Zaku Spring Impressions

10Apr/094

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

I was going to be all tsundere about this series - mainly because I hated the ending of the first iteration - but this first episode had such a great mix of action, recap and humour.
Addicted to the OP - Electric guitar riff after the opening line and the scenes with Riza and Winry mouthing lyrics shot me through the heart / and you're too late / the guys give love a bad name.
Kikuko Inoue-neesan makes me lust after Lust.

K-ON

Man, 4:3 looks so weird now; I suppose 16:9 is for the DVD release.
I was starting to hate Yui for being dumb and clumsy but her sincerity and responsiveness to sincerity turned me 180 degs.
Ritsu x Mio are such a (seme x uke) couple.
What a great ED and an excuse to post a pic imagining Saber in the audience:

Queen's Blade

I couldn't watch Ikkitousen mainly because of what a mockery it made of the source material but, by that measure, Queen's Blade was actually fine.
Yuri siscon was surprisingly unappealing and Shidou Mariya does the two-faced thing with so much more finesse.
The OMGLOL thing for me was not so much the acidic breast squirts themselves but the Auto Squeeze function - an extra pair of hands is always so useful!

Ristorante Paradiso

????????? (What is a Glasses fetish?) - I like Claudio best too.
Unlike Aroduc, I thought the CG was ok; it did evoke nice memories of the streets of Rome.
Was also set to hate on Olga but the teddy bear triggered recap provided some needed perspective from the non-protagonist POV.

Saki

Kana Ueda's 'She's so beautiful' rocked my world from the get go; think she likes Kyou in a childhood friend sort of way too; Ueda really does AC/DC so well.
Saki's refusal to play (mahjong :3) with Nodoka and Nodoka going all out against Saki reminded me so much of Hikaru and Sai's first two encounters with Touya Akira.
The Shizu-sama Doctrine is in effect; school congress president + ahoge is an interesting mix.
All this talk about??? [Good Fortune] (or was it???? [also pronounced kou-un]) reminded me of Escaflowne - which makes me worried about equal and opposite reactions or the Counter Force.
Speaking of worries, you better don't screw this up with another nonsense ending, Gonzo!

Overall, a good feeling for my picks of the season.

Myssa Rei
April 10th, 2009 - 08:51

FMA Brotherhood seems to be a default choice for many bloggers, but I’m still waiting for the divergence — the actual stuff from the manga that followed Maes’ death — before I start following this more closely. Some people have mentioned that the remake will more or less blitz through the first 20 or so chapters at two per episode to get to the manga material faster, so I think I can afford to wait this out.

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Xellos-_^
April 11th, 2009 - 00:34

Zyl, you want to try Asura Crying, as there is a bouncy Miko and Mysterious Oneesan voice by Tanaka Rie. The characters are cliche as hell but seems to mix well so far anyway for 2eps.

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Watchman
April 11th, 2009 - 06:53

One notes that, mere two episodes into the series, K-ON! is already almost as painful on the nutbladder as Hidamari was.
Also warm and fuzzy feel-good vibes “of the year”. :3

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Zyl
April 10th, 2009 - 14:41

Wait and See sounds like a good approach to take; I might do that too if the eps from next week merely revisit old territory.

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hontou ni Stripey Insists Sisters Cry Oniichan Now