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May 10th, 2008: Dropped "Amatsuki" (okay - 5.25) after watching three episodes.

Code Geass R2 second season 4 (decent - 5.64):

You have been watching quite a few shows lately Rob. You must have more free time right now.

Allison & Lilia 2 (okay/decent - 5.45):
I thought this was rather nice. We had some flying action as well as some heartwarming childhood friend stuff. Then we had the story about the person who helped them out. I wish the guy's voice sounded at least a little older though because his voice doesn't go along that well with his physical appearance. I wish the artwork production had a higher budget too, but I won't be too picky about it.

Vampire Knight 4 (okay/decent - 5.53):
I enjoyed this episode. This is the first time I got to see a Vampire Knight episode where the video was decently clear. Because of that, the artwork in this episode looked pretty good (especially the character's eyes). I kept staring at the depth of the character's eyes throughout the episode. The plot is moving very rapidly given that this series is supposed to be split into two ?thirteen episode TV series. I look forward to the next episode. Hopefully the video will be as clear as this one, but adding subtitles can easily blur up the video.

I should have several decent shows to watch this season so it should be enjoyable for me.

Koharu Biyori 2 (okay - 5.37):
This was a heck of a lot better than that awful, very painful and unpleasant to watch first episode (but almost anything is better than watching that). I hope the third episode will be more like this episode.

Da Capo 2 Second Season 4 (decent - 5.63):
I thought this worked out very nicely. Very likely watching this episode for the first time by most people won't have a whole lot of meaning to it, but it had a whole lot of meaning to me. They also pulled a Kimikiss and enhanced the storyline by using double meanings in the written play's storyline - in Da Capo 2 SS's case it was a puppet play instead of a filmed movie. Very neat. I love this touch of sadness that worked so well in the early part of Kanon's storyline. ;_;

Guess you're not into those types of main protagonists eh?

Zettai Karen Children 3 (okay - 5.42):
This is the first episode I've seen from this that didn't have anything I would consider to be "overly silly." Obviously they're going to be using the themes of "outsiders" and "us versus them" a lot during the course of this series. The ending will probably deal with that theme also.

Soul Eater 2 (okay - 5.39):
I didn't like this as much as the first episode, but I still thought it was okay. Apparently the quality was too high for my computer to handle because the video ran too slow during the action sequences. The first two episodes had a lot of comedy in them. Sometimes I find the jokes funny and sometimes not, but the sense of humor feels different from most anime I've seen. It's difficult to explain what I mean by that. I'll keep watching this although this is not a series that compells me to watch the next episode right away. One reason for this is because of their splitting up screen time between at least three groups of characters (two characters are showcased in episode one, two characters in episode two and apparently three characters in the third episode).

Amatsuki 2 (okay - 5.32):
Ah...okay. The main guy Toki wasn't too smart here. In this episode he acted a bit like an idealist, pacifist that wants to talk and avoid conflicts (like you said).

Yamero!!! (Stop!!! - as in STOP Fighting)

This sort of reminds me of characters like Raki in Claymore, Shiro in Fate/stay night, Suzaku in Code Geass, the lead guy in Macross Seven, etc. These kind of characters can become incredibly annoying because often they're:

1. Holding back someone from doing their job

2. Very ignorant and don't understand what the situation really is

3. Getting other people hurt because somebody else has to defend them while they stand there and do nothing

Ah oh well. Sometimes you feel like strangling them because of their stupidity.

Tower of Druaga 5 (okay/decent - 5.45):
This episode was pretty much all comedy. I thought it was alright. Some pretty weird stuff happened in it.

Koharu Biyori 3 (okay - 5.35):
This was alright. The first story segment was a bit wacky again, but I liked the second segment better.

Overall: After a pretty painful to watch first episode, I liked the second and third episodes much better. I didn't think this series was too special, but at least the last two episodes were mildly entertaining and had somewhat of a sweet romantic atmosphere to them.

Code Geass R2 second season 5 (decent - 5.64):
Yep...they are definitely reusing a lot of the same situations/themes as the previous season. That makes them fun, but somewhat repetitive. This is still a lot more fun to watch than most shows, but I look forward to seeing an episode where they're not repeating something from the previous season. It's a bit like when I was semi-disappointed about Clannad somewhat repeating a story that appeared in Kanon - I wish they didn't have to resort to that.

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Kure-nai 5 (decent - 5.60):
I thought this episode was rather nice as a slice-of-life type of episode. The ending part reminded me of Maison Ikkoku again.

As far as why Shinkurou acts the way he does:

Bit of a SPOILER for backstory not mentioned in the anime series so far:


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Zettai Karen Children 4 (okay - 5.42):
This episode was a fairly fanservicey episode (toward the non-regular female characters). I found some of the scenes to be rather funny. I seen this series pegged at 52 episodes long. Holy crap. Is this series really going to be that long? Woh. Well if it really is that long they can have a lot of filler and comedic episodes before introducing the main serious storyline to the mix. Until then I suppose this series can be comedic almost forever and non-stop like "Hayate the Combat Butler" was/is.

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Nabari no Ou 4 (okay - 5.34):
I didn't find this episode to be terribly intriguing. I know this episode was mainly an explanation-of-plot and a break-between-the-action episode, but it still made me less interested in continuing on with this series. Yeah, the main protagonist is kind of annoying here I agree. I can understand why he's acting so morose, but it doesn't mean that I enjoy watching him be that way.

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Naisho no Tsubomi 1 (okay - 5.33):
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=5665
As expected this had a literal, slice-of-life, facts of life type of story. Can't say I got into it too much, but it was what it was. I wonder what growing up lesson she'll learn in the next episode? Hmm. Not sure if I want to know or not. lol

Tower of Druaga 6 (okay - 5.44):
This was alright I guess. Not much story progression here, but it was about the story of the characters they met while on their journey.

EDIT:

Looks like the fansub world is suffering a crash today.

Penguin Girl 2 (okay - 5.35):
This was kind of fun.

Penguin Girl 3 (okay/fair - 5.21):
I didn't find this episode too interesting or funny.

Amatsuki 3 (okay/fair - 5.20):
Like Rob, I'm going to have to drop the series here. The main protagonist is annoying me. He's thickheaded and won't listen to helpful advice that people give. He's slow to learn. He's not very bright. He lacks common sense and he keeps getting himself into trouble. He's making me facepalm. I can't keep watching an anime with a male lead that irritates me so and yet doesn't have much in it that interests me.

Code Geass R2 second season 6 (pretty good - 5.75):
This was a pretty cool episode. Lots of exciting action and less predictability compared to earlier episodes. They repeated a couple themes from the first season, but the repetition didn't bother me as much as the earlier times.



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Wagaya no Oinarisama 4 (okay - 5.42):
This was a sentimental episode about their mother and Kou. Kind of nice.

Wagaya no Oinarisama 5 (okay - 5.42):
This was another sentimental episode. I am a sucker for these types of episodes. Looks like the sixth episode will be a comedic one.