I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it here, but I am a horrible week-to-week watcher. I’m more likely to start something, let it sit until the end of the season, get back to it, and then anxiously wait for the last couple episodes, or skip the process altogether and just marathon the show once it’s all done. Well, the time has finally come to make an honest stab at fixing that and actually trying to keep up with some weekly shows! The plan is to pick a genre to focus on each season and then watch and write a bit about the shows that fall into it.
This season, the lucky genre is….romance! In general, I have a soft spot for romance series because I started out with them and used to exclusively only read and watch them. Thankfully I’ve since grown up and realized that there’s a lot of great stuff outside it, though I still tend to pay a bit more attention to romantically inclined shows. Anyways, the shows I’ll be trying to “survive” this season are Blue Spring Ride, Love Stage!!, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, and Invaders of the Rokujyouma!?. Since the focus of this column isn’t dissecting each episode, most of the time posts will probably just be short run-downs of what I thought, as well as which one I enjoyed the most. As is always the case, please feel free to share any thoughts in the comments since I’d love to talk to you all! So, without further ado, here we go!
1. Love Stage!!
You know, before I watched anything this season, I figured that either Blue Spring Ride or Nozaki-kun would be sitting in this spot. Though I didn’t exactly drop Blue Spring Ride’s manga with the fondest feelings, I really liked the majority of what I read and figured the anime would be pretty alright as well. As for Nozaki-kun, I had heard good things about the manga and the synopsis seemed like something I would like. Well, as it turns out, Nozaki-kun was pretty darn great, and Blue Spring Ride was a bit of a bust. Love Stage!! though, the one show I was pretty much expecting nothing from, came out and surprised me with how much I enjoyed it.
Truth be told, a lot of why I liked Love Stage!! can be summed up with “It’s adorable.” Though I eventually came to sympathize with Izumi’s problem of wanting (and failing) to have a different door of opportunity open up for him, the guy’s just funny to watch. He can’t draw for crap, his reactions to being told so are golden, and his mess-ups during the commercial shoots were silly and hilarious. Ryouma was pretty okay himself, but Izumi is the one who sold me on this first episode. For all the gushy fluff that made me so happy with this episode, though, I do have some strong doubts that Love Stage!! will keep it up. For one, most BL anime aren’t all that amazing, and, to top it off, after looking back at Love Stage!!’s manga, I can’t say I’m all that crazy about how it decided to handle the romance. Regardless, Love Stage!!’s initial episode really surprised me by how much I enjoyed it, and I can only hope that it goes against all odds and continues to make me gush and “d’aww”.
2. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun
For the record, Nozaki-kun was a close second to Love Stage!! and, in terms of consistency, I’m sure that it’ll manage outshine it’s competitors in the long run. The only reason it’s in second versus first is purely based on the fact that Love Stage!! worked for me a bit more which is probably just a reflection my poor taste than anything else. Haha…
Anyways, I really enjoyed Nozaki-kun‘s first episode. Truth be told, I highly doubt the romance will get anywhere significant by the end of the show, but I don’t care all that much. The thing with Nozaki-kun is that it’s not trying to be like Ao Haru Ride or any number of other shoujo in the sense that the focus of the series is seeing the guy and girl get together after x amount of trials and tribulations. If anything it’s content to eventually get there but rather likes to focus on the hijinks of characters. Said hijinks, though, are pretty darn great, with my favorite being the bike ride. As for the characters, Chiyo and Nozaki are extremely likable. Nozaki’s a bit slow, but Chiyo is a real gem. She’s not an idiot. Despite having all her romantic scenarios go south, she takes it all in stride. Not to mention, she has some pretty golden reactions. If the rest of the main cast is as instantly likable as these two, I can’t wait to have them pop up. All in all, Nozaki-kun has a really strong opening episode, and I am definitely looking forward to more.
Since I’ve already written about my feelings regarding Blue Spring Ride‘s first episode, I won’t spend a lot of time on it here. In short, I’m not exactly thrilled, but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Futaba and the budding relationship between her and Kou do have potential to be enjoyable to watch, as long as the shoujo penchant for dumb drama and cliches doesn’t get in their way too much. I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll definitely be sticking this one out to the end and hopefully it only gets better.
4. Invaders of the Rokujyouma!?
I’ll just come out and say it: I didn’t really like Rokujyouma. It wasn’t particularly horrible or anything, but I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I was bored for the majority of the episode, and I kinda doubt that’ll change in the future. None of the characters really clicked with me, especially the girls. Koutarou was alright, and I guess I’m a bit curious to see if I’m right about the knitting thing, but beyond that, I’m not really anxious to find out anything more. The one thing that I probably enjoyed the most was the running joke about the magical girl being a cosplayer. I thought that was pretty funny. Though I’ll give the show a couple more episodes to see if it clicks and I misjudged it, in a season that’s shaping up to have a number of more instantly likable shows, I’m not sure if I wanna waste the time on this one.
The following two tabs change content below.- Bio
- Latest Posts
AnimeEmily
I'm a shy, lazy, easily impressed person who loves anime and manga. I've been seriously watching since about the summer of the sixth grade and have been in love since. I'm pretty much an amateur when it comes to anime and am somewhat still in that starry-eyed phase, but as I continue to watch more, I have become more critical, I suppose one could say.
Latest posts by AnimeEmily (see all)
- Emily’s Attempt To Survive The Summer Romance Anime, Week 1 - July 14, 2014
- Summer Anime 2014: Blue Spring Ride Impressions From Emily, Ben, and Manjiorin - July 10, 2014
- Let Me Out (Live Action) Review - July 9, 2014
- Summer Anime 2014: Akame ga KILL! Impressions - July 8, 2014
- Summer Anime 2014: Barakamon Impressions - July 7, 2014
