I’ll try to be brief.

Panty & Stocking (2010-10-01) Series

Description

A company of ghosts has moved into Daten City, taking advantage of human greed. Two angels, Panty and Stocking, are sent from heaven to exterminate them -- but in reality they got kicked out for bad behavior.

Episodes: 13
Time: Fri 27:00+JST
Status: airing
Duration: 24m

Links: Official Official ANN

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I don’t even… I don’t know who or what decided that PSG would be the most important thing ever, but apparently otou-san used it to kick digitalboy off the internet. I Am Okay With This™. As for the anime stripped of its meta anibloggery context, meh. I don’t need it. I wanted to enjoy it—I really did—but the visual cacophony was just a bit too much. I’ll stick with it for an episode or two longer, but I can’t see myself getting very far.

The transformation scene—well-shared across GRSI—is very, very nice, though. 8)

MM (2010-10-02) Fall Series

Description

The story centers the life of Taro Sado going through high school. He came to realize his masochist personality and attempts to conceal this from his crush. To fix it, he enrolled in his school's "2nd Volunteer Club".

Genre: comedy, romance
Length: 12
Status: airing
Time: Sat 09:30+JST

Links: Official ANN

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I was not super impressed by this. The OP and ED suck donkeyballz and the lead girl’s voice actress sounds like she’s trying too hard to emulate Hirano Aya. Among the nicer things were the friendship between the bros and the trap—but I fear nothing compelling will come from this plot thread. I’ll keep watching this, but not with high hopes. While masochism is fun to laugh at, and while many of the show’s situations are kind of hot if we let ourselves stop and understand, “oh, she’s getting him off,” I don’t enjoy Sado’s beaten-up face so much.

It just doesn’t suit my aesthetic.

Bakuman (2010-10-02) Series

Description

Moritaka Mashiro, a junior high school student, content to live out a relatively normal life as any other does, is persuaded by his classmate, Akito Takagi, to become an aspiring mangaka when the latter realizes his natural talent as an artist. However, Moritaka is reluctant to pursue his dream as his uncle, once a mangaka with his own serializations, died from overwork trying to regain his lost status. With Akito's help, Takagi gets another classmate and his school crush, Azuki Miho, who is an aspiring voice actress, to voice in the anime adaptation of their future manga once it is completed. However, Mashiro also proposes to Azuki, who surprisingly accepts only on the condition she will marry him when both of them have achieved their dreams. With a goal set before him, Mashiro begins a long and struggling path to become a famous mangaka.

Length: 25
Status: airing
Time: Sat 18:00+JST
Duration: 24m

Links: Official ANN

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Bakuman, already a borderline mediocre manga by virtue of its shitty premise, fallacious conflicts, and flat supporting cast, had nothing to gain through animation. It has neither action nor ambience. The only two aspects where a TV adaptation could have helped—vocalizing the dialogue and providing a pleasant soundtrack—just weren’t what they needed to be. Add to that the fact that J.C. Staff is pulling its usual “we already made Honey & Clover, please allow us to rest on our rotting laurels” spiel, and you’re left with a really, really bad idea.

I think I’ll pass.

My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute (2010-10-03) Series

Description

For several years, Kyousuke's relationship with his younger sister Kirino has been cold, to the point that they only share greetings. But one day, Kyousuke finds a moe anime DVD fallen in their entry hall. His interest piqued, he looks for the owner, only to realize it belongs to Kirino. He's shocked, but more surprises lie just ahead...

Genre: comedy
Theme: imouto, otaku, secrets, siblings
Episodes: 12
Status: airing
Time: Sun 23:30+JST
Duration: 24m
Length: 12

Links: Official ANN

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Best show of Fall 2010? It’s hard to say from here, but it’s sure dazzling next to its competition. Allow me to quote myself.

DUDE THAT WAS AWESOME
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No, seriously. Great soundtrack, fantastic visuals, interesting characterization, compelling narrative, good jokes. Characters blink; facial expressions change realistically. And the pacing is great. I can’t wait for more.
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Best anime of the season? y/n

To answer myself:

y

Interestingly enough, Kirino (aka the hottest little sister ever, a nubile proto-Nobue) is voiced by the same wannabe-ogre who voices Mio in MM!. She tries much less hard to sound like Aya in this show, however, which is bonus points.

Parting shot…

Well, this has been way too much like “real” anime blogging for lolikit, so he’s gonna bust outta here and hit the figurative hay. G’night, bitches!

And then the movie isn’t even really about the literature girl in any other sense. She is not the protagonist; we don’t even get her perspective for more than one 10-second scene. The real focus here is Inoue Konoha, a character cast in the mould of such marvelous specimens of manhood as Shinichiro.

As Ryan points out, the main impetus of the plot and the drama in this film comes from his interactions with a cast of secondary characters, all related to him through romance in some way or other.

We have the crazy immature girl, Noe Miu.
We have the red-haired girl, Aiko Nanase.
We have the bro who’s crushing on the red-haired girl, Miyokichi Kazushi.

Literature Girl is a love quadrangle. Where’s Hiromi, you ask? There is no Hiromi.

There are three ‘characters’ vying for Konoha’s attention: Miu, Nanase, and Konoha’s writing.

Miu consistently attempts to undermine Konoha’s freedom and creative expression for her own therapeutic purposes. Nanase sees writing as a proxy for Touko, and knows that Konoha’s involvement in the school literature club equates to his involvement with Touko.

“I was rejected,” she says after Konoha tells her that he wants to write and runs off into the night.

She meant that she’d lost to Touko. The writers meant that she’d lost to writing. They’re both correct, in a sense—the truth isn’t always one thing. But really, much as True Tears was mostly about Shinichiro’s development as an artiste, so too is Literature Girl primarily about Konoha rediscovering his passion and taking up the pen once more.

Of course, Konoha loves Touko. She’s one part megalomaniacal Suzumiya Haruhi to Konoha’s Kyon, two parts obsessive Yomiko Readman to Konoha’s Nenene, and several parts unadulterated selflessness—erring here on the side of Mugi, erring there on the side of Alicia.

And Touko has no intention of competing with Konoha’s writing.

She’s not even a choice in the quadrangle: the moment Konoha runs to her side, she disappears, kawarimi no jutsu, and poof, in her place Konoha is left only with his desire to write.

Why does Touko unilaterally cut herself off from Konoha?

Guilt, maybe—guilt over hogging him for two years. Over forcing him into her club, forcing him to write for her. And maybe that complex hid his true feelings from her; maybe she doesn’t know that he never resented her until the last second before the train doors close. Maybe he even appreciated the heavy-handed encouragement!

But is Touko really clueless? She consistently displays vast insight. Despite her demonic genesis, her only “powers” are completely mundane: she’s good at conflict resolution; she has a vast memory for the contents of books; she has a friend who works at the school planetarium. And with powers like those, mundane though they are, she couldn’t possibly be totally in the dark, right?

She knows Konoha’s feelings, and she makes every decision at every turn throughout the film in an attempt to steer him back toward his novelist career, to push him back into his passion.

And so Literature Girl becomes the movie that isn’t really about Amano Touko, but maybe really, really is: despite not getting much screen time, despite not even being a potential love interest, despite being the supernatural plot hook to a completely mundane tale, Touko ends up being a proxy for Konoha’s true love (writing), not the other way around, and she helps guide our troubled protagonist back to the ‘best end’ of his love quadrangle.

Book title: ‘bungaku shoujo’ (literature girl)

And of course, on a meta level, Bungaku Shoujo (the book) within Bungaku Shoujo (the movie) is definitely about Amano Touko; it is undoubtedly Konoha’s love song to his bibliophile senpai.

P.S.

Seiyuu Stuff: Why did Production I.G. feel the need to hire Shizuka Itou for the sake of one line of dialogue? One useless, useless line of dialogue? Also, if you hate Asakura Miu, you’re not alone! lolikit’s got your back: Miu is yet another incarnation of the paragon ogress herself, Hirano Aya.

Hatsukoi: favorite of this season. This is still spring right? I forget. I like the dynamics, especially Kusuda/Enomoto. Yamamoto is hawt, too.

Saki: I semi-marathoned Akagi whilst Saki aired, and I instantly lost interest in Saki after that.

Eden: *yawn* (not enough motivation to watch ep3)

K-ON: soooooo disappointing. A music anime could have potential…Beck needs rewatching…but the malignent cancer was getting to me. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of was really enjoyable, but when there’s about 3 seconds of music in an episode it’s kind of like wtf.

ristorante paradiso: wwwwww reverse pedophilia.

haruhi s2: first episode was nice. want moar.

This was two days ago, now, and there’s no way I’m going to reread that post, so I unfortunately cannot tell you why I picked what I did. I like to think I tended to polarize at the two ends of the fail spectrum (you know, fail, and less fail) and went with shows I thought I’d either like or hate, but no guarantees. The “resource” wasn’t too resourceful and I ended up making some wild guesses. Anyway, expect at least one post each on all of these shows, and expect at least half of those to be scathing:

ChäoS;HEAd
ef – a tale of melodies
Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka
Kurogane no Linebarrel
Toradora!
Skip Beat
Shikabane Hime: Aka
Clannad ~After Story~
Michiko to Hatchin
Kannagi
Tales of the Abyss

With any luck I’ll be blogging regularly this fall. I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be. Other than, you know, having a job (or two, or three). And maybe trying my hand at NaNoWriMo. Anyway, there should be some free time in there which I can dedicate to bashing shit.

In less well news, I’m down a weapon from my arsenal.

… graphs.

And why am I down graphs?

Because fucking Steve fucking Jobs and fucking Apple fucking broke fucking Photoshop fucking 7 in fucking Leopard.

Thankfully, Google, in classic Athena-senpai style, is still pretending to be an ally of mine:

I shall learn this Google Charts thing, and I shall use it well.

Also, for whoever said it was funny hearing Hirano “try” to sing poorly during the credits this episode, you’re a fucking retard. The ogre doesn’t need to try.

Well, I’m off to watch the adventures of Ass-chan and her moneyless sister.
And maybe some Galaxy Angel Z.