So hyped for Season 5…oh this is about anime isn’t it?

2013 was definitely a show filled with many shows of assorted variety. It probably says a lot that I can think of tons of shows of appalling quality yet struggle to come up with more than one show that I genuinely loved. Anyway, let’s rank these things and move on with out lives in 2014 because that’s truly for the better.

That’s the longest death stare outside Arpeggio this year.

10. Diabolik Lovers

Hard to believe this would be a show that would be one of the feminist anime of the year. Yui is just such a strong character who has to stand up to the nice vampires and their sometimes evil desires they have to overcome.

Parrots are the strongest beings in the universe.

9. Robotics;Notes

This truly is the type of mecha show in the future. Plus, what fantastic romance between Aki and Kai. The deep conspiracy behind the show was also well-executed and really left things hanging until the very end. And that final mecha battle, wow.

Literally the worst ship in history.

8. Galilei Donna

That this show wrapped up with the most realistic procedural courtroom drama was impressive, but one can’t help but admire the fact they managed to work in time-travel in the plot in a most realistic way. This was also another show that had very impressive mecha, though the battles weren’t quite as good as those in Robotics;Notes

Kotoura just has so much fun in this series

7. Kotoura-san

This story about a girl with the ability to read minds is one of the more light-hearted shows of the year. It’s the perfect healing anime in my opinion. The relationship between Kotoura and her mother is simply adorable, though Moritani is also there to do cute things as well. Simply charming.

Gargantia was filled with adult conversation.

6. Gargantia

Simply brilliant with the amount of robots hitting each other at the end of the show. I thought it was going to be some boring world-building exercise, but Gen bailed it out with his lessons on humanity being lectured to the audience by robots. It’s great awareness of the writers involved in this show to tell us about all of the things humans are about because being told that by other people simply wouldn’t work. Also the Hideauze creatures are simply moe.

Because plot, Ichika. Because plot.

5. Infinite Stratos 2

I was simply amazed by the amount of character development that went into Ichika. By the end, he was someone with an amazing level of empathy and understanding for the feelings of the girls around him. I was a little surprised that it abandoned the harem setup of the first season when he actually chose to ask one of the girls to date him early in the season. They all took it well though.

Well Daft Punk is playing at my house…

4. Psycho-Pass

Though Akane’s character is a bit weak, this was yet another feminist masterpiece from the mind of Gen Urobuchi. Each week he delivered a story based on many of the classic books that he had read and perfectly adapted it to the overall story of his comedy crime team solving mysteries. Be sure to look out for the special guest appearances of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk. That was clearly the surprise of the year in anime.

Why didn’t you get on the damn train? Whyyyyyyy?

3. Sakurasou

This was a rather impressive story of a bunch of kids trying to find work after high school and ultimately succeeding at it purely through luck except for the main character. Sorata never complains or gets upset even when the other people around him get job opportunities they completely deserve. Fortunately, he is willing and prepared to become a NEET in the future. I think that he did ultimately regret trying to bring that cat inside his original dorms though. It would have made a better story had he just left it alone.

Apparently one of those birds is actually a stealth bomber. I can’t tell though.

2. Coppelion

This is a completely realistic story of a bunch of girls trying to save people from a disaster ridden Tokyo. I was really surprised when they just came out and said there was a nuclear disaster that caused the city to become unlivable since it would seem rather un-PC. Regardless, there’s a nice level of detail and realism in the urban combat scenes and the sad fate of those stuck in the city is not as melodramatic as it could have been made. This was definitely the action series of the year.

1. Oreimo 2

The best romance anime of recent times did not disappoint in its second season. Kyousuke definitely plays a decisive role in moving forward the careers and romantic relationships of everyone involved. It’s sort of unfortunate that he doesn’t end up with anyone at the end, but at least it doesn’t fall into one of those imouto incest shows that are so popular these days. This show definitely deserves to be more popular around the world than the niche hit that it is.

Now that that list of disappointments and completely bullshit descriptions is out of the way, you may note that I don’t do smarm all that well. Maybe I do actually. Maybe you, my lone reader will let me know if I do it well. You, my sole reader who inexplicably puts up with my boring ramblings may also want to know my real top 10 if you haven’t already understandably given up on me now.

10. Servant x Service

Finally, an office comedy I can get behind. Apart from the early seasons of 30 Rock anyway. I wasn’t an especially big fan of the main romance in the series since Lucy seems more naive than a puppy that is all too trusting of people. So the big reason this show cracked my top 10 was Chihaya’s relationship with Ichimiya which was conducted entirely on her terms but always with him in mind. Also, the development of Miyoshi from a fresh-faced college graduate in her first job to disgruntled government worker who gave no fucks at all was excellent. I can’t believe I dropped this one at first.

9. Yuyushiki

It’s just cute girls looking up things on the internet and having fun. It’s just done so well that I couldn’t help but smile through almost every episode. I think Yui was ultimately one of the year’s standout characters as well, but she simply wouldn’t work with out Yuzuko doing all the funny stuff that she does. Yukari is sort of the weak link in this show, but she contributes enough to the fun along with Mom-sensei. I actually wish what I could write what this show was about, but it’s about nothing.

8. Genshiken Nidaime

I was a little surprised by what this show turned out to be considering it just looked like how it would be a story of the transition of the club from male-centric to a fujoshi-centric show with the new group. Nope. Instead it went off in the direction of trying to find happiness for Madarame and helping him get over the fact that he would never be with Saki. I think Hato’s character is also interesting in a sense for the fact that he does seem to have dissociative personalities. I do think there was more that could have been done with the rest of the new characters since it felt like they were just sort of glossed over for the sake of building up Hato and Madarame.

7. GJ-bu

I couldn’t help but think that this was the show that ultimately nailed the formula of a high school club that does nothing to perfection. Kyouya turned out to be the perfect lone male character for this show because his character has a pure heart that is only slightly perverted. The girls in the clubs have their own eccentricities. I’ve already pointed out the Shion is the best girl of the group, but the rest of the group is fun character. Yes, even Tamaki who only eats Megumi’s food all the time. Plus, I can’t help but think that Kirara would be due to suffer a heart attack in her late 20s with that diet, but that’s not even relevant. The show worked well enough for the final farewell to have an emotional impact on me. Too few shows have that these days.

6. Outbreak Company

Yes, I know. This show does kind of make a hash of the transition to a deadly serious show, especially after just finishing filming a movie where Petrarca plays an awkward magical girl. What I did like about this was the way that it kind of bit the hand that is feeding it by basically saying there are short term gains to be made by spending government money on exporting culture only for it to then be overcome by native culture in the end. It’s a bit like the story of humanity for the last 2500 years compressed into a story about an otaku cultural minister.

5. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Next

Tired of a main harem lead who pretty much does nothing and is rewarded for it? This looked to be about the same until Kodaka was forced to move by those around him. Even if the device ultimately proved to be Rika using telekinetic metal balls volleyed at him at high speed to get him to admit that he needed to make his feelings known for everyone else’s sake, I think the larger point was already made. There’s too much responsibility that is ultimately passed on in these harem shows for the sake of not offending one of the camps of fans. What we should really be pulling for is a true man of action that will pick a non-little sister character or do enough to truly justify the harem route.

4. The World God Only Knows: Goddess Arc

Keima is actually an incredibly deep character who is rather emotionally torn now both in the current manga arc and in this third season of the anime. Sure, it glossed over some of the stuff that happened between seasons, but I think the emotional impact of this season more than made up for that. Keima can’t be honest with his own feelings because of his grand mission, but he relies entirely on manipulating the feelings of others. The fact that Chihiro ultimately loses out is both gut-wrenching and a long-term reminder to Keima of what he could have had without being drawn into capturing souls or dealing with a massive devil conspiracy. I am incredibly interested to see what happens to his character in the end.

3. Zetsuen no Tempest

The only show that started in 2012 to crack my top 10 for the year. The second half of this show was marked by many surprises. The serious tone of Mahiro, Hakaze and Yoshino debating the logic of time travel as the world was heading to an end was replaced with a show that was at parts romantic comedy, superhero and surreal action. When the mastermind behind the whole show was revealed, it was one of the surprises of the year. Some credit should go to making it seem totally unexpected when Hakaze finally met Aika in the past and also for making excellent use of flashback in building up the relationship between Aika and Yoshino to make it understandable that he was in so much pain.

2. High School DxD New

My second favorite show of the year is up here just for the way it raises a solid middle finger in the direction of subtlety and gets away with it. The hero Issei is even more perverted than ever, and because of how his power works that makes him stronger than ever. He’s at times reckless and bold, but that’s what makes him such an entertaining lead in the action portions of the show. When it comes to the all important perverted portions, though he is constantly cockblocked, he has the choice of four different girls in his high school club to choose from. It’s not because of him going through each girl’s route to eventually solve their major problem, but because Issei is so god damn honest and reliable. He puts in a shift with the limited talent that he does have so I find it great that his hard work pays off. That clay model of Rias that he shaped with his hands is not so much a sign of how perverted he is, but a sign of his loyalty and effort. Isn’t that what the modern shounen show should be about?

1. White Album 2

From the initial concert scene with spoilers for how the rest of the series would play out to the farewell at the airport, White Album 2 was a relentless emotional roller coaster. I’ve never been so focused on a show about a love triangle before, and I doubt I ever will be again. That it managed to keep my attention for a solid 12 episodes with little else going on speaks to how powerful the story at the center of the show worked for me. Haruki, Kazusa and Setsuna put me through an emotional trip back through the stupidity of youth and the hopeless optimism that comes from that age. Relationships get especially messy when there are more than 2 people involved and hoping everything will turn out fine by making actions without thinking has consequences. There is more to this story to come, but the way that everything from the concert to the final scene at the airport came together was just about perfect.

Since that’s not really enough, it you remember that I kept a running score on how each show turned out based on its average vote, this is how it turned out. I managed to vote in APR for 50 different shows and here they are 1 through 50 solely on average vote position. and as you can see it had absolutely no impact on where it ranked above.

And release…

It figures I kick off the new year with this newest addition to the IMOUTO genre (capitalized because Who is IMOUTO? is the masterpiece of the genre).

Yuuya and Mitsuki are step-brother and sister newly living together after their parents had married. She is cold about the whole matter and to Yuuya in general, until she runs into a ghost on a pedestrian bridge after school. Then her whole life changes.

It doesn’t take all too long for this show to go completely off the cliff. I can’t think of the moment where I was really getting tired of what it was trying to do. Was it the shift in Mitsuki’s mood at the hospital where she calls him Yuuya-oniichan? Was it the chastity belt that serves as the plot device for the series? Was it the ghost Hiyori masturbating in Mitsuki’s body? Was it the instant transition to a yuri scene played out off-screen? Was it the nail biting scene where Mitsuki had to hold her bladder for an hour as her mother and Yuuya worried outside the bathroom? I’d say it’s all of them really.

It all seemed to start so promising too with the relationship between Mitsuki and Yuuya being strained. There was a complexity there, as well as with the interactions with Neko in particular added a bit of mystery. Unfortunately, that lasted about 6 minutes.

Subtlety is overrated anyway.

So this is pretty much a show for people who don’t understand the concept of subtlety in their anime. And you know what, I’m perfectly fine with that. Not everything needs to have gigantic set pieces filled with references to other cultures where the show is being marketed to. Nope, if you are just going to make another perverted little sister comedy, at least be honest and acknowledge that it won’t be spectacular. That’s really all this show has going for it anyway.

“Why doesn’t any of this make sense?”

Quite often these days you will find a show that is so into itself that it seems completely unaware of what passes for entertainment. The poor god figure desperately looking for work is overdone and it takes something special to bring additional value to that type of story. Noragami simply doesn’t have it.

The central thing this first episode tried to do was be funny in making fun of Yato for being poor. So they’ve partnered him up with a martial arts loving girl Hiyori who is just an utter mess of a character. It’s like she was designed by committee.

“Let’s make her a rich daughter, but she has to have weaknesses so let’s have her fall ill with just fatigue. Also, she needs to be different in some way, but we can’t have her be otaku because that’s too common now. How about she’s a martial arts otaku, and we can have her fight in battles just because she’s seen the moves before. It’s like that one character from Heroes, that guy across from the table liked and it’s obscure too.”

It’s like developing chemistry between the characters that will be essential to the story was an afterthought. So any comedy between the two is non-existent. That is the biggest problem so far. I don’t think introducing a third character will make it much better, but it needs to change fast to make this anything other than mediocre.

Oda Nobunaga piloting a mecha while holding Jeanne d’Arc in his arms? Oda Nobunaga piloting a mecha while holding Jeanne d’Arc in his arms.

I think the only shows I’ve finished that have had characters named Oda Nobunaga have all been female versions of that character. I mean, all you really have to do these days to get that character down is to have a character that acts tough but is hopelessly naive about the amount of power they have and is completely reckless. This one checks all the boxes, but about this world they’ve put Oda Nobunaga in?

If there are any shows I think I can point to that has any similarities at all, it would be like setting it in the old world of Sengoku Collection where the genders are swapped, combine some of the time traveling “magic” of Galilei Donna and a bit of Star Driver thrown in as well. Basically, it’s a mess for anyone who gives a damn about historical accuracy.

The good thing this show does is immediately cast that historical context aside. The dream sequences at the beginning are about all you get for that as virtually everything else screams, “this is an alternate world, we can do whatever the hell we want with these historical figures and you can’t complain.” Well this is adapted from something Kawamori had lying around and he’s never really given a damn about anything other than making spectacle.

How come history doesn’t depict da Vinci and Jeanne d’Arc in such get ups?

Satelight have indeed succeeded in making this spectacle. I just hope they try to get away from the generic Sunrise mecha vibes I was feeling when Nobunaga first started up that mecha.

They even take selfies in anime. They are only 2 years behind popular culture now.

From the very start, Nobunagun is pretty much obsessed with one thing. Inflicting as much violence on the screen as possible. It doesn’t matter if it is mental violence, violence against the color palette, actual grim deaths on screen; there’s no holding back here. But is it actually any good at it?

This is the second consecutive show I’ve looked at that involved a series of historical characters centered around Oda Nobunaga. This one is more about a weapon otaku who is the reincarnation of Nobunaga and with it carries the exact same penchant for violence and reckless abandon that is required for the role.

The protagonist Shio isn’t a character that really stands out on her own. She’s pretty weak when it comes to having friends to the point where I’m pretty sure Asao is the first person to have actually noticed that she existed. The fact that she turns into a crazy gun wielding superhuman is actually a plus since it forgoes the need to establish her character at all independent of the plot.

As for the other characters in the show, the only ones we get to see are a largely ineffective Jack the Ripper reincarnation and reincarnations of Isaac Newton and Gandhi who spend their short time on screen arguing with each other. The episode felt like it was directed by someone who is borderline insane in the best way possible. I don’t know if it will have the guts to stick to the insanity; which would require amping up the violence further and forgoing any character development of the side characters, or if it will eventually fall in line and become a mediocre violence series.

Shio represents the new moé.

Finally, what I really want to say is that this is the type of show that should be airing late night on Western television. Unfortunately, this will end up in the wasteland along with fabulous Oda Nobunaga and his giant mecha in bizarro land.

The height difference just adds to how powerless Takamiya is in the beginning.

Very rarely do you come across a show that actually makes you think about gender differences by merely swapping the traditional roles. Witch Craft Works attempts to do such a thing with the male lead Takamiya depicted as weak and helpless compared to Kagari the fire witch who protects him. The success of this series will depend on how the latter is developed as a character, but this was definitely a good start.

This first episode made it a story of two princesses. Kagari is the princess of the school who must be protected from anyone who is not one of her fans. The other is Takamiya, the princess in Kagari’s mind who must be protected by the world of magic and witches he imminently finds himself in. I definitely liked how they made the two separate worlds clash whenever they came together. There’s no smooth transition there.

Seeing Takamiya take a beating repeatedly in this episode was actually important. He’s trapped in a gender role which requires him to act even if he doesn’t have the power to do so. He comes into conflict with one who has the power to do something in Kagari, but since she’s a woman he can’t fully bring himself to trust her. That’s the central conflict at the heart of this show; even more than the magical conflict between witch factions of which he now finds himself in the middle. I think it will be interesting to see how that all works out.

Finally, the ending theme involving the Tower Witch minions is the best ending theme I’ve heard in quite a while. At least it was one that I was willing to watch all the way through without the temptation to skip.

Superman, this guy is not.

Initially I was sort of dreading the fact that this series started with the dreaded To Aru because it meant only a 50% of it being ironically entertaining. I didn’t really have much to worry about with this story set on a floating island because there was little of anything to actually care about.

I have to start talking about this episode with the simple fact that the main character is named Kal-El. It just conjures in my mind every overpowered character in fiction with no edge. Let’s face it, Superman is really boring. I mean, he works for the local newspaper, but I can’t remember him ever writing decent copy. In digressing from that point, I guess this guy’s weakness is the fact that he enters into a rage whenever he sees that one girl who kicked off the ceremony to set the island on its course.

That leads me into the fact that this is clearly a forbidden love story. Boring lead finds the girl of his dreams while randomly walking about at sunset. She does the Kate Winslet in Titanic thing on the bicycle as the ride through the fog. Unfortunately, she’s a noble and this guy isn’t. Class warfare I tell you.

Cliches ahoy…

The real reason I think anyone would have to watch this is purely for shipping Kal-El with this show’s version of L-Elf in that silver-haired ex-noble who hates him. I can’t see any other reason to watch. I’d probably even write bad fanfiction on them if this show didn’t half put me to sleep. It’s the first show to make me go “meh” and that’s about the worst place a series can be.

Shipping doesn’t work if that is what the show knows it’s all it has.

In the annals of generic mecha series, there will be few that will remember Buddy Complex. It seems to fit the bill of being the most generic of the generic of series. It’s almost as if there’s no point in hiding what this show is really meant to be; blatant cross-promotion.

I don’t know how else something could be made more by committee than after watching this first episode. The simple fact is that the body count in the first episode is two. Even after having a mecha from the future fire into a crowded city center, no one dies at all. The only thing the was missing was for some random person on the street to crack a joke about how close they were to dying to make the scene as absurd as possible.

This doesn’t last long.

I also like how the show is willing to make the romantic angle incredibly circular because dense protagonist finally got to talk to the girl who spent every second of the day looking at him and thought she hated him. Now in the future it just means he’s going to fall for her which leads to a conflict and death at the end in the past. I could have written this mess. How hard is it for people to stay away from time travel if they have no idea how to execute it?

I don’t even have much to say about the mecha because they are so generic. There’s also a second character that bland protagonist gets to meet in the future named Dio. Unfortunately, he seems generic as well.

The cameraman knows what is up.

Series featuring mascot characters in modern times have rarely been interesting. There is just so much that can go wrong with a character that represents a larger entity if used incorrectly that fear generally rules the day in making something interesting. With that in mind, it’s no surprise to see Nitroplus’s mascot character Super Sonico doing nothing outlandish that hasn’t been seen before in their promotional materials. Even if the company makes its money off visual novels.

I went into this hoping for something a bit more exciting if you couldn’t tell already from the introduction. Basically, as it turns out, Sonico is the most pure and good person in the entire world. She works all these jobs and supports her family. Everyone in the community loves her, even if she isn’t a morning person. The topic of the headphones that are her characters trademark (and have been attached to her head since childhood) is never brought up by anyone else.

The only hint that this show is anything beyond a run through the motions is the modeling scene when she is asked to put on something a bit more risque than the bikini she was contracted to model. Her producer came in with his demon mask that lit up and breathed smoke, but that wasn’t particularly funny. I guess it was just kind of odd.

This is exactly like K-On. Right? Right…

At the end of the episode, she meets with her band mates Suzu and Fuuri to begin to play their new song in the studio. Only at that point, in the end credits of all things, does the expected level of Super Sonico fanservice kick in. I probably shouldn’t have expected any more than this.

This is all she has as an act.

Just like last year’s GJ-bu, the protagonist of D-Frag! is kidnapped and made to reluctantly join a club with a childlike president that doesn’t do anything beyond playing games. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities between the two come to an end.

This high school comedy is about a delinquent, Kenji, who gets dragged into the Game Creation Club which doesn’t do much of anything. He comes across the club when they make like Mario Balotelli in his bathroom and set the curtains on fire with fireworks. After putting out the fire and with Kenji motivated to do something for what might be the first time in his life, the show takes a turn to the stupid.

This scene where they end up in the girl’s locker room should have been funny. Honestly.

The problem with the series becomes pretty obvious when one looks at the characters in the club. Like any true modern anime, the girls can simply be referred to by color. Purple as the student council president is the only one given any sort of personality. Yellow tries very hard but is there just to be cute for Kenji. Brown and Pink…I don’t even know the purpose for them. Blue is just the club advisor and her use of a taser on students is a bit of a concern. I didn’t think it was even comedy at that point.

I can usually go for a good school comedy or club where no one does anything show a season. Sadly, this has pretty much missed all the marks. No laughs at all. I’ll wrap this up with the worst pun I can think of with this show’s title. I want to defrag the SSD that is this show.

Who is the evil one here?

Having endured a much similar concept in 2005′s Ultimate Girls, I wasn’t expecting Robot Girls Z to be anything other than a train wreck. There’s just something about how trying to change classic shows into classic shows with moe girls that makes everything else unimportant. Would this 70s mecha as girls work as badly as I thought?

First of all, I wasn’t going into this show expecting a great amount of plot. It’s supposed to be an episodic comedy. With this series being released in sets of 3 episodes a month, there was enough to see what this show was setting out to do. It’s attempting to be a fun comedy that uses the tropes of 70s mecha series to further the humor. Surprisingly, I thought that it did the job pretty well.

The first episode introduces the cast where the hopelessly inept villains end up getting beaten up by the new versions of Grendizer, Mazinger and Great Mazinger. However, with this being a show that is filled with irony, the good guys destroy a city block trying to get rid of them. The second episode is much better with baddie after baddie being introduced with their own problems and clearly unfit to fight anyone. The third and final episode of this batch is the obligatory beach/swimsuit episode. That doesn’t actually work as well.

The classiest mecha show of the season.

The real measure of how this worked for me is that I thought it didn’t really require any sort of knowledge of 70s mecha anime at all. I even would have said that the it was pretty kid friendly and also worked for older adults. At least until the sea urchin girl in the 3rd episode appeared. Oh well, at least I still found it entertaining.

This rivalry is on now.

There was a point in the first episode of Hamatora where I knew exactly what would be in the safe that was at the center of the plot of the first episode. How often do you have an old maid offering to dress up in a high school uniform to satisfy the sexual needs of the young master of a rich household? Everything about that just screams hidden stash of porn, and that’s exactly what it turned out to be.

Hamatora is a show about a group of superpower holders that are part of a private investigation firm that is skint. The story was pretty well telegraphed from the beginning when Nice and Murasaki split up their jobs. It was easy to see that the two jobs would end up being related. I think from that point I was more interested to see how entertained I would be on the obvious path.

The story of the girl finding out the code to the porn safe was interesting for the reason that we now had a story that was willing to acknowledge that underage prostitution is a thing that actually exists without having the main characters take a judgmental view on the girl’s choice. It is more than condescending on the old man who hired them though.

The treasures of a rich dirty old man.

As far as the cast of characters this story will be following and who I will have to get used to, there wasn’t really a standout. Nice just seems to be too willing to help the poorest people to realize what being a private investigator is being about. The others just seem to go according to what their powers are, which all seem to involve being able to smash things. That’s except lightning guy, of course. He’s special.

I still found it entertaining enough to keep watching. It’s kind of like Nobunagun in that it doesn’t seem to give a damn about anything happening outside of the main characters using supernatural abilities. That’s fine by me as long as it can stick to it.

That mouth gives me flashbacks to all the bad seasons of Minami-ke

It’s just like a guy leering over his younger stepsister only with the genders reversed.

Alright, that might be just a little harsh. There’s not all too much to go off of from this first episode. Ichika, the girl pictured at the top, has decided to objectify her new younger brother Tomoya. That includes having previously scouted all of his tastes and expressions and creating plushes of him in Non Non Biyori fashion.

This filter applies to the action far too long

I guess this was the first show I watched this season that I really struggled to come up with an opinion on. With only 3 minutes to digest, it’s hard to tell whether it will go beyond the shotacon at present. I hope next week brings some actual developments.

It doesn’t look good for Mashiro here.

This is really the story of a group of kids putting on facades and a way of once again making jokes about the differences between country and city folk for not much of a reason. This is the story of a young girl engaged to be married and only finding out about it on her 16th birthday. That means this is clearly going to end with her slowly falling for the guy who has no presence.

I was a little surprised at how lacking in perversion this show was. It feels kind of like a spiritual successor to Non Non Biyori and Kiniro Mosaic in that it really focuses on a group of girls doing different things in a school setting with Mashiro playing the young girl trying to act like an adult.

There are a few contrivances you have to take into account for this series to work as well. First, there’s the deceased grandfather having absolute power even beyond the grave. He arranged all of this after all. Then, there’s the fact that the characters have to accept this new change in status without much of a fight. Check. Finally, Mashiro ends up in the same class because plot.

Hakuya is more of a character development robot than an actual character now.

I ended up liking the first episode despite these shortcomings. It’s really innocent stuff that isn’t going to be groundbreaking. While you can accuse me of suffering from Stockholm Syndrome for the fact I can’t drop anything the rest of the season (dumb New Year’s Resolutions are dumb), I think this is one of the better shows so far. Hakuya still needs to improve as a character beyond having to treat Kobeni as his wife already while not really acknowledging her feelings. Benio’s act at school and contrasting actions toward Mashiro at home is going to wear thin quickly as well.

The back of that hand is cold.

Oh look, it’s another short series. I guess I could say this reminded me a lot of Sparrow’s Hotel in how the comedy worked. But I can’t really put the level of comedy this show aspires to in words.

No words…should have sent a poet.

That’s right, slinging asses into the air. Classy. Maybe this will turn good like Sparrow’s Hotel. I can only hope.

The 2 assholes taking pictures with their tablets deserve exactly the death that is coming to them.

When 6 minutes into an episode you are questioning the logic of the universe of an action show, it generally means one thing. Yes, a children’s card game adaptation. As always with these things, I’m left with more questions than answers. These aren’t the nice questions about what to expect from the show, but the most cynical questions one can come up with.

What immediately comes to mind is are dumb questions like, why how was that guy able to jump straight up in the air to stand on a horse? Why do people just stand around as Tokyo is enveloped in a black portal? Could one of the writers make it less obvious they put a portal in South Africa because they saw District 9? Just how much money did they pay Sawashiro to voice a character in this? Is it possible to hear the characters pronounce “Z/X” and not think they are saying “sex”? (e.g. “Asuka, save the world with your sex”). Did the official translators give zero fucks as indicated below?

Really, how lazy is this?

I can only see card battle adaptation enthusiasts finishing a show like Sex Ignition in the end. I think calling it that is just going to be the only way I can keep going on this show. It is by far the biggest atrocity committed yet this season, but I’m going to hang around to see if this thing can be come ironically hilarious.

This is how you negotiate your vacation time in Hell.

As absurd as a setting of hell can be, Hozuki no Reitetsu is essentially a workplace comedy with a dark edge. The first part features the title character having to deal with the incompetencies of his boss and having to solve problems all on his own. The second half is world building through pets. It’s a little bit of a mixed bag overall.

One thing that I found surprising about this show was just how mundane the conversations are. As Enma and Hozuki are sitting around at the cafeteria at work, they just spend their time talking about the animals appearing on TV, tastes in pets and really about how they both feel they need to take a vacation from work. I’m not sure if this was entirely needed or not. If the goal was to make these characters as boring as normal people, well done. Otherwise I’d hope that scene was just a bit of character development.

Hozuki as the title character needs to be interesting, and I don’t know if they’ve done quite enough with him to succeed. The intent is to make him a gap character. He’s looks like he doesn’t give a damn at work even though he is incredibly good at it. Yet, here is a guy in his spare time who grows championship winning goldfish and loves cute animals. I don’t know how that is going to pan out when it comes to later episodes or if it will simply be ignored.

This is the expression of a dog who has just learned his waifu got married.

Finally, there’s something a little surreal about seeing the TV pop up with a prize winner from Hell. In fact, it’s perfectly normal to see by the end of the episode. At least Hozuki will finally get to take that trip to Australia he has always wanted.

I present to you the pair of objects that got the most attention in this episode.

Suspension of disbelief is important for action shows like this. Few things are capable of destroying this than running out of budget partially through the episode and inexplicable mid-combat exposition scenes. My goodness is there a lot of the latter as everything turned silly.

Magical Warfare is very much juvenile in nature. The story seems crafted as they went along with little planning to begin with. There’s the spending lots of money on making the magic look decent in the first half of the episode only to cut some corners on the two main characters running away in poorly animated fashion. Then, let’s throw in some exposition in the middle of a chase so they can have a few minutes to talk about how horrible it is to be a magician.

That’s not even the worst part of it. That comes when they decide to just hand out magical powers like candy to the normal people. Token main character already got his dodging powers from brocon girl, so let’s just have the childhood friend/girlfriend have transformation powers just so we can give her larger breasts. Because that’s exactly the sort of thing a pubescent boy would write in. Oh, and let’s also give the random friend passerby a flaming fist because that sounds really awesome. Let’s also try to make up rules about how magicians aren’t allowed to use their powers with so many exceptions as to allow this to happen as well. That’s great.

Yeah, blood doesn’t really work like that.

Yet, there’s just something sort of endearing with how bad it is. It’s like a blast from the past in how fantasy looked like in middle school. The whole thing just screams that it was written by an extremely lazy writer. Little wonder this is a light novel adaptation. So I’d expect in future episodes for stuff to simply happen not because this is a bad adaptation, but because the creator never got around to filling in the gaps in creating the story.

Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood.

Pupa in its first episode really showed why censorship can be a bad thing if used selectively. We have an older brother witnessing his sister turning into a man-eating monster where we can’t see that transformation happening. Then, we get to see her in her new form, which isn’t as terrible as I expected.

The only other thing I thought was worth noting in this 4 minute short was the fact that everyone except for Yume had were bodies covered in wounds. What that leads me into is asking a question of whether this show can actually work in short episodes as a psychological horror series. I’m inclined to say that the short format makes it more disposable and less likely to be remembered. Putting it together in a single hour-long feature format would make more sense in my opinion.

The entire point of the show is this, isn’t it?

Within the first few minutes of Sakura Trick I was pretty confused about what exactly I was seeing. It’s a light-hearted comedy with a cast of all girls, but I was left with an important question. Who exactly is the audience for this show?

In watching this first episode, I couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty for liking parts of it. The relationships in how the characters are matched up just feel like they are ignorant male fantasies of what lesbian relationships are about. Maybe I feel a bit better for realizing that to begin with however the fanservice heavy opening animation did little to ease my concerns.

Getting away from that angle for a bit, I do think that this was targeted at the typical late-night anime audience. That’s how we end up at a point where the characters are hopelessly naive about their new roles as high school students. Surprisingly, I did think Haruka and Yuu worked well together in the latter being worried about losing the one friend she knew from before to other people. How that was resolved wasn’t exactly lacking in fanservice, but the initial kiss between the pair did have a funny conclusion.

There are better action scenes in this than actual action series this season.

The success of this show going forward is going to depend on the gags. Here it was a combination of stereotypes of yuri shows and a bit of slapstick comedy. The results were so-so, but again there seems to be a desire to turn the jokes perverted as quickly as possible. That needs to go away as the characters are designed. This isn’t Seitokai Yakuindomo where the characters are firmly established as perverted after all.

There’s hope for this show going forward, but it’s clear that it isn’t setting out to be anything other than a yuri romantic comedy targeted at a male audience.