I couldn't watch it as soon as it aired so I was really jealous of people who were able to watch it before me.... someone even teased me x_x Wah! You're evil xD Hahahhahaha! But I've finally seen it last night so I was very happy! =3I found gold last Summer 2007, and it looks like I've found another one on the same season this year! Oh my god! It even felt like it was so meant for me because of its many many many occult references, reminds me of my favorite TV series, Supernatural, which is also already so occult from the title alone. I'm quite happy that DRRR!! has ended for now (I still anticipate a second season!) so that I don't need to have a dilemma on choosing between that and Occult Academy. Hehe.All of the supernatural themed series in this season have already aired I think, and I believe we could already figure out which seems most promising on their first episodes. My vote goes to Occult Academy naturally (I even ended up blogging it). Of course I also love the other good supernatural themed series of Summer 2010. But if I have to compare them to Occult Academy:Highschool of the Dead - is bloody awesome but its fanservice is just too out of place. Maya also has a short dress but we don't see her panties all the time. The camera in HotD is too perverted. The title is Highschool of the DEAD, not Highschool of the SLUTS. So gimme horror and gore made by dead freakazoids instead of scenes that want to tease those into porn.Kuroshitsuji 2 - wins for its WTF creepiness of epic awesomeness as long as you keep Lizzy and Ciel's servants (even Ciel... but I don't really hate him. Alois is just hell better xD) out of the story and give more glory to the new butler + master pair. I'm watching this for the psycho horror, not the "gay" unlike many of the fans. Story and character development in season 1 sucked, don't repeat that crap.Nurarihyon no Mago - is great but its non-youkai characters degraded it drastically. It's hell better without them. And since it's mainstream shounen, it follows several shounen cliches/flaws. The enemies of the recent arc are the really really challenging and exciting ones..... so I more on look forward to the latest arc instead.Shiki - is genius but you need to have the patience and effort to be able to tolerate the characters. There are chances of them growing on you or not. Some become somewhat likable later, but there are really a number of them that are almost 100% despicable.But of course, if you're more into lotsa violence and fanservice, go for HotD; if you're more into BL undertones or psychopaths, go for Kuro 2; if you're more into shounen action and adventure, go for Nurarihyon; and if you're more into decays and eerieness, go for Shiki. What's awesome still depends on the person.For me, Occult Academy wins even if I'm getting tired of the school setting. At least it's not an ordinary school, neither the usual magic school type. I haven't encountered a series that has a school that studies the occult in general (that is not just on magic or omyouji/exorcism stuff) so that's unique enough for me~Speaking of the school, the infrastructure alone already has a lot of references to it. It's so difficult to look up to all of them because they're really so many. It shows that the anime staff certainly did A LOT of research while doing this series. Some might not be accurate (I can't find a source that describes the "lamie" introduced in the first episode) but still, majority of them seem to be based on actual occult stuff in the real world. That's impressive enough.(I wonder how much their tution fee is....)The OP's so amazing! I thought of checking out the references from it, and oh boy I discovered loads, and many of them I'm not familiar with, so learning about them had been fun! But *sigh*, I don't think I can look into the occult references of every single episode. It'll be time consuming and.... there's areally so much of them O_O;;; whoaaaa.... I hope the aniem staff makes some sort of guide on all of the references it's doing. They're interesting to know ^^Back to the OP, the visuals are so mindblogging and creative. Overall terrific! Even the song is good and has a connection to the series! The song in the ED isn't so bad either. It's a unique ED for featuring real people with one of them looking like Maya (I'm not certain if the other's Fumiaki because the clothes seem different) but.... but.... THEY CREEP ME OUT! Staring on a blank space like that.... not moving.... they're like human dolls that came to life or something. ^^; Ehehehehe.....Occult/supernatural doesn't have to be scary, unless the series wants to focus on the dark/evil/malicious/dangerous side of those mysterious beliefs/practices/phenomena. This series may be making references to devils and other horrific themes, but it doesn't seem to have the intention to scare its audience.... at least not beyond Goosebumps level. Ehehe. The spooky occurences have even been comedic actually, and the monster fighting seems to be as safe as Ghostbuster level. So my point is, if you want to consider it horror, it's just PG horror; not the type of horror that would give you nightmares.(Yes, yes, it's still PG horror even with the axe and the green blood and the medieval torture equipments, ahahahaha)Now back to its occult references, as the previews/trailers/promos have promised, it does offer a lot of occult stuff: from aliens to psychics to monsters to time travelling and so on. But it looks like its primary focus is the prophecies regarding the End of the World, and the popular specified dates for that are in the years 1999 and 2012 (is it coincidence that if you subtract the two, their difference is 13??? o_o). Most apocalyptic anime, from what I know, is in the setting wherein the world has already ended, not before it's about to end. I'm curious on how this series will be preventing this phenomenon, and what its interpretation of how the world will end~By the way, for a series that is focused on the occult, its main character is actually against the theme. She hates occult in general and wants it to stop affecting human lives. There's no good occult or bad occult to her because for her, all of them suck. She wants to consider them as delusions and don't find the occult necessary in life. However, though she keeps on denying its existence infront of others, she actually acknowledges that they're real. Don't you know, in the real world, though most of the occult stuff are proven frauds, many of them are actually VERY REAL! Don't make me prove them.... either way, whether that's true or not, they're still dangerous, so don't ever try it to be safe, especially the dark and evil ones. They're not..... nice. And don't really bring nice results either, like with Maya's past:(poor little darling~)Back to our main character, Maya isn't just someone who's involved in the occult, but is actually fighting against it (but not in a exorcist versus spirits type; she hates occult in general after all). She's capable of combat and has the knowledge of how to get rid of them. So that means, she studied her enemy and has prepared herself on her war against in it. I applaud to her for not being the usual closeminded anti-occult idiot (The father of Natsuno from Shiki is like that, so bad things happened to his son thanks to that. Sorry for slight spoiler on Shiki, but I just had to give an example of a stupid type of anti-occult person). Maya's not only a badass, but she's got the brains and the guts as well. She's not exactly rude, but if what you think pisses her off, she'll tell you straightforwardedly.... either that or once she ran out of patience. Her way of expressing her irritation is obvious (she also rants a lot when given the chance, even on stage!) and she'd insult anyone with no exceptions. But that doesn't make her a bad person either; she will give you her help if you need it (like when she rescued glasses girl). She is also capable of acting in order to fool the enemy. And no, she doesn't do sentimental moments on the wrong times. If she needs to butcher people, she'll do it, even if it's her father's corpse. She does love her father but a corpse is not him anymore after all. She doesn't hesitate nor waste her time on trivial matters! And of course, she's a beauty!!!! Her legs are hott and even if her dress is so short, her panties aren't exposed as often as most ecchi anime do. There's fanservice in this series though (the preview for the second episode already showed a lot) but if they're just short eyecandies and won't waste most of its precious minutes, I won't mind~ She's hott anywayz, haha! I thank this series for giving me a new goddess. Hahaha!(Even if she's the cool type, she's not exempted from these type of comedic scenarios. And unlike other characters who experience this, she still feels the pain after that fall for quite a while)The only thing that I find pretty weird about Maya is that.... yes, she has a pretty dress... but why the same wardrobe since childhood? I believe she's rich, so variety of costumes please ^^; It's already pretty awkward for a character to only wear the same thing during the present setting in the entire series.... but the same outfit since childhood??? Oh come on....Okay, about the other characters this time. Supposedly I would have disliked the megane girl, but the "glasses joke classic" even when she's in monster form is just so hilarious! And funny that she's still in character and wasn't excused from being pwned when she got possessed! Hahahaha! As for Maya's childhood friend, she was just so-so for me until I saw her interact with Maya. Maya drives her crazy since childhood, and that got me amused, haha! Dowser dude looked lame at first but he totally got my respect when he didn't go butthurt for being called a Porco Rosso. And his dowsing device actually works! As for our mechanic, the irony of being called Smile even though he doesn't do any smiling makes him a fun character for me. Haha! The most intriguing for me though is the vice-principal. I thought she was a loser who cries easily (and her nose errr... leaking you-know-what, LOLz), it turns out that she's plotting something villaneous yet she's not underestimating our heroine. The characters are being more different and more interesting than what they appear to be!!! That's sooooooo awesome!!!!About Maya's papa, he reminds me so much of the beloved coach in Slamdunk xD Haha! But anywayz, he seemed to be a nice and comedic old man, just a little weird because of his occult mania. The tape recording thing was really hilarious, and so as his monster self xD But in Maya's flashback it has been revealed that he was indeed a loving father but had also been capable of doing something pretty harsh. Ah well, whatever his personality is, I have doubts on him being really dead..... or at least he wasn't killed because of the evil spirit he summoned. The vice principal has mentioned that Maya's not to be udnerestimated because she's the principal's daghter, then most likely there's something extraordinary with the principal himself. If he had expected the vice principal to be up to no good, I believe he would most liekly have prepared something, right? But in any case, the main reason why I'm quite doubtful of his death because he looks pretty similar to one of the people inside the room during the 2012 timeline:(He looks like the principal, right?)Speaking of that part, our leading guy is some time travelling spy called an Abe Minoru(?). The guys before him failed, so it looks like #6 is the only hope. Put that upside down and it's #9, which is the Selacao number of the leading guy of Eden of the East. Fumiaki and Akira have one big similarity: their first meeting with the leading lady is them being completely naked. Fumiaki's entrance is more grande though, because he came from the sky and he was rotating as he descends. The shadow johnnie.... LOLz! And I love it that Maya's reaction is just: "WTF O_O;;;;;", and no blushes like most anime girls would do when they saw a naked dude. Well, at least she hasn't done that in this episode. I kinda doubt that she'll do any blushes on the next episode.... I doubt she'll blush this early at all. I don't even think the main duo would be in a romantic relationship.... but I don't mind if they do. Fufufufufufuu~(What an amusingly epic first meeting. Terminator references, right? I love the movie taste of the staff~)I can't say much about the leading guy yet because he just appeared at the end of this episode. But no matter how much of a loser/dope he has been portrayed as in the previous and even in the OP theme, I'm sure I'll love this character. I don't think he's some time travelling agent that can do psychokinesis for nothing~Overall, this has been a fantastic debut for it excelled and had been unique in so many ways already in just its first episode. It's not only good and interesting, but also very very very entertaining. It's fun to watch and you don't exactly have to be an occult lover to enjoy it. The music's great and the animation's terrific (it's by Aniplex, so of course! As I've always mentioned, Aniplex has yet to disappoint me! xD So of course, from background art to character motion to effects and so on, all are cool xD). I'll be watching this until the end, and I really think it has no plans on disappointing me (I had the same feeling on Narita's works) so.... hooray! =D I'm already so madly in love with this series *_*
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