Tag: summer 2017

Quick Final Thoughts – Re:CREATORS

So, this was kind of unbelievable. Honestly, this show is a perfect example of why I don’t include two-cour shows in rankings before they’re finished (or I’m finished watching them), because this would have blown past a lot of what ended up being really good last season, shows that I wanted to give attention like Atom or Tsukigakirei, and I stand by my perfect score for the latter. I don’t know that I could have thought clearly about something so much quieter and less bombastic if I’d been distracted by Re:Creators.

But, seriously, Ei Aoki and Hiroyuki Sawano, out from the shadow of Gen Urobuchi. This show was unstoppable from episode 1 and it deserves so much more recognition than apparently everyone in the anituber community can give it.

10/10.

Quick Final Thoughts – Knight’s and Magic

… Frustrating.

To be clear, I knew from the beginning that this was a wish-fulfillment show, but it had enough charm and solid CG that I was willing to put up with it. I’ve always loved the medieval mecha aesthetic and we get some pretty nice designs here, not to mention an isekai plot with a halfway decent gimmick unlike Isekai Smartphone.

But honestly, four episodes in and I’ve just lost all my enthusiasm. Literally nothing plot-related happens in the first three episodes and then when we finally get a fight in the fourth, our hero starts demonstrating abilities and knowledge he shouldn’t have in what I’m going to call Herosplaining. With that, my disbelief was shattered and Ernesti pretty much became a happier version of Kirito.

So I can’t continue this. I can no longer imagine myself getting anything out of this show.

4/10.

Quick Final Thoughts – 18if

This one is weird. In pretty much every way.

To be clear, I’m not dropping it because it’s weird. I’m dropping it because it did exactly what I was hoping it wouldn’t do and seems pretty much exclusively about this young boy saving helpless women. But after the second episode, in which he straight up kills someone he was supposed to be helping for a woman he’d literally just met five minutes before, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be thinking while watching this. Granted, victim guy was a total scumbag and he was basically taking revenge for the girl, but I saw no foreshadowing of this, and the moment doesn’t even really get to land before we move on, and given that this is an episodic story, I doubt it’s gonna be brought up again.

I liked the concept here but the execution is just awful and wasteful, not to mention that Studio Gonzo simply doesn’t have the resources to pull it off. Maybe a studio with better post processing (like KyoAni or A-1) could have made it work, but as it stands, this is just plain bad, and not in a way that would make me want to keep watching.

3/10, dropped after two episodes.

Summer First Impressions

So, it occurred to me that the way I had been posting (only mentioning my opinions after I’d finished/dropped a show) was not exactly helpful for people wondering what exactly I was still watching. So, for the first time, I watched (almost) every single first episode to get a complete picture of the Summer 2017 anime season from the beginning. Note that with the exception of shows that started last season (Re:Creators, Sakura Quest, HeroAca S2) I have only watched the first episode of these shows, even those that have already aired more than one. Every few weeks I’ll give a (shorter, obviously) list of what’s still here and what’s newly on the shit list.

So, what follows is a quick list of every show I watched and a quick bit about why I did or didn’t like it.

On Probation:

18if, I’ll stop if he keeps saving helpless girls

Elegant Yokai Apartment Life, I’ll stop if it doesn’t present an actual hook

Aho Girl, I’ll stop if I decide I can’t stand the heroine

Tsuredere Children, I’ll stop if it stops being realistic

Angels 3Piece!, I’ll stop if it actually does what the first episode hints at

Altair Record of Battles, I’ll stop if it keeps feeling like it’s ticking boxes and moving at the speed of light

Chronos Ruler, I’ll stop if the plot goes too far off the rails

Still Watching:

My Hero Academia S2, because they are my literal children

Classroom of the Elite, because it’s like if Baka and Test were serious

Restaurant to Another World, because a good concept can go a long way if you use it right

Fastest Finger First, because the quiz show is unique and I haven’t found anything to object to

Re:Creators, because it oozes cool and is really well-paced

Sakura Quest, because it reminds me of Locodol

Knight’s & Magic, because I’m down for an isekai show with purpose

Katsugeki TOUKEN RANBU, because it gets the Most Improved award

Gamers!, because co-ed club comedies are almost always better

Saiyuki Reload Blast, because it’s a gritty action comedy with fun characters

Dive!!, because I’m lacking in decent sports shows this season and it’s better than Aoyama-kun

Made in Abyss, because I love a good Ghibli knockoff

Princess Principal, because AESTHETIC

New Game!!, because it takes a lot to get me into a female-only show

Hell Girl: Fourth Twilight, because I’m down for a fourth season of Suspense and Awful People

Dropped Like a Hot Plate:

In Another World With My Smartphone, for being the least ambitious show I’ve ever seen

Aoyama-kun is a Clean Freak, for not being funny and looking like garbage

Hina Logi – From Luck & Logic, for letting trashiness override anything that could have been interesting

Vatican Miracle Examiners, for combining horror and mystery and still being boring

My First Girlfriend is a Gal, for being porn

Convenience Store Boy Friends, for being too boring to boring the boring

NTR Netsuzou Trap, for being rape-y

On Hold:
Love & Lies, unless the preposterous concept is explained better

Disqualified/Skipped:

Battle Girl High School / Action Heroine Cheer Fruits, because just when I think that Daisuki has gone away, we get HIDIVE

Kakegurui / Fate/apocrypha, because Netflix doesn’t understand what they’re doing

A Centaur’s Life, because I’m not interested in monster girl shows anymore

Owarimonogatari Second Season, because I can’t get into this show until Crunchyroll uploads the original in HD

Sagrada Reset, because I’ve only heard really bad things about it

Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ, because nobody has licensed it two weeks into the season and that breaks my heart

The Reflection, because it hasn’t aired or been picked up yet

Still Watching Later:

Welcome to the Ballroom, for a concept I’ve never really seen before

Magic Circle Guru-Guru, because good parodies are hard to come by and Dragon Quest is ripe for the picking

HIGHLIGHTS
Crunchyroll/VRV
Classroom of the Elite, Studio Lerche
I’m a little biased about this studio, and the twist at the end of the episode can be seen from miles away, but we already have the makings of a solid deconstruction here. The main trio thus far reminds me a lot of OreGairu’s Service Club, with the uninterested protagonist, the ice queen heroine, and the genki girl with a friendship complex, and combining this with concepts from Negima and Baka and Test is going to make a fun ride.

Katsugeki TOUKEN RANBU, Studio ufotable
Turns out ufotable knows how to make more than Fate and Tales. There’s plenty of time travel shows this season but this one is easily the most well-produced, and given that I couldn’t get through the first episode of Hanamaru, a very pleasant surprise in terms of serious action.

Anime Strike
Made in Abyss, Studio Kinema Citrus
Already shaping up to be the dark horse of Summer 2017, the first episode was drop dead gorgeous, and the concept is taken straight from the repertoire of Studio Ghibli, with art design reminiscent of Level 5. We already know those two things work together!

Princess Principal, Studio Actas & 3Hz
My aesthetic. It’s infinitely more interesting than its closest contemporary, Joker Game, by being more visually interesting and not being about boring cardboard cutouts.

Overall, I watched 32 first episodes, only effectively skipping five (since four of them are just plain unavailable), and I dropped 7 out of those 32 after the first episode, so I’m still watching 78% of those shows. We’ll see how many of the probation ones are doing soon.

And that’s it!

Quick Final Thoughts – NTR Netsuzou Trap

After some thought, this one moved from probation to just being dropped outright. While it’s alright production-wise, I can’t imagine that spending more time with these characters is going to get me to empathize with them. The atmosphere is just a little bit too rape-y from the beginning and nothing about the first episode suggests that it’s going to get any better.

That being said, I’m also choosing not to rate it because I watched it two weeks ago and only now decided I didn’t want more. So, make of that what you will.

Quick Final(?) Thoughts – Love and Lies

I’m putting this one on hold, because it’s…problematic.

It’s not all bad, for sure, but it’s really middling because it joins a nice production and decent if melodramatic romance with a completely absurd premise that defies logic just so the main characters can be high schoolers. If the government were going to forcibly match people up, they would definitely not be selecting people’s irrefutable life partners at the age of sixteen. It’s a giant plot black hole that only gets worse the more you think about it that takes this story and adds a fairly unwelcome YA dystopia flavor to it. If I find out there’s more to the premise than setting up a government-mandated love triangle, I’ll pick it back up, but right now I’ve got too much to watch this season.

5/10, for now.

Quick Final Thoughts – Convenience Store Boy Friends

Honestly, this show doesn’t really commit any sins besides looking and being boring. Nothing at all about it stands out in really any way apart from the fact that the first episode didn’t have any fan service, and given that I gave a 10/10 to a romance last season, I just don’t see any appeal here. I wish I had more to say, but sometimes bad just means a lack of good.

4/10, dropped after one episode.

Quick Final Thoughts – In Another World With My Smartphone

I’ve never dropped a show before the opening even started, until now.

There was enough in the cold open to tell me everything I was going to hate about this show, from the fact that the protagonist – who looks boring as hell but in the few shots I saw from later has clearly stolen Kirito’s jacket and dunked it in bleach for a week – isn’t even really upset that he died, to the fact that he’s told he’ll be able to master magic quickly, that he can’t contact the world he knew but is specifically told that he’ll be able to watch and read things from there (?!?!?!) and then finally that he’ll be able to CALL GOD WHENEVER HE WANTS. 

I’ve never seen a more blatant wish fulfillment fantasy, and the fact that it’s so immediately spelled out honestly impressed me.

1/10.

Quick Final Thoughts – Vatican Miracle Examiner

What the hell did I just watch?

Anybody remember Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, where the camera never stays in one place and things happen so quickly that it all becomes a really confusing, boring blur? That’s the experience I got out of this one.

I could barely keep track of the plot of the episode because of the painfully bad atmosphere and the fact that the whole thing moved as fast as possible despite how much of the episode was comprised of exposition, but what I could tell was boring and at least a little offensive. I realize that I need to give some shows more than just an episode, but this is one of those that makes doing so seem like a real chore.

3/10, dropped after one episode.