I had very low expectations for a show which centered around a succubus building a harem to drink certain juices, but this wasn’t actually all that bad. Well, once they got out of the bath at least.

My main complaint is that Astarotte’s voice is getting on my nerves. It’s not really the fault of her character or her voice, but simply my association of her voice with Rose from Dragon Crisis. Hopefully by the end of this season I’ll recover from withdrawal and be able to put that experience behind me.

This is only the first episode though, and it was really just the setup, so it’s hard to tell where this show will go from here. It has the potential to either be an above average Zero no Tsukaima clone or go down the road of Dragon Crisis. Either way, I’m not expecting anything great, but they’ve convinced me to at least give the second episode a chance.

Hen Zemi and Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san share a single time slot and are each half the length of a normal episode, so I’m combining them into a single post. Anyone looking to watch either should know that they’re both extremely perverted, I would even say disgusting, so be warned.

So first, Hen Zemi. I’m actually enjoying this, although most of the humor is of the “I can’t believe they did that” variety. This show stretches the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior to the limit, and just when you think they can’t go any further, jumps fifty miles downstream. And then does it again and again and again. Really, don’t watch this without knowing what you’re getting into. However, the TV show does seem a bit toned down from the OVA (which was also enjoyable). Hen Zemi does have a strong cast of characters, none of whom I could describe as boring, and the humor is pretty good if you can bear to watch it.

Azazel-san also goes far past the boundaries of decency, but the humor here didn’t really work for me and I ended up just finding it gross. It was more slapstick humor as opposed to the dialog-based comedy of Hen Zemi. I also felt that it didn’t build up the inappropriateness as well and went more for the shock value. But I guess it’s really just that I didn’t find the jokes funny. What the demon did to the woman and his summoning gift— how are those supposed to be funny? They’re just disgusting. I could probably say the exact same thing about Hen Zemi though, so I’m really not sure what makes one work for me and the other fail…

Anyways, I’m not going to be blogging either of these since I want to keep this blog relatively clean, but will keep watching Hen Zemi.

For those like me wondering what soft tennis is, it’s apparently the same as regular tennis except it’s played with a soft rubber ball and is popular in East Asia. The show Softenni follows one school’s soft tennis team and their path to the championship (well… maybe not). This being from Xebec, I was pleasantly surprised by the (relatively) toned-down fanservice. Most of it occurs in Asuna’s (pink haired girl’s) fantasies and actually serves to parody the usual harem tropes which are thankfully avoided.

The style is reminiscent of Shaft, with interesting shifts in camera angle and random jokes such as a girl wearing costumes to practice, cows eating tennis balls, and girls hunting human-sized endangered salamanders for lunch. In general it’s a major improvement as far as Xebec is concerned, and I’m looking forward to see where they’ll go with it. Not planning to blog it though since everything comes out on Thursday and I’d rather do noitaminA.

I have mixed feelings about this one. First of all, the humor is pretty good. You have to be in the right mood for it though, since it’s fast-paced and the jokes are probably funniest if you’re ten years old (I’m a child at heart). The scene of Harumi running away was especially hilarious. Perfect choice in music.

On the flip side, the main character, Enma, has to have one of the most annoying voices I’ve ever heard. He just doesn’t seem to articulate properly. I should point out that it’s the character, not the voice actor, who’s done a number of good roles.

Also, I can’t figure out what the show’s target audience is. They have humor suited for kids, and then they put in the sagging old lady, the enemy’s lance, and flipping people’s skirts. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised…

A Channel is next in the long line of shows about cute girls doing cute things at school, with its main differentiating feature being that the girls’ sexuality is more explicit. I don’t consider being about cute girls doing cute things to necessarily be a negative: I enjoyed Lucky Star, K-On, Manabi Straight, and Hyakko. But A Channel has a few issues.

1. The art. The huge heads, eyes and shiny cheeks aren’t working too well in my opinion. The characters look more like monsters than cute girls.
2. Bland characters. We have the airhead, the normal girl, the glasses girl, and the stalker. I doubt that any of them will develop beyond this mold. In K-On, Yui is an airhead too. But she can actually be really enthusiastic and do well when she tries. Her airheadedness is complemented by the rest of the cast, particularly her sister. The character in A Channel is is just an airhead for the sake of being an airhead, so that we can laugh at how dumb she is.
3. It’s not funny. Maybe it’s just because I’ve seen the same jokes done before a million times. I was paying more attention to the show’s music than what people were saying. I’m not sure if it’s because the music didn’t fit well or because I was bored.