Category Archives: Week in Review

Fall 2017 – Week 2 in Review

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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!

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Fall 2017 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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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!

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Fall 2017 – First Impressions, Part Two

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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!

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Fall 2017 – First Impressions, Part One

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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!

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Summer 2017 – Week 13 in Review

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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!

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Summer 2017 – Week 12 in Review

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With Tsuredure Children having already ended, there really wasn’t all that much anime to sift through this week. We’re entering the seasonal Dead Zone now, where our only comforts are the shows that started awkwardly late, a procession of extended goodbyes that can sometimes stumble all the way into the following season. I’m certainly ready for this unfortunate season to end, but now that we’re at the brink, it’s tough to think that I’ll no longer be getting new weekly installments of My Hero Academia. The show’s second season has been a revelation after the somewhat questionable first act, consistently elevating inherently great material and just generally demonstrating how fun a good shounen adventure can be. With JoJo Part Five nowhere in sight and Hunter x Hunter far in the rear view, my weeks will be cloudier for lacking a great punch-stuff story. Symphogear, please rescue us soon.

Anyway, enough lamenting. Let’s start with the dregs and run this week down!

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Summer 2017 – Week 11 in Review

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It’s time again for the week in review! This week in anime was… acceptable, I guess? When you’re only really hanging any hopes on three shows, the caliber of your week is pretty easy to diagnose. And this particular week, all the things I’m caring about pulled off episodes that were reasonable, but not exceptional. On the plus side, Rick and Morty’s third season continued to impress, offering a replacement for interdimensional cable that easily eclipsed that tradition’s lukewarm reprise. And hey, we’re basically at the end of the season anyway. If this fart of a season wants to go quietly into the night, I won’t complain. Either way, let’s start with the anime frontrunners and run this week down!

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Summer 2017 – Week 10 in Review

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Let’s strap in for the week in review! We’re nearing the end of the season now, but it doesn’t really feel like it, at least from my perspective. With My Hero Academia simply ending a fairly minor arc and Tsuredure Children sticking largely to self-contained skits, Made in Abyss is the only show providing me with all that much closure – and even there, this week’s episode felt more like the introduction to a new stage in Riko’s adventure than anything truly final. But climactic or not, this week’s Abyss was a stunner in all regards, the dramatic payoff to all these weeks of knowing fandom titters. So let’s start right there, and then ramble our way through this week’s choicest offerings!

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Summer 2017 – Week 9 in Review

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The conclusion of Game of Thrones’ mini-season sadly means these week in review posts will be shrinking again. Fortunately, the shows I still have to talk about were pretty much all excellent this week, offering a varied sample of distinctive pleasures. My Hero Academia started off on an exciting new mini-arc, Made in Abyss constructed a “filler episode” that was more satisfying than plenty of its normal episodes, and Tsuredure Children kept up its endearing shenanigans. Really the only outlier was Classroom of the Elite, and we don’t talk about Classroom of the Elite. Let’s start down in the abyss and work our way up through this week in anime!

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Summer 2017 – Week 8 in Review

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With My Hero Academia taking a week off before the final exam arc, there wasn’t all that much anime to actually watch this week. Made in Abyss maintained its usual speedy pacing and Classroom of the Elite was, er, itself, but that’s about all I’ve got to cover. I suppose it’s a good thing this week also had one last episode of Game of Thrones, or I’d be in real trouble filling out a reasonably article-length post for you all. But let’s start at the top with this week’s cartoons, and see where the rambling takes us!

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