When you adore something, it’s hard not to slip into superlatives when describing it. So strong is that swell of emotion that it almost feels like words aren’t enough to encompass just how much something personally means to you. I adore Kyousougiga. It’s beautiful and flawed and moving and stunning in ways that little else is. It’s telling that those who talk about the series gush like crumbling dams, desperately trying to hold back a torrent of enthusiasm.

The obvious question though is what Kyousogiga (Capital Craze) is about? It would be disingenuous to the series to just enumerate its many themes and storylines, and the simplest answer is reiterated at the beginning of each episode: it’s a story about love and rebirth in a family across time and dimensions. It’s a grand claim not entirely borne out by the first episode - confusingly numbered 00 - which is a maelstrom of technicolour bedlam set to the sounds of children laughing and adult scorn.

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Rental Magica is another series which attempts to be the right-side of the "magic + school children =" equation. Whether the glut of recent shows with this theme is some kind of fallout from the Harry Potter fangasm or perhaps just some kind of coincidence is a question for the future; what is clear is that Rental Magica is a step ahead of its peers by not only being meticulously researched but, more importantly, remarkably engaging and fun.

Beginning with a frantic and kinetic opening sequence on a strangely deserted highway, the series follows a tried-and-tested template of a chaotic first episode, followed by a sedate second and finally settling into a more balanced third. The first is replete with foreshadowing and scattered dialogue one expects from an introduction; it neatly sections out what are no doubt going to be the meat of the series in the form of monster quelling, client interaction and light-hearted school jocularity. None of these individual aspects merit undue focus and the test of the series will be in how well it balances the different facets. After such a riotous initiation, the series obliquely steps back in time in order to flesh out the cycloptic protagonist and his apparent memory loss and relation to the derisive witch of the show. It's an odd move, especially as it at first seems to serve only to reintroduce the tiresome "rich" wench whose saving grace is her UK origin. The third episode continues to explore the enigmatic characters in the central "Astral" team, a format likely to be repeated until a more coherent antagonist can be conjured up.

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There is only one way to describe the scope and scale of Heroic Age: operatic. Far from the derogatory connotations of "Space Opera" championed by other anime such as Sekai no Senki (Banner of the Stars), it is a grand yet personal series which is ceaselessly ambitious, frequently breathtaking and always graceful and poised in its delivery. It is as diverged from the trappings of pulpy space opera as can be by excelling at both the intimate moments and the monumental battles.

From Angela's typically vast opening through the orchestral stirrings comprising the bulk of the soundtrack to the tender melody of Ishikawa Yui's closing, even the audio of the series is grandiose, evocative and fitting as battles are fought, lives lost and emotions plucked. The most prominent part of Heroic Age is the epic battles fought across light-years and planets, yet even this is but a small part of the series as it never allows itself to be nailed down to one narrative device, switching seamlessly from a light hearted fish-out-of-water story to the machinations of the deity-like antagonists. The surprisingly large cast of characters are expertly fleshed out and range from fatally stupid to dashingly honourable; Deianeira, the protagonist and a royal princess, is pitched as the prototypical naive leader, however her astute decision making rightly inspires the most indomitable loyalty and by the climax her role as a strong, impassioned woman is unquestionable.

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