And with preview week firmly in the past, it’s time to return to our scheduled week in review. So far, this season is actually turning out better than I’d hoped – I didn’t really expect most of the shows in my own preview post to actually end up doing well, and having two legitimately excellent shows in a season is basically all I can hope for from any season. Between Erased and Genroku Rakugo, we’re already there – both of those shows impressed with strong premieres and followed through with consistent second episodes. And even beyond the highlights, there’s a reasonable crop of middle-tier shows as well, depending on your own genre tastes. The season is strong enough that I’m currently deciding to be truly ruthless, and cut off both Utawarerumono and Iron-Blooded Orphans until I feel compelled either personally or through general fan noise to pick them back up again. There are too many good shows in the world to waste time watching things I’m not enjoying.
Category Archives: Week in Review
Winter 2016 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
All of our new shows have turned in their final assignments, and the testing period is over. Who will rise, who will fall, who will entertain us mightily for a few weeks only to slowly sink into a mire of mediocrity and disappointment – all these questions lie ahead, but for now, we can already viciously judge the labor of thousands of animators based on our first impressions of their new creations. I knew from before this season even began that it would be a relatively light one, but with that in mind, the haul here is actually pretty solid. We had a couple truly great premieres, a few more shows that demonstrate either potential or reasonable genre chops, and The Rest. There’s always going to be a The Rest, but as long as anime continues to produce just a couple shows that justify our nostalgic Stockholm Syndrome every season, this unhealthy relationship can keep chugging merrily along. Let’s start right at the top of the list and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Winter 2016 – First Impressions, Part Two
The week keeps chugging along, and mediocre shows keep piling up one by one. It seems this really will be a light season, but I don’t really need that many airing shows to feel content, and it’s looking like we’ll just about manage that. To accompany ERASED’s excellent premiere, Showa Genroku Rakujo Shinji turns in perhaps my favorite first episode so far, and BBK/BRNK pulls off a classic action-adventure opening strong enough to almost make up for its hideous, soul-breaking CG characters. I’m guessing we’ll only get one or two more watchable shows out of the remaining picks, but if that just means more time for Hyouka, I’m perfectly okay with that. Anime may be mostly bad, but “mostly bad” spread out across several decades of releases means we’ve still got plenty of backlog to get through.
You can check out the overall list of shows over at ANN, or scroll on down for my new scores and links to individual reviews. Anime ho!
Winter 2016 – First Impressions, Part One
A new season has begun, and I’m already well into the friggin’ preview guide. I mentioned back in my initial season preview that this looked to be a particularly dire season, and the shows so far have unfortunately born that out even more emphatically than I’d assumed. That list of shows only had eight new entries in the first place, and of those eight, two have turned out strong so far, three have disappointed me, one hasn’t been picked up for streaming yet, and one likely isn’t even airing this season. It’s a hard time for all of us, but as long as backlogs exist, I should be the only person who actually has to suffer. There have been a couple strong premieres so far, and there’s always the chance one of the season’s wildcards will impress, so there’s no reason to give up hope yet. Let’s keep the anime faith alive!
You can check out the full list of shows covered so far over at ANN, or check below for my list of scores and links to individual reviews. LET’S GET TO IT.
2015 – Year in Review
Aw dang, it’s Wednesday. That technically makes it time for the week in review, but there’s a bit of a problem – most of the shows I was watching have actually ended, so I don’t really have much to talk about. I’ve already written enough words about Beautiful Bones to last several lifetimes, and I even covered IBO on my ask.fm, so in the absence of much to discuss, I guess I’m just gonna pack this one in. Cya next time, guys!
Alright, clearly I’m not doing that. I wouldn’t have written that opening paragraph in the first place if I was just going to end it there. Instead, let’s do the very stupidest and most labor-intensive thing to replace the week in review. It’s December 30th, 2015 has been a pretty interesting year for me, and I might as well take a brief moment to look back. Let’s turn our eyes back to the year that was and RUN IT DOWN.
Fall 2015 – Week 12 in Review
I don’t tend to enjoy writing negative stuff. If I can make some kind of upbeat game or challenge out of it, like I did when writing about Strike Witches or Dragonar Academy, it can be pretty okay – but when it’s just a grim reporting of disappointment and failure, continuing week after week, that’s just the saddest kind of writing. I like being enthusiastic about stuff, and sharing that enthusiasm with people, and lately it’s been feeling like my week in review posts are just too dang negative. But like all good critics, I’m going to remain confident the problem isn’t with me, it’s with the media. I’m just watching too many bad shows! I’ve got bad shows I’m watching on contract and bad shows I’m watching on faith and mediocre shows I’m watching for their occasional glimmers of greatness. If not for all these bad shows, everything would be fine.
So yeah, I’m looking forward to next season. The only show I’ll really be sad to see go is Owarimonogatari, and that one ended so well that I can’t even complain (plus hey, Kizu’s on its way). Other than that, this shambling collections of rejects and ne’er-do-wells can just shuffle on into the past, and we can embrace a whole new collection of anime hopes and dreams. Plus I’ll be posting my top ten shows of the year about a week from now, and it doesn’t really get more positive than that! This cloud shall pass, but for now, let’s take a somewhat skeptical look back at this week’s shows and RUN ‘EM DOWN.
Fall 2015 – Week 11 in Review
This week in anime wasn’t the best, I’m sad to say. My reliable favorites were reliable-to-great, but… well, there are only two of those. And everything else kinda let me down. I feel like I’ve more or less set myself up for disappointment this season – instead of accepting that it’s a bad season and relying wholly on backlist shows to get me through, I’ve basically just assumed a handful of shows are permanently in “dud episodes” and keep feeling disappointed when they consistently prove their dud episodes are actually just their normal episodes. It’s no way to live, frankly, and I don’t actually know if next season offers any escape – considering how tentative my excitement is for basically everything on my preview list, it seems pretty likely that Monogatari and Iron-Blooded Orphans will be next season’s best shows, too.
But I don’t mean to depress you. Even if this week’s shows were bad (and even when it comes to what I was reviewing for ANN, they were), that doesn’t mean I don’t have stuff to say about ’em. And hey, not every show tripped on its face – in fact, Owarimonogatari pulled off an episode that I’d probably count among the best of the year. So let’s put on a brave face, assume a stiff upper lip, and contort your muscles in any other way you feel appropriate as we RUN ‘EM DOWN.
Fall 2015 – Week 10 in Review
We’re approaching the end of the season, which at this point means we’re also approaching the end of the year. On a seasonal level, this means shows have really stopped pulling out too many surprises – Perfect Insider and One Punch Man demonstrated some welcome strengths over the last few weeks, but even they seem to be settling into a rhythm for the finales. And on an annual level, this means holy crap it’s time to do all that end-of-the-year nonsense! I’ve more or less settled on my top ten shows of the year, and am working my butt off to manage that list, weekly reviews, actual full show reviews, and regular current project articles for all you lovely people. It’s been an extremely busy week on basically all those fronts; I spent a great deal of last week barreling through way too many episodes of Black Lagoon, and this past weekend I also managed to sneak in the excellent When Marnie Was There. All those and many more attractions in this here week in review! Let’s RUN IT ALL DOWN!
Fall 2015 – Week 9 in Review
This week in anime was really good! Super good, in fact! It wasn’t just held up by one or two shows – almost every show I’m watching (aside from Beautiful Bones, but that doesn’t really count) either held strong or pulled off one of its best episodes, and a bunch of these episodes even demonstrated strengths their shows hadn’t previously exhibited. The Perfect Insider was full of strong character moments, Owarimonogatari returned to the beautiful art designs of arcs long past, and One Punch Man succeeded not just as an animation showcase, but as an emotional drama. I’ve got all sorts of good things to say about these episodes, so let’s get right to it and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Fall 2015 – Week 8 in Review
It’s Wednesday again, which means time once more for the ol’ week in anime! And this week in anime was… well, it was a week in anime. Not really all that much to report, frankly – pretty much everything maintained a fairly even keel, acting more or less in the ways you’d expect them to act. The biggest outlier this time was The Perfect Insider, in that it was both very good and good in ways that defied standard expectations, but everything else existed within its expected parameters. That said, there’s still plenty of finer details to sift through, and I actually watched a fair amount of non-weekly anime this week, so don’t worry, I’ll make today’s tour worth your while. So pull up a comfortable chair and let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN.