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Last season I saw a rather depressing number of people saying something along the lines of “I didn’t expect anything from Silver Spoon and was really surprised when it turned out to be excellent”. Then again, if you pick your shows based on pictures on seasonal charts alone, how were you supposed to know it was a best-selling manga by the same author who wrote Full Metal Alchemist? The picture just shows some guy with glasses and a cow. Even if you looked at the staff, the name ‘Hiromu Arakawa’ won’t necessarily jump out to everyone as being significant. With all the information out there, how would you know which name was important?
Why, by reading the World Famous [citation needed] Cart Driver Anime Season Preview of course! Share it with all your friends and maybe they too will be equipped with vital knowledge going into the new anime season. Hopefully this time I will be able to save a few people saying “I was totally surprised by Golden Time because I expected nothing from that” when their favourite anime is Toradora.
TV Series
Coppelion
Coppelion is a combination of Japan’s two favourite things: Schoolgirls and the post-apocalypse. It was originally supposed to air in 2011, but something about a plot in which an earthquake caused a nuclear power point to meltdown resulting in Tokyo becoming a barren radioactive wasteland hit a little too close to reality at that specific time. I’m generally against self-censorship for the sake of public decency, but delaying 2 years seems to be to be the right way to handle something delicate like this. The plot, as such, concerns biologically engineered schoolgirls who go into Tokyo to rescue people. Why they chose schoolgirls is a little beyond me, probably because I’m not Japanese and therefore don’t understand the mystical power behind the schoolgirl. I need to read Short Cuts a few more times I guess.
They haven’t announced the staff yet, but judging by the filters and swooping camera angles in the trailer, I assume this is GoHands. They’ve previously done Mardock Scramble and K, two anime I wish I liked more than I do. They’re just a little too stupid even for me. I’m sure GoHands have a great anime in them somewhere that’s not quite that stupid, but given Coppelion is about super powered biologically engineered schoolgirls fighting in a radioactive Tokyo, I’m hazarding a guess that their fine tradition of incredibly stupid anime will continue.
Samurai Flamenco
Noitamina is back in force! This year has been a bit of a wash for them. Not because their anime were bad, but because there only was one, Silver Spoon. Which is still a good show, but was already a known property. Not some untranslated award-winning josei manga adaptation by auteur director. Just a bog-standard A1 Pictures adaptation of an already popular manga by the Full Metal Alchemist author. Now we’ve got 2 big ambitious anime original titles. At least one of these two have to be good, right? This won’t be another Guilty Crown/Black Rock Shooter combo, right?
Samurai Flamenco is a super sentai series with a really vague plot description, so it’s hard to tell much about it thus far. It does have Takahiro Omori directing. He was the guy who directed most of Brains Base’s early titles before they started to suck around 2011. Durarara, Baccano, Princess Jellyfish and Natsume are all him. He also did Hell Girl and Koi Kaze, two pretty highly regarded titles. I’m delighted to see him back, especially since he’s finally doing something that’s not another bloody Natsume sequel. First time I’ve seen him do something anime original, which is exciting. The series composition is handled by the author of Kamichu, although he is more recently known for writing the script for OreImo. Possibly the strangest part of all this is it’s being animated by Manglobe. Manglobe used to be really ambitious, going from Samurai Champloo to Ergo Proxy to Michiko to Hatchin, but then they made Sacred Blacksmith and basically have sucked ever since then. Suddenly now they’re back with a big ambitious 2 cours anime. I hope this works out for them because I’d like old Manglobe back.
Galilei Donna
I’ve just realised all you new kids might not have heard of Noitamina if you’ve only got into anime in the past year, so let’s do a little refresh course. Noitamina is a late-night TV timeslot that started in 2005 with the aim of offering anime targeted at people other than young men. This mostly meant adaptations of manga targeted at adult women. Noitamina doesn’t actually make the anime themselves, they’re just part of the production committee and bring on very specific titles that fit their target. The anime from Noitamina was a list of fantastic show to fantastic show. Honey and Clover, Paradise Kiss, Nodame Cantabile, Moyashimon, Mononoke, Eden of the East, Tatami Galaxy, Jellyfish Princess. It consistently got the highest viewing figures for late-night TV, which is where almost all anime air in Japan. However this wasn’t making them quite enough money, so come 2011 we suddenly got Fractale, Ano Hana, Guilty Crown, Black Rock Shooter, stuff that just didn’t belong and was targeted at the young adult male audience. However it still got stuff like Bunny Drop, Kids on the Slope and Wandering Son, so the target demographic has expanded to basically everyone. Nowadays Noitamina is more a slot where the bigger, more ambitious original anime or award winning manga adaptations are put with a guarantee that they’ll get a slightly bigger audience than just the same otaku crowd.
Right, history of Noitamina out of the way, finally time to talk Galilei Donna. Interesting to note the contrast in character design between the two Noitamina shows. One is bishies in uniform. The other has moe girls from the character designer of Sword Art Online. As I said, now Noitamina is happy to target both genders. The plot description for Galilei Donna sounds more interesting to me than Samurai Flamenco, albeit that’s partly because I don’t really like superhero stuff much. Galilei is about a trio of sister’s on international most-wanted lists. The creator is the guy who made Kite and Mezzo Forte, neither of which I’ve seen, but get really varied reviews. That varied review part tends to be whether people watched the censored version (dramatic gritty stories about revenge and guns) or the uncensored version (dramatic gritty stories about revenge and guns that also happens to have graphic pornographic scenes). I wonder if this means Noitamina will have some graphic sex at last? The furthest they’ve gone graphically was Takizawa Akira waving his Johnny around in Eden of the East.
Golden Time
Golden Time is based off a light novel NO WAIT COME BACK by the author of Toradora. A lot of people liked Toradora and this looks like that except it’s set in college and doesn’t feature a tsundere, both of which are big pluses. I feel like the traditional tsundere as popularised by Asuka Langley, Naru Narusegwa and Shana is slowly dying out, and that’s probably a good thing. I’ve been burned on them since around 2010. I wonder what happened in 2010…oh right, OreImo. Maybe it’s not that tsunderes are dying out so much as I avoid the anime that proudly boasts it has a tsundere inside.
The director for Golden Time is Chiaki Kon, who started her directing career making a bit of a splash with Higurashi but since then did the huge mess that was Umineko, those creepy rapey BL anime like Junjou Romantica and Sekai-ichi, and the Nodame Cantabile sequels. Those are the most damning because there’s a real noticeable drop in quality from the first season of Nodame to the sequels. She does have the screenwriter from the Key/KyoAni shows alongside her though, so I guess if you liked the aggressive melodrama of Toradora then teaming that up with the scriptwriter from those Key shows seems like a perfect match. I’ll admit my interest in this is near zero. I wasn’t too keen on Toradora, despise melodrama in general, and to top everything off it’s being animated by JC Staff whose anime I have been happily ignoring for the past 2-ish years and have no intention of stopping for this. Chances are that if you like Toradora or stuff like Clannad, you will probably like this too.
Yowamushi Pedal
Sports anime seem to be primarily targeted and consumed by ladies. One of the anime with the biggest fangirl following in Japan in recent years was Kuroko Plays With His Balls, which was a pretty by-the-numbers basketball show. On some level it makes sense. Men getting really sweaty and angry together with plenty of opportunity for changing room scenes and male bonding. But if that’s the case, why don’t more women watch pro-wrestling? Those men only wear tight black speedos and are frequently just hugging each other. Yowamushi Pedal has the character designed from Big Windup, another sports anime with a massive female following, so I expect this show to get a similar level of following. Manga seems to have a bit more to it than your usual generic sports show. Director has been around forever, mostly as an animator. He did work on stuff like Akira and Ghibli movies, although his last outing as a director was the pretty awful Zetman. The scriptwriter paired with him writes for stuff like Aria and K-ON though, which is an odd mix. I’m not hugely excited by the staff list, but for sports anime this definitely looks like the pick of the season. It has the most exploitable looking main character all ready to be the Oomie or Sucky or whatever those BL terms are.
Kill La Kill
The totally obvious instant classic of the season. By the same team who made Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, except this time not at Gainax. Hiroyuki Imaishi and co left Gainax after they made Panty and Stocking to set up studio Trigger. So far all Trigger have done are dumb barely animated youtube series like Inferno Cop and Turning Girls, and Little Witch Academia, that single episode Anime Mirai short that’s now getting more thanks to non-Japanese fans. This is their first proper anime and they’ve been selling it as having their hearts and souls poured into it. Full of hand-drawn animation and delicious old-style Gainax animation now that Gainax has nobody left there to do Gainax-style animation. The actual plot sounds super vague at the moment, with nothing more than schoolgirls fighting in the post-apocalypse. Again. Despite me predicting this to be an instant classic, I’m trying not to get too worked up. With Imaishi running the show, I’m a little worried he’ll have nobody steering his creative process to make Kill la Kill work properly. But it’s Trigger’s first proper anime. I need to see this.
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova
This is new for me. An anime adaptation of a manga I’ve actually read. Arpeggio of Blue Steel is about humanity being trapped on land by a race of sentient battleships which have human forms. The explanation behind this is long and complicated, but all you need to know is 1) cute girls and 2) giant battleships. While I’m pretty stoked to see an adaptation, I have to remember that the main reason I’m stoked is I believe an anime could really fix some of my issues with the manga. Make the battles easier to follow, the characterisation more consistent, start the story at the actual beginning instead of halfway through. So who do we bring on board to fix this manga? Why none other than Seiji Kishi and his wonderful team who did Devil Survivor 2 and Danganronpa! Well fuck, so much for those dreams.
What’s probably more interesting is the anime is going to be entirely in CG. The general anime fan reaction to CG has been, to sum up in one word, “eurgh”. With good reason, most CG in anime looks god awful, especially when they try to do character animation. Blue Steel is being done by Sanzigen, one of the few studios who are making some real ground with CG. They did the CG segments for Black Rock Shooter and animated that fantastic looking 009 RE Cyborg movie. Cyborg 009 had some of the old CG issues with collision detection so regular scenes of characters picking up a phone or something still looked a bit odd. It made up for that with some of the most mind-blowing action scenes, such as one where the main character jumped from missile to missile in mid-air. Some people see CG animation as treading on their traditional style, but given Arpeggio exists in the same season Kill la Kill does, I think we’re safe. We live in a world where both can exist and that is a happy world indeed.
BlazBlue: Alter Memory
Look, I get it. You love fighting games. You love anime. Blazblue is a fighting game with anime characters in it with anime-tastic personalities. The mechanics of the game itself may indeed be solid and entertaining. That does not mean the story itself is good. Video game stories are nearly universally terrible, and that’s for games where the story is a central focus. That’s not the case for a fighting game, which is just a measly framework with hastily cobbled together excuses to get characters to punch each other in the face. The fact that the studio animating this is are Hoods, the guys responsible for Quasar of Stigmata (the breast milk one) and Manyu Hikenchou (the breast mutilation one) should give you an idea of what sort of quality level we’re aiming for here. The director’s previous works have been H2O Footprints in the Sand and Higurashi Kira, the god-awful spinoff that no right-thinking fan of Higurashi acknowledges existing. It’s cool to like the BlazBlue games, but don’t mistake that for the story of those games being anything other than utter rubbish.
Log Horizon
Log Horizon is based off a light novel NO WAIT COME BACK about a video game in which real human beings were sucked into NO WAIT COME BACK with the source material being written by the same author who wrote Maoyuu Maou Yuusha NO WAIT COME BACK oh no everyone left. You know, I do think there was a good anime in Maoyuu. Shame it was animated by the same guys who did Queens Blade and Ikkitousen. The director on this was the director of Fairy Tail, so he’s finally free after working on that anime for so many years. He hasn’t done much outside of that, apart from some hentai. I’m sure not all stories about people being in a game world are as terrible as Sword Art Online and Accel World, but it will take a bit longer for those scars to heal. I’m not ready for Log Horizon. It’s not you, it’s me.
Gingitsune
Diomedea usually just do really trashy anime. Their lineup consists of stuff like Campione, Nogizaku Haruka and Lotte’s Toy. You know, that one about the 11 year old girl drinking semen. The one anime they did that can stand up in respectable company is Invasion Squid Girl. Imagine that, an anime about a girl whose hair is made out of tentacles by the studio who did an anime about an 11 year old girl drinking semen turns out to be totally harmless and could be shown at 10 in the morning to little children. I bring this up because Gingitsune looks like the second anime they’ve ever done that won’t get you arrested for showing it to children. It’s about an old shrine and messengers and gods and stuff. It’s rather s’life focused with a focus on old-timey spirits from Japanese folklore and the like. It seems harmless, certainly not much to get excited about. However so was Invasion Squid Girl, and I kinda dug Squid Girl, so it’s worth a shot.
Strike the Blood
Based on a light novel NO WAIT COME BACK by the same author who wrote Dantalian and Asura Cryin’ NO WAIT COME BACK actually you could probably leave, this isn’t very exciting. I read a bit of the manga adaptation and the first chapter had a girl get her skirt flipped by some punks, then turn to the main character yelling “PERVERT” and hitting him because he happened to be standing in the same vicinity as she was when her underwear was on show. It’s being animated by Silver Link, for whom adapt these sorts of light novel titles accurately. In other words, they’re all crap (all right they did Watamote, but Watamote exists in some weird parallel dimension and I am hereby not considering it as reliable reference material for season previews). The director hasn’t done any directing before. He did work on End of Evangelion, but I think his job there was to get Hideki Anno his tea. The writer is a guy I know pretty well though. Hiroyuki Yoshino, otherwise known as the worst script-writer working in anime today, responsible for the second half of Gundam Seed Destiny and Guilty Crown. In summary: Don’t watch this.
Pupa
Let’s talk about incest. A serious discussion now, put on your glasses so you look scholarly. I don’t have a problem with it as a story theme. Actually I don’t have too much problem with it in real life either. I wouldn’t do it, and it’s pretty weird, but if two consenting siblings want to fuck then who are we to stop them. The problem with anime is it’s treated like some regular fetish. It’s an incredibly lazy way to create a love interest that requires no effort on the part of the bland male lead to get to know to girl. Pupa has incestuous siblings as its lead two characters, but this came about from years of abusive parents so they grew abnormally attached to each other. It’s depicted as part of their slightly demented psyches.
Also cannibalism. Yeah. Pupa is a horror story about incest, abusive parents, horrifying monsters and cannibalism. Reviews are a bit varied, with people hesitating to call it good, but you can certainly tell it left an impact on them. It is unfortunately being animated by Studio Deen, although Deen have been improving their animation quality lately. The director has been around forever, working on things like Urusei Yatsura and Kimigure Orange Road. His most recent directing job was House of Five Leaves, which I know a lot of people liked. It’s worth checking out if you like horror. Pupa is probably the closest we’ll get to a Saya no Uta adaptation.
Beyond the Boundary
The latest KyoAni joint, guys who did…do I really need to outline what KyoAni have done? Fine, they did Haruhi Suzumiya, K-ON, Clannad, Hyouka, Free, Chuunibyou and so on. There’s something comforting about doing previews for KyoAni titles. While studios like Sunrise and A-1 have different staff for every anime, KyoAni always bring along the same people for every show with similar results every time. Another thing that’s nice and reliable about KyoAni is I won’t like it. Beyond the Boundary is based off a light novel and sounds awfully similar to the set up for the Monogatari series. Teenage protagonist with half-monster body that can regenerate wounds meets teenage girl in school who is falling/about to fall and then they go meet other supernatural oddities. Problem is it lacks Nisioisin’s writing and Shaft’s bizarre animation style, the two things that make the Monogatari series stand out from every other light novel adaptation ever. KyoAni’s animation may be of high quality, but compared to what Shaft managed with a teeny budget, handful of still frames, and an overly imaginative architect, KyoAni stuff looks boring as hell. But don’t mind me, I’m sure you lot will love this. I’ll continue stewing in my anti-KyoAni corner and throw paper aeroplanes at you losers.
Kyousougiga
Kyousogiga was originally a one episode thing released on the web by a bunch of the Toei folks who make Precure. It was a load of beautifully animated, highly original, colourful nonsense. I guess Japan must have liked it, or at the very least the evil kingpins that run Toei must have liked it. It got another 5 episode web release thing that I never ended up watching so I can’t tell you much about that. Now we finally have a proper TV series, so no more dealing with webrip quality. We can finally watch proper high quality illegally ripped Kyousogiga. Huzzah for us. Supposedly this one will do some recapping of what appeared in the previous episodes, so it might be newbie friendly? Or it might be that recap at the start of the new Rozen Maiden that was utterly baffling even to people who have watched the series 10 times already. Then again, Kyousogiga has always been baffling. I really hope a TV series would have the time to fully explore the characters and concepts that were on show in that web release. It seemed like a genuinely interesting anime that didn’t have enough time to tell its story. I think there is a great anime in here. This is their chance.
Walkure Romanze
Ah the good old visual novel, with your fuck-all-the-heroine storylines and personality-less main characters. Seems like your crown as reliable provider of each season’s most terrible anime has been overtaken by light novel adaptations recently. Even your female-targeted brethren has been encroaching on your Worst Anime Ever territory. Time for you to reclaim your title with some properly bad anime. Actually if this was something other than a visual novel, I would be totally down for it. It’s hot women doing jousting, like a genderswapped Knights Tale. Looking at the trailer I see a huge problem. The women are wearing totally the wrong armour. If you are a woman with large breasts, your chest armour should protrude outwards from the centre of your chest and slope back to either side of your body. This way the weight of the lance will be deflected to the sides of your body when it hits you. If the armour moulds itself around each individual breast, the weight from the lance impact would instead be directed right into the centre of your chest, cracking your ribcage, piercing your lungs and leaving you instantly dead. Due to this technical inaccuracy, I cannot watch Walkure Romanze.
Nagi no Asukara
In a post on Eccentric Family, I helpfully explained why that show was completely different from any other anime by PA Works. It had an entirely different staff with source material from the author of Tatami Galaxy. Nagi no Asukara, on the other hand, has the director of Red Data Girl, bland character designs that look like their skin was varnished, and an original story by Cart Driver Favourite Mari Okada. I’m sure Okada is a perfectly nice person in real life and I would quite like to have a drink with her and discuss how awesome Aquarion EVOL is, but she can’t write drama to save her life. Which would be fine if she was brought into a sillier anime like EVOL, but due to the popularity of stuff like Ano Hana, she will keep bring brought in to write more terrible drama. So just like the drama in Hanasaku Iroha, Black Rock Shooter, Fractale and many more, the drama in Nagi no Asukara will be terrible.
Ace of Diamond
If you’re going to watch a sports anime this season, I’d recommend that cycling anime from earlier. Ace of Diamond is animated by the seemingly godly combo of Production IG and Madhouse and the director did stuff like Chi’s Sweet Home, Kobato and Polar Bear Cafe, but that doesn’t matter if the source material isn’t strong. The cycling manga had a little something to it. Ace of Diamond felt super generic with irritating shounen protagonist and everyone yells all the time. We haven’t seen any trailer or even how the animation is going to look so you never know. It might have the most original art style and the best animation ever. But I feel safe in betting against Ace of Diamond.
I Wanna Be the Strongest in the World
I’m surprised they haven’t made more anime about female pro wrestlers. Or about pro wrestling in general, considering even the male version involves sweaty men in speedos hugging each other. Having the animation studio behind Queens Blade and Ikkitousen behind this adaptation should give you a good idea of the kind of show this will be. I suggest not watching this. If you are turned on by female wrestlers, I highly recommend ignoring this softcore wrestling porno and instead read Ring X Mama. Because if you’re going to watch a wrestling anime because you like the girls, it might as well be one where they all fuck.
My Mental Multiple-Choice Power Is Completely Ruining My School Romantic Comedy
A wild Light Novel adaptation has appeared. Wild Light Novel adaptation used teenage girl with helium-induced voice drops from sky onto bland loser male lead. It’s not very effective. Scamp used every light novel from the past 10 years with similar sounding premises being terrible with a gradual slope downwards in quality over time to even worse. It’s super effective. Wild light novel adaptation held on using the Monogatari series. Wild light novel adaptation used director of Rosario to Vampire and Baby Princess. But nothing happened. Scamp used complete indifference. Wild light novel title fainted.
I’m just going to call the ones that can be instantly ignored “light novel trash” from here on.
Outbreak Company
Light novel trash.
Unbreakable Machine-Doll
Light novel tra-actually I’m just going to break this one down a bit further, because I know there will be people out there who will try to say “no seriously this is actually good I read the source material”. I read the source material too. It’s about a puppet girl that keeps wanting to fuck her master. They then go to magical high school where the main character acquires a harem of girls including the posh ojou-sama, the tsundere, yada yada you know the drill. The director has mostly only done porn and a bunch of Queen’s Blade sequels so yeah just porn. So to repeat: Light novel trash.
Tokyo Ravens
Light novel tr…actually no, let’s not call this one trash because I honestly don’t think it’s trashy enough to be put into the same category as the above three. It’s about some teenage shmuck who doesn’t want to become a shrine maiden or whatever the equivalent of that is for dudes. But then monsters attack and he has to and so on. While not trash, Tokyo Ravens is mostly just generic. By the same studio that brought you Infinite Stratos and the director who brought you Korean Zombie Desk Car and the original author wrote Black Blood Brothers, none of which fill me with excited. There’s a sort of harem set up in Tokyo Ravens, but minimal fanservice and mostly focus on fighting monsters. It’s fine I guess, and ultimately harmless in the grand scheme of things, but not really worth checking out.
Glasses Club
Glasses club about a group of boys in a club that wear glasses. That is literally it. What completely baffles me about this one is it’s based off a set of drama CDs. How the hell does that work? It’s not like the brilliantly titled “Yandere Boys” that was featured in Watamote. At least there the personality comes through when they speak. Glasses are not a personality trait. How do you know the people you are listening to are even wearing glasses, and how does the idea of them wearing glasses make it any different when you’re just listening to them? I genuinely can’t wrap my head around the concept. In fact it bothers me so much I’m not going to talk about the anime anymore.
Non Non Biyori
Non Non Biyori is based off a manga about a city girl who moves to the countryside. It reminded me of the set up for Hare+Guu of all things. They have a lot of the same aspects within their community, such as the school being only one classroom where the ages are spread between 6 and 16 with a teacher who sleeps through the entire class. Non Non Biyori doesn’t have a village chief with an afro for chest hair, an alternate dimension inside the stomach of one of the characters, a surprisingly heartfelt story about a child living with his single mother who has become estranged from her family, and all those other aspects of Hare+Guu that made it great. It’s also a similar setup to Higurashi, so I assume the girls all die horribly in this one too.
To be fair though, Non Non Biyori is going for a more realistic approach with greater emphasis on the differences between city and countryside life. It’s sweet if admittedly not that compelling. The adaptation is by Silver Link, although it’s not the usual Oonuma Shin who does most of their stuff. Instead it’s this new guy who directed Kokoro Connect, with a lot of the same staff. They’re much more standard anime directing style than the Shaft-inspired Oonuma Shin is, but I don’t necessarily think they’re bad. I didn’t watch much of Kokoro Connect, but I don’t remember its problems being with the directing. Plus that will have given them some good experience directing their own show. Non Non Biyori may not be my kind of show, but if all those crappy light novel adaptations were simply practice for Oonuma Shin before he did Watamote, then I am totally OK with these guys practising on low-key cute girl manga.
Diabolik Lovers
Are you a lady? Do you like vampires? Does non-consensual sexual harassment sound sexy to you? Then you’re in luck, for here’s Diabolik Lovers, a game about 6 sadistic vampire brothers who take a girl into their mix and then mentally torture her for a year or so. I can feel myself getting wet already. We have the exploitable shota with a teddy bear, the sexy gloves wearing senpai who never buys glasses that fit his face so he keeps having to push them back up, the fedora wearing gamer nerd who goes by the gamer tag ‘mensrights94’. You know, all the usual bishie fodder material.
Neppu Kairiku Bushi Lord
Let me start this off by saying firstly that I don’t think whatever the fuck this anime is supposed to be will be coming out this season. They claimed it would, but with no specific air date, character art or plot description yet released, I kinda doubt it. I’m writing about it because it has such a bizarre history. It was originally announced in 2003 by the publishing company Broccoli as some sort of glorious collaboration between Gainax and Nitroplus. Everyone then left the project one by one and the creator went and died, so the whole thing was put on hiatus. Suddenly it props up again in 2013 with Bushiroad, the guys who make anime-themed card games. Still with the folks at Nitroplus supposedly doing the scripts and the director behind Kamen no Maid Guy and Needless. It has giant robots in somewhere and may or may not have games attached because it’s planned as a mixed media project. The whole thing sounds like a big horrible mess and I can’t wait to see what comes out of all this, if anything comes out ever.
Tesagure! Extracurricular Stuff
From the creator of gdgd Fairies and Straight Title Robot Anime. If you’ve seen either of those two, you will know exactly what to expect from this. They’re animated in that CG programme used to code Hatsune Miku dance videos (or as I know them, create Touhou characters singing Backstreet Boys). They are bizarre and surreal and I’m not sure I can handle another one of them. But they’re super cheap to make and gdgd Fairies did quite well for something that cost nothing to make, so more power to this dude.
Super Seisyun Brothers
A little insight into season previewing: I don’t write these previews in order. I’ve been writing them steadily over the course of a month when enough info has been released to say something substantial about each one. This is the last anime I’m writing about because up until now I had thought this was one of those 5 minute shorts. It might still be? It airs early September but it’s AIC+ who don’t do shorts normally. It’s a s’life manga by the staff who made Asobi ni CAT PLANET CUTIES although the designs look more shoujo-ish than tit-tastic. It’s about a family and their interactions with friends and so forth. Very mundane description and very little to preview, although that may be because I’m tired of previewing and I’m running out of witty things to say.
Yozakura Quartet Hana no Uta
Yozakura Quarter was originally made into an anime back in 2008. It was pretty stylish, but that was about all it had going for it. I watched while it was airing so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I do seem to remember the villain Enjin being one of the worst characters ever and single handedly dragging down every other character into a pile of crappiness with him. I thought that would be last I saw of Yozakura Quartet, but then some higher up decided it was worth another crack. In came an entirely new team and studio who made OVA’s in a whole new style. Now we get an anime version too. The artstyle has been completely overhauled, going for a more fluid, cartoony style. Which is cool if you’re the kind of person who gets wet dreams from your favourite in-betweeners sneaking into your bed at night, but the style was the one thing I actually liked about Yozakura Quartet. Not that I don’t like this new Trigger-esque style either, but I clearly saw Enjin in that trailer with his white hair, long coat and stupid dog-ears. As long as he’s still in, I can’t get hyped.
White Album 2
Talk about a real strange anime to do a sequel of. White Album was a visual novel adaptation from a few years ago that barely anyone cared about while it was airing and even less people care about now. So why is there a sequel? Ah, for this is a trick question young one. This is as much a sequel as Persona 4 is to Persona 3. It has got none of the same characters and a completely unrelated story. Only the town is the same. The game is pretty highly regarded in visual novel circles, noted as being considerably better than the first. The directors only previous work has been Muv Luv Alternative Total Eclipse, but lets not blame that on him. Don’t think the source material was up to scratch on that. He does have the original writer for the games supervising the scripts, so nobody can blame adaptation decay if the anime turns out crap. I personally have little interest because melodramatic VN adaptations are not my cup of tea, but if you do like melodrama then this might be worth a shot.
Gundam Build Fighters
People who are stupid try to claim moe killed giant robot shows. That’s rubbish. Moe killed the hyperviolent OVA market. What killed giant robot shows are stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade and Bakugan. Giant robot anime were made to sell robot models to kids. Then it transpired you could make a lot more money having the kids be able to buy the actual game the characters are playing rather than some crappy tiny version of what they pilot, and so giant robots died down. It wasn’t until some bright spark finally copped on that ladies love men in spandex outfits getting really angry at each other that giant robot anime returned in force.
Gundam mostly stuck to that fandom with Seed and 00, only briefly returning to nostalgia mining with Unicorn, before realising they really need that new generation of fans excited for Gundam before they all go off doing drugs or some other equally expensive life consuming hobby. They made Age, but nobody cared about Age and it bombed. The Sunrise Executive Boardroom of Evil convened and realised they needed to move with the times and make a show where the kids could actually buy the game the characters play. So we get Gundam Build Fighters. I’m convinced they made something with a similar premise before, but I can’t think of what it was so maybe everything I just said came straight out of my backside.
5 Minute-length Shorts
On the left is Miss Monochrome, a figure created by Yui Horie to stand on stage and dance in her place. It’s basically like Hatsune Miku except they actually gave her a personality and a voice actress behind her. It’s very strange indeed, but as a character she’s become unusually popular. Japan likes 2D idols I guess? Turns out Miku’s popularity had nothing to do with the lack of a real person or personality behind her. I’m honestly kinda interested in the show because the animation is being done by Sanzigen so I’m foolishly hoping for another set of shorts as good as Fireball. The one on the right is Teekyu, which is getting a third season. It’s about girls playing tennis and being lol so random. The one in the middle is something I am so completely indifferent about I can’t even be bothered to look up its name.
Anime for Young Children
Top left is Tamagochi anime. I hope they have a scene where one of the tamagochi gets dropped into water and dies so the mother has to buy a whole new one. Top right is Battle Spirits. I believe it’s the 6th one? Ah who’s counting. Bottom left is something called Geist Crusher? Thanks google translate for giving that show an awesome name. Bottom right is Bottom Biting Bug season 2. One season wasn’t enough to bite all the bottoms.
Sequels
IS: Infinite Stratos 2
More generic harem disguised as awesome mech suit battles. I haven’t watched it, but fans of the show claim France is the best. The fact that such a line can be declared about a certain anime just goes to show how wrong this anime is. Shameful propaganda.
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic 2
I feel I should have given Magi more of a chance, because I liked a lot of the things about it. But it didn’t strike me as a particularly good adaptation. Anyway, it’s more Magi. More sexy bare-chested men and slave girls.
Freezing Vibration
I love this picture. It manages to capture everything about Freezing you need to know. Two ladies with giant blades fighting each other with all their clothes torn off. They even managed to come up with a subtitle for this season with sexual connotations. Bravo Freezing, I truly respect you.
Pokemon XY
Normally for a Pokemon sequel I would just post the lyrics to the Pokerap or something equally dumb, but I want to mention the Pokemon The Origin TV Special that’s airing. It’s only a single episode thing which I assume will be about an hour long. A lot of people are excited for this because it follows the story of the games, which confuses me. Yes I love the Pokemon games, but not for their story. I love it because I love the Pokemon themselves. Isn’t what makes the TV series work is they use that world as a jumping off point to tell smaller stories about each town and pokemon and person they come into contact with? The story of how a bland male protagonist got through Rock Tunnel without using flash doesn’t sound like thrilling viewing to me.
Kuroko plays with his balls 2
The popularity of this thing took me by surprise. It’s a perfectly fine sports show, if admittedly very cheaply made, but the way it took off with fangirls shocked me. It’s not even that gay, particularly by sports anime standards. And sports anime can be very gay indeed.
Hajime no Ippo Season 3
I will just have to hang my head in shame and admit I’ve never watched Hajime no Ippo. Neither have most people, but that makes it worse. Considered one of the finest anime ever made with near universally high ratings no matter where you go, and yet so few people have watched it. So join me, fellow ignoramuses, in hanging our heads in shame that we haven’t seen this classic and instead decide to kid ourselves that no really, this light novel adaptation will actually be good this time and not trash like every other time.
Little Busters! Refrain
I wish we lived in a world where most anime fans completely stopped caring about Key adaptations so a sequel to one of their shows went by completely unnoticed. Wait, we do live in that world? Thank you JC Staff!
Phi Brain 3
Three seasons of this thing. From my knowledge it is enjoyed exclusively by British people.
Valvrave the Liberator 2
The Valvrave production committee.
Movies
As usual, I only cover movies that are getting home video releases over the next 3 months. Normally I would also cover OVAs but there are no new ones. There will be more of the Geass Akito and new Ghost in the Shell Arise OVAs but asides from them it’s only DVD specials and hentai.
Saint Young Men
Release date: 23 Oct
Jesus and Buddha sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then they go to hell for being gay. I’ve been pretty excited for a Saint Young Men for a while. The story is about Jesus and Buddha chilling in Japan, going shopping and being generally cool dudes. It’s by the same author who wrote Arakawa Under the Bridge, and I fucking love Arakawa. It was a shining gem of romantic off-kilter weirdness in a sea of generic high school romcoms, mercifully free of fanservice which was a first for a Shaft anime at the time. I never thought we’d see an anime of Saint Young Men because too many people would get up in arms about this offensive cartoon. Not that there’s anything offensive about Saint Young Men in the slightest. It’s depiction of Jesus and Buddha comes off as just two genuinely nice guys hanging out.
I was a little worried when they announced the staff. No Shaft on board this time so the chance of seeing Jesus pull the Shaft head-tilt has been cruelly ripped away from me. Instead we get shunted over to boring old A1 Pictures with a KyoAni luminary as the director. Making Buddha moe is arguably more offensive than having an upskirt Jesus shot, or maybe Jesus and Buddha will spend the whole time swimming and fondling each other’s pecs. There was an OVA released of Saint Young Men by the same staff. It was fun, had a unique artstyle and went a long way to alleviating some of my worries. The big issue is whether they can make the movie have a good story and flow. The OVAs were fine, but got boring due to their complete aimlessness. Some road-trip style movie would work great.
Aura
Release date: 18 Sep
Did you like Humanity has Declined? I certainly did. It had its issues and not every arc worked, but it’s one of the most original anime this decade. My opinion of it has only gone up over time. Aura is based off a novel by the same author, Romeo Tanaka. He also wrote a few highly regarded VNs like A Drug That Makes You Dream and Cross Channel. The problem with Aura is it would have seemed way more original if it came out a year ago. It’s about a dude who finds a girl in his class who has an extreme case of Chuunibyou. Gosh where have we heard that one before? The original novel for Aura was published before that KyoAni Chuunibyou light novel was made, so technically that was ripping off Aura, but that won’t matter in the eyes of the viewing public. Even leaving that aside, it’s still way less original than Humanity has Declined because it’s set in bloody high school rather than set during the slow, sad, indifferent death of humanity. It’s all the same crew doing the adaptation, so a hearty welcome back to Seiji Kishi and co. I still want to check this out. Humanity has Declined was such a strange show that I’m willing to give anything by the same author a shot.
Dragonball Z: War of the Gods
Release date: 13 Sep
Hanasaku Iroha: Home Sweet Home
Release date: 16 Oct
I sort of liked Hanasaku Iroha, but more of the same would push my patience a bit. I’m not sure if I could sit through more stupid teenage girls not listening to each other. It would have to be an entire movie about Ohana’s mother to get my interest up…wait, what’s that? This movie is about Ohana’s mum when she was younger? Holy shit I am so down for that!
Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhast
Release date: 25 Sep
The final Mardock Scramble movie. I sort of liked the first one, even though the image of Pussyhands will forever be ingrained in my mind, haunting me at 3 in the morning as I wake up in a cold sweat. The second movie was a complete mess although it did include Norio Wakamoto being eaten by a flying shark. I have no idea what on earth to expect from a final movie. I believe there will be more gambling, because that totally fit into the story in the second movie. Never mind that we had homosexual dolphins, now we’re playing blackjack. I do appreciate Mardock Scramble, if only because it allows me to put all those ridiculous scenarios in a single paragraph and have it completely baffle anyone who has never seen the movies before, but be understandable to anyone who has.
The Mystical Laws
Release date: Already out
Let’s finish off with an anime by a religious cult. If you’ve ever read Shinmaru’s fantastic terribad list, you may be familiar with Happy Science. They’re a religious cult based in Japan, although they have spread across the world quite a bit. I believe they have a big base in Australia too. One of their recruitment tools is to make anime movies with surprisingly decent animation and famous voice actors. Their last one, Rebirth of Buddha, had the voice actress of Holo voicing the main girl. That movie also had Buddha on top of a giant golden elephant fighting a tentacle monster while being surrounded by CG angels. The thing these movies share asides from bizarre religious messages, perfect Aryan man as leader, and long boring speeches about spirituality, is how they are all completely terrible in the strangest ways. The problem is nobody has pirated the DVD yet, even though it has already been released. When it comes to advertisements created to get people suckered into a religious cult, I am totally OK with endorsing piracy. Someone out there get this movie at put it online. It will be an education. It will be glorious.
And if this season is terrible
There’s always next season
The Cart Driver 
From what I have heard of Arpeggio of Blue Steel wont be just an adaptation of manga but also drama CDs that basically explain to you what happened before manga started.So yeah you wont be just dumped into the story.
Coppelion has a pretty good reason as to why schoolgirls have to save people that I was a bit surprised,its definitely not as ridiculous as some other stuff GoHands has done .It is not as action packed as trailer makes it out be ,and it posses some fine moments of political satire actually(though those moments are very rare).
There is also a rumor that Neppu Kairiku will be a TV movie.It will certainly released in fall though.
“Coppelion has a pretty good reason as to why schoolgirls have to save people.”
…
…..
…………..
What?
A good reason for these particular schoolgirls or why schoolgirls are the apparent protectors of humanity [or just Japan] in general?
For these particular schoolgirls of course.
I think any explanation they provide for genetically engineered schoolgirls won’t be enough to get over the fact that they’re genetically engineered schoolgirls
Dark, subversive humour that mocks and distorts popular anime culture would be a good explanation. Regrettably, I’ve read the manga and there isn’t nearly enough of it to qualify.
So yeah, it really is just schoolgirls… because. Strange that I’d have to knock an anime for not being weird enough, isn’t it?
Psyren at the start kinda ruined the fake chart for me.
Outbreak Company has the same author as Scrapped Princess so it might have a good story despite the terrible sounding premise? Looking at your ‘no anime is dropped forever’ thing it sounds like your problem with Scrapped Princess was more with the staff than the source, so it would have been nice to hear something about the staff working on Outbreak Company.
I also find it weird how you dislike Okada/PA Works, but apparently enjoyed Hanasaku Iroha and dislike Red Data Girl, when RDG is super far from standard PA Works fare and seemed to alienate all of its fans (though not to the same extent that Free alienated KyoAni fans).
Okada is more to do with her drama writing than anything else. I liked Hanasaku Iroha, but that was entirely due to the off moments and the sense of humour it had. All the drama was terrible.
As for Outbreak Company, the staff are terrible and the novel is total light novel trash through and through. I saw it was the author of Scrapped Princess and was interested too, but I guess he was hit by the light novel trashy wave or something
It’s possible RDG alienated its fans for reasons that wouldn’t appeal to people who were put off by PA Works’ style in the first place, though. Like an unrelenting cloud of ennui.
Personally, I was alienated by it being so incredibly dull that it managed to make a world haunted by creepy shadow people boring. I watched Hanasaku Iroha. I watched Tari Tari. I found the willingness to see these through and enjoy them… but I could not finish Red Data Girl. My disinterest with anything going on in it was both eerie and profound.
Teekyu AND Bottom Biting Bug? Next season is already superior to this season.
Mr. Flawfinder’s quick notes (edit: or not because holy shit this comment is long) on Scamp’s awesome season preview, minus the praise on Silver Link and Shin Oonuma because I hate him and his studio with the fury of a thousand suns:
I honestly had no interest in Pupa until I saw the director. As a guy who’s watched a bunch of his old stuff and loved them for the most part, I’m definitely keeping my eye on that one. You should check his stuff out once in a while, although the length might turn you off. Not everyone as the free time I have to watch 195 episodes of Urusei Yatsura (heehee).
I might jump into the Hajime no Ippo sequel since I know enough about the premise and I’m hoping it can work on its own. I could understand Empire Strikes Back fine without having seen either of the Star Wars movies. Okay it’s the same staff as the second season so it might not be as stand-alone as Infinite Stratos 2, but meh.
Romeo Tanaka is popular and acclaimed for nearly the same reasons that Jun Maeda is popular and acclaimed based on what I’ve seen of him. They’re both bishoujo-melodrama writers who have a knack for hitting the fan buttons. Thing is, Tanaka also mixes in real-life social issues into his melodrama and takes things further than Maeda with mixed results. I haven’t seen Cross Channel, but I saw my friend playing Kana Little Sister and A Drug that Makes you Dream and I’ve played Rewrite just to see how him writing a KEY game was like. Aura seems to be in same vein as those games and that last arc of Humanity based on what I’ve read, so I’m going in cautious but optimistic.
Also, there’s no way I’m touching Valvrave again. Fuck that show! Need to stay away from things that make me rage like that one from now on.
Anyways, I mentioned this in my own preview, but I’m not super hyped for anything (rarely am nowadays, especially considering most of my hyped summer stuff ended up disappointing me). However I’ve got Kill la Kill, Beyond the Boundary, Yozakura Quartet, Golden Time, Coppelion, Kyousogiga, most of the movies aside from the SJ stuff, Hajime no Ippo, Arpeggio, Pupa, some of the shorts, and the sports stuff under my eye. Anything else, I’ll check out if I hear good opinions about them or if I have nothing to do around the time it gets released. Not sure if I’ll like them (especially Golden Time), but there’s enough there to get a 1-2 episodes from me.
Romeo, exactly like Maeda.
Sure, right. You sound like you know what you’re talking about.
@Kaisos I never said they were the exact same. I said they had similarities whilst highlighting what made him different from Maeda based on what I’ve seen of him. Romeo obviously has more variety and is a darker writer, because otherwise people wouldn’t like him whilst not liking Maeda’s stuff, but I think they’re similar enough in the same way that you can compare the semicolon franchise to KEY’s output. Sure Rewrite is different from Clannad and shit, but not enough that I can’t make some general comparisons.
@Nil Didn’t Kana Little Sister start the whole melodrama story trend in VNs? Yeah, it’s probably more Koi Kaze than Kanon, but I’m pretty sure Tanaka has a history with tear-jerking stuff.
Ugh. I hate defending myself on someone else’s blog.
You seriously have no fucking idea what you’re talking about and should probably stop.
Not taking anyone’s side here, but Kaisos, Mr. Flaw had the decency to reply to your comment without resorting to pointless insults.
Let’s all act civil here. Just a thought.
All I’m trying to do is tell him that he’s wrong about more or less everything he’s saying, nothing more.
@Flawfinder: Kana Imouto also happens to be one of his earlier works, and not at all. One of the most prominent aspects anyone recognizes Tanaka for is his cheeky, and often blunt, humor. He’s built a cult fanbase precisely because of that (and not for “bishoujo-melodrama”). Really, translations of his titles tend to be terrible because of his tendency to use heavily Japanese cultured jokes and wordplays; even the translator for Cross Channel admits it to be one of the most difficult projects he’s done. For Rewrite, he added a lot of zaniness to the script and scenario framework, that wouldn’t have been expected in Key products otherwise; the melodrama I would simply chalk up to being Key being, well, Key. Everything else—his other most notable works—is heavy on the quirkiness and less so on that neediness to pull heartstrings. (I’m a bit of a fan, so I may be gushing too much.)
I wish people would stop associating Romeo Tanaka with Kana Imouto and YMK, because he didn’t have anything to do with the actual writing of those. The only VNs he actually wrote that are translated are C+C, Family Project, and Rewrite. Saihate no Ima is currently untranslated.
Well like I said, it’s just based on what I know of the guy. I said before I’ve never seen Cross Channel, so maybe I just keep seeing the stuff where he’s required to write melodrama. Except with T-Rexes. Heehee.
Although seriously, his humor is what he’s known for? Really?
I’m super excited for Kill La Kill (though I should calm myself bc I don’t want to make it like God’s gift to Scamp). Saint Young Men, DBZ, and Hajime no Ippo Season 3 look fun. Can’t say much about the other stuff. I’m uninterested unless something defies expectations.
My brother and my friend keep begging me to watch Hajime no Ippo since they give it nothing but the highest praise. When my brother asks, “Are you going to watch Ippo?” I always respond “I will, eventually.” Then my brother sighs in disappointment and yells at me. I think I should stop waiting on the doorstep of greatness and actually burst through it.
One of these days I too shall watch Hajime no Ippo.
I swear I will.
I promise!
Is Dainihon Samurai Girl an actual thing? Because… that sounds amazing. Link?
I made this chart ages ago so I can’t remember where I read it, but I gather it is a real thing. My google-fu only gave me porn doujins though so maybe I was duped? Still a great sounding premise
My search with that name was not that better, but I was able to get the name in Japanese and from that search I concluded that it’s a LN (at least 6 volumes). I even found a short video on youtube.
So it is real! I wasn’t going crazy.
I’m not sure if I would be K under the moniker of “incredibly stupid anime.” I mean, Aquarion is incredibly stupid. Girl und Panzer is incredibly stupid. K had plot failings but I generally enjoyed and I’m quite looking forward to what they can offer with Coppelion.
That being said, the color-tint thing completely baffles me. I mean in K you can make the argument that the world is so saturated with raging emotions that it takes the form of physical color, or something like that. Them using the same technique in Coppelion however convinces me that it’s more of a stylistic thing without out much substance, unless someone is willing to prove me wrong.
I also want to mention that as much as CGI unsettles me (See: Uncanny Valley), I am now realizing that the advancement of CGI technique could give animation studios a lot of wiggle room, since it’s so much cheaper to produce. Maybe if the anime is cheaper to produce, we’ll see more studios taking risks and whatnot, yeah?
Also it’s good to mention that this Pokemon anime isn’t really based off the game, but rather the manga which is based off the game, which is honestly great and is probably the best thing about the Pokemon franchise. Seriously, go read it now.
oh and this season looks amazing. So many shows worth checking out!
Nah, K is most definitely stupid. Wasn’t that the one with Nazi’s in giant airships over a city where superheroes battled it out and then got up in each other’s faces getting ready to get their yaoi on? Twas a pretty dumb show altogether
Funny thing about Blazblue it’s probably the most story based fighting game and along with it’s great game play one of it’s main claims to fame is having a solid story. The was originally intended to be an RPG before it was changed.
I doubt you played the game or you would not have insulted it’s story like you did. For example one of the games most popular characters is not even playable
Anyway I have doubts about the anime as well but as a fan of the game’s story I must check it out.
Here are 2 Help me Profesor Kokonoe segments for fun
A few people later on in this comment section have contradicted you already so yeah. I haven’t played the games, just read the reviews and it sounded like all the characters were super generic. I will admit I just assumed the story would be terrible because all fighting game stories are terrible, but I suppose I could be wrong on that. Admittedly I’m not holding my breath
awesome preview as always Mr Scamp, both the real and the fake one.
I remember mentioning what Wit studios should animate after
Attack on titan was Cage of Eden, and time has passed since then and my Random Manga rouletting landed me on Terraformars
and now that is my future OTP.
as for the fakes that i liked seeing
Onani Master Kurosawa (better “awkward puberty” story then aku no hana)
psyren (hmm, i should investigate who adapts the majority of WSJ stuff)
cage of eden (still has the most epic declaration of affection/love from a protanagist to his love interest i’ve ever read.)
gun gale online (yea i love this, i can’t defend it, but cheers to individuality, and something had to serve as my last meal for the gateway/big3/shonen tier)
terraFormars(it’s inevitable, same judgement call as when i traipsed onto attack on titan.)
To be honest, I’m hyped for Coppelion. I guess I just have a thing for gun-wielding highschool girls in a post-apocalyptic world
i’d say blazblue got a good story, simple but good.
Blazblues world is Awesome.
blazblues weakpoint is it’s characters they are all pretty much one-note, but i guess they diden’t have time to flesh them out being a fighting game and all.
it’s worth a shot but i will set my expectations on low, that way i can only be posetivly surprised
I would say Blazblue has the opposite problem. The characters are great and pretty fleshed out. But the story is really complicated.
DAT VALVRAVE WHATEVER VIDEO. i lol’d in rl. thanks.
is it super masochistic of me to want to see something im really excited for in your fake preview only to have my dreams crushed?
yes? okay ;_;
I live for that feeling
I don’t know if I’m OK with Scamp’s fake charts anymore, they’re starting to hit too close to home; intrigued by the one about the little sister and Satan though.
At any rate,
“Pupa is the closest we’ll come to a Saya no Uta adaptation”
About a year ago I fell under the impression that I might just love, or at least have a very positive disposition towards, everything written by Gen Urobuchi. As such, I’d heard of Saya no Uta and, interested, checked out the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Funny thing, my impression of pretty much every route was something along the lines of Ohmygod-this-is-so-fucking-depressing-I-could-go-my-entire-life-without-ever-having-to-see-this-whatintheactualthefuck-life-is-meaningless-thisisstillprettyinterestingthough.
As such, I will certainly be giving Pupa a whirl.
Saya no Uta isn’t as great as people make it out to be, mostly due to its existence as a porn game. Still damn effective as a horror story though. I wrote a review of it back in the day
How in the actual fuck does anyone think that a demented horror porn game is a good idea? Presumably, one would detract from the other, as gore and porn are things that are typically only combined, purposefully, to produce a disturbing result. I can’t really see monsters and organ walls not ruining my sex or sex not ruining my organ walls [that sounded odd], unless you had a cannibalism/eldritch horror fetish or something.
Not only that, but how would one find any of the steamier scenes good once you actually knew what she was? At any rate, I just don’t understand how it’s marketed for the sex, I’m still on board with the demented bits.
Having sex with her early on makes you more attached to her, and makes the horror more effective.
Having sex afterwards really brings home the choice you’ve made.
I will continue to be the only person hyped for Log Horizon. Sounds weird that being excited about a “trapped in a video game anime” would net you hipster points only a year after SAO, but that’s where we are I suppose.
Anyways, I read the source material. It’s good. Nothing like the aforementioned shit pile it’s constantly being compared to.
I acknowledged that in the preview that it might be good, but I’m too busy treating the scars from SAO and Accel World. That said, I also heard people saying SAO was great before it aired
There are still plenty of people around who claim that SAO was good, or that it would have been good if not for the second arc.
On Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Kishi & crew are fine… when they’re not doing Game Adaptations. With Uezu writing, it means the series will be pretty much exactly what the Production company wants. The “adaptation” part will be good, but it’s vision is mostly lifted straight from the work itself.
So, if the source material is good, it’ll be fine. If the material is questionable, it’ll be about as questionable. It won’t be terrible, but it will be in on time. (That’s probably the reason he gets a lot of his work: no delays, under budget and gives the Game Companies what they want.)
Persona 4 was pretty good, as far as game adaptation go.
He is pretty effective at comedy stuff, but sucks horrribly at drama.
Phi Brain S3 aoty
I see you, too, have succumbed to the power of SaltyBet. I lost a lot of money betting on JoJo. Never bet on JoJo. Always bet on Card Captors.
You’re right about Sunrise trying a Gundam like this before, by the way. It was a three-episode OVA series called “Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G,” and it was about kids building Gunpla that they could then use in tournaments.
Like if Skylanders became an eSport. And had, like, virtual reality and shit.
Anyway, it was pretty bad, but in a way that was as hilarious as it was painful.
Ah, but the one Jojo you should always bet on is Shadow Dio. And I think Alter Amiba is a Jojo’s character? Oh, and Iggy is tiny and can cause upsets. Otherwise never bet on Jojo.
I knew there was another one of those Gunpla anime but was too indifferent to research
So is that a yes on Valvrave?
no
My heart jumped when I saw Parasite/kiseijuu in the winter 2014 fake chart.
I hate you so, so much.
I wish it were real too friend
Silver Spoon was created by Hiromu Arakawa? I should have taken the subtle hints (as you pointed out): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3a/Arakawaportrait.jpg/200px-Arakawaportrait.jpg I’m definitely going to watch it now.
I have already watched (the first season?) of Hajime no Ippo and it is indeed great, but started to feel repetitive so I dropped it for the time being, but will get back to it eventually… It is a much lower priority, sadly.
Also believing that seasonal chart at the end made me sad because I absolutely adore Full Metal Panic.
Surprised no one has asked yet, but did you actually read Ring x Mama, Scamp?
Haha! I’m glad I read comments, as I also want an answer to this.
Read it a year or so ago.
Though this is, by all accounts, a pretty promising-looking season, your fake chart just makes it seem uneventful in comparison ;_; why do you do this
france is considered as the best girl because HanaKana.
also, this would be my basis for the fall FAL, this better be accurate scamp! 😀
best have a few sources for season previews, and as far what scamp likes versus what he picks for FAL seems to have little relation to each other.
If you want to finish 2nd every season, take my advice!
unless fathomlessblue joins and gets lucky again I highly doubt you’ll be second place again this season.
scamp’s picks always takes him to 2nd place, it has happened 3 times already, I would think his opinion is enough 😀
Coppelion: I don’t know if I’ll watch it. I do like a post-apocalyptic setting though.
Samurai Flamenco: Looks stylish, if nothing else so far.
Galilei Donna: Might check it out for curiosity’s sake.
Kill la Kill: Surely the best action show. Classic? Who knows.
Strike the Blood: I won’t watch this, since the premise doesn’t interest me. Note that this is an adaptation and Yoshino only wrote a few episodes of SEED Destiny anyway.
Gundam Build Fighters: There was an OVA. It was fun.
Valvrave S2: I smiled at your video, but I still enjoyed this and will continue to do so.
It’s funny you mentioned Saya no Uta after reading the synopsis for Pupa, because that was my first thought as well: two seasons later it all comes full circle…
I know, I know, I’m overthinking things.
But I can’t stop. This is my Who Is IMOUTO.
We all need an IMOUTO in our lives
I’m super hyped for Kill La Kill and Pupa and I’ll probably give the two Noitamina shows a try but that’s about it.
I’ve got my eye on the same four shows, plus Kyousogiga. This season has a handful of promising series surrounded by a large majority of trashy ones.
Some info for yall on the Monogatari Series.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-08-28/hanamonogatari-anime-slated-for-tv-in-2014
like really the monogatari series is getting huge.
And I thought they were going to end it at nisemonogatari.
W00t!
Kanbaru is my favorite of all the Monogatari ladies, by far.
Well, this season preview lagged the shit out of my computer, I hope you’re proud.
Releasing these in 2-3 parts would be cool. I’m just speaking for those who are too shy to bring this up.
You know, that might be an idea for future. These have got so lengthy that maybe breaking them up will bring in more people?
I like all the info in one post, even if it takes a few minutes to load the page. It’s nice having all the opinions thrown together into one post.
Thank you, I’m very shy over the internet.
I recall quite a few people saying after seeing Chuunimoe that KyoAni should really do an action anime, because those fighting scenes were pretty awesome. Well…they delivered. Why I’m really waiting for Kyoukai no Kananta is because it will probably have devilishly well animated and coreographed battles.
Gundam Build Fighters is going to be fun/10 of the season I fucking promise.
Wait what about the persona 3 movie?
I only cover movies getting home video releases. Persona 3 is only released in theatres now. Us dirty foreign pirates won’t get to see it anytime soon
I think I’m the only doofus to take the “NO WAIT COME BACK” as an actual Light Novel title. It took me a few paragraphs to grow a brain.
Shows I’ll give the old college try:
Copellion
Kill la Kill
and uh… ah…
What’s with all the incest, Japan? At least it’s not as bad as previous seasons… Goddamnit, I want a good Saya no Uta adaptation.
Thank you for that Touhou singing Backstreet Boys thing. That was hilarious.
I’ve seen the first season of Hajime no Ippo and I can confirm: It is one of the finest anime ever made. Highly recommend it. I have high hopes for season 3.
How do you decide which fake adaptions to choose for your fake chart? It always hurts to look at those charts, even if its obviously fake.
Also Terra Formers is the most brain dead yet awesome action manga out there.
I look at popular manga and vns and whatever and put them in. I actually thought this season’s chart looked kinda poor next to the last few and was considering putting in a few more good ones
So wait, are they all real? Including the Imouto+Satan thingy?
The only non-real one is Fliondeso Touch. Made that one up completely
Wow I was sure that “When my little sister reached her rebellious phase. I compelled her with the power of satan” was a joke. Tell me that it’s a parody at least…^^
Nope, real thing.
U.F.O is real.
Why am I not more surprised ?
Started watching Hajime no Ippo recently and it’s easily one of the best written and fully realized anime of 2000 – scoffed for being a sports manga I’d guess, but it got me into boxing big time. Once I’ve caught up, I doubt the sequels will be nearly as good sadly.
Pupa and Kill la Kill look interesting. Everything else will get picked off one by one like a Jews in a concentration camp. I only want to see the CG minivan crash from Refrain.
I do enjoy your fake charts so…. I wish there were more seasons in a year so I could see more of them…. And so terrible seasons would end faster!
Someone should add Hajime No Ippo to the franchise page.
Isn’t it pretty basic chronological order? I haven’t watched it but I gather it’s not complicated
Yes, it is all straight chronological order. You should post that on the franchise page, if only for the reason of helping to popularize the series.
I just think there’s some confusion as to whether or not the movie and OVA are required viewing after the first series. I just started watching it and it’s pretty engaging stuff.
Really proud of you for managing to write the whole White Album preview without breaking into a rant about how 90% or VN adaptations are ecchi/sex comedy/fetish pandering trash. (even though this one is evidently not, anyways).
Though you still went off on a tangent with all LNs, including Tokyo Ravens, just to point out that it’s not in the same genre as the others.
I just think you are wasting too much breath on describing mediums instead of genres. Yes, if I would have to blindly pick an unknown series to watch, and all I know about them would be their source material mediums, I would pick the manga one too.
But we don’t have to. We have all these character designs, and PVs, and production teme info, and source summaries, so that we can judge at least the basic genres. Which you will end up doing anyways. So we might as well skip the part of first divining a show content from their medium alone and then acting surprised when they don’t fit.
So did you completely miss the fact that out of the 7 light novel adaptations, 4 of them fall into a very specific category of light novel that has been quite prevalent in recent years? I bring up this information because it’s relevant.
And about half of the overall anime lineup is taking place in a high school setting.
Which is an interesting fact, and a subject to many editorial analyses, but it would also still get tiresome if you would start pointing this out first in the sections of every single series that does it, and then point it out again in every one that doesn’t.
By all account, describe where the story is expected to take place, and likewise, describe it if you expect one to be ecchi trash, but not necessarily by repeating the same obervation about the general trends every time.
Of course I didn’t miss the fact that the anime industry has certain trends. That’s the point, none of us did, so you can just describe the individual works’s attributes, and we can observe how they fit (or don’t fit) the trends, instead of describing the trend itself every time when it comes up (and when it doesn’t).
Well, I see that you were trying to reach out to newbies this time with the noitaminA summary as well, so if that’s why you have also thought that some people also need to be freshly made aware of the correlation between ecchi trash and LN adaptations, I don’t know, I guess that makes sense, from their perspective, I just doubt that many people would have found that kind of self-repetition interesting.
Which I draw attention to, and do so every season. Last season there were several 4-koma adaptations about cute girls doing nothing for which I just wrote blibble blibble blibble under them. This season I just wrote “light novel trash” for another. There will ALWAYS be someone who says “but no really that one is good” no matter how terrible it is, so I do try to give lipservice to everything. But when there’s 4 light novel adaptations that are all terrible in basically the same way, I have to draw attention to that.
I’m not exactly sure what point you’re trying to make anyway.
Enemy trainer sent out another Pokemon!
Go, Senjougahara!
Senjougahara used abusive words!
It’s super effective!
Scamp used retorts!
It’s not effective.
Senjougahara used strip!
It’s super effective!
Scamp suffered from nosebleed.
Scamp was unable to move.
Scamp took damage from the nosebleed.
Senjougahara used abusive strip!
It’s super effective!
Scamp was unable to move.
Scamp took damage from the nosebleed.
Scamp fainted.
A wild Nadeko appeared!
Nadeko used twister.
Scamp’s “not a pedophile” prevented it working.
Scamp used boredom
It’s super effective!
Nadeko used onii-chan.
But it had no effect!
Scamp used alt+tab
Scamp disappeared from battle
Nadeko used school swimsuit!
But it missed.
Nadeko kept going and crashed.
Wild Nadeko fainted
I’m going to comment before you tell me I love you no more or something.
Coppelion: I checked the manga and it turns out it’s not as violently stupid as you’d expect from a series about test tube superghischoolers, although I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good thing. I mean, I expected them to be fighting mutant animals all the time and I got more environmental messages than anything else. It doesn’t feel all that preachy but if anyone’s in for the bizarre action they may be a bit disappointed, unless they ram it up for the anime. Having seen the ep1 I can say it’s a 1:1 adaptation of the first 3 chapters, but who knows what’ll happen afterward.
I’m puzzled as to why they’ve kept the GoHands thing a secret, to be honest. It’s not a name that would build up hype yet they went as far as obscuring the credits for the preairs and have yet to officially announce the staff. Either way I know I’ll stay the hell away because their digital composition hasn’t gotten any better, and on top of permanent rainbow filters they now have hilariously thick character outlines that make them clash with the backgrounds. I’ll never figure why anyone would ever think this looks alright.
Samurai Flamenco: Agreed on both Omori being a talented person making cool anime and Kurata being an equally gifted dude writing for shit series, and it really is nice seeing Manglobe go back to its roots. These last years they’ve managed to get more hate than pretty much any other studio out there and their shows tend to bomb very hard, so I guess they thought they might as well start producing niche crap again. At least they make good anime this way.
Galileidonna: Umetsu’s known for kinky stuff for a good reason, but out of the two projects he’s working on now (and has been working on for a long time, they just took its time to get announced) this should be the tamer one. Not that we have much info about either, but we’re talking about a noitaminA show versus a series with his curvy character designs animated by ARMS of all people.
Anyway, it’s looking cool and with him onboard it might have some outstanding animation. Two potentially amazing shows on noitaminA, almost makes up for the Space Dandy disappointment.
Golden Time: While I’m not exactly fond of Toradora, I found what I read of GT pretty charming. The plot’s sorta contrived and I didn’t find the love triangle thing engaging but it’s a bunch of wacky uni students doing silly stuff for the most part. I don’t find that inherently more interesting than highschoolers but for a change it’s great, definitely refreshing if you’re burnt out by young teenager shows.
Not so worried about the JC Staff thing (which I expected since it makes it easier to market it as BY TORADORA’S CREATORS), but Chiaki Kon is a total party pooper as far as I’m concerned. Nagai’s style irks me more often than not but I’d much rather have him directing this, he’s a very talented individual at least. As it stands the only remarkable member of the staff is Shinya Hasegawa, who made some pretty shitty designs for it. Yeah not hyped.
Yowamushi Pedal: 3DCG cycling offends me as a human being.
KILL la KILL: I’d never worry about Imaishi letting his craziness loose myself, but those who’d rather have him restrained should be thankful Nakashima is there to put a leash on him (as much as you can control someone who gets rid of episodes worth of scripts because he felt like it anyway). Whenever they work together you get something outrageous but tightly written, rather than sheer insanity like in Dead Leaves. TTGL is definitely the thing you should compare it to and what it’s being marketed as, so if you liked that then you’re in for a winner.
As you’d expect this is the show making all sakuga nerds wet, since it doesn’t only have the cool people from Trigger (as well as the khara guys who are doing jack shit at the moment) but also any talented individual that Otsuka is managing to recruit. And that’s a lot of amazing people. From goripon and the imas team to Umakoshi, there’s simply a ton of people that could show up here. Special mention to the already confirmed episode by Osamu Kobayashi, who riled up the entire internet with TTGL 4. I hope we get weird visuals again so anime fans get upset and call it poorly animated and cheap again. That’s going to be fun. Not.
Arpeggio: Kishi blows and all but I’m more bothered by the idea that Sanzigen means good looking 3DCG. Comparisons with 009 Re:Cyborg (which I didn’t find visually impressive to begin with) are uncalled for because it’s a movie, but the only reason BRS looked any good was because they used the 3DCG to mimic Imaishi and Amemiya’s work in the storyboards. From the expressions to the poses, even the effects were replicated very closely. This way you get around the models looking inexpressive and get the timing right because you’re using the work of people with a very tight grasp on action animation. Take that out and you go back to floaty shit with doll-like characters moving in terrible ways like in the Arpeggio PV. The mechanical part is pretty bad too, if it was Orange instead we’d at least get neat ship battles.
Strike the Blood: Every terrible LN Yoshino works saves a potentially worthwile project from getting Yoshino. Please support terrible Yoshino LNs.
Pupa: I get the same feeling I got from Crime Edge that this is all about weird fetishes I don’t have, but it feels like the kind of show Mochizuki could make interesting. If he tones down the trashy parts it could turn into something with an interesting atmosphere I think, that’s something he’s excels at. And he’s been showing up a lot in the new Rozen Maiden, so there’s a chance the other cool DEEN team atm makes its appearance here as well. Still not used to expecting good visuals from DEEN shows, but both him and Hatakeyama are people to look out for.
Kyoukai no Kanata: Funny you’d say that every KyoAni show has the same people when KnK is Ishidate’s directorial debut, which is kind of a big deal because he’s one of the best animators out there and has been in charge of important episodes over there for a while. Other than that though, yes; overall the project is going to see a lot of familiar faces because there’s only so much staff within the studio, and they happen to be one of the two companies producing TV anime that won’t outsource their work. If you can bring yourself to call that a bad thing, I don’t know what to say.
I’m not very excited about the show myself because I tend to despise highschool fantasy stuff, but Ishidate said they’re going to add a whole lot more action and that’s guaranteed to look great so it might not be that bad.
Kyousogiga: The second ONA series you skipped is a bunch of short episodes detailing the setting and giving a bit more of context to the first pilot, but it still felt essentially incomplete and nothing more than an awesome teaser. All that material is going to be remade into two recap episodes for the TV series so there’s no need to check them out now, but there’s definitely a story there they wanted to tell and they finally have the means to.
On top of it being a potentially great series it’s also Rie Matsumoto’s passion project and her debut on a full show, so all the better. Toei has always been the training grounds for amazing directors and she’s on her way to becoming the next big name to emerge from the studio. She’s still very young but amazingly talented, I can’t imagine her staying there for much longer. If this ends up being her last job there she’ll get a fitting goodbye, because it’s bound to get all the cool animators available at the studio. Yuki Hayashi, Tate and Imaki are a given, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Shida was there as well. I’ve gotten used to Toei’s uneven long series so a short, well-crafter one sounds like a blast.
Nagi no Asukara: Protest all P.A. Works anime until Yoshihara/Suga/Kawazura get another show.
Unbreakable Machine Doll: So here’s a little story. The months old PV featured an amazing 3DCG dragon in all of its uncolored, untextured glory. It was so hideous people thought they’d somehow put some unfinished work in, since it just looked horrendous. Then they released a new one and the dragon remained there completely unchanged.
The moral of the story is that fuck lazy adaptations of crappy LNs.
Meganebu: I firmly believe DEEN should adapt their new Drama CD instead, which appears to include flying schoolgirls fighting fireworks itano circus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvjGMWY18
NonNon Biyori: Not being a 4koma should ease its transition into anime and it even seems to have some joke-like substances within it, but it’s ultimately bland. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a bit of talent and craft but it got the wrong staff for that. And the wrong studio. Silver Link still sux fyi.
Bushiroad: For those who don’t know, Bushiroad are known for their aggressive and sometimes nonsensical marketing. To put it simply, they’re crazy enough to put Milky Holmes cameos in cartoons for little girls. Now they’ve rebranded an existing project to literally have their name. Now go buy Bushiroad things or they might set your house on fire.
Anyway, who the fuck knows that this is even about. Nitroplus is still in the game so there’s a chance some good writers might be in, and Kinema Citrus is a fantastic studio so the show might even look good. If it comes out. Idk just go buy Bushiroad things.
Super Seisyun Brothers: Better raise awareness of this since it’s relatively serious, although hopefully inconsequential. AIC announced that they’d come up with a revolutionary way to save money on anime production (this is when you can tell it’s bad news), then shortly after the show launched and the mangaka confirmed they’d test it it there. Basically they’re going to assign animators to certain characters instead of a scene based distribution. This might sound cool on paper but when put into practice with the intent of making things cheaper it’s going to be a terrible clusterfuck. I don’t expect it to be any successful so it should stop there, but fuck this project and everything it stands for.
Yozakura Quartet: I dare you to watch the new PV and say it doesn’t look infinitely better than the first show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJUsHIaIRNI It’s got all the visual energy you’d expect from a team of young animators lead by someone like ryo-chimo. The webgen brigade should deliver here more than they did in Muromi-san, which already had some pretty amazing cuts. Tatsunoko being what they are I’m not confident about its consistency, but at its best this will be a feast for the eyes. And it should be at its best fairly often.
No idea about the story though, all I know is that this reboot should be much closer to the source material. All the manga fans said that’s great news, but’s that’s what they say every time so take it with a grain of salt. I’m willing to believe them because they seemed to like the Hoshi no Umi OVAs and those were pretty nice.
White Album 2: You thought it was strange? Let me tell you some funnier bits. The WA2 anime is an adaptation of Introductory Chapter, which was released almost two years prior to the full game that included Closing Chapter. While the latter was for the most part incredibly well received, IC appears to be much shorter and less eventful, hardly more of a tease of things that won’t be animated. The adaptation is just there to advertise upcoming ports of the game, but it’s still amusing how they’re going to do that by not showing the supposedly cool bits.
It’s a weird beast in regards to the staff too, since in addition to Ando of Total Eclipse fame, there’s Seiya Numata overseeing the project. It’s the first time he’ll be leading a project, which would be exciting if this show fit him at all. Sad teenagers are not suited for one of the best action directors out there, but I guess he has to do something now that he’s no longer busy with Milky Holmes. See, more proof that Futari wa Milky Holmes is ruining the entire industry. I’m sure Shinmaru will agree.
Gundam BF: Gunpla Builders Beginning is the existing thing you’re thinking of, and that was quite nice. No idea how this one will turn out, but it has hand drawn robots and Obari is working in it so it’s already cool in my book. Oh, and it’ll feature this bear robot which is kawaii as fuck http://i.imgur.com/f5UQJfo.jpg
Magi S2: It’s not as well known amongst western fans, but the nichigo timeslot is a much bigger deal than noitaminA. They’ve had their up and downs, though for the most part it’s featured wildly successful series. Then AGE happened and everything went wrong. Ever since then the only good thing to happen to the slot has been Yamato 2199, which is arguably cheating since it was an already existing series. Having a blatant and cynical manga ad like Magi come back is more than enough to cancel that up, especially if it’s 2 cours again. Production fuck-ups and Yoshino don’t belong to nichigo, some shitty latenight slot should that those back.
Hajime no Ippo S3: This one is amusing more than anything else because it’s a Madhouse x MAPPA co-production. It’s less extreme than the Gainax-khara-Trigger case, but when Maruyama left he took away plenty of talent so the current Madhouse is not what the internet seems to think it is. Fear not though, now they’ll have available all their good assets… by working with the people that split from the studio. That works I guess.
I’d yell at you for not including Aikatsu s2 in the kids show part but you’re so bad at them that IT CAN’T BE HELPED
This comment is aggressively long.
You know you love me too.
Relieved to hear someone is holding Imaishi’s leash. Admittedly that was me looking for a reason to un-hype myself so I don’t feel bitterly disappointed when the final product comes out, but it’s nice to hear anyway. Also having rewatched the first half of TTGL recently, that 4th episode is bad regardless of animation. Was kinda surprised since my memory of it was so fuzzy and this time I went in knowing it was by that director and was kinda stoked. But it’s just a bad episode either way.
I shall use the fact that you don’t think 009 Re: Cyborg is visually impressive as a sign that I can from here on completely ignore everything you have to say about CG animation. That said, I haven’t been particularly impressed with what the trailers for Arpeggio have had to offer either. Also I don’t think the CG Orange did for Majestic Prince has been particularly good.
Good point on Yoshino. May he keep adapting terrible LNs forever more.
I wonder what happened with Deen recently anyway? Why do they suddenly have good staff? They’re going to make a crazy good anime very soon and we’ll have a whole generation of kids think Deen are the greatest studio ever and it will be a strange world indeed.
I noticed it was a directorial debut, but she’s a KyoAni person through and through from what I could tell. They stick pretty rigidly to KyoAni formula and looks like their material from the promo material so far. So I feel safe in ignoring it~
See this is what you have to understand about us normal non-sakuga folk. I think that trailer looks neat, but the super fluid animation doesn’t make me crazy. The style for the original show made it look /cool/. Sure it wasn’t a very good anime, but it had a swagger about its style that I really liked but was never capitalised on. Eventually Durarara went and did what Yozakura Quartet was trying to do so I never thought of it again. The thing about the style of this new Yozakura Quartet is that the blobby, childish designs look anything but cool. It seems completely at odds with how Yozakura Quartet operates. Then again, this is a completely different thing so I assume they’ll go with a story and style that suits the animation and hey, maybe it will work.
I’d sorta forgotten about Nichigo. I was going to ask if it was still doing well, but since they’ve got Yamato 2199 I’m going to assume they are.
Aikatsu isn’t a new season. It’s just confirmation that it’s still airing. I don’t say “yup still more Naruto” every season preview either
I-I just happen to pass by your previews, you dumb dumb.
DEEN’s current state snowballed from Hatakeyama leaving SHAFT and taking his team there. Connections are really important in the industry too, so his presence means talented pals like Kyuta Sakai (who’s been the designer/AD for all his DEEN shows) will regularly show up too. Add Mochizuki leading a project as a freelancer and you get a bunch of people capable of great stuff in one of the historically terrible studios. Most of DEEN’s in-house people are still useless but with those on-board who knows what can happen.
I know animation alone won’t do you in, but there’s more to it than that. The Yozakura OVAs had excellent fighting choreography for one, so even if the general artstyle doesn’t appeal to you the action scenes are really impressive. Which hey, is a big plus in an action show. Embrace the blobs and it’ll all be fine.
I wish I could say Nichigo is doing alright, but they’re having as many issues as any other slot aimed at kids if not more. Currently it’s doing alright even rating-wise because Yamato 2199 has a huge adult following, but they’re just airing an existing series that was already being sold before this broadcast started so it’s not a good way to judge it. Yamato aside, less people watch their shows and disc sales have gone down a lot; airing a second season of a show that was good for nothing other than boosting manga sales isn’t going to help at all so I hope the Magi curse only lasts 13 episodes this time. Killing one of the most successful anime slots Is a pretty terrible thing to do, I’d rather they stopped.
Are the Mardock Scramble movies worth watching? I’ve been on the fence.
Have to wait for the last one to say definitively but for now I’ll say no.
Here’s some new info on Kill la Kill for those interested.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-08-29/kill-la-kill-anime-new-ad-previews-aoi-eir-song
Ah, the skintight breastplate, also known as boobplate. I’m sure that I once saw a scene where the boobs were bouncing with the steel breastplate. I can only assume that boobplates are made from master magicians under enormous expenses, so that they work like normal anime clothes while still somehow not being useless as armor. Though it’s a shame ; you can make some pretty badass armor designs, when you try to make it look like armor.
I remember that scene. It was in the opening of Oda Nobuna no Yabou.
I am not sure but I think some folk from Metanorn like it…maybe? But yeah as far as I can tell this is quite true…
Thanks for getting my hopes up with that fake chart!
Psyren in particular is only a satisfactory manga but I really wanted to see the wonderful atmosphere from the first half of it animated.
As for this upcoming season, well I don’t really recognize anyything so I will just try out a bunch of first episodes like I usually do.
rewrite by kyoto animation
gun gale online (sequel to SOA)
SMT: Digital devil saga
Psyren
And dat FMP sequel. Did you read the plot description? Sounds amazing!
XD
I already kinda figured it out but fuck I feel Stupid right now.
How dare you Scamp. You know that not even 2HU waifus or mexibeams can save me from the salt mines. The dream is always a nightmare.
I have been to the mines many times. I know them better than anyone. They call me Scamp: The Dwarf. Because dwarfs mine a lot.
If I understood it right, the Happy Science titles already come with a translation and that one movie has been pirated already.
Personally, I’d recommend Ace of Diamonds over Pedal. AoD may be standard sports anime/manga fare, but at least it’s a safe, solid bet (and it has a clumsy manager who some of you may find cute). Pedal has a creepy otaku being secretly super athletic because of cycling 90 km every other day while his body doesn’t change and nobody except that one hot girl notices his athleticism, in other words shameless wish fulfilment.
On an offhand comment, I really wish they made a Teppuu anime. Or animated Last Inning.
I better ping my terribad peeps on the Happy Science movie being already out. Guess I was searching in the wrong places.
Interesting thought on Pedal, but that rather ignores that they’re clearly going for a female audience over a male one. Once you take that in mind, being wish-fulfilly for men seems like it just doesn’t fit. However point taken, we’ll see how they treat the adaptation
Really great season preview. I’m happy this season has so much potential.
Also, love the Winter 2014 chart. It’s a shame those are always fake. Most of the stuff you put on there I would totally watch. Dainigon Samurai Girl and that light novel about imoutos and Satan sounds glorious.
Welp, that’s a lot of comments. Obviously it’s been a long time since I checked my RSS.
If this is true, my cock is so fucking ready.
Little really to add, other than saying thanks for putting the effort into this.
That, and Phi Brain will save anime… again.
Really like the comment for those anime, shows how narrow minded someone is XD
I’m glad I found your blog, your previews are the best, really!
Sadly another weak season D: I wonder when the new FSN adaptation from Ufotable will air.
And I have to note how that White Album 2 thing looks like Angel Beats using Another art style…
the worst thing in winter 2014 is sailor moon will be back in january so it will be suffering
The fuck is this ” NO WAIT COME BACK ” thing you put in multiple reviews at certain points in text where they made little to no sense at all?
Because average person reads light novel adaptation and goes lol nope skip.
Hooooolyyyyy craaaaap; winter 2014 is teeeeerrrribbleeee
A lot of this blogger’s guess are way off the mark. Heh. Too bad for those idiots who will follow this guys advice.
Which anime do you believe I’m off the mark with?
i sure you will be not bother with sailor moon in winter 2014 once it will be air even if it the mother of all magical girl animes
Riiiight, not sure how you came to that conclusion with this season preview that doesn’t have any magical girl anime nor any remakes of classics. Tell me, how have you been enjoying Yamato 2199?
There will be a simulcast (on cable) for Copellion here starting Oct. 2. It’s kind of exciting as it’s the first time I’ll be experiencing that even though I can just download some fansub version. The only thing that’s kind of a pain is that it’s 8am in the morning (UGGHHH I have to wake up an hour earlier…)
Still this could mean that there are some people (at least on the companies’ side) think that this can become a big hit. So it kind of raised my bars on this one
Re: Hypothetical 2014 anime chart
Rewrite, done by KyoAni? No thank you, I’m not letting those guys touch that masterpiece
Good information. Lucky me I found your site by accident (stumbleupon).
I’ve book marked it for later!