Scrapped Princess

Imagine yourself being on the run since the day you were born becaue everyone around you wants to kill you, that's how life has been for the young girl Pacifica Cassul.

When Pacifica was born a prophesy was made that she would be the poison that would destroy the world and that a catastrophe would occur on the day she turns sixteen. Because of this Pacifica leaves her home in the village of Manhurin and together with her adoptive siblings, her brother Shannon the talented swordsman and siser Racquel who is proficient in magic, she is now on the run from the followers of the god Mauser who are doing everything in their power to see to it that she will not live to see her sixteenth birthday.

It was not a spectactular show and it will not make it into my favourites, but I liked it. The storyline is decent and easy to follow, the characters are likable (although some of them I just wanted to slap from time to time, like our spoilt little princess for example) and the artwork is decent enough, even though more attention seem to have been spent on the characthers rather than on, let's say, their horses... All in all it was enjoyable to watch and it had just the right amount of excitement to still be counted as an easy-to-watch show.

Scrapped Princess gets three out of five otakus.

ANN, MAL

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun is your not-so-typical shoujo anime. The story revolves around Shizuku Mizutani, who has chosen to repress her feelings and focus solely on her academics so that she won't have to be disappointed again, and Haru Yoshida who has no interest at all in academics and serious issues when it comes to controlling his feelings.

The pair meet when Shizuku is asked by her teacher to bring some handouts around to Haru's place since he's been absent from school for a long time. What she doesn't know then is that her visit is about to change not only hers, but Haru's life as well.

This might be one of my favourite short school-life anime, not because the plot is so very different, because let's face it, it's not, it's the same boy-meets-girl story we've seen so many times before, but because of the characters. Yes, we've seen the "bad boy turned good" type of guy before but Haru still has his own special charm, he is just that emotionally inept that you can't help but love him. Shizuku on the other hand is quite different from any of the female lead charachters I've come across thus far. She is fully capable of taking care of herself and her life does not revolve around boys or popularity (or friends for that matter) but she's still neither the tsundere nor the otaku with the weird hobby, she's just Shizuku, and that's what I like about her.

If it wasn't for the fact that this show lacks that teeny tiny bit extra to take it over the edge it would have ended up with a full score, but as it is now it just feels a little bit too short, as if you're missing out on something good that was supposed to come in the next episode or so, which leaves it at 4,5 out 5 otakus.

Junjou Romantica 1 & 2

Juunjou Romantica is a romatic comedy / drama centering around the relationships of three different couples and the struggles they face.

Misaki is studying for his college entrance exam and turns to his brothers best friend, Akihiko Usami, for some extra tutering. When his brother then gets married and transfers to another city for work Misaki somehow ends up living with Usami and that's when the interesting part of the story begins...

First of all, let me make this one thing clear, this is shounen-ai (bordering yaoi) so if that's not your cup of tea you'd be better off not watching this show.

The first series I found to be a bit disorganized, skipping fast between one story and the next, which made it hard to follow at first. Once you got used to the rather fast pace the series was OK, the characters are quite amusing and it does have it's bright moments but overall I felt like it was just moving too fast. And the start of some of the relationships... Well, let's just say I would have liked them to be a bit more... consensual.

Moving on to the second series then; this series (which follows directly after the first and continues to deal with the relationships between the characters and how the develop) is a tad better than the first one. The charachters are the same so not much to say about them and the same goes for the plot in general, but I like the way this one progresses more. It feels like the relationships have matured and the pace in which this one switches between the different stories is somewhat more managable (or maybe I've just gotten used to it by now?).

Overall this wasn't one of my favourites, I had fun watching it but neither the storyline nor the animation really caught my interest, if it wasn't for the second series I would have been left disappointed but since they did improve the two series together gets 3 out of  5 otakus.