Anime Spring season 2012

Most series of the winter season are wrapping up as the spring season nears, ready to unleash a plethora of new shows upon us. The spring anime line up is looking quite promising, lots of series have piqued my interest.

A definite watch is the second half of “Fate/Zero”, the thirteen episodes that aired in the fall season last year were absolutely terrific. With this adaptation of the “Fate/Zero” novels, Type Moon and Nitroplus bring us the show that the “Fate/stay night” anime adaptation should have been from the start.

While I wasn’t keen on the final few episodes of the first season, will still definitely watch “Kore wa Zombie desu ka? Of The Dead”, the sequel to “Kore wa Zombie desu ka?” which was often an hilarious show full of slapstick humor that took plenty of jabs at other genres like the magical girl genre.

Am interested in “Natsuiro Kiseki”, an original anime project based around voice actress group Sphere, who will voice the main characters in a story of four girls trying to become voice actresses. Feels like this could be a great slice-of-life show, somewhat of a “Koe De Oshigoto” meets “A Channel”.

Another definite must watch is “Shining Hearts ~Shiawase no Pan~”, the anime adaptation of the PSP game “Shining Hearts” from Sega’s Shining franchise which is illustrated by none other than Tony Taka! Don’t want to miss this show, even though the “Shining Tears x Wind” anime of a few years back while visually good, was alas a let down in terms of writing, plot and characters execution.

“Upotte!!” is the upcoming anime adaptation of the manga by Kitsune Tennouji with girls that are personifications of various assault rifles. The preview looks like it will be lots of fun, but am hesitant as I am not very keen on the typical visaul styling of character designer Takami Akio whose signature work includes “Kanokon” & “Ladies vs Butlers”.

Considering “Saint Seiya” was one of the first anime I watched as a child when it originally aired, will give the new spin off “Saint Seiya Omega” a try, although the visual style of the franchise looks rather dated. Considering this new show takes place in the future of the original series’ timeline with Seiya and Saori/Athena returning, it might turn out to have a few interesting elements judging by the plot synopsis.

Also read that there’s a six episode anime “Ozma” due out based on a story by Leiji Matsumoto, who created classic stories like “Space battleship Yamato”, “Galaxy Express 999” and “Space Pirate Captain Harlock”.

With the current zombie hype, will check out “Sankarea”, the series based on the romantic comedy manga by Hattori Mitsuru. Surely zombie romance works much better in the manga & anime world! Considering Kyoto Animation is at the helm, will check out “Hyouka” although am unsure about the plot premise.

There’s also several OVA on my to watch list, namely “A-Channel+ smile”, “Amagami SS+ Plus”, “Seitokai Yakuindomo” and “Gundam Unicorn”.

Other titles that caught my eye are “Sengoku Collection”, although other recent Sengoku era based series all failed to capture my interest, or “Acchi Kocchi”, based on a 4koma manga, it might be quite humorous. Will not be watching “Eureka Seven Ao” as I have alas not seen original “Eureka Seven” anime.

Not too sure about “Saki: Achiga-hen episode of side-A”, liked the original “Saki” but it had too little yuri and too much mahjong battles for my personal taste. Don’t feel very motivated to pick up “Queen’s Blade: Rebellion”, even though I blogged about the original “Queen’s Blade”, am becoming tired of the anime incarnation of this franchise due to the excessive, cheap nudity.

Tell me, what are your picks for the anime spring season?