I’m going to hijack this post in order to write down my thoughts on a question that has me stumped in nearly every season: What the hell am I going to blog?
So with my mind on the past first episodes, I need to figure out: which series are interesting to talk about on a weekly basis? This season is exceptionally difficult, because there are just so many good series. It usually takes me quite a while to figure this out. Usually I keep this outside of the blog and to myself, but what the heck, this time I’m going to write down my thought process here.
Let’s start with the obvious ones: the kiddie shows and all of the bad shows I’m not going to even give a second chance: Miss Monochrome, Outbreak Company, Yuusha Blahblah, Strike the Blood, that Wresling Show, Walkure Romanze, Unbreakable Machine Doll, you are out and you should be ashamed of yourself. Also I will not have time for the series that showed only a tiny bit of potential, there’s just too much competition; so goodbye, Super Seisyun Brothers, Diabolik Lovers, Log Horizon, Ace of Diamond, Meganebu and Non Non Biyori. Sorry if you’re a fan of these series, but this season is just too damn large.
Okay, as for the rest: the top of the season is always fun to blog. Kyousogiga, Yozakura Quartet and Samurai Flamency all seem wonderful, so they’re all going to be blogged. I’m also going to throw in Galilei Donna because of its ambition: those shows are also great to cover.
Then there is a group of very promising sequels: Teekyu, Little Busters, Phi Brain, Hajime no Ippo and White Album. I don’t think I can consistently write about these, however for these series I’m going to do a Kaleidoscope this season, because they deserve the attention and I do want to talk about them slightly.
Then there is a group of series that is in the danger zone of being dropped if their second episode disappoints: Kyoukai no Kanata, Ore no Nounai, Tokyo Ravens, Blazblue, Yowamushi Pedal, Arpeggio and Golden Time. As of this writing I have watched Kyoukai no Kanata (dropped; the characters were too annying) and Golden Time (keeper, but not interesting enough to blog). All these series have the potential to be great as long as they aren’t held back, but I don’t believe that that potential will be enough to be worth blogging.
This leaves the foursome of Kill La Kill, Copellion, Nagi no Asukura and Gingitsune. And this really has me in a bind. All of them had smashing first episodes, Kill la Kill and Nagi no Asukura will run for two cours, Gingitsune and Copellion for just one (I heard someone say that Gingitsune will run for 21 episodes, but the amount of scheduled DVDs suggest otherwise), yet they all have their significant flaws: Kill la Kill and Gingitsune have their simplified story, while Copellion and Nagi no Asukura’s problem is that they’re way too dramatic.
At the moment of writing, I’ve seen episode 2 of Kill la Kill and Copellion. The latter made this process really difficult because I was really surprised with how the characters were overacting there. Ultimately though, I figured that I should not let overacting play a factor in this. I have complained about overacting in the past before, and I’ve been proven wrong many times. Overacting in one episode an sich isn’t a sign that we’re dealing with a series that will crash and burn to death. A bigger indicator is a wrong focus or lackluster direction, and I’m not yet seeing that with any of these four here. But the thing is that I also don’t want to blog nine shows at the same timewhile also doing a kaleidoscope: that will be too much.
So here’s what I think I’m going to do: I’m going to rigorously blog the big three of this season, and probably Galilei Donna as well. I’ll try to cover these as much as possible, and after that I’ll try to do blog Gingitsune, Copellion, Kill la Kill and Nagi no Asukura, putting the episodes I can’t cover in something like the kaleidoscope, along with the five sequels and any other show that doesn’t end up dropped. These will basically be my priorities this season.
In the meantime, I’m going to put Uchuu Kyoudai on hold for blogging. It used to be my favourite, but here is the thing: I endorse experimentation, I endorse studios trying out new stuff, and pushing the anime industry further. At this point, Uchuu Kyoudai isn’t doing that anymore, and it’s just running for running’s sake, as good as the content may still be. It’s stopped being fun to blog after complaining about the pacing issues over and over. We finally have a season again with so much fresh new content, and a chance to show what some excellent OVAs can really do with the time of a full series. I’d rather to spend my attention on that, even though Uchuu Kyoudai is still setting the example of having a significantly older cast.
So yeah… Kill la Kill. Nearly forgot about that one. The thing with this series indeed is that it’s going to have to find a way to make up for its overall plot: it’s simple, and most likely going to be predictable. My big problem with Gurren Lagann was that it couldn’t keep itself interesting enough. With this series I have hope though, because the chemistry between the characters is a lot more fun, and the creators clearly seem to want to go all-out. The biggest trap at the moment for them is running into a routine. I’m fine with having a formula of having to fight a bunch of people with wacky powers, but make each of those people count: make every fight something really entertaining.
The firs two episodes really managed to do that. While not as versatile as Kyousogiga or Yozakura Quartet, this episode stood out in its sheer insanity and how it brought tennis to a whole different level. I also like how most of the characters in this series also have no clue what’s going on, and they’re just going along with things.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)