Time again for the ol’ season preview, where I run down everything that looks mildly interesting next season. This time that’s actually pretty easy, considering virtually everything I’m enticed by is either a sequel or a second half. Unfortunately (well, for me anyway), that really just means the actual madness will have to wait until I watch everything else for the preview guide anyway. As usual, my preview won’t actually cover everything – it’s easy enough to check out the full list at anichart if you’re interested in checking out the other shows, if you want to for some dumb reason. Winter is looking a great deal more manageable than fall, but winters are always kind of sparse, and there’s certainly still some cartoons to look for. Let’s run ‘em down!
Tag Archives: Anime
Sword Art Online II – Episode 21
This episode was basically Sword Art Online in a nutshell. Fun action setpieces that are sometimes undercut by their own lack of tension, self-indulgence that makes it very hard to take seriously, and massive butterfingers when it comes to emotional drama. In light of that, my review gets a little bit meta in its thoughts on SAO as a thing I’m approaching as a critic. It’s hard! SAO is fundamentally “bad” according to a great deal of what makes stories effective in a general sense. SAO don’t give a fuck.
Log Horizon II – Episode 9
We jumped over to Shiroe’s camp this week, where things aren’t going terribly well. I was legitimately surprised by how solid Shiroe’s central death-reflection monologue was – after a long arc with Akatsuki that’s been about as kid-friendly as possible, I definitely wasn’t expecting a long sequence predicated on being old enough to feel embarrassed about the ways youthful insularity is actually a kind of selfishness. That by itself would have made this one of the best episodes this season, but that last repeat of the Ash Lake sequence was just too egregious of a cost-cutting measure for me to let slide. Still, I’m looking forward to where Shiroe’s arc takes us from here.
Incidentally, I’m including my actual during-episode notes below the cut for this one. They’re notes for me, not for any audience, so they’re far less “performative” than the time stamp posts, but I’ve had people ask me to post them a few times, so I’m including them anyway. Hope you enjoy!
Parasyte – Episodes 8-9
Double-header this week, which gave the show enough time to weave in about half a dozen small conflicts. I thought the show over-told a fair amount during these episodes, but the stuff it was conveying was actually really interesting, so I couldn’t muster too much annoyance at that. It’s kind of unusual for a Madhouse production, but this show is really leaning heavily into the strength of the source material – the execution isn’t elevating it, it’s just a perfectly reasonable articulation of a very good story. I guess that means it’s not as strong as it “could have been,” but the show’s still quite good, so eh.
Fall 2014 – Week 8 in Review
Anime got pretty heavy this week, you guys. Between Shirobako and KimiUso, things were altogether a little too real in the land of Japanese cartoons. That’s how I like it, though – the sharp stuff is what I watch media for, and you can’t depict earnest triumph if you’re not willing to accept the possibility of failure. Pretty much everything else is holding steady, but my favorites are actively climbing at the moment, and it feels pretty goddamn great. Here’s hoping they both turn out to be as good as this week would promise.
Plots Twists and Other Parlor Tricks
Look at this rabbit in my hand. See the rabbit? Surprise! It’s actually a turtle.
Pretty impressive, huh?
Alright, maybe that one didn’t work on you. How about this one. Look at this character – she’s just a mild-mannered high school student, right? Surprise! She’s actually an evil wizard.
Still nothing? Hm.
Okay, one more. Look at this upbeat, slice of life story. Got a good picture of it? Surprise! It’s actually a dystopian sci-fi drama.
Alright, you get the picture. Let’s talk about plot twists.
Fall 2014 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
I have been very busy these last couple weekends! Working on the ANN preview guide has meant I’ve had to watch and write about virtually every full-length show that premiered this fall – I believe the only ones we missed were G Reco, Amagi Brilliant Park, and Seven Deadly Sins, and I actually wrote about the first one and took notes on the second anyway. Of course, since all that was for ANN, you guys over here haven’t had heard as much from me. So in light of that, I’ve decided to do a hyper-speed mega-Week in Review rundown of my most summarized thoughts on every goddamn show, complete with links to individual ANN pages where you can find the small essays I wrote on every single one of them. If you want to hear me praise stuff, stick to the top, if you want to hear me tear shit apart, check out the bottom. There’s been a wide, wide range of shows this season, and every one of them has earned a whole bunch of words. LET’S DO THIS.
Fall 2014 – First Episode Reflections, Part Three
I WOULD LIKE TO GET OFF THIS RIDE NOW PLEASE. Since my last post, I’ve checked out Parasyte, Daitoshokan no Hitsujitai, Chaika: Avenging Battle, Garo the Animation, Shirobako, Psycho-Pass 2, Your lie in April, and How The Fuck Did They Approve a Show That’s Basically Just One Joke About Twintails. You can check out episodic posts about every single one of these shows on ANN.
Of this group, I strongly recommend Parasyte and Shirobako, also enjoyed Garo and Your lie in April, and was perfectly content with both the Chaika and Psycho-Pass sequels. Daitoshokan and Twintails have essentially no reason for existing, and their continued existence in spite of this is baffling and faintly disturbing. So yeah, Of these eight shows, I actually solidly enjoyed six of them – I’m pretty happy with that ratio!
Fall 2014 – First Episode Reflections, Part Two
The ride NEVER EVER ENDS. I have watched a truly madness-inducing quantity of anime, and the fruits of my labors are here for you. Since the last update, I’ve put up first episode reviews for In Search of the Lost Future, Fate/stay night, World Trigger, CROSS ANGE, Wolf Girl and Black Prince, Celestial Method, Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, The Fruit of Grisaia, Gugure! Kokkuri-san, When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace, Laughing Under the Clouds, Akatsuki no Yona, and Trinity Seven. That is way too much goddamn anime.
Of that formidable list, the only shows I’d actually recommend for everyone are Fate/stay night and Rage of Bahamut: Genesis. More genre-specific fare would Celestial Method, Gugure! Kokkuri-san, When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace, and The Fruit of Grisaia. That is, if you like feelsy dramas, 4koma comedies, Haruhi-style club shows, or nicely animated drama/harem-things, those would be my choices respectively. EVERYTHING ELSE WAS PAIN. Nah, just Cross Ange, but seriously – way too much anime. Fortunately, my next update should be more proportionally positive. I’ll let you know!
Top Shows Addendum
So I wrote my Top 30 Shows of All Time list, and that was great and super convenient for a while, until I came to a startling revelation – there are more than thirty good shows, and even worse than that, people keep making new ones. Clearly there’s no way I could have predicted this turn of events, but I’m doing my best to take it in stride. And in the spirit of promoting More Good Things, I’ve decided to create this Additional Top Shows supplement.
I don’t really want to cut off shows when they fall out of the thirty – I’d rather recommend more good stuff than less, and the number was initially envisioned more as a quality marker than a hard, arbitrary line. And so instead of having shows disappear and be gone forever, shows that drop out of the thirty, or that just barely don’t make it, will instead find their home here in the Top Shows Addendum. I hope you enjoy this jumbled list of Slightly Less Top But Still Pretty Great Shows!