I’m a little late, but anyway, here are my quick first impressions on some of the Summer 2008 anime series. These will be divided into two entries. Here’s batch 1.
In this batch: (1) Chocolate Underground; (2) Telepathy Shoujo Ran; (3) Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora; (4) Hidamari Sketch x365; (5) Strike Witches; (6) Birdy the Mighty Decode; (7) Ryouko’s Case File.
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(1) Chocolate Underground (ONA)
More info – Official Site
This is Production IG’s adaptation of the novel “Bootleg” by British author Alex Shearer.
– Did you think Toshokan Sensou fighting for books was too much to handle? How about chocolates? Yes. Chocolates. This series is set at a time when chocolates are banned by the government. In fact, they’re so dead serious in banning choco that they even have mecha to help them fight and apprehend choco law-breakers. There’s no OP, considering the episodes are just about 5 minutes long. Yes, seriously. I’m not sure if it has an ED, though a nice song plays as the credits and next episode preview are shown.
“No more chocolate! Let’s be healthy!” O_O — I’ll be joining the choco rebels to fight the chocolate police (who are funnily named CACAO ~Lol)!
- Watch it? Yes, sure. Why not? It’s only about 5 minutes per episode and I think it’s slated for only 13 episodes.
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(2) Telepathy Shoujo Ran
More info – Official Site
– It has a catchy OP [“Aoi Kakera” by Chara], which sounds like something I’ve heard before somewhere. It seems to have a pretty decent storyline, although I’m not much of a fan of the character design and stuff. Obviously, telepathy is involved. There’s this girl who comes across as kinda evil but is probably not, who’s trying to force Ran to use her yet unknown telekinetic abilities. She succeeded, so the following episodes would probably deal with Ran learning to harness her powers, dealing with her childhood friend Rui, and maybe facing some villains along the way?
- Watch it? It has a pretty decent storyline, but I’m neither drawn towards the character design nor the plot… So, that would be a no.
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(3) Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora
More info – Official Site
Also known as Someday’s Dreamers: Summer Skies
– Such a long title… Thank goodness for the copy and paste function! xD It has a really nice OP [“Fly Away” by THYME] that had a nice beat. I liked it a lot. I think I’m gonna like this band since I also totally liked their OP song for To-Love-Ru. Ahem, so back to Natsu no Sora… It has nice animation and a unique visual touch of reality. Sora, the lead girl who’s a mage, gets accepted into Hogwarts Magic School in Tokyo. She’s quite a likable character too. So she goes to Tokyo to start her magic school adventures. I was also kinda anticipating to hear Tomoaki Maeno (My precious Doujou’s voice in Toshokan Sensou! *melts*) as the character named Gouta, but he wasn’t there yet. Better luck next episode. The ED [“Hawai ta Hana” by micc] was okay. A typical ballad for an ED. This series is a spin-off of the Someday’s Dreamers series, but I heard that you didn’t need to have watched the previous series to understand where this story goes since Sora is a new character.
- Watch it? Yes.
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(4) Hidamari Sketch x 365
More info – Official Site
– It has a fun OP [“Hatena de Wasshoi” by Kana Asumi, Kaori Mizuhashi, Ryoko Shintani & Yuko Goto] along with a colorful and fun sequence. It’s lighthearted, funny, artsy, and a bit laid-back sort of series. The ED song [“Ryūsei Record” by marble] is alright. I particularly liked it when it’s beat picked up. I haven’t seen the previous season of Hidamari but I didn’t have a hard time jumping in and watching the sequel. I’m not sure if I actually need to have seen the first series to watch this sequel, though… Do I?
- Watch it? I like comedies and slice of life, so yes, I most probably will.
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(5) Strike Witches
More info – Official Site
– The OP [“Strike Witches” by Yoko Ishida] is upbeat and catchy. Strike Witches – a special group created to fight against the Neuroi. One of the members, Major Sakamoto, has this Rental Magica-ish sort of eye. Apparently, in the time and place this was set, girls don’t usually wear pants, shorts nor skirts. So anyway, the Strike Witches are basically girls who have magical abilities, who wear these boot-like flying thingies. A bit weird, but pretty cool. The ED [“Bukkumaaku A・Heddo” performed by the main cast] is your typical cutesy sort of ED song.
- Watch it? I think I will, plus it’s only 12 episodes anyway.
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(6) Birdy the Mighty Decode
More info – Official Site
– The OP [“Sora” by Hearts Grow] has a nice beat. On watching the first episode, I can say that it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. It actually has a pretty decent plot and I think it had a pretty good start. I’m not really into futuristic stories involving aliens, spacelife and such, but I’m curious about the boy, Senkawa. He was mistakenly killed by the alien investigator, Birdy, in a tussle. He should’ve died, but he apparently lived. The first episode’s ending suggests that Birdy somehow got fused with him… I suppose to keep him alive.. so I’m wondering if he really died. Poor guy. The ED song [“Let’s go together” by Afromania] sounds alright. The sequence is just this shadow of a guy skipping along as the background changes colors.
- Watch it? I think I’ll watch a couple of episodes more before I can say either yes or no.
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(7) Ryoko’s Case File
More info – Official Site
Also known as Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo.
– It has a nice and jazzy instrumental OP theme. The elegant leading lady, Ryouko, seems like a spoiled, stuck-up sort of character (she somehow reminds me of Naoki from Itazura na Kiss). Izumida is her subordinate and is definitely being treated like one. Poor guy. According to him, whenever he’s around Ryouko, supernatural cases seem to occur. She’s obviously a smart and capable woman. For Izumida, I wasn’t expecting him to be such a capable guy. He turned out to be actually pretty good with defending himself and has some cool fighting skills. The second episode will be a part 2 of this one. The ED is less jazzy than the OP but is also quite nice and easy to listen to.
- Watch it? Yup. It’s quite interesting.
The only Summer season anime I’ll keep watching is Hidamari Sketch x 365. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei director, cute character design, and story about art are some of the key ingredients 🙂
I think this season is full of decent anime. I’m enjoying almost all of them. Nothing earth-shattering, but nothing awful, either. My favorite is Someday’s Dreamers 2, so far.
Chocolate Underground – Can you do anything but love it?
Telepathy Shoujo Ran – Haven’t watched the second episode yet, but I wasn’t all that fond of the first. Might be a bit to standard for my taste.
Summer of Sora – Looks amazing! The background drawings are some of the best I have EVER seen in anime. Not suer abuot the story yet, but I’ll definetily keep on watching.
Strike Witches – In an alternativ past, where the goverment has banned pants, magical-loli-airplanes rule the sky. If they just calm it a bit with the panty-flashes, which they probably won’t, I’ll love it.
Birdy – Looks awesome! Love the animation work, espescially in the fight scene. I’ll probably keep watching and hoping for more awesome fighting. I also liked how they used her fake Idol-persona to do the next episode preview.
Ryoko – I wasn’t that hyped at first, but the last 2 minutes were great! I’m gonna give it a few more episodes, but I’m sceptic so far.
A lot of people actually like Strike Witches, which is surprising. Mecha musume titles tend to be overrun with fanservice though.
@ Kitsune: Ah, so that’s why the episode had a style that reminded me so much of SZS! It’s the same director! I obviously didn’t do my homework… xD
@ hashihime: Someday’s Dreamers is on top of my list this season too. ^_^
@ Cyberborn: Lol, it does indeed appear that the girls in Strike Witches have been banned of pants! Hmm… Makes one think, would you rather be banned of books, chocolates or pants? xDD
@ dingsan: Strike Witches was actually better than I expected it to be. I thought it’d be full of fanservice, but it didn’t… okay, it does but not as much. And it does have quite a proper story to go with, so I think I can ignore the fanservice aspect of it.
LOL@ ” Such a long title… Thank goodness for the copy and paste function! xD ” for Nahou Tsukai blahblahblah… I gave up even attempting to copy-paste it that I just call it Someday’s Dreamers 😀
And yes, in episode 3, you will get a hint of angry Doujou for two seconds – and I was actually happy with it XD
@ biankita: Lol. Just saw Sora’s episode 3. I was happy to hear angry Doujou for a bit too! xD