Ueda Reina was fine as Naru, but I think I like her better in more assertive roles.

After learning Ueda Reina won a rookie seiyuu award in 2015, I decided to watch Hanayamata, since voicing Naru appeared to have been her first starring role. Ueda Reina is good enough to continue drawing my attention in other roles (such as Mikan in Jitsu wa Watashi wa and Loose Cannon Witch Killer in 35th Platoon), particularly as Kousaka Umi in THE iDOLM@STER: Million Live! where she appears to be the best idol (at least on paper), now that Shiho has stopped being a bitch to everyone else. As far as Hanayamata itself goes, it was a pleasant enough show about a bunch of girls getting interested in yosakoi and becoming better friends as they improved at it.

Hana was less of a nutjob than I was expecting.

The anime had a somewhat contrived crisis for its ending, but it wasn't too offensive. Any Hanayamata viewers should probably have expected by that point that things were going to work out all right. This was a pleasant anime where good things happened to good people, so I didn't really have any meaningful complaints about the show itself. With regard to minor gripes, I guess I wished the OP hadn't so obviously spoiled who was going to end up in the club, but spoilers are an anime OP & ED staple. I also would have liked to have had more interaction between the teacher and "Umibouzu," but it wasn't their show. I'd definitely watch a second season of Hanayamata, but these 12 episodes are probably all we're ever gonna get.

How is Assey's dress not completely filthy by now?

My spoiler-avoidance efforts led me to watch the first cour of Aldnoah.Zero essentially isolated from the contemporaneous reactions and opinions of other viewers. It was not until after watching the 12th episode that I learned how different my impressions of the show were from the apparent norm. For one thing, it appears I liked the show on a whole much more than most viewers. Secondly, I hadn't realized how polarized the "Inaho v. Slaine" camps had grown. I also raised an eyebrow at the sheer number of motorists on the Information Superhighway who decry Slaine as terrible character. Personally, I find Slaine to be a good character. He tragically fails at essentially everything he attempts, but success does not determine whether or not I consider a character good. (Or else Kirito would be like the most goodest character, yo.)

Slaine has seen some shit.

Aldnoah.Zero was far and away the best show from Summer 2014. I know a lot of viewers disagree with this opinion, but I thoroughly enjoyed all of its episodes. I've written a lot about it. Probably too much, considering I don't like it thaaat much even though it did almost get a perfect score on my little chart jobbie.

Never gonna happen, Chiyo.

I watched two shows during summer 2014 that featured male leads who were committed to their work above all else (three, if you consider Inaho instead of Slaine the male lead of Aldnoah.Zero). Despite being the author of a romance manga, Chiyo's titular crush in Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun failed to see her as a potential love interest at all even after working in close proximity with her for months. Normally, this should probably be a pretty heavy blow to Chiyo's self-esteem, but basically all of Nozaki's interests are related to his manga itself, so I guess it's somewhat less insulting that even teenage hormones weren't enough to interest him in her.

It's not a date.

As I mentioned earlier, Seishuu's case in Barakamon is a bit less straightforward because he essentially has no suitable potential love interests to pursue. Naru and Hana are seven, the nurse is married, and everyone else is old. Well, not everyone else. There's still Miwa and Tama, the middle school girls who hang around him every day. Both of them are appalled, by the way, that he appears not to have had any interests other than calligraphy even when he still lived in the big city. It's canon.

Ghost in a jar.

Originally, I was going to say I was watching Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? (Invaders of the Rokujouma!?) because it had a ghost girlfriend even though the ghost in it isn't quite girlfriend enough to be a ghost girlfriend. Neither was Nanana, for that matter, but I wanted an excuse to trot out my Ghost Girlfriends tag again. I'm not actually a fan in particular of ghost girlfriends, but I liked Yuuko from Tasogare Otome x Amnesia and I thought Itoshi no Kana (My Lovely Ghost Kana) was way better than it had any business being. I wasn't too impressed with Asura Cryin' despite the presence of Haruka De Tomaso Pantera, though. Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? also features an ecclectic group of individuals all living in the same house, a formula that I've enjoyed in such shows as Dokkoida?! and Love Hina, but it wasn't enough. I was already pretty far behind with Rokujouma, but I dropped it because the ghost girlfriend's flavor of Postmodern Tsundere is the stupid variety. I'm actually okay with Postmodern Tsundere (it's way better than Modern Tsundere, at least), but it's so poorly executed here that I've lost all motivation for catching up with the series. I'd rather use the time to continue reducing my Detective Conan backlog.

Joseph is the only member of the main cast I find amusing.

I'm about eight weeks behind on JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Stardust Crusaders. That's far enough back for me to decide it's probably not worth making the effort to catch up. There's not actually anything wrong with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure aside from a subset of its fans that appears to partially base its self worth by deeming itself superior to anime fans who don't enjoy it. The show itself is entertaining, providing you're in the mood for that sort of thing. The show really does feel as if someone watched a bunch of grade school boys playing with action figures and then made an anime out of it. I'm sure the creative process behind the original JoJo manga is much more sophisticated than I give it credit for. After all, contemporary readers were just as critical of Jame's Joyce's serialized manga Ulysses before his childhood friend convinced him to turn it into a light novel instead.

Maybe I'll just watch episodes featuring Scarlet or Honey.

There's a decent chance I'll pick up the series again someday after it's complete. I'll just have to somehow remember that I left off at the episode where Enya forces Polnareff to lick a dirty toilet. I'm also dropping the second cour of Space Dandy because I lost interest in following the show week-to-week. At least I won't have to worry about continuity with Space☆Dandy 2nd Season since all the episodes appear to be standalone canned adventures. Well, unless I discover Honey quits Boobies and joins the crew to hunt for unregistered aliens instead, I guess.

I still don't know where this is. I hope it's not her bathroom.

I don't often indulge in text-heavy blog entries, but the events from the most recent episode of Aldnoah.Zero provide an opportune moment to deviate from my normal fare. I have a short window in which to speculate and ruminate before the next episode drops on Sunday. Obviously, this entire entry is emphatically spoiler-heavy for events leading up to and including episode nine. Moreover, the spoilers in questions are substantial enough that anyone who doesn't already know what happens and retains even a modest interest in watching Aldnoah.Zero should avoid reading this post altogether.

It helps that Sera has awesome hair.

I'm finally caught up with Detective Conan again. (Well, I'm "caught up" if you disregard the hundreds of episodes I've missed from several years back.) I'm rather pleased that Sera is appearing more often. In the current episodes, Sera is growing more prominent as the mysterious and previously vaguely threatening girl detective of the group. Naturally, this is likely leading up to some revelation about her mysterious background (alternatively, an effort to drag it out indefinitely), but it's a good excuse to have another detective on the show so Conan doesn't have to solve every single convoluted murder in Creation by himself. Contrary to some unconvincing red herrings when she was first introduced, it's pretty much guaranteed that Sera will not have any sinister motives, even if it turns out she has ties to nefarious unpleasant types. She is far too likeable as a character and too embedded with the group already for the show to suddenly transform her into a credible villain—not even a halfhearted one. It ain't Urobuchi Gen writing this story, you know.