Spring 2012 Anime Season

[animeobsessed]

I haven't watched as much as I have wanted to yet, but the ones that have been following are:

Fate Zero 2
Hiiro no Kakera - not the best but still watching
Kuroko no Basket - love Kuroko in this one
Sakamichi no Apollon - surprised I liked this one so much
Area no Kishi (from Winter season)
Hyouka


I hope to catch up on a few others as well.

[Yupa]

It feels as if the bread in Shining Hearts is symbolic of love, affection, trust and friendship. I wonder if the characters will fight with their food later on?

I'm really surprised that people are still watching this. What drew you in?
In my opinion (and I see on other boards I'm not the only one) the first episode was the most boring episode of all shows that came out this season.

[Keropi]

Well...I guess I sort of liked the Shining Tears anime...in a campy sort of way. Shining Tears was intentionally campy in a number of areas. I was less interested in it when they attempted to be more serious. I thought they might do something like that in Shining Hearts. I wasn't expected much from it. I thought they might do some more sword pulling which always made me laugh while watching the Shining Tears anime. I got a couple sketches from Shining Tears some time after watching it.

So I guess I was expecting half decent character designs along with a somewhat amusing or half-entertaining storyline. Unfortunately it hasn't gone that way so far. So far it's been much more like the Shukufuku no Campanella anime. It's been mostly about their daily lives and having a lot of warm, fuzzy and cute moments between the characters. Mostly the anime has only been about baking bread and the good things that have come out of it such as friendship and neighborliness. I didn't think the anime was going to concentrate so much on baking and passing out bread. Lol

I was telling my friend that Shining Hearts is not a good anime to watch when you're sleepy because it'll be impossible to stay awake. I was literally having a hard time trying to stay awake watching three of the episodes.

[Yupa]

Ah, I was hoping for you to prove me wrong, but I see it hasn't much improved in the next few episodes. I have nothing against slice-of-life anime, but what this anime lacks is interesting characters.
Fortunately this season has quite a few good slice-of-life anime. I'm thinking of Space Bros, Kids on the Slope, Tsuritama. Even Hyouka and Natsuiro Kiseki, which basically have no interesting plot whatsoever, are still fun thanks to their characters. Or the highly energetic Nyarko-san, who makes the show interesting just to watch her. Or even throw in a bit of supernatural characters like in Sankarea and Dusk Maiden of Amnesia. A show needs something to keep your attention.

[Keropi]

I agree with you. An anime doesn't have to be that "good" for me to watch it. I just want to see something entertaining. Give me a reason to watch it. Give me a reason to care what happens to the characters.

If Shining Hearts were exactly the same except for switching the genders of the characters, I don't think I would still be watching it. So far, I think there have been seven or eight young female characters in the anime (depending on if you count the one that's at the dwarf's place).

The second season of Kore wa Zombie has been interesting to see the guest seiyuu that have played the "imaginary Eu" characcter. There was Kikuko Inoue, Mariko Kouda and Chisa Yokoyama among others. That was pretty neat (especially the later two). I haven't heard from Mariko Kouda and Chisa Yokoyama for a long time.

I guess Megumi Hayashibara would sound out of place compared to the others if she tried to play imaginary Eu like that. I can't think of any other well known female seiyuu from the past... Their names are listed at ANN:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... p?id=13782

[Gonzai]

Not sure if this is considered spring or summer, but looks like Studio Deen has announced
a new OVA for Hakuouki coming out the 27th of June.

http://www.geneonuniversal.jp/rondorobe ... index.html

[Keropi]

The franchise must be doing pretty well since it's gotten so many sequels. Shoujo anime don't get many sequels these days. Actually...there aren't that many shoujo anime now to begin with.

Kore wa Zombie Season 2 episode 8:

Wow, they got Sumi Shimamoto to voice delusional Eu this time. I was thinking what other well known, female seiyuu from the past they could get - someone who used to do cute, young sounding voices. They went and got Sumi Shimamoto. Very cool. Lots of famous, old line seiyuu making cameo appearances in this series.

[Keropi]

Shining Hearts 7:
I liked this episode more than most of the earlier episodes.

The group gets to cook bread at their newly remodeled location. It opens for business. They even have sit down spots now so that people can eat bread at tables! It's too bad they didn't think to install a drive through window. The Chinese cat girl was amusing though because of the way how she explained things.