Winter 2014 Anime Season: First Impressions

First Impressions: Winter 2014

And just like that, only a few weeks after the start of a new year, we have a new season of anime. Full disclosure, I am keeping this first impressions list kind of short, at least short compared to most seasons. I might pick up one or two more shows if I hear great things about them through the season, but with all the shows continuing over from last season I wanted to keep this one more focused. So without further to do, here are my first impressions of the winter 2014 anime season. 

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren- The second season the show about delusional teens is here and I am excited. I really dug the first season of this show, the characters were fun, the delusions were really great to watch, and the romance, while a bit forced at times, was sweet and I liked it. The second season seems to be basically more of this. It starts with the main too characters living together, while still in high school, and no parental advisors around. It is clear that we are going to be focusing more on the budding romance of these two. Personally, I thought that they were a straight up couple by the end of the first season, but evidently they are still confused and awkward, and not fully in a relationship, sort of. I am not sure how I feel about this, but as long as they can make this stage of their lives interesting, I will be fine with it. I do not know what to except from this season, but I am excited for more over the top delusion battles. 

D-Frag – At a Japanese high school there is a Game Designers club, though really it is a club for people to just hang out and be lazy. But they will get shut down if they can’t get one more person.  Enter the main character, a high school punk, or at least someone who calls himself a punk or delinquent, and his gang/ two friends he hangs out. They are the worst gang, as they have the habit of doing good deeds. The main character gets wrapped up in the Game Designers club, at first saving them from a fire in their club room, and then gets tortured into joining, though at the end it is his final decision to fully join. I actually kind of liked this show. A lot of the characters remind me of different types of anime high school characters throughout the years, especially the members of the main characters gang. And the jokes about moe, cutesy characters were really funny. There was a really funny moment where the main character learned that his gang was not even close to the toughest gang in the school, with the other delinquents having really cool and dangerous sounding names, and just the despair that the main character felt being on his face. I really liked this show, which surprised me. I was expecting something really cliché and harem-y, and instead I found something surprisingly funny. I hope the main character’s gang still gets screen time as the series goes on, and I hope the relationship between the president of the Game Design and the main grows well. It already has the beginnings of a really good romance or even just a really good friendship, I just hope it grows naturally.

Hamatora- Have you seen Darker then Black? This is basically the same thing, but less darker and more detective-y. A group of young, or at least young looking, detectives do any job that walks into their offices, which happens to be a café. All of these detectives, and the enemies that they end up fighting, have super powers of some sort, but these powers are dependent on a habit or a quirk that the user must perform before using the power. At least I think so. Every time someone used a power, right before they did some sort of little ritual, from chewing gum to listening to music. This show actually seems pretty interesting. It had good energy, I liked the characters, and the world they are setting up seems interesting.  This might be because it reminds me of the very stylistic K, though with the powers of Darker then Black. I am really digging this show, and hope that it can keep the really fun, lively feel that the first episode did.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu- Hoozuki no Reitetsu is a very dark comedy about the hell as a very bureaucratic government system. Hoozuki is a top aide in hell, and a bit of a well-respected fixer. The show is a character study of Hoozuki, closely following his day to day work in hell. I can’t really say much about the show, as it doesn’t really have any overarching plot, but that is to its benefit. It is like a slice of life about hell and the people who run it, and it is really funny. I loved the very regular conversation that the King of Hell and Hoozuki had about hobbies and vacations and just everyday life. I really liked the first episode of this show, and I hope the rest of the series continues to be good.

Nobunaga the Fool- In an alternate world, all of the great historical figures live on two planets. All the greats of the western world are on one world, and all the greats of the east are on the other. We follow Nobunaga and Joan of Arc, though we follow Nobunaga closer. War is starting to break out on the eastern world, and Nobunaga, a young son of an emperor wants to be the man to bring peace to the world, as its one ruler. On the western planet, Joan of Arc is having visions of her past lives, of the earth Joan of Arc and as close confident of Nobunaga, and journeys to the eastern planet to find the man who will unite the worlds. Also there are mechas. This show isn’t doing anything for me. It doesn’t have the energy that a show full of crazy historic figures should have. I was expecting something over the top and wild, but instead it all felt too artificial. It was trying to be another series, but misses the target to be entertaining. It might get better as the series goes on, but this show is up there on the list to get dropped.

Nobunagun- This is clearly the superior of the two shows about Nobunaga that has come out this season. The souls of great historical figures have been reincarnated into the modern day, and special people can use those souls to form powerful weapons. We follow a high school girl who is a complete military nerd, knowing everything about guns and tanks and planes. On a school trip, the city gets attacked by aliens and someone with the soul of Jack the Ripper helps try to save the day, but is injured. Our protagonist ends up summoning using the soul of Nobunaga to form a huge awesome gun, destroying the aliens and saving her new friend. She then joins the organization fighting against the alien invaders. This show is awesome. The action in it is spectacular, I love the main character, and the plot, while a bit contrived, is really fun. I really like the visual style of the show too, just the colors and everything really works. Nobunagun looks like it will be an excellent ride, and I look forward to more awesome fights this season.

Sakura Trick- This is a straight up lesbian love story. It isn’t implied, it isn’t in the background, it isn’t shipped by the fans, it is the focus of the show. And that is kind of cool. To be honest, I don’t know many shows that have cannon lesbian couples, much less have main characters fitting that description, and aren’t porn. Without the lesbian love story, this is a slice of life high school anime about girls who are all close friends. Their school is closing in three years, so they are the last freshman class. Alone this would be a show that I would watch, but it wouldn’t be anything special, something that I have seen a thousand times before. To be honest, the hook is what makes this show interesting. It is just a normal, super average show, but with lesbians, and I kind of like it.

Seitokai Yakuindomo 2- I am a sucker for really bad perverted comedy. Because of that, I love this show. I was super excited when I heard this was getting a second season, but realized that I saw none of the OVA’s that had come before this. So I marathoned 8 episodes of perverted comedy in a row just so I would understand basically one character. It was so worth it. If you have seen the first season, watch this show. If you like stupid perverted comedy and dumb sex jokes, watch this show. Seriously, this show hits the funny bone of maybe a dozen people, but it hits those dozen people hard. Watch this show, you will probably regret it.

Space Dandy- He’s a dandy in space. But really, I have no clue what happened in the first episode. There was a lot of talk about boobs and butts, a cat alien dude, a really cool robot, a fly dude with a pompadour, the head of the Statue of Liberty with a gag-ball in its mouth, people going to plaid, and then everyone dying in a glorious, huge explosion. It was awesome. If you don’t know, this is the latest show from the creator of Cowboy Bebop, and is being dub in America as the show is still going on in Japan. Just from those two facts alone make this show really cool to me, but the insanity of the first episode is what really sold me. It is a cool crazy ride through space with a dandy guy. I plan on keeping up with it.

Tonari no Seki-kun- Also known as The Master of Killing Time, this show is about a dude who wastes all his time in class amusing himself with super elaborate games and narratives, sometimes going as far as moding his school desk to better play, all watched by his classmate, who wants him to stop fooling around and study, while getting wrapped up in the dude’s stories and games herself. I was introduced to this in its manga form a few months back, and the manga is really funny, so I was hoping the anime adaptation would at least hit close to what the manga presented, and to be fair it did better. The episodes are only about 10 minutes or so long, which is a perfect length for the jokes to work. And the animation really brings to life the dude’s creations and games. Also I should highlight the opening and ending, which are both incredible. The opening has the main character actually animating the opening as it is going on, all in class of course, and the ending has him playing the drumming the ending theme on odds and ends with pencils. It is amazing, and I highly recommend this show as a whole.

Witch Craft Works- Our protagonist is an average guy, meaning the usual kind of bland protagonist, whose life is made tough by the presence of the richest, most popular girl in school. While she doesn’t do anything herself, her fans are always crowding around her, and because he sit close to her, he gets dragged around or pushed around by her fan club. One day, while taking out the trash at school, a building almost falls on the main character, and he is attacked by large bunnies in armor. He is saved, though, by the popular girl, who turns out to be a witch, and his protector. It turns out that there are two factions of witches, ones who want to kill the main character, and ones who don’t. WE really don’t know why they are after the main character, why the popular girl wants to protect him, or really anything, but the girl did call the main character her princess, so I assume they will explain it all later. While this show is kind of unoriginal and has been done a million times over, there is an energy that makes the show fun. A lot of the jokes really work, and I like the relationship building between the main two characters. That and the team of evil witches, who dominate the ending theme, are really funny. I am surprised at how much I like this show, and I plan on keeping up with it.

At that is my first impressions of what I watched in the Winter 2014 anime season. It is a really short list this season, only 11 shows. But with all the series carrying over from last season, and a large number of the shows this season looking like the same harem-y, romantic in the family type shows, I think I made the right decision. But who knows, maybe I will pick something up over the season, or drop all these shows for one reason or another. So until next time, have fun watching.