In all seriousness, I found this season to be quite disappointing. For example, there was Blade, another Marvel hero forcefully thrust into a Japanese background. However, this adaptation doesn’t work; the separation between Western cartoons and Japanese animation is way too different for this collaboration between Marvel and Madhouse to be successful. There was also Uta no Prince-sama. Some girls might have liked it, but I personally couldn’t stand the reverse harem setting and the glittery, super-dreamy animation style. Yuru Yuri tried to tag onto the daily life genre that K-ON! and A-Channel popularized, except it had so much yuri fanservice that it just became ridiculous instead. No.6 had an interesting premise (it was literally an illustration of the Marxist theory of an elitist society at the expense of a mass of society “trash”), but the deus ex machine entrance of Elyurias took all the meaning out of it. There were many others but I can’t find any complementary comments to give. Overall, it was a very disappointing season.
I only found two worthy of recommendation. There’s Ikoku Meiro no Croisée, which is about a really cute Japanese girl trying to get used to life in France, getting to meet new people and coming in touch with the local culture. I found it very quaint and charming, a perfect accompaniment to a cup of afternoon tea by the windowside. The other one is Usagi Drop, a series about a little girl who was adopted, and how she and her 30-year-old stepfather tried to communicate and get along with each other. This one was lovable and ‘awwww’-worthy; watching it would have you feeling warm and fuzzy inside.
