Every three months, the anime blogosphere becomes filled with anime viewing guides for the upcoming season. It’s an exciting time for anime fans, as anticipation is at its highest and not yet sullied by disappointing series. It’s also the time where instead of creating my own guide, I do something which I think would much more handier – create a guide to the guides! Below are some of my favorite winter 2010/2011 anime preview guides.
Preview Guides
- T.H.A.T. Anime Blog
Without fail, the writers at T.H.A.T. Anime Blog deliever excellent previews each season, including information like trailers, summaries, genres, and nifty additional details. The shining spot, though, is the quick series of one-liners given underneath each listed series, which are often funny and written by some of the best and most knowledgable bloggers in the anime blogosphere.
Grade A for great info and great fun - Random Curiosity
This site provides a unique experience among preview guides. In addition to giving necessary information about every series, it’s all the extras that make this guide stand out. Divine includes additional season information (ex. how the disaster in Japan is effecting the schedule) and categorization and commentary about the shows in the concluding section. Most importantly, the page features a table that shows when each show will air, and one for release dates of OVAs and movies.
Grade A for being tabletastic and full of insightful and interesting reading - Emory Anime Club
While the information about each show in this preview is no different from other sites, what stands out here is the commentary about each. Tsuki and Steve write plenty about each show, providing the potential (given in percentages) for each, as well as other information, including comparisons to other series.
Grade A for one-stop shopping and expert analysis - Sekijitsu
The writers for this blog are energetic. It’s fun to read their commentary about each show. But maybe even better than that is how pleasing the preview is to the eye – the page is really attractive and each series is accompanied by a nicely-designed picture/information cube. The bloggers are also smart in hiding the long commentary and trailers, which only show up when clicked.
Grade A for design and blogger moeness
The above-linked guides were each mostly created by multiple bloggers. I also appreciate the in-depth guides made, heart and soul, by singular bloggers. Blogs that fit in this category (check them out!) include Otaku Life, Hashihime, Yuri no Boke, and Banana Muffin.
Charts and Other Preview-related Sites
- The Cart Driver
I’m not sure if Scamp was the first to create an “anime season preview chart,” but his may be the most prolific. Frequently linked to and resposted, Scamp’s charts provide the basics of each show for the upcoming season in a clean and attractive format. - Moetron
Moetron’s visual guide is very stylish and contains information about each series, as well as this spring’s OVAs and movies. The site also gives a great TV listing schedule. - Countdown Anime
This fun site provides countdowns for each of the new anime this winter. It’s a neat way to get even more excited about the upcoming season.
Notes
I’m also looking forward to previews by Rabbit Poets and Major Arcana. Each has excelled with their past previews, but I’m unsure if either or both will create such posts this year.
What I’m Looking Forward To
It’s always fun to look back and see what we planned to watch and how it turned out. Last season, I mentioned that I was looking forward to Hourou Musuko and Fractale. I’m still enjoying the first greatly, while I dropped the latter after just two episodes. Instead, I picked up Infinite Stratos (for better or worse).
Typically, I only want to watch about two series each season, but this spring, I’m looking foward to four. I’ve been waiting for Moshidora ever since I first heard about the concept last year – if nothing else, it should be fun and interesting. Nichijou is the type of series that is usually hit-or-miss with me, but it’s director’s association with Key productions means I’ve got to give it a shot. Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai has a storyline that captivates me and again, the director, who did work on Honey and Clover and Toradora!, two of my favorites, has me intrigued. Finally, I want to check out Sket Dance, since I’ve nearly started on the manga a half-dozen times.
Enough of me, though. What are you looking forward to this spring?