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I was glad to hear that. I remember I started reading it once it had near 300 chapters out and I read it all in a day. Loved it until it started to just revive everyone and went into this end of the world plot. Now I'm just happy it's finally going to be over since I was worried that the mangaka would somehow extend it out even farther than this.

Heh, I guess it's more a question of how much I can stand S2 of OreImo than anything. While I wasn't fond of the first one, it still had its amusing moments here and there. The bickering between Kirino and Kyousuke/Kuroneko did give me an occasional chuckle but now I'm finding the drama has made things go south even more. That's not to say that the catalyst for drama in the first season was much better, but here a lot of it is solely based on Kirino's whims to instigated supposed hilarity rather than the social alienation she feels. For instance, the last episode was focused around Kirino wanting Kyousuke to pose as her boyfriend (totally not incest), and this one was about her lies to make Kyousuke care for her (non-suggestive family dynamics). I guess it doesn't help that this season seems to be focused mainly on working through her emotional problems, which as a result has all but halted the romantic progression between Kyousuke and Kuroneko (a pretty significant plot point due to the specials taking their relationship quite far). The worst part (besides Kirino's unreasonable antics) is that conflicts are resolved in an extremely convenient manner, thus cheapening the impact of the character development. Making matters worse is that Kirino essentially goes through personality re-sets after each episode causing her prior "development" to culminate to nothing. Overall, I'd say that while not a whole lot worse than the first, this season is a definite step back for the franchise.

Yeah, I guess I kind of overdosed on the Precure this last week. 47 episodes in one week is no big deal, right? Somehow I find mahou shoujo titles the easiest to marathon.

Also, looks like you've started Lain. Let me know how that is after you finish at as it's one series that people seem to either love or hate.

I think it's pretty rare to find students who are truly interested in classes, at least pre-college level, but at that point I don't think it's so much interest rather than everyone's figure out how flawed the system is and only "cares" because their degree depends on it.

Agreed, and I know at least from when I was still in high school, there were some teachers who seemed to genuinely care about teaching, but even then they were becoming more scarce. A bit of personal preference for a moment, but I was the kind of person who loved the teachers that didn't really care. I had a World History teacher who right out said something along the lines of, "It's not my job to force you to learn, so if you don't want to that's fine" at the start of the year, and I thought that was great. All he'd really do is tell us that the next test would cover X pages in the textbook and we could take and use 1 full page of notes on the test, then he'd let us go about our business for the rest of class as long as we looked busy if someone came in the classroom. Then again, I like to do things at my own pace, which is usually faster than most, seeing I like to get things done and over with quickly. So teachers that actually took the effort to teach were more of a hassle than anything to me. I know not everyone is like that though, much like that guy in the video who still cares for the more hands on approach of teaching.

Anyways, pretty much exactly like you said, I have no doubt that more and more teachers will become unmotivated as time goes on, especially because of how the current education system works, and I don't really see it changing anytime soon.

They call it "higher education" and not "higher intelligence" for a reason.

I can see what he's getting at, but all school will be in the end is how well you can memorize information from whatever source you're given (teacher, books, etc), so it's not like getting a teacher to really connect with students and "properly" teach them does anything for the students in the long run. Sure, it might give some students more motivation at the time, but if you're in high school and don't know how to motivate yourself, you'll likely have problems when you go out into the real world since nobody is going to sit and hold your hand until you feel like actually doing work. At the end of the day, it's all up to the students to actually apply the things they learned in school, which for the most part, you won't really need to do unless you plan on pursuing a good career after college. Even in that event, what would you need to know varies on what field you're going into, so a majority of what you learn in high school is moot. So to me it really just sounds like he's making excuses for being lazy by blaming the teacher and their methods of teaching more than anything else. That, or he just strongly believes in ideals that practically no longer exist in this day and age, which is nice for him and all, but it's not going to change anything.

Yeah, Uchuu Kyoudai did move to an earlier time slot, so I guess it would make sense for them to spend 4 episodes recapping the past 4 seasons. That being said, I'm not sure what they would have done had they decided to do one recap after each season. Either way, I've just been getting really tired of them dragging out the most mundane and irrelevant events for this long. I don't have an issue with slow pacing if it is used to flesh out the setting/key scenes or craft an atmosphere, but Uchuu Kyoudai has done neither well. Instead, what we've gotten is a lot of episodes that focus on side characters who never appear again or become irrelevant later on. Either that or more training for Mutta which just seems to reiterate how hard it is to become an astronaut (as if this wasn't apparent after the first arc). Perhaps this is common place for shounen series, but for a non-episodic/plot-driven show such as this one, its pacing leaves much to be desired. It's really a shame, since space/sci-fi titles usually end up as my some of my favourites, but I find my interest in Uchuu Kyoudai wavering with each passing episode.

I've already made plans to check out Planetes (and resume LoGH) as I've gotten some good recommendations about it from some other people. Also, while we're on the topic of similar types of shows, you should check out The Wings of Honneamise when you get the chance. It's often compared to Planetes and deals with the astronaut theme very well while constructing a realistic society and depicting its political instability. Ultimately, all of this affects the lead character and his dream to go into space since public support for the space program begins to falter. And heck, they actually send the guy into space after 2 hours as opposed to the 100+ it will likely take before Mutta sees anything resembling the stratosphere. :3

W-wait I didn't mean it that way! I would never be unfaithful to Chiaki even with all these Precure girls turning up! :(

Shingeki no Kyojin is the universally hyped show of the season. I've been a fan of the manga for a while and I think they're doing an excellent job at adapting it, so it's not like the hype is undeserved at least. Although I'm worried about the fact that it has a lot of the Guilty Crown staff working on it, but as long as they don't have to write anything themselves, it should turn out great. An anime-only ending is really the only fear I have so far. The OST and animation are nothing short of amazing.

Suisei no Gargantia is one of my favorites this season. It seems like it'll be one of Gen's better works IMO. It's also much less of a mecha than it lets on and is more about the characters and their interactions so far, but I think it does that very well. Also has good production values.

Hataraku Maou-sama is surprisingly funny. Pretty much solidifies White Fox as one of my favorite studios. The first episode is a pretty big comedic surprise and I didn't expect almost a single joke from it, which made it hilarious. You may expect some of the jokes every now and then from episode 2 on, but their delivery on them is top notch and doesn't fail to make me laugh.

Kakumeiki Valvrave I'm on the fence about. It's pretty much Gundam, but ridiculously high-budget. If you've seen Gundam 0079 or Gundam SEED, you've seen Valvrave. I personally don't mind that since I still like Gundam even though the basic premise is always the same, but I'm not sure how you would feel about it. Pretty much tied with SnK for most aesthetically pleasing show this season. Doubt it'll be anything new since Sunrise has been out of mecha ideas for years now, but at least it should be some fun. It also has a god-tier OP and 3 different EDs for this first cour alone. Sunrise is going all out on it, it seems.

Aku no Hana is controversial as all hell. Mainly because of the animation style, people shit themselves over the first episode and it was the lowest rated anime on MAL for a while. I don't think the anime is that great since the pacing is probably 10x slower than the manga, but the atmosphere is good at least. Can't say I would recommend it for anything other than understanding the hype/hate for it though.

Then there's Hyakka Ryouran S2, which I'm liking more than S1 already, and it's airing uncensored this time. It's even got meta jokes now.

I don't think there's much else worth mentioning. It's all pretty average so far and the sequels to stuff like Nyaruko and Railgun is just more of the same.

I honestly don't understand their logic behind that decision. There'd be nothing wrong with a cliffhanger end if they planned on continuing the series, but whatever. As for their animation quality, I think the big problem is they don't know how to manage their budget to save their lives. Vividred as far as I know got a pretty generous budget, but it still looked pretty sub-par far too often.

And Haruna as second favorite TLR character? I know it's going to be April 1st, but I think you're pushing the joke a little to far.