Winter 2014 Anime Season

Is anyone except me watching the second series of Maken-Ki! because episode 4 has the cast go to a manga festival and I wondered if I missed any of the references. I got Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA, Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai Kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?, Strike Witches and I think there was a Cardcaptor Sakura one as well but I am sure there were more.

edited 6th Feb '14 12:55:05 PM by SebastianGray

Well, I saw the first ep of the season, and this one, just because spotting references can be fun, even if I generally suck at it. Otherwise for a show so heavily focused on fanservice, and so much of it, it's just so awful at it.

Dragon Quest was fairly obvious, even if I know just about nothing of the series. At least two Upotte!! characters, a bunch of Is This A Zombie doujins and Haruna, and I believe Victorique.

edited 7th Feb '14 2:31:07 AM by AnotherDuck

How fun is Maken-ki? Not following the ongoing season cuz its season 2 and all, but I'm curious if I should watch the first season of it, maybe watch season 2 as well when it finishes airing.

I had forgotten Dragon Quest for some reason. I haven't seen the others so it is no wonder that I didn't get them.

The first season was relatively entertaining if you don't mind fanservice (although as Another Duck said, it isn't great fanservice) and actually had a plot, even if it wasn't focused on very much. The second season seems to have done away with what little plot there was in favour of fanservice heavy comedy episodes (although episode 4 did give some background and development to a couple of minor characters).

It's one of those "watch if you're bored" kind of shows. Don't need to know anything to follow, no need for thinking, and it's occasionally amusing. The funny part about the fanservice is that they actually bother with the occasional Magic Skirt, Scenery Censor, or whatever for stuff that isn't nudity (which is also censored, by the way). Which really only makes it worse.

it seems that not only Imo Cho was deemed "too risqué" for its slot, but that it's also going to get a live action treatment.

I'm following Z/X Ignition, mostly because of the character interactions, cause whatever they have for conflict and plot come off so weird that it can't carry the show on it's own.

Also just saw the second ep of Super Robot Girls Z. And that tweest with the newcomer seriously caught me off guard.

x2 WHAT?! You have got to be kidding me.

I'd usually be happy because there are people who don't seem to view Imo Cho as the shittiest anime ever made or something...but goddamn, live action, the brother looks weird as fuck, no, don't do this Japan...

And aight, Maken-ki goes to my backlog. I'll find time to download and watch someday.

Out of curiousity, what has been the worst program so far? I'm not talking about opinion, but more or less general analysis.

I pretty much view Buddy Complex as the worst anime of Winter 2014, mostly because it doesn't really try to be different or unique (beyond the Time Travel aspect, but if the hero can tell people he's from the future, but cannot figure out that the girl he liked fires at him because she doesn't know him... that says a lot about his intellegence). It's the Cliché Storm of the shows that have debuted in the past month or so, and not in a Guilty Pleasure kind of way.

It depends entirely on what "worst" is. Buddy Complex certainly is one of the blandest ones. Nisekoi is also very bland in as much as it's very stereotypical, but it doesn't quite come off as that boring despite that. Then you have Nobunagun which kind of seems to have a budget on the level of Kill la Kill but failing to overcome that problem, so it just feels very cheap^note  or at least in the beginning, as I didn't feel it was worth watching more; no idea how it is later. Pupa is one that could potentially have been at least an adequate horror story, but fails completely due to the short and choppy format.

So, define "worst".

Stuff in the running:

Pupa: Yeah, that is NOT well served by the format.

Nobunagun I found to be decent. It's like Senki Zesshō Symphogear with history instead of rock. Better than the other Nobu anime actually I think.

Maken-Ki: The manga was so bad I actually dropped it. Probably one of the better examples I have seen of "this is a mangaka who really, really needs a writer". Is the anime any good?

Imo Cho: Dropped after two episodes. The episodes were both decent humor+some promise combined with a big WTF moment in the middle. Might have been ok if you got rid of those. It did at least seem to take it's ridiculous plot devices seriously. First might have been over-lookable as a Non-Indicative First Episode, but then it happened again.

Buddy Complex: It's an inoffensive cliche storm. It executes well enough I wouldn't call it the worst.

Witchcraft Works: Looked bad early on(I considered it tied with the next one for a while), but it improved. Other characters appeared, the lead developed something like a personality and it became passable. Best ED of the season doesn't hurt either.

Mahou Sensou: Like the above it looked bad early on. Unfortunately, it took the opposite path. Ridiculously OP protagonist(in a bad way). Unlikeable characters(all of them). Horrible pacing. And an annoying penchant for throwing out interesting concepts and then totally failing to do anything with them. This would be my pick for worst, other than stuff that got dropped early. Rather than just "not good", it seem to be "actively bad".

edited 10th Feb '14 9:44:03 AM by kiukiuclk

I've found that Imo Cho isn't quite as bad if (and only if) you're capable of ignoring the crappy stuff. The characters are decent, and there's some legitimate drama in there. As I've said, it's decent or maybe even good story someone took a dump on.

For Maken-ki!, we just discussed it briefly above.

edited 10th Feb '14 9:44:00 AM by AnotherDuck

Anything can be improved by ignoring the crappy bits.

I dropped Imo Cho after second episode.

Out of the shows I'm still watching I'd have to go with Mahou Sensou. I really try to like this show but it just has so many problems. Even setting the obvious budget limitations aside the pacing is horrible, there's to many info dumps, fighting scenes are rather bland and some characters are just awful. It doesn't take advantage of the setting to tell what could be a fascinating story and instead focuses on cringe-worthy teenage drama.

It's a show that really felt short of what it could be.

Improved, yes, but to the point of being decent? No. I mean, if you ignored what you think are the problems with Mahou Sensou, you'd barely have anything left to watch at all.

Senki Zesshō Symphogear was one I ignored because it just never seemed interesting to begin with, so I can't really tell if that comparison is good or bad.

To me, "worst" doesn't necissarily mean "horrible", although I've seen some bad stuff. My problem with Buddy Complex is that it doesn't really try, because it's concept is unique from the other mecha installments Sunrise has done. There's nothing wrong with it, but to me, it's just... boring. So, yeah, it's So Okay, It's Average.

I haven't looked at Pupa, because I don't like horror stuff. However, I've heard from a friend that it really is the pits.

You guys survived two episodes of Imo Cho? I salute your perseverance. I watched the first episode mostly because I thought there was no way for it to be as bad as ANN's preview guide suggested and needed to judge for myself. And then I saw that they were right and got the hell out of there.

Yep. In a nut shell. I kept watching as long as I did because brining in the leads two friends right from the start had the potential to take the story in interesting directions but it became clear that the story wasn't interested in doing anything with them save as a props for the main character. And episode 5 had to be one of the worst paced episodes of anything I've seen in a long time.

Witchcraft Works on the other hand I watched just to fill some time and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise, especially as it started to get its feet under it.

Gotta say it's most likely Mahou Sensou. Dropped after two episodes, can't handle it. Nothing else comes close. Buddy Complex is boring, but it doesn't make me cringe.

And instead of saying Imocho is bad, just admit it's not your fetish and move on. Why do people associate being risque with being bad?

-shrug- most people find sister fetishes creepy. Especially if they have sisters.

Most of the reactions I've seen to ImoCho (the anime, at least) suggest it's not terribly good even if you like that kind of stuff

But, yeah, Mahou Sensou is probably the worst by most measures. Though I've no idea how Maken-ki 2 turned out

What bout KLK looks especially cheap? Like its not SAO levels of detailed (I have no idea how that show got the animation budget it did), but Nobunagun is way more self-evidently made on the cheap.

There are lots of animation-saving techniques in Kill la Kill. Tweening, swiveling, sliding, you name it. The art direction makes it work, but it's obviously held together by duct tape half the time.

Since everybody else is doing it, my ranking thus far:

Buddy Complex is probably my show of the season. It blows my mind that a novice director is nailing the execution so perfectly episode after episode. The main characters are all likable, the writing is solid, and the world-building is smart enough to know when to get out of the way. My only real concern is pacing: If this is a twelve episode show, it's so mindbogglingly off that I have a hard time meshing that with how smoothly everything else is going.

Witch Craft Works is a surprisingly good adaption; far better than what I expected we'd get going into the season. Unfortunately, it suffers from not having enough budget to do the source material justice.

Toaru Hikuushi E No Koiuta is as I described in the thread: A top-notch concept, hampered by an unwillingness to actually take it all the way. Like Buddy Complex, it could be hampered by not having enough episodes to really accomplish anything. Unlike Buddy Complex, that doesn't really bother me. I'd rather this show be forgotten so that somebody else can scavenge the core and do something worthwhile with it a decade hence.

Nisekoi is what it is. That it got adapted by Shaft may be both a blessing and a curse: It plays up the source material enough to draw interest, but it adds an element of the surreal that the manga doesn't really need or want.

Nobunaga The Fool is firmly in the wait-and-see category. I like the protagonist and the world-building, but Kawamori has a lot of trust to earn back after his recent misadventures.

Nobunagun doesn't really have enough to draw me in at this point. It's got an interesting concept, but other than that it's got far to many of the cliches that I don't care about. I've already got my weekly dose of Overly Enthusiastic Action Girl anime from Trigger this season, thank you very much.

World Conquest Zvezda Plot is both quirky enough and competent enough to draw my attention, though I'll probably stick to binging on it every few weeks.

Mahou Sensou makes me interested in reading the LN. I can't tell whether this is a good adaption of a terrible work or a hideous adaption of something better-than-average. I'm inclined to give the author the benefit of the doubt: I've heard that he was against the adaptoin even before it aired, so I'm assuming that there's lots of context and subtext that isn't making it across. That said, there's a whole bunch of better Urban Fantasy L Ns for me to spend my time with, so actually finding out isn't really high on my list.

edited 10th Feb '14 6:36:56 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

The context for the author not liking the adaptation is that he felt that there's a lot of better things they could be adapting instead

I don't really think Imo Cho plays so much to sister fetishes than to other ecchi crap and rape stuff with the ghost. So far it's more of a highlight in how they aren't brother and sister. I could mention I have two siblings myself, of either gender, and from that point of view, the two step siblings there are as much actual siblings as Buddy Complex features any kind of yaoi or homoerotic subtext. There are labels, but nothing under or even on the surface that actually supports it.

Mahou Sensou I find watchable, but I'm more and more doubtful that it's going to deliver anything of value. I'm pretty good at ignoring some parts if I find other things to focus on instead (which should be obvious due to my opinions about the above), so I don't find it that bad.

Nobunaga the Fool is currently on a precarious fence, due to the last episode. It's got flaws and strengths, but may have proven to have gotten rid of those some of those strengths, especially potential strengths, so there's far less to look forward to.

Witch Craft Works, Toaru Hikuushi E No Koiuta, and World Conquest Zvezda Plot I find to be solid, as well as several other of the series continuing from last year. Which may be a point: The average 24-ep anime is of significantly better quality than the average 12-ep anime.

That's a good summary of why Kill la Kill is obviously a bit low budget. But it handles it well, so it doesn't really feel like a significant drawback, unlike with Nobunagun, which suffers greatly from it.