As always we seem to be brain twinning on all the titles where our viewership has crossed over, including FMA with my feeling that they are blazing through the early parts of the story. I’m also starting to feel a lack of purpose in the remake. I’m guessing the stories from the first series that are missing up to this point must have been anime originals or something. Being one of those people that doesn’t believe that because something is following the source material that it automatically makes it better, I may be forced at some point to step back and compare the two to see if this effort was all worth it.

And then of course there’s, K-On which is just overdoing it on things that non-moe fans would find unimportant and even some things they would. It’s definitely trying to hard to please a certain demographic and comes across as desperately seeking approval that the demographic would have probably already given it anyway. As for Mio, I don’t think she’ll reach the level of most moe traits assigned to a character that the heroine of Yamazaki and Sato’s eroge from Welcome To The N.H.K did, but it’s entirely possibly at the rate they are going that she’ll finish a close second.

By the way, to answer your query that I never got back to you on, no I don’t think that all slice of life shows are like K-On, because I know first hand that they aren’t.

Of course, they’re all primary-easy high school stuff but still, I like it for the style aspect.

Anyways, thanks for pointing out Cross Game to me. First episode was most excellent and I wish I could reciprocate, but most of the titles I’ve seen so far haven’t been all that great. I’m tempted to throw down Guin Saga, except I need to see the second episode before making any sort of recommendation.

Not counting last seasons sequels and Casshern Sins bridging from last year, last season was still rather sad since Rideback and KMS Erin (ongoing) were the only real winners. Genji would have been excellent had the fansubbing love been given since the show is quite good. (Neglect of Mouryou no Hako saddens me to death.)

This season I am following FMA: Brotherhood, Higashi no Eden, and Souten Kouro since there is nothing else within my interests. Unfortunately, Eden still seems to be a show that can very well implode at any given time while Souten Kouro had a rough outing in its second episode. Ditto on FMA: Brotherhood since the execution has been lacking. Still, one can only hope that next season will not actually be worse since this should be as low as it can get.

@Shadowmage
Oh geez. Well I guess I’ll have to readjust my expectations for that series too, since I just took all the ravings from manga fans at face value. I’m still struggling to understand the justification for this remake, but I guess it’s basically a case of squeaky wheel, which, as Akira talked about in the last post, is even more relevant in anime.

@A.H.
Shin Mazinger. Giant robots and lots of over-the-top GAR. Not really my thing.

@Baka-Raptor
Mindless fanservice. Again, not my thing. Nothing wrong with fanservice, but it’s a challenge to make fanservice anime that aren’t obnoxious. If I had more time to spare this season, I’d consider it, but one more mindless anime on top of all the other mindless anime I’m following this season would pretty much be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

@zzeroparticle
The problem with Winter 2006 titles like F/SN and Kashimashi is that they actually showed promise when they started, but their failure to deliver was spectacular. I heard that Yomigaeru Sora – Rescue Wings wasn’t too bad in the end, but I never bothered to follow through with it. And, assuming that this season also fails to deliver more than three decent titles, I’m currently prepared to write it off as an aberration. If we get lots of consecutive seasons like this, then we need to start asking questions.

Makes me reflect back on Akira’s post when he mentioned how

anime have fallen into a few large categories and each anime attempts to vary only just slightly. There hasn’t been a genre-shattering, industry-shaking innovation in quite a while. Each anime attempts to differentiate itself in minute ways. Instead of making an artistic statement, most directors seem more interested in pandering to a very specific niche of a fandom.

A damning statement it might be, but one that is only too true given the current state of affairs. Let’s hope this is more of a blip than a long-term trend.

I’m not particularly interested in seeing DBZ or FMA again at this time and the shows won’t be going away anytime soon, so those are not currently on my watch list.

Haven’t had the time to see most of the other shows mentioned but, on the surface, only Valkyria Chronicles and maybe, though it’s a long shot, Ristorante Paradiso, sound like I’d actively want to check them out.