They are – Ghost Hound, Genshiken 2, Gundam 00.
1. Ghost Hound. (Official Website)
Ray’s Take: looking at the synapsis I felt that this is an exploration of the “ghost” concept in Ghost in the Shell franchise. It’s set in a society where technology is common place, which means it’s a post-cyberpunk anime in a way. However, instead of people “diving” into the net with their brain power, we have 3 main characters, Komori Taro, Oogami Makoto, and Nakajima Masayuki, who have the ability to “dive” into an alternate, spiritual world called “Yo” with their souls (ghosts). One obvious conflict is that the world of “Yo” is coming through and starts invade the real world. This time, instead of cyberpunk, we’re probably looking at a “ghostpunk”, folks (I called Mushi Uta “Bugpunk”). It certainly looks thoughtful and I hope they can manage to pull this one off as well as they did for GitS TV series. I do think the action is probably not going to be as awesome as GitS without the guns and mecha, and it certainly looks rather kids-friendly but we’ll see.
My daily recommended diet preview: 7.5/10, just based on the possible production value.
2. Genshiken 2. (Official Website)
Ray’s Take: “Otaku..youth..story..again (translated from the plot synapsis from the official website).” The youth here refers to the young days before going into the society as full-time workers, but I think it’s also a joke played on some of their discussion in the manga version, specially the discussion between Ono and Ogiue (pronounced O gi U eh) about the latter’s reluctance of drawing a doujinshi of yaoi in order to sell copies of it at Comifes (it’s a fictional version of COmiket) for a personal reason. In reality there is not much to talk about except that one will probably see a slightly positive biased view of Otaku. In other words, this show is probably going to be one big inside joke in many ways and a definite pat on the back for all Otaku. Fortunately for people who have just been induced into the power of the dark side…I mean, just been introduced to anime, Kaskabe is the person to follow. She’s been in the Genshiken (that’s a club studying anime, culture, games and all that = doing pretty much nothing but talk about anime and play games) for 2 years now and she’s still clueless in many ways. There will be another super funny character – Sue – for you Asuka fans out there. For me (read:Otaku) it’s a must see.
My daily recommended diet preview: 9/10, uh…because I’m friggin’ biased?
3. Gundam 00. (Official Website. For a non-Engrish version [har har har] of the synapsis, see here.)
Ray’s Take: Yaoi watch is going to be in full effect for fan girls as guys with “exotic” names are going to reenact the story of the original Gundam in certain ways. But this time, instead of giving everyone the whole thing within a year, it’s going to be broken up in order to be hyped more…I mean, to be thought out and discussed among the creators for possibly better plots. Eh…I’m just going to say, “Lock on! Stratos!”
My daily recommended diet preview: 7/10, because as a fan of the classic gundam series, I’m not very hopeful on an obligatory watch.
(Images taken from Anime News Network.)
Note: I’m back from the few days break.
I liked Gundam Wing more than the original series. But, to be honest, I never finished the original series. It could be totally better and I would never know. It also probably has a lot to do with the fact that they aired it on cartoon network everyday for like two or three years.
BTW, voted meganekko.
j.valdez – cool, thanks for the vote.
Well, Gundam Wing is very exciting and flashier (I don’t mean that in a bad way). They really did their job right mixing everything to attract viewers. The original Gundam were done more based on the creator’s vision, and were somewhat less concerned with simply attracting viewers. BTW, I loved Gundam Wing as well because I actually finished that before I ever saw the original gundam and Zeta.