Spring 2013 Anime notes:

[GeoffC]

First few days:
Dansai Bunrio Crime Edge:(The Severing Crime edge).
Teenager Kiri has a barely repressed obsession with long hair, and
when he hears a rumour about a long-haired ghost he just has to
investigate. He discovers a long-haired recluse girl, Iwai, and is
captivated. She wants a hair trim, but her hair is cursed and no pair of
scissors will cut it. She is also guarded by a pair of odd girls,
descendants of murderers, who carry their ancestors' murder weapons, the
'killing tools' and they show Kiri the door.
Kiri, in the grip of his hair obsession, returns later, and is able to
snip Iwai's hair with the pair of surgical scissors whci he always
carries with him. It turns out that Kiri inherited the scissors from his
grandfather, who used them for some horrid murders, and the scissors are
another cursed 'killing tool'. By some convoluted logic, the pair dub
the scissors a 'crime edge'. Kiri and Iwai enjoy an orgy of fetishishm
over Iwai's long hair (the hair mostly remains uncut.)
I wasn't sure what to make of this, but it's quite entertaining, and it
seems worth checking out the next episode or two.

Red Data Girl eps #1-3
I was able to check out the first 3 episodes of this thanks to the web
previews. A shy, na�ve girl named Izumiko Suzuhara lives at shrine deep
in the forest, surrounded by servants who wait on and protect her. She
also has a bad effect on any electronic equipment, and she zaps all the
school computers during an IT session. Despite this, she manages to
connect with her father in the USA in a manner that computers really
shouldn't. In her last year of middle school one of her more suspect
companions assigns his hostile teenage son to protect her. On a trip to
Tokyo the two try to contact Izumiko's mother and some supernatural
action kicks off. They learn that Izumiko is some sort of chosen vessel
for the higher powers and grow closer in the meantime,and agree to move
to a school in Tokyo. This doesn't sit well with Wamiya, a boy in
Izumiko's class who seems attached to her. Wamiya makes his objection
known in a very threatening manner. When Izumiko defies Wamiya, the
results are totally different from what I was expecting.
The animation is quite good (it should look sharper when broadcast), but
in the first episode I had a sense that this show was being assembled
from the Usual Elements and the heroine was too wimpy. The action flows
well in the second episode but the main characters still do not appear
sufficiently likeable. However this show seems to be getting better with
each episode, and the third episode ends with a dance scene that made me
feel that I was watching something magical, in more senses than one!
I'll continue to watch this show.


Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince
Mankind has reached space, but is being attacked by nasty aliens known
as the Wulgaru. The humans decide to evacuate their space base at
Undina, but to give enough time for the evacuation, they throw five
useless space cadets into the battle, equipping them with state of the
art robot suits. The five do better against the aliens than might be
expected...
There is little attempt at characterisation, and a lot of noisy and
flashy battle. I had the impression that it wasn't meant to make a lot
of sense. If one was not in a critical mood it might be quite
entertaining, but one has to ask, when we already have sundry Gundam
series, why do we need 'Majestic Prince'?

Devil Survivor 2 the Animation.
This isn't an anime sequel - it's based on a game called Devil Survivor
2. The three principal characters sign up for a web service called
Nicaea which tells them when a friend is about to die. It warns them
that they are about to die in a subway accident, which duly happens, but
they summon demons with their cellphones and escape. The city above has
become a demon-infested wreck.
Far too much happens too quickly, and next day I struggled to remember
what this show had been about. The characterisation is minimal, the girl
character being no more than a generic ineffectual girl. I expect that
I'll drop this.