Category Archives: Week in Review

Summer 2018 – Week 3 in Review

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Holy crap it’s already week three. This season’s extremely drawn-out preview schedule, along with my own vast wisdom in going on vacation directly after preview week, mean it’s taken me a quarter of the season to actually get any sort of handle on this season, and at this point I still haven’t really settled on a schedule. I’m almost certainly keeping up with Revue Starlight, My Hero Academia and Planet With are sticking around no matter what, but beyond that it’s basically open war between Angolmois, Banana Fish, Hanebado, and like three different reasonable comedies.

So far, Angolmois is the only one of that second set that I’ve actually caught up on, but it turns out I still had plenty to say about this week’s shows. Starting with the lovable dorks of class 1-A, let’s talk some shows and run this week down!

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Summer 2018 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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Well folks, the premieres have mostly crash-landed at this point, and it’s finally time to start sifting through the wreckage. My work on the ANN preview guide means I’ve personally watched basically every non-sequel premiere, and thus have a moral responsibility to share my knowledge, lest anyone else suffer this terrible burden. Every new season comes with somewhere around thirty relevant new productions, and it is absolutely not worth anyone’s (unpaid) time to watch all those shows, so today I’ll be breaking down this season’s premieres into vague tiers for your perusal. As always, I should clarify that this isn’t meant to be a hard, “objective” list or anything – I personally think I’m pretty okay at critiquing narrative/aesthetic craft and whatnot, but we all bring unique and valid perspectives to art, and so my list can’t really amount to much more than “I thought this was pretty cool.” Ultimately, if you’re a fan of some show’s given genre, most anime are at least watchable – but hey, you’re here and reading this, so you might as well check out my thoughts.

You can check out the full list of shows/reviews over at ANN, or just keep reading as we run through the season’s offerings. I should also mention that not everything actually has had its premiere yet, and thus last-minute challengers could still shake up the season (looking at you, Revue Starlight). And finally, this season I’ll be delegating the job of tier designation to Chitanda Eru, who I’m certain will do a phenomenal job. Let’s start with the season’s all stars and run through some premieres!

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Summer 2018 – First Impressions, Part Two

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Alright, looks like I’ve got at least half an hour or so before the next flood of shows arrives, so let’s take stock with another first impressions post! I am currently utterly overwhelmed by the volume of new releases, but fortunately, it already seems like this season is shaping up to be an unexpected solid one. Pretty much all the shows I was hoping would be good pulled off strong first episodes, but even unexpected contenders like Chio’s School Road and Asobi Asobase have turned out to have plenty to recommend them. As usual, you can click through here to check out the full ANN list, or look below for all of my new scores and links to individual reviews. Let’s get right to it!

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Summer 2018 – First Impressions, Part One

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The summer season has finally arrived! Normally the advent of a new season is a little bittersweet, since it means saying goodbye to a bunch of other beloved shows, but no-o-o-ooot this time. Not only did this year’s spring season kinda suck generally, but its two best shows, My Hero Academia and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, are continuing on regardless. That means I’ve got basically no regrets coming into this new season, and am fully prepared to be dazzled by whatever comes. So far, “whatever comes” has mostly been HANEBADO and a bunch of easy skips, but hey, that’s how it goes when you’re checking out absolutely everything. As usual, you can check out ANN’s full list of reviews right here, or hit the jump for my individual rankings and links to those specific reviews. Let’s get to it!

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Spring 2018 – Week 13 in Review

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The spring season was basically over this week, and preview week has already started its unholy charge, so this is gonna be a light and breezy week in anime. We’ve basically just got My Hero Academia and Megalo Box to cover, and that’s such a limited “group” that I can’t even waste a paragraph rambling about the overall tenor of my weekly viewing experience. My Hero Academia was bad, Megalo Box was good, and they are the only shows I have to talk about. Let’s see if we can stretch that summation into a little more substance, and start with the bad news as we RUN THIS WEEK DOWN!

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Spring 2018 – Week 12 in Review

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Week twelve, you guys. The season is basically over, and we’ve already arrived at the end of June. How could this possibly happen? I feel like I was still settling on what to watch this season just a couple weeks ago, and now we’re saying goodbye to Hinamatsuri as Joe preps for his very last match. The uncharitable reality might just be that this season was never able to establish much of an identity for me; neither My Hero Academia nor Legend of the Galactic Heroes are shows I’d considered tethered to this particular moment, while Megalo Box will likely end up a low entry on my end-of-year list and Hinamatsuri will shuffle off into fun but kinda trifling seasonal memory. But while the season as a whole might not be much to speak of, this particular week in anime was strong all around, demonstrating there are damn good reasons I’ve kept up with this particular catalog. Any week that adopts one of my favorite scenes from My Hero Academia can’t be that bad, and this week’s episode did everything it could to do that sequence justice. Let’s start right off with that then, and run this week down!

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Spring 2018 – Week 11 in Review

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This week in anime was Holy shit did you see that My Hero Academia episode. I’m sure other stuff happened, but oh my god, All Might versus All For One, what an incredible event. Easily the best episode of the season, and possibly eclipsing the Deku-Todoroki fight as the best episode of the show altogether. Fortunately, while All Might’s battle cast a long shadow this week, everything else I was watching also turned in reasonably solid performances. The theme of this week seemed to be “strong execution of fundamentally iffy material,” as Hinamatsuri managed to turn a one-joke bit into a highlight, Megalo Box did its best to work around the Burroughs fight’s dramatic limitations, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes spun drama out of “our supply lines are getting overdrawn and everyone back at command is an idiot.” It’s frankly nice to not be watching anything whose wild, flailing fortunes could stress me out – there are no temperamental half-masterpieces here, it’s all sturdy productions by very consistent teams. But anyway, let’s get right back into the All Might gushing and RUN THIS WEEK DOWN!

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Spring 2018 – Week 10 in Review

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Another week of anime has come and gone, drawing us ever closer to the end of this altogether lukewarm season. I can’t really say I’ll be missing this one, as half of my airing schedule are actually long-running shows that just so happened to cross this season (LoGH and MHA), while the other half hasn’t really been memorable enough to stick with me. This week was an unfortunate low ebb for most of what I’m watching, as My Hero Academia kinda stumbled in conveying a key manga moment, while Megalo Box couldn’t quite find enough emotional substance in its requisite “the band is breaking up” conflict. Meanwhile, Hinamatsuri seems to be running out of gas for a few of its running jokes, while Legend of the Galactic Heroes… well actually, Legend of the Galactic Heroes is pretty much always great. Let’s start with that then, and open with some positive thoughts about cynical themes as we run this week down!

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Spring 2018 – Week 9 in Review

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This week in anime was dominated by the shows that tend to be the benchwarmers, as both Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Hinamatsuri stepped up while Megalo Box and My Hero Academia each settled for more conventional episodes. That was totally fine by me – to be honest, the kind of things that Galactic Heroes and Hinamatsuri are good at appeal to me far more than the things Megalo Box and MHA generally succeed in, so I was happy to see them offer some new highlights. Hinamatsuri is just such an idiosyncratic thing, defined by a comic sensibility that clearly stands out among anime comedies, and matching that sense of humor with a confidence that lets it pull off eight minute segments dedicated to single extended jokes. Let’s start off with those wacky psychic shenanigans and run this week down!

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Spring 2018 – Week 8 in Review

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Week in Review. With Legend of the Galactic Heroes taking the week off, my week in anime lost twenty-five percent of its volume, but worked hard to make up for in quality what it lacked in quantity. This week’s My Hero Academia was mostly just “solid original material (plus one highlight), adapted competently,” but both Hinamatsuri and Megalo Box knocked it out of the park, demonstrating both their consistent strengths and a variety of new tricks. Those two make for a pretty weird combination, but between them they cover an oddly exhaustive range of the stuff I look for in anime – stylish action, tactically-minded sports narratives, warm comedy, charming character pieces, etc. I’m basically just missing “auteur-directed,” “strong romance,” “themey-wemey show,” and “psychological drama” on my bingo sheet, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes is generally happy to hold down the theme fort. The anime is good and even these three shows have offered me plenty to talk about, so let’s get right down to another week in review!

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