Food Wars!

[Side A] Fall 2017 – Week 3 in Review

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Ever since coming back from the United Kingdom, I’ve found myself busier than ever. It’s like I forgot I ever had a job in the first place, and here I am juggling a bi-weekly blog review on top of editorial articles for something I’m passionate in.

But that’s precisely WHY I’m trying to such lengths to preserve this little obsession of mine. I spent the last week serving as a judge panel, reading scientific research entries by resident hospital staff, ranging from amazingly well-done to insufferably unbearable. So consider this my little pick-me-upper to round off a hectic week. And yeah, sorry for the delays and incessant excuses. If anyone out there actually looks forward to my entries — delayed as they may be — then thank you, thank you!

So yeah, third week in review. I decided to lump in the two shows that were left from Summer 2018 in [Side A], while everything else goes into [Side B]. As far as this group of misfits is concerned, they’re currently stacking up in a way I wasn’t quite expecting. Quite an interesting group, indeed.
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Fall 2017 – First Impressions

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Whew, what an intense first two weeks for Fall 2017. There are many reasons to be excited for the offerings this time around, but as usual I tend to be a little cautious given this is a honeymoon period of sorts for all of these shows. On a different note, I’ve bumped up my viewing palette to whopping eleven titles — twelve if we include March comes in like a Lion, which will be premiering later this week. Long week-in-reviews, here I come…

Anyway, same ‘ole applies: shows are ranked in descending order of interest. So sit back and relax as we run ’em down! Continue reading →

Fall 2017 – Previews (Part 1)

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It’s fall!

But it’s also hot as hell where I am now. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually MISS the droll cold of a British winter. Guess you don’t really know what something means to you until it’s gone.

So yeah, we’re a week-and-a-half into Fall 2017 and I’ve only just sorta burned through a couple shows to preview for you all. I almost kinda got used to cherry picking certain titles to the point I forgot that I’m supposed to make myself suffer a bit for the sake of “broadening my horizons”… and what this means was testing my patience with more shônen battlers or whatever was generally dismissed my the majority as banal if not to see, for myself, what’s up.

Surprisingly, though, the shows have been quite impressive — as if no shows haven’t been impressive during their first “honeymoon” episodes. The art in general has been shockingly pleasing, but there are a couple odd balls mixed into the bunch. So sit back as I run down some of the shows I’ve been picking up this season. Hopefully, one or two of these picks might be to your liking, as well. Let’s do this! Continue reading →

Summer 2016 – Initial Impressions

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Okay, so let’s go through what we’ve got this Summer. To be honest, I wasn’t very excited for this season. Perhaps the only thing that really caught my attention was Food Wars! since it’s a manga that I’m actually following. Everything else is pretty much a wild card – even the “venerable” Psycho Mob 100 which is, apparently, the show “to look out for” (most likely because of its OPM roots). Times like these are pretty much shooting in the dark, and though I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the results, there weren’t that many shows that I could honestly say weren’t very good save for a few. And these shows were probably just formulaic and, well, not very engaging. I’ve wondered for a while if it’s because I’m getting older (one of the shows I decided to drop was a Visual Art’s/KEY work, which used to be a non-negotiable probably 10 years back), but either way it’s been a steady first week, but really just one wild card after another.

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But before everything else, I’d like to apologize for disappearing last season. I mentioned in my previous Spring impressions that I was utterly floored at how writers are able to do the things that they do every season — and that still holds today. The difference is that I’m not a professional writer — I just like to rant about anime and share my thoughts. With that put into perspective, I’m a little more pragmatic as far as how frequently I can update the site. Either way, all that matters is the anime — so enough talk, and let’s do this! Continue reading →

Summer 2016 – Previews (Part 1)

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I wasn’t able to provide a list of shows that I was planning to watch, but you can check it out over at my MAL. Either way, it’s still a pretty formidable list that will likely get knocked down a couple levels as the days go by — but that doesn’t mean I won’t try to watch as many first episodes as I can to help navigate you guys through the busy Summer season. So let’s get started then, shall we?

 

ReLIFE

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The premise is simple enough — given the chance to relive your high school life, how would you do it? For Kaizaki Arata at least, he doesn’t have much of a choice after signing up for a fishy experiment whilst being half-drunk. Though I’m pretty sure most people will be split between actually enjoying the carefree adolescent life versus the dread of reliving the labors of puberty, ReLIFE successfully navigates its way through this hypothetical question in its pilot episode. Continue reading →