I’m mostly caught up with shows I started this season save for a few that I don’t think are going to be very revolutionary (Koufuku Graffiti) and I am probably not even going to bother with (Juuou Mujin no Fafnir). I always try to hit the big ones each week so I am good on those, figure I can wax the rest in one shot in bed or something. Priorities!
But just to get some content in this week, here is a short post of thoughts on the current lot.
Aldnoah Zero
Log Horizon
I have to admit, the thought did not occur to me that they being stuck in the game could be an external event caused by aliens. It’s sort of like Star Trek The Next Generation’s “Ship in a Bottle” in the respect that they’ve basically trapped everyone within a game making them feel like it is the game when it is in fact a very accurate re-creation of the game with all of the same mechanics and feel to it. The clever use of Roe 2 was a nice touch. Knowing that, and knowing how many episodes remain, I feel like they’re setting up for a third season, because there are so many loose ends left and characters they touched on but never fleshed out, so ending it now would be kind of a dick move on their part. Looking back at the whole season, I don’t think I was as impressed as I was with the first. They spent a lot of time on the kids that I felt might’ve been better directed towards some of the other plot points. It’s a show that is made for introducing gaggles of characters, and it drowns out the current lot we’ve grown accustom to. Still a great show though.
Dog Days”
I can never get enough of this show, it emulates everything that was great about Nanoha StrikerS without the boring plot points of Nanoha StrikerS, with furry tails. This season has been mostly about battles with various forces of nature, and I quite liked the flashback story episode and the Star Whale arc. I had quipped before that I kind of wanted some of the grittier action and dialogue from the first season, as the second and third take more lighter tones, but they’ve seemed to respond to that mostly with more use of the Hero Stones. Can’t argue with that, at least as far as Nanami and Becky go.
Kantai Collection
Herr Nova has a better writeup of this show from an admiral’s perspective. I did try at one point to get an account in the game, but the whole rig-a-ma-roll to get one wound up being too much effort for me. So I get to be the outsider-friendly perspective for this show, and fortunately my observations pretty much line up the same. It’s a solid story for a show based on a game, on par with shows like Strike Witches and Sky Girls with better CG than Arpeggio. With as many characters, they could have very well given us “Saki on the Water” and just assaulted us with waves of shipgirls doing shipthings. For someone who does not play the game but has some familiarity with its premise, it’s a rare example of a great adaptation that compliments the source material rather than grossly over or underplaying its hand.
httpss://twitter.com/Boogie2988/status/581028536401563648
And that’s all we lieutenants will remember from it.
Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata
I made some ETHICS IN GAMES JOURNALISM jokes about this show’s first episode as the result of what I presume was a troll sub, but sadly, even with the correct subs, I could probably keep going on those jokes for a good spell. So to say it is probably INDIE GAMING: THE ANIME is not quite accurate, but very close. About the only appealing element to the show is Katou, with her deadpan expressions and humor that warms my sarcastic heart without the need for colored hair and manufactured outrage for complete strangers. It’s not as contemptible of a show as SNAFU was for me, but it’s not very good still.
Shinmai Maou no Testament
With DxD BorN returning next season, Shinmai feels more like an appetizer than the main dish, but of all the DxD-like shows, this one felt like a genuine attempt at good mozzarella sticks over the cheap frozen kind. What kills it is the censorship. I’m not sure if actual bits get shown, it seems more suggestive, but Japanese censorship guidelines are what they are. You’ll probably think I am some disgusting monster, but frankly, if nipples are part of the plot, they’re part of the plot. But I am a reasonable adult. I’ll take my lewd in the study. Sadly, the show plays as most generic hellraisers do, so this is one of those times where I am forced to admit that the male gaze is the only reason you’d probably watch this, because it’s doing nothing more than replaying all of the classic damsel in distress tropes in some of the cheesiest ways possible. Breaded string cheese is still breaded string cheese, after all.
Cross Ange
Or as I like to call it, “Fukuda Mitsuo’s Wild Ride” in what I presume is a primer to see how many people remember Gundam SEED and gauge interest in bringing that back. It’s surprisingly hard to tell what they’re going to do with this show, because when you think it will end with EVERYONE DIES in classic Sunrise style, it steps back and tries to be all cutesy like a cheesy romcom, which ends up so forced and contrived that you can’t tell its head from it’s dragon tail. Like Log Horizon, it also suffers from this ship in a bottle syndrome, where the only solution is killing Moriarty, which Ange can’t even do right, and ends up getting mind fucked so much they’ll need a trigger warning on the English release. It’s a trainwreck of a show I can’t stop watching. At least there is Battle Maid Momoka.
I am attempting to get to the rest of the list, I had Rolling Girls caught up and then fell behind again. So maybe another quick post tomorrow or Sunday. Saturday I get to go bust my legs for charity, because occasionally I pretend to care.
Full Disclosure: Without my home desktop on, I borrowed a couple screens from RandomC.net for this post. Doing my due diligence, because it’s actually about ethics in credit where credit is due.
