Steins; Gate looks like it’s going to be awesome as long as it doesn’t pull another Chaos; Head. But given that the staff has a much better track record this time along, I think they should be able to avoid that. The character designs are less ridiculous as well which is promising. I’ll confess, there’s nothing I love more than a good conspiracy theory: two of my favorite books are Foucalt’s Pendulum and the Illuminatus trilogy. Steins; Gate seems poised to deliver.

I’m already sold on the main character Rintarou Okabe. He’s a self proclaimed mad scientist who’s clearly insane, but there also seems to be some truth in his delusions. His fast-paced thinking and dialogue keep the show fresh and interesting even when he’s just giving a monologue in his lab. I’m not quite sold on Mayuri yet— she seems a bit too cute and cheerful, but that probably only means she’s covering up an even darker secret.

As for the mystery, mixed-up memories and cellphone messages from the future, I have no idea what’s going on, but that’s how a good mystery should be. I’ll definitely be blogging this series unless the next episode is a complete disaster.

I actually still haven’t finished the original Gintama… I stopped around episode 150. Somehow the last 30-50 episodes were losing their touch, and I just wasn’t finding it as funny anymore. Still, it’s a remarkable achievement to stay fresh and keep me entertained for over a hundred episodes, so I had to at least give this new season a second chance.

I wasn’t disappointed, and this first episode returned to the level of humor in the earlier episodes of the original show. The jokes have an impeccable sense of timing— just when you think think things can’t get any worse for Shinpachi, and it seems like something is finally going right for him, they pick the perfect moment to make everything go disastrously wrong and become worse than it seemed before. I’m still laughing about Shinpachi coming out of his room to hug Otae-san and her new husband.

I’ll probably be watching this one but definitely not blogging it (too long, plus I won’t have much to say). Also, with these first episode preview posts, I’ll be skipping shows that are only two minutes long (Fireball Charming) or that it’s completely obvious I’ll hate (Toriko), although I like to make myself miserable so I’ll probably do a few of the latter category anyway.

Sengoku Otome is yet another show reenacting a historical era with the main players as girls in costumes. The main difference from other shows like it is that instead of being about the Three Kingdoms era the subject is the Sengoku period in Japan.

This episode was about what I’d expect from the premise— very little. It wasn’t bad, per se, nothing near the level of Oretach ni Tsubasa, just boring and unremarkable in every single way. The characters are bland. The best action sequence (which was just someone posing with a spear) happened in the first twenty seconds as an “exciting” preview, and of course was cut and pasted as is later in the episode too. The plot looks like it’ll be a collection quest. Dropped.

This was terrible even by the already low standards of perverted harem shows. The entire episode was basically a slide show, having a brief scene with every character and showing their name on the screen. Plus completely random and pointless fanservice, even worse than the usual tripping and gusts of wind. A  little kid walks up from out of nowhere and lifts up the waitress’s skirt. He complains that they aren’t striped and so he pulls them down. I don’t even know what to say. The only slightly redeeming point of the entire episode was how the main character treated the girl at the bar (see above picture).

I called it quits when the seven year old girl pulled up her skirt and started making dirty jokes, and fast-forwarded through the rest. A cursory glance revealed that the main character is actually a king in some fantasy realm complete with winged creatures. I don’t care though, I’m out for this one.

Tiger and Bunny has a strange premise: superheroes competing in a reality TV show to become the “King of Heroes” and bring fame to their sponsors. Based on the first episode, it’s actually looking quite promising: characters which are certainly not your typical superheroes, intensive and well-animated action scenes, and a healthy dose of cynicism. At this point the closest thing I would compare it to is Starship Operators, although I don’t quite feel that Tiger and Bunny will reach the same level of seriousness.

The show seems to be building up a bunch of intrigue and exploring a bunch of different directions, so it’s hard to say where the main focus will be. But we have already have Tiger’s personal life (he’s definitely not going to keep that promise with his daughter), the relationships between the superheroes, the shake-ups in the corporate hierarchy and the station management, the ethical questions raised by vigilante justice and a “justice” system which values both capturing criminals and commercial time more than the lives of civilians, and the behind the scenes intrigue of Sky High’s backers colluding with criminals to win the competition. It definitely a lot of promising directions to explore, so this show is one to watch.