Winter 2017 Anime Season in Review
As this season comes to a close I find myself looking forward to a yet to the upcoming spring season rather than reveling in this year's "hot and cold" winter season. Overall, shows this season were either pretty damn good or total trash, with only a few "meh"s to speak of. Thankfully, great shows and terrible shows are pretty easy to write about, so strap on in as I run down everything I watched this season, good and bad. I'd say again that I'll try to keep it brief, but we all know that's a bold-faced lie.
Insert "rate-within-genre" blurb here, etc... etc... Shows that hold-over into spring will not be rated (Little Witch Academia).
Title: Akiba'S Trip the Animation
Genre: Comedy, Action
Studio: Gonzo
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is an anime adaptation of a Steam game where you dispatch hordes of zombies by removing their clothing. Is that a ridiculous enough premise for the show to be entertaining despite the preceding "adaptation of a Steam game" bit? Not exactly, or at least not by itself, but Akiba'S Trip has enough to keep you chuckling if you're a part of the right demographic. The show follows a "monster-of-the-week" type format, with our lovably ridiculous cast of tropes fighting a new enemy set in a differing realm of "otaku-dom". One week it's audiophiles and idols, the next it's r/pcmasterrace, then Akiba maid culture, and continuing with a new shtick each week. This will either help keep you interested or cause you to want to drop the show all together, because our cast of characters are largely boring and predictable. Otaku-turned-hero, tsundere love interest, imouto, ditzy-but-genius, loli professor... it's all here, along with a set of equally tired villains, side characters, and plot contrivances. They hinge on the edge of being parody, but I'll leave that up to you to decide.
It's worth noting that this show is even more of an advertisement than anime normally is. Companies and products are literally shouted out and endorsed by characters. Hell, there is an entire episode dedicated to Street Fighter V and the characters openly endorse Carl's Jr. hamburgers. Advertisements like these in TV shows and games can be done well or incredibly poorly, but the show's medium of anime comedy lets it play it off pretty damn well. Above all else, Akiba'S Trip is crazy and random, so the endorsements don't end up feeling that out of place and have a good bit of thought put into their gags. The Street Fighter episode in particular went pretty far to be an accurate parody of a tournament, and even cameo'd numerous Japanese and American FGC players.
Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that Studio Gonzo needed every penny it could scrounge from those advertisements to make this show. The visual quality of the show is just absolutely downright terrible. The animation literally melts together and the still frames are nothing to look at. Character designs are uninspired, obviously not being designed with animation in mind (lifted from the game). There's also a ton of ham-fisted fanservice that fails to even achieve its purpose due to poor animation and art. The only time the show looked alright was the first episode, notably the first fight, and then it was straight downhill from there. Music is also forgettable to downright bad outside of one or two hype tracks. VA is... actually consistently funny and a joy to listen to, and you can tell that the voice actors and actresses had a great time recording this ridiculous show. The simulcast dub also seems to have been made with "fun" in mind, giving off a subtle Ghost Stories sort of vibe and is worth checking out since you're going to be picking this show up for a quick laugh if you end up picking it up at all.
Overall, Akiba'S Trip can be a fun romp if you're not expecting too much out of it other than a couple clever pop culture jokes and stabs at otakus. It's by no means a pinnacle of comedy or parody within anime, but it's a good look for some laughs or a group watch, even if some of the laughs are from unintended sources. If I could compare it to anything, it would be that it's kind of like discount Ben-To.
Score: 6/10
Title: Chaos;Child
Genre: Sci-Fi, Visual Novel, Psychological
Studio: Silver Link.
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I've been baited by the damn semicolon. After coming off Occultic;Nine last season, I thought I could at the very least find some sort of intrigue to enjoy here. I knew that the prequel to this series, Chaos;Head, was near universally panned, but Silver Link had me interested when they offered up a special "recap" of Chaos;Head re-animated and clarified as episode one. After that (and a trip to the Chaos;Head wiki), I felt pretty confident that I'd be able to understand what was going to happen in Chaos;Child. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I'm 99.99% sure that it isn't even my fault.
Now, although Child is definitely a sequel to Head, the new plot of Child more so builds off of the results of Head instead of continuing some sort of overarching narrative. The show sets itself up as some sort of supernatural murder mystery concerning psychic powers. Not a bad premise but certainly not something terribly original. Of course it's set in high school, and we've got probably the most stereotypical cast of visual novel characters of all time. I've already made it a habit of rattling off tropes so I'll spare you this time, but just know that there is nothing original or interesting about our characters here... at least not at first. As the incredibly convoluted and confusing story plods forward, a two or three of them start to become slightly more interesting with their own sorry excuses for motivations other than "let's solve the mystery because MC likes mysteries".
As the plot all comes vomiting out after about the first five or six episodes of doing next to nothing to advance it, it becomes terribly apparent just how poorly the adaptation was done. Chaos;Child is a pretty well liked and in-depth visual novel with ~50+ hours of gameplay, so a branching narrative is obviously one of its strong points. In adapting that, the directors chose to basically "set up" everything first, which lead to the 5 or 6 episodes of no advancement and the subsequent vomit. I don't understand why anime directors think they can get away with these "condensed" VN adaptations. We need look no further than the original Fate/Stay Night by DEEN to realize that this approach is never going to work well.
In Chaos;Child's case, this just makes the already pretty weak climax and "twist" we are presented with in the second half feel even more out-of-left-field and not genuine than they already would have if the director would have just stuck to adapting one VN route. This isn't even acknowledging the other ridiculous plot points, such as Nono being shanked in an alley and left for dead, surviving as if nothing had happened, and instead of being hospitalized just being laid down in her home, TREATED BY HER FRIENDS AS IF SHE HAD A COLD. The utter insanity of how some of these actions play out (and are flat-out glossed over by the characters) is frankly unforgivable.
Go read a synopsis, and if it sounds even remotely interesting to you, just go out and play the VN. There's honestly nothing to enjoy here in the adaptation outside of possibly the first episode and some incredibly generic art, character designs, and music.
Score: 3/10
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show is beyond terrible. I picked it up based on the ridiculous premise but instead of being a fun and moderately good time like Akiba'S Trip, it was an unfunny and tired slog for a total of 25 uninspired episodes. Every character can be boiled down to exactly one word. They have no motivations or personality outside of this word. The "classical musician" shtick is poorly executed and barely utilized. Music, despite being apparently the focus of the series, made me want to tear my ears out. Visuals are some sort of thick-lined bullshit that looks like trash both in motions and in stills. There also is no plot to mention, with each episode being some sort of ridiculous one-shot that leaves the characters exactly as the began.
Burn this show to the ground and protest outside of Sunrise offices to make Code Geass S3 amazing as retribution for wasting everyone's time with this garbage.
Score: 1/10
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Ever since MonMusu, the anime community's obsession with monster girls has been near rampant. The sheer insanity of the now-trope generated quite a significant amount of popularity and cash, and additions to the "genre" were sure to follow. That's where we get Demi-chan from, an adaptation of a manga produced on the wave of post-MonMusu (manga) popularity. Thankfully, Demi-chan is a far more reserved and character-focused show than its contemporary, and it helps round out the selection of CGCS offerings for this season. I'll juts get it out of the way now and say that the audio/visual qualities of the show are very typical for the genre: over-abundant focus on character design, very little character motion outside of reaction faces, cutesy art for figure sales, and generic relaxed/happy music. An aesthetic masterpiece Demi-chan is not, but that's not why you'd ever watch this show.
Demi-chan chooses to focus on the high-school life of 3 demihuman girls and their biology teacher Takahashi, who is interested in demihumans as a research subject. A naturally caring person, Takahashi helps these girls with their both simultaneously normal, relatable, yet supernatural problems while also interviewing them for the purposes of his own biological study. Another teacher, a demihuman herself, enters the fold as well, providing a much needed and appropriate romantic interest for Takahashi as well as an adult foil for the 3 demihuman girls to rely on. The "demi" portions of the characters are far more muted than something like MonMusu, with the cast consisting of a vampire, dullahan, snow-woman, and succubus instead of the... more monstrous ones you might have been expecting.
The biggest thing that I can nail on this show is that it's incredibly predictable. It uses its more muted themes of "being different" to convey lessons about growing up, fitting in, self-esteem, etc... It's about exactly what you'd expect from the first couple minutes amidst the typical anime high-school tropes like a teacher-crush and a few other hanging-ons. However, what you might not expect is just how genuine these themes come across, and how the show can hit pretty hard with both the feel-goods and the feels when it wants to. This is due in part to just how geniuine the characters come across on-screen, and you'll really come to empathize with them over time even if you might be able to call out the actual "plot" a few minutes in to the episode. Demi-chan is much more about the characters and their feelings than the ride they may take to get there.
If you like to sit back and relax with one of these cutesy feel-good shows, Demi-chan should be right up your alley. Despite not being anything really new or aesthetically great, it's employed pretty damn well. Fans of the genre will feel right at home, whereas fans of the "genre" might want to check r/hentai instead.
Score: 7/10
Streaming: Crunchyroll
There's always that one romantic comedy or drama that comes along every once and a while, taking itself so seriously that it approaches the point of absurdity. Fuuka is one of the latter, and dear merciful Christ is it absurd. Fuuka is a story about love, music, and fucking both of those things up so hard that they don't even look like the same things on the other end. All of your favorite characters from all of fiction are present, like, MAIN CHARACTER and BLUE-HAIRED HEROINE. In a surprising turn of events, they end up going to a concert or some shit together after meeting on the roof (original idea do not steal), where they walk around a statue looking for each (on opposite sides) for FIVE. WHOLE. MINUTES. Because of this life changing experience of statue searching, blue-haired Fuuka decides she loves MC, who's name I couldn't care to remember if you threatened my life, and that she OWNS him and MUST have his love. Of course instead of telling him this, she acts all pouty and sad for 12 episodes instead.
Fuuka leads everyone on by coming up with this stupid idea to start a band and play cover songs, to which everyone agrees is an amazing idea for no reason. Fuuka can sing because plot convenience, and MC decides that he'll learn to play bass because he's cursed with crippling beta-itis. They then gather your typical group of magically musically competant high-schoolers, such as SPORTS McDRUMMERGUY, RICHY PIANO-PANTS, and CEVANT GUITAR-GIRL. Guitar-Girl is seemingly a mute until she notices that she talks to MC on Twitter. This unbreakable bond that could stretch across universes and destroy galaxies cures her of her mute and stoic attitude, and this facet of her character is never explored again. Because of Twitter.
Everyone's rose-colored dreams of starting a band a destroyed by MC's celebrity childhood friend, SHIRAYUKI'S VA. She's hopelessly in love with MC and became a successful solo artist by only writing songs about she loves MC for no reason other than being the doomed-to-lose childhood friend trope. This creates all sorts of wacky situations for the band, like going to the beach and being mad for no reason, getting stoned to death on stage because of a misunderstanding, and generally having severe bouts of anime-romance induced autism. Oh, and at the end of it all Fuuka runs away from everything to become a solo artist because it's impossible for the heroine to be forward with her feelings despite being an incredibly forward personality in all other facets of their character so we'll have two more episodes I guess.
In an incredibly ballsy move, the show actually puts SHIRAYUKI'S VA and MC in a relationship, which is satisfying for all of 3 minutes until you realize that even SHIRAYUKI'S VA is just a hollow husk of nothingness that you've projected the motivations and charm of another character on for no reason other than that they had the same voice actress. MC then continues to sulk about how his beautiful celebrity girlfriend, reasonably successful band, and overall perfect highschool existence just isn't fucking good enough for him. He ends up dumping celebrity girlfriend because he realizes that he loves Fuuka because of plot convenience and no real character motivations other than that "it was episode 12 and we needed a climax".
I wrote this before the last episode aired and I don't give a flying fuck how it ended. Fuuka is everything wrong with anime romance drama rolled up and decorated with a nice little bow. They should show this shit to directors as an example of what to NEVER DO. The entire experience feels like if someone really not-talented watched White Album 2 and said "Hey man I can do that I think". Thankfully they had someone with real talent draw a couple of the character designs because even though they're generic as all fuck at least they are sort of pretty to look at as the rest of the plot burns down in a blazing fire of autism.
Leave this show in the dumpster fire it belongs in.
Score: 1/10
Streaming: Crunchyroll
In rare form for Doga Kobo, Gabriel DropOut just really isn't that great. As a cute-girls-cute-shit show, it doesn't have much to differentiate it from the crowd other than the fact that our four main characters are angels and devils (which in the context of the show could not matter less). Yeah, there's this ultra cerebral joke about how the angels are the corrupted ones and the demons are the kind ones, but that joke got old before episode one ended. The most unique thing in actuality with this show is that Gab, our main character, is a sarcastic NEET and Satania is full on chuunibyou, which are two things you really don't see in this genre very often. This still just isn't enough to make it stand out, and when that's coupled with noticeably lower-quality art and animation than what we're used to from Doga Kobo (Love Lab, Nozaki-kun, etc...) it just drags it down even more.
Gabriel DropOut is just honestly painfully average. If you're really fiending for something cute to watch, then you can throw this on your list. It'll scratch the itch but it'll just leave you chomping at the bit for something better. Just go watch Love Lab or even rewatch K-On! or something; this genre is already over-saturated with shows far better than this.
Score: 5/10
Streaming: Crunchyroll
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| This kind of fight animation from the first episode is the best the show ever looked. |
Title: Akiba'S Trip the Animation
Genre: Comedy, Action
Studio: Gonzo
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This is an anime adaptation of a Steam game where you dispatch hordes of zombies by removing their clothing. Is that a ridiculous enough premise for the show to be entertaining despite the preceding "adaptation of a Steam game" bit? Not exactly, or at least not by itself, but Akiba'S Trip has enough to keep you chuckling if you're a part of the right demographic. The show follows a "monster-of-the-week" type format, with our lovably ridiculous cast of tropes fighting a new enemy set in a differing realm of "otaku-dom". One week it's audiophiles and idols, the next it's r/pcmasterrace, then Akiba maid culture, and continuing with a new shtick each week. This will either help keep you interested or cause you to want to drop the show all together, because our cast of characters are largely boring and predictable. Otaku-turned-hero, tsundere love interest, imouto, ditzy-but-genius, loli professor... it's all here, along with a set of equally tired villains, side characters, and plot contrivances. They hinge on the edge of being parody, but I'll leave that up to you to decide.
It's worth noting that this show is even more of an advertisement than anime normally is. Companies and products are literally shouted out and endorsed by characters. Hell, there is an entire episode dedicated to Street Fighter V and the characters openly endorse Carl's Jr. hamburgers. Advertisements like these in TV shows and games can be done well or incredibly poorly, but the show's medium of anime comedy lets it play it off pretty damn well. Above all else, Akiba'S Trip is crazy and random, so the endorsements don't end up feeling that out of place and have a good bit of thought put into their gags. The Street Fighter episode in particular went pretty far to be an accurate parody of a tournament, and even cameo'd numerous Japanese and American FGC players.
Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that Studio Gonzo needed every penny it could scrounge from those advertisements to make this show. The visual quality of the show is just absolutely downright terrible. The animation literally melts together and the still frames are nothing to look at. Character designs are uninspired, obviously not being designed with animation in mind (lifted from the game). There's also a ton of ham-fisted fanservice that fails to even achieve its purpose due to poor animation and art. The only time the show looked alright was the first episode, notably the first fight, and then it was straight downhill from there. Music is also forgettable to downright bad outside of one or two hype tracks. VA is... actually consistently funny and a joy to listen to, and you can tell that the voice actors and actresses had a great time recording this ridiculous show. The simulcast dub also seems to have been made with "fun" in mind, giving off a subtle Ghost Stories sort of vibe and is worth checking out since you're going to be picking this show up for a quick laugh if you end up picking it up at all.
Overall, Akiba'S Trip can be a fun romp if you're not expecting too much out of it other than a couple clever pop culture jokes and stabs at otakus. It's by no means a pinnacle of comedy or parody within anime, but it's a good look for some laughs or a group watch, even if some of the laughs are from unintended sources. If I could compare it to anything, it would be that it's kind of like discount Ben-To.
Score: 6/10
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| Turns out you can't run away from your own terrible show no matter how fast you run. |
Genre: Sci-Fi, Visual Novel, Psychological
Studio: Silver Link.
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I've been baited by the damn semicolon. After coming off Occultic;Nine last season, I thought I could at the very least find some sort of intrigue to enjoy here. I knew that the prequel to this series, Chaos;Head, was near universally panned, but Silver Link had me interested when they offered up a special "recap" of Chaos;Head re-animated and clarified as episode one. After that (and a trip to the Chaos;Head wiki), I felt pretty confident that I'd be able to understand what was going to happen in Chaos;Child. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I'm 99.99% sure that it isn't even my fault.
Now, although Child is definitely a sequel to Head, the new plot of Child more so builds off of the results of Head instead of continuing some sort of overarching narrative. The show sets itself up as some sort of supernatural murder mystery concerning psychic powers. Not a bad premise but certainly not something terribly original. Of course it's set in high school, and we've got probably the most stereotypical cast of visual novel characters of all time. I've already made it a habit of rattling off tropes so I'll spare you this time, but just know that there is nothing original or interesting about our characters here... at least not at first. As the incredibly convoluted and confusing story plods forward, a two or three of them start to become slightly more interesting with their own sorry excuses for motivations other than "let's solve the mystery because MC likes mysteries".
As the plot all comes vomiting out after about the first five or six episodes of doing next to nothing to advance it, it becomes terribly apparent just how poorly the adaptation was done. Chaos;Child is a pretty well liked and in-depth visual novel with ~50+ hours of gameplay, so a branching narrative is obviously one of its strong points. In adapting that, the directors chose to basically "set up" everything first, which lead to the 5 or 6 episodes of no advancement and the subsequent vomit. I don't understand why anime directors think they can get away with these "condensed" VN adaptations. We need look no further than the original Fate/Stay Night by DEEN to realize that this approach is never going to work well.
In Chaos;Child's case, this just makes the already pretty weak climax and "twist" we are presented with in the second half feel even more out-of-left-field and not genuine than they already would have if the director would have just stuck to adapting one VN route. This isn't even acknowledging the other ridiculous plot points, such as Nono being shanked in an alley and left for dead, surviving as if nothing had happened, and instead of being hospitalized just being laid down in her home, TREATED BY HER FRIENDS AS IF SHE HAD A COLD. The utter insanity of how some of these actions play out (and are flat-out glossed over by the characters) is frankly unforgivable.
Go read a synopsis, and if it sounds even remotely interesting to you, just go out and play the VN. There's honestly nothing to enjoy here in the adaptation outside of possibly the first episode and some incredibly generic art, character designs, and music.
Score: 3/10
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| An accurate depiction of the Classicaloid development process. |
Title: Classicaloid
Genre: Music, Comedy?
Studio: SunriseStreaming: Crunchyroll
This show is beyond terrible. I picked it up based on the ridiculous premise but instead of being a fun and moderately good time like Akiba'S Trip, it was an unfunny and tired slog for a total of 25 uninspired episodes. Every character can be boiled down to exactly one word. They have no motivations or personality outside of this word. The "classical musician" shtick is poorly executed and barely utilized. Music, despite being apparently the focus of the series, made me want to tear my ears out. Visuals are some sort of thick-lined bullshit that looks like trash both in motions and in stills. There also is no plot to mention, with each episode being some sort of ridiculous one-shot that leaves the characters exactly as the began.
Burn this show to the ground and protest outside of Sunrise offices to make Code Geass S3 amazing as retribution for wasting everyone's time with this garbage.
Score: 1/10
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| Standard fare in the life of Takahashi. |
Title: Demi-chan wa Kataritai
Genre: Comedy, CGCS, Fantasy, School
Studio: A-1 PicturesStreaming: Crunchyroll
Ever since MonMusu, the anime community's obsession with monster girls has been near rampant. The sheer insanity of the now-trope generated quite a significant amount of popularity and cash, and additions to the "genre" were sure to follow. That's where we get Demi-chan from, an adaptation of a manga produced on the wave of post-MonMusu (manga) popularity. Thankfully, Demi-chan is a far more reserved and character-focused show than its contemporary, and it helps round out the selection of CGCS offerings for this season. I'll juts get it out of the way now and say that the audio/visual qualities of the show are very typical for the genre: over-abundant focus on character design, very little character motion outside of reaction faces, cutesy art for figure sales, and generic relaxed/happy music. An aesthetic masterpiece Demi-chan is not, but that's not why you'd ever watch this show.
Demi-chan chooses to focus on the high-school life of 3 demihuman girls and their biology teacher Takahashi, who is interested in demihumans as a research subject. A naturally caring person, Takahashi helps these girls with their both simultaneously normal, relatable, yet supernatural problems while also interviewing them for the purposes of his own biological study. Another teacher, a demihuman herself, enters the fold as well, providing a much needed and appropriate romantic interest for Takahashi as well as an adult foil for the 3 demihuman girls to rely on. The "demi" portions of the characters are far more muted than something like MonMusu, with the cast consisting of a vampire, dullahan, snow-woman, and succubus instead of the... more monstrous ones you might have been expecting.
The biggest thing that I can nail on this show is that it's incredibly predictable. It uses its more muted themes of "being different" to convey lessons about growing up, fitting in, self-esteem, etc... It's about exactly what you'd expect from the first couple minutes amidst the typical anime high-school tropes like a teacher-crush and a few other hanging-ons. However, what you might not expect is just how genuine these themes come across, and how the show can hit pretty hard with both the feel-goods and the feels when it wants to. This is due in part to just how geniuine the characters come across on-screen, and you'll really come to empathize with them over time even if you might be able to call out the actual "plot" a few minutes in to the episode. Demi-chan is much more about the characters and their feelings than the ride they may take to get there.
If you like to sit back and relax with one of these cutesy feel-good shows, Demi-chan should be right up your alley. Despite not being anything really new or aesthetically great, it's employed pretty damn well. Fans of the genre will feel right at home, whereas fans of the "genre" might want to check r/hentai instead.
Score: 7/10
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| Observe: SHIRAYUKI'S VA in her natural habitat. |
Title: Fuuka
Genre: Romance, Autism, Drama
Studio: DiomedeaStreaming: Crunchyroll
There's always that one romantic comedy or drama that comes along every once and a while, taking itself so seriously that it approaches the point of absurdity. Fuuka is one of the latter, and dear merciful Christ is it absurd. Fuuka is a story about love, music, and fucking both of those things up so hard that they don't even look like the same things on the other end. All of your favorite characters from all of fiction are present, like, MAIN CHARACTER and BLUE-HAIRED HEROINE. In a surprising turn of events, they end up going to a concert or some shit together after meeting on the roof (original idea do not steal), where they walk around a statue looking for each (on opposite sides) for FIVE. WHOLE. MINUTES. Because of this life changing experience of statue searching, blue-haired Fuuka decides she loves MC, who's name I couldn't care to remember if you threatened my life, and that she OWNS him and MUST have his love. Of course instead of telling him this, she acts all pouty and sad for 12 episodes instead.
Fuuka leads everyone on by coming up with this stupid idea to start a band and play cover songs, to which everyone agrees is an amazing idea for no reason. Fuuka can sing because plot convenience, and MC decides that he'll learn to play bass because he's cursed with crippling beta-itis. They then gather your typical group of magically musically competant high-schoolers, such as SPORTS McDRUMMERGUY, RICHY PIANO-PANTS, and CEVANT GUITAR-GIRL. Guitar-Girl is seemingly a mute until she notices that she talks to MC on Twitter. This unbreakable bond that could stretch across universes and destroy galaxies cures her of her mute and stoic attitude, and this facet of her character is never explored again. Because of Twitter.
Everyone's rose-colored dreams of starting a band a destroyed by MC's celebrity childhood friend, SHIRAYUKI'S VA. She's hopelessly in love with MC and became a successful solo artist by only writing songs about she loves MC for no reason other than being the doomed-to-lose childhood friend trope. This creates all sorts of wacky situations for the band, like going to the beach and being mad for no reason, getting stoned to death on stage because of a misunderstanding, and generally having severe bouts of anime-romance induced autism. Oh, and at the end of it all Fuuka runs away from everything to become a solo artist because it's impossible for the heroine to be forward with her feelings despite being an incredibly forward personality in all other facets of their character so we'll have two more episodes I guess.
In an incredibly ballsy move, the show actually puts SHIRAYUKI'S VA and MC in a relationship, which is satisfying for all of 3 minutes until you realize that even SHIRAYUKI'S VA is just a hollow husk of nothingness that you've projected the motivations and charm of another character on for no reason other than that they had the same voice actress. MC then continues to sulk about how his beautiful celebrity girlfriend, reasonably successful band, and overall perfect highschool existence just isn't fucking good enough for him. He ends up dumping celebrity girlfriend because he realizes that he loves Fuuka because of plot convenience and no real character motivations other than that "it was episode 12 and we needed a climax".
I wrote this before the last episode aired and I don't give a flying fuck how it ended. Fuuka is everything wrong with anime romance drama rolled up and decorated with a nice little bow. They should show this shit to directors as an example of what to NEVER DO. The entire experience feels like if someone really not-talented watched White Album 2 and said "Hey man I can do that I think". Thankfully they had someone with real talent draw a couple of the character designs because even though they're generic as all fuck at least they are sort of pretty to look at as the rest of the plot burns down in a blazing fire of autism.
Leave this show in the dumpster fire it belongs in.
Score: 1/10
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| Let's just take Vigne and make a show just about her. |
Title: Gabriel DropOut
Genre: CGCS, Comedy, Supernatural
Studio: Doga KoboStreaming: Crunchyroll
In rare form for Doga Kobo, Gabriel DropOut just really isn't that great. As a cute-girls-cute-shit show, it doesn't have much to differentiate it from the crowd other than the fact that our four main characters are angels and devils (which in the context of the show could not matter less). Yeah, there's this ultra cerebral joke about how the angels are the corrupted ones and the demons are the kind ones, but that joke got old before episode one ended. The most unique thing in actuality with this show is that Gab, our main character, is a sarcastic NEET and Satania is full on chuunibyou, which are two things you really don't see in this genre very often. This still just isn't enough to make it stand out, and when that's coupled with noticeably lower-quality art and animation than what we're used to from Doga Kobo (Love Lab, Nozaki-kun, etc...) it just drags it down even more.
Gabriel DropOut is just honestly painfully average. If you're really fiending for something cute to watch, then you can throw this on your list. It'll scratch the itch but it'll just leave you chomping at the bit for something better. Just go watch Love Lab or even rewatch K-On! or something; this genre is already over-saturated with shows far better than this.
Score: 5/10
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| KyoAni finally did it. They created the ultimate cuteness. The Bio-Kanna. |
Title: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy, Fantasy, (Yuri)
Studio: Kyoto AnimationStreaming: Crunchyroll
This show is a real treat all around: great relaxed mood coming from a good adaptation of a 4-panel manga, downright adorable character designs, KyoAni polish and sakuga at the best times, and inadvertently the most wholesome yuri romance in recent memory. Although at first glance this show seems to pandering to the monster girl "genre" pretty heavily, it really doesn't have much to do with the dragons themselves (and yes, 70% of the characters are dragons) but rather with their unique and over-the-top personalities. We experience these personalities through the lens of Kobayashi, a young woman working as programmer. She starts off guarded, as anyone would in the presence of powerful supernatural beings, but she slowly opens up and comes into the role of "mother" to all these wayward dragons looking to understand and reconcile to varying degrees with the human world. This leads to all sorts of "wacky" situations that you would expect from a slice-of-life comedy like this, but with its own definitive fantasy and KyoAni flair. The "romance" between Kobayashi and Tohru is mostly played off for comedic purposes, but some of the more emotional scenes show off just how heartwarming their strange relationship can be. It's a yuri romance presented without fanfare or (real) fanservice which is so much of a rarity that I'd hazard to say that it doesn't really exist, and it's really a treat to watch.
Like any primarily slice-of-life show, Maid Dragon rides and dies with its characters. This is a good thing, because characterization is a something that I think the show does better than almost all of its contemporaries. All of our core cast have pretty clear-cut goals and motivations with the exception of maybe one (Lucoa), and they play off each other well. A lot of the comedy stems from misunderstandings and misinterpretations of human culture from the dragons, and although that was probably what we were expecting, it's executed pretty well. By overcoming these challenges our characters grow closer together as a family, with both the dragons and Kobayashi learning to care and rely on one another. If I had any complaint about the characters or "plot" in Maid Dragon, it would be the Kanna/Saikawa stuff. I originally read it as innocent, but the joke definitely went too far at some points and was even more "out-of-tone" than the Lucoa/Shouta comedic bits. Whether or not this bothers you is up to your own reading of it, but honestly it just really plays against Kanna's cutesy and innocent personality.
In the audio and visual department, Maid Dragon might just be the most impressive of the season, which might strike you as odd for a genre that isn't really known for having very many opportunities to create very expressive movement. Since KyoAni had a lot of freedom in adapting this manga due to its 4-panel nature, they were able to add a large amount of anime-original sections and heavily expand the interpretations of individual panels. What results is an incredible amount of pure sakuga scenes that really show off just how talented KyoAni's staff is, and they can absolutely jaw dropping to watch. Their animators are also no stranger to the importance of detail, and are masters of their craft when it comes to minute but impactful facial expression. Although far more exaggerated due to the show's tone, I'd put Maid Dragon on the same level of facial detail animation as Kyoukai no Kanata, another KyoAni show that went out of its way to budget-dump into these kinds of details. Furthermore, the music is goddamn near perfect. I couldn't even begin to bring myself to skip the OP or ED once, and the happy and bright orchestral string pieces that are peppered throughout each episode really help keep the tone light and fun. Some more dramatic piano-based pieces also nail those occasionally heavy character-to-character moments, adding just that much more punch to those rare scenes when they occur.
Overall Maid Dragon was an absolute treat, and anyone who enjoys a good slice-of-life or comedy (or yuri) should definitely give it a look. I'd risk to say that it would be one of my top recommendations in-genre, even next to stuff like K-On!
Score: 9/10
Title: Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
Studio: Studio DEEN
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I've recommended this show's predecessor to death, so I'll keep this review brief. The quality of KonoSuba 2 is equal or greater to that of season one, straight up. The characters are still all fucking great, the gags are endlessly hilarious, and the perfect mixture of parody and original content is maintained. There is nothing more entertaining to me this season than watching this dysfunctional group of four have the equivalent of D&D party in-fighting with anime flair. We even got a multi-episode change of scenery with an overarching plot and an incredibly hype climax, which you wouldn't at all expect from a comedy like this. DEEN has the magic formula for an anime comedy that isn't just "anime funny" but transcends into "actually funny", with season two standing alone even in a season where it didn't have one or two serious "trapped in a fantasy world" shows to play off of (season one had Grimgar and Re:Zero). This show is a testament to the fact that you don't need a massive budget or draw dropping cuts to make good anime; you need great characters, good writing, and dedicated staff.
Score: 9/10
Title: March Comes in like a Lion
\Genre: Drama, Slice of Life, Sports?
Studio: SHAFT
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Studio SHAFT has a way with making the seemingly mundane into a psychadelic picture show of the most ludicrous level, and March Comes In like a Lion is no exception to that rule. A manga adaptation about a young shogi professional, you'd think that the anime would have trouble keeping your attention or being continually interesting. In that same vein, the show is pretty hard to nail down a classification on, but I think the safest and most apt thing to say about the show is that it's a strong character drama; we get to see how Rei deals with the challenges of being one of the youngest shogi professionals to ever be successful and the struggles of his life despite this. To go into further detail about these aspects of Rei's character would likely ruin the show for many, so I'll abstain and just assure you that Rei's character is a perfect vehicle for the show to convey its themes of family, friendship, and growing up. To foil Rei's overt doom and gloom is a colorful cast of characters, including the sisters, his school counselor, and his more positive friends at the local shogi club. Balancing his dramatic shogi competitor lifestyle and the relationships of those he cares about are one the core conflicts that Rei experiences, and every character is a finely crafted means to that end.
The show unfortunately suffers from a snails pace, and even though it seems to utilize it well most of the time, it can't help but feel like the show was just "being slow to be slow" rather than trying to emphasize some sort of character or story development. More than 50% of any given episode are Rei's internal monologue, fighting with indecision and mulling over his life's problems with long-winded metaphors and some pretty intense imagery. SHAFT helps this along with some incredibly impressive animation and art, employing all sorts of trippy color shifts and detailed backgrounds, but this doesn't change the fact that the actual action and plot is dragged out to a near ludicrous degree. It can be argued that these monologues are more important than the action, but as someone who got pretty invested in Rei's tangible success in shogi (particularly his goal to overcome a specific opponent), I found it marginally annoying. The show also tries to "keep the 'light' sections light" with a heavy shift in visual style that can sometimes feel as if it comes out of nowhere, especially if it happens in the middle of Rei's monologues. It's nowhere near the level of off-putting as something from like, Drifters, but its still worth noting if you're in this one specifically for the "serious".
Visually I couldn't have less of a set of complaints. Art is this beautiful melding of water-color and soft-line styles that I absolutely adore, and it makes every single scene a joy to take in. The backgrounds are beyond gorgeous, and the character designs are simultaneously well-defined but fit perfectly in their world. Facial expressions are also of note here, as the show seems to apply a de-facto frown to everyone then impress with the subtle differences and exaggerated highs from there. For all the times I might have been frustrated with Rei's monologue-ing, the art and animation went almost full Madoka levels of off-the-wall. In particular, the visual motif of Rei drowning or being crushed under his life's pressure is shown many times, but each one is unique and the idea never felt stale now matter how many times I saw it repeated on screen. VA and music here are also superb, as a frequently monologue-ing character better be great to listen to and have some great music to set the speeches to.
Despite its slow pace, March Comes in like a Lion was a great ride. It didn't exactly resolve by the end, which is saying something despite its 22 episodes, but it's already been confirmed by SHAFT to be receiving a second season. Whether or not this show is getting the Monogatari or Niskeoi treatment, where SHAFT will pledge to animate everything as its adapted, but I'll surely keep watching if that happens.
Score: 8/10
Title: Masamune-kun no Revenge
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Harem
Studio: Silver Link.
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Fat sad boy gets mad that girl turns him down so he weight trains for years to become an attractive high school guy only to be faced with the same girl that turned him down all those years ago! Wanting to get back at her, he vows to get revenge by baiting this girl into falling in love with him, then rejecting her the same way she did to him. All manner of wacky anime romantic comedy things occur based on this set-up, and I'll have to give this one credit for at least trying to have an original set-up. The problem is that this plot creates more problems than it solves, and the rest of the show just falls directly into the same generic pitfalls that nearly all romcom anime fall into, like introducing random additional suitors for no reason, incredibly hamfisted melodrama, and an eleventh hour additional conflict that just feels out of place. Characters are also wholely generic, and I just gave you most of the unique stuff, but I'll hit on the rest real quick: typical tsundere heroine, silent-but-deadly, bad Marika rip-off church girl competitor, otokonoko, student council president, etc... etc... Oh, and a 9/12 episode entering direct competitor for our health-nut MC Masamune, who uses "his" portly figure to try to assume Masamune's past identity and "steal his girl". This is all standard faire, and it's honestly what we should expect from the cover art.
However, what's surprising is that this show is actually one notch above average its genre. Even though the characters are all the same tired archetypes we've seen before, the premise is slightly unique enough to keep you at least remotely interested, and the sins that the series commits based on this plot ("I somehow forget everything but remembered LEL ecks dee") are honestly no more ridiculous than what you'd find in its average and less-than-average contemporaries. The main character's internal fight against actually falling for the would-be victim of his revenge (spoiler alert: he falls for her OH NO I SPOILED IT) is pretty funny to watch, as is Adagaki's attempts to remain the man-hating attitude that she is known for. One particular point that always made me laugh was just how little any of the important characters gave a fuck that Masamune had put so much work into himself. He's almost made fun of for putting so much time into his self-improvement, although he doesn't help his own case since the results of his work just made him a pompous ass.
This one might be worth a look if you're starved for romcoms. Aesthetics are completely forgettable but not terrible, and in true romcom fashion, the story doesn't end. Fair warning: I read ahead and the actual ending of this series is complete shit, so if the hinted OVA actually comes to fruition, they'd better go for an anime original ending or at least flesh out the original one/make it less retarded. I don't have high hopes for that, and its not fair to judge the anime on it anyway, but it's something I wanted to mention before closing the book on this one.
Score: 5.5/10
Title: Shenwa Genroku Rekugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen
Genre: Drama
Studio: Studio DEEN
Streaming: Crunchyroll
If you would have told me even two years ago that Studio DEEN would be producing two of the most high quality and well loved shows of the year, two years in a row, I would have told you that you were completely insane and should probably be committed to a psychiatric ward. Despite that previous aversion to the studio, I can firmly say that Rakugo's second season is my AOTS by multitudes of miles, and that the series as a whole is probably one of the best anime to air in the past decade. Just like in the first season, this series just oozes quality from every seam. The art and character designs are muted, but detailed and expressive. The music is a mixture of lovingly performed traditional Japanese music and re-imagined period pieces with a focus on both upbeat and atmospheric jazz. The VA is notably superb, as it should be in a series that focuses a Japanese art of spoken performance. Even as someone who does not understand the language, the emotion and feeling just flows off every word during both the in-show performances and normal dialogue. DEEN stepped up to the plate with the fruits of its recent successes and delivered an extremely polished finished product. And this is just me praising the series' aesthetic qualities, which albeit great cannot hold a candle to the stories that Rakugo has to tell.
Rakugo is first and foremost a character-driven drama with quite a story to tell, and an anime second. This is incredibly refreshing in a medium so overfilled with "moe-blobness" and bereft of mature plots and characters, and reminds us just how effective animation can be when it decides to take itself seriously. With that in mind, this series is just as much about the art of rakugo performance as it is a story about our characters and their relationships both with and around it. It is hard to discuss anything about the specifics of the series without spoiling the experience, but believe me when I say that these characters are some of the most believable and engaging in recent memory, and getting to watch them grow up, accomplish their goals, and deal with all of life's challenges is a treat to watch unfold. In fact, if there was only one thing that I could praise Rakugo for, it would be its narrative breadth: across two seasons and eight decades we get to watch the evolution of the art of rakugo over three whole generations of familial performers. Despite this amount of pure content, nothing in Rakugo seems out of place, with character actions and specific plot events being as relevant from S1.E01 to S2.E12 as it is from episode to episode.
I don't think I'd hesitate to recommend this series to even those who don't like or watch anime, which is something that I typically wouldn't do for a series that I don't rate a 10/10. As a complete 24 episode package, I think that Rakugo very closely approaches this score with only a few reservations, but when split cleanly in two some issues arise with pacing out of the first season and into the "Descending Stories". The series makes very liberal use of time jumps, and although they are lovingly crafted and well-executed, I know that they will undoubtedly anger some just from their nature. With such an incredible length of time covered, Rakugo opts to cover the most important and influential moments in our characters' (and rakugo's) lives, and the jumps in characterization, or sometimes the deliberate lack thereof, can be a bit of a mental leap at points. Rakugo above all else never opts to insult your intelligence with needless exposition, so careful examination of what happens on screen is going to be required. This is a mature series, and it expects its viewers to approach it with the same maturity that it provides.
In the end, I think the biggest shame with Rakugo is that it's effectively un-localize-able. It deals directly with specifically Japanese cultural content that would lose nearly all of its meaning in translation. One of the series' greatest strengths is bringing the viewer to both appreciate and understand the art of rakugo performance and its traditions, but nearly all of this would be lost if all of the many rakugo stories were performed in English. This is not so much an issue with actual lingual translation but rather the voice actors' specific performances and the emotional weight and subtext that they carry. I want nothing more than to be able to recommend this series to non-anime watchers as an example of a modern, compelling example of the medium that isn't about giant robots or cute girls, but the sheer necessity of watching the subtitled version will immediately cause people to ignore the recommendation. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt even the most talented team of American localize-rs and voice actors will be able to do this series justice.
If you haven't seen this series yet, go watch both whole seasons now. You won't be in the least bit disappointed.
Score: 9.5/10
Title: Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori
Genre: Mystery, Nonsense, Edge
Studio: Shin-Ei Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show came out of the gate over-edgy and terrible, with lines like, "The pain is the only thing that makes me feel alive," but I knew it going in. In fact, it was recommended to me over Twitter as a meme show, but dear god did I not realize just how bad it would become. It was ALWAYS bad, with the first half's ED being the best part of the show by far, but it just slowly and slowly became more and more incomprehensible as the episodes ticked up towards 25. Events happen at random, characters act without motivation, conflict falls out of immaterial space. Here is an example of something that happens in the show:
"The main character attempts to grapple onto a stratospheric jet with his wristwatch by driving a scooter off a ramp into the air. When he fails to make enough distance, he activates his previously unseen ROCKET SHOES to fly up and complete the grapple."
This show is not meant to be funny. It's not a comedy, it's not a parody, and it's not some sort of 2deep4u "this is supposed to be bad" bullshit (Mayoiga). This scene is meant to be the HYPE CLIMAX for our MYSTERY SHOUNEN SERIES. I'm just done. Shows like this really fucking challenge my #NoDrop because unlike shows like Fuuka or Chaos;Child where they are terrible or bad, they at least have something for me to say about them in a review, but here there is just nothing. On top of a complete and utter lack of substance, the show also looks like complete garbage. The manga its adapted from looks like it was drawn by a blind fourth grader, and THAT looks better than the anime.
Little did I know that "The pain is the only thing that makes me feel alive," would perfectly describe the only way I could tell that I was still living when episode 25 ended.
Score: 0.5/10
Title: Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale
Genre: Action, Romance, Fantasy
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
So this isn't exactly an airing show, but it DID release in this past winter season and I DID pay a whopping $15 to go see it, so I figured I'd share my thoughts on it. I was and always will be someone who will at least partially defend the Aincrad arc of the original SAO; it wasn't anything great from a narrative standpoint and had one hell of an ass-pull to cap it off, but it was executed very well and was a very aesthetically pleasing experience. Hell, SAO is what got me back into watching anime in college, and even if it is an over-hyped, well-polished turd (especially Fairy Dance and season two), I can at the very least respect its popularity. As someone who went in to Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale with this very prototypical anime-snob opinion of SAO at the ready, I have to say that I was honestly surprised.
Now don't get it twisted here, Ordinal Scale is very firmly still SAO. The overall plot is forgettable, and simply a vehicle to get us into fights and show Kirito and Asuna in romance sequences. You still have your array of stupid and useless characters like Lizbeth and Silica. The plot is still incredibly forced and laden with ass-pulls and plot conveniences. Yui "Deus-Ex Machina Incarnate" still fucking exists to call Kirito "papa". This is all that stupid shit that makes SAO..., well, SAO, and without it I don't think that the series would be as monolithically popular is it is. If you stripped ALL that crap out, you'd have one of the most drop-dead gorgeous, technically impressive, and great sounding anime action movies that I have ever fucking seen in my LIFE, but all that "SAO bullshit" just drags you out of the experience and straight into the gutter. The ending fight in particular, where it's essentially just pure fanservice and bad-assery highlighting every character in the cast, was the most hype I have ever felt about SAO and likely ever will be. That is, unless they somehow kill off every male character, bring Yuuki back to life, and make a slice-of-life about her and Asuna living together.
And it's worth noting here that I'm not even ragging on the Kirito/Asuna romance, which seems to ALWAYS be a point of criticism when discussing this series. Their relationship was always more well thought out and respectable than any offering from SAO's contemporaries, which has always been due in part to the fact that Asuna is far and away the best character. I can say without shame that their romance sections of this movie were definitely the plot highlights for me, giving Kirito a chance to act like an actual fucking human instead of a faceless edgedark husk of a killing machine. Their relationship is a far cry from something like Toradora's Taiga and Ryuji, but Asuna and Kirito are believable and charming enough in a world where everyone still plays video games despite almost being brutally murdered inside one.
If you're an SAO mega-fan and think that I'm an asshole for even attempting to criticize it, get the fuck out of your house and see this movie right now, preferably in the nicest theater you can. It'll be everything that you ever wanted, and it's a true sequel to the Aincrad arc for the series. Those who are more on my side of things should still go see it, as I'd say it's a technical marvel for a mainstream anime movie that didn't come flowing out of Miyazaki's skull. This is the best thing to come out of the SAO franchise since its initial adaptation, and although that might not be much more than "meh", at least it keeps bringing along something that's nice to look at and listen to. One day, it would be nice to see this series shake off the bullshit and grow into its aesthetic.
...but SAO will always still be SAO, and that's the fucking problem.
Score: 6/10
Like any primarily slice-of-life show, Maid Dragon rides and dies with its characters. This is a good thing, because characterization is a something that I think the show does better than almost all of its contemporaries. All of our core cast have pretty clear-cut goals and motivations with the exception of maybe one (Lucoa), and they play off each other well. A lot of the comedy stems from misunderstandings and misinterpretations of human culture from the dragons, and although that was probably what we were expecting, it's executed pretty well. By overcoming these challenges our characters grow closer together as a family, with both the dragons and Kobayashi learning to care and rely on one another. If I had any complaint about the characters or "plot" in Maid Dragon, it would be the Kanna/Saikawa stuff. I originally read it as innocent, but the joke definitely went too far at some points and was even more "out-of-tone" than the Lucoa/Shouta comedic bits. Whether or not this bothers you is up to your own reading of it, but honestly it just really plays against Kanna's cutesy and innocent personality.
In the audio and visual department, Maid Dragon might just be the most impressive of the season, which might strike you as odd for a genre that isn't really known for having very many opportunities to create very expressive movement. Since KyoAni had a lot of freedom in adapting this manga due to its 4-panel nature, they were able to add a large amount of anime-original sections and heavily expand the interpretations of individual panels. What results is an incredible amount of pure sakuga scenes that really show off just how talented KyoAni's staff is, and they can absolutely jaw dropping to watch. Their animators are also no stranger to the importance of detail, and are masters of their craft when it comes to minute but impactful facial expression. Although far more exaggerated due to the show's tone, I'd put Maid Dragon on the same level of facial detail animation as Kyoukai no Kanata, another KyoAni show that went out of its way to budget-dump into these kinds of details. Furthermore, the music is goddamn near perfect. I couldn't even begin to bring myself to skip the OP or ED once, and the happy and bright orchestral string pieces that are peppered throughout each episode really help keep the tone light and fun. Some more dramatic piano-based pieces also nail those occasionally heavy character-to-character moments, adding just that much more punch to those rare scenes when they occur.
Overall Maid Dragon was an absolute treat, and anyone who enjoys a good slice-of-life or comedy (or yuri) should definitely give it a look. I'd risk to say that it would be one of my top recommendations in-genre, even next to stuff like K-On!
Score: 9/10
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| Definitely my four favorite idiots this season. |
Title: Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
Studio: Studio DEEN
Streaming: Crunchyroll
I've recommended this show's predecessor to death, so I'll keep this review brief. The quality of KonoSuba 2 is equal or greater to that of season one, straight up. The characters are still all fucking great, the gags are endlessly hilarious, and the perfect mixture of parody and original content is maintained. There is nothing more entertaining to me this season than watching this dysfunctional group of four have the equivalent of D&D party in-fighting with anime flair. We even got a multi-episode change of scenery with an overarching plot and an incredibly hype climax, which you wouldn't at all expect from a comedy like this. DEEN has the magic formula for an anime comedy that isn't just "anime funny" but transcends into "actually funny", with season two standing alone even in a season where it didn't have one or two serious "trapped in a fantasy world" shows to play off of (season one had Grimgar and Re:Zero). This show is a testament to the fact that you don't need a massive budget or draw dropping cuts to make good anime; you need great characters, good writing, and dedicated staff.
Score: 9/10
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| These kind of cuts are exactly what I expected from SHAFT, and they're more than welcome. |
Title: March Comes in like a Lion
\Genre: Drama, Slice of Life, Sports?
Studio: SHAFT
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Studio SHAFT has a way with making the seemingly mundane into a psychadelic picture show of the most ludicrous level, and March Comes In like a Lion is no exception to that rule. A manga adaptation about a young shogi professional, you'd think that the anime would have trouble keeping your attention or being continually interesting. In that same vein, the show is pretty hard to nail down a classification on, but I think the safest and most apt thing to say about the show is that it's a strong character drama; we get to see how Rei deals with the challenges of being one of the youngest shogi professionals to ever be successful and the struggles of his life despite this. To go into further detail about these aspects of Rei's character would likely ruin the show for many, so I'll abstain and just assure you that Rei's character is a perfect vehicle for the show to convey its themes of family, friendship, and growing up. To foil Rei's overt doom and gloom is a colorful cast of characters, including the sisters, his school counselor, and his more positive friends at the local shogi club. Balancing his dramatic shogi competitor lifestyle and the relationships of those he cares about are one the core conflicts that Rei experiences, and every character is a finely crafted means to that end.
The show unfortunately suffers from a snails pace, and even though it seems to utilize it well most of the time, it can't help but feel like the show was just "being slow to be slow" rather than trying to emphasize some sort of character or story development. More than 50% of any given episode are Rei's internal monologue, fighting with indecision and mulling over his life's problems with long-winded metaphors and some pretty intense imagery. SHAFT helps this along with some incredibly impressive animation and art, employing all sorts of trippy color shifts and detailed backgrounds, but this doesn't change the fact that the actual action and plot is dragged out to a near ludicrous degree. It can be argued that these monologues are more important than the action, but as someone who got pretty invested in Rei's tangible success in shogi (particularly his goal to overcome a specific opponent), I found it marginally annoying. The show also tries to "keep the 'light' sections light" with a heavy shift in visual style that can sometimes feel as if it comes out of nowhere, especially if it happens in the middle of Rei's monologues. It's nowhere near the level of off-putting as something from like, Drifters, but its still worth noting if you're in this one specifically for the "serious".
Visually I couldn't have less of a set of complaints. Art is this beautiful melding of water-color and soft-line styles that I absolutely adore, and it makes every single scene a joy to take in. The backgrounds are beyond gorgeous, and the character designs are simultaneously well-defined but fit perfectly in their world. Facial expressions are also of note here, as the show seems to apply a de-facto frown to everyone then impress with the subtle differences and exaggerated highs from there. For all the times I might have been frustrated with Rei's monologue-ing, the art and animation went almost full Madoka levels of off-the-wall. In particular, the visual motif of Rei drowning or being crushed under his life's pressure is shown many times, but each one is unique and the idea never felt stale now matter how many times I saw it repeated on screen. VA and music here are also superb, as a frequently monologue-ing character better be great to listen to and have some great music to set the speeches to.
Despite its slow pace, March Comes in like a Lion was a great ride. It didn't exactly resolve by the end, which is saying something despite its 22 episodes, but it's already been confirmed by SHAFT to be receiving a second season. Whether or not this show is getting the Monogatari or Niskeoi treatment, where SHAFT will pledge to animate everything as its adapted, but I'll surely keep watching if that happens.
Score: 8/10
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| "Now come here. Listen to me. STOP MAKING GENERIC ROMCOMS." |
Title: Masamune-kun no Revenge
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Harem
Studio: Silver Link.
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Fat sad boy gets mad that girl turns him down so he weight trains for years to become an attractive high school guy only to be faced with the same girl that turned him down all those years ago! Wanting to get back at her, he vows to get revenge by baiting this girl into falling in love with him, then rejecting her the same way she did to him. All manner of wacky anime romantic comedy things occur based on this set-up, and I'll have to give this one credit for at least trying to have an original set-up. The problem is that this plot creates more problems than it solves, and the rest of the show just falls directly into the same generic pitfalls that nearly all romcom anime fall into, like introducing random additional suitors for no reason, incredibly hamfisted melodrama, and an eleventh hour additional conflict that just feels out of place. Characters are also wholely generic, and I just gave you most of the unique stuff, but I'll hit on the rest real quick: typical tsundere heroine, silent-but-deadly, bad Marika rip-off church girl competitor, otokonoko, student council president, etc... etc... Oh, and a 9/12 episode entering direct competitor for our health-nut MC Masamune, who uses "his" portly figure to try to assume Masamune's past identity and "steal his girl". This is all standard faire, and it's honestly what we should expect from the cover art.
However, what's surprising is that this show is actually one notch above average its genre. Even though the characters are all the same tired archetypes we've seen before, the premise is slightly unique enough to keep you at least remotely interested, and the sins that the series commits based on this plot ("I somehow forget everything but remembered LEL ecks dee") are honestly no more ridiculous than what you'd find in its average and less-than-average contemporaries. The main character's internal fight against actually falling for the would-be victim of his revenge (spoiler alert: he falls for her OH NO I SPOILED IT) is pretty funny to watch, as is Adagaki's attempts to remain the man-hating attitude that she is known for. One particular point that always made me laugh was just how little any of the important characters gave a fuck that Masamune had put so much work into himself. He's almost made fun of for putting so much time into his self-improvement, although he doesn't help his own case since the results of his work just made him a pompous ass.
This one might be worth a look if you're starved for romcoms. Aesthetics are completely forgettable but not terrible, and in true romcom fashion, the story doesn't end. Fair warning: I read ahead and the actual ending of this series is complete shit, so if the hinted OVA actually comes to fruition, they'd better go for an anime original ending or at least flesh out the original one/make it less retarded. I don't have high hopes for that, and its not fair to judge the anime on it anyway, but it's something I wanted to mention before closing the book on this one.
Score: 5.5/10
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| When your OP has scenes like this, you know you're in for a hell of a trip. |
Title: Shenwa Genroku Rekugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen
Genre: Drama
Studio: Studio DEEN
Streaming: Crunchyroll
If you would have told me even two years ago that Studio DEEN would be producing two of the most high quality and well loved shows of the year, two years in a row, I would have told you that you were completely insane and should probably be committed to a psychiatric ward. Despite that previous aversion to the studio, I can firmly say that Rakugo's second season is my AOTS by multitudes of miles, and that the series as a whole is probably one of the best anime to air in the past decade. Just like in the first season, this series just oozes quality from every seam. The art and character designs are muted, but detailed and expressive. The music is a mixture of lovingly performed traditional Japanese music and re-imagined period pieces with a focus on both upbeat and atmospheric jazz. The VA is notably superb, as it should be in a series that focuses a Japanese art of spoken performance. Even as someone who does not understand the language, the emotion and feeling just flows off every word during both the in-show performances and normal dialogue. DEEN stepped up to the plate with the fruits of its recent successes and delivered an extremely polished finished product. And this is just me praising the series' aesthetic qualities, which albeit great cannot hold a candle to the stories that Rakugo has to tell.
Rakugo is first and foremost a character-driven drama with quite a story to tell, and an anime second. This is incredibly refreshing in a medium so overfilled with "moe-blobness" and bereft of mature plots and characters, and reminds us just how effective animation can be when it decides to take itself seriously. With that in mind, this series is just as much about the art of rakugo performance as it is a story about our characters and their relationships both with and around it. It is hard to discuss anything about the specifics of the series without spoiling the experience, but believe me when I say that these characters are some of the most believable and engaging in recent memory, and getting to watch them grow up, accomplish their goals, and deal with all of life's challenges is a treat to watch unfold. In fact, if there was only one thing that I could praise Rakugo for, it would be its narrative breadth: across two seasons and eight decades we get to watch the evolution of the art of rakugo over three whole generations of familial performers. Despite this amount of pure content, nothing in Rakugo seems out of place, with character actions and specific plot events being as relevant from S1.E01 to S2.E12 as it is from episode to episode.
I don't think I'd hesitate to recommend this series to even those who don't like or watch anime, which is something that I typically wouldn't do for a series that I don't rate a 10/10. As a complete 24 episode package, I think that Rakugo very closely approaches this score with only a few reservations, but when split cleanly in two some issues arise with pacing out of the first season and into the "Descending Stories". The series makes very liberal use of time jumps, and although they are lovingly crafted and well-executed, I know that they will undoubtedly anger some just from their nature. With such an incredible length of time covered, Rakugo opts to cover the most important and influential moments in our characters' (and rakugo's) lives, and the jumps in characterization, or sometimes the deliberate lack thereof, can be a bit of a mental leap at points. Rakugo above all else never opts to insult your intelligence with needless exposition, so careful examination of what happens on screen is going to be required. This is a mature series, and it expects its viewers to approach it with the same maturity that it provides.
In the end, I think the biggest shame with Rakugo is that it's effectively un-localize-able. It deals directly with specifically Japanese cultural content that would lose nearly all of its meaning in translation. One of the series' greatest strengths is bringing the viewer to both appreciate and understand the art of rakugo performance and its traditions, but nearly all of this would be lost if all of the many rakugo stories were performed in English. This is not so much an issue with actual lingual translation but rather the voice actors' specific performances and the emotional weight and subtext that they carry. I want nothing more than to be able to recommend this series to non-anime watchers as an example of a modern, compelling example of the medium that isn't about giant robots or cute girls, but the sheer necessity of watching the subtitled version will immediately cause people to ignore the recommendation. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt even the most talented team of American localize-rs and voice actors will be able to do this series justice.
If you haven't seen this series yet, go watch both whole seasons now. You won't be in the least bit disappointed.
Score: 9.5/10
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| "Can I buy a better score with this?" |
Title: Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori
Genre: Mystery, Nonsense, Edge
Studio: Shin-Ei Animation
Streaming: Crunchyroll
This show came out of the gate over-edgy and terrible, with lines like, "The pain is the only thing that makes me feel alive," but I knew it going in. In fact, it was recommended to me over Twitter as a meme show, but dear god did I not realize just how bad it would become. It was ALWAYS bad, with the first half's ED being the best part of the show by far, but it just slowly and slowly became more and more incomprehensible as the episodes ticked up towards 25. Events happen at random, characters act without motivation, conflict falls out of immaterial space. Here is an example of something that happens in the show:
"The main character attempts to grapple onto a stratospheric jet with his wristwatch by driving a scooter off a ramp into the air. When he fails to make enough distance, he activates his previously unseen ROCKET SHOES to fly up and complete the grapple."
This show is not meant to be funny. It's not a comedy, it's not a parody, and it's not some sort of 2deep4u "this is supposed to be bad" bullshit (Mayoiga). This scene is meant to be the HYPE CLIMAX for our MYSTERY SHOUNEN SERIES. I'm just done. Shows like this really fucking challenge my #NoDrop because unlike shows like Fuuka or Chaos;Child where they are terrible or bad, they at least have something for me to say about them in a review, but here there is just nothing. On top of a complete and utter lack of substance, the show also looks like complete garbage. The manga its adapted from looks like it was drawn by a blind fourth grader, and THAT looks better than the anime.
Little did I know that "The pain is the only thing that makes me feel alive," would perfectly describe the only way I could tell that I was still living when episode 25 ended.
Score: 0.5/10
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| Now this. This I fully endorse. 10/10. |
Title: Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale
Genre: Action, Romance, Fantasy
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Streaming: Crunchyroll
So this isn't exactly an airing show, but it DID release in this past winter season and I DID pay a whopping $15 to go see it, so I figured I'd share my thoughts on it. I was and always will be someone who will at least partially defend the Aincrad arc of the original SAO; it wasn't anything great from a narrative standpoint and had one hell of an ass-pull to cap it off, but it was executed very well and was a very aesthetically pleasing experience. Hell, SAO is what got me back into watching anime in college, and even if it is an over-hyped, well-polished turd (especially Fairy Dance and season two), I can at the very least respect its popularity. As someone who went in to Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale with this very prototypical anime-snob opinion of SAO at the ready, I have to say that I was honestly surprised.
Now don't get it twisted here, Ordinal Scale is very firmly still SAO. The overall plot is forgettable, and simply a vehicle to get us into fights and show Kirito and Asuna in romance sequences. You still have your array of stupid and useless characters like Lizbeth and Silica. The plot is still incredibly forced and laden with ass-pulls and plot conveniences. Yui "Deus-Ex Machina Incarnate" still fucking exists to call Kirito "papa". This is all that stupid shit that makes SAO..., well, SAO, and without it I don't think that the series would be as monolithically popular is it is. If you stripped ALL that crap out, you'd have one of the most drop-dead gorgeous, technically impressive, and great sounding anime action movies that I have ever fucking seen in my LIFE, but all that "SAO bullshit" just drags you out of the experience and straight into the gutter. The ending fight in particular, where it's essentially just pure fanservice and bad-assery highlighting every character in the cast, was the most hype I have ever felt about SAO and likely ever will be. That is, unless they somehow kill off every male character, bring Yuuki back to life, and make a slice-of-life about her and Asuna living together.
And it's worth noting here that I'm not even ragging on the Kirito/Asuna romance, which seems to ALWAYS be a point of criticism when discussing this series. Their relationship was always more well thought out and respectable than any offering from SAO's contemporaries, which has always been due in part to the fact that Asuna is far and away the best character. I can say without shame that their romance sections of this movie were definitely the plot highlights for me, giving Kirito a chance to act like an actual fucking human instead of a faceless edgedark husk of a killing machine. Their relationship is a far cry from something like Toradora's Taiga and Ryuji, but Asuna and Kirito are believable and charming enough in a world where everyone still plays video games despite almost being brutally murdered inside one.
If you're an SAO mega-fan and think that I'm an asshole for even attempting to criticize it, get the fuck out of your house and see this movie right now, preferably in the nicest theater you can. It'll be everything that you ever wanted, and it's a true sequel to the Aincrad arc for the series. Those who are more on my side of things should still go see it, as I'd say it's a technical marvel for a mainstream anime movie that didn't come flowing out of Miyazaki's skull. This is the best thing to come out of the SAO franchise since its initial adaptation, and although that might not be much more than "meh", at least it keeps bringing along something that's nice to look at and listen to. One day, it would be nice to see this series shake off the bullshit and grow into its aesthetic.
...but SAO will always still be SAO, and that's the fucking problem.
Score: 6/10
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That's it for winter! I'll see you at the end of this spring's season with another round of reviews. Lets hope all the blockbusters can live up to the hype.