Masou Gakuen HxH leads off the first episode with the Japanese girl in a cold open.

Although trashy fan service shows aren't exactly rare, the full-on, uncensored, blatantly gratuitous ones aren't particularly common either. In recent memory, there was Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid (which I haven't seen yet), and the ever-popular High School DxD series (which is relatively tame as far as these sorts of things go). This season, we have Masou Gakuen HxH (Hybrid x Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia) which is sort of like IS: Infinite Stratos except that in Masou Gakuen, Potato-kun's purpose is to recharge the girls' fighting ability through the power of arousal rather than just standing around wondering why they're all angry with him.

There's no landscape mode.

Thanks to MVB's recommendation on the Twitter, I installed the Wake Me Up Asuna Android app even though it really should be called Wake Me Up, Asuna or even Wake Me Up, Asuna! There's not much to say about it. It does what its website describes, and it doesn't seem to have any weird bugs or battery-sucking behavior (at least not on any of the three devices I tested). The synthesized Haruka DeTomaso Pantera voice sounds fine, but I also didn't challenge it with a hard-to-pronounce name. There are no ads, and you can use it for free providing you don't care about English subtitles or feel like buying Asuna new clothes. Speaking of which, she will nag you within the first 24 hours to buy some different clothes, but I've gone a few days since blowing her off and she hasn't asked again yet.

The housewife sweater is free.

"Asuna's sweet words will definitely make you feel as if she is your wife!" is a bit of a stretch. Mostly she just stands there. It's a little weird when she's pretending to sleep. Like, she'll keep standing there, swaying randomly. The lights will still be on, and every once in a while she'll crack her eyes open, I guess to see if the coast is clear. Thankfully, I don't believe the application has camera permissions, so Asuna probably won't really stare at you while you sleep. I also sort of feel Asuna is a weird choice to be the first of these daily assistant character jobbies, but I guess she needed to be a popular mainstream character with a Life Debt to Sony.

Sure, just stand there watching her sleep. It's not weird or nothin'.

I only started watching Nijiiro Days (Rainbow Days) because I thought it was going to be about a dude getting cockblocked by his friends as he attempts to hook up with some girl from his school. It turns out I was dead wrong about a critical part of that premise (his friends are actually trying to help him get with the girl), but it also turned out the show is pretty good even without cockblocking, jerkface friends.

This is how Rinko sees Takeo all the time.

For years I've lamented the lack of anime romances wherein couples get together early on and spend the rest of the series developing their relationship. Typically, an anime "romance" will either be about unrequited love in the form of tsundere bullshit, or (more commonly) simply not commit at all. There is the occasional Kare Kano, but such shows are quite rare. Amazingly, the spring 2015 anime season gave us Ore Monogatari!!, a show which basically does everything I wished for all these years. And yet, perhaps predictably, it's still a little unsatisfying.

Maria's orbs are huge.

Junketsu no Maria (Maria the Virgin Witch) is quite different from what I was expecting. It's turning out to be semi-serious fare with actual stories and sub-plots about different factions involved in Maria's little war instead of a lurid fan service comedy. (Maria does seem to spend a lot of time on screen being very blonde, very aerodynamic, and mostly nude, though.) Thankfully, her hatred of war and entirely emotional approach to it, though idealistic and childish, manages to not annoy the shit out of me like the other occasions when obtuse anime pacifists carry on about some sort of nonsense or other. Oh, hi, Cagalli. I didn't see you standing there.

Somehow not a potato.

The witch part of Maria the Virgin Witch is interesting enough, I suppose, except that none of them appear to be evil. I guess from the point of view of the show's religious leaders, many of the witches are bad—oh, so bad—but from a modern anime viewer's perspective, I have to say they're pretty good. Especially the Noto Mamiko witch. The virgin part hasn't gotten annoying yet either. Where it goes from here will depend on how it handles its "Stop Using Sex as a Weapon" plot. Like My-Otome, nearly 10 years ago before it, characters in Maria the Virgin Witch have figured out that you can rape away an uppity girl's magic powers. (P.S. Spoilers.) I get the feeling Junketsu no Maria won't simply shrug this off the way My-Otome did, but I hope it also doesn't suddenly turn into a morality play about the Otaku Virtues.

Slaine's pistol in episode 13 looks the same as
the one Asseylum waves around in the first OP.

Guess what's about to hit the fan on Aldnoah.Zero. Go on, guess. The rest of this entry contains substantial spoilers for both seasons of Aldnoah.Zero and quite a bit of speculation as well. If you're not prepared, avert your eyes, etc.

As if there is any chance in Hell of Sera turning out to be bad.

Because of "circumstances," I find myself dropping about half the shows I was following this season. Well, perhaps not so much dropping as putting on hiatus for the time being. Maybe I'll catch back up during a particularly lousy season that coincides with greater anime-watching opportunities. (Won't be next season, because next season looks pretty sweet.)

I'm pretty sure this is how cooties are transmitted.

I only started watching Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de because of Studio Trigger. Thus far, it comes across as fairly unremarkable, although the basic setup is sort of amusing. This is no Little Witch Academia or Kill la Kill, so I'm left judging the show on its merits. It's fine, but the turbo-dere crazy girl was the only one I really liked. Since she's basically never in the show, what's the point? This is an easy one to put on hiatus, because I don't expect any spoilers down the road to ruin my chances of enjoying it. If it turns out to be a stinker, then I'll have dodged a bullet by ducking out early now.

Succor.

As much as I enjoy watching a runty old man brazenly fondle a nubile, 16-year-old princess who suffers from poor depth perception, I'm dropping Nanatsu no Taizai because I'm already reading the manga. There are currently more than 100 chapters out, making it a cinch that even a two-cour show will just trail off at some convenient stopping point without resolving anything. The anime adaptation is pretty good, and the fights have been entertaining, but I need to clear up some room in the ol' anime block.

Oh ho ho.

I'm putting both Magic Kaito 1412 and Detective Conan on hold. I consider Magic Kaito to sort of be a Detective Conan property anyway, even though that's not technically accurate, and I've got a huge backlog of Conan episodes numbering into the hundreds, so it's easy to set both shows on back burners. Really, most of y'all should probably be watching both of these shows. It just goes to show that "nobody watches shows if they're really popular."

Bad dream?

I haven't been enjoying Amagi Brilliant Park nearly as much as most viewers, largely because the current flavor to Kyoto Animation's work doesn't quite agree with me. That said, I have enjoyed it more than Hyouka (which I think most viewers would describe as vastly superior), and I've definitely liked it more than the episodes of Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! that I watched. (I skipped Kyoukai no Kanata, Free!, and Tamako Market entirely.) Kyoto Animation is very good at what they do, and I can tell the original light novel probably would have fared much worse had it been adapted by most other studios. Nevertheless, I can't ultimately care too much about the show and was mostly watching for Ayako. 50 Cent was pretty good until the series decided she needed to fall in love with Kanye West. The dude simply isn't charismatic enough to get me to care about this relationship angle. Even if he is at least better than the typical Potato-kun, that's a low standard to reach.

I'm pretty sure the entire thing is Hitoe's fault somehow.

I will definitely undrop selector spread WIXOSS at some point (providing it doesn't get another season). I intend to follow this suffering to the end (of this cour anyway), even though I basically get no enjoyment out of the show anymore. These are broken characters stumbling their way through an asinine situation for implausible reasons. I'm mostly just waiting to see if Akira is going to kill somebody before Hanayo gets pregnant. She is going to get pregnant and spawn stupid playing card babies, right? Oh, like you have a better reason to watch this show.

The Lion King.

I was going to pause Sword Art Online 2 because I've read the Mother's Rosario arc and already know what happens. Still, this arc should be about as good as Sword Art Online ever gets, so I might as well keep watching. I'm not sure how standard (read: Kirito) fans will react to the Asuna-led focus of these remaining episodes, but I hope they at least enjoy these episodes more than they like the second half of the first season. (You know, the one where Asuna spent all of her time sitting in a chair and waiting to be rescued when she wasn't too busy being sexually assaulted.) Unfortunately for people watching the anime, there are spoilers for this arc that will be difficult to avoid because they're of the variety that detractors of Sword Art Online won't be able to resist revealing.

Aim for the face.

Actually, there's a good chance I'll place Sword Art Online 2 on hiatus anyway.

P.S. Asuna dies.

That is totally the Sailor V costume from the back...

...but it changes to the Sailor Venus battle
costume when we see it from the front.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal was an easy one to put on hold because it only airs every two weeks and because I frankly don't like it. I like the idea of Sailor Moon, but I can't claim to particularly enjoy the manga, the 90-some episodes of the original anime that I've watched, or the Crystal Bullshit episodes of the remake that I've seen so far. With Chibi Usa about to make her appearance, this was a no-brainer. I still haven't officially dropped it (or the original anime, for that matter), since I feel I should watch the entire thing as a matter of principle, but it is a slog.

Busted. P.S. Spoilers.

You know what show I'm not putting on hold? Motherlovin' Cross Ange. This is some good shit, yo. Week after week of solid entertainment. Two cours, baby!

All things considered, Angelise is taking this rather well.

I should probably be blogging about Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo (Cross Ange: Rondo of Angels and Dragons) on a regular basis because I think it has the potential to provide as much mileage as Gundam SEED Destiny did. Let's be clear. I am not watching Cross Ange "ironically," okay. This show is shit, but it is great shit. It's never boring and you'll stare in disbelief at some of the idiocy that transpires, but I still enjoy it a great deal. It's got Banana Mizuki stabbing dragons in the face, for crying out loud!

Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.

If you've been paying attention to the OP and ED, you should have figured out the cast doesn't comprise entirely of lesbian rapists and their Stockholm Syndrome-afflicted victims. There's also at least one young man who appears positioned to be Ange's love interest despite appearing to lack genitals. Well, he's here now, and seemingly not some alpha male rebel soldier who will help Ange bring righteousness to an unjust world, but rather a well-meaning doofus with Yuuki Rito's vulnerability to anime gravity. He's not Potato-kun, because he doesn't adhere to the Otaku Virtues, but he's still more of a schmuck than I expected.

Stop complaining and eat your gruel, princess.

I assume Sunrise was sort of trying to set up the Meet Cute that transpires in My-Otome 0~S.ifr~ between Lena Sayers and Not Kira Yamato, but it doesn't go quite so smooth. For example, Tusk (forget it, Jake, it's Sunrise) tries to praise and flatter Ange at one point, but the only compliments he can think of are all about her looks. "You're completely mental, but I've seen you naked, and you're really hot, plus I've been alone on this God damn island alone with nothing but poisonous snakes to keep me company for a long time, okay. Let's make out." To be fair, I don't think I'd be able to come up with anything better given the circumstances.

Stab it again for me, sweetie.

I appreciate that anime is capable of mature romances and poinant scenes of meaningful character development, but it's also capable of ignoring all that in favor of showing how a squadron of lesbian rapists, hapless well-meaning rookies, total cunts, and spoiled princesses can join together to promote vague objectives by fighting a convenient menace. It's important to remember that nothing in this show is realistic to begin with, so trying to preserve any sense of logic or reason while watching Cross Ange is counterproductive. There are dragons and people using magic, you know. This is a world where a frilly bra and panty set crammed into an air intake can render a war machine completely FUBAR.

Hilda? Also a snake.

Try not to wonder why a venomous snake might leap up out of nowhere simply to bite Ange deep in her inner thigh. Moreover, don't object that sucking on a snake bike doesn't actually remove the venom, particularly if enough time has passed for the poison to circulate through her body and completely incapacitate our uppity little princess. Sometimes crotch sucking makes the heart grow fonder. I heard absence can do that too. Maybe being reunited after spending all that time on the island will help Ange get along better with the annoying girl she bitched out for no reason, the broads that banded together to mutually despise her, and the Yukarin psycho who tried to kill her.