Star Crossed Anime

Knights of Sidonia

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has special mecha-piloting powers
Knights of Sidonia is made fully in 3D CG. At one point, quite early in the episode, the main characters breaks two of his fingers, and DAMN, that looked painful. That’s actually one of the first times that CG animation managed to elicit that. Oh, the CG still looks weird, but I can see some definite improvements over previous series. The length of each cut for example is shortened drastically when compared to other CG shows, and that really helps things from not looking as awkward as what they could have been. Really: as far as CG goes: I have seen much, much worse. Everything added together, Knights of Sidonia is actually quite good at its atmosphere: bleak and tense through the entire episode. It’s also got a very good soundtrack to back this up. It’s got some nice ideas laying around, (although it does have one shot of really pointless fanservice). I want to learn more about this series, it dropped a few hints to some very nice ideas about what life in the very distant future would be like. I want this show to explore that.
OP: Actually a good OP that a show like this deserves.
ED: A bit poppy, but it does carry the atmosphere of the episode further.
Potential: 80%

Nanaka’s Buried Treasure

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves into a new school.
I only lasted half an episode here. I mean, this show does not feel like Noitanima at all, it’s just a bland teen rom-com with very annoying characters. Especially the male lead is bad, his dirty mind was really painful to watch, and he just kept finding new ways to annoy me. I was already afraid that this would happen, but there have been veeery few Noitamina series that were this bland and annoying to watch at the start. There might be a heart-warming story behind this, however I don’t want to watch that while being annoyed by these dumb teenagers.
OP: Bland
ED: Boring
Potential: 40%

Ping Pong

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays table tennis.
Yeah, this is something different entiely. It’s without a doubt the series with the best animatiom of the season. Movements here are wild and vivid, like we’ve come to expect from Masaaki Yuasa. The big question though, was whether he could do something with a topic as Ping Pong. And well, first of all let me say that this episode was very different from his other first episodes. However, it was still really good in capturing its characters. Everything felt life-like, thanks to the animation, but also the dialogue and the way in which the characters talk about each other: it really shapes them and painted a very detailed picture about them in just one episode. It’s funny when it needs to be, and it doesn’t try too hard when doing so. Plus, it also knows how to keep you hungry for more. The drama also really worked, and everything here just feels very authentic. This probably won’t be the next Kaiba, but nevertheless it’s a ridiculously solid character study as expected from a few master storytellers.
OP: Yeah, this OP is awesome. Great idea and if it weren’t for Mushishi it would have easily made the best OP of the season.
ED: Absolutely gorgeous! Really if Mushishi didn’t return with the best ED ever made, this again would have easily made the best ED of the season.
Potential: 100%

Hitsugi no Chaika

Short Synopsis: Our lead character
The genre of a boy and a girl who fight monsters using magic is very crowded. Though this one is the best incarnation in quite a while. A big difference between this show and its contemporaries is that it puts restrictions on the magic: it’s difficult to cast and you can actually see the characters struggle, rather than things being a matter of whoever having the biggest power level winning, and also using that for quite some funny jokes. It also cares for continuity (if a table gets destroyed, you have to pay for it later). It’s got the basics down. Then there are the characters, who actually are quite likable and down to earth, plus enough room for development. AND OH MY GOD IT HAS A BROTHER AND A SISTER WHO DON’T HAVE THE HOTS FOR EACH OTHER! STOP THE PRESSES, IT’S A MIRACLE!
OP: This song just doesn’t work…
ED: Not bad, there is some nice art inbetween this.
Potential: 85%

No Game No Life

Short Synopsis: Our lead character ends up in a world of games.
Basically Dog Days without the dogs or cats, this show is about a world in which all disputes have to be solved through games. The show looks great, the characters are interesting to watch. This one actually has potential. It’s not perfect, though. The big issue here is that the creators aren’t good at showing how their games progress. The main characters are supposed to be invincible, but all we see throughout the episode is them pulling Deus ex Machina winning powers out of their asses. Also, for a NEET with a communication disorder the male lead is surprisingly good at bantering, a skill that requires exactly that. It’s difficult for this series to really make me suspend my disbelief, but then again I am not the target audience for this show. It’s obvious that this is a gamer’s wet dream, an actual show where games become reality. However, what makes this show special is that it doesn’t entirely glorify NEETs. When you read between the lines, it’s clear that these two NEET are social failures and that this series really is about escapism. That’s not something you get out of every NEET-series.
ED: Nice eye candy.
Potential: 75%

Black Bullet

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights monsters with magic.
Ooh, Black Bullet actually shows that the creators of the anime put in effort: the soundtrack is great, it has a few small details that were quite funny, the acting is nice. It’s just a shame that when you look past that and into the big picture, you’ll start to see problems. For this show, I have no idea what is going to make it worth watching in the long run. It’s just a show about killing big monsters with superpowers. The characters show no hints of upcoming development, there is no mystery, there is nothing that really makes you hungry for more, beyond this boring dead parents plot thread, but it’s all just so inconsequential.
OP: An actually good opening, surprising.
Potential: 65%

Fuuun Ishi Dai Shogun

Short Synopsis: Our lead character kicks ass and is a virgin.
Um… Okay. I have to confess here: I laughed at this series quite a bit. This show really is the creators just jerking around and not taking themselves seriously at all. Everything in this series was just hamming it up, from start to finish. While this looked like a random samurai show with fighting can be more classified as a comedy with lots of fighting, sex jokes, freaking mechas that appear from out of bloody nowhere, ninjas and people who look like samurai. What saves this show from its contemporaries is that it can actually be funny, and the sex jokes are equally putting men and women down, objectifying them both. I’d say, go for this one if you like crass and unashamed comedy, for one episode and one episode only. Yeah, I’m not in the delusion that this will remain funny for long. This looked like a show where the best jokes were spent in the first episode. One random detail: the soundtrack is surprisingly good for some weird reason.
OP: Bland J-Rock, that’s the best you can think of?
Potential: 45%

Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu Ka

Short Synopsis: Our lead character geht zu Deutschland um kaffee zu bedienen.
This show has one aim, and one aim only: being as cute as humanly possible. It doesn’t succeed, but at least puts in a bit of effort: it’s just a dumb series about a bunch of girls talking to each other and nothing more, but the banter has its amusing moments. Of course it also has plenty of moments that are just bad, like how one of the characters walks around in her underwear for no reason whatsoever. At times it gets a bit too dumb for its own good, and I’m not going to continue watching this, but I uess it’ll make a few slice of life fans quite happy.
OP: Meh, generic J-pop again.
ED: Really badly sung
Potential: 30%

Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character marries a king of a rich country.
Ooh, this has been a long while: an actual shoujo adventure series. After Fushigi Yuugi this was a genre that for a few years enjoyed some real popularity, but it has nearly died out during the past years. So of course it’s up to the director of Fushigi Yuugi to finally do something new again. Having said that though: I watched a few episodes of it and didn’t continue with it due to how incredibly stupid some of the characters were. In Fushigi Yuugi this was the main female lead, though in Soredemo it’s the cast of side characters. The main character isn’t exactly bright or anything, but she does have charisma: she’s interesting to watch and I see potential for her to become a balanced character. However, I do have to say that when you compare this series to the big ones: Ashita no Nadja, Twelve Kindoms, Saiunkoku Monogatari, Kaleido Star, Glass Mask… yeah it really is shallow. But heck, if this can revitalize the genre and allow the shoujo genre to reach its former depth again, then I’m all in!
ED: Quite a lazy ED with a boring song
Potential: 50%

And here is a collection of really quick impressions for the shows that I really can’t be arsed to really write much about.

Dragonar: random harem crap with a nonsensical premise.

Mangaka-san to Assistant-kun: this is just crap. The lengths that creators go to to get girls to grope themselves. I especially hate how the creators treat it like it’s the most normal thing to do.

Daimidaler: this show… it’s by far the single worst show of the season. Dear god, did I actually see this show that completely and unashamedly glorifies groping every single women you lay your eyes on? Seriously Japan? Fanservice is one thing, but this show actually promotes sexual harrassment

Kamigami no Asobi: Those male transformation sequences… And oh my god, these bishies are so pretty that flowers spontaneously bloom in their vicinities. I know that this show uses existing tropes and all, but the way in which it carries them further than everreaches the point where it looks so bad that it becomes funny. And OH MY GOD THEY ACTUALLY HAVE A PINK FLUFFY PEGASUS. Yeah, definitely so bad it’s hilarious territory, although that won’t last beyond one episode.

Brynhildr‘s main character is so impulsive that he has no control over his actions and can’t even wait for a bit while checking out a girl who resembles a girl he knew ten years ago. Could have had potential, but I got turned off by the fanservice, awkward acting and the school setting. The OP’s good though.

Kanojo ga Flaw wo Orareta‘s lead has the same problem as Brylhildr (seriously have some creativity dammit!), but at least she’s aware of her own actions. This show is a lot weirder than what I thought it would be. This show plays with irony, but it’s laying it on really heavy here. This feels like a worse version of Noucome.

Soul Eater Not: What have they done to you?! It’s so generic! Everything here is blatantly uninspired and bland! What did Soul Eater ever do to deserve this?

Captain Earth

Short Synopsis: Our lead character must use Captain Earth to protect the planet from evil aliens!
This show gets it: what makes a great opening episode. I’ve mentioned hinting many times before, and the creators here are really good at that. The entire episode just kept hinting at stuff over and over again, either to things that it would showcase a few minutes later, but also enough hints about the course of the rest of the show, about the different characters, the villains. This really was the kind of episode that made me excited to see more about this show, to learn more about the characters, and to find out how the setting works here. That’s pretty good for a show that at first sight deems like a generic mecha series. On top of that, this series also really knows that it’s an anime, and you can see a lot of stuff being said inbetween the lines, with nonverbal communication. This episode was very compact and it used that time optimally to show as much about the different characters as it could, including a short flashback. The soundtrack is excellent as well. If it can keep this up then this will be a killer.
ED: Boring song, and I hope that next week we’ll get more than a black screen
Potential: 90%

One Week Friends

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a girl in high school
Wheee…. another high school series… how exciting… what an original setting…. Sarcasm aside, One Week Friends at the very least is a good show about dating. It shows the main couple spending time together, there is a visible chemistry between them, rather than them being totally not a match, their conversation feels quite natural. Really, the only thing I can really fault it is being boring. Really, I’m nust not in the mood for watching a show that’s entirely about the romance of a bunch of high school kids, but for what it did, it did a pretty good job. So because of that it’s a good thing that the second half brought in a bit of interesting and surprisingly good drama, and the success of this series will depend entirely on how they’ll use the main gimmick of this series. If we’re just going to watch the same episode over and over again, this will obviously become a failure. However if they continue to challenge all characters involved in different ways, then this can actually become something.
OP: Nice art.
ED: A good ending that actually segues in from the end of the episode. Finally another series that gets it.
Potential: 75%

Mahouka

Short Synopsis: Our lead character uses magic and enters high school.
Really now? This is the next big thing to appear? Where we last year had Shingeki no Kyojin, we now have a show taking place at a high school where people fight with magic with a heavy dose of incest? This is the best you can offer? There was just this world war, everything has changed, and the only thing that the creators could think of was to start with was a high school? I mean, I had hoped that at least the execution in this episode would make up for things, but we only got some nicely animated fight scenes, plus a few characters who take themselves a bit more serious than usual. But even then, the dialogue has some really weird issues. Characters make random leaps in logic, things don’t make any sense, and the comic relief is incredibly forced. And really, I don’t care if the light novel that this is based on is really good: it’s the execution of the anime that really matters. The fact of the matter remains that this is YET ANOTHER show about incest. Also, “Weed” and “Bloom” remain really stupid names. If it were supposed to be about discrimination, it did a pretty generic and black-and-white job about it. I’m not expecting tons of depth from a first episode, but I am looking for hints that this show knows what it’s doing. I got none here!
ED: Generic J-rock
Potential: 30%

Baby Steps

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to play tennis.
Haikyuu could really use some lessons from Baby Steps. This episode actually worked, and it showed that a first episode doesn’t necessarily have to be full of excitement. I just need to see that the creators know what they’re doing. This episode had its problems, but at the same time it actually tried to break some of the cliches of the sports anime. For example: while the series is yet again about high schoolers, it’s not about a high school tennis team, but instead the characters practice at a tennis club outside of school. Watching anime, you’d nearly think that those things don’t exist in Japan. This also allows for some variety in the people you see walking around, ranging from kids to adults. Beyond that, this first episode nailed how you’d obviously get extreme muscle ache when you start training really hard from out of nowhere. Plus the characters actually break some molds. Not all of them; there still are some obnoxious cliches present, but I do appreciate how this show is trying to remove some of the blatant sexism that exists in the genre. Usually in sports series, the women get delegated to be a manager. Pretty much a pointless role other than for some romantic tension. Here, the lead female actually wants to go pro, and is actually very talented. That’s a nice step here. Just don’t let her degrade into this romantic trophy, okay? That would be even worse. Heck, there still is enough that can go wrong here, but the start is there, at least.
OP: Generic J-rock, though I guess better than average.
ED: The singers don’t work together, this ED sounds weird
Potential: 65%

Haikyuu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays volleyball
I like sports anime, however I dislike watching sports. How is that possible? Well, because of the incredible execution of some of these sports series. Giant Killing, Cross Game, Chihayafuru, even think sports Shogi and Go. These shows made me throw away all of my biases and managed to make me like something I normally have no interest whatsoever in. Because of that though, I have come to expect high standards from sports series: stand out. Promote your passions. Don’t just go lazy and show this ambitious bratty kid who just enters school who somehow becomes the center of the series. And yeah.. that’s exactly what Haikyuu does. A first episode that didn’t really stand out in any way, they keep to all of the basics. There also is this rival who also fills in way too many cliches. I mean come on. Use some creativity for god’s sake. I also did not manage to finish the first episode of this one. I know it’s unprofessional and all, but right now I don’t care. I find it more important to check out as many series, rather than force myself to sit through an entire episode that I already know is not going to be anything for me.
OP: Generic sports OP blah
ED: At least the guitar is nice
Potential: 30%

Akuma no Riddle

Short Synopsis: Our lead character battles assassins
Yup, this one turned out as expected. Akuma no Riddle is a series that tries to look all cool, but shining behind that is the ridiculous stupidity of the premise. And now don’t get me wrong: I like really far-fetched premises, but not when said premise goes out of its way to include a school in a setting it totally doesn’t belong. I mean really: this just is another one of those school battle shows that’s perhaps a bit grittier than usual. Nothing else stands out. It did not make up for this premise in the slightest. The characters all just have one quirk that they try really hard to shove down the viewers’ throats, especially with the snarky characters. Add everything together and yeah, I see no potential. I didn’t even have enough interest to finish the entire episode.
OP: At least it’s not bad j-pop
ED: Vocalist does a pretty bad job…
Potential: 30%

Mushishi Season 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can see strange creatures called Mushi.
Jojo is glorious and all, and that’s of course fine and dandy. But let’s not forget what that show really is: a dose of adrenaline that you watch before you start punching an angry bear or something. It’s consistently awesome to watch, but here comes the real deal: Mushishi goes a whole lot further. It’s on a whole different level. This is intelligent; this is art, this series, more than anything else, has its own vision and doesn’t care about anything else. It’s the best of its genre, and based on this episode, the creators still are incredibly competent: the atmosphere, the animation, the pacing, the mood: everything fits perfectly. This really creates something much more than the sum of its parts, that individually are already amazing. Best show of the year? Something would have to go really weird for it not to be the case. Heck, this show is the best of its genre. Aria, Natsume Yuujinchou? Eat your heart out. This episode again had a wonderful story. It’s told from the perspective of a sake brewer, and more than anything, they portray him as an actual human being. This episode is quiet, but they showed a very authentic story of his that made perfect use of both his childhood as his current life.
OP: HOW CAN THIS NOT BE THE SINGLE BEST OP IN YEARS?
ED: HOW CAN THIS NOT BE THE SINGLE BEST ED EVER SINCE THE FIRST SEASON ENDED?
Potential: 100% (Really, it is that I once vowed not to go above 100% with my potentials)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – Stardust Crusaders

Short Synopsis: Our lead character kicks ass with magical powers and strange poses.
Oh, this was glorious. This is the Jojo that I remember: completely over the top with weird powers and just lots and lots of energy.What I especially like this time is that it’s really a story that spans many generations. We have the main character, his mother, his grandfather and his great-great grandfather all playing a major role here. Obviously its’awesome to see everyone back again, while at the same time seeing this series go into a completely different direction again. The first Jojo was pretty much the ideal son-in-law, while the second was completely crazy in every way. The third meanwhile is dark and gloomy. The reason he works is because of the context of the rest of the series: every single other character being a complete and utter extravert. The good thing also is that this show wastes no time in explaining its powers, hopefully hinting at only few training arcs (yet again, thank god). And at the same time there is one thing that this show still does really well: alternating huge powers, with really small ones. Joseph’s camera trick was hilarious, for example.
Potential: 100%

Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves into an apartment with a cute girl.
Brains Base seems to have found themselves their own niche: well produced romantic comedies. But here is something they totally missed: comedies don’t necessarily need to be well produced. They need to be well written. Take the Holy Grail from Monty Python for example: it was produced on a shoestring budget for movie standards, but what made it so memorable was the script and the ideas they put in. The script and ideas in this series are… mediocre. Just another kid who starts living in a mansion where a hot girl happens to live in. And the jokes… their delivery is pretty bad. I didn’t really laugh. There were a few times that I was about to, however every single time the show blew that away by awkward timing or focing their laughs way too much. So yeah, I’m not recommending this one.
OP: Mellow, but still nothing more than just a character introduction, though the words and books were nice.
ED: What a corny and sappy song.
Potential: 20%

Blade & Soul

Short Synopsis: Our lead character talks little and kills people
Blade & Soul is the perfect example of how not to do your trailer. Why? It highlighted everything terrible about this anime with a bunch of really badly animated fights plus some ridiculous outfits. And it’s true: the animation in this show is really clunky, the action scenes have awkward animation, and the designers of this series really need to watch this video. However, for some strange reason the creators seem to realize these flaws, resulting in a few interesting positives: the music is actually very good, plus the fights, while plentiful, are kept small and quick. And that for a show that’s based on a game: that takes guts. Because of this, the focus can fall much more on the characters. They’re not anything special, but they work, albeit clunkily acted at times. This episode at the least depended a lot on its atmosphere, which is something you don’t often see with its contemporaries. The question now is: can it keep this up. The atmosphere needs to be like this for the rest of the series. The characters need stuff to do and they need interesting stories. I can already predict: the moment that they will switch over to comic relief is where this show will collapse and start sucking really bad, because with this execution, you can’t deliver good jokes. It’s just impossible. This episode worked because it avoided a lot of common pitfalls.
OP: Bleh, generic
ED: Simple but effective, although the vocalist still can’t sing that well.
Potential: 50%

Selector WIXOSS

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights a children’s card game in order to make a wish.
Um… Selector WIXOSS, why? Just why? From a technical standpoint, you’re a very good series. Characters are animated in a lifelike manner, the voice acting is pretty good, the production values are pretty much at the high end here and you can see that the creators focus a lot on the details for a series that is about battling proxies. Perhaps a bit too shounen, but it was obviously hinting at a few interesting things to happen in the future. So where the heck did the incest come from? Really? You really thought that was necessary? It’s not edgy anymore. Everybody does it. Screw you, just show some siblings that don’t want to try to get into each other’s pants for goodness sake!
OP: Meh, pretty generic.
ED: This one’s pretty nice
Potential: 20%