Amun: Welcome to this lost spring of anime 2020. I hope everyone is staying safe and watching this B-team of a season. While we didn’t get the heavy hitters of Yahari Season 3 or Re:Zero, there are still some bright spots – Kaguya-sama S2 and the surprise newcomer isekai: Hamefura. Despite my early criticisms, Tower of God has gained some traction – fellow writers seem fairly positive on Yesterday wo Utatte. So this season isn’t a complete wash! We have turtles, villainesses, crows, books, and zodiac animals! Join us humble Star Crossed writers as we take a look at the good, the bad, and the funny of Spring 2020 anime. (But seriously, Hamefura is really good, go watch it).
What show are you enjoying that you’re not reviewing?
Amun: I’m liking Tower of God quite a bit. Feels like every episode fleshes out the world, develops the characters, and pulls you deeper into the tower. Animation is hit or miss, but the story’s moving along nicely now. Little concerned about character creep, but that’s a minor gripe.
Mario: I’m going with Yesterday wo Utatte. Sure, there are other two shows that are equally impressive (Kaguya-sama 2 and the other one down the list), but Yesterday wo Utatte keeps surprising me every week. 4-way star-crossed romance isn’t normally my thing, but so far the show hasn’t put any wrong step, and the characterization for the main cast is off the chart. There’s a lot of details put into their mannerism, figure of speech and their movements. Hopefully the main relationship doesn’t get too convoluted for the sake of drama.
Lenlo: I’m not actually watching much this season. The only non-cancelled seasonal I still keep up with is Kaguya, and BNA I suppose, but I haven’t been enjoying that. Regardless, it is a decent enough rom-com, and I hope that we will actually get to the point where they make some actual progress in a relationship. Rom-coms are only good if you actually include the romance.
Armitage: I love grounded character dramas more than any other genre in anime. Though, such shows have gotten ever so rare these days. That’s why, to see Yesterday wo Utatte do what it does week-in, week-out gives me hope that more such series can be produced down the line. It’s a mature show which cares for its characters and that, in turn, instills a sense of sincerity to the story it’s telling. More importantly, even if it doesn’t stick the landing by the end of its 18-episode run, it might end up paving the way for the adaptations of the many other stellar seinen manga just begging for an anime.
Wooper: Kakushigoto. The show’s absurd flavor of comedy is nicely balanced by its familial themes, and that combination makes it a pleasant weekly watch. Its sixth episode is what really sold me on the series, though, telling one connected story instead of splitting itself into chapters, and really getting to the heart of Goto’s relationship with his work. I’d say it’s the show that has improved the most since its premiere.
Unpopular Opinion
Amun: BNA is a flop and it’s not COVID-19’s fault…it just isn’t well written.
Mario: Unlike my fellow shounen-fanboys, the more episodes of Tower of God aired the more I feel disengaged with the whole journey. Loud character? ticked. Wimpy character? ticked. Pretentious character? ticked. Characters that make no absolute sense? Yeah, a lot of them.
Lenlo: Since Amun took my BNA take, instead i’ll go with Arte. 5 episodes in and it just comes off as shallow and vapid for me. Recently episodes 4 and 5 were better, actually making the attempt to explore the implications of its setting beyond a surface level “You go girl, women can do anything men can do” messaging. It’s not bad. Just boring for me.
Armitage: Kaguya-sama has run out of steam for me. It’s basically the new Sakamoto Desu ga? as its central gag has now gotten stale. It was already huffing and puffing by the end of season 1 but the decent finale saved it. Though, now I just can’t find myself tuning into another episode to see the different iterations on the same jokes which just aren’t as funny anymore.
Wooper: BNA is a bottom tier Trigger show. Anima City feels barren apart from its criminal underworld, and Michiru’s character, while spunky and fun, feels like an empty vehicle for stories about the evils of discrimination.
Midseason Masterpiece
Amun: Oh man, is it Hamefura, FOR SURE. Kaguya already had a season so some of its impact has worn off (although Kaguya being selfish is a pretty huge moment for this season). But our delightful villainess Catarina is taking what would otherwise be a mediocre isekai (there are two others this season, Shachou and Hachinan, that Hamefura very well should have been in the company of) and giving us a breath of fresh air.
Mario: I’m going with the one show that I’m actively waiting for next airing, and that is Hamefura. The show is just a pure delight from start to finish, and to witness how Catarina wins the heart of nearly everyone around her while stay utterly true to herself makes me grin like a stupid laughing cow. The bright appeal of Catarina, however, is overwhelming the entire cast, so hopefully in next episodes these hot boys and most notably Mary get more spotlight and stand on an equal term with our villainess.
Lenlo: Well, like I said above, the only other seasonal I am really watching is Kaguya so my options are limited. I suppose I can submit Kaguya for “More than Mediocre” since I don’t think this season really has any standout series still airing.
Armitage: I haven’t caught up to the latest episode of ‘The Evil Villain of This Harem Cannot be This Cute’, but I did watch a couple more since the premiere and my thoughts on it remain the same. Hamefura is going to become the standard by which shows across future generations are measured when talking about their adorable-ness and I feel honored to be a part of its history 🙂
Wooper: Yesterday wo Utatte. Its ability to introduce new characters and immediately give them detailed, believable histories gets an “A” in my book. The show’s nostalgic tone keeps its love triangle from feeling self-indulgent, and its layouts are excellent (though the sketchy lineart and speckled backgrounds aren’t always to my taste). This series is keeping my interest in current anime afloat almost single-handedly.
Best Girl/Guy/Anything Else
Amun: Catarina Claes, no question. Okay, Rak’s a distant second.
Mario: This season has an unusual representation of authentic female voices. All these girls – Arte (Arte), Myne (Honzuki), Minare (Wave, Listen to Me) – are the best elements in their own shows. Seriously though, how can anyone top this?
Lenlo: I will be the first to admit, Tower of God has issues. Narrative, pacing, visuals, none of these are perfect. Except for Androssi. A lot of that is fueled by knowledge of where her character goes, both during this season and beyond, so I don’t expect anyone to really side with me on this. But she is hands down the best female character in Tower of God, with the possible exception of Yuri. Black March is cute too I guess, for a sword.
Armitage: Since this season doesn’t have much going for in the best boy department, I might as well throw in my two cents 😛
Wooper: Yuzuhara Chika entered and exited Yesterday wo Utatte in the span of one episode (number 6), but her sexuality and thoughtfulness struck a chord with me.
What show did you drop?
Amun: I’m done with Listeners. What a mess – I don’t care all that much for Rock and Roll anyways, so the allusions were mostly lost on me. The whole show is just a hodge podge of genres, ideas, animation, and characters – it’s not a rock ballad, it’s just a cacophony. [EDIT: Aaaand, I picked it back up, because just when I was fed up, they dropped a great episode]. Same as Mario then, Gleipnir is a bit more than what I’m looking for right now.
Mario: Gleipnir, too horny for me.
Lenlo: N/A
Armitage: Kakushigoto and Kaguya-sama. The comedy of both of these was starting to fall flat for me.
Wooper: BNA. Anybody want to blog it in my place? I’ll throw in a month’s worth of caffeine pills so you can stay awake while watching.
Guilty Pleasure of the Season
Amun: Tsugumomo. I about dropped it for episode 3, which was way overboard. But the effort that’s put into this show is wildly disproportionate to the apparent age of the author. Something with this much obvious care and detail shouldn’t be coupled with such crass. If they can keep their service manageable, then there is some nice supernatural action here. Otherwise, I might have to call it quits if we have another awkward parent inspection.
Mario: Tamayomi. The production value is rough (even in its first episode), but so far the show succeeds in developing all the members of the club and they all feel like an integral part of the team right now, which is always a key to success for a sports show. The show also utilizes small character drama over big emotional payoff, which I greatly prefer.
Lenlo: I really don’t have one sadly. There isn’t any show still airing that entices me enough to look past whatever problems it has. This is a very dull season for me, or would be if I didn’t have Tutu, which has a solid chance of cracking my top 10 at this point.
Armitage: I actually had forgotten to catch-up to this show but now I have. The show being Gleipnir. Yup. Still here. Still having a good time. Still losing some of my rational brain cells which beg me to stop after each episode.
Wooper: I haven’t got one, unless Kaguya-sama’s occasional babying of its title character qualifies it as a guilty pleasure. Armitage made Gleipnir sound pretty appealing with that description, so maybe I’ll pick it back up.
Song of the Season
Amun: Tower of God | Stray Kids – SLUMP. Tower of God is the first anime I’ve seen where I would put the OP as the worst song of the season and the ED as the best.
Mario: I still stand by my pick at the beginning of this season. The ED of Kakushigoto not only stands out on its own (I’ve listened to the full version), it also gives you an unexpected emotional whip after the episode’s punchline, usually in the present-timeline where 18-yo Hime discovers more about her father. The art style is consistent with the show (and the art-style is one of Kakushigoto’s best strengths). Special mention to Hamefura OP as when the beat kicks in I swear I can’t resist my urge to watch more Catarina.
Lenlo: This is definitely a hard one. By default I still want to stick with “Welcome My Friend” by OKAMOTO’S, the Fugou Keiji ED. But seeing as how Fugou Keiji isn’t even airing anymore? Then my 2nd choice would be the Tower of God ED, by Stray Kids.
Armitage: I haven’t listened to a lot of OSTs from the season but my favorite thus far has been the Yesterday wo Utatte ED as it goes flawlessly with the melancholic and nostalgic tone that permeates the series’ core.
Wooper: I already talked about it in my review of episode 2, but Kaguya-sama’s new OP always jazzes me up for another episode. It’s one of the best things about the show’s current season, honestly – Masayuki Suzuki’s voice makes me swoon.
What was something you watched that wasn’t airing?
Amun: Sort of counts, but I watched the second season of Jashin Chan: Dropkick my Devil! I thought the first season was pretty funny (although the plot confused me, since they do 0 explanation), but the second season was just one fluid joke. That’s actually a good thing, and pretty impressive, with how the plot wandered through a litany of gags and still felt funny. Nothing terribly exciting happened to advance the plot, but it was fun to spend the summer with our motley devil/angel crew that’s slowly expanding by the season.
Mario: This sparse season is perfect for catching up with lots of old shows. I’ve currently been watching both Osomatsu-san and Blast of Tempest, simultaneously. Maybe because of that I saw Blast of Tempest as more comical than it should be, and trying to figure out which one is which amongst the sixtuplet has been a fun exercise. I’m getting there.
Lenlo: Aside from Princess Tutu? I am going through Ashita no Joe right now, and that has been fun. Dated visually but narratively I love it. A true sports classic for a reason.
Armitage: I have actually watched a lot of shows to make up for all the ones we didn’t get to see this season. The dub of The Devil is a Part-timer, Kono Oto Tomare, the dub of Barakamon, ReLife, Fantastic Children and am currently making my way through the behemoth that is Legend of the Galactic Heroes. The dated animation doesn’t deter from the sheer epic scope of it all and even though I am only about halfway through, I can see it becoming one of my all-time favorites.
Wooper: Another Mitsuru Adachi adaptation for me – this time it’s H2. There have only been two baseball games after twenty-odd episodes, so this one is 90% slice of life, which suits me just fine. The story has a comforting, almost dreamlike quality to it, and its scripts contain plenty of boyish charm.
Can’t believe you went through this whole feature and never mentioned Nami yo Kiite Kure (Wave Listen to Me) once. Along with Yesterday and Kakushigoto, this is one of my favorites of the season, and the one that’s certainly gotten better for me since the first episode. Now I get what manga readers have been praising since the adaptation was announced. Minare’s my kind of terminal f-up. The supporting cast has also been developing well too and are very endearing.
Also, the fact that you never mentioned Princess Connect Re:Dive once either also speaks volumes to how utterly forgettable it is past that first episode. The definition of “Cygames-nical” in every sense of the word: generic, boilerplate, full of waifus, glorified gacha game advertisement, waste of talent and resources (why did they get the director of Konosuba for this?), and certain to be the best-selling series on BD in Japan regardless due to gacha codes.
I believe out of all the writers I’m the only one who is still keeping up with Nami yo Kiite Kire, and yes the last few episodes the show has improved a lot for me, but it still doesn’t reach the same calibre as Yesterday, Kaguya-sama and Hamefura for me.
Have you been catching up on Kakushigoto though? Haven’t seen any new reviews up since episode 3.
Yeah, sorry for that. I have been keeping up with Kakushigoto but I find it hard to review it weekly, since it’s gag-based show and sometimes it’s hard to describe why this joke works and other doesn’t. I might put that on Weekly Summary column.
I don’t know about the other writers, but for me this has very much been a “relax and catchup” season. Beyond what i’m blogging, i’m mostly catching up on older shows or trading shows with my friends.
Since this season is so sparse, I’m mostly using it to watch English dubs for shows I never got around to watching. I just finished the dub for Girls Last Tour (Now that I own the Blu-Ray) and started on Snow White with the Red Hair season 2, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, and Meiji Tokyo Renka. I do need to get around to watching the dub for Shounen Maid, though.
I have been meaning to check out the Girls’ Last Tour dub, I think dubs work even better with Iyashikei shows as not having to read allows you to relax yourself further and just have a good time!
Gleipnir is the perfect sunday show. Really not that good, shameless and requiring no thought on the part of the viewer while still remaning entertaining. Also, is it symbolism anymore if you’re using it like a sledgehammer? Gleipnir really is anime to its absolute core.
The last thing we can mention when talking about Gleipnir is symbolism of any kind. Its just junk food. It’s tasty but over-saturated with calories and it’s best not to think about it too much.
My best girl of the season is easily Kaede (from Gal & Dino): she’s cute, funny, kind, tolerant, open, and very laid back, and she has a dinosaur as a roommate. What more could you ask for? I’d also vote for its OP as the best of the season: it’s really catchy, stylish, has great editing, and it fits the show like a glove. For all the shit it’s given, BNA’s OP is also great, though – and so is its ED, actually.
For my unpopular opinion … I think Bakarina is a bit overrated here. It’s a fun show, don’t get me wrong, and Catarina is a charming MC. But it’s also very shallow (the central gag of everyone falling in love with Catarina is funny, but not very believable imo, and the cast is very clichéd), has barebones animation, and for all her kindness, Bakarina is a bit too dumb to be truly endearing to me. So for me it’s more a fun guilty pleasure than a real stand out show.
@SuperMario: just out of curiosity, which characters in Tower of God don’t make sense to you?
@ Armitage: I see your point about Kaguya-sama, but I think it actually does a pretty good job of showing how the characters have changed since the start of the series. The dynamic between Kaguya and Shirogane is very different now: there’s a lot less mind games and a lot more unforced friendly interaction. And the introduction of new characters – from what I heard there will be a lot more focus on the side cast later in the series – also helps keep things fresh. But if you’re not a fan of the basic premise I can see how it would get stale for you.
I recently caught up on Hamefura, and oh man, is “dumb” ever the perfect word to describe that show.
Given your well-established dislike for Kaguya’s Bakaguya persona, and given that Catarina has essentially the same kind of personality (very childlike and naive, and very straightforward and true to her desires), I suppose that reaction was to be expected. 😉 She even uses the same kind of inner court sessions that you criticized in Kaguya-sama, haha.
I prefer Hamefura over Kaguya actually. It’s just more adorable!
I agree it is quite adorable, but I would say it’s fluff without any weight to it. Catarina’s unintentional romantic exploits are funny, but they don’t feel earned – everyone falls for her after she is nice to them one time – and after having been saved by her efforts, the characters mostly seem to be in stasis and are all pretty much interchangeable, in that we have very little reason to care about their development or relationship with Catarina. And all that seems to be left now is for them to partake in cute but ultimately meaningless romantic escapades that Catarina is eternally oblivious about. By contrast, though Kaguya-sama has plenty of fluff to it, that’s not all there is to it: it also builds up its cast, gives them their own issues to overcome, and gives you reason to care about how their various relationships progress. When Catarina adds another character to her ever-expanding harem, it makes me smile, but it doesn’t make me care. But when Kaguya and Shirogane eventually overcome their many doubts and insecurities to finally confess their love to each other, it’ll feel like a genuine triumph. Or to put it differently: whereas in Kaguya-sama the premise is only the starting point, and its true strength lies in the development of its broad and likable cast, Hamefura basically takes its central accidental-harem-based-gag and runs with it.
In the end it’s all a matter of taste, though. Kaguya-sama may have more depth to it than Hamefura, but if you don’t care about its cast that’s probably not going to matter much. And of course, gag-based romcoms aren’t necessarily inferior to character-based ones: I happen to prefer the latter sort, but others may place greater weight on fluff, and that is fine too.
Yeah, the overall premise of Kaguya just never seemed to hook me. I feel the show doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. It tries to get too clever with its genre-mashup and the comedy just doesn’t work for me. Maybe if it improves substantially over the course of the season I will consider picking it back up.
Mostly been watching shows from the 2010s. I plan on watching Sing yesterday to me (or whatever its called) and BNA at some point.
I am watching Woodpecker Detective’s Office, and caught up with a couple of shows I left up (skimming Boogiepop and the Others, 2nd Seasons of Kakeguri). Also Miyazaki films I never got a chance to watch before (Laputa)
How is Woodpecker so far? I’m planning on coming back to it eventually, since I liked the Rakugo-ish premiere a fair amount.