1 Freezing: Dead girls.

2 I guess I did know about that but I'd forgotten. Oh, well; crossed off.

3 Original Precure was better than SM, IMHO. But I cannot understand what people find in the modern incarnations of it. 5gogo is supposed to be the bright spot -- again why exactly?

4 The original Pretty Cure was awesome - Honoka and Nagisa kicked ass and took names.  Sadly, each new iteration has been targeted at a younger and dumber audience, and it's now unwatchable treacly crap.

Kimi ni Todoke is the most awesome anime ever to be produced; it leaves Gurren Lagann and Black Lagoon in the dust.  The second season may actually cause certain bloggers to spontaneously combust.

I'll give Fractale, Madoka, and Merry a shot too.

5 I'm seeing BD rips for Mayoi Neko Overrun appearing.  Although the encyclopedia says it was last spring's season.  I was surprised not to find a reference to it here, being a light harem comedy with a cat girl.

6 BTW, I heard Mission E was significantly better than Code E (I am assuming Level E builds on the same foundations). It is not Sunrize by any chance, is it?

7

They say Studio Pierrot.

I just looked at the descriptions of the three series, and I don't think Level-E is related to the others. Mission E and Code E were Studio Deen.

It is the same director. But it's not the same "original creator". And the story concepts don't appear related.

8

Regarding Onii-chan no Koto etc, the series description includes the business about the girl finding a photo album in her brother's bedroom, and there are pictures from childhood but none of her.

There are two possibilities, it seems to me. First, there are no pictures of her because she wasn't around, and this is news to her. Or, there are no pictures of her because her brother left them out for some reason.

I hoped it would be the first, but now I suspect it's the second, and in that case the series will be a total loss as far as I'm concerned.

9

re "Mayoi Neko Overrun", I never was interested. The concept seemed completely braindead. As soon as I hear "he has a sister, but they're not actually related" I know it's going to be utter crap.

That's one of those rationalizations that second-rate writers like in order to cover up perversion. In this case, incest, of course; emotionally it'll feel like incest without being so in the eyes of the law. That was the problem with that gawdawful show about the two step-sisters from last summer; same thing.

Another example of that is "the loli is actually old enough to be legal, but stayed physically a loli because of..."

Ladies versus Butlers had that one, but fortunately they didn't develop it into faux child molestation. Instead, he developed something of a big-brother/little sister relationshiip with her, despite her really being 3 years older than him.

And Washuu and Neige aren't the same kind of thing at all. Washuu never acted like a kid. She had a degree of shape-shifting ability, and she made herself look young because of a traumatic experience a long time ago.

Neige did act like a kid, but she was deliberately being naughty when she did it, and it wasn't all the time. In her case it was because she'd been a proper court lady for a couple of millenia, and now she was out of the harness and feeling frisky. And, to some extent, feeling her years. Spending time with four people none of whom were even fifty years old had to make her feel like a crone, and I think she was overcompensating a bit.

And neither of them flew a false-flag; everyone knew they were both really very old. In neither case was it anything like "Yeah, she looks like a loli but it isn't really child molestation because she's older than she looks". That's not how it was played.

10 I'm only a couple of episodes in, but it doesn't seem to be going that way.  The Older sister who has adopted the hero is mostly gone off globetrotting helping people when she's not making bad cakes for her shop.  The blonde is a Tsundere.  He has a couple of guy friends who are not just window dressing - one is very traditional, his family owns a Kung Fu school, and the other is a total Otaku.

I find it peculiar that there are at least three shows this year that contain characters who are such Otaku that they prefer "The 2D world" to "The 3D world."  This may go back further, but they seemed awfully prominent to me for actually saying it out loud.  It makes me wonder just how prevalent this attitude is in Japanese fans.

Of course, I can't say what will happen after I get further in, but it seems like a pleasant comedy with a few panty shots being the extent of it.

11 It's all a matter of taste; I felt like this was the best season out of the last three.  TWGOK was good (except for the last episode) and it's been greenlit for a second season.  I was watching Yosuga no Sora for the trainwreck (and sex), and mostly got it. Samurai Girls has been mildly disappointing compared to what I'd hoped for, but a lot better than what I actually expected (which was along the lines of the original Ikkitousen). 

The new season? Freezing depends heavily on whether the writers can fix most of the manga-ka's issues -- it's not his work I'd have picked for adaptation.  Nothing else really stuck in my head from the first set of previews a week ago.  I thought I also saw Mirai Nikki in this season's previews -- if so, it's top of my list.  (You probably won't like it, Steven. Dead girls and a yandere to challenge the Sonozaki twins.)

12 >Level E
This has no relation to Code E. It's based on a 1995 manga by Togashi Yoshihiro. He's best known for the shonen series YuYu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter, but Level E is arguably his best work. It's a science fiction comedy with a very quirky and brainy sense of humor.

13 I used to follow Hunter x Hunter.  One of the more interesting shounen mangas. . . at first.  Sadly, it pissed away all my interest with the Chimera Ant arc.

14

re "Mayoi Neko Overrun", I never was interested. The concept seemed completely braindead. As soon as I hear "he has a sister, but they're not actually related" I know it's going to be utter crap.

To be fair, there's no romance between the elder sister and her adopted brother. She's a minor character who appears randomly at best. She's adopted him because he's an orphan, and she takes in stray cats, people, causes, whathaveyou.

At its heart, the show is about people with no home/family/roots finding a place where they belong.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was that the subverted tsundere character understands subtext and isn't mindbangingly self-sabotagingly stupid -- and the guy understands tsundere behaviour and calls her on it.

15

At its heart, the show is about people with no home/family/roots finding a place where they belong.

Sounds like Macademi Wasshoi. That's what that show was really about.