A classy screen shot for a classy show.

This is the harem adaptation of the season. The main twist is that we have a cross-dressing butler. Except it’s completely obvious that she’s a girl. How can anyone be fooled by this? Besides, she isn’t nearly as cute as Hayate.

The other characters include a monstrous little sister, a girl obsessed with glasses, a tsundere, and an ojou-sama. The male protagonist is a spineless wuss.

The main reason I managed to finish this show is Kanade. She’s quite the ojou-sama, and at least managed to spice things up a bit. Still, it wasn’t enough to save Mayo Chiki from its own bland premise.

• Plot / Script – F – Your usual harem setup.
• Characters – D – Kanade redeems things slightly. And Usagi wasn’t bad as far as tsunderes go.
• Production – C – Nothing special.
• Overall – F

Recommendations – Hayate no Gotoku, Love Hina

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The adventures of chibi fighters with powers derived from test scores return.

Ok, so the jokes are definitely starting to get old. How many Minami flat chest jokes have we heard at this point? How many times has Himeji cooked poison? How often has Shouko blackmailed Yuuji? (ok, I still enjoy that last one) The first season was enjoyable: they should have stopped while they were ahead.

There were a few good episodes, particularly the peeking in the bath arc, the Minami episodes and that one episode on Shouko. But then everything just gets reset.

I don’t have much else to say. The strongest part of the first season was in its fights and wacky humor (e.g., Shouko and Yuuji, Hideyoshi as a girl, and Akihisa getting the crap beaten out of him). In this season, we got much less of this than I would have liked. Instead, they decided to focus on beach episodes, festivals and Himeji’s cooking.

• Plot / Script – C – Reuse of jokes.
• Characters – C – I always liked the characters in this series (except Himeji). But this season didn’t add much to them.
• Production – B – It has a unique visual style.
• Overall – C-

Recommendations – School Rumble, Seto no Hanayome, Full Metal Panic Fumoffu

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Where do I even begin? This was a complete disaster.

Perhaps the biggest problem is Narumi. He is the most boring character imaginable. He has no memorable traits, he doesn’t have any particular goals: hell, he isn’t even a NEET, which this show is ostensibly about. And yet he’s the most popular guy in the world. He becomes Alice’s most trusted assistant (because he’s the best at passing Dr. Pepper to her?), he quickly becomes trusted by all her underlings, and he becomes one of the most respected men and a sworn brother in the yakuza due to his ability to remove malware. Am I seriously supposed to care about this guy?

Then there’s Alice: she’s a brilliant NEET detective who stays in bed all day with her stuffed animals and lives on a diet of Dr. Pepper. She also happens to look like a ten year old girl. Once again, she is one of the most respected people in the city due to her genius hacking skills. All in all, the premise of a girl who never gets out of bed and a loser with no redeemable qualities being feared by the yakuza just pisses me off. And is she supposed to be cute? What exactly is cute about a grown woman with the body of a ten year old who never leaves her bed, stays in her pajamas all day, and lives on a diet of Dr. Pepper? I do not understand this fetish .

The side characters are even worse. Let’s take a look at the ones whose names I can remember. First, Major. I can only remember him because his name’s easy. All he does is play war. Second, the Fourth. Same reason I remember his name too. He leads a yakuza gang that has Narumi as its sworn brother and whose main activity is advertising for concerts. Leading the yakuza is serious business. Oh, and he can sew. What a twist: his character has such depth! Third is Ayaka, the bright and cheerful girl of tragic destiny. Ok, that’s all I can remember.

We could forgive a bit from our characters if there was an interesting story or mystery, but no. Most of the mysteries are painfully obvious, and the characters only serve to make me angry. I actually dropped this about halfway through, but ended up coming back and marathoning the rest. In retrospect, it wasn’t worth it.

• Plot / Script – D – Boring.
• Characters – F – Annoying.
• Production – B – Decent
• Overall – D-

Recommendations – Welcome to the NHK, Durarara!!, Higashi no Eden

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The comedy of the year.

When Nichijou first started, I, like many others, assumed it was simply KyoAni’s next phase in milking the cash cow they had discovered with comedy manga about cute girls doing cute things. Well, they probably are cashing in, but KyoAni has still surpassed itself with Nichijou.

Nichijou is bloody hilarious. K-On focused on cuteness, Lucky Star on referential humor, and Nichijou does absurdist slapstick comedy. It works. All too well. I almost died of laughter several times. I’m still laughing about that first cube skit, which was over twelve episodes ago…

What makes Nichijou work so well? Much of the humor comes from the epic proportions they escalate things to. When Mio gets mad… hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This is coupled with excellent visual effects: the entire world shakes with rage when Mio’s angry, the background changes, and you can feel her anger. The animation makes you feel emotionally involved with the story.

Another part of Nichijou’s charm is the sheer randomness. We have statues everywhere, Mio’s hair ornaments falling from airships, Igo soccer, wind-up robots, talking crows, and Mai, who is an unstoppable force of nature all by herself.

The characters are forceful and memorable; the animation is superb; and the comedy is drop dead hilarious. Go watch Nichijou if you haven’t already.

• Plot / Script – A – Hilarious.
• Characters – A – Mio-chan!
• Production – A – So wonderfully over-the-top emotional.
• Overall – A-

Recommendations – Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, K-On!

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