Roving Thoughts archives

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

This time around, my early impressions have been delayed not just because I'm slow to write these up but also because I really don't know how I feel about a bunch of the shows in this season and I wanted to watch more episodes to try to figure it out. My first episode takes were reasonably optimistic, but then my gut started sending out various warning signs and I've wound up in a surprisingly grumpy mood with currently airing shows, the kind of mood where I start aggressively trimming the fat.

Clear winner:

• Thunderbolt Fantasy: It's wuxia with puppets, and grand over the top wuxia at that. I like wuxia, and I'm willing to live with the puppets in order to get it. The show is absolutely committed to its various things and this alone is glorious to see. Hopefully I won't get fed up with the puppets.

  (I expect that many people will hate this show for any one of its various sins; puppets, absurd grandiosity, etc.)

I'm enjoying:

• Fate Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 3rei!!: This is my surprise show of the season. After my last experience I didn't have high hopes, but so far the show has been making things happen and delivering various fights. This is much more like the relatively action-filled first season than anything since.

• Qualidea Code: This is definitely a 'light novel' style show but it's delivering a bunch of enjoyable things, including repeatedly dunking on the lead character instead of puffing him up as secretly the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Almost not for me but okay for now:

• Battery: So far this is good character drama (although not flawless). I'm just not sure if I'm all that interested in the story it's telling. In some ways the lead characters feel like they're in no way only 12 years old; in other ways they feel very much like they're 12, by which I mean that they can be little shitheads. I find myself hoping that they'll start actually playing baseball soon, because that's probably going to be the most interesting part for me.

I'm still watching:

• Alderamin on the Sky: It's a popcorn watch, but I suspect that the charm is going to wear off. There are probably only so many times I can watch the protagonist be clever and right before I get bored.

  (A show like this is not the place to look for compelling characters, interesting plots, or even genuinely clever solutions to tactical problems.)

Teetering on the edge:

• Taboo Tattoo: I thought I quite liked this, but the latest episode headed in the wrong direction and even before then it was merely entertaining, not compelling. My gut is saying that I probably won't miss this if I drop it.

• Regalia - The Three Sacred Stars: The first episode was great, the next two episodes were merely okay (and a clear letdown), and now apparently new episodes have been suspended for two months. I'm not feeling too much of an urge to watch the last pre-suspension episode right now, or to continue watching it in general once it resumes new episodes (cf).

Probably dropped already:

• Scared Rider XechS: The first couple of episodes were interesting, but the third episode headed in a predictable and uninteresting direction. My gut currently says 'dropped', even if I might be bored enough to watch a bit more.

Dropped already:

• Tales of Zestiria the X: I ranted about this on Twitter, but the third aired episode saw me disengage with the show in a big way. I just wasn't interested in slogging through a chunk of boring stuff that I'd effectively already seen in order to get to some okay action. In other seasons I might have continued, but not in this one.

Misses:

• DAYS: This is an ordinary and at least somewhat absurd and over the top instance of its genre, and its genre doesn't work for me most of the time.

Not for me:

• Mob Psycho 100: It's very pretty and stylish, but I realized that I don't really care about the premise or the characters, the humour doesn't work for me, and the first episode didn't really do anything to change that. Other people love it, though, and it's well made.

  (Part of my disinterest is that I've heard that a lot of it is basically about Mob going through ordinary life issues and experiences.)

• 91 Days: I was quite enthusiastic about the first episode, but then I realized that I wasn't actually interested in watching a show about some mobsters killing each other. If this genre is your thing the show seemed competent but not exceptional, although it didn't make the characters particularly stand out from their archetypes.

  (I thought this show would be my thing sort of based on my love of Baccano, but Baccano is a very different thing and its characters are about ten times more interesting than the sane, ordinary lot in 91 Days.)

• Planetarian: It's a tragedy. I'm sure it's a very good tragedy, but no.

Not considered:

• Orange: I think I'm basically done with straight high school dramas, especially when they involve romance. I'm sure Orange is good and moving and all of that (and apparently kind of tragic), but I have a vast indifference in practice.

  (So what about Sound! Euphonium, you ask? Well, apparently there are special cases everywhere. See also Toradora.)

• Sweetness and Lightning: It's an ordinary life setting and thus in a genre area that almost never works for me. Maybe its quality and charm would overwhelm that, but I don't feel like finding out this season.

I feel irrationally guilty about not giving either of these shows a chance, since lots of people say they're very good, but this season I'm in a grumpy mood with almost everything and I'm just not interested. Apparently this season I mostly want to watch a few popcorn shows and be done with it; high drama can take the season off. I have other things to do.

In ongoing shows, Kuromukuro fansubs have disappeared and I find that I don't miss the show all that much, and I'm significantly behind on Macross Delta with little interest in fixing that so I think I've de facto dropped or abandoned it. This dovetails with my general mood this season. However, I'm still watching and quite enjoying Twin Star Exorcists; it's not high art, but it remains quite competent and has carried forward all of its attractive qualities (especially the character interactions).

Four shows I'm genuinely enjoying is not very many for a season, but whatever. Maybe I'll get up the energy to give Macross Delta another chance.

(Am I burned out on anime right now? I don't think so, but I'm certainly out of patience.)

My (Twitter) reactions to the first episodes of the Summer 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).

• DAYS episode 1: That was a reasonably fun and appealing instance of its genre, although its genre is not particularly my thing. ♯

• Tales of Zestiria the X episode 0: This was pretty decent by itself but the end sequence suggests that this was all background. →

• Taboo Tattoo episode 1: The writing is embarrassingly clumsy but the show might be an okay popcorn watch for action and some bits were nice. →

• D.Gray-man Hallow episode 1: I have no opinion here because this can't really be followed without way more D.Gray-man context than I have. →

• Scared Rider Xechs episode 1: That was surprisingly competent and engaging. It moved quite fast and mostly skipped (bad) exposition dumps. ♯

• Regalia - The Three Sacred Stars ep 1: I like shows that drop you in the middle of stuff, so I liked this. Also that action & that ending. →

• Planetarian episode 1: That was well made and a solid story, but it basically has to be a tragedy and tragedies are not really my thing. ♯

• Alderamin on the Sky episode 1: That was a pretty decent start. Not splashy or great, but competent and in a genre I often enjoy watching. ♯

• Qualidea Code episode 1: That was a fun and decently done instance of its genre. I may be reading a few things into the prequel bit, tho. →

• 91 Days episode 1: Oh, I like this. We've got characters and a situation and some suspense and intrigue, and people in over their heads. →

• Thunderbolt Fantasy episode 1: This is 100% committed to its aesthetic and that is awesome. I'm happy to watch fantasy Chinese martial arts. →

• Mob Psycho 100 episode 1: This is a very well made show that basically doesn't work for me. Part of it is that Reigen is irritating scum. →

• Prisma Illya 3rei!! episode 1: It turns out that PI is significantly improved by simply having a plot going on. Who would have guessed? →

• Battery episode 1: I have to call this 'delicately drawn'; it's pretty quiet and reasonably understated. The two leads interact well. →

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

I've not looked at Orange or Sweetness and Lightning, both of which are getting praise for high quality, because both seem to be in genres that almost never work for me and there have been enough other first episodes that I've wound up feeling overwhelmed by them all. I may change my mind about this later (and update this entry accordingly).

Looking back at the Spring 2016 anime season

Once again it's time for my usual look back at what I watched this past season to see how my early impressions and my midway views held up. As always, I write these partly because they keep me honest and partly because it's interesting to go back later and see how I was feeling about a show at the time.

Fully enjoyable:

• Flying Witch: This wasn't grand and ambitious the way some other shows were and it's not flawless, but Flying Witch totally and absolutely nailed its execution. As a result it was the most consistently good and enjoyable show of the season; it didn't necessarily aim really high, but it always delivered joy and wound up being a great show. One of the many good things about FW is that it generally knew to not oversell moments; often it let them be quiet and short, whether that was for humour or for impact. I really liked the ending.

  (We could at this point have an interesting discussion about whether consistently delivering joy and sense of wonder is actually grand and ambitious in and of itself. But for this entry, I'll go with the common view that addressing big moral questions and so on are what's ambitious.)

• Concrete Revolutio: On the one hand, I feel that CR is amazing and really delivered a powerful show overall, and this season had a number of amazing and affecting episodes. On the other hand, it's far from flawless in various ways, including basically reducing various nominally important characters to standing around as spear carriers. I accept that in in retrospect a number of the weaker episodes were laying necessary thematic groundwork for the climax, but they're still weaker episodes. As a result, my tentative view is that Concrete Revolutio as a whole is a flawed (near) masterwork.

  (I'm still not sure what I feel about the ending.)

• Kiznaiver: I really liked this overall. The weakness of the show wound up being the sci-fi plot and the character of Sonozaki herself. The great strength of the show was everyone else and their interactions, which really worked very well. I think the show's ending mostly worked on an emotional level, although I was relatively indifferent to the plot details.

Good:

• Twin Star Exorcists: This is another show where the real strength is the character interactions, not the plot and the action. Our two protagonists feel real in their interactions and the show's doing a good job of having them grow slowly closer in a natural way. On the flipside, it suffers from being a long shonen action show (it's planned for 50 episodes, apparently); we're clearly not getting anywhere fast, even if TSE keeps throwing new escalations at us.

• My Hero Academia: I griped throughout the show's run about its slow pace, but recently I found myself thinking 'damn, I wish there was a new MHA episode to watch this weekend'. If I miss a show, it did something noteworthy and worth recognition.

• Gakusen Toshi Asterisk: Watching Asterisk made me realize that this sort of show lives and thrives in significant part in the variety of the fights. Unfortunately Asterisk's tournament arc gave us a whole series of fights that were too much the same despite being individually interesting. The departure from that at the end was a breath of fresh air, even if I find Flora's squeaky voice almost intolerable.

  I'd be happy to watch another season of Asterisk if it isn't another tournament arc, but I won't be particularly troubled if we don't get any more (cf).

Special merit 'I want to like it' award:

• Space Patrol Luluco: Several women I follow on Twitter say that this really speaks to their adolescent experiences in a way that very few other shows do. I'm not sure that this was fully intentional on the part of the creators, but so what. My personal view is that I could clearly see this in early episodes but then the show was mostly eaten by its fanservice crossovers with other shows. The ending wound up being okay but didn't particularly move me.

  (See also Bobduh's review.)

Okay, or maybe on the edge:

• Macross Delta: I've realized that this show's basically fallen in my view to being a decent, ordinary show. It's okay. I've enjoyed watching it, there are nice character moments, sometimes the action is great, sometimes it lands a solid emotional connection, but in the end I'm just not feeling any real passion for it any more the way I did in the beginning.

• Kuromukuro: I like the character moments and broadly like the action, but the show is moving too slowly to really hold my attention. That people in the show quite often don idiot hats doesn't help, and the show playing coy with its many mysteries isn't working.

  (I'm now several episodes behind and I'm finding that I don't really miss the show; if I never see any more, that's okay. This is probably not a good sign.)

I finished it:

• Haifuri: I dropped this for wasting my time then un-dropped it to watch the last two episodes, because I heard they were the action episodes. Which they were, for low expectations of 'action'. So I can honestly count this as a show that I finished. I wouldn't recommend that anyone else bother, though.

The top three shows this season were each very good in their own different ways, and then I had about two and a half enjoyable popcorn watch shows. That makes this a pretty good season by my standard (probably better than last season now that I cross-compare things).

An opinion on translating terms from Japanese to English

Copied from Twitter because I don't to have it swallow my (pseudo) blogging (as noted):

My hot take as a consumer of translation: it's possible for a translated term to be accurate & faithful and also be a bad translation.

It can even be a bad translation if the word of god from the creator is 'this is what it's supposed to be in English'.

A great exhibit for 'the word of the creator is sometimes wrong' is the official title romanization of Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky.

I believe that Miyazaki himself is on record as wishing that he'd known more at the time and officially romanized ラピュタ as 'Raputa'.

Miyazaki famously named the city in the sky (and the film) after the flying island from Jonathan Swift's book, and because he did so he was very clear that the proper romanization was of course 'Laputa', which is what Swift was using. What Miyazaki didn't know at the time he made the romanization choice is what Swift was probably alluding to with the island's name and what it means in Spanish.

I'm reasonably convinced that 'sleigh beggy' from The Ancient Magus' Bride is another unfortunate translation choice, tho it's not clear.

I say it's not clear because I haven't found an authoritative reference for what the original Japanese version of the phrase/term is. There's a formal title that translates more or less to 'Beloved Child of the Night' (cf), but I don't know if there's a short informal term used for it in the original manga.

(I suspect there is but I don't know for sure.)

When you need to immediately redefine what your translated term means, something has gone wrong. Cf <link>

A 'sleigh beggy' is a relatively obscure type of fairy from English folklore (specifically from the Isle of Man). However, this is not what the term means in the context of The Ancient Magus' Bride, where it instead means a special type of human. That Seven Seas had to immediately redefine the existing term this way is, to me, not a good sign.

(Yes, sure, 'sleigh beggy' is likely obscure except to people deep in English folklore. The problem with the Internet is that explanations of puzzling, obscure things are only an search away, ready to mislead you in this particular context.)

I could also rant about 'Maho Shojo Madoka Magica' officially turning into 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica', but that's a tired subject by now.

The short version of the rant is that the connotations of 'Maho Shojo' to a Japanese audience are completely different than the connotations of 'Puella Magi' to an English audience. One is a common, well known, specific genre reference, the other is a Latin phrase used by nothing else. And the genre reference is very important to the show in context, since Madoka is built on and is riffing on magical girls shows.

Yes, 'Puella Magi' is the official translation by SHAFT (as far as I know). That doesn't magically make it a good one.

A thought on Concrete Revolutio and its exploration of heroism (and My Hero Academia's too)

I rambled a bit about this on Twitter, but I want to put this down in a more durable (and slightly longer form). So:

@thatcks: An obvious thesis: I think it matters for Concrete Revolutio that the usual Japanese phrase for 'hero' is apparently 'ally of justice'.

This is 'hero' in the sense of (super)hero, which is what the characters in Concrete Revolutio are. I don't know enough to know if Japanese has a single word that directly maps to this (English) concept, but according to this blog entry on ConRevo translations the Japanese phrase the show uses for this concept is seigi no mikata, which literally means 'ally of justice'.

Continuing from Twitter:

This puts a stronger spin on Concrete Revolutio's constant interrogation of what justice is (and what it means to be its ally).
Characters like Jiro care so much about justice because, well, when they think of themselves as heroes they're literally allies of justice.
If Jiro (or anyone) cannot see what justice is or where it lies, they cannot be the heroes that they want to be and imagine themselves as.

Let me rephrase that to be clearer. When ConRevo's characters think and worry about this, they're of course thinking in their native language, using their native terminology. So when Jiro thinks about being a hero, he literally thinking about being an 'ally of justice', since that's the term and phrase he uses for it. Naturally what you think of yourself as influences what you think about and what your concerns are, so the very term the characters use in ConRevo makes them worry about what justice is (and what it means to be an ally of it). A hero must be 'heroic', whatever that is, but in Western (super)hero works this need not have much to do with justice; however, an 'ally of justice' must be doing things that are on the side of justice, wherever that is. And if you wind up not being on the side of justice, your self-image can fall apart; after all, how can you call yourself an ally of justice any more?

This gives various characters in CR quite strong reasons to cling grimly to their own visions of what justice is, even when it disagrees with other people or leads them to absurd results. I imagine that it also drives characters to want simple, clear definitions that they can follow, instead of messy complicated ones that are very situational and unclear. If you can't see where justice is, how can you know what to do in order to be an ally of justice? Maybe if you act, you're actually working against justice and so being a villain.

This brings me to My Hero Academia and another set of tweets:

A thought: both Concrete Revolutio and My Hero Academia are kind of asking the same question but with totally different viewpoints on it.
And I think that the difference between ConRevo and MHA comes down to the term they use for what it is they're asking about.
In that both ConRevo and MHA are asking 'what is it that makes you a hero/how do you be a hero', but MHA uses 'hero' & CR 'ally of justice'.
So Concrete Revolutio interrogates what justice is, while My Hero Academia asks what is at the core of heroism (vs power & capability).

As far as I can remember from watching it, Boku no Hero Academia consistently used the English 'hero' for what its characters are, not the Japanese 'seigi no mikata' (it even put 'hero' in its Japanese title). One of the clear themes in MHA is that Midoriya (and true heroes in general) are defined by their willingness to act even without the surety of power and conversely that power alone doesn't make you a hero (Bakugo is the poster child of this (also)). Midoriya is not a hero because he has power, he's a hero because he selflessly throws himself into situations to help others who need it (starting with his climactic moment in episode 2).

So, as I see it, both Concrete Revolutio and My Hero Academia have as a theme the question of 'what does it mean to be a hero', except that because they use different terms for it they wind up exploring the question from quite different directions. MHA uses the English 'hero' and winds up approaching it in a way that's very natural to Western audiences. Concrete Revolutio uses the Japanese 'ally of justice' and so winds up exploring the question of what justice is; is it adherence to a law, or to morality, or to the humanity of those you're helping, or what?

Why dropping Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress makes me oddly happy

Every so often I worry that I have no sense of taste in anime, or at least in action anime. After all I watch a lot of what is basically bland dreck (Haifuri this season, Luck & Logic last season, and the list goes on); to get me to not watch an action show, it usually has to be either unusually terribly made or unusually stuffed with obnoxious cliches (or both). I will really put up with a lot if you feed me a certain amount of tolerable action. I'll even be reasonably enthused about it.

Kabaneri is not the sort of action show that I drop. Far from being an unusually bad one, it's an unusually good one, well directed and well made. In the four episodes I saw it had high points that were well above what many shows I've watched achieve in their entire run in fight direction, art, sheer staging of scenes, and so on. Nor was it laden with the usual painful cliches of the broad action genre, and it even had only a few cardboard cutout stock characters from central casting.

(Kabaneri had some cliches but they're Araki cliches not genre cliches, if that makes sense. The charitable will call them themes.)

I dropped Kabaneri anyways because I didn't like it, despite it having everything everything that ought to have kept me watching. What that means is that I'm responding to something in action shows that's more than the obvious; I have some sort of taste for them that transcends basic technical qualities. Kabaneri is a quite competent action show and I've even been convinced that there's some depth in the writing, but I'm still not interested. It's simply not to my taste.

Which is why dropping Kabaneri makes me oddly happy. Dropping it because it's not to my taste means that I actually have some taste.

(This doesn't mean that I understand my sense of taste here. While I can point to nits around Kabaneri, I feel that they're only the surface of my reaction to it. I've forgiven more from worse shows and kept watching them, so there's something deep in Kabaneri that just turns me off it.)

Checking in on the Spring 2016 anime season 'midway' through

Once again it's time for a 'midway' (or much of the way through) update on my early impressions of the season. This one is kind of delayed, partly because many shows entered a holding pattern early and partly because I've been blathering away with episode impressions on Twitter. Or at least that's my excuse this time around.

Great:

• Concrete Revolutio: While CR is my favorite show this season, it's been frustratingly inconsistent, partly because it's had a significant number of one off episodes. Some episodes have been amazing, some of have been good, and some have banged thematic drums so hard it was almost deafening. Things have been developing, but I wish the whole season had the sense of forward momentum that the first season had.

• Kiznaiver: I started out wanting more science fiction stuff here, but not any more. Now these people and their interactions have hooked me and I'm happy to leave the whole Kizna system and so on as an excuse to have them bounce off each other. It's a delicate balance and I'm hoping the show can sustain it.

• Flying Witch: Pretty much every episode, this show demonstrates that it knows how to make quiet moments work. Sometimes they're absurd moments, sometimes magical ones, sometimes perfectly normal ones, but they all keep me engaged and enjoying the atmosphere. It's pretty surprising, but I'm really enjoying this and its laid back charm.

  (The show probably wouldn't work without the magic, at least for me.)

Good:

• Macross Delta: The show is solidly made, but only some of it really clicks with me. The other parts are clearly structurally necessary, but not engaging. The show can do good work, but I just wind up feeling distant from it. It doesn't help that I'm not really hooked on any of the characters for various reasons.

• Kuromukuro: This has wound up being a perfectly serviceable SF action show. I like those, and this has some decent character moments and other bits to add to its appeal. It is naturally somewhat less engaging when it drops the action in order to fiddle around with character development and hint at mysterious conspiracies and so on, as it has in a few episodes lately.

• Gakusen Toshi Asterisk: I still like the show and it's still good at all of its usual things, but the unrelenting sameness of the tournament arc has dragged it down and kind of made it a slog. Episode after episode had us in the same fight situation and the same fundamental setup, and it just didn't work.

Okay:

• Twin Star Exorcists: This has developed into a solid show with good character chemistry. It's not exceptional by any means (and it's not even up to Asterisk's normal levels), but it is nicely entertaining and I enjoy its unusual visual style and periodic deliberate absurdities. One thing that makes it work is that the interactions of the protagonists are refreshingly devoid of pretty much all of the romance/LN cliches; these are people who can talk to each other and who get over things.

• My Hero Academia aka Boku no Hero Academia: This is excellent fundamental material being dragged down significantly by a glacial pace. Episode after episode we get perhaps ten minutes of material that must be padded out to 24 minutes in various bad ways.

On the edge:

• Haifuri: This show has two flaws; it hasn't fully committed to any of the various things it's done, and it doesn't understand how to stage and direct interesting action sequences. It's just entertaining enough to keep me watching it while I drink a cup of coffee.

• Space Patrol Luluco: As Emily Rand has written about, the fanservice references have eaten the show lately. At this point I'm mostly watching because apparently there's a big Evangelion parody in the last episode. If the show ever really cared about the allusions it was apparently making in the first few episodes, it's stopped now.

Dropped:

• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: After four episodes I still didn't really care about any of the characters and there were all sorts of things that irritated me about the show, so the end of the first arc seemed like a good place to get off this particular train. One of the primary irritations is that it was clear that the show ran primarily on 'rule of cool', yet wanted me to take it seriously. Sorry, show, you can't combine those two (or at least Kabaneri wasn't good enough to pull it off).

  (I'm actually peculiarly happy that I've dropped Kabaneri for reasons that don't fit in this entry.)

This is a pretty solid season so far. My top three shows are all great and I'm solidly enjoying most of the remaining shows (Haifuri is partly coasting on inertia, much like Luck & Logic last season).

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.)