…and a few other things. First, we should do the anime preview thing. I know it’s a little late to put this up, but some of you guys said you’d actually read it so why not? For those unfamiliar with the process, this is where we post our snarky quips about the upcoming anime season. After all, it’s fun to maintain an aloof, ironic distance from the very same shows we’ll be watching every single day of the summer. With jimmies firmly rustled, this is then your cue, dear reader, to valiantly defend the honor of your favorite cartoon(s). We get defensive, you declare that you’ll never read this blog again, and a productive time will be had by all.
You can refer to this chart for reference.
* * * * *
Arcana Famiglia
Synopsis: Badass mafia wannabes.
Fin’s take: The nth action anime indistinguishable from all others, except not set in a high school(!). Pass.
My take: Cool: “…a self-appointed organization with mysterious powers that has protected a small Mediterranean island from pirates, foreign countries, and other threats.” Not cool: a bunch of guys fighting over the rights to marry some girl instead of doing badass mafia things.
* * * * *
Binbou-gami Ga!
Synopsis: Girl drains the world of “happiness energy” and someone will have to fix this serious problem.
Fin’s take: I read the first chapter or so of manga. It was kinda funny, but the comedy is pretty physical, so a lot will depend on how it’s animated. Sunrise is in charge, they’ve got the ability to do a decent job of it, if the budget is right. I’d recommend giving it a shot, but if the first ep isn’t good then it probably won’t improve.
My take: The lady in the PV can’t stop screaming so I can’t help but be prejudiced.
* * * * *
Campione!
Synopsis: I typically don’t like to just copy a chart’s synopsis word for word, but I think this one is necessary:
A harem love comedy plus magic battles. Kusanagi Godo is a 16-year-old high school boy, who once killed the god “Verethragna” and acquired the title of “Campione (god killer)” when he was 15. Erica Brandelli is a 16-year-old Italian girl, who is a “Great Knight” of the magic society “Bronze Black Cross” and had fought together with Godo to defeat Verethragna. Godo doesn’t like fighting but his title of “Campione” makes him get involved in battles against other Campiones and uncontrollable gods.
Fin’s take: I like the addition of the exclamation point, as if to distract from how boring this sounds. If they can’t make an effort to make an interesting show, I certainly can’t be assed to watch it.
My take: The official “synopsis” for this “anime” loves to use “terminology” that requires “quotation marks” around them because this “signifies” just how important these “words” are. Will I watch this show? “Yes.”
* * * * *
Chitose Get You!!
Synopsis: Pedobear’s wet dream.
Fin’s take: I’m reading a bit of the manga, and it’s getting a few chuckles. If the show can present Chitose’s crush as innocent and also be funny, it might be pretty good. But Kodomo no Jikan has taught me never to underestimate this genre’s ability to be horrible.
My take: Ahem, it’s ephebophi-… wait a minute… “an elementary school girl.” GODDAMN IT.
* * * * *
Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi
Synopsis: Heian romance just as exciting as The Tale of Genji.
Fin’s take: Your guess is as good as mine. It could just be a thin sheen of culture over yet another stupid fanservice show, or it could be interminably boring (as you’d expect from poems that are around a thousand years old). Or it might be cool and original! Long odds, but the expected quality weighted by the chances of each outcome is still a ton better than Muv-Luv.
My take: Fin, how exactly will this be a fanservice show? “Genji-niisan, let’s go to the beach!”
* * * * *
Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai
Synopsis: “You mean I have to give up my sexual desires. Merde….”
Fin’s take: Not even halfway through and running low on ways to call something crap. Drivel! Idiocy! Mind-numbing!
My take: I definitely feel for a guy who can’t ogle women.
* * * * *
DOG DAYS’
Synopsis: Yet another sequel. This is going to be one ruff season.
Fin’s take: E Minor, cruel taskmaster that he is, made us watch some of this on our stream (we have a stream!). It’s bad, but almost bad enough to watch “ironically”, as lame as that is. Really though, their magical fantasy land is called Biscotti, all the combatants are cutesy animals, and the animation is ridiculous. If you get your kicks by laughing at awful anime then maybe try this one, but my patience for it couldn’t sustain more than a few minutes a week before I clandestinely muted the stream and fired up Imperishable Night.
My take:
* * * * *
Hagure Yuusha no Estetica
Synopsis: High school anime… but with video games!
Fin’s take: If it looks like a dumb show and it sounds like a dumb show, it’s almost certainly a dumb show. The rainbow of hair colors, combined with the high school uniforms and the “demon king’s beautiful daughter” line all lead me to believe that such is the case here.
My take: Remember those cool JRPGs where you kill the Satan King? Actually, me neither, but this anime is going to let you relive those memories (that you never had)! Well, no, that’s not true either. This show is actually going to be about what happens after the hero saves the world… y’know, the part where he goes back to the real world where he is sheltered by some international organization BABEL and the Satan King’s daughter, i.e. the daughter of a fantasy villain in a fantasy world, confronts him. Yeah, that part of the JRPGs we know and love. Duh.
* * * * *
Hakuouki Reimeiroku
Synopsis: Cool guys with cool hairdos battle with katanas. Cool.
Fin’s take: I don’t know why the Shinsengumi are so popular in fiction. They fought on the losing side of a revolution, and probably their biggest accomplishment was slaughtering a bunch of people at a meeting. I’d watch them fight demons though, if someone paid to animate it properly. I’ll give it an episode.
My take: Apparently, this is the “third Hakuoki series… [about] the dawning of the Shinsengumi.” That’s one long fucking dawning.
* * * * *
Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
Synopsis: UN arbitrator talks to some fairies.
Fin’s take: So boring I found myself fast-forwarding through the 2 minute long trailer. Maybe it’s good but I’ll never know because I start yawning halfway through reading the title. I don’t think I could finish watching the OP without passing out.
My take: “…blah blah blah, human beings declined due to the steep drop in birthrates.” Well, actually, that sounds like it has some poten-… “…I became a UN arbitrator between the humans and the fairies…” Aaaaand it’s gone.
* * * * *
Joshiraku
Synopsis: Girls are random and cute and funny.
Fin’s take: J.C. Staff, my old nemesis. We meet again. Well it’s the kind of slow-paced comedy that I have a weakness for, so I’ll try it out. If you swing that way, give it a shot.
My take: I’ve got nothing. I just don’t care.
* * * * *
Kingdom
Synopsis: Some Chinese historical with kids. ‘Cause kids rule. Kids can do anything and everything.
Fin’s take: I’ve played a lot of Dynasty Warrior over the years, and it has taught me this: Japanese people have strange and fantastical ideas about the warring kingdoms period in China. This one sounds more interesting than the standard hack-n-slash procedural, so I won’t dismiss it out of hand, but Pierrot isn’t known for thinking outside the box, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Expect a bunch of cartoonish misinterpretations of history, which will somehow make it less interesting than the real thing.
My take: Look, man, I’m part Chinese and I grew up watching Hong Kong flicks about embellished larger-than-life characters such as Hung Hei-Kwun and Wong Fei Hung. These movies somehow managed to blend mindblowing martial arts (to a kid) with the cheesy sort of humor that is now gone from Hong Kong cinema (as well as all of its famous actors). For better or worse, that’s how I like my Chinese folklore. There’s a badass Shaolin warrior and he’s going to kick some ass, but nothing is ever taken too seriously. I don’t give a damn about “Warring States,” nor do I want a show so serious that even the horse is grimacing at our protagonists.
* * * * *
Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate
Synopsis: Some guy is forced to run for student council president or he’ll lose his precious club. The word “chocolate” is only in the title because one of the main characters likes chocolate. Makes sense.
Fin’s take: I can’t get over what a dominant institution high school is in anime. Any concept for anime can be punched up with some dumb uniforms and an improbably powerful student council. Anyway this is an eroge adaptation, but even if weren’t the plot is terminally stupid. Maybe if those two crossed each other out it wouldn’t suck, but they don’t, so it will.
My take: You’re going to shut down my club down because we just use it to chat and do nothing? SCREW YOU, MAN. DOWN WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT, MAN.
* * * * *
Kokoro Connect
Synopsis: Boys and girls swap bodies.
Fin’s take: I can conceive of a world where this isn’t unwatchable dreck. That’s the nicest thing I can think to say about it. The anime’s art is channeling K-on! hard, but I’m sure every producer wants to make another K-on!, so that’s to be expected. I’m going to download an episode, but even odds I won’t finish watching it. This one’s a long shot for sure.
My take: This is probably the plot to some hentai out there. “Pachelbel’s Canon” in the PV just makes me hate it even more.
* * * * *
Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon II
Synopsis: Continuation of a show that made no sense.
Fin’s take: Another show E Minor forced me to watch parts of the first season of. This one was so terrible it made me light-headed, all I remember are the huge list of characters and their huge tits. The plot was nonsense, window dressing for the tits. E Minor will not trick me into wasting any more brain cells this time around!
My take: There are no brain cells left to waste.
* * * * *
Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!
Synopsis: “Can Shougo ‘properly’ reunite with his little sister and while making a girlfriend at the same time?” I dunno… making a girlfriend is pretty hard.
Fin’s take: Didn’t they already make this show, with the guy and the two girls who might be his sister? Well it was weird and bad then and it’s weird and bad now.
My take: Instead, let’s name all the adaptations where a guy follows his sister, blood-related or not, to an academy and tries to (winkwink) reunite with her. C’mon, where’s everybody going? It’s just innocent fun~
* * * * *
Moyashimon Returns
Synopsis: Dude can see microorganisms. Microorganisms can talk.
Fin’s take: This was a cute manga, but not cute enough for me to actually follow it when the second volume never showed up locally. Never saw the show. I’ll try an episode, for science!
My take: It’s in the noitaminA block so commence jerk off session. Oh, it’s not cool anymore to call the noitaminA block overhyped and overrated? Damn, I can never keep up with the cool, hip aniblogging crowd.
* * * * *
Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse
Synopsis: Mechas.
Fin’s take: Oh man, a giant robot anime AND it’s an eroge adaptation!? My kokoro is hella doki doki.
My take: Ugly. If you’re going to try to sell plastic toys to me, you’ve got to try harder than this.
* * * * *
Natsuyuki Rendezvous
Synopsis: Love triangle between a man, a woman, and a ghost.
Fin’s take: Not going to blow any minds, but I read the first chapter of the manga and it seemed solid. If you like shoujo-style stories then join the club you probably won’t hate this.
My take: Okay, guys, this is the one to circlejerk over. There’s gonna be, like, emotions and shit. And we’re gonna overanalyze every character’s actions. Fuck yeah. I’m game. Let’s do it.
* * * * *
Oda Nobuna no Yabou
Synopsis: Samurai lords get a sex change yet again.
Fin’s take: This sounds like something I’d come up with as a parody. Sengoku, but they’re all cute girls! With mecha! In high school! And they all join the same club and Nobunaga is a tsundere, while Date is the boke and Ieyasu is the tsukommi! Anyway, if it doesn’t take itself too seriously it might be funny, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
My take: In ten thousand years, I hope future archaeologists furiously debate each other over whether or not Oda Nobunaga was some crusty old man or a buxom babe. “My primary source? I’ve got your stinking primary source right here! Oda Nobuna no Yabou!”
* * * * *
Rinne no Lagrange 2
Synopsis: Cute girls and mechas.
Fin’s take: Didn’t see the first season, but Youtube shows me high school, mecha, and fanservice. Snore.
My take: Whether it’s good or bad, and I’m going to hedge on bad, there’s usually nothing to say about these shows that wouldn’t just amount to a plot summary.
* * * * *
Sword Art Online
Synopsis: If you die in the Matrix, you die in real life.
Fin’s take: Ugh, this seems too easy. Nerd fantasy escapism is getting more and more transparent. Imagine if your boring life of MMOs was somehow meaningful, and playing some dumb game got you a pretty gf! Or take that 20min you’d spend watching shitty anime and put it towards making your life interesting enough that you don’t need dumb crap like this.
My take: I want to know what the endgame will be like. Are we going to have raids? How big are the raids? Will there be gear checks? I hope the heroes get an off-tank. Gonna be hard to deal with adds without one.
* * * * *
Tari Tari
Synopsis: Snore. Music. Friends. High school.
Fin’s take: Manga and anime to be released concurrently? Someone sure thinks this will be popular. Probably worth taking a peek, but I just hope it isn’t the K-On! ripoff the synopsis makes it sound like.
My take:
* * * * *
Yurumates 3D S2
Synopsis: Super deformed girls.
My take: No.
* * * * *
Yuru Yuri
Synopsis: Cute girls do stuff.
Fin’s take: I have a shameful secret: I actually like dumb all-girl comedies a la Hidamari Sketch. Yuruyuri is the exact kind of slow-paced comedy I could see myself being an apologist for, except that it isn’t any god damn good. It’s stale, unfunny, has an infusion of low-grade yuri that’s flat (figuratively), gross, and uninspired. I quit the first season after one episode, so unless this is some other series with the same name I think I’ll be taking a pass.
My take: Get a room designated for club activities and put some cute girls in there. Now, sprinkle in some yuri undertones. Fold, but do not blend. If too much yuri is incorporated into the show, you might draw the interest of the LGBT crowd. You want this show to have just the right sort of superficial homosexuality. Now, divide the mixture evenly across your best “I enjoy this for the comedy” china and enjoy.
* * * * *
Meta nonsense
Well, I don’t usually do these things, but the blog did hit its third year just a little over a week ago. I’m not really into the sappy retrospectives about how much everyone here at Moe Sucks has grown. After all, the blog might’ve been around for three years, but I certainly haven’t been blogging anywhere close to that entire time. I’ll just let the following do all the talking….
Top posts:
This World is…Corrupt? “Fujoshi Moe”
Kiss x Sis as the Contemporary Mother-Son Incest Story?
Where did all the manly men go?
We certainly love our incest.
Top search terms:
fujoshi
moe sucks
sean connery
The same list also includes “dubliners” next to “panty pissing.” I know I’m doing my job correctly as a blogger.
Top videos:
Light pornography
Jinta, tell her how you feel
Yosuga no Sora in a nutshell
And this is why I stopped making those videos. Three of the worse stuff I’ve done are right at the top.
How long will I keep at this whole blogging thing? The blog has around 550 posts, give or take. Nyoro~n has chipped in nine of that 550. Fin’s share? About fifty-three. I won’t ever shut the blog down, but as you can see, it has pretty much been a one-man show. It doesn’t help either when I sometimes get a little too gung-ho about blogging and just end up burning myself out (last summer, I did almost two updates a day). As a result, I can’t even promise that I’ll stick around for the entirety of this upcoming summer season. Hell, I certainly didn’t for the spring and it had shows I actually liked! But for whatever it’s worth, blogging is still (for the most part) fun. As long as that remains true, I’ll never completely ditch “Moe Sucks.”
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see that some of the season’s anime have already been subbed. Time to drown myself in despair.
Moe Sucks 
Gosh, one after the other… they’re so… bleargh. The only ones I might watch are Natsuyuki Rendezvous and Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi, but I’m still not thrilled about either.
And I’m glad you won’t completely ditch this place. You’d given me many laughs and made me nod my head vigorously in front of the comp screen. Oh, and though I do enjoy your comments on animes that are just bad, I would like to read about what you think on animes that you liked too. Maybe just so I stop wasting brain cells trying out animes that look and sound decent, but horrify in the end (tough job, you guys have hahaha)
When the blog started, I watched a lot of trash. Stuff like Kampfer, The Sacred Blacksmith, and Nyan Koi. Well, I’ve been slacking lately. Plus, you sometimes just run into the problem of having nothing to say other than “This sucks.” I guess if you compare my posts now from how they were two to three years ago, I’m getting wordier by the day. Should I take a step back and watch dreck like Dog Days’? I dunno… it’s something I’ve been mulling over.
Kingdom has already aired a few eps. It’s just as overly-serious as you predict but whats worse is it uses this really nasty 3D CG for 90% of the animation that is cut together with occasional 2D shots that really don’t mesh at all. The uncanny valley runs deep.
Moyashimon is awesome. If you haven’t watched the 1st season you should go watch it. It was one of the better shows Noitamina has ever aired. Also I think a lot of people began losing faith in Noitamina after its poor 2011 showing. Then their faith hit rock bottom when it aired Guilty Crown. Then it tunneled through the floor with Black Rock Shooter. I can’t speak for Tsuritama, but Kids on the Slope has been a pretty decent show. Still as it stands I think Noitamina hasn’t even broken the surface of the hole it has dug itself. Maybe Moyashimon can help pull it out.
noitaminA was hit-and-miss well before 2011. People are too quick, however, to crown mediocrity because the rest of the field is comparatively shit.
Well to be fair Noitamina was only doing one show per season prior to 2010. So the hit or miss frequency has increased since then by virtue of having more shows. As for crowning mediocrity: Hindsight is 20/20. Determining whether a show is a classic is a question for the ages, not the critics. I don’t think most people have a running scale of “quality” anime that they judge all new incoming anime against. I certainly don’t. The anime that are my absolute favorite are virtually untouchable. It wouldn’t be fair to judge other anime against them. Then again as I said, hindsight is 20/20 and maybe my favorite anime are actually comparatively shit compared to what is airing right now. I have no way to objectively judge this except to rewatch in say 20 years after I’ve long since forgotten them and probably long since stopped caring about anime. Still Noitamina aired my 2nd favorite show of all time so I will defend the time slot just for that if nothing else.
I don’t know where this hindsight talk is coming from. No one needed hindsight to see at the time that the likes of, Kuchu Buranko, Princess Jellyfish and Tokyo Magnitude were not as good as all the bloggers were proclaiming. Oh, but of course, subjective tastes, blah blah blah.
Kuchu Buranko: wouldn’t know I dropped it. Princess Jellyfish was good right up until the last few eps. Especially the end which was completely inconclusive. I think TM 8.0 was one of the better shows I’d seen that had aired the timeslot. I haven’t readily forgotten it. Somewhat more apt would be Eden of the East which fell apart towards the end. Though it also still had some memorable episodes. Furthermore it may not just be a certain quality of anime that people expect from the slot but a…I would say certain type but that’s not accurate. A lot of times what was expected of the timeslot was not the same overhyped brainless action or cutesy moe show. Shows like Tatami Galaxy or House of Five Leaves that play with their art style or story structure. It was the bastion of “non-standard” anime for awhile. But no one watched those shows.
You say this as though these have been mutually exclusive in practice. If calling something “brainless” isn’t making a judgment of its quality, then what is it?
What are we even arguing about, again? I said that noitiminA has been hit-and-miss since even before 2011, implying that I find recent hate for the time slot somewhat amusing. Do you fundamentally disagree with me or should we just nitpick over words?
I do believe they are mutually exclusive. An action show can be brainless but fun. It doesn’t have any deeper message it is just trying to be entertaining. Aquarion Evol is a good recent example. Most fun I’ve had watching anime in years. Get this: I found Seikon no Qwaser genuinely entertaining. Would I ever say it is quality anime? Hell no. Would I still recommend it to people of a like mind? Hell yes.
Neither of these shows would belong in Noitamina as it was first conceived. School Rumble my third favorite show also would not fit. Monster might fit if the slot had the balls to go more than 2 cours. It was meant as an expansion into different audiences. I personally would argue the first time that an anime in the timeslot targeted the large otaku male base was with Fractale. This is what I would see as a decline of the timeslot in recent years. Noitamina’s slot offered something different and people expected that. Different doesn’t always equal good, but a lot of people favor shows that are willing to take risks and Noitamina took risks. So I abstain from judgement on whether noitamina quality-wise has been hit or miss prior to 2011, but I disagree that the recent distaste people have with the timeslot is unjustified. I say the “hate” for the timeslot comes from decline of the spirit of the timeslot, not just the quality of the anime it has produced.
You’re changing the argument. We were discussing how the quality of an anime relates to its brainlessness. This is what you initially said:
As for fun, it is an entirely separate discussion. Just because something’s fun doesn’t mean it’s good. I enjoy watching Hell’s Kitchen — it’s fun to watch Gordon Ramsay rip into people –, but it sure as hell isn’t a quality TV show.
Yeah, I think we’re too fundamentally far apart on this issue to really take this conversation anywhere meaningful. I can count on one hand the number of noitaminA shows I consider risk-taking. Again, that doesn’t mean I think they were all trash. I just think most noitaminA shows were aggressively mediocre and never deserved the amount of praise they got pre-2011. The time slot is just lucky that the rest of the field set the bar so damn low.
“With jimmies firmly rustled, this is then your cue, dear reader, to valiantly defend the honor of your favorite cartoon(s). ”
Whaaat? Jimmies are an ice cream topping. I am so confused
The lead of Nobunaga blah blah blah looks like genderbent Edward Elric.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/that-really-rustled-my-jimmies
The summer 2012 chart is probably the most depressing one I’ve ever seen. Welp, guess it’s backlog time.
Also, very happy to see you back. Meta part was hilarious.
Yeah, I keep picking bad seasons to rejoin the fray (see: Winter 2012). I guess the previous season wasn’t that bad, but I was a little preoccupied.
“I won’t ever shut the blog down, but as you can see, it has pretty much been a one-man show. It doesn’t help either when I sometimes get a little too gung-ho about blogging and just end up burning myself out (last summer, I did almost two updates a day). As a result, I can’t even promise that I’ll stick around for the entirety of this upcoming summer season.”
1: Good you won’t shut the blog down
2: Bad that you can’t promise you’ll stick around
That being said, I hope you do stick around dood
Anyways, your list is too long. So I’m only going to comment on a few shows that I ended up watching, in no order:
Kingdom: BY GOD THAT 3D
Jinrui Wa: At least interesting
Tari Tari:
Hanasaka Iroha all over againQuite goodMuv Luv: Actually quite enjoyable
Chitose: Three minutes I will never get back
If only I could get paid to do this, but I’ve got too much pride to beg for donations and too lazy to get the blog off of WordPress.
I did see this tonight right after I finished this post. PA Works’ stuff is always pristine, but lacking of soul. They basically beam the white picket fence of anime straight into my eyeballs.
I think I’ll just save the rest of my impressions for a post.
Pardon my incredulity.
I honestly don’t even tend to give school anime a chance anymore unless it’s trying to be funny and in some odd cases, succeeding at being funny. Fin’s completely right. I feel like at this point I’ve seen all the school festivals and student councils I can bear.
I’ll probably not finish Rinne no Lagrange, even though I’m just 2 episodes away. Season 2 is probably a skip. Interestingly enough, I think I was an episode away from finishing Dog Days. I guess I’m a sucker for watching seemingly unflappable characters run around and beat everything that comes their way. Cute fighting anime 101, I guess. I’ll pass on anymore of that.
I was confused as I started Kokoro Connect. I hadn’t read a synopsis and I didn’t clue into how obvious the title was till after I had watched it, but…when I started I didn’t expect there to be a plot, purely by the animation style….Guess that still doesn’t make it that interesting, but I’m still going to keep watching it.
That’s really all I’ve got for now. Sometimes synopsis and PV isn’t enough to make a judgement, but considering that I’m excluding school anime, I guess I might be reaching back a season this season as well.
(Also, I forgot a show on that other post. One other past season show I almost finished was Tasogare Otome x Amnesia. I guess I’m also a sucker for seeing a situation resolve itself. As it went by I didn’t see much of that happening, but then again I didn’t get all the way to the end.)
Well, it’s important to remember that no matter how bad and generic these anime sound on paper, it can always get worse.
Somebody get me some brain bleach.
Bleach, you say?
The chemical variety, not the shounen variety. This.
I knew what you were talking about. I was just poking fun at the fact that you inadvertently brought up another trashy anime, but well, we’ve about sucked all the fun out of this!
:(
Worst season ever? I doubt it, but it’s got nothing to recommend it either, from the look of things.
I don’t recall saying this was the worst, but just for fun, what was the worst, then?
Didn’t mean to imply you’d said that, it was just my reaction after scrolling through your reaction to each of the season’s shows, seems like most seasons there’s at least a few that sam promising on the face of them, but this season? Came by wondering if you’d posted yet, saw you had, didn’t have much to say beyond offering some kind of “hey there” with a side of commiseration. So welcome back.
I see I also missed that you’re maybe excited about Natsuyuki Rendezvous, maybe?
t don’t know what the worst season ever was and frankly would rather keep it that way. Welcome back again!
Ah, not really. I mean, it’s probably decent, but I’m in the mood for something different. Y’know, it’s anime so there should be something grand in scope and fantastic. A dash of sci-fi couldn’t hurt. Unfortunately, No.6 screwed the pooch on that one and Guilty Crown was nothing but dreck from start to finish. So I guess we’re back to these melodramas….
You might take another look at the fairies one once it’s a few episodes in. It’s already a bit too heavy-handed for me on the social commentary but it’s the only thing this season that interested me enough to give a go and at least that first episode wasn’t an incredible disappointment.
If it further develops the deadpan humor and doesn’t become too heavy-handed on the commentary it could become a winner to watch, even if what it has to say is might remain so obvious on its surface that it neither needs nor benefits much from criticism.
I did check out the first episode, but it put me to sleep. I suppose I’ll give it another shot if people think it’s better than I initially thought.
It is certainly very slow, borderline soporific. If you fell asleep before they found the escaped chicken it’s probably worth making it at least to that point. So far though the slow pace can be tolerated to but the heavy-handed social commentary might be a bit too much.
Just when you think the industry is starting to prioritize diversity again, the summer season happens! I’ll be frank and say that it’s getting harder and harder each year to still find something of interest in this vast, oversaturated urban expanse of dilapidated school settings. Enough is enough.
Now I’m just imagining Japan as a nation of high schools. They have a school-centric economy of mainly melon bread agriculture and uniform manufacturing. The government is just a huge student council, the military is just an after school club. And the fact is, there are a ton of otaku, here and over there, who would love to live in that country of schools, because they still idealize their high school experience as the best time of their life.
Ganbatte!!! keep up the blogs/posts, I always be enjoying them.
Out of interest, which Spring shows did you manage to finish? I think I managed 6 or so, which is a record for me.
>Oda Nobuna no Yabou
It’s incredible how anime can keep on making the same show again and again. I wonder if the same group of fans just keep watching them. I mean, couldn’t they perhaps try a different time period, or even a different warlord..?
I almost finished a few of them, but lost interest for one reason or another. Sakamichi no Apollon is the only one I (recently) completed.
I’d be interested in seeing how the DVDs for these types of anime end of selling.
I just finished Sakamichi no Apollon too. I was quite pleased with the show and the end, though I expected some more… lonely ending, for the girl Richie likes (I can’t remember her name). What did you think of it ?
Hm, I have plans for a post on Sakamichi no Apollon eventually.
“The blog has around 550 posts, give or take. Nyoro~n has chipped in nine of that 550. Fin’s share? About fifty-three. I won’t ever shut the blog down, but as you can see, it has pretty much been a one-man show.”
You should recruit more writers so the blog isn’t so dead when you’re not posting :P
Why would anyone want to write for us? This is a small-time blog, bro.
Anime in general seems to be more about who can create the cutest fictional girls or how we can get the male characters into awkward moments with said girls. I miss the days when anime was actually fun to watch now, where I could actually sit down and just watch for hours on end. Now I can only get one or two episodes in before I’ve felt I just watched the same thing last season or the main characters make a piss poor decision then we must spend about another five episodes just get the story on track again. I really hope anime moves away from this current model we have soon.
Anyway I laughed lot reading your opinions they were quite funny.
Unfortunately, the current model is making bank.