spectralbovine

Thank you for being so intelligent, capable, and reliable.*

*Replicated statement from an IM earlier today. I think I lost some of the details, but the intended message remains.

Now don’t get all arrogant and full of yourself.

Smiley face, ☺, :-}

xkcd_rss

http://xkcd.com/661/

aelysian
save_scc

• 16:17 Vote for SCC: Best Show Axed Before Its TIme of 2009. bit.ly/3QWziN #savesarah #

the_narration

Autumn is upon us, and amidst the changing colors of the leaves, the dropping temperatures, the shortened days and the holiday-themed advertisements it also brings with it another change: the start of a new season of television entertainment.

The mainstream offerings have all been undoubtedly reviewed and analyzed quite thoroughly by plenty of people across the internet, so I won’t bother retreading that ground. Anyway, the truth of the matter is that I don’t catch much TV these days. With the hours I keep, I pretty much have to watch anything I wish to see online, so I tend to stick to what I’m already familiar with.

While a nighttime work schedule and an increasing sense of disinterest towards the current trends in the output of most of the networks has kept me from seeing much of what’s on the air here in North America, thanks to the power of the internet I have had the opportunity to examine some of the new series that are airing elsewhere in the world. Specifically, in a certain country that has produced several of my favorite television series over the years, not to mention quite a few other highly original, highly intelligent or highly entertaining ones (and, in all fairness, plenty of mediocre or absolutely terrible ones… and it’s usually the lousy ones that are best known).

You can probably guess which one I mean.

Welcome to TheNarrator’s review of the Fall ’09 season of Japanese animation.

So, how are the anime offerings for this season overall? Honestly?

Disappointing.

I know I shouldn’t go into an anime expecting it to be the next Noir or Cowboy Bebop just like I shouldn’t expect a live-action series to be the next Farscape or Sarah Connor Chronicles, but that didn’t stop me from hoping that there would be something truly impressive in this batch of shows. Instead, they’re mostly mediocre and clichéd. Most of the truly excretable ones I was able to avoid entirely by making use of other people’s reviews of them, but a few still slipped through. And there were some that might have some potential but are flawed in the execution. Those could perhaps be called "okay": not painful to watch, but I could easily name better series that one could watch instead, so the only reason to watch these would be if you’ve already seen all those better shows and now you’re bored (like me). One show could be good or suck, it's too early to tell. There’s really only one show here that I can definitely call "good" and sadly, it’s not action or scifi or fantasy or anything cool like that… it’s a friggin’ romantic comedy. When the best thing airing is a romantic comedy, you know it's a weak season.

Of course, you often can’t truly tell a series’ worth from its first episode or even first several, so it’s entirely possible that a series that I’ve dismissed will wind up revealing hidden depths at some point further down the line. But these are the judgments I’ve made based on how things stand at the moment.

I also tried to include plenty of snark where snark was due, so hopefully these reviews will be entertaining even if the shows aren't.