Freestyle Rap Battle and Winter Premiere Week Wrapup

January 13th, 2015

Contains no rapping.

The first three straight minutes of Boys Love was sitting around having tea and listening to the evil hedgehog ramble. After that, they moved to… another club room and ten more minutes of rambling as they all sat there, so… no. Just no.

Anyway… As usual, these are just the first things that pop into mind when I think about the things I watched over the last season that I at some point at least maybe entertained the idea of covering. It's not comprehensive, the final word, yada yada, so on and so forth. You know the drill and if not, I'd hope you can figure it out. I do check out the first episode and change of almost everything, but unless my opinion changes in any significant way or I have more to say, I'm not going to make another post on it.

There's two shows left, Isuca, another magical girlfriend having wacky misunderstandings in her breasts while fighting monsters but mostly not show on the 23rd (by Arms no less), and PreCure on the 31st, but I wouldn't count on either shaking things up. Anything I will definitely be covering at least one more episode for has chikuwa. There's actually been only one episode of most since it was a pretty compact premiere week instead of spreading out across two, so my plans are less set than usual. Might bail on it soon after, or pick up something unchikuwa'd if it improves after an expositionary mess to kick things off as occasionally happens, buuut things generally move in the direction of less and less happening as shows go on.

If you've got any input, flames, or desperate begging, go wild.

MONDAY

Lesbian Bear Storm

   

Rape bait (which is okay apparently, because it's all girls) and a bunch of symbolism, but nothing tying it together.

Welcome to Godhood

  

Shouting, and drawing backgrounds is hard.

TUESDAY

Boy Love Club

  

A bog standard magical girl show, except with boys. That's the sole joke.

WEDNESDAY

Fleet Collection

   

Faffing, faffing, faffing, janky CGI, and random explosions… but on water!


The Testament of My New Overlord Sister

  

Trashiest by far of the magical girlfriend shows this season. Congratulations!


THURSDAY

Tokyo Ghoul

  

Characters are still awful, plot makes no sense, action direction is lacking, but it's a weak season and pretty colors.

How to Train an Ordinary Girl to be a Heroine

   

Announcing something's trashy doesn't put you above it then doing it for the next twenty minutes.

Happy Cooking Graffiti

  

Girls blushing at each other, eating, and thinking about how many feelings they have.

Unlimited Fafnir

  

Quite easily the blandest of the four magical girlfriend light novel adaptations, and that's a feat.

Fafner: Dead Aggressor: Exodus

  

Start and end were way too drawn out, and the middle was incomprehensibly pointless.

FRIDAY

Cinderella Girls

  

Completely vapid Idols Are the Greatest Thing Ever show edition 8341.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

   

Bizarre? In the 80s, this was normal.

Assassination Classroom

  

Way too much angst and exposition for what was ostensibly a comedy. They needed to explain their own jokes too.

GARO

  

Not a great fan of recent developments, and really needs to find that big quest the first season was lacking.

Death Parade

  

Too many twists, some nonsensical, but otherwise certainly the most interesting premiere if nothing else.

SATURDAY

Hollywood Boys

   

Once again, we find that clowning and anarchy don't mix.

Milky Holmes TD

  

At least it's more comedy than last time, even if overenamored of idols and still missing the first season's fun.

DRRRRRRRRRR

  

A bunch of characters I don't have any nostalgia for, doing things of no import. What a hook.

Aldnoah.Zero

  

Nobody died. Right back to awful robot of the week and nonsensical god-eggboy saving them all.

Dog Days

  

Not as adventurous or as fun as it thinks it is, and still missing the conflict/action of the start of the first season.

 Cross Ange 

  

Losing its edge with recent developments being largely exposition. Still mostly as fun as a train crashing.

The Rolling Girls

 

Badly needs a structure and some kind of plot to direct its energy. Also to ditch the squares.

Kuroko's Balls

   

All. Five. Air. Bud. Movies. In. The. Length. Of. A. Single. Game.

SUNDAY

Absolute Duo

  

Somewhat okay characters put this on dubious top of its magical harem ilk this season.

Yatterman Night

  

Too saccharine, but I doubt it'll stay that way. Not really clear what it is going to be yet though.

Maria the Virgin

  

Too G-rated to sell its anti-war message, and too little going on for the rest of the episode.

World Break

  

Like listening to a dozen chihuahuas yapping at once, all of them thinking that they're hilarious.

Samurai Warriors

  

The story of the whiny Sanada brothers is only somewhat more awful than the art and direction here for 80% of it.

Wrapup:

Not a strong start to the season, although Friday through Sunday don't look too bad. I'm not really wild on Tokyo Ghoul either, but nothing else Thursday is stirring much of any feelings either. Death Parade is the only thing that I'd say had a respectable first episode though, and even that has some significant problems which, if repeated, will start grating immensely very fast. I guess that's not much of a surprise with about a third of the new shows being sequels/continuations and a massive chunk of the rest being Diomedea and/or light novel adaptations of creativity and ambition deficit magical girlfriends at magical sch… We really need a pithy word for that. I mean besides drek. If neither of the Wednesday shows pan out, I'll think of something to do in the Monday through Wednesday span. Feel free to post suggestions.

Posted in Premiere Wrapup | 15 Comments »

15 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • firecow says:

    How about some video game reviews/ thoughts on which you have played? Say JRPGs for example?

  • ElevatorDreams says:

    I always enjoy reading your vn reviews.

  • seragnel says:

    I always was a fan of your game/VN reviews as well honestly.

  • jingoi says:

    there’s Justice League Throne of Atlantis to rip apart

  • JCA says:

    You can always rewatch The Tick, I guess.

  • Yue says:

    Monday = morning jog or take lots of rest.

    Tuesday = how about a review/post of your progress any VN or games you play. From your links, I purchased Astebreed, Drakengard and Demonion.

    Wednesday = maybe a rant post with a sexy picture of Sakuya or Archer.

  • anise_punter says:

    I would imagine this is the weakest season for comedy at least since before I found your blog for the first time (which was I think the first Seitokai Ichizon season), it makes me sad :(

  • Mesousa2877 says:

    Milky Holmes is pretty much the best out of all of these, alongside Rolling Girls and Durarara.

    In fact, Milky Holmes actually has coherence AND it can be funny so far in it’s 2 episodes. Season 1…didn’t really have any plot, and hell, even that season was random as fuck. They’re still fun, but yeah, the current season actually has a hook.

    • LUNI_TUNZ says:

      Well, the first season was mostly about them trying to get their Toys back.

      Season two kind of lost that, in the randomness

      And Season three… bleh.

      And Season Four so far feels like what they tried to do with the Alternative OVA’s and Season Three while keeping what made people actually like the show in the first place… the comedy.

      My only complaint is bring back G4.

  • UltimaLuminaire says:

    Haha your plate is looking as stacked as ever despite the lineup. I think it’s even bigger than last season. Could be wrong, though.

  • Gil says:

    Well, I won’t be visiting here this season since you aren’t doing my shows.