This was a week of mild but pleasant surprises in anime land. Over in the Sunshine Islands, Love Live demonstrated that this season might actually have a better handle on its own drama than either of the first two, nailing Hanamaru’s introduction without giving up on the physical comedy that makes the show great. And down in Mob Psychoville, Mob proved himself to be just as strong a character as his show is a visual showcase. With everything else performing pretty much as hoped, this is looking to be another surprisingly sturdy season of anime. My preview chart was short, but nearly everything on that chart has ended up impressing, leaving me with a fine lineup all around. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Tag Archives: sweetness & lightning
Summer 2016 – Week 3 in Review
Dear lord, one week after the retrospective and we’re already a quarter through the season. This season ended up offering a stronger collection of shows than I was initially expecting, meaning I get to be fairly discerning in choosing what I actually keep up with. At this point, I’m legitimately excited about everything I’m watching – we’ve got a great mix of pure fun (Love Live, Thunderbolt Fantasy) and engaging drama (Orange, Planetarian), with Mob Psycho offering a dash of action and visual creativity. Let’s start with those new Love Lives and run this week down!
Summer 2016 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
I think we’re gonna make it through, everybody. I was a little worried for a while there, as the first half of this season’s premieres made it seem like I wouldn’t hit even half a dozen potential shows. But the second half rallied with a few very necessary surprises, and so now I’m at the point where it should take me a good three or four weeks to determine that anime is terrible once again.
The season’s highlights slot into a solid variety of genres, leaving us fans with at least one thing to enjoy regardless of whether we’re fans of drama, slice of life, idols, or Toonami, the four core pillars of anime. Last season’s lack of a strong character-focused show will hopefully be made up for by this season’s Orange and ReLIFE, and it’s great to see that Sunshine actually seems to be improving on the Love Live formula. As usual, I’ll be breaking this season’s premieres down into flawlessly objective tiers for your perusal, and including links to all of my longer reviews over at ANN. We’ve got a whole lot of anime to fight through, so let’s get right to business and RUN THIS SEASON DOWN.
Summer 2016 – First Impressions, Part Two
Welp, looks like it’s time for the second wave of new summer premieres. This one’s a pretty questionable crop, frankly – sweetness & lightning is fantastic and Cheer Boys!! is perfectly reasonable, but outside of that, we’re looking at a whole bunch of middling-to-poor genre pieces without all that much to distinguish them. There are still a fair number of premieres to come, but things are looking a little dire at the two-thirds point this time. But hey, you get to read my increasingly despairing reviews either way, so, good deal!