Spring anime 2013 (part 1)

*Probably doesn't include spoilers - if you care enough to watch the first episode. 
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Aaaaaalrighty. Since nothing really seemed extra interesting this new season, I haven't been too eager with checking it out. But here's what I did see.
Date A Live. Yes, I started it. Yes, I watched the first 4 minutes. Yes, I closed the player as soon as there was a striped-panties shot of the main character's sister. Dude, no. Just no.
Then I watched the first episode of Karneval. I didn't actually expect much, but after watching it I thought it was pretty good. The action scenes were drawn pretty nicely and even though there was lots of jumping from one scene to another, it all came together half way through. I was thrilled to hear some of my favorite voices like Ono Daisuke (Sebastian Michaelis), Kamiya Hiroshi (Orihara Izaya), Suwabe Junichi (Grimmjow Jeagerjaques) and naturally Miyano Mamoru (Yagami Light - here he sounds more like Masaomi Kida), even though the last one only appeared for a few seconds in the end. The plot? Well... not entirely sure. There was a missing person, a white-haired chibi-chan, a huge secret defense organization and a LOADS of characters. I'm sure you'll catch on if you read a summary or watch the first episode yourself. Here's a few pics.

Here's the chibi-chan I was telling you about. They call him Nai.

Then some weird semi-sex scene... he pwns her though.

IIiiizzaaaayaaaaa.... just kiddin'. It's Gareki.

Don't you get the urge to sing "Tetsu to hagane ja magaru..."? Well, it's Tsukumo and Hirato, from Circus.

Hirato demonstrates his magic.

So anyway, the next thing I watched was Arata Kangatari or Arata: The Legend. It had a similar animation style to Karneval, but it seemed to be a bit more depressive. There was this boy, Arata, in modern day Japan, and another Arata in some fantasy land. And apparently the fantasy realm one had to pretend to be a girl in order to succeed a dying princess. However the princess was murdered by her bodyguards and Arata was framed, so he ran for his life and - camboom! The school boy Arata from Japan replaced him - due to some depressive reasons. That's how it gets going. I'd say Karneval was better, but this one doesn't seem too bad either - just way more cliche. I might keep an eye on it - but I sure hope it gets more cheerful. Here, I took a few pictures too.

The normal Arata.

The not-so-normal Arata...

The 60-year-old princess Arata is supposed to replace.

Shit hits the fan.

Now stuck with the loco people chasing you, huh Arata?

And naturally, stupid weak women get captured.

By the way, the abs I was so excited about, were Kannagi's, but turns out there's an even better sight. No idea who he is though.

Rawr!

Now after that one, I checked out Devil Survivor 2: The Animation. Well... it was a mixture of Death Note, Final Destination and Digimon Tamers. The topic was pretty intriguing and you already get a good glimpse of what's going to happen by the tenth minute or so. It had a pretty large scale, which is always a plus (at least for me) and seemed to be pretty well thought through. Is it really though - can't say yet. All I know is that the main character summons an epic kitty that looks like Xuen! I'm definitely going keep watching this one - out of the three it seems to be the most promising. Here's a sneak peek.

Daichi and Hibiki discussing future... before singing up to Dead Face.

Wanna see your friend dead...? Srsly, why would you want that?

Nitta's phone goes loco and starts summoning demons!

Lucky Hibiki got himself a tiger!~!!!

Hmmm, so in the end I took least pics of the one I liked most. Go figure.

My Teen Romantic Comedy is Wrong As I Expected was O-kay. Just okay. I guess there were some deep topics but since I'm not a depressive high schooler - at least not anymore - I really did not care about the topic of friendship/betrayal/keeping-disappointments-out-with-a-wall. There's a boy who has secluded himself, the most popular girl in the school and a cheerful girl who has a crush on the male lead. Not too hard to guess what's coming next, huh? I didn't even take pictures. CBA.

And then I watched all four of the released Red Data Girl episodes. There's a girl with weird powers and every time she touches cell phones or computers or some other electrical devices, they go out of order. She is matched up with a supposed guardian, a young handsome boy who is reluctant to change his current life style for her. So the female lead starts journey to change herself from the coward she is now. Sounds pretty cliché? I thought so too. But it turns out that it was executed rather differently. Just because she was timid, she wasn't entirely excluded from her school community. And she evolved even in the very first episode. Though I have to say that if I had only seen the first one, I probably wouldn't have wanted to watch it on a following week. I found that it gets better over the first few episodes.
I really want to stress that even though it's an anime, it feels way more realistic - the problems, the reactions. It does not feel like a typical anime at all, even though the subject itself doesn't exactly shine with originality. You'll just have to check it out yourself.
 
But yeah, those were the ones I did watch this week. I'll probably watch more further on, but can't be bothered to rush it just to gather them all in one post.