Winter 2019 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

Hello all, and welcome to the Winter 2019 Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective! As usual, my dedication to Anime News Network’s preview guide mean I’ve watched nearly every single new premiere this season, with I believe the exception of the slice of life mermaids show (I am sorry slice of life mermaids show). Aside from the mermaids, I’m pretty sure I caught every single premiere that was A. full length and B. not a sequel to something I hadn’t seen. That’s a lot of shows!

Having watched all these shows, I am clearly in the objectively best position to tell you all what is good and what is bad. Consider these words as law, their veracity as fixed and unchanging as the stars in the sky. Whosoever denies these takes, let them be cast out from our land, and condemned to forever wander with their terrible opinions.

Seriously though, these are all just my takes, and my own media preferences are pretty established – I like character stories, themey-wemey stuff, and occasionally well-executed action or adventure. I do my best to give everything a fair shake, but my own preferences and simple preview week fatigue mean something worthy is bound to get overlooked. In spite of that, I hope my thoughts give you something new to check out, and you can always click on any of the names for my fuller thoughts over at ANN (I’m Nick Creamer over there, incidentally). Starting with the absolute cream of the crop, let’s run down a full season of new anime!

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Winter 2019 – First Impressions, Part One

Hello folks! The flood of new shows has subsided for a moment, so I think it’s about time to take stock. So far, the winter season is looking to match my expectations pretty neatly – among my “tentatively anticipating” list we’ve had one miss (Boogiepop) and one hit (Dororo), while Mob Psycho 100’s return was even more dazzling than I could have hoped. Aside from that, we’ve got the usual scattering of middle-of-the-road productions, along with what I can only hope are this season’s most conceptually exhausting contenders. It’s a season, basically – I don’t have a fully stocked watch schedule yet, but preview week still has a long, long way to go. As usual, you can check out the full list of ANN previews here, or find my specific scores and links to individual reviews below. Let’s get to it!

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