Reviews

Panning the Stream: SCHOOL-LIVE, Prison School, Himouto! Umaru-chan

And so the summer 2015 premiere week ends with a resounding: “Da fuq?”

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I’ll have a “sequels and carryovers” panning post come out later, but this’ll be my last post for new shows this season (if the delayed God Eater makes the watch list, I’ll hit it up in a Rule of Three Review). Very few shows jumped out and grabbed me by the throat, but a whole lot caught my attention and suggested there were reasons to stick around. As of right now my “at least come back for Episode 2” list contains 18(!!) series. That number’s gonna have to go down at some point, but for now, I’m kind of… excited, actually. I feel like a kid in a candy store: Most of this stuff is sure to rot my teeth, but dang, I’m gonna enjoy munching on it.

Fittingly, we end with a trio of shows thick with WTFery, two of which (I am only slightly ashamed to say) are getting full meet ‘n’ greets, and one that didn’t make the cut. Hit the jump and know the depths of my poor taste.

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Panning the Stream: Overlord, Castle Town Dandelion, Seiyu’s Life, Sky Wizards Academy

The waters are getting choppier.

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I sat on a lot of mini-reviews because I didn’t want to do a Panning post without at least one full meet ‘n’ greet, but the list was getting longer and the shows weren’t getting better, so I finally decided to buff my one “maybe” into a full-length blurb and chuck the latest batch up. The weekend’s “unpolished but potential-packed” series have been swiftly replaced with nopes and sighs, but feel free to hit the jump for some thoughts on ’em, at least.

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Panning the Stream: Snow White with the Red Hair, Chaos Dragon, Actually I Am, Monster Musume

Love is in the air, but the sparks ain’t always flying.

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We come at last to my most anticipated new series of the season—and no, it isn’t either of the ones about dudes with monster harems. Animation studio BONES is doing a shoujo for the first time since—geez, Ouran High, I guess—and the results are predictably lovely. As for the rest… well, it wasn’t all bad, it just wasn’t all my cup of tea. Of course, some of it was rull bad, too. Hit the jump for some goodies, some not-so-goodies, and of course, some dudes with monster harems. Only in anime, I tell you what.

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Panning the Stream: GANGSTA, Ushio and Tora, SHIMONETA

It’s okay to be a little GARish sometimes.

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Summer shows continue to run the gamut in terms of genre and content, and so it’s unsurprising that today we turn to series that look nothing like anything else we’ve seen so far this season: A criminal underworld drama and a classic shounen action/adventure. Oh, and a weak attempt at satire which earns a spot as my first official dropped show of the season. But mostly the first two. Hit the jump for even more summer series that caught my eye and popped with potential.

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Panning the Stream: Rokka, Charlotte, Aoharu x Machinegun

‘Tis the season of well-executed fluff?

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While I haven’t had a true “wow” moment yet this season, I confess that I’m enjoying way more of these premieres than expected. There’s a lot of energy so far this Summer, and while that may not translate into good series, it’s led to solidly entertaining pilots that have at least sparked my interest and made me want to see more.

This time around we’ve got a snazzily directed fantasy epic, a supernatural school tale, and an Ouran High ripoff that I liked in spite of myself. Hit the jump for the messy but enjoyable details.

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Glancing Upstream: Spring 2015 Retrospective and Review

Well, that was certainly a season of anime.

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Okay, maybe I’m being too hard here. Winter 2015 was a nigh impossible act to follow in terms of sheer depth and breadth, and it’s not like Spring didn’t have its fair share of light, fun series. Plus there were a few clear standouts along the way as well, particularly if you enjoy more realistic YA-style fiction. Still, I’m finding that, while last season I was recommending just about everything to just about everyone, this season is a lot more about “Well, if you like {Genre}, you’ll probably enjoy {Title}.”

Weaker seasons tend to tell you more about your own tastes than the stronger ones, and now that I’ve officially blogged a full year’s worth of anime seasons, I think it’s safe to say that I have a wide range of genre and story interests and will watch just about anything so long as I can get halfway invested in the characters, whether that’s through humor or emotional drama. There are some definite clumsy and/or questionable shows on this list, but I stuck around largely because I liked hanging out with at least a portion of the cast and wanted to see what became of them. So, really, this season’s list is as much about who I liked as it is about what I liked.

Hit the jump for the best characters of the season (and their corresponding series).

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Panning the Stream: Ranpo Kitan, Classroom Crisis, GATE

Gather round, gang. It’s time once again to meet the new crowd of anime.

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As a reminder, I watch every licensed premiere and do at least a brief writeup about them. I’ll do full meet ‘n’ greets for shows that caught my interest enough to warrant it. Everything else gets a blurb explaining what I liked, didn’t like, and why the show might not or didn’t make the cut.

Happy one-year anniversary to these Panning the Stream posts! The summer season has returned, and with it a slew of new titles. It also happens to be Fourth of July weekend here in the states, which means grilling and beering and other friend-related activities, so you’ll have to excuse me if these get posted a bit later than intended. But get posted they shall, starting with our first trio, which all managed to surprise me to more-or-less pleasant degrees. Hit the jump to shake hands with our first batch of new shows!

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Series Review: Sound! Euphonium

Kyoto Animation and novelist Takeda Ayano make beautiful music together.

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Sound! Euphonium is the story of a high school concert band trying to figure out who it wants to be. Are its members content to hang out for a couple hours after class, making friends and fooling around? Or are they willing to set and work towards goals, to find something they want and go after it with everything they have?

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Panning the Stream: Spring 2015 Midseason Review

Time to peek in on the Spring line-up and see how our new team’s holding up.

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The word for this season so far is “light,” and I don’t necessarily mean that in terms of the number of shows I’m watching (although there is that, too). Unlike this past winter, which was jam-packed with ambitious stories, social commentaries, and questions with no easy answers, Spring is more about kicking back and having fun, whether you’re engaging in rom-com shenanigans, trying to make it big in an anthropomorphic CG band, or swearing vengeance against those damn dirty vampires. And while I’ve grumbled about the weakness of this season, there’s something to be said for good old-fashioned escapism sometimes, too.

Lightness notwithstanding, there’s still one major standout, a couple solid sequels, and a few new series which are growing well and showing signs of real potential—including some that should have never worked for me and yet draw me in a little deeper each week. This is either proof that execution trumps premise, or that my taste is getting worse by the minute and it’s all cat girls and panty jokes from here on out. Remember me as I was, not as I am. Then hit the jump to get a rundown of our current roster.

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Rule of Three Review, Dark Horse Digest: PUNCH LINE, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches – Episodes 2-3

Well, this is unexpected.

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I didn’t expect either of these shows to earn a full meet ‘n’ greet, never mind this Rule of Three Review. More surprising still, both are staying on the watch list for now, and I’m actually looking forward to seeing where they take their stories.

The “how” and “why” of it mostly boils down to solid writing, something that other shows which looked better on paper have struggled with this season. Likable characters and engaging (or at least bizarre) scenarios go a long way all on their own; throw in some energetic animation/direction, and you’ve got yourself the two most pleasant surprises of the season. Both could fall off a cliff at any moment, and I’m halfway expecting it to happen, but they’re still with me for now, and in a season this sparse I’ll take whatever I can get. Hit the jump for details, concerns, and early praise.

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