Fall Anime in Review: 2016
Well, the fall season has finally come to a close. Since I did a "first impressions" post this time around and started watching 18 shows this season, I'm going to keep this one a little more brief than my previous "Season in Review" posts, although that likely isn't going to happen. For the most part, everything played out as expected with only a few surprises and let-downs. Again, i rate everything in-genre, so if something seems a little higher or lower than you'd think, remember that I'm rating against a show's contemporaries and not cross-genre. I'd rant again about the worthlessness of cross-genre ranking but I've done it to death. Anyway, I'm only going to score out stuff that finished this season, so stuff that continued into winter like March Comes In Like a Lion and Trickster won't be included. Let's get right into it.
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Title: Bungou Stray Dogs: Second Season
Genre: Action, Drama
Studio: PA Works
Streaming: Crunchyroll
With how incredibly mediocre the plot and characters were last season, S2 of Bunghole Spayed Dogs really kicked up the quality to a point where, within it's genre of fantasy/action, it's definitely "slightly better than average". I know this doesn't sound like very much praise, but with how cookie-cutter and annoying a lot of the characters were in the first season it's a dramatic step forward. A lot of this has to do with the 4 episode flashback sequence that completely cuts out the cast and replaces it with a core group of 3 characters (two of which are new, the other is Dazai) and provides some much needed backstory and context to Dazai's character. Don't get me wrong, Dazai is still a pretty terrible character, existing only to nullify all these seemingly unbeatable abilities and make terrible jokes, but the flashback episodes do give him more purpose. As for the plot, the flashback episodes were genuinely good. Once we returned to the present however, the show resumed it's typical mediocrity, and a couple asspulls at the end keeping it from being truly passable. I enjoy any part of the story that involves Kyouka, so seeing more of that and less of tiger man and broody dog-eared hair dude go at it was nice.
Visually, P.A. Works kept up a consistently great and undeserving level of quality over these past two seasons. This show has no right to look as good as it does, both in still frame with great backgrounds and character designs as well as the actual animation. Music wasn't anything to write home about but it definitely hit the emotional and hype beats that it needed to. Fights were mostly good as well and we got to see a fair bit of superpower interaction throughout, which is good since that's probably the main reason why anyone is still watching this show. It's honestly not worth dealing with watching season one so that you can only moderately enjoy this, but if you've already seen it, season two can at the very least pick up some of the pieces.
Score: 7/10
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Title: Drifters
Genre: Action, Adventure
Studio: Hoods Drifters Studio
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show is incredibly stupid, but for some reason, it just seems to work. What Drifters does really well is embrace its own "brand", going all in on what it advertises at any given moment. I never exactly looked forward to or anticipated the new episode each week, but I was definitely intrigued as to just what in the hell was going to happen since it seemed like anything at all would be fair game. For Christ's sake, the country that the core group of heroes is trying to take over was created by Hitler. A plane randomly appears in the sky to help fight a dragon. Brief bursts of (honestly pretty bad) comedic sections that happen even during some of the most serious parts of dialogue. All sensibility is completely thrown out the window with this series. The show also suffers from the same problem the Bungou Stray Dogs does with its comedy, where the show can be incredibly tonally inconsistent which really pulls you out of the experience.
As for the plot, it's dumb but it at least has a clear-cut directive: take the country and defeat the Ends. It's a pretty basic premise but the craziness that happens around it is the real highlight, not the adventure itself. Aesthetically, the art style is incredibly edgy, from the character designs to the backgrounds, and although it's not really my style, it definitely doesn't look bad by any stretch of the imagination. In motion it looks pretty great too, with the fight choreography being one of its major strong points. Toyohisa's fights in particular were incredibly well done.
If you're looking for something absolutely insane with some good fights, definitely give this one a look, but if you aren't capable of just laughing off the ridiculousness, give it a pass.
Score: 7/10
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Title: Flip Flappers
Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy, Mahou Shoujo, Adventure
Studio: Studio 3Hz
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is definitively my anime-of-the-season, and although that opinion is likely not going to be unique to me, it's pretty easy to see why most think this. What began as just an insanely colorful and wacky animation eye-gasm developed into a compelling plot that really gripped me week-in and week-out with its own strange way of storytelling. The plot comes and goes, interspersed between sections of fantastical settings, animation, and transformation sequences, never quite giving you the full story and lacing it with imagery and metaphor, at least until the last few episodes. Although some are sure to say that the "tell-all" point at about episode nine and ten cheapen the experience, I find that they were necessary given just how far the show goes into symbolism. The big story reveals near the end honestly felt like a mini-Evangelion, which is something I never thought I would find in anime in this day and age.
Characters were also all pretty great, with our two mains (Cocona and Papika) getting an extreme amount of development and the rest being explored at least a fair amount with respect to the plot. This is hard to talk about without spoiling anything, which would certainly ruin your experience, so I'll refrain from getting into the details, but pretty much everything gets tied up by the end so don't fear if you "don't get" something as you begin to watch it. There's also some heavy undertones of lesbian sexual self-discovery, and although nothing explicitly described (this is Flip Flappers we're talking about), it's there. Our main characters coming to terms with these feelings is a core part of their characterization and the story at large, so just be aware of that as you watch. It's nothing that truly devalues the experience if you choose to ignore it and not read into it.
I talked up the aesthetics super hard in my season preview, but I'll reiterate: the entire show is absolutely fucking drop-dead gorgeous for a TV anime. There are some wonky cuts near the end, but they only happen during instances of incredibly heavy and crazy movement. They're likely to get cleaned up in the BDs, SHAFT-style, so I'll forgive them. Studio 3Hz did an amazing job over this series' 13 episode run. Music was also to die for, incredibly fitting and atmospheric, completely bringing in the hype when it needed to as well as having probably the best OP/ED combination of the entire season.
Flip Flappers gives me newfound hope for new anime-original IPs, especially in a season where Izetta and Matoi flopped so incredibly hard. Easily my AOTS.
Score: 9/10
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Title: Gi(a)rlish Number
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life
Studio: Diomedea
Streaming: Crunchyroll
God, I really kicked myself after recommending this show in my preview. Almost immediately after I posted my review, the show started to go downhill fast. The comedy started to lessen in effectiveness, Chitose became even more of a bitch (to the point where it was no longer endearing), and visual quality seemed to go straight down the tubes. This show came out of the gate firing, seemingly being a seiyuu-focused version of Shirobako with a little more snark and a little less realism, but ultimately falls flat. It gets some stuff right, like how seiyuu's are effectively forced into becoming a "product" in and of themselves rather than being respected as actresses. The show plays off this by showing how different types of seiyuus deal with it, with some blatantly rejecting it, others begrudingly accepting it, some honestly loving it (being otakus themselves), and others being too new to the business to really know any better. The bleak outlook on the industry is also pretty refreshing, as its more likely to be ridiculous in this way than the roses and sunshine that studios make it look to be from the outside.
What the show gets terribly wrong is how to deliver any sort of honest message or resolution. Chitose not only continues, but is ENCOURAGED, to act like a diva effectively "faking it until she makes it", which even by the end of the series doesn't even seem to work. She appears to have a change of heart at the ending climax of the series, but in reality it just really all seems fake with her original attitude just being amplified instead of transformed. While I found her character endearing at first, expecting that she'd get knocked on her ass and humbled like a new kid at a Melee tournament, she just became more and more like the kind of player I hate with no true change to her character in sight. The same can be said about the subplot with the producer, where there appears to be resolution for the sake of the story even though he himself has not changed his character at all.
Aesthetically this show has a great look for what it is, with very good character designs, but the art and animation dropped off hard around episode 5. The Chitose reaction images that you see pasted around twitter are mostly from this earlier stage, as later faces and cuts when viewed in a still make me want to puke.
Score: 6/10
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Title: Hibike Euphonium Season 2
Genre: Music, Comedy, Yuribait, Slice of Life
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Oh, Kyoto Animation. If you could really just go and actually put Kumiko and Reina together for once, your infinite money pool would just dry right up, wouldn't it? Instead, we get yet another season of "will they or won't they" and "maybe they're just reallllllllly good friends", with some band drama and performance animation spliced in-between the yuribait. In all honestly, this season of Hibike really did not live up to its predecessor in any way. It had less yuribait, less good drama, more Kumiko bumbling about, and less music performance animation. What we got were two dramatic arcs focusing on two seniors of the concert band, one of which was barely touched upon in the previous season and the other being Asuka, Kumiko's euphonium senpai. Neither even comes close to the level of investment or relate-ability that I had with season one's main dramatic arc, which focused on Reina's drive to be the best trumpet and challenge the "seniority" status-quo for a solo part. If I had a way to describe it, season two's drama just felt far more artificial, pretty much not at all band-related, and far more "anime" than the band-grounded drama of the first season.
For everything that dropped the ball narratively, KyoAni definitely held steady with its incredible animation. Nearly every cut is wallpaper-worthy yet again, with draw-droppingly incredible backgrounds and character close-ups. Their attention to detail, in regards to both character designs and instrument animation is amazing. I had my long-time friend and music major watch the nearly full-length performance episode, and the only thing he could find that wasn't perfectly accurate, from fingerings to posture, was that the upright bass was strung in a fashion that would be weird for the type of music they were performing. Although we didn't get any single scene that rivaled the "running Kumiko on the bridge" animation this season, there were definitely a few cuts that really wowed me. In addition to the visuals, the show returns with its trademark natural sounding dialogue and array of Kumiko noises, making watching all the characters interact an absolute treat even if I didn't care nearly as much about what they were saying as I did in season one.
If the story goes on and more gets adapted, I hope KyoAni drops Suichi like a rock and hooks up Kumiko and Reina for real. Also keep the drama more band focused, trauma and family-life problems aren't nearly as interesting, relevant, or dramatic when placed in this specific setting.
Score: 7.5/10
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Title: Keijo!!!!
Genre: Sports, Ecchi
Studio: Xebec
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this show has no right to be as well-done as it is. For something as absolutely fucking crazy as "ass and tits king-of-the-hill", this series has an incredible level of polish, and could actually stand on its own as a sports anime... or at least a parody of the genre anyway. I am not sure if it is due to my own complete desensitization to it or the style in which the show is presented, but the ecchi qualities of the show take a backseat for me to the point where I barely acknowledge that it's a selling point. Yes, if you take a step back it's obvious what the show is attempting to do, but once you've been pulled in by the ridiculous levels of hype, crazy special moves, and genuinely funny characters, you honestly start to not care so much about the TnA. Now don't get me wrong, the characters are decidedly generic: you have your shonen protagonist, silent-but-deadly, clumsy, etc... but they exist that way to parody themselves rather than be anything that should be taken seriously. In fact, nothing in this show should be taken seriously, and if you attempted at all to do so then you entirely missed the point.
Aesthetically the show is fairly good, with the typical amount of budget fluctuation that is typical in this kind of product. Big hype moments and fanservice-laden scenes look great, zoomed out shots look honestly terrible a lot of the time. I'm not sure if this was due to Xebec's encoding or not, but Crunchyroll's stream had moments of heavy line pixelization, which really pulled me out of it a lot of the time. However, watchers not nearly as focused on consistency of art likely would have never noticed this and it's likely a technical fault, so I'm not going to knock any points for it. What this show really nailed is the music, where from the OP to ED it really did an amazing job of hyping up the crazy special moves and fights, as well as slowing it down for the more lighthearted scenes. I'd honestly listen to the soundtrack outside the show, which is something I really wouldn't say for most TV anime these days that I wouldn't consider the AOTS or AOTY.
TL;DR: this show saved anime.
Score: 8/10
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Title: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project)
Genre: Magical Girl, Drama, Fantasy
Studio: Lerche
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show was a lot more divisive than I thought it would be. Although it had a bit of a slow start, it really kicked it up around the halfway point. However, what it kicked itself into seems to be what people either loved or had a major issue with. From the start, we all knew that this wouldn't end without a massive helping of blood. Hell, the pre-OP sequence in the first episode pretty much explicitly tells you that's what is going to happen. I think that Raising Project really suffered from a heavy and constant pressure for people to compare/contrast it with what they would believe to be its contemporaries, Madoka, and to a lesser extent, Yuuki Yuuna. While I don't believe these comparisons to be fair to the show, especially considering when the source material released (pre-Madoka), I can see their issues with Raising Project when viewed through this lens. If anything, Raising Project plays out like a cute girls version of a shonen battle royale than either of these shows, and in that way, I think it does a great job while obviously going for a bit of an edgier, darker tone.
I'll admit that in the show's pre-"going-completely-insane point", I wrongly considered it to be more of a Madoka-clone than what it really was, and I'm sorry for that. As a battle royale/deathmatch show, it really stands out as enjoyable experience with characters likable or detestable enough that you can cheer and be sad for when they finally beat the dust or end up winning out. It pulls off "shock value" better than most in this regard, so if you just want to watch some well-designed magical girls beat the fuck out of each other, this show can be very enjoyable. Speaking of visuals, Lerche honestly did a pretty good job with this one outside of literally one terribly designed character: La Pucelle. Dumbest character design I've ever fucking seen, and has the worst excuse for a subtle "compensation" joke of a power. Even if the character wasn't a trap, his magical girl design looks like it fell into a bucket of glitter inside the cheapest strip club you could ever find. Otherwise, the show embraces embraces it's edgy-moe direction really well. Music was alright, worked well enough for hyping up fights but nothing really stood out.
This one is better experienced than described, and you'll know if you love it or hate it pretty quick so I'd honestly just leave this one up to your personal judgement.
Score: DEATH (7.5)/10
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Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I'm not really sure how to talk about this one without spoiling anything for you, but I'm going to give it my best shot. This show moves so fast that if you blink, you'll miss something story-critical and be confused for the next three episodes. Although it could have certainly used a couple more episodes so that it didn't feel like the show just did a line of cocaine before it started rolling, I don't think that the pacing really made THAT much of an impact on the content. It might be a detractor for those of you that aren't fast/peripheral subtitle readers, but for those of us that have no issue with series like Monogatari, this will be child's play. I'd even go as far as to say it's not the speed that makes this series a little "confusing" at points, but rather the way that the plot is presented. Flash-sideways, flashbacks, and the like are all employed to the point where keeping the different inter-weaving parts of the story straight can become a little difficult to some. That being said, I watched eighteen series this season and had no issue actively following this, so the effort required to get the full effect of the plot (which is honestly engaging and wraps up pretty well) is going to vary from watcher to watcher. If I could say anything to set you at ease about the speed/dialogue, it would be that Occultic;Nine dialogue kind of like an episode of Law and Order: characters are constantly moving while talking at an accelerated rate, even though their movement doesn't exactly add anything to the dialogue nine times out of ten, except that sometimes that movement is replaced by dutch angles instead. At the end of the day though, the plot was interesting enough to keep me on the hook every week, and the mystery and its resolution are legitimately intriguing. That's more than can be said for most anime mystery plots.
Speaking of visuals, this one definitely had a stand-out art style and direction, employing this soft-line style that allows character designs to look incredibly consistent with their backgrounds while still keeping an insanely high level of detail in their character designs. A-1 Pictures is a master of character design when they want to stray from their "A-1 face" design templates, and this show proves yet again that they can be just as visually consistent and impressive as the most in-house studios when pressured to be. The character designs overall are very good, outside of our MC looking a tad generic in comparison and another HUGE issue that will be obvious to you immediately. There are multiple times when this show is animated "on-ones" (24 frames of animation for 24 frames-per-second video playback) to incredible effect. "Camera work" is another thing I would highlight with this show, as it frequently employs dutch angles and other framing techniques to keep the setting interesting and give you more opportunities to take in the lush background art. Voice acting was also pretty killer considering just how fast the dialogue can get at times, and although the music was pretty good I wouldn't be handing out out any awards to it. The visuals were the definitive draw here in the aesthetic department.
If you are pretty fast with subtitles and are looking for a good mystery, give this one a look. One of the top five this season for sure and a definitive visual treat.
Score: 8/10
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Title: Watashi wa Motete Dousunda (Kiss Him, Not Me)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio: Brain's Base
Streaming: Crunchyroll
What started as something relatively novel for a harem comedy predictably fell flat in the later stages, although it kept it longer than I expected. This show was genuinely funny for the first three episodes, slowly-but-steadily slumped through the middle parts, then crashed hard in the end. Like most of these kinds of shows, it introduced some eleventh-hour common enemy for all the love interests to pull against, but it was just so much more worse than the average implementation that it really ruined the whole experience for me. Maybe I just can't relate to this beautiful girl of a main character getting fawned over by all these dudes for these attempted serious beats to mean anything, but it just feels like a reverse-but-weaker implementation of the ending in the more male-focused versions of this kind of show that I've seen.
Visuals were only what I'd refer to as "shoujo-tastic" and "male-moe". Everything else in the aesthetic department was just like this show overall, painfully average. I really can't stand to watch the bad/average versions of these kinds of shows anymore, especially when there actually are a good amount of better-than-average anime romcoms out there. I thought the "reverse" part of this show would add something, but in the end I guess it didn't. Don't really know what else to say about this one, other than I think a girl would probably get more out of it than I did.
Score: 5/10
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Title: Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+!
Genre: Comedy, Ecchi
Studio: Seven
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is just more of the same. Not exactly a bad thing, but it is what it is. If it wasn't just 7.5 minutes per episode, it would be a 4, but it still works the short-form well.
I've already spoken about this series at length here. Nothing new in the second season to really merit any more worthwhile discussion if there was really any reason to discuss anything in the first place.
Score: 6/10
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Title: Shuumatsu no Izetta (Izetta the Last Witch)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Yuribait
Studio: Ajia-Do
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Score: 6/10
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Title: Shoushin Shoujo Matoi (Matoi the Sacred Slayer)
Genre: Mahou Shoujo
Studio: White Fox
Streaming: N/A
Everything about this show is generic. The characters. The plot. The setting. The art. The music. All of it. There isn't any standout thing in this show that differentiates from any other magical girl show. It literally felt like I was watching a bad Saturday morning cartoon that just hadn't had the chance to go through the 4Kids grinder yet. Wrap in a contrived setup for possible sequels and the product is complete.
The biggest disappoint of the season for me by far, since it came out of White Fox who had just come off their stellar production in Re:Zero. I was at least expecting a bit of high-level aesthetic value but I didn't even get that. Only check this out if you are the die-est of die hard mahou shoujo genre fan, otherwise avoid it like the plague.
Score: 4/10
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Title: ViVid Strike!
Genre: Action, Sports/Tournament, Mahou Shoujo
Studio: Seven Arcs
Streaming: N/A
This show is a masterpiece of loli magical MMA fighting. If that short description doesn't interest you or at least make you laugh, then you can just stop reading here and advance to the next review.
This on is a spin off the incredibly popular and long running Lyrical Nanoha franchise of cringe-inducing hetero-chromatic anime girl fame. I know absolutely nothing about Nanoha other than that, and I have to say that I legitimately enjoyed this completely retarded show despite it. A lot of misgivings like the weird loli fanservice, the unexplained magic technology, and some strange character interactions are apparently par for the franchise, and although I don't consider that to affect how much they detract from the show, it's still enlightening to understand the deep-rooted and strange points of such an old franchise. Still, the concept is just so incredibly stupid and entertaining in and of itself that the occasionally good fight scenes and an endearing (but expected) theme of friendship and support were just icing on the cake.
The Nanoha bug crawls into the show's aesthetics as well. The music is scored to pop-y and friendly just like the kind of magical girl stuff you'd expect. The character designs are overly cutesy and mostly basic, sticking to one core color scheme or design to make characters easily recognizable (a design strategy I lovingly refer to as the "autism Sonic effect"). Animation is pretty average, with a couple of the fights being above average. The last fight between Fuka and Rinne is particularly well done and relatively hype, which really sends the series out on a high note. This series is a "what you see is what you get" affair. You could honestly watch the OP and have a perfect understanding of what you'd be getting into.
If you want to watch some cute girls beat the fucking shit out of each other while they have flashbacks about being friends, or you're just looking for a laugh, then check this one out I guess. I thought the entire thing was an absolute riot.
Score: 6.5/10
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Title: WWW.Working!!! (A.K.A Web Working)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Now, I haven't seen the original Working!!! series, but from everything I've heard about it from friends, this spin-off works as a pretty condensed version of the same concept. That concept is an anime workplace romantic comedy, set in a family restaurant, and I have to say that it's executed very well. This genre has always been a bit of a soft spot for me, so to see one that's legitimately good among a sea a mediocre and terrible ones is refreshing. I can say with absolute that this show will have romantic resolution and great comedy, all within a thirteen episode season. The characters are endearing, and their gripes and problems are instantly relatable to anyone who's ever worked a minimum or low-wage position. I'd argue that this show does the workplace comedy better the some of its lower-end contemporaries (i.e. workplace comedies that aren't The Office or Parks and Recreation), provided you understand the cultural and societal differences, otherwise some of the comedy will certainly fall flat. Like I said, the romance is a key part of this show, and its the driving force behind the continuing casual "plot" in almost all cases.
Romantic comedies in anime live and die by their character designs, and although A-1 seems to have employed their template here pretty liberally, they work well enough to accent every characters' unique personality. Animation and music wasn't anything overly impressive, but for a series naturally without a lot of motion I can forgive that since the art overall was very well done.
This was the best romcom I've seen in a very long time, and despite its short run-time did not leave me wanting for me after it wrapped up. If the genre is your thing, I can't recommend this one enough.
Score: 8/10
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Title: Yuri!!! on Ice
Genre: Sports, Romance?
Studio: MAPPA
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I'll probably get flamed for this because this show was just so popular, but I did not like this show at all, nor did I think it was even good. Like, I get it, the show was trying to be really "progressive" by having pretty much a legitimately gay couple, but I don't even think that was really that crazy, considering three other shows this season had pretty blatant lesbian couples or baiting (Izetta, Flip Flappers, Hibike). Yeah, that might not have go so far as to show a kiss in the middle of a crowded sports stadium, but being bold doesn't really make a show good unless you judge every show you watch on a scale of Tumblr-acceptance levels. The story in all honesty was pretty typical for that of a sports anime, as were all the characters. Yuri is our typical protagonist, Yurio is the angry rival, etc etc..., none of these characters are anything new or novel.
I will admit that this show came out of the gate firing aesthetically. The first episode looked like a movie, but to say the show couldn't keep this up was an understatement. Skate animation was incredibly good to start, but the show did the most heinous thing that anime can do starting about halfway through, and that's REUSING FRAMES. From episode six or so to the end, the ONLY new piece of skate animation for any of Yuri's routines was the quad flip in his last routine, with every other piece of animation being reused. I can appreciate the difficulty of animating figure skating, but I can NEVER forgive such blatant reuse of frames. There are tons of different angles that could have been explored to keep animation fresh, but it honestly felt like I was watching the same episode over and over again throughout the entire second half of the show. The music did almost nothing to add to the hype, with Yuri's track in particular having an incredible build up and then no substance after the drop, disappointing you rather than making his eventual victories feel like, well, victories. One thing I will praise though is the VA, with Yuri in particular having personality in bounds that I wish I heard more in that kind of character. The modesty/skill disparity that Yuri's character archetype holds comes off as genuine only because of his VA, and not much else.
I get why this show was well received, but once the season passes and those touting the "progressive"-ness of it move on to the next thing, I think that it will be forgotten. In reality, it's just another Free!; a show that panders to a very niche market that just ended up luckily getting a good amount of exposure.
Score: 4/10
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That's it for this season! A pretty "lukewarm" season overall, with most things ending up as expected. Winter looks to be pretty dry by comparison with only one or two big things (Little With Academia), but hopefully something will surprise us.
For the small few who do read these, just know that I really do appreciate it. I do this mostly to keep up with my non-technical writing, as I feel it's an important skill to have and writing technical documentation really takes its toll on your creativity after a while.
Probably not going to do season previews this time since I'll likely end up down the "watch too many things" hole again, so I'll see you guys at the end of the Winter season!
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Title: Bungou Stray Dogs: Second Season
Genre: Action, Drama
Studio: PA Works
Streaming: Crunchyroll
With how incredibly mediocre the plot and characters were last season, S2 of Bunghole Spayed Dogs really kicked up the quality to a point where, within it's genre of fantasy/action, it's definitely "slightly better than average". I know this doesn't sound like very much praise, but with how cookie-cutter and annoying a lot of the characters were in the first season it's a dramatic step forward. A lot of this has to do with the 4 episode flashback sequence that completely cuts out the cast and replaces it with a core group of 3 characters (two of which are new, the other is Dazai) and provides some much needed backstory and context to Dazai's character. Don't get me wrong, Dazai is still a pretty terrible character, existing only to nullify all these seemingly unbeatable abilities and make terrible jokes, but the flashback episodes do give him more purpose. As for the plot, the flashback episodes were genuinely good. Once we returned to the present however, the show resumed it's typical mediocrity, and a couple asspulls at the end keeping it from being truly passable. I enjoy any part of the story that involves Kyouka, so seeing more of that and less of tiger man and broody dog-eared hair dude go at it was nice.
Visually, P.A. Works kept up a consistently great and undeserving level of quality over these past two seasons. This show has no right to look as good as it does, both in still frame with great backgrounds and character designs as well as the actual animation. Music wasn't anything to write home about but it definitely hit the emotional and hype beats that it needed to. Fights were mostly good as well and we got to see a fair bit of superpower interaction throughout, which is good since that's probably the main reason why anyone is still watching this show. It's honestly not worth dealing with watching season one so that you can only moderately enjoy this, but if you've already seen it, season two can at the very least pick up some of the pieces.
Score: 7/10
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Title: Drifters
Genre: Action, Adventure
Studio: Hoods Drifters Studio
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show is incredibly stupid, but for some reason, it just seems to work. What Drifters does really well is embrace its own "brand", going all in on what it advertises at any given moment. I never exactly looked forward to or anticipated the new episode each week, but I was definitely intrigued as to just what in the hell was going to happen since it seemed like anything at all would be fair game. For Christ's sake, the country that the core group of heroes is trying to take over was created by Hitler. A plane randomly appears in the sky to help fight a dragon. Brief bursts of (honestly pretty bad) comedic sections that happen even during some of the most serious parts of dialogue. All sensibility is completely thrown out the window with this series. The show also suffers from the same problem the Bungou Stray Dogs does with its comedy, where the show can be incredibly tonally inconsistent which really pulls you out of the experience.
As for the plot, it's dumb but it at least has a clear-cut directive: take the country and defeat the Ends. It's a pretty basic premise but the craziness that happens around it is the real highlight, not the adventure itself. Aesthetically, the art style is incredibly edgy, from the character designs to the backgrounds, and although it's not really my style, it definitely doesn't look bad by any stretch of the imagination. In motion it looks pretty great too, with the fight choreography being one of its major strong points. Toyohisa's fights in particular were incredibly well done.
If you're looking for something absolutely insane with some good fights, definitely give this one a look, but if you aren't capable of just laughing off the ridiculousness, give it a pass.
Score: 7/10
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Title: Flip Flappers
Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy, Mahou Shoujo, Adventure
Studio: Studio 3Hz
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is definitively my anime-of-the-season, and although that opinion is likely not going to be unique to me, it's pretty easy to see why most think this. What began as just an insanely colorful and wacky animation eye-gasm developed into a compelling plot that really gripped me week-in and week-out with its own strange way of storytelling. The plot comes and goes, interspersed between sections of fantastical settings, animation, and transformation sequences, never quite giving you the full story and lacing it with imagery and metaphor, at least until the last few episodes. Although some are sure to say that the "tell-all" point at about episode nine and ten cheapen the experience, I find that they were necessary given just how far the show goes into symbolism. The big story reveals near the end honestly felt like a mini-Evangelion, which is something I never thought I would find in anime in this day and age.
Characters were also all pretty great, with our two mains (Cocona and Papika) getting an extreme amount of development and the rest being explored at least a fair amount with respect to the plot. This is hard to talk about without spoiling anything, which would certainly ruin your experience, so I'll refrain from getting into the details, but pretty much everything gets tied up by the end so don't fear if you "don't get" something as you begin to watch it. There's also some heavy undertones of lesbian sexual self-discovery, and although nothing explicitly described (this is Flip Flappers we're talking about), it's there. Our main characters coming to terms with these feelings is a core part of their characterization and the story at large, so just be aware of that as you watch. It's nothing that truly devalues the experience if you choose to ignore it and not read into it.
I talked up the aesthetics super hard in my season preview, but I'll reiterate: the entire show is absolutely fucking drop-dead gorgeous for a TV anime. There are some wonky cuts near the end, but they only happen during instances of incredibly heavy and crazy movement. They're likely to get cleaned up in the BDs, SHAFT-style, so I'll forgive them. Studio 3Hz did an amazing job over this series' 13 episode run. Music was also to die for, incredibly fitting and atmospheric, completely bringing in the hype when it needed to as well as having probably the best OP/ED combination of the entire season.
Flip Flappers gives me newfound hope for new anime-original IPs, especially in a season where Izetta and Matoi flopped so incredibly hard. Easily my AOTS.
Score: 9/10
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Title: Gi(a)rlish Number
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life
Studio: Diomedea
Streaming: Crunchyroll
God, I really kicked myself after recommending this show in my preview. Almost immediately after I posted my review, the show started to go downhill fast. The comedy started to lessen in effectiveness, Chitose became even more of a bitch (to the point where it was no longer endearing), and visual quality seemed to go straight down the tubes. This show came out of the gate firing, seemingly being a seiyuu-focused version of Shirobako with a little more snark and a little less realism, but ultimately falls flat. It gets some stuff right, like how seiyuu's are effectively forced into becoming a "product" in and of themselves rather than being respected as actresses. The show plays off this by showing how different types of seiyuus deal with it, with some blatantly rejecting it, others begrudingly accepting it, some honestly loving it (being otakus themselves), and others being too new to the business to really know any better. The bleak outlook on the industry is also pretty refreshing, as its more likely to be ridiculous in this way than the roses and sunshine that studios make it look to be from the outside.
What the show gets terribly wrong is how to deliver any sort of honest message or resolution. Chitose not only continues, but is ENCOURAGED, to act like a diva effectively "faking it until she makes it", which even by the end of the series doesn't even seem to work. She appears to have a change of heart at the ending climax of the series, but in reality it just really all seems fake with her original attitude just being amplified instead of transformed. While I found her character endearing at first, expecting that she'd get knocked on her ass and humbled like a new kid at a Melee tournament, she just became more and more like the kind of player I hate with no true change to her character in sight. The same can be said about the subplot with the producer, where there appears to be resolution for the sake of the story even though he himself has not changed his character at all.
Aesthetically this show has a great look for what it is, with very good character designs, but the art and animation dropped off hard around episode 5. The Chitose reaction images that you see pasted around twitter are mostly from this earlier stage, as later faces and cuts when viewed in a still make me want to puke.
Score: 6/10
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Title: Hibike Euphonium Season 2
Genre: Music, Comedy, Yuribait, Slice of Life
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Oh, Kyoto Animation. If you could really just go and actually put Kumiko and Reina together for once, your infinite money pool would just dry right up, wouldn't it? Instead, we get yet another season of "will they or won't they" and "maybe they're just reallllllllly good friends", with some band drama and performance animation spliced in-between the yuribait. In all honestly, this season of Hibike really did not live up to its predecessor in any way. It had less yuribait, less good drama, more Kumiko bumbling about, and less music performance animation. What we got were two dramatic arcs focusing on two seniors of the concert band, one of which was barely touched upon in the previous season and the other being Asuka, Kumiko's euphonium senpai. Neither even comes close to the level of investment or relate-ability that I had with season one's main dramatic arc, which focused on Reina's drive to be the best trumpet and challenge the "seniority" status-quo for a solo part. If I had a way to describe it, season two's drama just felt far more artificial, pretty much not at all band-related, and far more "anime" than the band-grounded drama of the first season.
For everything that dropped the ball narratively, KyoAni definitely held steady with its incredible animation. Nearly every cut is wallpaper-worthy yet again, with draw-droppingly incredible backgrounds and character close-ups. Their attention to detail, in regards to both character designs and instrument animation is amazing. I had my long-time friend and music major watch the nearly full-length performance episode, and the only thing he could find that wasn't perfectly accurate, from fingerings to posture, was that the upright bass was strung in a fashion that would be weird for the type of music they were performing. Although we didn't get any single scene that rivaled the "running Kumiko on the bridge" animation this season, there were definitely a few cuts that really wowed me. In addition to the visuals, the show returns with its trademark natural sounding dialogue and array of Kumiko noises, making watching all the characters interact an absolute treat even if I didn't care nearly as much about what they were saying as I did in season one.
If the story goes on and more gets adapted, I hope KyoAni drops Suichi like a rock and hooks up Kumiko and Reina for real. Also keep the drama more band focused, trauma and family-life problems aren't nearly as interesting, relevant, or dramatic when placed in this specific setting.
Score: 7.5/10
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Title: Keijo!!!!
Genre: Sports, Ecchi
Studio: Xebec
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this show has no right to be as well-done as it is. For something as absolutely fucking crazy as "ass and tits king-of-the-hill", this series has an incredible level of polish, and could actually stand on its own as a sports anime... or at least a parody of the genre anyway. I am not sure if it is due to my own complete desensitization to it or the style in which the show is presented, but the ecchi qualities of the show take a backseat for me to the point where I barely acknowledge that it's a selling point. Yes, if you take a step back it's obvious what the show is attempting to do, but once you've been pulled in by the ridiculous levels of hype, crazy special moves, and genuinely funny characters, you honestly start to not care so much about the TnA. Now don't get me wrong, the characters are decidedly generic: you have your shonen protagonist, silent-but-deadly, clumsy, etc... but they exist that way to parody themselves rather than be anything that should be taken seriously. In fact, nothing in this show should be taken seriously, and if you attempted at all to do so then you entirely missed the point.
Aesthetically the show is fairly good, with the typical amount of budget fluctuation that is typical in this kind of product. Big hype moments and fanservice-laden scenes look great, zoomed out shots look honestly terrible a lot of the time. I'm not sure if this was due to Xebec's encoding or not, but Crunchyroll's stream had moments of heavy line pixelization, which really pulled me out of it a lot of the time. However, watchers not nearly as focused on consistency of art likely would have never noticed this and it's likely a technical fault, so I'm not going to knock any points for it. What this show really nailed is the music, where from the OP to ED it really did an amazing job of hyping up the crazy special moves and fights, as well as slowing it down for the more lighthearted scenes. I'd honestly listen to the soundtrack outside the show, which is something I really wouldn't say for most TV anime these days that I wouldn't consider the AOTS or AOTY.
TL;DR: this show saved anime.
Score: 8/10
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Title: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project)
Genre: Magical Girl, Drama, Fantasy
Studio: Lerche
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show was a lot more divisive than I thought it would be. Although it had a bit of a slow start, it really kicked it up around the halfway point. However, what it kicked itself into seems to be what people either loved or had a major issue with. From the start, we all knew that this wouldn't end without a massive helping of blood. Hell, the pre-OP sequence in the first episode pretty much explicitly tells you that's what is going to happen. I think that Raising Project really suffered from a heavy and constant pressure for people to compare/contrast it with what they would believe to be its contemporaries, Madoka, and to a lesser extent, Yuuki Yuuna. While I don't believe these comparisons to be fair to the show, especially considering when the source material released (pre-Madoka), I can see their issues with Raising Project when viewed through this lens. If anything, Raising Project plays out like a cute girls version of a shonen battle royale than either of these shows, and in that way, I think it does a great job while obviously going for a bit of an edgier, darker tone.
I'll admit that in the show's pre-"going-completely-insane point", I wrongly considered it to be more of a Madoka-clone than what it really was, and I'm sorry for that. As a battle royale/deathmatch show, it really stands out as enjoyable experience with characters likable or detestable enough that you can cheer and be sad for when they finally beat the dust or end up winning out. It pulls off "shock value" better than most in this regard, so if you just want to watch some well-designed magical girls beat the fuck out of each other, this show can be very enjoyable. Speaking of visuals, Lerche honestly did a pretty good job with this one outside of literally one terribly designed character: La Pucelle. Dumbest character design I've ever fucking seen, and has the worst excuse for a subtle "compensation" joke of a power. Even if the character wasn't a trap, his magical girl design looks like it fell into a bucket of glitter inside the cheapest strip club you could ever find. Otherwise, the show embraces embraces it's edgy-moe direction really well. Music was alright, worked well enough for hyping up fights but nothing really stood out.
This one is better experienced than described, and you'll know if you love it or hate it pretty quick so I'd honestly just leave this one up to your personal judgement.
Score: DEATH (7.5)/10
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Title: Occultic;Nine
Genre: Mystery, Sci-FiStudio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I'm not really sure how to talk about this one without spoiling anything for you, but I'm going to give it my best shot. This show moves so fast that if you blink, you'll miss something story-critical and be confused for the next three episodes. Although it could have certainly used a couple more episodes so that it didn't feel like the show just did a line of cocaine before it started rolling, I don't think that the pacing really made THAT much of an impact on the content. It might be a detractor for those of you that aren't fast/peripheral subtitle readers, but for those of us that have no issue with series like Monogatari, this will be child's play. I'd even go as far as to say it's not the speed that makes this series a little "confusing" at points, but rather the way that the plot is presented. Flash-sideways, flashbacks, and the like are all employed to the point where keeping the different inter-weaving parts of the story straight can become a little difficult to some. That being said, I watched eighteen series this season and had no issue actively following this, so the effort required to get the full effect of the plot (which is honestly engaging and wraps up pretty well) is going to vary from watcher to watcher. If I could say anything to set you at ease about the speed/dialogue, it would be that Occultic;Nine dialogue kind of like an episode of Law and Order: characters are constantly moving while talking at an accelerated rate, even though their movement doesn't exactly add anything to the dialogue nine times out of ten, except that sometimes that movement is replaced by dutch angles instead. At the end of the day though, the plot was interesting enough to keep me on the hook every week, and the mystery and its resolution are legitimately intriguing. That's more than can be said for most anime mystery plots.
Speaking of visuals, this one definitely had a stand-out art style and direction, employing this soft-line style that allows character designs to look incredibly consistent with their backgrounds while still keeping an insanely high level of detail in their character designs. A-1 Pictures is a master of character design when they want to stray from their "A-1 face" design templates, and this show proves yet again that they can be just as visually consistent and impressive as the most in-house studios when pressured to be. The character designs overall are very good, outside of our MC looking a tad generic in comparison and another HUGE issue that will be obvious to you immediately. There are multiple times when this show is animated "on-ones" (24 frames of animation for 24 frames-per-second video playback) to incredible effect. "Camera work" is another thing I would highlight with this show, as it frequently employs dutch angles and other framing techniques to keep the setting interesting and give you more opportunities to take in the lush background art. Voice acting was also pretty killer considering just how fast the dialogue can get at times, and although the music was pretty good I wouldn't be handing out out any awards to it. The visuals were the definitive draw here in the aesthetic department.
If you are pretty fast with subtitles and are looking for a good mystery, give this one a look. One of the top five this season for sure and a definitive visual treat.
Score: 8/10
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Title: Watashi wa Motete Dousunda (Kiss Him, Not Me)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio: Brain's Base
Streaming: Crunchyroll
What started as something relatively novel for a harem comedy predictably fell flat in the later stages, although it kept it longer than I expected. This show was genuinely funny for the first three episodes, slowly-but-steadily slumped through the middle parts, then crashed hard in the end. Like most of these kinds of shows, it introduced some eleventh-hour common enemy for all the love interests to pull against, but it was just so much more worse than the average implementation that it really ruined the whole experience for me. Maybe I just can't relate to this beautiful girl of a main character getting fawned over by all these dudes for these attempted serious beats to mean anything, but it just feels like a reverse-but-weaker implementation of the ending in the more male-focused versions of this kind of show that I've seen.
Visuals were only what I'd refer to as "shoujo-tastic" and "male-moe". Everything else in the aesthetic department was just like this show overall, painfully average. I really can't stand to watch the bad/average versions of these kinds of shows anymore, especially when there actually are a good amount of better-than-average anime romcoms out there. I thought the "reverse" part of this show would add something, but in the end I guess it didn't. Don't really know what else to say about this one, other than I think a girl would probably get more out of it than I did.
Score: 5/10
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Title: Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+!
Genre: Comedy, Ecchi
Studio: Seven
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is just more of the same. Not exactly a bad thing, but it is what it is. If it wasn't just 7.5 minutes per episode, it would be a 4, but it still works the short-form well.
I've already spoken about this series at length here. Nothing new in the second season to really merit any more worthwhile discussion if there was really any reason to discuss anything in the first place.
Score: 6/10
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Title: Shuumatsu no Izetta (Izetta the Last Witch)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Yuribait
Studio: Ajia-Do
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Everyone say it with me: "FAILED POTENTIAL". This show had a good chunk of the anime community clamoring for more after the first few episodes. How could a witch flying around on an anti-tank rifle killing Nazis possibly be a bad thing? Well, it turns out that even the most novel or interesting of new intellectual properties can turn to shit given enough time. To be completely fair, Izetta was a slow burn when it comes to pure combustion into garbage, but I was naive to ignore the signs that showed up as early as the second episode. Overabundance of "A-1 face" character designs, steadily increasing amounts of fanservice to the point of absurdity, a growing amount of plot-convenient asspulls, and a glossing over of the ever-important political interactions (this is alternate WW2 after all) are some of the biggest shortcomings that this show came to present. The first few episodes were light on these though, and I'd be remiss if I didn't admit that I had bought into the show entirely at that point. You can check my season previews to see just how excited for it I was and how much promise I thought this series had (which it did), only for how dejected and sad I am here to tell you how it all turned out in the end. If you're still interested enough in the premise to check this one out, just know that although the action scenes are pretty good and well choreographed, it's not enough to save the show from the stark contrast between them and the political/fanservice/yuribait segments.
"What do you mean yuribait segments?", you might ask. Well, this show was determined to incite a lesbian relationship between our two main female characters because it figured that it just couldn't be interesting or well-done enough on its own to warrant selling enough merchandise to make the property profitable. Many a scene of Finé and Izetta laying on a bed or eating lunch together was enough to make me just want to puke with how the series' incredibly poor attempt to make this "subtle". Let's not even talk about the episode eleven hamfisted euphemism for sex (complete with orgasm) that not even Disney could have gotten away with without raising eyebrows. Yuri is more than fine in my book, but you have to do it right. If you're just going to bait it, do it like Hibike, but otherwise you better just go full Sakura Trick, because everything else is just going to make your "product" feel like garbage for any normal person to watch. Actually, I think that's a great way to sum up my feelings on Izetta as a whole. It's a product, and was designed to be that from the beginning. It never had any aspirations of being art, like Flip Flappers obviously did and succeeded in. What's sad is that I don't even think Izetta succeeded in being a successful product, with originally great, albeit generic, visuals and soundtrack grinding to a mediocre halt at about the halfway mark.
I'd avoid this one unless you really just want to see how the premise plays out (poorly) and can let the bad stuff roll off. It's the only way you'll be able to stomach the rest of this series.
Score: 6/10
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Title: Shoushin Shoujo Matoi (Matoi the Sacred Slayer)
Genre: Mahou Shoujo
Studio: White Fox
Streaming: N/A
Everything about this show is generic. The characters. The plot. The setting. The art. The music. All of it. There isn't any standout thing in this show that differentiates from any other magical girl show. It literally felt like I was watching a bad Saturday morning cartoon that just hadn't had the chance to go through the 4Kids grinder yet. Wrap in a contrived setup for possible sequels and the product is complete.
The biggest disappoint of the season for me by far, since it came out of White Fox who had just come off their stellar production in Re:Zero. I was at least expecting a bit of high-level aesthetic value but I didn't even get that. Only check this out if you are the die-est of die hard mahou shoujo genre fan, otherwise avoid it like the plague.
Score: 4/10
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Title: ViVid Strike!
Genre: Action, Sports/Tournament, Mahou Shoujo
Studio: Seven Arcs
Streaming: N/A
This show is a masterpiece of loli magical MMA fighting. If that short description doesn't interest you or at least make you laugh, then you can just stop reading here and advance to the next review.
This on is a spin off the incredibly popular and long running Lyrical Nanoha franchise of cringe-inducing hetero-chromatic anime girl fame. I know absolutely nothing about Nanoha other than that, and I have to say that I legitimately enjoyed this completely retarded show despite it. A lot of misgivings like the weird loli fanservice, the unexplained magic technology, and some strange character interactions are apparently par for the franchise, and although I don't consider that to affect how much they detract from the show, it's still enlightening to understand the deep-rooted and strange points of such an old franchise. Still, the concept is just so incredibly stupid and entertaining in and of itself that the occasionally good fight scenes and an endearing (but expected) theme of friendship and support were just icing on the cake.
The Nanoha bug crawls into the show's aesthetics as well. The music is scored to pop-y and friendly just like the kind of magical girl stuff you'd expect. The character designs are overly cutesy and mostly basic, sticking to one core color scheme or design to make characters easily recognizable (a design strategy I lovingly refer to as the "autism Sonic effect"). Animation is pretty average, with a couple of the fights being above average. The last fight between Fuka and Rinne is particularly well done and relatively hype, which really sends the series out on a high note. This series is a "what you see is what you get" affair. You could honestly watch the OP and have a perfect understanding of what you'd be getting into.
If you want to watch some cute girls beat the fucking shit out of each other while they have flashbacks about being friends, or you're just looking for a laugh, then check this one out I guess. I thought the entire thing was an absolute riot.
Score: 6.5/10
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Title: WWW.Working!!! (A.K.A Web Working)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Now, I haven't seen the original Working!!! series, but from everything I've heard about it from friends, this spin-off works as a pretty condensed version of the same concept. That concept is an anime workplace romantic comedy, set in a family restaurant, and I have to say that it's executed very well. This genre has always been a bit of a soft spot for me, so to see one that's legitimately good among a sea a mediocre and terrible ones is refreshing. I can say with absolute that this show will have romantic resolution and great comedy, all within a thirteen episode season. The characters are endearing, and their gripes and problems are instantly relatable to anyone who's ever worked a minimum or low-wage position. I'd argue that this show does the workplace comedy better the some of its lower-end contemporaries (i.e. workplace comedies that aren't The Office or Parks and Recreation), provided you understand the cultural and societal differences, otherwise some of the comedy will certainly fall flat. Like I said, the romance is a key part of this show, and its the driving force behind the continuing casual "plot" in almost all cases.
Romantic comedies in anime live and die by their character designs, and although A-1 seems to have employed their template here pretty liberally, they work well enough to accent every characters' unique personality. Animation and music wasn't anything overly impressive, but for a series naturally without a lot of motion I can forgive that since the art overall was very well done.
This was the best romcom I've seen in a very long time, and despite its short run-time did not leave me wanting for me after it wrapped up. If the genre is your thing, I can't recommend this one enough.
Score: 8/10
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Title: Yuri!!! on Ice
Genre: Sports, Romance?
Studio: MAPPA
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I'll probably get flamed for this because this show was just so popular, but I did not like this show at all, nor did I think it was even good. Like, I get it, the show was trying to be really "progressive" by having pretty much a legitimately gay couple, but I don't even think that was really that crazy, considering three other shows this season had pretty blatant lesbian couples or baiting (Izetta, Flip Flappers, Hibike). Yeah, that might not have go so far as to show a kiss in the middle of a crowded sports stadium, but being bold doesn't really make a show good unless you judge every show you watch on a scale of Tumblr-acceptance levels. The story in all honesty was pretty typical for that of a sports anime, as were all the characters. Yuri is our typical protagonist, Yurio is the angry rival, etc etc..., none of these characters are anything new or novel.
I will admit that this show came out of the gate firing aesthetically. The first episode looked like a movie, but to say the show couldn't keep this up was an understatement. Skate animation was incredibly good to start, but the show did the most heinous thing that anime can do starting about halfway through, and that's REUSING FRAMES. From episode six or so to the end, the ONLY new piece of skate animation for any of Yuri's routines was the quad flip in his last routine, with every other piece of animation being reused. I can appreciate the difficulty of animating figure skating, but I can NEVER forgive such blatant reuse of frames. There are tons of different angles that could have been explored to keep animation fresh, but it honestly felt like I was watching the same episode over and over again throughout the entire second half of the show. The music did almost nothing to add to the hype, with Yuri's track in particular having an incredible build up and then no substance after the drop, disappointing you rather than making his eventual victories feel like, well, victories. One thing I will praise though is the VA, with Yuri in particular having personality in bounds that I wish I heard more in that kind of character. The modesty/skill disparity that Yuri's character archetype holds comes off as genuine only because of his VA, and not much else.
I get why this show was well received, but once the season passes and those touting the "progressive"-ness of it move on to the next thing, I think that it will be forgotten. In reality, it's just another Free!; a show that panders to a very niche market that just ended up luckily getting a good amount of exposure.
Score: 4/10
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That's it for this season! A pretty "lukewarm" season overall, with most things ending up as expected. Winter looks to be pretty dry by comparison with only one or two big things (Little With Academia), but hopefully something will surprise us.
For the small few who do read these, just know that I really do appreciate it. I do this mostly to keep up with my non-technical writing, as I feel it's an important skill to have and writing technical documentation really takes its toll on your creativity after a while.
Probably not going to do season previews this time since I'll likely end up down the "watch too many things" hole again, so I'll see you guys at the end of the Winter season!