The preview guide has begun! The first couple days were a little slow, but we’re really in the thick of it now, with shows coming out way too fast for me to actually review everything goddamnit how am I gonna do this what the hell I quit anime forever.
ANYWAY. I’m a good eight or so shows in at this point, so it seems like as good a time as any to take stock of what we’ve run through to date. The season has actually been vastly outperforming my expectations so far, offering a few shows I’m likely to keep watching and a number of others that keep up some level of respectability regardless. I was expecting both GATE and Charlotte to be the Worst Things Ever, and at least their first episodes were only Bad and Pretty Alright I Guess. Things could very, very easily be worse!
Here’s a link to the overall preview guide, and you can check out numbers and specific review links to what I’ve hit so far below. Anime, ho!
Classroom Crisis – 4/5
Rokka: Brave of the Six Flowers – 4/5
Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace – 3.5/5
Charlotte – 3/5
Ushio and Tora – 3/5
GATE – 2.5/5
Aoharu x Machinegun – 2/5
SHIMONETA – 1/5
I first heard of GATE through a writer I like, Eliezer Yudkowsky, recommending the manga on his blog due to character intelligence. May I ask what it is about the concept that rubs you the wrong way?
Okay, I saw your review, and that actually looks pretty fair. I’ll keep watching on account of my own reasons to be optimistic, but it’s definitely not looking to be anything groundbreaking just by reflecting on episode 1.
I suppose it’s because GATE has a bad fame of being some sort of nationalistic JSDF propaganda piece. Which apparently the first episode didn’t really live up to, but then again, I liked Sword Art Online’s first episode, and look how THAT ended.
Well I wonder, isn’t it because we are so used to ineffectual army representation in anime that when they do their job correctly we think it is nationalistic? At first I had the same reaction, but with more thoughts, I felt they just did their job^^
It’s more about the original novel material really. It’s pretty easy to see the invading armies as a metaphor for the Chinese/Korean, and the whole thing as a power fantasy to sate Japan’s desire for increased influence. Also apparently later in the story USA, China, South Korea and Russia all do shady things to try and get to the portal themselves. Again, haven’t seen the premiere, I’m just talking about what I heard of the source material. The adaptation might as well tone it all down and make it a less controversial modern military vs. generic fantasy armies story, which is potentially a fun and rather harmless concept.
Are you not covering Gatchaman Crowds Insight this season Bobduh?
And what about Durarara?
He still haven’t watched any Durarara!!, so naturally, he’s not covering the second season’s 2nd cour :p
He has a review up there on Gatcha Insights, now. Hopefully he’ll be a regular for it! I read Hope’s much more pessimistic read of the series and liked it, too, but I think Nick’s review articulated a number of details I have yet to see talked about clearly elsewhere.
Rokka has been a very pleasant suprise for me. Liked that first episode quite a bit.
Didn’t even bother checking out the last 3 on your list and as it reads on ANN it’s probably not worth it anyway.
I might give Classroom Crisis a try after reading your review.