Mid-Season Round-Up 1: A victory for Victorica

So we're in the middle of the Winter 2011 Anime season and so far, so good. There are shows that haven't really gone past the limits of their genres and for this reason I'm thinking of dropping them entirely from my watchlist. Others found difficulty in trying to find a home in the hearts of fansub groups and, alas, due to the language barrier, must remain in obscurity. But all hope is not lost. For there are quite a handful of shows that have managed to exceed my sometimes abnormally high expectations.

these two are so cute and i don't even care if it's all just platonic

Gosick is one show that's entertaining the heck out of me. It's not the story. Plenty of that going around. It's not the mystery either. Rather, it's the characters -- or should I say, just one character. Victorica is most positively the cutest thing I've ever seen on screen since, oh i don't know the Dennou Coil kids. And her personality's like a cross between Chiaki of the Minami-ke series and Taiga from ToraDora!. In anime, I tend to gravitate towards the cute little abusive girls. LOLz And I just found out that the show is actually based off of Sherlock Holmes. No small wonder there. That was positively my first impression of the series. Still, while Gosick might lack the compelling factor in its mystery-solving, it makes up for the developing relationship between its two main characters, which, now that I mention it, is also the side-focus of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Anyhoo, the show, which is slated to air 24 episodes in total, is at that point where we get to learn more about Victorica's mother and the village where she comes from. It's interesting, to say the least, as this is obviously something very personal to Victorica, who until this point has remained detached from all her investigations.

a rival for Shouta? oh noes ~

Speaking of developing relationships, the second season of Kimi ni Todoke is still frustratingly slow. If I recall, this is also jute's main gripe about the series. The characters are so...dense, like I just wanna come over and wring Sawako and Kazehaya's necks or something. God, are high school kids really this stupid about love? Lemme think. Uh, yeah, now I remember. Yep. We're all idiots back then. Still, when I saw hot blond dude on the first episode, I hoped that his addition to the cast would help speed things along for our main couple. But, oh no, Sawako and Kazehaya just have to go and misunderstand everything and so we're back to square one. Fucking A. Can we just have more Pin and Ayano, please? Or maybe some Ryuu and Chizu? Hell, maybe even a little Kento and Kurumi slapping action? Because Sawako and Kazehaya are killing me. Like literally killing me.

magical girl vs. evil witch? who will win? also, i want that chainsaw

Another show that is starting to lose my interest is Kore wa zombie desu ka? The story wasn't much to begin with and I only really watched the show because jute likes zombies and out of respect for the original owner of this blog, I wanted to give this a try. But no. The show is becoming ridiculous. Is this the next Occult Academy? That can't be good. The one thing good that's going for this show is its male character. He is surprisingly tolerable.

wolverine vs. sword boy...or something

Wolverine is a bit of a pain right now. The story isn't that great. It's just Wolverine tearing through a whole bunch enemies to rescue a sad-looking Japanese girl. I mean, this wouldn't have been so bad if we knew more about Mariko other than the generic damsel-in-distress bit she gives with what little screen time she has. I think the only reason I'm even watching this show is because it is Wolverine and in the last scene of episode 5, Cyclops actually shows up. Ooh, is this some kind of precursor to the X-Men series that is Marvel and Madhouse's collab project next season?

this show is sweet but it suffers from Kimi ni Todoke complex in that it's sloooooowwwwwzzzz

For a while, the fansub groups stopped subbing Hourou Musuko. Or maybe that wasn't it at all, because I checked the raws and for like a couple of weeks there were no raws for the show. I don't know what's going on but it would be a damn shame if this show doesn't get subbed. It's cute, despite the overall seriousness.