Sukitte Ii na yo. - 04

This is not your usual high school slice-of-life romantic comedy series!

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - 04

The many faces of Haru!

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - 03

Tonari is surely taking my expectations of a rom-com and turning them upside down!

Sukitte Ii na yo - 01

And it's another kiss in the first episode!  What is the anime world coming to when kisses happen in the first episode instead of the last?

All jokes aside, I thought this was a really brilliant first episode.  At first glance, it seems to resemble Kimi ni Todoke a lot.  The main character, Mei, is an outcast and scorned by her classmates, but still manages to catch the eye of Yamato, the school's most popular boy.  That's where the similarities end.  Mei, unlike Sawako, chose isolation instead of friends and is perfectly okay with that, especially if it means never being betrayed or hurt.  The tone is seemingly darker, and from what I've read, the manga that the anime is adapted from touches on a lot more mature issues. 

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - 01 & 02

A kiss in the first episode and a confession in the second?  Holy smokes, that's not how the formula works!

Oda Nobuna & Rinne 2 - Final Impressions

Oda Nobuna no Yabou
"Surprisingly good" were my thoughts when the end credits began rolling.  I actually picked up this anime when it became apparent to me that I wasn't going to enjoy Arcana Famiglia, and I'm really glad I did!  When you have a hard time picking a favorite characters, that's when you know the anime did a great job in characterization.  The loose interpretation of history was fun too, although I have to be honest and say I don't really have a good grasp on Japan's history.  The reverse gender worked better than I thought it would be, and the anime had a great balance of action, humor, romance, and drama.  With the introduction of a new villain in the last few seconds, it seems like they're setting up for another season, which I would most definitely watch!

 Rinne no Lagrange 2
Rinne is one of those animes that slowly endear themselves to you so that when it's all over, it's like saying goodbye to a dear friend.  I laughed, I cried, and I looked forward to every single episode with childlike abandon.  That's not to say the show was flawless; they never really answered the question of the Voxes, plus I thought Moid's motives at the end were anti-climatic (which, I suppose, is why he got punched by Yoko).  However, with that aside, it did a lot of things well, and that's all that matters, right?  Even more surprising is that how much I enjoyed it despite it not being a romance at all (well, mostly not a romance).  Rinne transcended a lot of genres so that it's very unique and hard to put in any box, and while sometimes that gamble doesn't pay off, it did for this show.  I'm going to miss the Jersey Club!

Accel World - 24 (End) & Final Impressions

Kuroyukihime is such a smooth talker at times that I love her best when she's speechless and flabbergasted like this.