It's been long enough that I've hammered out the list of anime that I'm watching this season. Except that there wasn't really any hammering since I rarely drop series after I pick them up. I can usually tell what I will and won't care to spend my time on and I pick up series accordingly. So here we go, in rough and ever-changing order of preference:
Aria the Origination
Crystal Nova is being slow in subbing this. Incredibly slow. So slow that they only have ep1 out as of this writing. But I put up with it because they're the only ones releasing in h.264 with soft subs. That one episode, though, was pure anime bliss.
Edit: Okay, screw the waiting, I got ep2-4 from Hikari no Kiseki. Aria is worth watching twice, whenever Crystal Nova gets their releases out.
Spice and Wolf
Despite the crazy number of slice of life and romantic comedy animes I've watched lately, the fantasy genre is actually still my favorite. There just aren't that many great fantasy series coming out lately. Spice and Wolf, however, has fixed that nicely. I love pretty much ever aspect of this series so far; the two main characters are highly entertaining (especially Horo), the story has captured my interest, the art is beautiful, and the music is absolutely wonderful.
Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
I loved the first season of Zetsubou Sensei so picking up season two was a given, and it didn't fail to impress. If anything it's actually better than the first season; twisted humor at its finest.
Minami-ke: Okawari
Okawari continues about where the first season left off, only with a different animation studio. It was weird at first but the new character designs aren't really much different. And, though I think brown hair suits Chiaki better than blond, more animation of her ahoge is the win. The first episode was slow but it looks like it's picking up and is going to provide a pretty similar experience to the first season, which is perfectly fine by me.
True Tears
This is one of the better high school romance series I've seen in a while. The characters are intriguing (Noe is downright weird) and the main male lead isn't completely oblivious to the girls' feelings. Plus it's a true HD anime rather than an upscale and looks really pretty in 720p.
Hatenkou Yugi
Another fantasy series but a step down from Spice and Wolf, I watch this one simply for the amusement of the character interaction. It reminds me of Rune Soldier in some ways and I enjoy it for similar reasons. It's mindless fun, basically.
I also love the OP theme for reasons I can't explain, other than that the use of the titular phrase, "heartbreaking romance," in English does something for me. Usually English words mixed into Japanese songs annoy me yet there are some odd exceptions where it just works and I love it.
Shigofumi ~Stories of Last Letter~
In the back of my mind there's this little voice telling me, "This is a great series!" Yet it only mildly interests me, just enough to keep me watching but making it low priority. It's always weird when I can see reasons why a series is good but I just don't care, which is the case with Shigofumi.
H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~
This has been on the verge of getting dropped ever since the second episode yet every time I say, "If it doesn't improve next episode it's getting dropped," I find some reason to give it another chance. So here I am waiting for ep6, still unsure of whether the trap in ep4 was a point for or against it. At least Takuma finally grew a pair and started demanding explanations.
Continued from Fall season 2007
Clannad
I'm still watching the wide screen version only (unlike a certain someone), so I've seen through ep14. Meaning Kotomi's arc just finished up, and it was not nearly as interesting—or heart wrenching—as Fuko's. I hope it picks back up again because I've enjoyed this series a lot overall.
Bamboo Blade
This one has slowly gotten better/funnier over the course of the series. And every now and then it throws something in that totally makes me bust out laughing. (You might remember the IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZER pic I put up in an earlier post from a screen shot.) The latest one was this in ep17.
Shugo Chara!
It's, like, exactly the same as it's always been, only we're finally getting a glimpse of the over-arcing story now. But I'm on ep15 of what will be a 51 episode magical girl series so what do you expect? Shugo Chara! is cuteness as usual.
Shakugan no Shana Second
Shana has picked up a lot in the second half. More has happened in the last few episodes than in all of them before, which is making it much more interesting. It's still not exactly a great series but I find it worth watching in between releases of other stuff.
Kimikiss pure rouge
I'm actually kind of bored with Kimikiss by now but I've watched it long enough that I'm curious about how things are going to turn out. So I keep watching, even if episodes tend to stack up two or three deep before I get to them. Besides, by this point I'd probably keep downloading the episodes even if I dropped the series completely, just for the sake of completeness and in case I ever felt like finishing it.
Bleach
Oh geeze, still? Yeah, still watching Bleach. Actually though, while my interest in Kimikiss has been falling, my interest in Bleach has been rising again. It's picked up, actually has humor again, and Sado kicked some major ass in ep158. It may actually push its way back up from the bottom of my list. I just wish they didn't spend a whole freaking minute or more recapping at the beginning of each episode.
Delayed from Fall season 2007
Sketchbook ~full color'S~
I'm still waiting for the last two episodes of this to finish getting subbed. Though I've only actually watched up through ep6 so far. I have to be in a certain mood to fully enjoy Sketchbook. It's ... weird, and doesn't happen a lot. But it's kind of awesome when I do decide to watch more of it.
Kodomo no Jikan
Okay, so this has been finished but I hear bad things about the quality of S.S.S's TV source releases and Genjo is stalled at ep6. I hear better things about S.S.S's DVD source releases but only two episodes have been released on DVD so far. This is a no-win situation for now.
