(Skip if you’ve already read the first paragraph of one of the other ones) So the summer of 2009 has come to an end last week on Tuesday.  Well, what that brings is also the end to all of the summer seasons of anime that I have been watching.  I’m not going to lie, I was pretty ambitious when I started the season; investing time into about 14 different series simultaneously.  Needless to say, that didn’t work out so well – ended up dropping a ton of series that I found boring or just didn’t bother to keep up with.  Now I find myself at the end of summer with around 6 series completed of varying quality.  I have to say, 2009 hasn’t really blown me away with any anime, but it’s been interesting.  So right now, I’m going to sum up what I have finished this summer: Bakemonogatari, Hayate no Gotoku S2, Canaan, Saki, Spice and Wolf S2, and Requiem for the Phantom.  These aren’t listed in any particular order, so don’t follow it so much like that.  Anyway, here we go.

So this article got extremely long.  I’ve split it up into 3 parts so it’s easier to read.  You’ll be able to tell when I’m wrapping up by the title of each one.  I included the intro paragraph in each of these articles too in case you decide to read one, but not the others.

What do I have to say about Canaan?…well for the least, I have some mixed feelings about this anime.  The action scenes were par and the story, while it was good, wasn’t anything spectacular.  Seeing how I didn’t really many action anime this season, it was a bit sub-par for the course I’d say.  As you may have guessed, the main character of the anime is Canaan.  Canaan is a mercenary who is currently operating out of Shanghai.  She was raised from the Middle East during a war and was trained during that time.  At first glimpse, the story seems to be about a terrorist group that go by the name of the Snakes who are purposefully experimenting with the Ua Virus in hopes of creating super-soldiers that are like Canaan.  Canaan has the special ability to synthesize all 5 of her senses and use them incredibly effectively.  As the series goes on though, we learn that there are connections between Canaan and Alphard who is the leader of the Snakes.

Oosawa Maria’s role in this anime is to help stimulate Canaan’s growth as a human being.  I would say that from their relationship with each other, both of them begin maturing.  If you ignore the fact that Maria is always getting kidnapped and Canaan is absurdly killing everything that stands in her way to get to Maria for a second, and just observe their mentalities, they begin to have realizations that their relationship isn’t practical and can’t work.  In my opinion, the whole anime focusing on their relationship is kind of silly while all of the other plot is going on as well, but it seems to tie in ok.

What bothers me the most though, is the end of the series.  I’m not going to put any spoilers here, but I have to say that it’s a little cheesy and kind of ridiculous.  Whatever though – it is what it is.  I give this anime a mediocre rating mainly because I wasn’t whole hearted about watching it all in the first place, but it did keep interest.  Anymore than 13 episodes might’ve pushed me off though.

Well, we have anime about card players, people making bread, and playing go, so why not one about Mahjong?  Also, let’s add elements that make it seem that every girl in the anime seems like they have feelings for other girls while making it seem like this anime is still completely innocent.  Well with all of that aside (Wait…can we really just ignore that?!), let’s start talking about the anime.  Miyanaga Saki (the girl on the right in the screenshot) is the main character of this anime.  She has just entered high school and somehow finds her way up to the mahjong club.  The only problem is that she hates mahjong.  As the other girls in the club realize very quickly though, Saki has the uncanny ability to score 0 points every time she plays.  Through like 2 episodes of drama, Saki learns to love mahjong (and Nodoka), is super skillful at it, and can even win in a very absurd way almost every time.

There are a few filler episodes and whatnot, but from episodes 6 to 19, all the content is basically filled with the girls from Kiyosumi (the name of their high school) trying to win a spot in nationals.  I have to admit though, even within these, there are a lot of episodes about the relationships of some of the teams they are playing against and a few episodes where not much happens, but overall the anime tries to make mahjong an intense experience.  I’m not sure how many of you have actually played mahjong, but let me tell you, it’s absolutely nothing like they portray.  I’m very disappointed that there are no sparks coming from my eyes or people fighting in the background while I play mahjong.  In fact, I think my lack of knowledge of mahjong actually makes this anime more fun to watch.

By now, you must be wondering why I even kept watching this anime at all since you may have seen an episode or two and been like “well, this sucks.  What next?”  I think I kept watching it because I enjoyed the mahjong playing.  Some of the characters were even pretty supernatural on how they played the game.  No one in real life would ever be able to play the way these girls played, but it was actually kind of fun.  Not the typical thing I’d ever watch, but hey, we need these kinds of anime sometimes right?  Maybe not, but oh well.  Maybe I was just unconsciously in it for the underlying rated R themes that only perverts would pick up on, but I’d like to think not.

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(Skip if you’ve read this paragraph already)  So the summer of 2009 has come to an end last week on Tuesday.  Well, what that brings is also the end to all of the summer seasons of anime that I have been watching.  I’m not going to lie, I was pretty ambitious when I started the season; investing time into about 14 different series simultaneously.  Needless to say, that didn’t work out so well – ended up dropping a ton of series that I found boring or just didn’t bother to keep up with.  Now I find myself at the end of summer with around 6 series completed of varying quality.  I have to say, 2009 hasn’t really blown me away with any anime, but it’s been interesting.  So right now, I’m going to sum up what I have finished this summer: Bakemonogatari, Hayate no Gotoku S2, Canaan, Saki, Spice and Wolf S2, and Requiem for the Phantom.  These aren’t listed in any particular order, so don’t follow it so much like that.  Anyway, here we go.

So this article got extremely long.  I’ve split it up into 3 parts so it’s easier to read.  You’ll be able to tell when I’m wrapping up by the title of each one.  I included the intro paragraph in each of these articles too in case you decide to read one, but not the others.

What will probably end up as my favorite anime of 2009 is Bakemonogatari.  I enjoyed every minute of this series.  The direction was appealing, the vector art was done very well, the characters were all unique and human, the story was always interesting, and the dialogue was probably my favorite aspect.  The story centers around Araragi Koyomi, who we learn is partly a vampire due to circumstances that are pretty much explained in the first episode that happened prior to the series.  Anyway, the rest of series follows Araragi as he tries to help people (girls) deal with certain ‘oddities’ that are plaguing them.  The anime is structured in arcs of 2-3 episodes as Araragi runs into new ‘oddities.’

About the dialogue, I’d have to say that it pretty much consumes almost the entire anime.  Granted, this anime is based off a bunch of light novels, but still.  The amount of lines is absurd compared to some other anime I have watched.  This is by no means bad though, as the dialogue is very amusing most of the time.  There is a lot of wit and banter between the characters (I probably mentioned this in my first impressions post), while there is also the heavy portions of the anime when the characters suffering from the ‘oddities’ explain how they were received.  I think it’s pretty clever how each of the ‘oddities’ can be explained by the circumstances in the characters’ lives.  Events that could happen to anyone are taken as a literal physical representation somehow and affect the character.

Wrapping up now though, since I’ve already spent too many words on Bakemonogatari, I really hope that there ends up being 15 episodes.  I saw on wikipedia that the show was scheduled for 15 and the last 3 will be released on the official website.  I need someone to keep subbing it! >_<  Oh yeah.  And Senjougahara Hitagi wins Tsundere of the Year (she’s in the screenshot I put there).

Up next is Hayate no Gotoku Season 2.  This time the series focuses a lot more on staying loyal to the manga.  Don’t worry though, it still has tons of parodies and allusions to other anime/manga/otaku-ism.  The arcs in this season, however, end up focusing more on the relationships between Hayate and Hinagiku, Ayumu, and Nagi.  Of course, probably due to overwhelming popularity, Hinagiku gets tons of attention this season – she even gets her own ending theme song!  Is this popularity well-placed?  I’m not really sure, but for some reason she keeps drawing tons and tons of fans.

I think one of the wiser decisions of Hayate no Gotoku S2 was dropping the episode count from 52 in the first season to 25.  I remember it taking me a very long time to finish the first season due to the sheer length of it; I’m not always in the mood for parodies.  I am, however, well-versed enough in anime to understand around 95% of the jokes that go on (I’m not sure if this fact should be depressing or not).

So what do I think of Hayate no Gotoku in general?  It’s definitely one of your love-comedies, except a lot more focus on the comedy than the love part.  At least for now.  This is one anime that you can definitely take your time and watch leisurely.  The episodes don’t always leave you with a cliffhanger, and even if they do – you’re not enticed to watch the next one immediately (or maybe you are!  Who knows?).  Anyway, if you want to watch some just good-humored, well-natured anime and are knowledgeable in popular anime, then I can recommend this to you strongly.  Will there be a season 3?  I would say probably – and if there is, I hope that it will keep staying loyal to the manga.  I like reading the manga quite a bit in my free time.

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So I realize I just posted about Bakemonogatari, but the ending single disc came out today.  That means I had to grab it, listen to it, and post about it.  I think I mentioned this in my previous [Bakemonogatari] post, but the person who composed this is Ryo from [supercell] who features the singer Nagi (who is also known as Gazelle on [nicovideo] for her fandubs of certain Hatsune Miku songs).

I was pretty excited for this release since I had instantly taken a liking to the ending theme. I really like the sound of Nagi’s voice in this as well as the usage of piano throughout the song, ‘Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari.’

The other song, titled ‘LOVE & ROLL’, isn’t quite as good in my opinion; sounds more like your typical techno-ish anime music.  The emphasis on Nagi’s voice is still good though, so I’ll probably listen to it for a while.

There is also a last song called ‘theme of ‘concoroll.”  It’s only about a minute and a half long, and it doesn’t feature any vocals whatsoever.  It’s worth a listen to since it sounds interesting, but I feel like I would tire of it rather quickly.

Overall, I’d say the ending single is pretty good, but only because of the strong opening song on it.  I’ll probably end up listening to ‘Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari’ pretty exclusively in the end.  I hope that the Supercell and Nagi combination keeps going though.

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