#the absolute waste of having mal there the *entire* season and they only got what? 1 actual conversation?

[thanks-obillma]

surprise! against all odds, creation continues

[mahou-furbies]

Closing thoughts on Otona Precure

(spoilers)

I've tried to remain optimistic but man I can't find a positive spin on this. I don't think could stand on its own as a magical girl show aimed at adults because the story was kind of childish and a lot of the character stuff requires you to already be familiar with them, but it didn't deliver properly on the "I'm a Precure fan so I'll take anything" side either. Most importantly the show committed the cardinal sin of not only lacking any adult magical girl forms, but then it also didn't bother to include a new powerup look for the aged-down ones. What is this nonsense, everyone knows that your new magical girl season has to include at least one new look! 1/10 rating for that alone! (jokes aside I gave it a 4/10 on mal)

The inclusion of Nagisa and Honoka (and Hikari) was absolutely terrible; I don't mind their characters but their contributions were entirely pointless. Like if you don't know who they are it's just brand new nobodies with no connection to any of the plot and themes of the story who just randomly show up in the grand finale where everything is supposed to wrap up neatly, and if you do know who they are and are willing to accept them being shoehorned in just for the sake of seeing them grown up… we don't get that either. Oh how convenient how Nagisa and Honoka just happen to be missing from our bar meetup today! And they really didn't want to do anything at all with my girl Hikari, it was actually kind of funny how superfluous her appearance was. I guess the Futago Kamikita art is our only saviour here, at least they're included in that. Long hair Nagisa?

(also a nitpick but I really don't like that all the first five seasons apparently got retconned into happening in the same town? Makes the world so much smaller)

The time flower ticking clock also ended up completely wasted, I'm sure nobody expected Nozomi to die, but at least come up with some sort of excuse why everything turned out in the end and don't just say that actually there was never any danger in the first place. I hate to say this but even the light sticks from the movies would have been an improvement, have all the townspeople send encouraging vibes to the Precure which fix the flower issue if you must!

Then there's the visuals which were noticeably bad, ranging from poor cgi, lack of animation and just unappealing colour palette, and also kind of boring civilian clothes for the Cures. So the show doesn't have the excuse that at least it's pretty to look at or fun to draw either.

Then a final complaint that Coco and Nutts' mascot forms kept their shrill nails-on-a-chalkboard voices. Would anyone have complained if their voices had been changed?

Still the parts focusing on the Cures' grown up civilian lives were for the most part alright so I don't think the show was without any value. I liked especially the parts that were about how their problems are now more difficult than when they were younger, but that they'll continue moving forward regardless. But I would probably have liked the show better if it either had a stronger main plot to back it up, or alternatively scrapped the magical side of the story and was just a slice of life story.

Better luck with the MahouTsukai sequel, hopefully having less characters to juggle results in a better story.

[total-drama-takes-takes-takes-ta]

Here is my personal ranking of all the seasons:

Total Drama All Stars. Best season. Great concept, with it being an all star season. Great cast, with Sam being one of my favorites that season. Gave us Mal, my favorite antagonist. Everyone that season had amazing writing.

Total Drama Pahkitew Island. Loved the new cast, with Leonard being my person favorite. Skave is also one of my favorite ships, and Scax isn't too far behind from them. I love the new Island, and every character felt perfect.

Total Drama Action. Beth is my favorite finalist, and I believe she deserved her win. Also, Duncney and Gidgette in this season are amazing. Plus, Heather gets voted out early, and she is one of my least favorite characters. Very happy that happened.

The Ridonculous Race. It gave us Nemma, ending the argument that was Noah's sexuality, proving once and for all that he is straight. Plus, it gave my favorite, my most yaoitastic ship of all time: Gerry x Pete. I was very upset that they were an early boot. I was even more upset when Leonard was an early boot. It also gave us the Haters/Daters, a great couple to come out from the season. As well as the best friends. I loved the entire "Will they, won't they" story they had going. It did not get annoying att all. The thing the brings this season down though is the fact that Don is the host. He is not as good as Chris.

Total Drama 2023. New cast. It did give me some new favorites, such as Chase Ripper, Chemma, and Chipper. I do wish we got Rayne instead of Rajbow, and I hope we get a raynebow love triangle next season, as those are always my favorite. I also hope Julia goes bald next season, to match the other seasons with the theme. My favorite episode was epsiode 5, as fart jokes are very funny.

Total Drama World Tour. If I could make it lower, I would. The only saving grace of this season was Gwuncan becoming canon. Aleheather is my least favorite couple from the entire season. They are poorly written, bad at romance, and neither of them deserved their spot in the final 2. Cody and Duncan should've been the final 2, giving us a great yaoi-off to end a horrible season.

Total Drama Revenge of the Island. 2 words: New cast. From the very start, I was not interested in the new cast. All though some of them looked interesting, they got an early boot. I wish Staci made the finale, the finale that was got was one of the worst ones out there. Scott is the worst villain. They should've put more emphasis on the toxic waste. I will give props to the Dakota plot line though. My favorite from the season.

Total Drama Island. Horrible. What a horrible way to introduce a new IP. The characters were at their absolute worst this season. I don't care about the camp vibe. It's boring. It's bad. Ezekiel should not have gotten voted out episode 1. He should have won. It's just. Boring.

If you want more details about anything, essentially send them through my inbox.

[thesvenqueen]

TO THE END

S&B Episode 8 (I get a bit rabmle-y at the end there but, it's a good end review I swear!!)

- l've loved the switch in title cards every episode, really great detail and so fun to see what they come up with - bowler hat gang UNITE - HOW DARE YOU FORGET MILO WTF - oop Zoya piecing the puzzle together, yes girl - AHHHH MATTHIAS AND NINA YEEEES. - >.> there's only ONE BED <.< - NO DON'T LEAVE - :( god damn it, y'all killing me here - can you at least share the bed before you go?? - YES TO KERCH, LETS GO - "I will keep you warm" ASKLFGKLASDGBASDFNKB - WE NEARLY HAD A KISS WHY YOU AHHHHHHHHDLKASGALSKDHGVLSDKVBLKS - omg they let them get waffles I COULD CRY - oh they were so happy god DAMN IT - Fedyor WHY WHY WHY WHYYYY THEY WERE HAPPY GDI - they dooo though they dooooooo - UGHHHH we got 3 mins of happiness ffs I hate it hereeee - "remember who's driving" bitch I know you did NOT - bro Inej realizing someone is below deck with them YES YES YES - "I'll ask again, who are you?" god Jesper intimidating is HOT AF HELLO??? - boy Kaz has no buisness looking that good too jesus - mhmmmm, you be right Alina. - yeaaaaaaaah this is bad, this is really bad - ohhhhhhhhh my GOD - bruh, the SCREAMS wtf - ffs Mal can you please listen for once - INEJ COME ON YOU TOO???? UGHHHH - ok book quote I see you, nicely done - "us" it's just you tf you mean - again, Mal, I know you said you're not smart but bruh what kind of plan was that - JESPER NOOO YOU DON'T GET IT YO - YEAHHH BEAT HIS ASS INEJ - HE CALLED HER WRAITH OHHHHH - Ivan jfc - NOOOOOO INEJ - ZOYA HELL YES LETS GO - JESPER, BOY, THAT WAS DOPE BUT THE CUT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD - KAZ COMING IN CLUTCH THANK FUCK - she kissed the knife before she threw it I am just...I am dying hello HELP?!? - INEJ GOT THE DARKLING BITCH I SEE YOU QUEEN - Kaz is literally laying on top of Jesper even with his phobia I can not right now - girl don't you waste all your knives!!! - KAZ. WITH THE CANE. PROTECTING HIS INVESTMENTS. FUCK YES. lmao - owowowwowowowow my hand owowowow - YAS QUEEN LETS GO - save???? YOU engulfed the whole fucking city into darkness because they pissed you off shut the actual fuck up - Mal. Sweetie. what are you doing?? you literally brought a butter knife to a cut fight - I V A N. BITCH. NO. - JESPER BABY LETS GOOOOO - god with every spin of his gun I fall more in love jfc - byeeeee Ivan!! - whyyyy you no aim for the head Mal?!?!? - lmao Kaz ready with his fucking cane to wack some mf monsters I'm here for it - thank you for showing Kaz hella struggling with his cane and walking, I appreciate this so much - Awwww Inej, sweet baby - SHE GAVE HER A DAGGER BLESS - aw :( Kaz realizing Inej really might leave, oh sweet boy - LISTEN, Kaz can't break a deal homie. there is a lot at risk here that he can't lose - ......that might fix the problem. - For Inej, he did it for Inej and that's it and Inej was over in the back fighting to not fucking hug him I can not - Kaz be right, from experience Zoya please. - lmao "I still don't like you" ZOYA girl come on - this entire Kaz & Inej conversation I have no words I'm crying - "I need you" the face & noise I just made were not human ahhhhh - I mean, we know you stay, BUT PLEASE INEJ STAY - MATTHIAS - YOU WAIT MATTHIAS CHILL WTF - IT WASN'T THOUGH - come ON Matthias how do you not believe her??? - that literally broke my heart oh my god - he ALWAYS has a plan - ayeeee I got one for you - oh you shit, I see you - yeahhhh bout that, he ain't dead - welp, that's definitely not good.. - "follow" nah I only follow Kaz Brekker thanks

Netlfix, seriously, just go ahead and announce season 2 because we ALL want it. I NEED it so badly just, do it do it do it.

In all seriousness, as for as YA book adaptation, this is top notch if not the best adaptation I've seen. The cast was A+, nailing the characters so beautifully and bringing life to some that I really didn't fully appreciate in the books. Specifically Archie with Mal, credits to him and the writers (and Leigh) for really working to make him a stronger, fully developed character. It was so well done and I am really rooting for them more so than I was in the books.

Crow wise. Brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. Kit, Freddy, Amita, Danielle, Calahan; literally the most perfect casting. Period. I was so incredibly nervous when the show was announced how casting would go for the crows. They're my favorites, ones that I really treasured and when I tell you just the cast photo I had a feeling this was going to go well. Well was an understatement. I was absolutely blown away by how well they nailed the Crows. The humor, the small gestures, the teasing and comments; absolutely perfect. I have only one complaint, the same as Kit: GIVE ME WYLAN!!!

Also,Jessie as Alina, round of applause as well. I didn't mind her character in the book, but in the show I felt more connected and really was cheering for her and I have to give that to Jessie. Like Archie, she did a great job bringing the character to life and making her enjoyable, more fully developed tbh. I don't even need to go into Ben because I despise the Darkling as much as I did in the books so I'd say he was fucking brilliant.

The fact their budget was limited, they somehow was able to create a world so beautiful so incredibly well done and oddly inviting. The costumes, the sets, even the Fold looked nearly inviting. It all seemed so well done, so well put together and as I imagined it for the most part. The display of Grisha power was not corny but subtle and well created, not overdone like some like to do. It was believable and so cool to see displayed on tv.

Honest to god this is, to me at least, by far the best YA book adaptation in a long, LONG time. This coming from a HP, Twilight, Series of Unfortunate Events fan. I've seen YA books fail so badly (Euragon, ugh the heartbreak of that disaster) or just, be so flat it hurts...looking at you Twilight. Some having a cast that just, despises the entire book and movie all together, others so well connected and done so brilliantly only for the story to be torn to bits in some parts that you're left wondering if you read the same book at times (HP, never forgive you for that final battle scene, wtf was even that??). But for real, this had the perfect cast, perfect sets & editing, amazing music, fantastic writing to piece it all together and overall was just...absolutely amazing. Definitely going to be something I rewatch over and over and over again till the next season.

Thank you for not fucking it up <3

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - Netflix Exclusives 2018

Oh my god you guys, I’m finally done. I’m free from the prison of 2018, just in time to actually finish my premieres for spring of 2019. But first, let’s talk!

2018 was the year that Netflix really went all-in on producing its own anime and picking up some big names, so we saw Devilman Crybaby made specifically for the service and high-profile shows like Dragon Pilot and Hi-Score Girl basically hijacked by the streaming service and delayed for months in the U.S. so that the biggest name in the game could release everything in bingeable packages. Unfortunately, bringing in an auteur like Masaaki Yuasa for Crybaby and throwing all the damn money at him worked so well that, long before any of these shows would even premiere, they decided to seemingly take any anime pitch under the sun, and wound up financing disasters like Hero Mask and B: The Beginning. Really, these shows kind of run the full gamut from garbage to god-tier, with an unfortunate tipping of the scale in the wrong direction. I haven’t gotten to see Ingress yet at the time of publication though, so we’ll have to see whether 2019 will start in a good direction.

ANYWAY.

DROPPED

WORST OF NETFLIX: Back Street Girls -GOKUDOLS-

I still don’t get how anyone thought this was worth promoting. The entire concept is offensive, and yet it was directed by a master and veteran of the medium (who is also a woman), leading me to just throw my hands in the air and resign myself to never having a satisfactory answer for why Netflix would pick this up to begin with. Dropped after 1 episode.

Hero Mask

One of the most incompetently written first episodes I’ve ever seen gave me absolutely no hope that Hero Mask was going to actualize into anything watchable or even average-looking. It was boring and unintelligible. Dropped after 1 episode.

Fate/EXTRA: Last Encore

What the fuck was Akiyuki Shinbo even doing on Fate? Did he do this at the expense of season 3 of March comes in like a lion or something? Probably not, but geez... This seems much more like someone attempting to copy his style than the genuine article, but nope, there’s his director credit. In the end, I suppose that Fate/EXTRA, despite being a very interesting game, was not ever going to be adapted well - the protagonist is almost literally a blank slate for a self-insert of the player, and their servant is also not set in stone - but I kind of would have rather had nothing than this. Dropped after 2 episodes.

SWORDGAI The Animation

Oh hey, yet another “the Animation”, it definitely doesn’t sound pretentious yet. I don’t have much to say on SWORDGAI, or at least not any more than anyone else - it’s stupid, very earnestly stupid, and doesn’t seem aware enough of that fact to be entertaining for more than a hate watch - and my hate plate is full already. Dropped after 1 episode.

Last Hope

I remember almost nothing about Last Hope other than that it was both pretentious and nonsensical, which kind of illustrates why Yoshiyuki Tomino is wise enough to stay out of anything that isn’t his beautiful Gundam baby, and it’s a shame that Kawamori (father of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross) doesn’t stick with what he knows, which is mech design. (No, seriously, he’s got a ton of credits on MAL and they’re almost all for that.) Dropped after 1 episode.

BAKI

Oh, BAKI, it’s okay, you’re a remnant from a different time. That time was right around when Mars of Destruction seemed like a good idea. It’s not that bad so I shouldn’t really mention them in the same sentence, but the hyper-violent imagery of this show is on the level of the Berserk manga. It’s unfortunate that I had to leave it after one episode because Netflix picked up a sequel that relies heavily on your pre-existing investment (just like with the Dragons TV show, for the record). Dropped after 1 episode.

A.I.C.O. Incarnation

I stuck with this one longer than any other that I didn’t drop, but in hindsight I shouldn’t have wasted my time. It’s one of the worst-looking Bones productions I’ve ever seen and the plot is a dumb ripoff of a much better science fiction series. Dropped after six episodes.

B: The Beginning

Probably the biggest waste of money on this list, B has such lavish animation that you can almost forget that you have absolutely no clue what’s happening or what the context of the story even is. It tries really hard to be both Psycho-Pass and Death Note at the same time to the point of cutting between them multiple times per scene, and it just ends up a badly jumbled mess, albeit one with really pretty colors. Dropped after 3 episodes.

Kakegurui

I still don’t have much to say here because the topic has been so thoroughly covered by The Anime Pope, so I’ll resummarize here - this is a show about gambling where the stakes seem utterly meaningless, even though it tries to impress us by showering money on the characters.

Children of the Whales

It’s so pretty, but it’s so boring. Children of the Whales succeeds in looking beautiful, but fails as a story that wants to be grim and apocalyptic but comes across as a soft-hearted small-village story that gets surprisingly violent four episodes in. This should have been the tone from the beginning, and the entire thing needed a good kick in the pants. Dropped after five episodes.

FINISHED

Sirius the Jaeger (6/10)

One that I waited a long time for after seeing the PV at Anime Central last year, and wound up pretty disappointed by in general. It looks nice (...at first), given that P.A. Works at least knows how to make a show visually appealing on a consistent basis, but the plot jumps so far into cliched stupidity by the end that, even though it had a few twists I wasn’t expecting, they couldn’t save it from being something I won’t recommend to anyone with as much anime experience as myself.

Lost Song (7/10)

(Author’s note: Yeah, apparently nobody on all of Tumblr has made a GIF of this one...)

Lost Song was a pleasant surprise that I wasn’t expecting to be invested enough to finish. One of the best of LIDENFILMS’ output, it manages to weave together a decent fantasy Symphogear AU fanfic, with interesting third-act twists peppering the last few episodes that made it memorable despite looking pretty generic. There’s a sequel due this year, too!

Hi Score Girl (7/10)

A very visually distinctive show with a neat concept that didn’t dive far enough into the heavy subjects it brings up, Hi Score Girl sits in a place where I like the presentation of it a lot more than I like the story. Don’t get me wrong, the romance is certainly cute, and I won’t begrudge a love triangle if it’s meant to be the primary conflict of a show, but the fact that it spent most of its last episode setting up for later robbed it of the chance to give us a satisfying place to leave off until the next part of this adaptation. Luckily, it got a second season, hopefully to finish the adaptation later this year.

Forest of Piano (7/10)

A good first try by a fledgling studio, but not one that lives up to what it really wants to be due to some very bad habits. I still distinctly remember the constant character shilling, and it feels like the story could have happened a little faster if not for the breaks every few minutes to heap praise upon the protagonist. Also, the mo-cap piano playing still looks weird. I’ll probably watch the sequel though, to see if it gets concluded well.

Dragon Pilot: Hisone to Masotan (8/10)

I literally just did my write-up for this one, so I don’t have much new to say here, but I’m pleased that Dragon Pilot turned out as well as it did despite not being what I quite expected from it.

Aggretsuko (8/10)

A fantastic and rather unorthodox look at what it’s actually like to be an adult in the Japanese workforce, Aggretsuko was an early darling of the year, and the only things that could have made it better were a more interesting visual presentation and a less squirrelly ending. Shame that the Christmas Special was...not good.

Devilman Crybaby (9/10)

It was so, so good...right up until the end. Yeah, that’s the only thing holding this back from a perfect score - I really, really hate the ending, and it needed to be changed. I know that, for most people, the best show of the year was either this one, or the most conspicuous work that hasn’t yet appeared on this list, though, so…

BEST NETFLIX SHOW OF THE YEAR: Violet Evergarden (10/10)

Oh God, what beautiful cry-porn. I hope that Kyoto Animation was paid well for their best show in years, and I’m kind of shocked that the two shows that made me sob the most this year both came out in the same season (thanks, A Place Further Than the Universe). I won’t spoil more than I did in my original review, but Netflix should be pushing this to literally everyone who would be even casually interested in watching it.

And that’s it! Last but not least, the last list won’t be a roundup of the whole year (since, you know, I’ve already done that in big chunks), but a list of the Class of 2018 Superlatives. Look forward to it!

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - Spring 2018

Oh, I am so very late on this one, but in my defense, I did warn that I had too much to watch during the spring, so much so that I actually have to have MAL open in another tab while I’m writing this just to remember everything.

I’ll start with what I skipped.

* Tokyo Ghoul:re, FLCL Alternative, Hozuki’s Coolheadedness Season 2 and High School DxD Hero because I have neither watched the previous seasons nor read the manga.

* Cutie Honey Universe and Gurazeni because by the time I would have gotten to them, I had only heard bad things.

* Dragon Pilot: Hisone to Masotan because Netflix picked it up and we’ll have to wait until September for it.

* Gegege no Kitaro because I didn’t hear any buzz about it and frequently forget that it even exists, I’ll get around to it if enough people ask me to.

* Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory because Funimation has inexplicably removed the dub from VRV and that’s how I want to experience it.

* Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits because I already watched Konohana Kitan and didn’t see much of a difference.

* Captain Tsubasa because Viz licensed it and then just kinda sat on it everywhere except the Philippines.

* Inazuma Eleven because it just went completely unlicensed/unloved.

So, with those out of the way, from the bottom to the top, here’s everything I did manage this season.

Worst of the Season: Fist of the Blue Sky Re:Genesis (2/10)

Oh my god, it’s just the ugliest thing this side of Berserk. I don’t remember a damn thing about this one, and I’d bet that most people who watched it are with me on this one, because I was just distracted by how astoundingly awful the CG production in this show is.

Butlers x Battlers (3/10)

Ugh, what a boring slog of a premiere. I still pretty vividly remember this one, if only because it’s so painfully generic that it swung all the way around to be memorable again. Butlers spent almost its entire first episode on absolutely nothing before remembering in the last five minutes that it was supposed to have a plot and smash-cutting to it in the middle of a scene.

Caligula (3/10)

Where to start? After one of the most interesting premieres of the season, this adaptation pretty immediately sank into complete nonsense, and it’s such a massive waste of potential that this was the work of the writers behind the original Persona titles. Caligula is a show where the main characters literally forget the plot is happening and decide to go to a theme park while they’re trapped in a virtual world with a bunch of digi-zombies trying to murder them. Are you kidding me?

Devils’ Line (3/10)

I just did my write-up for this, so it’s a little fresher in my mind, but honestly, it’s just Twilight with adults and the edge factor turned up, and it looks damn silly trying to be as serious as it is. Sentai needs to choose a little more carefully than this if they want to promote their new service.

Libra of Nil Admirari (3/10)

This one was just so boring to look at that I don’t remember anything except that books were evil and it was a visual novel adaptation.

Dances With the Dragons (4/10)

I’m aware that I use the word “generic” an awful lot, but this season’s worst had quite a lot of that quality, and it applies here, too. Trying its hardest to be a mid-aughts grimdark action piece, it just does almost nothing interesting in its premiere, aside from giving the protagonist an already-existing girlfriend, which may have just been an attempt to quell any yaoi-baiting the two main dudes have going for them, because her only qualities demonstrated were “can’t cook” and “looks hot”.

Real Girl (4/10)

As I said in my write-up, I wanted so badly to like this one, but you need a budget of more than fifty cents to make an anime, and nearly every shot betrays just how little the studio was working with. We’re talking about the kind of show where the main cast goes to a summer festival, and appear to be the only people there. The story and writing just aren’t enough to make me put up with it.

Gundam Build Divers (4/10)

What a total letdown from this franchise. Fighters was an incredibly well-written show that was aimed at kids but could appeal to all Gundam fans, Try was divisive but the people that liked it (like me) got a lot out of it, but Divers just flounders. A relatively decent first episode gives way to episode after episode of Villain of the Week shenanigans that I cannot bring myself to care about because the main cast just aren’t interesting; they’re pretty much just generic shonen cardboard cutouts. This was one case where I was almost hoping for a sudden death game turnaround, because the idea of a bunch of kids being trapped in a game with lots of adults and giant robots would at least be a workable plot, but just fighting Team Rocket over and over again is boring schlock.

Magical Girl Ore (4/10)

I held out hope for too long on this one, but I had an inkling from the beginning that the humor was just going to turn me way, way off, and I was right. This one just carried too many bad implications if you thought about it, and they all piled up and crashed down on me the more I tried to keep going.

Magical Girl Site (4/10)

This show just couldn’t stay above water. The writing only got dumber as the plot carried on, and the fact that I was still watching became embarrassing, because most of the community watched one episode of this and dropped it like a hot rock. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.

Darling in the FRANXX (5/10)

What total bull, huh? I’ve never seen public opinion on a show turn around as fast as the community ripped Darling to shreds. While it’s visually gorgeous (most of the time), the writing in the second half of the show is just humiliating to everyone involved, as the script becomes a child Godzilla-stomping through a carefully-constructed castle of wood blocks. Once again, I yearn for Inferno Cop.

Persona 5 the Animation (5/10)

I said for the longest time during the lead-up to P5A that I didn’t really see the point of it. Persona 5 is the fastest-selling game in the franchise, and ultimately an adaptation would only serve to recap the plot, because that’s all it would have time to do in only six months. I actually enjoyed Persona 4 The Golden Animation, because it sold itself as a companion piece to the existing plot rather than a retread of it, and seeing the Scooby Gang just hanging out more was precisely what I wanted from it. A-1 Pictures just didn’t learn enough from the sins of Ace Attorney, because while this is better, it’s still not worth watching if you’ve played the game.

Last Period (5/10)

This one got some early buzz for halfway-decent production work and a skewering of gacha-based RPGs, but ultimately ended up repeating itself so often that it became boring, and sidelining the highlight of the show (the villain trio Wiseman) into having barely a few lines per episode. Just goes to show what happens when repeated gags get stale.

Now that those are out of the way, we can get to the stuff I actually finished!

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These (6/10)

Barely worth watching for how badly condensed the plot is, and barely worth talking about until the movies happen. That’s assuming we actually get them stateside, but I won’t hold my breath on that one. I coulodn’t even find a decent GIF for this one.

Crossing Time (6/10)

A fun, yet not especially memorable set of vignettes about people waiting for the train to go by. Some of the episodes were less enjoyable than others, but still worth a watch if only because it’ll only take you half an hour and anything you don’t like will probably be over quickly.

Golden Kamuy (6/10)

The last thing I finished for the season, Golden Kamuy’s failure to live up to high expectations lies in its inability to focus on its serious tone, constantly inserting dick jokes into its brutal fight scenes and dragging a poop joke on for entirely too long throughout the show, but it’s still good-looking enough to be worth watching, and it was the only decent show this season to pull out the announcement of a continuation in its last episode, without which it probably wouldn’t have gotten a pass from me.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby (7/10)

I still am amazed by the legwork that went into this silly little mobile game adaptation. While parts of it remain half-assed and unnecessary (the random idol performances being at the top of that list), it’s still a competently-written story about a protagonist who won’t let anything stop her from being The Very Best Like No One Ever Was, and I never get tired of that. The constant timeskips do get a little hard to keep track of, though.

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (7/10)

This one could have been improved by just tweaking a few things. While the characters were endearing and the comedy on-point, the story needed a little interference just so that we didn’t end the final episode in pretty much the same place as the second, because I didn’t get any sense of progress in the main relationship. Still, totally worth a watch if you were disappointed by the news that Recovery of an MMO Junkie was directed by a Nazi.

Comic Girls (7/10)

A very cute story of four artists living together and sharing their passion for manga. This one grew on me a lot over its run, and while I had been pretty certain it would be a 6, a satisfying ending and unnecessarily pretty production elevated it, and I’m glad I wound up finishing it.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online (8/10)

This one has the distinction of being the first review I got hate mail for, because I said that Sigsawa was a far better writer than Kawahara and that the female characters in Alternative actually had agency, and boy are those things true. As it turns out, without Kirito-sama, Sword Art Online can actually be decent, or even great. A solid buildup, well-defined characters (that don’t want to bang the main character!) and a spectacular climax lead up to the best story in the franchise. Can’t wait for Alicization to bring SAO crashing back down to mediocrity-at-best.

Tada-kun Never Falls in Love (8/10)

The only HIDIVE show I finished this season! And the best of three romantic comedies we got this spring, because it gave us the progression and satisfaction that Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun wasn’t able to. While it hit a few stumbling blocks, Tada-kun was brought up at least two full points by its fantastic ending, and that was a great surprise since I was really skeptical going into the final few episodes, as they are a big shift in tone and setting from the rest of the show, but the story pulled it off brilliantly.

Hinamatsuri (8/10)

The funniest show of the season, hands-down, Hinamatsuri is the strange tale of a girl with psychic powers from another dimension coming to live with her new yakuza dad, and the hilarity that ensues. Hina herself is a great character, as her dimwittedness is the basis for a lot of the comedy in this show, but the real heart is Anzu, and the coming-of-age journey she takes over the course of the story. This series shows a great and uncommon sympathy to the downtrodden members of Japanese society, and ultimately is able to bring every character’s arc to a meaningful and satisfying conclusion...except for one. Shame about that final episode.

Food Wars: The Third Plate (9/10)

I’m surprised at the lack of heat I’ve gotten about my opinion on Food Wars, and maybe it’s because I’ve been too subtle about my feelings, so I’ll spell them out clearly now: Food Wars is better than My Hero Academia, and you should be watching it.

Lostorage Conflated WIXOSS (9/10)

Man, was this a satisfying turnaround from the disappointment that was incited. The decision to bring the original cast back for a Massive Multiplayer Team-Up was a great one, and meant that almost every character, but especially Midoriko, got the conclusion they really needed. I’m hoping that this is the end for this franchise, if only so it can go out on its highest note. Oh, also, the soundtrack is still awesome.

Best of the Season:...

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MEGALOBOX (10/10)

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, because MEGALOBOX was perfect from beginning to end and anybody who watched it is well aware of that fact. The sleeper hit of the season was everything the first episode promised; a gritty, 90′s-flavored story of one man’s journey to prove himself the best, and damn the consequences. MEGALOBOX is so great that it’s difficult to pick out individual elements of its awesomeness, but special mention should go to the music, because it is amazing. The OST of this one should go down in history along with that of Bebop as the best that anime has to offer.