Seasonal Reviews: Winter 2016 Pt.1
2016 is now started and wedged itself into a comfortable position of confusion. David Bowie and Alan Rickman are dead, so that's not a good sign. But on the other, it looks like we may have an absurdly strong Winter season again, though not one without its problems. Myself (Jonathan), David, Danni, Joe, and Stephanie are going to tell you what airing this season is worth a look and what can best be forgotten, along with previewing possible Heavy Storms fodder (THERE'S A SHOW THIS SEASON THAT REPEATEDLY USES THE WORD "LASERJAGD").
Everyone has two drops, except for shorts. Let's take a look at this season's offerings and see what's worth what.
Full Shows
Active Raid
Jonathan Kaharl
Japan has a really different relationship with their police than here in the United States. There's no major distrust of them, at least on the same level, so more lighthearted material tends to pop up about the enforcers of law and order. Active Raid is a great example of this, a goofy action show about a ridiculous unit of eccentric but talented officers and experts using mech suits to stop crimes committed by people with illegal or stolen mech suits. I think I might love it. The series follows newbie to the force Asami Kazari, a no nonsense, by the books trainee who wants to kick the reckless Unit 8 into shape, only to find she's learning more from them. The rest of her co-workers include the go with the flow Takeru, ultra serious Soichiro, group leader and absurdly young looking Rin, and a whole mess of loons. They're also constantly crossing paths with a hacker organization of terrorists called Logos, main member being the mysterious young Mythos, whom seems to desire a breakdown of social order for some unknown purpose.
Active Raid is instantly refreshing within the first episode, as it tosses you into a new world, gets you just familiar enough with how it works, and then tosses you right into the chaos along with Asami, as the team has to take down two delinquents in high tech and modded suits. Rather than tell you what the characters are like, it simply shows you though how they react to every new situation, the red tape they have to work around, and the dialog they have with each other. Everyone is instantly likable or interesting with little detail on their personal lives or background, especially the far too serious and easily flustered Asami. There's already a good team dynamic growing from this, as Asami is accepted by the unit, with her childish ideals and personality helping balance things among her adult counterparts. The running theme of the show is maturity versus immaturity, but the series is far more clever with it than you'd normally see. Neither is shown as absolute right or wrong, as Unit 8 has a balance of personality types in both camps to function and find outside the box solutions, helped by how easily everyone simply accepts each other. A lack of personal communication actually helps the team, but Logos seems to play by similar rules. They're immaturity run a muck, all action with no care for the consequence, indulgence over idealism, though possibly not without their own reasons. The show, at its core, is a show about adults dealing with the flawed world created by older adults but also the destructive inclinations of youth, trying to find a balance between them.
But if you don't care about any of that, no worries. The show has some fantastic action scenes and keeps each episode at a fast and exciting pace, all while working in some great gags. Episode three is the stand out so far, as it has Asami pretending to be an idol to stop an out of control otaku, with the unit manipulating the software in his suit to complete the illusion, creating a scene that's both hilarious and tense as Asami's dignity is shattered for the sake of the mission and everyone around her treats this ridiculous situation as completely serious. If that wasn't enough, the episode ends with the revelation that this was all being broadcast, and the people watching on TV have absolutely no idea what to make of what they just saw. Beautiful. The villains are equally strange, with our main one implied to have a bunch of escorts working for him so he can spit cherry tomatoes at them when they show any sort of sexual agency. It just happens and the show continues on. There are so many great moments like these mixed in with the surprisingly well handled CG mech fights and the behind the scenes support and hacking battles. The show is just plain fun, but with a layer of cleverness just hiding right under the surface. I highly recommend it.
By the way, this is from the director of Code Geass, and it shows in all the best ways.
Strong Recommendation
Ajin
David O'Neil
I've mentioned before that a noticeable trend in modern anime is the more frequent and upfront use of CGI animation in anime. I've also mentioned before that while I think CG can be used poorly or lazily, it can also accomplish a lot that wouldn't be possible in 2D animation. So as I started Ajin, a show animated fully with CG animation, I tried to keep an open mind and not immediately write it off because of the form of animation it utilizes.
The opening scene of Ajin's first episode is by far the highpoint of the episode. Following a group of african child soldiers losing a fight against a seemingly immortal soldier, it's tense, well shot, and genuinely frightening, getting my hopes high. So it's too bad that the rest of the episode was so underwhelming. Past that first scene just not all that much happens, the show so far is following a structure similar to anime/manga like Parasyte and Tokyo Ghoul, with some ordinary teen boy unwillingly getting freakish superpowers that are taboo in society at large, but so far Ajin lacks any unique hook or defining aspects to make it stand out in that crowd. The episode as a whole is just really bland, all the plot details being introduced so far are immensely predictable and I feel as if I could easily plot out the next few episodes in my head just because there's so little original going on in this show. I feel as if I should at least give the show until the first real action scene or plot event before dropping it, but so far the series is giving me near nothing that makes me want to continue watching it, with the characters, art style, and world so far all seeming totally devoid of anything to set it apart.
And then there's the CG animation. The actual movement of the characters is the animation is probably the show's biggest strength, one of the most difficult things to get right with anime-style CG is character acting but Ajin has some of the best I've seen. Characters are expressive with their movements, look natural for the most part, and their faces show a lot of emotion during big moments. I'm not a fan of the show's character models however, which not only look bland, but also quite awkward at certain angles, with faces looking strangely curved at times. Also, the show overall just does a poor job taking advantage of the unique advantages CG brings to the table as a medium. Not only does it cut the frame rate (a pointless practice in CG meant to emulate 2D animation that doesn't really work and overall just makes it look choppier), but it also does almost nothing in terms of the more dynamic camera work CG animation arounds, basically being shot like a 2D show rather than a 3D one. Throw in a dreary visual style, and the incredibly lazy use of still frames during flashbacks, and overall it's a show that fails on nearly every level visually. I'm still only one episode in so I feel I should give it at least another episode or two, but as of now I can't find any good reason to recommend Ajin. It's a tired concept, that's executed in a predictable fashion, with subpar visuals to make the whole thing even less tolerable.
No Recommendation
AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue
David O'Neil
Back in the Summer 2015 anime season, studio Gonzo caught me off guard with one of the best shows they'd put out in a long time, the informative and adorable anime on japanese voice acting, Seiyu's Life. With that in mind, I was interested Gonzo's Aokana: Four Rhythm Across the Blue since I first heard about it, wondering if they could manage to pull off a strong follow up. And while Aokana isn't one of the best shows I've seen this season, that doesn't mean it isn't worth watching.
Aokana takes place on a near-futuristic island dominated by a revolutionary technology: Grav-shoes, which allow the user to fly through the air like a bird. The show follows a group of students in this setting who get wrapped up in a competitive sport centered around these Grav-shoes, which involves flying through the air and racing for points. The flying shoes are a neat gimmick that sets it apart from similar shows, the sport based around the shoes is interesting and theatrical as well, though it is disappointing they're accomplished mostly through cutting between 2D animation and awkward looking CG animation. Despite this, the matches so far have been quite fun and show potential for some unique scenarios and visuals as far as sports-based anime goes. The strongest point of the show so far though is likely its sense of humor. It's not especially witty, but it's tongue in cheek attitude and constant use of energetic, cartoony visuals managed to win me over. In addition, the lively characters play off each other well, with all of them (other than the admittedly bland, uninteresting main guy) injecting a lot of fun into the experience.
It's weakest so far in its story, as the show is copying beat for beat countless other sports stories and anime in more ways than one. A new transfer student with a remarkable, untapped skill for something, a waining school club revitalized by this student's promising talent, a character who'd given up on the sport for some DARK TRAGIC PAST REASON being dragged back in by this new student, chances are you've seen more than one work that follows all the same beats. But still, if you can overlook the cliched material, there's some fun to be had in Aokana. I'm not sure how long I'll stick with it if the story doesn't pick up soon, but for now I'm enjoying it well enough.
Solid Recommendation
BBK/BRNK
Danni Kristen
With every new technology comes a long rough and ugly period of trying to figure out how to make things easier, more powerful, and more efficient. Computers used to take up whole rooms. Phones used to be corded wall-mounts. Yet, at this moment beside me sits my thin, handheld, cordless phone that also doubles as a computer/hentai storage device. Technology is amazing! One of the newer advancements in animation technology is the use of CG animation. It's come a long way in such a short time, and someday it'll become advanced enough to deliver high quality animations within the short, low-budget cycle of the anime industry. Unfortunately, today is not that day. For now, we'll just have to put up with it in shows like BBK/BRNK.
On a distant island in the sky there reside giant titans known as Buranki. Tasked with keeping them from falling to Earth is a woman with strange powers named Migiwa Kazuki. One day, though, the Buranki all went berserk. Fearing for the safety of her family, she sent her husband and two children down to Earth, never to see them again. Ten years later, her son Azuma is pursued by the dystopic Japanese government who have turned his mother into a criminal. They are after a Buranki's heart, which they claim Azuma has. He's rescued by a group of teenagers wielding Bubuki, which are the severed limbs belonging to Buranki. Using the heart they believe to be in Azuma's possession, they want to revive a sleeping Buranki and take their revenge on the nation of Japan.
There's an obvious glaring negative to talk about with regards to BBK/BRNK, but I'll address that later. I'm actually thoroughly enjoying this show, so I don't want it's strong points to become footnotes in a discussion about how CG sucks. For starters, there are the backgrounds. I've been collecting screenshots of some of my favorite shots from the series and posting them on my Twitter because they're just so god damn gorgeous. For that I have to thank Yuuji Kaneko, who has also been responsible for the art direction in shows such as Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Honestly though, I would argue that this is his best work so far, which is saying something because those were some very nice looking shows. Also, I absolutely have to express praise for the action scenes. These scenes make perfect use of the CG, delivering smooth and dynamic cuts as well as camera movements that would take much, much more time and resources to replicate in 2D animation. They're so well done in this medium that it lets me forgive the absolutely AWFUL animation in the rest of the show.
I'm sure you already know this, but if you somehow don't, BBK/BRNK is a show animated entirely in 3DCG. It's not the first show to try this - it's not even the only show this season trying this - but it's nonetheless a controversial decision. CG has obviously been used to create some amazing pre-rendered stuff. I mean, just look at video games and the most famous animated feature films of the last twenty years. CG can create some absolutely beautiful scenes. The problem is, these scenes were all created by huge teams within production cycles that lasted years. Studio SANZIGEN doesn't have near the resources these teams do, but I have to give them credit for trying. CG will never get to the point of being both efficient and well-done I mentioned before without a lot of trial and error. BBK/BRNK unfortunately is one of these errors. It's not like it's all bad. I mentioned before how well-done the action sequences are. CG technology nowadays is perfectly suited to creating action scenes that are both high-quality and efficient. However, it struggles in scenes where there isn't any dynamic movement. Scenes where characters don't do much other than converse with one another look ugly and stilted. It can be quite hard to watch.
Despite the poor quality of much of the show's CG, I stand by the studio's controversial decision. It may not be turning out very well, but the effort and ambition is obvious. No one has figured out yet how to properly use CG for this medium. Years from now, we could be seeing absolutely remarkable shows done fully in CG that just wouldn't be possible to replicate in 2D. There's this whole realm of possibility open to the animation industry in the future, and it isn't possible without people brave enough to keep trying. If forcing ourselves to watch one or two good shows a year that are weighed down by CG is necessary for CG technology and theory to advance, I think it's worth it. BBK/BRNK is worth it.
Solid Recommendation
Dagashi Kashi
David O'Neil
For a while now I've had my eyes on anime studio "Feel". After the funny, sweet, and well animated Outbreak Company, and the second season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU that looked so pretty it made the first season look embarrassingly mediocre in comparison, I saw a lot of potential for this studio to become something like Dogakobo in terms of putting of funny, well animated series on a normal basis. So after a brief short series about hot guys talking to you before going to sleep (I decided to pass on that one) I was excited to see them doing a full series yet again, with Dagashi Kashi.
The series follows a teen boy and aspiring manga artist named Kokonotsu whose father is trying to convince him to instead focus on taking over the family business, a small candy shop out in the country. Their lives get shaken up when an eccentric, purple haired girl who turns out to be the heir to a massive candy business shows up trying to hire Kokonotsu's father, but when he declines (citing having to run the shop), she instead turns to trying to convince Kokonotsu to take over the shop, and see the glory of candy. It's a pure and straightforward comedy with no distractions, every second is dedicated to setting up jokes, which is just fine because they're some damn funny jokes. It does keep a somewhat laid back pace, but there's always a steady flow of clever bits and over the top slapstick to make sure things never get boring. This is largely helped by Hotaru, the aforementioned candy obsessed girl, who absolutely steals the show in nearly every scene. She's loud, quirky, and a ton of fun, always finding new hilarious ways to make humor almost entirely out of the topic of different candies. The show does occasionally delve into fanservice territory, but with all the talk leading me to believe this was an ecchi comedy series, I was actually surprised to find just how little sexual material there was in the show. It's all pretty innocent and non-intrusive, other than one notable scene in the first episode.
In terms of visuals, Dagashi Kashi doesn't have subtle character acting in the same level of SNAFU's second season, but it's still a very pretty show nonetheless. The visuals constantly get cartoonishly over the top, propelling the comedy to even more ridiculous levels. In addition, the show's rural atmosphere, reminiscent of show's like Non Non Biyori, add a lot to the show's somewhat nostalgic tone. Dagashi Kashi is a simple show with a simple goal: to make goofy jokes about candy with its small cast of crazy characters. It all comes down to those characters and that humor, and luckily both these aspects are strong enough to make it worth watching. If you're looking for laughs, so far Dagashi Kashi delivers plenty of them.
Strong Recommendation
Dimension W
Jonathan Kaharl
I will be amazed if this doesn't end up on Toonami. Dimension W is a directorial work from Kanta Kamei, a very talented guy who really needed a good, meaty project to helm, and I think he got it with this manga adaptation. Taking place in the future, Dimension W shows us a world where humanity finally achieved unlimited energy with the discovery of another dimension, but the organization that found that energy seems to be hiding quite a few skeletons in it closet. Our main character, Kyoma, is a man that refuses to change with the times and makes a living as a hunter of illegal coils, the devices used to harness the energy of the W dimension. He comes across a robot girl named Mira, and ends up taking her as a partner and becoming involved in a huge cover-up by the New Tesla company that could change the entire world.
Dimension W sets itself up with these first two episodes as a sort of blend of Samurai Champloo and Space Dandy, with a strong mixture of action, comedy, and eye-catching style. The show has some of the best aesthetics this season, with lots of contrasting colors, dark and atmospheric cityscapes, and exaggerated fashions. It's a near perfect blend of cyberpunk and retro sci-fi, and it instantly breathes life into the show. It also has some of the best action scenes seen so far, with fluid animation and great shot composition that keeps everything easy to follow. The actual ideas the show throws out are also really promising, like the cost of using illegal coils when they overload, or Mira's very existence challenging the way things are. It's all familiar territory, but the series makes things feel fresh with its presentation and script. Helping is the slow burn pacing, telling you enough to know not everything is as it seems, but not going deep into specifics.
Kyoma and Mira also make for a great duo, even if it's not too apparent yet. They represent the exact opposites of one another's views and beliefs, but both have common ground in distrusting the powers that be and share similar moral codes, though Kyoma is much more cynical from his past as a soldier. They bounce off each other well, even with Kyoma barely saying anything most of the time, and I found both really endearing from their first lines. The character design also deserves special mention, as the series makes everyone feel like they just came out of a completely different series, fitting the chaotic and conflicting nature of the setting. This could easily be one of the season's best, keep an eye on it.
Strong Recommendation
Divine Gate
Stephanie Getchell
ERASED
Jonathan Kaharl
Sword Art Online may be hot garbage, but at least it was pretty damn stunning as a production. You can thank Tomohiko Ito's direction as part of why it looked so amazing, and ERASED is a testament to his talents, and one of the most promising thrillers I've seen in years. An almost 30 year old failed manga artist named Satoru Fujinuma occasionally is forced back in time by some unknown force to stop tragedies from occurring, a process he calls "revival", and the ultimate one happens to him as his mother is murdered and he's blamed for the crime. His newest revival sends him all the way back to elementary school, as his mother's death is directly tied to a kidnapping and serial killing case he was a victim of. He now has to stop the crime from occurring and reveal the true culprit.
ERASED benefits mainly from how strong the writing is, along with the sheer tension it creates out of the most simple set-ups. There isn't much about the show that's too fantastical, and mundane or human situations are treated as the most horrific. The series doesn't hide from dark subjects, even working in child abuse as a major plot element, but mixes with a beautiful optimism and stunning art direction. The series is a roller coaster of emotions and will only continue down that path as more is revealed, especially when it concerns all the pieces to the puzzle we're starting to see but not really understand. The characters really carry the story as well, especially the surprisingly mature Satoru, and you want to see them overcome their trials, while also despising the most evil people the series can muster. And trust me, it has some nasty, nasty people in it, made worse by having no real explanation for why they are the way they are.
ERASED is already looking like best of the year material, and it will probably stay in the top three of the season if it doesn't trip itself up with some poor plot turns. It's one of the most human and engaging yarns I've seen in a long while, and I want to see what its endgame is.
Strong Recommendation
Girls Beyond the Wasteland
David O'Neil
A while back, there was a little comedy series called Saekano, about a generic high school boy protagonist, who, with the help of a harem of gorgeous, talented girls who were all good friends with him for oblivious reasons, sets out to make a visual novel. Today I'm covering Girls Beyond the Wasteland, a new comedy series about a generic high school boy protagonist, who, with the help of a harem of gorgeous, talented girls who were all good friends with him for oblivious reasons, sets out to make a visual novel. In all fairness, there's a very good chance Saekano ripped this concept off something else first, but considering I wasn't very fond of Saekano I was worried going into Girls Beyond the Wasteland.
First off, I'd like to say outright I don't think I'd call Girls Beyond the Wasteland a good show. The pacing is too slow, the premise isn't all that original, story-wise it has almost nothing going for it thus far, the animation isn't anything special, the characters are pretty generic harem archetypes, so on and so forth. But despite all this, it's been something of a guilty pleasure for me. It's difficult to say how often I'm laughing with the show, and how often I'm laughing at it, but suffice it to say I found myself laughing throughout the majority of both episodes. Instead of using it's somewhat meta-narrative (being an anime based on a visual novel about characters making a visual novel) set up to pretentiously point out its own tropes and cliches like a certain other show (Saekano) as if that somehow makes it clever, it mostly just pokes fun at itself, and does some genuinely funny bits involving how the characters first meet and interact with both each other, and otaku culture when first being introduced to it. Even if the characters are all fairly simple, harem stand ins that aren't much different from dozens of other similar characters, their interactions are a lot of fun and there's been some great moments in terms of watching each of their quirks bounce off each other with some really funny ways.
I do hope the show manages to come up with some new directions to take these characters and this premise, because with the low key attitude and passive pacing the show has displayed, things could get mundane fast if it doesn't mix things up soon now that the set up is out of the way. Despite this, I was surprised to find myself wanting to continue the show after those first two episodes. It's nothing all that special, but if you switch off your brain and concede to some harem contrivances there's fun to be had with Girls Beyond the Wasteland.
Weak Recommendation
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
David O'Neil
I went into Grimgar of Fantasy of Ash with a sense of weariness. After all, the premise fits into a genre of anime that over the past few years has gained a somewhat infamous reputation: the "trapped in a video game" genre. Whether it be Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, No Game No Life, Overlord, or countless similar light novels or manga, it seems around every turn there's some new work about ordinary people finding themselves trapped in a video game-like fantasy world, having to fight monsters and gaining glory (and often cute girls) along the way. Hell, this very season there's another show with the exact same premise (Konosuba). While I'm not saying every entry in this genre is bad, It's a one laden with overused tropes and self insert power fantasies, so I was worried Grimgar would fall victim to the same trappings. So I was pleasantly surprised when it ended up being one of my favorite shows of the season.
There are a few key points about why it is I think Grimgar works so well. First off: It's slow. Now, normally this would come as a weakness for this sort of show, but in this case it's actually a brilliant decision, because it isn't structured like these sorts of shows normally are. This is because the series has thus far entirely focused on my second key point on the show: The characters. Thanks to Grimgar's slow build pacing, it's putting an immense amount of attention and care to characterization and character interaction. Long conversations give us clear ideas of how the characters differ, and how each one either gets along well or doesn't get along well with each other. And outside of dialogue, there's tons of visual storytelling around every corner getting across what the characters are thinking, often without anything being explicitly stated. Episode 2 especially has a five minute long span of nothing but character and relationship building devoid of dialogue, getting us better aquatinted with the characters purely through visuals. By tactfully crafting these characters, their personalities, relationships, and motivations, the show is perfectly setting up the third key point: the realism. Grimgar avoids over the top fantasy fight scenes in favor of a brutal, savage interpretation of fantasy battles. Both episodes show the full team of protagonists, exhausted, paranoid, and emotionally strained by fighting just two, or even one generic goblin enemy. One character cringes at the feeling of swords piercing bones, another is unable to let go of his knife, hands shaking, at the conclusion of a battle, the goblin screams in pain as it bleeds out, desperate to survive. And because the aforementioned slow, low key character moments have made me invested in these characters and their struggles, these intense fight scenes feel all the more intense, and the stakes feel all the more important because I actually want these characters to succeed, and see them as human beings who could die at any moment.
As of now it's a collection of cleverly placed pieces working together near perfectly, with each of these aspects working in tangent with each other to create a thoroughly engaging show. It does have occasional dips into iffy, more light-novel-esque humor/fanservice-y moments, but by they're never especially conspicuous (and some of them I'd even argue had purpose as character moments but maybe that's me being pretentious). If all that wasn't enough, the show's also absolutely gorgeous, with vibrant, detailed backgrounds, terrific use of lighting, dynamic fight scene animation, and a meticulous attention to detail. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of the world, the mystery of their circumstances, or over the top fight scenes, Grimgar has chosen to put the focus squarely on the characters, with powerful results, adding weight to fight scenes grounded in reality, and investing me in the character's efforts to survive, setting itself apart from similar entries in this well-worn genre.
Strong Recommendation
Haruchika - Haruto & Chika
Stephanie Getchell
KONOSUBA - God's blessing on this wonderful world!
Joe Straatmann
Those sneaky devils. They slipped in a "guy belonging to the target audience gets trapped inside a video game" plot without actually doing one. See, in this one, anime-obsessed shut-in Kazuma (Don't you dare mistake him for a NEET. He actually goes outside every few weeks. Big difference) dies thinking he's saving a girl when it turns out the girl he pushed out of the way was in front a slow-moving tractor and he actually died of shock after peeing his pants. The goddess Aqua gives him another chance to live his own life without being reincarnated in an alternate universe that just happens to run on RPG rules in order to save it. So, yeah, trapped inside a video game world. The makers are even sneakier by making one of these that is actually really fun.
The hook here is the main relationship between Kazuma and Aqua is a screwball comedy. When Kazuma is told he can bring ONE thing or power into the next world besides his track suit, he chooses Aqua much to her flummoxed protests. Kazuma is "street smart" in his new surroundings but not particularly strong in anything else while Aqua has her goddess powers, but is haughty from being worshiped by so many and knows very little about actually working through life. In a reality check, they have to survive from the ground up in the starter village, only having enough money to sleep in a barn next to horse dung. With time, they can even have a sheet that covers the horse dung! I can see why their exchanges can be seen as hateful, but I think they honestly don't realize what they're doing wrong and their only solution is each other whether they like it or not.
It's an amusing take on living within an RPG with little details on just what that entails. My favorite touch is the magic device that analyzes their abilities and spits it out on a literal character sheet they have to take with them as proof of their abilities. I would've liked a bit more of that kind of humor like just how they're supposed to carry back the giant frogs they slay for their reward, but I won't get too picky. Studio Deen is known for their cheaper look, but that doesn't really factor into here. It's standard animation trying to imitate what a generic fantasy world would resemble and it succeeds with a few flairs like some occasionally nice backdrops and and quests screens. The music is occasionally drops in with imitations of Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama's orchestral scores to set the scene and sometimes act as an ironic touch.
The journey so far is an enjoyable one. New member Megumin fits right in with the party of misfit adventurers as a mage who can only break out one the most devastating spells in the book once a day and then collapses. We'll have to see what the seemingly competent warrior Darkness adds to this batch of mixed nuts, but the much bigger test is the next episode titled "A Panty Treasure in This Right Hand." For many a previously focused anime production, panties have disrupted focus. Panties can be the mind-killer if one is not careful.
Solid Recommendation
Luck & Logic
Joe Straatmann
This is a strange loaf of a series. It's an anime developed from battle trading cards that feels like it's a light novel adaptation, but the characters skew to late 90's, early 00's conventions instead of modern pandering and have details scrounged up from various sources. When the head of the main organization, Utsutsuno, shows up and seems like Washu from Tenchi Universe and Saki Vashtal from Area 88 had a weird kid, it's the kind of visual that sums up the confusion.
It's the future and we've discovered an even more important building block to life than atoms called Logic. By unleashing the power of Logic, hidden super powers can be brought out from within humans, which is good since alternate worlds have opened up with literal gods and dragons pouring out called Foreigners that need to be apprehended and controlled. The people in charge of stopping them are Logicalists, who team with goddesses and literally become one person to combine and enhance their powers with a method called Trance. You get all that? If not, there will literally be a quiz. Thankfully, it's for the Logicalists and not you.
You'd think with all of this overstuffed light novel type terminology and world building, the hero would have to be some loser who magically has the greatest abilities for no reason. No, Yoshichika is a veteran at 17 years (The powers disappear before adulthood because of course they do) who was the ace in Hong Kong before he lost his Logic Card. However, even if he finds it, he could still be a danger for doing a forbidden OVER TRANCE. Fortunately for him, when a Foreigner is attacking his town, a goddess named Athena shows up and not only happens to have found his Logic card washed up on the beach, she offers herself as his new partner for Trancing. Ain't that convenient. Then he joins the organization to protect this dimension and we either have a super powered harem or a bunch of yuri relationships plus Yoshichika and Athena. Take your pick (It's probably the latter though since Trance partners agreements are written almost exactly like wedding ceremonies). Strangely enough, there is a Mihoshi in the group, stereotypically blonde and dumb as a post.
Like I said, Luck and Logic is a weird blend of generic. I don't really dislike it as much as I am not really invested in it so far. There are small moments that intrigue me much more than the bigger picture. For one thing, Yoshichika is a needed element at his home because if he's not there, his father will have a go at whatever random women step into his life while Yoshichika's significantly younger sister watches. It's a bizarre touch and I strangely laughed a ton when Yoshichika takes the phone call from his sibling during one of these moments. Also, the character Olga Breakchild is obviously going to be the major villain and the way everyone just lets him go about his business that's clearly the wrong road is hilariously nonchalant. "Eh, that's Olga. He's like us, but he's not like us, so he goes around talking arrogantly while not doing anything. He doesn't have a partner, but he's working on that by going into the basement and talking to the Foreigners in our prison to see if any of them want to team up. He says he's not going to stop until he's the most powerful Logicalist. It'll work out. I mean, what's the worst that could happen with a guy named Breakchild?"
Can it take the step from boringly standard to fantastically awful? It has the potential in its Logic. Time will tell if it makes use of that potential.
Weak Recommendation
Myraid Colors: Phantom World
Danni Kristen
The year is 2015. Highly regarded Japanese studio Kyoto Animation asks the world a simple question: "If we adapted a shitty light novel harem, would you fuckers still eat it up and love it?" I firmly replied "Nay! I will never enjoy a shitty light novel harem show. Never!"
The year is 2016 and I'm being forced to eat my words.
Truthfully, I have extremely conflicting feels about Myriad Colors Phantom World. Common sense tells me this is a terrible show. The fact I find myself laughing at the show itself more than I do its jokes tells me this is a terrible show. The strange breast physics and light novel harem hijinks tell me this is a terrible show. Yet despite all the mounting evidence, I don't have it in me to call Phantom World a terrible show.
But why? What exactly is preventing my conscience from tearing this shitty light novel harem a new one? Could it be the art and animation? This is a KyoAni production after all, so it looks fantastic. Their in-house style never fails to tickle my fancy, and they've actually managed to improve on their action sequences. Terrible action scenes were what forced me to drop both Beyond the Boundary and the second season of Chu2, so I'm both surprised and relieved to find the ones in Phantom World to be entertaining. They're not among the best out there, but they're surprisingly fluid and short enough to not out-stay their welcome. Despite being good, making them too long would overshadow the show's highest points: character interaction scenes.
Character interaction has always been the backbone of KyoAni shows. It's also always been the meat, the skin, and pretty much every single part of their shows. This would probably be a bad thing if their shows weren't always really good. Phantom World is certainly one KyoAni's weakest examples of good character interaction, but it's damn cute nonetheless. Haruhiko is surprisingly likable for a harem protagonist, even if he does still tend to end up involved in the perverted hijinks that come with his role. Reina is adorable and Koito has the potential to be a cool character. The friendly phantom Ruru is by far my favorite, though. She steals just about every scene with her lazy and outspoken personality. Also, I kind of have a weakness for perverted girls. The only character in need of some serious fleshing out is Mai, who is unfortunately flat and boring. Regardless, the highest points of the show all come while watching all of these characters bouncing off one another. It may often be cliche and juvenile, but it's always cute.
Ultimately, though, what sets Phantom World apart from its LN harem adaptation peers is in its pacing. Every single other one of these shows I've had to watch for seasonals has had me repeatedly checking to see how much time was left in each episode. Every single one is paced so slowly, meaning every scene drags on and on - especially the worst ones. Phantom World counteracts this with extremely quick pacing. Practically every scene flies by, leaving you sometimes unsure of what exactly just happened and how it relates to whatever is happening in the current scene. This isn't so much an actual good quality as it is a good way of preventing viewers from growing bored or tired of perverted jokes dragging on. Even the infamous scene where Mai breaks the laws of physics to get her breasts under a limbo pole flies by quickly. Phantom World isn't really a good show. As the sum of its parts, it's a pretty bad one. Hell, even if it isn't the sum of its parts it's still a bad show. And yet when next Wednesday comes around I'll once again find myself sitting on my bed grinning over this stupid show.
Weak Recommendation
Norn9: Norn + Nonet
Stephanie Getchell
Nurse Witch Komugi R
Stephanie Getchell
Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn
Jonathan Kaharl
From the maker of GHOST IN THE SHELL, and the manga artist who brought you EXCEL SAGA, comes the greatest science fiction masterpiece since THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and METROPOLIS ...ANIME CAT-GIRL MAID CYBORG GETS FINGERED BY AN ANIME LESBIAN CYBORG GAMER. AND DID I MENTION THIS IS MOST LIKELY A PREQUEL TO GHOST IN THE SHELL, ONE OF THE GREATEST SCIENCE FICTION FRANCHISES TO EVER EXIST?
Masamune Shirow and Koshi Rikudo, crusher of dreams! Even if you're new to this hobby, you should at least have some recollection to the existence of Ghost in the Shell due to the popularity of a series film among movie buffs, much like Akira. Well, the series creator, Masamune Shirow, is both a sci-fi pioneer and a filthy pervert that has been indulging in his lusts since the millennium began, and he hasn't looked back. Guy draws a TON of porn, and even in his Ghost days, he made the Major a lesbian because he didn't want to draw a guy's butt during a sex scene. We really should have seen this coming. But when you throw in Koshi Rikudo, things get weird. His claim to fame was Excel Saga, a bizarre action/comedy series more known for its absolutely insane anime adaptation that completely re-writes everything, and one other series called Deathless that may as well not exist to western audiences. He's not a guy you'd necessarily expect to do something as ridiculous as ...this, but he was inspired by the turns that anime adaptation made, and that would explain so very much.
When you get the two talented gentlemen together, their intelligence completely implode on contact and only sheer, unbridled stupidity and perversion escapes. And I kind of like it.
Pandora in the Crimson Shell is really the worst thing these two have ever done, by a large margin, but it still kind of works in its own dumb way. You can tell the two had a blast making this stupid thing, and I like what director Munenori Nawa (Locoldol) has done with the material. The series follows a cyborg girl named Nene, whom has natural ability so great that she can make use of a powerful software that allows her to download various skills. She meets with an eccentric scientist, and she gives her a cat-girl maid cyborg named Clarion that has the program necessary to access the software, and she's eventually going to stop terrorism with it while not realizing it because she's too busy trying to glomp Clarion. As I said, dumb. But the show is fully aware of it and constantly pokes fun at itself, like the incredibly stupid starting villains, to the constant animation changes to bizarre, barely formed blobs for comedic reaction, like Clarion hissing at a dog. I can respect stupidity like this.
What's even weirder is that you can easily make out the marks of the two main creators. All the machines and cyborg concepts on display are ripped almost directly from Ghost in the Shell, while Excel herself keeps popping up as a failure of a reporter who keeps almost dying. Then, of course, you also have the focus on modern live mixed with out of place absurdities (like that scientist I mentioned being a huge perv who has her staff dress up in fetish outfits) from Rikudo's wheelhouse, while Shirow was probably the guy who said "hey, what if she activated her sciencigal girl mode by fingering the flat chested cait-girl maid cyborg?" It's the best and worst aspects of the two just rolled into one patchwork monster, and it's definitely going to be the series that's going to cause the most division in whomever still chooses to watch it after the first few episodes.
I would not recommend it, unless you're a Ghost in the Shell fan and want to find out what the hell happened to Shirow being a sci-fi fiction leader. You're going to find something here, probably something that will anger you. I just laughed, mostly.
Weak Recommendation
Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation
Joe Straatmann
I left 2015 resolving to pick better anime than last year. It's been no secret I've had terrible fortune in what I've been assigned to review (Apparently, it's the biggest topic among the staff even when I'm not around). I don't want to be the guy who throws venom at everything because it gets attention. I love anime, and when things like the climax of HaNaYaMaTa happen or Maria the Virgin Witch somehow successfully mixes a drama on the Hundred Years' War with a sex comedy in the ways only anime can do, it's one of the greatest feelings in the world. I can only call them as I see them and if what I get is My Wife is the Student Council President, I do a severe disservice if I am not honest. Sadly, the first new episode I watched of 2016 was the initial offering of Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation. To give you some perspective, during the first week of release, Crunchyroll's reviews pegged its score at 1.2/5. Keep in mind even the worst anime rarely dip below 3.0 or equivalent average (And as of writing this article, a magic army of "it's not THAT bad" supporters or people working for certain corporate interests have appeared, sending it back to near the 3.0 mark). That's one hell of an omen.
If you haven't been informed yet, this series was sold on lies. Celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Phantasy Star Online franchise, the concept was obfuscated by clever wordplay and the trailers mostly used the sci-fi action part of it. Here's the bait-and-switch: This is not a work that takes place within Sega's Phantasy Star Online universe, but it's about students at a fictional boarding school who play Phantasy Star Online 2 and are trying to keep it from getting banned on campus. Yes, it is yet another series where we're supposed to care about other people playing video games, and what's worse, it's not even one of those stories about getting trapped inside a game where the world or lives are at stake. Not to mention you can just play the damn thing in July and cut out the middle man. What you're watching is a blunt, cynical promotional tool selling you how wonderful their product is.
For what it's worth, the plot involves Itsuki Tachibana, a new student at Seiga Academy (GET IT?! If you don't, there's a ground display of Sonic in the middle of campus). He's insanely average as revealed by painful expository dialogue. He has a chance meeting with student council president Rina and within a day, is offered the position of vice president. What does the vice president of this academy do? Why, play Phantasy Star Online 2 and report on the social activities of the students playing it. With no idea how to play, he creates a new character (That somehow looks exactly like him even though he hit the randomize option in character creation) and dives head-first into the world. Thankfully, he has veteran player SORO show up instantly and help him learn the ropes. You'll never guess who SORO is. Certainly not because I've only listed two characters in this thing.
As one of the few who've braved the second episode, there is more to it. Rina is secretly using Itsuki to help her because despite her perfect veneer, she is sorely lacking in social skills. There's also a computer-like student who's been overseas and stalks Itsuki... You know what? What does it matter? As an overplayed holiday movie says, it's a crummy commercial. I willingly took this series because I am a Phantasy Star fan in general. Phantasy Star IV is one of my ten favorite games of all time, and while the first two are rather convoluted in design with terrible translations that don't help, they were way ahead of their time and unique offerings to the 8-bit and 16-bit RPG arena. I understand the online version of it is an extremely different beast and has little to do with its predecessors, but Phantasy Star is a franchise I still have an affinity for and would like to see it continue even if it's not nearly as unique as it used to be. Even so, I am not going to just give a pass to an ill-formed informercial simply due to similar interests. You are literally hit with tens of thousands of advertisements a day. Don't make it one more.
No Recommendation
Prince of Stride: Alternative
Danni Kristen
It's an unwritten rule of the anime industry that there must be one boy's sports anime per year. Since we've already had our full of basketball, baseball, swimming, ping pong, cycling, and volleyball, Madhouse has decided that 2016's sports show will be about stride, which is definitely absolutely a real sport shut your mouth. The show is Prince of Stride: Alternative and it's actually pretty good.
Prince of Stride stars Nana Sakurai, a longtime fan of stride, as she begins her high school career at Honan Academy hoping to join their legendary stride club. She meets Takeru Fujiwara, an up-and-coming star of stride, who has come to Honan for the very same purpose. The club they find turns out to be a shell of its former self following the departure of its two star members. Determined to rebuild the club back to its former glory, they forcibly recruit their classmate Riku Yagami, who turns out to be the younger brother of one of the club's former stars. With their team fully formed, they begin training to compete in and win End of Summer, one of the top stride competitions in Japan.
If you think that sounds like a very generic sports anime premise, that's because it really is. It has everything a sports show needs: cute boy archetypes and a self-insert girl that gets to watch them. I'm actually really disappointed that Sakurai isn't a runner. I wanna see the cute girl parkour. Anyways, while the premise and characters are very generic, the art direction is quite impressive. The abundance of very bright whites is offset by a lot of strong blues, reds, and yellows that add a lot of vibrance to the show. The show is also littered with sleek lines and geometric shapes, which fit well with the show's focus on the quick yet offbeat sport of parkour. This is basically turned up to ten in the ED, which may not be the best this season, but is easily the most stylish.
Heading into Prince of Stride, I expected it to be a lot like Free. While it does share some similarities, Prince of Stride seems to have no time for slice of life shenanigans. I've seen three episodes so far, and the only scene that didn't have anything to do with stride was a scene where they had to become models. Even then, though, they were only modeling so they could secure a sponsorship for their club. There may be some slice of life filler in the future, but right now the show seems to be laser focused on just their training and competitions. Personally, I'd prefer that. So far we've gotten to see two races, both of which have been riveting to watch. The animation isn't quite the best Madhouse has to offer, though, but it's by no means bad. There is a sense of whiplash going straight from One Punch Man's animation to Prince of Stride's, but the fact that they're back to back explains the gap in quality. Both shows were under production at the same time, with more resources obviously going to One Punch Man. Like the rest of the show, though, the animation is suitable. Even if it is another pretty generic sports show, there's enough to enjoy in it to keep me watching.
Solid Recommendation
Schwarzes Marken
Joe Straatmann
Light novel adaptation Schwarzes Marken (German for "Mark of the Beast") at times is on the "mark" but occasionally seems to want to have its Communist surveillance state without having a whole lot of moral ambiguity. Originality points for having a mecha fighting aliens series take place in East Germany in 1983, but it also hedges its bets by making the main cast have good excuses for all the terrible things they have to do while there is very clear villain in the Stasi, the German Democratic Republic's state security. Obviously, as one of the most brutal and effective secret police in real history, they were exceptionally talented at slamming down the iron curtain on its own citizens, but it would be nice if there was anyone in the country not the Stasi who believed in anything the country believed in to give some kind of tension between the unit. If nothing else, it would improve the character interactions that are the best animated and most intriguing parts of the series while the battles with the aliens are the blandest.
Yes, 1983 Europe has aliens. Beings of Extra-Terrestriastial origin which is Adversary of human race (BETA for short), to be exact. They're so troublesome, the West and the East need to team up to stop them. The aliens mostly look like parts of the male reproduction organ and charge humans en masse. The best unit at handling them is the 666th, demons that cut through testicles with alien eyes like a Ginsu. These are easily the blandest parts of the series because as much as they put in drama between the unit (The introductory battle starts with one of the team having a PTSD episode in the middle of battle), the skirmishes themselves look plain and the units in play will pretty much do exactly what they're predicted to (Normal units suck, the 666th is great, the Stasi will do whatever is most dickish).
Between the battles is where the most potential is. The main characters are experienced soldier Theodor and newbie Katia who willingly transferred from a UN squadron (Heh heh heh. Sorry, had my own private joke there...). Theodor tried to escape to the West with his family, but was brought back and coerced into military service while Katia is feigning reverence in the 666th unit in order to get close to information on her missing father. Unfortunately, all the information about her father has been deleted from the records (There is a rather touching parallel with Theodor whose father was killed in the escape attempt and any information on his father was completely redacted, blacking out his parent from existence), so she has to dig deeper while trying to survive the hell that is life in East Germany. Also, their unit leader Irisdina may be a Stasi informant who killed her own brother to show her loyalty to the state. Since Irisdina is supposed to be a sympathetic character, everyone makes it clear that the official story isn't what happened and the real Stasi show up to be actual bad guys, strangely taunting their best unit and poking at their most emotionally vulnerable spots.
I need a few more episodes on this one. It's odd to punt on a review after getting a decent look at an hour of it, but many of the elements aren't really moving yet. The first two episodes are mostly introductions with a few tantalizing bits on where the story could go. It seems a little too black-and-white, but we'll see if there's more complexity to the people as their screen time expands. As of right now, some of the goofy aspects feel out of place within the heavy drama (Not to mention the lack of breast support in the mecha outfits is outright distracting. Those things are literally floating midair!). The aliens are mostly like the aliens from Contra that pop from all corners waiting to be destroyed with no motivation except they're the overarching antagonists. I sincerely hope there's more to the GDR setting than a Japanese manga author thinking it would be cool to have something that took place there and throwing everything haphazardly around it. Stay tuned....
Weak Recommendation
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
Danni Kristen
The art of rakugo is probably one of Japan's oldest and proudest traditions of entertainment, and I had no idea what the hell it was until I looked it up in preparation for reviewing this show. I'll briefly summarize what it is for those who don't know. In rakugo, a storyteller sits on a stag in the seiza position with only a paper fan and a small cloth as props they can work with. Without standing up, they have to tell a long and comical story to the audience involving dialogue between multiple characters. It's a tradition that originated from Buddhist monks in the ninth century, but didn't spread to the lower classes of Japanese society until the Edo period. Nowadays, rakugo is often regarded as an old man's form of entertainment. It's old, outdated, and at risk of extinction. Haruko Kumota must still love it, though, because she wrote an award-winning manga about how great it is. Thanks to her efforts, it now has an anime, and people like me get to find out what the hell rakugo is. Thank you, sensei.
Anyways, onto the actual show. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is about a 1960's ex-yakuza named Yotarou who fell in love with rakugo while in prison. Following his release, he tracks down the legendary storyteller Yakumo. He had seen Yakumo perform while he was in prison and wanted desperately to become his apprentice. For unknown reasons, he is accepted and invited to live with Yakumo. He then meets Konatsu, the daughter of the deceased storyteller Sukeroku. Finding Yakumo's style of rakugo hard to replicate, Yotarou is drawn to performances of Sukeroku. As he finds Sukeroku's style more suitable for himself, Yakumo begins to notice more and more how similar Yotarou is to his old friend and rival. He commissions Yotarou to fulfill the work Sukeroku set out to do: preserve rakugo in an age that would prefer to leave it behind.
First of all, I should point out that's a very brief summation of only the first episode. There is a lot more depth to this show than one might assume at first. What seemed at first glance to be a show reveling in appreciation of one of its nation's oldest traditions is actually filled with complex relationships between characters as well as an insightful look into the incredibly fast-paced change Japanese society underwent following WWII. In the show's fifty-minute first episode we see plenty of nods to the similarities between Yotarou and Sukeroku. However, the following episodes have been a long retelling by Yakumo about how he met and grew up with Sukeroku that has yet to actually finish. In these episodes, the similarities between Yotarou and Sukeroku are blindingly obvious. Both are brash and absurdly confident fools with a serious love and talent for rakugo. Sukeroku's pleading to become an apprentice as a child is extremely reminiscent of Yotarou's pleas to Yakumo, which easily explains why he would take him on as an apprentice.
Now, I would be remiss if I only talked about the plot. This show features a great soundtrack as well as some beautiful backgrounds. It's biggest strength comes through in the directing, though. There's some spectacular shot composition in this show. The environment is utilized spectacularly to illustrate specific relationships. Examples of this include Yakumo's obscured views of Sukeroku as the latter performs, illustrating his inability to match Sukeroku's talent and achieve a full view of the world he sees as a performer. One of my favorite shots though frames Yakumo as a tiny figure dominated by the setting sun as he recalls the fear and worry he felt when Sukeroku and their master went off to war. The sun's orange turns to red, bearing a heavy reference to the symbolic rising sun of the Japanese army. The war is over, though, and the sun is no longer rising. Japan has lost, and Yakumo is dominated by the thought that the people he loves most may be lost as well.
The best directorial decisions by far come during the rakugo performance scenes, though. Rakugo performances are very rarely cut in this show. This makes sense, of course, since the main purpose behind Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is to instill a love and appreciation for rakugo in others. These do make for some long scenes, though. This would normally be a problem, but each one is so well directed that it never actually grows boring or tiring. Each performance is noticeably different depending on the skill and style of the performer. Yakumo's first performance in the show seems to bend space and whisk viewers away into his story and this is illustrated well in the animation. Yotarou's first performance is filled with dynamic framing and camera angles that show his talent in dominating the stage, but we are still anchored to reality unlike we were in Yakumo's performance. Later, when we see Yakumo perform for the first time as a teenager, we're given very flat and unexciting shots that illustrate his lack of skill and inability to capture the audience's attention. These are all also accompanied by terrific performances by the voice actors. While I still can't say I've become a fan of rakugo, I'm definitely a fan of Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, and I'm very excited to see what else it has in store.
Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle
Jonathan Kaharl
Hey, remember when I said in a podcast that I would probably like this show better than Hungry Joker? Well, Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle has exactly one good character who has had exactly one amusing moment so far, so I was right. Also, this is possibly one of the worst anime ever created. It's only going to get worse, I'm betting. I knew this was going to suck the moment I heard the phrase "sword device," but my god, I had no idea just how terrible this was. If 35th Test Platoon was the most generic light novel show I've seen, this is the worst in execution. It is shocking how terrible the writing is. It doesn't just check off all the expected developments (tsundere princess gets show up, instantly falls in love, loser hero who is actually the best ever, magic school and bonus points for it being an all girls academy, pointless world building with video game logic, ridiculously stupid names, rapey and ugly bad guy, edgelord uber villain in the background, ect), it makes them actively worse through sheer inept execution.
Everything about this show fails so often and so strongly that I'm not even sure where to begin. I mean, the falling into boob scene being the introduction to our two main leads should be a good warning to anyone interested, but it keeps spiraling into a bigger and bigger mess as it goes. Lux (yes, this is really the name of the main protagonist) is a spineless wuss with overpowered magical bullshit powers from a black sword that makes him special, and he's made further special by not only being the worst student in the school, but *GASP* the only guy there! Oh man, he sure is out of place and a completely loser like the audience, but he's also so awesome that being nice was enough for a girl to masturbate in the bath to his memory! No, that is not something I made up! This happened! He's like every light novel self-insert lead combined into a thick puddle of obnoxious intent and silent misogyny, and what is shown of the female supporting cast is no better. Lisha suffers as well, as she exists as the top student to only be saved by the main character and become a love-struck dope because a man has never treated her nicely before. She is the GODDAMN PRINCESS OF A COUNTRY.
But what's really frustrating here is that the show has really good ideas for moving stories. Test Platoon and Magical Warfare were just bizarre messes in figuring out what they wanted to do, but Bahamut makes it pretty clear. It's a fantasy world where both the old and new kingdom are kind of awful, and our ex-prince and current princess leads are trying to find their place in this vile environment, each with their own baggage. Lisha was branded by the old kingdom and has genuine insecurities because of the trauma of that event, which is a surprisingly clever way to side-step the attempted rape scene we always get in these shows. It also works on a thematic level and the idea that shes "owned" by her kingdom's enemy makes sense because she has a mark on her body reminding her of a time where she was a victim. Lux, on the other hand, can't properly control his power, and he pleaded with his brother to prevent unnecessary bloodshed during his kingdom's fall instead of acting, which lead to a mass slaughter. He feels equally powerless, despite having power, because he doesn't have the will to truly use it out of fear of it. There are so many interesting things you can do with those ideas, but the series instantly tosses all those ideas at the wayside as we get the mandatory rapey starter villain and Lux gets the normal light novel lead treatment that the audience can wank their egos to.
All the usual sins start piling up not long after, including awful cheesecake bits and exposition dumps, somehow mixed with characters describing one another (You can't just have your characters announce the how the others feel feel! That makes me feel angry!), and don't even get me started on the utter stupidity and pointlessness that is the little sister character who we all know is just here for fetishists. The show just keeps piling and piling on the cliches and terrible delivery of its ideas that it just keeps angering me more and more. This is so bad in nearly every way possible through the writing that it keeps finding new ways to suck. The production isn't helping either, with generic fantasy castles and forests, long with the terrible CG mech battles. The entire show is just a pain to experience, and I'd drop it if I hadn't had gotten a Hulu subscription to watch it. I will finish this foul, miserable goblin out of spite, goddamn it.
The one positive thing I can say about this show without a back hand compliment is that Phi, the childhood friend character, is wonderful and desperately needs to be taken away from this horrible series for her own good. She's a possessive ditz with sexual agency who uses her spacey personality to hide her sheer determination and cunning, and she gets to eat a donut offered to her as a bargaining chip to leave Lux alone, only for her to completely ignore that part of the agreement after eating it. I like her and she deserves head pats.
No Recommendation
Shorts
Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara
David O'Neil
Purely from an production standpoint, Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara is actually pretty decent. It has some okay character designs, a cute art style, and it's actually pretty well animated for a series of shorts. Characters move with some weight, and rarely just stand still while their mouths flap. Over the two episodes I watched, there were even a few alright gags. It's too bad that the series is unapologetically gross and bad to the most severe degree I've seen in some time. While it's (unfortunately) not too uncommon for anime to have uncomfortable subtext involving younger girl characters, the entire premise of Nante Mouiidesukara is build around joking at the sexualization of a middle school aged girl. Which is very very very very not okay. Yes, the entire premise is built around a young girl who becomes a Magical Girl, but her outfit looks like a skimpy swimsuit. Because that suffices for a series premise these days I guess. Any glimpses at a decent show is lost in the discomfort brought by the show's skeevy as hell premise, along with the fact more than half of the jokes are just her mahou shojo sidekick being a complete creep. Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara is gross and bad and should be avoided.
No Recommendation, dropped at episode two
Ojisan and Marshmallow
Stephanie Getchell
Ooya-san wa Shishunki!
David O'Neil
Maybe partially due to a certain other show I watched this season about a middle school girl (glances at Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara) I was a bit worried going into Ooya-san wa Shishunki. The premise of the show overall was a bit on the iffy side, basically just being "a teenage boy lives in the same place as a middle school girl", and while the show at times references said iffiness, for the most part it has harmless, sweeter intentions. Overall it really is just a series about the girl Chie Satonaka being cute and doing cute things (which is basically a genre of its own in anime at this point). It isn't anything all that special, but it isn't bad either. The jokes are quite funny for the most part, it's well animated (especially the opening, which has a neat visual style), and at four minutes it's a fun, cute way to waste a few minutes. The main guy usually avoids being a creep despite the premise (usually), and the other female character, Reiko Shirae, is a lot of fun as well. There's a good chance this set up will wear thin after a while, considering it only has three characters and not much for them to actually do, but for now it's short and sweet enough I don't really mind.
Weak Recommendation
Please tell me! Galko-chan
Jonathan Kaharl
A show in where teenage girls talk about sex. I'm amazed this is the first time I've seen such a thing. Galko-chan already gets points for being a series where a bunch of teenagers get to have comedic but still embarrassingly grounded discussions about sexuality and puberty, but it wins more from being a genuinely funny crude comedy. It's not just by the numbers toilet humor, but humor taken from very real thoughts and ideas from the puberty stressed brain. Bodily functions are never the endgame, just a set-up or the subject to get a reaction from characters talking about it. It works really really well, and the third episode even shows a bit of heart I wasn't expecting with a little story where one of the three apologizes to the other for crossing the line into personal insult.
The designs are appealing and make for good comedic reactions, the music is fitting, and some of the gags here are hilarious. My favorite character might actually be the airhead of the group, not only because she's the most put together, but also possibly the craziest at the same time. Her explanation to why she hasn't tried cooking yet is just so perfectly timed. Where Pandora is crude for indulgence, Galko-chan is crude with a point, and it's a surprisingly clever little comedy because of it.
Strong Recommendation
Rainbow Days
Jonathan Kaharl
I think I might be getting tested with this one. Rainbow Days has had two episodes out so far, and they suggest different things. It's clear that the show is a romantic comedy about four guys and their girlfriends, and each guy and girl is different. I like the first couple introduced, between a socially inept dork and a quiet girl, and I like that the show is taking time to have them establish a relationship. If he rest of the show is more like that, I'll like it well enough. The problem is that the second couple introduced is swerving into the horror that is problematic shojo territory, and by "problematic," I mean "homophobic" and "rapey."
The series is juggling with a relationship here nobody seems equipped to deal with. The popular guy becomes interested in a girl who openly despises him (she literally spits in his face), but I've seen this enough to know that she eventually falls for him because this is how shojo writers thing healthy relationships work apparently. Does not help the guy keeps deciding to invade her personal space because he's interested in her after he steals a kiss from her. That's pretty fucking creepy. But the show decides to go with the old chestnut of the man hating girl being attracted to another girl (that quiet girl from the first episode), and setting it up to somehow not be valid because the quiet girl was the only person who was nice to her and thus her feelings will be wrong or fake in some way. Oh boy, just what I wanted from my wacky romantic comedy! Complete disregard for queer identities in exchange for the mating dance of sex offenders!
There's still hope here with the other couples, and the series still has a chance to not go down that horrible road, but holy hell this second relationship is both awful and toxic. The series is normal shojo fluff otherwise, but it's headed into really nasty territory at this rate.
Weak Recommendation
Sekkou Boys
Joe Straatmann
Good thing the second episode came along. Otherwise, I might've been the lone killjoy for this one. Most seem to be enjoying the concept of classical marble busts as boy band by itself, but that was one of two jokes from the first episode. The second is the introduction of their new manager Miki Ishimoto, a former art school student who can't stand art anymore. Why? Because her entire artistic training was sketching and painting and replicating statues and she can't even stand the sight of them anymore. This description of her college life goes on for half the episode until the irony boat finally arrives and she meets her new clients. Thankfully, it's just the first episode that cruises along on the concept alone.
One of the secrets to a good comedy is having a script that would work reasonably well without laughter. Here we have the struggles of an up-and-coming musical artists struggling to get on 4 a.m. shows to promote interest and their clash of personalities, especially with music groups. It just so happens their struggles are filtered through the fact that the artists are statues. The manager's difficulty with keeping the group moving together is literally trying to get them on a cart and move around. The problems with musicians getting roles in television or film are given a nice parody here. The show also knows it can't just have the four busts who look very similar in one location talking to to each other all the time and tries to single them out to keep scenes from getting confusing. Sekko Boys is a wild concept for sure, but it's also made by people who know it takes more than a concept to make even a short good.
Solid Recommendation
Sushi Police
Danni Kristen
Second Opinions
AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue
Jonathan: Watched one episode and that was enough for me. Very bland series, despite being about a sport mix of blitzball and quiditch. The designs are generic and the characters are uninteresting, and the majesty of flying thing has been done much better in many other shows. I like the lesbian couple, made up of a girl that makes cat puns in the afternoon and a territorial nut that declares herself the other's slave, but two great supporting characters aren't enough to carry such a boring series. Weak Recommendation
BBK/BRNK
David: I mentioned in my coverage of the fully CG Ajin anime that as of late I've tried to keep more of an open mind towards CG in anime. And while Ajin was unfortunately unable to impress me with its use of CG, BBK/BRNK (stupid title aside) has been one of my favorite premiers of the season. The show is a mishmash of a few different aspects, a bit of Kill la Kill, a bit of Ghibli-esque fantasy, a bit of Giant Robo and I wouldn't say it all meshes perfectly so far, but I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been a hell of a fun ride. Gorgeous backgrounds, lively CG character acting animation, cool effects animation, great looking character models and designs, strong framing, and a fun cast of characters have all made the show remarkably engaging so far. In addition, the action makes tremendous use of its medium, using CG's greater freedom of camera movement to create some incredibly dynamic action, that feels inspired by 2D anime action while simultaneously having its own unique spin on it. It's hard to tell where exactly the story will go, it's doing a good job setting up the team of protagonists and how they clash and work together in different ways, but it's been such a running start with all the constant action I do wonder if they'll be able to keep it this interesting once things slow down. But so far, BBK/BRNK is one of the most entertaining action shows of the season, and a prime example of CG being used well in anime. Solid Recommendation
Dagashi Kashi
Jonathan: Not nearly as wacky as I expected, but that works for it. Simple comedy with five characters and surprisingly laid back, except for Hotaru's obsession with dagashi snacks bordering on sexual. But what I liked most wasn't her, but the siblings that run the coffee shop, To and Saya. To is a filthy pervert after my own heart, and Saya's inability to properly read a situation outside anything involving Horatu's candy lust lets her bounce off Hotaru really well. Solid comedy for the season. Solid Recommendation
Stephanie: I'll admit, I originally passed this one by because I never had much luck when it came with Studio Feel, the group producing this series. It just seemed like one of those rather harem or ecchi kinds of series that would just completely make me turn the other way, and coming from the same studio as So I Can't Play H or Jinsei didn't turn things into it's favor. However, when I started hearing things about about the series, and mostly in the good way, I decided to give it a chance at the last second once again (there's always at least one for me each season...). I have to say I'm impressed! The concept may seem utterly silly like some slice of life series tend to be, it's the characters and their personalities that make all the difference! Having a female lead like Hotaru being, essentially, an utter otaku over snack foods gives the series something wonderfully refreshing for this slice of life/comedy. All the interactions with the characters have been such fun that I was never bored while watching these first two episodes! My only real concern is whether or not this one single plot will be all we get for the entire series. Honestly, this is something that can grow old rather quickly if you're not careful, but this is one series where I sincerely hope it doesn't happen. Strong Recommendation
Dimension W
Stephanie: Science fiction has never been one of my stronger areas. More often than not, they just seem to be the same thing over and over again with the same general ideas like space travel or advancing robotics. The latter is what can be said here for Dimension W, but this has much more to it than what I first expected. The world that's been created under New Tesla has kept my intrigued while the characters introduced so far have stories that will have an effect on the series. To be fair, some things are way too easy to pick up on like, for example, I am 95% sure that Albert will get to play the villain in the series later on. But what has been the strongest element in the series, this far, is the dynamic between Marubuchi and Mira. While it does have the qualities of the clichéd anime partnership we have seen, the badassary of the two as well as their personalities have the makings of something outside of that. All in all, I'm impressed! This one has an early start at being my favorite this season. Strong Recommendation
ERASED
Danni: This may have been one of the few show's this season I expected to be good, but damn, I didn't expect it to be that good. It has a very cinematic quality to it. And while the term 'cinematic' has kind of become ambiguous and basically a euphemism for 'well-directed,' I mean it in a literal sense. Watching ERASED feels like watching a feature film, albeit in episodic format. That aside, the directing is actually amazing. ERASED features some of the most skillful framing, blocking, and transitions since last winter's Yuri Kuma Arashi. If you're looking for an intriguing show and are prepared to be confronted in sometimes graphic detail with themes of child abuse and abduction, please, please, PLEASE watch ERASED. Strong Recommendation
David: I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into with Erased, but after Rokka and The Perfect Insider I was all for getting yet another prominent mystery series. The show does start out a bit on the ridiculous side, I was worried the protagonist was coming off as a bit too pretentious and the conflicts as a bit too over the top (it starting with him saving a child from a runaway truck while riding a motor scooter). But the show quickly escalates in quality and executes probably the strongest episodes of any anime so far this season. The visuals are gorgeous in every way imaginable, animation, lighting, framing, use of color, and the soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura is as good as one would expect from her (which is...very good). And from the incredible sense of tension during the latter half of the first episode, to the heartwarming nature of the second episode, it's a series packed with emotion and strong execution. I'm still curious where they're going with this mystery and all the time travel shenanigans the show hinges on, but if the series can keep up this remarkable high quality production values, writing, and visual storytelling, it could be the best anime of the season. Strong Recommendation
Joe: From the high grades this has been getting, the first thing that should be noted is that it won't excite you right away. The intro seems to be the story of a disillusioned former manga artist-turned-pizza-delivery-guy trying to get his groove back with the help of a younger co-worker. Potential to be a quality low-key affair, but nothing exciting, right? Keep watching. When it turns out he appears to have a special ability to add a little spice to the mix, still keep watching. Eventually, the little threads of the first episode come together and the payoff is stunning, skyrocketing this series to the frontrunner position in the race for best series of the season. Visually solid, emotionally resonant as hell, and surprisingly thrilling when it wants to be, Erased is something where you'll be glad I'm specifically hiding as much as I can from you. My only quibble is Yuki Kajiura at times doesn't feel like the right composer here. I LOVE me some Yuki Kajiura, but at times, her music cues feel too potent. Not something that should deter you from watching this RIGHT NOW. Strong Recommendation
Stephanie: Going into Erased, I was rather hesitant. I didn't exactly know much about the series outside of the animation studio producing it and the fact that it was some sort of mystery series or something. And, honestly, it took a little bit getting into the first episode since it was rather slow and slightly boring at times. But, as the episode progressed, there was something much more complicated going on that sent me into a bit of a tizzy; and the good kind, I might add. This takes elements of the well known mystery/detective series we've known rather well up until now, similar to Case Closed, and gives it a time leaping element a la Steins;Gate. Sure there isn't much explanation as to that time leaping part, but I'd imagine it'll be either one of those things they'll explain later or just make you go with. In any case, this is not lighthearted as pieces of the story, such as the very obvious abuse Hinazuki has been dealing with, are ever present. And while he hasn't been the best lead so far, Satoru's rather flat personality does have the chance to grow and change while reliving his younger years in an attempt to change the future for both his mother, Hinazuki, and possibly several others! There's a decent amount of potential here in these first two episodes, despite having the slog through the first half of episode one, and I'm rather happy with myself for not giving up on it right away. So long as the story and characters continue to grow from here, that's all I ask for. Solid Recommendation
Girls Beyond the Wasteland
Jonathan: This is one of those shows I watched on a whim, and I glad I did. Unlike the obnoxiously self-aware Saekano, Wasteland gets what it means to make a visual novel (fitting, as it's an adaptation of one) and finds a lot of comedy out of it, while also pushing an engaging story about fighting to do what you want to do with your life. It's pretty ugly, but the writing saves it. Also, Yuka is best girl. Solid Recommendation
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
Jonathan: Interesting take on the trapped in a game world premise. Grimgar is a mix of survival thriller and slice of life, about some kids not really ready for life in a kill or be killed fantasy world and taking familiar tropes in more realistic directions. At best, it's shockingly visceral, especially during the goblin killing scene, but this is still a light novel adaptation and it just has to throw in some obnoxious beats and character archetypes. Promising, still, and very beautiful. Solid Recommendation
Stephanie: Before starting Grimgar, there's one common thing that I kept hearing from a lot of people, that's strangely similar to the game Fire Emblem. As someone who has never played that game before, of course I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Right away, you can tell this is a fantasy series. It doesn't take an idiot to notice that much. It also seems to be a video game setting, of sorts, due to the strange and sudden appearance of this group of kids in this new world, and in modern day clothes, who have no memories prior to ending up in Grimgar. I say this because there are words or actions that occur that the characters don't seem to recall what they are or how they even know them. What makes this series different compared to quite a few series that are similar in nature to Grimgar is that we aren't following a ridiculously over powered human being, but rather a group of teens who are just trying to survive in this new world, with these first two episodes focusing on their first victory in having to kill a living being. It honestly has some interesting ideas and moments that have captured my curiosity. Now of only it was only paced.... I mean, did we really need a music montage of the characters wandering town for five minutes? Solid Recommendation
Haruchika - Haruto & Chika
Jonathan: This show is a mess. Not only is it surprisingly ugly, with a terrible color scheme and poor animation, but the premise itself is an utter mess. It can't decide if it's a slice of life about being in a band, mystery solving, or a love drama, and the pieces never come together. Haruto is also an insufferable dick, making for a lead you don't want to follow. The one thing the show does well is that it treats Haruto's homosexuality as valid, but that doesn't mean much when everything else is such a disaster. No Recommendation
KONOSUBA - God's blessing on this wonderful world!
David: Konosuba is the other big "trapped in a video game" airing this season, and as with the other one I went in with the tribulation that's come from so many of these shows being pumped out as of late. So imagine my surprise when the second anime of this genre this season ONCE AGAIN turned out to actually be quite good (though in a totally different way than Grimgar). In fact, Konosuba feels to the "trapped in a video game" genre what Nozaki-kun felt like to the shojo genre. The series revels in playing with the audiences expectations in terms of what usually happens in these sorts of shows, and constantly pokes fun at the conventions of the genre in some truly brilliant ways. It's a show that's fully aware it's jumping into a flooded pool, so is having a blast tearing apart everything that pool stands for with a wry smirk on its face. Despite this it's not mean spirited, the characters for the most part are actually pretty likable, and I've found myself genuinely looking forward to seeing more of these characters and their misadventures. It suffers from some unpolished animation, but makes up for it with that animation having plenty of movement, and suiting the cartoonish humor very well.
So overall, Konosuba is a fun and charming show that has a lot of fun with its somewhat tired premise. Solid Recommendation
Jonathan: Unlike Grimgar, Konosuba decided to take familiar concepts and turned it into a comedy in the vain of something like The Venture Brothers, in the respect that both are about failure. Kazuma and Aqua are genuinely terrible people that deserve each other, and their task to defeat the demon king in a fantasy world is simply their karmaic punishment, and their other party members are hilariously inept. This could be a major surprise for the year. Strong Recommendation
Luck & Logic
Jonathan: I don't think I've ever seen a show so lifeless and average in every possible regard, which is amazing because it sounds wild on paper. The art direction is fantastic as well. But once you watch it, it just feels like generic action sludge with no sense of style or personality anywhere. There has never been a show that has been so undeserving of existing. No Recommendation
Stephanie: Ehhhhhhhh, generic show is generic. Honestly the concept seemed moderately interesting, but it just didn't catch my interest compared to many of the other shows this season. It's like of you mix Nobunagun (another series I dropped early on while it aired) with some other typical shonen action series. I don't know, but I wasn't a huge fan of the first episode. And I can always use the extra time to focus on other things. I think I'll save myself the headache... Weak Recommendation, dropped at episode one
Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara
Jonathan: See, the joke is that the underage girl has to wear a two-piece swimsuit, and the mascot thing find it hot! Oh man, I've never fucking seen that joke a million times before in porn doujins, no sirree! Bleh. No Recommendation
Myraid Colors: Phantom World
David: I almost feel bad that I've found myself enjoying Myriad Colors Phantom World. Because, make no mistake, it is a bad show. Very bad even. It's a trashy fantasy school light novel adaptation that just happens to have the immensely talented Kyoto Animation making it, but all the pretty animation in the world can't cover up how stupid the show is. And despite being stupid, the show is pretty full of itself as well, spouting psychology concepts left and right as if if means anything, at times being borderline pretentious in its delivery. The characters are boring, the humor isn't very clever, and there's no real story to speak of. And yet....it's just fun. This is a really unfair compliment, as it's hard to explain, but for all it's stupid nonsense KyoAni has injected it with so much energy and flair it prevents it from ever getting boring. It isn't good, it's still trashy nonsense devoid of substance, but when I switch my brain off it's a mildly entertaining way to waste a half an hour. Which is a compliment. I think. Weak Recommendation
Jonathan: KyoAni made light novel garbage and I like it. The show has a lot of the usual problems, mainly self insert wanking and failure to match ambition, but it has a lot of interesting ideas and fantastic art direction. It never gets offensively terrible, and it has some pretty inspired moments and fun characters. Want to hate it, but I can't. Weak Recommendation
Nurse Witch Komugi R
Jonathan: I kind of like this one okay for the little touches, like the girl in yellow who raps badly and says "yo" randomly, and the magical gimmicks are ridiculous (there's a magical nun, for fucks sake). The problem is that the comedy is so by the numbers and tired. We've seen this sort of parody dozens of times before, and there's just not enough changes to the formula to make it spark. Weak Recommendation
Ojisan and Marshmallow
Danni: I was kind of disappointed by this show. I went into it having heard about how hilarious it was, but I didn't quite expect the whole series to only have one joke that just keeps getting reused. Like, I get it. The girl wants to fuck Paul Blart while Paul Blart just wants to fuck the bag of marshmallows. That's really all there is to it. Weak Recommendation
Jonathan: Weirdly funny. The series has a big joke in that an attractive girl is insanely attracted to an older fat guy, which could have easily been obnoxious and mean-spirited, but that moment never comes. Check out the first episode, you'll know if it's for you from that. Solid Recommendation
Please tell me! Galko-chan
Danni: Finally I have found anime girls whose conversations I can actually relate to. Fuck your KyoAni girls talking about which end of a cornet to eat first. From now on I'm only watching shows about cute girls talking about their ass hair. Strong Recommendation
Prince of Stride: Alternative
Stephanie: I will admit that I have gotten really into sports anime recently, mostly because the characters are what make it so much fun! Haikyuu, Yowapeda, and Free! are all sports shows that have such a fun cast of characters that it's hard not to enjoy myself. This season's Prince of Stride is no exception to this. Our main Stride team is a great mix of personalities that just mesh together well, despite using character stereotypes that I've seen many times up until this point. Sure there's nothing all that ground breaking for this sports anime right now, but that's not something I'm too concerned with. MadHouse is one of my favorite animation studios since making Paranoia Agent, Death Parade, and several others, so I trust them in making Prince of Stride into a fun and energetic series! That or I just may have become sports anime trash. Could be either one at this point. Strong Recommendation
Schwarzes Marken
Jonathan: Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Recommendation
Sekkou Boys
Jonathan: I think I might love this. It's a comedy about a manager trying to keep her idol clients happy and working, except the idols are famous sculptures and somehow alive. Way more comedy gets squeezed out of this set-up than should be possible, helped by the personalities of the cast. It's definitely one of the best shorts this season. Strong Recommendation
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
Jonathan: Best of the year material right here. A drama about rakugo (think a sort of one man show in Japanese theater) sounds boring, butt the writing is so sharp and the acting so good that it sucks you in almost instantly. The first episode has a ten minute scene that perfectly sums up the show's strengths, as you watch the main character tell a story about an inept thief and it's just masterful. I was sucked in from beginning to end. Sometimes, less is more, and this show is a perfect example of that. Strong Recommendation
Stephanie: Why did I think this was going to be similar to House of Five Leaves? The promotional art and the character design are rather similar so I kinda made the assumption. This is what happens when you've been busy doing a million other things and not paying too much attention. Now, I actually only had the chance to see the first episode of this series because Crunchyroll premium is a thing I don't have. However, the first episode was actually double in length so that more than makes up for it! This is, once again, one of those kinds of series that I know I'll just fall in love with as it is rather arts oriented; this time taking on the Japanese performance of Rakugo, or comic storytelling, that almost resembles a radio drama due to the set up of the actor's shows. While this is what initially draws me in to Shouwa Genroku, it's the characters that give much more life to the drama of the story itself. Sure, the stereotypes are there, however, they are in a rather different setting then what I've seen before as I'm able to connect and relate to this series even more as a performer and artist. I want to see Yotarou succeed in his pursuits even if he's a loud mouth idiot at times (Yotarou is the perfect nickname for him, by the way), because he's the kind of character I can root for because of his dedication and enthusiasm. This one is a bit of surprise for me, this season, and I'm willing to give it more time in order to completely captivate me in it's story. Solid Recommendation
Everyone has two drops, except for shorts. Let's take a look at this season's offerings and see what's worth what.
Full Shows
Active Raid
Jonathan Kaharl
Active Raid is instantly refreshing within the first episode, as it tosses you into a new world, gets you just familiar enough with how it works, and then tosses you right into the chaos along with Asami, as the team has to take down two delinquents in high tech and modded suits. Rather than tell you what the characters are like, it simply shows you though how they react to every new situation, the red tape they have to work around, and the dialog they have with each other. Everyone is instantly likable or interesting with little detail on their personal lives or background, especially the far too serious and easily flustered Asami. There's already a good team dynamic growing from this, as Asami is accepted by the unit, with her childish ideals and personality helping balance things among her adult counterparts. The running theme of the show is maturity versus immaturity, but the series is far more clever with it than you'd normally see. Neither is shown as absolute right or wrong, as Unit 8 has a balance of personality types in both camps to function and find outside the box solutions, helped by how easily everyone simply accepts each other. A lack of personal communication actually helps the team, but Logos seems to play by similar rules. They're immaturity run a muck, all action with no care for the consequence, indulgence over idealism, though possibly not without their own reasons. The show, at its core, is a show about adults dealing with the flawed world created by older adults but also the destructive inclinations of youth, trying to find a balance between them.
But if you don't care about any of that, no worries. The show has some fantastic action scenes and keeps each episode at a fast and exciting pace, all while working in some great gags. Episode three is the stand out so far, as it has Asami pretending to be an idol to stop an out of control otaku, with the unit manipulating the software in his suit to complete the illusion, creating a scene that's both hilarious and tense as Asami's dignity is shattered for the sake of the mission and everyone around her treats this ridiculous situation as completely serious. If that wasn't enough, the episode ends with the revelation that this was all being broadcast, and the people watching on TV have absolutely no idea what to make of what they just saw. Beautiful. The villains are equally strange, with our main one implied to have a bunch of escorts working for him so he can spit cherry tomatoes at them when they show any sort of sexual agency. It just happens and the show continues on. There are so many great moments like these mixed in with the surprisingly well handled CG mech fights and the behind the scenes support and hacking battles. The show is just plain fun, but with a layer of cleverness just hiding right under the surface. I highly recommend it.
By the way, this is from the director of Code Geass, and it shows in all the best ways.
Strong Recommendation
Ajin
David O'Neil
The opening scene of Ajin's first episode is by far the highpoint of the episode. Following a group of african child soldiers losing a fight against a seemingly immortal soldier, it's tense, well shot, and genuinely frightening, getting my hopes high. So it's too bad that the rest of the episode was so underwhelming. Past that first scene just not all that much happens, the show so far is following a structure similar to anime/manga like Parasyte and Tokyo Ghoul, with some ordinary teen boy unwillingly getting freakish superpowers that are taboo in society at large, but so far Ajin lacks any unique hook or defining aspects to make it stand out in that crowd. The episode as a whole is just really bland, all the plot details being introduced so far are immensely predictable and I feel as if I could easily plot out the next few episodes in my head just because there's so little original going on in this show. I feel as if I should at least give the show until the first real action scene or plot event before dropping it, but so far the series is giving me near nothing that makes me want to continue watching it, with the characters, art style, and world so far all seeming totally devoid of anything to set it apart.
And then there's the CG animation. The actual movement of the characters is the animation is probably the show's biggest strength, one of the most difficult things to get right with anime-style CG is character acting but Ajin has some of the best I've seen. Characters are expressive with their movements, look natural for the most part, and their faces show a lot of emotion during big moments. I'm not a fan of the show's character models however, which not only look bland, but also quite awkward at certain angles, with faces looking strangely curved at times. Also, the show overall just does a poor job taking advantage of the unique advantages CG brings to the table as a medium. Not only does it cut the frame rate (a pointless practice in CG meant to emulate 2D animation that doesn't really work and overall just makes it look choppier), but it also does almost nothing in terms of the more dynamic camera work CG animation arounds, basically being shot like a 2D show rather than a 3D one. Throw in a dreary visual style, and the incredibly lazy use of still frames during flashbacks, and overall it's a show that fails on nearly every level visually. I'm still only one episode in so I feel I should give it at least another episode or two, but as of now I can't find any good reason to recommend Ajin. It's a tired concept, that's executed in a predictable fashion, with subpar visuals to make the whole thing even less tolerable.
No Recommendation
AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue
David O'Neil
Aokana takes place on a near-futuristic island dominated by a revolutionary technology: Grav-shoes, which allow the user to fly through the air like a bird. The show follows a group of students in this setting who get wrapped up in a competitive sport centered around these Grav-shoes, which involves flying through the air and racing for points. The flying shoes are a neat gimmick that sets it apart from similar shows, the sport based around the shoes is interesting and theatrical as well, though it is disappointing they're accomplished mostly through cutting between 2D animation and awkward looking CG animation. Despite this, the matches so far have been quite fun and show potential for some unique scenarios and visuals as far as sports-based anime goes. The strongest point of the show so far though is likely its sense of humor. It's not especially witty, but it's tongue in cheek attitude and constant use of energetic, cartoony visuals managed to win me over. In addition, the lively characters play off each other well, with all of them (other than the admittedly bland, uninteresting main guy) injecting a lot of fun into the experience.
It's weakest so far in its story, as the show is copying beat for beat countless other sports stories and anime in more ways than one. A new transfer student with a remarkable, untapped skill for something, a waining school club revitalized by this student's promising talent, a character who'd given up on the sport for some DARK TRAGIC PAST REASON being dragged back in by this new student, chances are you've seen more than one work that follows all the same beats. But still, if you can overlook the cliched material, there's some fun to be had in Aokana. I'm not sure how long I'll stick with it if the story doesn't pick up soon, but for now I'm enjoying it well enough.
Solid Recommendation
BBK/BRNK
Danni Kristen
On a distant island in the sky there reside giant titans known as Buranki. Tasked with keeping them from falling to Earth is a woman with strange powers named Migiwa Kazuki. One day, though, the Buranki all went berserk. Fearing for the safety of her family, she sent her husband and two children down to Earth, never to see them again. Ten years later, her son Azuma is pursued by the dystopic Japanese government who have turned his mother into a criminal. They are after a Buranki's heart, which they claim Azuma has. He's rescued by a group of teenagers wielding Bubuki, which are the severed limbs belonging to Buranki. Using the heart they believe to be in Azuma's possession, they want to revive a sleeping Buranki and take their revenge on the nation of Japan.
There's an obvious glaring negative to talk about with regards to BBK/BRNK, but I'll address that later. I'm actually thoroughly enjoying this show, so I don't want it's strong points to become footnotes in a discussion about how CG sucks. For starters, there are the backgrounds. I've been collecting screenshots of some of my favorite shots from the series and posting them on my Twitter because they're just so god damn gorgeous. For that I have to thank Yuuji Kaneko, who has also been responsible for the art direction in shows such as Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Honestly though, I would argue that this is his best work so far, which is saying something because those were some very nice looking shows. Also, I absolutely have to express praise for the action scenes. These scenes make perfect use of the CG, delivering smooth and dynamic cuts as well as camera movements that would take much, much more time and resources to replicate in 2D animation. They're so well done in this medium that it lets me forgive the absolutely AWFUL animation in the rest of the show.
I'm sure you already know this, but if you somehow don't, BBK/BRNK is a show animated entirely in 3DCG. It's not the first show to try this - it's not even the only show this season trying this - but it's nonetheless a controversial decision. CG has obviously been used to create some amazing pre-rendered stuff. I mean, just look at video games and the most famous animated feature films of the last twenty years. CG can create some absolutely beautiful scenes. The problem is, these scenes were all created by huge teams within production cycles that lasted years. Studio SANZIGEN doesn't have near the resources these teams do, but I have to give them credit for trying. CG will never get to the point of being both efficient and well-done I mentioned before without a lot of trial and error. BBK/BRNK unfortunately is one of these errors. It's not like it's all bad. I mentioned before how well-done the action sequences are. CG technology nowadays is perfectly suited to creating action scenes that are both high-quality and efficient. However, it struggles in scenes where there isn't any dynamic movement. Scenes where characters don't do much other than converse with one another look ugly and stilted. It can be quite hard to watch.
Despite the poor quality of much of the show's CG, I stand by the studio's controversial decision. It may not be turning out very well, but the effort and ambition is obvious. No one has figured out yet how to properly use CG for this medium. Years from now, we could be seeing absolutely remarkable shows done fully in CG that just wouldn't be possible to replicate in 2D. There's this whole realm of possibility open to the animation industry in the future, and it isn't possible without people brave enough to keep trying. If forcing ourselves to watch one or two good shows a year that are weighed down by CG is necessary for CG technology and theory to advance, I think it's worth it. BBK/BRNK is worth it.
Solid Recommendation
Dagashi Kashi
David O'Neil
The series follows a teen boy and aspiring manga artist named Kokonotsu whose father is trying to convince him to instead focus on taking over the family business, a small candy shop out in the country. Their lives get shaken up when an eccentric, purple haired girl who turns out to be the heir to a massive candy business shows up trying to hire Kokonotsu's father, but when he declines (citing having to run the shop), she instead turns to trying to convince Kokonotsu to take over the shop, and see the glory of candy. It's a pure and straightforward comedy with no distractions, every second is dedicated to setting up jokes, which is just fine because they're some damn funny jokes. It does keep a somewhat laid back pace, but there's always a steady flow of clever bits and over the top slapstick to make sure things never get boring. This is largely helped by Hotaru, the aforementioned candy obsessed girl, who absolutely steals the show in nearly every scene. She's loud, quirky, and a ton of fun, always finding new hilarious ways to make humor almost entirely out of the topic of different candies. The show does occasionally delve into fanservice territory, but with all the talk leading me to believe this was an ecchi comedy series, I was actually surprised to find just how little sexual material there was in the show. It's all pretty innocent and non-intrusive, other than one notable scene in the first episode.
In terms of visuals, Dagashi Kashi doesn't have subtle character acting in the same level of SNAFU's second season, but it's still a very pretty show nonetheless. The visuals constantly get cartoonishly over the top, propelling the comedy to even more ridiculous levels. In addition, the show's rural atmosphere, reminiscent of show's like Non Non Biyori, add a lot to the show's somewhat nostalgic tone. Dagashi Kashi is a simple show with a simple goal: to make goofy jokes about candy with its small cast of crazy characters. It all comes down to those characters and that humor, and luckily both these aspects are strong enough to make it worth watching. If you're looking for laughs, so far Dagashi Kashi delivers plenty of them.
Strong Recommendation
Dimension W
Jonathan Kaharl
Dimension W sets itself up with these first two episodes as a sort of blend of Samurai Champloo and Space Dandy, with a strong mixture of action, comedy, and eye-catching style. The show has some of the best aesthetics this season, with lots of contrasting colors, dark and atmospheric cityscapes, and exaggerated fashions. It's a near perfect blend of cyberpunk and retro sci-fi, and it instantly breathes life into the show. It also has some of the best action scenes seen so far, with fluid animation and great shot composition that keeps everything easy to follow. The actual ideas the show throws out are also really promising, like the cost of using illegal coils when they overload, or Mira's very existence challenging the way things are. It's all familiar territory, but the series makes things feel fresh with its presentation and script. Helping is the slow burn pacing, telling you enough to know not everything is as it seems, but not going deep into specifics.
Kyoma and Mira also make for a great duo, even if it's not too apparent yet. They represent the exact opposites of one another's views and beliefs, but both have common ground in distrusting the powers that be and share similar moral codes, though Kyoma is much more cynical from his past as a soldier. They bounce off each other well, even with Kyoma barely saying anything most of the time, and I found both really endearing from their first lines. The character design also deserves special mention, as the series makes everyone feel like they just came out of a completely different series, fitting the chaotic and conflicting nature of the setting. This could easily be one of the season's best, keep an eye on it.
Strong Recommendation
Divine Gate
Stephanie Getchell
Studio Pierrot has been on a roll these past few years with Yona of the Dawn, The World is Still Beautiful, and, of course, Tokyo Ghoul. And, let's not forget, this is the same studio that produced Yu Yu Hakusho back in the day. But with the large success of Ghoul, in particular, it's hard to say what kind of series Pierrot will be able to create now. With other series like Bleach and Naruto in their corner, we know there's also the strong chance of it being rather bad. So let's talk about Divine Gate, shall we? From what I can gather: the human world, fairy world, and demon world merged into one several years ago and, with it, some humans have gained the ability to wield elemental powers. With those powers comes the possibility of reaching the Divine Gate, where you wishes can come true. However, the gate is only known as a tall tale and is difficult to find. Cut to our lead character, Aoto, a water adapter who is known as a parent killer to everyone. He is sought out by a special academy in order to develop his powers in the hopes of finding the gate. This is where he also meets Akane, a fire adapter, and Midori, a wind adapter, after an altercation on a tram early on. The three of them become a new team in the hopes of finding the gate and having their own individual wishes granted.
Does it land in the better shows that Pierrot has produced of the bad ones? Eh, I think it's kinda too early to tell. While it does have the makings of some typical, generic, shonen series, it's at least not as bad as another series that's ongoing this season, Luck & Logic (which I did give my second opinions on if you're curious to know). While the premise is interesting to me and the cast of characters we have, thus far, haven't made me want to punch them into the sun, it's the writing of the series that seems extremely off. It's hard to explain because I can't even find the right words to describe it. It seems rather stilted and boring at times, all the while, trying to give you these complex characters and exposition that it comes a little close to overloading it and the viewer with too much. The pacing can't decide what it wants to do, and the amount of story elements that have been put into the first two episodes have helped much at all to fix this problem. Let's see, we not only have the main story to find the divine gate, but we also have Aoto's family drama, Akane's dad drama, Midori's friend drama, Aoto and Akane's understanding of each other, some side story involving Arthur and Loki (whom I'm gonna take a wild guess and say is the show's villain), etc, etc. And we're still missing the other three members of this team that we see in the opening theme.
This isn't the worst thing I've seen this season. Far from it. However it is currently no where near the best that I've seen or even the moderately decent ones. This series has quite a bit of fixing to do if it wants to keep my attention rather than sticking with the near generic action stuff and throwing in as many plot points into the mixing bowl as it can. Information overload is a thing, guys, and you're coming a little too close to it. Something needs to happen here, because this is a series I've been interested in seeing and was happy to end up getting for seasonal this winter. Hell, I can't even say that it looks 100% amazing because I still have my gripes with CGI animation being mixed with digital and the second episode used that... Geez.... There's potential hiding in there, I just know it! Now can we please improve this series by 110%? I'd greatly appreciate it, Pierrot, because I don't want the wonderful great anime streak you've had up until now to be ruined by this series.
Does it land in the better shows that Pierrot has produced of the bad ones? Eh, I think it's kinda too early to tell. While it does have the makings of some typical, generic, shonen series, it's at least not as bad as another series that's ongoing this season, Luck & Logic (which I did give my second opinions on if you're curious to know). While the premise is interesting to me and the cast of characters we have, thus far, haven't made me want to punch them into the sun, it's the writing of the series that seems extremely off. It's hard to explain because I can't even find the right words to describe it. It seems rather stilted and boring at times, all the while, trying to give you these complex characters and exposition that it comes a little close to overloading it and the viewer with too much. The pacing can't decide what it wants to do, and the amount of story elements that have been put into the first two episodes have helped much at all to fix this problem. Let's see, we not only have the main story to find the divine gate, but we also have Aoto's family drama, Akane's dad drama, Midori's friend drama, Aoto and Akane's understanding of each other, some side story involving Arthur and Loki (whom I'm gonna take a wild guess and say is the show's villain), etc, etc. And we're still missing the other three members of this team that we see in the opening theme.
This isn't the worst thing I've seen this season. Far from it. However it is currently no where near the best that I've seen or even the moderately decent ones. This series has quite a bit of fixing to do if it wants to keep my attention rather than sticking with the near generic action stuff and throwing in as many plot points into the mixing bowl as it can. Information overload is a thing, guys, and you're coming a little too close to it. Something needs to happen here, because this is a series I've been interested in seeing and was happy to end up getting for seasonal this winter. Hell, I can't even say that it looks 100% amazing because I still have my gripes with CGI animation being mixed with digital and the second episode used that... Geez.... There's potential hiding in there, I just know it! Now can we please improve this series by 110%? I'd greatly appreciate it, Pierrot, because I don't want the wonderful great anime streak you've had up until now to be ruined by this series.
Weak-Solid Recommendation?
ERASED
Jonathan Kaharl
ERASED benefits mainly from how strong the writing is, along with the sheer tension it creates out of the most simple set-ups. There isn't much about the show that's too fantastical, and mundane or human situations are treated as the most horrific. The series doesn't hide from dark subjects, even working in child abuse as a major plot element, but mixes with a beautiful optimism and stunning art direction. The series is a roller coaster of emotions and will only continue down that path as more is revealed, especially when it concerns all the pieces to the puzzle we're starting to see but not really understand. The characters really carry the story as well, especially the surprisingly mature Satoru, and you want to see them overcome their trials, while also despising the most evil people the series can muster. And trust me, it has some nasty, nasty people in it, made worse by having no real explanation for why they are the way they are.
ERASED is already looking like best of the year material, and it will probably stay in the top three of the season if it doesn't trip itself up with some poor plot turns. It's one of the most human and engaging yarns I've seen in a long while, and I want to see what its endgame is.
Strong Recommendation
Girls Beyond the Wasteland
David O'Neil
First off, I'd like to say outright I don't think I'd call Girls Beyond the Wasteland a good show. The pacing is too slow, the premise isn't all that original, story-wise it has almost nothing going for it thus far, the animation isn't anything special, the characters are pretty generic harem archetypes, so on and so forth. But despite all this, it's been something of a guilty pleasure for me. It's difficult to say how often I'm laughing with the show, and how often I'm laughing at it, but suffice it to say I found myself laughing throughout the majority of both episodes. Instead of using it's somewhat meta-narrative (being an anime based on a visual novel about characters making a visual novel) set up to pretentiously point out its own tropes and cliches like a certain other show (Saekano) as if that somehow makes it clever, it mostly just pokes fun at itself, and does some genuinely funny bits involving how the characters first meet and interact with both each other, and otaku culture when first being introduced to it. Even if the characters are all fairly simple, harem stand ins that aren't much different from dozens of other similar characters, their interactions are a lot of fun and there's been some great moments in terms of watching each of their quirks bounce off each other with some really funny ways.
I do hope the show manages to come up with some new directions to take these characters and this premise, because with the low key attitude and passive pacing the show has displayed, things could get mundane fast if it doesn't mix things up soon now that the set up is out of the way. Despite this, I was surprised to find myself wanting to continue the show after those first two episodes. It's nothing all that special, but if you switch off your brain and concede to some harem contrivances there's fun to be had with Girls Beyond the Wasteland.
Weak Recommendation
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
David O'Neil
There are a few key points about why it is I think Grimgar works so well. First off: It's slow. Now, normally this would come as a weakness for this sort of show, but in this case it's actually a brilliant decision, because it isn't structured like these sorts of shows normally are. This is because the series has thus far entirely focused on my second key point on the show: The characters. Thanks to Grimgar's slow build pacing, it's putting an immense amount of attention and care to characterization and character interaction. Long conversations give us clear ideas of how the characters differ, and how each one either gets along well or doesn't get along well with each other. And outside of dialogue, there's tons of visual storytelling around every corner getting across what the characters are thinking, often without anything being explicitly stated. Episode 2 especially has a five minute long span of nothing but character and relationship building devoid of dialogue, getting us better aquatinted with the characters purely through visuals. By tactfully crafting these characters, their personalities, relationships, and motivations, the show is perfectly setting up the third key point: the realism. Grimgar avoids over the top fantasy fight scenes in favor of a brutal, savage interpretation of fantasy battles. Both episodes show the full team of protagonists, exhausted, paranoid, and emotionally strained by fighting just two, or even one generic goblin enemy. One character cringes at the feeling of swords piercing bones, another is unable to let go of his knife, hands shaking, at the conclusion of a battle, the goblin screams in pain as it bleeds out, desperate to survive. And because the aforementioned slow, low key character moments have made me invested in these characters and their struggles, these intense fight scenes feel all the more intense, and the stakes feel all the more important because I actually want these characters to succeed, and see them as human beings who could die at any moment.
As of now it's a collection of cleverly placed pieces working together near perfectly, with each of these aspects working in tangent with each other to create a thoroughly engaging show. It does have occasional dips into iffy, more light-novel-esque humor/fanservice-y moments, but by they're never especially conspicuous (and some of them I'd even argue had purpose as character moments but maybe that's me being pretentious). If all that wasn't enough, the show's also absolutely gorgeous, with vibrant, detailed backgrounds, terrific use of lighting, dynamic fight scene animation, and a meticulous attention to detail. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of the world, the mystery of their circumstances, or over the top fight scenes, Grimgar has chosen to put the focus squarely on the characters, with powerful results, adding weight to fight scenes grounded in reality, and investing me in the character's efforts to survive, setting itself apart from similar entries in this well-worn genre.
Strong Recommendation
Haruchika - Haruto & Chika
Stephanie Getchell
I'm back to Sound Euphonium again! ...Wait... This isn't Sound! It's very different and even more gay! Well damn, my mistake! Haruchika is the story about freshman Chika looking to create a new cute girl image for herself. In order to do so, she decides to join her high school Brass Band Club as a flute player after becoming inspired by watching concert performances on TV. There, she is reunited with her childhood friend Haruta, a french horn player, as both decide to do their best to take the four person club and make it grow in order to take part in competitions. But Chika does happen to have a sudden ulterior motive that she develops pretty quickly, and that is her fondness over her music teacher. What she learns, also rather quickly, is that she isn't alone as Haruta also has affection towards their music teacher. What a weird love triangle this is going to turn out to be!
Going into the first episode, I'll admit, I was a little bit iffy about it. It started out just as any other high school/music/slice of life/romance/drama series would typically start out. Nothing all that new or exciting. By the time I reached the end of that first episode, and the lovely gay twist popped in, that caught me off guard, and in a good way. Haruta is so open with his personality and can just tell it like it is to the point where he's completely nonchalant about being gay for his own teacher. He's not embarrassed in telling this to Chika, in fact, he's the one who confronts her about it one morning before school. That was the first little glimpse of something new and different for me. And then I get to the second episode where Haruta and Chika are trying to recruit a former oboe player after she quit due to her younger brother's death during one of her concerts, and blaming herself for not being there with him. While this ideal plot line seems rather generic and overused, it's the end result of the episode that really captured me. Everything about it was so dramatic and meaningful that it did move me to tears. It was a story that was rather well done during that episode and is what firmly cement my enjoyment of the series thus far. I don't know, maybe it was the whole puzzle aspect of the episode since I do love me some good puzzles to play with.
I think this series had a decent start. While it seemed like the same old thing at the beginning, it worked it's way into becoming something rather unexpected and even captivating at times. The set up has been well thought out and executed so far, and our two leads complement each other rather well in order to create a nice balance of personalities. The secondary characters that we've met have been fairly interesting, with our oboe player from the second episode getting to have her story told, of course. And it's clear from both the opening theme and the episode previews that this will be a recurring trend as we recruit more and more members who seemingly have more and more problems that need to be solved first. As great as this has been, I just hope it's not this same pattern for the entire show, as it is set up to do much more than solve other's problems for the sake of the club. I do gotta have me my odd love triangle a bit more, ya know. Anywho, this is among one of the stronger starts I've seen so far, even if it did take a little bit of time to get there.
Going into the first episode, I'll admit, I was a little bit iffy about it. It started out just as any other high school/music/slice of life/romance/drama series would typically start out. Nothing all that new or exciting. By the time I reached the end of that first episode, and the lovely gay twist popped in, that caught me off guard, and in a good way. Haruta is so open with his personality and can just tell it like it is to the point where he's completely nonchalant about being gay for his own teacher. He's not embarrassed in telling this to Chika, in fact, he's the one who confronts her about it one morning before school. That was the first little glimpse of something new and different for me. And then I get to the second episode where Haruta and Chika are trying to recruit a former oboe player after she quit due to her younger brother's death during one of her concerts, and blaming herself for not being there with him. While this ideal plot line seems rather generic and overused, it's the end result of the episode that really captured me. Everything about it was so dramatic and meaningful that it did move me to tears. It was a story that was rather well done during that episode and is what firmly cement my enjoyment of the series thus far. I don't know, maybe it was the whole puzzle aspect of the episode since I do love me some good puzzles to play with.
I think this series had a decent start. While it seemed like the same old thing at the beginning, it worked it's way into becoming something rather unexpected and even captivating at times. The set up has been well thought out and executed so far, and our two leads complement each other rather well in order to create a nice balance of personalities. The secondary characters that we've met have been fairly interesting, with our oboe player from the second episode getting to have her story told, of course. And it's clear from both the opening theme and the episode previews that this will be a recurring trend as we recruit more and more members who seemingly have more and more problems that need to be solved first. As great as this has been, I just hope it's not this same pattern for the entire show, as it is set up to do much more than solve other's problems for the sake of the club. I do gotta have me my odd love triangle a bit more, ya know. Anywho, this is among one of the stronger starts I've seen so far, even if it did take a little bit of time to get there.
Strong Recommendation
KONOSUBA - God's blessing on this wonderful world!
Joe Straatmann
The hook here is the main relationship between Kazuma and Aqua is a screwball comedy. When Kazuma is told he can bring ONE thing or power into the next world besides his track suit, he chooses Aqua much to her flummoxed protests. Kazuma is "street smart" in his new surroundings but not particularly strong in anything else while Aqua has her goddess powers, but is haughty from being worshiped by so many and knows very little about actually working through life. In a reality check, they have to survive from the ground up in the starter village, only having enough money to sleep in a barn next to horse dung. With time, they can even have a sheet that covers the horse dung! I can see why their exchanges can be seen as hateful, but I think they honestly don't realize what they're doing wrong and their only solution is each other whether they like it or not.
It's an amusing take on living within an RPG with little details on just what that entails. My favorite touch is the magic device that analyzes their abilities and spits it out on a literal character sheet they have to take with them as proof of their abilities. I would've liked a bit more of that kind of humor like just how they're supposed to carry back the giant frogs they slay for their reward, but I won't get too picky. Studio Deen is known for their cheaper look, but that doesn't really factor into here. It's standard animation trying to imitate what a generic fantasy world would resemble and it succeeds with a few flairs like some occasionally nice backdrops and and quests screens. The music is occasionally drops in with imitations of Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama's orchestral scores to set the scene and sometimes act as an ironic touch.
The journey so far is an enjoyable one. New member Megumin fits right in with the party of misfit adventurers as a mage who can only break out one the most devastating spells in the book once a day and then collapses. We'll have to see what the seemingly competent warrior Darkness adds to this batch of mixed nuts, but the much bigger test is the next episode titled "A Panty Treasure in This Right Hand." For many a previously focused anime production, panties have disrupted focus. Panties can be the mind-killer if one is not careful.
Solid Recommendation
Luck & Logic
Joe Straatmann
It's the future and we've discovered an even more important building block to life than atoms called Logic. By unleashing the power of Logic, hidden super powers can be brought out from within humans, which is good since alternate worlds have opened up with literal gods and dragons pouring out called Foreigners that need to be apprehended and controlled. The people in charge of stopping them are Logicalists, who team with goddesses and literally become one person to combine and enhance their powers with a method called Trance. You get all that? If not, there will literally be a quiz. Thankfully, it's for the Logicalists and not you.
You'd think with all of this overstuffed light novel type terminology and world building, the hero would have to be some loser who magically has the greatest abilities for no reason. No, Yoshichika is a veteran at 17 years (The powers disappear before adulthood because of course they do) who was the ace in Hong Kong before he lost his Logic Card. However, even if he finds it, he could still be a danger for doing a forbidden OVER TRANCE. Fortunately for him, when a Foreigner is attacking his town, a goddess named Athena shows up and not only happens to have found his Logic card washed up on the beach, she offers herself as his new partner for Trancing. Ain't that convenient. Then he joins the organization to protect this dimension and we either have a super powered harem or a bunch of yuri relationships plus Yoshichika and Athena. Take your pick (It's probably the latter though since Trance partners agreements are written almost exactly like wedding ceremonies). Strangely enough, there is a Mihoshi in the group, stereotypically blonde and dumb as a post.
Like I said, Luck and Logic is a weird blend of generic. I don't really dislike it as much as I am not really invested in it so far. There are small moments that intrigue me much more than the bigger picture. For one thing, Yoshichika is a needed element at his home because if he's not there, his father will have a go at whatever random women step into his life while Yoshichika's significantly younger sister watches. It's a bizarre touch and I strangely laughed a ton when Yoshichika takes the phone call from his sibling during one of these moments. Also, the character Olga Breakchild is obviously going to be the major villain and the way everyone just lets him go about his business that's clearly the wrong road is hilariously nonchalant. "Eh, that's Olga. He's like us, but he's not like us, so he goes around talking arrogantly while not doing anything. He doesn't have a partner, but he's working on that by going into the basement and talking to the Foreigners in our prison to see if any of them want to team up. He says he's not going to stop until he's the most powerful Logicalist. It'll work out. I mean, what's the worst that could happen with a guy named Breakchild?"
Can it take the step from boringly standard to fantastically awful? It has the potential in its Logic. Time will tell if it makes use of that potential.
Weak Recommendation
Myraid Colors: Phantom World
Danni Kristen
The year is 2016 and I'm being forced to eat my words.
Truthfully, I have extremely conflicting feels about Myriad Colors Phantom World. Common sense tells me this is a terrible show. The fact I find myself laughing at the show itself more than I do its jokes tells me this is a terrible show. The strange breast physics and light novel harem hijinks tell me this is a terrible show. Yet despite all the mounting evidence, I don't have it in me to call Phantom World a terrible show.
But why? What exactly is preventing my conscience from tearing this shitty light novel harem a new one? Could it be the art and animation? This is a KyoAni production after all, so it looks fantastic. Their in-house style never fails to tickle my fancy, and they've actually managed to improve on their action sequences. Terrible action scenes were what forced me to drop both Beyond the Boundary and the second season of Chu2, so I'm both surprised and relieved to find the ones in Phantom World to be entertaining. They're not among the best out there, but they're surprisingly fluid and short enough to not out-stay their welcome. Despite being good, making them too long would overshadow the show's highest points: character interaction scenes.
Character interaction has always been the backbone of KyoAni shows. It's also always been the meat, the skin, and pretty much every single part of their shows. This would probably be a bad thing if their shows weren't always really good. Phantom World is certainly one KyoAni's weakest examples of good character interaction, but it's damn cute nonetheless. Haruhiko is surprisingly likable for a harem protagonist, even if he does still tend to end up involved in the perverted hijinks that come with his role. Reina is adorable and Koito has the potential to be a cool character. The friendly phantom Ruru is by far my favorite, though. She steals just about every scene with her lazy and outspoken personality. Also, I kind of have a weakness for perverted girls. The only character in need of some serious fleshing out is Mai, who is unfortunately flat and boring. Regardless, the highest points of the show all come while watching all of these characters bouncing off one another. It may often be cliche and juvenile, but it's always cute.
Ultimately, though, what sets Phantom World apart from its LN harem adaptation peers is in its pacing. Every single other one of these shows I've had to watch for seasonals has had me repeatedly checking to see how much time was left in each episode. Every single one is paced so slowly, meaning every scene drags on and on - especially the worst ones. Phantom World counteracts this with extremely quick pacing. Practically every scene flies by, leaving you sometimes unsure of what exactly just happened and how it relates to whatever is happening in the current scene. This isn't so much an actual good quality as it is a good way of preventing viewers from growing bored or tired of perverted jokes dragging on. Even the infamous scene where Mai breaks the laws of physics to get her breasts under a limbo pole flies by quickly. Phantom World isn't really a good show. As the sum of its parts, it's a pretty bad one. Hell, even if it isn't the sum of its parts it's still a bad show. And yet when next Wednesday comes around I'll once again find myself sitting on my bed grinning over this stupid show.
Weak Recommendation
Norn9: Norn + Nonet
Stephanie Getchell
I'm not too much of a gaming person, especially when it comes to Otome games. It's generally something I have little interest in or no time to speak of because I'm always doing a million things at one time. When it comes to anime series that are based on these same games, more often than not they turn out to be rather bad. There are few exceptions, but even those aren't fantastic and are more boring. I only call them exceptions because they are, at least, not utter trash. If you're wondering where Norn9 lands, as of now, then it's the exception to the rule. Norn9 is the story of a 17 year old pink haired heroine (because all heroines have weird colored hair in these games) who joins the ship Norn and it's ten other residents who are gifted with special abilities. Their mission is to hell keep the peace of the world below, even if that means they have to face each other in order to do so.
So, as one of the exceptions to the Otome turned anime series rule, that means it's fairly dull. The fantasy elements do catch some interest as some of the mechanics can be refreshing at times. Meanwhile, the story isn't too exciting, but there's at least a couple possible story lines in place as of the second episode. One of which, is kinda spoiled a bit in the series opening, but it's so obvious anyway it's painful. The largest problem I have are the characters the series has introduced so far. We have a mix of stereotypical troupes as well as ones that are as flat as cardboard. Our pink haired lady lead and Senri are the biggest flat pieces of cardboard I have seen in this series and in a good long while. They almost put Yui from Diabolik Lovers to shame... Almost. There's really nothing new or inventive about this series except a few logistical elements, but it hasn't been terrible yet. This helps keep my previously low expectations of the series the same. This is great because I'm fully aware of what I'm getting into, but bad because, again, there's the chance it could get much worse. Or there may be the miracle that is it gets better from this point on. It certainly has a lot of work to do if it wants to get better...
I have a feeling this is going to be the kind of series that doesn't really change and is either going to remain at the flat boring level or do something that is utterly bad. Nothing can beat Amnesia, honestly, and I hope it doesn't try to because I don't need it in my life right now. While some elements are fairly new and inventive, it doesn't stray to far from that everyone has come to know from this genre of game/anime series. Part of me really does hope it improves because there is some little amount of potential that this series has with the setting and location; with the story, albeit generic, being semi interesting. It's just the characters that I feeling so strongly are lacking in both personality and development that they're what drag the series down further and further. This isn't a good start for Norn9, my friends. Though, to be fair, it's not the worst thing to come from the winter season. There's just a good chance it'll be the worst thing from the season or moderately in the middle because, let's face it, there is no way this series is going to be an outstanding one by the end.
Weak Recommendation
Nurse Witch Komugi R
Stephanie Getchell
Every season, there's always that one show that I really really hoped I wouldn't be stuck with. Low and behold, I ended up with Nurse Witch Komugi, the rather generic magical girl series that you would more than likely see young girls watching rather than adults. It revolves around Komugi, a middle school girl who is up and coming in the idol world. One day she meets this strange creature with a pyon tick, and is asked to become a magical girl in order to fight the forces of evil. Thanks to some censored bug, which is more than likely a cockroach, she agrees and begins her fight to defeat 107 of these baddies in order to save the world. Also, more than likely other girls will be joining her soon because a) there are two other mascot alien characters we got to see and b) it's heavily implied who the other two girls are if you haven't seen any of the promotional material.
While the first episode was riddled with the typical magical girl cliches we see a lot of the time, it does have a few little things that made me chuckle occasionally; one being the monster of the week turning the cut out of the Yatterman baddies into the main characters of Yatterman Night. Now that one got me a little. This whole thing reminds me of Cardcaptor Sakura so much that it hurts, and I've never even seen that series! True, this is an updated version of the early 2000s series of the same name from Kyoto Animation, but I just feel really dumb watching it. This series is a straight up children's show in every single way, and it's just something that does not catch my attention. I'm not saying that this one is terrible or that only idiots watch it, I mean I'll admit I watch kids shows for fun every now and again, but it's just so dumbed down and cliched that it's rather painful to sit through. Honestly, I knew I was going to use my first drop on this series the moment I learned it was assigned to me. I just, ugh, give me something else to watch... At least Joe wasn't stuck with it. Took something painful away from him to give him some reprieve since he's been stuck with the shows no one wants these past few seasons. At least I can say one episode of Nurse Witch was enough for me...
While the first episode was riddled with the typical magical girl cliches we see a lot of the time, it does have a few little things that made me chuckle occasionally; one being the monster of the week turning the cut out of the Yatterman baddies into the main characters of Yatterman Night. Now that one got me a little. This whole thing reminds me of Cardcaptor Sakura so much that it hurts, and I've never even seen that series! True, this is an updated version of the early 2000s series of the same name from Kyoto Animation, but I just feel really dumb watching it. This series is a straight up children's show in every single way, and it's just something that does not catch my attention. I'm not saying that this one is terrible or that only idiots watch it, I mean I'll admit I watch kids shows for fun every now and again, but it's just so dumbed down and cliched that it's rather painful to sit through. Honestly, I knew I was going to use my first drop on this series the moment I learned it was assigned to me. I just, ugh, give me something else to watch... At least Joe wasn't stuck with it. Took something painful away from him to give him some reprieve since he's been stuck with the shows no one wants these past few seasons. At least I can say one episode of Nurse Witch was enough for me...
Weak Recommendation, dropped at episode one
Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn
Jonathan Kaharl
Masamune Shirow and Koshi Rikudo, crusher of dreams! Even if you're new to this hobby, you should at least have some recollection to the existence of Ghost in the Shell due to the popularity of a series film among movie buffs, much like Akira. Well, the series creator, Masamune Shirow, is both a sci-fi pioneer and a filthy pervert that has been indulging in his lusts since the millennium began, and he hasn't looked back. Guy draws a TON of porn, and even in his Ghost days, he made the Major a lesbian because he didn't want to draw a guy's butt during a sex scene. We really should have seen this coming. But when you throw in Koshi Rikudo, things get weird. His claim to fame was Excel Saga, a bizarre action/comedy series more known for its absolutely insane anime adaptation that completely re-writes everything, and one other series called Deathless that may as well not exist to western audiences. He's not a guy you'd necessarily expect to do something as ridiculous as ...this, but he was inspired by the turns that anime adaptation made, and that would explain so very much.
When you get the two talented gentlemen together, their intelligence completely implode on contact and only sheer, unbridled stupidity and perversion escapes. And I kind of like it.
Pandora in the Crimson Shell is really the worst thing these two have ever done, by a large margin, but it still kind of works in its own dumb way. You can tell the two had a blast making this stupid thing, and I like what director Munenori Nawa (Locoldol) has done with the material. The series follows a cyborg girl named Nene, whom has natural ability so great that she can make use of a powerful software that allows her to download various skills. She meets with an eccentric scientist, and she gives her a cat-girl maid cyborg named Clarion that has the program necessary to access the software, and she's eventually going to stop terrorism with it while not realizing it because she's too busy trying to glomp Clarion. As I said, dumb. But the show is fully aware of it and constantly pokes fun at itself, like the incredibly stupid starting villains, to the constant animation changes to bizarre, barely formed blobs for comedic reaction, like Clarion hissing at a dog. I can respect stupidity like this.
What's even weirder is that you can easily make out the marks of the two main creators. All the machines and cyborg concepts on display are ripped almost directly from Ghost in the Shell, while Excel herself keeps popping up as a failure of a reporter who keeps almost dying. Then, of course, you also have the focus on modern live mixed with out of place absurdities (like that scientist I mentioned being a huge perv who has her staff dress up in fetish outfits) from Rikudo's wheelhouse, while Shirow was probably the guy who said "hey, what if she activated her sciencigal girl mode by fingering the flat chested cait-girl maid cyborg?" It's the best and worst aspects of the two just rolled into one patchwork monster, and it's definitely going to be the series that's going to cause the most division in whomever still chooses to watch it after the first few episodes.
I would not recommend it, unless you're a Ghost in the Shell fan and want to find out what the hell happened to Shirow being a sci-fi fiction leader. You're going to find something here, probably something that will anger you. I just laughed, mostly.
Weak Recommendation
Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation
Joe Straatmann
If you haven't been informed yet, this series was sold on lies. Celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Phantasy Star Online franchise, the concept was obfuscated by clever wordplay and the trailers mostly used the sci-fi action part of it. Here's the bait-and-switch: This is not a work that takes place within Sega's Phantasy Star Online universe, but it's about students at a fictional boarding school who play Phantasy Star Online 2 and are trying to keep it from getting banned on campus. Yes, it is yet another series where we're supposed to care about other people playing video games, and what's worse, it's not even one of those stories about getting trapped inside a game where the world or lives are at stake. Not to mention you can just play the damn thing in July and cut out the middle man. What you're watching is a blunt, cynical promotional tool selling you how wonderful their product is.
For what it's worth, the plot involves Itsuki Tachibana, a new student at Seiga Academy (GET IT?! If you don't, there's a ground display of Sonic in the middle of campus). He's insanely average as revealed by painful expository dialogue. He has a chance meeting with student council president Rina and within a day, is offered the position of vice president. What does the vice president of this academy do? Why, play Phantasy Star Online 2 and report on the social activities of the students playing it. With no idea how to play, he creates a new character (That somehow looks exactly like him even though he hit the randomize option in character creation) and dives head-first into the world. Thankfully, he has veteran player SORO show up instantly and help him learn the ropes. You'll never guess who SORO is. Certainly not because I've only listed two characters in this thing.
As one of the few who've braved the second episode, there is more to it. Rina is secretly using Itsuki to help her because despite her perfect veneer, she is sorely lacking in social skills. There's also a computer-like student who's been overseas and stalks Itsuki... You know what? What does it matter? As an overplayed holiday movie says, it's a crummy commercial. I willingly took this series because I am a Phantasy Star fan in general. Phantasy Star IV is one of my ten favorite games of all time, and while the first two are rather convoluted in design with terrible translations that don't help, they were way ahead of their time and unique offerings to the 8-bit and 16-bit RPG arena. I understand the online version of it is an extremely different beast and has little to do with its predecessors, but Phantasy Star is a franchise I still have an affinity for and would like to see it continue even if it's not nearly as unique as it used to be. Even so, I am not going to just give a pass to an ill-formed informercial simply due to similar interests. You are literally hit with tens of thousands of advertisements a day. Don't make it one more.
No Recommendation
Prince of Stride: Alternative
Danni Kristen
Prince of Stride stars Nana Sakurai, a longtime fan of stride, as she begins her high school career at Honan Academy hoping to join their legendary stride club. She meets Takeru Fujiwara, an up-and-coming star of stride, who has come to Honan for the very same purpose. The club they find turns out to be a shell of its former self following the departure of its two star members. Determined to rebuild the club back to its former glory, they forcibly recruit their classmate Riku Yagami, who turns out to be the younger brother of one of the club's former stars. With their team fully formed, they begin training to compete in and win End of Summer, one of the top stride competitions in Japan.
If you think that sounds like a very generic sports anime premise, that's because it really is. It has everything a sports show needs: cute boy archetypes and a self-insert girl that gets to watch them. I'm actually really disappointed that Sakurai isn't a runner. I wanna see the cute girl parkour. Anyways, while the premise and characters are very generic, the art direction is quite impressive. The abundance of very bright whites is offset by a lot of strong blues, reds, and yellows that add a lot of vibrance to the show. The show is also littered with sleek lines and geometric shapes, which fit well with the show's focus on the quick yet offbeat sport of parkour. This is basically turned up to ten in the ED, which may not be the best this season, but is easily the most stylish.
Heading into Prince of Stride, I expected it to be a lot like Free. While it does share some similarities, Prince of Stride seems to have no time for slice of life shenanigans. I've seen three episodes so far, and the only scene that didn't have anything to do with stride was a scene where they had to become models. Even then, though, they were only modeling so they could secure a sponsorship for their club. There may be some slice of life filler in the future, but right now the show seems to be laser focused on just their training and competitions. Personally, I'd prefer that. So far we've gotten to see two races, both of which have been riveting to watch. The animation isn't quite the best Madhouse has to offer, though, but it's by no means bad. There is a sense of whiplash going straight from One Punch Man's animation to Prince of Stride's, but the fact that they're back to back explains the gap in quality. Both shows were under production at the same time, with more resources obviously going to One Punch Man. Like the rest of the show, though, the animation is suitable. Even if it is another pretty generic sports show, there's enough to enjoy in it to keep me watching.
Solid Recommendation
Schwarzes Marken
Joe Straatmann
Yes, 1983 Europe has aliens. Beings of Extra-Terrestriastial origin which is Adversary of human race (BETA for short), to be exact. They're so troublesome, the West and the East need to team up to stop them. The aliens mostly look like parts of the male reproduction organ and charge humans en masse. The best unit at handling them is the 666th, demons that cut through testicles with alien eyes like a Ginsu. These are easily the blandest parts of the series because as much as they put in drama between the unit (The introductory battle starts with one of the team having a PTSD episode in the middle of battle), the skirmishes themselves look plain and the units in play will pretty much do exactly what they're predicted to (Normal units suck, the 666th is great, the Stasi will do whatever is most dickish).
Between the battles is where the most potential is. The main characters are experienced soldier Theodor and newbie Katia who willingly transferred from a UN squadron (Heh heh heh. Sorry, had my own private joke there...). Theodor tried to escape to the West with his family, but was brought back and coerced into military service while Katia is feigning reverence in the 666th unit in order to get close to information on her missing father. Unfortunately, all the information about her father has been deleted from the records (There is a rather touching parallel with Theodor whose father was killed in the escape attempt and any information on his father was completely redacted, blacking out his parent from existence), so she has to dig deeper while trying to survive the hell that is life in East Germany. Also, their unit leader Irisdina may be a Stasi informant who killed her own brother to show her loyalty to the state. Since Irisdina is supposed to be a sympathetic character, everyone makes it clear that the official story isn't what happened and the real Stasi show up to be actual bad guys, strangely taunting their best unit and poking at their most emotionally vulnerable spots.
I need a few more episodes on this one. It's odd to punt on a review after getting a decent look at an hour of it, but many of the elements aren't really moving yet. The first two episodes are mostly introductions with a few tantalizing bits on where the story could go. It seems a little too black-and-white, but we'll see if there's more complexity to the people as their screen time expands. As of right now, some of the goofy aspects feel out of place within the heavy drama (Not to mention the lack of breast support in the mecha outfits is outright distracting. Those things are literally floating midair!). The aliens are mostly like the aliens from Contra that pop from all corners waiting to be destroyed with no motivation except they're the overarching antagonists. I sincerely hope there's more to the GDR setting than a Japanese manga author thinking it would be cool to have something that took place there and throwing everything haphazardly around it. Stay tuned....
Weak Recommendation
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
Danni Kristen
Anyways, onto the actual show. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is about a 1960's ex-yakuza named Yotarou who fell in love with rakugo while in prison. Following his release, he tracks down the legendary storyteller Yakumo. He had seen Yakumo perform while he was in prison and wanted desperately to become his apprentice. For unknown reasons, he is accepted and invited to live with Yakumo. He then meets Konatsu, the daughter of the deceased storyteller Sukeroku. Finding Yakumo's style of rakugo hard to replicate, Yotarou is drawn to performances of Sukeroku. As he finds Sukeroku's style more suitable for himself, Yakumo begins to notice more and more how similar Yotarou is to his old friend and rival. He commissions Yotarou to fulfill the work Sukeroku set out to do: preserve rakugo in an age that would prefer to leave it behind.
First of all, I should point out that's a very brief summation of only the first episode. There is a lot more depth to this show than one might assume at first. What seemed at first glance to be a show reveling in appreciation of one of its nation's oldest traditions is actually filled with complex relationships between characters as well as an insightful look into the incredibly fast-paced change Japanese society underwent following WWII. In the show's fifty-minute first episode we see plenty of nods to the similarities between Yotarou and Sukeroku. However, the following episodes have been a long retelling by Yakumo about how he met and grew up with Sukeroku that has yet to actually finish. In these episodes, the similarities between Yotarou and Sukeroku are blindingly obvious. Both are brash and absurdly confident fools with a serious love and talent for rakugo. Sukeroku's pleading to become an apprentice as a child is extremely reminiscent of Yotarou's pleas to Yakumo, which easily explains why he would take him on as an apprentice.
Now, I would be remiss if I only talked about the plot. This show features a great soundtrack as well as some beautiful backgrounds. It's biggest strength comes through in the directing, though. There's some spectacular shot composition in this show. The environment is utilized spectacularly to illustrate specific relationships. Examples of this include Yakumo's obscured views of Sukeroku as the latter performs, illustrating his inability to match Sukeroku's talent and achieve a full view of the world he sees as a performer. One of my favorite shots though frames Yakumo as a tiny figure dominated by the setting sun as he recalls the fear and worry he felt when Sukeroku and their master went off to war. The sun's orange turns to red, bearing a heavy reference to the symbolic rising sun of the Japanese army. The war is over, though, and the sun is no longer rising. Japan has lost, and Yakumo is dominated by the thought that the people he loves most may be lost as well.
The best directorial decisions by far come during the rakugo performance scenes, though. Rakugo performances are very rarely cut in this show. This makes sense, of course, since the main purpose behind Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is to instill a love and appreciation for rakugo in others. These do make for some long scenes, though. This would normally be a problem, but each one is so well directed that it never actually grows boring or tiring. Each performance is noticeably different depending on the skill and style of the performer. Yakumo's first performance in the show seems to bend space and whisk viewers away into his story and this is illustrated well in the animation. Yotarou's first performance is filled with dynamic framing and camera angles that show his talent in dominating the stage, but we are still anchored to reality unlike we were in Yakumo's performance. Later, when we see Yakumo perform for the first time as a teenager, we're given very flat and unexciting shots that illustrate his lack of skill and inability to capture the audience's attention. These are all also accompanied by terrific performances by the voice actors. While I still can't say I've become a fan of rakugo, I'm definitely a fan of Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, and I'm very excited to see what else it has in store.
Strong Recommendation
Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle
Jonathan Kaharl
Everything about this show fails so often and so strongly that I'm not even sure where to begin. I mean, the falling into boob scene being the introduction to our two main leads should be a good warning to anyone interested, but it keeps spiraling into a bigger and bigger mess as it goes. Lux (yes, this is really the name of the main protagonist) is a spineless wuss with overpowered magical bullshit powers from a black sword that makes him special, and he's made further special by not only being the worst student in the school, but *GASP* the only guy there! Oh man, he sure is out of place and a completely loser like the audience, but he's also so awesome that being nice was enough for a girl to masturbate in the bath to his memory! No, that is not something I made up! This happened! He's like every light novel self-insert lead combined into a thick puddle of obnoxious intent and silent misogyny, and what is shown of the female supporting cast is no better. Lisha suffers as well, as she exists as the top student to only be saved by the main character and become a love-struck dope because a man has never treated her nicely before. She is the GODDAMN PRINCESS OF A COUNTRY.
But what's really frustrating here is that the show has really good ideas for moving stories. Test Platoon and Magical Warfare were just bizarre messes in figuring out what they wanted to do, but Bahamut makes it pretty clear. It's a fantasy world where both the old and new kingdom are kind of awful, and our ex-prince and current princess leads are trying to find their place in this vile environment, each with their own baggage. Lisha was branded by the old kingdom and has genuine insecurities because of the trauma of that event, which is a surprisingly clever way to side-step the attempted rape scene we always get in these shows. It also works on a thematic level and the idea that shes "owned" by her kingdom's enemy makes sense because she has a mark on her body reminding her of a time where she was a victim. Lux, on the other hand, can't properly control his power, and he pleaded with his brother to prevent unnecessary bloodshed during his kingdom's fall instead of acting, which lead to a mass slaughter. He feels equally powerless, despite having power, because he doesn't have the will to truly use it out of fear of it. There are so many interesting things you can do with those ideas, but the series instantly tosses all those ideas at the wayside as we get the mandatory rapey starter villain and Lux gets the normal light novel lead treatment that the audience can wank their egos to.
All the usual sins start piling up not long after, including awful cheesecake bits and exposition dumps, somehow mixed with characters describing one another (You can't just have your characters announce the how the others feel feel! That makes me feel angry!), and don't even get me started on the utter stupidity and pointlessness that is the little sister character who we all know is just here for fetishists. The show just keeps piling and piling on the cliches and terrible delivery of its ideas that it just keeps angering me more and more. This is so bad in nearly every way possible through the writing that it keeps finding new ways to suck. The production isn't helping either, with generic fantasy castles and forests, long with the terrible CG mech battles. The entire show is just a pain to experience, and I'd drop it if I hadn't had gotten a Hulu subscription to watch it. I will finish this foul, miserable goblin out of spite, goddamn it.
The one positive thing I can say about this show without a back hand compliment is that Phi, the childhood friend character, is wonderful and desperately needs to be taken away from this horrible series for her own good. She's a possessive ditz with sexual agency who uses her spacey personality to hide her sheer determination and cunning, and she gets to eat a donut offered to her as a bargaining chip to leave Lux alone, only for her to completely ignore that part of the agreement after eating it. I like her and she deserves head pats.
No Recommendation
Shorts
Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara
David O'Neil
No Recommendation, dropped at episode two
Ojisan and Marshmallow
Stephanie Getchell
I kinda wish I was allowed to drop shorts this season. However, since this is the only one I'm covering, I'm stuck with it until the end.... Ugh.... Ok, this one is a bit of an odd duck because it centers around a middle aged man who's an office worker, and one of his coworkers, a woman, who really likes him. However, he's more interested in marshmallows than anything else as proven by the constant teasing our female lead does to our male lead. I honestly don't know if this series is trying to be funny or clever, and it's extremely hard to tell because of the rather odd and slightly idiotic premise. Sure, there were some clever parts such as the phone call Hige made to his boss while he and Wakabayashi were sheltering themselves from the rain (Wakabayashi's personality did make it all the more amusing), but I guess I'm just trying to work my way into this series and try to understand what the hell is going on. From what I can tell, it's rather reminiscent of other series like Hetalia and Azamanga Diaoh as it was a short five or six panel comic based on what I could dig up through Google images. If that's the case, then this is going to be something completely episodic and full of odd hijinks. As of now, I'm not too fond of it; but could I possibly grow to love it in the future? We'll see. I'm stuck with it regardless so I'll have to hold on for dear life.
Weak Recommendation
Ooya-san wa Shishunki!
David O'Neil
Weak Recommendation
Please tell me! Galko-chan
Jonathan Kaharl
The designs are appealing and make for good comedic reactions, the music is fitting, and some of the gags here are hilarious. My favorite character might actually be the airhead of the group, not only because she's the most put together, but also possibly the craziest at the same time. Her explanation to why she hasn't tried cooking yet is just so perfectly timed. Where Pandora is crude for indulgence, Galko-chan is crude with a point, and it's a surprisingly clever little comedy because of it.
Strong Recommendation
Rainbow Days
Jonathan Kaharl
The series is juggling with a relationship here nobody seems equipped to deal with. The popular guy becomes interested in a girl who openly despises him (she literally spits in his face), but I've seen this enough to know that she eventually falls for him because this is how shojo writers thing healthy relationships work apparently. Does not help the guy keeps deciding to invade her personal space because he's interested in her after he steals a kiss from her. That's pretty fucking creepy. But the show decides to go with the old chestnut of the man hating girl being attracted to another girl (that quiet girl from the first episode), and setting it up to somehow not be valid because the quiet girl was the only person who was nice to her and thus her feelings will be wrong or fake in some way. Oh boy, just what I wanted from my wacky romantic comedy! Complete disregard for queer identities in exchange for the mating dance of sex offenders!
There's still hope here with the other couples, and the series still has a chance to not go down that horrible road, but holy hell this second relationship is both awful and toxic. The series is normal shojo fluff otherwise, but it's headed into really nasty territory at this rate.
Weak Recommendation
Sekkou Boys
Joe Straatmann
One of the secrets to a good comedy is having a script that would work reasonably well without laughter. Here we have the struggles of an up-and-coming musical artists struggling to get on 4 a.m. shows to promote interest and their clash of personalities, especially with music groups. It just so happens their struggles are filtered through the fact that the artists are statues. The manager's difficulty with keeping the group moving together is literally trying to get them on a cart and move around. The problems with musicians getting roles in television or film are given a nice parody here. The show also knows it can't just have the four busts who look very similar in one location talking to to each other all the time and tries to single them out to keep scenes from getting confusing. Sekko Boys is a wild concept for sure, but it's also made by people who know it takes more than a concept to make even a short good.
Solid Recommendation
Sushi Police
Danni Kristen
As the 2020 Olympics are gearing up to take place in Tokyo, sushi has skyrocketed to worldwide popularity. Unfortunately, this has led to sushi restaurants around the world adding their own culinary spins on sushi, spins that sushi aficionado Honda does not like. The sushi have begun crying out to him for help, and he hears their call. Joined together with his trusted assistant and their bumbling robot, they travel the world seeking justice for sushi. Unfortunately, the premise sounds a lot cooler than how Sushi Police turns out to be. Frankly it's amazing that a show about middle-aged Japanese men blowing up sushi restaurants could be so boring. There's just nothing or exciting happening. They come in, they destroy these people's livelihoods, and they leave. It doesn't help that the animation is really bad too. It's like Vertical Entertainment's Pixies levels of bad 3DCG. Unfortunately, I don't have the option to drop any shorts this season, so I can only comfort myself with the fact it only lasts three minutes every week.
No Recommendation
Second Opinions
AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue
Jonathan: Watched one episode and that was enough for me. Very bland series, despite being about a sport mix of blitzball and quiditch. The designs are generic and the characters are uninteresting, and the majesty of flying thing has been done much better in many other shows. I like the lesbian couple, made up of a girl that makes cat puns in the afternoon and a territorial nut that declares herself the other's slave, but two great supporting characters aren't enough to carry such a boring series. Weak Recommendation
BBK/BRNK
David: I mentioned in my coverage of the fully CG Ajin anime that as of late I've tried to keep more of an open mind towards CG in anime. And while Ajin was unfortunately unable to impress me with its use of CG, BBK/BRNK (stupid title aside) has been one of my favorite premiers of the season. The show is a mishmash of a few different aspects, a bit of Kill la Kill, a bit of Ghibli-esque fantasy, a bit of Giant Robo and I wouldn't say it all meshes perfectly so far, but I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been a hell of a fun ride. Gorgeous backgrounds, lively CG character acting animation, cool effects animation, great looking character models and designs, strong framing, and a fun cast of characters have all made the show remarkably engaging so far. In addition, the action makes tremendous use of its medium, using CG's greater freedom of camera movement to create some incredibly dynamic action, that feels inspired by 2D anime action while simultaneously having its own unique spin on it. It's hard to tell where exactly the story will go, it's doing a good job setting up the team of protagonists and how they clash and work together in different ways, but it's been such a running start with all the constant action I do wonder if they'll be able to keep it this interesting once things slow down. But so far, BBK/BRNK is one of the most entertaining action shows of the season, and a prime example of CG being used well in anime. Solid Recommendation
Dagashi Kashi
Jonathan: Not nearly as wacky as I expected, but that works for it. Simple comedy with five characters and surprisingly laid back, except for Hotaru's obsession with dagashi snacks bordering on sexual. But what I liked most wasn't her, but the siblings that run the coffee shop, To and Saya. To is a filthy pervert after my own heart, and Saya's inability to properly read a situation outside anything involving Horatu's candy lust lets her bounce off Hotaru really well. Solid comedy for the season. Solid Recommendation
Stephanie: I'll admit, I originally passed this one by because I never had much luck when it came with Studio Feel, the group producing this series. It just seemed like one of those rather harem or ecchi kinds of series that would just completely make me turn the other way, and coming from the same studio as So I Can't Play H or Jinsei didn't turn things into it's favor. However, when I started hearing things about about the series, and mostly in the good way, I decided to give it a chance at the last second once again (there's always at least one for me each season...). I have to say I'm impressed! The concept may seem utterly silly like some slice of life series tend to be, it's the characters and their personalities that make all the difference! Having a female lead like Hotaru being, essentially, an utter otaku over snack foods gives the series something wonderfully refreshing for this slice of life/comedy. All the interactions with the characters have been such fun that I was never bored while watching these first two episodes! My only real concern is whether or not this one single plot will be all we get for the entire series. Honestly, this is something that can grow old rather quickly if you're not careful, but this is one series where I sincerely hope it doesn't happen. Strong Recommendation
Dimension W
Stephanie: Science fiction has never been one of my stronger areas. More often than not, they just seem to be the same thing over and over again with the same general ideas like space travel or advancing robotics. The latter is what can be said here for Dimension W, but this has much more to it than what I first expected. The world that's been created under New Tesla has kept my intrigued while the characters introduced so far have stories that will have an effect on the series. To be fair, some things are way too easy to pick up on like, for example, I am 95% sure that Albert will get to play the villain in the series later on. But what has been the strongest element in the series, this far, is the dynamic between Marubuchi and Mira. While it does have the qualities of the clichéd anime partnership we have seen, the badassary of the two as well as their personalities have the makings of something outside of that. All in all, I'm impressed! This one has an early start at being my favorite this season. Strong Recommendation
ERASED
Danni: This may have been one of the few show's this season I expected to be good, but damn, I didn't expect it to be that good. It has a very cinematic quality to it. And while the term 'cinematic' has kind of become ambiguous and basically a euphemism for 'well-directed,' I mean it in a literal sense. Watching ERASED feels like watching a feature film, albeit in episodic format. That aside, the directing is actually amazing. ERASED features some of the most skillful framing, blocking, and transitions since last winter's Yuri Kuma Arashi. If you're looking for an intriguing show and are prepared to be confronted in sometimes graphic detail with themes of child abuse and abduction, please, please, PLEASE watch ERASED. Strong Recommendation
David: I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into with Erased, but after Rokka and The Perfect Insider I was all for getting yet another prominent mystery series. The show does start out a bit on the ridiculous side, I was worried the protagonist was coming off as a bit too pretentious and the conflicts as a bit too over the top (it starting with him saving a child from a runaway truck while riding a motor scooter). But the show quickly escalates in quality and executes probably the strongest episodes of any anime so far this season. The visuals are gorgeous in every way imaginable, animation, lighting, framing, use of color, and the soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura is as good as one would expect from her (which is...very good). And from the incredible sense of tension during the latter half of the first episode, to the heartwarming nature of the second episode, it's a series packed with emotion and strong execution. I'm still curious where they're going with this mystery and all the time travel shenanigans the show hinges on, but if the series can keep up this remarkable high quality production values, writing, and visual storytelling, it could be the best anime of the season. Strong Recommendation
Joe: From the high grades this has been getting, the first thing that should be noted is that it won't excite you right away. The intro seems to be the story of a disillusioned former manga artist-turned-pizza-delivery-guy trying to get his groove back with the help of a younger co-worker. Potential to be a quality low-key affair, but nothing exciting, right? Keep watching. When it turns out he appears to have a special ability to add a little spice to the mix, still keep watching. Eventually, the little threads of the first episode come together and the payoff is stunning, skyrocketing this series to the frontrunner position in the race for best series of the season. Visually solid, emotionally resonant as hell, and surprisingly thrilling when it wants to be, Erased is something where you'll be glad I'm specifically hiding as much as I can from you. My only quibble is Yuki Kajiura at times doesn't feel like the right composer here. I LOVE me some Yuki Kajiura, but at times, her music cues feel too potent. Not something that should deter you from watching this RIGHT NOW. Strong Recommendation
Stephanie: Going into Erased, I was rather hesitant. I didn't exactly know much about the series outside of the animation studio producing it and the fact that it was some sort of mystery series or something. And, honestly, it took a little bit getting into the first episode since it was rather slow and slightly boring at times. But, as the episode progressed, there was something much more complicated going on that sent me into a bit of a tizzy; and the good kind, I might add. This takes elements of the well known mystery/detective series we've known rather well up until now, similar to Case Closed, and gives it a time leaping element a la Steins;Gate. Sure there isn't much explanation as to that time leaping part, but I'd imagine it'll be either one of those things they'll explain later or just make you go with. In any case, this is not lighthearted as pieces of the story, such as the very obvious abuse Hinazuki has been dealing with, are ever present. And while he hasn't been the best lead so far, Satoru's rather flat personality does have the chance to grow and change while reliving his younger years in an attempt to change the future for both his mother, Hinazuki, and possibly several others! There's a decent amount of potential here in these first two episodes, despite having the slog through the first half of episode one, and I'm rather happy with myself for not giving up on it right away. So long as the story and characters continue to grow from here, that's all I ask for. Solid Recommendation
Girls Beyond the Wasteland
Jonathan: This is one of those shows I watched on a whim, and I glad I did. Unlike the obnoxiously self-aware Saekano, Wasteland gets what it means to make a visual novel (fitting, as it's an adaptation of one) and finds a lot of comedy out of it, while also pushing an engaging story about fighting to do what you want to do with your life. It's pretty ugly, but the writing saves it. Also, Yuka is best girl. Solid Recommendation
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
Jonathan: Interesting take on the trapped in a game world premise. Grimgar is a mix of survival thriller and slice of life, about some kids not really ready for life in a kill or be killed fantasy world and taking familiar tropes in more realistic directions. At best, it's shockingly visceral, especially during the goblin killing scene, but this is still a light novel adaptation and it just has to throw in some obnoxious beats and character archetypes. Promising, still, and very beautiful. Solid Recommendation
Stephanie: Before starting Grimgar, there's one common thing that I kept hearing from a lot of people, that's strangely similar to the game Fire Emblem. As someone who has never played that game before, of course I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Right away, you can tell this is a fantasy series. It doesn't take an idiot to notice that much. It also seems to be a video game setting, of sorts, due to the strange and sudden appearance of this group of kids in this new world, and in modern day clothes, who have no memories prior to ending up in Grimgar. I say this because there are words or actions that occur that the characters don't seem to recall what they are or how they even know them. What makes this series different compared to quite a few series that are similar in nature to Grimgar is that we aren't following a ridiculously over powered human being, but rather a group of teens who are just trying to survive in this new world, with these first two episodes focusing on their first victory in having to kill a living being. It honestly has some interesting ideas and moments that have captured my curiosity. Now of only it was only paced.... I mean, did we really need a music montage of the characters wandering town for five minutes? Solid Recommendation
Haruchika - Haruto & Chika
Jonathan: This show is a mess. Not only is it surprisingly ugly, with a terrible color scheme and poor animation, but the premise itself is an utter mess. It can't decide if it's a slice of life about being in a band, mystery solving, or a love drama, and the pieces never come together. Haruto is also an insufferable dick, making for a lead you don't want to follow. The one thing the show does well is that it treats Haruto's homosexuality as valid, but that doesn't mean much when everything else is such a disaster. No Recommendation
KONOSUBA - God's blessing on this wonderful world!
David: Konosuba is the other big "trapped in a video game" airing this season, and as with the other one I went in with the tribulation that's come from so many of these shows being pumped out as of late. So imagine my surprise when the second anime of this genre this season ONCE AGAIN turned out to actually be quite good (though in a totally different way than Grimgar). In fact, Konosuba feels to the "trapped in a video game" genre what Nozaki-kun felt like to the shojo genre. The series revels in playing with the audiences expectations in terms of what usually happens in these sorts of shows, and constantly pokes fun at the conventions of the genre in some truly brilliant ways. It's a show that's fully aware it's jumping into a flooded pool, so is having a blast tearing apart everything that pool stands for with a wry smirk on its face. Despite this it's not mean spirited, the characters for the most part are actually pretty likable, and I've found myself genuinely looking forward to seeing more of these characters and their misadventures. It suffers from some unpolished animation, but makes up for it with that animation having plenty of movement, and suiting the cartoonish humor very well.
So overall, Konosuba is a fun and charming show that has a lot of fun with its somewhat tired premise. Solid Recommendation
Jonathan: Unlike Grimgar, Konosuba decided to take familiar concepts and turned it into a comedy in the vain of something like The Venture Brothers, in the respect that both are about failure. Kazuma and Aqua are genuinely terrible people that deserve each other, and their task to defeat the demon king in a fantasy world is simply their karmaic punishment, and their other party members are hilariously inept. This could be a major surprise for the year. Strong Recommendation
Luck & Logic
Jonathan: I don't think I've ever seen a show so lifeless and average in every possible regard, which is amazing because it sounds wild on paper. The art direction is fantastic as well. But once you watch it, it just feels like generic action sludge with no sense of style or personality anywhere. There has never been a show that has been so undeserving of existing. No Recommendation
Stephanie: Ehhhhhhhh, generic show is generic. Honestly the concept seemed moderately interesting, but it just didn't catch my interest compared to many of the other shows this season. It's like of you mix Nobunagun (another series I dropped early on while it aired) with some other typical shonen action series. I don't know, but I wasn't a huge fan of the first episode. And I can always use the extra time to focus on other things. I think I'll save myself the headache... Weak Recommendation, dropped at episode one
Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara
Jonathan: See, the joke is that the underage girl has to wear a two-piece swimsuit, and the mascot thing find it hot! Oh man, I've never fucking seen that joke a million times before in porn doujins, no sirree! Bleh. No Recommendation
Myraid Colors: Phantom World
David: I almost feel bad that I've found myself enjoying Myriad Colors Phantom World. Because, make no mistake, it is a bad show. Very bad even. It's a trashy fantasy school light novel adaptation that just happens to have the immensely talented Kyoto Animation making it, but all the pretty animation in the world can't cover up how stupid the show is. And despite being stupid, the show is pretty full of itself as well, spouting psychology concepts left and right as if if means anything, at times being borderline pretentious in its delivery. The characters are boring, the humor isn't very clever, and there's no real story to speak of. And yet....it's just fun. This is a really unfair compliment, as it's hard to explain, but for all it's stupid nonsense KyoAni has injected it with so much energy and flair it prevents it from ever getting boring. It isn't good, it's still trashy nonsense devoid of substance, but when I switch my brain off it's a mildly entertaining way to waste a half an hour. Which is a compliment. I think. Weak Recommendation
Jonathan: KyoAni made light novel garbage and I like it. The show has a lot of the usual problems, mainly self insert wanking and failure to match ambition, but it has a lot of interesting ideas and fantastic art direction. It never gets offensively terrible, and it has some pretty inspired moments and fun characters. Want to hate it, but I can't. Weak Recommendation
Nurse Witch Komugi R
Jonathan: I kind of like this one okay for the little touches, like the girl in yellow who raps badly and says "yo" randomly, and the magical gimmicks are ridiculous (there's a magical nun, for fucks sake). The problem is that the comedy is so by the numbers and tired. We've seen this sort of parody dozens of times before, and there's just not enough changes to the formula to make it spark. Weak Recommendation
Ojisan and Marshmallow
Danni: I was kind of disappointed by this show. I went into it having heard about how hilarious it was, but I didn't quite expect the whole series to only have one joke that just keeps getting reused. Like, I get it. The girl wants to fuck Paul Blart while Paul Blart just wants to fuck the bag of marshmallows. That's really all there is to it. Weak Recommendation
Jonathan: Weirdly funny. The series has a big joke in that an attractive girl is insanely attracted to an older fat guy, which could have easily been obnoxious and mean-spirited, but that moment never comes. Check out the first episode, you'll know if it's for you from that. Solid Recommendation
Please tell me! Galko-chan
Danni: Finally I have found anime girls whose conversations I can actually relate to. Fuck your KyoAni girls talking about which end of a cornet to eat first. From now on I'm only watching shows about cute girls talking about their ass hair. Strong Recommendation
Prince of Stride: Alternative
Stephanie: I will admit that I have gotten really into sports anime recently, mostly because the characters are what make it so much fun! Haikyuu, Yowapeda, and Free! are all sports shows that have such a fun cast of characters that it's hard not to enjoy myself. This season's Prince of Stride is no exception to this. Our main Stride team is a great mix of personalities that just mesh together well, despite using character stereotypes that I've seen many times up until this point. Sure there's nothing all that ground breaking for this sports anime right now, but that's not something I'm too concerned with. MadHouse is one of my favorite animation studios since making Paranoia Agent, Death Parade, and several others, so I trust them in making Prince of Stride into a fun and energetic series! That or I just may have become sports anime trash. Could be either one at this point. Strong Recommendation
Schwarzes Marken
Jonathan: Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Laserjagd Recommendation
Sekkou Boys
Jonathan: I think I might love this. It's a comedy about a manager trying to keep her idol clients happy and working, except the idols are famous sculptures and somehow alive. Way more comedy gets squeezed out of this set-up than should be possible, helped by the personalities of the cast. It's definitely one of the best shorts this season. Strong Recommendation
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
Jonathan: Best of the year material right here. A drama about rakugo (think a sort of one man show in Japanese theater) sounds boring, butt the writing is so sharp and the acting so good that it sucks you in almost instantly. The first episode has a ten minute scene that perfectly sums up the show's strengths, as you watch the main character tell a story about an inept thief and it's just masterful. I was sucked in from beginning to end. Sometimes, less is more, and this show is a perfect example of that. Strong Recommendation
Stephanie: Why did I think this was going to be similar to House of Five Leaves? The promotional art and the character design are rather similar so I kinda made the assumption. This is what happens when you've been busy doing a million other things and not paying too much attention. Now, I actually only had the chance to see the first episode of this series because Crunchyroll premium is a thing I don't have. However, the first episode was actually double in length so that more than makes up for it! This is, once again, one of those kinds of series that I know I'll just fall in love with as it is rather arts oriented; this time taking on the Japanese performance of Rakugo, or comic storytelling, that almost resembles a radio drama due to the set up of the actor's shows. While this is what initially draws me in to Shouwa Genroku, it's the characters that give much more life to the drama of the story itself. Sure, the stereotypes are there, however, they are in a rather different setting then what I've seen before as I'm able to connect and relate to this series even more as a performer and artist. I want to see Yotarou succeed in his pursuits even if he's a loud mouth idiot at times (Yotarou is the perfect nickname for him, by the way), because he's the kind of character I can root for because of his dedication and enthusiasm. This one is a bit of surprise for me, this season, and I'm willing to give it more time in order to completely captivate me in it's story. Solid Recommendation
I think someone broke Jonathan... >_>
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