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The end of the spring season is finally here, and Karen and Larry join me to give it a swift kick out the door. Sadly, Glen could not be with us because he overslept was busy fighting alien invaders.

In any case, we were quite happy knowing we’d never have to watch X-Men, AnoHana, and Hanasku Iroha ever again. And yes, I know HanaIro didn’t technically end. A season finale is good enough for me. Steins;Gate is fantastic as always (if rather cruel), but [C] tragically fumbles its finale. Oh well. Maybe the two noitaminA shows coming out this summer will make up for the past four that have been on that block. And no matter what happens, we’ll at least have My Little Pony.

In the news segment, we briefly touch on the Thundercats remake and Warren Ellis’ involvement with the crummy Marvel adaptations. Then we answer a couple of listener questions and close out the episode discussing what summer shows we’ll be watching. Try and guess which one we’re checking out just to mock. It shouldn’t be too hard.

We cover:

• 2:08 – News
  • Thundercats remake
  • Warren Ellis on the Marvel anime (if you don’t know who this is, read FreakAngels [WARNING: Has strong language and occasional NSFW imagery])
• 10:48 – Soft Tennis #12
• 15:31 – Gosick #23
• 21:02 – X-Men #12
• 28:53 – Hanasaku Iroha #13
• 37:09 – Steins;Gate #13
• 43:21 – AnoHana #11
• 50:54 – [C] #11
• 1:03:02 – My Little Pony #5 & 6
• 1:17:30 – Listener questions
• 1:25:47 – Summer anime plans

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net, @reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

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Sadly, Karen could not be with us for the entire podcast, because she has actual work to accomplish. To mitigate that issue, we rearranged our reviewing schedule a bit. Don’t be afraid! It’s only temporary! We’ll return to normalcy next week.

This week, we have the pleasure of reviewing the fifth Break Blade OVA, which makes a return to greatness after the lackluster fourth episode. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for X-Men, as the final half of episode 9 brings it back to the levels of terrible we expect from the show. Oh well. At least X-Men: First Class is decent.

We cover:

• 2:08 – What we’ve been doin’
• 12:35 – X-Men #9
• 20:50 – Steins;Gate #10
• 29:40 – Hanasaku Iroha #10
• 38:14 – Break Blade #5
• 47:23 – Gosick #20
• 51:29 – AnoHana #8
• 59:12 – [C] #8
• 1:07:17 – Listener questions

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net, @reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

Or if, like Hate-Chan, you want to write the occasional article for Project Haruhi, you can e-mail a writing sample to Jon at  ryoko[at]projectharuhi.net.

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Karen of The Otakusphere joins us again for this week’s episode and gives us what’s probably the only recap of Astarotte’s Toy we’ll ever hear (or pay attention to).

Since we’ve executed several shows over the last couple episodes, we bring back the “What have you been playing/reading/watching?” segment that I really should find a more clever and concise name for. Then we get right to our review segment, which includes one of the most miraculous events ever witnessed. No, it’s not the Rapture; you couldn’t download this podcast if that had actually happened. It was something even more unexpected: we give Gosick a perfect score.

Did I just blow your mind? No?

Well, then it’ll probably later get blown away when we discuss how bad Tiger & Bunny and AnoHana managed to be. I feel like you really have to work to come up with dialogue and plotlines that terrible.

We cover:

• 2:41 – What we’ve been amusing ourselves with
• 14:51 – Gosick #18
• 19:10 – Tiger & Bunny #8 (if Bunny is going to be Batman, why can’t he be this Batman?)
• 24:05 – X-Men #7
• 34:48 – Hanasaku Iroha #8
• 43:07 – Steins;Gate #8
• 51:49 – AnoHana #6
• 58:23 – Deadman Wonderland manga (I did this for you, Ryu)
• 1:03:51 – [C] #6
• 1:10:07 – Listener question

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net, @reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

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We go back to basics on this episode of Bakacast with just Glen, Larry and me on hosting duties. We even bring back the poor, neglected news segment to look deep within ourselves and wonder if we would pay upwards of $150 to find a wife. The answer is a definitive “Probably not, but I won’t rule it out.”

Of course, we review some anime, too, finally freeing ourselves from the bondage of Battle Girls (it wasn’t even the fun, “let’s experiment” kind of bondage). Plus, Gosick proves it doesn’t even know how light works, Tiger & Bunny could be more accurately titled Bunny, Deadman Wonderland shows similar problems to Highschool of the Dead (but without any of the “entertaining” parts), and Steins;Gate once again saves the week.

We cover:

• 2:06 – OtaRen, the otaku dating service
• 11:33 – Gosick #17
• 21:52 – Tiger & Bunny #7 (the comic was actually from PvP, not Shortpacked; sorry, Scott Kurtz!)
• 30:26 – Hanasaku Iroha #7
• 37:28 – Battle Girls #7 (dropped)
• 44:42 – Steins;Gate #7
• 52:20 – AnoHana #5
• 57:21 – Deadman Wonderland #5 (dropped)
• 1:02:56 – [C] #5
• 1:14:49 – Listener questions

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net, @reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

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This week’s episode marks the first time in a while that Bakacast has actually made it under an hour and a half. Frankly, I’m stunned and kind of hope this trend continues. It helps that we’ve trimmed down our list so it only includes three shows that we’re watching purely for masochistic purposes. The others are either genuinely good or showed early promise and are now suffering from an acute case of Occult Academy syndrome.

I’m looking at you Tiger & Bunny.

Frequent guest-host Thomas fills in Jon’s vacant fourth slot this week and, in a daring move, gives Battle Girls the highest score its gotten since the first episode. As stunned as I was (and still am), I admit it’s hard to argue with an episode that gives me 100% more Nobunaga (aka the only good thing about the show). But Glen, Larry and I being who we are, we find plenty of ways to argue about it anyway. Because we’re mean like that.

We cover:

• 2:09 – Gosick #16
• 11:27 – Tiger & Bunny #6
• 19:33 – Hanasaku Iroha #6
• 25:56 – Battle Girls #6
• 34:43 – Steins;Gate #6 (it seems appropriate that this show gets a palindrome for its time stamp)
• 43:46 – Dat Flower–er…AnoHana #4
• 52:17 – Deadman Wonderland #4
• 1:00:30 – [C] #4
• 1:10:06 – Listener question

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net, @reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.