We had a fresh new crop of anime roll in this week, and I’m here to sort out the top tier cartoons from the rest of the cargo. It won’t be easy this time – there were plenty of great episodes this week across the board, with a wide variety of genres and favorites pulling off excellent performances. The Lost Village’s fourth episode more or less cemented it as a ridiculous semi-classic, while Concrete Revolutio had another stunning vignette, and Flying Witch maintained its clean streak of strong episodes. This is the best season I’ve personally had in about a year, and I’m enjoying it to the fullest. Let’s dive right into this pile of nonsense and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Tag Archives: Concrete Revolutio
Spring 2016 – Week 4 in Review
God damn is this ever a season of anime. I keep trying to drop shows, but they all keep being too entertaining. And now I check out Macross Delta and find out that’s a lot of fun, too? I really wouldn’t have minded one or two of these shows back a season ago, but it’s also great to log on twitter and see people enjoying such a wide variety of new anime. Even this season’s ambiguous productions are generally coming up solid – Kiznaiver had its strongest episode yet this week, and other borderline stuff like Haifuri is executing well, even if it’s not exactly my thing. It’s a fine time for watching too goddamn many cartoons, so let’s start at the top and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Spring 2016 – Week 3 in Review
With this season’s extended preview week finally over, I found myself left with way too many fine shows to watch. Thus, this week was one more return to The Culling, that fun time of year when shows that would be reasonable watches in weaker seasons all get the axe purely for pragmatic reasons. Between full show reviews, Current Projects work, and other various media, I can only really spare the time for a bit more than half a dozen airing shows, and so anything that isn’t truly noteworthy had to be cut. That still didn’t make this easy, of course – this season is good, I want to watch everything I can. But I was able to trim some hedges here and there.
Spring 2016 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
This season is incredibly dangerous, you guys. I know first weeks are always misleading, and that at least a few shows generally fall apart soon after a strong premiere, but there are just so many good shows in so many genres that I feel I’m finally going to be buried in cartoons. There are tons of great action shows, plenty of diverse comedies, dramas and slice of lifes and Concrete Revolutio besides. It really does feel like there’s something for everyone this season – not only is it a diverse crop, but the best shows are scattered across a wide range of potential tastes.
That said, there are certainly both winners and losers among this group, and busy anime consumer that you are, I’m sure you don’t have the time to sift for the best of them. So as usual, I’ll be breaking down this season’s premieres into distinct, precisely calibrated categories, starting with the shows to celebrate and moving on through to the shows that punished me for daring to live. All the links on the show names lead to the ANN preview guide pages, where you can find my more extensive thoughts on every single one under Nick Creamer. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do, so let’s cut the preamble here and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Spring 2016 Season Preview
Spring is upon us! Well, technically spring is still almost a month away, at least if we’re talking in anime terms, and when are we ever not talking in anime terms. But still! We’ve only got a few short weeks before the spring season arrives to assail me specifically with way too many shows to watch, and so that means it’s time once more for me to run down the stuff I’m actually excited about. As usual, I’m only going to bring up the shows that actually look interesting to me, and the reasons I specifically find them interesting – there are plenty of resources to give you synopses of the whole list, and besides, the preview guide means that I’ll have exhaustive commentary on even the dregs of the season when they actually arrive. But even limiting the list to shows I’m actively anticipating, we’ve still got a broad and respectable selection of hopefuls this time. There are manga favorites and returning champions and new challengers, a diverse menagerie to suit all anime palettes. So let’s start at the shows I’m most anticipating and run ‘em down!
A Fire Burns in Concrete Revolutio
Aw dang it’s time for a new essay yeaaah. Concrete Revolutio is absolutely stuffed with great ideas, so the biggest issue here was really just tying them all together into a coherent piece. I’m pretty happy with the result, and hope you enjoy the writeup. The show’s only half over, but it’s already one of the richest narratives of the last few years, and I really, truly, desperately hope it sticks the landing. A good second half could make Concrete Revolutio a legitimate classic.
Anyway, enough preamble, let’s get to the writeup!
A Fire Burns in Concrete Revolutio
Concrete Revolutio – Review
So yeah, I finally went back and took a second look at the one fall show everyone kept saying was worth watching, and it turns out they were very, extremely right. Concrete Revolutio is excellent – very creative and full of piercing ideas, constantly coming up with new ways to contrast its rich cast of characters against each other. Easily the best new show of its season, and also one of the best shows of the year – if I were to write my top ten list over again, I’d probably put it right above Death Parade. It’s a bit of a shame that I slept on this one while it was airing, but the experience of marathoning it was actually very satisfying, and likely helped it come off as more cohesive given its base complexity, so I can’t really complain. If you missed it too, I’d definitely check it out.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below!
Fall 2015 – Week 2 in Review
Wednesday has come again! And it’s the second week of the season this time, meaning it’s time to a long, hard look at the shows I was iffy on for the first episode and likely drop half of them down the trap door. There were definitely some shows that earned the big red button this week, but also ones that held strong, and I even managed to find a show to pick up since my preview retrospective. I’ll just be covering second episodes here – you can find my impressions on all of the actual premieres back in that retrospective, and it’ll be going forward that all the shows get to share some space again. But it’s looking like they actually will have to share that space, since dear lord, this season might even have four or five solid shows. Let’s start at the top and RUN ‘EM DOWN.
Fall 2015 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
The preview guide is once again nearing its end, meaning it’s time to run down every single one of these goddamn cartoons that never stop coming out for one second ever. The actual hits this season were pretty limited, but that’s pretty much what I expected going in – even in my preview post, I was only actually looking forward to a bare handful of shows. Most of those shows turned out to be either solid or display some potential, though there weren’t any real positive surprises outside of just how nicely composed One Punch Man turned out to be. But what the hell are we even doing here if we’re not watching cartoons, and I gotta earn my too-many-words keep, so let’s run ’em all down anyway. TAKING IT FROM THE TOP!
Fall 2015 – First Impressions, Part Two
Season previews continue, and hey, we’re finally into some shows worth watching! With the majority of the light novel premieres out of the way, this second set is full of shows I either fully recommend or at least feel succeed within their genre. Okada Gundam starts off strong, Comet Lucifer and Concrete Revolutio display reasonable promise, and One Punch Man just fucking dazzles with wonderful animation, art design, and humor. Things were looking kind of dire for a minute there, but seasons have a way of pulling themselves together. Now if only Sakurako and Perfect Insider can pull through as well, we might have a legitimately impressive season on our hands.
Once again, you can check out the full guide over at ANN, or click below the jump to see my added scores and individual links. ANIME HO!