Kurozuka, One Outs, and Goku SZS – Neverending fall impressions

I can’t stop finding series to watch this season. It’s starting to get out of hand. These three are all very good in their own right.

Kurozuka is beautiful Madhouse material. It’s got a heavy metal OP featuring one of the guys from Maximum the Hormone so you know it’s good.  This is basically a vampire story. As of the first 2 episodes (which are the only episodes subbed so far by groups that don’t suck) we really have no idea what the background is. All we know is there’s this dude (Kuro) that people want to kill who meets this immortal girl (Kuromitsu) that people want to study to find out the secret of everlasting life, and they mix their blood in the typical vampiric fashion and then live forever. After witnessing Kuro get beheaded, we then see him wake up not knowing where he is, only to find that he’s in some post-apocalyptic future and he can’t find his vampire girlfriend. The fights in this series are pretty damn awesome. We’ve got your sword fights with trippy background colors whenever Kuro goes into hypermode, which is what I’m calling it. It seems appropriate. His eyes go red, he yells a lot, and then suddenly he starts moving around like crazy and punching people in half. Yes, punching people in half, with all of the gore that you would expect from such a badass death. This one’s a definite keeper.

One Outs is basically next in line after Akagi and Kaiji in the realm of anime about gambling with a narrator who explains every situation whether it actually needs to be explained or not. The difference with this one is that the lead male replaces the long nose look with the “I’m not wearing enough clothes” look, and there’s this random fat black woman named Big Mama who makes the series even uglier than Akagi or Kaiji could ever be. I’m not even going to screencap that shit to prove my point. Her neck protrudes a good 2 inches out in front of her chin. Tottally unnecessary. As you may have guessed from the name, this one is about baseball, and the lead character can pitch balls that no batter can hit. But here’s the thing: much like Akagi, he knows very little about the game he’s betting on, and he’s not even that good at it. The reason he does so well is his ability to read his opponents like a book, and always pitch what they least expect. So far I’d rank this one below Akagi and above Kaiji, but that’s simply because Kaiji was such a pathetic bastard, I couldn’t bare to watch him after about 17 episodes.

Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is more of what we’ve come to expect from the series, and I love it so far. This one will only be a 3(?) episode OVA, but I’ll be sure to enjoy every minute of it. God, this series is so zany. The idea of entrusting government secrets to 2-D complex otaku because they can’t be seduced by female spies is something only SZS could provide. I already think this series has one of the cutest female casts, but they really got me with the long haired Kafuka in this episode.

Sometimes it’s good when things differ from the original.

I’m waiting on a decent sub of Casshern Sins episode 5, at which point I will begin blogging it episodically, just so you know.