Normally I am hype central come new season. Normally I’m desperate to be the first to watch everything. Normally I’m scrambling to get my first impressions post out there. Normally I’m capable of writing several paragraphs on most of the new anime based on first episodes alone. Normally I’m the one calling people out for saying a season is crap. Normally I’m defending a first episode and pointing out the potentially interesting parts of the series.
Not this season. This season sucks.
Minami-ke Tadaima
My face remained in a resolute =| for the entire episode. It simply wasn’t funny, and every single joke is dragged out before ending on a nothing punchline that barely qualifies as a joke. Which makes me wonder: Was Minami-ke always like this? I remember liking it, but was that really just Hosaka? Or perhaps my tastes have changed, and if I returned to the first season today I’d find it just as tedious as this episode. It could be that this episode was indeed just shit, but I’ve seen a bunch of old Minami-ke fans praising it as being a return to form, so maybe my tastes really have changed. Is it really the case that I can no longer enjoy Minami-ke? That’s a depressing thought.
Senran Kagura
I saw a gif of two girls flying through the air and colliding their butts together, so I thought maybe Senran Kagura would be worth a pop for a laugh or two. But no, instead it was incredibly boring. A bunch of girls with about half a brain cell between them do absolutely nothing of interest. The fight scene, where supposedly the interesting stuff happens in these sorts of booby flying every anime, lasted about a minute, and 30 seconds of that was the worst transformation sequence ever. One of the girls span around, had her body flash, only for her to appear wearing the exact same clothes except her shirt was unbuttoned. Also the boob grabbing. Even if we did live in a parrallel dimension where sexual assault is considered hilarious (otherwise known as 5 years ago OHSNAP SOCIAL SATIRE), even running gags need to evolve and not just have it be her grabbing breasts 4 times an episode.
THE UNLIMITED
![[HorribleSubs]_Zettai_Karen_Children_THE_UNLIMITED_-_Hyoubu_Kyousuke_-_01_[720p].mkv_snapshot_18.07_[2013.01.08_22.04.12][2]](http://thecartdriver.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/HorribleSubs_Zettai_Karen_Children_THE_UNLIMITED_-_Hyoubu_Kyousuke_-_01_720p.mkv_snapshot_18.07_2013.01.08_22.04.122.jpg)
After EVOL, I’ve been totally open to the idea that I can thoroughly enjoy a spin-off anime that I’ve never seen the original of. THE UNLIMITED reminded me more of Code:Breaker than EVOL, partly because it was shit. Other similarities include a self-important sultry asshole badass as the main character who wanders around smugly being ridiculously overpowered and spouting self-serious lines under his breath in an attempt to sound deep and mysterious but actually just sounds like the dialogue from the Lit. Girl segments in Daily Lives of Highschool Boys. Throw in a totally arbitrary rule set behind the super powers and that the attempts at depth and commentary in the setting are laughably terrible. But most damningly of all is that its completely humourless. At least Code:Breaker occasionally knew how to laugh at itself and pull a joke or two. Scratch my original comparison. THE UNLIMITED is worse than Code:Breaker.
Bakamatsu Gijinden Roman
This one is just sad. The obvious comparison is to Lupin III, so long as you extracted all the charisma from Lupin III. The whole thing feels limp, like they’ve stuffed a dead person with straw and are drying to simulate it being a good anime by poking it with sticks. It’s not even like the person they’ve stuffed was particularly attractive in the first place. The visuals are bland and the action scenes are static and shit. When I said I was hoping for the glorious return of something on the level of Gundoh Musashi, I wasn’t joking. Sure, I would have preferred it to be actually good, but at least being legendarily terrible is something worth noting rather than just being…this.
Amnesia
The female lead in this is so much of a blank slate that she hardly counts as a person. Even her voice seems to have been barely registered by the microphone its so monotone. I suppose she forgot she had a personality too. Not that I could remember the bishie’s personalities either, seeing as they seemed to fit the same mold all bishies from these shows fall into. Namely that they’re a bunch of condescending dickheads. Do girls really like this? Dressing up as maids so you can be at the beck and call of men while being looked down upon by the men around you? Stuff like this and Maid-sama and Otome game adaptations in general seem to give that impression, or at least that entertainment is telling women that they should be looked down upon. Huzzah for feminism!
Caught in the carnage between my girlfriend and my childhood friend
You know what I can’t wait for? People to say this is a fantastic deconstruction of the typical high school romcom because the first episode had the lead two say they hated love. The story construction has nothing to do with the fantasy of having two girls fighting over you. Nope, none whatsoever. In the past they used to be pretty up front about their haremyness, but now they seem to hide behind “well no, they don’t actually like him *wink wink nudge nudge*”. Not that the new way is either a plus nor a minus. Just a change. Anyway, the whole thing is quite dull and fuels my automatic bias towards any anime where the characters don’t have noses. The only way you can have a good anime with no noses is if it also has tanks.
Maoyuu Maou Yuusha
Here we have an anime about economics of wartime. You know what would help us make this more engaging? Terrible boob physics! Where did the whole terrible boob physics thing come from anyway? It’s not attractive, since boobs look quite fine by themselves. Possibly a little jiggle, but not this flying around like they are two water balloons attached to a roller coaster look stuff like Maoyuu has going on. I feel like it started as a joke but got out of hand. As for the rest of Maoyuu, it’s…got a charming duo, some fascinating takes on economic stability, and the characters love to grandstand and are pretty darn great whenever they do that…but I’m devoted to this idea of everything this season being shit so pretend I didn’t say any of that.
58 Comments
This…really hurts, guys. Just end it all.
Did Gainax have a hand in popularizing the very thing you mention with Maoyuu? I think the concept’s pretty much taken a life of its own by this point.
Gainax had the very first jiggle back in Otaku no Video, but yeah it has indeed gotten a lot more rampant. For one thing, Misty May’s jiggle was very tight and controlled, where as these funbags move about as though a cat in low gravity. I’d compare Misty May’s boing more to an egg slipping into an egg cup.
Was it really Gainax? I know it’s called Gainaxing, but I wasn’t sure if it was actually them that started the unnatural jiggling thing
I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere, but Hyoubu isn’t a character who works well with the tone of THE UNLIMITED. He’s a silly 83 year old man child with a troubling (can’t find the right word here) past and a hate for normals. You can’t feature this character in a humorless show. And he is meant to be OP, yes, but this super saiyan thing is new and kinda funny.
I’m assuming it’s going to go like Muv-Luv, a couple of grimdark “we are srs” episodes and then gradually shifting into the comedy it’s much better at.
And yeah, I liked this episode, but maybe I wouldn’t if I wasn’t a fan of the original.
From what little ZettaiChil fans I’ve seen, everyone liked it well enough. I couldn’t care for it though since it was very…unremarkable save for the animation direction and plot twist at the end.
I suppose it was mainly the character of Hyoubu not working with the tone of the show that put me off. We’ll see if it turns out like Muv-Luv I guess.
Considering the amount of anime I traditionally consume, having only Chihayafuru S2 in my ‘to watch’ list is pretty surreal. Sticking with Maoyuu will depend how much it focuses on the economics over sticking novelty fun-bags in my face. The Unlimited is basically bargain-bin Index (who knew there was that low to go!), & as for Oreshura… well I’ve ranted enough about pile of shit.
Well, we’ll see what Kyoani & Shaft have up their sleeves. The only thing I’ll even consider trying is the loli-crotch battler. Well, nothing left to do but pack up shop. See y’all in spring!
Oh, & I watched most of Minami-ke in preparation for this season. Season 1 isn’t AzuDaioh quality, but it was still a pretty fun show & leagues ahead of the subsequent outings.
Well you forgot to add that nearly half of all the new series this season are 3-4 minutes shorts. That technically speaking the best series of this season are the ones that started last season…That actually an otome game adaptation is the most interesting out of the new series and that an ecchi with spice and wolf banter barter is the one that has the deepest plot of all series.
Not forgetting to add the overly hyped Cake-On! from KyoAni has yet to debut.
Honestly though, i knew this season would be shit the moment i read the winter anime preview. So Scamp telling us this season sucks comes to no surprise.
We’ll the one good out of all of this is that we will get 10 more weeks of Moe Akane pictures. That’s the only thing i care about XD
The Kyo Ani show won’t be as good as Hyouka. This is nearly sure. (I’m gonna say think this for every Kyo Ani show to be poduced. That makes me kinda sad…)
Then, we also have Haganai Next! and Mondaji.
Absolutely nobody is expecting anything about Mondaji, and the few I read about it doesn’t really excite me…
…Oh, and everyone is already waiting the spring season, even if it’s the one with OreImo season 2 !
I covered the shorts in my previous post, which automatically win because they have INFERRNNNOOO COOOPPUUUGH
Yeah it’s not really a good season, but at least you have more time to finish up some 2002 anime. Personally I’m still waiting for the KyoAni show with the magic chicken and the Shaft show with the…um…incest? Nevertheless, it’s pretty sad when the show you like the most out of the Winter season so far is Cuticle Inaba.
Personally, I think it’s not a bad thing for the anime this season to be of niche-quality at best. There are plenty of great carry-over anime from the Fall season. Don’t forget that.
Thank god for those carry-over anime. Psycho Pass and Jojo’s have been serving me pretty darn well
God I miss Okkiku Furikabutte (spelling whatever) awesome sports anime. Hope they eventually continue.
Also thank god for Psycho Pass, this season has nothing new to offer. It’s insane.
The unlimited is worse than Code;Breaker? My god I need to watch this monstrousity.
As for the rest, it all looks pretty bad. That’s it, this is the season where I really fill out those low ratings whilst I hope that the series form last year carry through and stop the season from being unenjoyable.
It’s not worse than Code;Breaker. This was much more self-aware, and far more fabulous. Not quite Aquarion EVOL levels, but I think that’s what is might be going for.
Self-aware? THE UNLIMITED? Where? Code:Breaker had a character drinking tea in the middle of a hallway in school on his own little collapsible table, so I think that wins the self-aware contest.
UNLIMITED still had the tsundere telepathic flying squirrel sidekick, and most of Hyoubu’s underling are impossible to take seriously anyway. I’m not too worried about it failing to be fully self-aware within an episode or two.
That might be the original Zettai Karen Children, but the direction of the first episode says otherwise. Ehh I guess we’ll have to wait and see…
Also since when was Momotarou tsundere? o_o Are you thinking of Mio?
That squirrel is effectively a tsundere.
Mio is also a tsundere.
…Momotarou hasn’t showed up recently so I guess I can’t remember if he’s tsundere or not…
No wait he showed up after taking a piss in one of Hyoubu’s gakuran.
Still looking forward to Tomako Market and the Shaft/Shinbo anime, so hopefully those will put out.
Maoyuu is likely to be the only thing worth watching this season… sigh…
Bouncing Funnies aside, the first episode was better than what I’d hoped for, then again, hopes were not high when you look at this curse of a season!
I watched some others but… But I reserve words for crap for things that truly deserve it, and there is simply to much this time to pick one!
Scamp would like the show that is a spiritual sequel to Spice and Wolf.
I would prefer an /actual/ sequel to Spice and Wolf though :(
Spice and Wolf not getting sequel
Durarara not (yet) getting sequel
SAO getting sequel
Just how shitty is this world be?
SAO has a sequel?
Considering I can only find 4 shows to only be remotely interested in, compared to my usual double-digit number, I have to agree.
I’ve got 2 I’m interested in watching more of so far, and one of them is Inferno Cop
Well, shit.
Well atleast i can finish watching all my backlogged shows.
Yeah it’s a pretty weak season. Other than the two idol shows there’s nothing I’m expecting to be good.
I worry about this sometimes to. It is a sad feeling. :(
Woah, waoh. I may be a Kaichou wa Maid Sama fanboy, but that series is leagues better than the first episode of Amnesia.
Anyway, I didn’t mind the first episode of OreShura, but I know it is going to suck real bad from here on out.
Maid-sama does have the same thing as Amnesia with the girl dressing up as maid and then having guys being condescending towards her. Hardly a great step for feminism
SHAFT and KyoAni saviour of the season?
SHAFT is SHAFT, so if they made all the SHAFT staple that made them SHAFT I don’t think there’s any bad in a weird, incest story. KyoAni is being KyoAni too. Sadly I’ve been to biased and against anything KyoAni to make any guesses other than it’ll be a hit amongst the animedom, yet again. Because KyoAni. And I’ll expect you, scamp, to not like it.
inb4 he writes a post praising it to high heaven.
Kyo Ani ruined itself with Hyouka. It will probably never be able to makes a show as good.
Not expecting Kyo Ani is a sad feeling really…
SHAFT… As long as this show doesn’t follow the Denpa Onno road, it should be fine.
The OP has a top hat and the ED has eurobeat. Granted that’s all I’ve seen of the KyoAni thing at the moment, but so far so good. Looks better than Hyouka anyway OHSNAP
Well I made a vow to torture myself with all manner KyoAni, starting with Tamako, so…
Winter seasons are usually pretty terrible so I can’t say I didn’t see it coming.
Eh, I’ll guess this gives me time to finish Persona 4 … and I’ll still watch Maoyuu
Eh, last winter season had EVOL, Nichibros, Nisemonogatari, Thermae Romae, and Future Diary’s second half. That’s 5 out of my top 6 Anime of the Year. And the winter before that had fucking Madoka. Winter’s have been surprisingly good the past few years
Winter 2010 had Durarara!! too.
“One of the girls span around, had her body flash, only for her to appear wearing the exact same clothes except her shirt was unbuttoned.”
Beautiful.
“even running gags need to evolve and not just have it be her grabbing breasts 4 times an episode.”
Never say no to lesbian subton- err overtones, Scamp.
Eh, I feel like I’m beyond the age where lesbian overtones excite me. Good for them liking boobs and all, but just saying “oooh they’re lesbians” isn’t interesting in itself. That’s for the kind of losers who think Yuru Yuri is great
Minami-ke lost all it’s charm after the first season pretty much, when they rapidly got rid of all the awesome artistic styling such as the seriousfaces and ditched the recurring jokes too. There were a lot of little things that made the first season so much more than the average slice of life comedy. Since they got rid of everything that seperated it, it’s now kinda dull.
As for the others, I enjoyed OreShura, Cuticle Detective Inaba and Booby Demon Queen. There’s still plenty more to come, no need to be a cry baby yet. There’s masses of shit every season, you’ve just got to put a little effort in looking for the good.
I have put in effort though. I’ve watched almost everything. It’s terrible
I love the seriousfaces, like I love the seriousfaces and fist of the north star homages in seto no hanayome.
Poppycock! We’re not even a week into the season. Still, what I meant by effort wasn’t how much you watch, but how you go about watching it – mindset. Considering you’re calling the season sucky this early, you’re hardly brimming with optimism.
Actually, at this rate, I’m going to sound like super-positive girl from SZS, so I’ll stop here. Just remember: You’ll be responsible for rearing legions of young pessimists – you’ll kill anime!
I’m happy that Minami-ke is back. I enjoyed all three seasons and I just rewatched all episodes and I still enjoyed them. Otherwise this season has sucked pretty bad. Hosaka has pretty much always been the only really funny thing in Minami-ke. If you would try to watch the 1st season today I think you wouldn’t like it. Maybe I’m wrong?
The Senran Kagura game is rather fun. Considering that its a beat’em up (with boobs). An anime of that becomes dime a dozen however.
If I’m playing a booby fight game, it’s Dead or Alive for me
*applause*
Your tastes are impeccable good sir.
…
So this means than Inferno Cop is in the best anime best new anime of the season, right?
I quite enjoyed MaoYuu, it reminds me of Spice and Wolf.
Holy shit, you’re jaded.
By the way, Inferno Cop is really bad and unfunny.
So far, I’ve watched some Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, Amnesia and Chihayafuru 2. And honestly, the Demon King’s boobs made me feel sorry for her. Those things jiggling around all the time must hurt. And as for Amnesia, well, the art is pretty, but the main character is so shitty I just can’t watch it any further. Chihayafuru 2 is probably all I’m going to watch this season.
Perfect chance for you to change your mind on Chihayafuru since everything else is bad this season. If I remember correctly you made it up to episode 4 and dropped it due to drama. Well the next couple of episodes set up the new team and introduced new characters which focused on the game itself.