Summer 2016 Anime

Fixed that for you. I am a fan of Mood Whiplash and it is one of my favourite parts of the series.

Also there is a thread for the series.

Mob Psycho is actually considered to be even better then One Punch Man by fans of both series, actually.

No one is talking about Bananya. Everyone should be talking about Bananya.

Ange Vierge Episode 1: Lazy exposition, boring setting, bland characters, serviceable action. I'm giving this a pass.

Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan Episode 1: The stupid kind of funny.

Danganronpa 3 - Future Arc Episode 1: What excites me about the two Danganronpa shows this season is that they're not adaptations of the visual novels, and without having to worry about how to transition from game to anime, the show can deliver a murder mystery at its own pace. And it's off to a great start: we have our cast of quirky personalities (including some familiar faces), a dead body and the murderer in their midst. Let the ultimate battle between hope and despair commence!

Mob Psycho 100 Episode 1: Not gonna lie, story and characters are only okay so far. Got me to chuckle a few times at least. The main hook, though, is the animation. It looks so good!

Qualidea Code Episode 1: Some generic stuff, some not quite generic stuff, all in all entertaining stuff.

I'm sure you'll like Mob Psycho's story once it shows up next week. Everything after the introductions was mostly taken from an extra chapter with no connection to the plot at all.

Just started Bananya. Seems like cute, innocuous fun, although I wonder who feels like putting up a works page for it.

I know this is technically from spring, but it's continuing into the summer

But man, Re Zero episode 15....

The second episode of Sacred Rider Xechs opens with a bit of a twist. There's some interesting stuff happening with the show, but it's still got the same odd incoherence as in the first episode. What has the director done before? I can't tell if it's a style thing or not, or if I like it or not.

I tried Scared Rider Xechs but I didn't feel interested enough to watch past the first episode.

91 Days second episode just came out. It's pretty damn good. Angelo (Anvillo) yet again proves how scary someone with a grudge could be via killing one of the men that killed his family right after said man executed Serpente for killing one of his own. He did this with no warning too. Oh yeah and he got into a gun fight with crazy ass Fango again.

We now have an opening song as well. Made by the same band that did Tokyo Ghoul's Unravel and one of Psycho Pass's openings......

edited 15th Jul '16 5:47:30 PM by Ecrivan

After hearing how good Taboo Tattoo was I saw the first episode of it for myself. The only interesting thing about the show is the fight direction. A lot of it just seemed like fights being set up arbitrarily with no proper build-up, and the characters like Fruesy Bluesy just don't cut it for me.

I posted this here because I didn't want to bother the main thread for it.

The opening made me do a double-take, like they're seriously using that band?

Yeah they are. It's a bit strange but I guess now I think about it's a bit fitting in a way. Tokyo Ghoul and Psycho Pass both have tragedies and a lot of good action (even I will admit despite how bad the second season for Tokyo Ghoul was and how bad the censors were that the action was still pretty good) which are both things 91 Days already has.

I have watched the most recent Taboo Tattoo episode. It was pretty decent for the most part with some unique twists ( Touko inadvertently has a power now and is aware of what the main protag is doing and it seems like the cast might go to America). There is some issues popping up though. The main protag (whom I keep forgetting the name of) is still proving himself to be a walking cliche and Touko of course is the childhood friend with a crush (she even calls the main protag her prince and hero at one point while not flat-out admitting it) which is also cliche. The action and the power system is making up for it though and my fucking god the Princess is creepy as hell. She has a very creepy sexual fixation on that blond haired girl, Schrodinger's Cat, with the possession power. That girl has been shown to definitely be pretty young, maybe 13 at the least, and was formerly homeless no less.

Servamp's third episode was okay. Problems the show has are starting to pop up as well. First thing's first my god is the protag boring. He does not even get a interesting weapon! I mean he literally gets a flipping broom for christ sakes! The new characters and his friend who was apparently a vampire are proving to be more interesting then him!

Also, the action just plain sucks so far. Episode 3 had a moment were it seemed like we would get some good action but they literally had the fight pan off screen which was all kinds of irritating. Any actual action was kind of barebones really.

On the flipside I am really loving that gothic looking artstyle/background that pops up sometimes (wish it would appear more). The supporting characters are for the most part interesting (the doll girl's debut was certainly a highlight of the episode) and the powers are also interesting

edited 20th Jul '16 3:27:37 PM by Ecrivan

Arslan, Active Raid, Sunshine, ... that's more new series than I've followed in a while. Plus, I'm vaguely (morbidly) curious about Hatsukoi Monster. Just because Takahiro Sakurai, though.

Speaking of which, so excited to see his character in Arslan. Trying to avoid drawing parallels with his character in K but it's so obvious and it's helping fill the void left by how... excuse me for saying, but... the writing in Arslan tends to feel a bit lackluster, to me. Or, it is what it is. It's a fairly old novel series with a fairly standard setup, and while it can be exciting, it's not the immersive wonderfulness of the series I really like. But it gives me at least a few long-haired Bishōnen. I just wish they had more interesting things to do...

Active Raid is a fun thing. Love Live Sunshine has me shipping Chika/Riko already, but... I can't help but feel a little bit manipulated. When they set up for the first live... it worked when they did it in the original, but you could just tell there were only a few ways this could go in Sunshine, and that it was copying the original. So... that's a thing. Also Mari is annoying so far. I got all three rares of her in the game and bonded them already, so I could tell she'd be annoying from that, but actually seeing her in the show... eeehhhhh.

Ange Vierge - you do not have to be so obvious about shilling the DVD, Kadokawa. I mean, a Censor Steam-filled bath scene in the first episode?

I watched both seasons of the original, but looking at the description of Sunshine it sounded like a carbon copy of the original, so I decided against watching it. =.=

Friends, I am pleased to announce that I have launched the Bananya page.

After a period of denial and hoping it would get better, it's finally sunk in for me that Berserk is shaping up to be the worst anime of the season, and definitely the worst adaptation it's had so far. Thank goodness the manga is back on schedule. I can't wait for the Berserk Musou videogame.

edited 23rd Jul '16 11:08:35 PM by TheBigBopper

Now to show some love for the summer shows which don't have their own threads:

• DAYS: Four episodes in, it has yet to display the spark of brilliance that elevated its sports show contemporaries. Might be a slow burn, or might be that it's really just plain and what you see is what you get.
• Qualidea Code: It's a nice and light action show, and the six main protagonists are decent enough. Just... it feels like it could have been more than yet-another-generic-LN-adaptation, and it's not even an LN.
• Tales of Zestiria: Awesome animation aside, nothing special.
• Saiki Kusuo no Nan: Amusing, occasionally actually funny. Does not make any particular effort into leveraging the strengths of the animated medium.
• 91 Days: Continues to be an arresting tour-de-force. About my only major criticism would be one of the antagonists, who's rather too colorful for an otherwise grounded cast.
• Time Travel Shoujo: Edutainment done right. Has a half-decent plot and some character development. For the curious, the latest episode (episode 3) has Benjamin Franklin and his kite experiment, albeit with a few creative liberties.
• Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!: Still very enjoyable. The characters bounce off each other splendidly, propped up by stellar animation and directing. I always appreciate the extra mile animators put into body language, and the energetic movements, facial expressions and slo-mo close-ups really breath life into the show, to say nothing of the other neat little details in the storytelling.

Let me guess on the 91 Days critique....Fango? I will agree that he kind of sticks out way to much due to being a massive wackjob. Pretty strange considering the time period.

edited 26th Jul '16 4:08:19 PM by Ecrivan

I think that Fango is basically a manifestation of the brutality that the rest of the cast allow and try to hide. He lives in a world where a chef can be destroyed for a bad lasagna, where wives, mistresses, and children can be considered acceptable collateral damage in a hit, and where blood must always be repaid with blood, but because everyone else wraps it up in hierarchy, clan loyalty, and faith, it's acceptable. He's an avatar of the madness below the surface, the uncontrollable violence that keeps breaking through everyone else's pretensions of civilisation. The Orco family may have provided us with the most obvious metaphor by doing a literal deal with the devil (and that dinner scene is a really clever look at acceptable versus unacceptable violence), but there's a bit of Fango in characters like Vanno and even Angelo and Nero as well.

Made additions to the trope page for Masou Gakuen Hx H. Feel free to add or revise.

I'm actually willing to give this show a chance, mainly because I need an ecchi series that can wash down the disappointing aftertaste of High School Dx D season 3 and Infinite Stratos season 2, as well as the incestuous overtones of The Testament Of Sister New Devil (even if they're Not Blood Siblings).

Thankfully, as of episode 4, I'm definitely intrigued by Aine and her apparent origin, even if she was a "discount discount"^Note the "discount" honor already went to Origami Tobiichi, so one could also say that Aine is a discount Origami Laura Bodewig at first.

I'm still watching Masou Gakuen too. I'll add to the trope page when I can.

Yes, it's Fango.

That makes sense, but it's not like the writers were short of more elegant metaphors for the hidden brutality of the setting. Also interesting to note that the hit on Avilio's family is, I believe, historically inaccurate, as the gangs of that time kept family and business strictly separate.

Forgot to talk about orange, which is on the upper end as far as romance/drama shojo anime go. The writing has been solid at least, and if you're the sort of viewer that likes getting himself emotionally manipulated this should be right up your alley. There are odd, out of place cuts and montages though, which could be quirky metaphorical imagery but comes off as filler material.

edited 27th Jul '16 10:55:29 PM by fillerdude

.....Well that was rather disturbing so in the recent 91 Days episode Fango upped the stakes of his crazyness via feeding supporting members of the Orco family pieces of Don Orco himself in lasagna. Fango is becoming more and more Joker-like as the episodes have gone on.

The scary part is that fit's his character really well. I was expecting something of that nature in that scene once I noticed it was dragging on...

edited 12th Aug '16 7:06:55 PM by Ecrivan

In this installment of Tribute to the Threadless:

• 91 Days: Still fantastic. Fango got to show that he's more than a loon, largely alleviating my previous criticism. I actually thought he was going to poison the execs but it turns out it's worse. And Avilio and Nero's relationship is beautiful, and poised to crumble away.
• DAYS: At this point it is a monotonous tirade of "Isn't Tsukushi amazing? Isn't he amazing? He's amazing right?" His status as The Heart of the team is way overplayed; I don't like that he's a benchwarmer despite being the absolute worst player on the team. Just... just give me a nicely animated soccer match already. I'm willing to call it even after that.
• Tales of Zestiria: We jump into another person's story, a supposed demon-eater bent on revenge, with a samurai demon and malak (?) at her side. It's interesting stuff, pertaining to events important to the grander story arc.
• Saiki Kusuo no Nan: Mob thinks psychic powers aren't special. Well, Saiki thinks they're a pain in the ass. Consistently netting a few more chuckles now that the secondary characters have had their quirks established.
• orange: All set to delve deeper into the drama of Kakeru's depression, as one would expect it how to go. There is a curveball at the end of the latest episode: "So, Naho. Did you receive a letter too?" As a side note, the banter between the core group of friends remains refreshingly genuine, and easily the best display of writing in the show.
• Qualidea Code: The show is finally embracing the post-apocalyptic drama (however diluted) that the initial episodes lacked. Characters have been killed off, fleshed out and jostled around to the betterment of the story.
• Time Travel Shoujo: The show has managed to mix up the edutainment while developing the overall story arc. Not too shabby. I don't know if Faraday not knowing basic arithmetic is historically accurate, but that would be cool.
• Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!: Has remained a quality rom com. Energetic kouhai and ditzy teacher aren't the most original character types in the world, but they play their roles here with much gusto. Colette (said energetic kouhai) reminds me of Karen from Golden Mosaic actually, which is probably why I like her so much.

edited 13th Aug '16 12:14:39 AM by fillerdude