…Maybbee I won’t get all the anime finished by next week. My time management skills is lacking…
Anyways, I’m now inching closer and closer to finishing my on-hold backlog. It’s gotten so serious right now that I’ve temporarily dropped Detective Conan (or HEY, I put that on hold, but dropping sounds so negative, so let’s go with that). I’ve stopped reading a bunch of manga. ONLY THE ANIME BACKLOG TAKES PRECEDENCE RIGHT NOW!
I regret nothing. Anyways, onto what I dropped and what I finished that…is probably underrated or something.
Dropped
Shakugan no Shana
Shakugan no Shana is one of the anime series listed on the 50 Masterpieces of Anime article. In watching 14 episodes of the anime, I can see why: it’s basically the start of all the LN tropes and managed to be extremely popular. I can also see that I’m totally not the target audience for this. This is something for teens, that could have aired on Anime Unleashed (well probably not but in general, could’ve aired on TV for teens), and been pretty successful. Now…it’s aged. Considerably. It looks really poor in a lot of spots. The close-ups in the battles are awful and get redundant.
But of course, the main issue is the characters. Uggghhhhhhhhhhh–
Now, I love Rie Kugimiya in Gintama as Kagura, and she’s obviously done some work other than loli tsunderes (like Rise in Persona 4). But her voice could not be more annoying as it is as Shana, and her constantly repeating “Shut Up!” will haunt me in my dreams forever. Aside from Margery I’m not sure I cared about any of the characters (or the plot for that matter) after episode 5. I kept hoping against hope it’d do something interesting as I kept watching. I soon realized I was asking for too much. And I decided to finish the arc where two children kissed erotically and conclude my time with Shakugan no Shana.
Yes, two children kissed erotically. You wouldn’t believe how kissing was considered in that arc…
Anyways, I think I could see the appeal of this series back when it made its debut, especially since a lot of works take that sort of premise today. But it’s aged too poorly to ever be completely watchable at this stage. And I’ve heard nothing but poor things about Season 2 so…yeah.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Completed
Tamayura: Hitotose
Rating: 7 out of 10
When I watched Tamayura Hitotose many, many years ago, I thought it was a relaxing, calming show that wouldn’t be a bad watch every week, but when it aired in Fall 2011, I had other stuff that I wanted to watch ahead of it. Wasn’t gonna be super, but it was going to be worth my time.
So not surprisingly 3 years later, it’s well worth my time and it sucks it’s never been licensed.
Interested in a nice, relaxing anime where the main character Potte takes pictures on a camera that was once her dad’s (who, by the way, passed away)? Character interactions that are normal, sometimes funny, sometimes heartwarming, and somehow ends with everyone eating sweets? This is your anime. Ok, this anime is not for everyone since nothing remotely action like happens, and since comedy isn’t its overarching theme, you might be bored of it. But if you can tolerate all that, you can enjoy this anime. Just remember to watch the OVA first.
So you can, you know, see more reactions like this.
Natsuiro Kiseki
Rating: 7 out of 10
Well that’s sure appropriate
Almost similar story with Natsuiro Kiseki: Natsuiro aired in a season with Space Brothers, Kids on The Slope, Hyouka, and Tsuritama — and that’s just to name a few. In other words, I found some series more interesting than this, and decided to place it on hold. Some years later, it’s not like I regret the decision, but I found the story of these 4 girls fairly interesting, and I’m glad I didn’t drop it. It got pretty crazy at points (one character happened to turn invisible, there were character swaps, and Groundhog Day took place in the show. Groundhog Day!), and some characters were better than others (Saki, yes, Rinko, eehhhhh…she’s ok).
I think what held the show back (for me at least) was overall, the drama that took place where Saki was slated to move and the responses to that were a bit overdone. I didn’t feel any tension or whatnot, and while it was funny how they solved their problems, don’t think it was terribly involving. Still, I loved the visuals, and the characters were good enough for me. I’m glad I finished this.
Love, Chocolate, and Elections (or Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate)
I remember this show like it was yesterday. How could I, when one of the characters gets hit by a car? However, aside from that it was pretty boring, despite the addition of Yaoi Sticks. With mostly everyone hating on it, I decided that I was gonna watch it…and promptly forgot all about it. So instead, I placed it on hold.
Maybe time forgets all, because I really liked this sh0w.
On the surface, there’s definitely a lot of BS you have to overcome (I mean it’s based off an eroge, of course there’s some BS to overcome), but unlike other series of its ilk, it has an angle that’s refreshing — looking at it from a political perspective. The backstabbing, the agendas, etc, are interesting, and the characters are actually likable. It does suck that once again in an romance anime the first girl who sees the guy first ends up getting his affection in the end (which, in this case, wasn’t the worst thing, but I had a better preference), and some episodes manage to be weirder than others, but I personally resonated with most of what happened here, and hated when it ended. If you have some time, I definitely recommend you check this show out.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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Justin
Justin is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. Anime & manga fan that likes to blog about anime and manga, is addicted to sports, and weak to crossovers. You can follow Justin on Twitter @Kami_nomi.
Latest posts by Justin (see all)
- Justin’s Bizarre Anime Backlog Adventure, Week 13 - July 11, 2014
- Notes of GTO 2014 Episode 1 - July 10, 2014
- Date A Live Season 1 Review - July 10, 2014
- Summer Anime 2014: Aldnoah.Zero Impressions - July 9, 2014
- Reference Resource Mondays: Commenting - July 7, 2014
