Completed: Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East Season 1

there's a three month break between season 1 and 2 so i figure i may as well talk about season 1 while it's fresh in my mind.

when i first watched the preview for this show my first thought was. "wow, this is a really pretty show" i knew nothing about the Hakkenden (and to be fair i only know a little bit about it now even after watching many different videos talking about it/the show) and i was going in to the series completely blind.

Then i watched the intro song and noticed something.
first 30 seconds:
cool lots of action, lots of pretty boys
Next 30 seconds:
even more pretty boys and quick flashes of past and furture... cool.
next 25 seconds
cool you get to see a bit of the conflict with a character you may trust at the start
final 5 seconds of intro:
Oh this is a shonen Ai title.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

it was just like "oh yeah look at all this cool stuff oh and fun fact boys will be getting really close to each other constantly."

however it wasn't only done for fanservice (well... okay most of it was but honestly i've seen worse for the 'we are just trying to get money from girls' anime genre) so i continued to watch hoping for a decent story.

I really should learn by now that Hope is not a plan. i need to start planning to enjoy shows...

this show is mediocre at best.
Yes the art is pretty but the plot is pretty much none existent.

Shino, a young boy was left dying in a field with his friend Sosuke, a man with blond hair and church garb comes up to them and offers them to chance to live with the price being that Shino will house a demon that will eventually end his life and Sosuke will fuse his soul with the pet dog.

Fast forward a few years and that man who saved them is now their guardian and has given the two the task to find others who have beads like they have had since they were born, there are 8 beads in total. he could have also told him that they will probably have similar birthmarks and have the character for Dog somewhere in their last name but details details.

however all that plot i just mentioned.... never really furthered.
i mean we the audience know he's found at least 3 other... hell 4 other Hakkenden but Shino, who i should mention hasn't aged a day, is just a stupid kid who can't put things together.
i can count 3 episodes where the beads are even mentioned.
i dunno this kinda stuff just annoys me cause you set up the plot... and then you ignore it for a quick cash in at the end to be like "well remember folks... this is was the story is really about.... in three months maybe we'll actually get back to that instead of just having Shino be the crazy whiny but incredibly whiny kid he's been all season so far.
that or we'll just throw more shonen ai themes at you cause you're women and thats all you care about.
it was just so lazy.
for 13 episodes there was a ton of filler and the filler was just fanservice.
i do not like fanservice for the sake of fanservice... if it drives the plot forward then great but if you are just doing it so that you can entice people to watch cause it was in the ending stinger of the previous episode.... yeah screw you get back to the plot.
Also this stupid CG furry eyeball thing is never explained.... 13 episodes and i kinda wanna know what is going on with it. but nope... gotta take the lazy route.

The good:
The intro song and ending songs were great, really set the mood for an action heavy show.
the art and animation is stunning, bright and colourful and really works well... i espeically love the eyes though i hate the way they colour the eyelashes cause.... eye colour doesn't determine lash colour....
thats a rant for another time though.

The not so good:
13 episodes and i can name only 2 plot relevant episodes and both are near the end.
Hamaji, the girl who was around when shino and sosuke made the deal to live.... she is there for a chunk and they make it seem like she's important to the main two but she almost never meets up with them, she is pretty much the "make shino do stupid shit he should know not to do" plot device so she gets kidnapped a few times... then when they are done with her they ship her off to boarding school where boys can't go on property and the next time we see her is for all of 2-5 minutes of the final episode. again.... LAZY

The bad:
I'm just realizing how much this show annoyed me, i honestly wasn't this irritated when i started to write this...
anyways th worst thing about this show is the wasted potential. this could have been a great show where he's searching for the other Hakkenden in secret and maybe he manages to get them all one by one.... instead he finds 3 almost immediately, doesn't realize what they are but they are all gathered so when he does realize it's all good that things just HAPPENED to work out.
oh but theres this other guy and he looks liek one of the hakkenden and oh no whats his deal.... oh just getting super close to shino for the ending stinger..... GREAT....  
worse then the way the plot is handled and the characters are handled is the fact that it's so lazy.... i hate lazy things, it just makes me mad.

am i going to watch season 2? only if the summer season doesn't have much to offer....
though it better cause so far with Spring 2013 only one title looks interesting to me... the rest looks like/is moe garbage that i rather not waste my time on.... but more on that after the first ep of every show i plan to try is out.