Starry Sky Loop

Winter 2013 - 1/8

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 23:39:14 -0700

Psycho-pass certainly had the potential to surpass Ghost in the Shell, it ultimately did not. Despite that it was still an excellent anime, in a type of setting we do not see enough of: film noir dystopia. (Akane was still moe). (7.1/10)

By far the best of the season with a good chance at best of the year is Shinsekai Yori. It is probably one of the most realistic explorations of: “What if humans could alter their environment through thought alone?”. Superbly executed in most aspects. There were only two issues: occasionally poor animation, and the story could have been tighter. (7.6/10)

Suisei no Gargantia - 1&2

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:37:30 -0700

You could actually make a laser go through glass (focal point), except you’d need some insane optics to do it, and there should not be a way to get people to disintegrate like that…but for once, none of this bothers me. The rest of the show is very interesting, and this scene in particular is basically the definition of “shock and awe”. I am really looking forward to how the locals react to this. Watching.

Winter 2013 - 2/8

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:02:47 -0700

(Two of those 8 rated episodes? They both feature Kanna.) Tamako Market was the best slice of life this season. All of the characters were likable if a bit shallow and the animation was the usual Kyoani awesomeness. (6.8/10)

This season of AKB0048 is definitely more about idol glorification, than the questioning first season. It still has plenty of ridiculous SciFi. And even though the ending was a complete mess, it still was extremely exciting. It can’t help but be awesome when so many plot threads are tied together like that. I really hope there will be a “AKB0048: Final Stage”. (7.0/10)

Railgun 2 - 1

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:59:40 -0700

(warning: Railgun manga spoilers).

I really hope they were just messing around in the OP. The best part of this fight in the manga was that Misaka DID NOT let her friends get involved, it was just Misaka powering through high level espers one after the other and getting totally drained doing it. Watching.

Winter 2013 - 3/8

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 20:35:51 -0700

During the arc where Hibito was in serious trouble on the moon, Space Brothers was the show I looked forward to the most every week. If every arc was like that, then this show would easily be one of the best of the year. Too bad most of the other arcs are immensely boring and about characters I don’t care about. (still airing)

Zetsuen no Tempest’s ending did not live up to expectations, this was certainly not a Shakespearean tragedy. Yet the ride to that end was pretty awesome. Who would think that three people dramatically speculating at each other in front of a barrel for three episodes would be as awesome as this series made it! (6.41/10)

Aiura - 1

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 20:32:47 -0700

Is that supposed to be Steve Jobs doing a Gendo pose to the phrase “Think Crabbing”? Is this seemingly slice of life comedy show trolling me?

Winter 2013 - 4/8

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:07:49 -0700

Probably the best season of Minami-ke since the first one. I actually laughed quite a bit (especially any scene with either Hosaka or Hayami). We got lots of Hosaka being Hosaka, a sequel to the curry song, and more “wheat juice”. (5.92/10)

Kotoura-san easily had the best first episode of the season. The creators could have made something great by focusing on Kotoura slowly becoming a normal person. Yet what we got was instant heal, plus 10 episodes of mediocre rom-com. (6.16/10)

Valvrave - 1

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:31:37 -0700

A few things bothered me about this episode:

That “dyson sphere” is way way far too small. Like multiple orders of a magnitude. Lets make a super low estimate, lets say that only 60% of this sphere is habitable and they built it at 1/2 the orbit of Mercury (forgetting that it would be far to hot at that orbit) give us about ~6.7E15 km^2…..which is ~13 million Earths….
Those little fighter ship things travel to the surface of the sphere far to quickly, as in they practically need FTL to get there that quickly…
They killed the best character :(

At least the scenery is amazing.

Winter 2013 - 5/8

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:10:19 -0700

What happens when you start with nearly the same setting and goals as Spice and Wolf (an amazing anime), and then try to do 2 seasons of content in fits and bursts across 12 episodes? A mess called Maoyuu. Which inexplicably includes truly amazing soundtrack. (5.83/10) (10/10 for the awesomesause ost).

The creators of Magi chose to end the season in the worst possible way: an anime only ending. This was especially baffling considering they announced a sequel and there is plenty of material. It is too bad because Magi had lots of likable characters and a very unique setting for anime. (5.92/10)

Winter 2013 - 6/8

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:04:47 -0700

Another entry into the friendship-power filled tech-magical girl genre along with Symphogear and Strike Witches (which I could never bring myself to watch…). Vividred was also kinda hard to watch for the same reasons as SW, but seeing as Symphogear was so bad it’s good, I gave this a chance. And it was a fun watch despite having little else going for it. (5.66/10)

Talk about imploding. Robotics;Notes has one of the worst endings I have seen in years. They built up tons of interesting plots and stuff only to throw it away by ending with a villain who has no motivation and can be talked into defeat. (5.72/10)

Shingeki no Kyojin - 1

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:58:38 -0700

Amazing setting along with some very high production values (all dat scenery porn). Yet they had to make this like a shitty shounen by making the kids exceptionally annoying. The yellow haired kid was the worst, asking “why are people not more afraid of the titans breaking in” literally minutes before such an event! That is just bad writing. Don’t talk about an event before it happens like that from a character who reasonably should not have such expectations. Just make it happen! Setup the world and at the end reveal that titans are breaking in now without warning/premonition.

Winter 2013 - 7/8

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 23:46:57 -0700

Season 3 of Bakuman is probably the best season of the whole series. They were actually able to capture some of the magic of the original manga. It helped that there were quite a few Hiramaru + Aoki scenes. (5.28/10)

Shaft is back to being Shaft. Sasami-san is full of intriguing ideas but ultimately is crushed by its own randomness. For example, the arc with Sasami’s mother touched on lots of intresting Shinto stuff, but ended with some nonsensical time travel garbage that resolved everything magically. (5.33/10)

Winter 2013 - 8/8

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:54:00 -0700

I ended up following 16(!!) series this winter season. This is the most I have ever followed at once. Since there are so many I am going to split the posts into two series each, spread out over a couple weeks. Starting from the bottom:

Little Busters was just hard to watch at times. Every single character was shallow, making the drama mostly cringe-worthy. I will say that the ending was not bad and Kud’s arc was decent (they actually tried to develop her character). (4.88/10)

A low rated slice of life? What is going on here? The problem with Yama no Susume is that we never got a chance to know the characters very well. The episodes were far too short. (5.25/10)

Sakura-con

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:43:08 -0700

This is my third year going to Sakura-con. I would say that this year was the weakest of the three. For two reasons: it seems like there were fewer guests this year than last, and there were not as many panels that interested me. The good things: the Directors panel was pretty awesome (though surprisingly empty) and Name that anime tune was fun. The AMV contest was great too, the best part was how the organizers called Ileia after she won with the whole audience listening in.

Makino Kanna pixiv dump

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:07:30 -0800

I had to do this after watching Tamako Market ep 6. Kanna is the best!

Citations: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Top 9 of 2012

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:54:37 -0800

9. Joshiraku - Even though I only got a couple of the language jokes, I am perfectly content to enjoy cute girls just talking to each other. Also, that ED is horribly infectious! (6.3/10)

8. Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai - Despite ending in a rushed over dramatic mess, Chuunibyou had some good characters and the usual epic KyotoAni animation. (6.4/10)

7. Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou - A well timed parody of the “cute girls doing cute things” genre. Nichibros was a surprisingly realistic and hilarious look into the life of high school boys (and the not-so-cute girls around them). (6.7/10)

6. Thermae Romae - The very best comedies are the ones which go beyond just comedy and touch something larger. Thermae Romae put modern Japan under the lens of ancient Rome all the while being completely hilarious. One of the best modern examples of content over production value. (6.7/10)

5. Natsu-iro Kiseki - Bog standard slice of life made better with a little magical realism. It has very similar setup to Kokoro Connect, but is not bogged down by excessive drama. (6.9/10)

4. AKB0048 - Taking a ridiculous premise seriously and exploring it in the way of the best SciFi (while still being ridiculous) is what makes AKB0048 special. (7.0/10)

3. Hyouka - Hyouka (especially ep1) set a new bar in TV animation. Went on to establish excellent characters. And even threw in the best depiction of a school festival in anime. (7.1/10)

2. Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita - The first anime to make it on to my best of the year list 21 minutes into the first episode. Ends up mostly incoherent, but is full of so many moments of awesome that it is hard to rate poorly. (7.2/10)

1. Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb - Normally an anime like Natsu-iro would be the top SOL of the year. Not this year, this year saw something special. Now I am stuck trying to figure out of Hidamari or Aria should be my favorite SOL anime. (7.8/10)

Fall 2012 final graph, from best to worst. It is surprisingly...

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:18:58 -0800

Fall 2012 final graph, from best to worst.

It is surprisingly hard to write the top 10 post of the year, so this post is just the graphs. Notes:

I hate how completely vapid every single character in Little Busters is. I can only keep watching this show by not thinking about how the characters work at all.
Very few of the shows I watched last season ended, just 3 out of 11! That gives me way too much to watch this season…
Hidamari Sketch completely stole my heart. If these reviews were objective, Hidamari would be nowhere near #1, but there it is. Including my #1 episode of the year: Hidamari Ep 7.

12 moments 2012: #1 Occasionally above average

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 07:41:03 -0800

Yuno in Hidamari Sketch has always been established as an “average” character (at least from the Yamabuki art program perspective). This was made very clear in Hoshimittsu where she failed one test (did poorly on multiple others) and even her art was rated only average. Luckily, the last episode I watched in my marathon of Hidamari was Honeycomb episode 7. The episode where Yuno’s cover is chosen for the school festival. This episode was easily the best episode I watched all year. I don’t think I would rate it the best under any other context. The way I watched it at the end of a marathon really changed the experience.

12 moments 2012: #2 37 episodes

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:53:10 -0800

The number of episodes it took for Mutta to become an astronaut. Space brothers could have easily been one of the best shows of the year for me. If only it was faster paced. At this rate this better be a 150+ episode series. The worst part of this pacing is that it ruins the suspense. It was obvious that Mutta is going to make it from like episode 4. Of course when the moment does come they still pulled it off extremely well, even without any suspense, by this point we know so much about Mutta, and we have invested so much into the show.

12 moments 2012: #3 Drowning in moe

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 19:59:19 -0800

I am still addicted to /r/awwnime. I have viewed nearly every single front page post to that reddit since May (good thing this is still very doable, unlike many other reddits). The community has been growing and becoming more active over that time too. They are even starting to hold some interesting events.