1 I'm a big fan of this series, and surprisingly my wife (no anime fan) loves it as well - we've watched it three or four times now. There's also an OVA that takes place in the middle of ep 10 that gives Nana's backstory before she was captured and lab-ratted.

2

Yeah, I've got a copy of it on my hard-drive.  It's Lucy's backstory, though, not Nana's.  I still don't understand why ADV didn't license it.

1

Take a look at a couple episodes of Mokke. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but the best I can come up with is Miyazaki on a TV timetable/budget, with a little sense of humor thrown in for good measure. It has a Ghibli look to it, and it's centered around a lot of Japanese myths/superstitions come to life.

Mao-neesan is awesome, but she's shown some early signs of jealousy over the lack of attention from Kouichi now that he's got a woman.

ef looks like it has the potential for more angst than a Geo-Front full of Reis, but it's too damned pretty to give up (and Shaft's visual hold-overs from Zetsubou Sensei add a bit of spice here and there).

2

Will, I've only gotten through... (checks) ...episode four or five of Kimikiss.  I actually thought I had written something along the lines of "...and she's not (through episode 4) interested in the male leads...", but guess I missed it.

*groan* More shows?  That's already six up above, and that doesn't even count ones that are leftovers from LAST season (Sky Girls, for example, or Idolm@ster Xenoglossia, both of which I still need to finish).

Heck, I was happy to be able to watch the last DVD of Haruhi this weekend...

3

Well, I don't mean to make it sound too serious at this point. She's just made some very recognizable facial expressions in a couple scenes now that Kouichi has a woman to draw his attention.

Sky Girls just never grabbed me in the old OVA. I'm just glad the final episode of Xenoglossia finally came out. It was looking pretty dire there for a while. And lets not even get into the subject of a.f.k dropping off the face of the earth before finishing Zetsubou Sensei.

If I include SZS, I'm up to date on 10 shows right now (I put the long weekend to good use).

ef, Ninomiya-kun, Gundam 00, Hayate, Kimikiss, Minami-ke, Mokke, SZS, Shana 2, Sketchbook.

Actually, I was really naughty and grabbed a fansub of Gurren Lagann and watched through the whole thing as well. Gainax did a fantastic job on that show. I'll be damned sure to grab it on DVD. I think Steven would have to call it the five-bladded-razor of evolving/upgrading mecha.

4 I like Aria (a lot), Kimikiss, and Minami-ke, but my pick of the season has to be Moyashimon. Oryzae-tan FTW!

Oh, and as Will said, Mokke is worth a look.

5 After being turned on to anime by reading posts here at the pond, I have progressed to my first attempt at fansubs. I'm loving Minami-Ke. I've only seen the first two, but have downloaded all eps and am looking forward to more. I've also been watching Ninomiya-kun, which after five eps is fun, but not as good as Minami-Ke... and still hasn't revealed a story line! After reading weekly episodic reviews at other anime sites, I decided I'd download a few different series and give them three episodes to hook me. So I selected Bamboo Blade, Blue Drop, Clannad, Ef~A Tale Of Memories, KimiKiss~Pure Rouge~ and Sketchbook~Full Color'S~ (per Wonderduck's glowing recommendations). I'm only one episode in to most of them (still haven't seen any of KimiKiss or Sketchbook) and after that one episode, Blue Drop has come out on top, with Bamboo Blade a close second!

6 I have an otaku blogchild?  COOL!

Mike, I dropped Blue Drop after two episodes, m'self... just wasn't for me at that time.  EF I've not looked at (look!  Eyepatch girl FTW!) beyond the very odd "special" that was on a'suki this morning.

F1 and Anime: two great tastes that... um... well, are completely dissimilar, and don't work well together.  That's The Pond for ya!

7 You gotta have something to keep you entertained during the F1 off-season, don't you?

8 Yup... The Duck and SDB have fueled my new anime interest with clever blogging. You guys are a bad influence! After reading the posts above I added Mokke to my list. First three eps. just finished downloading. Now I've just got to find time to watch it all! The only ones I''ve been avoiding are the series that seem to be "second season" (or more... like Gundam). As I'll have missed all the history/backstory.

1 The 14 volumes of the manga are some of most engaging that I've ever read. Go read them. Please.

2

I've been working through the manga, slowly. There isn't really any action. It's all about atmosphere and engaging characters and amazing art -- and it's amazingly good.

But it's also just about the last thing I'd think would make a good anime. The things you need for a good anime just aren't there.

Anyway, I think there's no doubt at all that the Misago is a feral robot. And I bet the Sea Goddess is a broken robot, still partially functional.

That's right, Elfen Lied is on the agenda!  Now, I've talked about the show in the past, so I won't go into detail about it here, except to say that it's even grimmer than I remembered... which makes our usual riffing on the show even funnier:

"Where are my pants?"  "They're cousins!"  "Um... excuse me?  Cousins, remember?"

Weird stuff in this one, folks.  Grim 'n' Gritty is too tame a descriptor for EL, by far.  But wow, what a ride... I'm quite enthralled with it AGAIN. 

The Librarian seems to dig it, too, which is good, since it was her idea.  We should manage to finish it up next week (it's only 13 episodes, plus one OVA that ADV didn't license {and might I note that it's one of the best OVAs for a series that I've seen?}), and then... well, I don't know quite yet.  We'll figure it out.          

1

Elfen Led is definitly one of my top series. Have you seem the monty pyton parodies on you tube?

2 ...there are Python parodies of EL?  "It's just a flesh wound?"

3 Yup, that's exactly what it was.  Heh.