News Flash – Slayers

(from ANN):

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Megumi Hayashibara to Sing Slayers Revolution’s Themes

Singer/voice actress Megumi Hayashibara‘s official page on the Starchild website has announced on Monday that she will sing both the opening and ending theme songs for the Slayers Revolution fantasy comedy television anime. She is already confirmed to return as the main lead Lina, along with most of the main original cast. Hayashibara had sung songs for all the previous Slayers anime incarnations, including the first Slayers series and the last two television sequels (Slayers Next and Slayers Try).

(original article)

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After those rumours that Xellos might be the lead character in the new series I’m really glad that they’ll stick to Lina Inverse after all. Xellos is an interesting character, no doubts, but I don’t think he is someone for a lead role. The figure lives from his unsteadiness and the secrets he builds around him and both are rather unfit for the lead of a series. Besides, Slayers and Lina Inverse is the same from my point of view and you just can’t have the one without the other.

Soul Eater & Tower of Druaga

Soul Eater

The world (and especially the people living in it) is constantly in danger to be dragged into chaos and destruction by the Kishin, evil humans who try to gain in power by feasting on the souls of other humans. Fortunately the Academy of Shinigami Weapons Wielder exists to face this threat. This academy teaches its students to fight together with their special companions, humans who can turn into weapons. Of course these teams are also send into the world to assure peace and to collect the souls of the Kishin which are to be devoured by the weapons. At the time a weapon has successfully eaten 99 Kishin souls and one soul of a witch it will turn into a real “Death Scythe” and its meister will become a full-fledged Shinigami.
This is the story of three meisters and their weapons and each team is more nuts and incompetent than the last one, but because the rest of the world seems to be quite the same they get their job done somehow in the end.

First thing I noticed about Soul Eater is its unique artwork and high quality animation. One Piece, Bleach and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are the series that popped up in my mind almost immediately while watching. And although this isn’t the best sign, after all I lost interest in the first two series fairly quick (One Piece) respectively after some time (Bleach), I like what I’ve seen so far. The comedy parts are just hilarious, the action promises to be quite viewy and all together this series emits a nice unique feeling. Hopefully they can keep it fresh for the scheduled 51 episodes.

Tower of Druaga

Once upon a time the great hero Gilgamesh took up the quest to rescue the priestess Ki from the demon Druaga. For this he fought bravely through all sixty floors of Druaga’s tower and the many different kinds of monsters who dwelled within them to finally face and defeat Druaga in the tower’s top floor. This way he saved Ki and the whole country of Babylim from the demon’s undoing and became shortly after the king of Babylim and Ki’s husband.
60 years later the danger of Druaga and his tower has risen anew and many young men and women have gathered at the base of the tower to taken up the duty which the now old king Gilgamesh had taken all by himself in the past. Each of them has his or her own motivation to do so, many just want to make a living out of the treasures and rewards that are to obtain out of slaying the many minor beasts, but some strive to follow the example of the old king and want to slay Druaga to secure Babylim once again. The protagonist of this story, Jil, definitely can be counted among the later section of the so called climbers. But it is surely no easy task he has chosen.

The first episode of Tower of Druaga was just hilarious and played well with lots of RPG clichés. There was no time to get bored in any way because they just fast forwarded a whole (generic) story plot in just one small episode. Well, at the end and with the second episode it gets back to the harsh real (fantasy) world and thus the amount of comedy and fast pace got naturally driven back significant. This surely might be a bummer for some and I don’t know this first episode will of advantage for the whole series, but its still a nice watch especially because I haven’t seen some RPG-styled fantasy anime for a longer time now. So I guess it will be okay for me if the rest of the story gets rather generic, but with the first episode in mind I hope for some surprises of the good kind. Soever, I think this is quite an interesting way to promote one’s MMORPG game.

Allison and Lillia & Special A

Allison and Lillia

The countries of the Roxcheanuk Confederation and the United Kingdom of Bezel Iltoa have been in the state of war for the past 130 years and a loosely armistice has been in effect for the last 10 years. In this uncertain times the childhood friends Allison, a pilot of the Roxche Air Force and Wil, a talented student, are told by an old and apparently senile man about a treasure hidden somewhere in the Bezel Iltoa Kingdom which content holds the potential to end the ongoing conflict once and for all. Not long after the man gets kidnapped before their own eyes. They try to rescue him, but in the end they can only watch him being flown out by plane. With a captured biplane they begin the pursuit which leads them toward the Bezal Iltoa Kingdom and into a unknown future.

Granted, the basic story of Allison and Lillia is as simple as the outlay of the two countries that are in conflict here, but from what I’ve seen so far I think it can become a quite entertaining treasure hunt. Both leading characters and their interaction are likeable and the artwork and the CG both might not look that fancy, but still pretty nice. And what I really like is the promise of lots of biplanes and similar designed planes to be seen in this series.

Special A

Hikari Hanazono is teached in martial arts practically since her birth and has never been bested by anyone. Anyone except one, Kei Takishima, whom she met at the age of six and has never been able to beat in any kind of challenge since then, although she tried whenever and whatever she could. Years later they both attend the same elite school, the Private Hakusen Academy. The pupils of this school are separated in the classes A to F accordingly to their grades and the seven best of the A class have a extra class of their own, the Special A class, with many extra privileges and rights. Both Hikari and Kei are part of this Special class with Hikari being the second best and Kei, of course, being the best of all pupils. Being looked upon by the rest of the pupils with adoration and jealousy they continue their contest which unnoticed (at least by Hikari) already has turned into love.

So far Special A seems to be another story of a dense girl who finally has to discover her true feelings toward the boy she always argues with and always gets teased by, but maybe it turns out to be a enjoyable mix of Kare Kano and Ouran after all. The potential is certainly present and could be exploit if the characters attain some depth in the run of the series and if the apparent conflict between the Special A class and the lower classes will be played out right. I would be rather sad if this will turn out to be a pure glorification of the elite class who spins around its own problems while the lower classes only serves as worshippers and cheating scum to make the Special A class appear even brighter. Oh, and by the way, am I the only one who thinks that SA is a rather bad abbreviation to label a elite formation of a (otherwise) brown-coated group of people? I might be a bit picky here, but at least it serves for some unintended strangeness in this series.

To the end of…

Bamboo Blade

I’m not that much into sport animes and I watched the first few Bamboo Blade episodes only because I had a bit too much free time at that moment. The quality is quite good after all and girls with swords always catch my interest, even if those swords only made of bamboo. Well, didn’t took much more to make this series grew to me. In the end, the whole run was pretty entertaining and it was a nice bonus to learn some basics about kendo. It’s only a bit sad that except of Tamaki the characters, even if well drawn from the beginning, never really developed much more from the start till the end. It also would have been a good addition to get to know that great side of Dan-kun everybody in the series seem to have seen at some time (especially Miyako). The way of love are surely strange and I like the basic idea behind this unusual couple, but in the end he stayed only annoying to me. Maybe the possible second season might iron those flaws out.

Clannad

Like all the other KyoAni series before this one Clannad was already worth to watch only because of the brilliant quality of the technical aspects of this show. Of course the rest of the series was also quite entertaining and well made and I especially liked the gain of interaction between the girls in comparison to Kanon and Air. Guess to even this up the relationships between Tomoya and the individual girls somehow had not that much of emotional impact as in the named forerunner. But at least there were no supernatural components to the girls this time which gave the whole story a nice touch of normality. Okay, Fuko is a exception of this and while she wasn’t unlikeable at all she always had a way to ruin the mood (but not without being funny while doing so) and altogether she and her story arc somehow feels displaced to the rest of the show.
Oh, and while I’m eager to watch the already announced Clannad’s After Story I fear at the same time that I’m rather feed up by Key products at the moment. Maybe something in the style of FMP or the (*gasp*) next season of Haruhi Suzumiya would be nice change once in a while.

Shakugan no Shana Second

After the shallow start the second season of Shakugan no Shana finally got back on track again midways and ended with a great but a bit rushed final. Especially each of Wilhelmina’s share of the fighting sequences were highly entertaining to watch and Sabrac was just one hell of a good villain. Seeing Yuji to become useful on his on in fighting was also nice to see. I’m glad that this series was able to deliver in the end. I understand that the part with Konoe was important for the final and for some character development, but I believe that this part could have been cropped a bit after all. The attained screentime could have been used to give the Bal Masqué some more screentime to give a better feeling for the things to come or to make the ending a little bit less rushed (or to give Wilhelmina even more fighting sequences). But the ending was in all cases better than the one of Zero no Tsukaima, but  I guess this goes without saying. And, like with both other series named above, I’m eager to watch the next season of this one.