So I thought I’d write a quick article with what I intend to be watching come the new season. Note that I’ve left off anything starting in November, even though there’s several that look good. Including, of course, Marimite S3.
A Spirit of the Sun
Adapted from a manga by Kaiji Kawaguchi, the creator of Zipang, Silent Service and others. This time it’s post-apocalyptic, set after Japan is ripped in half by an earthquake and soceity has fallen into ruins. Sounds interesting. Unfortunately it’s only a two-part special, though that means that it might actually be fansubbed before next year.
Galaxy Angel II
I loved Galaxy Angel. It was an awesome diversion, taking stupid ideas and running with them, and managing to pull it off by having such a fantastic cast. Galaxy Angel II has some pretty big boots to fill. I really hope they don’t do something dumb, like try and make GA into a serious show.
Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage
Black Lagoon really should have been 26 episodes to begin with. Anyway, the first season was excellent, some of the best stuff from this year, and if the second season is just more of the same, then I’ll be quite happy.
Negima?!
Negima TV was an absolute fucking abortion, and Xebec suck terribly. So they gave the license to Shaft. This time we’ll be having a Negima series directed by the director of Pani Poni Dash, Tsukuyomi, Nanoha and others, animated by the same guys responsible for Mahoromatic… only they’re not following the manga. To be honest, even with them doing their own thing, I don’t see how this could be bad.
Brighter than Dawning Blue ~Crescent Love~
Yeah, yeah. Eroge adaptions are rarely good. I’m not really expecting a lot from this, but the game has really nice art and Feena is cute enough for me to have purchased the 1/6 PVC they put out last month.
Kanon
I’ll be honest. Despite it being pretty much a rite of passage for anyone serious about anime, I’ve never bothered to see Kanon. I was going to do it at one point, but the DVD-R I got from a friend with the fansubs was damaged. I’ve since re-obtained it, but I heard that Kyoto Animation were re-doing it. They generally churn out excellent stuff, and the remake looks so much better that I’ve decided to wait.
Code Geass
Sunrise’s new mecha show. No season is complete without a bit of a mecha infusion. 
This one is of double interest to me because the character designs are by CLAMP, and I’m a huge fan of CLAMP’s style. It looks to have a good budget, good cast, good staff, and generally exudes the feeling that it should be good.
Kujibiki Unbalance
I’m still pissed off about this anime. A while back they told us we’d be getting a second season of Genshiken, which was one of the funniest series out there (possibly because it hits a bit too close to home). Instead it mutated into Kujibiki Unbalance, which is a cliche anime that they watch religiously in Genshiken. Really, the OAVs were enough. I’ll be giving this a look, but I fully expect it to be shit.
Ayakashi Ayashi
BONES have an excellent track record with their 50+ episode series. Fullmetal Alchemist was excellent, and Eureka 7 was fantastic. This looks to be a period drama, and some people are going to be attracted by the Cowboy Bebop-esque character designs. To be honest, I’ve always considered Bebop to be extremely overrated and I’m not a fan of the way the designs. Still, I’ll be giving this a look.
Pumpkin Scissors
War drama. Or at least, I think it is. The title is kind of wierd, and I can’t find any info on whether the tone is serious or not. The trailer on the website indicates it should be reasonably serious. Looks like it has a lot of potential, and it’s nice to have a range of stuff to watch.
Death Note
I know next to nothing about Death Note, aside from the fact that there’s a cute gothloli girl in it or something. And that it’s a mystery, or contains elements of that. And that the ending of the manga is generally considered to be shitty. Anyway, I expect this will be subbed by everyone, so I’ll be giving it a look.
Otome wa Onee-sama ni Koi Shiteru
Another harem series, yeah. Except that this one involves a guy who ends up cross-dressing to get into an exclusive girls school. Shades of Ouran, I My Me Strawberry Eggs, and the like. Also there is the potential for yuri, and since Strawberry Panic and Simoun are ending and Marimite is late November, I’ll take it where I can get it.
Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto
No one seems to have a clue what this is about. It’s set during the Bakumatsu, the beginning of Meiji-era Japan. As such, the success of this series will be directly proportional to the number of ninjas present. Generally, it depends on how this is executed as to whether it will be excellent or a snore-fest. I’m hoping for the former, but we’ll have to see.
Deeeeeeaaaaaaath nooooooooteeeeeeeee!!!
Note: No Simoun trace this week. Haven’t even started one.
The artistic drive I was on for a bit seems to be drying up, and additionally I have no idea what to trace. None of the eyecatches remaining really grab me.
Thanks for the additional info on some of these series.
And, ah, traces… we love you anyway?
All the stuff I’m looking forward to won’t hit until november :/ - which would be the new Marimite and Mai Otome OVAs, that is.
Nothing on the list raises any particular interest in the “hey, that seems fairly interesting” -manner, though I do have some hope for The Spirit of the Sun and Ayakashi Ayakashi, if I were to pick anything from it.
I’m sure I’ll also end up watching Kanon, though I feel I’ve been sucked dry in terms of that by the previous anime as well as the game. I’ll leave it to Kyoani to prove me wrong in that :p.
I hope you’ll get a bit of an inspirational spark back (and there’s still 4 new eyecatches to go!~), because there’s still a few eyecatches I’d like to see wallpaperized, but I don’t think anyone can fault you if you don’t - I can’t say I can recall seeing such an awsome splee of vector spam for any other series, much less all orginating from one and the same person :).
Regardless, you’ve served as an inspirational spark for me to make some attempts on my own, though I’m still learning things out and am because of that awfully slow with the whole process :(.
What I’ve managed to conjure up so far though is only half-finished linework - http://www.zomgwtf.net/RandomPicturesNstuff/Simoun/Yunyunvectalsingerizering.gif . I’m not entirely happy with it myself, even if it actually does look better than what I had initially anticipated I would be capable of :p.
If I can muster up the energy and finish that image, I’ll probably take a stab at the 23-2 Yun-Onashia eyecatch after that, because I really, really like it myself, though the amount of linework in it makes me fear that if I do eventually start on it, it will be one of those things that’ll take me a year to finish :/.
Sufficient to say, trying to do these yourself raises the bar of respect to you and your work a fair bit ;).
At the same time, I hope you’ll eventually have the energy to finish that tutorial you started on a while back, for I really could use some pointers how to speed up the working process, other than “practice makes perfect” ;).
Your linework looks reasonably good so far. Getting the widths relatively consistant is one of the hardest tricks. I suggest having a look at some of my .ai files if you want, they should help show how I do some things.
I am working on my tutorial, but slowly. Don’t have a huge amount of spare time - the last one was done quickly because I wrote a good chunk of it ages ago.
Well, I finally got together and finished up the remaining linework - Damn work sucking me dry of energy as of late :/
And yeah, I see what you mean with the line widths. The more I try to go back and try to fix things up though, the more I feel I screw over the look of the lines(GAR!), so I’m inclined to leave them as-is, for the time being at least =P.
And yes, I’ve had several good looks the .ai files of your vectors, and they’ve definitvely been of good use as pointers - super thanks for making them publically available o/.
I’m looking at doing the eyes next before I move on to color the thing, as I gather they’d be the single hardest/most frustrating part, so it feels good to get them out of the way first ;).
I find the hardest bit is getting the linework for the fingers right.