Since a lot of shows have already ended, I’ll start giving out season grades.
Week 11’s Results
Once again, Terror in Resonance got the most votes. I always thought our heroes looked rather ordinary, though. Personally, the only person who even stands out is Five, and although I like her hair, I wouldn’t say her character design is anything special either.
Space☆Dandy 2 took a distant second. Okay, I can buy that. I don’t watch the show, but I’ve always thought the characters looked unique. I just don’t care to watch shows of this type.
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun was a close third. Like with Terror in Resonance, I don’t get it. Nozaki looks way too old, and the rest of the cast looks ordinary.
And in fourth place…! Barakamon? Are you kidding me? Alright, whatever. I’m out.
P.S. Sword Art Online II got zero votes.
Week 12’s Rankings
16. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance
I can’t even muster up a short comment on this series anymore.
15. Akame ga Kill!
When a schoolgirl named Chelsea joins the cast, you’ve probably jumped the shark as a series. When you can’t even come up with a bad guy of the week to pummel, you’ve probably jumped the shark as a series. When… eh, you get the point.
14. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei
Tatsuya can bring people back from the dead, but he can’t save his show from being an utter chore to watch. Fascinating. Wait, what’s that? Can you hear it? It’s the fervent cries of “I’m Chinese and I still like this shooooow….” Yeah, nobody cares. It’s not like you’re the only Chinese person on this damn planet.
13. M3 ~Sono Kuroki Hagane~
For a short moment, it looked as though the show had finally gotten its narrative together. Then we got the last couple of episodes. Nothing short of the world ending will redeem this series in my eyes.
12. Sword Art Online II
Even some SAO apologists can’t help but grudgingly admit that this arc is full of filler. Sadly, the show will probably still rake in the DVD sales anyway. Sinon doesn’t perpetually show her asscrack to the world for no reason.
11. Glasslip
So Touko can see what it’s like to be Kakeru, and the visions aren’t really visions of the future, but some sort of shared… uh… dream that she can manipulate? So what, though? Is this really something that needs thirteen episodes? Glasslip has one more episode to make a case for its existence, but don’t hold your breath. I now suspect that this show would’ve been a clever and perhaps even thought-provoking OVA, but someone decided to spin an entire series out of it. What a pity.
10. Captain Earth
A nonsensical mess through and through. Worst of all, we didn’t even get much of a resolution. Instead, we got a rushed ending that answered almost nothing. How can a show that constantly stalled for time still end up running out of time? I just don’t get it. On the bright side, uh, the show was pretty at times? Final grade: D-
9. Rail Wars!
Rail Wars! wasn’t even a good harem anime despite it being the best harem anime of the season. If you’re going to bombard me with fanservice, you could at least give me decent animation to with it. What’s the point of tits and ass if they’re ugly? And while Rail Wars! certainly was silly at times, it wasn’t silly enough to make me laugh. Final grade: D
8. Ao Haru Ride
After an interesting start, things quickly turned generic for our shoujo romance that couldn’t. Then things got exploitative. In the end, Ao Haru Ride is just another bog standard shoujo romance, but I’m not grading on a curve. Final grade: D
7. Tokyo ESP
An already safe and boring series looks to unravel at the last minute. Luckily, few people are sticking around to laugh at the show.
6. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen
We finally find out what had happened to Tokimune’s sister. Unfortunately, I felt nothing as I watched the episode. For what it’s worth, the storytelling felt like it was competently done if I was a little more interested. The problem is, however, I just haven’t connected with the characters all season long, and one episode isn’t going to change that. Plus, it’s an episode about a character that we hardly know. Reika’s just someone people talk about. Yeah, I doubt I’ll be covering this show next season.
5. Re:_Hamatora
I’ll actually have a post on the finale up tomorrow. But if you really can’t wait, the ending is lame as hell. Final grade: C-
4. Aldnoah.Zero
I’ve said everything I needed to say in my previous post on the show, so all that’s left to do is to give the show a grade. The action was entertaining, the animation was solid, and the first episode was really promising, but other than that, the show did nothing else particularly well. In fact, it did everything else rather poorly. Such a pity… Final grade: C-
3. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
A decent, light-hearted comedy. It didn’t make me laugh until I cried, but I smiled from time to time. It had good energy, solid chemistry between the cast members, music that didn’t make me want to stab my ears, and good enough animation. The ending was cliché, but oh well, it was never really a narrative-driven anime anyway. Final Grade: C+/B-
2. Terror in Resonance
See below.
1. Tokyo Ghoul
I’m not saying that last week’s finale is the best finale of the season. Tokyo Ghoul certainly isn’t the best anime of the season either. But for what it’s worth, the finale is strong enough for the show to take first place for once. Unlike others, neither Five nor how her story really bothers me. I still think she’s a fascinating character albeit somewhat unrealistic. Having said that, realism is not the end all, be all of storytelling. I acknowledge that the faults are there, but these small blemishes are not enough to mar the viewing experience of Terror in Resonance as a whole. Still, Tokyo Ghoul‘s finale was good, and if I could grade the show based on the finale and the finale alone, I’d give it maybe a B. On the other hand, Terror in Resonance‘s latest episode simply stayed the course. As a result, we’ll just give credit where credit is due. In any case, I still expect the Terror in Resonance to have a superior finale, but we’ll find out whether or not this is the case in just a little over a day, won’t we? Final grade: C+
Week 12’s Poll
This is it. This is the last poll of the summer season. Since you guys so desperately want to vote for your favorite shows of the season, you guys will get the chance to do exactly that:
Moe Sucks 
Chara designs don’t need to be flamboyant to be good. I voted Zankyou no Terror because the designs captured realism rather well (apart from Five who looked as if she was from some other show).
I didn’t say they had to look flamboyant. Terror in Resonance characters look like any other character, though.
You implied this by offering Five as an example. Don’t tell me she doesn’t look flamboyant.
And I disagree. ZnT characters are very distinguishable. You may argue that chara designs from Satoshi Kon films look like any other characters, but this is somewhat of a fallacy as you’d never mistake them for characters from other series.They are ordinary, yet easily recognisable.
What do you consider a good and memorable character design anyway? Colourful hairdos and samefaces? The sorts of outfits that are rampant in Bakumatsu Rock? Because thankfully ZnT has neither (well, there is Five…).
Nah, you’re just jumping to conclusions. I said Five was the only one from the cast who stood out. I never said she was a well designed character. In fact, I actually took exception with her character design when she first showed up in the story.
Well, if you’re going to put words in my mouth and adopt this aggressive tone in your questioning, then I’m not continuing this conversation.
Yeah, I just watched it. I doubt the world is ending, though.
Ping Pong earlier this year was probably a B+ for me. Something that deserves an A would have to be an exceptional show, and I don’t think I’ve seen one in the past year.
“Once again, Terror in Resonance got the most votes. I always thought our heroes looked rather ordinary, though.”
I assume people didn’t just vote for the most interesting or original character designs, but also voted for stuff like “most liked style of design” or “better executed designs”. The question on the poll was kinda open to interpretation.
What is well executed about kids in ordinary school uniforms? Even if it’s open to interpretation, I don’t see how Terror in Resonance is exceptional in this department.
I meant well-drawn. Like, designs that are conceptualized by a particularly skilled artist, and then consistently well-executed by the animators on each episode.
Many shows are pretty bad when it comes to that, regardless of the subject matter of the show.
The poll is missing a few shows, like the one I would vote for, Haikyuu
Shrug, I forgot to list it.
Staring at the list of summer shows, pondering which one was ‘best’, I realized that the summer shows were a fairly weak pack. If all the carry-overs from spring had been listed, would’ve voted for Haikyuu.
Haikyuu is actually pretty decent as far as the sports genre goes. Doesn’t have the same impact as something like Hajime no Ippo, but still a great show.
And I agree, Haikyuu was a lot stronger than 95% of the summer shows.
It couldn’t hook me in five episodes, so I never gave it another thought.
I didn’t vote in the last poll, mainly because I tend not to focus too much on character design (with the exception of DRAMAtical, but those outfits are godawful), but if I was prodded I probably would have gone with Space Dandy as well, even if it’s all for the sake of being as over-the-top as possible.