Agh mahou shoujou agh

In some terrible lapse of judgment, I decided to check out Moetan and Nanatsuiro Drops. I hereby declare that I am of sound mind and body once again (mostly).

Moetan wasn't too bad at the beginning. I can forgive the unexplained-loli-in-high-school setup, and the excessive love interest fixation (I'm starting to think this is asian-culture gender-role-shaping in action), and the sorcerer duck fellow. But in the end, the deal-breaker is the loli factor. Can't stomach it. I couldn't handle Sumomo mo momo ... for the same reason. To the people who enjoy this stuff: you're sick, the lot of you.

Thankfully, Nanatsuiro Drops is free of the loli scourge, at least in the first episode. Rather, we get gobs of moe. The heroine is cute, but I can't help but see her as an amalgam of CLAMP's Sakura prototype and Kanon's Ayu. The setup, again, is unremarkably cliché: guy gets turned into talking stuffed animal. Guy gets girl to be all mahou and go collect mahou tidbits in order to call the dragon fellow turn him back to normal. The production quality is pretty good, and I like the OP. The main thing that irritates me is how things are presented in an utterly facile manner. The comical face distortions and such are each given their own moment in time, and this over-emphasis is quite grating. Overall, I don't want to watch this. But... there is one intriguing aspect, which is that of the weapon-wielding tsundere girl. That's good enough for me... However, I just watched the OP again, without the hypnotizing music, and can confidently state that I am quite disgusted at ever being slightly interested in this series.

On the other hand, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is, in a word, brilliant. I'm all for dark, cynical humor; and neurotic girls, provided I don't have to deal with them in real life. But really, this is a vehicle for director Akiyuki Shinbo's visual flights of fancy, and random scribbles on the blackboard.

The only other new series that I've touched is Doujin Work. I'm not sure what to think of it. The animation is low-budget, and so is the rest of the production, it seems. And the subject matter has been somehow worn to death, in my mind. The episodes are short, though, so it's less of a waste of time.

Still need to watch: Potemayo.