Dilettante Fascination

(Scores and order readjusted since the accidental draft post)

Hey there. It’s been a while :D

Once again we’ve reached that time of year where one season ends and another begins. Guess it’s time to lay this season to rest.

13 series on my plate this season, which was doable. Much better than spring, when I tried to take on 17 shows and sputtered out towards the end—although to be fair, there’s much more free time available in the summer. 

This season was a mixed bag of shows, with too fast pacing and too slow pacing, surprisingly good plots and plots which quickly crashed into the ground after a few weeks. It’s quite evident when you compare this priority list to my initial one. It’s not abnormal for a season to be random in quality (I don’t think I’ve had a “perfect” season since Spring 2011, really), but this season in particular had almost equal amounts of good and bad shows out of the ones I chose to watch.

I also think this is the first time I’ve ever dropped a show (Joshiraku) because of lack of project activity. I fully understand that it’s not the subbers’ fault for not releasing on time, since some of the jokes are hard to translate…and real life. However, I tend to drop shows if I backlog episodes of my own accord for more than six weeks, and Joshiraku is no exception. After a certain point, I just can’t be bothered.

I’m posting my final priority list with scores, with a mini-blurb of thoughts on each show. Why mini-blurbs? Well, because you don’t need me to write full length reviews on shows—that’s what sites like randomc.net are for. Besides, I like to be different. Note that priority is listed according to what I looked forward to seeing the most each week, and doesn’t quite correlate with its score. 

A * denotes a series continuing into the winter season. A ** denotes a series on hold because of hiatus or because the following episodes won’t be on TV.

1. Kokoro Connect**—9—Bless this show. The characters and premise are superb. Where are all the haters who said “it looks like K-On!” now?
2. Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita—8.5—We never got to know her name, but she was a protagonist you can’t dislike. The themes of “humanity” they snuck in every episode were quite creative.
3. Sword Art Online*—9—Pacing rushed so fast you can feel the wind blow back your hair. But the universe is a unique one, and the interactions of the cast (mainly Kirito/Asuna) make it worth watching.
4. Tari Tari—8—Wrote about it. ”…as a one-cour about music, it worked”. The OST is glorious, btw.
5. Binbougami ga!—8—Ichiko is a fascinating character to watch develop. She starts off as a snobby bitch who shuns people away, but she ends up making quite a few friends. The humor’s shaky at times, but good, especially when it equilibrates with the drama.
6. Oda Nobuna no Yabou—8—A pleasant watch which turned out to be more than just a simple genderswap. Story was enjoyable, and the harem elements were turned low, so it wasn’t too big of a detraction. Open ended for a second season too.
7. Hyouka—8—Shoulda just stuck to focusing on Chitanda and Oreki’s relationship dynamic than lead people to believe this was a hardcore mystery. This was a slice-of-life. Similarly, if one changed their way of perceiving Hyouka, it makes the show much more enjoyable. It’s really pretty, though. I’ll give it that.
8. Eureka Seven AO**—8—It started thematically well, sorta “coming-of-age” story…then it got confused. So confused that it has to take a one-month hiatus to find its way back. Dammit.
9. Natsuyuki Rendezvous—8—last arc felt like a mess. And I don’t get why the ghost couldn’t get any closure at the end. I still love the beautiful ED though.
10. Rinne no Lagrange Season 2—7—I’m still not sure why I don’t like this show as much. It just felt stagnant…the last few episodes made up for that, but I still had unanswered questions.
11. Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!—6—Ha. Trope as a major mechanism of a show only works for shows with dynamic characters. Too bad there aren’t any here. I don’t regret watching it. After all, it was meant to be something to watch and not think about. Making the imouto jokes was fun, too (there were legit fun things to poke at). However, if I’m gonna watch a pointless service-y show, it’d better be damn good at being one (cough*toloveruD*) for me to rank it past a 6.
12. Joshiraku**—8(dropped)—It’s not its fault for being dropped. It was kinda fun, but not enough for me to bother waiting for it. Gotta keep on keepin’ on.
13. Accel World—7.5—You tried.

TL;DR—Final Score for the Summer 2012 anime season—7.92. ~B-. Average, but it’s not really indicative of how awesome the outliers are (since it’s an average! Excuse the pun). Then again, the good is only 25% of the list.

I’ll be writing an Anime Seasonal Quickie on the Fall Season after the first full week that everything airs, followed by a formal list when I definitively choose shows to follow after three weeks.

Spoiler: I try to pick up 21 shows (!!!)

Eureka Seven AO, Joshiraku, and NakaImo are delayed until August 16. KoiChoco is out until August 8.

Just a PSA for anyone wondering why their shows have gone quiet over the next ~3 weeks.

MyAnimeList

It’s that time of season again! With the first three episodes of this season having aired, I can clearly specify which shows I aim to watch this summer. Fortunately, it’s not as troublesome as last season with a more modest 13 on my plate this time around. 

Once again, I’m taking these right off my MyAnimeList, but am listing them in order of descending priority (with 1 denoting the most anticipated).

A * denotes a series I’m very familiar with because I’ve read the original manga material.

A “ denotes continuing from previous season.

1. Natsuyuki Rendezvous—Brilliant josei which touches on mature romantic themes. Who’s on higher ground, the man who will always be second choice or the ghost who has no physical presence? Who is hurt more, the man who has died and can’t reach out, or the woman who was left behind? MVP for excellent ED.
2. Sword Art Online—MMORPG anime done right. MVP for action genre.
3. Binbougami ga!*—Just the right amount of humor and character development. Bitchy Hanazawa Kana helps too. MVP for humor.
4. Eureka Seven AO“—The firefights against Secrets are fun to watch, as are the character dynamics, specifically Ao’s character development. 
5. Kokoro Connect—It’s a story of character development, fixing everyone’s problems/traumas with body swapping as the driving mechanism. The potential’s there.
6. Tari Tari—I’ve already talked about it. It’s what a music show should be, since there’s a lot of music in it. I really enjoy listening to the insert songs.
7. Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita—Cultural satire. This seems to be more episodic with two episode arcs; meaning, the show lacks an overarching plot since the implications of one arc don’t seem to carry on to the next. The protagonist’s cynical inner thoughts are pretty humorous, though.
8. Oda Nobuna no Yabou—characters and plot roughly based on historical events provide a decent narrative. Oda Nobuna is a generic tsundere, but fun to watch; she can be cute/shy at times and extremely cold when situations call for it. Genderswap historical fiction is a weird genre to be in, though.
9. Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!*—Imouto Russian Roulette. “He has to put his dick into something, and it’s either going to be in crazy, in his little sister, or in both.” It’s Russian Roulette, but there’s a chance that there may be six bullets in the six chambers. (None of these comments are mine. That’s because I have nothing to say but “it’s generic harem fanservice”. I’ve been there, done that. But damn my bias for this genre from years ago still shows, otherwise I wouldn’t care for this show. Doesn’t change the fact that objectively it still sucks, and the “service” pales in comparison to the stuff I’ve seen. Oh the stuff I’ve seen….Next.)
10. Joshiraku—The meta humor’s good, but a good bit of it gets lost in translation. Not the show’s fault. It’s my fault for not being Japanese to understand the jokes fully. …I’ll go sit in a corner and think about how I was born the wrong type of Asian now…
11. Rinne no Lagrange Season 2—This series likes to avoid mentioning any of the important details in favor of showcasing Madoka’s friendship with Muginami and Lan. And yuri. I still feel no attachment to any of the characters. But hey, yuri. They mentioned the legend of the mechas and are even on the verge of an intergalactic war, but the yuri comes first. Did I mention the yuri?
12. Accel World“—Porky sucks as a protagonist.
13. Hyouka“—The only episode that sticks out in my mind is the one in which Chitanda gets mad and doesn’t know why. Because of how absurd that was. That’s not good.

New to this anime list series, I’m also including two other subsects: Suspended indefinitely and dropped. I originally picked up twenty shows at the start of the season; three were on the fence and the other four were dropped faster than a burning hot piece of coal.

Suspended—Might pick up again if I hear anything good

• Uchuu Kyoudai—This is the only show I’ve placed on hold in which I’m 100% sure I’ll watch after it finishes airing. I just can’t be bothered if it goes into the school year, since I’ll be too busy to watch it at that time anyway.
• Campione!—More harem tropes than action at this point. Cool characters but messy execution when it comes to reasoning behind certain…actions. The usage of mythology had such good potential though…
• Arcana Famiglia—It’s all filler. 
• Moyashimon Returns—It’s science! Just not my type of science. Outside of the agricultural lessons, the plot of the show itself is pretty thin. The potential is still in there though. And talking microbes are fun. I’m not really bored of the show at the time of this post, but knowing me I’ll probably end up dropping it after I inevitably lag behind.

Dropped—Dropped harder than the bass to…well, you get the point.

• Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse—The MuvLuv universe is amazing, especially from what I’ve gathered from the bits of MuvLuv Alternative manga I’ve read. The fact that it’s #1 on VNDB just reinforces it. This spin-off, however, lacks coherent structure and its execution leaves a bit to be desired. While the opening act of fighting the BETA was awesome, the main arc for this story has bland characters I really don’t care much for.
• Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate—the good artwork was deceiving. The MC’s student council platform is illogical; watching a show about someone winning an election so their derpy club wouldn’t get disbanded is boring. The only thing I found funny was the “Yaoi stick” joke. And that got old. Fast.
• Chitose Get You!!*—The 4-koma manga’s better. That’s not saying much, though, as the humor’s very crude.
• Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai.*—Don’t ask. I know exactly what I was getting into with this one; I read the manga a while ago and dropped it. I just didn’t expect the anime to go even more liberal with the adaptation by changing the manga content, which was bad enough as is.

As one final thought, I think that this summer is a badly paced season. Most of these shows are going at a blazingly fast pace, the most notorious example being Sword Art Online (however, notice that I didn’t list it as a con in my watch list. I’ll address that in a future post). Hell, even Natsuyuki Rendezvous, my top tier, is moving slightly fast reaching first base on the second episode (I don’t find it all that bad, though).

Then you have shows like Hyouka, which has probably only moved about 4 centimeters total since its debut four months ago. 

Personally, I think Kokoro Connect, even if not the best show, nails down the pacing better than most of the other shows this season. Simply put, it injects a lot of humor in the first episode and segues gracefully into each dilemma, while still maintaining some humor here and there.

There’s a lot more I want to write about this season, specifically my reasons as to why I chose to pick up some shows, as well as adress the badly paced season as a whole. However, as far as my personal watch list is concerned, this is it. I’m most likely going to write a follow-up to this post in a little bit, but since it’s getting late, I’m leaving this post here as is. 

If anyone wants to question my thoughts on any of the series above, feel free to ask. I’m always willing to elaborate on my opinion.

As the Spring season comes to a close this week and the Summer Season starting right on its heels, it’s about time I bring this season proper closure.

I had a whopping 17 shows on my list this season. It’s a lot more than I usually take up which is normally 5 or 6. There were a lot of interesting shows in the Spring preview, so I thought it would be a good idea to check them all out.

…I’m never doing that again. While I’m an avid supporter of expanding one’s mindset (in this specific case, by watching shows with diverse elements and of various genres), keeping up with 17 shows was a burden which actually dulled my excitement towards watching anime as a whole. Most of the time I’d stockpile a specific show for weeks on end and then marathon later. Of course, most of this was due to the end of semester finals studying, but I never recovered from the three week backlog it caused.

This season was on the verge of being a hassle, which is what something done for enjoyment should never become. Fortunately, there were just enough interesting shows to keep my motivation up to complete the season on time (for the most part). 

That said, I’m posting my final priority list with scores, with a mini-blurb of thoughts on each show in twenty words or less (not unlike my Spring 2012 watch list post). Consider this a follow up to the initial Spring 2012 post, and note how priority doesn’t always equal the highest objective score. A * denotes a series continuing into the summer season.

1. Fate/Zero 2nd Season — 10 — It’s a pity that such an amazing show is limited by it’s status as a prequel to F/SN.
2. Sakamichi no Apollon — 9 — Manga fleshes things out a bit better, but anime cuts corners in all the right places.
3. Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna — 9 — The tongue-in-cheek “Story of Mine Fujiko” thing at the end was very witty.
4. Aquarion Evol — 8 — Troll anime of the season. Best soundtrack of the season too, though.
5. Eureka Seven AO* — 9 — Very “Evangelion”-like with real world political themes interwoven into it.
6. Tasogare Otome x Amnesia — 8 — The final arc trumps the original content by miles. And I don’t say that often.
7. Tsuritama — 8 — Melodrama was excessive at times, but seeing everything tie together at the end was cool.
8. Sankarea — 8 — The ending is literally an open door for a second season.
9. Acchi Kocchi — 8 — Gotta watch the calorie intake. Very “sugary”.
10. Nazo no Kanojo X — 8 — Simple first love story. Ended as simple as I thought it would.
11. Accel World * — 8 — I think otaku like to project themselves onto the main character…
12. Mouretsu Pirates — 8 — At least the last arc is somewhat interesting.
13. Natsuiro Kiseki — 7 — Ha. Rocks can have cousins. All lessons it tries to teach are undermined by the rock’s presence.
14. Hyouka * — 8 — Just because it’s animated well doesn’t mean it makes for good mystery. At least some character development is starting…
15. Medaka Box — 7 — Ha. Cheat code moment happened. Why does it have a second season?
16. Uchuu Kyoudai * — (8?) — On-hold. Got bored.
17. Jormungand — (8) — Dropped. Bored.

TL;DR—Final Score for the Spring 2012 anime season—8.176. ~B. Not half bad.

Stay tuned. I’ll have an “Anime Watch List for Summer 2012” in three weeks :D

1. Fate/Zero 2nd Season —stunning quality
2. Sakamichi no Apollon —jazz
3. Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna —exquisite plots hidden in retro style
4. Uchuu Kyoudai —Space bros
5. Sankarea ** —different spin on zombie genre
6. Tasogare Otome x Amnesia ** —lighthearted but has a deeper plot to it
7. Nazo no Kanojo X ** —panty scissors (weird premise but legit interesting love story)
8. Medaka Box * —cheat code student council president (it’s making sense for now…)
9. Jormungand —he f*cking deflected a javelin missile with a frag grenade.
10. Aquarion Evol —sex puns everywhere
11. Acchi Kocchi —cute antics
12. Accel World —Action?
13. Eureka Seven AO —Post-apocalyptic world
14. Tsuritama —The color palette’s so damn colorful
15. Mouretsu Pirates —Where’s the plot?
16. Ozuma —Character designs look 80s, yet everything else looks modern
17. Natsuiro Kiseki —stop flying please. I mean…yuri?

   ?.  Hyouka — ? (It hasn’t aired yet. Airs next week)

Not on this list is Mirai Nikki ** (—batshit, insane crazy), which ends its run this week. If I were to place it, it’d probably take the third slot.

To be honest, I’m slightly uneasy about watching 18 series this season. Normally I watch 3 or 4. However, the first four have such high potential to them that I can’t forgo them. The following four are adaptations of mangas I enjoy reading, so I can’t let them go either. The others are just icing on the cake. This is one hell of a departure from the norm.

Furthermore, I actually have a life in which I have to study for exams, so I can’t even watch most of these regularly (you’ve probably noticed the lack of activity during the beginning of every week. Mon-Wed are my hell days >.>)

Again, I don’t blog about what I watch during their run, so as to not create unnecessary spam (but I do post if I find something extremely noteworthy). Just thought I’d put up a post like this one just to show people what I think of the current season, and maybe convince them to check out ones they haven’t heard of before.