Fall 2016 Anime First Impressions
We're about 3 or 4 weeks into the fall season, and as per the usual for the industry, the showing is far stronger overall than what we had in the summer. While we don't have an overblown blockbuster in a true sense like spring and summer's Re:Zero, there is definitely a higher general quality in what's airing. That's not to say anything this season is particularly amazing (yet), but there's a notable absence of true dumpster fire series like last season's Taboo Tattoo or Orange.
Like the sensible, employed man I am, I made the executive decision to pick up EIGHTEEN series this season. However, my mistake is your gain; I'll give a short synopsis of what I've seen, and whether you should watch it, try it, or just flat out drop it/never start it. Let's get started, shall we?
Title: March Comes In Like a Lion
Genre: Drama, Slice of Life
Studio: SHAFT
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Finally, something new out of SHAFT. Although the actual story content is a bit reserved for now, the drama surrounding the life of a child prodigy Shogi player been interesting and dramatic enough without seeming ridiculous or unrelatable. The show is very obviously going to get heavy, with nearly every character's resting facial expression being a frown. This one might suffer from the "Your Lie in April" effect down the line, where we have a character waxing philosophical and making sweeping life judgements at a ridiculously young age, devaluing any message they attempt to convey. Art and animation is typical of SHAFT, so gorgeous with extremely good direction and shot composition. This one is also less surreal than their other works (even Nisekoi), with far less jump cuts, no fantastical architecture, and actually animated crowds. This one is logged as 25 episodes, so there's a lot of time for them to go in-depth with their cast and really break everyone down. Definitely the sleeper hit of this season, as I haven't heard much of a clamoring for it yet.
Recommendation: Watch It
Title: Bungou Stray Dogs: Second Season
Genre: Action, Drama
Studio: PA Works
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Recommendation: Watch It (if you watch S1 only, otherwise Skip It)
All I can say with this one is that I'm extremely impressed so far. The first season of this show was full of tonal inconsistencies and lack of concrete reasons for characters to do anything at all. The difference between seasons here is truly night and day. That being said, I have a hard read that the series is going to fall (get it?) straight back down into mediocrity in the next few episodes, as we're moving out of the 4 episode flashblack block that was actually interesting and consistent back into the setting and character group that we left in season one. I'm not sure how this new context will affect the overall story of the original setting, but I'm not too confident that it can overwrite stuff like the "My only power is that I can beat you" moments from season one. Aesthetically though this one is knockout, so at least there's something pretty to watch if the plot can't hold itself up from the end of the flashback. The crux of the problem here with this series is that sitting through season one to experience a far better season two is just not worth the time investment.
Recommendation: Watch It (if you've watched S1 only, otherwise Skip It)
Title: ClassicalLoid
Genre: Music?
Studio: Sunrise
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Yet another series from Sunrise with no Gundams, which is probably indicative as to why this show is complete garbage. I was pretty intrigued by the synopsis, but was immediately skeptical from any of the PVs I saw. The art looks rushed and relies on a hyper-colorful but hard-lined style that really just makes it look like some sort of quick job for the equivalent of a shitty Saturday morning cartoon. The shtick of classical composers being amnesiac shells of their former selves and some sort of looming musical super corporation that controls musical performance just can't keep me interested past the synopsis I read on MAL 2 months ago. I regret checking this one out, to be honest.
Recommendation: Skip It
Title: Drifters
Genre: Action, Adventure
Studio: Hoods Drifters Studio
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This series feels a lot like how Bungou Stray Dogs S1 did for me: lots of potential and better than average aesthetic, but a misguided plot and heavily inconsistent tone that ruins what would have been a generally enjoyable action series. This one is definitely trying to be 'edgy-er' than that one though, which makes it come off as a even more ridiculous. However, if you're just looking to watch some famous historical figures tear through some fantasy battlegrounds, this might be a worth a look. Just don't expect anything even remotely compelling to come out of the story.
Recommendation: Try It
Title: Flip Flappers
Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy, Mahou Shoujo (sort of), Adventure (sort of)
Studio: Studio 3Hz
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This one is extremely hard to describe, as to be honest I have no idea what in the hell is happening even after four episodes in. Most people who have mentioned or will mention this show to you aren't going to tell you that though; they're going to talk up it's incredibly pretty art and animation. It's a spastic but beautiful ride, with nearly every cut being a wallpaper-worthy image. Despite what I said, the show seems to be developing some sort of recognizable narrative at episode four, so we might see this one shape up to be more than just a visually impressive feat. This one is better experienced than described, although I'd argue that it's worth checking out just on the merits of its visuals alone.
Recommendation: Watch It
Title: Gi(a)rlish Number
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life
Studio: Diomedea
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Take Shirobako, cut out the more hardcore industry details, up the comedy, and add one heaping helping of cynicism and sarcasm and you'll get this show. And that's far from saying that's a bad thing, because this show is honestly pretty great so far. Our main character Chitose's arrogance and snark as a newbie voice actress is extremely entertaining to watch as she gets constant shocks to her system. Her one-shot reactions alone to all the ridiculous portrayals of industry personalities are enough to keep me watching week after week. Aesthetically a show like this is going to live and die on its character designs, and thankfully this one does it right. Chitose is downright adorable and the rest of the cast are unique enough spins on the (purposefully used) tropes to make them a joy to watch interact. If you liked Shirobako, give this a big bump in your plan-to-watch.
I thought about it a bit and this one is definitely one my favorites this season, but that could change as the plot continues. I heavily recommend giving this one a look.
Recommendation: Watch It
Title: Hibike Euphonium Season 2
Genre: Music, Comedy, Yuribait, Slice of Life
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Your favorite pair of brass-playing, "just really really good friends" are back for yet another season of concert band related melodrama that only band nerds will understand. To be honest, who cares what's really happening in the band? We all know why we're here: ridiculous KyoAni quality and the oh-so-slim possibility of true Kumiko X Reina romance.
This season is just as good as the first so far. Aesthetic quality is even higher than the first, which is crazy to say considering the bar that Hibike S1 set. Some cuts are literally jaw dropping; they occur more often as well, and are essentially shorter versions of the sakuga from the bridge-running scene or the famous Reina hair-flip. Attention to detail concerning instrumentation and other band related things is just as high as the first season, and will definitely get to any ex-band geeks' nostalgia.
Recommendation: Watch It
Title: Keijo!!!!
Genre: Sports, Ecchi
Studio: Xebec
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Saving anime one booty swing at a time. This series has absolutely no business being as well animated and entertaining as it is, but here we are. Yes, it's completely ridiculous, but it's self aware enough to leverage that ridiculousness to parody sports or tournament anime as a whole. Keijo!!!! actually does a pretty good job of hyping you up for these "races" as they're called, like any normal sports anime would... It's just that the sporting event happens to be a king-of-the-hill wrestling match where only boobs and butts can make contact. Queue the anime money printing machine.
In a surprising turn of events, our core cast also (on the whole) is NOT completely retarded. They might be drawn to look that way, and all speak in the Japanese equivalent of hick dialects, but they're mostly actual characters. Well, actual characters for this kind of show anyway. Tumblrinas or people who don't know how to relax need not apply; this show is crass, crazy, and just a whole lot of fun.
Recommendation: Watch It
Title: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku
Genre: Magical Girl, Drama, Fantasy
Studio: Lerche
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This season's Madoka-clone actually seems stronger than its estranged "cousin" Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero so far, although that's not saying much when they both kind of get pidgeonholed into the "it's just not as good as Madoka" camp. I wouldn't really call that appropriation fair, as it's really hard for anything to live up to that kind of quality for a TV anime. Lerche however is giving this one its best shot, and they're no stranger to cute-girls-with-a-dark-twist subgenre with Gakkougurashi under their belts. Still, there are obvious ripoff characters like the power-granting creature of this series being a straight mashup of Kyubey and the bear from Danganropa, which makes an otherwise slightly promising series just seem that much weaker and unoriginal.
However, the art style and character designs here are a little suspect, with one magical girl in particular looking like she (or I guess it's he?) just rolled out of a shitty strip club. Overall the art and animation is pretty standard so far albeit decidedly cutesy moe, but I feel that the style will only greater impact the darker content which is slowly closing in. If you like this kind of stuff, you're probably already watching it but I urge those that enjoyed Madoka or Yuuki Yunna to at least give this one a look.
Recommendation: Try It
Title: Occultic;Nine
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
A lot of people wrote this one off at episode one due to the absolutely frantic, almost stream-of-consciousness level pace that it set. This was just some poor advertising, as the episode was meant to just give us a quick (but intentionally disconnected) setup to the show's plot. The pace slows down significantly, or rather, returns to normal in the following episode, and this one seems to be shaping up to be pretty intriguing so far. It's not a true member of the Science Adventure series like Steins;Gate or Robotics;Notes, but rather a spin off group of light novels called the Science Light Novels project. With that said, I do think that this show will be of a decidedly lesser quality than those two, but it'll probably be intriguing enough to keep an audience if they can get through that first episode.
It's not bound to be the strongest thing this season storytelling wise, but at the very least it's pretty great to look out. Character designs are great outside of one giant issue which you'll recognize immediately, and A-1 employs this kind of soft-edge theme throughout that really gives the series some interesting cuts. There are quite a few scenes that are animated on ones for no reason at all, similar to how KyoAni does, so A-1 isn't adverse to dumping a good bit of money and love into this one.
Recommendation: Try It
Title: Soushin Shoujo Matoi
Genre: Magical Girl
Studio: White Fox
Streaming: N/A
The best way to describe this show is that it's utterly generic. For an anime original product, and the next series out of White Fox since the super popular and well produced Re:Zero, this series is an incredible letdown. Whether you liked or disliked Re:Zero as a show, you can't deny the love and care that White Fox put into that project, but none of that passion shows up here at all. With other anime original IPs doings fairly well this season (cough, cough, Izetta), it sucks to see show with such great staff behind it fall so hard.
Aesthetically the show is far under par, with some terribly uninteresting character designs to boot. Music and art style are also about exactly what you'd expect. For what it is, the brief instances of humor, usually brought on by Yuma, are typically above average and are the only thing that can keep me even remotely attentive every so often. I can tell that they're going for some darker Madoka-esque things possibly down the line and the show's fight sequences are the least subtle ripoff of the trippy fight-worlds of Madoka or Yuuki Yuna. To make everything even worse, no real streaming service even picked this show up, so you'll be scrounging around the typical seedier streaming sites if you make the mistake of checking this one out.
Recommendation: Skip It
Title: Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori
Genre: Mystery, Action
Studio: TMS Entertainment, Shin-Ei Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I was legitimately shocked when I looked up this show on MAL and saw that it was an anime original series. Everything about this show screams "light novel adaptation" from the top of its lungs, but I guess it was high time for one industry to directly infect another. This one came recommended to me as a sort of fun or lower quality show in general so I didn't have very high expectations from the outset, and was pleasantly surprised to find the show to be at the very least watchable and mildly interesting. The massive "edgelord"-ness of one of our two main characters and the laughably upbeat personality of the other is typically funny enough to keep me entertained, albeit it obviously not meant to be comedic in the actual show.
The art and animation here is very standard, as is the music and VA. Nothing really stands out but it doesn't look or sound terrible either. Like most of these LN adaptations (or I guess, in the style of an LN adaptation in this case), every studio does it's best A-1 Pictures impression and I have to say that they're getting pretty good at it. It's a shame though, because even if A-1 ends up putting out some shitty shows, they typically have incredible aesthetic quality and these attempted style-copies are always just poor representations of that sort of style. That's a post of another day though, so I'll just leave this one with a try it recommendation. Long-time or heavy anime watchers might get more of an unintended humor kick out of this one than others.
Recommendation: Try It
Title: ViVid Strike!
Genre: Action, Sports/Tournament, Magical Girl
Studio: Seven Arcs
Streaming: N/A
This one came onto my radar in the form of a streamable video on r/anime, and I instantly knew that I had to check it out. At its core, this one is a tournament story about loli MMA fighting, and if that's sounds like the most ridiculous and entertaining thing that anime can bring you, then you'd be right. Outside of that insane concept though the rest of the show is pretty generic and average with the exception of the cute character designs and the fight sequences. If anything, this show is very aware of what it will make money with, so I can forgive a lot of the mediocrity if it shows that it can kick it up when it matters (which it has so far).
As I was catching myself up to current with this series, I knew that I recognized some of these characters from some other show or series. ViVid Strike! takes place in the same universe as the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha series, and uses a lot of characters and the entire setting/lore from it's most recent following series, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. This isn't exactly a bad thing, as this story is a new anime original one and completely self contained from the other series in terms of its plot, but a lot of the technology, setting, and character backgrounds are just glossed over almost completely. They definitely aren't necessary to enjoying this show alone, but for someone who wants more of a reason or explanation for why things are happening or why characters act a certain way will find themselves crawling through the extensive Nanoha wiki.
However, the show definitely borrows a lot of the tone and pandering from its parent series, with some very long and awkwardly sexualized transformation sequences and instances of loli fanservice that seem particularly out of place in this spin-off story. Nothing in this is as bad as anything that was in Prisma Illya though, so I'd still recommend this to anyone that thinks that watching loli magical MMA would be a complete riot. It's worth the trip off Crunchyroll to check it out at the very least.
Recommendation: Try It
Yet another romantic comedy series that I don't think will live past the "freshness" of its shtick. This one is a reverse harem where the girl happens to be an ex-fat otaku fujoshi, so pretty much all of the humor plays off of that. Overall the comedy is above average, just over-ly centralized on this one thing, so if the show can somehow spin this to keep it just entertaining enough, it will end up being just enjoyably average.
Character designs here are pretty good, with Serinuma in particular being purposefully stand-out, but the rest of the show is very average as is the music. Whether or not this is something that you'll want to check it is completely dependent upon whether the premise sounds entertaining to you or not. If it does, give it a 3 episode shot, but otherwise just skip it. Not really too much to say about this one; every season has their own version of this kind of show.
Title: WWW.Working!!
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
The far better romantic comedy option this season. Completely self contained from the other three seasons of Working!, this series follows the antics and goings-on of a family restaurant staff. The comedy and set-up for the show are instantly relatable to anyone who's worked a minimum wage job, even barring a few cultural differences. Every character is pretty unique and they all have their own hangups and quirks, which are pretty enjoyable to watch shake out among the rest of the cast. Judging by its parent series, this seasons likely won't have any sort of romantic payoff, so your decision to watch this one should be solely based on how well the comedy resonates with you personally. The comedic pacing is also far above average for a show of this genre.
For a show where the characters all pretty much wear the same uniform every day, the character designs and overall artwork is pretty damn good, although the animation and music (outside of the OP and ED) take a pretty big hit to accommodate. That's not a huge problem though, as there isn't a lot of action in the series to animate to begin with. If workplace comedies are your thing, definitely give this one a look.
Recommendation: Watch It
Title: Yuri!!! on Ice
Genre: Sports
Studio: MAPPA
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show is really gay. Like extremely. And I don't mean that as in its bad or dumb or something, it's actually gay. Whether or not that's worth going through to get to some of the most impressive sakuga of the past three or four years is going to be up to you. Outside of the amazingly animated skating routines, the show is extremely bland (even for a sports anime) and gets worse and worse with the yaoibait bullshit. Even we ignored all the gay stuff in this show, it would still be pretty damn terrible overall. The only reasosn I can fathom that this is as popular as it is because: 1. Roughly 45-50% of the anime fanbase is female, 2. The animation and art is really good, and 3. Crunchyroll is pushing the shit out of it on social media.
In all honesty if you aren't into the gay stuff just skip this one and look up the figure skating clips on YouTube. The show itself isn't worth watching: the characters are boring and standard, the story's conclusion was callable by episode one, and there is barely any entertainment to be had past the skating scenes.
Like the sensible, employed man I am, I made the executive decision to pick up EIGHTEEN series this season. However, my mistake is your gain; I'll give a short synopsis of what I've seen, and whether you should watch it, try it, or just flat out drop it/never start it. Let's get started, shall we?
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Title: March Comes In Like a Lion
Genre: Drama, Slice of Life
Studio: SHAFT
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Finally, something new out of SHAFT. Although the actual story content is a bit reserved for now, the drama surrounding the life of a child prodigy Shogi player been interesting and dramatic enough without seeming ridiculous or unrelatable. The show is very obviously going to get heavy, with nearly every character's resting facial expression being a frown. This one might suffer from the "Your Lie in April" effect down the line, where we have a character waxing philosophical and making sweeping life judgements at a ridiculously young age, devaluing any message they attempt to convey. Art and animation is typical of SHAFT, so gorgeous with extremely good direction and shot composition. This one is also less surreal than their other works (even Nisekoi), with far less jump cuts, no fantastical architecture, and actually animated crowds. This one is logged as 25 episodes, so there's a lot of time for them to go in-depth with their cast and really break everyone down. Definitely the sleeper hit of this season, as I haven't heard much of a clamoring for it yet.
Recommendation: Watch It
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Title: Bungou Stray Dogs: Second Season
Genre: Action, Drama
Studio: PA Works
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Recommendation: Watch It (if you watch S1 only, otherwise Skip It)
All I can say with this one is that I'm extremely impressed so far. The first season of this show was full of tonal inconsistencies and lack of concrete reasons for characters to do anything at all. The difference between seasons here is truly night and day. That being said, I have a hard read that the series is going to fall (get it?) straight back down into mediocrity in the next few episodes, as we're moving out of the 4 episode flashblack block that was actually interesting and consistent back into the setting and character group that we left in season one. I'm not sure how this new context will affect the overall story of the original setting, but I'm not too confident that it can overwrite stuff like the "My only power is that I can beat you" moments from season one. Aesthetically though this one is knockout, so at least there's something pretty to watch if the plot can't hold itself up from the end of the flashback. The crux of the problem here with this series is that sitting through season one to experience a far better season two is just not worth the time investment.
Recommendation: Watch It (if you've watched S1 only, otherwise Skip It)
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Genre: Music?
Studio: Sunrise
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Yet another series from Sunrise with no Gundams, which is probably indicative as to why this show is complete garbage. I was pretty intrigued by the synopsis, but was immediately skeptical from any of the PVs I saw. The art looks rushed and relies on a hyper-colorful but hard-lined style that really just makes it look like some sort of quick job for the equivalent of a shitty Saturday morning cartoon. The shtick of classical composers being amnesiac shells of their former selves and some sort of looming musical super corporation that controls musical performance just can't keep me interested past the synopsis I read on MAL 2 months ago. I regret checking this one out, to be honest.
Recommendation: Skip It
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Genre: Action, Adventure
Studio: Hoods Drifters Studio
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This series feels a lot like how Bungou Stray Dogs S1 did for me: lots of potential and better than average aesthetic, but a misguided plot and heavily inconsistent tone that ruins what would have been a generally enjoyable action series. This one is definitely trying to be 'edgy-er' than that one though, which makes it come off as a even more ridiculous. However, if you're just looking to watch some famous historical figures tear through some fantasy battlegrounds, this might be a worth a look. Just don't expect anything even remotely compelling to come out of the story.
Recommendation: Try It
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Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy, Mahou Shoujo (sort of), Adventure (sort of)
Studio: Studio 3Hz
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This one is extremely hard to describe, as to be honest I have no idea what in the hell is happening even after four episodes in. Most people who have mentioned or will mention this show to you aren't going to tell you that though; they're going to talk up it's incredibly pretty art and animation. It's a spastic but beautiful ride, with nearly every cut being a wallpaper-worthy image. Despite what I said, the show seems to be developing some sort of recognizable narrative at episode four, so we might see this one shape up to be more than just a visually impressive feat. This one is better experienced than described, although I'd argue that it's worth checking out just on the merits of its visuals alone.
Recommendation: Watch It
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Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life
Studio: Diomedea
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Take Shirobako, cut out the more hardcore industry details, up the comedy, and add one heaping helping of cynicism and sarcasm and you'll get this show. And that's far from saying that's a bad thing, because this show is honestly pretty great so far. Our main character Chitose's arrogance and snark as a newbie voice actress is extremely entertaining to watch as she gets constant shocks to her system. Her one-shot reactions alone to all the ridiculous portrayals of industry personalities are enough to keep me watching week after week. Aesthetically a show like this is going to live and die on its character designs, and thankfully this one does it right. Chitose is downright adorable and the rest of the cast are unique enough spins on the (purposefully used) tropes to make them a joy to watch interact. If you liked Shirobako, give this a big bump in your plan-to-watch.
I thought about it a bit and this one is definitely one my favorites this season, but that could change as the plot continues. I heavily recommend giving this one a look.
Recommendation: Watch It
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Genre: Music, Comedy, Yuribait, Slice of Life
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Your favorite pair of brass-playing, "just really really good friends" are back for yet another season of concert band related melodrama that only band nerds will understand. To be honest, who cares what's really happening in the band? We all know why we're here: ridiculous KyoAni quality and the oh-so-slim possibility of true Kumiko X Reina romance.
This season is just as good as the first so far. Aesthetic quality is even higher than the first, which is crazy to say considering the bar that Hibike S1 set. Some cuts are literally jaw dropping; they occur more often as well, and are essentially shorter versions of the sakuga from the bridge-running scene or the famous Reina hair-flip. Attention to detail concerning instrumentation and other band related things is just as high as the first season, and will definitely get to any ex-band geeks' nostalgia.
Recommendation: Watch It
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Genre: Sports, Ecchi
Studio: Xebec
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Saving anime one booty swing at a time. This series has absolutely no business being as well animated and entertaining as it is, but here we are. Yes, it's completely ridiculous, but it's self aware enough to leverage that ridiculousness to parody sports or tournament anime as a whole. Keijo!!!! actually does a pretty good job of hyping you up for these "races" as they're called, like any normal sports anime would... It's just that the sporting event happens to be a king-of-the-hill wrestling match where only boobs and butts can make contact. Queue the anime money printing machine.
In a surprising turn of events, our core cast also (on the whole) is NOT completely retarded. They might be drawn to look that way, and all speak in the Japanese equivalent of hick dialects, but they're mostly actual characters. Well, actual characters for this kind of show anyway. Tumblrinas or people who don't know how to relax need not apply; this show is crass, crazy, and just a whole lot of fun.
Recommendation: Watch It
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Genre: Magical Girl, Drama, Fantasy
Studio: Lerche
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This season's Madoka-clone actually seems stronger than its estranged "cousin" Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero so far, although that's not saying much when they both kind of get pidgeonholed into the "it's just not as good as Madoka" camp. I wouldn't really call that appropriation fair, as it's really hard for anything to live up to that kind of quality for a TV anime. Lerche however is giving this one its best shot, and they're no stranger to cute-girls-with-a-dark-twist subgenre with Gakkougurashi under their belts. Still, there are obvious ripoff characters like the power-granting creature of this series being a straight mashup of Kyubey and the bear from Danganropa, which makes an otherwise slightly promising series just seem that much weaker and unoriginal.
However, the art style and character designs here are a little suspect, with one magical girl in particular looking like she (or I guess it's he?) just rolled out of a shitty strip club. Overall the art and animation is pretty standard so far albeit decidedly cutesy moe, but I feel that the style will only greater impact the darker content which is slowly closing in. If you like this kind of stuff, you're probably already watching it but I urge those that enjoyed Madoka or Yuuki Yunna to at least give this one a look.
Recommendation: Try It
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Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
A lot of people wrote this one off at episode one due to the absolutely frantic, almost stream-of-consciousness level pace that it set. This was just some poor advertising, as the episode was meant to just give us a quick (but intentionally disconnected) setup to the show's plot. The pace slows down significantly, or rather, returns to normal in the following episode, and this one seems to be shaping up to be pretty intriguing so far. It's not a true member of the Science Adventure series like Steins;Gate or Robotics;Notes, but rather a spin off group of light novels called the Science Light Novels project. With that said, I do think that this show will be of a decidedly lesser quality than those two, but it'll probably be intriguing enough to keep an audience if they can get through that first episode.
It's not bound to be the strongest thing this season storytelling wise, but at the very least it's pretty great to look out. Character designs are great outside of one giant issue which you'll recognize immediately, and A-1 employs this kind of soft-edge theme throughout that really gives the series some interesting cuts. There are quite a few scenes that are animated on ones for no reason at all, similar to how KyoAni does, so A-1 isn't adverse to dumping a good bit of money and love into this one.
Recommendation: Try It
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| The general response of Camp A and Camp B to Okusama |
Title: Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+!
Genre: Comedy, "Ecchi" (Literally Hentai)
Studio: Seven
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is just more of the same as last season, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you enjoyed it. It's at the very least "up front" with its content, and it isn't trying to be anything more than it is. However, if this show was longer than eight minutes per episode, it wouldn't have a single leg to stand on. I talked about the importance of shortened length in a lower-quality show such as this in my other post, which I recommend checking out if you want to know more about why I think this kind of quick-shot humor and "ecchi moments" stuff works better in this format. If you didn't watch season one or didn't like season one, this is an easy skip, but fans of season one will be more than pleased with this continuation.
Recommendation: Skip It (if you watched S1, Watch It).
Title: Shuumatsu no Izetta
Genre: Action, Adventure
Studio: Ajia-Do
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Imagine an alternate history where a witch who rides around on an anti-tank rifle kills a bunch of Nazis. That's basically what this show is, or rather what most people are going to tell you. What they don't tell you is that is a brand new, popular, and anime original show. For something like that to get such a high quality shot and end up being relatively successful is almost unheard of these days, especially with how trends have been in the industry over the past few years. Considering the concept and great execution, it's really not that surprising that people (including myself) are excited about this show.
Art and animation are really good although the character designs are somewhat generic, with this show suffering more from "A-1 face" than the past two A-1 shows I've seen. Soundtrack is also pretty killer. There are the usual adventure story plot conveniences and if we sat down and went to pick apart what we've been given, I'm sure that we could find more than a few issues. However, the good far outweighs any bad (so far), and I'm glad that this one turned out to be pretty interesting. You're probably already watching or dropped this by now, but I'd definitely recommend checking it out if you haven't hopped on or off the train yet.
Recommendation: Watch It
Genre: Comedy, "Ecchi" (Literally Hentai)
Studio: Seven
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is just more of the same as last season, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you enjoyed it. It's at the very least "up front" with its content, and it isn't trying to be anything more than it is. However, if this show was longer than eight minutes per episode, it wouldn't have a single leg to stand on. I talked about the importance of shortened length in a lower-quality show such as this in my other post, which I recommend checking out if you want to know more about why I think this kind of quick-shot humor and "ecchi moments" stuff works better in this format. If you didn't watch season one or didn't like season one, this is an easy skip, but fans of season one will be more than pleased with this continuation.
Recommendation: Skip It (if you watched S1, Watch It).
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Genre: Action, Adventure
Studio: Ajia-Do
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Imagine an alternate history where a witch who rides around on an anti-tank rifle kills a bunch of Nazis. That's basically what this show is, or rather what most people are going to tell you. What they don't tell you is that is a brand new, popular, and anime original show. For something like that to get such a high quality shot and end up being relatively successful is almost unheard of these days, especially with how trends have been in the industry over the past few years. Considering the concept and great execution, it's really not that surprising that people (including myself) are excited about this show.
Art and animation are really good although the character designs are somewhat generic, with this show suffering more from "A-1 face" than the past two A-1 shows I've seen. Soundtrack is also pretty killer. There are the usual adventure story plot conveniences and if we sat down and went to pick apart what we've been given, I'm sure that we could find more than a few issues. However, the good far outweighs any bad (so far), and I'm glad that this one turned out to be pretty interesting. You're probably already watching or dropped this by now, but I'd definitely recommend checking it out if you haven't hopped on or off the train yet.
Recommendation: Watch It
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Genre: Magical Girl
Studio: White Fox
Streaming: N/A
The best way to describe this show is that it's utterly generic. For an anime original product, and the next series out of White Fox since the super popular and well produced Re:Zero, this series is an incredible letdown. Whether you liked or disliked Re:Zero as a show, you can't deny the love and care that White Fox put into that project, but none of that passion shows up here at all. With other anime original IPs doings fairly well this season (cough, cough, Izetta), it sucks to see show with such great staff behind it fall so hard.
Aesthetically the show is far under par, with some terribly uninteresting character designs to boot. Music and art style are also about exactly what you'd expect. For what it is, the brief instances of humor, usually brought on by Yuma, are typically above average and are the only thing that can keep me even remotely attentive every so often. I can tell that they're going for some darker Madoka-esque things possibly down the line and the show's fight sequences are the least subtle ripoff of the trippy fight-worlds of Madoka or Yuuki Yuna. To make everything even worse, no real streaming service even picked this show up, so you'll be scrounging around the typical seedier streaming sites if you make the mistake of checking this one out.
Recommendation: Skip It
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Genre: Mystery, Action
Studio: TMS Entertainment, Shin-Ei Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I was legitimately shocked when I looked up this show on MAL and saw that it was an anime original series. Everything about this show screams "light novel adaptation" from the top of its lungs, but I guess it was high time for one industry to directly infect another. This one came recommended to me as a sort of fun or lower quality show in general so I didn't have very high expectations from the outset, and was pleasantly surprised to find the show to be at the very least watchable and mildly interesting. The massive "edgelord"-ness of one of our two main characters and the laughably upbeat personality of the other is typically funny enough to keep me entertained, albeit it obviously not meant to be comedic in the actual show.
The art and animation here is very standard, as is the music and VA. Nothing really stands out but it doesn't look or sound terrible either. Like most of these LN adaptations (or I guess, in the style of an LN adaptation in this case), every studio does it's best A-1 Pictures impression and I have to say that they're getting pretty good at it. It's a shame though, because even if A-1 ends up putting out some shitty shows, they typically have incredible aesthetic quality and these attempted style-copies are always just poor representations of that sort of style. That's a post of another day though, so I'll just leave this one with a try it recommendation. Long-time or heavy anime watchers might get more of an unintended humor kick out of this one than others.
Recommendation: Try It
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Genre: Action, Sports/Tournament, Magical Girl
Studio: Seven Arcs
Streaming: N/A
This one came onto my radar in the form of a streamable video on r/anime, and I instantly knew that I had to check it out. At its core, this one is a tournament story about loli MMA fighting, and if that's sounds like the most ridiculous and entertaining thing that anime can bring you, then you'd be right. Outside of that insane concept though the rest of the show is pretty generic and average with the exception of the cute character designs and the fight sequences. If anything, this show is very aware of what it will make money with, so I can forgive a lot of the mediocrity if it shows that it can kick it up when it matters (which it has so far).
As I was catching myself up to current with this series, I knew that I recognized some of these characters from some other show or series. ViVid Strike! takes place in the same universe as the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha series, and uses a lot of characters and the entire setting/lore from it's most recent following series, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. This isn't exactly a bad thing, as this story is a new anime original one and completely self contained from the other series in terms of its plot, but a lot of the technology, setting, and character backgrounds are just glossed over almost completely. They definitely aren't necessary to enjoying this show alone, but for someone who wants more of a reason or explanation for why things are happening or why characters act a certain way will find themselves crawling through the extensive Nanoha wiki.
However, the show definitely borrows a lot of the tone and pandering from its parent series, with some very long and awkwardly sexualized transformation sequences and instances of loli fanservice that seem particularly out of place in this spin-off story. Nothing in this is as bad as anything that was in Prisma Illya though, so I'd still recommend this to anyone that thinks that watching loli magical MMA would be a complete riot. It's worth the trip off Crunchyroll to check it out at the very least.
Recommendation: Try It
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Title: Watashi ga Motete Dousunda
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio: Brain's Base
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Yet another romantic comedy series that I don't think will live past the "freshness" of its shtick. This one is a reverse harem where the girl happens to be an ex-fat otaku fujoshi, so pretty much all of the humor plays off of that. Overall the comedy is above average, just over-ly centralized on this one thing, so if the show can somehow spin this to keep it just entertaining enough, it will end up being just enjoyably average.
Character designs here are pretty good, with Serinuma in particular being purposefully stand-out, but the rest of the show is very average as is the music. Whether or not this is something that you'll want to check it is completely dependent upon whether the premise sounds entertaining to you or not. If it does, give it a 3 episode shot, but otherwise just skip it. Not really too much to say about this one; every season has their own version of this kind of show.
Recommendation: Try It
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Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
The far better romantic comedy option this season. Completely self contained from the other three seasons of Working!, this series follows the antics and goings-on of a family restaurant staff. The comedy and set-up for the show are instantly relatable to anyone who's worked a minimum wage job, even barring a few cultural differences. Every character is pretty unique and they all have their own hangups and quirks, which are pretty enjoyable to watch shake out among the rest of the cast. Judging by its parent series, this seasons likely won't have any sort of romantic payoff, so your decision to watch this one should be solely based on how well the comedy resonates with you personally. The comedic pacing is also far above average for a show of this genre.
For a show where the characters all pretty much wear the same uniform every day, the character designs and overall artwork is pretty damn good, although the animation and music (outside of the OP and ED) take a pretty big hit to accommodate. That's not a huge problem though, as there isn't a lot of action in the series to animate to begin with. If workplace comedies are your thing, definitely give this one a look.
Recommendation: Watch It
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Genre: Sports
Studio: MAPPA
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show is really gay. Like extremely. And I don't mean that as in its bad or dumb or something, it's actually gay. Whether or not that's worth going through to get to some of the most impressive sakuga of the past three or four years is going to be up to you. Outside of the amazingly animated skating routines, the show is extremely bland (even for a sports anime) and gets worse and worse with the yaoibait bullshit. Even we ignored all the gay stuff in this show, it would still be pretty damn terrible overall. The only reasosn I can fathom that this is as popular as it is because: 1. Roughly 45-50% of the anime fanbase is female, 2. The animation and art is really good, and 3. Crunchyroll is pushing the shit out of it on social media.
In all honesty if you aren't into the gay stuff just skip this one and look up the figure skating clips on YouTube. The show itself isn't worth watching: the characters are boring and standard, the story's conclusion was callable by episode one, and there is barely any entertainment to be had past the skating scenes.
Recommendation: Skip It (but look up the skating routines)
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Aaaaaand that's it. I'll see you all in ~8 weeks for the end-season wrap up, although this season is looking to be pretty straight up with its quality so far. Hopefully the good ones stay good this season.