A new season is upon us! That’s always pretty exciting, and this season in particularly looks extremely strong. So let’s start with that wonderful seasonal ritual of finding petty reasons to drop shows so our lives aren’t consumed by anime altogether. Hurray!
Incidentally, in light of my recent Samurai Flamenco essay, Mr. Justice will be handling all final assessments of this season’s new shows. PREPARE FOR JUSTICE.
Welp, last week of the season. Some shows triumphed, some shows floundered, and some just stopped producing new episodes. Let’s run it down!
Fantastic set of episodes this week, even from shows I’ve kind of given up on. Glad to see the season ending so well!
Standard Winter 2014 week this time – Kill la Kill was entertaining, Sekai Seifuku was good, and Witch Craft Works did its job. Everybody else… I dunno, I guess ending a season is harder than it looks!
With the season nearing its end, we’re beginning to get the expected ramp-up from most relevant shows. Which I’m actually excited for – I’ve obviously had pretty negative feelings about this season overall, but it’s not like I want the shows I’m watching to disappoint. Samurai Flamenco, Nagi no Asukara, and Kill la Kill all had very good weeks, and pretty much everything had at least a respectable episode. Except… well…
Alright, this first one is a little ranty.
I’m feeling confident in having dropped The Pilot’s Love Song at this point, given what I’ve heard about the last two episodes. As expected, they’ve basically just been focused on murdering all the characters the show introduced to be murdered, all in service of a conflict the audience has no stake in beyond possibly an attachment to the Ramen Kids. Aside from that, I’m feeling somewhat fatigued by everything except the season’s highlights, and this season’s highlights are kind of middling shows anyway. Running it down…
Kinda disjointed week in review this week, since I missed a bunch of stuff due to writing a “season to date” post last week and really just jammed these out whenever I had time. But anyway!
So, looks like we’ve reached the season’s halfway point-ish, meaning it’s time for me to once again go against all my misgivings about turning art into some kind of reductive hierarchy and make a big ol’ ranking of my current titles. Keep in mind, I’m doing this not because it’s actually meaningful, but because lists are fun – if you disagree with my evaluation, you’re probably right. Opinions! They’re crazy.
Anyway. Overall, this season has been a little better than I’d expected, meaning it’s a good deal worse than average. While I’ve had a consistent shelf of shows I’m enjoying, there’s been nothing that really wowed me on the level of a Kyousogiga, Monogatari, or Uchouten Kazoku, and even the next tier down of “generally great” shows has been pretty barren. So yeah, sorry, this one might be kind of a bummer! Fortunately, a lot of shows have actually been steadily improving, and honestly, my own apathy towards some of my picks might just be because I’m watching Too Many Damn Shows, and no season is really that full of gems. But that’s enough preamble – let’s run down my picks.
This week has had me eating a balanced diet of my own words pretty much every day. Virtually every show I was on the fence about rallied heroically, many of the major complaints I had about everything I was watching were directly addressed, and this season is now actually looking pretty good. Way to make me look dumb, anime! Friggin’ jerks.
Running it down…
This week kinda restored my faith in this season. It’s still not great (mainly because its strength is in its comedies, and I’m not a comedy fan), but the three top new shows all had their best episodes yet, so I’m feeling optimistic. Running down the list…
