Discover Top Posts Tagged with #steins; gate 0

Summer 2018 Final Review

As I explained in my Spring review, my anime watching time plummeted dramatically due to my mom’s unemployment, so I had to massively scale down to barely a dozen shows, vs 20ish I was watching in spring. I dropped Senjuushi (found myself bored to death in the first 10 minutes), Yume100 and Tsukumogami Kashimasu, and gave up on checking out Sirius and Baki. You win this round, stupid Netflix.

Worst to best. I’m also including the shows that were continuing from Spring. Not including Banana Fish, the only summer show that I’m watching and continues into the current season.

Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou Holmes: Did I have any particular expectations for this show? Not really, I just wanted to see Kyoto sceneries. Somehow this show managed to stay beneath my expectations through its whole run. From its absolutely potato production values, to half-baked, poorly solved mysteries, an overarching plot that went nowhere, and a romance story that just never landed, the show kind of failed on everything it set itself to do and that’s kind of incredible in its own right. It didn’t even provide Kyoto sceneries, with most of the story confined to closed houses and shops. The show doesn’t even make me angry, it’s just a monument to mediocrity in every possible way.

(appreciate the melting faces)

Angolmois: I’ve mentioned a million times that I’m a rekijo through and through, and anime with historical settings get me excited like nothing else. I was really looking forward to how they would reimagine the mongol invasions. Turns out they just wanted a macho power fantasy in which the one dude gets the tsundere princess and is the only one with a chance to survive against the invaders. The whole thing is just a parade of misery and pointless deaths to make the main character look super strong and heroic. I do appreciate the completely random appearance of emperor Antoku, as someone who is extremely passionate about ridiculous and fantastic representations of historical characters, when Antoku showed up, alive and old smack in the middle of the 1300s (emperor Antoku died as a child at the end of the 12th century), I found myself screeching.

Phantom in the Twilight: I was kinda talked into binging this one two weeks before the season ended. Gotta say I wasn’t super impressed, the show also suffered massive potato production values, the design of the bishonen was pretty generic and the story was overall cheesy and dumb. But I do appreciate the novelty in Ton as a proactive reverse harem protagonist who takes the reins of her fate and is capable of saving herself and those she loves.

(enjoy more melting faces)

Hanebado!: My story with Hanebado is quite rocky. I wasn’t interested in it at first, then it had that phenomenal first episode with a very strong second ep following. Then it kinda lost focus and finally completely lost it bonkers after the midpoint, with Hanesaki going murder mode after her loss to Connie. I should’ve realized sooner that the title Hanebado was for Hanesaki’s Badminton, but I only realized it too late, when I was already tired of all the Ayano nonsense and wanted to get more of Nagisa, a far more interesting character. I’ve heard the manga had several changes of tone early on and the anime seems to have tried to mellow them out a bit, which made the story very inconsistent -Ayano and Connie the main victims-. Another issue is the show’s failure to condemn Uchika and just leaving us hanging on to what even is her deal. I think it’s a step in the right direction in terms of the kind of sports anime with female characters that I want to see more of, but the lack of consistency hurt the overall production quite a bit. Oh, but the direction and animation was fantastic!

Steins;Gate 0: What a started as an interesting and engaging spinoff that had one of the most beautiful episodes of the whole franchise, petered out into boredom and pointlessness in the second half and it’s quite disheartening. There were still some highlight moments, but overall, the end feeling I had for this whole side story is that it served very little purpose, explaining things that didn’t really need explaining and adding random plotlines that kind of went nowhere, like the whole Kagari business, Moeka suddenly not being one of the bad guys, a random new character with Reading Steiner that never was relevant, the whole AI approach that could’ve been so much more cutting and interesting but wasn’t, and the cartoonish villain. I was specially frustrated by the fact we didn’t even get to see the real Kurisu in the end. Oh well, we will always have that one episode that was absolutely brilliant.

(faces aren’t as melty, but clearly this staff didn’t have any color on hand besides brown and gray, this show looks sad and ugly)

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: What if someone wanted to make an idol anime but they were a huge, huge Ikuhara fan? That is the question Revue Starlight sets out to answer and the result is as fascinating as Ikuhara’s best and as cryptic as his worst. Although I didn’t connect with the main story between the main girls whose names I can’t remember for the life of me, the episodes focused on Banana-senpai and the girls who played the main couple in the 99th show were pretty strong, and the stylishness of the battles, the songs and the intense teen emotions made it all very compelling even when I wasn’t understanding most of it. Worth checking out for sure. Also: Lesbians.

Free! Dive to the Future: Oh, Utsumi, why did you leave us. Even though every Free! fan had been clamoring for a new season, they somehow managed to make Season 3 the season no one ever asked for, fans of the novels and the Starting Days movie and fans of the anime’s two seasons, neither got the focus on the characters they love, with the story scattered across four or five cities and two dozen characters that only interact in small groups of three that never cross. Also, every notorious swimmer in the world actually came from Iwatobi. It felt like we wasted 8 episodes on Ikuya’s (overblown) melodrama only for the character to completely disappear in the last third of the show. Overall, the season felt more setup for the inevitable World Championship/Olympics/whatever they’re planning to do in 2020. I just hope that most of the issues with this season are a product of its fillerish nature and not just that Free has really become a shell of its former self without Utsumi. I’m putting it this high on the list because on a superficial level i enjoyed seeing these characters again, but the whole package was just sourly lacking. Needs more Rin in general and RinHaru moments.

Attack on Titan 3: The opposite case from above, season 3 keeps the tone and pace of the second one to a tea, with the handicap of adapting a somewhat weaker part of the manga when seen in isolation. I also feel the anime tried a bit too hard to humanize Kenny and that the Ackerman reveal was just kinda thrown there. Let’s hope there’s a season 4, because their chosen stopping point makes a fantastic season finale, but would make a very frustrating ending if this were to be the last season.

Planet With: It seems the new trend is “shows I didn’t even have in my radar and somehow end up among my favorites of the season”. Planet With isn’t terribly deep or complex, the character designs are somewhat generic and old-fashioned, and if you heard of the plot it would sound equal parts generic and overstuffed. Yet, somehow, the show manages to strike the perfect balance of excitement and heart, with a brisk pace that somehow doesn’t feel rushed and masterful writing that quickly endears the audience to its characters. It’s a simplistic story about love, war and families that manages to feel entirely new. It’s a shame it’s a sales disaster, because the industry definitely needs more original stories like this.

Lupin III Part V: This one was a rocky ride too, with a very strong start, then some really bleh episodes in the middle -to the point I was close to dropping it when I fell behind on everything, mid-summer, but the second half, the return of Ami and the final arc were brilliant in every possible way, specially the meta commentary they added to the Lupin mythos. When Lupin is down at his worst and Jigen tries to persuade him to quit, the speech Lupin gives, about wanting to see what’s next in the hero’s story, it was so powerful in a narrative sense, it made all the floppy episodes worth the watch. Definitely something you should check out if you’re a Lupin fan.

Cells at Work! Listen, folks, I went into the humanities because I found science dreadfully unappealing, so how dare this stupid poorly veined edutainment make me so invested in the inner workings of the human body and the anthropomorphized versions of the cells whose hard work i waste day in and day out with my decadent lifestyle?! I’m sorry Neutrophyl, i wish I was a better human being so you wouldn’t have to deal with so many pathogens ;----; Jokes aside, this show isn’t just edutainment, but very clever and funny in ways that edutainment shouldn’t be allowed to be. I didn’t expect anything going in and I’m so pleased it turned out to so much fun. And it managed to teach me some science!

Boku no Hero Academia 3: Hero Academia, like a good wine, only seems to get better with time. An okay first season gave way to a great second season and an absolutely fantastic third. The midseason finale was, easily the strongest emotional climax of the series so far (and I’m not saying that just because I have the biggest crush on All Might). And it doesn’t stop there; what makes this show so special is how well thought out and crafted its worldbuilding is, and how intelligent in its development of the sociocultural repercusions of the hero system, how evildoers and society at large react to certain events in a way that feels real and natural because it mimics how many things work in our real world. Although the season finale was kind of a clunky spot, we know a season 4 is coming, so I’m not worried, and in fact can’t wait to see how this story continues.

And that was it for the Summer, whoosh! Maybe if I keep on this roll I can actually do my Fall season watchlist ;----;

#summer anime #anime final impressions #boku no hero academia #cells at work #lupin III #planet with #attack on titan #free! dive to the future #shoujo kageki revue starlight #steins; gate 0 #kyoto teramachi sanjou holmes #angolmois #phantom in the twilight #hanebado

When you’re hyped for Steins: gate 0 but remembered that we’re dealing with the grief route before the true ending from the first game/season:

I send my regards to those who are yet to find out

#steins;gate #steins; gate 0 #steins gate 0