Welp, this season was kind of a bust…
o:oo: Intro of course
2:00: Meitantei CONAN!!!
6:20: Don’t worry, I’ll get the name right eventually, honest!
9:35: Me just plain dissing Seiji Kishi
11:58: Wrap up
12:25: END
More Elaborate Thoughts
Yep, instead of mowing through my backlog like nothing was wrong, I instead didn’t finish a ton of the series I wanted to finish. So yeah, I’m not going to be watching much this Winter Anime Season until I get that done. I’m still continuing with some Fall stuff that I had to write impressions on (Kill la Kill, Yowapeda, Ace of Diamond), and I’ll probably check out Space Dandy, but that’s about it. I’m working on the Winter Compendium though. I apologize for the delay of that.
Anyways, enough of that. Let me get more in depth with some of the anime I did watch:
Watching: Detective Conan
Where I’m at: 170
Rating: 7/10
Ongoing Thoughts: I guess it’s not really a case of thinking that this series is super awesome and so good and everything, but more along the lines of, “Damn, I’ve seen it all, and I’m old to boot!” Well, I haven’t seen it all, both pertaining to anime and this anime in general, but in the end, the anime of Detective Conan is thoroughly mid-tier. In other words, good enough to get my attention because of the logic, the deductions, and the characters, but just repetitive and more or less just gets stale more often than not. Really, the formula never changes: wherever Conan happens to be at, a murder takes place, Conan gets to the bottom of it, finds out what elaborate trick is done, and reveals the murderer by putting Kogoro to sleep. There are changes in how it’s done — from us already knowing who the killer is to us having to figure it out — but it’s usually the same old, same old, and it manages to get tiring. There’s also not enough variety from murder cases to anything else (like kidnapping, mystery treasures, etc). And not nearly enough in shining light on the Organization that drugged Shinichi.
What I did like though as I watched the series was a few of the specials. There was a decent amount of them. I’d like to think my favorite was when Kaitou Kid made his Detective Conan debut…it managed to involve Ran in some form or fashion. But in this case, my weakness to crossovers continues, even if I had no real attachment to the Kaitou Kid franchise.
Finished: Persona 4
Where I left off: Episode 3
Where I started: Episode 3
Rating: 7.5/10
Overall, this was a pretty fun adaptation of a video game series. Of course you all know video games and anime are never a good combination, but somehow Seiji Kishi managed to get away with this for Persona 4, mostly because it was more light-hearted and comedic. There were its serious moments in the first half of the anime since everyone and their mother were getting Personas (YOU GET A PERSONA! AND YOU GET A PERSONA! EVERYONE GETS A PERSONA!), but it took some time to relish going through the motions. The best example were the summer episodes. Man, Yu had some fun during that time huh? Also, all the people with Persona’s going to a club and getting drunk was great. Rise was pretty much the best character right there. I blame Rie Kugimiya (the voice of Kagura from Gintama) for being too good while drunk. And also seeing Yu and Yukiko out of character was entertaining as heck.
But yeah, Persona 4′s not all that perfect. With it going for the humor angle for most of its run, any attempts at it being serious kind of washed all over me. So you can bet the last couple of episodes really didn’t impress me, especially when (WARNING, SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT) Yu’s cousin, Nanako, out of nowhere dies after getting taken away, and…was also able to come back too. I’m generally not a big fan of that when it happens, but for a series that mostly kept the laugh track up high, this was more jarring then actually anything good. So points taken off by that. (Spoilers END)
Otherwise, this was a nice series, and I can see why people liked it. Too bad I think this meant all the people in Japan hired Seiji Kishi because of this anime doing well. He hasn’t done much good since. (This also includes Humanity Has Declined). Seiji has officially been cursed by Persona 4.
So now I’m about to get started and watch Ben-To. I hope things get better from here.
