Demi-chan and Masamune-kun have been dropped. With series like these in a generic school setting, I zone out very fast when they revert back to the stuff you see everywhere, and the same old fanservice. I do not have time for that. Beyond that though, this definitely was an interesting month, full of twists and surprises. There’s some definite good stuff here, and I can see the ambition to get better from a lot of them.

Usual disclaimers: there be spoilers, arr. And these are just my impressions, influenced only by myself.

#10: Hand Shakers (05-08)

This list is based on my rankings for all episodes that aired in the past month, with my least favourite first and my most favourite last. Hand Shakers takes the spot of worst this month as a punishment for what it did for the past four episodes. Those who know me know why, and this series should also be well aware and it should feel bad about it!

I’m sorry Hand Shakers, but if you introduce a brother and sister and your first instinct is “incest!”, you obviously haven’t learned your lesson enough. This goes for the entire industry. Let’s first let a good number of years pass with series of siblings with actually normal relationships before we’re going to even think about this subject, mmmkay? This in particular was the perfect opportunity for that: a great way for this series to explore the strong bonds that siblings could have. It would have fit perfectly. Or just make them a regular couple. Heck, they acted more like one than 90% of all other couples in anime.

And this is a bloody shame because aside from that really big detail I’m really digging this series. I like how it explores hand holding, and this series has this warmth flowing across every episode that is really cute to watch. This is how you do chemistry! And look at how ambitious the animation is! Yeah it looks weird and all, but look at all the things they’re actually trying to animate! How crazy the camera sometimes gets, and how much it moves on an actual three-dimensional plane! This is incredibly difficult to do, and yet they keep trying, even beyond the first episode.

So yeah Hand Shakers: lay it off with the incest, and you have next month to redeem yourself!

#9: ChaoS;Child (04-07)

Oh boy. Episode seven. That was… quite something else. Really, I can see why they wanted to animate this show now. In the hands of competent creators, this really would have been the smash episode of the year, and I’m not kidding! The most disturbing single episode in years! Or at least, that was probably the plan. Oh god, in the hands of Tetsurou Araki this would have given me nightmares for months!

But yeah, let’s face it: the acting in ChaoS;Child is abysmal. It may not be the single worst acting of the season, but it is for what it’s trying to do. In episode one it already was quite clear how silly and over the top the gore was, but the real problems started to become apparent over this month: these characters can’t emote to save their lives. They’re all a bunch of cardboard boxes wiggling around and when things get dramatical instead of feeling with the characters, things just get incredibly awkward. Okay, so you want characters who pee themselves out of fear? You want characters who cry blood? Emote them! There was no way the creators would have been able to make that work with this execution, and that was apparent right from the start. What a good director would do in this position was just tone down the gore: make use of what you have, pull a few directing tricks here and there and pull off a more subtle performance that requires less time and budget.

Because it’s obvious that this series should have been 24 episodes long and it’s battling against time, but that’s no excuse. There’s another series this season in the same boat here: ACCA, having to bring thirteen different countries to life in just one cour. But there you can see that the creators are desperately trying to pull all kinds of tricks to make it tick and work. Chaos;Child simply animates the original story line by line without thinking about how to make it work best.

And that brings us to episode seven. Oh boy, I already tuned out a bit with the peeing and blood crying, but here? It was hard to watch what went on there, seeing these incredibly wooden characters trying to cope with the single most traumatic event in their lives, and it just got more and more awkward as it went along. And it just kept going! It felt like an eternity, and I was just hoping for things to stop, just to spare them for any more embarrassment. In more than 10 years blogging, I very rarely had to sit through an episode that was this difficult and awkward to watch.

And really: I dig the original storyline. The original game really was on to something. Before episode seven I could tolerate the bad acting because I was finding myself quite intrigued by what was going on: I wanted to learn more! I really don’t know how to rank this one. Good? Bad? Well, it’s certainly something.

#8: Little Witch Academia (03-08)

So, episode 08 was the best of the series so far, however I’m not sure whether that’s a good sign or not. I mean don’t get me wrong, episode 08 was good and all, and it gave some neat insights into Sucy’s character in a really creative way and all, but I’m more worried about the rest of the episodes. Basically: I expected a lot more from this series.

This may be complaining that apple pie tastes like apple pie, but I expected a bit more than high school hi-jinks for this series. For something from Studio Trigger, you expect something crazy, and yet most of the episodes have been surprisingly tame. It may have big ideas, but they all feel… so inconsequential. Episode 8’s mushroom forest? Gone as fast as it appeared. Dragons! Cool! But not when they’re old farts that don’t really do anything. There’s a whole world beyond the school, which is fastly leaving magic behind! Cool if this show would actually focus on it!

It would also help if Atsuko wasn’t so epically bad at everything. I mean I can understand having good and bad subjects and all, but where’s the fun in watching her fail again and again and again. This show is called Little Witch Academia, part of it should be showing how fun magic is. And yet they don’t show any of the basics. They just expect you to point your wand at stuff and things happen, but there’s no depth to it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to discover this world of magic alongside Atsuko? Instead, we get a series of an incompetent hack who manages to summon incredible powers through sheer luck.

It seems to me that this show doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do. Every episode tries to do something different and they don’t seem to mesh at all. For a while it seemed like this show was about the wonders of magic. Then episode seven and eight came along and portrayed in a much more negative light without any lead-up whatsoever. One episode Atsuko is determined to win, the next she gets distracted by everything and completely loses any sene of urgency.

In a series with a setting this expansive, you’re bound to want to cover a lot, but instead it feels like the balance is completely gone. There is just so much time devoted to Atsuko sucking that whenever this show wants to include something new about its setting, there is hardly any time to look at it, resulting in that it just feels like it’s continuously pulling things out of its ass. Jobs for witches are a neat idea, but not when episode 7 brought it up from out of nowhere, only to never talk about it again. Astrology? People can predict the future now? Diana also conveniently is good at everything for Atsuko to have a rival. It just doesn’t feel organic.

I’ll just say it: Studio Gainax was better than Studio Trigger. Not now, obviously, but I can see that Studio Trigger has Gainax’ wit and balls, but not in the right places; only when it doesn’t seem to have much consequence. I think even when you ignore Hideaki Anno’s works. I mean, one reason why they’re famous is the Gainax ending. Back in the day it was used as a bit of an insult, but I really wonder: is a Gainax ending really a bad thing?

#7: Piace – Watashi no Italian (04-07)

Now, two months in, it’s safe to remove the benefit of the doubt for this series: Piace – Watashi no Italian is a genuinely funny series. Its episodes may only be four minutes long, but it hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down yet, in fact it’s only getting more enjoyable. There are many keys in this, the snappy directing that wastes no line of dialogue, knows how to deliver a punchline, and a cast of characters that is just lovable to watch. They are a bunch of stereotypes, but the creators keep squeezing new things out of them, within these stereotypes: they give them different stuff to do, put them in a different context, slowly make them change and acclimatize to each other. Continuity also deserves praises: a wall that is smashed in one episode still bears cracks two episodes later. It also helps that the lead voice actress really carries this series: everything revolves around her, and she is wonderful at keeping all balls into the air.

One thing that is surprising me as well is that this show definitely did its homework. You see that more and more: people actually just googling the things they’re writing about. I feel this happens more and more, so props to this positive trend!

#6: Onihei (01-07)

Onihei is a strange series. It tries to be ugly: it doesn’t shy away from gore, it shows humans at their worst, and its stories are filled with death, sex and abuse. Amongst that it tells stories from around the samurai era, usually centered around a really big moral. First of all I applaud this series for daring to be different. In this day and age of feel-good series which try to play things safe, it’s very refreshing to see a series that just throws a lot of taboos overboard. But how about the execution?

Every episode, Onihei tries to tell a story around a certain character, and this part is something it does really well. It loves the use of irony, and every episode plays around with it in a different way. Most episodes have big plot twists that aim to make you think. It’s also very good at creating its tension through its art style, music and pacing. This combination makes this show tick: well written major characters that make you think.

It’s really bad at animation though. This show takes a good dose of suspense of disbelieve, because a lot of the characters just look silly when they’re trying to be funny. However the biggest detractor for this series is its cast of minor characters. You don’t see this being an issue often, but minor characters are there to fill a story. They are not the main focus, but they populate the world, and especially for this series they give the major characters their reasons for acting the way they do. And sorry, but the cast of minor characters here is just so full of Hitler-wannabes that it gets hilarious. Every single corner of this show is just filled with the exact same corrupt raping murderer that dies at the end that it’s really hard to see a threat in them. There is no look into what made them that way, and while this series is incredibly sympathetic towards its major characters, the minor ones are just ugly sword fodders who are evil just because the story needs it to be. Only episode 1 played with this, aside from that it could very well have been the same guy over and over again. No reason behind it. It’s like one of those stories that forgives a major hot character for committing a few atrocities due to being misunderstood, while at the same time having no qualms of the main cast killing off hordes of nameless goons who are probably only just doing their jobs.

#5: Youjo Senki (05-07)

I’ve compared Youjo Senki to Shuumatsu no Izetta, and that comparison still goes. Both series are set in a fictional Europe in the middle of a war, focused on a magical girl with huge powers of incredible strategic importance. Izetta is about a small country defending itself, Youjo Senki is about the biggest country expanding its territory. Both deal with politics, but Izetta uses a lot of espionage, while Youjo Senki meanwhile is big on the tactics. Objectively, Izetta portrayed its war in the most solid way. Its portrayal of characters was the most realistic and down to earth. And yet, why am I enjoying Youjo Senki far more?

I mean Izetta’s acting was rock solid, while the characters in Youjo Senki really are hamming it up. But on the other hand though, the actual war of youjo Senki simply is more interesting. Izetta was about the underdog and got its tension for watching to see how long they could hold on against all odds. But here’s the thing with underdog stories, in my opinion: there are so many shows about the underdog! It’s not special anymore, and after a while you have exhausted all possible ways to make it interesting. Youjo Senki meanwhile is different: her team already was on the winning side, but with her powers they might actually be able to do something even more crazy. Its tension comes from the weight of the decisions the characters take. Izetta showed on a personal level how terrible the tragedies of war are, and how it must be stopped. Youjo Senki meanwhile uses the tragedies of war to underline that yes: the characters are killing people. Both have their merits. And really, the war alone wouldn’t have done it for me for this series. At this point I was starting to get tired on Izetta, even though the stakes kept growing there. And the setting of Youjo Senki alone is not enough to excuse its lack of depth in the cast of side characters.

No, what I like best about Youjo Senki is its atheism vs theism themes. When after episode 1 I hated the whole setting, it just took a minute of being X to just sell me on it, and its subsequent appearances have toyed with some really interesting ideas, with this tug-of-war between the lead character, and trying to get her to accept that God exists. It’s really different from the Jesus you usually see in these types of stories, and being X is the one who throws in the irony to keep this story interesting, the extra kick and layer of depth that this series needed.

#4: ACCA 13-ku Kansatsu-ka (05-08)

From the start, it was obvious that ACCA would be a slow burner. With a setting this huge, it first had to do its share of building up. It’s still a bit weird, considering at the same time that it’s trying to rush its storyline into just one season. The result is that we just flew past 13 different countries and we’ve already gotten to the part where everything is starting to come together.

And that’s my opinion of ACCA: taking these constraint into consideration, it is doing a really good job here! A complaint you usually get with these series is that they don’t put in any thought in how to make their story work best for the anime format. The writers of ACCA clearly put in their hours. They did their homework in order to make sure that ACCA works as an anime.

This show is here to present its story, and episode eight made all of the scenes that felt a bit weird in the earlier episodes make sense. When the big twist was first announced, it felt far-fetched, but at the end of the eighth episode, they got away with it for me. Meticulous is the word here, I think. The more I think about it, the more I see that this show didn’t get any scene go to waste. Every scene was there for a reason, even all of the cakes, sweets and deserts were very deliberately put there to flesh out the identity of the different countries here. It’s actually very clever of the creators. And beyond that, every scene is just meant to either flesh out a character or country more, or to advance the main plot. It’s an excellent example that aspiring writers can look at for writing compact stories.

The big danger with being so compact is of course that the characters will feel more like plot devices than anything else. But even there this show pulls a number of tricks to try and avoid that. First of all the cast is just huge. There are so many characters, to the point where this series feels alive, and all characters are just part of it. I also want to praise this series for how it really tries to avoid overacting, and still makes the characters feel sympathetic. I still felt along with the characters, due to how good the writing was. The voice acting in the meantime was still able to offer colour to the cast, but without the overacting there is always something subtle behind them.

#3: Kuzu no Honkai (04-07)

Kuzu no Honaki has firmly established itself as “Unrequited love: the anime”. The whole set-up is carefully crafted to show many different perspectives, many different flavours in different contexts, intertwined together. Some parts are a bit exaggerated; played up in order to be able to tell a coherent story that fits within 11 episodes. Others through…

Like seriously at times this show completely nails it! Since the original Honey and Clover we haven’t gotten unrequited love this well depicted, and this show goes deep within the cast of characters. To show exactly how they feel, and why it sucks so much. The characters are all gradients of self aware: they know full well of what they’re doing, but all of them are desperately trying to find solutions in how to cope with their feelings, gradually finding them over the course of this month. And all characters do this, so this show just can keep juggling its characters around to prevent one story thread from getting too stale.

And all that lead to a number of great emotional punches, and every episode so far had at least one. Just one of those moments where a character learns to accept the situation they’re in, they cave in to their desires and move away from the ideal world they created in their own minds. It has now reached the point where every time I start an episode, I just know I’ll be getting the feels. This consistency deserves applause.

Oh, and one final thing: Youjo Senki, thank you for not including any awkward fan service like what Izetta did. Good lord being X this felt refreshing once I realized this.

#2: Classicaloid (17-20)

Remember how last month, I said that nothing happened in this series? Well, for February, things DID happen, and it hasn’t screwed up!

This usually is the point for comedies where the storyline kicks in and the jokes are much less of a priority. However Classicaloid’s advantage is that it has an amazing cast of characters with some amazing chemistry. So when these episodes tried to be serious, even if the comedy WOULD have been abandoned this still would have worked. And the thing is that these past four episodes were just as hilarious as ever, my favourite being the love-episode. That episode was all kinds of amazing and had me in stitches from start to finish, more than any other Classicaloid episode so far. I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be done: continue with the priority of being as entertaining as possible, while in the meantime pushing the story and the characters further.

Because of this I have high hopes for the finale. This series seems to know what it’s doing. Even though the final month is usually disastrous for comedies, if this series actually has the balls to screw conventions and do what’s best for the characters then it will be able to stand as my top pick for the past three months. It IS the show I’m most anxious about ending though, because if it doesn’t do that the potential for a mellow ending is the largest here, and a show of this caliber really deserves to go out with a bang!

#1: Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (05-08)

As funny as Classicaloid may have been, and as touching as Kuzu no Honkai was, I cannot give my favourite show of February to any other than Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu; something really special happened here.

The thing with fiction is that over time, stories just keep getting written and written. They pile up about all kinds of topics. The first stories have it easy because there is a wide variety of different topics and techniques that haven’t been done before: originality is easy. However, at this point pretty much everything is a derivative of something. To get something truly original, you’d have to venture into territory like “a 13-legged octopus travels to Vermont to watch paint dry”, but that’s just faux originality: the story itself also has to be good.

What we got here, in the past month. Closer to something truly original is probably never going to happen again, especially in the realm of anime. And not only that, it did not sacrifice emotional impact, in fact this was higher than ever. This is the month where everything starts coming together for this series, and the past starts linking to the present. With Yakumo’s failing health the past comes above again, just like what happened with his master. I love how in-depth this show got at how hard it is for him to accept his own old age, how his passion for rakugo has evolved. They’ve built this guy up to such a beautiful walking contradiction. And the rest of the cast was brilliant too! Everybody had their own motivations that while all the same, they all came together from different directions to the same conclusion in not wanting to give up Yakumo’s rakugo.

Also, from out of nowhere, this show suddenly got incredibly good at doing plot twists. Like every time I’m just struck with surprise, but the big reveal really was something else. At the end of season one, when IT happened I remember how I found it a bit underwhelming. the scene was a bit weird and it just didn’t feel right. At that time I saw that as a fault. Well consider my ass kicked and I take all that back. I have been beaten. Praise the glorious rakugo overlords!

I know I missed Onihei, but it’s just impossible to find much about it. Perhaps in February I’ll give it some more coverage. Aside from that, this was a good month. I’d say that overall the winter season is more varied than the past autumn season, but at the same time the good series are not AS good. All of course according to my own impressions. Like always spoilers beware, and this list is on order of my own preferences, worst first best last, only about the episodes that aired in January, minus the first episodes that I already talked about. The number after each title signifies the relevant episodes.

#15: Granblue Fantasy The Animation (01)

This one aired a bit later than the other shows this season. It’s also a fantasy series, probably another kind of game adaptation like Chain Chronicle, but I liked that one a lot better though. That I’m not watching Chain Chronicle anymore should say enough for Granblue, but the gist of it that while Chain Chronicle was simply generic, with Granblue I got the feeling of gradually losing brain cells while watching. Granted, a bit reason for that is that incredibly annoying dragon that keeps floating everywhere, but what also ticks me off is that we’re given very little reason to care about any of the characters. The main character doesn’t really have a reason to go along on this life-threatening quest, he just happens to be at the place where a cute girl falls from the sky… and starts following his boner, I guess… Why am I supposed to root for these people? Do the bad guys have any other reason to attack besides being evil? I don’t expect answers to those questions in episode 01, but at least hints or some other kind of nuance. You just can’t think you can get away with this simplistic mess just because you’re a game adaptation, right?

#14: Spiritpact (02)

In the end… I just can’t. Snappy dialogue is one thing, but if everything else is just amateurish i’m not really sure what I’m gaining by watching this and I’ve got many better things to see and do. I can see where they’re coming from, but episode 2 didn’t really convince me to just keep watching. For one it wasn’t as fun as the first episode, but the first episode also just felt worse in hindsight. They introduced this new character who is the fiance of the white haired guy, and obviously she has her issues, but they all seemed to be trying so hard, and nothing really came out of it.

The animation is partly to blame for that. I watch anime because I also care for the “animation”-part of the whole deal. I want to see people bringing characters to life. If you have to use short-cuts then so be it: be clever with the jump-cuts, pull some visual tricks, use your music. It’s not an exact science at all and it’s an art form, however this series doesn’t seem to try any of this, with awkward jerky motions and no attempts to hide it. Japanese anime has the experience in these cheap tricks, but Korean animators still need to find their own way. Mind you, I am not suggesting them to follow anime’s example. Let them go their own way, as long as that way works of course.

#13: BanG Dream! (01-02)

This is another series that came out a bit late this season, about a bunch of middle school girls starting a band. I gave it two episodes because there is one thing it seems to understand: build-up: it’s not like “Wheee band!”, but instead it is carefully building up the different girls, why they’re going for it and how they end up meeting each other. Really, one of the most difficult things about being in a band is actually starting the band and finding the right people. By taking its time, the series makes also sure that the characters are well fleshed out in the process.

Still, I’m not going to continue with it. The teenaged girls are just too annoying, and I think a lot can be contributed to bad acting and voice acting: characters hamming it up a little too much. There is one shy girl and nearly all she does is breathe very loudly. That’s not how shyness works! The main character also feels a bit weird: they really tried to make her this enthusiastic girl whose energy pulls the entire band together, but in the end it just feels fake, like they try too hard. She too has this habit of just breathing very loudly, which after a while just gets distracting. These random squeaks and moans instead of just actual dialogue. This obviously isn’t the only show that does this but that doesn’t make it okay!

#12: elDLIVE (02-03)

elDLIVE could have had potential if they kept the momentum of the first episode going. A fun light-hearted show about alien hunting with quirky characters, but in the end it lost this quite quickly. Episode 02 and 03 pretty much repeated what episode 01 did, only less interesting, and quite witless to be honest. These episodes had a bit of high school hi-jinks, dull aliens, and nothing really interesting. It wasn’t fun, and at times they also got way too dramatic for their own good. You don’t want to be dramatic for a series that involves a bunch of kids busting aliens, that just serves to highlight how stupid the show is, unless you invest really heavily in suspense of disbelief. But ultimately this show lacks any sort of ambition or desire to be special. This one is dropped.

#11: Demi-chan wa Kataritai (02-04)

This one turned out to be not as good as what I hoped. On one hand, it managed to portray this world in which a small percentage of people is “demi”, or half human, half mythical creature like a vampire, dullahan, etc. It’s an interesting look at minorities, being slightly different and a bit of bullying here and there. Its characters are very vocal about their issues and that makes this a very honest series.

On the other hand I really don’t like how this show pulled a Sword Art Online and made every single one of these “demi-girls” fall for the main character. Granted, the verdict is still out on the snow girl, but it’s getting there, trust me! I find that cheap, and it’s also just pointless. This is supposed to be a series about teenaged issues, and the romance just feels shoehorned in. There is no reason why these girls can’t have boyfriends, or at the very least guys interested in them if they also want to handle things like sexualities. This is also in the main character’s favour because now we just end up with him getting demi-boners half of the time, which just turns him into this slime-ball rather than a scientist. It’s a real shame because I feel that there are two groups among the creators: one that really wants this to be a character study, and one that want this to be a romantic comedy. The result gets very awkward in a bad way.

#10: Piace – Watashi no Italian (02-03)

Piace is clever: it knew that if you want to be interesting, you need some kind of material to work with. Slice of life has been done to death and there is no way to make something out of it, and you have to be really funny for a pure plain comedy to succeed. However by basing its setting on an Italian restaurant it can interchange the jokes with Italian cooking. And it’s not like you really learn something about this, but the creators make a point of showing that the characters are making good food. When you combine this with the banter between the different characters, this becomes pretty decent for 4 minutes per episode, because let’s face it: the only jokes in this show are based on the characters’ banter; do not expect any food puns. The characters are also grounded and fun to watch: the voice acting here is good. The slightly-faster-than-usual pacing along with portraying the characters variedly, yet fairly wasn’t something I expected from a series like this.

#9: ChaoS;Child (02-03)

ChaoS;Child is chugging along nicely, along with its own issues. The thing with this series is that it’s all about its mystery. You can see that the story behind this series, the string of weird murders and the strange connection between them is the strongest point of this series. While no Higurashi by any means, I admit that after three episodes I’m curious to learn what is behind everything. Apart from that though… the gore is laughable, the animation is jerky, but my most important issue with it lies with the characters.

When telling a story with a clear main character, the audience needs a way to relate with him or her. A key part of that is the reason for his/her involvement in the story. And this doesn’t need to be complicated, as long as it’s something strong that can take the audience along for the ride. The lead character here is this sulky high school kid who keeps poking his nose in ridiculously dangerous murder cases. He knows this and still goes after them. Even after his loved ones get hurt he still tries to get more and more involved, even though there is no guarantee for the safety of his other friends, he gets told this plenty of times, and he realizes that he’s being incredibly reckless. How the heck are we supposed to relate to that?! I mean the lead of Chaos Head was a loser, but the creators used his panic very well to engage the audience. With him, it’s all so weak that I kept thinking “stop getting involved! Let the cops take care of it! You’re a high school kid, you can’t do anything!”

#8: Masamune-kun no Revenge (02-04)

Four episodes in, and Masamune has still retained its wit that we saw in its first episode. I didn’t think I’d be praising a romance between two high school kids, but it’s enjoyable enough to see just what an incredible dork the male lead can be. For once he’s actually balanced well: he’s flawed, but not a complete idiot, diligent but not perfect, his attempts of hitting on the lead girl are a refreshing combination between desperate and surprisingly effective. The tropes that have been done in other romances, it really tries to subvert them. It’s like a cat and mouse game between the two of them.

However, I’m very afraid that we just saw the best of this series. Episode 04 ended with something really questionable that has ruined many series that came before it. Up to that point, every twist, even though unexpected, sort-of made sense. You could see things happening that way if you put yourself in the characters’ shoes. Then completely randomly there’s this girl that offers herself to the lead’s feet as they’re about to have this serious moment. The episode ended right afterwards, but the creators are going to have to come up with something amazing to try and explain that one, because it also just does not fit the storyline at all, and I really doubt what this show can benefit from her. This was the “will they won’t they”-love-triangle I was afraid of when I first saw the OP and ED of this one, and there’s gonna be another girl! For now I enjoyed this show plenty, but unless episode 05 makes a very good case for itself I’m going to drop it then and there.

#7: Youjo Senki (02-04)

Okay. I did not expect that kind of back-story for the main character. It’s far-fetched, but.. fair enough it works. In fact, episodes 02 to 04 have all pain-stakingly spent time dealing with the issues I had with the first episode, setting everything up and actually doing a very good job at it. At this point I don’t see this as a dumb war-series anymore, but definitely something with its own qualities. Something totally different from what Shuumatsu no Izetta tried to be.

It’s ironic: Shuumatsu no Izetta made sure to portray soldiers as actual people, but in the end it was about the survival of the actual kingdom. Youjo Senki throws heaps of unnamed soldiers under the bus, but in the end its central theme is survival of the individual. Everyone in this series is thinking either about themselves, or their close families. The people next to them. The patriotism feels more like a formality here. In face, what I like is how it takes many serious issues of other war-series, and turns them into formalities. The whole goal of the main character isn’t to win, it’s to live a comfortable life and winning just happens to be very convenient for that goal. It’s a different look at war politics than usual. And the fact that she’s a child… fair enough. It works and they use it well.

#6: Hand Shakers (02-04)

There\s something really interesting going on with the music here. During the fights, notice how the soundtrack is completely different from what you’d usually suspect? It’s all dreamy, instead of the hard, dramatic and edgy sound that series usually go for. It’s very much on the foreground, rather than mostly lingering in the background. That is awesome! Back in the days lots of series had these incredibly complicated soundtracks with creative tunes, to scenes that totally didn’t match your expectations, even blasting over the dialogue and it was glorious! At a certain point this trend stopped though, only resurfacing very rarely. This needs to be brought back! Obviously not in every series, but let’s revive the spirit of Bee-Train! Hand Shakers is obviously no El Cazador, but obviously a step in the right direction.

Aside from that, this show has me pretty baffled. On all accounts, on paper I should hate this show. A boy meets a girl and they use powers to fight others. And yet this show is just so incredibly genuine. I find the lead couple so adorable for some really weird reason. The rest of the cast: I just like them. Everything here is just enjoyable to watch. Like I said, there’s something inherently cute about a show that’s about hand holding, something most romance shows don’t even seem to realize exists.

I am not a fan though of how passive the female lead has been so far: the male lead pretty much did all of the work here. You could replace her with a pet dog and pretty much the only thing that will change is the sexual tension. Don’t think too much behind that comparison…

#5: Little Witch Academia (02-04)

What makes this series special is that the creators really seem to have made this with an international audience in mind. This show is a weird amalgamation between east and west, but some parts really feel like Trigger putting a global audience first, rather than what most shows do: just produce your series for Japan and afterwards just release it internationally because hey, why not? Or make your show so generic that it doesn’t matter what country it’s from. I mean, otherwise no sane writer would include a reference to Hanna Barbara so randomly there. Episode four was also was about fandom, and it felt uch more like we were watching western fandom than Eastern.

Also in this world, everything is exaggerated. Everything. That makes the plot pretty random and stupid, but the energy. Good lord, the energy of this show! This show always manages to conjure up something creative for the magical hi-jinks that the characters find themselves into and especially the main trio just bubbles with personality, and yet they’re grounded and varied. This is what makes characters who usually would have been really annoying, it makes them actually fun to watch. I mean we all know about the blond girl who is good at everything and incredibly posh, but in this show she works. Her henchmen are annoying at first, but we see them do different stuff besides fangirl about how amazing their sempai is.

And beyond that this does just about all of the basic stuff right. These four episodes were random hi-jinks, but they were perfect in fleshing out the characters and making the audience familiar with them. This light-hearted note is something I missed from Kill la Kill for example. Trigger still hasn’t forgotten to do action either, so bring on the rest of this series!

#4: ACCA – 13-ku Karusatsu-ka (02-04)

Okay ACCA, let’s talk for a minute about immersion. Consider the Twelve Kingdoms, a series that also focuses on a world with about a dozen different countries inside it. One thing it did a lot, especially in the beginning, is show a map of the world, including a pointer where the story was about to focus at. This happened a lot, and while tedious at the time, because of this you always knew where the story was in relation to the rest of the setting. It made you feel part of the world. ACCA has a map, but we only see it very occasionally, and only brief, so we as a viewer are constantly having to guess where the heck we are, especially since every episode deals with a different country. What if the beginning of each episode could show for a small bit where on the map we are? You could incorporate it in the OP if time is the issue. It’s a very simple detail, but I feel like it would add a lot to this series.

Now, ACCA is an incredibly ambitious series, and it’s obvious that it can’t fit everything it wants into episodes of 20 minutes, so it has to compromise. The option it went for is to try and get as much information as possible into just one episode. The big difficulty with this approach is keeping thins personal, and I have to say that when taking this into consideration, it’s a very good attempt. Obviously the huge focus on consumables helps. Characters have this “tell, rather than show”-approach to their characters, but this is fixed by the creators using subtle non-verbal clues to flesh out their characters.

The big sacrifice though is continuity. This series both doesn’t have the time to deal with the aftermaths of everything that it does (lots of minor issues are just explicitly assumed to just get resolved), plus the way it leads one thing into the other… just happens. Coincidences pile up and there is no quiet time. It’s impossible to add those and still get everything within 20 minutes. Because what it is doing is powerful stuff. Makes you think, it’s interesting. Not to mention here that the potential for this show is virtually unlimited.

#3: Kuzu no Honkai (02-03)

Okay, so they’re not brother and sister. They just grew up together, with different parents so he always was the person she looked up to. Fair enough, that takes away my big complaint of episode one, but this series is not entirely in the clear. After all the “they’re not really siblings”-schtick was very often used back in the day to give the illusion of incest, while allowing for a back door for the creators to say “what do you mean? It’s not incest! They’re not related!” – we all knew what they were alluding to and it was disgusting. If this show ends up bringing back that trend I will punch it.

So, now that that’s out of the way: this show has been pretty incredible here; it does so many things right here. Episode 02 and 03 showed that it’s really trying to balance like six characters together, all intertwined in a web of crushes and all having their own issues, and we keep hopping back and forth between different perspectives, although the lead girl does seem to be the main character here. The lesbian girl was particularly surprising: for once they took a honest look at what it means to be attracted to the same gender. It doesn’t have the squee-material of the likes of Yuri on Ice, and while there is nudity, it doesn’t feel like fanservice like most other series of the past five years. This is how it should be done: treating them as actual people.

This series really isn’t glorifying anything, and that’s what makes it so great because it’s a side we very rarely get to see because of how wishy-washy romance is in anime. Fune wo Amu showed how you should do romance from the light side, this one flips things around and shows how to do romance correctly from the dark side. This show is ugly, even though it looks so pretty, but the amount of detail they managed to put in here. Mugi’s wet dream: they actually had the guts to do that. Or how the teacher wore the same outfit twice. They don’t explicitly say it, but it’s obvious, and when it hits it’s glorious!

Also can I get a thumbs up for the soundtrack here? It doesn’t just sound dreamy and sad, but it’s also used really well here. Every single note here fits, and there are a lot of tracks here! Someone really put some thoughts into how to place the music, otherwise it wouldn’t fit this well!

#2: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju Season 2 (01-04)

I managed to marathon the first season during the past month (though for the sake of this ranking I only consider the first four episode, otherwise it’s impossible to compare). And oh yeah, this is the real deal! I can’t believe they actually made an anime about Rakugo, a performance art where so much is dependent on acting, tonal changes and gestures, and they pretty much got away with it. I still consider Fune wo Amu my favourite series of 2016, but that was because that series managed to breathe life into its characters in a way that I had very rarely seen before. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shunjuu has its own list of things it does incredibly well.

The best being the character-development. Like seriously, there are very few series that can boast the level of detail that this series can put in it. Usually series have one flashback, or a number here and there for each character if they’re lucky, but most of the story takes place in one time frame. This series is the examination of the life of one guy, and every single episode it jumps forth a few years. And we don’t just see him change, a huge emphasis is also put on the side characters: they too change realistically and believably. The voice acting here is also wonderful in changing along with the cast. Top notch! Characters rise and fall, we get to see both their heights and lows right through each other. Every episode manages to change something.

What also makes this series really rare is that it managed to teach me something. And I don’t just praise this because I had no knowledge of Rakugo prior to starting this series, it not only gave an overview of how it evolved, it was an in-depth look at it, through the characters it analyzes, praises and criticizes the format. And it also encouraged me to look up the parts that they assumed the audience already knew. I like that: assume that your audience knows the meaning of Google. You don’t need to hold people by their hand. Inspire; and dare to go deep!

One thing I did not like, or rather one thing I found annoying is a better way to put it, is the romance. I know why things happened the way they did, the creators definitely make a good case for themselves and all, and they really try to make it complex and interesting, and yet I found that the most boring parts of the series. Perhaps it’s because episode 1 already told what was going to happen in the end, you could see them building up to it and the actual moment of the “big death” felt rather… forced. It probably worked well in manga-form but in the anime it just looked silly. And building up the romance… it took some patience to sit through even before it happened.

However the new season the romance is thankfully refreshingly down to earth, if you can call it romance anyway. It’s almost politics, and it knows its place much better. The characters in return are a bit less interesting, but they’re really starting to grow now, which was probably the intentions of the creators: how the heck are these newbies going to fill the shadows of the old masters? Yes, a lot of thought was put into this. More series like this please!

#1: Classicaloid (13-16)

Yeah, yeah. I know that the above series have more substance than this one. I know the characters are complete idiots. I know that the past four episodes of Classicaloid have been completely stupid and have established absolutely nothing. And yet… and yet… I can’t. I can’t label my favourite show of the month as anything other than Classicaloid. It just had me completely in stitches, all four episodes even though they all were completely different. This show just makes me happy whenever I watch it that no other show this season manages to do.

So let’s get things clear: in these four episodes we have people turn into fishes, become idols, make horrible music, and hunt for a merleopon. All of them focused on a different character and were mostly used to flesh them out. All of them were hilarious, but my favourite was the fish episode. There was something magical of following a mute fish around for 20 minutes and looking into the despair that ensued. It also becomes more and more apparent that this show has the second director of Gintama. This is a compliment by the way.

This series takes me back to the good old days. Back when series still understood how to properly fill in a 26-episode series. The first half being a build-up, and the second then using it as a board to jump off of. In this case the first half has made sure that these characters are so much fun, that I just smile whenever they’re on stage. This is what I consider terrific characters. The ones that just make you happy, no matter what they’re doing. When manga and light novel adaptations got more and more the norm, and more and more series only turned to 13 episodes max, this was a format that I unfortunately missed deeply. I don’t want to be that guy who goes “gahw things were so much better in my days, you kids with your stupid trends and stuff” – I used to get very annoyed by these people – but in some areas I really have to give in: we are not living in the glory days of anime anymore. I do have hope though, I want to see anime evolve again. Try to see what it will turn into next. For that we need a constant flow of new talent, because at this point the old guys have mostly all left, while the ones who remain are the only ones still bringing in interesting and fresh stuff. The new talents need to get the confidence and the connections in order to be able to do their own things. They need to step up and realize that the future of anime lies in pushing the medium forward. They have the misfortune that the focus today lies much more on consistency: having clean frames, and a higher resolution makes anime more expensive, and it makes it harder to have experimental series, and therefore it makes it harder for the real geniuses to get noticed. The likes of Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, Masaaki Yuasa, they would have had much more difficulties breaking through in today’s atmosphere. Classicaloid is our hope: the director is relatively new, and I remember when he first took over Gintama I disliked the changes he brought forth. Over the past ten years though, Classicaloid showed that he did learn a lot. He’s using his influence clearly, while at the same time keeping the viewer’s attention. Entire episodes are devoted to one really weird idea, yet he knows how to make it tick now. I’m in no way saying that he is among the greats, but what I am saying is that he’s on the right path there, though unfortunately it’s not entirely there yet. Classicaloid is amazing, yet the great series of 9-15 years ago and the volume with which they came really was special.

I really believe that anime is due to improve. We just need to wait for the people who grew up in the golden age of anime go work themselves up to the top. I do not know how many years this will take. 10 years? 20 years? No clue. However I am interested in sticking along as long as fun series like Classicaloid keep getting made, and I also honestly believe that the worst is already behind us.

I know the above two paragraphs are really weird ramblings, poorly formulated and not that connected, but these are thoughts that I’ve been having a long time. I hope that I’ll be able to put more structure to them in the near future…