Following this post regarding Aiura, Author from ani-nouto had this to say about Yuyushiki:

I'm wondering if not being being a fan of CGDGT [sic] would still permit one to watch it purely as a connoisseur of anime technicalities. That transparent head was a devastating blow to SHAFT, I thought. It wasn't the most impressive technical achievement, of course, just most trollsome. Aside of that, I am very much puzzled just how they did all the various camera angles. It's the perfect merge of 3D techniques and the 2D aesthetics that I wanted since, dunno, before I saw the chandelier in Disney's Beauty and The Beast.

Not having seen Yuyushiki, I can't comment on its technical merits. However, I don't think I personally would be more likely to enjoy the show for its animation quality alone unless it is absolutely stellar. Although I find animation quality to be a notable factor in my enjoyment of anime, I'm by no means a connoisseur of animation itself or an obsessive fan of animators as individuals (as an increasing number of anime fans now seem to be). I'm still more likely to be swayed by seiyuu or a show's music. It kind of makes me wonder if there are anime fans out there who obsess over such-and-such sound guys and the apparently otherwise largely overlooked work they do? Even in Hollywood sound editing and sound mixing appear to be dark arts. Note, for example, The Matrix beating out The Phantom Menace for the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing at the 72nd Academy Awards. Were those Oscars appropriately awarded, or did the voters just choose the movie they liked better without regard to the technical and artistic merits involved? It's a mystery to me, and quite a digression from the original Cute Girls Doing Cute Things subject I started out with, to be sure, but still a topic that I'm increasingly curious about.

Woofies.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S (A Certain Scientific Railgun S) and Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyō (Dog and Scissors) don't have much in common except they're both at the bottom of the list of shows I'm watching this season and they both have characters with hime cuts. Oh, and pets.

"Hi. I'm done with my stupid bullshit so the rest of the show
can be about you playing baseball and mahjong."

RailgunS is pretty terrible because it's so contrived. I do feel it is unfair to lambaste the show for its plot holes since most shows reveal pretty sizable plot holes after even cursory inspections, but Railgun S takes itself so seriously that I sort of feel it has it coming. The most egregious examples involve keeping Kuroko on the bench for nearly two solid cours because her teleportation ability would speed the plot along too quickly.

BEST GIRL.

To me, the most damning aspect of this second season of Railgun is that it actually improved after introducing the odious Touma to heroically solve Misaka's little problem. And watch over a kitten. To be fair, viewers looking for a show that is neither pretentious nor too low-brow yet still punctuated by periodic action scenes with satisfyingly serious slugfests will probably find a fair amount of material to enjoy in Railgun S as long as they're not too critical of Misaka's martyr complex or Accelerator's ludicrous villain voice. Me, I'm just watching it for SATEN SATEN SATEN and her easygoing BEST GIRL ways. Now with baseball shirts, variable hairstyles, Internet mahjong, and casual cooking!

It's not quite yet okay if it's you.

Exin asks:

Have you seen [Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou] yet? I saw the advertisement on yourube [sic] before it started, watched an episode and found it refreshingly nice.

Get a room.

Indeed, I am watching and enjoying Dog & Scissors even though it is pretty awful in an Akikan! sort of way (albeit without Grape's horrible voice). This is one of those shows any reasonable viewer is forced to acknowledge as "objectively bad" although it can still be entertaining in a stupid sort of way. It really does have far too many flat-chest jokes and dog-abuse jokes. There's also a lot more foreshadowed bestiality than I was expecting.

Relax. She's only looking for her underwear.

If I have to conclude that Dog and Scissors is "objectively bad, subjectively bad," I think I have to categorize Railgun S as "objectively good, subjectively bad." Anyone who fears his reputation may be damaged by the type of anime he watches will likely loathe both To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S and Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyō. However, anime sophomores (i.e., ones who are neither neophytes nor jaded, seasoned, middle-aged veterans) will likely be able to find something to enjoy in RailgunS. On the other hand, the only people likely to enjoy Dog & Scissors are probably either the aforementioned neophytes or the elderly set of anime fans—the poor bastards who have been watching too long and seen too much to still be angry young men—so long their tastes have wrapped around enough and granted them the ability to enjoy just about anything.

This one?

Omar writes:

I want to WUG the fuck out of that bitch from I-1 Club. The one who was a cunt to Mayu.

I'm afraid I don't actually know the names of anyone from I-1 Club. Maybe that's as intended, since they're all expendable drones contributing a small part to the larger collective identity. I do want to see I-1 Club and AKB0048 fight with mic sabers, though.

(Unrelated picture.)

Bernard writes:

I noticed you didn't seem to have an entry for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, I remembered that one was pretty interesting, was wondering what you thought of it.

I watched the first episode because of Nakahara Mai, but I wasn't particularly interested in it for whatever reason despite the unexpected violence. I heard that it's good, though.

Erin writes:

Just wanted to say, that after a few years away from anime that your blog is the one I haphazardly browse to see what I've missed.

Thanks for reading! I wish I could point to some amazing bit of anime that you missed over the past few years, but nothing really stands out. Oh, there is a lot of material that's very good and plenty of stuff that's "important" from an "I can't believe you never watched that!" perspective, but the hoary joke about television being a medium because nothing on it is rare or well done sort of applies here. Despite all the anime that I've really enjoyed, I don't know there's much I would recommend to someone "a few years away from anime" besides Little Witch Academia.