Catchup post #1: Senki Zesshou Symphogear 1-4.

Put simply, Symphogear is what you end up with when you throw Macross, Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica, and Xenosaga in a blender.  Girls in music-activated armor fighting monsters that kill humans by turning them into carbon dust.  And you know what?  It works.

Last Exile Ginyoku no Fam - 01

And the last show to air (I think) finally makes its appearance.  I never got around to finishing the first Last Exile, so it's possible, maybe even likely that I'll be missing details from time to time.

The show opens with Fam sleepwalking her way out of an airship's exterior door, stopped only by a rope tied around one of her ankles.  Apparently, she does it often (though one wonders what happened the first time...).

Guilty Crown - 01

As I wrote in the fall anime preview, this series feels a lot like Code Geass.  Ten years prior to the start of the show, a pandemic caused by the Apocalypse Virus caused so much damage to Japan that it was forced to take so much foreign aid that it became, in essence, owned by other countries via a governmental body called the GHQ. Inori Yuzuriha is an idol singer with the in-universe Egoist, and a member of the resistance group Undertaker, who manages to steal the void genome from a GHQ facility.  In her escape, she, the minibot Fyu-Neru, and the void genome go missing after being blown off a bridge in a clash with GHQ forces.

Gundam AGE - 01

One good point, the enemy mechs look pretty good.

Even not counting the main character designs (which no one really seems to like), there's so much wrong with this I don't know where to begin...

14 years prior to the start of the show, an unknown force called Unknown Enemy or UE attacked and destroyed the space colony Angel.  Seven years later the colony Asuno Flit is living in with his mother is similarly attacked, and she is killed moments after giving Flit the AGE device, a memory unit containing data on a certain mobile suit.  In the present day, Flit, now 14, and still in school, is working for the military as the head of the project building the mobile suit Gundam based off of the data in the AGE device.  On the day the unit is finished and ready for its trial runs, the UE attack the colony and are forced to retreat after the Flit sorties in the Gundam and destroys one of their units... the first ever human victory.  The episode ends as the UE launch a retaliatory missile attack against the colony.  My main issues with the show below the fold.

Tamayura Hitotose - 01

Tamayura Hitotose comes from "TYO Animatons" as a very generic but warm slice of life depicting the life of protagonist Fu Sawatari and her experiences the years after the passing of her dad who seems to had been a great inspiration for her, specially in the area of Photography.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon - 01

It was fun, but...what on Earth did I just watch?

In a post-apocalyptic world, nearly the entire Earth has been rendered inhabitable to people.  However, humanity retains its advanced technology and, in an attempt to rebuild, rewrite and copy their history.  The world is currently entering a period where they are rewriting a 30-year-war era, and are seeking out conflicts.

Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai - 01

Looking at the first episode, Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai (Please Love Me Seriously, abbreviated Majikoi) reminds me of a combination of Real Bout High School, Bakatest and Dog Days.

Complete with maid army

C3 - 01

We'll be showing this one at the screening next week, so this will be a pretty basic episode review. (Click "read more" for the rest of the post)

Shinryaku!? Ika Musume - 01

Ika Musume, invading the blog!

Well, here we go!  The first series of the new season (not counting Working, which pre-aired their first episode a few weeks back) is finally here.  Shinrakyu!? Ika Musume is the second season of the anime adaption of the yonkoma (4-panel) manga series by the same name.  It's a slice of life comedy centered around the titular Ika Musume, a squid girl who wants to conquer the surface world in retaliation for humans polluting the oceans.  Needless to say, it doesn't work, and she finds herself stuck working in a beachside food stand/restaurant.