Anime Winter 07-08 Preview Thread

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hokay, so even though the Fall one got very few posts I'm doing a winter one! some really interesting releases this here winter, though I haven't gathered any large amount of info on anything. For links to the Japanese sites of all shows, airdates, and info on sub groups, [url=http://www.fansubwiki.com/Who_Subs_What:_WINTER_2008]click here[/url].
[B]
Table of Contents: [/B]
S1. Stuff I'm Excited About
S2. Stuff I'll try out for sure
S3. Stuff I'm not touching.

[B]S1[/B]

[B]1. GUNSLINGER GIRL SEASON 2 [/B]- So, starting with the obvious, GG season 2 is coming and I couldn't be happier. Not only my favorite manga of all time, but a very excellent anime, there's pretty much no way this can go wrong. It will cover the Pinocchio arc which contains THE two best fight scenes that exist in manga, one of which is so epic it's unbelievable. Hearsay tells me the first ep will likely be a recap, so even if you missed the first season, give this one a shot!

[B]2. Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei -[/B] the question on everyones mind - will AFK actually finish subbing the damn first season before the second starts?! In any event, every part of the concept of a second season of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is positively erotic. Even though I haven't even watched all of the episodes that [i]have[/i] been subbed yet (despite seeing several 3 times now) SZS is definitely one of my favorite shows and one of the ones that assured my overblown love of Akiyuki Shinbo (sometime referred to as "god").

[B]3. Shigofumi [/B]- Zee Oh Emm Gee. So, the first time I ever looked at a piece of art for this series, from the same person who did the art for Kino no Tabi, I was instantly in love. Then I found out it was based on a light novel, which is ALWAYS a plus. Then I saw the rich, beautiful animation and the abound comparisons to Shinigami no Ballad and I was completely in love. This one will definitely be a cult favorite.

[B]4. Ookami to Koushinryou [/B]- So, Andrew Cunningham, the guy behind translating the Kino no Tabi and Boogiepop novels (AKA best guy evar) and also one of the first to draw attention to the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei manga in America (as 'the most untranslatable manga ever' ...go figure) [url=http://easternstandard.pbwiki.com/The+Wolf+and+the+Spices]did a review of the light novel this is based on.[/url] Now, I'm a huge fan of light-novel-based-anime already as it is, but that review piques my interest like no tomorrow. And the art is ****ing beautiful.

[B]5. Hatenkou Yuugi [/B]- The shoujo show of the season, this one sounds pretty fun - it's evidently from the same magazine as Loveless and some other popular titles that I haven't seen, but I'll be glad to finally catch a shoujo series for once. The art is pretty.... The biggest reason I'll be watching is just cuz of how awesome Shugo Chara turned out to be XD

[B]S2[/B]

[B]1. PERSONA -Trinity Soul- [/B]- Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3 might be my favorite RPG of all time, even though I've only played it for around 10 hours (I don't game >_>) so I'm excited about their being an anime, though the story is set 10 years and the future and stars 3 ungodly bishi-boys. Now, I'm none to keen on game-based-anime (especially if they start going on about 'that thing that happened 10 years ago' or something) but the plot is intriguing and, I mean, it IS Shin Megami Tensei. I won't get my hopes up, but there's a chance this could kick major ***.
[B]
2. Minami-ke [/B]- I still need to catch up on the current season of Minami-ke (as well as, you know, everything from the fall season ^^;;) however once I do, I'm sure the second one will be inviting. The odd parts are how they decided to use a second studio for the new season, but it could be that they just wanted to keep it fresh? Who knows, but it'll be interesting for a show like this to continue onto a whole new season.

[B]3. ARIA the ORIGINATION [/B]- So, I STILL haven't watched the first two seasons of ARIA even though everyone and their ****ing grandma hails it as a masterpiece. I should probably get it done quickly so that I can watch the 3rd season along with all the cool kids.

[B]4. Mnemosyne[/B] - There was a 3-minute preview of this which looked potentially awesome. Some great-looking action scenes abound and tons of yuri hints. It's very likely to contain a lot of nudity and blood, which is the only thing that kind of turns me off of it, but there's the chance we're headed for a badass action series (something the Fall season lacked).

[B]5. true tears [/B]- Based on a bishoujo game, which is a shtick I'm tired of, however the character designs are [i]so awesome[/i] that I have to watch.

[B]6. H2O [/B]- I would have backlogged this as another bishoujo game adaption that I wasn't going to give a chance, but then I found out the main character is blind. Interesting, to say the least.

[B]S3[/B]

[B]1. Rosario to Vampire[/B] - mindless fanservice

[B]2. Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de (They are my noble masters) [/B]- mindless-er fanservice

[B]3. Sisters of Wellber 2 [/B]- Even though I was one of the like, 6 people to watch any of it and I only saw 6 eps since it was never finished getting subbed. and I doubt season 2 will be either. I love how everyone's reaction to this is 'people watched season 1?! who?!'[/COLOR]

[Panache]

Nothing besides H2O and Persona look horribly interesting. I haven't finished Gunslinger Girls season one yet so I really don't know if I care or not. Hopefully the whole blind thing in H2O will not be the only thing unique and interesting about it.

[Dagger]

Looking forward to Mnemosyne, Aria the Origination and Gunslinger Girl the most (roughly in that order, I suppose). Won't touch Persona until I've played the game; won't touch Zetsubou Sensei until it's done and I can marathon it (or not) at my leisure.

A couple things about [b]Mnemosyne[/b]: It's a 10th anniversary project for broadcaster AT-X. The companies animating it are Xebec (Fafner, The Third, Heroic Age, plenty of other stuff) and Genco (which seems to have done miscellaneous work on a lot of shows... I'm guessing that they're here for CG help or something?).

The most noteworthy thing about it, in my mind, is that it's a full-CG anime. If the trailer is true to the in-show quality, it's also the only CG anime I've seen yet that succeeds in basically looking and feeling like a hand-drawn series. I was ready to dismiss it as soon as I heard about that aspect of the production, but the trailer really surprised & swayed me.

The other reason I'm interested (besides, well, assassins and yuri) is that the original character designs are by Chuo Higashiguchi, who has done a lot of great work for eroge, especially dark action-oriented games. I absolutely love how he draws mature women. For that matter, the main character of Mnemosyne reminds of me one of my favorite older designs of his, the [url=http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/2734/saya6qk8.jpg][u]butt-kicking[/u][/url] [url=http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/2912/saya12ao0.jpg][u]doctor[/u][/url] from Saya no Uta.

Screenplay is by someone who's worked on Noein, RahXephon, Aquarion, Eureka Seven, etc.

~Dagger~

[Meggido]

I'm interested in a bunch of movies that are coming out this season. The first being the Kara no Kyoukai movies. So far there's two this month and one next month coming out but there is supposed to be a total of seven movies. These movies are based around one character but is set in the same world as Tsukihime. This is actually based on the novel of the same name by Type-moon.

The other one is the .hack//GU movies. A total of three movies which as far as I know are being released this month and 1 January and the final February. As the games don't look like having any chance of release in Australia this is the closest I'll get to the story.

I'm also looking forward to Persona since I've only heard good things about Persona 3.

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I don't think I replied to the fall season thread but I did find it helpful.

The main three that I'm looking forward to right now are Aria the Origination, Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and Minami-ke.

Aria totally caught me off guard with how much I ended up loving it, so now I'm dying to see the next season. The little hints in the last episode of Aria the Natural [spoiler]that the girls might be nearing the Prima test[/spoiler] made me go a bit crazy....

As for Zetsubou Sensei, I don't think I'm going to watch the second season until I can finish the first (assuming someone besides a.f.k. picks it up). But I still want more.

I picked up Minami-ke just recently but I'm really liking it, so naturally I'm interested in the second season. Though ANN has it listed as an alternate retelling and I haven't heard much else about it so I'm not sure if it'll actually be a continuation of the first season.

I'll most likely pick up a few more series once things start being released, but I liked the wait-and-see approach I took for the fall season. Once more info and some impressions start rolling in I'll try out whatever sounds interesting.[/color]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]the thing about waiting for other groups, though, is that they might not be sufficient... I watched a bit of ep 1 done by bure, and man... they translated everything totally different, no 'pink supervisor' and even 'I am in despair!' and 'I die now' were done differently... and since even my knowledge of Japanese gives me the proper knowledge of those lines, I wasn't about to put up with it, lol.

No surprise, though, with 'the most untranslatable show ever' >_> ad besides, Shinbo shows ARE notorius for lacking subs (I hear Pani Poni Dash suffered the same problem, and we both know how Hidamari Sketch turned out)[/COLOR]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]That's why I've held off on getting ep11 until a.f.k. releases it, yeah. The other groups just aren't doing as good a job with it. But if some other group does do a decent job with the second season it'll be really tempting.

Pani Poni Dash! turned out pretty good though. A lot of the chalkboard stuff wasn't translated in the episodes themselves but the pdf files that gg included with them had everything translated. I think that was mainly due to the text being crammed in so tightly that there wasn't room to fit translations in too.[/color]

[Dagger]

Just a heads-up for mecha fans... [url=http://randomc.animeblogger.net/2007/12/25/macross-frontier-01/][u]Random Curiosity[/u][/url] makes Macross Frontier seem pretty awesome. Looking forward to checking out the first episode for myself. It's funny--I was aware there was a new Macross show in the works, but I didn't realize it was coming along this soon.

~Dagger~

[Ikillion]

[COLOR=#001824][SIZE="1"][FONT="Trebuchet MS"]After finally getting a good outlook on what this season may bring I can finally say, this season will greatly help me out of the depression that was the Fall 2007 season. The 2008 season looks to be full of things that I am actually interested in.

The things I'm readily interested in now are Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (I can feel the despair from lack of subs already starting) , although if something like what happened with SZS happens this season I'm probably going to just wait it out till the end and marathon it. Macross Frontier is also a must as a mecha fan. As well as Persona (after playing the game) and Gunslinger Girl II. Although I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Wolf and Spice! Shame on you.

At first I was a little bit worried about Mnemosyne seeing as it seemed dark. Not to say I don't like the genre. Only it has to be done in the right way so as its not about a bunch of people saying how good it feels to be able to cut themselves. This doesn't seem to be the case with this though, of which I am very satisfied.

I'll probably pick up more series along the way (being my laziness to actually check out trailers and whatnot), but for right now this is it for me.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Dagger]

Speaking of Gunslinger Girl, the [url=http://www.gunslingergirl.com/index.html][u]official site[/u][/url] has updated, but still no trailer yet. The character sketches already look quite different from season one... although Yu Aida is supposedly taking more of a role this time around, I have worries about the production quality. Madhouse did such a good job that it's hard to imagine anyone else matching them.

~Dagger~

[Kanji]

Shigofumi is the only show that looks to be totally up my alley. If nothing else, you can bet that I'll be following this one pretty closely. The plot sounds quite interesting - something that can tug at one's emotions while remaining very human, and yet the director has managed to weave in a bit of the supernatural. Also, after recently getting into Kino's Journey, the character designs look completely irresistible. To top it all off, ALI PROJECT will be performing the opening theme. Having loved almost every one of their anime opening/ending themes, it seems to be a good thing. I don't see how something could go wrong; the stage seems set for another masterpiece. I can't wait.

That's not to say that there aren't other interesting shows this season, but none of the others really jump out at me (I'll probably give Wolf and Spice a go, if only because the original novel won a prize). Mnemosyne might be worth looking into, if only for its stylish trailer. Most of the yuri stuff looks a little too over the top for my tastes, though.

There's a bundle of seemingly wonderful second-season anime coming up, but having not seen the first season of many such series, I'll likely sit them out and use early 2008 to catch up on those series that I've been procrastinating on for a long time.

[Dagger]

I have to admit... the more I see of the main heroine (Shinra), the more pathetically interested I get in Kimiaru. While women with dominant personalities are not as rare in bishoujo games as one might think, it's not often that the main heroine's entire character design reeks such an impeccable superiority.

~Dagger~

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Kanji, I promise you that Wolf and Spice will be up your alley. I've read some of the manga (****ing awesome BTW) and it reeks of something you'll love.

Also, the character designs for Gunslunger Girl S2 are horrible. If I didn't know Yu Aida was directly supervising the series, I'd be panicking. [/COLOR]

[Magus]

[COLOR="Navy"]Ok, I stopped looking right after I clicked on H2O- Footprints in the Rain thing. Is there anything on that list that doesn't look all.. um. kiddy looking characters?

[b]Haruka Naru Toki no Naka de 3- Kurenai n' Tsuki[/b] (And that means what?) is probably the only thing I'd have an interest in because of the whole samurai (ninja?) look.

Is there anything else on that list that's more samurai-ish, without the kiddy-ish type characters? Or should I not even bother?[/COLOR]

[Dagger]

Mnemosyne is going to be about as adult as TV-aired anime gets, going by the preview ripped from the official site.

Warnings: Violence, sexual situations, yuri
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0KAy-yDGXo][u]Link here[/u][/url] [to reiterate, not work-safe]

Haruka Naru is based on a series of PS2 otome games. It's basically a fantasy/harem series for girls in the Fushigi Yuugi mold. Probably not up your alley.

~Dagger~

[Meggido]

wow that trailer was bizarre. no idea what's going on but maybe I'll check it out when it's released.

[Ikillion]

[FONT="Trebuchet MS"][COLOR=#001824][SIZE="1"]Oh wow, I can say that I never expected to see something like that come out from Mnemosyne. I must have had some kind of lowered expectations or something, but that series looks [I]great[/I].

Easily now one of my more anticipated shows this winter season. February 2008 looks like it's going to be awesome.[/SIZE][/COLOR][/FONT]

[Dagger]

[url=http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=puT55b0Gkpg][u]First look at Il Teatrino[/u][/url] (crappy camcorder trailer from Comiket)

Confirmed for 14 TV episodes & 1 OVA.

I would just ignore the music altogether, as it's hard to tell what's from the background noise and what's from the screen (much less pass judgment on the songs).

It's funny--for all that I complained about Madhouse not being involved with this, I never bothered to check which company had taken their place. Turns out that it's Artland. They've done some really good-looking stuff (namely Mushishi) but on the whole have a mixed track record. While it's hard to make any decisions based on the promo, it didn't show off anything impressive.

~Dagger~

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Dagger'][url=http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=puT55b0Gkpg][u]First look at Il Teatrino[/u][/url] (crappy camcorder trailer from Comiket)

Confirmed for 14 TV episodes & 1 OVA.

I would just ignore the music altogether, as it's hard to tell what's from the background noise and what's from the screen (much less pass judgment on the songs).

It's funny--for all that I complained about Madhouse not being involved with this, I never bothered to check which company had taken their place. Turns out that it's Artland. They've done some really good-looking stuff (namely Mushishi) but on the whole have a mixed track record. While it's hard to make any decisions based on the promo, it didn't show off anything impressive.

~Dagger~[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]All I know is that Nameless Anime Song A better not be the damn OP. The Light Before we Land (and Woke From Dreaming for that matter) is one of the best anisons ever to grace my ears, probably even on a list of my favorite songs ever. I'll be disappointed if we don't get more damn European indie!!![/COLOR]

[Dagger]

[SIZE="1"]Well, that's already been announced. The OP is by Kokia (the Brain Powered ED, Ai no Melody & Chouwa oto ~ with reflection from Gin-iro no Kami Agito, plus some other anime stuff) and the ED is by Lia (Tori no Uta, Farewell Song & Aozora from Air, Ana from Clannad, etc). I love Lia's KEY-related songs, and I haven't heard anything by Kokia except what she did for Agito, but they're both gorgeous pieces.

Sorry to disappoint. :animeswea[/SIZE]

------------------

ETA: Quite disappointed in the first episode of Il Teatrino. Frankly, the best part of it was the weird live-action OP. I don't think I'm going to continue watching this.　　

Now to comfort myself with Aria...

~Dagger~