Roving Thoughts archives

Looking back at the Summer 2015 anime season

Once again it's time for my usual look back at the shows I watched this past season to see how my early impressions and my midway views wound up in the end.

Excellent:

• Gatchaman Crowds Insight: In the end the show didn't give us any really easy answers, which is not unexpected; the issues Insight was dealing with aren't problems you can solve easily. Sadly the show felt it had to explain itself to people who might not have gotten it in the last episode, which I wish we could have done mostly without, but on the whole I really liked it.

• Akagami no Shirayuki-hime: This was a late season pickup for me and it wound up totally surprising me with how much I liked it. I wound up writing an entire entry on my views on Shirayuki-hime.

• Senki Zesshou Symphogear GX: It didn't finish as strongly as it started and Hibiki's father is still a putz, but it definitely delivered the Symphogear experience (complete with a surprise or two). The finish wasn't as epic as the first season's, but it would be hard to top that and I enjoyed what we got.

Okay:

• GOD EATER: This was nicely made and I enjoyed what I saw of it, but it never had anything particularly deep or compelling about it. Its production problems were unfortunate, but the delayed remaining episodes have made me realize that I probably don't care enough about this to watch them whenever they wind up coming out.

• Rokka no Yuusha: I don't want to go so far as to say that this was an epic troll, but it kind of was. I liked some of the things the show did and it did play pretty fair with us with the mystery (there was not so much clues as foreshadowing periodically), but I think it misstepped with one story choice and the whole thing just moved slowly.

  (And the second half of the last episode sure had a quality collapse.)

  I don't regret watching Rokka but I have no interest in a second season.

• Ushio to Tora: This remained burning 90s shonen and I enjoyed that part of it. Unfortunately that comes with side orders of periodic bad writing, not enough budget to do the fights really well, and the usual slow moving plot. As a result I've opted not to continue with this after this season; although I generally enjoyed watching it, I didn't enjoy it enough to carry forward into a busy new season.

I finished it:

• GATE: It didn't end so much as stop mid-show, because it's being continued in a season or two. If I'm smart I won't continue it then.

• Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz!: As mentioned in my midway report I picked this up once the fights started. Well, they finished and so did the show. My verdict is that the fights were okay but certainly not up to the standards of episode six of the first series.

The top three shows this season were good (once I picked up Shirayuki-hime) and I think that I'm going to be satisfied with that. I only really watched one thing out of boredom and I more or less knew what I was getting into with it anyways.

(In fact, looking back at my spring views I think that this season was better overall than last season. Last season only had Sound! Euphonium to be consistently great, while this season had three shows I always really enjoyed watching.)

My (Twitter) reactions to the first episodes of the Fall 2015 season

Since I want to do less of my blogging just on Twitter (cf), I've decided to collect here all of my tweeted reactions to the first episodes I've seen (in the order I saw them).

• Heavy Object episode 1: Meh. It's a reasonably well made, reasonably well done generic work. You know the drill by now. →

• Noragami Aragoto episode 1: Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood, but nothing in this episode really (re)hooked me. It was okay but needed a spark. →

• K - Return of Kings episode 1: It was fun to get back together with these people, but not much actually happened this episode. ♯

• Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry ep 1: This is a decently competent and essentially generic instance of what it is. You know all the parts by now. ♯

• Utawarerumono - Itsuwari no Kamen ep 1: All setup, no hook. As setup goes it was okay & different than usual, but that's not really enough. ♯

• Gakusen Toshi Asterisk episode 1: This is clearly LN based, but wow, it actually has energy and knows how to be interesting and intriguing. →

• One Punch Man episode 1: This was okay and I smiled a few times, but the next episode better have a whole new set of jokes. →

• Concrete Revolutio episode 1: However crazy and stylish this was, it was once again a case of all setup and basically no hook. →

• Comet Lucifer episode 1: At least there's something like a hook here, even if it feels like they crammed too many obscure hints in this ep. →

• Iron-Blooded Orphans episode 1: It's a giant robot war story. It's cliched but not abjectly stupid, and sometimes clever and a bit subtle. →

• Owarimonogatari episode 1: On the one hand, that sure was a lot of talking and nothing else. On the other hand, I did stay interested in it. ♯

• Perfect Insider episode 1: That was interesting in a way that most shows aren't, even if I have no idea where it's going or what it's about. ♯

• Garo - The Crimson Moon episode 1: I'm sad to say that there's no special reason to care about this, no special spark like the original. →

• Sakurako-san episode 1: That was decent, but it would have been a bunch better without the LN protagonist and the need for him. ♯

• Hidan no Aria AA: nope. Just nope. In the short amount I watched this did less than nothing to offset my bad memories of the original. ♯ (also, and I'd have been happier listening to myself about giving it a try)

Anything with a → link has additional discussion in the replies to my tweet (sometimes more tweets from me, sometimes talking with other people).

(Having done this by hand once, clearly I need to automate it for next season. Or at least do it piece by piece as I make these tweets, instead of well after the fact.)