Quick Final Thoughts – Made in Abyss

Heh, speaking of being late, the biggest show of last year and I procrastinated on it so hard.

Intentional discomfort is a fine line. Media which is intended to keep you on your toes has to have a really, really good hook to be able to keep viewers around, or else that discomfort will push them too far and make them give up.

You also have to leverage this feeling so that it’s spaced out, or the same thing happens. This is where I feel Inuyashiki went very wrong, stuffing tons of shock content in with essentially no break in between.

Made in Abyss wants to draw you into its fantastic, gorgeous world, but it does NOT want you to get comfortable. It wants you worried, it wants you squicked, it wants you sad, and it wants you terrified. You might enjoy the experience, but it will not be a happy one, and you will be unsure if you’ll even get a happy ending when all is said and done. These characters are going to be miserable, going to lose hope and get hurt and watch awful things happen, and you are going to want to keep watching, because it is a masterwork at keeping you invested. Despite being truly one of the most disturbing shows I’ve ever witnessed, probably even more so than Inuyashiki, this one has a better premise, better characters, and a story you’ll want to see to the bitter end, because you’ll want to know just as badly as the characters just what lies in the depths of hell itself.

My only issue here, is that it isn’t over. You won’t find an ending here, despite the original nature of the show, and so the biggest, most tantalizing mystery is still unsolved. So, for now, despite getting my highest recommendation if you’ve got the stomach for it, I can only give it a 9/10. If a conclusion is announced, however, it will be a 10/10 experience.

Quick Final Thoughts – My Hero Academia S2

Towards the end, this got really frustrating to watch, which is why it’s so late.

The first half of this season, adapting the sports festival, is fantastic, and you’ve already heard everything that makes it good. And I’m not saying the second half was bad, but…

The pacing hits a brick wall with the final exam arc and it contains some incredibly questionable writing decisions. First of all, without spoiling much, it turns out that there is a quirk that can steal other quirks. I don’t know if the author realized just how bad an idea this was, but it just raises SO MANY questions all by itself. What happens if you steal a biological quirk, for example?

There’s also an extended sequence involving Midoriya and All Might that I spent thinking ‘what the fuck’ for all the wrong reasons. Izuku nearly dies and All Might’s reaction makes absolutely no sense. I’ll elaborate on this below, as it’s a spoiler.

I’m not going to stop watching. But I’m not going to pretend that this show has gotten better. The first half of the season would have earned a 9/10, but the second half is a strong 7, so…

8/10.

***SPOILERS***

I have massive problems with the final exam fight between Deku, Bakugo and All Might, specifically the actions of the latter. He practically breaks Izuku’s spine (and this is acknowledged by the show) immediately before sighing and complaining that Bakugo is going to break his own body for the sake of the fight. He goes WAY TOO FAR in injuring the two of them, and this fight is way, way more physical than everyone else’s, and just gets briefly reprimanded by Recovery Girl. It’s also mentioned that the teachers all made sure there was a way for the students to escape and pass, and there is no evidence whatsoever that All Might did so; in fact, the spine-shattering happens in the process of Izuku trying to escape. The two of them ONLY pass because Bakugo dramatically overexerts himself. Basically, the episode is a giant mess.

Quick Final Thoughts – Restaurant to Another World

I’m not gonna finish this one anytime soon, but I want to stress that it’s not a bad show.

Isekai Restaurant flew way under the radar this past season because it wasn’t really an A-team production, but I don’t think it deserves to be totally forgotten, because this show does a few things very well. The food porn is excellent and easily rivals that seen in Food Wars, if not surpassing it simply because the dishes seen here are ones you could probably make yourself. Everything looks amazing and is described excellently by the characters, enough that you could almost taste it for yourself

We also get a lot of really interesting world building as every episode presents us with new characters from the other world who come and visit the restaurant while we learn about their society, and the sheer diversity of the cast is pretty amazing.

The downside is that there is no plot. The first episode is about a young beggar girl who gets a job at the restaurant and sticks around for the whole show, but beyond that, every episode is self contained. You might see past highlight characters in the restaurant but there’s absolutely no serial plot beyond the existence of the titular eatery, which places this show in a weird spot. It’s great to learn more about the fascinating world and the mysteries of the restaurant, but that and food is all you’re going to get here.

6/10. It could have used more meat on its bones.

Quick Final Thoughts – Katsugeki/ Touken Ranbu

I admit that it took me a bit to get invested in this one, and I wasn’t really hooked until episode 6 or 7. But Katsugeki is at the very least a very well-made show. Ufotable is known for their very cinematic presentation, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that there’s going to be a movie version of this series. I’m actually looking forward to that; I want to see how it benefits from tighter pacing.

I couldn’t take Hanamaru because it seemed like such an odd choice for a cast so clearly oriented to an action show, and I can confidently say that these cute sword boys are much better suited to a serious story like this one. Even though it doesn’t really get ambitious until the second half, it ends up picking up a lot of interesting concepts – what happens when a sword meets its former master, especially when said master is about to meet their historically predetermined tragic ending? I ended up really liking the character of Horikawa, and I wish we’d seen more of his journey near the end, but if these guys get to continue their adventures beyond the movie, I’ll be along for the ride.

7/10.

Quick Final Thoughts – Gamers!

A very pleasant surprise.

Earlier this year, I really enjoyed Masamune-kun’s Revenge, and romcom nonsense runs strong in Gamers! as well. It’s a comedy of misunderstandings, which doesn’t always sit well with me, but it manages to pull off forward motion pretty well, since nobody makes any bad choices based on their assumptions. It doesn’t have the maturity that we ended up getting from Revenge, but it does have a welcome lightheartedness that keeps things fun, along with some great costume design.

7/10! This season was light on comedies and I’m glad we got at least one solid one. Maybe it’ll get a season two?

Quick Final Thoughts – Princess Principal

Way better than I even suspected from the pilot.

Anime Strike is becoming more and more important to have at this point for a lot of the best and most interesting shows, as frustrating as that is, and at first I was hooked by the aesthetic of this one, but Princess Principal drew me in further with a fantastic core cast and an appropriate amount of intrigue for a spy story, in addition to its amazing period setting. I wish we’d gotten more of a conclusion, but we’re at least left open to the possibility of a second season, and if we don’t get it, I’m pretty happy with what we got for a dramatic, epic finale.

I also wish the show would have decidedly paired its two leads, as it’s totally filled with subtext so overt it might as well have just been text, but it wasn’t nearly enough to diminish my enthusiasm.

Killer opening song, too, that totally suits the dramatic nature of the show.

9/10. And as a side note, I’m bringing Re:Creators down to a 9/10 as well, as I’ve been second guessing its perfect score. It’s still fantastic but I wouldn’t say it was better than PP.

Quick Final Thoughts – New Game!!

So, the thing that I love about New Game as compared to shows like Is the Order a Rabbit? is that it involves the forward motion I need to stay invested, and this one nails just the right amount to make me want to keep coming back. It even goes the extra mile to kick in some light drama towards the end to make the emotional payoffs feel sweeter.

It also helps that it’s not set in a school and features a cast of diverse age groups, and I’d place it happily with shows like Working! in the soft place in my heart that isn’t full of cynicism.

If you’re a fan of the warm fuzzies, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s not going to blow your mind, but it will take you into a happier world for a few hours, and I can’t ask for anything more than that.

8/10. Hopefully we get a third season, because I’m down for this as long as it goes.

Quick Final Thoughts – Fastest Finger First

I really don’t have a lot to say about this one. It’s certainly a topic I haven’t seen before, and it explores quiz bowl in a really interesting way, but it never rises above the standard level of sports anime tropes, so the concept was really the only interesting thing about it. It did have pretty decent pacing though, and if it gets a second season, I’ll be there, but if the idea of an anime about competitive quiz bowl doesn’t grab your interest all on its own, you probably won’t find anything interesting here.

Killer opening tune, though!

6/10, because it’s on the good side of average.

Quick Final Thoughts – Sakura Quest

I have my thoughts together much better here than I did for Re:Creators, which is good, because I’m sure my opinion here won’t be as widely shared.

I may have a soft spot for shows set in the countryside, but Sakura Quest more than earns praise from me. It’s a quiet, slow-burning experience that keeps things light-hearted, but is far, far more than the sum of its parts. The town of Manoyama is wonderfully realized, as are its people, reluctant to trust outsiders and apathetic to their town’s decline out of fear of losing their culture, and in depicting them, Sakura Quest shows a surprising and very welcome amount of ambition that more than justifies its double-cour runtime with pacing so smooth you won’t notice it, while throwing subplot after subplot into the air and managing to catch every one of them, and capping off with a finale that is both suitably madcap and endearingly sappy, and that brings me to the root of why I loved this show.

It’s not often that you see a show so well-executed, so grounded, and so polished, that also has absolute bucketfuls of heart, and as anyone following me knows, that’s something that will always be important to me.

10/10. Total dark horse, and more people should be talking about it.

Quick Final Thoughts – Classroom of the Elite

Wow, did I have high hopes for this one that just were not fulfilled at all. I was hoping for something a lot more intelligent or at least relevant to its concept than this, but seven episodes in and we’ve barely touched the fact that this is a special school and apparently everyone can survive just fine on zero dollars for an entire month because we skipped right over that potentially interesting idea for a student council trial that culminates in a high school aged gravure net idol almost getting raped, and this is immediately followed by a swimsuit episode.

It started with so many interesting things going for it, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. 4/10, dropped after six episodes.