State of the Season – Fall 2019

Welcome to the second official State of the Season! I’m your host, Amun, and joining us are the esteemed Wooper, Mario, and Lenlo! For Fall of 2019, the anime community awaited more sequels than Star Wars – surprisingly, some first-season hidden gems lurk among these established franchises.

In this State of the Season, we’ll take a look at the shows we’re enjoying, make some bold claims, and crown one (well, several actually) Midseason Masterpiece, plus deride the shows that failed to hold our attention. Us writers then head to the anime confessional booth, where we’ll admit our guilty pleasures for the season. From the confessional to the altar we go, where we serenade the season’s waifus (…and a Firearm?!). Bringing it home are the shows we’re watching that aren’t airing, followed by a roundtable of one of this season’s most anticipated originals: Beastars.

From all the authors here at Star Crossed, we hope you enjoy!

What show are you enjoying that you’re not reviewing?

Amun: I guess I’ve talked about No Guns Life at length in the weekly summary, so I’ll forgo that. Beastars has been very enjoyable, if at times uneven.

Wooper: Kabukichou Sherlock continues to keep me entertained thanks to its cast of private eyes with personality disorders. The mysteries themselves aren’t the highlight here; I prefer the show’s outrageous antics, unpredictable East Shinjuku setting, and weekly rakugo performances.

Lenlo: Beastars. The pacing has improved a lot from the manga, doing 4 or so chapters per episode really helps it out. Still a pretty basic and straightforward plot, but visually I think it looks great. Orange goes out of their way to try and have something animated in most every scene and they do a good job.

Mario: Chihayafuru… (in the manner of announcing a card). This season has been a blast with several memorable matches, some small character moments and new characters that fit the show like a glove. The sheer power of Chihayafuru’s writing is such that I find myself tearing up multiple times during its double-length runs.

Unpopular Opinion (a.k.a. Flame starter from the other writers)

Mario: 1) Psycho-Pass 3 is better than it has any right to be. And 2) I don’t care one bit about the romance of the three leads in Chihayafuru.

Amun: No Guns Life is the Anime of the Season. Also, Sherlock didn’t have enough plot progression to make it worthwhile.

Lenlo: Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia is trash that gets by on Gacha Money.

Wooper: The buzz about Beastars is entirely unwarranted. Orange’s adaptation looks fine for a 3DCG product, but the “carnivores vs. herbivores” theme quickly infests every new idea that the series attempts to incorporate. The show is largely stuck in Legosi’s head, when it ought to be a true ensemble to get the most out of its inventive setting.

Midseason Masterpiece, or at least “More than Mediocre?”

Lenlo: Can I say Vinland for 2 seasons in a row? Well too bad, I am. Outside of that, Chihaya.

Wooper: Chihayafuru for sure. The first episode lagged a bit due to its responsibility of bringing the audience up to speed after six years. Since then, however, it’s been hit after hit, with Chihaya’s victory over a former Queen and Taichi’s ascendance within Class A accounting for some of the series’ best material ever.

Amun: No one will see this coming… No Guns Life. Beastars is pretty good too.

Mario: Beastars. I think I understand Lenlo’s hesitation to read the source, because I have the same feeling. The story for now is just kind of set up, and while I am immersed in its settings and characters, it is a show that’s really hard to talk about. At the same time, each episode I find myself sinking into it even more, so it might be better if we simply experience it instead of looking for thematic significance from it. Chihayafuru season 3 is a close second.

What show did you drop?

Wooper: Nothing yet – at least, nothing that I watched for more than a single episode. Does temporarily stalling on Dr. Stone’s second cour count?

Lenlo: If stalling on Dr.STONE counts, then so have I. Even missed this past week because I had no motivation to watch it. Outside that, Blade of the Immortal really lost my interest as well.

Mario: Ore wo Suki after half its run. I gave the details in my Weekly Summary about the show, but long story short, it sometimes becomes the very show it pokes fun at, and Main Character still has a bunch of girls following his tail. Strangely I fell out of the loop with Vinland Saga despite not hating it, but I’ll fix that problem very soon.

Amun: Sherlock actually. I know, I know, I was really high on it early on, but the flaws that everyone else pointed out ended up sinking my enjoyment.

Guilty Pleasure of the Season

Mario: Babylon. It says a lot that a segment of it inspired me to come up with a whole strange new story based on Magase Ai’s past (if you’re interested, my inspired story is a body horror).

Lenlo: No Guns Life. It’s silly and fun, but I ain’t gettin much else out of it.

Amun: Choujin has actually been great – not the highest quality writing, but a fun story. Reminds me of Log Horizon (early on). And Lenlo is a heretic.

Wooper: Babylon. The show has probably jumped the shark three times already, but its sudden evolution into something more than a procedural cop drama leaves me wondering what other crazy twists it might have up its sleeve.

Best Girl/Best Guy/Best Anything Else

Wooper: Arata Alliance, assemble!

Lenlo: Arata is good, Shinobu is better, but since she hasn’t appeared yet I have to go with Mary (I have a thing for lip rings and freckles).

Amun: And Lenlo is no longer a heretic ^_^  But Juzo is best waifu.

Mario: She’s back in full force, with certain prey to hunt down.

What was something you watched that wasn’t airing?

Amun: With 13 weekly shows I’m currently watching, I actually haven’t had time for much else.

Mario: I just rewatched Psycho-Pass the Legend (aka the 1st season). I wasn’t that supportive on the show the first time I watched it, so with the release of the new installments of the franchise I figure I’d give it a second try. The issues I have with it are still there (heavy-handed, tries to sound too smart for its own good), but this time it improves significantly. The well-realized setting contributes a lot to this, and while I wish that the characters were more fleshed out (still not a fan of Akane), it does have one of the most interesting villains out there. Otherwise, I’m slowly catching up with Hyouge Mono (very strange yet good show).

Wooper: I recently completed a rewatch of Shinsekai yori, which had way more visual blemishes than I remembered. The flat characters, inconsistent eye shape/placement, extreme close-ups, and animation shortcuts were all super distracting, especially during the first arc. The last 10 episodes are still peak sci-fi anime, though.

Lenlo: Neon Genesis Evangelion count? Really, I love using Throwback Thursday to cop out on this section, haha. I have also recently started working through JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. On Part 3 now.

Let’s Talk About Beastars.

Lenlo: Gotta say, after reading the manga to prep for First Impressions, I wasn’t expecting to be the one to enjoy Beastars. But I think the anime is really improving on it. First up is the pacing, which is a lot crisper than the manga. Going through 3-4 chapters per episode rather than just 1-2. It addresses one of my main issues with the manga, that being that at the start nothing really happened. It just meandered around for a bit. But this new pacing, on top of Orange’s fantastic visuals, make for a much more engaging experience.

Wooper: The visuals are definitely my favorite part of the series thus far. The background art, in particular, has an illustrated look that I love. The animation is quite good for the most part, though the traditionally drawn minor characters are distracting (the female rhino, for example, must not have been important enough for a 3DCG model). Unfortunately, that’s where my praise for Beastars ends, as I find its overwhelming focus on the “carnivore vs herbivore” motif works to its detriment. It’s the foundation of the “romance” between Legosi and Haru, it’s the theme of both the drama club’s performance and the intrigue surrounding it, it’s the obstacle preventing Legosi from embracing his true nature, it’s the source of Louis’ inferiority complex, and it’s the only thing on the characters’ minds once they finally leave Cherryton Academy in episode 6. Beastars has already managed to create a wildly inventive setting, but when it comes to story, the show is a one trick pony.

Amun: Thank goodness Lenlo underhyped it in First Impressions – I went in with extremely low expectations (I’m personally not a fan of the hybrid animation style they’ve done in the past). Boy, was I wrong. Beastars looks amazing and has the world and the story to back it up. I’m here to disagree with Wooper as well: I think Beastars focuses on its central theme and builds around that to great effect. We already have a complex enough world of reality – storytelling is best when its focused on a single theme and doesn’t reach too wide. Otherwise, you get a confusing mess that feels a bit too real – no one wants that. The complexity of the characters and world, stemming from their animal identities is superb – the most recent episode with the Panda as the odd bridge between the two worlds? Brilliant. By painting the carnivores as the victims of bullying, the traditional power dynamics of the animal kingdom are completely flipped, leaving the viewer taken aback at what to think. Do we really believe a grey wolf is weak and picked on? Not really, but we might start to in the world of Beastars. As the focus zooms out from the isolated school life, we’ll have to see if the wolf coming of age story will keep up, but so far it’s been a personal favorite for the season.

Mario: I’m the dude who is blogging this show so you already know where I stand in this Beastars debate. It has a refreshing self-contained world, back up by some fine visuals from Orange. The central theme about “carnivore vs herbivore” can be a bit tricky to pull off at times. On one hand, I appreciate the show’s take on it – like Amun mentioned it flips around the notion that it’s the flesh-eating animals that are the ones get picked on. Everything the show has built so far has been surrounding how one wolf struggles with social pressure and comes to term with his own nature. On the other hand, people tend to dissect that theme a bit excessively – especially in regards to what that theme means – which I don’t think works for the benefit of this show. Moreover, I enjoy the chemistry between Legosi and Haru the most, but Haru’s screen-time is quite limited in the first-half run. More rabbit time please (but not in the Playboy bunny fashion).

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How are you guys liking Beastars?  Flame away in the comments below!