Since I wound up picking up whole bunch of stuff this season, might as well.
What I anticipate most each week: Sirius the Jaeger, Shoujou Kageki Revue Starlight, Planet With
Other new stuff that caught my interest: Banana Fish, Gegege no Kitaro, Grand Blue, Hataraku Saibo
Continuations I'm still following: Free S3, Gundam Build Divers, My Hero Academia S3, Lupin III Part V, Steins Gate 0, Attack on Titan S3
I'm not gonna lie, I feel like shows are losing momentum this week. It's been a struggle to keep invested, which is not really something you want people to say 3/4 of the way through.
Harukana Receive is still bright and colorful and still features a bunch of cute girls in swimsuits, but it's struggling on all fronts in terms of interesting sports action, character development, and character interaction. The show transitioned from a two-girl romance to a four-girl club series before caving and adding a fifth member, whose main purpose seems to be pointing out how little the characters actually speak to each other while the show is montaging through training seasons. It tries to hide too little focus on Haruka and Kanata's relationship by introducing rival teams; unfortunately, the two introduced so far are carbon copies of the main quartet in terms of character arcs. I'm going to keep watching because it's low-effort and swimsuits are nice, but I'm not expecting any surprises or real substance from here on out.
Chio-chan's School Road is also starting to lose me. I was all for it when it was actually incorporating Chio's weird video game antics into real life, like with parkouring (and the section with Chio attempting to choke out Manana on the bridge), but now it's trying to bring in character-based humor that just doesn't work. Gags about Yuki liking running so much she goes to school in her track uniform - eh, sure, that's worth a chuckle. Gags about their aggressive lesbian sempai taking a cue from a child molester and grabbing girls' asses? Gags based on how Andou's buddy is attracted to him and that makes Andou uncomfortable? Yeah, sure. Especially when it tries to act like it's built real emotional resonance in at any point, because it hasn't. This one I may just drop, as it's more annoying than funny and doesn't even serve the purpose of mental white noise.
It's been fun.
Island... What can I even say about this one... It's certainly not an anime of the season, but, in the end, it wasn't terrible either. And, for once, the ending where out time-crossed lovers reunite actually felt quite natural, which not every anime manages to pull off. Overall, 7/10, maybe 7.5/10.
P.S. Real Rinne is damn beautiful. Just as her & Setsuna's daughter.
Shichisei no Subaru: Exactly watchable enough for me to keep watching it
Harukana Receive: Enjoyable, with fun characters and some decent sports action Does feel kinda aimless at times
Sirius the Jaeger: Eh. It looks good, but has this problem where there's a ton of plot threads that just don't lead anywhere (and this is obvious). It looks like that might be improving, but I'm still not expecting it to become good
Starlight Revue: Started out amazing, then ran into trouble developing a strong through-line and settled down into "good". Though it looks like the plot might be starting in earnest now
Satsuriku no Tenshi: Watchable. I like it when it's being weird, but it's attempts to make me care about the characters aren't working
Planet With: Good! Has some plotting oddities but is consistently enjoyable
Edited by Hylarn on Aug 27th 2018 at 5:14:27 AM