This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Yeah, I know. Just ganbarre till Fall 2014 hits. I’m sure Japan’s saving the year’s best for last.
~Table of Contents~
Excellent (9-10/10)
Love Stage!!
Animation Production: J.C. Staff (Index, Golden Time, Kill Me Baby)
Manga: http://www.batoto.net/read/_/98403/love-stage_v1_ch1_by_september-scanlations/2
It’s essentially Bakuman, if Bakuman were done by competent mangaka. Here’s the plot breakdown:
Jackwald Hammersmarm is an aspiring manga artist, but he just can’t seem to catch a break.
But then he meets Ichijou Ryouma,
who is so impressed by what he sees that he decides to assist Jackwald in his quest.
…with varying results.
But mostly they just suck each other’s dicks.
If you’re fujoshi, forget Free. This is the show you wanna keep an eye a finger on this season. And if you aren’t fujoshi, the same applies to you. Only a soulless monster could hate something with so much love and/or exclamation marking.
Sailor Moon and the Crystal Reboot
Animation Production: Toei Animation (Digimon Fusion, Dragon Ball GT, Majin Bone)
Manga: http://www.mangahere.co/manga/sailor_moon/v01/c001/3.html
I can’t think of any other series that will revitalize and inspire innovation in the stagnant anime industry than a pointedly faithful adaptation of a manga from over 20 years ago.
If it does really well, I bet there’ll be a remake of Madoka in 10 years that we can legitimately get hyped for. Damn it’s good being an anime fan these days.
Good-ish (7-8/10)
Glasslip
Animation Production: P.A. Works (Hanasaku Iroha, Nagi no Asukara, Red Girl)
Manga: N/A.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juPQwBlXQWU
Tohko Fukami is your ordinary kawaii, genki-ditz P.A. Works protagonist, with one key difference: she has a monstrous hairlip that causes people around her to treat her cruelly. Luckily, an old glassworker befriends her, and crafts her a pair of glass lips, which help convince everyone around her to treat her kindly, because now she’s like them.
But at a surprising point in the school year, a handsome-yet-bland transfer student joins her class and rudely comments on the hairlip that he can somehow see! Turns out he has the power to see through glass. What a twist.
Aldnoah.Zero
Animation Production: I dunno. Some racist studio, judging by that all-white cast.
Manga: N/A
The only thing I know about this show is that there’s people and they clean robots or something.
Mehdiocre/Okay (5-6/10)
Momo Kyun Sword
Animation Production: Project No.9 (Ro-Kyu-Bu!, Recently My Sister is Unusual), Tri-Slash (Nothing)
Manga: N/A.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZiqLKa2oY
This is apparently an alternate retelling of James and the Giant Peach, except now James is a woman.
The only notable thing here is that the blushes on the girls’ breasts look like nipples, which means you’re not gonna be able to get off to the series in public. That’s pretty much all that’s keeping it below excellent-tier, since the girls look pretty damn healthy.
Rail Wars!
Animation Production: Passione (For Animation Production, they’ve only done Haitai Nanafa. Yeah, I dunno what that is either.)
Manga: N/A
I’m fairly convinced this show was only created to keep people who are actually interested in trains off the streets.
From a public safety standpoint, I give the series a 10, but from an entertainment perspective, it looks to be about a 1. As a compromise, we’ll throw it in this tier.
If you think Ghost in the Shell is deep, you’ll love the shit out of these series-tier (0-4/10)
Bakumatsu Rock
Animation Production: Studio Deen (Wasimo, Pupa, Meganebu!)
Manga: N/A.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QIrrVwfSfg
So how good’s this gonna be? Well, it’s set in the past (maybe), in Japan (presumably), and it’s done by Studio Deen (definitely).
Tokyo Ghoul
Animation Production: Pierrot (Bleach and Naruto)
Manga: http://www.batoto.net/read/_/67864/tokyo-ghoul_v1_ch1_by_lazy-ass-scans
“What if Aku no Hana had zombies?” thought some idiot.
Not even zombies could save this wankfest. Let’s pretend my one-shot edit is all this ever was and move on with our lives.
Ao Haru Ride
Animation Production: Production I.G. (They did IGPX, and… that’s about all that’s worth noting.)
Manga: http://www.batoto.net/read/_/22289/ao-haru-ride_v1_by_bikkuri/5
Someone needs to introduce this bitch’s face to some prominent fist bones. This page exemplifies everything that’s wrong with shoujo manga: a milquetoast protagonist who finds worth in herself only by being some dumbass’s cumcontainer.
Unlike the other series in this preview, where I read at least two volumes (if they were translated) to come to my objectively perfect analysis, Ao Haru Ride received a premature drop when this scene popped up, 12 pages into the first chapter.
Sucks to be you, Planned Parenthood. I just saved myself a $20 copay.
Puri Para
Animation Production: The people who did the other Pretty Rhythms. You know, the shows you never watched.
Manga: N/A
Eh, it’s no Precure.
Aww yeah. Now that’s the good stuff.
Nobunaga Concerto
Animation Production: Hasn’t been announced yet. And based on the PV, I don’t think any company’s gonna want to claim responsibility for this one.
Manga: http://www.batoto.net/read/_/245052/nobunaga-kyousoukyoku_v1_ch1_by_habanero-scans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdX8wp9E5dk
Forgetting the QUALITY of the animation, why the fuck would anyone animate a show with writing as terrible as this?
I know not everyone can be as good at writering as me, but goddamn. Surely Japan has some better options than this.
No Psyren.
No Tokage no Ou. (Fuck you, I legitimately liked it.)
Instead, we get this:
Choke on octopus dick, Japan.
Summary
Read the table of contents. Part 2 when it comes.
10/10 – 10 taste (¬‿¬)
>sfx: blush
Lost it there.
damn
“Production I.G. (They did IGPX, and… that’s about all that’s worth noting.)”
I think you may be rusing me, D_S.
IGPX was so good you don’t even
That Rail Wars seems pretty interesting.
The tits caught my attention too. Let’s keep our fingers crossed the trailer lives up to that hype.
Dang I thought I was the only one that liked Psyren.
You and me are literally the only ones who enjoyed it. Great taste is a rarity. :(
Count me in. I managed to scavenge manga volumes of it even in this otaku hellhole.
Dark_Sage we still love, even with your shittaste <3
*greattaste
Jinsei? Negative tier?
This is part one, look at the title.
While I fully understand that he posted Part 1/2 at the top, D_S hasn’t completed his spring 2014 outline, which makes me wary about how – or if – he will finish this.
Is stuff that is not rated so far, such as Gochūmon wa Usagi Desu ka? and Jinsei, implied in the negative tier? I don’t know how it is possible to have a second part, unless everything is implied to be pure garbage in his eyes.
What are you talking about?
Spring part 1:
http://www.crymore.net/2014/04/03/spring-2014-anime-previewganza-part-12/
Spring part 2:
http://www.crymore.net/2014/04/08/spring-2014-anime-previewganza-part-22/
Here’s Gochūmon wa Usagi Desu ka?’s placement:
http://www.crymore.net/2014/04/08/spring-2014-anime-previewganza-part-22/#shit
Hey…there it is! :)))))
Sorry…I never saw it in the RSS feed…I must have missed it when I was cleaning out my feeds from when I was at the beach. I just thought it didn’t exist…it isn’t tagged under the Anime Preview tag…and I just thought the Spring 2014 tag would have the reviews along with part 1.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Hairy. Sorry again!
Oh, I forgot the tag? My bad. I do try to keep those accurate. Looks like I gotta update some posts tonight. Making sure Koku’s are good to go may just kill me though.
All right, preview tags fixed. Jesus, I didn’t quite realize how much of the tagging system was broken. Guess I’ll have to work on this iteratively, cuz devoting a night to it is not gonna happen.
I think you’re being a little unfair to Ao Haru Ride, because from the writeup I’ve read, the whole crux of the story is that her ‘love’ disappears and then reappears under a new name later. I have my fingers crossed that her development might end up like Nana… but then, this is shoujo, so she’ll probably end up with a million guys hanging off her every word and sigh. It does have potential though from the basis and Production I.G is a good studio, so it’ll probably be worth checking out, at the very least.
A new name and a personality transplant, in fact! I haven’t read the manga though, so I’m only going on a wing and a prayer~
Love Stage will win the season with just ep1.
Honestly believed the summary for Glasshairlip until I watched the PV. It actually sounded so interesting and now I’m disappointed ;___; D_S be a mangaka please.
Ao Haru Ride isn’t nearly as good as most shoujo fans say it is… I think I’m at chapter 25 and absolutely nothing has happened.
King of fansubs, idol, best boy, and now mangaka? Jenny, I think you overestimate the number of hours in a day.
Of course, it’s a shoujo. Nothing’s meant to happen in shoujo manga o.O
That’s not true! It’s just really boring even compared to other shoujo like there wasn’t any love pentagons or poisoned bento boxes or attempted double suicides or traffic accidents. No date sabotaging even. How are people supposed to stay interested? O______o
What shoujo series have you been reading/watching? :o
I’ll have you know there are lots of great romantic moments in shoujo manga. Just Ao Haru Ride is either really slow and hasn’t kicked in yet or (and it’s probs this one) it’ll always be shit tier.
I don’t remember much about Sailor Moon from my childhood… has Sailor Venus always used anal beads as a weapon? (1:07 in the video)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that when she showed up in the video.
I don’t remember her having a weapon at all in the original show. Don’t remember how it was in the manga.
Wow… This shit went so depressive i had to clear my conscious with some old school vodka shots.
Out of boredom i’ve read thru couple chapters about that wanker dude and fucking thought “dis shit not that bad!”
I think this site is like a parasite, slowly corrupting my brain.
Same, I started and finished it in like 2-3 hours. It’s a surprisingly well-written manga o_o.
There is also an epilogue in a light-novel version. You can see the translated version of it if you look around.
>Glasslip picture, red writing
I spent a moment there puzzling over what I thought was something about a red string of fate and “Ash uterus,” which struck me as somewhat odd but not outside the realm of possibility for anime. I’m mildly disappointed that it appears to have just been “airaburabu u” after all and no ash uteruses are likely to be featured.
+1 on Love Stage!!
Let’s hope that J.C. Staff won’t fuck it up.
>J.C. Staff
>expecting something great for adaptations
>Yes-this-is-wallpaper-quality.jpg
You know me so well, Sage.
The “aishterus” glasslip picture made me laugh really hard. hehe thanks for that Dark_Sage. Awaiting your preview for free S2. it better be 10/10. ~
Free S2 preview when I get my art. :<
You just can’t rush genius.
I marathoned through Love Life like there was no tomorrow.
If it hadn’t been for you, I might have never checked out the anime. Looks like you’re not completely useless after all. <3
I think you overrated Bakumatsu Rock.
It seems Hanekawa has found another prey in Tokyo Ghoul.