Anime that I'm Currently Watching

The other day I started watching all four anime series that were still sitting on my hard drive: Scrapped Princess, Bakuretsu Tenshi, Shuffle!, and RahXephon. Some of these have been metaphorically gathering dust since last March, and I can't even remember why I downloaded them. I've only watched the first few episodes, but so far I'm liking Scrapped Princess and Bakuretsu Tenshi the most.

Scrapped Princess is about an innocent eyed girl called Pacifica who has been prophesized will cause the world's destruction when she turns 16. Her older siblings, a brother who wields a sword and a sister who uses magic, are her only guardians, and are devoted to protecting her from the scores of people trying to kill her. The character designs and historical setting reminds me of Fire Emblem.

Bakuretsu Tenshi (aka Burst Angel) is set in a near future where crime is rampant. A scrawny looking culinary student is hired to cook for a group of four young female mercenaries. Jo and Meg are the ones that seem to do most of the grunt work. Sei is older and the leader of the group. Amy is the youngest and the computer wiz. I find it interesting how Jo and Meg's characters look so much like Rei and Asuka from Evangelion, given how their personalities are not the same at all.

Shuffle! seems to be your run-of-the-mill harem anime. Rin, the main character, is a high school student and lives with his childhood friend who takes care of him by waking him up and cooking him breakfast and such. For whatever reason, Rin is chosen by the lord of the gods and by the lord of the demons to marry their respective daughters, who become his new neighbors. I think this series could get boring really fast, especially since the only difference between humans, gods, and demons seem to be the shape of their ears.

RahXephon has been said to be Evangelion without all the angst. Both series have kids piloting giant mecha. I almost laughed when Ayato, RahXephon's version of Shinji, was talking about the quiet girl called Reika being absent from school and the camera zoomed in on her empty desk. The main difference seems to be that RahXephon turns up the "what the hell" quotient right away (i.e. people with blue blood, everyone living in an artificial world, and stuff hatching from giant eggs) whereas Evangelion was fairly normal until about the middle of the series.