Tag Archives: Death Parade

Winter 2015 – Week 5 in Review

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Aw jeez, we’re nearing the halfway point already? This season and year are going way too fast, and all I’ve got to show for it is all this writing about cartoons. This was a fine week in anime, and it seems the various tiers for this season are pretty established at this point, even though it’s hard to directly compare many of the shows I’m watching. Maria the Virgin Witch is excellent, but shares almost nothing in common with most of my other shows. Shirobako is fantastic, but how do I compare what it does to something like Yuri Kuma Arashi? Fortunately, I’ve long since learned comparisons and evaluations are a sucker’s game – I’m happy just to enjoy the good in the many shows I’m watching.

Also next week I’m gonna rank them anyway because it’s tradition, but that’s besides the point. Let’s run ’em down!

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Winter 2015 – Week 4 in Review

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An excellent week in anime this, uh, week, with pretty much everything I’m watching either holding strong, recovering from weaker episodes, or demonstrating new strengths altogether. Death Parade was easily the surprise star this time – Death Parade was almost a show I was watching out of obligation up until now (“yeah it’s well-constructed, but why should I care?”), but this episode felt sharper, more passionate, and more poignant than any of the previous trials. Plus it actually attacked the show’s premise, and even pointed to the idea that the arbitrary nature of these trials is intentionally reflective of how the arbitrary nature of life itself prevents us from being the selves we ought to be. Rolling Girls also made something of a comeback this week, and Yuri Kuma is starting to feel like it’s finally comfortable in its own world. Potential transitioned into results across the board this week, which means I guess I’ll be watching Too Many Shows for some time to come. Let’s run ’em down!

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Winter 2015 – Week 3 in Review

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This week was kind of split between hits and misses. On the hit side, Yurikuma and JoJo both put out episodes that were significant improvements on their earlier material, and both Maria and Yatterman continue to excel. On the miss side, pretty much the most reliable of all shows finally hit a rough patch in this week’s Shirobako, and Rolling Girls failed to demonstrate its actual material will be as energetic and engaging as its introduction. But the season is still young, the schedule’s still strong, and there’s plenty of anime to go around. Let’s run ’em down!

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Winter 2015 – Week 2 in Review

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I am watching too many shows. Way too many shows. Shows on backlog and shows for release review and too many goddamn airing shows. I’ve tried to be ruthless. I cut Saekano because the first few minutes seemed typical. I cut Earth High Defense Club because I just didn’t feel like it. But there’s too much good anime! Too many of the premiers weren’t red herrings, too many of the long shots turned out to be great. I’m not gonna survive this season, you guys. Something’s gonna snap.

Well, whatever. Let’s run ’em down, starting with the last two episodes of Shirobako!

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Winter 2015 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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The preview guide has come to a close, and I covered every damn show except “that Warring States Thing That’s Apparently Just A Worse Sengoku Basara,” so we’ve got plenty to talk about. We get a lot of anime every season, and none of you guys are receiving hazard pay for suffering through the worst of it, so I’m very ready to run down what demands to be watched, what you could maybe watch I guess if you feel like it, and what should be handled with lead-lined gloves and disposed of in a properly licensed waste treatment facility. I wasn’t really expecting much of this season, but the opening episodes ended up offering a stellar first and second tier of shows – yeah, first episodes are often liars, but it’s still nice to start off on the right foot. This post here will give you brief rankings and descriptions of everything I muddled through this week, along with links to the ANN pages containing my longer thoughts. Let’s run them down!

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Winter 2015 – First Impressions, Part Two

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The preview guide continues! I’m happy to say this season has completely surpassed my expectations so far, with all the shows I was looking forward to and more besides coming out swinging with strong first episodes. First episodes can certainly be deceiving, but given my preseason expectations were “well, at least some great shows are continuing from the fall,” I’m very pleased to see such an initially strong crop of episodes.

The Rolling Girls

Here’s the link to the preview guide, where you can once again check out all my posts as they arrive. Today’s recommendations are Death Parade, The Idolmaster – Cinderella Girls, and especially The Rolling Girls. Death Parade pretty much fulfills all the macabre promise of Death Billiards with a trashy, beautifully articulated first episode, Cinderella Girls offers understated drama and humor in the KyoAni school, and The Rolling Girls feels like a breathless combination of Kyousogiga and Yozakura Quartet. You’ll find links to all my new reviews with scores below. Hope you find something you enjoy!

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Winter 2015 Season Preview

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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!

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Top Shows Addendum

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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!

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