Is summer the new spring?
The days of summer being anime’s weak sister season are clearly over (I’d say that “honor” now falls to winter). Not only are we seeing more summer releases than in recent years, but their diversity is greater. At one time it would have been almost inconceivable that summer could be the best season of the year, but there’s a good chance this one will make it two out of the last four years where that’s happened.
Generally speaking, this summer looks like an all-rounder season – I don’t see one or two historically great series, but almost a month in we have both quantity of watchable shows and strong quality at the top (the best measure of that is the number of series in the “Outstanding” category). Spring was a good (not great) season too, with a couple of less-heralded series that ended up being near-great, so I think the jury is still out on whether summer will surpass it as a whole. If I had to commit now I’d lean to yes, but that could still change.
So where are we, genre-wise? Again, diversity this season is pretty good. We have a healthy dollop of comedy with Kono Bijutsubu and Mob Psycho, the shoujo-seinen hybrid of Orange, and a sort of genre-undefined sports-tinted drama in Battery. 91 Days is another one that stands as pretty distinct, and we have some sci-fi on the schedule as well. If any one demographic feels dominant it’s seinen, because there are several shows that seem to grab a piece of it – Battery, Orange, Mob Psycho, 91 Days, ReLIFE.
On, then, to Summer 2016:
The Elite
Orange
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: A
Comments: I had a certain amount of skepticism about Orange based on the sometimes-wildly divergent views about the manga, but after four episodes of the anime I’m pretty much sold. There’s the makings of a good shoujo romance here, but of course with Orange the real story is the tragedy behind the story, and the still-unexplained intermingling of the present and the past. This series is emotional bruiser, intense and ruthless. But it’s still guarding its secrets well, and the sense is that there’s much more emotional agony to come.
Mob Psycho 100
Episodes Watched: 3
Grade: A
Comments: Mob Psycho 100 is certainly a distinctive piece of work, not surprising given the singular nature of both mangaka ONE and director Tachikawa Yuzuru’s talents. In terms of writing I think Mob Psycho is the stronger of ONE’s two series, and Tachikawa is a breathtaking visual artist, displaying his versatility in following up Death Parade with MP100. It’s always interesting when two strong creative personalities come together like this, and while the humor in the premiere was uneven, everything else has been a revelation. Mob Psycho 100 gets better the deeper into the story you go, so for the anime the best should very much still be to come.
Outstanding
91 Days
Episodes Watched: 3
Grade: A-
Comments: The first 10 minutes of 91 Days were as good as any anime this season, and it hasn’t dropped off much from there. Shuka may be the evolution of the studio that gave us Baccano!, but 91 Days is a lot more than a Baccano! cover band. What strikes me about this show (apart from its general excellence) is how authentically Western in style it is. 91 Days buys into the concept of delivering an American mob story, and does so with a minimum of anime affectations.
ReLIFE
Episodes Watched: 7
Grade: A-
Comments: Due to its unusual release schedule through Comico, many viewers have already finished ReLIFE. I haven’t – but I’m more than halfway there, and I’ve become quite a fan. Like Orange this series takes a look at the unnatural collision between adults and their teenage selves, but ReLIFE comes at it from a significantly different angle. This is one of the more humanistic anime I’ve seen in quite some time, taking on its subjects with a great deal of compassion and insight without sugarcoating the sometimes brutal nature of the world they inhabit.
Battery
Episodes Watched: 2
Grade: A-
Comments: Battery was doomed to fail commercially right from the beginning. It’s a slow-build sports drama with more drama than sports, featuring an initially prickly main character, and has just enough shounen-ai to freak out the bigots and not enough to please the shippers. I love the classic Mochizuki Tomomi directorial restraint, the subtle interplay among the characters and the measured exposition, and the focus on a complicated sibling relationship. Mochizuki is all steak and no sizzle, but he’s every bit the auteur that Tachikawa is.
Planetarian
Episodes Watched: 3
Grade: A-
Comments: How strange it is to be writing this post and have three series on it already at least half-over (Arslan qualifies, too). Planetarian is a lot of emotional power in a deceptively simple package, quite a change from every Key adaptation I’ve seen (including the two really good ones). It doesn’t require much from me as a blogger except to watch it and be moved, but that’s no indication that it’s any less superb. I get just a pinch of Yokohama Kaidanshi Kikou in this story of artificial intelligence and loneliness in a dying world.
Very Good
Arslan Senki: Fuujin Ranbu
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: B+
Comments: It’s a shame this season of Arslan Senki is going to be just 8 episodes long, because thus far it’s been excellent. The story seems to be shaking down as an eventual battle between Arslan and Andragoras, though that’s still far off – unnervingly so, given that future seasons of the anime are no sure thing. You know what you’re going to get with Arslan – consistent storytelling, thoughtful plot construction, middling production values. The fact that the first two are among the best in anime more than makes up for the third.
Shokugeki no Souma: ni no Sara
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: B+
Comments: As with Arslan Senki, Shokugeki no Souma seems to be delivering more of the same in its second season. And like Arslan, it’s an adaptation of a very poplar manga that’s doesn’t sell that well on disc and is getting a shorter run the second time around (though at least a full cour). I don’t know whether there’s going to more Souma anime after that, but I sure hope so – this adaptation is one of the most stylish and creative series J.C. Staff has ever produced, and really highlights everything that’s good about the manga. But bring back the eyecatches!
Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!
Episodes Watched: 3
Grade: B+
Comments: Comedy is, as always, very much a matter of personal taste. I like Kono Bijutsubu a lot, both for the character designs and the comic style. The balance of snark, ecchi and sweetness is thus far spot-on for me, and the third episode was the funniest yet. It’s a very old-school sort of anime comedy, the type of humor that was a lot more common a decade ago than it is today. It’s also Studio feel’s most attractive production, and it almost plays like a hybrid of KyoAni and Gainax.
Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu LOVE!LOVE!
Episodes Watched: 3
Grade: B
Comments: Binan Koukou is yet another series from the 2015 #11-20 list in the midst of a sequel – that’s a major theme this season. And like the others, it’s pretty much on-point, delivering much of what the first season did. If anything the lunacy is even more amped up this season with the villain switch from the Seitokai to VEPP!. The third and most recent episode may just have been the best of the entire series in terms of belly laughs.
Days
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: B
Comments: I’m a sucker for a good sports series, and Days is a good one – not a great one, but a solid and likeable soccer anime. If you know mangaka Yasuda Tsuyoshi’s Over Drive, you know there’s a bit of a quirky edge to his writing, and it’s starting to reveal itself bit by bit. Days is mostly preaching to the sports anime choir, though, but since I’m second tenor that’s fine with me.
Worthwhile
Cheer Danshi!!
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: B-
Comments: I have no little affection for the affable and low-key Cheer Danshi!!, which reminds me a bit of a male cheerleader version of Shirobako. But I’m honestly not that interested in cheerleading as a subject, and the character side of the story and the humor are only mildly compelling to me at this point.
Rewrite
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: B-
Comments: Clearly, Rewrite is more problematical than its Visual Arts cousin Planetarian both as a source material for adaptation and in terms of the adaptation itself. I’ll be the first to admit this version is a bit of a mess, with routes intermingled and the mythology all over the place. But I like it anyway – the humor has an edge, and there’s an element of Key deconstruction here that I find very interesting. I wish Rewrite had gotten two cours (and I’m kind of surprised it didn’t), because I think Tanaka-tachi could have told a more coherent and better-flowing story if it had.
D.Gray-man Hallow
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: B-
Comments: I really want to like this revival of D.Gray-man better than I do – I have a sense of nostalgia for the original series. But those old feelings are only intermittently revived by Hallow, which is like Rewrite a victim of breakneck pacing. There are flashes, and we may be moving into a weightier arc, which would help. But I’m fairly lukewarm for the moment.
Fukigen na Mononokean
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: B-
Comments: After a relatively sluggish start, The Morose Mononokean has picked up a bit in recent weeks. I’m a sucker for Shinto-themed anime as I’m sure you know, and this one is fairly appealing in its depictions of the youkai especially. It suffers from having Kaji Yuuki in the lead role (I’m sorry, but it’s true) but it doesn’t deserve to be unfairly compared to Natsumu Yuujinchou at every turn as it is. But then, that happens with just about every show in this genre so it’s nothing new.
Still Watching
Handa-kun
Episodes Watched: 3
Grade: C+
Comments: Even setting aside the disastrous “comic” intro to the premiere episode, something just isn’t right with Diomedea’s adaptation of Handa-kun. The timing is awkward, the casting is inconsistent, and the whole package somehow just doesn’t work as well as the manga. The source material is strong enough that the anime sometimes works, but not nearly as often as it should.
Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: C+
Comments: Fundashi Koukou Seikatsu gets about as much out of three minutes as anyone could reasonably expect. Its observations about the various shadowy corners of otaku fandom are often quite sly, and the series delivers the odd big laugh or two.
Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: C+
Comments: Another short, though this one runs multiple times weekly and is consolidated for weekly digest airings. I know some folks are big fans but, while there are moments that have made me laugh with gusto, for the most part I don’t quite get what all the fuss is about.
Berserk 2016
Episodes Watched: 4
Grade: C
Comments: I totally get why fans of this much-beloved manga are so aghast at this adaptation. It truly is one of the ugliest TV anime ever (it makes the first season of Kingdom look like Seirei no Moribito) and the pacing is inconsistent. It’s also pretty confusing if you’re not familiar with the source material, though admittedly that’s a minority of those watching. I don’t know Berserk that well, but there’s enough of it showing through in this adaptation to make it clear that it deserves much better than this.
Dropped:
Amaama to Izuma, Alderamin in the Sky, Hatsukoi Monster, Tales of Zestiria: The X
That’s 18 series I’m still watching, which is the almost exactly the same at this stage as Winter and Spring’s 17. So is Summer really better? If it is, it’s because there are ten series listed as “Very Good” or better and six “Outstanding” or better, both of which are highs for the year so far. Here’s where things stand:
Monday:
Definitely Blogging: Mob Psycho 100
On the Bubble: D.Gray-man Hallow
Tuesday:
Definitely Blogging: None
On the Bubble: Cheer Danshi!!
Wednesday:
Definitely Bloggins: None
Thursday:
Definitely Blogging: Battery, Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!, Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu LOVE! LOVE!
On the Respirator: Handa-kun
Friday:
Definitely Blogging: 91 Days
Saturday:
Definitely Blogging: Kyoukai no Rinne Second Season, Shokugeki no Souma: ni no Sara, Days, Planetarian
On the Bubble: Rewrite
Sunday:
Definitely Blogging: Arslan Senki: Fuujin Ranbu, Orange
As Time Permits: ReLIFE
Manga: Hunter X Hunter (hopefully), Otoyomegatari, Mix
On the Bubble: Chihayafuru
Watching For Now: Fukigen na Mononokean, Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan, Berserk 2016
Ronbb
July 27, 2016 at 11:35 pmI thought you would wait till the 3rd ep of Battery airs…
Think that I have very similar ranking with yours:
1) orange — am completely sold though a little worried about the potential melodrama when the tragedy unveils.
2) Mob Psycho 100 — the last episode totally blew my mind.
3) Battery — am a huge fan of Mochizuki-sensei…love the character interactions and see tons of potentials.
4) 91Days — a solid series…it’s pretty gripping every week although I’m not fond of Fango.
5) ReLIFE — completed the series…enjoyed thoroughly.
6) Kyoukai no Rinne — my comedy dose of the week…gonna miss the show when it’s done.
7) Fukigen na Mononokean — enjoy the dynamics between Ashiya and Abeno; also am curious about how Abeno becomes the master of Mononokean and why Ashiya is special.
8) Arslan Senki — still like the world-building and the social and political reference…sad that we won’t see much progress with only 4 episodes left.
9) Cheer Danshi!! — maybe I just like shows with double exclamation marks in the title…
10) Berserk — I want to like it more — it’s a great story — but the CG hurts, and this is from someone who sat through both seasons of Kingdom…
11) Days — I love sports series, and I love soccer…Days is too cliche for me though.
12) Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu — am starting to get bored honestly, but it’s a short so whatever…
I’m not a big fan of Key, so am not planning to check out Rewrite and Planetarian. As for Amaama to Inazuma, I think I’m too spoiled by Usagi Drop…am putting it on hold. Twelve shows this season…loving summer more and more.
By the way, I think Winter this year was relatively great — we had Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, Haikyuu!! and Ajin.
Guardian Enzo
July 28, 2016 at 10:05 amWinter had two truly elite shows at the top. For me, not a lot of depth.
I think Planetarian is the Key series for viewers who don’t like Key. Plus, it’s short.
Morioh
July 30, 2016 at 2:14 amNot to mention not too many thought Boke Dake ga Inai Machi was all that.
15FAN
July 28, 2016 at 4:08 amBefore I go further whether I agree ( 90 / 95 % ) or disagrre ( 5 / 10 % ) your writing thoughts are excellent!
Now whether summer is better than Spring is in the viewers eyes / preferences. But in Spring I couldn’t wait for Assassination Classroom 2. I actually think the qualitly drops off faster in Summer than Spring ( the rare disagrrement or POV)
This season Marcoss Delta ( yes the Dark Side ) is the one I want to see . BTW I am still in awe of Saiki . I think of it as Mas Magazine nees Excel Saga especially with the Weekly Junp homage and the Manga writer 9 like thew writer in Excel Saga ) run ragged ! But thats IMO
And at this point I am not sure about some other shows / more than Spring
Anyway I am posting my Spring vs Summer favorites / As an afterthought I am putting up TOP 16 of Winter ( BTW 45 shows ) Oh in WINTER I could not wait for the TOP 9 Gees why the droppoff ??
SPRING 2016 FAVORITES
WATCHED 37 Shows 27 Full / 10 SHORTS PLUS 25 OVA’s and 2 MOVIES
TIER 1 TOP FAVORITES
1 Assassination Classroom 2
2 My Hero Academia
3 Shonen Maid
4 Flying Witch
5 Three Leaves, Three Colors
6 Macross Delta
7 Tanaka is Always Listless
8 Bakuon!!
9 RINNE 2
10 Concrete Revolutio 2
11 Sailor Moon Crystal 3
12 Joker Game CR
13 GIRL Meets Bear
14 Kuromukuro.
15 Haven’t You Heard ? I’m Sakamoto ?
TIER 2 Good / Enjoy watching !
16 Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
17 RE: Zero
18 Endride
19 High School Fleet
20 Kiznaiver
21 Kagewani Season 2 SHORT
22 Bungo Stray Dogs
23 Ace Attorney
24 And you thought there is never a girl online?
SUMMER 2016 FAVORITES WATCHING 40 SHOWS / 3 are SHORTS
TIER 1 TOP FAVORITES ( Still feeling shows out / subject to chamges )
1 Macross Delta / Valkyrie vs. Valkyrie
2 The Disaster of Psi Kusuo Saiki SPC Short/
3 FOOD WARS 2
4 Sweetness and Lightning
5 Mob Psycho 100
6 Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet
7 The Heroic Legend of Arslan 2(Dust Storm Dance)
8 91 Days
9 ReLIFE
10 Orange
11 Taboo-Tattoo
12 RE Zero
13 Rinne 2
14 This Art Club Has a Problem!
15 Love Live! Sunshine!!
16 Amanchu!
TIER 2 Good / This TIER will be changing a lot
17 Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!!
18 Battery
19 KUROMUKURO
20 The Morose Mononokean
21 Time Travel Girl
22 Endride
23 Ace Attorney
24 Handa-kun
25 D.Gray-man Hallow
26 Twin Star Exorcists
WINTER 2016 FAVORITES
WATCHED 45 SHOWS / 33 Full / 12 SHORTS
TIER 1 TOP FAVORITES
1 RWBY VOL 3 CR / GREAT SEASON
2 Assassination Classroom 2
3 Heavy Object
4 Ajin – Demi-Human
5 Haikyuu!! Second Season
6 Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
7 Snow White with the Red Hair 2
8 Dagashi Kashi
9 Erased (Boku Machi) (The Town Where Only I Am Missing)
10 Dimension W
11 Mobile Suit Gundam/ Iron-Blooded Orphans
12 GOD Eater (4 EPS Only)
13 GATE 2
14 Pandora in the Crimson Shell
15 HaruChika
16 Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku(Give Blessings to This Wonderful World)
15FAN
July 28, 2016 at 4:11 amCorrection I meant MAD Magazine
Ronbb
July 28, 2016 at 10:33 pmIs that so? Okay, I will check out Planetarian. By the way, while Summer has just started, I am already looking forward to doing the countdown of your top 10 list! 2016 truly isn’t bad at all.
Ronbb
July 28, 2016 at 10:34 pmWhoops….that was meant for Enzo. Sorry.
elianthos
July 28, 2016 at 2:07 pmDisclosure: 1) I am skipping Orange because I’m not feeling like suffering like now :p. Nope. NOPE. Also I could predict where the story is going with my eyes closed. Nope^2 . 2) postponing 91 Days because Fango is kicking me out of the show by virtue of his mere existence. I’m planning to marathon the series and fast forward through his sequences if and as needed. 3) I’ve switched to manga!DAYS after finding out it features a couple of elements I was actually hoping to see more of on screen since the premiere. If they pop up in the anime later I might tune back in but at present I’m out. 4) Postponing Battery for lack of time 5) Dropped Amaama To Inazuma for its lack of ambition to be more than sugar sweet.
Hence based just on what I am watching currently:
A tier
– Binan s2 . I love(!love!) it. It’s the one show I am enjoying the most. ‘A plus ultra’ tier of weekly anticipation and fondness.
– Mob Psycho 100: the one title where my enjoyment is on pair with ‘objective’ quality. And hey it has World Tree (?) Broccoli and Amanita Muscaria ‘shrooms on top of all the bonanza. Bring the trip on!
B+ tier:
– Cheer Danshi: the presentation lacks some pizzas but I am really enjoying the content otherwise. There is this RL underdog flavour, I don’t find the cheerleading trivia totally uninteresting or ‘heavy’, characters are likable and rather refreshing in their relative non-animeness (and even not-Free!Rei is a superior version of that template), when the drawings stay on model the charades is actually pretty solid as per Asada-sensei’s source.
B
– D. Gray-man Hallow: a tad too rushed and cheap. But if they can adjust the pace the main arc we have entered is good stuff.
C
– Fudanshi etc. . Watchable. Made me smile at times and reminded me of a few BL animanga forum members I know and talked with.
– Bananya. Ehm, guilty as charged.
elianthos
July 28, 2016 at 2:21 pmP.S.: also skipping Berserk as regardless of animation issues ( count me among the happy few Kingdom aficionados after all XD ) from what I have gathered the manga arc they’re adapting is not what I was hoping to see :). There is a short manga arc (the Lost Children arc) bridging the movies and this anime that would have been perfect as a short series and I also think encapsulated most of Berserk’s strength with very little of its weaknesses – it’s also the one section of the manga I have actually reread a few times with increasing appreciation rather than the opposite :p. As a bonus it manages a certain stand-alone quality while it actually develops the core themes and fleshes out the MC – but alas we are not getting that.
Guardian Enzo
July 28, 2016 at 2:36 pmI thought Lost Children was a single chapter…
elianthos
July 28, 2016 at 3:40 pm@Enzo: ‘chapter’ in the loose sense of the word maybe. It spans 20+ manga chapters (#95 through #117 if last place I checked is correct).
Guardian Enzo
July 28, 2016 at 3:53 pmThat’s odd – I wonder why I’ve always seen it referred to as a chapter if it consumes 20_+ chapters.
Earthlingzing
July 28, 2016 at 5:49 pm‘Chapter’ is terminology in Berserk that reads like the chapter of a book, the actual arc of Lost Children spans about 3 volumes.
elianthos
July 29, 2016 at 2:45 amP.P.S. :
A – tier ( but I am 3 episodes behind )
Jojo part IV : definitely an improvement on Part III story-wise ( though I miss mah Cherry Boy Kakyoin and Joseph’s quick mind is not that quick anymore. Age had not been kind to the manly steel balls man :,) ) . But there are Koichi and Rohan <3 and Jotaro has a personality now! Huzzah! ) . Araki can deliver both the big and odd flashy grotesque pieces but also has improved on the subtler intimate moments by the chapter/episode. Good mix. — As a stand alone so far I have enjoyed the Italian restaurant episode especially. Food wars? Foodgasms? Food fanservice and fandisservice? Look no further that's a tropes codifier winner there XD.
Karmafan
July 30, 2016 at 6:22 pmSorry you did not like Berserk. I really like it and I look forward to Fridays as one of the best anime days of the week with Berserk, Ammanchu, Re:Life and 91 days all airing. One series I hoped would be much better and I decided to drop it was Handa-Kun.
Jonny M
July 28, 2016 at 3:59 pmIt’s the “Lost Children Chapter”. Berserk arcs are actually stated in the chapter titles themselves, and each main arc consists of several ‘chapters’. Example: http://i.imgur.com/iefYe2G.png
Stöt
July 28, 2016 at 4:38 pmI’m very late to the party, so you probably already had this discussion, but did you consider Re:Zero, Enzo? Episode 1 and 4 were good enough to get me binge the rest in a two days, and it’s been a really great and deep emotional ride. An MC that is anything but bland, even though the rest of the cast is superficially incredibly generic. But they’re not generic! I don’t actually get why the author chose the cast like ticking off a shopping list of tropes, maybe some kind of a joke or cynical commentary on anime business in general. And if that is true, it must be working since he/she managed to capture the Otaku audience and piss them off at the same time.
Anyway, if you feel up for it
CarVac
July 28, 2016 at 5:05 pmMy ranking thus far this season, including the holdovers from last season:
1. Saiki Kusuo no PSInan. It’s way too funny, I love the snark.
2. ReLIFE. Damn-well executed, all the way through. I think I like it more than the source material.
3. Kono bijutsubu ni wa mondai ga aru. The characters play off each other really well. It’s quite a good adaptation of quite a good manga.
4. Planetarian: The characters are wonderful.
5. Macross Delta. It’s tons of fun.
6. Mob Psycho 100. There’s something slightly off about the execution, but it’s fun to watch.
7. Kuromukuro. Solid execution with slow-but-steady buildup and great characters. I can’t wait to watch it each week.
8. New Game. It’s fun, but somehow the comedy isn’t as snappy as in the manga.
9. Re:Zero. The acting is quite good, and there’s lots of suffering, but it’s not as tasteful as, say, an Urobuchi Gen style story.
Others I’ve dropped.
I tried the first episode of the new season of Shokugeki but I’m still disappointed in the art quality relative to the source material, and the pacing just feels weird.
Others just didn’t catch my interest early enough; I’ve got a pretty good radar for shows that I’ll like and very few shows fail the 3-episode rule but turn out to be good in my eyes (Steins;Gate is probably the only one for me).
sonicsenryaku
July 28, 2016 at 5:24 pmmy top series of this summer are (in no specific order) mob psycho, 91 days, amaama and one or two more that are arent coming to mind because im currently having a massive atomic brain fart. Anywho, Mob psycho is one of those stories that gets better and better with every arc; i guess saying it’s like hunterxhunter in terms of quality growth would be the best comparison. I really want to see how tachikawa and Bones handle some of the critical themes of this story
Karmafan
July 28, 2016 at 6:48 pmI’m really enjoying Planetarium but I suspect the last episode is gonna be bad (sadness wise). Its a heartbreaker to see the robot trying so hard to do her job as her time slowly slips away from her.
Platinumme
July 28, 2016 at 11:51 pmMy top anime of the season are:
1. Mob Psycho 100 – I rewatch every episode multiple times!
2. 91 Days
3. Battery
4. This Art Club has a Problem
5. Days
6. Shokugeki no Soma S2
7. Amanchu!
8. Amaama to Inazuma
9. Handa-kun
10. Tales of Zestiria the X
Continuing the last season: Re:Zero and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable
long
July 30, 2016 at 12:00 pmyou should cover the original adaptation of the berserk, that’d be a lot more fun than going over the current one.
Dein
July 30, 2016 at 5:57 pmDays and Orange are my favourite this season. Orange still tugs at my heartstrings even after reading the manga and Days is just so much pure, god damn fun. It doesn’t break any new ground but everything it does, I feel it does with a lot of confidence and style.
There’s also Battery, which I find to be very high quality, but something just seems off about it. It’s actually quite puzzling, because I can’t put my finger on it. I enjoy the episodes, I like how the characters and story are handled thus far, but it just leaves a very odd taste in my motuh after watching.
Also, I noticed at the end there that Chihayafuru is “on the bubble”. I’ve never read the manga (still hoping for season 3), but I am curious. Did it go downhill?
Zilla
July 31, 2016 at 6:45 amI thought Handa-kun Episode 04 was pretty solid. It helped that it included one of my favorite chapters (Handa-kun and His Social Life – I mean really, his bliss as he follows his “savior” Kondou to the new classroom, and later trying to brag to his Mother about having a “conversation” with a classmate is heart tugging comic gold), but I thought the Eraser speech/song was even better in the anime than the manga. So now, I’m looking forward to the Dash-kun episode, because that one seems like it will translate to anime quite well too.
Karmafan
August 2, 2016 at 11:11 amI had to drop Battery. After 3 episodes I could not stand another minute watching the asshat lead character.
Karmafan
August 12, 2016 at 5:34 pmI love the new season of Berserk. The story is awesome and I know the graphics put some folks off, the story more then makes up for it.