A couple of weeks ago I promised a critique of the new season of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei to balance out the unbroken praise of this unusually fertile currently airing season. The problem is, since I wrote that post, Zan SZS has delivered three particularly good episodes. Now, to that point Zan SZS hadn’t been a bad anime by any stretch of the imagination, and, on the other side of the coin, I wouldn’t say the latest three episodes have produced mark-hitting jokes with the consistency of the brilliant Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (which I’ll hence refer to as ZSZS). But there’s been an improvement which kinda neuters the point I was hoping to make (although it does conform to another point that I like to make frequently, ie, that it’s impossible to make a proper judgement on an incomplete series, since, like in capitalism, it demands speculation which is unreliable). But I guess what I want to point out is an observation of a trend: anime comedies generally lack staying power.

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Copyright © 2009 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Tweet! | AnimeBlips - vote it up!
Post tags: Hayate the Combat Butler, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, School Rumble

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This is a lot later than I’d usually make a “First Thoughts” of the season article. I usually try to post them about half-way through the second week, such that I’ve seen up to ep 2 of about half the titles I’m following, and ep 1 of the other half. But even the NHRV Editor’s Choice article came out a week after I originally intended. Let’s just say I’ve been busy (real life, among other things).

Every season the same group of cynics make the comment that this is a crappy season and there’s no good new anime, and it’s easy enough to dismiss their opinion because they say the same thing every season. So I don’t make the same comments lightly, but this really is a crap season. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another season that has had such a dearth of interesting titles since Winter 2006. Now usually when people make such comments, my thoughts are that they just haven’t found the good stuff, since it’s usually a little more obscure and buried under the mountains of garbage, so if this is the case for me this season, I’d appreciate people to point me away from the crap and in the right direction. Nonetheless, based on what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think ghostlightning‘s Everythingfromthenewseasonisshiteritis disease is a mental delusion that strikes a few separate individuals, at least this time. This time, I think it’s actually reality, and that everything really is crap this season. Almost, anyway. There are a few titles here and there that have shown promise.

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Copyright © 2009 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Tweet! | AnimeBlips - vote it up!
Post tags: Cross Game, Eden of the East, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hanasekeru Seishounen, Hayate the Combat Butler, K-ON!, Natsu no Arashi, Pandora Hearts, Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~, Ristorante Paradiso, Shangri-La

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