Tag Archives: Saekano

Saekano – Review

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Yep, there was actually a reason I was going back and watching Saekano. REVIEW TIME! If you’ve been checking my week in review posts, you’ll know I haven’t been so hot on the show, and that carries through to the review. Saekano takes elements from a bunch of things I like (Genshiken, Monogatari, TWGOK), but the overall package comes across as just way too lightly felt, scattershot, and indulgent to really drive at the humor and humanity any of those shows find in their weirdo characters. You could construct a good show out of Saekano’s pieces, but Saekano is not that show.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or run through my consistently frustrated episode notes below!

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Summer 2015 – First Half in Review

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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.

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Summer 2015 – Week 5 in Review

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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.

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Winter 2015 – Week 2 in Review

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I am watching too many shows. Way too many shows. Shows on backlog and shows for release review and too many goddamn airing shows. I’ve tried to be ruthless. I cut Saekano because the first few minutes seemed typical. I cut Earth High Defense Club because I just didn’t feel like it. But there’s too much good anime! Too many of the premiers weren’t red herrings, too many of the long shots turned out to be great. I’m not gonna survive this season, you guys. Something’s gonna snap.

Well, whatever. Let’s run ’em down, starting with the last two episodes of Shirobako!

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Winter 2015 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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The preview guide has come to a close, and I covered every damn show except “that Warring States Thing That’s Apparently Just A Worse Sengoku Basara,” so we’ve got plenty to talk about. We get a lot of anime every season, and none of you guys are receiving hazard pay for suffering through the worst of it, so I’m very ready to run down what demands to be watched, what you could maybe watch I guess if you feel like it, and what should be handled with lead-lined gloves and disposed of in a properly licensed waste treatment facility. I wasn’t really expecting much of this season, but the opening episodes ended up offering a stellar first and second tier of shows – yeah, first episodes are often liars, but it’s still nice to start off on the right foot. This post here will give you brief rankings and descriptions of everything I muddled through this week, along with links to the ANN pages containing my longer thoughts. Let’s run them down!

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Winter 2015 – First Impressions, Part One

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The winter season has begun, meaning it’s once again time for my endless, soul-crushing adventure into the preview guide. Winters are fortunately kind of light relative to most seasons, and this winter in particular is completely dominated by sequels, so I won’t be approaching the back-breaking thirty episode flood of fall. There’s still plenty to cover though, and so I’ll be releasing my thoughts in installments.

Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!

First off, here’s the link to the preview guide itself, where you can check out my condensed thoughts on all the shows so far. Blurbs I particularly recommend checking out would be Yuri Kuma Arashi, where I dig into some of the already-apparent symbolism (more of that available in my full episode post from yesterday), and Saekano, where I talk briefly about a recent anime trend I can’t friggin’ stand. My immediate scores for everything are included in the list below (yay, scores), and clicking on any title will jump you to that episode’s full post. Please enjoy!

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