Winter 2014 – First Impressions, Part Two (Chuunibyou S2, Nisekoi, Sakura Trick, Hoozuki no Reitetsu, Sekai Seifuku)

Management: As you may have noticed, I’m rolling these “first impressions” into my standard Week in Review posts. Hope nobody finds that unforgivable.

And with this week, we have our full set of premiers. And what a set it is!

Well, not really. Pretty mediocre set, to be frank. Having checked out the first episodes of close to everything that sounded interesting, I’m beginning to think this will actually be a great season to dig into the ol’ backlog.

Not to say there’s nothing I’m enjoying. Running it down…

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Fall 2013 – Week 11 in Review

What can I even say about this week? Everything got ridiculous. Everything got climactic. Everything got cathartic. I’ve dropped everything I was iffy on, and all the shows I’ve enjoyed are pulling off thrilling finales. Let’s get slobbery.

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Fall 2013 – Week 10 in Review

Welp, the season’s winding down and, as always, with it comes both rising tension in our favorite shows and a bracing awareness of our inescapable mortality. Let’s run down the list!

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Fall 2013 – Week 9 in Review

Nothing too out of the ordinary this week. The season has settled – the good shows are very consistent, the bad shows have been dropped, and those in the middle are 2-cours, hopefully building towards something noteworthy. Running it down…

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Fall 2013 – Week 8 in Review

It’s kind of pointless to talk about this week in anime without addressing the gorilla in the room, so let’s get that out of the way first.

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Fall 2013 – Week 7 in Review

This was a surprisingly stellar week in anime, considering the best show of the season decided to have a live-action tea party. All three of my other favorites stepped up significantly, each showing off with their best episodes of the season to date. Let’s run those down!

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Fall 2013 – Week 5 in Review

I almost feel like this entire season has had an overall theme for me – entertainment. Normally, I only watch 3-4 shows in a season, but I actually find all of those shows stimulating in some way – involving some degree of give and take. Last season, Eccentric Family, Gatchaman Crowds, and Monogatari all actually engaged me, providing interesting ideas and conversations along with their great aesthetics. I wouldn’t finish an episode and think, “well, that was fun” – I’d actually be doing fist pumps about how great this medium is, and how well those shows were handling their ideas. This season? There’s an awful lot of sound and fury. Which is fine, for what it is, and I’m not saying every show is that way – intelligence is more than just thematic density, after all, and I think most of these shows are smartly written. In fact, maybe the difference here is that this season has a lot of strict entertainment in the styles that actually appeal to me, considering the glut of self-aware comedies and smartly constructed action/adventure shows and whatnot.

Maybe I’m just developing shit taste.

Who knows.

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Summer 2013 – Week 13 in Review

And so the summer ends. I really couldn’t be more burnt out on talking about anime, considering I just finished three 8+ page essays on TWGOK, Uchouten Kazoku, and Gatchaman Crowds, but I’ll at least wave my hand in the direction of final impressions.

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Summer 2013 – Week 12 in Review

Would it be hyperbole to call this the best week of the season? Don’t really see how it could be – sure, Gatchaman was hamstrung by its budget issues, but everything else… well…

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Summer 2013 – Week 11 in Review

No Monogatari this week, so I only had two thirds of the great shows I normally do. That turned out to be fine, though, because the second-strings were in extremely good form.

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