Hello all, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. I ran through a fresh bevy of films this week, with some fresh horror picks in keeping with the season, along with a classic that had been sitting on my list for months. There was some “how many horror classics have you seen” quiz going around on twitter a couple weeks ago, and when it turned out I’d only seen around fifty-five or so of the one hundred entries, I felt consumed by a deep shame, and determined to improve my ratio. So of course, I ended up watching a couple no-name horror flicks with no lasting cultural legacy whatsoever, but hey, one step at a time here. Incidentally, I also watched some actual goddamn anime this week, so you can look forward to at least a few words in that direction, too. All this and… well, yeah, pretty much exactly this, as we run down one more Week in Review!
Tag Archives: Overlord
Summer 2015 – First Half in Review
The summer halfway point has arrived! As per long-hallowed tradition, the season halfway point is always celebrated with my first and only show ranking of the season, emphasizing the fundamental ridiculousness of lists through the double-stacked ridiculousness of listing shows that are only halfway over. This is perhaps (definitely) a meaningless exercise, but hey, it gives me a reasonably coherent topic to cover when shows are generally just sort of durdling around and gearing up for their final push. This season’s a bit unusual ranking-wise, in that as far as “actual real serious-business shows go,” it’s basically just Gatchaman Crowds insight versus an empty field. Classroom Crisis has its moments but is far too inconsistent to consider great, and everything else I’m watching falls somewhere into “enjoyable popcorn garbage.” Can you… rank… garbage?
Yeah, of course you can fucking rank garbage. I may be watching Prison School, but I’m certainly not watching Sky Wizards Academy, and there are damn good reasons for that. So let’s take a fine-tooth comb to this season’s pee jokes and snake-fucking and RUN THESE SHOWS DOWN.
Summer 2015 – Week 5 in Review
Nearing the halfway point again! And once again, I’m gonna keep things loose and flowing here for the week in review. When I’ve only got a couple episodes worth actually talking about, and I’m already covering one of them in great essay-sized blocks for ANN, I gotta do what I can to fill your Wednesdays with criticism and joy. So let’s run down all the random crap I’ve been watching, starting at the top with G-G-GATCHAMANNNN.
Summer 2015 – Week 4 in Review
Wednesday has come again! And I’m at a bit of a loss. As I’ve mentioned before, the fact that I’m watching so little this season means these week in review posts feel a little barren to me. So I’m gonna take that situation as a chance to experiment a bit – get a little looser and more conversational with the style, and actually cover how my “week in anime” really was, and not just blurbs about the specific airing shows.
So how was this week in anime?
It was extremely damn good, actually. Because I’m not being overwhelmed with airing shows and am somewhat ahead on my ANN work, I was able to get to a bunch of backlog stuff. I’ve got a pretty diverse mix of shows I’m watching now, but I guess we can start with the stuff that actually was airing. Let’s run it down!
Summer 2015 – Week 3 in Review
Welp, there’s no way around it – this is probably the most underwhelming season since I started watching seasonally. Basically the only new show I’m legitimately enthusiastic about is Classroom Crisis, and even that’s just “hey, this is pretty okay, I hope it turns out well.” Aside from Gatchaman Crowds insight, there’s nothing this season on the level of the top three from either of the last two seasons, and things only get more dire in the midrange. This week I’m serving pink slips to both Rokka and Himouto-chan, leaving me with… four new shows I’m watching? Jeez.
Welp, always time for backlog! All this dropping will hopefully give me time to get through Love Live S2 in time for the movie (seeing it in theaters, YEP), and maybe even watch some old classics! If that happens, I’ll likely be adding those to this space, since hey, what else am I gonna talk about? Gotta write about something.
Anyway, let’s run this sad-sack collection down!
Summer 2015 – Week 2 in Review
Summer season has begun! This may turn out to be just a depressing chronicle of me dropping a whole bunch of shows the moment I continue them, but hey, I gotta do what I gotta do. Basically everything I started this season was in the “okay I guess, I’ll give it another episode” range, and second episodes rarely end up being dramatic improvements over first ones. They often give you a better indication of where the show will consistently go now that it’s gotten over its hook/pilot, but they don’t tend to dazzle as much as the premier. So let’s run down a bunch of also-rans, and see if I end up watching anything more than my sworn writeup duties!
Summer 2015 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
Here we go again. With preview week basically over (I’ll add the last couple if/when they show up), it’s time to run down every last goddamn show I’ve watched, including basically every full-length non-sequel premier of the season. That is a disturbing amount of anime, and so today you will be receiving a disturbing amount of High Quality Content. Not high quality anime, mind you, but certainly plenty of Content. Although actually, this season’s premiers largely turned out much less disappointing than I’d expected – there were disappointments and surprises, but the overall crop was fairly reasonable. That comes with a couple caveats, of course. First, there’s the plain that that first episodes lie – they trick you and torture you, stringing you along with one good idea and then collapsing into mediocrity. And second, while there were plenty of “good enough” shows, there were basically no highlights, and many of the reasonable shows are just “good for this genre.” So, like, I gave a three to Monster Musume and Actually, I Am…, but that’s a three harem and a three harem-romcom. Plenty of the shows I think are “generally fine” I will not actually be following – in fact, there’s a decent chance I only stick with the top three.
Anyway! I’ll run things down by broad category, and you can make your own judgments from there. LET’S GET TO IT.
Summer 2015 Season Preview
What, you guys want MORE anime? There’s plenty of good anime still sitting there on your table! There’s Euphonium and Oregairu and BBB, and I hear people over on twitter are even watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes! There’s good shows from the last few years and good shows from before Ghibli was even a thing, and you’re here complaining that you need something new? Typical. Just friggin’ typical. You know, this is the problem with anime fans these days – the second you have something good, it’s already old news. There’s no pleasing you!
Well, I for one have had enough, and in light of my disgust with your attitude, I’ve been talking with the heads of anime, and they’ve all agreed. You guys don’t deserve more anime, and so this summer, you’re going to have to survive on like 2.5 new shows worth watching. We’ll see how much you clamor for new toys when the season lineup is Gatchaman Crowds and then Six Days Without Gatchaman Crowds. Have fun.
Alright, let’s run down what shows seem at least moderately tolerable. And remember, this is on you.
(also, as always, you can check out the full list at anichart, where you can also get synopses if you want them. I’m just going to be running down why I’m compelled to highlight any of these shows)