Yes he can tear himself away from WoW

Poor Onegai Teacher, it was an enjoyable series, but it looks like I’m never going to get around to devoting a post to it. Oh sure I could actually write something up about it right now, but seeing as how I watched it back in March I’m afraid it just isn’t the freshest series in my mind. Ghost Hunt, My-Hime, and Mai-Otome all share the same woe; all are excellent series that I enjoyed a great deal, but I enjoyed them back in March (or April in the case of Ghost Hunt but the effect is the same) which makes it difficult to write about the specific details. Busō Renkin is in a similar, but slightly different boat since I was watching that weekly from the time it premiered in October until its end in March.

So in brief:

Onegai Teacher features your basic love story between a high school student and a beautiful space alien masquerading as a high school teacher. Watch enough anime and the above sentence won’t seem weird. The art, music, and story are all quite nice, and most of the characters are very interesting. Onegai Teacher is also only twelve episodes long so it moves along at a good pace. There is also a one episode OVA which is basically fun fluff, nothing of any consequence happens, and on some levels I think it exists as an excuse to say, “Hey remember all those couples we either showed or hinted at in the main series? (snicker) Well they are all having sex! (snicker)" Still it is another chance to spend some time with some very enjoyable characters.

Ghost Hunt is about the investigations of the Shibuya Psychic Research Center (SPR). It shares some similarities with, but isn’t as dark in tone as either Jigoku Shōjo, or Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I also like that sometimes their investigations reveal no supernatural activity, and other times they are unable do anything (at least directly) about the supernatural entity in question. Again the art is very nice, and the characters are interesting.

My-Hime and Mai-Otome are worth talking about together. My-Hime is an interesting mix of magical girl, and mecha anime. It starts out with a fairly comedic tone, and takes a turn for the more serious about halfway through (coinciding with an interesting plot twist). The cast is pretty large, but they are handled well, and interesting characters abound.

Mai-Otome could be called a sequel, but it may be more accurate to call it a re-envisioning. The same character designs, and in most cases names and personalities are used to tell a completely new story (set thousands of years in the future). The main characters from My-Hime take on supporting roles, while many of the supporting characters become much more featured, and the main protagonists are original (well some more so than others). Much like its predecessor, Mai-Otome starts out fairly light-hearted and then through a number of plot developments becomes more serious in tone. You could watch Mai-Otome without first watching My-Hime, but I wouldn’t recommend it since the character development in Mai-Otome is mostly (but not completely) limited to the original characters, if you have already watched My-Hime this isn’t a problem because the other characters were already well developed there.

Busō Renkin at least got discussed here before so forgive me if I’m extremely brief with this one. If you like Bleach you’ll probably like Busō Renkin as they share some similar subject matter. If you like shōnen fighting anime you’ll probably like Busō Renkin. If you like the idea of shōnen fighting anime, but think they tend to drag on far too long (Dragon Ball Z I’m looking at you) you’ll probably love Busō Renkin because it’s only 26 episodes so the fights get resolved and the plot advances in a timely manner.

With any luck my next post will be about the anime I’m currently following. That would include Bleach and Naruto: Shippūden both of which I’ve mentioned before, and three new anime that started in April: El Cazador de la Bruja, Claymore, and Kaze no Stigma.