Titanfall

The next season has already begun and I’m still scrambling to finish the last season. Not to mention we’re coming awfully close to Saimoe season soon, and I’m going to have to get my shit set up for that pretty soon. Daunting considering it’s July Fourth here in ‘murica and I’m probably going to be grilling burgers tonight. Which ain’t bad, love burgers, especially my pork/meat burgers, but this of course means I’m not sitting here. So you know, that’s a thing.

 

 

Shingeki no Kyojin
“MY LIFE FOR AIUR~”
The first half of Shingeki is down, and it was a helluva start for what is fast-becoming the new King of the Weeaboo Scene. That alone gives me mixed feelings, because I am kind of hipster and tend to shy away from shows that the weebs are into. Madoka was awesome, but never everrrrrrrryone is into Madoka. It’s like watered-down drinks served in popular bars at premium price because CAPITALISM HO~.

But pushing that aside, my halftime remarks on Shingeki are that the experience has been a mixed bag. I read through the first half of the manga before the second or third episode aired, so I was already familiar with the plot, and half of the manga covers quite a bit of story, so I felt that the pacing for the show was rather off in that they could have probably cut some of the filler and squeezed a few more chapters into the first half without sacrificing the quality. Speaking of the quality, that also was a mixed bag. I’ve heard the passing mentions of IG’s “B-team”, I’m afraid I don’t keep track of that shit that closely, but there were plenty of moments where I felt the visuals could have been polished better. The fights and the action looked slick as hell and seemed to connect with me visually, but then they’d snap to some dudes standing around and I wondered when they were just going to be eaten. I mean, I liked most of the characters, but it’s hard to get behind them for the same reason as Game of Thrones, you never know when they’re just going to up and die. We reasonably know the main trifecta, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin won’t keel over any time soon, but all of the extras around them, they’re Titan fodder, to be expended to push the story along. I’m afraid things might continue to slip into the second half though. A lot of the action and fights happened in the first quarter or more of the manga, the next bits focus on the Recon Team activities outside the wall, so I’m concerned the pacing will continue to be an issue where they’re just going to waste a lot of time on needless things.

Yuyushiki
“Parasol~”
Yuyushiki was supposed to be about three girls in the Data Processing Club, and for the first few episodes, I thought it might just be about things they googled on the internet. Instead it ended up just being the quintessential Lucky Star or K-ON!, the something-about-nothing we all have come to love, or hate. I want to say that ironically, but in actuality, the show was rather good. It was a natural extention of Aiura, which was simply too short for its own good, and really, I tend to confused the shows for each other all season. My only complaint was not having enough Aikawa or Mom in the final episode beach scene, or in much of the show previously. It’s the kind of minimalistic feel in a show I appreciate, where writers and animators don’t go far out of their way to introduce crazy elements into something they shouldn’t and keep it flowing. If only we had more Acchi Kocchi.

Title: Yuyushiki
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 7

Favorite Character: Yui Ichii
Least Favorite Character: No one.

Photo Kano
“PHOTON CANNON”
I should have figured that a show where a guy gets a camera and starts snapping pictures of girls would turn into a harem show, but not the ULTIMATE HAREM ending, but a BEST GIRL ending. I really tried to watch the first few episodes, when it was setting everything up, but then when it got to being every episode, a different girl, a different ending, and a lack of exploring Stealth Uchida, made me just power-scan most of the episodes. Except Muroto, because GLASSES.

I understand the point of the show was to basically show a high school kid mackin’ it with the ladies and a camera, but it’s just so devoid of anything I can connect with. They all despise mop-hair and long-face snooping around taking pictures, but they accept SHINING KNIGHT WITH AN EOS REBEL or whatever taking lewd pictures of them because they want his 35mm up their vagoo. Does that make sense? I would have bought a much more realistic story where he wants to snap pictures of girls, but they make him work for it, and not just slut it up like they’ve forgotten what the last thirty years of social rights has done. Although this IS Japan and not America, the feminists and SJW folk would have a field day with this show, and rightfully so.

Title: Photo Kano
Sub Group I Watched: UTW
Episodes: 13
Rating (1-10): 5

Favorite Character: Aki Muroto
Least Favorite Character: Takashi Azuma (WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR FAAAAAAAACE?)

Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W
“Welp. That happened.”
I just want to revisit my initial statements about this show, for my own public shame:

I admit I did not like this show early on in the first season, but it started to grow on me as the episodes went by and in the end I rather liked it. Hopefully the second season continues to keep up the momentum and not fizzle out into just moe-mush or something-about-nothing.

Followed by:

I wasn’t that impressed with last year’s debut season, but it kinda grew on me towards the end, and by the end I quite liked it. I expect this season to pretty much ride the coattails, which is fine with me.

Shame indeed. This show simply did not lift-off into anything more than it already was, a pile of randomized harem-esque mush that spun around on itself for an entire season while pretending to be about something interesting. I pretty much kept skipping watching each week, but decided to man up and finish it in one sitting the other night. I will say though that once in awhile, an episode is actually semi-interesting and worth watching, and they’re usually the ones without much Nyaruko.

That catchy OP though, that was the kicker until the single was released.

Title: Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 5

Favorite Character: Luhy Jistone
Least Favorite Character: Hasta
Another season? I hope not.

Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru
“High School High”
I was ready to type a large introspective post on this show and how I felt about it, but after a couple paragraphs I realized it was less about the show and more about my goddamn middle/high school life and how much it sucked. I was playing into the trap, and I immediately set fire to that shit and waiting a couple days to now.

SNAFU in a nutshell tried way too hard to force deep introspection into supposed comedy. British comedy is known for being very subtle and indirect, they like to deadpan jokes and word pun things. American comedy has to pretty much be forced into your face, because Americans are rather slow and dimwitted. They need their jokes explained to them, and if they aren’t explained, they have to reference something else, especially something nostalgic or otherwise relevant to their interests. That’s why Family Guy is funny to everyone despite not being funny at all, because it’s less about actual jokes and more about HEY REMEMBER THE TIME I SHOT POOL WITH RONALD REAGAN WHILE SOME KIDS PLAYED PAC-MAN AT A MACHINE IN THE CORNER WITH MICHAEL JACKSON MUSIC PLAYING ON THE JUKEBOX? You laugh because you have this tangentially-related memory of that despite it not being anything nearly as cool as it once was. In SNAFU’s case, it tried to use Hachiman to force this whole DEEP character into a room full of other misfits and have them collectively solve cancer, only to realize they’re all socially awkward teenagers that are trying too hard for their socially-successful jock friends. In the end, when the jock pushes the nerd against the wall for calling his kind out on their bullshit, the whole “joke” comes about face, the point being, being an outcast means you shut your mouth. No one wants to hear your shit, and no one cares about how deep you think you are. So was this supposed to be srsbins anime, or a comedy? Was it supposed to be a romantic comedy? What did we watch?

In the end we watched a bunch of kids try to figure out how to deal with each other, and deal with each other badly without any real improvement for any of them. I quipped before in the previews for this show that it sounded like another take on Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, but TnK had characters that didn’t suck, and it drew the lines between comedy and srsbins fairly well. SNAFU was just poor and sloppy and reeked of Yoshimura’s AnoHana without a dead girl. Because when you need to add a pretty boy that makes the males hard gay and a “chunni” to cash in on that anime fad, you’re not doing characters right.

Title: Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru
Sub Group I Watched: Commie
Episodes: 13
Rating (1-10): 6

Favorite Character: Yui Yuigahama
Least Favorite Character: Hayato Hayama
Another season? I hope not.

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That’s about all I’ve got, the only three shows I have not reviewed are Aiura, which was short but sweet and doesn’t merit much of a review, Aku no Hana which I have not finished and will likely get its own post soon, and Arata Kangatari which I also haven’t finished, and although it’s not bad, I don’t really feel much like bothering with it. So with only one new show watched, Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou, as soon as I pull down more new stuff and watch, I’ll have a first episode impressions post out tomorrow or this weekend on the new season. Forward marching, goodby Spring.