Final Thoughts: Fall 2014

 Fall 2014 anime Season

I still miss this series

As the year comes to an end, as does the fall 2014 anime season, our last anime season of the year. Let’s not waste any time and get right to it, these are my final thoughts for the fall 214 anime season. But first, let’s look at the shows that will be sticking around into next season. 

Akatsuki no Yona- This show has been a joy to watch. I love shows that put women in the forefront and make them real, full people. Yona is a princess. She barely knows about the outside world, when starting this journey she was unaccustomed to the dangers of the world. But now that she is being hunted at have to hide and live in the wilderness, she has learned and adapted. But she is still selfish and a little greedy, but that isn’t a bad thing. She wants anything and everything that can help her protect her friends and retake the thrown to avenge her father. She admits that she is just using the dragons to help her. Yona is a perfect example of how greed and desire are not necessarily bad things. They can be used to make a more well-rounded and realistic character. I am really excited for the journey this show will take us on. 

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Crystal- I am really enjoying this show. So far it has been a very good adaptation of the source material. There is something particularly shojo about the series that I sometimes can’t help but notice. Every so often I have to remind myself that this is an adaption of a manga that is over 20 years old, and that some of the clichés and tropes of the genre were perhaps at the time new, or at the very least not yet driven into the ground yet. But when those clichés and tropes come to the forefront I can’t help but notice them. But right now I still love the journey that Usagi and the sailor scouts are going through, and I want to continue watching. The show keeps bringing me back, and sometimes that is all a show needs. 

Bonjour Koiaji Patisserie- This reverse harem micro series is fine, if reveling in its own clichés and all that. I will finish it, but to be fair it is slowly becoming a chore to watch. As much as I am ok with misunderstanding plots, sometimes they are over used, and this show is a perfect example of that. 

A girl and her harem. Over half of which are dragons actually. This is a good show.

Cardfight!! Vanguard G- This new type of Vanguard is interesting to say the least. I’ve really ended up liking the new main character. He is so completely different from Aichi and Kai that it really works for this new season. I like his drive; that he wants to be the best he can, and is very willing to work as hard as possible to become the best. I actually really like Kamui in the show too. Kamui is still as energetic as he was in his youth, but now it is matured. I really like Kamui in his current mentor role. I do have some problems with the new game mechanics. The show has yet to properly explain them, like previous seasons have in the past. I understand what they’re doing, kind of, but it is all flash and no substance. It is just the weekly super move. I am also curious about the direction of the show. Right now it is an episodic series of events with no clear direction. It is just Chrono doing stuff and learning. But this is Vanguard, and I know it will end up as something crazy in a few episodes. While not the best Vanguard series ever, it is pretty good. 

Garo- Honoo no Kokuin- I’ve already talked a lot about this show, in that I am doing a weekly review of this show. As such, for a completely review of the show, look there. But in short, so far it has been a good Garo series. Not my favorite in the franchise, but it is still good. I am really liking what they are doing to Leon so far, by stripping him down to bare and opening up the latter half of the series to be Leon forcing himself back up from nothing. And Alfonso has been amazing in the series, and a really good protagonist. I know I will keep up with this show and if you aren’t watching it, it is a good introduction to the Garo Franchise, so pick it up. 

Gundam Build Fighters Try- This season has really developed well over time. The main team so far are very well balanced, and while Sei is the main character the other two members definitely have their lime light and their own storylines going on. I like the slow build up they have had so far. Their battles, while tough battles, have been small time. We haven’t seen there Gunpla’s be truly destroyed yet, and that is something I am very much looking forward to in the next season. They need to experience their Gunpla being straight up wrecked. It is part of the game. And having them experience that loss in the upcoming episodes will be something really great, a trial that Sei especially will have to overcome. This has been an excellent  series so far, and I am excited to see how far team Try Fighters takes it in the upcoming tournament. 

This series could use a little more burning finger.

Log Horizon 2nd Season- The expanding of and exploring of the world that the characters find themselves in has been the main drive of the second season so far, and it has been very interesting. Yes, there is a story going on, with the main character going through a decent bit of character growth along with the ninja girl, but the most important thing is what is happening to the would itself. The flavor text on items are becoming true and not just, well, flavor text. The world is slowly expanding, becoming like how the real world is and not the map that the game is played on. The inclusion of these two ideas really change the nature of the game. While the characters are still the same, it changes how they have to interact with the world. Now they have to be careful with everything they touch. Their tools, their equipment’s, the things that sometimes make them the adventurers they are, are now all tainted and could and have led to devastation. I am worried about the next arc, which involves a shady organization from another part of the continent and the woman from the last episode of the first season. Though that woman is now more interesting to me, I think her inclusion in the last season was just poorly done. But now I am interested in her, though the others around her still need to be fleshed out more. But beside them I am really excited for the second half of this show. 

Majin Bone- Talking about serious change ups in shows, man Majin Bone has decided to flip the script. The recent developments have been really well executed. I like the kind of deconstruction of its own mythology. Apparently only those with a key Bone, a Bone that is the key to the planet like the main characters Dragon Bone for instance, can hear the voice of the Primordial Majin, which is basically God. The antagonists of the show up till now have been following the will of the Primordial Majin through the owner of the key Bone from their planet. But his bone has been taken away, and the current villain is just doing whatever he wants, under the logic that he must be doing what the Primordial Majin wants him to do because it hasn’t come down and killed him, as it has done earlier in the series. But the crux of the whole thing is that someone is always interpreting the will of an omnipotent being. It really changes the game up. It means that antagonists have no backing right now, they are flying as blind as our heroes. And the only character who might be able to hear the will of God is the main character. I’ve always liked this show, but now I am interested in where it will go with this new information. I hope next cour we get to see our main character actually talk to the Primordial Majin. 

Nanatsu no Taizai- I keep feeling very conflicted about this show. On the one hand it is a really fun shonen series with all the good and bad stuff that come with a modern shonen anime. I like the plethora of characters and their abilities and big fights are really fun and cool. But there is something about the main character that just keeps me from being immersed in the show. It could be his very grim dark background that is in conflict with how his character usually acts. It is implied that he has survived and maybe even caused some great, huge catastrophe that left all but him dead, his sin being that he wasn’t strong enough as he puts it. But he never acts like a person who has been through that. One could argue that he is hiding this inner pain with a mask of indifference and laughter, but I think if that is the intention it could be better executed. Or could be that he is the stereotypical shonen main character, in that he is a pervert. He keeps making advances on the princess character and it is all old and been done before. I wouldn’t mind him being a pervert or something if he actually did something with it, and it wasn’t just there as a random joke once in a while. But other than that, I’ve really enjoyed this show. I like all of the other characters, who are all funny and strong in their own rights. I really like the giant woman, she can be really funny. And Ban the thief, his story is a great mix of tragedy and some honest comedy. I know I will keep watching this show, but I wish the main character would grow up a little bit. 

I swear, Ban and Hawk are the best characters.

Shirobako- The anime about making anime has definitely been one of the best shows that I have seen this season, and maybe even this year. It is as close as a frank look into the anime industry as anything we are going to get. It is surprising how much you root for this team to make some shitty moe show that I know I would skip over most seasons. The best part so far has been the end of this episode where they reanimated a scene of this one girl crying. That act is the instigator of almost all the trouble that the crew in the show face. But at its resolution, when the audience was allowed to see and compare the two scenes together, I nearly cried. I had little to no context about the show within a show, other then what they told us. But when you watch the redone scene, it is honestly beautiful. They have really helped tell us what animation can do, what anime can do. The emotions and drive of all these people go into one show, one scene, and it can really come across. If anyone is feeling jaded about anime, they should watch this show. It is really great. 

Tribe Cool Crew- Anime for kids can be hard to pin down sometimes. Majin Bone works because it is mature in its characterization. Tribe Cool Crew works because of how childish it is. It revels in its bright colors and ridiculous dance moves. But when it goes into more mature areas, it feels weird. For instance, apparently the big name dancer that everyone around the world loves has made international enemies because he wants world piece or something.  They are real enemies who want him dead, because he has saved or wants to save African children and starving orphans. It is strange what makes or breaks any given show, but this darker aspect to a show all about dancing doesn’t feel like a step in the right direction. Mind you, that is right now. I still have to see how this larger story plays out in the realm of its much smaller dance competition story. But I still really like Tribe Cool Crew. It has a great energy and it is just really fun to watch. I hope it is able to keep up its energy as the show goes on. 

Yowamushi Pedal: Grande Road- I admit, I am a little disappointed with the second season of this show so far. But I think that disappointment comes solely from these new villains they introduced, and then unceremoniously threw out only a few episodes in. I’m exaggerating a bit, but still, they were only in the show for a small amount of time. And they were really interesting too, being like a team of Midousuji’s, manipulating the pack to gain an advantage. The snake consuming the people it rode into was a great visual metaphor, and some great foreshadowing to the fates of all that it eats up along the way. But my minor disappointment in the shows temporary villains is really a minor quibble of a great show. Midousuji’s backstory has been a real highlight. I had some aspects of it spoiled for me, so I knew before that he has this really sad and tragic backstory that makes the character entirely sympathetic, so watching it unfold was beautiful. And I liked watching he and Onoda interact, it was nice and I hope it is foreshadowing the end of the race. I can’t wait to see how this race ends. While I am pretty sure that our heroes will win, sometimes you can’t be sure in sports anime. 

This is actually just depressing.

And now on to the shows we are saying goodbye to this season.

Denki-gai no Honya-san- For a stupid comedy about people selling hentai manga and sometimes non-pornographic material, this show really wrapped me up in its drama. I’m not even sure how it managed to do that. The minor relationship troubles of these characters was very interesting to me. It was portrayed like a good romance anime, or a shoujo. Though unfortunately no one who I wanted to end up together did, but hey that’s anime for you. Of course the romance aspect didn’t stop the show from being really funny. Some of the parody anime and manga they were selling was a hoot, a lot of the comedy just hit right. The government worker whose job is to enforce the latest pornography laws loving porn herself always made me chuckle. And the Sommelier was the best character hands down, and I don’t think he even had a line. But oddly enough the funniest part of the whole show was the last two minutes of the final episode. Out of nowhere, this character we have only ever seen in the little ‘next time’ segments after the credits was there, ordering a bunch of workers around, telling them to make lewd faces, teaching them to say where the lolicon stuff was, and rapping all the while. It was so crazy, but it just worked, and it wouldn’t have anywhere else in the show. This was a surprisingly good show, though you need to be of the right mind set to watch it. If you don’t like sex jokes or perverted humor then it is not for you, but I am 12 years old so it still makes me giggle. 

Girlfriend Beta- I didn’t set out to watch this show, but a friend of mine saw the first episode and told me I would like it, and she was right. The series is based off a mobil game where you date one of the many girls from this school, so when I heard about it I thought it was a super stereotypical harem show, like a classic harem. But in reality there is no male characters in the show, at least none that matter. The whole cast is female, making it much more like a moe girls being nice to each other show. And while it is in the genre, it is a very good example of that genre. One of its strengths is the sheer number of girls in the show. Every episode focuses on a different girl or group of girls, but many of the characters show up in different episodes, either as part of the main story or as supporting characters. It gives this feel of a true slice of life, not about one person but a small community. These girls are always helping each other, supporting each other, and creating lots of lesbian shipping opportunities. While the show is a bit toothless, it is cute and nice, so I like it. My only complaint is that for some god forsaken reason Miss Monochrome is in the show, as in the robot idol from earlier this year. She is haunting me, and I don’t know why. And she is a real robot in the show, not just some weird girl. In the last episode they need to reboot her! I hope I never have to find that robot idol again. But outside of past trauma, this is a pretty fun, cute, and harmless show. If you like moe girls being nice to each other, this is a show not to miss. 

Gugure! Kokkuri-san- I talked about this show in my 12 Days of Anime Christmas. It was a great little series that had so much more depth then what I was expecting. What was supposed to be a show with dark and great humor ended up having just so much more soul then I ever expected. The tanuki character is still the best part of the show. He plays the line between the perverted old man and the badass old man that I love perfectly. When he is romancing Kokkuri when Kokkuri is stuck in the body of a woman, it is surprisingly sweet, and honest, and kind, until the other shoe drops and Kokkuri turns back when they kiss. Sometimes the jokes do fall flat though. They sometimes use the usual Japanese form of comedy, and if you don’t like that then the show will just be impenetrable. And it does use problematic humor, making pedo jokes a lot. To be fair, it is usually in a negative, but it is still there. It is more of a problem with Japanese humor, but it is still a problem. I really like this show, and while it isn’t perfect, it was a stead out show from this season. 

Best character. Terrible person.

Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle- Chaika was a strange show from start to end. Its world was complicated and large, which wasn’t a bad thing. It was one of the first real western fantasy series I have seen in a long time in anime that actually works. I like the sort of class system the show used, where everyone had a job and skills that went with that job, but could change like Toaru did in the end. It was a world I wanted to play in, especially with the magical beasts and the magic system it used. The story is also like that of a games. It has the main characters going from point to point, fighting a boss and moving on with a prize. The finally of the show though didn’t work well for me. It felt rushed, like they ran out of time so they just had everything that the show had been working towards happen all at once. Every plot point was resolved in the span of 2 episodes, where it felt like they should have ended over time. There was no room to breathe between every new reveal. Also the fact that there are just a bunch of castles in space orbiting the planet is going to be a problem one day for this world. Also the motivation of the villain was a bit weak. The show is not without its problems, but the world they it makes looks amazing and is very fun to watch. Chaika as whole was an interesting show at least, and a good fantasy show. While not the best of the genre, it is definitely a good addition to the category. 

Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de- Studio Triggers second major anime was, at the end of the day, a bit of a success. It was almost like a show that was using the elements of a harem anime and a light novel adaptation anime on purpose instead of just being that show, like it was conscious of its decisions and usage of those elements. While I can’t call it a straight up parody, its use of the tropes and clichés are played too straight for that, it made for an interesting show. And the comedy was usually on point. I really liked the joke that was the main characters power. It worked as a metaphor for the characters beliefs about his 8^th grader syndrome, that all powers need to be are cool and that being cool, at least to himself, is his only goal, but its upgraded form was also really great. It was both the most useless power of all time, and a really great power too. The story that is going on in the background though, with the fairy war and all that, seems fairly week, but it could be an interesting story with some development. I actually wouldn’t mind a season two of this, where they focus on the fairy war aspect, and they make it big and have good looking fights, and in the end it ties into the first season, like they run parallel. But what we got is probably all we will have. And that is fine. This is an ok show at the end of the day, but I am looking forward to what the studio will put out next. 

Mushishi Zoku Shou 2nd Season- Mushishi has been and always will be art. This season brought more amazing stories with beautiful animation. I’ve always loved how slow Mushishi is. Its animation is slow and particular, with every frame being important. The stories are relaxed, even when the story is heating up. This season had some really amazing stories too. They ranged from sad and beautiful, to dark and showing the more awful nature of man, to a kind of romantic story in one. I loved the episode explaining a bit about Ginko’s past. Even though he is the main character, Ginko is arguably the least important character in the show, he is just there to explain the problem and fix it. But by turning him into a patient, by showing him as a child, we see where he comes from and just why he is the protagonist. This was another great addition to an amazing series. 

He loves that right hand. Wait...

Orenchi no Furo Jijou- This was a surprisingly fun little micro series. A merman BL story was cute, though overall silly. The only complaint I have is that the little sister makes the show awkward and her character is overall useless. They should have focused less on her and more on the snail dude. Definitely one of the better micro series I have seen, both in terms of production and just compared to other micro series. 

Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis- While this series started off strong, the latter half of the show was definitely its weak point. By this point I am parroting popular opinion, but it is true that the show worked better as a road trip story then as something with a more singular location. Once they reached that one kingdom the show was never really able to regain its pace, and the addition of a bunch of new characters didn’t help. Mind you, none of these things hurt the show enough to make it unwatchable. Every episode had something even if it was just Favaro acting like Favaro to make it fun to watch. And while the second half was weaker, the finale almost made up for it. The scenes with the multitude of gods and devils fighting the giant dragon looked cool, though it would have worked better if they had talked about or focused on them in any way. But that wasn’t the focus of the finale. It was, in a way, the completion of Favaro’s journey. He was finally making the decision to put the needs of someone else in front of himself, instead of being forced to. He was able to keep his leaf on the wind mentality through it all, but he learned compassion. He became the hero that was needed. I really loved this show. It was a lot of fun, with some great action and is another good addition to the fantasy genre. While I am not sure if a sequel would work for the show, I wouldn’t mind returning to this world and its characters. 

Sword Art Online 2- Thank fucking god this show is over. They gave a little girl AIDS for the sake of stupid drama. I hate this show, and I pray to any god willing to listen that there isn’t a season three, because I will watch it, and I don’t need any more pain in my life. 

The other best character of the year.

And that was the fall 2014 anime season. I am honestly surprised by how many shows are sticking around into the next year. It will help make the winter season be very busy. And speaking of next year, we have the return of a few series that I like. The second half of Stardust Crusaders starts, and will finish up the third part. Kuroko’s Basketball might actually finish, or in the very least move forward. And a sequal I was not expecting is appearing. Time to get my yellow scarf and my Dollars website login again. Durarara season 2 starts this winter. So until next time, keep on watching.

I missed being part of this gang.