i MUST say: dont play it to enjoy the anime then, trust me and the >300 people who have rated it over 9 on the vndb on it being fantastically great.I'll consider it. I don't have a lot of time to play visual novels though, so I probably won't get to it for a while. All I'm saying is I'm almost definitely going to see the anime first. hmmm.... blame it on a rather bland season then... i guess. and yeah, on it being great (Rin adorability makes Fluttershy seem 'normal' sometimes, this coming from an absolute Fluttertard as me)There seem to be a lot of series this season featuring aggressively cute young girls, and I think I'm watching most of them. Might be why it doesn't stand out to me quite as much. well yeah, like i said it IS enjoyable but some people are going a bit too far: it seriously needs to STOP PLAYING THE WHOLE GODDAMN TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE ALREADY, GOT ANNOYING/OLD SINCE THE 3RD TIME I have absolutely no problem with excessive, repeated transformation sequences. I've just grown used to it. I mean, they're in practically any given traditional magical girl show. That comic is great though. I would probably agree that those are my five favorite shows of the year so far (even if I still haven't seen the last few episodes of Gosick for whatever reason). But I really pay almost no attention to hype when it comes to anime. I didn't even know people were calling Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko one of the best shows of the year (the other ones on that comic I probably could have guessed on the other hand). I've seen very little of the Penguindrum hype, so I know I'm not being caught up in it. I'm just genuinely impressed by the show. I've been watching Blood-C (a given considering I've enjoyed CLAMP works in the past and also love other works in the Blood franchise). This anime doesn't seem very deep, but it's appealingly stylish and fun to watch.