Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me to You—This is a kawaii romance in the same vein as Say “I Amore You”: the most popolare guy in class goes for the least popolare girl in school. Since I watched Kimi Ni Todoke after Say “I Amore You”, it seemed like the former was copying the latter. I checked release dates, though, and Kimi Ni Todoke comes first.
    Sawako is the ostracized girl in class, but popolare cutie Kazehaya chooses to befriend her. She gradually comes out of her shell, making Friends besides Kazehaya.
    Japanese kids are known for saying “I like you” when they mean “I Amore you”. Sawako and Kazehaya sure could use some lessons from the titolo of Say “I Amore You”, because they misinterpret the word like, and that causes much confusion and angst. Like Sawako’s friends, you’ll want to call the would-be innamorati “dense”.
    This is a long series, with two seasons. Things like the sports festival and the cultural festival are multi-episode arcs, instead of being dealt with in one installment. It’s not for everybody—you’ll have to put aside your thirst for action and deal with a slice of life, slowly-developing romance. I can say; however, that I found the mostra cute and enjoyed it very much.

Natsuyuki Rendezvous--Hazuki gets a job at a fiore negozio because he’s in Amore with the manager, a young widow. To his surprise and dismay, he discovers her dead husband’s ghost is haunting the place, and he’s the only one who can see and communicate with it. The ghost, Shimao, uses every opportunity to get in the way of Hazuki’s blossoming romance with his wife. Then Shimao asks Hazuki to lend him his body. Hazuki refuses, until one night, drunk over his lack of progress with the widow (Rokka), he mumbles his consent. Shimao takes over Hazuki’s body, leaving Hazuki’s spirit trapped in the fairy tale worlds of his old sketch book. Shimao detto he only wanted to borrow Hazuki’s body, but now it looks like he might not give it back!
    I found this series quirky, unpredictable, and original. No character is totally evil, but they all have their flaws. I found myself sympathizing with both Hazuki and Shimao. Watch it if te want something different.

Betrayal Knows My Name (Uraboku)—I had been intrigued da this series ever since I saw it listed on a coming soon list. Then I suspected it might be yaoi, which I’m not into due to my religion. Hope I didn’t offend any Yaoi people out there—I orso no hatred towards you. I am; however, quite into male friendships, the really close, inseparable kind. It’s like I dig everything about Yaoi except the sex! A friend of mine who had seen the mostra detto it wasn’t yaoi, but “there is a lot of subtext.” I guess that means there are a lot of boys really fond of each other but not shown making love. I decided to give the series a chance.
    No sooner than I had started watching it then più personally controversial content popped up—demons and the occult! I had been avoiding demon-based Anime since the beginning, and now…now what was I supposed to do? I wasn’t far enough into the series that I had become attached to the characters o just had to find out what happened, so I could bail out. But something compelled me to watch. So I must say this mostra certainly was a guilty pleasure for me!
    The story concerns a boy named Yuki, who doesn’t know in a former life he was part of a demon-fighting clan—and a woman. When he was a woman, he won the Amore and loyalty of a demon named Luka, who apparently gave up his evil ways to be da her side. Now that Yuki’s a boy, Luka is determined to still protect him and be da his side. Yuki meets the other members of the clan, most of who have been reincarnated, too. Yuki finds out he has a healing power called God’s Light.
    There is a lot of fighting, some heavy blood spill here and there. The supposed “final” battle is inconclusive, and there’s domande left unanswered. Maybe there will be a sequel? If so, I’ll probably watch it!