Spring 2019 – Week 3 in Review

Hold onto your hats folks, it’s time for the Week in Review! It turns out I’m probably not going to be following that many shows this season, but what I’m lacking in range of properties, I’m more than making up in volume of rambling. All of the shows I’m watching gave me plenty to talk about this week, with JoJo pulling off one of its best episodes in months while all three of my newcomers worked to establish their own identities. I’m also appreciated the stark contrast between this season’s two heavyweights – Carole & Tuesday seems determined to embody the strength of a classic story told well, while Sarazanmai embraces creativity for its own sake, and clearly values the power of novelty and surprise. Both of them are great, and with two sturdy action vehicles aside, I’m basically just a slice of life short of a full hand. Let’s break down all the week’s highlights as we run down another week in anime!

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Spring 2019 – Week 2 in Review

With preview week stretching well into this week’s set of episodes, a great deal of this week’s shows have already been covered elsewhere, and then also again for my retrospective, and possibly even a third time for Why It Works. Not all of them, though – the season’s most punctual contenders are already on their second episode, and JoJo’s momentum has continued unabated all through the premieres. Given all that, we’ve got a relatively small collection of episodes to break down today, but the Week in Review will not be deterred. Starting with one of this season’s most promising new properties, let’s break down one more week in anime!

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Spring 2019 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

Well folks, the time has come again. With basically every spring premiere on the books, and me having watched them all in some misguided pursuit of cartoon enlightenment, we can at last run down the hits, misses, and egregious humanitarian crimes of the spring anime season. Though to be honest, the international tragedies were actually in pretty short supply this time – this was a premiere season defined by consistency, and low on outliers in either the positive or negative direction. That’s not to say there’s nothing worth watching, though; there’s actually a pretty wide array of respectable premieres in all sorts of genres, along with a couple genuine gems.

As usual, I’ll be breaking down my evaluations into a vague tier list, and keeping my blurbs fairly brief, while also linking to all of my lengthier reviews over at the preview guide. This isn’t meant to be an authoritative ranking of quality or anything – I mean, these are just first episodes, pretty much any of these productions could surprise us (except for AFTERLOST). In light of that, I’ll be returning to the most simultaneously telling and useless of evaluation metrics – silly anime gifs, the only true currency in our apocalyptic age. Starting with the best of shows and happiest of anime gifs, let’s run this whole damn season down!

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Spring 2019 – First Impressions, Part One

Well folks, the seasonal deluge is well underway, and the preview guide bulwarks are only barely containing the flood. I’m needed back on the preview front lines, but I felt it about time to send this message home, and let you all know the course of the battle. The first wave of spring shows has actually been very solid so far, with a fine scattering of recommendation-worthy shows across an array of genres, and basically nothing that actively lessens my faith in humanity. As usual, you can check out the full list of previews here, or scroll below for my own scores and links to individual reviews. Let’s run down the season so far!

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