Yoshika Miyafuji and CS, 501st Joint Fighter Wing ie. the sukumizu crews are back for the second season of Striker Witches. A quick summary for those who have not watched season one, the story sets in mid 20th century and it’s about fighting to save the world from Neuroi, a mysterious entity that tries to conquer the world.

Back in the day, there was no Strike unit so they used brooms

To prevent Neuroi’s invasion in Britain, 501st Joint Fighter Wing is formed and consisted of many Witches from different countries around the world (interestingly, they all speak Japanese ^^;;). To improve each Witch capability, she is equipped with a Striker unit (hence the name, Striker Witches).

Core of Neuroi. The new core can move around inside Neuroi which makes it harder to target

In season two, Italian peninsula was taken over by Neuroi and 501st Joint Fighter Wing struggles to take it back. The new breed of Neuroi has tougher armor, higher regeneration ability and moving core. First episode starts with scenes with Yoshika in her hometown and her daily school life. Her peaceful life is disturbed by the arrival of a letter from her dad, Dr. Miyafuji who are supposed to be dead.

I love this scene of Sakura flower.

Being a curious girl she is, she goes to a military base nearby looking for Major Mio Sakamoto who was her supervisor, mentor and idol back in season one. Unfortunately, major Mio is  currently out ,however, she sees a new type of Striker unit.

A lot of parts/names in Strike Witches are taken from actual history. For example, Battleship Yamato served Japanese Navy army during World War II.

While she’s reminiscing the day she spent with 501st Join Fighter Wing in Britannia, an emergency message was received at the base mentioning that Neuroi appears in Venezian airspace and Venezia falls to the hand of Neuroi that same day. To response Neuroi, Romagna 504th Joint Allied Wing engaged the enemy and has suffered massive casualties. One of Yoshika’s friend , Lynette Bishop is part of 504th and mentioned that they didn’t have enough Witches to defend.

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Mio may not be able to create a shield anymore since she is over 20 years old, but, with her new forged sword, she won't need a shield.

An interesting point about the second season is that Mio was not voiced by the same seiyuu and for the second season, Mio’s seiyuu is not a well-known one and she also sings the ED song in episode one and two. Another interesting point is the animation produced by AIC instead of Gonzo. Does Gonzo still exist? Last time I heard they almost went bankrupt. AIC seems to be doing really well this summer since a lot of summer anime is produced by them. Quality wise, I don’t see much different between AIC and Gonzo; second season is well animated.

New Neuroi

During the first episode,  fan service was kept to minimum surprisingly with occasional panty shots when transforming to a witch , although, it cannot be denied that there may be a lot fan service in this series in future episodes.

An anime girl with a sword is really the best

Aside from sukumizu factor, story line does not offer much other than the usual ‘Saving the world’ theme similar to 912030913901230192 anime out there ^^;; so I put this under ‘one time watch’ category since  I will most likely watch it once. However, despite all of those, you may still enjoy watching this anime but don’t expect too much, otherwise, you’ll find yourself be disappointed.

Additional tidbits

Trailer

Got some tail ?

Rating: 7/10

Source: ANN, Wiki

Luchini's purpose in life is to eat Yoshika's cooking lol

More screenshots below

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Minato and Mutsubi cs are back for more harem in Sekirei ~Pure Engagement~. It has the same amount of harem as season one which probably will intrigue some of you into the series. On the other hand, if you are not a fan ecchi/harem theme anime then you may want to stay away from this series.

Can you guess whose butt it is ? ^^

Not saying this is a bad series (or maybe it is ?)  but I would rather say that this is the kind of series that you watch only when you have no other anime to watch or , thus, it can be skipped easily if necessary or visit wiki for a short summary of what is going on. I recommend that you read the manga instead of possibly wasting 25 minutes per episode of your time ^^:; .

Nothing excites me more than an anime girl with a sword. If only she's made into a scaled PVC figure ^^;;

Even though this is a sequel of Sekirei, you don’t necessarily need to watch the first season before the second season. In the first episode, it summarizes season one for couple minutes for those who haven’t watched it yet so new viewers can follow the plot easily.

Karasuba just loves blood. Another character that should have been made into a scaled PVC figure. Come on Alter, GSC ^^

Aside from multiple battles between Sekireis, the majority of scenes is about Minato and his Sekirei living under one roof in Izumo Inn belong to Miya, the landlady. A lot of fortunate “incidents” as one may say befall between Minato and his Sekireis ,thus, it categorizes itself as  harem/ecchi theme anime since it consists of one male protagonist surrounded by many females.

Miya, Sekirei #1, is the strongest among all other Sekirei.

Additional tidbits

Miya and Matsu are looking good their black outfit.

Rating: 4.5/10

Now, this is a question for all my readers out there. When you just started watching anime, did you enjoy harem/ecchi type of anime ? and as time goes by (and getting older), do you find it that you  are less interested in harem/ecchi anime ? That seems to be my case as I find myself getting pickier as a day goes by.

Source : ANN, Wikipedia

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3. Highschool Of The Dead First Impressions

Summer Anime 2010 quest shall be continued with another series called Shukufuku No Campanella. This anime poses a lot of questions when I was watching it as I couldn’t predict what the anime is all about.

Some random girl at the start of the series.

One time, it looks like Aria series; it’s all about slice of life. On some other time, it also looks like something along the lines of Tales series/Ragnarok Online/ Star Ocean which is an advanture type.

Thus, my opinion somewhat lies in the middle because I find that slice of life anime like Aria (Aria’s fans, please don’t hate me ^^;; ) is boring and I do enjoy adventurous like anime like Tales series for example even though they are not the greatest anime out there.

Leicester Maycraft and Carina Veritti are some of the protagonists in this series. Carina is overly obsessed with Leicester

The anime starts with introducing each characters with fancy name tags/boards which I found them unnecessary. Carina, one of the main protagonist, is obsessed Leicester and he lets her touching his hand so that she can be the first person who touches his hand for that day. This is really weird me out >_<.

This view really reminds you of Aria, doesn't it ?

The rest of the episode basically is about bunch of friends hang out together ad have fun. That night they have a plan to watch a meteor shower on the roof top of a cathedral. Based on the first episode, don’t expect too much from this series, chance is you will be disappointed.

Oasis adventurers clan where Leicester works as an item technician

Animation wise, it’s high quality and top notch as expected from an anime taken from an eroge. Each character is very well-drawn and the backgrounds are details. If you need a reason to keep watching this anime, animation is your answer. It kept me finishing the first episode ^^;; and for some weird reasons, there is no panty shots or ecchi scenes in this episode.

Agnes Boulange, a puppeteer, who later becomes friends the rest of the gang at Oasis adventurers clan

Additional tidbits:

Shelley is a Leicester mother. It's already a sin to have a mother this young ^^:;

Trailer

Rating: 5/10

Source: ANN

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Another summer anime 2010 just recently caught my attention when I was browsing through my usual direct download site. I found this anime with interesting title: “Highschool of The Dead” and mostly known as HOTD. Now, I thought this would be just another ghost story kind of anime and could I be more wrong wrong ?

Beautiful full moon

The story is about two highschool students as the main protagonist named Takashi Komuro and Rei Miyamoto and how they survive in the world infected with an unknown disease/virus that can turn a person into an undead. Takashi, Rei and a group of students manage to survive the initial outbreak and continue on a journey to find out what is going on.

Panty shot..... yum

Now, if you think about it for a second,the story plot does sound familiar especially for my self since I am a fan of Resident Evil movies. For those who never watch Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse or Resident Evil: Extinction, the story revolves Alice and Umbrella Corporation who creates the T-virus. Something happened one after another and it causes an outbreak throughout the world.

Suck...... Suck...... Suck.....

Another similar example would be 28 Days Later or 28 months later. An outbreak causes by a virus named ‘Rage’ in Britain which almost wiped the entire Britain population. Could it be that Highschool Of The Dead is derived from these two movies ?

One of the main protagonist, Rei Miyamoto

I think this series looks promising when I watched it for the first couple minutes then I saw panty shot -_-. Every time I saw a panty shot, it serves as a sign that I should avoid the series,however, seeing that story plot is quite my liking, I’ll give it another try before judging further. Hopefully, they remove those panty shots ^^; (Hey, don’t hate me. I used to enjoy those panty shot but that time is already passed >.<)

Mmmmm..... battle damage. It would be nice if we are getting a 1/7 or 1/8 PVC figure of these two.

Animation wise, I think I expect nothing less from Madhouse animation studio. The animation quality is really high especially the opening and ending. I can see a lot of work and time had gone into the making of its OP and ED or rather too much has gone into OP and ED ^^;;.

What a way to start an anime series. A sign that the series must be a gloomy one.

Additional tidbits:

HOTD or Highschool Of The Dead truly lives to its name

Trailer

Rating: 8.5/10

Source: ANN, Wiki

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Amagami SS is a romance type of anime that tells a story surrounding Junichi Tachibana, our main protagonist and six heroines whom each of them will have their own screenings. Being stood up on his last Christmas Eve, Junichi is having a hard time to forget about it and let it go, however, he is inspired to make everything different this year Christmas Eve.

She is one of the heroine in this series and she is your typical school idol, pretty and well-liked by everyone

First couple minutes in the first episode, I couldn’t help it but started thinking about Kimikiss Pure Rouge. Not only in term of story plot but also the characters’ design and guess what, after a quick trip to Anime News Network, the character designer is the same person as the one in Kimikiss Pure Rouge. My hunch was right after all ^^. As with Kimikiss Pure Rouge, Amagami SS is also a visual novel adaptation

This screenshot will surely remind us of Kimikiss Pure Rouge assuming you have watched it before.

Dug up my anime database and took a screenshot of Kimikiss Pure Rouge opening. The similarity is just amazing.

In the first episode, the main heroine is Haruka Morishima so it’s her story arc. Her character gives similar vibes as Mao-neechan in Kimikiss Pure Rouge.

Our main protagonist, Junichi, and one of the heroine, Haruka Morishima

I think I would enjoy this anime as I enjoyed watching Kimikiss Pure Rouge and high school romance is always a great watch. The first episode ends in such a way that makes me wanting more so it’s a good sign that I will continue watching it.

One can only dream to have her riding on top ^^; but our main protagonist, Junichi, apparently has incredibly amount of luck

On the other hand,  this may just be another high school romance type of anime and the story plot is usually shallow. In addition, since it’s only 13 episodes, I am little concerned that each heroine won’t get enough screenings (two episodes per heroine), thus, there will be minimal character development and the audience won’t get to know each heroine better.

Junichi's imagination is running wild after Morishima senpai told him that Miya, his sister, is like a kitten that she would love to play and take a bath with.

Additional tidbits

Trailer

So who will be the lucky (or not so lucky) girl(s) that gets to spend time him on Christmas Eve ? Start watching the series and let the story unfold ^^.

Rating: 7.5/10

Source : ANN

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