A quarter of the Spring season have passed, and it’s time for our 3-episode round up reviews. Usually by that time the shows have established all their ingredients and now start to kick off to their premises. The 3-week rule is a good barometer to determine whether the series can turn out to be good or not. The main purpose of this post, as a result, is to make it as a guide for you readers, now we have a better idea about those shows. My experience with anime would say sometimes it’s not the case at all (like recently Everything Becomes F started of strong and then ended completely ridiculous), but most the time this proved to be a good exercise. Even the wicked Puella Magi Madoka Magica shows its true color in its 3rd episode,
This season so far are quite solid in terms of amount of good shows, and a range of variety as well, though no shows is truly stand above the rest. we have good action/mecha shows (Kabaneri of Iron Fortress, Kuromukuro), comedy/slice-of-life shows (KumaMiko, Flying witch), shounen (Diamonds Are Unbreakable, My Hero Academia) and many usual light novel adaptation and cute girls doing cute things shows. The most impressive thing here, as I mentioned in earlier post, is the great showing of 12 year old-characters girls. Usually those girls in anime was treated more like a supporting character with no depth at all, so this is a great sign and I hope there’ll be more like this in the future.
So without further ado, here is the list of the first batch that I have watched so far in the airing order, along with my impressions on how they doing so far, LET RUN THEM DOWN!
Mayoiga
The Verdict: One of the strength in Mari Okada’s scripts is her ability to write characters that are so different from each other. They have a distinctive feature, gestures, personality that it’s a joy to see them playing off against each other. Mayoiga put it up to the MAX by introducing 30 of them, and quite frankly, having interesting traits’ characters and promising premise ain’t enough to have a good show. The story, judging from mystery aspects, is way too slow. After 3 episodes, all we get are 1) Those people arrived to the Lost village. 2) 2 of them have disappeared and 3) A body has been found floating on a river. And they are all 5 seconds before the end of each episode. The rest of the time Mayoiga stumbles around with many ideas and not that good execution.
Keep Following: Since I’m covering this one, that’s a Yes
Recommended: Sadly, no. It’s still the more ambitious show of the season so it’s still interesting just to see how it all plays out. Will it be great? I don’t think so.
My Hero Academia
The Verdict: For me, My Hero Academia mostly succeed on what it sets out to be: what it means to be a hero. While shows like One Punch Man shows the other side of the spectrum: what it means to fight and save people (being in hero association is a mean to achieve this), My Hero Academia looks up on being a hero, and how it inspires others to be like him. In that sense this is more like an idol/ sports shows than its shounen origin. Anyways, the reason this shows works so far is because its heart is on the right place, it feels the pain and struggles our protagonist Izuku has, at the same time still bright and optimistic to suggest that it you really strive for it, your wish will come true.
Keep Following: Sorry but No, My Hero Academia sadly just isn’t my type of show. Being an idol/hero who inspires others is not my interest. Considering we have quite many fine shows to watch here, I will leave it aside for now.
Recommended: By all mean, yes. While the third episode slows the shows a bit, I’d consider it the calm before the storm. Next week when we reach the test, there will be much more fun to see.
KumaMiko
The Verdict: Here come a sleeper hit of the season. I enjoyed the first episode of KumaMiko, but I could never anticipate that the next episodes would be that solid. They are more focus than the first one and the communication between the two leads, in particular; is very nice to watch; they bounce off each other well and the comic timing is mostly consistent. I loved the humor of the show, from its pop culture reference (most notably Uniqlo), its sometimes crude humors, to its irrelevant randomness (like when Natsu recalled when Machi got tranced when she was young, I laughed my heart out), it just all clicked.
Keep Following: Yes. This is a better comedy show than most this season, and completely took me by surprise by how consistent it is. I originally thought this is a nice little show to watch between other big shows, but now I actively look forward to watch it.
Recommended: I would say Yes, but with reservation. Humors depends on each people and some of the jokes might be too left-field for some.
Re:Zero- Starting Life in Another World
The Verdict: After 3 episodes (oh, actually it’s 4), we have a nice closure to the first part of the series. The cast, due to the repeating, have to deal with the same day in different situations. That way it gives different perspective to the characters, which is a plus for me. The story is just engaging enough to make use of the hook. The cast so far is pleasurable as well, albeit not that deep yet.
Keep Following: I’m really in between whether I would continue watching it or not. Everything so far just fall right in the middle: the story is decent is enough, the cast just decent enough, the hook is decent enough… that nothing really stands out. I will give it another episode to decide.
Recommended: It would turn out to be a solid show, so if you are in favors for the first few episodes here, then YES.
Joker Game
The Verdict: The third episode so far the weakest of the bunch, and it seems like the show will continue in that direction, that means each episode a new spy guy takes a spotlight. Each episode is very solid and I really hope those spies can show much of their humane side, while still follow the instinct of the spy. Joker Game is still one of the most solid show of this season.
Keep Following: Certainly. If you ask me right now which shows I’m most certain to become solid. It’s this show.
Recommended: A big YES
Twin Stars Exorcists
The Verdict: Twin Star Exorcist manage both to embrace many of the cliché of the genre (the boy with potential talent, his tragic past, the girl literally falls into his arms, that girl ends up living on the same house with him, they fated to become together, other girl who liked him, too many to even list them all here), while at the same time being very entertaining and hits all the right notes. I have an easy watch every time, which indicates that it has good pacing and the lead actually have great chemistry.
Keep Following: No. Spending 3 episodes is quite enough. I don’t see anything truly stands out from the show.
Recommended: Although this is an entertaining piece, I would say NO since there is many more entertaining or simply better shows out there.
~SuperMario~
