First, I’ll say this: preview posts used to be my savior back when I scheduled 35 watches per season. Next I’ll say this: after retiring from anime blogging the first time (meaning, in November 2006), I sort of stopped watching as much anime, and used previews even less. Finally I’ll say this: I’ve maybe read one (1!) post entitled “Spring 2008 Preview.”

So I’m sort of plunging head-first into a dangerous world.

I’ve watched three first episodes: Bus Gamer, Chi’s Sweet Home, and To-LOVE-ru. I went into the first two not knowing what to expect. I can’t quite say the same for the third (and not because I read the linked post; I had the distinct misfortune of reading some large quantity of the manga). Overall, I was actually pleasantly surprised.

Now, when I (as lolikitsune with my -2 deviation) say that I’m pleasantly surprised, I’m not actually saying a whole lot. I sort of expect crap at every turn with anime these days. And while I get crap at almost every turn (2 out of 3 times according to the aforementioned sample) sometimes it’s crap that’s less crappy than the crap it could be. Yes, I am insatiable.

I’m not going to blog any of these three shows, for the record.

Chi’s Sweet Home

So, the one that wasn’t utter crap was Chi’s Sweet Home. In fact, it was good. I really like what Sasa said about it, but uh… I’m not going to watch more of it. I understand its good points, but the first episode—seemingly a rehash of “Are you my mother?”—kind of turned me off. I might continue downloading it and then open it up if I’m feeling down, but it’s not really the kind of thing I wanna be following. It’s just… not my thing? (Says the Ariafag.)

Bus Gamer

Bus Gamer is set for three episodes and there’s of course (as has been mentioned) no way it’s going to tell a cohesive and complete story based on its premise in that time. For one thing, we need fourteen fights in the remaining two episodes to get up to our goal of 1,000,000,000¬•. Though, I haven’t read the manga—maybe they all die in their first fight. I think that’s the only way for the pacing to work out. And yeah, I’m a stickler for pacing. You all might remember my praise for Death Note?

To-LOVE-Ru

And now we get to the meat: To-LOVE-Ru. Ohhhhhh boy.

And I do mean boy. Rito’s a kid. So should Lala and Haruna be, yeah? Something’s not adding up. I think it might be the fact that Lala looks positively fuckable. I don’t mean that in this way. I mean that in … actually, I’m going to stop talking now. In my defense I’ll just say that she is definitely not DFC. I think anyone would agree with me on that count.

Now this is going to sound incredibly dumb—and maybe, as a result, fitting—but my one (1!!) qualm with this show is not among the qualms I see expressed in various places. Mine go something like this: why do you pretend to have a story you fucking dumb slut? I want twenty-four minutes of Peke raping Lala. Yes, that’s my problem with the show. It’s not what I want it to be.

And now for some gems:

Straight from the words of an author at the oh-so-prestigious THAT Animeblog:

Bitches don’t know. Costume rape has never before been so literal.

Next, from Subculture Anime Blog:

Good job Totali, if this was intentional humor you’re awesome and if it wasn’t then you’re even more awesome.

Majime na Lolikit

Chi’s Sweet Home is cute and refreshing. Bus Gamer has major potential but its room to grow has been limited to nothing from the beginning. To-LOVE-Ru is absolute shit. As they say, leave it to Totali to blog the show. It’s the one show of three mentioned in this post that I’ll be watching, and unless you want the same vitriol weekly, you don’t want me blogging it.

EDIT: retroactive trackbacks, フォオ！