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mononohke-archive · 7 years

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Anime Roundup Pt.1 - Fall 2016 [Spoilers]

It’s that time of the season again where I get to write thousands of words nitpicking whatever anime I happened to watch! For the first time, I want to add a SPOILER warning because although I don’t go out of my way to spoil plot points, I will bring them up if necessary. This is late once again, and honestly I don’t have much of an excuse. I did have some writers’ block, but I also just procrastinated a lot. It’s a good thing no one cares about my opinions in the first place! :D

Also, I had to split this into two parts because apparently there is a word limit of 5000 on text posts.

Overall: This was a really damn good season. The were a couple of disappointments, yes, but it still mostly good and there were a few amazing, Anime of the Year contenders too.

Total Anime: 11 | Average Score: 7.5 | Word Count: 5058

- (DIRECT) SEQUELS -

Bungou Stray Dogs 2nd Season [7/10]

Oh... Bungou Stray Dogs. How dare you do that to me? How dare you get so damn good you made me cry, then a few episodes later, take it all away? That’s what the first 4-episode, completely unrelated flashback arc of this second season did. Meaning: it switches protagonists (focusing on a character/friend from Dazai’s past in Port Mafia), switches tone, and switches... um, quality of writing to be perfectly honest. This whole 4-episode arc is like a masterpiece compared to the rest of the show before and after. I need to talk about why I like it better so much.

#1) The main character is someone I ended up really caring about. Oda Sakunosuke (voiced by the great Jun Suwabe) is a Port Mafia hitman who is unwilling to actually kill people. Despite his job, he takes care of a few adopted kids and tries so hard to do what’s right and follow his principles. He is a protagonist which I rarely see, and I fell in love with him instantly. Compare him to Atsushi who is... just okay... nothing special... kind of boring by comparison, actually. I have issues with being invested with the characters in the main storyline.

Of all the people in the Agency, I only like Kunikida and the boss, Yuki. Collectively, they don’t get much screen time, especially compared to Dazai, but even I did not have a problem with Dazai in this arc. His stupid suicide jokes and tomfoolery are severely toned down and frankly, he’s a lot more likable like this. The other side characters were great too, like the villain, Gide (voiced by another one of my favorite seiyuu, Shinichirou Miki).

#2) Total difference. If you haven’t seen BSD, you won’t know that it is full of humorous moments. A lot of it is... hit and miss. And sure, it’s not overall or primarily a comedy, but the comedy elements are pretty strong and frequent, especially in the first season. In this arc though, there was almost no humor. It was a serious gangster drama with a few supernatural elements. It’s almost comparable to last season’s 91 Days, which I personally enjoyed a lot.

#3) Genre shift. This is related to the previous number and to reiterate, the first arc of BSD season 2 is a dead serious gangster action/drama. The rest of the show is highly comedic with a lot of anime tropes/cliches, but the flashback arc had none of that. It almost didn’t feel like an anime. It was a legitimate crime drama (with the focus on the criminals instead of the police) which is actually really damn rare in anime. I praised 91 Days a lot for this in the previous season, so BSD gave me another taste of that and it was beautifully done. The bleak, but still beautiful color grading, the 1930s aesthetic despite it taking place in modern times, the soundtrack, everything was on point.

Aaand that’s why I upped the score by one point compared to the first season. This flashback arc did it for me. It made me desperately wish that BSD was about Odasaku and Port Mafia instead of Atsushi and the Agency. If this arc was released alone as an OVA, I would’ve given it a 9 for sure.

To be fair though, this season was also genuinely better than the first in a few ways. Namely, the introduction of the overseas/foreign group of specialists full of familiar Western authors like Mark Twain and H.P. Lovecraft. The leader of The Guild, F. Scott Fitzgerald (played by another one of my faves, Takahiro Sakurai), in particular is a delight to watch as he pulls the strings of his evil plans. Generally, all the new additions to the cast, including the extra focus on Port Mafia, are highly entertaining to follow, much better than the Agency alone. Although the Guild arc is a little bit rushed because of the flashback arc, the pacing and everything just felt a lot more exciting than the previous season.

Other than that, I can’t say I have any new criticisms or appraisals. Most of the things I mentioned in my first review of Bungou Stray Dogs carries over. I do want to praise the production values again because this show genuinely has top-tier animation and sound design (because Production I.G.). Forget what I previously said about the direction because that and the cinematography are beautiful. Some of the shots in the show are worthy of being framed. Even the soundtrack was good, even if it isn’t particularly memorable. The biggest, and pretty much only, flaws that this show has is in the writing/plot and characters and those are really important things. Great writing can often make up for a lack of production values, but it usually does work the other way around.

Haikyuu!! 3rd Season [8/10]

I was kind of surprised that for the next sequel of Haikyuu!!, they would dedicate an entire (10 episode) season just to one match. Even now, I question that decision. Don’t get me wrong, Haikyuu!! is still as good as it ever was in terms of production values, writing, voice acting*, etc buuut having 10 episodes dedicated to one match and nothing else? I’m not a fan of it.

Part of that is because as far as sports anime goes, I tend to favor training arcs and down time in-between matches, more than actual matches themselves (and I also prefer shorter matches). This “season” is one rather lengthy match, with nothing after it or before it like in the previous seasons. I’m sure I would’ve been fine with it if it was part of a full 25 episode season. That’s why I actually dropped it one point instead of being a 9/10 like the first two seasons.

Other than that, I don’t really have any complaints... I mean, yes, my preference for shorter matches is a thing, but it’s not at all badly paced like Diamond no Ace. But looking back, I might’ve preferred marathoning it than watching it week-to-week like I did...

*RIP to the original voice actor of Ukai, Kazunari Tanaka.

Natsume Yuujinchou Go [10/10]

Watching this new season of Natsume Yuujinchou was like meeting and old friend. It was like going home. With the exception of a slight change in art style, there is no difference at all between this and the last season that aired back in 2012. My biggest complaint, honestly, is that Go only had 11 episodes rather than 13 like every other season does. Thankfully, another season is guaranteed next year, so it’s not over!

Now, I don’t want to discuss every reason why I love Natsume Yuujinchou so much because I plan to do that one day in a proper review of the series as a whole, but let’s just say that this series is really important to me. This season gave me what I wanted: more fun, heartwarming, and emotional anecdotes of Natsume’s everyday life interacting with youkai and humans alike as well as a bit more backstory of Natsume, Natori, Matoba, and Natsume’s family/friends and the slight moving forward of an overarching plot. Further character development for some few characters also happened in the usual subtle way.

I’m so happy Natsume has maintained its level of quality, even with the studio change. All the original voice actors and most of the original production crew came back. Thank god for this consistency because not all shows get it (*coughsdgmcoughs*).

- INDIRECT SEQUELS & NON-SEQUELS -

Days [7/10]

This is a sports anime. Just a regular sports anime which hits all the beats of every other sports anime. The production values are pretty decent, although the CGI players in long shots are somewhat distracting, but they are nothing special.

So why did I like this one? Well, aside from how I generally favor sports anime (albeit for shallow reasons like good yaoi art/doujins/fanfiction), I did get invested in the characters, that much is undeniable. What helps is that the voice cast is incredible, with Takahiro Sakurai, Daisuke Ono, Tomokazu Seki, Daisuke Namikawa, etc etc. Yes, despite the sameyness of this sports anime, I took a liking to it. It entertained me and it’s good enough for a sports anime, which I rate relative to each other, not other anime of different genres.

Days, in all actuality, is pretty average, but I liked the characters a lot and that’s enough for me.

Drifters [7/10]

Before I start talking about this one, I am not familiar with Hellsing (yet, but it is on my plan-to-watch list), so I can’t really use that as a comparison. Now then, Drifters is a little strange to me because on one hand, it really plays to some of my base desires/guilty pleasures and overall I found it fun to watch. For example, It’s incredibly gorey and violent, which I appreciate. It’s a massive crossover story with famous historical figures and takes place in a very Lord of the Rings-esque (almost like a cliffnotes version) alternate universe. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and has plenty of hilarious and cool moments.

On the other hand, there’s a lot of unfunny “offensive” humor/etc that really takes me out of the viewing experience. How can I properly enjoy something when I’m always lowkey uncomfortable? Some of the sexism and homophobia/transphobia is so bad it feels like an 80s anime. (If you’ve seen an older anime, you know how much more blatant they are.) How is this writer still stuck so far in the past? Get a clue, man, most modern anime is usually at least subtle about it.

Anyway, aside from that, I did also have some problems with other things, which I can only describe vaguely because sometimes I zoned out while watching the show. Well, regardless, I still thought Drifters was pretty good, and I liked it, but it sure as hell is flawed. Looking forward to the second season though.

Fune wo Amu [5/10]

If I had to pick the most disappointing anime of the season, it would be this one. Not that Fune wo Amu/The Great Passage is actually bad, per se, but I expected much more. Granted, it was probably my fault in the first place. I made a lot of assumptions about what it would be like because I heard Haruko Kumota was attached to the project and thought it would be a masterpiece drama like Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (written/drawn by Kumota) earlier this year. Turns out that Fune no Amu is actually based off of a novel written by someone else and Haruko Kumota is merely the character designer for the anime and is currently drawing the manga adaptation.

Even so, this anime looked promising. The whole premise centering around an adult cast working on the production of a dictionary (a somewhat mundane job) is exceedingly rare in anime. Sooo... maybe it would give a unique experience since there would be little-to-no anime cliches and tropes, right? Um, well, yeah that’s the thing. While is succeeded in not having that many of anime’s typical pitfalls, it did not succeed in making the characters or dictionaries in general interesting.

The biggest problem with Fune wo Amu is the complete lack of focus. It kind of goes all over the place and tries to cover everything, but instead it spreads the narrative thin. The only exception is Majime (the main character)’s connection to dictionary making, but even that is marred by a different issue (which I’ll get to after this). There are other things which are subplots or otherwise brought up, but never get properly explored or resolved.

For example: the romance between Majime and Kaguya. For a few episodes, they interact a little bit, Majime has a crush on her, halfway through he writes a cheesy love letter to her and bam! 10+ year time skip and they’re happily married. As someone who hates romance in general, it’s really weird for me to say that I wanted more focus on the romance. (On a sidenote, can I just say that Kaguya’s career of becoming a chef and restaurant owner in an extremely male dominated/sexist industry is about hundred times more interesting than Majime faffing about with dictionaries? Makes me wish the anime was about her instead.)

And that’s not the only thing ofc... the friendship between Majime and Nishioka was not really resolved. The old man and his dedication to making the dictionary was there in the beginning and brought back only at the very end as he’s about to pass away. Almost everything felt like it didn’t get enough attention.

As for Majime’s character development and his relationship with dictionary making. The problem with that is not really the writing, but with the imagery. The symbolism in this show is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. A character says something like “a sea of words” to describe making a dictionary and then later in the episode, Majime has a dream where he’s literally in a sea of words. Not only is it distracting as hell, but it feels unfitting for this kind of anime. Yes, there is some media where big and bold imagery is the way to go (Gurren Lagann, anyone?), but Fune wo Amu is not it. If the symbolism was more subtle or abstract, it definitely would’ve worked in its favor. Instead, it’s hamfisted and corny. If you want a good example of subtle, interesting, and effective imagery from a show with a similar vibe, watch Rakugo Shinjuu (which is in my top 3 best anime of 2016).

I also have to quickly mention the music, even though it’s not visual, because it also suffers the problem of being too obvious and distracting. It’s not a good thing when the main theme kicks in and I groan because it annoys me that much. Again, a more subtle soundtrack would’ve been better. Other than those major problems, there’s nothing really of note to mention. The animation itself is decent and the voice acting is fine as usual. Nothing standout though, despite the cast full of veterans.

So in the end, I struggled between giving this an anime a 5 or 6. I originally settled on a 6, but then lowered it back down to a 5 because I was being too forgiving.

#*#anime roundup #anime roundup: fall 2016 #writing*

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