Roving Thoughts archives

Brief impressions of the Fall 2018 anime season so far

As before it's time (and well past time) for my no longer early views of how this season has shaken out so far, following up on my first episode reactions. This is another slow season for me, but I'm happy with what I'm actively watching.

Excellent:

• SSSS.Gridman: This is the standout show of the season for me, but not because of the kaiju fights; it's everything else that I really like, especially the character drama. There are all sorts of quiet exceptional things about Gridman that I'm not going to try to summarize here, and anyway many of them are small contributors to its compelling whole.

Good:

• Thunderbolt Fantasy S2: This has been slower than the first season and so not as compelling, but it's still a solid show that is finally starting to develop its tangled complexity, without about three or four things going on at once.

Good popcorn entertainment:

• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I like and fully enjoy this when I get around to watching an episode, but I haven't found watching episodes to be fully compelling and as a result I'm several episodes behind. I have reasons for this, but the fact is that I'm not behind on my other two shows.

  (One reason I don't find this as compelling is that I burned through the manga, so I know what's coming.)

Dropped:

• Release the Spyce (#2): As I put it on Twitter when I got around to watching the second episode, this is a perfectly serviceable show. But at the moment I'm not really interested in a show that I find merely serviceable.

  (I've also heard that Spyce got kind of messy later on.)

• The Girl in Twilight (#1): In the end I opted not to watch more than the first episode, partly because I heard various things about further episodes that didn't really sound like it was something that I wanted to follow.

I feel satisfied with my top two shows, and when I want some popcorn entertainment I have Slime (as I'm calling it). This is way down on my past watching level, but I don't care about that any more; I'm watching what I want to, and not watching things just because I feel that I should.

PS: Given that we're basically in the middle of the season by now, I don't expect to do a midway views entry this time around, although I might change my mind if I decide to drop Slime.

My (Twitter) reactions to the first episodes of the Fall 2018 anime season

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

• Thunderbolt Fantasy S2 episode 1: I can't figure out if Shang was reasonably smart, rather stupid, or both at once. Also, this didn't quite start with the bang that I was expecting; this was more setup than anything else. ♯

• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime episode 1: I enjoyed this as goofy, over the top fun in a genre I have a weakness for, but it's definitely made better by having inhaled the manga first. (Among other things, I liked spotting the changes from the manga.) →

• The Girl in Twilight episode 1: That was an interesting start but as usual it's all setup and doesn't say anything about where the show's going. Still, it's interesting enough to get me to watch the next episode. ♯

• Release the Spyce episode 1: That was a perfectly good and enjoyable experience. It didn't set me on fire, partly because it was a bit too goofy, but the end means they've clearly opted to go big with the show and I can respect that. I'll certainly watch the next episode. ♯

• SSS.Gridman episode #1: Okay, I'm a sucker for shows that start out this way (teasing some mysteries, offering some hints, having weird stuff happen), and the characters are pretty solid too. I actively enjoyed the quiet parts before the action; there was nice interplay there. →

(I made a typo here; SSSS.Gridman has four S's, not three.)

This is all of the first episodes that I feel like looking at at the moment. Other things have gotten praise, but they're in genres that almost never work for me or don't seem appealing on a broad level. And as far as my enthusiasm for this season actually goes, well, I'll have to quote a recent tweet:

I'm backlogged on shows already, but that's because I'd apparently rather play around with Grafana+Prometheus rather than watch anything I have pending (which may say something about what I've got queued). Sorry, Slime show, but I already read the manga. Maybe later.

(This doesn't include either SSSS.Gridman or Thunderbolt Fantasy, both of which I'm enthusiastically watching so far.)