天下制覇

Cuticle Detective Inaba
http://www.cdinaba.com/
Studio: ZEXCS
Genre: Action/Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 4th

Summary: 
Inaba is a werewolf that can take on super powers depending on the hair color/cuticles of the person he bites. After leaving the police force, he opens his own detective agency in order to find his missing brother.

Personal Thoughts: 
While action/comedy is Zexcs’s bread and butter, this is a completely newbie director and GoHands’s writer (Princess Lover, SCO). The promo stuff was also incredibly cheap, but it looked like it might serve reasonably well as a comedy. Or at least contains a small child on a playground with a chainsaw. That’s often a promising sign. Or at least more promising than usual. Of course, there’s an even better chance that all the jokes will just be screamed at the screen as is SOP.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Helpless against skinks

Maoyuu
http://www.maoyu.jp/
Studio: ARMS
Genre: Adventure
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 4th

Summary: 
The human and demon worlds have been at war, but when the greatest human hero reaches the demon queen, she surprises him by telling him that either side winning the war won’t help them. Instead, she proposes a deal with him. The two go into hiding together and try to reform both their worlds for the better. 

Personal Thoughts: 
The title’s a fusion of "maou" (demon king) and "yuusha" (hero), so if I wanted to be more contentious than I usually am, I could call it Demero, or maybe Demhe. Other languages are silly. Anywho. The core staff here is from BokuH of all things, so that’s already a poor sign. ARMS seems to have all but lost most of its (admittedly not ever great) animation talent in the last couple years too. It’ll probably just end up being yet another poorly produced fantasy adventure with male swordsman and female mage. If we’re lucky, they won’t end up with a pokemon sidekick and figthing Rezo for the fourth time.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
      
What of the orcs’ need for pillage and rape?

Minami-ke
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/minami-ke/4/
Studio: feel
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The fourth season of the continuing adventures of the Minami sisters, their wacky friends, crossdressing acquaintances, and Hosaka.

Personal Thoughts: 
Brand new staff and studio for this season. Well, same studio as the OVA, but new staff regardless. feel’s actually been doing a mostly good job with animation lately, so it should at least be a step up from asread’s laziness. The director’s a mixed bag. Most recently OniAi which was dreadful, but also has some better stuff under his belt, although that veers more towards light hearted action (Hayate1, ZKC). The writer’s similarly a mixed bag, with both a number of good and bad things to their name, but they’re no stranger to comedy. After three seasons though, you’re probably in or out at this point.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Demum, veniunt porci

Caught In The Carnage Between My Girlfriend and My Childhood Friend
http://www.oreshura.net/
Studio: A-1
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
Eita doesn’t believe in love after his parents divorced and just wants to be left alone. However, one day, a girl blackmails him into pretending to be her boyfriend for her own purposes, but his childhood friend, fiance, and ex-girlfriend aren’t about to give him up without a fight.

Personal Thoughts: 
Good god. Just reading the title exhausts me, to say nothing of the premise. Sadly, it’s not even the only godawful light novel "Outcast guy (through no fault of his own!) suddenly finds himself with more trim than a sheep shearing convention" blatant wish fulfillment disasters. Sure, every now and then, they just take the premise and run away with it, realizing that the whole thing is patently ridiculous and should be treated that way. That is not the common approach though. Fairly newbie director (Bunny Drop is it), and a prolific head writer, albeit very little of it is good and even less is comedy. And since it’s A-1, you can of course expect 75% of the budget to be in the first episode.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Four polished turds

Da Capo 3
http://www.hatsunejima.com/
Studio: Kazami Academy Animation Club
Genre: Romance
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
While trying to uncover the mystery of the island’ magical sakura tree which lost its magic years ago, the newspaper club meets Sakura (from the previous Da Capos) and she shows them a dream of their pasts, long ago, and the promise that lead them to where they are now.

Personal Thoughts: 
Newbie director/head writer (same guy), but he does have a lot of experience with Shft. Maybe he picked up some of their better tricks. Or maybe not. The ‘studio’ is just a reference to the game’s school, but feel handled the animation for pretty much all the other Da Capos (barring some OVAs), so it’s a good bet that it’s them again. Speaking of which, I’ve never had a great fondness for the series, even though it does quasi-reinvent itself. This one does have a marginally better reputation than the others, but that could just be that it’s successfully driven its naysayers far enough away at this point. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Less excitement than fondue, but twice the chance of diarrhea

The Strange Tales of Eight Dogs of the East
http://hakken-den.com/
Studio: Deen
Genre: Adventure
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
Five years ago, a mysterious plague decimated a small village and to keep it from spreading, the entire village was burnt to the ground. However, there were three survivors, but rumors spread that there was only truly one survivor who used a magical blade to bring the other two back to life. Because of that, the church is now hunting him.

Personal Thoughts: 
Same director and studio and Hakuouki and another Circus of the Traveling Men’s Pants setup too. The PVs were also full of moody bishies staring at the screen with their shirts half unbuttoned, so it looks pretty much like what the cover’s advertising. These girl-targeted Deen shows have traditionally been made on a shoe string budget with pacing to match a glacier trying to drive with its parking brake on. To summarize, no, I am not excited for it nor do I expect much.

Preseason Swing Rating:

Eight strange dogs

AKB0048
http://akb0048.jp/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Idol Fellating
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 5th

Summary: 
Continuation from last spring. The continuing adventures of the futuristic idol group holding guerilla concerts to fight back against a world that has outlawed idols.

Personal Thoughts: 
The first (new) episode already had a pre-airing. Just flipping through it traumatized me enough with its bad CG dancing. My main memory of the two episodes of the first season that I did watch is that it was just a shameless promotion stunt for real life idol group AKB, idealizing them as the saviors of the world that every girl should want to be, along with an extremely staid and cliched cast that wouldn’t know entertainment from an electrical cord wrapped around their necks. I’m happy to keep it that way.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

True idols rip and tear

Senran Kagura
http://www.senran.tv/
Studio: Artland
Genre: Boobs
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 6th

Summary: 
Five ninjas train in school for justice to fight against the ninjas that are on the side of evil.

Personal Thoughts: 
Now here’s an odd duck. It’s based on a game that began as a sidescroller beat em up where damage basically equalled clothing lost, and is on its way to evolving into a Dynasty Warriors clone. The director’s from JC Staff (Shana, Aria TSA), and the writer’s done more than his fair share of these kinds of fanservice shows including Artland’s last foray into this subgenre, that show with a rainbow of hair colors, a dragon, kamen rider, and zero control over its writers after about episode 6. For the better, mind you. The PVs seem content to ignore the action and focus on badly animated groping/wetting though. Then again, its only competition on a slow weekend day is Idol High below. And Ixion, I guess. But my patience there has just about run out.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Four flouncy bouncy bags of fun

Love Live
http://www.lovelive-anime.jp/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Idol Fellating
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 6th

Summary: 
When their school was in danger of being shut down, a bunch of girls had an idea. They’d make their school famous, and attract enough new students so nobody would think of shutting it down anymore. And so, they decided to form their own idol group.

Personal Thoughts: 
Two shows about how great idols are in one season? Be still my beating heart. Sunrise is handling the animation at least and their muscle shows in the promotional stuff. Fewer good things can be said about the newbie director. The head writer’s also a crapshoot with lots of decent and less than decent things under his belt, most recently being Chuu2 which wasn’t exactly the best written thing (although it’s hard to say how much there was just the abysmal direction). Hopefully there’s a little more substance to the show than just cute girls jumping around and dancing, even if it’s just silly slapstick. Given how many shows stop at just the "cute girls" part though, I’m not holding my breath.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Spoiler: The final boss is the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Amnesia
http://www.anime-amnesia.com/
Studio: Brains Base
Genre: Thriller
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 7th

Summary: 
Orion is a magician traveling from another world. When transitioning into this one, he accidentally collided with a girl, erasing all of her memories and replacing them with himself. He offers to help her regain her memories and fix the problems he caused, but she can’t allow anybody to know what happened to her or her mind may become lost forever.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is another one of those girly PSP VNs that seem to be getting adaptations every season. A lot of the appeal of the game seems to be the mystery and tension of the situation, which would take some clever directing to bring out once you sever the direct connection of the player controlling her actions. Which brings us to the director of… Witchblade, Sacred Seven and… uh… Galaxy Angel’s first two (weakest) seasons? And a mediocre-at-best writer (Cat Gods, Sengoku Otome, Im@S). Oh, and the PV is quite cheap and generic as hell too.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Oh yeah. Work that brain.

Tale From The End of the Edo Era – Roman
http://www.roman-anime.com/
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Genre: Adventure
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 7th

Summary: 
It’s the end of the Edo era. Natural disasters, upheaval, and chaos fill the land. Roman runs a relief store dedicated to helping people during the day, but at night, he runs a different kind of store where he’s a thief for the common man, taking back what was stolen from them.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is one of those pachinko machine-based ‘adaptations.’ There’s also been precious little promo material for it, so your guess is as good as mine. They’re really playing up the Lupin/Monkey Punch angle (he just did the character designs for the pachinko machine). The music they’ve advertised for it is practically half Lupin’s theme. Both the director and writer are weak, and TMS is middling at best as a studio too, so it doesn’t look great. Maybe they can take what they learned from Fujiko a little while back (not to mention all the yearly specials) and make an actual non-Lupin Lupin show without all the inane drug addled nonsense. Then again, it’s not up against much on Mondays.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Judge. Leave history to the true historical series.

The Unlimited
http://www.unlimited-zc.jp/
Studio: Manglobe
Genre: Action
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 7th

Summary: 
Prequel to Absolutely Lovely Children. Follows the story of its antagonist, Kyousuke, and his time in the war that made him come to believe in the superiority of metahumans.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ah, Manglobe. You can always be counted on to… fill your shows from top to bottom with insert songs to sell CDs. And not much else. I really did like the original series quite a bit back in the day. It was like X-Men crossbred with Power Puff Girls with Hard Gay making cameo appearances and Gonzo randomly inflicting themselves on various episodes. Taking it away from a decent studio, removing essentially all of the characters, and following Magneto’s origin story far from excites me though. But I suppose I have to watch it, if for no other reason than to really sink my teeth in and shake. At least the head writer did work on parts of the original series. Small comfort.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
How can one studio make so much of a mess out of so little?

Tamako Market
http://tamakomarket.com/
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Genre: Marketing
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 9th

Summary: 
The life and times of a girl that works at a mochi store.

Personal Thoughts: 
Same staff and studio as K-On, which judging from the promotional materials, is the only reason for its existence. Which is obvious anyway from the completely recycled character designs. As I was not… how to say… a fan…  of K-On, the pitch of "JUST LIKE K-ON, BUT WITH MOCHI!" fills me with churning bile. The promos have been pretty unimpressive too. Three of them are just swinging the camera around pictures from the website with a tinkling piano. So… uh… Yeah. Even on a slow Wednesday, I’m expecting just a knockoff of something I already had mostly disdain for.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
The mochi’s gone feral! The mochi’s gone feral!!!!

Good Job Club
http://www.ntv.co.jp/gj/
Studio: Dogakobo
Genre: Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 9th

Summary: 
Kyouya is a pacifist in all ways, never willing to stand up to anybody over anything. Because of that, he ends up being forcibly recruited into the ‘wacky’ Good Job Club filled with crazy girls.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh boy. A light novel adaptation about an antisocial boy who joins an all girl club! How creative! Although, while based on an LN, that itself is gimmicky, split into 4 page short stories to try to imitate the four panel comic format I guess. Then again, I’m not sure how that makes it any different from other LNs though. Complete no-names for director and writer, and Dogakobo is firmly middle of the pack. I guess compared to all the others of its ilk this season, it appears to be the least focused on them all assuming gravitational orbits around his dick, but that’s not anticipation that you’re sensing from me.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Two tipsy reptalids

Sasami Doesn’t Try
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/sasami/
Studio: Shaft
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 10th

Summary: 
Sasami’s a shut-in who refuses to leave her home. However, her brother is absolutely devoted to her and does everything he can to be her eyes and ears to the outside world, even though his own life is filled with the chaos of three sisters who all look the opposite of their true ages all violently and enthusiastically after him.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ah, Shaft. Always hard to get a read on. Hopefully Shinbo got all his "Look at me and my CRAAAAZY directing awful staff management so here’s some photos of my desk and cards to be finished later" out of his system with the *monogatari special before the season started. The promos don’t look that Shafty at any rate, although the male lead’s face is permanently covered, so there’s not many chances for zoom-ins on eyes.. At least the bad kind. The writer’s at least experienced too, although equal parts good Shaft things and utterly forgotten Shaft things with a healthy smattering on both sides everywhere else too. Thursdays are pretty sparse this season, so it’s probably got a good chance as long as Shinbo can not spend half of every episode fellating himself.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
A pair of mammoth tanks

Kotoura
http://www.kotourasan.com/
Studio: AIC Classic
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 10th

Summary:
Kotoura looks normal, but is secretly telepathic. Because of that, she’s slowly found herself isolated from everyone else. When a boy named Manabe starts getting close to her though, she has a hard time getting rid of him and slowly begins making friends and returning to society.

Personal Thoughts: 
Despite the somewhat melodramatic blurb, all the promotional stuff is pretty colorful and looks like it’s mostly played off for giggles. The staff here (barring studio) is straight from Yuruyuri/Mitsudomoe/Miami-ke1, so they’ve got a lot of experience but traditionally have had trouble maintaining the creativity and energy through the entire run. All of those started well enough though, so it’s probably okay to be a little hopeful, at lesat for episodes 1-4. Classic is one of AIC’s weaker divisions though. Then again, I doubt the show will require that much effort. Of course, more never hurts.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
       
On with the wigglies

Vividred Operation
http://www.vividred.net/
Studio: A-1
Genre: Butts
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 10th (Pre-air special December 27th)

Summary: 
Five years ago, the invention of the Expression Engine brough an end to the world’s energy problems. However, an alien force has begun threatening Earth, so now barely panted girls need to take up arms to defend it.

Personal Thoughts: 
And so as Tamako Market was with K-On, this is with Strike Witches. Granted, these have short-shorts instead of no-shorts, but from the number of proctologist-view shots in the preview, the pitch appears to be the same. Well, and it’s A-1 too, but they’re practically the new Gonzo anyway when it comes to putting all their effort into the first episode and then pissing off to do body shots off Indonesian crossdressers. I don’t remember if I had a point, but it probably boils down to "I didn’t care for Strike Witches, and a bunch of zoomed in shots of asses aren’t going to change my mind." Fight some actual aliens or add something besides copious amounts of ass and maybe we’ll talk.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
    
Three shirtless panted girls

I Don’t Have Many Friends NEXT
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/haganai/
Studio: AIC Build
Genre: 555-DIAL-A-SINGLE
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 10th

Summary: 
Sequel series. Kodaka looked scary and so had no friends through no fault of his own, until he joined a club to make friends and within .5 episodes found himself drowning in muff.

Personal Thoughts: 
I believe that I’ve already mentioned my disdain for these kind of blatant wish fulfillment shows. At least magical powers have giant phallic swords or pants destroying lasers to fall back on instead of the ability to breathe and being the only penis in the show, not to mention the 20 minute jump from "Waaah. I’m all alone." to "Waaah. Everyone wants to screw me but I’m terrified of vaginas!" So what I’m getting at is that it can suck gravel, which I expect it to do anyway. With gusto.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

A pile of pussy plus a cock

Chihaya Full
http://www.ntv.co.jp/chihayafuru2/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: CG Cards
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 11th

Summary: 
Sequel series. Chihaya and her life centering around Japanese slap card poetry.

Personal Thoughts: 
Essentially the same staff and studio, so I’ll remain essentially uninterested. I’ve seen all kinds of platitudes thrown around about it, but what I remember watching was incredibly dull, slow, cheap, and generic. Also, mostly flashback. I’ve already had enough for a while of Yet Another Girly Teen Drama to jump in on yet another one halfway though. The extra ‘twist’ of adding CG cards does not change that.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Try playing the game with personae instead

Problem Children From Another World
http://www.mondaiji.tv/
Studio: Diomedea
Genre: Adventure
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres January 11th

Summary: 
Three teens with special powers end up transported into a fantasy world where they’re recruited as the last, desperate gamble to win a competition against a demon lord that began three years ago.

Personal Thoughts: 
I ran out of patience with the overblown LN title before reaching the end of the sentence, but rest assured that it’s even stupider than that. Another somewhat odd duck. Diomedea hasn’t traditionally done many action-oriented shows, but they really didn’t do that bad a job (production wise) of Campione at all. Or even the action parts of Polyphonica S for that matter. This is 7Arc’s action director too (Nanoha, Asura Cryin, Sekirei), so he knows his action when he’s got the budget for it. The writer I have less confidence in (Nyarlko/Amagami SS+). The promo didn’t look half bad either. Not great either mind you, but it’s always nice to see a cast that at least appears solid at first glance instead of a sniveling bunch of mewling, helpless children. I’m tenatively optimistic, at least moreso than most shows.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The USS Missouri

Yet Another Pretty Cure
http://asahi.co.jp/precure/dokidoki_precure/
Studio: Toei Animation
Genre: Merchandising
Cast/Staff Information
Premieres February 3rd

Summary: 
More and more and more and more and more Pretty Cure.

Personal Thoughts: 
Just the annual reboot/renewal of the franchise. This one’s theme is playing cards and the seven deadly sins or something. I’ll make some hapless Canadian watch it to punish them for their misbehavior and probably make fun of whatever crazy-ass ED they have this time, and then promptly forget that it exists for another year. Thus does the circle of life go endlessly on.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
        
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