Maybe next week I’ll use a different picture to go with this backlog
Guess it’s Week 3. Yes, my commitment to the cause continues. And yeah, my backlog got really bizarre this season: I’m now talking about Spring shows! Well, for this week only.
“But you said you was taking off the Spring Se–”
MWAHAHAHAHA! Well I technically lied!
…You’re about to see why I included “technically.”
Spring Shows I’m Watching
Ace of Diamond
Watched: 28 out of 52 episodes
Oh hey look, a show that aired last year that I’m talking about now! I’m probably one of 10 or so people watching it after it made it’s debut in the fall season, and so far, it’s been a mixed bag. It started out with some good energy, then it kind of got meh in the middle…which conversely, the standard training camp arc in every sports series happened! But after that was over, it got pretty awesome when it got to matches, and right now, the Akikawa-Seido game right now is pretty awesome. Then the recap episode took place. The recap episode would happen right when things get exciting. *Sigh* But so far, it’s a ok series. Nothing to get crazy about, but starting to get into that territory with these next couple episodes.
Yowapeda
They should probably consider doing a short OVA with her as the main ch– oh wait.
Watched: 28 out of 38 episodes
Oh hey look, another show that aired last year!…Something tells me you’re starting to catch my drift on what I meant when I said “technically”.
Anyways, Yowapeda’s in the same boat as Ace of Diamond, though thanks to having some kinda crazy characters and the recent couple of episodes, it’s gotten better. Not too much better though, because in the end, it’s still about cycling — and as the match Naruko and Jin against “the guy who named his abs” Izumida showed, there’s not going to be a lot of strategy showcased. Well, there will be at least something crazy happening, like Onoda passing 100 riders by biking near the edge. I guess that saves it for now, but it’s still kind of meh. But I guess it’s picking up.
Tonari no Seki-Kun
Watched: 17 out of 21 episodes
It’s gonna be hard to top this anime as one of the best shorts I’ve ever seen. The list of shorts I’ve seen: PoyoPoyo, Teekyu, Ishida to Asukara, Litchi Light Club (and as someone who didn’t really like the manga I actually liked this short), Wooser, and probably some others whose names I can’t remember. It’s literally 7 minutes of absolute goofing around in class, and it is absolutely hilarious. I will forever remember the exploits of Seki, Yokoi, and Sakurako because I can. If you’re not watching this short, I don’t know what to say other than you should go watch this short!
Nisekoi
Watched: 15 out of 20
…Time to be honest.
Nisekoi is pretty boring.
I think reading the manga has spoiled me. Or something. Yeah, so far they seem to be adapting straight from the material and I can’t say it’s nothing wrong with that, but…it’s way easier to actually like it reading pages apparently, because some of these episodes almost made me want to go to sleep. That’s not good. It looks great, that’s for sure, but maybe all these SHAFT tricks are getting to me. Or something. But I think I’ll just blame the material, which was good at best, but blow it up into anime form, and there’s nothing…literally nothing. Is it bad that Marika is the only thing that’s possibly saving this show right now, and she just appeared? Yeah, that can’t be good.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders
Watched: 4 out of ??
I’m only bringing Jojo up just to say two things: one, it’s been kinda weird in terms of pacing so far, and two, the music doesn’t stand out like it did in Part I and II. I guess it’ll get better as the series goes on? But aside from that, it’s still interesting and fun, but not exactly great. I hope that’s only just for now.
Hunter x Hunter
So this seriously happened in a battle to the death. Yeah. That happened.
Watched: 126 out of ??
So as I talked about Monday, Hunter x Hunter was a masterpiece episode. But I think what ultimately contributed to that, for me at least, and aside from the technical details that went into the episode, was 1) the entire arc just being awesome in of itself 2) the fact I had to catch up and not wait every week. In regards to 1, The Chimera Arc is easily my favorite arc in an action heavy anime series, much less an anime series in general. Needless to say, it was a major pick me up from the Greed Island Arc, which I found ok, but way disappointing compared to The Phantom Troupe arc. I don’t know what pills Togashi was on when he made this arc, but I do know that his story has allowed Madhouse to take a bunch of steroids and pump out episodes of high tension and some damn fine writing that makes me think less of a lot of other shounen series right now. I can only believe this has helped build the battle between Netero and The King, A.K.A Meruem, into what I thought it was.
2, on the other hand, helped even more. Since Madhouse was stalling this battle for weeks, I can only imagine how much waiting the people watching weekly were subjected to. But I didn’t have to worry about that. I just worried about whether Ikalgo would get out of his jam, Palm would actually be saved, and then how long it would take to actually worry about Pitou as she healed Gungi while Gon was…well let’s just say Gon’s on another planet right now. And then I got to the battle, which, while not necessarily that impressive of a battle, it was set up beautifully, and what actually takes place in the episode remains haunting and memorable.
I should consider watching this episode on a weekly basis. Probably before the next episode too. That’s how great it was. Let me repeat: GREAT.
WARNING: A NEW SPRING SHOW APPEARS!
….
….NO SERIOUSLY, IT’S NEW, HONEST!
…
….
….
Ok, it’s not really new:
Love Live Season 2
Watched: 3 out of ??
After I finished the show off last week, it only made sense to try and catch up to S2…which I’ve done! So far it’s still pretty good, with obviously Eri still being the best character in the show, the CGI not being horrible, and lots of energy. Though the school’s not being closed this time around, there’s a second Love Live competition. Of course the girls are going to enter. But thanks to the rules, this time they’ll have to deal with the top idol group, A-RISE. Will they be able to do it? What drama will take place in this show? And will Eri get over her fear of the dark? THESE QUESTIONS ANSWERED, EVERY MONDAY AT 2PM EST!
Mangaka-San to Assistant-San (The Comic Artist and His Assistants)
Watched: 4 out of 12
Let’s just say I had been following Hiroyuki, the creator of this series, for a while since his series Doujin Work hit US shores. Yes, the manga did. I had been reading this work, Mangaka-San to Assistant-San ever since, so of course I’d like this shameless work of a ridiculously exaggerated perv who happens to be a mangaka. I find it to be simple enough in style and wit, and worth a watch a week. The only real problem is that it’s 13 minutes, which, IMO, should not be the case. Yes they have skits, but it should be spread out each week. But I guess that’s just a smallish problem for me.
…Oh right, I didn’t mention this IS a new Spring show. So yes, I did take a flier on something in the spring. The thing is, I already knew about this many months ago and I actually read the manga series. So let me reveal the newest show I’m actually keeping up with:
Magica Wars
Watched: 4 out of 26
Admittedly, there are only three reasons I’m keeping up with this show: the first reason is Maggie raved about it, so I kept that show in the back of mind…then the second (and main) reason was it’s only 4 minutes long. After that, I looked at my Excel sheet with the shows I was watching (and yes, I’m using Excel. Don’t judge me) and saw that I had an open space, so I decided to catch up and watch this show too. And I am. And so far, it’s nothing really special, but nothing I can’t watch every week thanks to its length. It’s just a parody of magical girl shows. And it’s not too terrible.
…Now let’s get onto the backlog portion of the post. Because you know, that’s all that really matters! And well, the backlog this week got really bizarre.
Backlog shows
Detective Conan
Watched: 344 out of ??
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
I’m honestly including Conan this week for two reasons: the first, which I’ll probably try and talk about next week, involves The Black Organization. And it’s freaking long. I’m about to watch a 2.5 hour special! The last time I watched a two hour special of an anime was…the GTO 2012 Specials? And that’s a live action show! Well, the way it’s set up, we’re going to (possibly?) have things revealed about Jody, a teacher at Ran’s school, and her involvement with the Black Organization. Hopefully that’ll be exciting.
The other reason was this picture.
No comment.
Detective Conan Movies, Part 2
Yep, not quite done with Conan yet! See, I wasn’t actually ready or felt like watching the special yet, so I decided to go watch the movies. Finally, I found a Conan movie I don’t want to see again!
The Phantom of Baker Street: It’s not this one. This one basically had the feel of your standard virtual reality anime you’ve seen pop up recently (SAO, Log Horizon, etc), but this time we had kids going to lose their brains because one mad man I mean mad kid was mad and Conan went back into a century with his friends and where Jack the Ripper existed. Jack the Ripper dressed himself as a girl in this movie. You’ll have to imagine why he did that. But whatever the case, it was fun, involving, and interesting, especially with those elitist kids in there. Overall, it was a solid, fun movie that’s probably my third favorite Conan film.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Crossroad in The Ancient Capital: This however, takes the cake as my least favorite. It’s certainly not a trainwreck or terrible, but it is not interesting in the slightest. It should be interesting since it makes Heiji a bit of the star this time around, but I found myself being unable to care about the mystery. I think that’s because it involves history that I couldn’t care about. Well that and maybe I didn’t care about Heiji as much as I thought I did. So combine that with the ending (no, not what Conan did to take out the bad guy) that I thought was poor, some regrettable motorcycle scenes using CGI, and no real standouts in this movie, this is one Conan film I probably don’t want to see again for a long while.
Rating: 6 out of 10
From The New World
Watched: 15 out of 25
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
So yeah, the weirdest thing to appear while watching anime in my backlog was what took place in Episode 15 of From The New World. There’s clearly a lot going on, and it’s probably all important, but I forgot everything quickly when this popped up on the screen:
…Really A-1 Pictures? MSpaint? In an anime? You gotta be kidding me! I mean I know you guys have issues with scheduling and bad animation sometimes, but MSpaint? ARE YOU SERIOUS? How low is your budget?
…Apparently REALLY low:
You think blue makes it better, huh? Jerks.
There’s just nothing more I can say other than A-1 is a sham and has serious monetary control problems. Where’s your damn treasurer or account person, sheesh!
(On a more serious note, starting to not really care for From The New World from a story and character standpoint. It’s technically a step above a lot of anime I’ve seen so far, and there are some things I like a lot. But there’s enough to not like that makes me fear if I’m actually going to be impressed by it. I’m still waiting for it to get crazy good, and I think that moment might have passed. Also, aside from maybe a few tracks, the BGM’s pretty poor.)
Phi Brain
Watched: 5 out of 25
Rating: Just sell me on more stupid puzzles/10
The long journey of Phi Brain will consist of life or death puzzles, some bad buy who’s a real softie, and one of the most dangerous characters in anime history:
A trap.
The only shame is that I was supposed to start this last week, but that didn’t happen. But at least I’m getting to it now. I can only expect this to get even crazier and more idiotic as the show goes on.
Kimi to Boku
Watched: 5 out of 13
Rating: 7 out of 10
As expected, this is a more passive version of NichiBros. I.E, expect a lot of slow moving scenes and some random hijinks. Though I easily admit it’s great to actually see the eyes of all the girls in the show, so that’s gotta be bonus points right?
…Right? Well anyways, I expect this will get either even better or it’ll just flatline and stay where it’s at. I don’t expect it to get any worse.
So, onto the only show I actually completed last week. This is the challenge of watching shows with 24, 25 episode counts right now: it’s slow going. But I think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We’ll find out next week. So, onto the show I finished:
Completed
Sakarasou
Rating: 7 out of 10
Was prettttttyyyy certain after Ep 12 that I thought Sakurasou was going to do two things: either flatline and stay average or manage to get even worse than it could possibly be. Instead, it was quite ok, with the last few episodes even managing it to convince me to give it a 7.
First, the issues: with it’s desire in trying to promote its core theme (I’ll get to that later), it leaves a lot to be desired most of the time in terms of how the characters interact, and the actions taken, which is either silly or just not interesting. It then decides to do it’s best by trying to make you cry down the stretch. I guess this reminded me about Kanon (2006), and how KyoAni actually got me invested in what it did. Well, I did watch Kanon in high school, so maybe my tastes have changed drastically since then, especially with all of its carbon copycats out there, but in Sakarasou it feels pretty forced, and trying too hard to make the viewer cry and have feelings. But ultimately, some episodes feel like they shouldn’t be there, others probably could have been more interesting.
But in the end, there was some good with the show, particularly in its quest to promote: “it’s ok to fail.” Ok, that’s actually something I got from GTO 2012, but everyone essentially fails in this show, whether it’s Sorata getting his pitch rejected, Aoyama failing her audition, etc. But that doesn’t mean you have to quit. You’re still young enough to do what you ultimately love and want to do, so it’s best to keep trying. You can basically apply some of its lessons to other things in life, and I think it’s a good message to send. I don’t know if it needed this many episodes to express this, but for what it’s worth, it at least beat me over the head with that. That, and the last few episodes which I liked (I mean the plan to save Sakura Hall was pretty shrewd) was good enough to say this show is kinda memorable. Oh, and the fanservice kinda disappears in the second half. I won’t say you should watch it, but it’s on that shortlist of fanservice shows that’s tolerable.
Anyways, since I brought it up: what Spring shows are you watching? I’ll probably consider watching them when I finish my backlog. Feel free to let me know of them! Also, expect a poll next week.