Yo. The 2017 Fall Anime Season (or Autumn I guess) has just finished. Here’s what a cynical dickhead thinks was good and bad. Spoilers probably. Some note first:
– Typically I follow the ‘rule of three’ and watch the first three eps of every show I can a hold of. It is rare for me to watch less than that even if a show is clearly terrible. But not unheard of.
– Any show that I’m watching which is 2-cour I won’t really talk about. Although that only applies to 3-gatsu no Lion 2 (fucking amazing show) and Garo- Vanishing Line (ok show).
From a look at my initial notes, this season actually wasn’t as good as I thought it was while watching it. There wasn’t actually a lot of stuff that i was watching and some of the stuff I did watch was watching ironically becuase it was terrible.
So, in no particular order:
Fate/Aprocrypha– good show. perhaps not as good as Unlimited Bladeworks (TV) or Fate:Zero but still a good entry in the franchise. It was really well animated even though it wasn’t done by ufotable and the story was pretty interesting. There were a couple times where I changed sides as to who I was supporting which isn’t common and shows the way characters on both sides were fleshed out. And the fight scenes were all pretty good, both between individual combatants and the larger team battlefield. There were even a few moments where I didn’t want either of the two people in a fight to lose because i liked both characters and wanted neither to die. I also liked that becuase Saber/King Arthur wasn’t in this one (or Shiro, EMIYA or Gilgamesh), it was unknown who would win the Holy Grail War. Also will caveat this with the fact I’m watching the UTW fansub because I’m not a pleb so i am yet to see the last episode. So the series may shit the bed at the last hurdle.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride– This was the big hype show of the season and I am kind of disappointed. I get that it’s meant to be a slow and deliberate unfolding of the story and characters but it was glacially slow. The world is interesting, the animation is good and the characters are ok. But I didn’t really find anything unique or interesting about it. Again, I’ll caveat this with the fact I’m watching the Commie fansub and, in typical fansubber fashion, they’ve collapsed mid season so I’ve only seen like 6 or 7 eps so far. I’ll watch the whole thing eventually. If I’m bored, because I don’t have much desire to seek it out
Shokugei no Souma S3- it’s the third season. You either like it or you don’t by now. My favourite thing is the intense fucking commentary between characters spectating cooking battles. I also liked how Souma didn’t win every battle (he did win most). And that they revealed his father to Erina at last 9sure in the final minutes of the final ep). Was solid entertainment. I started watching this with the FFF Fansubs but they died after ep7 on a massive cliff hanger so I immediately jumped onto the official subs because I couldn’t wait 6+ months to see the next episode. Which shows how much I don’t care about Ancient Magus’ bride I guess XD
Himouto Umaru-chan R- fuck me Umaru is a terrible person. There wasn’t enough Taihei romance with his female boss (best girl in the show- competent person with a work ethic). Too much of the blue haired chick who shits me off. But I liked the broadening of the focus in this season to be on Umaru’s friends rather than just Umaru. It was fine. Also the ED gives me nightmare flashback about exercise routines at a gym.
Houseki no Kuni– the surprise sleeper for me this season. Was CGI animation which is often a bad sign and it looked weird but I just had a good feeling that it would be something a little bit different. The story perhaps wasn’t too different but the world is definitely an interesting/unique setting. To me at least. Endings was a bit unsatisfactory as it was heavily leaning on the need for a second season. Dunno if it will get one, depends if sales are good enough.
Hozuki no Resitsu S2– the ratio of sequels to new things is a little concerning. But I guess that generally sequels are for good things but new stuff can be shit so maybe not unexpected. This show was fine. A friend made me watch Season 1 and I enjoyed it, but wouldn’t have watched it otherwise. this was the same- I enjoyed watching it but had no desire to and basically just put it on when i had nothing else I wanted to watch. Hozuki is a fun character but the joke is pretty one note and a lot of the other characters are less interesting/very annoying (I’m looking at you Shiro you piece of shit dog)
Inuyashiki– This was a really popular show this season amongst my anime friends group. The unusual protagonist of an old dude was interesting, especially with the young dude being the villain. But both characters themselves were pretty shit- it took old dude like 8 of the 11 episodes to come to terms with his powers and the moral inner turmoil. While the young villain just started murdering people without much hesitation (sort of explained later on). But the show really takes off towards the back end when the young kid massacres like 100 people a Shinjuku Station and then starts crashing planes, causing a big fight. Also the ending of the show was hamfisted. Like in ep4 or something they drop a news report about a big asteroid coming near earth and it was so random that it was pretty clear that the series would end with both characters sacrificing themselves to stop the asteroid. Oh- bonus points for the Trump ‘cameo’ towards the end.
Just Because– fairly typical show: young people about the finish highschool struggle both with the academic expectations and their raging hormones as they find themselves in complex love triangles and cliche misunderstandings. That being said, probably my favourite show of the season XD. have a soft spot for these sort of romance shows, especially since not everyone got what they wanted in the end.
Juuni Taisen– this show started of great. i loved the premise of the first ep where it looked like we were going to follow the ‘favourite’ in a Battle Royale style super fight. And watch them crush the underdogs. Then I loved the twist at the end where the character we’d learnt heaps about was quickly killed right at the end of the episode. Really raised the stakes. but ep2 and ep3 followed the same pattern where we followed a character and they’d be killed. And my Game of Thrones ‘everyone is going to die so don’t care about anyone’ mentality started to sink in. And it went downhill from there. The highlight (read: lowlight) was when it spent 2 and half episodes given backstory on a pair of twins… one of whom was killed off screen before the show even started and the second was killed in the 30 second insert pre OP in the middle of the 2 and half episodes fo backstory. Like absolute garbage story telling. It also become veyr obvious that charcaters were dying in the order of the zodiac. I only stuck it out to see if maybe they’d continue to be edgy and do something different. But no, they didn’t. Very dissapointing
Kino no Tabi (2017)- It was fine. Kind of. Actually it was pretty boring. Apparent the 2003 version was better. I’ll note there that one of my anime rules is that if it involves a bike the anime will be garbage. I thought that may not apply here but it did.
Konohana Kitan– cute fox girls being attendants at a hot spring bathhouse? Sure why not. It’s fine. Personally would prefer the girls were a little older but it was a good thing to pop on at the end of the day when zoning out and getting ready for bed. Charcaters were fun and the one episode storylines meant i didn’t really have to think about anything.
Ousama Game– This show was a fucking trainwreck. I only watched it to see how terrible it got. Which was pretty terrible. I must commend the sound design, the use of sound was exquisitely well done. unfortunately it was jarringly out of place because the show didn’t earn it. There were these really dramatic and tense musical beats playing to underscore dramatic emotional moments… between characters who’d been introduced 30 seconds earlier, who the audience didn’t care about and who’d just done something fucking stupid. Also the fact that in the space of a few days the people in one class at a school started dying/killing each other yet no-one else seemed to noticed or care- parents, teachers, students from other classes. they go to the hospital a few times and get patched up yet the doctors don’t ask questions? Fucking terrible.
Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou– aka baby’s first philosophy lesson. A really interesting world. I wish it had focused more on that world and who things got there (which was sort of info dumped in the very last episode) rather than the ramblings of two young idiots without much of a clue. Also there was this big moment of drama where one person threatened the other with a gun in the opening ep that was never revisited.
Net-juu no Susume– I only watched like 6 episodes of this and then got bored so I stopped. Generic. And the cliche of so many near misses between the female and male leads got boring fast.
And that’s all I watched. By extension, every other show this season was utter garbage and not worth watching.
BONUS!!
Given there wasn’t much being watched and I had time of work between Christmas and New Year, i watched a chunk of stuff in my backlog! Here’s what I thought:
Boku no Hero Academia S2– good. The first arc was better than the second but I’m excited to watch more. Also I want an All Might Prequel about him fucking up the All for One guy.
Mikijikamon– Shorts that went along with Barakamon. Given i I watched Barakamon like two years ago, the comedy of the shorts was pretty lost on me. Probably fine though.
Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon– I watched the DDY fansubs of this which only had the last two eps released on Christmas 2017. The show was fine. I don’t get why there was all the hype though. Although I did like the bromance between Fafnir and *the other male character*. Also Iwathced the post-season OVA which was equally good.
Strike the Blood 2– like, I watched this with expectations of cool fights and anime boobs. My expectations were kind of met. Maybe even satisfied. I don’t know if it helped or hindered that I marathoned the whole thing after already being awake for 30 hours straight watching other stuff.
Uchouten Kazoku S2– this show was fucking amazing. Season 1 was near perfect and this might have been even better. Old characters were made even cooler, new characters were awesome. the first 4 or so eps ended on massive emotional/tension cliff hangers which made me immediately jump to the next episode. A romance subplot was developed in a somewhat unexpected direction. there were some fucking awesome fights that ended very surprisingly. Some characters got some really unexpected directions of development. the only bad thing is that everyone’s ears look fucking stupid and in the last ep some of the villains are taken out a little too neatly/conveniently. But this show is probably in my top anime of all time
Kono Suba S2 OVA– it was fine. The show is pretty funny although it tends to have an arc of pure delight and an arc of meh each season. This OVA was somewhere between. A satisfying side story i guess
New Game OVA– pretty great. A good bridge between the two seasons. Porbably should have watched it before S2.
My Teen SNAFU OVA- was pretty funny. I had to google some of the characters as I couldn’t remember the people outside the main trio. Nothing new but a fun side story too
Tsuki ga Kieri Specials– A bit disappointing. Was an episode made up of just 10-15 second shorts. The shorts worked well in the main eps because often it would showcase a character we hadn’t seen that episode. Some of the jokes were a bit repetitive so seeing them all in a line made it not work too well
Shougeko no Souma no no sara OVA– it was fine. Another good little side story set between S2 and S3. Was a good run in to get me ramped up for S3.
Card Captor Sakura Clear Card prologue– this was fine. I was so pumped when the characters sounded the same as they did in the original series. Was a bit jarring seeing a child using roller skates and not being relentlessly bullied. There wasn’t much story other than resolving the near perfect ending of the second movie and providing grounds for an in story time jump to age the characters without progressing their inter-character relationships. Was fine. I’m so pumped for the new series.