Just an add on to the last post, two extra anime I have started this in this season's airing anime!
Akagami no Shirayukihime 2 - If you haven't heard already, this is the second season of 'Snow White with Red Hair'. It's basically just picking up with where the last season left off. I very much enjoyed season 1 so it was definitely going to be continued by me. There's not much new I can say, the quality is pretty much the same as last season, wonderful characters, beautiful and very pleasing animation, if you liked the first season and want to see more, watch this.
One thing that I am enjoying alot is the fact that Shirayuki is garnering quite a bit of admirers and it's fun to watch their expressions, blushes and flustered state!
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm! - I remember why I picked this show now, I had read a brief summary of what this is about before it aired and it sounded like one of those fantasy sports like Air Gear. I really enjoyed Air Gear fyi, so I decided to give this a shot.
So, in short it starts off with a new girl in school, she joins the Flying Circus (FC) team (sky racing basically) and has some latent talent for it or something. The team go and compete in tournaments facing opponents with unique strategies etc. etc. you know the sports drill.
It's enjoyable actually! I figured with all those girls featured in the cover image, it wouldn't be as entertaining as I initially thought. Thankfully the dude in this sea of women doesn't seem at all interested in any of them romantically...yet. As well as that I think it's due to the amount of racing action? there is? They just cram alot of scenes where they're just practicing flying about.. It's a fun little anime and if you don't mind a bit of fanservice (there's not buttloads (there is a lot of butts) but the FC outfits are skin-tight and leave little to the imagination) then give this a try. Hopefully the main character Kurashina doesn't get on your nerves or anything, some find it endearing, some find those characters torturous (that would be me), but I don't mind her here, which says something, in my opinion! It's a very simple, mindless anime but enjoyable none the less, be warned it's not apart of the higher-end spectrum this season so don't try to compare it with the likes of those as it will just fail, if you don't have time to fit this in, skip it.
That's it for now! Until next time! Hopefully that'll be Spring season, but we'll see...
So like any other season, any sequels that are airing, I won't be watching if I have not seen the previous season.
Prince of Stride: Alternative - One of the first I watched this season, a running relay anime with some unique obstacle courses and trick moves. Coming from Madhouse studios, expect some animation to dazzle your eyes and colours to flood them receptors!
From the first episode, I get the feeling that it could be like Free! So alot of team bonding, male bonding, bromance etc. and probably leg muscles, just muscle shots everywhere.....one can dream ok! I can imagine there will be some intense racing going on and then some montage training, I'll most likely end up enjoying this series. Although one character reminds me a whole lot of Haru from Free! It's kind of uncanny how a-like they are in looks and personality >.>'
Boku dake ga Inai Machi - Also known as Erased, I've read that alot of people are really liking what this show has to offer and people are speculating it could be one of the best from this season. I don't know about best in the season and honestly I'm not watching as much as others during these anime airing seasons, I will say though that out of the ones I have chosen to watch it could come out near the top. Right, so this anime is about a guy who lives a pretty regular life, lives alone, has no girlfriend, works as a food delivery guy, except there's one small thing, he can travel back in time. Usually it's for a few seconds or it can be up to 5 or 10 minutes. We don't know how or when, information on this is very vague, just accept it. Anyway this generally happens so he can prevent some sort of incident or disaster from happening. Got that info? Great, so now after a traumatic experience, he not only traveled back in time, he went all the way back to when he was a kid but now with the mindset of a fully grown adult. Honestly the first episode was a really strong start, don't know what it was about it, perhaps the pacing was just right, neither too slow or fast, so you were able to absorb whatever was happening in ample time. I would say definitely give this one a watch this season!
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu - I have been waiting for this for like a year or so :l, I don't even remember how long, I just remember adding it to my 'plan-to-watch' list and just waiting for it to come out season after season, at some point I was thinking is this just never going to be made like Deva Zan...
So to start, you must know that I am not that well-informed on alot of things, one of them being what 'rakugo' was before the first episode, after like 12 minutes or so of it, pretty sure I know the meaning of it now. It was pretty much a whole episode of one man performing rakugo. It was pretty amazing to watch, the animators and voice actors did a great job with this one! The show is about a convict recently released but during his time in prison he was inspired by a rakugo performer, which now he aspires to be one and wishes to be mentored by the very man who inspired him. I am excited to see where this show goes, the characters are an interesting bunch to watch and I'd like to see how far Yotaro gets.
Luck & Logic - I honestly have no idea what to say about this show, it was all over the place, it was just hard to follow and to keep up with what was happening. The first episodes seemed more like a third episode. The brief synopsis sounded interesting so I added this to my watch list but this won't be one I'm looking forward to watching each week. It seems to be sort of like Rolling Girls but also not quite like it, there's crazy designs, albeit not as cool as Rolling Girls, there's the colour scheme/layout, which I do enjoy but I think Rolling Girls was alot better and the fights are.....well decent I suppose, Rolling Girls gave me flower-y explosive girl power though so those were alot more enjoyable. I'm kinda disappointed in this but I'll continue to watch it to see if it gets any better. So far what I can gather is that the MC (a male) is paired with this girl as a superpower transforming team and this is odd as most of the teams seem to be made up of 2 females, and they go around fighting aliens.
Nijiiro Days - Ahhhh this show, it is so adorable! We follow the highschool lives of 4 boys, in the first episode we see blonde dude mentioning how he got dumped by his girlfriend on Christmas but then met this other girl who saw him crying and gave him a packet of tissues, he is instantly charmed by this girl which we later find out goes to the same school he does, woah! What a coincidence! So basically it's a show full of moe boys and relationships. In the ending, there's some other females who show up, so I'm thinking there's going to be a girl for each guy, which is awesome =D, it is so funny as well, well it got a good few laughs out of me anyway, definitely a show I'll be looking forward to every week, apparently there's 24 episodes? Not sure, either way the more the better!
I've picked out a couple more to watch but I wanted to get my thoughts out on these few out first as I have not started the other ones as of yet! Also instead of grouping these series together, might do 1 or 2 per post now to get them out quicker!
Kowabon - So an interesting short anime series using rotoscoping, each episode pretty much follows the same format of tension and a bit of a jumpscare,
It's very short, each episode approximately 3 minutes long and if you're interested at all in the animation style, go watch it. One more thing, after each episode played alongside the ending theme, they give you a snippet of the behind the scenes production of the current episode.
Kagewani - A short-form anime that I really enjoyed, mostly due to how they animated this one. It was just interesting to see how they went about it, almost like paper cutouts. The story held a bit of mystery and it held a monster-of-the-week format. I really just enjoyed the experimental approach with this one.
Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru - Also known as Beautiful Bones, I'm sure this was on many watchlists during the Fall season. Like Kagewani, it also had the format of 'bones of dead person per week'. In the beginning, the characters were promising and I thought they would be developed more, I mean they did but not hugely, just subtlely and not really in a big impact, the stories were great though, in my opinion. I really enjoy backstories in general and watching Sakurako figure out how each person died or what led to their death was an interesting process. I think like a small bit of drama scene happened in the end but honestly I don't remember, there wasn't a running story throughout the series, not that I can recall anyway.
Diabolik Lovers More, Blood - Yay! More Diabolik Lovers and you know what, more vampires! Who doesn't want more vampires constantly sucking your blood without your permission?! The dream right?! Ah, honestly I did enjoy season 1 despite the lack of action that is ever taken by Yui and I did like binge watch season 1 which led me to continue watching onto this season. Which just includes more bishie vampires hunting for Yui's blood and all these misconstrue-able scenes, when I reached episode 12 I thought I could finally leave this series to rest. In that last episode however, I got a glimpse of werewolf boys and I am frightened that I may be watching a season 3 of this anime...
One Punch Man - onepunchmanonepunchmanonepunchmanonepunchmanONEPUNCHMAN, omg this show, the feels and I don't mean it's heartbreaking, making me teary-eyed feels, the feels of the fighting spirit and over-powered awesomeness and GENOS -insert heart eyes-, you beautiful blonde cyborg. Aside from that reaction, if you like action in any way and a bit of comedy, drop whatever you are watching and go start watching One Punch Man, for Genos, for Saitama and for Mugen Rider. As I had mentioned in my previous post, I had not read anything of One Punch Man before other than hearing from other people that it was great, all I ever heard was praise for the webcomic/manga but nothing else, so I did go in expecting it to be great and it did meet my expectations and that my friend is amazing.
Dance with Devils - One that I wasn't able to cover in my part 1 of the Fall anime post, so I'm just going to include it here with my concluding thoughts on the series.
" A kind hearted girl who has a bit of an attitude, some pretty artwork, some singing and.....fighting? devil worshippers? say whaaaaat?! " - Serkunet
That's pretty much what I got from the first episode of the show. It did take me by surprise though, the first 5 minutes with the scene showing Ritsuka (the MC) and her mother gave us a nice understanding of their close relationship, it was touching and just good feels all round and then you get the silliness of the guys just singing (that's how we are introduced to the harem) and then just some story with the devils and this grimoire people seem to be going after our main girl for. I wanted to give the reverse harem musicals another go, since I didn't really enjoy Uta no Prince-sama, so never delved into any further seasons of that series.
I did end up enjoying this series, I'm surprised another girl had some sort of an important role besides our lead girl. The music was good, some nice songs in there that I quite enjoyed, Lindo's singing voice I'm just in love with! The story was fine, not exciting really, I mean it is based on an otome game, so I don't know if it followed any particular route, these adaptations generally don't, if ever. I was surprised that Ritsuka did end up choosing someone at the end though! Instead of leaving it undecided and just letting you ship whoever to your heart's content!
If you like reverse harems and musical anime, might as well try the series out, otherwise I think you can safely skip this anime.
One final thought on the series, what is up with Ritsuka's hat in this outfit?! Is it attached to a hidden headband? is it tied to her head?! How is it staying put?!
Ending note: I never did get around to watching Comet Lucifer and Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou, it's on my plan-to-watch list though, so one day I'll get around to it, I'm still watching Dragonball Super and Garo: Crimson Moon, but sure you can keep up with what I'm currently watching and might be posting about on my MyAnimeList and Twitter will mostly likely just have me either ranting or gushing about something.
It's been awhile since my last post! I've been trying to finish my other post which combined a few anime together but just haven't gotten around to actually finishing it, so most likely it's just going to be split into several posts. I've got a few other posts lined up that also need to be finished......or started I should say, but for now if you haven't watched Sailor Moon Crystal yet, you can read below what I, who has only seen the original anime, think of it.
I have watched up to just before the Black Moon arc starts, so all that I'm recounting from is up to then. So here we go, flashback feels!
Ahhh! When I heard that Sailor Moon was getting a reboot, I was so excited! Better yet, it would follow more closely with the manga, which I never read. So it'd be nice to see how the story/events change if at all, I imagined there would be less fights or filler episodes I suppose or something to that degree. I remember the first teaser or something of that sort I saw related to Sailor Moon: Crystal was the new transformations! At first I did not like the new transformation sequence at all! The 3D models looked off and a few other things in it just didn't appeal to me. However after having seen it in action contained within the episodes, it's grown on me! I've come to actually really enjoy them! Sailor Moon's transformation still looks kinda weird, mostly the feet and ribbons I think. One thing I love is when they all have that cosmic colour fill in, it's just oddly beautiful and majestic to look at! I also really like the BGM that each of the transformations come with, I think I enjoyed the BGM to Sailor Mars' the most!
Which brings me to one of the things I love about Crystal, it's so beautiful, very shoujo, dreamlike, there's a softness to the style and just makes everyone beautiful.....except for Luna and Artemis, I'm sorry but they are some weirdly drawn cats. I have read that people were a bit miffed that all the characters were super thin, which I can see what they mean, I mean in the original anime Usagi did seem to have a bit more meat on her and considering how much she likes to eat, it's nice to see she was portrayed with a more realistic figure. I don't know how I feel about it, I mean I'm ok with both and I do see Crystal as a more stylized show than the original. It's not like they've messed with the characters themselves! Usagi's still a klutz and loves to eat and just a lovely girl, making friends with everyone! Another thing I really enjoy in Crystal is that everyone's attacks looks like they pack a punch! I mean in the original series, sure I love it but the attacks and fights do become quite repetitive. However in Crystal, I really like how it is paced, doesn't feel too fast or too slow....well, other than the bi-weekly release for an episode thing.
All in all though, Sailor Moon: Crystal is a good watch, whether you've only read the manga or watched the original anime, there should be something in there for Sailor Moon fans and even if you're not a fan (yet) but like magical girl/romance/shoujo anime, give it a try!
