Zzz…

Obligatory disclaimer as always. Shows certainly do get better or worse than what their first episode(s) indicated. Mostly worse. Especially given the trend of the general anime audience to whip themselves into a furor over. Especially considering anime's problems with repetition and immediately taking every premise it has, unique or not, and then going to a holding pattern within a month. Some of them began in a holding pattern. I also cheated a little this season by being lazy and not getting this done last week.

Anything I plan on definitely covering at least one more episode of has frappucino next to its name. Also, either a link to my post, or if it's a sequel to something I already checked out of long ago, to one of the original Komugi series multitudinous openings.That doesn't mean I'll stick with it, or won't eventually pick up something without one (although since I'm doing this late, it's a pretty damn good bet), just that I'm planning to cover at least one more episode. Unless an episode bored or offended me on a fundamental level, I do tend to at least glance through the next episode or two of most things, even if I have nothing further to say. It has happened at least once in the past that I changed my mind and both quit on, then changed my mind on a show between episodes 2 and 3.

Anyway, onward and forward.

MONDAY

The Four Rhythms Beyond the Blue

 

More obnoxious than cute, but is handling its characters with above average deftness, ignoring how low a bar that is at any rate.

Snow White with the Red Hair

I miss visual gags in anime that took forms other than being screamed in my face.

Unhaltable Bahamut Cron Job

 

Emulates every light novel cliche aside from incest (yet) without a shred of ambition or an original thought of its own.

TUESDAY

Prince of Stride

 

Even if the sports side had a little style (which was gone by episode 2), the comedy and characters are porridge at best.

WEDNESDAY

God's Blessings on This Wonderful World

 

Production needs a little help, and in general conflict with itself. Hopefully it plans to move forward as the first episode ended.

Haruta and Chika in the Yada Yada

 

Doesn't seem to understand what actual mysteries or romance are, which is weird for a mystery/romance show.

Phantom World

 

Characters and story are subordinate to bad fanservice and adherence to worse cliches, but at least the production's strong.

THURSDAY

Active Raid

 

A truly ridiculous faffing around that seems to be doing everything it can to avoid being the show in its premise.

Assassination Classroom

Mugimaru yells a lot more than I remember.

Dagashikashi

 

Jokes are rarely good, but it is at least trying in ways that don't constantly deafen me.

ERASED

 

Another high concept show that falls apart at the lower levels, headed by a protagonist it's impossible to get behind.

Girls Beyond the Something or Other

 

Yet another in the endless parade of nonsensical masturbatory metafiction with characters as interesting as soap.

Norn9

 

Very loud music, and shots of scenery do not content make.

Phantasy Star Online 2

 

Who the hell would even want to watch bland teenagers playing an MMO in the first place?

FRIDAY

Divine Gate

 

Ridiculously angsty and overly melodramatic for having a demon puppy in a top hat, and the action is… not.

GATE

Now that's CGI.

Lover's Suicide Comedy

 

The ten minutes of rakugo and pithy lesson about being yourself in a 'mature' show were the anvil on the camel's back.

Pandora in the Crimson Shell

 

Missing the budget it badly needs, but the story's been moving with passable characters, putting it above the pack.

Sacred Sword Mountain

 

Not many jokes if this was supposed to be a comedy, but not an adventure either, so I'm not sure what the selling point here is.

SATURDAY

DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Remember when Nabeshin used to be a thing?

Komugier

 

Let's take a parody series, and reboot it as what it was parodying, and without any of the production! Genius!

Luck and Logic

 

Mediocre action that badly needs a driving force, budget, and to not repeat whatever the hell the second episode was.

Utawarerumono 2

 

After three months, they finally stopped taking baths and thumbing through softcore porn. Protagonist and writing remains awful.

Sunday

Dimension W

 

Considering the silent, competent, action hero protagonist, and writing that really shouldn't be scrutinized, it's expositionriffic.

Grimgar

 

About 90% so far has been blatant, straight up padding to avoid the story that it still doesn't even have.

Schwarzesmarken

 

Massively overdramatizes itself, and most of the cast act like crazy people without regard to sense.

Wrapup of the Wrapup:

It's not what I'd call a particularly strong season, although it is spread out across the week. I haven't forgotten about my experiments with pornographic games on this blog, but they're very time consuming and I'm not really tremendously eager to get back to them. I'm in a slight lull between translating in general for at least the next week while I get stuff ready for BB2's release and get back to refamiliarizing myself with/cleaning up some early parts of the behemoth after my two month BB2 break before diving back into that for the next probably eight plus months, so maybe I'm just enjoying not having to engage the kanji part of my brain for a brief spell. I'd be content to call that six month experiment complete at any rate and go back to maybe some random thoughts/T&A dumps/reviews of the early parts of things. Still haven't forgotten Izumo4! Just got to find a chunk of time to actually sit down and play it for a while.

Speaking of which, back to work.