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arcaneranger · 6 years

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Final Thoughts - Spring 2018

Oh, I am so very late on this one, but in my defense, I did warn that I had too much to watch during the spring, so much so that I actually have to have MAL open in another tab while I’m writing this just to remember everything.

I’ll start with what I skipped.

* Tokyo Ghoul:re, FLCL Alternative, Hozuki’s Coolheadedness Season 2 and High School DxD Hero because I have neither watched the previous seasons nor read the manga.

* Cutie Honey Universe and Gurazeni because by the time I would have gotten to them, I had only heard bad things.

* Dragon Pilot: Hisone to Masotan because Netflix picked it up and we’ll have to wait until September for it.

* Gegege no Kitaro because I didn’t hear any buzz about it and frequently forget that it even exists, I’ll get around to it if enough people ask me to.

* Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory because Funimation has inexplicably removed the dub from VRV and that’s how I want to experience it.

* Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits because I already watched Konohana Kitan and didn’t see much of a difference.

* Captain Tsubasa because Viz licensed it and then just kinda sat on it everywhere except the Philippines.

* Inazuma Eleven because it just went completely unlicensed/unloved.

So, with those out of the way, from the bottom to the top, here’s everything I did manage this season.

Worst of the Season: Fist of the Blue Sky Re:Genesis (2/10)

Oh my god, it’s just the ugliest thing this side of Berserk. I don’t remember a damn thing about this one, and I’d bet that most people who watched it are with me on this one, because I was just distracted by how astoundingly awful the CG production in this show is.

Butlers x Battlers (3/10)

Ugh, what a boring slog of a premiere. I still pretty vividly remember this one, if only because it’s so painfully generic that it swung all the way around to be memorable again. Butlers spent almost its entire first episode on absolutely nothing before remembering in the last five minutes that it was supposed to have a plot and smash-cutting to it in the middle of a scene.

Caligula (3/10)

Where to start? After one of the most interesting premieres of the season, this adaptation pretty immediately sank into complete nonsense, and it’s such a massive waste of potential that this was the work of the writers behind the original Persona titles. Caligula is a show where the main characters literally forget the plot is happening and decide to go to a theme park while they’re trapped in a virtual world with a bunch of digi-zombies trying to murder them. Are you kidding me?

Devils’ Line (3/10)

I just did my write-up for this, so it’s a little fresher in my mind, but honestly, it’s just Twilight with adults and the edge factor turned up, and it looks damn silly trying to be as serious as it is. Sentai needs to choose a little more carefully than this if they want to promote their new service.

Libra of Nil Admirari (3/10)

This one was just so boring to look at that I don’t remember anything except that books were evil and it was a visual novel adaptation.

Dances With the Dragons (4/10)

I’m aware that I use the word “generic” an awful lot, but this season’s worst had quite a lot of that quality, and it applies here, too. Trying its hardest to be a mid-aughts grimdark action piece, it just does almost nothing interesting in its premiere, aside from giving the protagonist an already-existing girlfriend, which may have just been an attempt to quell any yaoi-baiting the two main dudes have going for them, because her only qualities demonstrated were “can’t cook” and “looks hot”.

Real Girl (4/10)

As I said in my write-up, I wanted so badly to like this one, but you need a budget of more than fifty cents to make an anime, and nearly every shot betrays just how little the studio was working with. We’re talking about the kind of show where the main cast goes to a summer festival, and appear to be the only people there. The story and writing just aren’t enough to make me put up with it.

Gundam Build Divers (4/10)

What a total letdown from this franchise. Fighters was an incredibly well-written show that was aimed at kids but could appeal to all Gundam fans, Try was divisive but the people that liked it (like me) got a lot out of it, but Divers just flounders. A relatively decent first episode gives way to episode after episode of Villain of the Week shenanigans that I cannot bring myself to care about because the main cast just aren’t interesting; they’re pretty much just generic shonen cardboard cutouts. This was one case where I was almost hoping for a sudden death game turnaround, because the idea of a bunch of kids being trapped in a game with lots of adults and giant robots would at least be a workable plot, but just fighting Team Rocket over and over again is boring schlock.

Magical Girl Ore (4/10)

I held out hope for too long on this one, but I had an inkling from the beginning that the humor was just going to turn me way, way off, and I was right. This one just carried too many bad implications if you thought about it, and they all piled up and crashed down on me the more I tried to keep going.

Magical Girl Site (4/10)

This show just couldn’t stay above water. The writing only got dumber as the plot carried on, and the fact that I was still watching became embarrassing, because most of the community watched one episode of this and dropped it like a hot rock. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.

Darling in the FRANXX (5/10)

What total bull, huh? I’ve never seen public opinion on a show turn around as fast as the community ripped Darling to shreds. While it’s visually gorgeous (most of the time), the writing in the second half of the show is just humiliating to everyone involved, as the script becomes a child Godzilla-stomping through a carefully-constructed castle of wood blocks. Once again, I yearn for Inferno Cop.

Persona 5 the Animation (5/10)

I said for the longest time during the lead-up to P5A that I didn’t really see the point of it. Persona 5 is the fastest-selling game in the franchise, and ultimately an adaptation would only serve to recap the plot, because that’s all it would have time to do in only six months. I actually enjoyed Persona 4 The Golden Animation, because it sold itself as a companion piece to the existing plot rather than a retread of it, and seeing the Scooby Gang just hanging out more was precisely what I wanted from it. A-1 Pictures just didn’t learn enough from the sins of Ace Attorney, because while this is better, it’s still not worth watching if you’ve played the game.

Last Period (5/10)

This one got some early buzz for halfway-decent production work and a skewering of gacha-based RPGs, but ultimately ended up repeating itself so often that it became boring, and sidelining the highlight of the show (the villain trio Wiseman) into having barely a few lines per episode. Just goes to show what happens when repeated gags get stale.

Now that those are out of the way, we can get to the stuff I actually finished!

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These (6/10)

Barely worth watching for how badly condensed the plot is, and barely worth talking about until the movies happen. That’s assuming we actually get them stateside, but I won’t hold my breath on that one. I coulodn’t even find a decent GIF for this one.

Crossing Time (6/10)

A fun, yet not especially memorable set of vignettes about people waiting for the train to go by. Some of the episodes were less enjoyable than others, but still worth a watch if only because it’ll only take you half an hour and anything you don’t like will probably be over quickly.

Golden Kamuy (6/10)

The last thing I finished for the season, Golden Kamuy’s failure to live up to high expectations lies in its inability to focus on its serious tone, constantly inserting dick jokes into its brutal fight scenes and dragging a poop joke on for entirely too long throughout the show, but it’s still good-looking enough to be worth watching, and it was the only decent show this season to pull out the announcement of a continuation in its last episode, without which it probably wouldn’t have gotten a pass from me.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby (7/10)

I still am amazed by the legwork that went into this silly little mobile game adaptation. While parts of it remain half-assed and unnecessary (the random idol performances being at the top of that list), it’s still a competently-written story about a protagonist who won’t let anything stop her from being The Very Best Like No One Ever Was, and I never get tired of that. The constant timeskips do get a little hard to keep track of, though.

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (7/10)

This one could have been improved by just tweaking a few things. While the characters were endearing and the comedy on-point, the story needed a little interference just so that we didn’t end the final episode in pretty much the same place as the second, because I didn’t get any sense of progress in the main relationship. Still, totally worth a watch if you were disappointed by the news that Recovery of an MMO Junkie was directed by a Nazi.

Comic Girls (7/10)

A very cute story of four artists living together and sharing their passion for manga. This one grew on me a lot over its run, and while I had been pretty certain it would be a 6, a satisfying ending and unnecessarily pretty production elevated it, and I’m glad I wound up finishing it.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online (8/10)

This one has the distinction of being the first review I got hate mail for, because I said that Sigsawa was a far better writer than Kawahara and that the female characters in Alternative actually had agency, and boy are those things true. As it turns out, without Kirito-sama, Sword Art Online can actually be decent, or even great. A solid buildup, well-defined characters (that don’t want to bang the main character!) and a spectacular climax lead up to the best story in the franchise. Can’t wait for Alicization to bring SAO crashing back down to mediocrity-at-best.

Tada-kun Never Falls in Love (8/10)

The only HIDIVE show I finished this season! And the best of three romantic comedies we got this spring, because it gave us the progression and satisfaction that Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun wasn’t able to. While it hit a few stumbling blocks, Tada-kun was brought up at least two full points by its fantastic ending, and that was a great surprise since I was really skeptical going into the final few episodes, as they are a big shift in tone and setting from the rest of the show, but the story pulled it off brilliantly.

Hinamatsuri (8/10)

The funniest show of the season, hands-down, Hinamatsuri is the strange tale of a girl with psychic powers from another dimension coming to live with her new yakuza dad, and the hilarity that ensues. Hina herself is a great character, as her dimwittedness is the basis for a lot of the comedy in this show, but the real heart is Anzu, and the coming-of-age journey she takes over the course of the story. This series shows a great and uncommon sympathy to the downtrodden members of Japanese society, and ultimately is able to bring every character’s arc to a meaningful and satisfying conclusion...except for one. Shame about that final episode.

Food Wars: The Third Plate (9/10)

I’m surprised at the lack of heat I’ve gotten about my opinion on Food Wars, and maybe it’s because I’ve been too subtle about my feelings, so I’ll spell them out clearly now: Food Wars is better than My Hero Academia, and you should be watching it.

Lostorage Conflated WIXOSS (9/10)

Man, was this a satisfying turnaround from the disappointment that was incited. The decision to bring the original cast back for a Massive Multiplayer Team-Up was a great one, and meant that almost every character, but especially Midoriko, got the conclusion they really needed. I’m hoping that this is the end for this franchise, if only so it can go out on its highest note. Oh, also, the soundtrack is still awesome.

Best of the Season:...

...

MEGALOBOX (10/10)

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, because MEGALOBOX was perfect from beginning to end and anybody who watched it is well aware of that fact. The sleeper hit of the season was everything the first episode promised; a gritty, 90′s-flavored story of one man’s journey to prove himself the best, and damn the consequences. MEGALOBOX is so great that it’s difficult to pick out individual elements of its awesomeness, but special mention should go to the music, because it is amazing. The OST of this one should go down in history along with that of Bebop as the best that anime has to offer.

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