1 Look at this, no IM@S. ANN was right about 12 episodes, and DiGiKerot was wrong.

2  Steven:  The other reading for 姫 is ki. 
It's a pun on the word 負けん気.
Looks like a fun show, though I worry that it's gonna have a wimp hero.  That always ruins stuff for me.

Pete:  Seriously?  Everybody I knew thought it was 2 cour.  Maybe it's a split season, like Natsume?  In that case it'd be starting up again in Jan.

3

I think what's going to save Maken-ki for me is that all the girls have special powers. The school is for girls who do, to teach them how to use those powers.

It's pretty much a no-name cast, which telegraphs "low budget". But we might get lucky.

4 You never know. Note that the beginners were mostly cast as leads. Veterans were mostly second string though, except the guy, about whom I can hardly say anything. Not being a seiyuublogger, or a fan of voice acting even, I still remember a couple of cases. Natsumi Yanase made an enormous impression with her incursion from the strange country of pr0n (a stage name, obviously). Also, when Yurika Ochiai retired due to death threats, Azami Asakura took her place, and even being a fan of the character, I plainly cannot tell them apart.

5 There's a NSFW promo video of Maken-Ki. There are (censored) nude scenes.

6  A preview that consists of nothing but girls running and still shots?

I probably spent more on lunch than this thing did on its animation.

7

I just downloaded the 5th volume of the manga, because I was curious. Of course, this is well into the story. And most of the volume was a big fight scene.

Early on, the bad guy used the MCSA on three of the girls:

But while noteworthy, that wasn't what impressed me most. Rather, just after this, Our Hero proceeded to fight the bad guy, and he didn't get instantly used to mop the floor. In fact, he was manifesting some sort of major power, albeit without a gizmo to utilize it.

Well, he didn't win. But he didn't lose instantly, and he damned well tried.

Some harem shows have male leads who are a waste of oxygen e.g. Kouta in Kanokon. And some harem shows have male leads who are actually pretty damned cool e.g. Akuto in Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou.

This guy probably ranks somewhere in between, but trending much more towards the Akuto end of the scale, and that's promising.

It isn't written that an ecchi fan service show must suck. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou has plenty of explicit fan service, but it also has really interesting characters and a decent story.

Maybe, if we're lucky, Maken-ki will too.

8 I'm becoming cautiously optimistic about it. But even if it turns out to be garbage, it's pretty much a sure thing it'll be decent fodder for the top rotation.

9 "Blood Pointer" is an interesting name for an attack (kanji: é­‚の集束, "soul focus"). And are those nekomimi on the girl in the back, or just interesting hair?

-j

10 Eh, I don't see how a preview of new shows for next season means I'm wrong about iM@S being a two cour series - they rarely (if ever) show existing, continuing series.

11

J, that's just what her hair looks like. Except that she often is drawn with a cat-mouth (there's a term for that but I don't remember what it is) and some of the character art of her has a cat riding on top of her head.

That one's the "childhood friend", I'm pretty sure.

12 Tamayura, UN-GO, and Mirai Nikki, I think.  If I have time to watch anything.

13 I updated with a new preview.  What I know of Maken-ki (I read as much as was available months ago) is that the male lead starts as a slacker, and is powerless to start.  Of course it happens that he's got a secret power he doesn't even know about and a prophecy,  yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's pretty generic and the writing's not exactly outstanding, but the girls are cute.  And often undressed to a certain extent.

14 At least, you might get some rotation pictures from Ika Musume.

15 I've looked at Ika Musume, and it didn't seem to have the kind of art style I want for the top rotation.

16 Pete, unless whoever's maintaining the website really hates symmetry, my guess is Idolm@ster is 24 episodes long.

http://www.idolmaster-anime.jp/yokoku/index.html

17 Well, from Random Curiosity list, the ones that I'm interested in: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon (ok, i'm kind of interested in what they can do with history clashing)
Kimi to Boku (my slice of life for this season)
Persona 4 (one episode try out)
Last Exile (only watching it because I like the original so much)
Ben-To (why not, ok, another one episode try out)
Gundam Age (As much as I like Gundam, I never got into Gundam 00 and this one I'm skipping for now)
Mirai Nikki (Future Diary, definitely watching this).
Guilty Crown (fight show of the season)