Winter 2015 Anime Season

Absolute Duo: The best Harem-Fantasy series of the season with some good characters and nice action. It could have used a bit more development though.

Isuca: As someone who has read the manga, this was the biggest disappointment of the series. While still somewhat enjoyable it is a pale imitation of the original.

Juuou Mujin no Fafnir/Unlimited Fafnir: Relatively good but somewhat unsubstatial for some reason. The design and animation for the Dragons was good but seemed to use up a lot of the budget.

Military: Short fluffy fun with some rather uncomfortable fanservice as well as some nicely funny moments.

The Rolling Girls: Unfocused but makes up for it with a riot of colour, energy and my favourite soundtrack of the season.

Seiken Tsukai No World Break: A reasonable series that is hamstrung by a very low budget. Entertaining enough despite this but I wish some of the minor characters had had a bit more development.

Sengoku Musou/Samurai Warriors: Far more talky than I was expecting from a series based on a Hack and Slash computer game. It was still entertaining though and had my favourite opening of the season.

Yuri Kuma Arashi: Sweet but a little insubstantial in places. I definitely didn’t cry at the ending.

Previous Season

Cross Ange Tenshi To Ryuu No Rondo: Inconsistent but never anything except entertaining. It definitely doesn’t deserve the hate it gets.

Nanatsu No Taizai: Probably second only to Hunter X Hunter in my list of favourite Shōnen anime. I will definitely add it to my list of manga to read.

Parasite –the maxim-: A great series with a good mixture of action and philosophy.

Ongoing

Assassination Classroom: A very fun series that and I am very interested to see how it goes.

One Piece: As slow but fun as always.

Sailor Moon Crystal: Still a classic and very enjoyable even if I have never liked Chibi-Usa

edited 31st Mar '15 3:32:49 AM by SebastianGray

@fillerdude:I already have seen a couple of chapters from the World Trigger manga. It the exact same story as the anime adaptation, but thanks to the comic book medium the story flows much better. It's kind of amazing.

Impressions time, I suppose. How riveting.

• Absolute Duo - Had a pretty good start, liked the characters, and wasn't quite choking with fanservice. Miyabi got far too much attention around halfway through, though, and the resulting plot from that wasn't too good. Also go away K. Overall, it was fairly enjoyable, though.
• Yuri Bear Storm - Trying way too hard to be meaningful and deep, and instead delivered... stupid. Bleh.
• Saenai Heroine - This was really great, actually. Episodes 0 and 10 were heavy with the fanservice, but aside from that, it was a pretty funny show. Kato is now one of my favourite deadpan snarkers.
• Death Parade - It was... okay, I guess? Interesting setting and all, but it was never quite awesome. Well, except for that opening. EVERYBODY, PUT YOUR HANDS UP~
• Aldnoah Zero - First season had a great start, a hell of a finale, and was awfully boring the rest of the time. This season... seemed to invert that. Having others actually contribute meaningfully to battles was a godsend, but I still have no idea how Earth wasn't totally conquered while the only person apparently capable of fighting them was out of commission.
• Rolling Girls - It's great when it fully embraces its crazy over-the-topness. Otherwise, it's a normal slice-of-life that jars heavily with the setting's craziness. Wasn't totally horrible at any point, but it simply kept jumping from "holy shit awesome" to "holy shit mundane".
• Maria The Virgin Witch - Really good and well worth the watch. Fuck Galfa, though.

For stuff I dropped...

• Seiken Tsukai - had an interesting setting, but it was ruined by characters that were either boring, or Moroha. The animation also felt incredibly off to me.
• Isuca - I hear the manga is much better, but Isuca was just acting like a stereotypical tsundere with none of the stuff that actually makes tsunderes enjoyable to watch. Then again, I only gave it one episode.

Also, Assassination Classroom continues to be fun and enjoyable.

First batch of impressions:

First Off...

• ISUCA: Atrocious. Honestly cannot see how the manga is well-regarded when the anime is like this. It's... it's... it's shit.

The LN trio

• Seiken Tsukai no World Break: Only Tatsuya of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei fame is higher up the Marty Stu scale than our MC, a considerable feat in a subgenre that sustains itself on wish fulfillment. This is all the more unfortunate as nothing else about the anime is noteworthy. The worst of the lot.
• Unlimited Fafnir: Middling fare, which is a shame as I think it has the best core plot out of the three. Tear Lightning takes all that is bad with the tsundere loli archetype and runs with it, bleargh.
• Absolute Duo: The relationship between Toru and Julie is actually rather sweet. Lilith also proves surprisingly entertaining as a third party with all sorts of funny interactions with Julie. On the other hand Miyabi becomes a contrived love interest, gets far too prominent and ends up starting a storyline that bores to tears.
  • The harem aspect seems to have been incorporated to fulfill a checklist. Toru has no chemistry with anyone not named Julie or Lilith (and arguably Tora).
  • The fight scenes do have decent animation and choreography. Always nice to see an action-fantasy harem LN adaptation put some effort into the action, instead of diverting the resources to the ecchi/romance/harem parts.

And now some random other shows

• Cross Ange: Dragons vs mecha is a cool concept. A powerless minority fighting against the oppressive majority is tried and true. How did this show screw that up? At least the flaming wreckage is a sight to behold.
• Kantai Collection: I am not part of the target audience, but I can't imagine the fans of the franchise were satisfied with what they got here. It had the budget, but little else.
• The Rolling Girls: It scrambles all over the place, but it's earnest and bursting with color, passion and energy, right down to the fight scenes. Some arcs are so-so, some hit it just as hard as the best of shows.
• Parasyte the maxim: Superb adaptation of a classic. At times a tad too anvilicious. It was a treat to see how Shinichi and Migi developed over the course of the series.
  • Also, RIP Tamura Reiko.
• Garo the Animation: The highlights are the action sequences, but it does have other things going for it. Leon losing his Chosen One status for a short while is of note, as it paved the way for some Vinland Saga-esque introspection.
• Nanatsu no Taizai: An exhilarating ride packed with reckless fun-loving idiots, overpowered abilities and landscape-altering destruction. The Sins are some of the most interesting shonen protagonists I've seen in a while, both abilities- and personality-wise. In summary: this is how you do action shonen. Take notes!
• Gundam Build Fighters Try: The mediocre merch show the original GBF wasn't.

edited 3rd Apr '15 6:39:21 PM by fillerdude

I'm seeing a lot of people call YKA 'pretentious' and 'style over substance'. Care to expand? Sure, the characters needed more breathing room and the ending, while beautifully crafted, was a significant thematic misstep, but apart from that, it seemed a pretty smart look at Japanese cultural and literary attitudes to lesbians with a healthy sense of self-aware humour (it chose to illustrate the theme of 'a bigoted society causes oppressed groups to oppress each other' with a cyborg-bear-powered anti-bear flower-penis death ray, I mean, c'mon).

Other, more important fronts like characterization, plotting, pacing, or general coherence decayed in favor of style and bland social commentary. I don't care about the latter two; all I want from an anime is an engaging plot and a compelling cast of characters.

edited 5th Apr '15 10:11:59 AM by Logograph

Too much time was spent on explaining everything to the viewers ~Qu Ir Ky~ directiong style and not enough on exploring the characters too make the story work.

Second batch of impressions:

• Yowamushi Pedal: Notably subverts sports shonen convention by having the MC win the big race. Otherwise standard, but solid. Also worth watching is Midousuji. One of the better arrogant jerkass rivals by virtue of seeming like he wandered in from a horror movie set.
• Gundam Reconguista in G: Great visuals that I wish more shows would emulate. However, it's an unecessarily obtuse story manned by dull characters, though at times there's an elegance to the worldbuilding. Oh, and the focus on wildlife is much appreciated.
• Shinmai Maou no Testament: Will be remembered for being really raunchy, which is a shame because once you take away the ecchi, what's left is actually not half bad. The anime does neglect to mention some bits about the "battle system"; guess they knew what their priorities were... Heh.
• Kamisama Hajimemashita: A notch above the average shojo, but still mostly unexciting.
• Your Lie in April: A teenage edition soap opera about the drama of growing up. But wait! The art direction is fantastic, with mellow colors accentuated with the masterful usage of light and dark. This is paired up with some glorious renditions of classical music. There's simply nothing that isn't competently executed in this show, except arguably the downtime between the emotional crescendos.
• Aldnoah Zero: Once the core conflict settled into Slaine vs Inaho, it got more entertaining. Sloppy ending. Not a trainwreck, but also not as exhilarating a ride as it could have been.
• Shirobako: My initial impressions of this show put it as somewhat unimpressive. But it grew on me, and, well, I care about these characters. That scene where Miyamori tears up when Shizuka entered the recording room. Or when the director bonded with Nogame. Heck, even Tarou and Hiraoka's drinking session. Right in the feels.
• Yuri Kuma Arashi: Garners an academic interest, but failed to move me in any way. The bears were cute at least.
• Tokyo Ghoul: Still rooting for team CCG, even if the characers I actually give a damn about are on the ghoul side. Lackluster start, but cultivates a hauntingly beautiful atmosphere by the end.
• Death Parade: I was worried the premise would get overplayed, but the show managed to shake things up and remain consistently engaging. It doesn't get the chance to delve into the bigger things at play, but we at least get to the first step: an arbiter finding out that one can know a soul without having to break it apart.
• Durarara!: Even more characters with a screw loose! And some whose screws get loose. Can't wait for the next part.
• Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata: Embraces the harem genre and its stereotypes, and then- gasp- gives it a respectable level of depth, setting the ground for some interesting character studies. Also features a heavy contender for anime heroine of the year.
• Dog Days: I think it's the best season so far. Definitely a heck of a lot better than S2, thanks to the presence of actual stakes, but without shedding the warm, fuzzy, cuddly ambience that defined Dog Days. The demons will be worth exploring in future adventures in the land of Flognarde.

edited 6th Apr '15 5:38:59 AM by fillerdude