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thejpfdude-blog · 8 years

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The Week in Anime (Week of 1/23/16)

Hello and welcome to another edition of TWiA! Another week passes, and that means another batch of episodes to rant talk about! So let’s begin with those rankings, all up to date!

Rankings:

1 (0). Demi-chan wa Kataritai (9/10) [3/?]

2 (0). Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2 (great/10) [2/10]

3 (0). Gabriel DropOut (great/10) [2/12]

4 (0). Kuzu no Honkai (good/10) [2/?]

5 (+2). Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon (decent/10) [2/?]

6 (-1). Nobunaga no Shinobi (7/10) [16/?]

7 (+1). Little Witch Academia (TV) (6/10) [2-3/25]

8 (+1). Rewrite: Moon and Terra (decent/10) [2/?]

9 (+1). Sengoku Choujuu Giga: Otsu (meh/10) [2/13]

10 (-4). Masamune-kun no Revenge (meh/10) [3/?]

11 (0). Nyanbo (4/10) [16/26]

Awards:

Best “Is It Me Or Is It The Others Who Are Wrong” Award: Little Witch Academia

This show was hyped up to the max on /r/anime, to the point where there were daily posts with the number of days until the first episode would air. I didn’t really buy into the hype after watching the original OVA and leaving it feeling a bit underwhelmed. And after two episodes, I knew what I was getting myself into: it’s not anything amazing, but it’s not horrible either. It’s right in that middle ground of enjoyment, enough for me to continue with it even though it’s two cour. Yet there’s still a thought inside of me, wondering why I’m not enjoying it as much as other people seem to be. And after much thought, there’s two reasons that people are loving this show that I narrowed down: the great animation and the Disney-like story. Those two things are pretty much the reason for my lack of enjoyment for this series.

Good animation is nice, but it’s not anything that’s going to significantly raise the score of a show for me. And as for the second point, the show is Disney-like in the sense that it portrays the message of “if you believe, you’ll surely accomplish it”. It was prominent with the OVA, and so far with the first two episodes it’s been a thing as well. Unfortunately, I’m not really about the whole “with the power of believing/friendship/whatever we can surely win/accomplish this task/etc.”: it’s the main reason why I generally don’t watch shounens/sports shows, and it’s the reason why I don’t particularly like some CGDCTs with that message as well, such as Yuru Yuri sometimes or what GochiUsa’s second season is starting to look like from the episodes I’ve watched.

What it really boils down to is basically “it’s not for me”. It’s basically the same situation with Flying Witch: I’m not saying the show is bad or that I hate the show. In fact, I appreciate what Flying Witch contributed towards the iyashikei genre (healing show in a sense), and I appreciate the whole backstory with LWA and how it got Kickstarted. But in the end, I rate based on how I enjoyed a show, and for me at this point, LWA hasn’t been amazing, but is still okay. We’ll see how it progresses later because things can change dramatically, but so far this is how I feel about it.

Best “Random Action Scene” Award: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

Sasuga KyoAni. In a comedy/slice-of-life show, we get a pretty dang good action scene featuring the two dragons that have been introduced so far. I’m not watching very many action shows this season, so I’m not going to so far as to say that this scene was the best action scene of the young season. Instead I’ll just say that this scene is a good example of the versatility of this show. We got the laughs for sure, but it can go farther than that as there were actually some nice heartwarming moments as well with the kid dragon’s exile scene. I’m curious to see how the other characters will fit into the dynamic of the show, based on what I saw from the OP/ED sequences. We’ll see I guess.

Most Fucked Up Shit Award: Kuzu no Honkai

(Honestly it isn’t that bad, but compared to the rest of the shows I’m watching, this is like some horror stuff)

I try to keep myself from swearing in these posts because I’m trying to limit my cuss word usage, but no euphemism is accurately going to describe this award. Straight up, this is some fucked up shit. On the one hand, this show has been a really interesting take on romance in a genre which usually is filled with annoying tropes and disappointing nothings. On the other hand, the relationships themselves are really really messed up. You have both Hanabi and Mugi pretending that the other person is their actual love during the more intimate scenes, you have the main relationship itself which I’m sure is going to end up self-destructing at some point during the season, and now you introduce more characters into the love polygon, with no expenses towards the gender of the person. It’s messy, but really fun to watch. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person, but I already knew that from the start anyway so I’m ready for the rest of this messed up ride.

Most Oregairu-like Show: Masamune-kun no Revenge

I’m seeing some similarities with this show and Oregairu, specifically in the characters. The most obvious one is Yukino and Aki: both ice queens with long black-ish hair. Then there’s the less obvious Yui and Futaba, both sort of the cheerful genki-type characters (with similar figures...). And then there’s the traps.

But really, that’s it for the similarities. And even then, these similarities aren’t really that good when you look deeper. Let’s start with the traps. Well, first let me start off by saying I don’t like traps. They usually have absolutely no point other than “oh look it’s a trap character”. That’s the case for Re:Zero and that’s the case for Masamune-kun: basically they just added the trap because they could, although they could have put a non-trap character and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Yet with Oregairu, Totsuka (the trap) actually has a purpose, and it’s the reason why I actually like him unlike the other traps out there. He basically acts as the main source of comedic moments with 8man, and him being a trap is essential to those comedic moments. In that way, him being a trap served a purpose, and so I was fine with it.

Going further, the comparison between Yui and Futaba is ruined by the fact that Yui is a main character in her show while Futaba isn’t, meaning we get a rejection in the second episode and her time on screen very much cut down. Unfortunate because I liked her the most out of all of the characters so far. And then there’s Aki and Yukino, both characters of an archetype I don’t really like: the tsundere. It’s obviously too early to tell, but from the first three episodes Aki just seems like a worse version of Yukino: she flip-flops too much between tsun and dere mode, which I think is more frustrating than just sticking with the tsun and slowly moving towards the dere like Yukino does.

So overall, Masamune-kun so far has been hit-and-miss so far. It’s had its moments and misses, but overall it’s a decent to average show. Time will tell as to how this continues, but with how it’s progressing, I’m honestly not too excited to see. Oh well, I’m in this ride for now.

The “Landfill Info Dump” Show Award: Rewrite (Moon and Terra)

First off, I have to say that this season of Rewrite so far has been much better than the first season. Unfortunately, that also leads us to this award, which was sort of a given with how unorganized the first season was. Because of the amount of stuff they glossed over, they now have to explain all of the stuff they missed, leading to a lot of information being dumped to the viewer. Now I’m not sure if this is because I’ve already read the VN or something else, but the info dump made the episodes go so slowly, and just made the show boring to watch. That might also just be the slow pacing of the show though, so I can’t really tell if it’s the same for an anime-only viewer. Well, hopefully this continues to be a decent adaptation.

The “Nisekoi” Award: Demi-chan wa Kataritai

Now before I get into my spiel, let me say that this show is some really good stuff. It’s so good that I already bought volume 1 of the manga, which tells you something given that I almost never get manga. Having said that, this episode revealed some things that I didn’t really like, namely the harem-y feels I’m getting (hence the Nisekoi award). From Machi’s crush on the sensei to Sato-sensei’s crush on the sensei to Hikari’s ambiguous crush on the sensei, I’m a bit wary. I have been told that nothing actually happens romantically, so I am optimistic that it’s just me being super pessimistic. Still, it’s something that’s been bothering me with this show, and is really the only complaint I have for it. But really, it’s a minor minor issue compared to the great things this show is doing. Still the best anime of the season so far.

The “Red Flags Dropped Show of the Week” Award: Fuuka

This last episode was the breaking point. Well actually, every episode was the breaking point, but this episode just pushed it over the edge. Firstly, why is the MC such a basic biatch? Secondly, how the heck did he end up in the position he was when he fell on Fuuka? Thirdly, how did I end up watching four episodes of this? For the time I was watching this, I think I had to pause at least five times per episode because I had to recollect myself and prevent myself from facedesking too hard. There were so many stupid decisions and turns that were made during this show, and watching it was probably bad for my health. It’s not even worth it anymore for “that point”, and so I say no more.

Best Episode of the Week Award: KonoSuba S2

Okay, this episode was significantly better in the face department. No noticeable derp, and the derp that was there was purposeful and added to the humor. And speaking of that, this episode was even better than the first episode, making me laugh more than any show from last season combined. It’s stupid, yes, but it uses its stupidity in a humorous way, parodying cliches and such to turn scenes in unexpected directions. I’m interested to see if the bad derp and good derp alternate, because apparently the animation directors for episodes alternate between odd and even numbered episodes. Would be interesting if that was the case. Still, this show was the best comedy last year, and it’s making a strong case for this year as well.

And that’s all for this week: thanks for reading! Random side note: there’s a certain show on my radar that’s been recommended to me, so I’ll give that a shot and see if it’s worth watching. If you know of Youjo Senki, well that’s it. We’ll see if it’s any good considering the genre isn’t really my thing.

So until next time, I’ll see you in the next post!

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