Wish Upon the Pleiades Episodes 1-2

A very belated post, since this went up on Thursday. Sorry about that!

I’m not sure what to make of this show yet. It sure is a typical magical girl show! As I said in the review, that is a little refreshing in the wake of all the Madoka rip-offs we’ve seen recently. (Madoka is great. Other shows riding its coattails with nothing but GRIMDARK OMG SO GRIMDARK!!! …not so much.) But I grew up on the older kind of magical girl shows, and there’s nothing to distinguish it from those.

But hey, it was an ONA that was apparently popular enough to make into an anime series. There’s gotta be something that appeals about it…right? Right?

Here’s my review.

My Love Story!! Episodes 1-2

The second of my episode reviews is up for the spring season! My Love Story!! is the cutest thing I’ve watched in a while, and easily my favorite of the season so far. (And it’s had some stiff competition there in the form of Blood Blockade Battlefront and Sound! Euphonium, so that’s not nothing.) You should watch it right now if you’re a shojo romance fan. You should watch it right now if you’re not. You should watch it right now if you’re worried it’s going to be a Nice Guy (TM) fest, because it’s nothing like that and my review should specifically address your fears.

Read it all here.

The Heroic Legend of Arslan Episodes 1-2

For the spring season, I’ll be taking a page from others’ books and trying to link my ANN reviews here, if only to get more content for this blog at least. Here’s the first of the three shows I’m covering: The Heroic Legend of Arslan!

I requested this one partly just because the first episode intrigued me so much. But also because of its connection with Hiromu Arakawa. I love Arakawa’s art style but I’m kind of glad she’s not writing something like this. Her handling of tense racial and religious conflicts was dicey in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga (and done much better by the less faithful 2003 anime adaptation). I haven’t watched Legend of the Galactic Heroes yet, but I hear that Yoshiki Tanaka is good at that sort of thing. So I’m eager to see how this goes.

Read my review here.