2016-11-02
Brief impressions of the Fall 2016 anime season so far
I'll admit it; I've been lazy about putting fingers to keyboard and just getting on with this entry. So before things get too far along, here's how my views of this season have coagulated so far, following up on my first episode reactions, and it turns out that this is a rather unusual season for me.
Solidly good and enjoyable:
- Flip Flappers: I'm quite enjoying this so far, weirdness and all,
and yes I know that it could all fall apart spectacularly later on
(it's a common problem). But for now this
is very much my kind of thing and I wave my hands about exactly why.
Part of it is that it's a rather science fiction anime, but explaining
that cryptic remark is going to need another entry.
With that said, Flip Flappers is not perfect. I especially don't entirely like Papika, because she is pretty strongly a character cliche that gets on my nerves (cf).
- Sound! Euphonium S2: This feels not quite as sharp and focused
as the first season, but in many ways that's to be expected. The
first season had a narrow but important topic and dealt with it, so
now the show needs to find other things to be about.
- March comes in like a Lion: I'm enjoying the portraits of people
and life that it continues to paint, and I feel that it's being both
reasonably subtle and reasonably funny. Ultimately, though, I just
like it.
- BBK/BRNK: The show is not deep or complex or mysterious, so what it
has going for it is extremely competent execution of its basic story.
Given that so many shows partially fumble their writing and execution
even for basic stuff, I decidedly appreciate this. BBK/BRNK is
not likely to surprise me or be a deep show for the ages, but like
Thunderbolt Fantasy it is a very good execution of what it's aiming
for, and what it's aiming for is perfectly good.
(See my commentary on the first season, because this is basically a straight continuation of it.)
Teetering on the edge:
- Regalia - The Three Sacred Stars: In the end I picked up the
restart of this, and since then I've alternated between being
enthused about the action segments and mostly bored with the
rest of it. If I was smart I'd drop this, but as it is it's
feeding me just enough to keep me watching the next episode.
Eventually.
(Maybe writing this will cause me to drop it.)
Dropped already:
- Izetta: The Last Witch: This show has one or two good characters
and some good directing in the services of a story that I aggressively
have absolutely no interest in at all. Not only do I not care
about the story of not-Germany invading not-sort-of-Switzerland in
not-World-War-II, I actually don't want to see it; it feels so boring
and flat and 'why do I care' that it turns me off the whole show. The
various cliches that poke their way to the surface of the first three
episodes didn't help either.
- Brave Witches: After thinking about it some more from my first episode reaction, I decided that I had no need to see another episode. It wasn't doing anything special and I have no particular attachment to Strike Witches in general.
Not for me (probably):
- Girlish Number: People praise this, but they also admit that it's mostly about a bunch of jerks and I've decided that I don't want to watch that, even if it's also about the production of anime.
Shows that I maybe theoretically want to look at because they get praised but in practice I know I'll never look at them:
- Yuri!!! On Ice
- Fune wo Amu
This season has wound up being quite unusual, in that I have four shows that I think are very good to solidly good and that I'm quite enjoying, and then I have nothing else that I want to watch. In another season maybe I'd keep watching Izetta and even Brave Witches for some empty action calories; in this season, I have chucked them aside without even thinking twice about it. This season I have no equivalent of, say, Qualidea Code from last season.
(I'm finding that I'm not bothered by only watching four shows, and that I have no urge to fill my time with others, either current shows or from a potential backlog.)
PS: Flip Flappers has the best ED of the season among shows that I've watched. I have no strong opinions on best OP so far, although March's is pretty good.