Winter 2017 Anime

Idol Incidents: I wondered how may people here know that it is actually an adaptation of the mobile rhythm game of the same name...that said, it kind of reminded me of Aikatsu, of all anime. Hopefully the politics side of the anime can be properly represented though....

First episode impressions:

• Tales of Zestiria: Same old juice that could really use some extra zest. Looks as sparkly as before at least.
• Little Witch Academia: Its reputation is established, and the fans will be pleased with this offering. It's vibrant, bouncing with energy and plain fun. Then it lands a giant cockatrice on our main trio, and then you're psyched for whatever magical mishap's coming up next for Akko, Sucy and Lotte. There's also plenty of neat background bits to catch, like the little Diane watching Shiny Chariot, or what seems to be a goldfish with a magic hat. Which might be a teacher. That's just how it ought to be— wacky and magical.
• Demi-chan wa Kataritai: I love everyone so far, which means the show is doing its job pretty damn well. Everyone is loveable, helped by the crisp animation selling us their personalities with their expressions and gestures. You'll want to bounce along with Hikari's energy. Macchi's little scene when her classmates got a little awkward was nice subtle display of fitting-in drama. The pacing also had a solid tempo going, with good cuts and transitions. In summary: a pure delight.
• Onihei: I am not a fan of feudal Japan and police procedurals, so my lukewarm reception of this show is no surprise. The visuals are all over the place in terms of quality, but generally leaning on the bad side— stiff animation in anything that isn't a fight scene or the torture scene, mediocre camera work and frame composition, plus transitions that skip by too quickly. One wonders why they didn't stick with live-action. The soundtrack on the other hand is fantastic, with special mention to the groovy jazz opening befitting of a spy thriller blockbuster. The basic plot of the first episode is actually quite interesting, which makes it all the more disappointing that the presentation and pacing were not up to par.
• Fate Grand Order: There is by my estimation a grand total of seven minutes of actually interesting stuff happening, and that's being generous. It's yet another bullet on the extensive list of video game adaptations that suck, featuring a bland male lead, the girl who somehow gets a crush on him, and infodump after infodump. The only good fight scene is when Mash bashes some skeletons with a big-ass shield. That's about it.
• Hand Shakers: It looks horrible. I cannot emphasize that enough. Like the animators thought fish-eye lens perspectives and dynamic cameras count as good animation. NO THEY DON'T. You're just moving the camera around, with no sense of proper shot composition. We haven't even gotten to the poor coloring and lighting, or the terrible CGI, or how harshly the characters mesh with both the photorealistic backgrounds (which might actually be straight up pictures of the real world), especially when they move at different framerates. And all the gratuitous gainaxing just adds insult to the injury. It's almost art. Oh, and storywise, bleh. Double Arts did the whole hand-shaking thing better.
• Gabriel Dropout: The CGDCT subgenre is on a roll this season! Gab's "fall from grace" is a bit too contrived and sudden for my tastes (was that supposed to be a secondhand laptop?), but it gets the setup out of the way well enough. Still, probably would have worked better as a Gilligan Cut. I could do without the panty shots though the apparating panty gag was hilarious. The "role reversal" of the angels and demons is brilliant, showing just how context can radically alter a joke. Take Vigne for example, the responsible, studious dark-haired girl you can see in almost all moe quartets. Nothing special, until you realize she's supposed to be a demon. The Satanichia-Raphi combo is my favorite so far, but they've all gotten some pretty good laughs in. Oh, and major bonus points for sadistic Kana Hanazawa.
• Seiren: OP gives me a strong Amagami vibe. Good, good. MC is decent enough, but a step down from Junichi. Well, it's not his fault he has to star along with Nanasaki Ikuo anyway. So proud of that kid, he seems to have learned a lot from his older sister. On that note, tell her to drop by, Ikuo! Ahem. Back to Seiren... not much to say, actually. It's still setting things up. The VA for Tsuneki Hikari is channeling Isshiki Iroha in all her lovely teasing glory. Looks to be a worthy spiritual sequel so far.

edited 11th Jan '17 9:36:39 AM by fillerdude

The manga does in fact do the Gilligan Cut from angel school to full sloth mode, the anime added everything in between. It's less funny but it adds more to her 'corrupted by human entertainment' while still keeping her pure angel goals at the start.

The Pay To Win gag was also new but pretty damn funny imo.

edited 11th Jan '17 10:06:08 AM by Memers

Hand Shakers: The whole anime looks likes a bad opening intro to an early 2000's weeb game. This was from the same guys who made K? What happened?

Hand Shaker: The fuck am I even watching, I didn't even last five minutes.

edited 11th Jan '17 12:15:17 PM by BlackYakuzu94

Watched K once. The animation was the only good thing it had, setting aside my mild annoyance at how everything had to be "shiny". It reminded me of KH with how much of the story was in side materials.

But this, I'm only at 45 seconds of the ep and my eyes hurt already. Though it's definitely by the same people who did K though. You can tell by how they start the series off with a fight without giving us any goddamn context. Was this multiple fights or a single one taking place with some weird dimensional hopping sending all over? Whatever, only watched this to see what all the commotion was about.

That aside, KONOSUBA S2 IS HERE. Watching it right now.

Kobayashi's Maid Dragon: Underwhelming. The jokes and characters are serviceable for a first episode, but nothing outstanding. The maid otakus acted like maid otakus. Tohru did a bunch of crazy dragon stuff, but the execution felt flat as they weren't funny or awe-inspiring. It works, but this feels like it should be going full crazy. Nice references at least.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: Holy cow, this is fully length? Hell yeah! The first episode was hilarious as expected, I love the dragon maid thing as and Tooru's misunderstandings about humans. And of course Fafnir. Fafnir is great.

Now to Konosuba. Man this season is great.

Maid Dragon was basically competent. Felt like it wanted to be shorts.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: Compared to the manga, less slice of life, more comedy and yuri. It's fine

So Urara, LWA, Gabriel, and Kobayashi are fine. Probably give Youjo Senki and Schoolgirl Strikers another episode. And there's Bang Dream in a bit. Would hatewatch Hand Shakers if it didn't give me a headache

...I wish this season wasn't so heavy on comedy

edited 11th Jan '17 7:11:06 PM by Hylarn

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: Pretty cute and funny. Fafnir is my new favorite character.

So here's all I'm watching this season:

• Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2
• Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Episode 1: The animation is a bit budget but this does seem to be a very entertaining series that has some very funny moments throughout. I like both the main characters and the co-worker seems to have something going on as well.

Gonna watch Rakugo, Meidoragon, and possibly Scum's Wish.

First episode impressions:

• One Room: What's worse than the average bland harem lead? A POV-cam, voiceless lead! Not following.
• Akiba's Trip: Woah, forgot to watch this one. It's stupid, but the kind of stupid that comes with beatdowns and reckless property damage. And stripping for the finishers. Yeah. Rito should join up, he'd be unstoppable. Against the girls at least.
• ACCA: BEST OP. COME ON COME ON. The soundtrack is classy in general. The art style is lovely, kind of like a retro French comic, if that makes sense? And those uniforms! Dang. Animation also incorporates a lot of body movement, which makes the characters, Jean in particular, feel more alive. Speaking of Jean, what an interesting guy. Fitting for a show that is built on intrigue and politics I suppose. The writing and worldbuilding is good, not quite great, but good, more than enough to let the audience be immersed in this fictional nation.
• Piace: Watashi no Italian: Unremarkable, but I might watch it just to see the dishes. It's pretty short anyway.
• Kuzu no Honkai: ...dang. Too real. "You can have everything but my feelings." This relationship is going to suck. Not that I'd know. But it's the sort of "romantic" relationship that isn't explored too often, so that's interesting. On the technical side, the somber palette and sad piano tell you all you need to know. Just, get ready to flip some tables.
• Yowamushi Pedal New Generation: Not sure how many people watched the first two seasons, so I'll tread carefully. After the protagonists win the Inter-high victory the show has begun to tackle new ground for sports series. Instead of underdogs, they are now the defending champions. This also leads to, and I wish more sports series did this, the changing of the guard. With the third years gone, the first year trio have their work cut out for them, especially Onoda. Teshima and Aoyagi are also burdened with leading the team, AND wrestle with the cold hard fact that their first years are their aces. I'm also excited for the inevitable development of the other first year, who has so far been sidelined to moral support. Exciting times ahead!

edited 12th Jan '17 6:11:00 AM by fillerdude

Akiba's Trip Episode 2: Second episode holds up. I like this new look at the otaku culture. I think this could use a thread.

Wait wasn't Saenai Heroine No Sodatekata S2 supposed to be this season?

No, it's next season

Scum's Wish: Damn, that's real as hell. I haven't read the manga, but I hear that its only gonna get more twisted and real from here, and with the manga done now, it will be a complete adaptation

Masamune-kun no Revenge ep. 2:

Seriously?! There's Ecchi in this show?! (OK, maybe not ecchi, but still...panty shots?!)

I wonder whether Yoshino Koiwai's desire to help Masamune with his revenge is the real deal, or some sort of elaborate plot by Aki... Or...is actually Yoshino's own plot to keep her ojou-sama from getting hurt because she's actually Yandere for her master. (I mean, Yoshino already showed signs of being a yandere with that rope trap, combat knife, and that photo of her staring menacingly—at Masamune and Aki—from the window in the background.)

Man, that golden opportunity to exchange e-mail addresses with the class rep... (*Collective Face Palm*) Sure, she's not as pretty, but she seems like a good "girl next door" type.

And Aki manages to get one over Masamune-kun... (You weren't cautious enough, dude...)

Is this your first romcom Anime?

I'm not watching too many new series this season, but here are my Impressions so far:

ACCA: I feel the art style might work better on a page than a screen, but the writing and characters feel solid so far. And we all know that Mauve is the universally recognised colour for danger, so I'm curious what the Director-General is up to.

Saga of Tanya the Evil: I'm not sure I can continue on given the backstory dropped today. It was so much more interesting before it was revealed Tanya is a reincarnated (Objectivist?) prick from the real world. I think I'll give it one more episode to see if we get less of Tanya's internal monologue.

Fuuka: Competent rom-com, haven't watched one of those in a while. I kinda want to say it feels like Suzuka meets BECK, but that's a rather silly comparison based on superficial similarities.

Gabriel Dropout: Funny, almost in a Disgaea sorta way. I could use a slacker comedy right now.

Kobayashi-san's Maid Dragon: I love this author's work and I've enjoyed all the other adaptations, so I'm glad we finally got one with full-length episodes.

Interviews with Monster Girls: Another manga I've come to love, first episode seems to capture the cast quite well. I'm looking forward to more.

Schoolgirl Strikers: Not watching more than one episode of this. Just doesn't work for me.

edited 13th Jan '17 3:24:03 PM by Winter

you know Fuuka is from the same mangaka as Suzuka, right?

Is that so? That explains a lot. I've seen both manga floating around, but I never read either one and didn't pick up on the author's name.

Okay, not following Schoolgirl Strikers. On the other hand, Youjo Senki turned out to be goddamn amazing now that it's actually following the original work