Review: Occult Academy 1 & 2

You are entering the world of Pumpkinhead!

Like my fellow editors here at Project Haruhi, I have been pretty disappointed by the new summer anime thus far. In my humble opinion, this season’s shows are either overrated, subpar or just outright horrible. Of course, I’ve experienced this kind of thing before. I always take solace in the fact that, just when things are looking darkest, a single great anime emerges from the shadows. Like a brilliant beam of light from the heavens, this one show drives back the darkness and brings hope to all the downtrodden, world-weary otaku.

This season, that show is Occult Academy.

Think I’m being hyperbolic? Find out more after the break!

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Review: Shiki 01

Gastly used Mean Look!

First of all I should probably say ‘Hello again’ and ‘Sorry’, since I’ve not posted since Christmas and even then only to wish the season’s greeting. I apologise to all you fans of me out there (none of you, I suspect) and hope you enjoy this, my comeback review!

The few of you that know me may realise that the imagery present in the trailer for Shiki immediately appealed to my tastes, and unless I watched at least some of it my brain would fall out. Luckily for me, the first episode aired a few days ago and I managed to watch it. What I had been expecting was an anime packed with wonder and the Higurashi-style creepiness I love. What I had not been expecting was a documentary on a stuck-up schoolgirl and her over-inflated ego. Granted, the creepy was still there in small portions, but not nearly enough for my fix.

You can read my first impressions in full after the usual jump.

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Review: Highschool of the Dead 2

Revenge of the nerds.

After the thrashing I gave the first episode of Highschool of the Dead, I wasn’t really expecting much from the series. Madhouse seemed to be focusing far too much effort on the fanservice for my tastes. However, I did hold on to a shred of hope that the absurdity of the first episode was partially a ploy to attract viewers who may not have bothered with it. I don’t like what that sort of strategy implies about anime fans, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t have some basis in reality.

Thankfully, if episode two is any indication, my theory seems to be correct. This episode was more entertaining and significantly less insulting to my intelligence than the first. I’ll explain in detail after the jump.

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Review: Seitokai Yakuindomo 2

Real men aren't afraid to cry.

From my last review, you can clearly see that I’m trying my best to give Seitokai Yakuindomo a chance. However, the second episode did little to improve my opinion of this show. That’s not to say it was a complete flop; there were some ups, and by that I mean “a few funny jokes.” Sadly, these jokes aren’t funny enough to make up for a complete lack of plot, unbelievably boring characters and humor that’s starting to wear thin. But without further ado, lets get to the review.

Read more after the jump.

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Bakacast Briefs – The Saga Begins

Hey, look! It’s the debut episode of Bakacast Briefs! As always, you can download it directly, subscribe to our RSS feed, or let iTunes do all the work for you. So, what is Bakacast Briefs, you ask? Basically, we’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that Bakacast will only update once a month. However, we wanted to give our audience something to listen to during that large gap of time. So we figured we’d try doing mini-episodes that ditch our typical news and in-depth review format; instead, Bakacast Briefs will feature Jon (aka Ritsu), Chris (aka Kagami) and me giving our brief thoughts on each week’s new anime episodes. Unfortunately, Chris is unusually busy with something called “real life”, so it’s just Jon and me in this episode. We discussed:

I was hoping to add Sengoku Basara 2 to this list, but Funimation still hasn’t put the first episode up (so much for a “simulcast”). I’ll talk about it on next week’s show, I promise. Also, this list is likely to change as we drop shows we’re not interested in. So by the time we’re a few weeks in, we’ll probably have narrowed it down to a few shows that all of us are watching. In the meantime, tell us what you think of the new style. It’s very much in the “experimental” stage, so we’d love to know what you like or don’t like about it. The music used for this episode is “Colour Television” by J. Arthur Keenes.

Review: K-ON!! 14

SURPRISE! :3

From the tone of my last K-ON!! review, you may have thought I despised this show. But it’s quite the contrary; I love K-ON!!. It’s chock full of laugh-out-loud humor and entertaining characters, and this week’s show was a great example of that. After my disappointment from last week’s subpar offering, this episode thoroughly rekindled my love for this series. It was filled with enjoyable humor and charm, and was a sheer delight from beginning to end.

Read more after the jump! Continue reading

Review: Seitokai Yakuindomo 1

From what I’ve read on the interwebs thus far, most people seem to have a low opinion of Seitokai Yakuindomo. Although I enjoyed watching it, I find it hard to disagree with them. However, some are saying this is the worst of the season, which I believe is taking it too far. I mean, sure it was generic, bland and cliche… but at least it was funny enough to get a few laughs out of me.  I’m going to attempt to explain why I don’t hate this show. Hopefully, this won’t provoke people to hunting me down and slaughtering me.

Read the review after the jump! Continue reading

New K-ON!! OP and ED

The latest episode of K-ON!! has brought with it an entirely new OP and ED, replacing the much-maligned Go! Go! Maniac and Listen!! with fresh songs and animation.

Utau yo Miracle

No, Thank You!

I’m not too keen on the new OP; it strikes me as bland and forgettable. As for the new ED, I think it has promise, but I’d like to hear the full song before passing final judgement. I’ll have to wait, though, since the singles don’t come out until August 4th.

Review: High School of the Dead 1

Here is the basic premise of High School of the Dead. There are zombies. There are high schoolers. The high schoolers beat up zombies. Some of the high schoolers have big breasts.

On the surface, that should be a show I’d really like. As I said when I talked about Gunsmith Cats, I’m kind of a fan of well-developed women who kick lots of butt. Unfortunately, High School of the Dead (which I will now refer to as HSotD, because I’m lazy), is a mixed bag. While technically impressive and fast-paced, some of the content made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

And not in the way that horror shows are supposed to.

I’ll explain in detail after the jump.

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Review: K-ON!! 13

Let me say this now: the one real reason I started watching K-ON! at all was because everyone kept talking about it on Twitter. So I thought, “Hey! I wanna look cool, too! I should watch it!”  However, the second season has been a bit of a disappointment. It doesn’t feel like any major plot developments have come along in a while, and that’s reflected in this episode. K-ON!! 13 is doesn’t deviate much from the standard formula we’ve seen thus far.  There are a few different elements shown, but ultimately it’s just eye candy for the fans. I enjoyed it somewhat, but that was mainly because of Azusa in her swimsuit. But let’s cut to the chase, shall we?

Read more after the jump!

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