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A new season is almost upon us! There are fewer shows that interest me compared to the fall, but there are still series that at least sound as if they'll be solid.

For reference, here are a couple of winter previews: THAT Anime Blog Winter Preview and Anime Vice Winter Preview.

Shows I am definitely interested in watching:

-- Maria Holic: Yes, yes and YES. Akiyuki Shinbo + SHAFT + insane story? Damn right I will be watching this. At the very least this sounds as if it will be chock full of gender-bending hilarity and really dark humor, which is right up my alley. This is my most anticipated show of the season. Hopefully it delivers.

-- Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th: I recently burned through the first three seasons of Marimite and enjoyed them, so I'm definitely looking forward to this. I actually think the show has improved with each season, so it will be interesting to see if this iteration improves on the excellent third season. Even if does not, more Yumi/Sachiko, maybe more SEI~!, more Yoshino, etc. will be quite fantastic.

-- Minami-ke Okaeri: Everything people told me caused me to be wary of Minami-ke's second season, but frankly I enjoyed it almost as much as the first season. Sure, the art is not as appealing, but the humor and characters are almost on the same level (the only major negative is that Hosaka gets the shaft a bit). I have confidence that this season will continue to deliver the great comedy and character interaction the first two seasons displayed.

-- Hetalia Axis Powers: The premise of the show sounds interesting and funny enough -- the fact that the episodes are eight minutes each sold me even more. This show should be good for some bite-sized fun.

Shows I am partly interested in watching:

-- Kurokami: I could see this going either way -- it could be a good action series like Kurozuka (although it went wayward by the end) or it could be incredibly disappointing like Shikabane Hime: Aka. As always, though, I will need a good fix of action, and I am hoping this will be able to deliver.

-- White Album: Aya Hirano is one thing this series has going for it, and the fact that the protagonist starts off with a girlfriend is somewhat interesting, as is the fact that the characters are all college students. Anime takes a bold step out of high school!! Haha. Seriously, though, if done well, this could potentially be a good, interesting romance/drama series.

What is everyone else going to watch?

There's only really two series I'm interested in, and those are Hetalia and the Higurashi OVA, Higurashi Rei.

The premise of Hetalia seems quirky enough, but I've seen a lot of wank for and from the fandom, so I'm a tad bit worried. And Higurashi Rei has been wanted from me for a long time, but I just hope it's not a giant moeblob fest like Kai was. I'm also rather disappointed the first ep doesn't ship out 'til February, so I hope it's worth the wait.

Otherwise, outside of the shows that are carrying over from fall that I'm still watching [Toradora, Tales of the Abyss], there's not much interesting to me, either.

Hetalia!!

Wait, there are other shows coming out?

Haha. Theoretically, I am interested in the Munto TV series and Marimite, and maybe the Genji series (if only to see how the heck they plan on fitting it into 11 episodes), but history suggests that I won't get around to actually watching much of any of them. Thank heaven for mini-episodes.

There is some stuff I'm absolutely dying to see later in 2009, but now, not so much.

~Dagger~

I might go for Minami-ke: Okaeri if I can finish Okawari first. I really hope they get a new opening for this one, though. Something more akin to Season 1's. Okawari's opening flat-out sucks. Ride Back is really the only other thing that caught my eye, and the description of it is pretty vague.

Other than that, nothing caught my eye that I wouldn't feel guilty about watching without catching the original or first season of beforehand. I'm lookin' at you, Slayers.

Maaaaaaaan, reading this reminds me of how behind I am on my animu... ; -;

I need to look up one of these series to keep up with so I can be a cool kid. :]

*goes back to his Kino no Tabi and Ideon

Yeah, there's not as much that interests me this season either. On the other hand, MOAR SLAYERS!

Must Watch

Slayers Evolution-R
It's more of the best fantasy/adventure series ever and continues the story from summer season's Revolution series. Of course I'm watching this. Why aren't you?

Maria Holic
It's directed by Shinbo Akiyuki and animated by SHAFT. It's about a girl who's afraid of boys and her falling for a trap who's infiltrated an all girls school. This has to equal win.

Minami-ke: Okaeri
Both of the first seasons were absolutely hilarious so I'm very much looking forward to the third.

Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th Season
Marimite is a wonderfully dramalicious series and I'm happy to get another season of it. And it should be interesting to see how Maria Holic contrasts with it.

Interested

White Album
Simply the fact that it's a romance series not set in high school is enough to make me take a look. Then you throw in Hirano Aya and Mizuki Nana as the two female leads, who happen to work as idols (insert songs yesplz), and you've got a firm hold on my interest. I have hopes that this will be an excellent romantic drama.

The Tower of Druaga: The Sword of Uruk
The first season was good so I'm going to continue with the second. From the way the first ended, it looks like the story should also get more interesting.

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai
It's a KyoAni original so I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Though I should probably get around to watching the two Munto OAVs before starting on this so I can see how they compare.

Genji Monogatari Sennenki
I've not read The Tale of Genji but I'd probably enjoy it, so I'll check out the anime. Though like Dagger, I'm also wondering how it's going to fit into only eleven episodes.

Hetalia Axis Powers
This just looks like a very fun little bite-sized show that'll be good for a laugh.

Worth a Look

Kemono no Souja Erin
It sounds like it could be a decent fantasy series so I'll check it out. I can always use more good fantasy.

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo
I'm not big on science fiction but this one looked like it could be amusing. My expectations aren't exactly high so we'll see if it can hold my attention.

Asu no Yoichi!
Ecchi slapstick comedy with a dash of romance. This could either be horribly funny or just plain horrible.

I've watched the first episodes of White Album, Minami-ke Okaeri and Maria Holic so far. Here are some quick thoughts!

White Album: Solid first episode that mostly sets up the situation between Touya and Yuki. I'm glad Touya is a somewhat off-kilter, goofy character -- he'll obviously have his drama-filled moments with Yuki later in the series, but it's good that he isn't super serious and emo. I like Daisuke Sakaguchi as Touya's best friend, too; it's a lot different from Sunohara from Clannad, which is the role of Sakaguchi's with which I am most familiar. Music is damn good as well. I like both the OP and ED a lot (which is somewhat rare for me), and obviously Aya Hirano and Nana Mizuki can both sing, so their roles as idols are completely believable.

Minami-ke Okaeri: Kana cracks me up whenever she's onscreen. I loved her helping Uchida with her romantic life, and then telling Chiaki about "matchmaking," only to later not realize that Fujioka is her destined husband. Oh, Kana. The cold way she spoke to Takeru (and his reaction to it) is also hilarious. I hope the ending is an indication that there will be more Hosaka this season; the one big problem I had with Minami-ke ~Okawari~ is that there wasn't enough Hosaka.

Maria Holic: I am sure I would have found this funny before, but it's 1,000 times funnier after watching Marimite. I love that Kanako is basically Yumi, if Yumi were one step below being a blatant pervert. Mariya-sama (I see what they did there) is pretty funny, too, in a cruel sort of way, and I love Matsurika. Whenever she spoke, I imagined Kana as an evil, emotionless maid, and it cracked me up. I hope Ishima shows up more in subsequent episodes, because I agree with Kanako that she is pretty cute. >>; Add in the trademark Shinbo crazy visuals and crack speed pacing, and this is a damn good debut episode.

There weren't a lot of shows that seem really that appealing to me this season, so I'll probably be spending most of what little time I have left catching up on what I'm already behind on.

Surprisingly all but one of the shows that I'm interested in are second seasons of something.

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo - I was teetering on the edge about this show. The sci-fi lover in me couldn't pass it up yet the premise sounded a little funky. But hearing Lelouch as a crazed A.I for a space colony was enough to sell it for me.

Slayers EVOLUTION-R - Diehard slayers fan, missing would be equivalent of death.

The Tower of Druaga ~the Sword of Uruk~ - I really enjoyed the first season, the ending infuriated me to unforeseen levels. Hopefully now that everyone isn't nearly as stupid as they were first seasons would prove for more enjoyable watching.

Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger - I've never really sat down and watch at previous seasons, I've seen many bits and pieces of them and wanted to watch them all one day, but never had well enough timing to do so. Now I do, so now everything works out.

I’ll definitely be checking out Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger. I loved the previous seasons and I am glad it’s back. It seems like there’s going to be a lot of good upcoming fights coming up pretty soon. Should be fun!

Other than that, I don’t really know what else to watch. I’ll probably keep an eye out on impressions of other shows to see what intrigues me.

I've caught the first episodes of Asu no Yoichi!, Kurokami and Marimite 4th since my last post.

Asu no Yoichi!: I enjoyed it. Not amazing, or anything, but it could be a decent fish out of water tale. I think what appealed to me most is how earnest it is overall. After watching so much dark stuff lately, it's nice to see something with a relatively light tone, haha.

Kurokami: Much better first episode than I expected. Show definitely looks great so far, and the fight scene in the middle is killer. Tough to really judge the characters right now, but the story seems as if it could be decent. It at least is offering up some decent mystery. The first episode also establishes firmly that the viewer definitely should not get used to minor characters, because they could die at any moment. Yikes.

Marimite 4th: Fun episode, and full of Marimitey awesomeness. Touko definitely steals the show in this. I love how eager she is to play a guy, haha ("Touko's male debut is here!"). It's pretty amazing that I now like a character who annoyed me so much when she first appeared. Touko for Yumi's petite soeur plz.

Y'all should check out Ride Back. Very nice first episode--I would've called it worth watching just for the ballet at the beginning (hey, I have a soft spot for dance sequences in anime), but they totally top it once the mecha element comes in. Great premise. The way it transmits the pure joy of movement reminded me a bit of Kaleido Star. It's hard to tell where the story will go from here, so if the rest sucks, I'll just pretend episode 1 was a one-shot.

Oh, and apparently the first episode of Munto was pretty much a TV edit of the first OVA (part of it, anyway), so I guess I'll wait until they reach new material to jump in...

~Dagger~

Well, we already lost an anime before it even started.

Hetalia Anime Canceled

Basically, some Koreans flipped out because the Korea character wasn't included in the anime. Dunno if that's what actually caused it, but if it is, it's silly, especially since they apparently are in the manga.

At least it'll be on the internet, so subbers can still get at it...but still. That's crappy. I haven't read the manga, but I wanted to see the anime cause it interests me...feh.

I thought they were objecting to the existence of the Korea character and how that character is treated, even though that character apparently isn't in the anime. Haven't read the manga, so I don't know how offensive the character is, but I doubt it is really that offensive. Dagger or anyone else who has read Hetalia feel free to correct me if I am incorrect, though. xD

Well, I actually found the cause of it, apparently. The site itself has some ads/discussion NSFW [as well as the URL itself], so I'll hide it under a spoiler...but yeah, be forewarned of the content of the ads and such.

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/0...east-touching/

...which is silly, still. ALL the countries, to my understanding, are stereotyped. And even then, I'm sure this isn't the first time Koreans, or any other country [OUR OWN COUNTRY, ANYONE?] has been made fun of.

Oh, Sankaku. The site whose stories I'm always dying to link on the front page of theO, but can't because it's so NSFW.

The recently released second volume of the manga is still lying in my to-read pile, but the Korean character was so minor a presence in the first (if he appeared at all) that I didn't realize there, uh, was a Korea. Hetalia as a whole is very good-natured; I have yet to see any mean-spirited gags in it. Of course, maybe I'm just saying that because America Alfred is the best character.

~Dagger~