Finished up Fairy Tail, great expected capper to the series as a whole and I liked the final tie up episode (plus them going on an adventure ). Doing the community magic thing was a smart move although I felt the Natsu/final fight was a bit anticlimactic. Curious to hear CWM's thoughts.
As an avid Azur Lane player, I went into the anime with low expectations. I managed to get a really nice surprise with it being a fun roller coaster ride of a first episode.
Started up Little Busters after seeing it pop up as a recommendation for Gabriel DropOut. I'm really liking this show and episode 11's hilarious (in tears laughing at the reactions to the 'yellow' clothed figure by the girls). Great show if you're into a slice of life centered around a group of school friends who get together to form a makeshift baseball team.
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Fairy Tail's final season was crazy. It felt like there was more action in it that almost the entire series up to that point. Almost wall to wall fights and big TWISTS. That said it did make clear one of the big faults of the series:
NO ONE FUCKING DIES
They tease that someone has died over and over and over but they always survive. Even when someone makes a giant heroic sacrifice like Makarov near the ending of the series and there is no reason for him to live and it would be a perfect symbol of everything changing they STILL have him live.
Even the fucking big bad and the first master who both WANT to die (the basis for like the whole show) get reincarnated!
Still a fun show. There's a succesor manga showing the 100 year quest started so we might not actually be done with FT anime.
Finished up the 2 seasons of Rosario+Vampire (a book I'd seen in the Manga section but knew next to nothing about except vampire!) and it was... alright? Not really what I expected going into it, as I thought it'd be less haremy and more dark, and I feel like it dumbed down/softened a bit from the Manga source itself. Basic plot is that a human finds himself in a school for monsters and becomes the object of affection of the main vampire girl and thus a harem soon forms for the individual monsters trying to win him over. Also said vampire girl constantly saves his ass from other monsters wanting to do him harm.
Just started up an anime called Riddle Story of Devil on Funimation about an all-female class where the class is made up of assassins sent to kill this one particular classmate, but the lead protagonist assassin decides to protect said classmate from the others instead. Hoping it has some vibes similar to Assassination Classroom although I have a feeling it probably won't be nearly as good.
Harley, just want to let you know that Rosario+Vampire's manga second season goes into that darker side that you wanted the anime to go. Sadly, the anime went for harem hijinks, instead of the darkness that the second season of the manga goes in. Also frustrating is that season 2 of the manga goes into a cliffhanger and there will never be a conclusion to the entire story. Which is also probably why the anime went with a harem instead, because the mangaka pretty much is done writing. He hasn't written anything since Rosario. Think he was probably told to go back to the harem hijinx (like Ken Akamatsu was asked with Negima) and probably just decided enough was enough.
Finished up Riddle Story of the Devil and it was solid enough. If you like school assassination plots, it does it pretty effectively with some solid characterization.
Been working my way through Fire Force, the team behind Soul Eater doing it. It's fun with a focus on a group of firefighters trying to save humans possessed by fire demon things. Maki is awesome although Takamaki's "lecherous lure" is much more miss than hit (coming from somebody who usually likes ecchi stuff). It has taken a hard turn for the better once the Evangelists started getting involved in the plot around episode 11 although the change in the opening theme is notably... bad. I'm not one to take notice of themes much but the new one is just jarring, which is a shame because the artwork is vastly superior.
Also Season 4 of Food Wars! is back. If you have any love for cooking shows, you owe it to yourself to watch the Food Wars series.
The first theme is really good I agree and the plot picks up much more once they introduce the villains yeah which you'd expect from a shonen show especially one that you know is going to get a long run. At least you know the theme will change a half dozen times too.
This might be the worst season for new anime I can remember since I started watching, or I've finally started to get picky (I doubt it!). I'm only watching 4 new shows from the winter slate and one of them is a continuation/spinoff of an old show and none of them are really setting my world on fire so far.
"A Destructive God Sits Next to Me" is another one of those Chunibyo shows with the straightman trying to avoid the Chunibyo and other wacky characters. It's fine.
"Darwin's Game" is basically some dude stumbling into a game where people have powers (via a cell app!) that lets them fight each to the death and team up and shit. There's a mystery around the whole thing and fights and its violent so if you like any of that its not bad.
"ID:Invaded" has an interesting concept where theres a team that tracks down serial killers by picking up "thought particles" at crime scenes that let them get into the killers mind (yeah I know but go with it) and they use a former cop turned killer to explore it and stop the killers. If you can handle the dumb science of it then its an intriguing show so far.
"Magia Record...blah blah Madoka" long fucking title but it's another another Madoka Magica show set in another world/timeline. Madoka stuff takes a bit to unwind but the set up so far is decent.
Aside from that I'm still watching Black Clover which in the last few arcs has really gotten fantastic if you're into the big shonen shows. All the storylines have come together and its just big fights and reveals after another. Good stuff.
Also My Hero Academia which continues to be a wonderful show that I hope goes on and on because the way it grows the characters is tremendous.
Aside from that (which i know for most people is a lot!) not a lot going on so I've been rewatching Paranoia Agent since BZ mentioned it to me. I'd forgotten how trippy it was.
Apparently there was a Made in Abyss Movie: Dawn of the Deep Soul which dropped in January(!) Heavy rumblings that a Season 2 will probably be making its way to Amazon which I'm fully in support of.
Finished up Haiyore! Nyaruko W (the 2nd Season) and the 2 OVAs afterwards. Fun, simple harem comedy stuff. Still gotta finish up the Fire Force series and work my way through Food Wars too.
Finished up Fire Force and enjoyed it quite a bit. Good action mostly carries it as some of the support characters were a little flat but it's well worth a watch.
More importantly though, A Certain Scientific Railgun T debuted unbeknownst to me! Time to jump on that ASAP.
if you missed it there was also another Magical Index series AND a series for Accelerator as well. I'm behind on all of them.
I enjoyed Fire Force too, I thought it was just starting to really pick up when the season ended so hopefully its back soon.
The "Madoka" side story isn't as good as the other seasons/movies have been but it's still been fine. Nothing else this season has really impressed, so my earlier statement about this being the worst season of new anime seems to have held up.
The anime at least (game still continues, I think) takes place during one of the times Homura resets to the past. I believe the 3rd time is where it takes place and combine that with it being part of an ongoing game, that's why the story isn't as as strong as the rest of the series has been. Also ends up being a timeline that Ultimate Madoka couldn't interfere with because of what happens due to the events in Record. So there's that little bit of horror there.
What the studio did for Index was hit all the highlights of what's left of the first series of Index novels so that they could do the second set of novels, New Testament. So Season 3 isn't too good. Hell, even for a novel reader such as myself, it was like "wait, what's going on now" because there was like I don't know, 10 volumes left at the end of Season 2. Season 3 should've done the build up for the last Arc, then Season 4 come along and deliver the final arc. Instead, we got what we did and it killed a lot of my joy about the anime.
It is such a damn shame that Index's main story gets treated so damn poorly compared to Railgun and even Accelerator. I'm not even confident about them doing New Testament, because of what the hell happened here.
AH FUCK! Been waiting for this FOREVER! As flawed as Bleach could be this is great news. Only thing I'd be more into (since we got more DBZ) would be if they gave us more Watamote.
Been currently watching the following: A Certain Scientific Railgun T, Food Wars! Season 4, Asteroid in Love (two childhood friends reconnect after joining the Earth Sciences club), and been ripping my way through Haganai (2 girls and a boy form the Neighbors Club in an effort to make friends eventually turning into a comedic harem show).
The latter 2 shows are fun with AIL reminding me of a lesser A Place Further Than the Universe. Haganai is your typical club harem comedy but it's mostly a quick mindless, over the top fun. The 2nd season pokes fun at itself a little bit and does try to add some depth relationship wise though.
Finally watched Grave of the Fireflies again. Gorgeous animation although I was torn on the characterization and plot itself more this go-around. It did hit the emotion but having watched the documentary Black Rain, that had a far bigger impact. I also felt Seita basically killed his sister and was a bit less sympathic upon my re-watch.
my post/review about "Weathering With You" (by the same guy as "Your Name") got eaten and I don't really want to redo the whole thing. 8/10 movie to me. Great visuals and soundtrack, last act can't match the set-up.
I also finally got around to watching "Ergo Proxy" which is a show KOAB had recommended to me years ago and really enjoyed it. BZ would did it I think. Lots of philosophy references, including his favourite, Derrida!
For CWM - That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 and the side series Slime Diary are delayed until 2021, according to a statement released on the series’ official website today.
Currently up through 15 episodes of Toradora!, right when Kitamura doesn't want to run for Student Council President and dyes his hair blonde, and still liking it. Not as big on the apparent shifting towards a more serious, drama romance tone as it seems to be starting up though.
Finished up Toradora! and really liked it. I think I preferred the comedy aspect of the earlier episodes more and I'm kinda lukewarm on Taiga/Ryuuji getting together as a couple mostly because I got more of a brother/sister vibe from their relationship. I actually preferred Minori/Ryuuji as a romantic couple even though I knew it wasn't gonna happen.
Ergo is really good especially if you're into some of that mindfuck stuff, I think you'll dig id. Monster was KOAB's fav anime.
Harley Quinn said:
Finished up Toradora! and really liked it. I think I preferred the comedy aspect of the earlier episodes more and I'm kinda lukewarm on Taiga/Ryuuji getting together as a couple mostly because I got more of a brother/sister vibe from their relationship. I actually preferred Minori/Ryuuji as a romantic couple even though I knew it wasn't gonna happen.
Totally agree with this and I also preferred Minori/Ryuuji. Like i told you Minori is one of my fav anime characters.
I'm 522 episodes into One Piece now so just past the time skip. It's a great anime and I understand the love and hype. Sometimes the pacing can be hard and it took awhile to really get going (40 episodes maybe?) but it is worth the effort.
Ended up getting to the start of the Punk Hazard arc in One Piece before taking a break. Also watched several of the movies. Z, Strong World, Dead End, and Baron Omatsuri (which is fucking DARK)
Watched the new season of Baki which was over the top and hilarious (if you like grotesque violence!) as you'd expect. I finally watched Beck Mongolian Chop Squad and loved it.
Finished the 1st Seasons of Noragami and My Romantic Teen Comedy SNAFU. I liked Noragami although I felt like I wanted to like it more than I was at times, while I was a lot more lukewarm towards the latter (closer to a 6.5 then an actual 7). Probably won't continue with the 2nd Seasons of either show.
Finished up Tower of God and I liked it for the most part. I feel like it was kind of petering a bit for me towards the end whereas the first half felt a lot stronger.
Hammered my way through Ai Yori Aioshi and very entertained by it. I enjoyed the antics of every character and the romance plot was solid enough even if it did move pretty slowly pacing wise.
No thoughts on the new shows so far but The 2nd My Hero Academia movie has shown up online finally (not sure if @Brooklyn Zoo has seen it). I thought it was really good, as expected.
No thoughts on the new shows so far but The 2nd My Hero Academia movie has shown up online finally (not sure if @Brooklyn Zoo has seen it). I thought it was really good, as expected.
). Doing the community magic thing was a smart move although I felt the Natsu/final fight was a bit anticlimactic. Curious to hear CWM's thoughts.
