Final Thoughts: Spring 2014

Spring 2014 Anime Season

Spring has finally ended and with it, what was once a bright new season comes to a close. There will be many shows that I will miss from this season, but first, let us take a glance at those who will be with us into the blistering hot days of summer.

Baby Steps- This has to be one of the best executed sports shows I’ve ever seen. In an odd way, it completely throws off all the conventions of average sports anime, like third years and people starting out with great skills and really any over dramatics, for just good old fashion realism. Mind you, I love all those things I just listed, but because Baby Steps is so different I can really appreciate it. The main characters slow growth throughout the series so far has really been just incredibly handled. I love watching him steadily learn and adjust and just get better. It is refreshing. I really can’t wait to see how far he grows as a player. And to be honest, once this show ends, I am totally going to read the entire manga. 

Cardfight!! Vanguard: Legion Mate- This show is getting insane. Why is this show getting so insane? What the actual hell is going on? First of all, my main question about the series so far, what the hell happened to Kourin, was finally answered, which I liked. But then it creates a thing where Aichi, the main character for the last 3 season, is the mastermind behind all this, but maybe it is because he is unwilling to put his friends though the pain he will face, but then why did he choose assholes to be his new team? So many questions, and so littler answers. But it makes me want to ask more, to be fair. Also, the fact that Kai is back to his old clan is kind of amazing. It is like the weirdest character development he could get, he is back to how he was in the beginning of the series. But for some reason it works. You just continue to be you Cardfight, the weirdest but possibly best card game show ever made. 

Haikyuu!!- You know everything I said about genius, over powered characters and third years and over dramatics? That is Haikyuu and I love it. This show is just really good. The animation in it reaches these peaks that are amazing, where everything goes extreme and it reminds me of the Hunter X Hunter manga. The characters are just so fun. There was this one guy who right at the beginning I pegged him to be that kind of annoying, but ultimately harmless and forgettable dude and now he is one of my favorites just because he is amazing. And the growth of the main character so far has been really well handled. He isn’t amazing yet, but he is walking down the path of becoming like his hero. I only hope we get to see more of his hero one day. This is a really good sports anime and along with Baby Steps I cannot recommend them higher.

GO TEAM FIGHT! I love sports anime so much.

Hunter X Hunter- Oh Jesus, oh god, oh Jesus, oh god. WELP, for all intents and purposes the Chimera Ant arc is at an end. And it was amazing and painful. There is a reason this is one of the best manga series I’ve ever read. It was just amazing. Go read it right now. Go watch it right now. But with this, I think Hunter X Hunter will be ending within the next season or two. The next arc is kind of the last arc before the author went on a couple year hiatus, which only recently ended. I suppose there is enough content for 24-36 episodes, but I am not sure. Only time will tell. But the stuff that is coming up? It will blow your minds.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders- WHOO YEAR OF JOJO! In case you didn’t hear, Stardust Crusaders has been picked up for an entire four seasons, instead of what we all thought, just two. I think this might be just a bit of a stretch, but at the end of the day it is more good anime so I can’t really complain. Speaking of good anime, Jojo has been spectacular so far. It is keeping incredibly close to the manga so far, not skipping a single battle. What is interesting is how they are changing some of the names of characters. I think they are making the names match the original translation of the manga, which I am fine with but those names do not match what the characters are always saying. It isn’t a big problem, it is just something that I keep noticing. But yeah, go watch Jojo, it is amazing, and then go read the manga, it is even better. 

The File of Young Kindaichi Returns- If you ever want the feeling of watching a 90”s anime but with better quality animation go no further than this show. This series just feels so incredibly old. It isn’t bad, mind you, it is just slow and old. It is like watching a bad rip-off of Detective Conan, except this show came out while Conan was on! It isn’t a bad show mind you, the mysteries are decent enough and the characters aren’t bad, for the most part. So far it is just kind of boring. Hopefully the second half will pick up the pace a bit and have some really interesting mysteries. 

Majin Bone- This is one of the most fun shonen anime I have seen in a long while. This show is just purely shonen action, with transforming action and crazy fights and aliens and karate and marital arts and it is just fun. Everything about this show is just cliché but so entirely fun. I am enjoying it so much I can’t help but like it. I am still confused about how the African dude is African, but hey that is kind of a minor complaint at the end of the day with a show about fighting god. Seriously, go watch this show, it is great. Also, has an incredible ending theme. 

Our heroes for the next year. I am so happy!

These are the shows that are following me into the summer months. There is some great anime I am looking forward to watching. But now let us look at the shows I must say goodbye to. These are the shows ending in the spring anime season. 

The Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behavior- This turned out to be a really good show. Almost every main character got a little bit of depth, and the main two really changed and developed over the course of the show. Their relationship as random two people, to friends to mutual crushes was slow but not painful. It felt like a natural progression with little unnatural stupid roadblocks that always tend to happen in these types of show. There wasn’t even a second love interest to make for the always popular yet getting really dull love triangle. At most one of the other women in the hostel would jokingly talk about taking the main dudes virginity. If anything books were the third member of that triangle, and I feel they would just be part of the relationship anyway. I really liked this show, and would not mind watching more episodes of it, if they ever decide to make a second season. Good characters, some fun lines, and decent romance make for a pretty good show. 

Is the Order a Rabbit?- For my random moe show of the season, this show turned out to be pretty decent. It was cute and harmless, like everything else in its overall genre, but there was a focus that the show had that I felt was done strongly enough and well enough that it deserved comment. In shows like this the girls are all usually lesbians without saying it or “just friends” with shipping scenes everywhere. And to be fair this show has that, but it does it kind of differently. The show seems to focus on actual female friendship, in a few different ways. It does have a girl that is in love with another girl, and both of them are very close, showing a more romantic relationship. It has girls that are just close friends, either new friends that instantly get along or long term friends that are so close they can practically read each other’s minds. And then it focuses on a sisterly relationship, though in this case it is non-related sisters, but the two main characters becoming so close that they are more than friends, they are sisters by the end of the series. I like how the series shows these different forms of relationships that people develop over time, and it is good to show strong relationship with women and girls like this, as it makes the girls stronger in my mind. For a harmless little series, this turned out to be really fun and cute. Also I like the different types of cafes they had, I feel like that idea would work in a different kind of series as well. 

Hitsugi no Chaika- This was an interesting little action adventure story. The world they set up seems very real and fleshed out, and the fact that for the most part we only get to see it from the angle of some random people travelling is what makes it feel so real. It is kind of like the Avatar the Last Airbender world. All this stuff is going on in the background, politics, alliances, those who want war and those who fight against war, but we don’t see that, we see Chaika and her crew. Actually comparing it to Avatar might be more apt then I first thought. The two worlds are fantasy based world with some technology and we follow a special person and their crew of friends. Hell the main characters companies are brother and sister in both, kind of. But Chaika is much darker, for lack of a better world. Darker doesn’t mean better necessarily, but it definitely shows what that series could have been if Sokka killed more people and Toph was a dragon. I also like the class system they use in this series. By that I mean people have job titles like they do in a Dungeon and Dragons game. You have a Cavalier who has a specific skill set, an Inquisitor who has another specific skill set. The way the characters are built is like a DnD system, but it works. It is why the mian characters party is not super strong, but suited for what they need, and the group chasing after them is more well-balanced, with different people having different skills. I would love to play a tabletop RPG in this world. I really liked Chaika, it turned out to be one of the better shows this season. I look forward to its return in the fall season. 

This show was just so adorable!

Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san- A harmless cute micro series about lesbians who take on the traits of animals. It is fine if you like that stuff, boring if you don’t. 

Love Live! School Idol Project Season 2- this show should not have had such an emotion impact on me, and as it turns out, the last three episodes has made me cry every single time. Love Live has turned me into an emotional wreck and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This was truly an amazing idol show. The songs and dancing were always fantastic and I was fully invested in the stories going on and the characters involved. Every single character in this show has had a great story given to them, and were allowed chances to grow and develop as characters and people. I honestly don’t want this show to end. I want more singing, I want more third year feels, I want more of Hanayo and Nico being the best characters in that show. I honestly hope this show gets a third season, because I would love to see where they go from there. They are not the same Idol group they were before, three members are gone. So what do they do? And what happens when the person who created this idol group has to leave and graduate, and the group is nothing like it was before? There is so much this show could actually do, I just really, really want them to have more. Please give me more Love Live. It is just good. I love this series, it is amazing. 

Mushishi Zoku Shou- This show is a piece of art. Mushishi has always been one of the most amazing shows for me. It is very relaxed and slow and is incredibly atmospheric. The episodic nature of the show really plays to its strengths, of just small stories that happen to people every day. For a show that is so small, random stories about random people only connected by the man who helps them, it creates this grand working universe filled with monsters and mushi, all who are able to just mess with you. Also it has one of my favorite main characters in anime, Ginko. I’ve always wished we could learn more about him, but also I know that the mystery surrounding him is half the character. I love this show and the second half of this season will be as good as the first half, when it shows up in the fall. 

This might be the show I am saddest to see go.

No Game No Life- For a show that is kind of the perfect microcosm of everything bad or at least annoying in anime, incest lolis in love with their perfect big brothers who have also a minor harem with tons of fanservice and more male power fantasies that you can shake a stick at, this was a good show. I think one of the things that helped it was just how honest the show was with itself. It knew that it was a male power fantasy that glorifies the NEET life and shows just how much better the main characters are then everyone else is. It had no excuse so it didn’t ask for any or hide behind any. And because it starts from that honest perspective, it can just be fun. A good comparison to this show is The Irregular at Magic High School, a show I dropped this season. Essentially these shows are the same, hitting many of the same beats of all the annoying things in anime, but No Game No Life is just honest about it and wants to have fun, making it a much better, or at least much more enjoyable show. And it is enjoyable. Everything about this show, from its colors to all its references to other media to the just hope for humanity makes it a very enjoyable fun show. It isn’t perfect mind you, but just good. If they make a second season, I will totally watch it. 

The World is Still Beautiful- This was a surprisingly beautiful series at the end of the day. The greatest problem with the show is the age of the love interest, the king of the world. He is just so young compared to the main character, but I think it speaks to the strength of the writing of the show that it made me support the relationship and just made it so real. This was a real relationship progressing over time and by the end it makes sense that they are in love with each other and it is so cute and perfect. This is really one of the best romances I’ve seen this season. The main problem with the show is the male lead, and all the problems with him have a real, logical starting point and he is improving over time. He is someone who has been forced to grow up way to fast, forced to live in a harsh environment and someone who has seen the death of the only person he has ever loved. He is a tragic figure and his actions make sense though that lens. And his growth, brought on by the main character, is just really great to watch. Also this show probably has one of the strongest female characters in anime that I have seen in long while. This is a good show, I loved it, and you should watch it too.

Tonari no Seki-kun- There is little I can say about this show that I haven’t mentioned before, it is a really good, solid show that is just a blast to watch. I am still blown away by its opening theme, where the main character is drawing the opening theme as it goes on, and the ending theme where he is playing the ending theme as it goes on. I still love all the little stories that the main female character makes up and interprets from what the dude does. My only complaint was that I was hoping that the last episode would be a different chapter form the manga, but then I heard that chapter was going to be made into an OVA, so I can look forward to that. This was a great show and you should go watch it. 

Yowamushi Pedal- The ending of this series made me both very happy and very angry. They ended the race on a cliffhanger! They didn’t even finish the second day! I am filled with emotional torment! But what led up to the cliffhanger, seeing the main team finally reach the front of the race, seeing the teams fight in the last legs of the race, watching Onada be pushed beyond his limit and smiling at climbing, it was all amazing. But cliffhanger! The fact that the show is getting a second season in the fall does take the sting out of that cliffhanger though. This is seriously one of the best sports anime I’ve seen. It has that elusive balance of impossible and realistic, and just good plain heart. I love the little outro moments and this show is just amazing. Watch the first season and then wait penitently for the second one coming in October. I can’t hardly wait. 

The robot family needs it's own show.

And that was the spring 2014 anime season. I am really sad to see this one go. Shows like Love Live and Yowamushi Pedal made me cheer and cry and The World is Still Beautiful and Kawai Complex Guide had wonderful romances, and there was just so much beauty and hear this season. I loved this season, but it is time to look to the future. We have the return of swimming guys, the answer to the most bullshit ending in anime since Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the long awaited reappearance of the queen of magical girl anime. It is going to be a fun time. Until next time, have fun watching.

See you next season! In like two weeks.