I mean one of these days I’ll have a related pic to go with my post. But kicking someone in the stomach is hard to turn down
Next week I plan on having the 2013 Fall Anime Compendium go live. Assuming I feel like finally sitting down on my butt this weekend and doing the required research on all the new anime that’s airing. When I do finally get down to it, I expect to figure out what looks good from what available information’s out there, find either some artwork or trailers of said anime, and rank them as I see fit.
…Wait, ranking anime?
This is where I get to tell you why I do this (although you probably can tell by the title where I’m going with this). But to be honest, I probably wouldn’t be writing this post if Marow didn’t happen to come up with the subject himself. So of course I’ll start this post by using the two anime he singled out in how he was misled by its opening episodes and apply what I had expected of them.
Attack on Titan: As someone who had been buying the English releases of the manga, I of course was looking forward to Attack on Titan. But it’s competition at the time of when I did the Spring Compendium was pretty lacking (I mean lol Valvrave at #2 I guess I was smoking something heavy), and well, the first trailer (that’s since been removed from Youtube) did blow me away.
So naturally, I really was looking forward to the anime, and well, it’s first few episodes were almost adapted to a tee. But as I was blogging the show, I started to notice a few differences (which I believe was probably needed to pad time), from Eren’s unrelenting, shounen style speeches (in fact there was an anime original scene with that), to the fact that they switched the volume order (It went from Vol 1 to Vol 4 then back to Vol 1 then to Vol 2 and then Vol 3). It was slightly weird, but it worked for the most part. But I got tired of comparing the manga to the anime (sorry guys!), but in watching it just like that, it became more and more clear:
A) Studio Wit really needed to adapt something aside from AoT as their first anime (though maybe they’ll learn in the future) to get a sense of how to plan their production and schedule better.
B) The fast paced, intense experience (I mean, after Ep 4 where the Colossal Titan appeared, I was so hyped I went to my shelf, took Vol’s 2 and 3, and read the entire Trost arc again. That was probably a mistake) was missing due to its really lackluster pacing, lots and lots of stills as animation, and visual mistakes too (Eren’s Titan form carrying the boulder in Ep 14…I can’t wait until that’s fixed in the BD’s). It’s clear Wit was adapting something a bit beyond them, when they really could have done more to make the adaptation succeed.
…That being said, they have redeemed themselves a bit in its second half, and well, the best thing they’ve done is nailed the important parts of each episode. Surely, that recap break they took will help them finish this anime well?
Kiniro Mosaic: Well, based on Marow’s and the internet’s reaction now, it seems I called this ranking at 16 (which I re-ranked and it’s now 12th). I had low expectations of this series based on the premise, and who happened to be working on it. But still, I planned on checking it out, hoping for a surprise, and with its praise of Ep 1 by a number of people, I thought, “maybe it’ll defy my rankings!” And…no, not really. I thought it was ok, but nothing special. As it turned out, that entire episode was anime original, according to Marow. Well no wonder it seemed to get worse after that, since it started to adapt the actual manga. Apparently the manga must not be very good…or at best, this should have been a short, not a 22 minute series.
So, I ended up going into two shows with either great fervor or not expecting much. One disappointed. One was about as I expected. Now, with critiquing Marow’s choices out of the way…
The reason I came up with the ranking system is because I’ve literally grown up on ranking systems…in sports. If you’re not keeping track of me on Twitter, I’m a big sports fan. Generally, football, basketball, and baseball (but mostly football, and especially when my New York Giants are playing) tear me away from my anime and manga. Every single year, reporters and analysts rank the best to the worst teams in the league at the start of the season, for various reasons probably pertaining to generating hope (or site clicks, take your pick!), which can be false (Taking a look at the supposed dream team a few years ago, the Eagles), or can be a major surprise (a few years ago, the 49ers had been the worst team in the league, and came off of a bad season. All they did was hire a coach out of college, and they win 13 games. There weren’t many expectations of that team!). You never know what can happen to change the fortunes of a franchise, but with the right team, things can be turned around in a hurry.
This applies to anime for me. I had some high expectations for a few shows (Danganronpa & Day Break Illusion), but they let me down (Danganronpa in the worst way). I had shows I pegged as much ado of nothing (Love Lab, Watamote), and they’re one of the big surprises of the season. And I’ve had shows that lived up to what I expected and more (Hi Servant x Service and Silver Spoon). I know, I know, anime is a fickle thing, and usually a strong start might lessen the impact if it’s later episodes turn out to be terrible. But I like setting expectations for whatever I watch, and I hope that I’ll find some surprises, and deal with the disappointments by not beating around the bush. That means dropping it.
…I should probably go work on that Compendium at some point.
