This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
As the “cute girls doing cute things” epidemic rages unchecked across Japan’s TV screens, those of us with me-tier taste will have to bide our time until anime gets good again. There are a few decent hold-overs this season, though.
Excellent
Yuri Kuma Arashi
Animation Production: Silver Link (Watamote, Baka to Test, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya)
Manga: http://bato.to/read/_/234008/yuri-kuma-arashi_ch1_by_anonymous
Light Novel: N/A
Girls saying “Gao~” would be enough. Girls going clam diving would be enough. A comedy about the mentally ill would be enough suffice. But some goddamn Japanese genius thought to combine all three into the perfect storm of lesbians and bears. I’m dripping just thinking about it (and yes, I’m taking pills for that, thanks for asking).
Even if this were the only show airing this season, I’d say Japan’s on the upswing. Also, read the manga I linked. There’s only one chapter out, but it will explain why I’m all moe’d up for this shit.
Rolling Girls
Animation Production: Wit Studio (Attack on Titan, Hozuki no Waps Only, Hal)
Manga: N/A
Light Novel: N/A
Oh my otakami. Remember how good Maken-ki was before episode 2? You don’t? Well, that’s on you then. Point is, that PV was hype enough to make me forget about how thought-corroding Hozuki no Reitetsu was, and that usually takes about 6 shots.
Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love!
Animation Production: Diomedea (Mondaiji-tachi, Squid Girl, Akuma no Riddle)
Manga: N/A
Light Novel: N/A
It’s a magical boys anime — a mahou shounen.
Ladies, put a blanket down.
Men, sack up and watch along — nobody’s too straight for this shit. You can’t tell me you watched Madoka and wouldn’t give this a shot.
Good-ish
Koufuku Graffiti (Gourmet Girl Graffiti)
Animation Production: Shaft (-monogatari, Nisekoi, Madoka)
Manga: N/A
Light Novel: N/A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5FQC0Xdg0
If Shaft could make even Nisekoi temporarily entertaining, I have high hopes for their impending contributions to the gokkun community.
Yoru no Yatterman
Animation Production: Tatsunoko Production (Ping Pong, Sket Dance, Gatchaman Crowds)
Manga: N/A
Light Novel: N/A
There ain’t enough material out there to really come to a conclusion on this yet. But I almost liked Gatchaman Crowds, so the Tatsunoko pedigree is there.
I’m feeling bullish enough about this one to call it Good-ish. And if I’m wrong, none of you will know, cuz you weren’t going to watch it no matter what I said.
Death Parade
Animation Production: Madhouse (Btooom!, Chihayafuru, Monster)
Manga: N/A
Light Novel: N/A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnbXzE6CA68
I liked the original OVA… as an OVA. But now that they’re trying to expand it into a full-length series, I need to be careful I don’t get too hyped by the potential.
What we have here is a death game set up in a format where the participants are limited to 2 people (I assume there will be a game or two where this is different, but for now, this is the premise we’ve been presented). Over the course of an episode, shit’ll happen and judgments will be dealt.
My main concern is that Madhouse will be too ham-fisted with each episode’s “moral” that it’ll feel like a lecture in a high school philosophy class. But if they can restrain themselves, I think we’ll have something special. …So you can see why I might be a little less than hopeful about the prospects. My heart can’t take much more breaking.
But I mean, even if it sucks, it’ll be worth a watch. So, watch it.
Meh
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom)
Animation Production: Lerche (Carnival Phantasm, Danganronpa, Hamtaro S2)
Manga: http://bato.to/read/_/111917/assassination-classroom_ch1_by_utopia/2
Light Novel: N/A
I’m not sure how manga can get any more paint-by-numbers than this. Some unconventional teacher comes into a troubled classroom and solves the problems of the kids in unconventional ways. Assassination Classroom isn’t a parody or deconstruction; it’s just a low-effort rehash of pretty much every classroom comedy that came before it.
If it weren’t aimed at middle schoolers, the series might have shown promise. But as-is, the best you can hope for is inoffensive mediocrity.
Kantai Collection
Animation Production: Diomedea (Campione!, Nogizaka Haruka, Mondaiji-tachi)
Light Novel: N/A
Hear that emasculating music? See the light-hearted moe uguu scenes that indicate the primary antagonist will be a hairclip that constantly goes missing? Diomedea ain’t even attempting to hide their contempt for their audience.
Assuming KanColle takes the Rage of Bahamut route and creates something worth watching, I’ll… hmm… I’ll apologize for my the mistake. But as I haven’t apologized for anything in my life, I’m pretty confident in saying this show will suck.
Bad
Sengoku Musou
Animation Production: Tezuka Productions (Phoenix, Mokke), TYO Animations (Tamayura, Wolf Girl & Black Prince, Ginga e Kickoff)
Manga: Sengoku Basara probably has a manga. Read that instead.
Light Novel: N/A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-EZc4sWnjE
Musou games may be my jam, but the concept of yet another Sengoku Period anime rubs me like a rapist. Especially one based off a franchise that has nothing going for it but gameplay.
Junketsu no Maria (Maria the Virgin Witch)
Animation Production: Production I.G (“Deep” shit like Ghost in the Shell, Eden of the East, and, yes, FLCL)
Manga: http://bato.to/read/_/82162/junketsu-no-maria_v1_ch1_by_fly-by-night
Light Novel: N/A
If you value your eyes, I suggest that you avoid the manga I linked. Ignoring the god-awful art, it has some weird religious thing going on where you can’t tell if the author is a radical Japanese Christian or a militant atheist. Whatever he is, he’s not a credit to his cause.
The basic gist is that there’s this witch girl called Maria and she’s a virgin. She hates the ongoing war between the Brits and the Frogs, so she has her incubus and succubus fuck their commanders to the point they’re too tired to command their armies. Also, did I mention that she’s a virgin? Because the manga reminds you like every goddamn page.
Yes, this looks to be a loose adaptation, where they take all the controversial bits out and bring it back to the t&a core, but damned if I’m not bitter enough about the manga to boycott jerking off to the anime. I may have low standards, but a man’s gotta draw the line somewhere!
Summary
Excellent
- Yuri Kuma Arashi
- Rolling Girls
- Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love!
Good-ish
- Koufuku Graffiti
- Yoru no Yatterman
- Death Parade
Meh
- Assassination Classroom
- Kantai Collection
Worse than off-brand lube
- Sengoku Musou
- Junketsu no Maria
>mahou shounen
What a time to be alive.
Yeah, Bouei-bu Love! has been looking like it could be fun.
Add bishounen and shota to that mahou-shounen bunch.
I’m pre-ordering the first 3 volumes of Kantai Collection this Friday. Kantai Collection is my favorite series of all times! How dare you put it in the “meh” section! You despicable human being!
>Kancolle
>meh
It looks pretty damn shit. People only hyping it because of the game.
or the super cute girls
cause i like cute girls
pls go
pls don’t insult my botes
Ah finally. I was starting to worry that I wasn’t going to be able to confirm your shit taste this season (especially as you liked Death Billiards and now Parade), but it looks like Junketsu no Maria has afforded me that opportunity.
Junketsu no Maria is from the same guy who did Moyashimon and looking at that first chapter, it actually seems to have a lot going on. It basically uses the life of Joan of Arc as a sounding board to create a medieval world in which witches are real and somewhat pissed off that Christians keep burning them at the stake. All the virgin comments are an allusion to how the Christian religion of that period in particular prized virginal women, so her wanting to lose her virginity as quickly as possible is symbolic. It’s almost a coming of age drama, but with witches and religious satire.
And did I mention that she turns owls into dragons/basilisks? Why wouldn’t you want to watch this show? It sure beats cute girls sitting in a room all episode doing cute things :/
Cute girls doing cute things = best shows. Nothing can beat that.
I could tell it was from the guy who did Moyashimon almost immediately, because of how ass it was.
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to argue. A lot of manga have themes, and Junketsu is no exception. So? Tell me what you liked about it and we can go from there.
For the dragon thing… she only does it to shock armies into ceasing combat. Because, like, violence is bad, T T. What motivation.
Pfft, Moyashimon is great. And sure, lots of manga has ‘themes’, but how many are set in medieval France with a witch as a main character (which a lot of people were burnt at the stake for supposedly being around that period)? Puts a whole new spin on the mahou shoujo trope, wouldn’t you say? I only read a little bit of what you linked to, but the religious side of things is set up as being multi-faceted, using Greek myths and highlighting certain contradictions within Catholicism. I don’t know quite how cutting it will be, but it definitely sounds like a more interesting concept than lesbian bears >.>
You’re saying you can’t have a good manga/anime about a peacemaker? :S
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I don’t think it puts a spin on anything. Hell, it’s not even a mahou shoujo series. If you wanna defend something, how about you actually read it, not just act like what you’ve extrapolated from a few pages has any bearing on the literature as a whole.
If you wanna talk inventive, lesbian bears is done (script and direction) by the guy responsible for Utena, Penguindrum, Nodame Cantabile, and a large part of Sailor Moon. While I’m not as huge a fan of those as the “le intellectual” otaku seem to be, I can at least acknowledge that they were a lot more inventive than a series extolling the virtues of pacifism (Japanese “philosophy” sure is great) while showcasing a main female character that has little more value than a blow-up doll.
Okay, perhaps not mahou shoujo in the strictest sense, but cute girl with magical powers? Ticks a few boxes, at least. Just without the transformations which are a staple of the genre :D
I’ll probably watch rather than read it *all*, but I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I’m not sure what you’ve got against pacifism though – especially considering she seems to come up against a lot of resistance to her views from all angles. Would you rather it extolled the “virtues” of jingoism? :/
Admittedly, I’ve judged the bears on the title more than anything – there isn’t much else to go on at the moment, considering the anime is apparently going to have a different storyline to the manga, and adapting a script isn’t the same as having good source material (the mangaka doesn’t seem to have any other titles of note that have made it into anime form previously), so I’ll suspend judgement on that until I’ve watched the series – if I do >.>
It’s more that I’m tired of it. I’d rather have new ideas in anime than the same poorly hashed out bullshit we’re fed over and over.
What exactly is the “religious satire” supposed to be? The manga and the anime have such a revisionsit, strawman view of the medieval church that it’s difficult to credit it with making any cognizant point.
Witches in the middle ages were usually just crazy old women who did drugs out in the forest and who were barely tolerated. it wasn’t until much later and in protestant countries that “witch burning” really took off.
I also though Maria’s reference to Joan of Arc was too crude and insulting to be seen as anything more than a bad joke.
Too bad Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love! isn’t a parody but a straight up fujoshi show.
Also, Rolling Girls looks just like Sekai Seifuku – Bouryaku no Zvezda, which was ok so that’s nice.
I’m not interested in it because I thought it was a parody. I’m interested in it because fuck yeah mahou shounen.
Binantoolongtitle is being directed by the guy who did Daily Lives of Highschool Boys, Gintama and Ixion Saga DT. No way it’s not going to be a parody.
Hidamari Sketch has always been done by Shaft (Shinbo even directed all of them), not Diomedea.
That is true. They’ve done Prod Assistance on Hidamari before, but that’s not exactly what I was trying to show here. Updated.
me-tier? Don’t you mean meh-tier? Haha, I’m so funny.
;_;
It looks like Shinbo just play safe with Koufuku Graffiti, based on zero amount of HeadTilt in that PV…
Anyway, Any words for Foodgasm Wars, D_S?
Your sense of anime is pretty bad…
Ansatsu kyoushitsu (assassination classroom) has many meaningful messages especially for students and teachers. Even though it has strange story nor the cover on its manga, you don’t have to judge the author’s drawing. And for your information, the author is pretty genius too in making this manga/anime. You just didn’t see it, or in other words, you are just underestimating it. This manga/anime has a message like “you have looked down on your enemy or everybody, and now you deserve it the most”
Lots of series have “meaningful messages”. What matters is their ability to convey them in an entertaining manner. Ansatsu Kyoushitsu never manages that.