We’re lacking in anime discussion here, and most currently airing shows are about half-way through now, so it’s a good time to look through them.
First off, I’ll follow up my post from the start of last season and quickly say my thoughts on the stuff I watched. I’m not entirely done with the season yet >< This season ended up being the season of 8/10 ratings somehow. The shows I finished were great, but not amazing. They were all shooting for AOTY, but they all fell a bit short.
Ao Haru Ride was great. It was a very realistic and refreshing romance story, which is always nice to see. Almost got my AOTS vote, but it wasn’t quite there. It’s definitely worth watching anyway though. The cast is great, and it’ll make you feel lots of feels.
8/10
I ended up dropping DRAMAtical after 2 episodes because… the lack of life in it was creepy. One of the worst anime I’ve had the displeasure of watching.
2/10
Re:Hamatora was… more Hamatora. If you didn’t like the first season, you probably won’t enjoy this season too much. It’s better though. Hajime got lots of screentime, and she’s pretty much the best character of the season, so yay! There’s a bunch of convenient plot-twists and the sudden change in atmosphere from the first season can be suffocating at times, but it’s an enjoyable show, it answered all of the questions from last season, and I’m glad I watched it. It’s better than the X-Men movies at least~ Re:Hamatora had my [favorite ending song of the season.][1] The singer’s voice is just soooo good.
8/10
Tokyo Ghoul was very enjoyable. It’s my type of action anime. My favorite manga is DMWL (never speak of the anime adaption) and Tokyo Ghoul has a similar atmosphere about it, so there’s no surprise there. The first couple of episodes are gold. The fight scenes are great, although the censoring is pretty bad in one episode. The MC is actually pretty fun to watch, and Touka is a great balance to his personality. There’s also a couple detectives that are interesting to watch, but they aren’t the best detectives of the season. That award goes to Zankyou no Terror’s detectives. I’m looking forward to a season 2, but I might end up reading the manga. I’ll miss the soundtrack and voice acting though ;~;
Oh, and [best OP of the season.][2] Kinda reminiscent of No.6 visually.
8/10
Zankyou no Terror had a brilliant start, but episodes 5 through 8 were pretty boring. I almost came close to dropping it, but I’m glad I didn’t. Episode 9 onwards brings the show back to the quality it had in the earlier episodes. The characters are well designed, the animation is great, [the soundtrack is absolutely amazing][3] (Yoko Kanno woo!) and the writers actually researched before adding “facts” into the show. They screw up some bomb mechanics and a bit of mythology, but the rest of the anime facts are actual real-world facts too~ I’ve heard a lot of Psycho-Pass fans loved this show, so if you like that show, here’s one for you! Personally I didn’t like Psycho-Pass, but Zankyou no Terror was great regardless.
While it fell of in quality mid-way through, Zankyou no Terror managed to take the title for this year’s recommended anime, which you can now check on [my Twitter profile][4] instead of Anime-Planet like previously.
8/10
Now onto the present. Honestly, at face value there’s more stuff that I want to watch from last season than this season, but I’m being surprised every time I pick up a show that’s currently airing. I think that Winter will be incredibly lackluster in comparison to this season. I don’t believe in rating something that I haven’t finished watching unless it’s absolutely unbearable to watch, so no quantitative data this time around!
Sora no Method has a discussion post that you can check out, but I’ll quickly sum up my thoughts on it so far. It’s had a bumpy start, but it looks like it might have found where it wants to go. It’s not great yet, but it still has the chance to be. The ED is colorful and catchy, and it’s probably my favorite part about the show so far.
Should you watch it? Not yet.
One of the most interesting DnD games of the year is back! That’s right! Hitsugu no Chaika: AVENGING BATTLE is all the Chaika goodness you could ever want. Chaika good? Yes good. Bones-sama, kansha.
If you like your typical medieval-ish fantasy stories then you’ll probably enjoy Chaika. It has some good battle scenes and a really good plot. The characters are all really well done too. The animation is… well, let’s just say that Chaika is [incredibly gifable][5]. (Totally a word.)
Watch Chaika? Yes watch Chaika.
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. Do I even need to say anything? Ufotable did a Fate again. I didn’t even like /Stay Night until now, but now I’m loving it.
Watch it.
Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete got a lot of bad press when it started airing. People praised the first episode, but the hatred of the animation was louder, so it was very surprising to find out it was actually pretty good. In fact, it’s the one show this season that I get excited about watching every week. I usually just watch a bunch of anime episodes when I have the time, but Ushinawareta has me making room for it. The biggest problem people have with it is the animation, but I love Kanon’s art style, played games on a 8’ CRT TV until Christmas 2010, and can’t tell the difference between 12fps and 60fps, so I’m not the best person to go to for opinions on animation. The story is very interesting, and that’s what matters to me. I’d love to read the VN when the anime finishes but… language barriers.
Possibly AOTS
Nanatsu no Taizai is a show that I was really interested in first, but I’ve slowly lost interest as it’s gone by. I’m 3 weeks behind in watching it, but what I’ve seen so far has been good. If you like typical shounen action anime where characters just keep getting stronger, then this might be your style of anime, but it doesn’t appeal to me very much.
Should you watch it? If you like seeing OP characters fight over who is more OP.
Trinity Seven is my guilty pleasure of the year. It’s full of stupid over-the-top perverted humor that makes you sigh and question the state of this post-TLR world, but past all that is a show that’s actually entertaining. It’s a harem anime that actually has good characters. Even more surprising is the fact that the best character of them all is probably the protagonist (although Levi comes pretty close to besting him.) It’s very much a power-play anime, but it’s a compelling one. If you listen to what’s going on, you can learn the mechanics behind T7’s magic system, but you can totally ignore it and have just as much fun watching the characters. The best way to describe T7 is to imagine what Demon King Daimao would be like if it were good.
Should you watch it? If you like Highschool DxD. Other harem action anime with good MCs are available… somewhere.
I’m planning to watch some other shows that are airing. Laughing Under the Clouds, Parasyte, Rage of Bahamut, Yona of the Dawn and Your Lie in April are my priorities, but a few others look interesting enough to check out.
How is everyone else finding the season? Any differing opinions, or thoughts on an anime I didn’t cover?
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLLevtu8jOQ
[2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C-k_3dcfNY
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBfcJt6ygEQ
[4]: https://twitter.com/Taka_Sakagami
[5]: http://i.imgur.com/QBUGakP.gif
