Spring 2018 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

Hey all, and welcome to the Spring 2018 Premiere Retrospective! If you haven’t been here before, here’s the deal: my work at Anime News Network means I end up watching and reviewing nearly every single new premiere in a season. That normally adds up to somewhere between thirty and forty premieres, and given a solid percentage of those premieres tend to be shows I wouldn’t inflict on my worst enemy, it seems like a worthwhile idea to rank these episodes to aid future travelers. As usual, I’m not implying these rankings are “objective” or anything, and obviously my own tastes will dictate a great deal of how things shake out. I also should stress that a show ending up somewhere further down the ranking isn’t necessarily a bad thing – I grumble about it, but in truth, the majority of anime are perfectly watchable, and will likely appeal to an audience who finds their premise intriguing. You can check out the full list of ANN reviews here, and I’ll be grouping my own critiques into vague tiers below. Alright, that’s enough preamble. Let’s rank some shows!

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Spring 2018 Season Preview

It’s that time again, folks. With the winter season entering its final act, it’s time to set our eyes forward to the upcoming season, and start pinning our hopes of anime redemption on whatever shows await beyond the horizon. After a relatively reserved winter season, this spring promises some long-awaited revivals, beloved continuations, and high-profile adaptations, along with a variety of more tentatively exciting productions. There’s no single obvious pick, but plenty of reasons to be excited for what’s on the way. As usual, I won’t be running down the names and synopses for every single upcoming show – you can find out show premises on any site like MAL, and check out the full list of shows over at anichart. I’ll just be focusing on my own personal list – the shows I myself am looking out for, along with the presumably tangible reasons I’m excited for them. Plotted out in vague order of my own hype, let’s break down what stars await in the spring season!

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Summer 2017 – Week 3 in Review

Hey all, and welcome back to the Week in Review. As I mentioned in last week’s post, this season’s utter dearth of watchable shows has left me without all that much material to riff on, meaning that for now, I’ll be extending the Week in Review to basically anything I’ve been up to media-wise over the last week. Even if airing shows aren’t giving me my fix, I am still a loyal consumer of all that nerd media we use to paper over the holes in our lives, and am happy to share my thoughts with you! But for now, let’s start off with the week’s actual anime hits, and see where the journey takes off.

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