Version 5.4 ~ Haruhi gave rock and roll to you.
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Dated 20 May 2019: There are two shows this season about girls who don't talk

Nanako
People would not put up with this if Nanako weren't so nice.

Senryuu Shoujo (Senryuu Girl) is about a girl who doesn't speak. Instead, she communicates with senryuu poems written on little placards. It works out really well for her, since she either writes super fast or is extraordinarily prescient enough to have suitable responses prepared ahead of time. There's nothing physically preventing Nanako from speaking, as far as I can tell. She just has severe anxiety.

Momoko and Mayumi
Joshikausei consists entirely of schoolgirls fucking off.

Joshikausei (also written as two words, Joshi Kausei), on the other hand, features a cast of girls (and unimportant supporting characters) who can speak but choose not to. This is a short anime with three-minute episodes—even shorter than Senryuu Shoujo which has half-length 13-minute episodes. Neither the Joshikausei anime nor its source manga have any dialogue at all. I haven't read the Senryuu Shoujo manga, but Nanako is voiced in the anime. We're privy to her thoughts and Hanakana reads all of the cards aloud. This makes Senryuu Shoujo less gimmicky, but it also takes a little away from the show's premise. Both Senryuu Shoujo and Joshikausei are all right. They're uniformly pleasant, but I wouldn't regard them as must-watch shows this season.

Dated 26 March 2016: In re the End of Boku dake ga Inai Machi ~ERASED/My Purest Heart for Airi~

Airi
Surprise, everyone.

If you've been paying attention to the winter 2016 anime season at all, you probably noticed Boku dake ga Inai Machi (officially localized as ERASED, but sometimes colloquially Bokumachi) was a heavy favorite early on to be the season's best show. Personally, I had a few problems with the series preventing me from rating it quite so high, and a significant number of fans also grew dissatisfied with the show's second half, but ERASED is still regarded as one of this winter's best anime, despite some issues with the ending.

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Dated 29 April 2013: Spring 2013 initial impressions

Man and Old Man
The Hustler.

The preseason buzz for spring 2013 seemed fairly pessimistic. (Sort of seems that way more often than not lately.) Thankfully, this quarter is shaping out to be pretty decent, at least through the first third of the cour. I guess I was looking forward to Death Billiards from the name alone—turns out it's another excellent Anime Mirai short movie, by the way—and that show about giants eating people, and the second season of Railgun, so it's not as if I believed spring 2013 would be a total write-off. It turns out there are at least a couple of gems and one shiny rock to admire.

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Dated 6 November 2006: Soukou no Strain

Sara
Sara.

AYAKO DOCTRINE invoked.

Soukou no Strain came at me entirely under the radar. I had never even heard of it, but after discovering two episodes on the loose and finding that the series boasted an Ayako Kawasumi-voiced mecha pilot as its lead character, I was sold.

Young Sara
Young Sara.

Soukou no Strain opens with some backstory on its lead, Sara, and a little information about the persistent war at the heart of the series. From there it leaps forward and races relentlessly. The first episode is pitched with battle and action, and does not dwell long on the character elements. This pace works well and keeps the story engaging coming out of the gate, saving the character-driven moments for the second episode. (Also, damn, those bitches better back the Hell off of Sara.)

strain
A Strain.

Some have favorably compared the C.G. mecha battles to VanDread. I think this is fairly accurate. The style of fighting is very reminiscent of VanDread, indeed, with quick, darting attacks and lunges.

The fan service is nowhere near as high as in VanDread, though. However, we do discover that Sara's snug flight suit lacks sufficient space to permit a brassiere. (Well, there's also some creepy nudity in the OP.)

Older Sara
Not-quite-so-young Sara.

I don't care for the mecha cockpits. These entirely encase the pilots up to their necks, Captain Christoper Pike-style. This reduces most of the in-cockpit battle cuts to stills of motionless heads screaming senselessly. I must conclude that this is grossly inferior to the favored practice of allowing full freedom of movement so that a mecha pilot can shove a lever forward at full force while bellowing the colorful name of the intended attack.

Sara in the heat of battle.
Sara in the heat of battle.

In addition to doing a fair amount of hollering and screaming in Soukou no Strain, Ayako Kawasumi also does the next-episode previews and the sponsor messages. Oh, and Tanaka Rie and Yukana are both also in Soukou no Strain if you care about that sort of thing.

Allegedly, Soukou no Strain is loosely based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. Wait, what?