Perhaps it’s because I’m in a sour mood, but nearly everything I’ve sampled recently has bored or annoyed me.
• Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera — A Go Nagai creation with a high-gloss finish: juvenile humor, mild smuttiness, a manic pace and no subtlety whatsoever. High school sophomores will love it.
• Hanasaku Iroha — One narrative motif I loathe is the protagonist making a spectacularly bad initial impression on her new associates at the beginning of the story. Hanasaku Iroha might actually be a good show, but I couldn’t make it through the first episode. Update: It’s just as well I didn’t. Yeesh.
• Tiger and Bunny — The first half of the first episode was fun, but then my interest flagged. The premise does have some satirical potential, and I might give it a second chance when I’m less grouchy.
• Dog Days — I wish I could like this — there are dog-girls and cat-girls, all very cute, no one gets killed, and the hero actually does have some genuine ability — but it just hasn’t caught my interest. Perhaps I haven’t played enough video games.
• Tetsuko no Tabi — A show about train otaku for train otaku from several years ago. Someone decided to sub it. Why?
• The Epic of Zektbach — A female warrior in a land where women bare their midriffs wields a sword that makes her invincible. There is a downside to using the sword, and all ends badly. The creators tried to make the story a parable about science and technology by flashing numbers, chemical diagrams and mathematical formulae on the screen whenever the sword is drawn. It doesn’t work.
It looks like C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control is the only spring show worth watching, and that’s assuming that Nakamura focuses on telling a story rather than editorializing.
