Autumn Anime

August 14, 2004 | 15 Comments

Updated date list - see comment. For those who are wondering, I have indeed lost interest in Elfen Lied. The silly moments in the otherwise bleak series ruined the mood for me. The combination simply doesn't work anymore after I watched the second episode. It reminds me too much of Kono Mini and that didn't bring pleasant memory. On top of this, I want to be prepared for the lineup of Autumn Anime which will be quite big. Elfen Lied is 13 episode show for now and that means the schedule will bleed over into the Autumn season. The problem is, I already have another anime which will continue down to the Autumn season (Monster). If I don't cut down on something, I doubt I'll be able to keep up with the onslaught of Autumn Anime. Speaking of the Autumn anime themselves, Blurry Anime have mentioned some of the titles. But here are some titles that interest me:

Bleach
Official Site

One of my favourite titles from Shounen Jump (the other being Naruto) will finally be animated. Bleach tells the story of a 15 year old boy called Kurosaki Ichigo who has the ability to see apparitions of dead people. One day he comes home to find out that a mysterious girl called Rukia has appeared inside his room. Rukia quickly reveals herself to be a Shinigami ('Soul Reaper' in Viz translation) who's been sent to destroy a creature called 'Hollow', an evil spiritual entity looking to prey on humans' souls. It's really hard for me to describe how good this series is just by writing the summary because it's the interaction between the characters that make this series a stand above the rest so I definitely will follow this series' debut as anime.

Yakitate!! Japan
Official Site

Another one of my favourite manga will finally become an animation. Yakitate!! Japan is the story of Azuma Kazuma and his quest to create the perfect bread from Japan. Thus, the play of the title, Freshly-Baked JaPan because 'Pan' is bread. Anyway, in his quest to become a good breadmaker, Azuma enters a competition to work in a famous bread shop called 'Pantasia' and gets to meet an array of equally fascinating characters such as Kawachi Kyousuke, Azusagawa Tsukino, and Suwabara Kai. Just like Bleach, the manga is still running in Japan and has quite a lot of volumes (up to 13) to make this a good long-running anime. Or at least I hope it'll be. I don't want to see another manga getting a short-lived anime treatment like Midori no Hibi.

Genshiken + Kujibiki Unbalanced
Official Site + Official Site 2

Genshiken is basically a story about a group of otaku living their life obsessing about manga, anime, and video games. The story begins when the main character, Sasahara Kanji, wants to join the group but is a bit hesitant because he doesn't want to be associated with the type of people who joined the club (geeks and nerds). That is until he meets Kosaka Makoto, a seemingly neat and tidy student but a complete otaku at heart, and Kasukabe Saki, a girl who has a crush on Makoto. Anyway, all of the members of the club are interested in this manga called "Kujibiki Unbalanced". Therefore it only fits that "Kujibiki Unbalanced" ends up getting its own anime series along with "Genshiken". If you're interested in these two, the official sites for both series contain some short teasers.

Gakuen Alice
Official Site

Gakuen Alice tells the story of Sakura Mikan, a girl who decides to follow her best friend when that said friend is sent to a special school in Tokyo. When she arrived there, she quickly realises that the school is actually a special school for 'Alices', children who possess magical powers. The school is specifically created to protect these children from those who wish to use or harm the children. Mikan ends up studying at the school as well when she realises that she also has a special power of her own. The series is still being serialised inside Hana to Yume magazine, the same magazine that carries Fruits Basket. At the moment there are only 5 tankoubans available for the series.

Uta ~ Kata
Official Site

Yes, I realised that the images said 'Summer' but that was because the article was out back in April/May. The truth is, the show won't be out until this October but for some reason the producer decided to promote the hell out of this series early in the year. This could mean that the producer really believes in the series or that they are afraid that it'll be overshadowed by the more popular series and therefore they decided to strike first. The character design looks okay except for the guys, who look too feminine for my taste. The story itself is about the daily life of two girls called Ichika and Manatsu, both of whom live in a seaside town called Kamakura.

© memento 2003