laceblade

Traveling Daru - This was a really cute ~10-minute short.
Daru is a toy who gets left behind by his child-owner in an airport b/c the kid's mom won't stop to pick him up while rushing to make their plane.
SO, Daru travels the world trying to find her. It's basically an excuse for animating lots of gorgeous backgrounds. Worth the 10 minutes, anyway.


Free! - This is a new/currently airing series that everyone & their mom is talking about.
Basically this is a show about boys who love swimming. Similar to Chihayafuru, the main characters formed a bond around this sport when they were young, & are now reunited in high school.
This is the same studio that made K-ON!, etc.
They had originally released some artwork about the characters without intending to do a series. Fans on Tumblr/etc. exploded with fanart & backstories, & because people liked it so much, they made a show.
The dudes have rippling muscles, etc. It is a fanservice show - that's the whole point.
Reading the mantearsflowingfree Tumblr is kind of hilarious. They mock men on the Internet who are complaining that this series is not explicitly aimed toward them, but rather toward female viewers.

Anyway, I genuinely like the show!
Unlike K-ON!, members of the opposite sex exist & have speaking roles. (In K-ON!, I think the only ones around are Mugi's butler & the guitar shop guy - two men in service roles who exist to serve the protags :D)


Servant x Service - This is a new/currently airing series about civil servants in Hokkaido. As I am ALSO a government employee & traveled most extensively in Hokkaido on both trips to Japan, I was really intrigued by this!
Unfortunately, it's sort of a running gag type show where every character is super annoying. There are also a few fanservicey jokes made about the large-busted protagonist.
I wouldn't recommend this to people, although I'll be watching for at least a little while to see if it gets any better.


Chihayafuru 2 - Feels just like season 1. I like the new boy-crazy girl who joins the karuta club just b/c she likes Taichi. She reminds me of Hachiko from NANA.
Don't really care about the new dude.
I ship Kana/Hanano for totes.
There was a quote in episode 4 or so explaining the series' title. Obviously "Chihaya" is the name of the protagonist, but "Chihayafuru" is also the beginning of one of the karuta cards.
lavendersleeves wrote this quote down here:

"Chihayafuru" is a poetic phrase that makes about as much sense in Japanese as it does in English. The translators translated this meaning as "impassionate," which seems apt in that "Impassionate" means either "full of passion" or "without passion." But in the last episode, a character gives a lovely interpretation of the word that I found somewhat inspiring:

"Chihayafuru" is like a perfectly spinning top, turning so fast and perfectly that it appears not to be moving at all. But it deflects everything that tries to touch it without losing balance, without losing calm.
The word is used to describe gods, not humans--it is probably a state that humans cannot achieve. It seems to me to be a state of such focus that one can be lightning-alert and yet perfectly calm. An offensive defense. Or maybe such inner peace that nothing can upset it.

SUPER INSPIRING. Even though "it is probably a state that humans cannot achieve," it seems like something to strive for, every day.


Little Witch Academia - This was a 25-minute short by a new studio. It's a school for witches!
It's hard to summarize the plot without giving shit away (only 25 min!), but this style is basically my mental image of Harry Potter. It was gr9, and they've apparently funded a second installment via Kickstarter. I'll be watching it!
The animation studio has uploaded this to YouTube, so you can watch it here.