天下制覇

Saint Seiya Ω
http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/seiya/
Studio: Toei
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres March 31st (Evening)

Summary: 
25 years after the end of the first Saint Seiya series, a new generation of Athena’s warriors suit up to protect the Earth from evil gods. 

Personal Thoughts:
What amazes me is that Saint Seiya still survives… in any form. They’ve been spitting out random OVAs off and on for the last ten years plus a full series before that. On the upside, the writer’s at least very experienced, although without very many particularly good shows to their name. Regardless, it’s just Toei making basically Pretty Cure For Boys. It’s a Sunday morning Jump cartoon… for a series that’s almost 30 years old at this point. ‘Nuff said.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The gods must be crazy.

Space Brothers
http://www.ytv.co.jp/uchukyodai/
Studio: A-1
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres March 31st (evening)

Summary: 
Two brothers saw what they thought was a UFO and dreamed of becoming astronauts. However, only one followed his dream. The other led a more normal life until he was fired and lost everything. But this is a chance for him to rediscover his dream and go to space with his brother.

Personal Thoughts: 
I think I fell asleep just reading about this one. There’s not even anything interesting to say about the staff. As another Sunday morning show, I can’t imagine it’ll be particularly engaging either. The most interesting thing to me is the pug in the spacesuit. Why would you do that to a pug? Where do you even get a dog space suit? Maybe that’s why Japan’s space program isn’t particularly renowned. They’re spending too much time making space suits for dogs.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Dude, just win at Double Dare and go to Space Camp.

Scarlet Fragments
http://www.hiironokakera.tv/
Studio: Deen
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 1st

Summary: 
Tamaki returns to her childhood home in the mountains where she discovers all manner of spirits inhabiting the forests and a team of pretty boys that flock to her to protect and dote on her.

Personal Thoughts: 
The first episode already aired, so I get to cheat a little here. It was exactly what you’d expect from Another Deen Pretty Boy Show^tm; boring and with a doe eyed protagonist who did little more than gawk as things happened were explained. The boys aren’t even that pretty. At least the backgrounds were nice. That’s really about the only good thing that I can say about this one.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
Oh no! Formless blobs are pulsating! Flee!

You and I. 2
http://www.kimiboku.tv/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: ‘Comedy’
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 2nd

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing non-adventures of five boys hanging out and living their daily lives.

Personal Thoughts: 
I hardly remember even watching the first episode of the first season and a glance back to what I wrote reminded me why.  It’s the exact same studio, director, and writer so I highly doubt that it’ll be any different. Just a big ol’ fat sack of empty space and falling cherry petals. I’d prefer one of those Deen boytoy shows just for an excuse to make a post of nothing but nutria. Maybe I will anyway.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Three dessicated pumpkins.

Zetman
http://zetman.jp/index.html
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 2nd

Summary: 
Jin is living with his grandfather in the slums when they’re attacked by a strange monster. He transforms into a curiously similar monster called a ZET, but his grandfather dies in the attack. He has to find the truth and stop the organization creating the monsters alongside his newfound friend who uses a super powered suit to fight.

Personal Thoughts: 
There’s not much that excites me here. TMS isn’t exactly a great studio to begin with, the director’s done nothing notable at all, and of course, Jump. Not the worst Jump, mind you, but still Jump. If it were a better studio, there’d at least might be some slick fights to look forward to. The use of speedlines and splash backgrounds in the PVs though doesn’t exactly scream high budget though.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

And yet still less powerful than Gun-Haver.

Queen’s Blade: Rebellion
http://queensblade.tv/
Studio: Arms
Genre: Boobs
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 2nd (evening)

Summary: 
Years after the end of the previous Queen’s Blade tournament, the new queen has become corrupt and abolished the tournament used for deciding the land’s ruler. Annelotte’s castle is destroyed by the tyrant, so she begins travelling the land to raise an army and fight back.

Personal Thoughts: 
Finally, a show not starring pretty boys. And Queen’s Blade at that! Sigh. I kid. This is going to be awesome. You know how I can tell? The directory has never worked on anything but pornography before with the crown jewel being My Sexual Harassment, a show made famous for its corn. There’s a new writer taking over too. From JC Staff. The one responsible for Dream Eater Merry and Aria TSA. If that isn’t a recipe for awesome things to happen, then I don’t know what is.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Piles and piles of puss.

Rock Lee’s SD Baku Tech Zero G
http://www.webhamster.com/
Studio: Pierrot
Genre: Merchandising
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 3rd (early morning)

Summary: 
In this spinoff of Naruto, Rock Lee must harness the power of zero gravity tops to play a card game and fight off alien invaders.

Personal Thoughts: 
…Why does that promo sound better than any of the individual three shows? Anywho, here’s the boy’s side of these terrible kid shows made with the sole purpose of selling tops, cards, and to wring as much blood from the Naruto franchise as humanly possible. Beyblade is the tri-yearly reboot with a new cast and this’ll be the first Bakugan to air in Japan before the US since 2008. That’s something disturbing to ponder in the darker hours of the night.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
This is what Lavos was trying to stop.

Here Comes a Black Witch!!
http://www.shin-ei-animation.jp/kuromajyo/
Studio: Shin-Ei Animation
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 4th (Very early morning)

Summary: 
Chiyoko has always loved the occult. While trying out a spell she supposedly learned, she sneezed and accidentally summoned a real magic user. She became fixated on him and vowed to have him teach her how to become a real witch.

Personal Thoughts: 
Shin-Ei and this director are far more commonly associated with filthy flash animations although they did at least begin to delve into real shows last season with Knight in the Area… not exactly known for its adept production. There’s not much promotional stuff to indicate what this’ll be either, but may as well err on the side of it actually being a show. It’s airing in prime time too, so maybe they’ll put a little more effort into it… or maybe they’ll take the Doraemon route. Either way, it’s based on a bunch of kid’s books anyway, so I can’t say that I’m expecting much from it, but it at least looks maybe slightly more stomachable than most of the glut of kid’s shows this season. Broadcasts are also 5 minutes longer than usual. Take that as you may.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Real witches are water soluble.

Is This a Zombie? of the Dead
http://kadokawa-anime.jp/zombie/
Studio: Deen
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 4th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of the magical zombie girl Ayumu and his harem of ninja vampire violinists, mute necromancers, and delivery ninjas as they attempt to find a decent writer.

Personal Thoughts: 
The first half of the first season was rather good all around. Solid production, humor, and even writing. Then the second half was just abysmal. Good god, the plot was the antagonist begging the protagonists to kill him. And there were zombie hamsters or something? My memory’s hazy. Where that leaves us now is a giant question mark. It’s the exact same staff, director, and writer as before, but with the wild inconsistency, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Now that I can calibrate myself for expecting the writing to be absolutely awful though, maybe I’ll feel less annoyed if it just takes up (or takes back) the Horrendous Writing mantle from Guilty Crown. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
One half dog, one half fish, one half chicken.

The Woman Named Fujiko Mine
http://lupin40.com/tv/
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 4th

Summary: 
The adventures of one of Lupin’s eternal sidekicks, the femme fatale Fujiko Mine.

Personal Thoughts: 
I’m not entirely sure why they’d decide to focus on anybody other than the title character for a new Lupin series. Oh wait, boobs. You’d think there aren’t too many ways to screw up the general Lupin formula, but TMS has more missed than hit in recent years with their specials and Fujiko is not exactly the most dynamic character. Since they’re also bringing on my oh-so-favorite writer ever, Ms. I Have No Idea How To End a Show, Mari Okada (Canaan, Gosick, Hanasaku Iroha, Toradora, etc), I just pray they take some lessons from the older series and keep everything episodic from start to finish. Fat chance of that.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
But will she have a spring-loaded boxing glove in her Abraham Lincoln?

Medaka Box
http://medakabox.jp/
Studio: Gainax
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 4th

Summary: 
Medaka wants to use all her strength and resources to help others in need so she sets up a suggestion box for students to ask anything of her and her student council, but she may not be fully prepared for all the insane requests made of them.

Personal Thoughts: 
What amuses me here is that apparently after a while, it just abandons the original premise and becomes X-Men. Being a Jump show with all the associated nonsense that comes with that, particularly pacing issues, I’m not exactly burning in the britches for this, but it does look to have a lot more of Gainax’s flair than the last show they did (Dantalian). The director’s also fairly solid and certainly knows how to do action so hopefully it can shed its Jump heritage and make a passable show. I’m not holding my breath though.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
No, not Bachs.

Place to Place
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/ackc/
Studio: AIC
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 5th

Summary: 
Tsumiki has clear feelings for Io but can never admit them to herself and he’s too dense to notice them. It’s up to all their friends to push them together and make their relationship happen.

Personal Thoughts: 
At least judging from the PVs, the actual romance doesn’t really seem like it’ll have much of a focus besides "We really needed a blurb that’ll catch those junkie fans and can’t just say it’s another generic high school show." It honestly doesn’t look like much of anything at all. The artistic style is cute-ish, I guess. AIC has both proven they know exactly how to handle 4-panel comics (GA Art Class) and how to utterly screw them up beyond belief (Cat Gods). The director and writer here are complete nobodies too with only Astalotte between the two of them, so… uh… generic high school show ahoy!

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Officer McCheese says "It’s the CHEESIEST!"

Sengoku Collection
http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/sencolle/
Studio: Brains Base
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 5th

Summary: 
A bunch of warlords (as girls, obviously) from Japan’s Sengoku era are suddenly transported to the modern world. Its technology is like magic to them as they try to adapt to their new reality.

Personal Thoughts: 
Now here’s an odd one. This is the gimik director (Kiddy * and Uta Kata) taking a social networking card game and pretty much throwing away everything about it except the character designs. It’s a step sideways from pachinko game ‘adaptations’ at least, although hell if I know what to make of it. Brains Base and gimik aren’t exactly known for their comedies, but what little promotional material there is does seem like they’ve got a good grip on how to be silly with their characters. I’m cautiously optimistic, but not really expecting it to be anything more than bizarre.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
This reminds me of something…

Sanka Rea
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/sankarea/
Studio: Deen
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 5th

Summary: 
Furuya is obsessed with zombies to the point where he creates a deadly potion in an attempt to create one out of his cat. However, a girl he knows steals it and drinks it to try to kill herself. It doesn’t work, but she soon dies in an accident and comes back to life as a zombie, making his dream of a zombie girlfriend possible.

Personal Thoughts: 
Director’s literally a nobody, having done nothing at all before, and the writer’s not great with Baccano being the only thing he’s done that wasn’t laughably horrible. On the other hand, this is a comedy, and that’s the one thing that Deen traditionally does well more often than not. The only promotional material for it still looks like Deen’s only putting in slightly more effort here than Clueless Girl in the Mountains, so there’s nothing to get excited about either.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Remember when being a zombie meant something?

A Summer Tinged Miracle
http://www.natsuiro-kiseki.jp/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Drama 
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 5th

Summary: 
Four friends have always been together and having fun, whether it’s at school or just hanging out. This is the story of their magical summer together.

Personal Thoughts: 
This has a live broadcast on NNV on the 31st. There’s no shortage of experience in the staff here and Sunrise handling it means that it should probably be quite well produced. That’s about all that interests me here though. The promos were all of the "girls doing girl things" variety, of which I can count on one hand the number of those I’ve enjoyed in recent years. Maybe Sunrise will do something weird with the formula but I think it more likely that they’re just trying to make a quick buck on the K-On formula, albeit a year or two behind every other studio.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

I hope the miracle is daleks.

Accel World
http://www.accel-world.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 6th

Summary: 
Technology has advanced enough to let humans directly interact with electronic worlds and use them to enhance their own senses. Brain Burst is a virtual reality MMO fighting game that lets its players accelerate their brain waves, but they need to keep winning to use their ability. Haruyuki’s short, fat, and has low self-esteem, but he’s is recruited into the world by the student council’s vice president to fight at her side with their friends.

Personal Thoughts: 
Just a note, there was a live stream netcast of the first two episodes on Bandai Channel this weekend and there’ll be another one on NNV later in the week, so there could be some LQ stuff floating around at a random point. This is the latest by Sunrise’s HiME team, so they certainly know how to animate and direct, but I’m not sure I’d trust them to write their way into or out of a box. The PVs look like they actually put some effort into the CG, so hopefully it won’t be too bad, but I’m still waiting for Japan to reach the level that the US uses to sell cheaply made plastic toys or keep George Lucas’s jacuzzi filled with champagne. Hopefully it’s at least good for some eye candy considering it’s the only thing airing on Fridays.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Who thought this art style was a good idea?

Pretty Pet ☆ Dear My Deco!
http://www.strapya-world.com/categories/6087_65.html
Studio: Girly Things Inc
Genre: Merchandising
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 6th (evening)

Summary: 
The new adventures of ice skating idols and their magical pets out to save the world from prepubescent girls not having enough cheap shiny accessories.

Personal Thoughts: 
Here’s the girly toy selling reboots. Both series get their annual reboots (well, PR’s only been around for a year) with a new cast and whatnot, but neither have the grrrrrrrl power of PreCure, so they have to share one Frankensteinian entry. They’re of no real note anyway, but each year is another one between us and the unfortunately named Jewelpet Tinkle.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Nyanespion is here to take them all away.

Kickoff to the Galaxy!!
http://www9.nhk.or.jp/anime/ginga/
Studio: TYO Animation
Genre: Balls
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 6th (evening)

Summary: 
Ohta loved soccer, but his elementary school team had to be disbanded because there weren’t enough players. After meeting a real professional soccer player, his dream’s back and he starts recruiting boys and girls around him to make a new team and aim for the stars.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh boy! Little kids playing foots balls. Fast kicking! Low scoring! And ties? You bet! Taking cheap shots at soccer is a low blow, but good lord, this show isn’t even notable enough for the Japanese to make a Wikipedia page for it. I think that the creators completely forgot about it too. It started a ‘special broadcast’ online on Bandai Channel today for the first 5 episodes (one a day), yet most of its homepage is still filled with "COMING SOON!" including a giant space for a promo. Well, at least it’s better than Bones’s website, but we’ll get to that. Belated edit: Not ten minutes after posting the preview, I see that episode one’s up for viewage. Sigh.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

I’d watch it if it had Frostmourne.

Upotte!!
http://www.upotte.jp/
Studio: Xebec
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 7th

Summary: 
A classroom full of girls that are anthropomorphized assault weaponry wreck havoc in their school.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is being streamed on Niconico only without any terrestrial broadcasts, but it has what appears to be a normal DVD release schedule, so I guess I’ll assume that it’s a real show (at least more than Polar Bear Cafe appears to be), although I’m honestly not entirely certain of that. It’s not the first time something like this has happened, and Penguin Girl did turn out pretty well. That said, this is Xebec’s terrible director (Rio, TLR, Pandora Hearts) and a similarly awful writer (Papakiki, Yosuga no Sora) so optimism likely isn’t wise. It seems harmless enough though, and adding guns and extreme violence never did any show harm. It’ll probably be about as braindead but stomachable as Softenni ended up being. Let’s hope it shows at least a glimmer of the same creativity along the way.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
"What’s important is that we blow something up."

Fate/Zero
http://www.fate-zero.jp/
Studio: UFOTable
Genre: Talking Heads
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 7th

Summary: 
Continuation of Autumn series. Seven mages with seven servants based on mythical heroes fight to obtain the holy grail and have their wish granted.

Personal Thoughts: 
Unless you’re new here, my disappointment with and dislike for the first season should be clear. Sure, the art was excellent, but everything else was atrocious and completely missed the entire point of adapting a series for a new medium. Jump shows have less self-narration about events happening right in front of characters. Maybe it’ll pick things up a little bit as it has to actually kill most of the cast off this season, but given how woeful the choreography was and how reliant the fights were on CG models standing still, I have precious little hope it’ll improve on that front either.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Show is weak to Silence.

Mysterious Girlfriend X
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/nazokano_x/
Studio: Hoods
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 7th

Summary: 
A strange and unsocial girl transfers into Akira’s class. He finds her asleep and drooling on her desk one day and on a whim, tastes her spit and discovers that he is now not only connected to her, but that they can share their thoughts and feelings through their spit.

Personal Thoughts: 
Hoods and another show about sucking up a girl’s bodily fluids. Oh boy! Never seen this before! If all you look at is the studio, director, and writer, you’d think this will be a disaster. So I will. It’s almost as big a recipe for a mess as QB Rebellion’s staff without the hope that everything will simply go nuclear and the resulting explosion will be fun to watch. The promos for this also looked like they came from a low budget 90s show.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Send in the rabid fanbase to make it all better!

Kuroko’s Basketball
http://www.kurobas.com/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 7th

Summary: 
Kuroko’s basketball team was legendary in middle school, but most people forgot about him and how talented he was. Once they graduated, all his team members scattered to the schools around Japan, but Kuroko and his talented friend dream of leading their team to be the best in Japan and that means taking on all of his former teammates along the way.

Personal Thoughts: 
Fantastic! Another Jump show. And it’s about sports too? With the same director and studio as the oh so awesomely animated Prince of Tennis? Be still my beating heart. The writer’s mostly terrible too (same as Sanka Rea). The first episode better at least contain enough material to make ball jokes. That’s what I’ll consider a success for this one.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Basketball’s only okay when using the severed heads of your enemies.

Saki – Achiga Chapter
http://www.saki-anime.com/
Studio: Gokumi
Genre: Heart of the Tiles
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 8th

Summary: 
One of Nodoka’s old friends who quit mahjong sees her on TV so decides to revive her school’s mahjong club so she can reunite with Nodoka in the national championships.

Personal Thoughts: 
You know, there’s a reason phones and e-mail exist. Anywho, same director and writer as the previous Saki, but with Gokumi instead of the Gonzo/Picture Magic collective. That does mean no more rude tits, which will be a severe loss to the series. I did end up picking back up the original without mentioning it for a while before losing all interest in it again once everybody began winning with the mahjong equivilents of inside straight flush draws. Maybe they can avoid that this time. Or completely avoid mahjong altogether and just focus on the dirty funbags and girls that dress like prostitutes. That was what the show was really about, right?

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Three Sakis and a Heart.

Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
http://www.amnesia-tv.com/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Mystery
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 8th

Summary: 
Teiichi’s school has numerous legends and stories about strange things happening in it. One day, he meets a girl who claims to be a ghost. She shows him to her bones, but can’t remember anything about her death. He tries to help understand what happened to her while looking into the other supernatural things going on around the school.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is the standard Silver Link staff so I can only assume it’ll probably be fairly similar in at least presentation and production to their last few shows, which is a very good thing usually, although their style certain does have its hiccups at times. What’s let them down in their last few shows (BakaTest2 and C³) was the writing. I can’t say this is the kind of show I generally prefer though. The premise sounds like a billion other magical girlfriend shows too. Hopefully they can add the visual flair that keeps my attention from wandering.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
What is it with this season and the undead?

Creep! Nyarlko
http://www.nyaruko.com/
Studio: Xebec
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 9th

Summary: 
One day, Yasaka is attacked by strange monsters. A girl comes to his aid, claiming to be an ancient dark god. She’s now his guardian against the supposed aliens coming after him.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is a new iteration of the previous flash animated shorts, if you can even call that animated. It’s Xebec doing another surreal comedy, which they have done very well in recent years, so that’s reason enough to give it some hope. It is MM!’s director too, but that show’s humor wasn’t really its strongest point… oddly enough for being a comedy. It was quite well-directed from start to finish though and this looks to have a lot of the same energy and visual flair with no shortage of budget at all in the promos, so hopefully he can do the same here with a premise that is indistinguishable from dozens of other shows besides making internet nerds either squeal in delight or groan in pain.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Shambling horrors deserve love too.

Jormungand
http://www.jormungand.tv/
Studio: White Fox
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 10th

Summary: 
Jonah’s a former child soldier who hates weapons. He’s drawn to Koko, an arms dealer who never stops smiling. He joins her in traveling around the world, running guns and getting drawn into trouble wherever they go. 

Personal Thoughts: 
Another show that has a very experienced staff behind it, but both of the director and writer’s most recent things being rather pretty bad and absolutely nothing like this (Majikoi and Maken-ki respectively). White Fox isn’t known for its ability to make a visually impressive show anyway. The ugly CG car chases and cityscapes in the promo don’t excite me much either. Nor does Angsty Male Lead With Tragic Past Variation #3 for that matter.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

I’m playing the world’s smallest violin for you, kid.

Kids on the Slope
http://www.noitamina-apollon.com/
Studio: MAPPA/Tezuka Productions
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 12th

Summary: 
Kaoru’s had to transfer schools constantly because of his father’s job. At his new school, he meets a new friend who seems rough on the outside, but introduces him to jazz. Through it, Kaoru’s life and relationships begin to grow.

Personal Thoughts: 
What I find hilarious about this one is that it’s main claim to fame seems to be… Cowboy Bebop’s director! Here to do a show nothing like it! Doesn’t that excite you!? At least they got the same composer too, although about 50% of everything else in the promo was ugly CG band equipment. Most of the other half was Kaoru standing in the rain looking plaintively upward or walking aaaaaall alone through a crowded classroom. So I already pretty much hate him. The OST will probably be worth a listen though. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Real men use bagpipes for male on male bonding.

Fishing Ball
http://www.tsuritama.com/
Studio: A-1 Productions
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 12th

Summary: 
Yuki’s never been good at making friends, but then one day, a self-proclaimed alien decides that he’s going to be Yuki’s friend and teach him to fish. They’re joined by two other social outcasts for big adventures on their tiny island.

Personal Thoughts: 
This has C (Control’s) director, which goes a long way to explaining why everything looks vaguely surreal, and the writer’s a total nobody. There’s probably some cultural reason for all these "four boys doing boy things" shows that are popping up lately, but not being a boy connoisseur, I really couldn’t tell you the difference between any of them. I have little love for A-1 anyway and I doubt this will surprise me in any way.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Not fish approved.

Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean
http://eurekaao-prj.net/
Studio: Bones
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 12th

Summary: 
A strange entity attacks Ao’s island. Desperate to protect the people and places he cares about, he climbs aboard a giant mech to protect it.

Personal Thoughts: 
…What a creative and unique premise. Okay, so it’s a spiritual sequel to the previous show, sans subtitle, so they probably don’t need to try very hard on that front, but you’d think they’d at least include something about surfing. Bones has the same director working on it as well, so I see no reason why it won’t be more of the same. That does also include the entire set of mecha cliches that make the back of my knuckles itch. They also win the award for worst webpage by having the show’s promo embedded as the background. And region locked at that. Why would you do that, Bones?

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Surf’s up, dudes.

Shining Hearts ~ The Bread of Happiness ~
http://shining-world.jp/heartsTV/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Bread
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 12th

Summary: 
A girl named Kaguya washes up on an island with her memories and emotions sealed. Pirates come looking for an amulet she has so she turns to the swordsman Rick and all his women friends at the bakery where he works to help her and solve the mystery of her origin.

Personal Thoughts: 
I don’t even have the foggiest idea what to make of this. It’s based on a PSP RPG and it’s being directed/written by Zexcs’s old adventure show director (LoLH, Rental Magicka, etc). I like the guy, but he’s by no means great. At the same time, Production IG has shown lately that if nothing else, they’ve got cash to throw into practically everything. I… guess I’m optimistic? I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? Some kind of Campanella scenario? Then again, I shouldn’t be tempting fate when asking how bad a Production IG show could possibly turn out.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Doomed to be defeated by the Cheese of Indigestional Discomfort.

Hyouka
http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/kotenbu/
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 22nd

Summary: 
Tarou always avoids getting involved with things, but he ends up joining his school’s classical literature club. Once in there, he discovers an old collection that holds a curious mystery about the previous literature club from three decades ago.

Personal Thoughts: 
Another show with a bizarre set of people working on it. KyoAni, for starters, with the director being the guy who took over Lucky Star after the savior of anime was booted off, and the head writer’s the creater of Full Metal Panic who hasn’t don’t anything since then except penning Druaga. Not much about the premise hooks me regardless. I think KyoAni may just be trying to mix up the formula with a slightly more respectable source and including a boy or two instead of another gaggle of ‘wacky’ high school females doing nothing.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Beware, books kill.

AKB0048
http://akb0048.jp/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 29th

Summary: 
At the beginning of the 21st century, war engulfed the Earth. Humanity began expanding to the stars to escape the devestation they caused, but one of the consequences of the war was that all public performances were banned. Akihabara became the site of the rebellion against this ban with ‘terrorist’ idol groups rising up to take the freedom to perform back, even taking to battle to protect the citizens they’re trying to entertainin.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is basically a giant fanwank to the AKB48 group. Most of the characters are based off of and will be voiced by members of the group. That said though, they certainly put some funding into this one. Satelight and the director of most Macross stuff means that they’re no strangers to the whole singing + mecha formula. Of course, they have Okada writing for it, continuing to baffle me with her ability to continuously find work. She must come really cheap or provide extra fringe benefits. *ahem* Still not a fan of mecha, especially as badly CG as the promos make it look, but it does look to be on the lighter side of things. Or if it does end up serious, maybe it’ll be corny enough to be amusing in the wrong way.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Forget idols, let’s ROCK!