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Wooper: Pardon me for starting out on a tangent, but I just had a look at the upcoming spring anime chart and discovered nearly 15 shows that I’m looking forward to, which makes this newly initiated season less appealing by comparison. I’ve got high hopes for three or four new series, though, one of which was our pick for Best First Episode and Season Sleeper, and it truly does qualify for both in my opinion. It’s not just my assessment that matters, though – Lenlo and Mario also voted for these categories, and I hope to convince them to pop in for a biweekly column or two this winter, as well. Either way, we’ll all be collaborating on 2025’s Anime of the Year post next month. Until then!

Continue reading “Winter 2026 First Episode Awards” →

Wooper: Fun fact for any longtime anime blog enjoyers out there: in just over a month, Star Crossed Anime will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Of course, its current incarnation bears so little resemblance to the blog’s original format that it might as well be a completely different site (and technically, it is), but I was feeling nostalgic. Not even nostalgia has stopped us from covering seasonal anime for all these years, though, so here’s another First Episode Awards post, this time with the new One Punch Man’s apparent shittiness as our great unifier. Personally, I’m waiting on the upcoming Star Wars and Tatsuki Fujimoto anthologies before passing judgment on this season – I’ll be covering both for the site in the coming weeks, along with whatever else tickles my fancy, so you’ll hear from us again soon!

Continue reading “Fall 2025 First Episode Awards” →

Wooper: Now that we’re a couple weeks beyond 2025’s halfway point, the summer season is in full swing, with many of the shows we just sampled having dropped their second (and in some cases third) episodes. Personally, I haven’t moved past their premieres yet, but I’ll have to very soon, since we’re bringing back the check-in column for another round of biweekly impressions (the first post should be up in roughly one week). I’m hoping some of the other writers will join me in that endeavor, but if not, yours truly will do his best to tide us over until fall. Before any of that, though, hit the jump to see which summer shows managed to earn our First Episode Awards.

Continue reading “Summer 2025 First Episode Awards” →

Now that virtually every new spring series has debuted, it’s time to see which shows managed to distinguish themselves amidst the anime landslide. Not every one of our top picks for this season’s premieres panned out, but there’s a bit more depth on offer here than there was last winter, so that’s something to be optimistic about. In fact, we’re happy enough with this new crop of shows that our Weekly Summary column will be making a return, only it’ll be more of a Biweekly Summary this time. The first post will go live in just under seven days, so you can look forward to periodic thoughts on half a dozen shows or so – including some of our First Episode Award winners, which can be viewed after the jump. See you next week!

Continue reading “Spring 2025 First Episode Awards” →

Total Zenshuu dominance. That’s what the results our Winter 2025 voting indicate, but behind the scenes the fight for the top spot wasn’t nearly so straightforward. I’m the only one who truly felt as though it had the most impressive premiere earlier this month, and since the other writers thought it was “good enough,” it got the nod in a four way tie. That seems to speak well of the new crop of shows, since everybody has their own favorite, but personally, I can’t see myself finishing more than three shows this season. There’s plenty of stuff I’m anticipating later this year, though, so I’m not throwing in the aniblogging towel yet – especially when there’s an Anime of the Year post to write (it’s about 70% done as of today). We hope to have it up before the end of January, so stay tuned! For now, hit the jump to see the results of our First Episode Awards.

Continue reading “Winter 2025 First Episode Awards” →

Now that the final October premiere has aired (a subpar beginning to Blue Miburo), we’ve reached the end of our First Impressions period. Our plans for the next couple months are looking light: Lenlo will continue his Horus Heresy book club series and publish some mini anime reviews as they’re completed, Amun plans to periodically write up his thoughts on DanMachi season 5, and I’ll be finishing my delayed Dead Dead Demon episode reviews. Between the three of us, we ought to compile a few check-in posts, as well, since there are some decent seasonal shows airing this autumn. We don’t all agree on which ones are the best, but we did vote for our now-traditional First Episode Awards, so hit the jump to see what we’re most (or least) anticipating as a collective. Hope everyone has a happy and healthy fall!

Continue reading “Fall 2024 First Episode Awards” →

Another frenzied half-month of aniblogging has come to a close, with a handful of series emerging as summer frontrunners. There probably isn’t an all-time great among them (though Mario might disagree, given his love of the recently returned Monogatari Series, ranked here for your viewing pleasure). Even without an undisputed classic to spur us back into weekly coverage, however, we’ve got a couple things coming down the pipe. I know Lenlo is still plugging away at his Vinland Saga-inspired Ancient Greek Love post (outlined here), among other things. Plus, we’ll soon be stress testing the phrase “better late than never” with a 2023 Anime of the Year post, which will appear on the blog by mid-August. Will our writers’ tastes run deep enough to prevent the whole thing from being a Frieren-fest? You’ll have to check back next month to find out.

That’s enough about the future, though – which summer 2024 shows ended up taking the cake in our First Episode Awards? Hit the jump to find out, and as always, thanks for reading.

Continue reading “Summer 2024 First Episode Awards & Other Announcements” →

And that’s it everyone! That’s the premiers of the season! We waded through a lot of mediocre crap to get here, but we  finally made it. So, was there anything worth watching? I would say so! There’s plenty of shows, from Bucchigiri and Yubisaki to Renren to Solo Leveling and Dungeon Meshi that I’m going to keep up with weekly. I don’t know how many will last until the end of the season, but as far as things I’m curious about there’s plenty. Sadly however, there’s nothing I really want to write about. There’s no show that sparks my interest enough to dedicate 1,000+ words to it every week. As such, I’m going to take a bit of a break this season. You’ll still get the weekly “What I’m Watching” where we can talk about the season, see how it progresses. And Throwback Thursday, where I’m watching Black Lagoon, will continue as normal. But as for everything else? I think I’m going to use this season to catch up. I still have a Dr. STONE S3 P2 review to write, and I haven’t forgotten about Undead Murder Farce, not to mention the 2023 yearly wrap up. There are plenty of side projects that need to be finished. So look forward to those as the season progresses and I recharge my batteries a bit.

Now, onto the awards!

Winter 2024 Lineup

• Black Lagoon (Throwback Thursday)
• Weekly “What I’m Watching”

Continue reading “Winter 2024 First Episode Awards” →

We’ve made it everyone! All the premiers (barring Dog Signal but who cares) have aired! And that means it’s time to finally announce the seasonal lineup, though I figure that’s obvious by now, as well as my awards! This was a pretty easy set to be honest. Frieren dominates in every production category, it’s just that good looking of a show. Meanwhile there were a lot of good options for the “Worst” categories, so many that any of them could be valid. So I ended up picking the ones that annoyed me the most!  As for the other awards, like exceeding expectations and best continuation? These were limited by what I had experience with. Obviously as someone who hasn’t even finished the first season of Kanono no Kanojo I’m not going to watch this one, so stuff like that lost out immediately. Meanwhile there are some series that I had high expectations for and they met them. In the end the winner for both of these came down to being the only new season I’m watching and something I expected to be terrible for the first few episodes. Decent picks if you ask me. Now onto the lineup and the awards!

Fall 2023 Lineup

• Jujutsu Kaisen S2 (Continued)
• Dr. STONE New World Part 2
• Migi & Dali
• The Big O (Throwback Thursday)

Continue reading “Fall 2023 First Episode Awards” →