Of late, or rather, as of 2007 since I started getting into anime rather “aggressively”, a seiyuu back then that just popped up as a small name on the side was Katou Emiri. She was hardly a name I picked up much on at the time for two reasons – the first was that I was not as grateful for the seiyuu scene back then when I was still a newbie to the anime world, and the second was that she was voicing a side character. But as of 2008, Katou moved into quite the high rank for voicing one of my waifus. And right now, in the summer season, she is taking on two roles that might as well be cast as mains in their respective series, and one other minor role, making it a total of 3 series this season I am watching (out of 5) that she is in.

The problem? These three roles seem to conflicting with what I am used to hearing from Katou. Let me attempt to find out why, and whether it may just be me. By the way, the picture above is the best I could do on short notice, I fail at Google it seems, finding a picture of her that does not make her look stupid. The picture comes from her own personal blog, Emiri no Nichijou, and is part of her banner.

The first of the new series that I wanted to catch started with Needless. Without even viewing the trailer, and just looking at the art and the storyline, this show already gave me Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann vibes, or those of an epic (and really ridiculous) anime. In other words, an anime to be taken in light mind and heart and not seriously. Screencaps all the way until my impressions, though if you kept up with my Twitter, you would have known what I thought in a nutshell about this first episode.

Image thanks to Incise-soul.

And the summer is already upon us with full force. I have been feeling the raging heat here for weeks already, so much so that my room temperature has gone up abnormally each day, forcing me to turn on my air-conditioner for short stretches to bring it down so I can survive. But in any case, I was never a fan of summer anime much, and this current list of anime series airing is still not enough to make me feel encouraged. Nevertheless, here are mine and three other guest writers’ impressions of the shows we are or are not watching, and unlike my spring anime watchlist, this is a serious post, because I got others’ opinions written in as well.