicated nature of Chihaya’s relationship with it and her schools karuta club. Karuta is a fascinating game, one that relies upon an intimate knowledge and understanding of 100 cards that represent 100 classical Japanese poems. It is a popular, and also rather complex game at first, and because it is a classical Japanese card game doesn’t necessarily appeal to everyone of the same age as Chihayafuru’s characters.

Kotoura-san 01 – The road to acceptance is paved with perverted intentions, apparently

Mind reading is something that crops up from time to time, mostly in western comic books with super heroes who are psychic or those who possess other similar powers, although they do appear in manga and anime. The notion that reading peoples minds would someone be cool, or fun goes hand in hand with these sorts of characters, as if knowing precisely what people are thinking will somehow make your life better. But, let us approach this idea from the opposite direction and look at what might happen if, far from helping, the ability to read minds only caused conflict and hurt people. Kotoura-san looks at what might happen if you could read other peoples minds and all the negative effects that this sort of power could come with. Everyone keeps secrets or doesn’t say what they are thinking, many of them are actually politicians since saying exactly what your thinking would generally get rocks and other things thrown at you by a largely section of the population. However, the general ability to say one thing and think another is often essential for social interaction and getting on with people since it is arguably impossible to truly agree about everything, even with good friends.

Tamako Market 01 – Royal Birds, Mochi and Top Hats

Kyoto Animation have a wonderful habit of infusing their tales of apparently everyday life in Japan with a real sense of wonder and fantasy, with the main characters often wandering off into their own worlds or encountering strange and wonderful creatures or ideas. Tamako Market continues that tradition with the introduction of a relatively normal school girl and the mochi shop that her family runs, but instead of sticking with the ‘cute girls do cute things’ formula, we are also introduced to one of the greatest characters of the season. Dera Mochimazzi is a fascinating character, especially because he is a bird, and a talking bird at that, the humour that his presence and sharp remarks bring is wonderful to watch, especially when without his character Tamako Market would simply be a relatively everyday slice of life series. Although this doesn’t mean that slice of life anime are boring, but it is nice to see another take on it without having magical monsters and demons or aliens appearing from everywhere.

Love Live! School idol Project 01 – The Greatest idea ever!

What would you do if it had suddenly been announced that your school, or perhaps university was going to close down? Protest? Throw toilet paper at passers by? Rob a bank? Find the true path to inner peace and realise that it was all part of the grand scheme of life? Or start an idol group with the intention of making the school more popular and bringing in new applications? Probably out of all of those options the last may be furthest from anyone’s mind, but it appears to be at the forefront of Honoka’s mind as she learns the terrible news that her school is due to close down. In Love Live! School idol Project the school in question, Otonokizaka is situated at the crux of three well-known areas of Tokyo, Akihabara, Kanda and Jinbo. All three are cities in their own right with distinctive cultures, attitudes and atmospheres that allow them to market themselves to other cities and communities and create specific images that are meant to encapsulate what they are all about. Being stuck in the middle of this melting pot of culture, style, fashion and ideas will never be easy, and it will always be difficult to distinguish yourself from everyone around you.

Amnesia 01 – The cure to memory loss is bishounen

The idea of waking up in an apparently strange place with amnesia can produce some fascinating stories with the main character struggling to cope with a world that appears dark, dangerous and unknown. One of the best examples of this would have to be the Bourne Identity, with Jason Bourne waking up and having no idea where he is, who he is and why people are constantly trying to kill him. In face, much of the action set pieces are specifically designed around the notion that this characters body remembers all of his special forces training, but he doesn’t remember who he is or what he is supposed to be. Amnesia obviously doesn’t have this sort of set up, and Heroine certainly isn’t an amnesiac Special Forces agent with the ability to kill at a moments notice, but she could be. That is the strength of amnesia stories, regardless of who the characters might be at this moment in time, it is what they could be and what they have forgotten about that helps to move the story forward. That she simple wakes up in the backroom of a restaurant, dressed as a waitress, and clearly a member of the staff but with no recollection of what has happened would obviously come as quite a shock to most people.

Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru – Love is Forbidden!

Parents play a curious role in anime, they are often the invisible force, beings that exist and look after the main characters but don’t necessarily have a physical, or visible role. Throughout numerous anime the main characters, often in their teens appear to live in a curious realm, the everyday, but without their parents ever making a direct appearance in the series. In some cases the absence of parents is the catalyst, or reason for certain characters actions, but in the case of Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru or ‘OreShura’ for short, it is precisely because of the parents absence that Eita acts the way he does. His is a dysfunctional family, and arguably doesn’t necessarily exist due to his parent’s apparent dissatisfaction with their lives and willingness to leave him behind as they search for true love. The notion that parents can be so uninterested in their child that they willingly divorce and disappear never to be seen again is shocking, but unfortunately not unheard of. And the impact that it has clearly had on Eita would explain his current attitude towards love and the way he approaches life in general.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha 01 – Yuusha, Maou, Economics and a Dakimakura

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is a rather fascinating story that attempts to delve into the economic, social and cultural realities of warfare and the affect that they have on the wider population of numerous kingdoms, or in countries. The only other series that explored the affects of economy on kingdoms and those who rule them so far has to be Ookami to Kyoushinryou (Spice and Wolf), interestingly enough the Maoyuu Maou Yuusha reunites Holo and Lawrence in the form of their voice actors, although Fukuyama Jun is now stuck in my mind as The Dark Flame Master thanks to Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai. What is particularly interesting about Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is its setup, with Yuusha on a quest to destroy the terrible Maou and rid the world of ‘his’ corruption and destruction. Such a story sounds like something out of any classic fantasy, with elements of King Arthur and his noble quest, or even Lord of the Rings and its world where good and evil are apparently easily defined.