Anime first look

[readsalot]

These are a few series that I've just started watching.

Marmalade Boy:

Miki is a teenage girl whose parents have just announced that they're going to divorce, swap partners with another couple they've recently met, and then remarry. Because the adults all think this is a great idea and they all want to stay friends, they're going to all move in to a new, big house together. Oh, and the other couple has a very cute teenage son who's Miki's age. Isn't that nice?
This is about the only non-sf or fantasy anime series that I've watched (well, except for Noir, which I hated.) I'm not sure how I feel about teen angst without giant mecha or superpowers. Miki starts out being appalled by her parents, and not sure what to do about the attraction she feels toward her step-brother Yuu, and then more people show up and the relationships start to get complicated. It's mostly light-hearted, so I'll keep watching, but I don't feel a really urgent need to see the next episode now.

Angelic Layer:

Another CLAMP story. Twelve-year-old Misaki arrives in Tokyo, sees a game of Angelic Layer being played on a big screen, and is enthralled. A weird and almost-creepy guy starts giving her pointers, and she by the end of Disk 1, she's gotten into a major tournament.
This one's really cute. People playing the game of Angelic Layer take one-foot-tall dolls, customize them, make costumes for them, and then use a sort of VR/psychic technology to make them fight against each other. It would almost be like an RPG, except that there doesn't seem to be any sort of experience system for improving the dolls. The cuteness of Misaki and her friends is balanced by as-yet-unexplained plotlines among the adults, including what the heck creepy guy (who seems to be a senior researcher for the people who created and run Angelic Layer) is up to, and what's up with Misaki's mother (who sends her money but hasn't had any contact with her for years). I'm really looking forward to watching more of this.

Rurouni Kenshin:

Kaoru runs a dojo, teaching a style of swordplay that was invented by her grandfather. There's a guy going around killing people who claims that he's a student of her school, which is very bad for her reputation, and she wants to stop him. While doing so, she runs into Kenshin, a wandering samurai who seems harmless at first.
Wow! This is great! Kenshin spends half the time being clumsy, looking sweet and harmless, and playing with children. But when things get dangerous, his eyes narrow, he gets serious, and he's utterly deadly. Obviously there's going to be a romance plot between Kenshin and Kaoru, but I've only seen two episodes so far. It's going to be very hard to choose between watching this and sleeping. Woe is me.