Anime of Winter '11 Preview (Part 2)
OK, what should we talk about next? Oh, I know dragons that turn into girls!
Dragon Crisis focuses on Ryuji, just an average high student- wait, haven't we seen all of this before? Blah, blah, blah, you get it. An average person is thrust into a world of supernatural beings. Still, this show looks worthwhile. A buxom young woman named Erik (also Ryuji's cousin) snatches him up and enlists him in her organization, Seven Tails. It appears as if she just came up with the name of the organization just a few minutes prior, but her organization deals with very real issues.
Before you know it, there are men in black, magical red butterflies are flying out of a cane, and a dragon girl is found inside a locked case. Ryuji barely seems stunned by this revelation that the world is more than school and grades, but he, and the show, just says "screw exposition!" and just chugs along, as if this was episode 2, not episode 1.
It is a cute show, though; almost sickeningly so. The dragon girl, whom Ryuji names Rose, is reminiscent of Chi from Chobits. At first she can only repeat the same word over and over again, and she is obsessed with one person- Ryuji. If you have some kind of thing for young girls, then this is a sow for you to leer at. Some people might want to run from this potential harem show.
Who is the ideal audience? People who like to audibly squeal with delight over cute things.
Watch more? Maybe
Hey! You like zombies? I said DO YOU LIKE ZOMBIES!!? OK, then this might be the show for you. I- think?
This is a show that is trying to be many things at one time. First, it's about zombies, or at least one Zombie. The zombie's named Aikawa, a guy who got murdered. He was then resurrected by a female necromancer, Eucliwood Hellscythe, also called Eu or Yu. Yu (I'll call her Yu) is dressed like some super cute medieval knight, and she only speaks through written notes; Aikawa translates her mute communication as her actually speaking in a sexy tone.
I guess this wasn't weird enough, so the story brings in a mahou shoujo (magical girl)! Aikawa randomly runs into the magical girl Haruna as she's hilariously taking down a foe. Since Aikawa is a zombie, and therefore un-killable, a lot of the jokes involve him being torn apart in ridiculous ways.
Back to Haruna, though. Haruna is a magical girl, but her magical weapon is not a silly wand. NO! She wields a magical chainsaw!! VRUM, VRUUUMMMMMM! I will leave what happens in the rest of the episode because it's weird and funny. This show goes in silly directions and doesn't care much about rules. That's comedy 101, people.
Who is the ideal Audience: Lovers of lolz, and zombies, and magical girl spoofs
Watch more? Maybe
Yes! YEEEEEEEESSSSS! I did not know I wanted this show, but now that I've seen it, I can't imagine my life without it. This could be the best show offered up this season.
Level E is not what I expected. Look at the image with the logo. Shouldn't this be some shounen action sci-fi deal? Not so. Level E is more than that. First off, it's silly: it is really , really, really silly! Add to that the high quality of the animation and atypical characters, and you have a show that obliterates the typical.
I will leave this for you to watch. All I will say about this is to imagine The Odd Couple, but as a space alien and a baseball star. Plus, there is a "twist" about the alien which made me feel like this show will not be using the extraterrestrial plot just for laughs. Level E might be a harder sci-fi outing than it appears to be.
Who is the ideal audience for this show? I think basically everyone. You really have to hate sci-fi not to like this show
Watch more? YES!
The anime goodness is not over, folks! There are lots of legal show streaming this season, so come back to ESH for more. 😉
