Roving Thoughts archives

Checking in on the Summer 2018 anime season 'midway' through

I seem to have settled on a pattern of first episode reactions, early impressions around the fourth episode mark, and these 'midway' views about two thirds of the way through the season (so around episode eight). This point is far enough into the season that most shows have settled into their course and I have pretty solid opinions on them, which makes it a good time to take stock (and sometimes to admit that I've dropped some of them, although not this season).

Excellent:

• Planet With: This has remained a great show, one that's moving at a breakneck pace and with full awareness of what it's doing. The show's full of little touches, fine moments, and excellent characters, and I can't wait for each episode.

  One thing I like about Planet With is how quietly clever and sophisticated it is without rubbing our noses into certain things. Various of the characters and organizations in action in the show are being questionable, but the show is not going to tell us that; it's just going to have some characters say some things, and then show us some stuff, and we can draw our own conclusions. In this it favourably reminds me of UN-GO.

• Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: I've come around to the view that this is an explicitly theatrical show even in its normal side, which makes me accept certain things that I would otherwise consider overdone. It's a solid show in general, and episode 7 has made me even more interested in rewatching the early episodes at some point (although I have no idea if I'm ever going to get around to that, as I'm bad at rewatching things).

  If you're watching Revue Starlight, I'd strongly encourage you to read Atelier Emily's writing on it (but beware of spoilers, you should be completely current on the show before visiting, and @AJtheFourth often publishes new entries on Friday, the day the show comes out in Japan).

Popcorn educational entertainment:

• Cells at Work!: This doesn't have any real characters that I can care about (although it has characterization) and it only sort of has action, but what's kept me watching is that it's both entertaining and educational. I got scraped up a bit recently and having watched Cells at Work! made it a different experience.

  (With that said, I'm not sure it's going to stay interesting as it goes on longer. There's already a feeling that it's reaching for more obscure and less interesting topics.)

Dropped:

• Phantom in the Twilight (#4): I ran out of interest basically immediately after my early impressions, when the next episode seemed to be a 'supernatural creature of the week' episode instead of moving the plot forward and I decided I wasn't that enthused.

This feels like a good season, even though I'm only watching three shows, and I feel like I lived up to my resolution from last season's midway views. Two of the three shows I'm watching are very good, and the third makes for surprisingly compelling educational material with periodic funny bits.

Brief impressions of the Summer 2018 anime season so far

As before it's time for my relatively early views of how this season has shaken out so far, following up on my first episode reactions. At this point I'm three or four episodes into everything I'm still watching, which is long enough for the shows to have shown their cards.

Excellent:

• Planet With: This is a great show and very much one of the kinds of thing that I enjoy. All sorts of things are happening and the show's definitely not making us wait around to get revelations. The characters are pretty great, the events happening are weird and interesting, and the plot twists are one part surprises and one part predictable but not being drawn out. I can't wait for each new episode.

Enjoyable but I'm not sure I understand it:

• Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: There's a lot going on in the show and I'm pretty sure I don't understand it all, even though I find it very interesting to watch. This is the kind of show that feels like I'll get a bunch more out of it on a rewatch. Since the show is so relatively cryptic to me at the moment I don't have much more to say except that I'm enjoying watching, especially the wild spectacular bits.

  (The portions of the character beats that I can follow are interesting too.)

Popcorn entertainment:

• Cells at Work!: I think I'm following this because it's hitting the right combination of entertaining and educational. Without the steady supply of interesting information about how bodies work I probably wouldn't care enough about what's going on; as it is, it's pretty entertaining even if it's a bit predictable.

• Phantom in the Twilight: This is definitely popcorn entertainment (for me) but so far it's kept having enough action and plot twists to keep me watching. I'm not particularly close to any of the characters, but it does have them and they're reasonably interesting. I suspect that it may be about to get mired in more boring material so I'll drop it, but we'll see.

I decided that I wasn't interested enough in either Angolmois or Sirius the Jaeger to give either of them a second episode. Their first episodes were perfectly good action shows but they failed to engage me very much beyond watching the spectacle, and apparently just action spectacle is no longer enough to keep me around (which feels like a change from the past).

Two solid shows and two additional shows for entertainment is down on my past watching levels but it feels about right for me today, and if I wind up dropping the bottom two I don't feel like I'll regret it. Apparently I no longer feel the urge to fill up all of my spare time with anime watching.