TV Show Picks for 2013 Anime, Sci-Fi, & Fantasy

Sword Art Online (#Anime #Fantasy #MMORPG)

What's it about: "The year is 2022, and gamers have lined up on launch day for Sword Art Online, a hotly-anticipated MMORPG that lets players connect to an immersive virtual reality world with special helmets called Nerve Gear. Kirito is one such gamer who's eager to jump back into action, having spent a great deal of time as a beta tester, and quickly becomes friends with newbie warrior Klein. But soon, Sword Art Online's 10,000 players discover that not only are they unable to log out, the only way they can return to their physical bodies is by beating the 100-level tower's final boss - death in the game means death in the real world. Now, with no one else to turn to, Kirito and the other participants must survive the game as best they can (IMDB)."



First Impressions: This was my first anime of this genre.  And se puede decir que me gustó.  I marathoned all 25 episodes over 2 days on CrunchyRoll.  If you enjoyed reading Ernest Cline's best-selling novel, Ready Player One, you're sure to love this!  The show caters to MMORPG diehards, but the themes and visual allure reach gamers and non-gamers alike (as long as you care mostly about music, action, and artwork, and care less about plot, character development, and storing pacing).  While the show features one of the most promising premises I've ever seen, it unfortunately ended up being another example of unrealized potential.  The show's fatal flaw was that the anime creators crammed two hundred episodes worth of material into only 25 episodes.  Instead of focusing on the developing the major story arch, they chose to allocate their precious time to standalone episodes, which couldn't help but also be under-developed as well.  Still, the show is an amazing ride—great music, terrific action, stunning scenes and animation; I never once felt bored.

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet (#Anime #Sci-fi)

What's it about: "On the surface, Gargantia is a fish-out-of-water tale following a mecha pilot, Ledo, who crash lands on humanity's long lost home world, earth. But instead of the abandoned, frozen world he was taught to expect, he finds a watery planet where the remnants of humanity live in giant floating cities. But it's not just a change in scenery that shocks him but a change in culture as well. While humans in space are 100% utilitarian (aka born and bred for specific roles and are killed if “defective”), the humans on earth tend to follow our modern day values. Thus Ledo finds himself in a society he can't understand—literally, at first, as he doesn't even speak the language. Moreover, he discovers that he is unsuited for life on earth—that even the most basic of jobs (unrelated to what he trained in) are outside his capability. And moreover, he learns that much of what he “knew to be true” was, in fact, not. Thus, behind the sci-fi plot, Gargantia is really just an allegory for growing up, leaving the controlled world of school, entering into the real world, and realizing that it's far different from how you were always told it was. On this level, it's a universal story about something we all must face and strikes a great emotional chord because of it (via Kotaku)."



My Impressions:  I completely agree with Kotuka's Anime reviewer, Richard Eisenbeis, who wrote, "Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet is an anime that is far deeper than it appears on the surface." FREE streaming with English subtitles on Crunchyroll.

Attack on Titan (#Anime #Fantasy #Steampunk)

What's it about: In a medieval world where giant Titans roam the lands, the last remnants of humanity hide behind a series of enormous walls. But should the Titans ever break the walls, it is up to the army to stop them with their specialized steampunk technology. It is streamed in the United States with English subtitles on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu.

My Impressions:  I've watched all 15 episodes out to date on CrunchyRoll. Likes: strong female lead, superb action/animation, fresh story, gripping pilot episode, detailed and unique supporting characters, and most of all the world map.  Dislikes: Pacing was uneven, super-weird cliffhanger in the middle that made me question the entire series, too much trivial dialogue.

This manga blew up, in anime circles, when it hit shelves in January of 2011.  30 million copies had sold when the show released it's first episode.  Everyone was excited by the show's potential.  However, while this anime adaptation is wildly popular, suspenseful, and beautifully animated, it too fails to live up to its potential in my opinion.  I wish the creators would have focused more on developing the detailed, inter-personal relationship between the unique characters in the story instead of wasting time on inner monologues.  Let the characters' stats reveal themselves through their interactions instead of isolating each in their respective moments of despair, forcing the viewer to continually ask, "When will my favorite character die?"

Star Wars Rebels (#Animated)

What's it about: This is a continuation of Cartoon Network's Clone Wars.  The story is set sometime between the 3rd and 4th films where the Jedi are being exterminated and the rebellion begins to form (IMDB).

First Impressions: If you liked Clone Wars, you're going to love this!  Watch the trailer video to learn about the new blood they're bringing onto the project...

Almost Human (#Fox #Sci-fi #Fall):

What's it about: "This is a show with impeccable sci-fi credentials: It's an original concept from Fringe producer J.H. Wyman, teamed with JJ Abrams, and starring the always-awesome Karl Urban (Judge Dredd). And the pilot sets up a nice blend of gritty cop show and Fringe-ish science crime in a not-too-distant future. John (Urban) is a cop who has been tracking a violent and mysterious crime syndicate whose members are more interested in jacking programmable DNA than cash. But when his team is ambushed, his partner dies and he loses a leg. Cut to almost two years later, and a tough but traumatized John is recovering from a long coma and trying to reintegrate back into a police force that has changed a lot since he winked out. Every human officer must have a robot partner. Except John hates the emotionless, rule-worshiping cop robots so much that he can't even integrate his cybernetic leg properly with his body most of the time. Enter Dorian (played with a lovable smirk by Michael Ealy), a special emotional robot who was decommissioned years ago for 'breaking' in tense situations just like a human would. The two make a great pair, as two emotionally volatile cops who have just returned to work after a period of 'decommissioning.' Lili Taylor plays the sympathetic police chief, who doesn't trust anyone but John (and now, Dorian) to stay on the syndicate's trail. As the action ramps up in the pilot, John and Dorian have to learn to work together to deal with a new round of creepy DNA-based attacks from the syndicate (via iO9)."



First Impressions: "These may be stock characters in familiar crime show situations, but Almost Human brings on enough science-fictional weirdness that the show feels fresh and interesting. The chemistry between Urban and Ealy is terrific, with just the right amount of wry humor and genuine pathos. And we are immediately plunged into a mystery about the syndicate that's pleasingly weird (what are they doing with those futuristic chemicals and DNA?) and packed with conspiracy potential (did somebody on the force feed the syndicate intel so they could ambush John's team?). Plus, I just love the post-humanity of it all, with an emotional robot working with an emotionally shut-down cop whose body is partly cybernetic. This could be your futuristic action obsession for the fall season (via iO9)."

Intelligence (#Sci-fi #CBS #Fall #Midseason)

What's it about? "Intelligence stars Josh Holloway (LOST) as Gabriel, a former Delta Force operative who has been enhanced with a computer chip in his head. Project Clockwork lets Gabriel access and transmit digital transmissions through his brain. He can run bits of language he hears through Google Translate, access government records on everyone he sees, and even infect enemy computers with viruses. He's the most valuable asset of United States Cyber Command, run by Lillian Strand (Marg Helgenberger), but he's also unpredictable. Gabriel's wife Amelia, another intelligence agent, was involved in a terrorist attack while under deep cover, and has long been presumed dead. But Gabriel believes that Amelia is still alive and is intent on finding her and learning the truth. To protect CyberComm's investment, Strand taps Riley Neal (Meghan Ory), a heroic Secret Service agent to serve as Gabriel's bodyguard and, ultimately, his partner in the field  (via iO9)."



First Impressions: "These shows live and die by the chemistry between their leads, and the pilot doesn't show much crack and pop between Holloway and Ory. It's aiming for the straight-laced woman/obstreperous man team-up that makes shows like Castle such a success, but like its protagonist, the pilot is't quite as charming as it thinks it is. Still, it has one particularly stellar moment that leaves us hope that Intelligence will do some smart things with its premise (via iO9)."