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amisbro · 7 years

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I’m still convinced that

The next “Animation Project” is the 5th season of UtaPri and it will be announced in May...on my Birthday Now who is going to be IN IT is a whole other ball game! There are 3 possibilities and I’m gonna go “least” to “Most Likely” Least Possible A season with all 3 units in it and the big reason is how the FUCK do you do it? You COULD mismash them together BUT how you would get 7 singles out of it (because that is the magic number that the shoot for) I don’t know. Somehow you have to make a combination of STARISH, HEAVENS and QN for 7 episodes or have three of them be duets again...it works BUT we have a pressing problem of still learning about HEAVENS so we need to remedy THAT! Its clear as crystal that the writers couldn’t do it this season with HEAVENS on an equal front with STARISH so doing another season like that with STARISH wouldn’t work (in my opinion) and PLUS if STARISH won the Triple S then...their story in practicality is over right? Okay so now we have to go over the next two 50/50 shot HEAVENS solo Well okay its not COMPLETELY solo because we would still have QN around. I’m THOROUGHLY CONVINCED that the meeting in the hallways with HEAVENS and QN was to set up something down the line. THAT (coupled with the screenshot that @shiningstarish posted when Nagi was holding the one magazine all but hinted that there would be something with the two units and I can see something with them in the very near future. I also can say with confidence that I think its a two season setup with the first season being HEAVENS working as Juniors to QN and then that sets up the next season. Most likely (To Me) Its HEAVENS vs. QN from the jump because...if we look at the evidence with UtaPri and the end of S3 and we look at the beginning of this season and the end of it...Reiji took a vested interest in HEAVENS and I think he wants to see more from them. Want evidence? S3 Finale Reiji said that “Things just got interesting” when it came to HEAVENS’ appearance at the original election. This made me think there was more to Reiji’s interest than I realized Season 4 In the first episode of the new season QN was originally declared the winner and then Reiji gave it back so that he could properly compete against HEAVENS. This eventually gets agreed to and we have our three way. In the Nagi/Natsuki episode I discussed the mag that my friend saw (and I somehow missed both times...good looking out Nadie) and when you see that it makes you wonder “What are Broc and A-1 Planning?” Well we wouldn’t find this out until we got to the “Re-Election” and this was an interesting MESS to say the least! I will forever contend that the group that stalled the HARDEST to buy the time for HEAVENS to show up was QN...sorry but its how I saw it! HEAVENS shows up and after both groups did their song Eiichi and ReiRei (Happily smiles remembering the JOYOUS EiiRei concoction me and a friend came up with) meet in the hallway. This told me that there is MORE to this than meets the eye and a part of me wonders what the story is with HEAVENS now when it comes to QN I feel like if we get the QN/HEAVENS pairing its going to be an interesting one. I really think also that if they do it they HAVE TO END ONE OF THE SEASONS with HEAVENS getting a big win of some kind because here is something to think about HEAVENS clearly has a fanbase in Japan...the rest of the world we don’t know yet but in Japan if I remember right STARISH peaked at #5 on the daily chart with MLLS and HEAVENS peaked at #3! That’s interesting because if we remember when QN debuted with Evolution Eve they started there and then this season CRUSHED IT! You know what ELSE makes the HEAVENS story for this season interesting as far as the King Records debut? I, a staunch HEAVENS fan, expected them to do shitty! My basis for this? EVERY DUET SINGLE THIS SEASON PRETTY MUCH BOMBED! No joke I THINK Syo/Yamato’s was the highest ranking at #4 which isn’t bad but then they fell off a cliff something fierce. I discussed before why I THINK that happened but it made me dread how the HEAVENS single was going to do because of the fact that their duets weren’t doing nearly as well! I think part of that was the way the story was told and a part of that was also the gap between the episodes and the release dates of the CDs (which explains WHY we got a 3 part EiiOto saga as opposed to 1) but the gap hurt the duets and so I panicked! My fear was that if HEAVENS placed outside of the 10 (or even 20) that the group would NOT be brought back. What we got was a surprise where they stayed in the top 10 for almost the duration of their debut week and then STILL stayed on the chart a week later! I was very much impressed by what the Japanese fans said when they kept HEAVENS up there for as long as they did! So now we know that HEAVENS can do well as a GROUP with their singles (and their solos kick ass too) so what do we do now with them? To drop them after one season after they placed so well would be abandoning a new fanbase and I don’t think they will! I think we are going to see STARISH take at least a season off and have HEAVENS and QN hash out one time! I just see that happening I also see this and this might make my fellow QN fans mad I see in the end HEAVENS finally getting what they deserve and that is their ultimate victory by the end of this. You can only beat on HEAVENS so much and make them the “Bridesmaid” so many times before fans stop caring...I say that and yet they place in the top 3 I know but the question comes if you remove STARISH for at least 1 season would that HELP HEAVENS or HURT THEM? One way to find out and I wonder if Broc and A-1 are willing to take that gamble? 4 month and 13 days stand between us and the truth and we can stop speculating hopefully but these are all my thoughts for right now...I might have some more in a few weeks time!

#Amisbro #Uta no Prince-Sama #HEAVENS' future #QN/HEAVENS Season #I think its gonna happen #the evidence is strong on this one

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mageinabarrel · 7 years

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As is our custom around here, it’s time to take a look back at the shows of last season before the new one hits (actually, it’s already here but oh well).

I’ve been watching seasonal anime for a while now, but I never seem to grow bored of looking back at seasons as a whole and considering my experiences with them from a self-reflective perspective. First, some stats: I followed 5 shows through the full duration of the season, as well has have two others that I started but never finished. In terms of pure volume, this is up from the season prior, but it’s interesting to note that even with a few more shows, I feel behind less often and generally felt more engaged than I did during the winter. Perhaps evidence of a better crop of shows?

But probably the most interesting thing that happened – one that rather curiously illustrates the difference watching something weekly or marathoning it makes for me – is the case of Saekano. I watched the first few episodes of the first season back when it aired in 2015, but dropped it. However, when people on Twitter started posting a lot of screencaps that made it seem like I’d like it, I marathoned both seasons in about a week or so. And because I watched it that way, even though Saekano Flat was technically a spring show, it doesn’t really feel like it to me. It’s a unique experience unto itself, not a part of the three-month event that was Spring 2017 anime.

But anyways, about those shows from this season!

The first show I finished this season – and so the first one I’m going to talk about – was the second season of Attack on Titan. Overall, I think I rather agree with Sakugablog’s Kvin on the state of the show as a whole: it was better executed than the first season but not necessarily as fun. While the final two episodes of season two were basically as good as the show has ever been, everything leading up to that was pretty dull, I though. The Ymir/Historia stuff had long been talked up by manga readers as being some of the best material of the story, but I found it horridly uninteresting and irking for how much attention was paid to it.

Attack on Titan (perhaps especially as an anime) is really not equipped to deal with the nuances required for something like Ymir and Historia’s relationship. Simplicity can be graceful at times; for this, though, it just came across as shallow (although others, like ANN’s Rose Bridges in her kick-ass article on the women of Titans, have a different opinion). But what Titans is good at doing is overblown action and people yelling at each other, and we sure did get a nice amount of that in the show’s final third. Everything from Eren and Reiner’s fight at the wall to their shouting match in the trees to Mikasa’s rage to Eren being able to control titans (lolololol) was very near sublime in pulling out all the stops. I’ll probably never think that highly of this franchise, but it sure is fun sometimes.

Sticking with the action theme, I also kept up with both My Hero Academia S2 and Ei Aoki’s Re:Creators for the full season. Both are ongoing into next season, and while I’ll definitely be watching MHA (it’s finally into material I haven’t already seen in the manga!), I’m not so sure I’ll be sticking with Re:Creators.

The strengths and weakness of both of these shows are rather obvious, but they make for an interesting pair. My Hero Academia‘s obvious debts to the traditions of both Shounen Jump manga and American superhero comics make it an easily watchable, momentum heavy experience – especially as it seems to have figured out a few of its lagging pacing issues from the first season – but the the real charm has always been its characters and how earnestly they pursue their dreams of being heroes. It’s easy to watch.

Re:Creators, on the other hand, I suppose I would say is more heady, although I’m not convinced it knows where to find the balance between forward motion and taking time to consider its ideas. Re:Creators having a mismash of characters from different kinds of stories gives it a prime opportunity to draw on these wells of meaning (as it did with the Mamika episode I wrote about), but on the whole it seems to be more interested in having action setpieces for their own sake and leaving the meaning-making to the talking. The show has proven it can do better – Selesia’s creator’s teary-eyed smile when Twitter powers her up was really special – but it hasn’t proven it can be consistent.

Consistency was an issue for more than one show this season, including The Eccentric Family 2. A long-time favorite of mine, The Eccentric Family‘s return to TV anime was surprising, but welcome. According to folks in the know, it seems to be a pet project for P.A. Works – and what a good pet project it is. Despite lacking the overarching plotline that helped hold the first season together thematically, the second season largely remained a delight for its wondrous collection of stunning individual scenes. If the first season of the show was a single tapestry woven together, the second was more like a series of individual paintings – and even the fact that they didn’t all flow together can’t take away from their individual beauty.

That aside, the most rewarding part of The Eccentric Family 2, really, was the chance to dive deeper into this cast of characters that we’ve all come to love. Whether it was the slow additions of nuances and humanity to Benten’s character, the ways new addition Gyokuran brought out different sides of Yasaburo for us to see, or even the way the OP sequence provided its own sort of fascinating context (as Brianwuzhere notes). Alongside the chance to explore new worlds alongside Yajiro or Yasaburo or delve more deeply into tanuki society and customs with Yaichiro, the additional textures The Eccentric Family 2 added to the decadent world of the show’s version of Kyoto were their own reward.

But my not-so-secret favorite show of the season was Alice and Zoroku (Alizou). Because I’m bad and slow at writing these days, I don’t yet have up the post I started writing on my thoughts on the show, but for now it’s interesting to trace my feelings on the show from seeing it as a good sort of Shana-type anime to being convinced its something quite different (and better) than that, an anime that can stand on its own without such comparisons. From its ideas on family (which I wrote about) to its humorous depictions of a small child slowly growing up to its fun explorations of Sana’s created worlds to its very seriously considered relationships between the children characters, Alizou is packed much more tightly with things worth thinking about than it might appear on the surface.

I’d even go so far as to say that Alizou was the smartest show of the season. Aside from how immaculately effective it was as a story, the ease with which it tackled questions as different as “what makes us human?” and “what does it mean to be a family?” was frankly astounding for a show that initially looked to be nothing more than just cuteness. In some ways, I suppose this is one of the hidden strengths of blending fantasy into a mundane setting – the mismatch inherently creates a space where questions must be asked to bridge the gap between worlds. Alizou did this wonderfully, adding a valuable extra level of engagement on top of its more basic appeals (i.e. Sana being a cute kid).

Maybe it’s good that I didn’t watch Saekano Flat as a weekly show, because otherwise it may very well have knocked Alizou out of the top spot & I’m pretty happy with having it there. As things stand now, I don’t have too many specific things to say about Saekano, though. There’s too much about that show that I still need to process. So congrats to Alizou, my favorite anime of Spring 2017!

I also started and did not finish Sukasuka (7 episodes), Tsukigakirei (5 episodes), Sword Oratoria (4 episodes), Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul (1 episode), and Granblue Fantasy (1 episode). The first two I may go back to finish; the rest I think I have said farewell to forever.

As always, you may yell at me in the comments about how I didn’t watch your favorite show of the season, am bad for not finishing Tsukigakirei yet, or just politely tell me what you enjoyed this season. Get to it~

As is our custom around here, it's time to take a look back at the shows of last season before the new one hits. As is our custom around here, it's time to take a look back at the shows of last season before the new one hits (actually, it's already here but oh well).

#Alice and Zoroku #Alice to Zouroku #Anime #Attack on Titan #My Hero Academia #Re:Creators #Saekano #Spring 2017 #The Eccentric Family

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