Spring 2011 Anime Preview - Part 2

Here's the second part of the Spring anime, covering the second week of April. I'll promise you that it will be longer than part 1.

Steins;Gate

The story follows a man called Okabe, who calls himself a Mad Scientist. He attends a meeting in a building near Akihabara for a conference discussing the theories of time travel.

He was soon brought out and questioned by a lady (Kurisu Makise) he has never met before, questioning what he had wanted to tell her, but he is sure he he was elsewhere at the time she claimed to have met him.

Not long afterwards, Makise was found dead, and there's a satelite crashed into the building he was in. What's even stranger was that he was told that the lecturer of the meeting he attended never turned up, puzzling him further on what just happened.

At his base, he talks to the TV with an image of an Llama with a human face, use a space gun-like remote control, and mobile phone operated microwave oven. It's funny to see his reaction when the TV broke and thinks that somebody has been sabotaging his "equipment" and sent it to be repaired. It's a bulky CRT TV, so it is troublesome to carry.

Back at the base again, he noticed that his friend never talked about a message he sent to him. On being asked, he said that the message was sent days earlier. Something strange is happening. What's even stranger was that Kurisu Makise is somehow alive again, despite Okabe seeing her lying on the floor lifelessly in a pool of her own blood. Looks like some time traveling is involved.



"If these two are images of the same woman, and the left image taking place earlier than on the right, how is this possible?"

Sket Dance

(Audio only; A company listed in this anime's credits might remove the video version via content ID)

Every aspect of the anime seems as if the odd mix of Setokai Yakuindomo (Summer 2010) and Bleach (Autumn 2004; ongoing) were mixed together, but it has that energetic, feel good feeling.

Sket Dance follows the misadvantures of the Campus Support Group, which solve problems brought to them by students and staff, along with the abilities of its members

Although not as obvious as A-channel or Nichijou, this is an another slice-of-life anime with no real plot. It seems that every episode might have a new client. The first episode got me confused as it focused on the said client instead of the group: I actually thought that he would actually join the team.

Members of the group: Bossun (lying down), Himeko (reading magazine), Switch (with computer)

Maria Holic Alive

まりあ†ほりっく あらいぶ

Knowing SHAFT, this opening can't be the one you will be seeing for the rest of the season. There's this song, the old-school music, oddly huge typeface size, and the animation in this opening itself appearing to be a summary of what happened in the first season back in Winter 2009.

Still in Amenokiseki Academy, Kanako still nosebleeds on thinking too much of girls, although she's a girl herself. I didn't liked the first season and wanted to see if this was better, but it seems to be the same. Looking at the other titles, I would say that this would be the first title to drop.

A-channel

Aチャンネル

Well, this is that other anime by Studio Gogumi that supposedly competes with KyoAni's (Kyoto Animation) Nichijou that is also in the Spring lineup (see part 1). Studio Gogumi is so relatively new that the only other anime you could search is the OVA of Koe de Oshigoto from last year. On closer look, you would notice that most of the staff are the same people form GONZO who worked on Saki (Spring 2009). GONZO has been in the news around 2009 for having financial problems.


Screenshots:

The opening seemed warm when compared to Nichijou, which is energetic.

Characters from left: Nagi, Yuko, Toru, Run

Being one of the few anime with character design meeting my standard, here's an another slice-of-life anime to enjoy. It looks like there might be some yuri involved, especially when Yuuko and Toru are in the same scene like Toru whacking Yuko's breast (twice in this episode) because she's so jealous about its size, though poor Yuko herself doesn't seem to know about it. Toru is so fond of Run that dates back from before Run had met Nagi and Yuko, that she whacks anyone else in the way, including Run's male friends.


Seemingly out of nowhere, there's an insert song not long before the ending theme that wouldn't look out of place as the final scene in the final episode, but this is the first episode and there's a scene between this and the ending theme.

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That's all for part 2. Part 3 would cover anime airing soon, which looks likes there's another 5 more anime that I would be interested in that would stretch for an another week.

FYI, episode 2 of Nichijou just aired.