Roving Thoughts archives

Brief 'early' impressions of the Spring 2016 anime season so far

It's time for my usual early impressions post for this season (as before). This one has been delayed for various reasons, including that I'm still not clear where several shows are going. Also, if I'm being honest, doing my first episode takes drains some of the urgency from the process.

Clear winners:

• Concrete Revolutio: In retrospect, it seems that the first season back in the fall was there to set the scene and give us the background. Now we're starting to get explanations, painful revelations, and likely more forward developments. I wave my hands here; the show has me fully in its thrall. CR is not without flaws, but the heights are worth it.

  (I'm sounding ambivalent here because the most recent episode was a much smaller, modest, and ordinary thing than the first two. I've got to hope that future episodes look less like it and more like the others.)

• Flying Witch: This has been my great surprise of the season, because quiet shows like this don't normally click with me. This time, though, I'm charmed by pretty much everything going on. It helps that the show's humour is understated and doesn't try to oversell things, but really it's the characters and the quiet goings on that sell it. I never thought watching people weed a back garden would be so engaging.

• Kiznaiver: I don't know what to feel about this show because I don't know where it's going to go, or rather I don't know if it's going to become something more than it currently seems to be. If it carries on with the character exploration it's doing right now, I don't know if it will really hook me because frankly I'm not sure it'll make high school students sufficiently interesting. But it's dropping hints about various conspiracy theory things, so it could go somewhere with them.

  In the mean time, the show is quite well put together. It has solid animation, good directing, it looks nice, and overall it's pleasant and fun to watch. Some of the characters are even reasonably interesting; I think my current favorite is the multi-faceted Nico.

  (And who knows, every so often high school drama works for me.)

I'm enjoying:

• Gakusen Toshi Asterisk: This continues to be a great show within its genre, with interesting characters (some of them really obnoxious ones), good action, and so on. Even when it's doing somewhat annoying things it does them in a way that easily holds my interest and is fun to watch at the time.

• Macross Delta: I go back and forth on Delta. Sometimes I love what it's doing and find it exciting; other times I sort of roll my eyes at the characters, especially Hayate. It's certainly well put together and doing some interesting things, so I can't fault its execution. Even the 'slow' episodes have had exciting and beautiful sequences that were a pleasure to watch.

• Kuromukuro: The first three episodes have been a solidly engaging, well done, and actively exciting action show. It's probably going to slow down some now, but I'm certainly willing to keep watching more so far.

Hard to categorize:

• Space Patrol Luluco: For me this is sort of like Yurikuma Arashi except funnier and more manic and Trigger-minimal. By that I mean that I'm not sure I find it very straight up entertaining, but writing such as Emily Rand's has shown me that there's pretty interesting stuff going on here and I want to watch Luluco for that, much as I watched YKA. See also.

Okay for now:

• My Hero Academia aka Boku no Hero Academia: This is just the kind of Shonen Jump tentpole show you should expect, except that it's moving really remarkably slowly. It's still enjoyable to watch but everything feels so drawn out. I'm finding it charming so far, although in a very 'earnest kid's show' way.

• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: This is quite loud and rather 'stock Hollywood action movie' show. Everything is big and dramatic and overwrought and obvious. It's spectacle for the sake of spectacle, glued together by dialog administered by club. At the same time it is spectacular and dramatic and actually well directed and put together. I may laugh at the show, but so far it's exciting to watch.

I'm still watching:

• Twin Star Exorcists aka Sousei no Onmyouji: This is making the most of its unusual visual style, and the second episode managed some genuinely funny bits. However I won't be surprised if it slides into shonen manga cliches at some point and gets boring; it's already kind of on the edge.

• Haifuri: It's okay but it's no Girls und Panzer. I'm not sure that its mix of big conspiracy goings on is going to end well, or ultimately go well with the light 'sports show' tone of the rest of it. It also needs more interesting and compelling action, either visually or at the level of tactics.

Dropped already:

• Hundred: This was this season's extruded Light Novel magical high school product for me. It had an okay start with a few interesting bits and then went boring and cliched. I give a show or two like this a try every season; every so often we get an Asterisk or a BBK/BRNK, and even without that a competent iteration can be an enjoyable popcorn show. Sadly, this is not such an iteration.

Misses:

• Bungou Stray Dogs: In two episodes there wasn't much there other than reaction faces. I didn't like episode 2 much at all.

• Bakuon: It was okay but it's primarily a humour show and its humour doesn't click with me.

• Endride: It's already fading in my memories; I have nothing to add over my tweet at the time. Apparently it doesn't improve in further episodes.

• Seisen Cerberus: In the end Evirus put it best on Twitter; like him I mostly wanted the first episode to be over when I watched it.

Not for me:

• JoJo's: Diamond Is Unbreakable: All of the JoJo's seasons so far have had a clear, distinct sort of style to them. This style just doesn't seem to be my kind of thing, and this time around I bounced out of the first episode halfway through.

Not considered for various reasons:

• Joker Game: I've waved my hands about the setting but ultimately even the premise failed to sell me. Various reviews of early episodes have not changed my mind. It's possible that I'm missing something great here, but I'm probably not going to check in.

  (Other people are pretty enthusiastic, though, so maybe you should ignore me.)

• Sakamoto desu ga?: It's humour, which almost never works for me. Reviews have not made it sound funny enough to get me to check it out anyways.
• Tanaka is Always Listless: Ditto.

• Mayoiga: I have no interest in watching horrible, over the top things happen to a bunch of horrible people, no matter how that's presented. Ridiculous, silly horror is no more my kind of thing than straight horror.

• Re:Zero: By all accounts the double-length first episode is mostly annoying and not worth it. As standard, I will pass on having my time wasted in order to theoretically get to better stuff.

• Big Order: Allegedly much like Mirai Nikki, including in themes, and I dropped that like a hot potato exactly because of the theme. So pass.

When I started I was going to say that I wasn't all that enthused about this season, but no, that's a passing bad mood. Concrete Revolutio has a shot at being stunning, my other top two shows look solidly good (although with cautions for both), Asterisk remains a really well done and entertaining genre work, and there's plenty of decent stuff beyond those. By my now traditional metric of 'do I have to agonize over my APR ballot for good reasons', this is a solid season.

My (Twitter) reactions to the first episodes of the Spring 2016 season

As before I've decided to collect here all of my tweeted reactions to the first episodes I've seen (in the order I saw them).

• Space Patrol Luluco episode 1: Cute, but too manic and minimal to be something for me. (This is from the 'barely animated' side of Trigger.) ♯

• Unsurprisingly, I'm no more interested in JoJo's this time around than I was the last three times I tried it. Sorry, Diamond Is Unbreakable. ♯

  (Technically I only watched half of the first episode, but it was enough. JoJo's stylings apparently don't work for me.)

• Endride episode 1: Generic and bland is the best description for this. It's an inoffensive stock show that just occupies some time. ♯

• Gakusen Toshi Asterisk episode 13: Yay, the gang's pretty much all back. The show still has everything that made it fun to watch in S1. →

• My Hero Academia episode 1: This was a well made Shonen Jump show, which means I don't know what to think of it yet. I'll watch the next ep. →

• Macross Delta episode 1: GIRI GIRI AAAAAIII! This is the stuff, all right. THIS is how you start a show and hook everyone in sight. ♯

• Bakuon episode 1: Inoffensive and kind of funny, but I didn't find it funny enough for it to be my kind of show. ♯

• Hundred episode 1: So far a perfectly acceptable LN magical high school show, suitable for watching with popcorn. Emile makes the show. →

• Twin Star Exorcists ep 1: That was a pretty good start. A clear style, it hit the ground running, and it knew how to shut up and be subtle. →

• Bungo Stray Dogs episode 1: That was a pretty good, tho it leaned on the wacky faces a fair bit. But it was only the (empty) intro & setup. →

• Cerberus episode 1: There are flashes of something good here, but they're overpowered by animation and writing problems. Too bland & flat. →

• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress episode 1: That was very dramatic, with a capital D. This show doesn't do subtle or quiet or small. →

• Concrete Revolutio episode 14: We're back and just as nice as before. It's apparently time to unravel some mysteries and explain some stuff. ♯

• Haifuri episode 1: That was solid and more interesting than I expected, and the hook at the ending is definitely getting me to watch more. ♯

• Flying Witch ep 1: That was fun in a low-key, goofy way. I have hopes that this will be the kind of everyday-life show that works for me. ♯

• Kiznaiver episode 1: That was both decently good and interesting, but it deliberately gave us no idea what sort of show this is going to be. →

(A → means there's further discussion on Twitter, a ♯ means that's it.)

The two remaining new shows that I'd like to check out are Kuromukuro, which is not available yet and may not be available for some time, and Big Order, which only starts on April 15th (and I don't expect Big Order to be great, based on the premise, although it might be a popcorn watch).

Update:

• Kuromukuro episode 1: Now that's a good start for an action show. Mostly show don't tell, nicely done, and I like the characters. →

Looking back at the Winter 2016 anime season

Once again it's time for my usual look back at what I watched this season to see how my early impressions and my midway views held up. As usual I'm doing this partly for the honesty and partly because it means I can go back in a few years to see what I was feeling about a show at the time.

Fully enjoyable:

• ERASED aka Boku Dake ga Inai Machi: This was frustratingly inconsistent. At its best (in the Kayo storyline) it was beautiful and affecting, and it was at its best for quite a while. But outside of that it often rapidly descended to an unexciting, cliched thriller show, one that made me roll my eyes periodically. The show was clearly trying for good things in the thriller sections, but they mostly never worked as well as they needed to. Still, when it was good it was very good.

  (In part the show was probably hemmed down and limited by the original source material, which it couldn't rewrite wholesale.)

• Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: This wasn't flawless (and some of its flaws were painful) but it was both solidly consistent and very good to excellent throughout. The stories it told were powerful ones and it told them well. Grimgar's best spots weren't as great as ERASED's, but it was far more consistently good (cf).

  For more words that pretty much match my feelings, see Bobduh's ANN review.

• BBK/BRNK aka Bubuki Buranki: This is ultimately a genre piece, but it's a pretty interesting one for that, stuffed with some excellent characters. I particularly enjoyed getting a look in at Reoko towards the end of this season, because she's quietly turned into one of the show's more interesting characters (even if I don't entirely agree with her). Well made, well directed, an interesting story, fun little bits, good character animation, what more could you ask for in a genre show?

  (Yeah, some people will say 'not 3D CG'. All I can say there is that I think it's well done.)

Good:

• Akagami no Shirayukihime: This remains an acquired taste but I enjoyed it. There were far more ups and downs this season than last season, but the ups were really very good; we got some excellent episodes in there. At the same time, though, I think I may be done with the show. I find myself thinking that I would be perfectly happy if there never was another season, because I don't really need to see any more slow development of the story. The ending of this season basically wraps up any tension there ever was; what remains is simply a question of how the inevitable outcome happens (cf).

Okay:

• Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!: I almost dropped this because I couldn't stand episode 9 and didn't watch it, but then I decided that the show has basically no episode to episode continuity so I could watch episode 10 anyways; I'm glad I did. Overall the show was okay (apart from Darkness) and periodically funny. I especially enjoyed how Megumin and Aqua actually are perfectly competent, they just have limitations and blind spots.

• Active Raid: In the end this show never transcended its limitations. It was okay, usually enjoyable as a spectacle, periodically eye-rolling, and every so often it managed to deliver an episode that was special (such as the giant robot episode or the date episode).

  Apparently we're getting more. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but I'll probably watch; I do actually like the characters.

• Dimension W: I have a confession. For all that I rolled my eyes at a lot of the show, especially towards the end, I actually enjoyed it. It was silly and stupid, yes, but it was also reasonably fun to watch (and Mira was always cute, even when the show was using her for fanservice). The plot was kind of BS and it suffered from the usual burning need to tie everything together and make it relate to the protagonist, but still. And it had a bunch of good characters who rubbed off each other fairly well.

  Dimension W was not what it looked like at the start, but for me it finished up as a reasonably enjoyable popcorn entertainment show. I'd even probably watch more if there ever was any.

I finished it:

• Luck & Logic: To echo what I said in my midway views, this was a perfectly competent execution of its fundamental genre. It was also no more than that, which made it basically flat. It passed the time while I had a cup of coffee and that was it.

Not for me:

• Please tell me! Galko-chan: I wound up giving the first episode of this a try, since it was right there on Crunchyroll. Sadly but unsurprisingly it is not for me. I can see why people like it a lot, and it's a solid show and even periodically amusing, but it doesn't resonate with me enough to make me want to watch more (partly because of the setting). Still, worth checking out to see if it clicks with you.

My top two shows are each excellent in their own way and BBK/BRNK was always enjoyable, so on the whole I feel that I shouldn't complain about how the other shows fell down in their own ways and disappointed me (well, I didn't expect much for Luck & Logic and I wound up getting exactly what I expected). Disappointment is inevitable in every season, because great and even good shows are relatively rare; most are ordinary and flawed. Ordinary and flawed is a good description of Active Raid and Dimension W, and is fairly applicable to KonoSuba.

(I don't want to call Shirayukihime flawed, but considering the kidnapping plot, I'm going to say it is. It fell into genre expectations there a bit too easily.)