Giant Killing has worked its way to becoming one of the top sports anime I have ever seen.

This series focuses on its characters like none other. Not just the main character either, which is what the majority of the anime out there do.

Instead we follow the coach and a decent amount of the ETU players. Even though Tatsumi is the main character, he doesn’t constantly stand in the spotlight. Throughout the season, it jumps from player to player and reveals the hurdles they have to overcome to improve their game.

My only qualm is how some matches took around 5 to 6 episodes to finish. So every week it was one cliffhanger after another. The long matches felt overly extended with barely any time passing. Then they only show a few seconds of the next match. It would have been nice to see an even balance between all the matches played, but I assume they really wanted to focus on the Osaka match because it most resembles the act of “Giant Killing”.

At 26-episodes long, it was an awesome experience. There were moments where you felt compelled to root for ETU and cheer along. Giant Killing deserves a higher rating than I initially gave it, so I will gladly upgrade it. I do hope they decide to make a second season since the manga still has more content.

Rating: Very Good

As I would expect from a slice of life anime based on a 4-panel, the characters have remained the same for the most part.

The series focuses on the unique quirks that each character has and plays with them to create amusing interactions amongst the restaurant staff of Wagnaria. Each worker can be easily identified by the “unique” trait associated with them, making it a simple task to predict the outcome of their encounters. As usual, some of their past histories are revealed during the anime while others aren’t even mentioned (I guess they weren’t interesting enough). With the late introduction of Matsumoto in the last episode, you just assume that they’re planning for a second season.

The main plot development was rather weak and mostly revolved around the relationship between Takanashi and Inami. I felt Inami’s extreme fear of men was overused and too much screen time was devoted to her. It would have been nice to see more development between Takanashi and other members of the staff. I was leaning towards Takanashi x Taneshima.

I do realize that this was a 13-episode deal, so Takanashi x Inami probably did not get as much screen time as I felt they did. Still, their formula worked for me. This was easily the most enjoyable series to watch this season.

As an added bonus, its OP is really catchy…

Rating: Good

I take back what I said during Winter’s midseason impressions about there not being many anime series this Spring.

I’m keeping up with just about every anime this season and the overall quality so far is more than satisfying.

Angel Beats! – My favorite series this season. It has it all: comedy, drama, action, and tragedy all rendered with superb animation and flanked by lovely OP/ED songs. Every episode gives me things to think about and to theorycraft on with others.

Arakawa Under the Bridge – Despite having some similarities with Bakemonogatari, I just can’t really get into this series. I prefer the supernatural stories over this under the bridge homeless setting. Plus, tsundere is greater than alien. It’s still entertaining enough though.

B Gata H Kei – This series is still the lighthearted comedy romance that I was expecting. It’s definitely fun to watch the perverted but innocent female lead get into troublesome situations.

Giant Killing – I was expecting them to dominate all the way to the top, but reality deems otherwise. The heavy focus on characterization and overcoming obstacles in their way makes this soccer anime one of the most realistic and engaging sports series I have ever seen.

Hakuouki – Shinsengumi Kitan – The animation and battle scenes leave me with no complaints in that area, but the way that the female lead constantly rushes into combat and has to be saved by one of the many bishounens accompanying her is a major turn-off. Why even bring her along on a mission why she has shown no combat ability whatsoever?

Heroman – American superhero anime simply isn’t my thing. I gave the series a chance since Bones was the studio behind it, and it’s okay I guess, but I’m not impressed.

House of Five Leaves – Watching this anime is starting to bore me. The entire series feels slow, and the main character’s meek personality doesn’t help.

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou – It would be nice if they toned down on some of the fan service. Your typical harem series taking place at a magic academy.

Kaichou wa Maid-sama! – Both the male and female leads are easily likable. I look forward to seeing their (romantic) relationship develop more.

K-ON!! – I didn’t do a first impressions post for this, but K-ON!! requires no introduction. The original cast is still going strong with their tea time antics. Azusa and Mio ftw!

Mayoi Neko Overrun! – There’s so many seemingly filler episodes that I treat the entire series as a filler.

RAINBOW – So many messed up things that they had to go through and put up with. I can’t wait to see them all released and what they end up doing in the future.

Senkou no Night Raid – I feel I was a bit harsh on their Mandarin, and I think now it’s actually great that A-1 Pictures experiments so much with having other languages spoken in their anime. Their ability to craft an immersive setting with beautiful backgrounds is simply astounding.

Working!! – Who could have known that working at a family restaurant is so fun? A prime example of comedic slice of life done right.

Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei – His “friend” seriously looks like some type of monster. I can’t help thinking that every time I see him on the screen. Otherwise, the rapid fire narration continues to amuse and delight me. Some of their antics fall on the epic threshold.

Two series that I also watch, which are still continuing from past seasons, are Durarara!! and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. FMA: Brotherhood leaves its predecessor in the dust while Durarara!! is still going strong with an all-out war imminent.

Well, this covers almost everything that I watch on a weekly basis.

It feels like I’ve been doing a ton of first impressions for the Spring 2010 season, but this should be the final anime.

Rainbow is about a group of delinquent youths in the Shounan Special Reform School around 10 years after World War II. You are presented with the above disclaimer right when you start episode 1, which got me interested in what they meant.

Be prepared for lots of brutal violence and despicable acts of cruelty. The sad thing is, you realize stuff like this is still happening around the world today. The things some humans are capable of doing is just horrendous.

In the first episode, I was surprised they all got put into one cell. I guess that’s how they did things in the past maybe due to a lack of resources? Seven people versus two people per cell in prison nowadays, but in the anime they were in a “Special Reform School”, which looks like just a fancy way of saying “prison” to me.

The series is about them bonding with one another and dives into their unfortunate personal histories. I don’t usually watch anime to depress myself, but I’ll let this one slide.

Rating: Decent

In this anime, a college student talks about his antics that are all mostly due to his failed love life.

Such antics include launching fireworks at people and trying to break up relationships in various clubs.

I’m not really a fan of the minimalist animation style paired with the retro character designs. Also, the college student, who is also the narrator, talks like a machine gun which means you better be able to read subtitles quickly. I feel sorry for the people that had to translate this.

The plot is currently moving towards pairing him up with a younger female student in the engineering department. Apparently, his friend tells him that she’s one of the only people that can understand him. Time to see how this turns out.

Rating: Decent

There’s always at least one harem series every season and Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou takes that position for the Spring 2010 season.

The anime involves a guy going to a magic academy where the equivalent of the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter decides that his future occupation is going to be demon lord. Chaos ensues from that point on where he becomes misunderstood in everything he does and ends up in various undesirable situations.

There’s pretty blatant fan service throughout along with some humorous situations, but the main reasons I watch this series is to see him use his godly powers and to end up as a demon lord. So far in episode 3, he snaps and goes into an emotionless state against some bullies and ends up twisting quite a few limbs. A hint of his growth towards fulfilling the prophecy of his future occupation? I think so.

Rating: Mediocre

Only a few more first impressions to go through! When I first read that Hakuouki was based on a romance adventure game for female players, I was skeptical as to whether I would like the series.

Three episodes later, I’m left impressed by the sheer amount of bloodshed and killing that went on. Although I should have known better since this is the Shinsengumi that we’re talking about here.

The first two episodes felt fairly slow with the plot inching slowly forward and not much action to be had. A girl dresses up as a boy to go look for her missing father and sees something that she wasn’t supposed to see. As a result, she is “imprisoned” with the Shinsengumi whose leadership and officers seem to solely be comprised of bishounens, which is to be expected considering the nature of the game. Now it’s just a question of who she’s going to end up with, or if the anime will take the inconclusive ending route.

The female protagonist seems to like charging headfirst into dangerous situations and never actually uses her weapon. Instead, a Shinsengumi member would come to her rescue. I would like to see her actually use the dagger that she wears apparently only as a decoration.

On a different note, Saito, as depicted in the image above, looks quite different from the Saito of Rurouni Kenshin. I don’t think having his hair cover one eye would help him in battle.

Rating: Good

The very first thing that struck me about House of Five Leaves was the art style.

The protagonist along with many other characters have almost completely black eyes which makes them look unnatural, almost as if they were the walking undead.

Besides its unique art style, the series flows at the pace of the lead character who is a shy ronin looking for a job when he becomes entangled with a group of kidnappers. Their leader invites him to join the “House of Five Leaves” as a bodyguard. During his first assignment, he displays skill in combat which was surprising considering his cowardly personality.

I can already see the vast potential for character development, which seems to be the main focus of this anime. It’ll be interesting to see if the ronin is able to fix his timid personality while he’s with the Five Leaves.

Rating: Good

There’s always sports anime every season and disregarding the sequels brings us to a newcomer titled Giant Killing.

I’m always skeptical of sports related anime because they end up for the most part like Prince of Tennis and Eyeshield 21. Of course, there are always exceptions like Cross Game which proved to be a solid series.

In Giant Killing, the main character is a former ace soccer player turned manager for a professional team that has been on a losing streak. He plans to turn this team around and defeat the very best opponents in the Japanese soccer league.

The first two episodes brings us a fresh take on the sports genre with the main character being the manager, and not a player, for once. They play actual soccer without any impossible moves and the tone of this series is more on the serious/realistic side. But it’s not all simply playing soccer, there’s drama and disputes about his unconventional methods and personality which serves to spice things up.

As long as Giant Killing doesn’t stray from its current path, we should see something interesting.

Rating: Good

As we continue with the Spring season shows, we arrive at Mayoi Neko Overrun!

This series is starting to build up to be your typical high school harem with a semi-clueless nice guy at the eye of the storm. It has one of those stories where you know the male lead is going to eventually end up with his childhood friend, but the anime probably won’t get that far and it’ll be inconclusive instead.

The general atmosphere is that of a romantic comedy with a few obvious fan service camera angle shots. So far we are introduced to his childhood friend who’s a tsundere liar that says the opposite of what she really feels, a loli rich girl, and a stray cat girl (?) that they picked up.

Animation quality seems a bit on the lower budget since you can tell they decided to leave out details or were just cutting corners, but it’s decent enough considering the atmosphere of the series.

Mayoi Neko Overrun! brings nothing new to the table, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was decently entertaining, and tsunderes are always a plus.

Rating: Decent