Final Thoughts: Fall 2015

Final Thoughts: Fall 2015

As the year ends, and the new one starts, our last anime season of the year finishes up with a bang. This season was explosive with possible some of the best anime we’ve had all yeah. As usual, before we look at the shows that are going away, let’s look at the shows that will be sticking around with us into the New Year. 

Brave Beats- I really miss Tribe Cool Crew. Brace Beats as a dancing anime is not a bad show. It is fun and silly and the dancing can be ok, and it’s the only show I’ve ever seen with an episode about a huge muscle Santa pole dancing on a huge Christmas tree. But I can’t help but compare it to Tribe Cool Crew. Tribe Cool Crew is a surprisingly great show with amazing character development and growth. But admittingly I forget how slow that show started. It’s totally possible that Brave Beats will have that growth eventually, but for now it feels more like an anime that would take place in the same world as Tribe Cool Crew. I do like this show. The comedic villains are hilarious, and I like how in love they are. The main characters are actually good people and have room for growth, which I hope we get to see more of as the show goes on. This show as potential, and my hope for it is that it lives up to it. 

Cardfight Vanguard G: Gears Crisis-hen- This season of Cardfight is shaping up to be a bit strange. There is the larger magical story line that usually goes on in every season, but one of the not so mystical plots involves one of the main characters turning into the new Kai. The rich guy is brought low and is now kicking ass with Vanguard in order to bring back honor to his family name. I’m assuming the guy who stole his family fortune out from under him will eventually come back and somehow be associated with the secret big bad of the season. But if he doesn’t it still is an interesting angle. The other cool angle is just how many old cast members are coming back for to do stuff this season. So many characters are appearing and interacting with the new main characters, everyone except Aichi himself but I feel he’s going to be the big reveal by the end. I like how the older characters are involved with the much larger magical plot that’s going on the background. They are still protecting the earth after all this time, which is really cool to see. I’m really excited to see where the show will go with bringing the new kids into this story and them confronting the more magical parts of the game they play. I look forward to seeing where it goes. 

Dragon Ball Super- This show has been so weird. I can’t say it’s a bad show ever because it’s everything that is good about Dragon Ball Z but I can’t say it’s a good show because it’s everything bad about Dragon Ball Z. It’s the dumb action and plots but also the fun characters, no older and for some reason even more fun. Vegeta is no longer openly hostile to Goku, seeing him as a rival and no longer as an enemy. Krillian is a husband and father and loves his wife and child so much, and his wife loves him so much, and I appreciate the small things we see of them so much. The only character that doesn’t feel like they’ve grown in any way is Goku and yet that makes sense for his character. Watching this show is just so strange sometimes. Right now it is doing the most recent movie, Goku fighting Freeza, but after that I believe it starts a new, anime original story line involving alternate dimension warriors. I look forward to it. 

Garo: Guren no Tsuki- This is just not a go show. It is one of the biggest disappointments of the year. Last year we had an amazing anime that delved deep into the development of a petulant youth into a young hero. This year we have a show about…something? There are so many random little stories going on that seem discontected. On the one had there is the story of the rich people who use a different type of magic to protect themselves from the demons. Then there is the mysterious random guy who uses dark magic of some sort, and he does actually nothing. And our heroes don’t seem to have some goal in life. They just hang out until some monster shows up. The original Garo series was also episodic but you got the sense that the main characters had goals in life and worked towards them. In this they don’t do anything until the monster shows up. No one is working towards something more. It feels frustrating. Especially after the last season was an amazing show. I don’t know even if I want to keep up with it next season. It’s just a frustrating show. 

Haikyuu!! Second Season- This show remains one of the best sports anime out there. The action is always so tight. Every match feels like a big battle, but naturally so. Even when the main characters are the ones dominating the match, we still feel invested because we learn about the other team or our heroes are starting to fight well together. It’s really well done. This season has been really well done so far. It started with a slightly slow academic arc that I personally liked because it has some great moments and jokes and lead into the main conflict of the cour, our heroes breaking apart to get better and then coming back together with their new skills. Seeing everyone grow and change and bring new tactics and techniques into the game is just really fun to see. I can’t wait to see the next cour where they will really go deep into the tournament. As I’ve said before, I read the manga and I know how amazing the upcoming matches are going to be. This is such a fun show. 

JK Meshi- What the hell is this show. This is such a small, strange little show. It has terrible animation, the jokes are stale and bad, and the food ideas are sometimes just strange. But I love it. It has this really strange little charm to it. It is oddly self-aware, there was a whole episode about the show itself, and it was really meta. I can’t stop watching it. And I don’t plan to. I feel like this show is like an indie series, with artists and voice actors who are new to the industry and haven’t had any work to do. And it works for me. I know I plan on watching more of it. 

The Files of Young Kindaichi Returns season2- This show is always really boring to me. I can never place why it’s boring to me, it might just be that the 90’s style to it doesn’t translate well in the modern anime for me. I’ve always had this problem with this show, but I keep watching. It might be that I know it can be good, I know that it has something good to it, but it just doesn’t reach me most of the time. This season’s mysteries have been ok. The first one was mildly interesting, but ultimately hinged on an adult looking exactly like a child and that person being a master actor. The next mystery was about a Go murder and had a “cool motive still murder” moment. And the last big one was about the main characters arch enemy and him teaming up to solve a murder mystery mansion party. That last one should have felt like such a bigger mystery, but it didn’t have any gravitas to it. It just didn’t feel like a special event. It should have been two great minds working together despite their animosity to each other. Instead it was Kindaichi solving a mystery and his enemy hanging out and giving his two cents. I don’t know about this show. Every season I feel like dropping it, but I end up keeping up with it. Hopefully the next cour will be better. 

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blood Orphans- This season of Gundam has been really great. It has this palpable feel of growing up. It’s all about the slow awkwardness of growing up, slowly and quickly at the same time. Making all the main characters basically children and then throwing them into this harsh world is classic Gundam, but feels like it hits so much harder here. Gundam has always been about child soldiers and the horrors of war and this is one of the best versions of it. It has these slaves called human debris who are kidnapped at children and raised to be cannon fodder. One of our main characters was one and we get to see him accept his new found freedom and the family he has found. It’s a very interesting series, and I hope it stays good. I feel like it could definitely trip itself up over time, maybe focusing too much on one aspect like the robot fights or the human drama. But for now it has a very nice balance. I look forward to more giant robots in the New Year. 

Osomatsu-San- This might have been the most surprising show of the season, and not just because it’s getting a second cour, which I know I didn’t’ expect. It is honestly one of the funniest shows this season. It is silly, but never relies on one form of comedy, always changing it up and making the jokes funnier and funnier each time. Even the lame jokes can get a chuckle out of me because of how this show presents itself. It can be amazingly funny. But it also has a strange amount of heart. Some of the vignettes were very poignant and sad and had an emotional impact. One of the biggest examples of this is a short little love story between one of the wackier members of the Osomatsu family and a girl that saves him and he also saves. It’s kind of a beautiful love story with a character that no one would expect to have a love story about. But it’s still funny. I would have never expected a show based on characters from the 60s being NEETs as adults would be actually funny. I love this show, and I really hope that the next cour will be just as good. 

Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen- This show keeps confusing me. On the one hand it has this slice of life story about a guy who is forced to help people in sometimes strange ways. Its slice of life in fantasy, which is something I always enjoy. But it’s also a harem anime with a non-zero amount of fan service, especially after the introduction of twins who are tantamount to sex slaves and a ton of bath scenes. I always feel conflicted about this show because of this. That and the fact that there is very little overarching story, except when they promised a war almost literally out of nowhere. I feel like this show is ultimately average, nothing fancy about it but nothing wrong about it, but I still like it. I look forward to more harem building I guess. 

While some of these shows are definitely a disappointment, the good out way the bad and I am very happy to keep watching them. But now let’s turn to the shows that have ended the year with us. These are my final thoughts on the fall 2015 anime season.

Concrete Revolution: Choujin Gensou- I don’t know what to think about this show. What I thought was going to be a love letter to classic and modern Japanese super heroes turned out to be one of the biggest political allegories of the year. Every episode, every hero, every story was somehow involved with an allegory for military use, government growth, youth in revolt, and even some deeper ideas about justice, peace, and freedom, the things that heroes fight for. While it’s heavy handed at times it’s a very interesting and usually well-handled concept. It feels like it’s putting classic style characters in what is considered modern comic book styles. It’s dark and has an edge, but there is still a glimmer of hope, or at least we hope we see that glimmer. I think it works for the most part. But the story isn’t done yet. They have already said a second season is coming soon, and if it works off the base that they built in this season I think it will be even better this the first one. Let’s hope that turns out to be the case. 

Fushigi na Somera-chan- Sometimes I forget how well kind of random humor can be. While lol random humor is usually panned as lazy and bad, and to be fair it can be and often is, sometimes it works, like this show. This series is just a little crazy. It works because of how short the episodes are how fast the characters are. I was worried about this show being too crazy and getting lost while it tries to be funny, but honestly I think it works. I like the random animal facts about a fictional animal in the beginning, I like the screwball comedy where anything could happen, and I like how it forgot its own premise until the last episode. It wasn’t bad. Wacky, strange, and not bad. 

Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?- I actually forgot how pleasant this show is. It’s the same moe girls acting nice to each other style series that it always is, but it is such a cute, nice series. I like the heavier focus on sisters in this one, it was something different. The first season also had this focus but it felt more evolved this time around. I also like how we got to see more of the families in this season. It really made me want to watch a show just about these adults, a writer, a bartender, and an ex-military millionaire hanging out in a bar. They are really interesting but they don’t take away from the core of the series, the moe girls. I enjoyed this season more than I expected too, and even look forward to the inevitable next one. 

Komuri-san wa Kotowarenai!- This is another show I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I thought I would. My only real complain with the show was my greatest worry of it, the focus on the main charters large breasts and all of the humor coming from there. And they did focus on that aspect of the character, but there was also a really sweet and gentle story about liking to help people. I like the inclusion of a character that comes from the opposite end of the main characters problem, he wants to help people but people don’t rely on him. He started out as a bit of an antagonist but I really liked him by the end. This was a surprisingly cute little show and I might even go back and read the manga now. 

One Punch Man- I was so hyped for this show. I love the manga, and have been reading it for years, so I was so excited when it was announced. And it did not disappoint. This show was everything I loved from the manga. It had the great little action scenes that look amazing in the manga, it had the ridiculous humor, it had the heart, and it had Mumen Rider. It was everything I wanted and more. Truly a perfect adaptation. I know I’m a bit biased because of my love of the manga but I truly enjoyed this series. Now I just hope that it gets a second season once the manga gets further ahead. I’d love to see the hero killer in action, or more of Sonic doing nothing and being hilarious, or Genos just hanging out. I really enjoyed this series. 

Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru- Beautiful Bones was an affective set up for a larger mystery series. While the show itself isn’t amazing it was perfectly fine, but ultimately everything in it is just set up for the bigger murder mystery that will probably come in the second season. The mysteries themselves were pretty good, the use of bones as both the core of the mystery and the thematic element of each one was fun to watch. To be honest, this was a just barely above bland show. It looked very pretty most of the time but the stories were bare bones mysteries that rarely had much impact. But to be fair when they did have an impact it did feel more organic and less manipulated then other mystery shows. I think my feelings of this show really hang on how well the second season does. I really hope they are able to make one congruent story that would make this a much better show over all. 

High School Star Musical Starmyu- As you know I am already a big fan of musical anime. They are fun and if the music is good then I could be humming those tunes for weeks. Starmyu takes everything I love about musical anime and adds in a level of symbolism and thought that really adds to the show. While the main story is a bit simplistic, it’s still ultimately about a bunch of outcasts banding together to make the best team they can, there is a very subtle story going on in the background that adds to every action they take. The real story is much more about oppressive traditionalism versus progressive change. It’s about an old way of doing things being changed and morphed into something new and fresh. It’s about safe but boring versus dangerous but free and fun. And while you can easily see this story, most of the pieces to it are in the background, in scenes that look like they are just being used as exposition. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. This is an incredibly intelligent show that looks like it is just a silly boys singing show. If you want something smart but still very fun, you should really check this show out. 

Young Black Jack- There were so many anime related to the 60s this season, it was kind of strange. Young Black Jack is a strange introduction to the world of Black Jack, but also not a bad one. It gives you all the bare basics for what Black Jack is but in a strangely limited sense. It’s a primer, but works better if you know more about the original series. Like, there was a character introduced who was a combat medic, and I had no clue who he was because I only know the bare bones about Black Jack. It turns out he is kind of the anti-Black Jack, an enemy but also brilliant and works in the underworld. But I would never have known that from the episode. I happened to be looking something up and saw the character’s name and history. The more you know about the series, it seems, the better the show is. That makes it a bit harder to recommend to be honest. If you’re going in blind the show is just ok, but if you know the characters in the series and the references the show is making then it is a really good ride. 

Yuru Yuri San Hai- This might have been the best season of this show. Yuru Yuri was always a weird little show but the longer it went the staler the jokes got. But this season really injected some much needed heart to the show. There were plenty of moments that had really sweet and tender moments, or focused on characters or character combinations that they never did before. They also backed off on the Akari disappearing and low presence jokes which were getting old. That was very much needed. This season felt like a breath of fresh life pushed into the series that was very much needed. I love this show again, and even wouldn’t mind another season of more lesbians. 

That was the last season of 2015. Some of the best shows of the year came out, as well as one of the most disappointing. I might just drop Garo, which is really unfortunate. But no matter about that. That is old news. What is important is what’s on the horizon on the New Year, and the new anime season. So until next time, have fun watching.