Spring Season – How’s it going?
TAAN: Well, it’s been a while. Half a year since the last post, maybe a whole year since the last time there was at least semi-regular activity. In any case, I’m not too sure about the others but there just might be an HSA revival in the works. Hahaha who am I kidding, Minnie’s extremely busy and Garrick’s… well he’s Garrick. I don’ think anyone else even knows I’m doing this.
Well, enough about that, let’s get to the meat of this post. I’ll be going over the shows I’m going to be following (or at least trying to) this season. Let’s see, that’ll be…
Accel World
Acchi Kocchi
Eureka 7 AO
Fate/Zero Season 2
Haiyoru! Nyaruko-san
Jormungand
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? of the Dead
Kuromajyo-san ga Touru!!
Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna
Medaka Box
Natsuiro Kiseki
Nazo no Kanojo X
Ozuma
Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle 2
Saint Seiya Omega
Sakamichi no Apollon
Saki: Achiga-hen Episode of Side A
Sankarea
Sengoku Collection
Shiba Inuko-san
Shining Hearts ~Shiawase no Pan~
Shirokuma Cafe
Tasogare Otome x Amnesia
Tsuritama
Uchuu Kyoudai
Upotte!!
Zetman
If you don’t see a certain anime in that list, you won’t be seeing it in this post, so you can save your time looking for them if you are for whatever reason.
And in case you’re wondering (which you’re about 87% likely not to be) for the ones continuing from last season or whatever, I’ll be following these:
Aquarion EVOL
Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
I kind of missed a lot last season due to being too busy, but it’s not like that matters because they won’t show up in this post. As a final note, I’m trying not to drop anything even due to having no time. It’s a challenge or something, I guess. Anyways, as usual scores are based off a linear scale with 1 being it hurts to watch and 10 being AOTY, and 0 being I don’t care either way. Finally, if I see a show commonly listed under an alternate name, I’ll put that one under the normal name. Let’s begin.
–Accel World–
-2 eps in
I’ve heard lots of things said about this one, mostly that it’ll be terrible. I’m actually kind of leaning towards that opinion myself. The MC’s main character quirk is that he’s fat, and he hates everything because of it. Well actually, he’s not just fat, he’s chibi-fat + normal fat. His character design is just so awkward compared to everyone else’s. His personality is extremely bland otherwise, so nothing good there. Getting over that, it’s got the makings of a basic shounen series with battles and superpowers and possibly tournaments, which by itself doesn’t look all that bad, just extremely generic. There’s also a love triangle, which is kind of annoying since it seems like it’s just there because they wanted a love triangle. There’s really nothing interesting about this one (except for the program itself, but it’s just a plot point), and I have practically no incentive to watch at the moment.
5/10 (well, it’s not like I’d prefer not to watch it)
–Acchi Kocchi–
-2 eps in
Well this one… this one is interesting. It’s a slice of life that focuses entirely on being cute and funny. Actually, it’s absurdly cute, even I have to admit that. As for funny, well it doesn’t do anything especially interesting, but it’s not bad. It’s like candy I guess, or maybe more like gum. You don’t really eat it for any other reason than to chew mindlessly and enjoy the sweetness while it lasts. Absolutely no plot, no character development, nothing. Just pure distilled cute injected into an SoL base. It doesn’t really start anywhere in particular and doesn’t bother introducing anything (there’s nothing that needs introduction anyways though), so it’s just kind of there. I like it. Possibly the only thing that could top this for cute + comedic SoL would be Colonel Aki’s Life of Maid. As if that’ll ever be professionally animated though.
10/10 (hahaha yeah that’s a joke score. I’m far too biased to think of a normal one though. For future reference, anything I’m a fan of you can expect inaccurate scores)
–Eureka 7 AO–
-1 ep in
I’ll be honest, I never watched the original Eureka 7. I hear it was actually pretty good, or at least interesting, but it’s kind of too late now. There’s no way I’ll be able to marathon it in any reasonable timescale at the moment. Anyways, I’m not too sure what to think about this one, mostly because it really doesn’t bother to explain anything for new viewers, but it’s not like there’s much to explain in the first place. From what I gleaned off other people though, this show isn’t a direct sequel, so newcomers shouldn’t be too bad off. It’s been decent so far, in that it gets straight into the plot and I wasn’t too lost. I’m sure there’s a lot more content in the first episode for fans of the original, but I basically couldn’t figure any opinion one way or another from just the first episode. Oh well.
7/10 (I feel like I missed what was going on for most of the episode so this is a highly inaccurate score)
–Fate/Zero Season 2–
-2 eps in
I actually did watch the first season of this one, surprisingly. I’m not too sure what to say here since it’s a direct sequel and everything. Just the usual if you enjoyed the last cour (season? I stop paying attention for a year and already all this new terminology, dammit), you’ll enjoy this one etc. etc.. Actually I think this one’ll be much better, since the last one kind of stopped caring about the plot after a while. Also it begins with the long-anticipated dogfight of Berzerker using a fighter jet (F-22? It’s been a while since I was good at this) as a Noble Phantasm against Gil on his Vimana (that’s what it was, right? Goddamn, too many parenthesis, sorry), as well as Caster being all crazy, and Saber’s Excalibur. Definitely a strong start.
8/10 (I’m not a Type-Moon fan, but I was a fan of the first season/cour/goddamn terms)
–Haiyoru! Nyaruko-san–
-2 eps in
Well, there was that series of flash shorts a while back, but this time it’s getting animated properly. It’s basically a show about messing with Lovecraft’s mythos for fun, I guess. It follows some guy named Mashiro and the Lovecraftian deity Nyarlathotep, or something like that. If I’m remembering this correctly, Nyar is just an alien of the Nyarlathotep race, and is also part of a space defense force, and is madly in love with Mahiro cause he’s her type or something. It’s ridiculous. Mahiro on the other hand, what the hell is he doing valuing sanity over Nyar? Terrible, just terrible. Well whatever, watch it for the fan service or for the randomness if you’re into that. I think there’s also a lot of references and stuff for Lovecraft fans, but I’m not one yet so I don’t really know. There’s really nothing else there that’s too interesting, so far at least.
7/10 (Once you get over the fact it’s only related to lovecraft by name, it’s not bad at all, except for Mahiro)
–Jormungand–
-2 eps in
Well, it’s about a girl whose name is Koko, and she’s loco oh no. Yeah, a crazy arms dealer and her team of trusted uh… actually I don’t know what their positions would be called. They’re more like followers than anything. It’s battle-of-the-week style so far, so it’s really just “hey, watch these crazy people with guns mess with other crazy people with guns.” It’s not bad I guess, watching crazy people is always fun.
7/10 (it’s actually better than expected, because it’s not really that serious)
–Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? of the Dead–
-2 eps in
Oh man, it’s back. If you liked the original, etc. etc. yeah yeah. This time they’re introducing some new characters and also screwing over Ayumu from the start by having it so he can’t erase everyone’s memories of him being a Masou Shoujo. As usual I have no idea where it’s going, but it should be entertaining enough.
9/10 (can’t suppress last season bias/fandom enough, so I stopped trying)
–Kuromajyo-san ga Touru!!–
-3 eps in
I… this is… hmm. It looks like it’s aimed at girls or something, but honestly I can’t figure out its actual target audience. It doesn’t really seem like it’ll appeal to anyone besides SoL fans, with girls in general being a close second. It’s about a girl who’s into the occult and accidentally summons a black mage called Gyubid while trying to summon Cupid. For some reason, Gyubid’s bound to some contract or something that says if she doesn’t train whoever summons her into a proper witch, something bad will happen. Surprisingly it’s not a show about how using wishes or magic will always bite you in the ass, which is what I was expecting. I actually like it a lot more than I would have because of that. It’s not one of those moral-of-the-week type SoL’s, which things like this normally turn out to be. It’s just an average SoL with a bit of black magic thrown in. It’s pretty calm too, almost bordering on boring. Oh, I forgot to mention they’re short episodes. I dunno if I find it entertaining or not, but it’s easily tolerable.
5/10 (surprisingly not nearly annoying as other children’s anime I’ve watched)
–Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna–
A.K.A. Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Mine Fujiko
-2 eps in
I’ve never watched/read any Lupin things in full until now (I’ve been meaning to, but oh well), but I know enough about it to not be completely lost. This is a series focusing on Fujiko and her life, instead of Lupin, which as far as I know is a new thing. The show has an interesting art style, and is more like a noir type thing than an action show. It also has Fujiko half/fully naked semi-regularly, which is surprising for the anime (I think I read it wasn’t that uncommon in the books though). I know of at least one person who got screwed over by that by trying to watch it in public, so it’s nice to have a warning. The first three episodes have been devoted to showing how she met the three main guys, so I don’t know what the next few will be about. Not too sure why, but it feels like a mystery show with a bit of action, even though it’s probably neither of those genres. If you like that kind of stuff though, it’s not a bad show.
7/10 (I’d probably like it more if I was more familiar with Lupin)
–Medaka Box–
-2 eps in
Haha, Minnie’ll kill me for this one. It’s about an absurdly perfect girl (Minnie: She/it’s not a girl! That’s an insult to all girls in the universe that exist, have existed, or will exist, etc. etc.), whose character flaw is she’s too perfect, and is also perfectly dense when it comes to understanding other people. It’s pretty much the perfect formula to piss off people like me who hate it both when people are too perfect and when people force their own ideas on other people, especially when they’re forcing their idea of you on you yourself. Well, aside from that though, I guess it’s not too bad. The main guy is also annoying in that he’s the disaster control guy and is almost too perfect for that role himself, but he’s nowhere near as irritating as Medaka. So far the plot’s just been solving random things that show up in their suggestion/problem/help/comment box, which is pretty average of a plot. Once again, nothing too interesting here.
5/10 (it’s standable. could easily be 4/10 or less if I wasn’t so apathetic)
–Natsuiro Kiseki–
-2 eps in
This one caught me off guard. It’s about four girls who used to be good friends but are starting to fall apart now that one of them is moving away. It’s also about a magical wish granting stone. I thought it was originally going to be a mostly serious/psychological show, but instead it’s legitimately supernatural and also anything but serious. So basically it’s a supernatural SoL comedy. I’m not too sure what to think here. I guess it’s not bad in that it’s a relatively new concept. The second episode was enjoyable enough at least. The first one was just irritating for some reason though. Dunno where this one’ll go. It might actually turn out to be good.
5/10 (doesn’t have much potential, but it’s not that bad)
–Nazo no Kanojo X–
A.K.A. Mysterious Girlfriend X
-2 eps in
Well this one’s about a strange transfer student who eventually becomes this guy’s girlfriend, though neither seem to know exactly what that entails. They also have this weird bond through saliva, which is pretty much supernatural level. Besides that it seems to be a show about them slowly figuring out what it means to be a couple or something. I dunno about that plot, it sounds kind of boring. I can barely stand this one because of the squick factor, too. Well, I’ve heard both good and bad things about the manga, so I guess it’ll be interesting at the very least. The episodes out so far seem to agree with that, since I’m still watching even though there’s that finger assisted saliva swapping.
7/10 (I really want to subtract a point for that drool eating though)
–Ozuma–
A.K.A. Ozma
-5 eps in
Man, this one. It’s only 6 episodes long. It’s absolutely full of QUALITY, as even the characters’ base designs are messed up enough. It seems to be emulating old style shounen designs or something, but the proportions are so bad, it looks like professionally colored terrible fan-art. It also feels incredibly rushed, even though it seems they’re using a majority of their time to do the things that most anime end up doing in their last 1-2 episodes. Probably because they had to rush the beginning. Kinda weird. In any case, it follows the crew of a sand-submersible in a post-apocalyptic world, and it features such exciting things as sand sub-sub battles and mysterious pre-apocalyptic secret technology. The entire thing is full of old tropes, and the main bad guy’s character design resembles old Gundam designs as if they were trying to see how close they could get without getting sued. It’s honestly not that great, it feels rushed and everyone’s annoying with no exceptions. Still, it’s not terrible…
4/10 (it’s still bad though)
–Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle 2–
-2 eps in
I watched the original one. It wasn’t so bad. I guess it’s similar to a tournament series (closest I could think of), only instead of fighting there’s puzzles, and instead of tournament it’s more like a gauntlet for one person. The last episode of the previous season kind of tied up boringly, so I’m actually glad that there’s a season 2 that looks like it’ll be more interesting with actually competent enemies.I’m pretty sure you won’t get it unless you watched the first season, and that it wouldn’t appeal to anyone who doesn’t already like puzzles and weird shounen ___ battle series (where the blank is replaced by some random activity, like crocheting or something). It’s a shame though, it seems like they pour a ton of effort into designing legitimately interesting puzzles but they can’t show most of it because that’d eat up way too much time. I like it, but that’s probably just me being a special case.
7/10 (I’m trying to compensate for being biased here, as mentioned above. Maybe I’m not doing it enough)
–Saint Seiya Omega–
-3 eps in
Once again, never watched the original(s?). Should be accessible to newcomers too though, given that it’s far enough removed from the original. There seem to be a lot of references that I’m not getting though, but there’s enough information given about the world and other things that it’s not a big deal. The third episode feels like the real start (as opposed to the previous two), since things only really become interesting after that. It’s not great at the moment, but it has the potential to be.
7/10 (I hope it just gets better from here, haven’t watched anything this shounen in a long time)
–Sakamichi no Apollon–
-1 eps in
An anime about jazz, huh? Well, the OP is great. The characters right now seem more quirk-driven than personality-driven, which is slightly surprising. It’s only been one episode though, so that’s kind of expected. There’s pretty much a 99% chance that’ll change and it’ll be extremely character driven. The animation for the actual instrument playing is actually… well it’s actually animated as opposed to some loop, so that’s a big plus for something like this. It’s shaping up to be fairly interesting.
8/10 (I’m cautiously optimistic about this one)
–Saki: Achiga-hen Episode of Side A–
-2 eps in
Oh man, it’s Saki’s side story. I wasn’t actually able to finish the original because I got tired of trying to figure out what was going on since I don’t know mahjong. Hopefully I’ll be able to pull through this time. I don’t even know why I want to watch it. So far there hasn’t really been much fan service, no crazy characters, and not much on flashy effects. I guess it’s more cause I can than anything. It seems to be headed into endless tournaments like Saki was, which aside from being obvious is the main thing I should be basing my opinion on. Based on the first three episodes, it’s ok, in that I don’t really care and it’s not bad. Based on where it’s about to go though…. It might be a fun watch.
6/10 (because I have no idea what I’m doing here in the first place)
–Sankarea–
-2 eps in
This one’s about a guy who loves zombies, both in the sense of a fan and in the literal sense, and a rich girl who he meets accidentally who hates her life. After two episodes of backstory and buildup, he finally makes a potion that can raise the dead, and the girl drinks some in secret. Really, it feels like those two episodes weren’t very indicative of the plot, so I don’t really know where it’ll go (probably school + romance like nearly everything else though). Well, so far the main characters have been enjoyable enough, and the plot is actually interesting. I think I like this one.
7/10 (I hope it doesn’t suck later, this actually looks good)
–Sengoku Collection–
-2 eps in
Well, it’s yet another sengoku era genderswapping thing. How many have we had in the past few seasons? There’s even one next season too… Anyways, this one is different because the major characters of the sengoku era have been transferred to modern japan, and to get back they need to collect the “heart treasures” of the others. I guess it’s going to be character-of-the-week, since Nobunaga (who was the star of the first episode) barely had any importance in the second episode. It’s standable and not terrible, so yeah, not bad. Then again, I haven’t watched the others like it so maybe I’m just new to the whole genderswaping sengoku era heroes thing.
5/10 (these aren’t so bad, maybe I’ll add the others to my backlog)
–Shiba Inuko-san–
-3 eps in
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaAHHAHAHAHA what the hell is this?
Terrible, that’s what. No plot, fails at humor, fails at timing, fails at being interesting, fails at pretty much everything, though not art, since there’s still something worse (Ozuma (actually you could argue that Ozuma’s art is more unique and therefore interesting, but it’s still terrible so nevermind)). Thank god they’re all shorts or I’d have failed my no-drop challenge. Actually no, they’re still impossible to stand. Let’s move on.
1/10 (because I don’t want to waste a rule breaking 0/10 just to make a point for this one)
–Shining Hearts ~Shiawase no Pan~–
-1 eps in
This one… It’s a baking anime? The first episode was uninformative as, well it was purely about bread. I don’t know where it’s going, and I really don’t care. It’s just not interesting, not yet anyway. Well, the bread is, but not anything else. Man I really want some bread right now.
4/10 (my god I’m starving for bread)
–Shirokuma Cafe–
-2 eps in
I thought this one would be about the cafe or at least the polar bear, but it’s actually about an incredibly lazy panda who frequents the cafe after stumbling upon it. Honestly I don’t even know how to judge comedy anymore, but I guess if I had to say something I’d say it’s above average. Not that I can really tell or should be trusted on that. Well anyways, it’s varied enough for a slice of life so as not to be boring. Actually, I think it’s good.
7/10 (not entirely sure if this or 8/10 is the rating I want to go with)
–Tasogare Otome x Amnesia–
A.K.A. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
-2 eps in
Not a bad concept with this one. A comedy with a ghost as the main heroine. Well, so far it’s been moderately interesting. The first episode was just to show off crazy ghost hijinks or whatever and was really only a half episode. It wasn’t that great now that I think about it. The second episode introduces some plot though, so maybe it’ll get better.
8/10 (what can I say, I like ghost stories like this)
–Tsuritama–
-1 eps in
This one’s a bit of a mystery so far. It’s about a kid who claims to be (and probably is) an alien with a mind controlling water gun and the ability to talk to and control fish, and another kid who has extreme anxiety issues that makes him feel like he’s drowning. The summary says it’s about fishing, but… there hasn’t been much fishing. Honestly it’s so absurd I have no idea where it’ll go. It’s very charming though (if charming in this context means what I think it does). Almost certainly one of my favorites so far.
8/10 (water starts falling out of my pockets…)
–Uchuu Kyoudai–
A.K.A. Space Brothers
-3 eps in
It’s a story about an older brother trying to catch up to his younger brother in their dream of becoming astronauts. Doesn’t sound that great conceptually, but it’s actually really good because it has that believability factor to it. I’d call it a light drama if that meant what I think it means, but I’m not too sure and I don’t want to look it up right now. Actually, the fact that it’s actually almost completely realistic makes a big difference and makes it really enjoyable. Easily one of my favorite shows so far.
9/10 (what was up with that UFO anyway?)
–Upotte!!–
-2 eps in
This may look like a show about cute girls doing cute things, but it is actually a show about guns. Cute guns doing cute operative things. In that the girls are guns. They are literally guns, but they’re also literally girls. It’s hard to explain properly. Not too sure how to classify it either. It’s minorly school comedy and slice of life, but it’s more really just about guns. I guess it’s informative? Well, from a few scans I saw of some of the later chapters, there’ll be a plot eventually. Seems interesting enough.
7/10 (I like learning about guns I guess? I never knew that. This and RE:R are turning me into a /k/omrad)
–Zetman–
-3 eps in
This show is this season’s dark/serious shounen anime and isn’t much different than you’d expect from something in that category. The main character does have a strong sense of compassion and justice though, so that’s different, but there isn’t much else special, so far at least. It’s also extremely rushed so far and suffers terribly from pacing issues, but from what I hear that’s because they’re trying to cram several volumes into the first two or so episodes so they can get past the time skips into the actual plot. Somehow I’m not looking forward to the action as much as the plot, but that’s because the plot right now is so compressed, it feels that a lot is missing and so there’s a lot left to be desired. Oh well.
5/10 (and it seemed like it’d be so much better if they had more time)
TAAN: Well, this season’s better than winter at least. Though I did skip over a lot of winter due to being constantly busy, and because I was under the impression the slice of life ones would be bad (I think I was pretty wrong there from what I read elsewhere). Well, I’m probably wrong about how bad winter was now that I think about it. I still think this season’s better though. Also, I already know how messed up my taste is, so don’t take my ratings too seriously. Lastly, no pictures cause I’m lazy as fuck.
Tags: Accel World, Acchi Kocchi, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, Eureka 7 AO, Fate/Zero Season 2, Haiyoru! Nyaruko-san, I question my sanity, Jormungand, Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? of the Dead, Kuromajyo-san ga Touru!!, Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna, Medaka Box, Natsuiro Kiseki, Nazo no Kanojo X, Ozuma, Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle 2, Saint Seiya Omega, Sakamichi no Apollon, Saki: Achiga-hen Episode of Side A, Sankarea, Sengoku Collection, Shiba Inuko-san, Shining Hearts ~Shiawase no Pan~, Shirokuma Cafe, Space Brothers, spring season anime, Tasogare OtomexAmnesia, text only, Tsuritama, Uchuu Kyoudai, Upotte!!, Zetman
