Four more premieres to cover out of this season, Dragonball Super, Chaos Dragon: Sekiryuu Senyaku, Akagami no Shirayuki-hime, and Non Non Biyori Repeat.
“Just Super Sayian”
2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the Dragonball franchise on television. Thirty years. I’m almost two years older than one of the oldest running franchises in anime history. Not a monumental feat, plenty of television has been on as long or longer than me, but it’s still amazing to me nonetheless.
This iteration of Japan’s most-popular shounen picks up after the Majin Buu saga and offers a brand-new story, as in, this isn’t a remaster, reboot, or any sort of “you’ve seen this before” gimmick. This is honest-to-god new Dragonball from Akira Toriyama and Toei Animation, as opposed to the quite bad GT that followed Z. Everyone you probably liked or cared about from Z and the movies returns, though I believe some of the movies will not be canon in this series, i.e Brolly and such.
I am not the biggest Dragonball fan anymore as I once was when I was super fucking chunni during the Toonami days, but as time progressed and I got to see more and more of the original Japanese version of Z and the movies, I developed a quiet appreciation for the franchise. It’s one of the few shounen shows I can stand to watch, even if it routinely wastes most of its time doing nothing of significance for twenty-five minutes. Just from the first episode, you can notice little details like facial gestures and subtle attempts to “moe-ify” Videl for the modern anime fan. But everything is still very classic Toei, and classic Dragonball. The weird humor, Goku’s passive disposition, Trunks and Goten hijinks, it’s a show that has an actual lightswitch for when it wants to go serious, and slack the fuck off. Hint: It’s the yellow hair.
First Rating: 8
Sub Group: DragonTeam
“Snow White: Medicine Woman”
I’m not sure why I missed the title of this show. I really should be aware by now that shirayuki is essentially “Snow White”. But even though apples and princes are involved here, it seems that this time, Snow White avoids the poisoned apple and winds up in the care of a second prince and his clumsy entourage. From the OP sequence at the end, I’m assuming she becomes part of his court as a White Mage. Or cleric, or Julian Bashir, or something. It looks pretty good animation-wise, and I quite like her character. So I am sufficiently interested. I’m noticing a second-cour announcement already for 2016, so I’ll be paying more attention to the pacing.
But really, I am sort of a sucker for red hair. That might be why I married my wife.
First Rating: 7
Sub Group: Horrible
“George RR Martin: The Anime”
It took quite awhile for this sub to release given this was actually the first show to premiere last week, but better late than never. This series is a tricky beast, it’s a show based on a light novel which is based on a tabletop game? Being a former tabletop gamer myself of the Dungeons and Dragons and Star Wars variety, I give them points for having a little more ingenuity than a typical light novel.
But the assumption at the end of the episode is that we’re going to see a lot of characters die, and how much emotional investment they’ll try to put in to them before axing them makes me wonder if we’re going down some Game of Thrones style path here. Nothing else really grabbed me about this show, there was too much noise and bluster happening for me to really make out what was happening. Definitely shuffling this one to the bottom of the stack.
First Rating: 6
Sub Group: Horrible
“Home on the Range”
It’s hard to imagine the first season to this aired in the Fall 2013 block, because it does not seem that long ago. Back then, my final review was sparse because there wasn’t much to drive home with the show, it’s super-simple fun:
There isn’t much to say about Non Non Biyori above what has been said before, so this will be brief also. It’s a quiet little show that quietly seeps into your brain and makes you feel warm inside for twenty minutes when you’d otherwise be reminding yourself that you live on this dust ball of a planet with six billion other pretentious little fuckers all wanting their own piece of the pie. Put that into perspective and smoke it.
But seriously though, that Hotarun.
I can’t really add much to that. It’s a show I enjoy because it exists.
First Rating: 7
Sub Group: Horrible
