The anime was, uh, brief this week. Just Because!’s production woes finally flowered into an entire week off, while my persistent issues with neo-Kino’s Journey led to me finally dropping it. Outside of those missing contenders, things didn’t actually get that much better – I had issues with this week’s MMO Junkie, Love Live, and Juni Taisen, leaving it to just March and Lustrous to carry the banner. Fortunately, those two performed admirably, with Land of the Lustrous in particular continuing a pretty much unbroken streak of excellent episodes. With Kino out of the picture, it’s likely time to actually pick up Girls’ Last Tour, but that unfortunately has to come after actual work-related shows. Hopefully that’ll make it in by next week, and in the meantime, let’s run down this week’s unfortunately lackluster offerings!
Category Archives: Week in Review
Fall 2017 – First Half in Review
Well, we’ve arrived at the halfway point again. 2017 feels likely to be remembered as a key year in humanity’s overall decline, but at least this fall season’s Japanese cartoons were pretty good. As usual, I’ll be doing my pointless mid-season rankings today, and jotting down some overall thoughts on the shows I’m watching so far. These rankings are always meaningless, but given there are a fair number of admittedly great shows I’m already not watching purely because of time constraints, you can rest assured that I’m solidly enjoying everything that actually makes this list. Side M, Girls’ Last Tour, Ancient Magus’ Bride… I’d be happy to keep up with any of those shows in a lighter season, and will hopefully find the time to swing back and pick them up later. As for now, I’ll try to be at least a little ruthless in breaking down where I think my active contenders stumble and soar. Let’s get right to the list!
Fall 2017 – Week 5 in Review
Dear lord is the anime good you guys. The anime is so, so good. Even the shows I’ve been kinda so-so on, like Kino’s Journey and March comes in like a lion, turned in all-star performances this week. Last season’s emptiness seems to be getting paid back in full this season, as Fall 2017 is pretty much offering everything I want in anime. A thoughtful, subtly executed character drama? Just Because! A rambling, evocative thematic treatise? Kino’s Journey. An over-the-top but still character-focused action spectacle? Juni Taisen. And all those pillars are strongly bolstered by plenty of other shows, including TWO, that’s right, TWO actually funny comedies. We very rarely get seasons this good, and I’m doing my best to appreciate every minute of it. LET’S RUN THIS WEEK’S EPISODES DOWN!
Fall 2017 – Week 4 in Review
The anime is just gonna keep being good, I guess! Fall 2017 continues to be one hell of a season, offering a wide variety of strong shows that so far haven’t really faltered at all. If anything, the fact that this season, and particularly its surprise hits, have been so consistently strong is prompting me to be a little harsher to shows I’d otherwise be happily accommodating. In this case, it means that I’m probably parting ways with The Ancient Magus’ Bride. The manga’s adaptation is perfectly “okay,” but “okay” is just not enough this season – I’m not getting anything out of the anime that I didn’t get out of the more tightly composed manga, and meanwhile, we’ve got stuff like MMO Junkie and Juni Taisen totally blowing me away every single week. I’m sorry Chise, but your adventures turned out to be late by exactly one season. Let’s set that sad parting aside and run the rest of this week down!
Fall 2017 – Week 3 in Review
Well hell guys, I guess the anime is just gonna keep being good. Love Live and Kino’s Journey actually stepped up their game this week, and everything else seems to be holding steady. My schedule still can’t really handle this number of shows, so after last week saw me letting go of Girls’ Last Tour (which was actually great!), this week I’m taking a break from SideM (which is also great!). There’s not really anything wrong with either of those shows, but I’m just a slow watcher with a lot on my plate, so they’ll have to wait for a rainy day. Outside of that, this continues to be the strongest season of the year, with major highlights in basically every genre I care about. It’s also wonderful to have a season where not one, but two of my top choices were shows that weren’t even on my radar coming in. Anime is still full of surprises!
Fall 2017 – Week 2 in Review
Hey guys, it’s time for the Week in Review. I got pretty complacent over the summer season, what with the total absence of watchable anime and all. With only three shows to write about weekly, I was able to show off by tossing in random episodes of Game of Thrones and Rick and Morty, adding content and still not having to write as much as usual. But here in Fall 2017, the Week in Review has come roaring back. As I write this opening paragraph, I’ve still got maybe half a dozen shows left to watch, and that’s after already getting through five this week. Sanity will demand I cut my schedule down to reasonable size at some point, but for now, you all get to enjoy the hard-fought fruits of my endless labor. From a season of drought, we’ve arrived at a season where the anime is just too damn good. Make up your minds, you friggin’ cartoons.
Alright, enough grumbling. Let’s start wherever we can and run this towering week down!
Fall 2017 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
A new anime season has begun! As it turns out, in spite of last season’s incredibly tepid lineup, the reports of anime’s demise were greatly exaggerated. This season is looking to easily be the strongest of the year overall, and likely one of the best single seasons in the past several years. Offering phenomenal shows in a wide variety of genres, a strong mix of sequels, originals, and adaptations, and an absurdly deep bench, Fall 2017 looks to be one for the record books. After a season where my weekly diet was “Made in Abyss and Tsuredure Children,” it feels nice to actually have to pick and choose what I have time to watch.
As usual, my work on ANN’s preview guide has given me an exhaustingly full perspective on the season’s offerings, and so I’m here today to rank my selections from the highest highs to the lowest lows. I’ll be grouping shows by vague, perhaps even meaningless tiers, and trying to offer a brief summation of my overall feelings. All of these titles will also have links to the guide itself, so if you want my more extended and theoretically professional critiques, click on through and search for Nick Creamer. Let’s start at the top and run this season down!
Fall 2017 – First Impressions, Part Two
Preview week is trying to kill me. There were eleven separate premieres yesterday, and we’ve somehow got more hell week to come. None of that matters to you guys, though – all you have to deal with are the desperate, bloodstained fruit of my endless labor. As it turns out, this particular preview week is revealing one of the most promising seasons we’ve had in years, and I’ve got previews of all the new contenders ready for your perusal. You can check out the full list of shows over at ANN, or find my scores and links to individual previews down below. Please enjoy!
Fall 2017 – First Impressions, Part One
A new season has come again, which means I’m currently buried in previews for all manner of shows. That actually hasn’t been so bad this time, courtesy of the fact that anime is apparently good again. From shows I was looking forward to to shows entirely outside my wheelhouse, this has been an extremely promising first few days, offering either actual highlights or at least reasonable genre takes in a wide variety of styles. Basically any season would feel like a relief after this summer, but this season seems like it’ll be a real stunner in its own right!
As always, you can check out the full list of previews over at ANN, or click below for links to my individual writeups (if you didn’t know, I’m Nick Creamer over there). Happy show hunting!
Summer 2017 – Week 13 in Review
At last, another season has come to an end. This one wasn’t a particularly auspicious season, but hey, it happens – sometimes the best shows are in genres I don’t really care for, sometimes I sleep on the wrong shows (sorry, Princess Principal), and sometimes there just aren’t that many things worth watching. Even if the airing catalog wasn’t very deep this time, I had a great time with My Hero Academia, Tsuredure Children, and Made in Abyss, and also found lots of time to watch a whole bunch of older anime. The backlog is basically an infinite yawning gulf of quality entertainment, and no matter how much I tear at it, my expanding genre palette just seems to make it broader and darker all the time. With a very promising season coming up, let’s take a few moments to say goodbye to summer’s final stalwarts. Starting with those lovable kids of Class 1-A, let’s run this week down!