2015 – Fall

Noragami Aragoto – Episode 2: “One of Her Memories”

We’re just diving right in this season, ain’t we?

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It’s another strong (albeit painful) outing for Noragami this week, as various relationships are strengthened, frayed, or shattered altogether, characters confront the tenuous bonds of memory, and a particularly nasty antagonist sets his plans into motion.

Oh, and speaking of that antagonist—well, I pretty much called it last week, but as soon as he started mustache-twirling I realized I story-predicted myself into a predicament. So to clarify something important: Yes, I did start reading the Noragami manga, but I stopped at the end of the Yukine arc, meaning that everything happening in Aragoto is new to me, too. So you don’t need to worry about me giving away any plot points. (And if you have read this part of the manga, no spoilers in the comments section either, please!)

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Panning the Stream: Dance with Devils, Beautiful Bones, Atashin’chi

There really is no accounting for taste, I s’pose.

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The stream’s slowed a bit in recent days, but we’re still clipping along at a pace that lets me give you another trio of series, and two have even earned themselves full meet ‘n’ greets! One surprised me by how much I enjoyed it, while the other I was surprised I didn’t enjoy more. Hit the jump to read on and shake your head at my questionable judgment.

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Panning the Stream: Attack on Titan Junior High, Mr. Osomatsu, Peeping Life TV, Starmyu

They sure are throwing a lot of, uh… different stuff at us this season, I’ll give ’em that at least.

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Got an odd batch for you here. Only one of them is technically a new series, but the others aren’t really sequels in the proper sense, either—more like spinoffs or reboots. We’re also heavy on the comedy this time, with mixed results, but there were some moments that tickled my funny bone. Hit the jump for laughter and crickets alike.

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Panning the Stream: Iron-Blooded Orphans, Concrete Revolutio, One Punch Man

After an early stumble, Fall may be climbing up again.

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The anime gods heard our complaints yesterday and saw fit to grace us with three series that are a vast improvement over the majority of the others I’ve watched thus far, packed with great animation, distinctive characters, and competent (or at least passionate) writing. In truth, these were the three I pegged as potential goodies going into the season, so it’s mostly just a relief that they weren’t total clunkers. Hit the jump for all the exciting details.

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Panning the Stream: Comet Lucifer, Young Black Jack, & Four Bad LN Adaptations

Off to the races once more!

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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.

The fall deluge of new shows has begun, and despite that exciting tag line, it’s been more like a five-car pileup than a “race” at this point. I like to include at least one full meet ‘n’ greet in each of these, and it took a whole lotta panning before I found one. Hit the jump for a flicker of potential, a half-naked doctor, and a pile of light novel nope.

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Noragami Aragoto – Episode 1: “Bearing a Posthumous Name”

The Noragang is back after nearly two years away, but it’s like they never left.

Screenshot_2015-10-02-13-18-49The first season of Noragami snuck up on, sucking me into the world and characters a little more each week, and despite a somewhat rocky anime-original final arc it ended up being one of my favorite shows of 2014. I started snagging the manga once Kodansha brought it stateside, so needless to say I was pretty stoked when BONES announced a second season in the works. (Oh, and if you haven’t seen the first season yet, it’s available on Funimation, Hulu, and Netflix in various sub/dub formats, so you have plenty of binge-watching options.)

I’m covering this one over at Anime Evo, so same drill as we did the past two seasons with My Love Story. The posts will also eventually wind up here in their entirety, just so I have them for my own records.

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