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Summer 2017 – Season End Ranking

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I dunno about you, but I actually, legitimately enjoyed this season. Maybe it’s because I cherry-picked my titles early on; or maybe it’s because I intentionally went for a light viewing to save myself the agony of having to trudge through so many shows once they hit the back burner. Regardless, it was fun, and most of the shows (I can say with some confidence) actually lived up to their initial hype and made me feeling a little sad to see them go. Although to a certain extent, you could say that I was hoping for something a little “deeper” from some of the titles, but these are minor quibbles to the overall satisfaction of me being able to watch these shows without a distasteful hiccup at the end.

So yeah, same jazz as always, shows are ranked from bottom to top with a final rating at the end. Do share your thoughts about any of the shows I watched in the comments below. And with that, let’s do this! Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – Mid-Season Round Up

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Okay, it’s been a while since I wrote anything, partly because I think I burned myself out trying to write some in-depth analysis articles on Owarimonogatari, but I personally think the essays, themselves, aren’t really shaping up the way I want them to. For now, I’m just gonna put that aside and clear the table for this mid-season round up and then, perhaps, go on to some other reviews and/or editorials.

That and the fact that I’ve been basically enjoying my newly-earned “freedom” by sleeping in till mid-day and playing enough Splatoon 2 to get me an A-Rank in all of the Ranked Battle modes. If any of you guys out there play Splatoon 2, feel free to add me up as a friend (my friend code is SW-0054-9953-4514). I’ve always wanted to take on the League Battles, but I have no friends who own a Switch to play it with. *sniff*

Anyway, back to the Animu. This season is surprisingly functional enough to be good — and I say that quite deliberately in that there is a particular reason as to why each show is working (in one way or the other) to actually make my collective viewing enjoyable. You could say it’s a funny little happenstance that these shows can actually complement one another to make up for whatever shortcomings one or the other might have. And so with that said, let’s run down how all the shows are doing in this mid-season review!

As usual, these are ranked top to bottom, with a tl;dr in bold for your convenience. So with that said, let’s do this! Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – Week 4 & 5 in Review

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Okay, so apparently someone here doesn’t know how to count. And that same person couldn’t half-ass himself to correct his previous post so he decided to just combine weeks 4 and 5 in one post since for some weird reason, one show had two episodes aired in the same week. I’ve always been terrible at timing these week-in-review posts, anyway, so I guess it’s about time people were used to it by now.

But then I realized that a problem with my weekly review naming convention is that episode numbers can be ambiguous to the actual week in question, meaning if my naming sense for the week is totally off, it can throw of a reader unless I explicitly state what episode I’m talking about.

So to reduce confusion, I’ll be including the episode number in the header titles for each of the shows to be discussed — that way, no matter how stupidly I label my week-in-review post, you can be assured that you’re reading the right thoughts on the right episode.

So with that aside, let’s run down just what happened this week in animuland. It’s been a bit tiring — both in real life and in anime itself — but hey, that’s the way it is once the honeymoon of the first few weeks of a season has ended. Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – Week 3 in Review

edsamac2 Comments

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Ed, you said you’d forego weekly reviews in favor of editorials, what gives? Maybe I should give you a forehead flick every time you change the specs!?

Yeah, pretty much. I’m ready to receive any number of forehead flicks if it means I get to do my regular spiel of sharing my weekly thoughts on anime, so sue me. At the very least, there’s a more manageable number of titles not requiring a split post to fit them all, so I feel more inclined to doing it more than before. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Anyway, we’re starting at week 3, because apparently I didn’t miss THAT much at the start of the season. So sit back and relax as we run through just what happened in week 3 of Summer 2017! Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – First Impressions

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I know this is nearly a month late, and I wasn’t really expecting to have to do one of these, but man was I impressed with what shows I grabbed this Summer 2017. Granted I cherry-picked these titles from a list of suggested titles from another writer whose taste I pretty much trust, for the first time in a long time I’m actually really, really happy with the titles as early as the 1st episode.

That said, I only added five shows to my list of three on-going titles, and after including Owarimonogatari (ge) later in August, will make nine shows this Summer 2017. I can actually work with something like that; anything more than 10 titles is pretty ridiculous at this point. So yeah, hopefully if you’re still interested, join me as I do a quick run down of impressions on the shows I’ll be watching this happy, happy summer season. Continue reading →

Anime and the Love of Headphones 2

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Yup, it’s that time of the week again where I ramble about anime and all things gloriously audiophile. Last week, we talked about Mio Akimiya from K-ON! and the famous AKG K701 reference headphones. In fact, AKG has made many other iconic headphones whose eye candy-like design has made it the object of many animators to include in shows. Case in point these next pair of cans worn by none other than Hifumi Takamoto from last season’s comedy/slice-of-life NEW GAME!! Continue reading →

Summer 2016 – season end ranking

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I disappeared this season. Yeah, I know. But I was still watching animu. You can never stop watching animu. But regardless of how dedicated you are to watching (or undedicated to writing), this season felt like a chore to get through. Not really because the shows weren’t any good to begin with, but because their best moments really only took place in the last few episodes. That said, anyone who lacked the patience might have skipped out on a legitimately good show had it not been for a mix of odd pacing, boring plot flows, and wishy-washy animation. For whatever reason you had in dropping a show mid-season, you might want to think about picking it up again after reading the season end ranking. Because frankly, quite a number of shows I would have dropped out of frustration (or boredom) actually turned out pretty well. Good things come to those who wait, apparently, and that was no different for this season’s batch of misfits. So how did they do? Let’s run ’em down, from worst to best!

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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 2)

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It took a while for the next batch of shows to air — or at least those that were on my list. So far, the season has been okay, but nothing really grand enough to phone home mom about. For this preview, we’ve got sluggers, video game junkies, gun fights, and shipwrecks. It’s quite the slew of genres, so let’s get cracking!

 

Taboo Tattoo

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A show about overpowered teenagers getting involved in top secret government programs is the stuff of shounen fantasy, and is basically what litters the first episode of Taboo Tattoo. If the opening sequence of over-the-top/overused anime tropes wasn’t enough to give you an idea of what this show was about, think Kurokami meets Shakugan no Shana. Not surprising, either, that this show was Continue reading →