1. Code Geass R2
2. Macross Frontier*
3. Soul Eater
4. xxxHOLIC kei
5. Allison to Lillia
6. Kurenai
7. Real Drive
8. Wagaya no Oinari-sama
9. Kanokon
10. Nabari no Ou
11. Library Wars
12. Vampire Knight
13. Golgo 13*
14. Kyoran Kazoku Nikki
15. To Love-Ru
16. Itazura na Kiss
A couple of new additions this month:
Macross Frontier: Awesome. To be honest, I only loosely watched previous macross series but this one is the revelation of the season for me. Good mix of mecha fights and love triangle coupled with great character development and story setting. Yoko Kanno returns to supply us with another must-have anime soundtrack, much of which figures prominently in the actual plot. This is the model Gundam series should be trying to follow.
Golgo 13: Golgo 13 is an assassin who always gets his man. I would swear he was a robot if not for his apparent need to create needlessly complicated plots at times to drive the investigators mad. Character development is non-existent since Golgo 13 never says anything unnecessary or emotional (he doesn't have emotions). So much so that we usually see the story from the point of view of the client or target, since they at least can usually considered human. This show is one of those "man who is impressed by how manly another man is" and should be avoided if you can't see the humor in how over-the-top it is.
Since I can't say any series has noticeably improved since last month, I'm withholding the biggest winner award. Most shows at the top of the list have held steady this week while those in the bottom half have mostly worsened, which is to be expected after the novelty of the first few episodes wears off.
Kurenai and Kyouran Kazoku Nikki are my biggest losers for this month. Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, which started off decent enough, has become plain irritating. It's trying to be crazy and creative and wacky but the episodes are very similar and it's not funny. At all.
Kurenai is still a very good show but it just can't seem to meet it's potential. What started off as a dark fighting/slice-of-life series became a light hearted slice-of-life series until recently. Though it still gets high marks for creativity, especially for an ambitious musical episode, I can't help but feel the series is underachieving. Some of that is probably because I don't like how pathetic Shintarou can be at time. He suffers from bouts of depression and self-doubt fairly regularly. There are signs in the last few episodes that that trend may be changing. I hope so because I still really enjoy this series and still think it can develop into something great. All the pieces are there.
Here are other observations for the month:
-After a grandiose and successful opening arc, I was fairly certain Allison to Lillia would suffer a letdown in the following arc. However, Allison held steady with a decent effort in the second arc and I expect a similarly good arc to follow it.
-Library Wars appears to be missing some direction. The initial setting was intriguing enough but library wars seems undecided on where it wants to take it plot-wise. It needs to make a move because character interactions are stagnating and repeating themselves.
That's all for now. I don't really have any reviews on deck so I might not post anything till next month. Maybe I'll write a retro review for something next week. Enjoy your summer ~Mina!~ Bye-bee!
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