== Looking back at the Summer 2014 anime season

As [[before Spring2014Retrospective]], it's time (and long past time)
for my usual retrospective look back at the season to see how well the
final result matched up with [[my early impressions Summer2014Brief]]
and [[my midway views Summer2014Midway]]. This has been delayed partly
because the summer season turned out to be an almost total bust for
me; I only managed to watch one show all the way through as it aired.

Watched and finished:

* *Aldnoah.Zero*: This was a reasonably entertaining show but I wouldn't
  call it particularly great; however, the show did manage to make
  watching it be enjoyable (for all of its absurdities). Following [[my
  usual rule ShinguReactions]] that whoever gets the most character
  development is probably it, Slaine is the real protagonist; sadly,
  I suspect that the show disagrees with me. This is the only show I
  wound up following on a weekly basis through ths season.

  If I took this as a serious dramatic work, it would be a failure;
  it simply has far too many flaws. As popcorn entertainment I rather
  enjoyed it because I could laugh at all of the crazy and nonsensical
  bits and admire all of the ways the show found to make Slaine suffer.
  I agree with all of the people who say that it's impossible to believe
  that the show is serious about the events in its first-half climax.

  (Also, if this was a serious work it would be an extremely grim one
  given how large the show's onscreen and offscreen body count is.)

  I'm looking forward to the second half although it may well turn
  out [[like *Valvrave* Fall2013Retrospective]], where the magic and
  charm wore off very fast.

  (Yes, this is a lot of words in an attempt to justify both sides
  of [[Author's collected impressions
  http://ani-nouto.animeblogger.net/2014/09/30/evirus-on-aldnoah-zero/]]
  at once. As usual I see both the virtues and the flaws of the show
  but I weigh them in my own way.)

* *Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 2wei!*: In the end I got bored enough
  (and desperate enough) to pick this up again [[after dropping it
  Summer2014Midway]] in the hopes that I would at least get some nice
  mindless action. I more or less got that, but it was competent instead
  of spectacularly stunning like I was kind of hoping for. I should
  really just resign myself to the fact that nothing in Prisma Illya
  will ever top the episode six fight from the first series and leave
  it permanently dropped. See also [[my Twitter capsule summary
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/510256084771409922]].

Dropped:

* *Zankyou no Terror*: I [[realized
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/507718950315372544]] that I
  had essentially no interest in finding out what happened next to the
  characters or what was going on with the whole situation. So I stopped
  watching it.

Towards the end of the season I tried out two highly praised series that
I had not previously given a chance to. My reactions:

* *Barakamon*: After three episodes my overall reaction is that I
  find the show charming and I can see why people like this a lot, but
  I don't find it compelling enough to drive me to watch more with any
  particular urgency (especially now that it's not a currently airing
  show). Part of it is certainly that the show is a bit too obvious and
  heavy-handed with its moral lessons for Handa. The segments when it
  wasn't concerned with that were much more enjoyable but unfortunately
  not all that frequent in the first three episodes.

* *Sabagebu*: The highest recommendation I can give this is that it
  makes me laugh on a regular basis (which is not common, most anime
  comedy fails for me). However in practice it's fallen into the same
  problem as *Seitokai Yakuindomo*, which is that plotless humor doesn't
  have much to strongly drive me to see the next episode. See also
  eg [[Evirus http://karmaburn.com/?p=6142]].

I expect to watch more of both of these shows, but in practice neither
has grabbed me by the labels and *demanded* to be watched. Someday,
when I feel like it or I want something to fill in a block of anime
watching time.

I also tried out *Strike The Blood* for [[vague reasons
http://chizumatic.mee.nu/strike_the_blood_through_ep_4]],
partly in the hopes that it would be [[another *Tokyo Ravens*
Winter2014Retrospective]]. My capsule summary is that it hasn't proved
to be anywhere near as compelling a watch as *Tokyo Ravens* was and is
otherwise a perfectly ordinary shonen fighting show. I suspect that I'm
not going to wind up watching much more of it; I just don't find it all
that compelling.