天下制覇

Gaist Crusher
http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/gaist/
Studio: Pierrot
Genre: Marketing
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 2nd (very early morning)

Premise: 
Humanity discovers Gaimetal, a special kind of metal that can channel and create massive amounts of energy. However, soon after it’s discovered, ferocious beasts plated in these Gaimetals called Gaists begin to appear and lay waste. The world’s leading scientists band together to harness the power of Gaimetals and fight back to save the world.

Thoughts: 
This is part of an all-out marketing blitz by Capcom to sell their new franchise. There’s games, manga, figures, special 3DS covers into which you can install your figures to give you special nonsense in game, etc etc etc. Basically, it’s just your standard kid’s show for selling toys and the 3DS game with the only particularly interesting thing about it being that Treasure’s involved, although they’ve mainly coasting on rereleases, remakes, and making Bleach cash-in games since then. Aaand they have nothing to do with this anime anyway.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

One unladen African swallow.

COPPELION
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/coppelion/
Studio: GoHands
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 2nd

Premise: 
Tokyo was destroyed by a massive nuclear meltdown. As a result, it was completely abandoned by the government and has become a lawless city of death. Decades later, signs of survivors begin to appear, so a group of three genetically enhanced girls calling themselves Coppelion are sent to investigate.

Thoughts: 
‘Coppelion’ comes from the ballet Coppélia, where a crazy guy makes a human-sized doll that a village idiot falls in love with. Hitting a little close to home there, eh, Japan? I’m sure the ‘making artificial girls’ is likely where the similarities start and end though. This is GoHands through and through, even back to their simply enthralling head writer from such tour de forces as Princess Lover and SYD. That means it’ll likely have a spectacular first episode and then the budget will swan dive straight into nuclear goop while the writing brains itself on the table. I am on board with the super heroines wandering around fighting super villains thing, but that the action scenes in the PVs were mostly CG and even then, they felt that long shots of pretty backgrounds were an enticing way to advertise their show, I’m not feeling too excited.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Three copper lions.

Beyond the Boundaries
http://anime-kyokai.com/
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 2nd

Premise: 
Akihito is only half human, and his supernatural abilities give him the power to heal from any wound practically instantly. One day, he sees a girl about to jump off a roof. He saves her life, but finds out that she has the cursed and feared ability to manipulate blood.

Thoughts: 
Yeah, yeah. It’s KyoAni and the action parts of the preview are pretty damn cool, but let’s also not forget that the other two thirds of the promo are teenagers stamping their feet, and of that, about a third is heads turning. Oooor that one show that they made that had great battles at the start which had completely disappeared by about four episodes in to wallow in horrendously awful melodrama. And will you just look at that? It’s the same head writer. Different director, although all he’s done is assist on a bunch of KyoAni things. This has many of those same hallmarks of an overcalculated and soulless attempt to hit marketability checkboxes, right down to proudly displaying that the heroine has a catchphrase and slipping right back into the exact same art style to be ‘cutesy’ as they always do. If it can stay on the interesting side of things, great. If it decides that it needs to stretch out the only two LNs that it’s based on released so far to fill an entire season with yet more highschool melodramatic BS as KyoAni has made their bread and butter for years now, don’t expect my patience to last.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Specifically overengineered for viewers like you.

Kyousougiga
http://www.kyousougiga-tv.com/
Studio: Toei Animation
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 2nd

Premise: 
Koto and her two younger brothers stumble into Mirror Tokyo, a magical version of the city filled with spirits, magic, and other supernatural things. They wreck havoc around the city hunting for a rabbit that will supposedly help them get back home.

Thoughts: 
The title means more or less something like Capital Chaos Comic. It also first entered the world as a series of net shorts (which I haven’t watched) and there’s some weirdness with the broadcast already announcing there’ll be summary/recap episodes and such, so I assume they’ll just be reworking the existing stuff into this broadcast, as well as continuing the format of shorts, but grouping multiple to an episode. Anyway, if you have watched the shorts, it’s all the same staff. The promos look fairly well made all around with the appropriate amount of wackiness and direction. I’ll consider myself optimistic that it’ll be silly violent fun. Slapstick traditionally not being something Japan excels at when it can yell instead.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
Four feral couches.

The Lull of Tomorrow
http://www.nagiasu.jp/
Studio: PA Works
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 3rd

Premise: 
Long ago, the god of the sea gave humans the ability to live beneath the oceans. As the ages passed, the sea dwellers and the land dwellers forgot that they were once the same and started regarding themselves as two different races. When a sea dweller’s school closes and they’re forced to attend school on land instead, they find their lives beginning to change.

Thoughts: 
It’s an original series, so there’s not a whole lot to go off of, but PA Works and teenage dramas are nothing particularly new. I guess that "under the ocean" is supposed to be a totally different and far more interesting hook than "some school a couple miles away," but the song remains the same. Granted, it’s not one of their usual directors, but this guy still has nothing good to his name (Red Data Girl, Bantorra, etc), and the queen of having absolutely no idea how the meat sacks called humans actually function in regards to each other, Mari Okada, is back to make sure everything is extra melodramatic and horrendously written. I’ll just stab myself in the neck with a pencil on my own, thanks all the same.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Since when were the seas calm?

Outbreak Company
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/obc/
Studio: feel
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 3rd

Premise: 
Kanou grew up in a household dominated by moe pop culture, but other than that, was just a regular guy. However, one day he’s summoned to a magical world and told that he needs to become the ambassador of moe to change this world.

Thoughts: 
I believe I’ve made my dislike for these kind of thin attempts to appeal to fans very well known. It reminds me of 80s skateboarding dinosaurs that were Totally Rad or something, but without the moral lesson about recycling or the killer rock theme. It’s feel, so I can’t expect much in the way of production, and the staff is equally unimpressive. The most notable staffer is the head writer, who is unfortunately attached to most of feel’s most boring shows of the last few years (Papakiki, Maoyuu, etc), so I have difficulty hoping that it’ll be fascinatingly bad, not that the PV gave any hope for anything amusing to begin with.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Maybe if the show was about spreading rock instead…

Infinite Stratos
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/
Studio: 8-bit
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 3rd

Premise: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of Ichika, the only male pilot of an otherwise estrogen-dominated academy of super powered exosuit-using women all out to ride his dick.

Thoughts: 
The first season ran the gamut from a strong start to an amusingly inane middle that wallowed so far in bad cliches that he was faceplanting into vaginas, with an inappropriately melodramatic and dull ending over that old stellar anime standby, insecurity for insecurity’s sake. There was also a hideous OVA that I prefer not to remember. I think I’ve given up any hope that it’ll be good or Ichika will show even an iota of the awareness he had in the first episode before his face became a muff-magnet, but maybe it’ll at least stick to the action. 8-bit does a better job than most with the blending of CG and drawn art and isn’t shy about showing it off. And when they do screw up with severed heads flying around independant of bodies, at least that’s worth a laugh too. Just please, for the love of Thor, do not try to do anything serious again with the characters or story.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
The dawning terror of the Korean rotary fan.

Kill la Kill
http://www.kill-la-kill.jp/
Studio: Trigger
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 3rd

Premise: 
Ryuuko is searching for her father’s killer and carries with her half of a giant pair of scissors which she uses as a sword. She learns that the student council president who rules with an iron fist knows something that could help her search, so transfers into the school and with a magical school uniform, begins a battle against the student council to make them tell her what she knows.

Thoughts: 
If you’ve forgotten, Trigger’s the studio created by all the people with talent who left Gainax a couple years back, and who made the gorgeous Little Witch Academia. However, I was not thrilled by what I saw in the PVs. While that got by being compact, fast paced, and cutting out a lot of chaff, the PVs appear to instead revel in it. Yeah, it does look like old school Gainax, but that’s also a lot of speedlines, posing, and yelling instead of the kind of choreography, actual fighting, and real direction that I heavily prefer to see in an action show. I’m sure some also remember that I wasn’t a fan of Gurren Lagann’s simplistic and repetitive "just believe harder to win!" nature either. With how much this is trading on that old reputation, if it’s an attempt to recapture that, then I doubt it’ll hold my interest for very long.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
Half a scissors vulnerable to half a rock.

Golden Time
http://golden-time.jp/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 3rd

Premise: 
Shortly after graduating from high school, Banri suffered head trauma and all his memories separated from him and became a spirit that follows after him. He’s just started law school where he befriends a fellow first year who’s desperately trying to escape from the glamorous girl he grew up with who has been making plans to marry him all their lives. The 3.5 of them fight crime attend college together.

Thoughts: 
The light novels this is based on are by the same author as ToraDora, which I know will excite some, so let me throw the cold water of director Chiaki Kon (Devils and Realists, Arcana Famiglia, When the X Cries, etc) on that. The writer’s more hit than miss at least, and god knows anything is a step up from Okada. JC Staff hasn’t been far from good in recent years though and a promo consisting mainly of blowing flower petals fails to excite. Even the premise kind of reeks of trying really hard to tack a gimmick on to a bog standard romantic comedy triangle. Thursday’s busy as usual and little I’ve seen or read excites me all that much.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Why can’t it be Platinum time?

Freezing Vibration
http://freezing.tv/
Studio: ACGT
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 4th

Premise: 
The continuing adventures of girls with gigantic weapons, partnered with men who can create ‘freezing’ stasis fields ostensibly fighting interdimensional aliens, but mostly really about bullying.

Thoughts: 
Aaah, Freezing. I certainly wouldn’t call the first season a great show. The central characters were all dull as saltines and it had troubles doing any kind of arc that wasn’t about peer pressure or bullying, but I still have a soft spot for it just because it reveled in the base desires of sex and violence that it was made to cater to in a way that the glut of T&A fighting shows constantly fail to. It kept the action constant, if not usually very weighty, and blazed through new characters without pissing around too much or dwelling overly long on any arc. Its version of a melodramatic slap to the face was also a knife straight through the retina, and that’s never a bad thing. A pure popcorn show that was probably more fun to write about than it was to watch. Same staff and studio, so hopefully it’ll keep that up. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
A pair of perfidious piles of paramilitary pussy.

Strike the Blood
http://dengekibunko.dengeki.com/mediamix/stb/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Action 
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 4th

Premise: 
Kojou is the strongest vampire in the world, said to bring calamity. The government dispatches a powerful young mage who has spent her life away from modern society training to observe him and if she needs to, eliminate him.

Thoughts: 
The light novels this is based on are by the same author as Asura Cryin’ and Dantalion. It’s not Silver Link’s usual staff either, especially not the head writer (Guilty Crown, Vividred, My (Hi/Oto)me, etc). There’s an obvious comparison to be made to Index’s setting, but Asura Cryin’ was already halfway there. I’m having a hard time buying into what’s probably the second most common LN premise after "I want to have sex with my sister," of spunky magical girlfriend fights crime with male who is secretly the strongest monster ever, which is certainly not helped by the very lackluster promotional material. If there were awards for hair blowing in the wind though, this would sweep the Hairies, no contest. The biggest thing it may have going for it is that it airs on an otherwise relatively empty Friday.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Mr. Saturn in a can.

I Couldn’t Become a Hero So I Reluctantly Found a Job
http://www.yu-sibu.com/
Studio: Asread
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 4th

Premise: 
Before Raul could finish his classes to become a hero, someone else defeated the demon lord. He’s forced to take a mundane job instead where he meets the former demon lord’s daughter who needs a job.

Thoughts: 
Yet another hero plus demon lord light novel adaptation. And it’s only the second one on Friday too! But this one is of the "and they ostensibly do nothing" variety instead of the "and they openly fight crime" variety. At least for about two episodes before there’s secretly something else going on because in these things, there always is. But at least this director’s done a lot of porn. And Queen’s Blade. But mostly lots and lots of porn. The head writer is pretty atrocious too, but at least he can commiserate with the director over his work on Kanokon. Together, and backed by asread, of all studios, they’re going to make a comedy. I don’t even know what to make of that but I’m fairly certain that it will give most people bloating and gas.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Their first foe will be a malfunctioning air conditioner.

Log Horizon
http://www9.nhk.or.jp/anime/loghorizon/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 5th (very early morning)

Premise: 
The MMORPG suddenly becomes reality for its players and they’re trapped inside it. Shiroe and his friends form a guild they name Log Horizon to try to survive it.

Thoughts: 
This old chestnut yet again. It’s based on a light novel by the same guy who did Maoyuu, so that’s already an ugly black eye on it. The staff doing the actual adapting is a little eyecatching though. The last time this director and head writer were together, they made Tokyo Majin, which inconsistent as it was, usually did a good job with the directing and handling the characters in a very dark show while occasionally putting together some really spectacular fights. The rest of their stuff in the interim has been pretty poor though. It’s at least something I have some positive memories of though. The promo stuff does look unfortunately generic and kind of low production for Satelight, especially for a show airing during prime time. Also given the airing time, it’s probably wise to assume that this will be just as generic and ‘safe’ as first glance would indicate.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 
           
Must grind a billion rabbits before forming a guild.

Little Busters! Refrain
http://www.litbus-anime.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 5th

Premise: 
Continuation from last fall. The friends of the Little Busters baseball team, mostly made up of ‘wacky’ girls with ‘wacky’ personality traits and making ‘wacky’ noises, as they learn the truth about their world.

Thoughts: 
I tapped out of the first series very quickly due to its shoestring budget and a director who clearly did not put an ounce of effort into the show. It’s the exact same staff, so I see absolutely no reason why it would stop being transparently saccharine and worse, just excrutiatingly boring, especially since it’s decided to stretch things out this far while entering the super ultra melodramatic phase of the visual novel it’s based off of. You could probably already just drink heavily and put the VN on auto play to get about the same amount of animation and overall experience. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
    
As in "refrain from watching it!" Ohohohohoho…

White Album 2
http://whitealbum2.jp/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 5th

Premise:
The story of a love triangle between members of a light music club.

Thoughts: 
Yeah, it’s not much of a premise. The White Album games’ meat and potatoes are drama, drama, drama, melodrama, and more melodrama. They’re basically soap operas, only without the things that actually make soap operas interesting, like the evil twin sister who slept with the oil baron to get back at her ex-roomate’s brother’s dog’s walker. While the second game has a better reputation than the first, there’s little that I’ve read regarding it that interests me. The appeal is supposed to be the writer anyway, something that rarely carries over well into adaptations. I can get into pure romances on rare occasion, but the humorless angst-fests full of insecure and self-destructive twits moping in the corner is my kryptonite. The staff is also all either new, new and incompetent, or has never written for an anime before, and we saw how great that worked out for Angel Beats taking a VN writer and moving to a new format, didn’t we?

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Add drill tanks please!

Hippo Rising
http://www.ntv.co.jp/ippo/
Studio: Madhouse/Mappa
Genre: Brain Damage
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 5th

Premise: 
The long, long continuing adventures of Ippo boxing at things.

Thoughts: 
Yeesh. Here we enter the forbidden awful sports show zone. This and Lupin are the things that seem like they’ll never die, just linger on with specials and the occasional brief gasp back to life. Unlike Lupin though, this has that weird continuity thing. I don’t like sports shows in general, let alone neverending ones that have spent nearly a quarter decade spinning their wheels and are characterized by the long inner monologue over speedlines as a ‘fight.’

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
The eternally burning corpses that can never know true death.

Kuroko’s Basketball
http://www.kurobas.com/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 5th

Premise: 
The continuing story of Kuroko, the basketball player who is super special awesome at passing, and him playing basketball with other people who play basketball.

Thoughts: 
I hear that this show has a very large female following. It must be something about sweaty men grunting, staring deeply into each other’s eyes because animating movement is hard, and the manhandling of balls. Leathery, sweaty balls. The first episode of the first season was the usual slow, plodding, and moronic Jump-style schlock, complete with Basketball Power Levels. It was too cheap to even draw a basketball, opting to use a CGI one to save $.03. Now that’s a hallmark of a show with a lot of soul and effort put into it. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Would be improved by adding angry gorillas.

Ace of Diamond
http://diaace.com/
Studio: Madhouse/Production IG
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 5th (evening)

Premise: 
After throwing an unforgettable pitch into a genius catcher’s mitt, Eijun decides to transfer to the catcher’s school to follow his dream of being a great baseball player.

Thoughts: 
It wouldn’t take much to turn that premise into gay sex, would it? I’m guessing that probably gives it the same kind of appeal as Kuroko of men gleefully slamming their ‘balls’ into each other’s ‘mitts.’ Not to dismiss them out of hand, but Japan doesn’t seem to know how to deal with a sports show without inevitably making all the characters magical geniuses of one aspect of doing something and that is their entire character. I like Major League and Cool Runnings as much as the next guy, but the sport aspect was the framing device to be about the characters, not just some excuse to think up some gimmick and then stretch it out for episodes upon episodes while shouting "Friendship!" at the top of its lungs every 15 minutes.   

Preseason Swing Rating: 

A space heater. For heating space.

Magi – The Kingdom of Magic
http://www.project-magi.com/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th (very early morning)

Premise: 
The continuing adventures of Aladdin and friends through an Arabian world.

Thoughts: 
I really can’t remember the first couple episodes of the first season that I watched very well. I remember them being very boring and puerile… and, uh, that’s about it. Maybe it was that one of the main characters spent most of his time shouting "Boobies!" and trying to grope things. Checking my notes, I also remember that they liked to animate the lips and teeth independent of each other. Gross. Same studio, staff, and even prime time airing, so I guess that’s good news if you were a fan of the first season. Not I though.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Ungropable Arabian pig guards.

Yet More Phi Brain
http://www.phibrain.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Sudoku
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th (very early morning)

Premise: 
The continuing adventures of the world’s greatest puzzle solver, able to solve a low difficulty sudoku in only minutes!

Thoughts: 
Another prime time show obviously aimed at a younger audience that is baffled by trivial spatial puzzle solving that I only watched a few episodes of before I had to call it quits. I have a slightly better memory of this one though, mainly because it broke out the salsa music for solving one of those car-sliding puzzles in the second or third episode. I hear that in this season, they might force him to solve a jigsaw puzzle without looking at the box. Indiana Jones this ain’t.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Not cool enough.

I Want to be the Strongest in the World!
http://www.sekatsuyo.com/
Studio: Arms
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th

Premise: 
Sakura and Elena are idols, but during a live event, Elena is attacked by a pro wrestler. In order to get revenge, Sakura enters the world of pro wrestling.

Thoughts: 
Christ, Arms. You were never good, but this may rank as the most pathetic thing you’ve done. The trash PV of little more than cleavage and grunting certainly helps set expectations low if the same horrible staff as they always use didn’t already. Even as far as the T&A fighting shows go, this looks bottom of the barrel combined unironically with pro wrestling, which is already essentially the male version of General Hospital or All My Children. You could just remove the whole pro wrestling thing and make them fight just because and that’d already improve the premise tenfold. Yes. Switching out this premise for Street Fighter 2’s would be a step up. Wrap your head around that one. Even Variable Geo knew that it needed to have the gimmick of fighting waitresses and rape. Even Athena in King of Fighters has more going on for her than this.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 

One true pro wrestler.

Yozakura Quartet
http://www.yozakura-anime.jp/
Studio: Tatsunoko Production
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th

Premise: 
Demons and humans live together in peace, watched over by a group of friends with special powers.

Thoughts: 
The second reboot of Yozakura Quartet. Sort of. It’s being billed as a reboot, but since it’s the same studio/staff as the OVAs, I can’t imagine they’d cover the same material they did there. Broadly speaking, I did enjoy the OVAs so that’s a positive start over most things this season, but I’m not sure that holds when taking the budgetary hit going from an OVA and rehashing stuff from the previous edition. Tatsunoko can also be pretty cheap in actual TV series as compared to their OVAs. They absolutely can be impressive, but that seems limited to either only 10 minute long shows or once a month or less otherwise.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
May contain excessive tongue.

Glasses Club!
http://mgnb.tv/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Glasses
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th

Premise: 
Five guys with a passion for glasses decide to start a club dedicated to being glasses fans.

Thoughts: 
Just when you thought that adaptations based on pachinko machines were scraping the bottom of the barrel, here comes Deen blazing new territory with an adaptation based on drama CDs. Drama CDs of grown men pretending to be teenagers talking eagerly about glasses. And thanks to Deen, we can now bask by having still pictures to go along with it. Or if the promos are any indication, still pictures with clip art of stars flying over them. Nothing inspires excitement like eight minutes of promos without a single frame of the show in any of them. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

All the thrill of eating dry lettuce.

Walkure Romanze
http://walroma.com/
Studio: 8-bit Studio
Genre: Romance
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th

Premise: 
Takahiro attends a school for nobles centered around jousting where he helps train others. He takes his hapless childhood friend under his wing, but lots of other girls are also vying for his help and affection.

Thoughts: 
As horrid as the porn game this is based on is, I actually really like most of the staff associated with this one. The director’s solid (Evol most recently), the writer has more hits than misses to their name (although more in comedy), and 8-bit’s been relatively competent to date as far as technical production goes, although they are a little stretched this season across three and a half shows. Of course, a little talent may actually keep it from being as amusingly terrible as its spiritual predecessor, Princess Lover, was. I have a hard time imagining them throwing away enough of the source material to turn this into something actually good, but I think if they do, there is the talent here to make a decent show.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Zwei walküren.

Silver Fox
http://www.gingitsune.net/
Studio: Diomedea 
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 6th

Premise: 
Makoto inherited the ability to see spirits after her mother died. Together with the unmotivated and surly fox, Gintaro, she tries to help solve the everyday problems of the people around her.

Thoughts: 
It’s rarely a good sign when looking at a director’s resume and all you see are a bunch of obscure shows you’ve never heard of. The writer doesn’t fare much better. I did recognize those and they were mostly boring uneventful tripe. Diomedea’s not exactly the most exciting animation studio either. Yes, it’s that Japanese "slice of life" thing that I’ve never even slightly understood the appeal of. Even Seinfeld, a show that prided itself as being about nothing, had two or even three interweaving plot threads per episode. And didn’t expect you to be struck by fascinating wonderment every episode either. I guess at least this one probably won’t have any uncomfortable sexual tension between the leads as these kinds of shows are wont to, or if it does, it’ll be extra uncomfortable.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Eggs on white bread.

Gundam Build Fighters
http://gundam-bf.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Toy Sales
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th (very early morning)

Premise: 
People can engage in virtual battles using Gundam models they’ve built themselves. Sei and Reiji team up in order to win the GunPla Battle World Championships.

Thoughts: 
As if the last Gundam show wasn’t an obvious enough vehicle for selling toys, here comes a pseudo-sequel to an OVA about building action figures which then fight. It’s like Angelic Layer, except that they don’t even need to bother to come up with any new character designs! And they can replace a beam sword with a mega beam sword and charge an extra 50% for the added meganess. I can’t wait for the next Gundam series where people buy Gundam DVDs to become the greatest consumer ever.   

Preseason Swing Rating:
 
Most shameless cash grab since Pika Pika Revolution.

Unbreakable Machine Doll
http://www.machine-doll.com/
Studio: Lerche
Genre: Action, Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th

Premise: 
Raishin joins an academy to study Machinart, the fusion of magic and science for combat purposes. He brings with him his combat automaton, Yaya, and intends to use her to become the greatest puppeteer in history. Yaya just wants to get into his bed.

Thoughts: 
Another one of those magical girlfriend light novel fighting shows that generally lives or dies on budget and ability to actually move. Our porn director friend from that hero show earlier in the season is back again. Lerche has been up and down so far. Majikoi’s probably the closest thing overall they’ve done to this and that was plauged… badly… by budget issues from start to finish. The promos seem decent enough, although don’t really stand out in a season with a metric ton of action shows. It doesn’t have much competition on Mondays anyway.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

What horrors hath science wrought!?

Wimpy Pedal
http://www.yowapeda.com/
Studio: TMS Entertainment 
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th

Premise: 
Onada ends up joining his school’s cycling club and discovers that he had a talent for it.

Thoughts: 
I’m not sure that I can even imagine a more boring sport to hang your hat on. This isn’t the awesome kind of bike racing like the Tour de France where spectators make a game of trying to flash, punch, or wave their genitalia at bikers while dressed up like Batman either. And yes, that is a real thing that people do. No. This is Japanese sports, where all you need is to believe in yourself and have an internal monologue that lasts longer than anybody else’s. Staff is horrible, especially the head writer who has made a career out of making shows where nothing ever happens in the slowest way possible. Now with biking.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

I can’t wait for the sequel, Spineless Treadmiller.

Non Non Biyori
http://www.nonnontv.com/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th

Premise: 
Ichijou’s an elementary school girl who moves from the city out to the countryside where the only school has one class of less than half a dozen students across many grades.

Thoughts: 
I can’t think of any good way to translate the title. It’s sort of nonsense. Literaly. Anyway, it’s always a great sign when the promos are primarily distance shots of scenery, so this is definitely Silver Link’s D or E team. The director has not done anything I didn’t find intensely boring either, and to round things out, it’s the same awful head writer as the biking nonsense above. No, I do not believe that this will reach inside me and touch my soul with its cuteness or heartwarmingness or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be doing.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
It’s wheat!

Arpeggio of Blue Steel – Ars Nova
http://www.aokihagane.com/
Studio: Sanzigen
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 7th

Premise: 
Global warming wipes out most of Earth’s land. At the same time, a mysterious fleet of subs appear and blockade every nation of the world, cutting off travel across the oceans. Nearly two decades after the blockade has begun, one sub from the fleet has defected to the side of humanity to help them fight back.

Thoughts: 
Sanzigen is mainly an assistance animation studio that focuses on CGI, and boy does that show in the promotional stuff. I’m also a bit confused about how many women in frilly dresses standing in the wind there are for an ostensibly military organization. Or military AIs. Whatever. New studio, but same key staff as Danganronpa and Devil Survivor 2, marvels of adaptations that they were, so I’m already inwardly groaning. Substituting demons or murders for underwater CG phalluses spurting torpedos does not seem like it’d be a step in the right direction.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Don’t worry. Aquaman will save us!

Tokyo Ravens
http://www.tokyo-ravens.com/
Studio: 8-bit
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 8th

Premise: 
Unlike the rest of his family, Harutora can’t see or interact with the supernatural so has lived his life blissfully separate from any of it. But then the girl he grew up with returns and he’s drawn into the battle between spiritualists that erupts.

Thoughts: 
Another one of the magical fighting girlfriend light novel adaptations. I can’t say that I’m excited by the CGI that dominates the action scenes in the promos. This certainly has the weakest staff of all 8-bit’s shows this season, featuring OreImo/Kaminomi’s head writer doing the adapting. The director’s a little better at least (KoreZom and Macademy). Still, being one of only two shows on Tuesday, it just needs to succeed at not being boring or actively annoying me. Sadly, a hurdle that many things fail to clear.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Reeks strongly of catfish.

BlazBlue – Alter Memory
http://blazblue-am.jp/
Studio: Hoods Entertainment
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 8th

Premise: 
Ragna comes to Kagutsuchi in order to destroy the organization maintaining the balance of the world.

Thoughts: 
Oh boy. Hoods. Well, maybe between this and Fantasista Dolls, this is them trying to get away from cheap trashy fetish-fests all the way up to just cheap. They’re backed up by a staff whose preeminent claim to fame between all of them is the second season of Asura Cryin’ though, so well… baby steps. I never had much love for BlazBlue anyway and vastly prefer Guilty Gear. If it was in the hands of someone I thought could do some mindless flashy action and wasn’t afraid of just making up a bunch of stuff and reasons for them to go on adventures, maybe, but seeing this studio and staff? I lack faith. I’d rather just watch some tournament videos.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

It’s no Guilty Gear Sweets.

My Mental Multiple-Choice Power Is Completely Ruining My School Romantic Comedy
http://noucome.jp/
Studio: Diomedia
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 9th

Premise: 
Kanade has a strange power. Every now and then, choices appear in his brain and he’s forced to decide between them. Whatever he chooses becomes his new, inescapable reality.

Thoughts: 
It’s the comedy version of the magical girlfriend ilk, right down to the protagonist who is immune to the overt romantic attempts to manhandle his number 2 pencil and rub out a scantron. Now they just need to join a club about making friends. Or maybe the student council. Maybe they do. I was kind of exhausted after reading just the title and felt like I already knew more than I wanted to. Awful director, inexperienced head writer, and a light novel title spanning half the globe. A winning combination if ever there was one. Even the premise just sounds like a flimsy attempt to excuse hamhanded author meddling whenever anything is needed to happen. Diomedea’s a pretty middling studio too, so there’s not even anything to get excited about on the production front either.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Winner of the worst title of the season.

Galilei Donna
http://www.galileidonna.tv/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 10th

Premise: 
In the near future, a second ice age has covered the Earth. Three sisters, the inexplicably Japanese descendants of Galileo, are suddenly declared fugitives by the government and are forced to work together to discover the truth of what’s going on. 

Thoughts: 
The first of the two noitaminA shows for the season. The director’s been around for a long time, although hasn’t been in charge of that many shows. The promo stuff also has a comparatively inordinate number of missiles firing and punching without hitting anything but walls. I also assume that it’s all from the first episode since A-1’s standard operating procedure is to blow half it’s budget at the start and then get very confused for about 9 episodes, especially when they try to do these kinds of original shows. I’m also not entirely certain what Galielo has to do with anything and I suspect, neither does A-1, but had to come up with something besides "three small girls are suddenly declared public enemy number one and must be eliminated with comically overwhelming firepower." Shame there’s not really any trace of irony in what’s shown so far.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Powers include the ability to manipulate telescopes with their minds.

Samurai Flamenco
http://www.samumenco.com/
Studio: Manglobe
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 10th

Premise: 
Masayoshi is a male model who moonlights as a super hero named Samurai Flamenco despite not being super in any way. He and the cop who discovered his secret identity fight crime.

Thoughts: 
The other noitaminA show. It’s an original and there’s been next to no promotional material for it, so there’s not a ton to say. It seems like it’ll be a coming of age story, I guess, but who knows? Same writer as Tokyo Ravens, so that’s not a great sign. The director’s been around too, but he’s done a lot more boring than entertaining. Since it’s noitaminA though, my default reaction is to assume that the whole super hero thing will not involve much super heroing as it will dramaing. It’s Manglobe too, and betting against them is always the smart option.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Three Wizard Cabbage-Patches.

Valvrave the Liberator
http://www.valvrave.com/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres October 10th

Premise: 
Continuation. The adventures of the dumbest space school in the world, led by a mass murdering rapist vampire body switcher who can’t stop feeling sad about how awful he is.

Thoughts: 
The first season was kind of amusing to write about just because it loved to whip out twist after god awful twist in the last minute or two of every episode, but that’s really about it and I always felt like I could have easily skipped the first 19 minutes of each episode and missed nothing but really really stupid teenagers being Darwin Awards level stupid. By the end of it, I hated pretty much the entire cast for being negligently suicidal and clueless while celebrating the triumph of teenagers being stupid singing morons. It even succeeded in making rape boring, eliciting more of a "Wait, they were actually having sex?" reaction from me than whatever the hell they were going for. That’s.. kind of an accomplishment, I guess? No change in any part of the staff, so I can only imagine it’ll keep up that same brand of nonsense. I think my patience has just about run out with it.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
May cause nausea, vomiting, impending feeling of death, and anal leakage.