Animeph

Review: On a sunny spring day under blooming sakura trees a fateful meeting between Fuura, a girl who can only see everything in a positive light, and Nozomu, a teacher who can only see everything in a negative light, takes place. In fact Nozomu is highly depressive and is trying to kill himself at this very moment, once again. Fuura “helps” him out of his pitiful situation and nicknames him Pink Supervisor. How will those 2 complete opposite character get along in the future.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is presented with very unique artwork. It is the completely hilarious story of Nozomu, who is constantly depressed and trying to kill himself, and Fuura, who is living in her own bright and happy world. They have whole different ideas of life and ways to interact with others. Having enough problems of his own he still has to deal with the problems of his students as well.
Rating: 9/10

Review: Ink is a cute little girl with the appearance of an elementary school girl. However she is already attending high school and her grades are top of the class. She is in love with a boy from her class but she is very shy when dealing with him. One day she meets a powerful mage of a different universe who was banned into the human world in form of a stuffed animal. He lends Ink the power to transform into a magical girl in order to help people in need, which includes helping the boy she loves with his English studies.

Moetan is an incredibly cute and funny comedy show which is based on an English study guide book for otakus. It also has some fanservice and is definitely not the typical mahou-shoujo story but rather a parody of it.
Rating: 7/10

Review: Every morning Mokoto takes the same train to school as the beautiful Katsura and slowly starts to develop an interest in her. However, he is content with just looking at her and does not plan to ever talk to her; that is until Sekai, a good friend of him, decides to support him in his crush. It turns out Katsura also had an interest in him and they start dating. As a reward for helping them, Sekai steals a kiss from Mokoto’s lips. Does she also have feeling for him and still helped him to get together with another girl?

School Days is based on one of the most popular anime dating-sim games. It is famous for its various amazing and shocking endings and for being being the first eroge to be fully animated. Many fans of the game doubt that the anime will be able live up to the great game with its multiple endings and paths, but I hope/think it will not end up as just another harem show. Also, like with all popular fiction works, there is a large group of people who hate it as well, in this case for its weak and indecisive main character.
Rating: 8,5/10

Review: Every person has an invisible ring around his neck. This ring will get darker and darker and he will die once the ring has turned black. Ever since birth Kita Michiru was able to see those rings. She is shocked when she finds out that the rings around Akatsuki Chika’s and Tachibana Shito’s neck, two boys from her school, are pitch black and yet they are still alive. When she gets involved with them she learns that they once died and were given another chance by the Zombie Loan project. She decides to help them to repay their debt by killing zombies.

I’m not sure if a zombi horror setting is the right thing for a shoujo story, but at least it’s something new, even if it’s nothing for me.
Rating: 7/10

Review: Since the day Kaname Okimura was attacked by a being he claims to be a mermaid, he is afraid to swim in pools or in the sea. He attends Umineko Shougyou High (Umisho) on the sunny island Okinawa now and has joined the school’s swimming club only as a manager still not being able to overcome his fears. But that’s not surprising considering this club is filled with weirdos and there is even one more wierdo to join. Her name is Amuro Ninagawa and she just recently came to Okinawa on her little floating house. She is always bright and has a bad habit of swimming naked. Will she be able to help Okimaru to overcome his fears?

Umisho is a comedy festival filled with hilarious characters, fanservice and weird situations. It is based on yet another masterpiece manga by the author of Otogi no Machi no Rena and Inu Neko Jump. Those mangas are popular for their unique artwork, characters, fanservice and still having interesting stories for being mainly comedy oriented.
Rating: 8/10

Review: By coincidence Osana Najimi gets introduced to the world of doujinshi by her friends Justice and Tsuyuri. Doujinshi are fan-made manga, which often are perverted and based on popular manga or anime. They are sold at big comic-conventions, but it is a common among authors not to make profit with them and to only sell them at a price that will cover their production costs.
Najimi however only wants to become an author because she intends to make big money with it.

Doujin Work guaranties lots of funny and perverted misunderstandings as Najimi tries to get used to the weird and ecchi world of doujinshi. The animation quality isn’t very futuristic, but it wasn’t ment to be anyway and it’s a great and funny show either way. Another sad thing is that each episode only has 14 minutes of length.
Rating: 8/10

Review: Tsuwabuki Masaharu isn’t socializing with his classmates very much until the day he joins the gardening club with 2 girls from his class. One day he accidently drinks a magic potion that turns him into a stuffed animal at night. He can only turn back to normal when a „special person“ helps him to collect star drops that fall from the sky. That person turns out to be one of the girls from his class and now every night she turns into a magical girl and helps him collect those star drops.

The settings of this show do not seem very creative, but the characters and animation quality makes up for it. It’s a story about love, friendship and magic.
Rating: 6,5/10