The season of amazing OPs is over, and what a season it was! There were a lot of memorable shows this season, and it looks to have brought some nice manga to attention, which is always a good bonus~
My earlier thoughts on the season can be found here.
Now, let’s get right into it! First up…
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works 2 was pretty cool. I think I preferred the first season, but this was still very good. I always have a problem with F/SN in that it feels very… matter-of-fact. I’m never really impressed by it, but I like it. It’s definitely worth watching of course, but unfortunately it’s nowhere near as good as F/Z was, as an anime or an adaptation.
Ufotable did create a really nice piece of work, and even added in some new stuff. The latter episodes were overly heavy on the dialogue, a problem with the transition from VN to anime, which really ruined the build up for me, but up until the final few fights, and during the epilogue, I really liked the series. I do recommend it, but if you are looking for another Fate/Zero, this isn’t it.
Oh, but props to the guys for getting Aimer to do hype songs. It’s not the style of song she is normally heard singing, but it’s amazing.
7/10
Plastic Memories was actually really good. Early on it was clear that it wanted to be Kaiba-esque. Start off with an episodic format to build up the characters and set up events, and then switch out to focusing on the overarching story. I know some people don’t like this style, but I think it can work well. Unlike Kaiba however, I believe that the story part was better than the episodic parts. The early episodes were all very simple and formulaic, and the characters were still undeveloped. Some people cried to these episodes, but hey, some people cried to Kimi Uso; not everyone has good taste.
Now, what makes this show good? The protagonist is such an understandable person. There are comments that he isn’t very impactful or stand-out, but as the series progressed, I started to like the guy more and more. He’s a kid entering the working world, and he’s met with some things that are sensitive or confusing. He asks questions, even if he knows the answers, and even if it may hurt people, because he wants answers. He’s not insensitive or stupid, he’s a passionate guy who puts in a lot of work and effort. When bad things happen, he doesn’t accept them immediately, but he figures out what’s best in the end. I don’t know if I can really praise the character as much as I want to, but… watch the show. You’ll see this guy’s actions throughout the course of the series and think “wow, this guy isn’t an angsty teen who acts before he thinks.” Anime. shrug
The supporting cast is nice. There’s a girl who gets a bit annoying when she goes Tsun, but she’s a nice person. There’s a boss with less screen presence than the main character of Yuru Yuri, but he’s a nice person. There’s a cute girl who looks a bit like a stricter version of the protag of the upcoming Chaos Dragon anime, and she’s best girl. There’s the old pimp guy who is kind of a bro, but awful at giving advice. You get to spend time with the reliable glasses guy, and the blonde who loves cute girls. They are all so generic… but nice. They sum up the show pretty well I think. Nothing special, but very very nice.
That might sound a bit rude, but really, there is nothing big about this anime. It’s predictable. There’s no moment I can call a hook. There’s no story equivalent bass drop. There are a couple moments that are memorable, but they are more reminders that an overall story exists than anything else. I think that this is a good thing though, because the series feels like it belongs at the start of a KH game - simple and clean. That’s probably why, and I’m sure many out there did the same thing, I cried at a point in this show.
The pacing and the atmosphere was managed well.
7/10
Punchline was… promising…
There were good episodes, and glimmers of what could be. There were episodes that really had “woah” moments. Despite how predictable everything was about the show, there were characters interactions that were just really good watches.
But in the end, Punchline was very mediocre. I don’t even have that much to say about it. Narugino was cute I guess. She’s like a mix of Kanon Otosaki and Star Guardian Lux.
This show was made to sell an upcoming VN. Don’t expect this to be a complete or a satisfying show. It has good bits, and the potential for the Punchline VN is higher than the potential of CLG at the start of Spring, but the anime just wasn’t good enough.
5/10
Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo was so sooo entertaining… until about halfway through. The anime quickly started to run out of time. The pacing issues got worse and worse every episode, and it’s so annoying, because I loved what bits we actually got to see. The characters are all pretty and interesting and pretty. The OP is my OP of the season, and the voice actors for this show are so good, that you could bodyswap any of the characters off-screen and you’d know who is who from the way they speak. There are some pretty visuals are times, and the story has a lot of good drama moments and reveals… but the pacing kinda ruins it. I think for someone less experienced with anime, this would be easy to overlook, but bad adaptations stick out like a sore thumb if you see enough of them.
I’ll be reading the manga, and if you are okay with doing the same, I suggest you do. Still, this show has it’s positives, voice actors in particular.
6/10
Arslan Senki is a classic story by a classic writer. It is what you’d expect really. It’s a very nice replacement for last year’s Yona, and it feels very similar at times. Mix Yona with Magi, sprinkle some UVERworld goodness over it, and Arslan is what you get. While the show doesn’t focus on individual characters as much as Yona or Magi did, I feel like Arslan tells a better story overall. It still has the problems that comes with this type of show - constant drama and battle with no reprieve. I’ve dropped the show a couple times just to take a break from it all. Luckily the show is easy for me to get enthusiastic about again, something Yona and Magi didn’t achieve.
There are some really nice character designs. The animation is pretty bad, but the character designs still shine through. The updates to characters like Daryun are really nice. At first I didn’t like the thin-eye thing that they had going on with some stricter characters, but Farangis won me over. Even the sleazy womanizer is cool. It’s always nice to have some kind people in a show of deceit.
Arslan isn’t finished, but so far it’s told an interesting story. I look forward to how it turns out, and I’m looking forward to seeing the main cast get more screen time.
Owari no Seraph was incredibly generic and boring. The animation was awful, the pacing was messy, and the whole thing was a set-up for season 2. These do mainly seem to be anime problems though. The manga might be better, but don’t watch the anime. It’s bad.
I’m gonna give it some points though, because Shinoa is cute, and the show has my favorite ED of the season.
3/10
Kekkai Sensen is having some issues and the final episode has been stalled, so this isn’t complete (although the final episode was foreshadowed at the start, so I kinda know what’s gonna happen.) The show is good. Not amazing, but good. There have been a couple shows that were bad adaptions, but from what I’ve heard of the source material, I think this anime might be better than the source in my opinion. There are hints of the manga that show up in this adaption, the random episodes that follow a typical episodic “conflict, help, conflict, solution” pattern, but there is a story in the anime. A story of a ghost and a boy who sees all. I’ll avoid spoilers, but it’s a good story. It’s really entertaining, one of my favorite shows right now. It’s very Hamatora-esque in it’s character designs, and it shares the superpower trait. The world building in this show is pretty good, and the creativity in the alien designs in really fun to observe. The animation is sooo good and stylistic too, again, kinda reminiscent of Hamatora (the second season at least.)
The show isn’t finished, so I won’t make a final judgement, but from what has aired so far, I really enjoy this show, and I recommend it.
Chain needs more screentime though.
hibike
Hibike! Euphonium (and Knuckles) is a show I have mixed opinions about. At first, I wasn’t too into it, but after the series was half-way done, I loved it. It seemed like KyoAni got their good staff together for the first time in forever. There were some moments that make you remember these guys did the Disappearance movie. The animation is so cleverly managed, and the camera work… Oooooh the camera work. There was one bit, I think it was near the start of episode 5 or something, that was amazing. Episode 5 was one of the best episodes of anime I’ve seen in years. I rambled about it on Twitter. Speaking of episode 5, those costumes were so cute! The characters are cute anyway, but those costumes! Ah, the song was great too.
The evolution of the MC was really interesting to see. I think that was supposed to be the focus of the show. Kumiko really changed as the episodes progressed. At the start, Reina was more down-to-earth than Kumiko ever was, and at the end…
Now, the things that make Hibike great have always been glimmers in KyoAni’s work, but it’s always used minimally. The god-like directing doesn’t show up enough. The beautiful animation isn’t consistant. Eventually the show just becomes another typical overhyped KyoAni show that had promise, but fell straight back into the trash can.
Hibike set out to change this… and… I’m not sure if it did - At least, to the degree I wanted it to. It didn’t plummet in quality. The animation was always very good. The amazing director (whoever it was) continued to direct great scenes. But… after episode 5… it never really got any better. Some episodes were a drop in quality; they lacked focus or just didn’t have much interesting to stay.
I still loved the show, I really did… but it could have been mindblowingly good, like the early episodes were. Instead, the show came to an end, and all my thoughts on the show lumped together to create the word "good."
Just… good.
8/10
Reina best girl. Sleepy-senpai comes close. Anyone who disagrees is wrong.
Shokugeki no Soma. I’m gonna bring up what is turning out to be a running discussion in my posts… The use of the typical Shounen formula. This is the type of story that brings in a character or a challenge, creates a conflict, starts an action sequence, and comes out with the protag or a main character learning something new. This can be seen in shows like DBZ, and in shows like Yugioh where the action part is a card game, or Bakuman where the action is doodling or writing. In the past, there have been two shows that made me bring up this formula. Tribe Cool Crew was a good example. It’s action scenes were dance sequences… ugly cg dance sequences. But the build-up, the soundtrack, the characters, the pacing, was all so good that, even though it’s action scenes weren’t great, I got hyped whenever the dance began. I was interested in dancing, even though whenever I wasn’t watching it, I had little interest in dancing.
The other show was KimiUso, an example of a bad Shounen. Sometimes the leadup was good, sometimes it wasn’t, but generally it built up an interesting conflict or character… then they would follow up with a bad action scene featuring some boring mechanical classical music, and the voice of someone repeating the messages spoken during the leadup. Sometimes a character would learn something from the experience, but for the most part, a character was going to be kicked out of the spotlight for a long time.
Shokugeki is a good example. It sets the scenario, introduces a conflict and 1+ characters, explores them, kicks off the action sequence, and comes to a resolution where something new unravelled. The soundtrack builds up the hype so well, and when a character decides on their goal, or realizes their mistake, or reveals what they cooked… it’s just so invigorating. I hate cooking. Eating is an annoying time sink you need to get through to not die… But god this show makes cooking so exciting. The show always keeps the threat of loss around. It never feels like victory is a shoe-in for the main character, heck, a lot of the time the cooking scenes don’t end in victory, they end with a satisfying resolution. The characters are all good too. The main character is a treat to watch, and there are so many good female characters that it’s hard to pick a favorite… Though I’m gonna say countryside girl is best right now. The animation is great. The detail to the food is really good, and the chibi art is the best I’ve seen in anime since back when Sora no Otoshimono aired.
Plus, this show does what every show should… It leads-in to the ED by keeping a scene running when the music starts. If you want to end an episode in excitement, that’s how you do it.
I don’t want to keep rambling, but it’s safe to say that this show is my AOTS, and possibly the only anime of this year so far in contention for the AOTY title.
Jewelpet: Magical Change unfortunately isn’t getting English subs, at least, not that I’ve seen. I wanted to pick it up, but oh well. From the first episode, it looks like they are taking the Digimon Adventure “tags” system. When a Jewelpet comes in contact with the tag, it transforms into a human. They have some cute designs, and it’s a nice break from the previous iterations of the Jewelpet world, but it could’ve been more inventive. I’m really not a fan of the human characters, but maybe they just need time. Still, they have some cute interactions going on between the Jewelpets, and that’s all you really need in a Jewelpet anime.
If you have a little girl, who knows Japanese, and you are reading this… for some reason… uh, look out for this…?
Mikagura School Suite was fun. It had a bunch of really nice characters, and an interesting concept to go by. Unfortunately, this is a VOCALOID anime… So eventually it must lead to disappointment. I feel like this show fell short, and I can’t even put that as a negative, because the method it uses to disappoint me is exactly what I’d expect out of the show. It’s silly.
Take episode 1, and keep it in mind. The show will always be that. Don’t expect… stuff.
5/10
Ore Monogatari!! is another unfinished show, so no final opinions yet. This show is kind of weird… I like each episode, and it’s fun, and the girl is so cute that it’s unfair… but no big drama really happens. It’s nice to not have a big drama, I don’t really want there to be, but when I’m not watching an episode my opinions on the show suddenly plummet. Basically, I like the show when I’m watching it, but have nothing to really say about it when I’m not watching it.
I love the OP singer’s voice, but the actual song doesn’t do it for me.The animation in the ED is masterful. It seems like such an 80’s TV show thing.
Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru: Zoku is a sequel to an anime from 2 years ago, that I remember as nothing more than an average Oreimo-esque show. I mentally compared it to Nakaimo a lot.
Apparently I forgot stuff though, because it has a big following. Okay, well let’s go into season 2 and see what we missed!
Nah. A problem immediately arises in this show, and it’s frustrating as hell. It’s a sequel to a 2 year old anime… and it has no flashbacks or info checks (apart from a flashback to the episode with the young Yukino clone, which is now the only episode of s1 I remember.) It hints to things but never tells you what those things are. The first story with the bullies is hard to understand because they drop character names without actually showing who is who. You can at least show an image of the character when you say their name…
Buuut, that’s enough of that. The story is pretty nice. It’s a bit weird that a group of bullies would go over to the kid they looked down on and cry in front of him while asking for help… but anime isn’t realistic, so whatever.
Aside from not knowing who is who, the dramas about keeping the group of friends together was pretty fun. There was some stuff going on with the main cast, but I dunno what that was. Yui was cute though.
The next drama was about the student council. They introduced a girl who was almost as good as Yui, and she became sort of a 4th member of the group. They had this annoying drama with another school that I think was dragged out a bit too long, but parts of it were very enjoyable. The drama came to a close, the characters did their overviews of the drama, and the show came to a grand end! … I wish.
Instead, the show continues by running through some drama with Yukino, although it never tells you what this drama is. Maybe I’m missing something from season 1, but the final few episodes are a “drama” that has nothing behind it. It was just confusing. The characters are all making a big deal out of something that I don’t even know exists. It kept trying to push an idea or a moral to the story, but it never did. It wanted to have meaning, but it forgot to actually say what that meaning was.
It really is a shame. The show had me coming back every week for most of the show, and then it just dropped in quality heavily towards the end.
The show had some cute girls, but the writing was dreadfully annoying. I think there was an issue with the transfer to the anime platform, and maybe the director didn’t take everything into account. I heard this would be good, and instead, it was a mess.
Oh, and that was an ending? It didn’t feel like the end of a season.
5/10
Next season I’ll be watching the greats - Charlotte, Million Doll, Gakkou Gurashi, and Overlord. I’ll also check out some of the shows that don’t shine as brightly, but may be good anyway. Classroom Crisis, Gangsta, Joukamachi no Dandelion, Aoharu x Kikanjuu, Chaos Dragon, Gate, Miss Monochrome 2, Ranpo Kitan, Rokka no Yuusha, and Venus Project, are all on my radar. There are some good movies coming out too.
It’s fun to get some jabs in. Same for the “shutting your brain off” part.
