Version 5.4 ~ Haruhi gave rock and roll to you.
karmaburn.com karmaburn.com
  • HOME

Dated 19 August 2013: I think I'm only watching To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S and Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou for the hime cuts

Kirihime
Woofies.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S (A Certain Scientific Railgun S) and Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyō (Dog and Scissors) don't have much in common except they're both at the bottom of the list of shows I'm watching this season and they both have characters with hime cuts. Oh, and pets.

Misaka and Saten
"Hi. I'm done with my stupid bullshit so the rest of the show
can be about you playing baseball and mahjong."

RailgunS is pretty terrible because it's so contrived. I do feel it is unfair to lambaste the show for its plot holes since most shows reveal pretty sizable plot holes after even cursory inspections, but Railgun S takes itself so seriously that I sort of feel it has it coming. The most egregious examples involve keeping Kuroko on the bench for nearly two solid cours because her teleportation ability would speed the plot along too quickly.

Saten
BEST GIRL.

To me, the most damning aspect of this second season of Railgun is that it actually improved after introducing the odious Touma to heroically solve Misaka's little problem. And watch over a kitten. To be fair, viewers looking for a show that is neither pretentious nor too low-brow yet still punctuated by periodic action scenes with satisfyingly serious slugfests will probably find a fair amount of material to enjoy in Railgun S as long as they're not too critical of Misaka's martyr complex or Accelerator's ludicrous villain voice. Me, I'm just watching it for SATEN SATEN SATEN and her easygoing BEST GIRL ways. Now with baseball shirts, variable hairstyles, Internet mahjong, and casual cooking!

Kirihime
It's not quite yet okay if it's you.

Exin asks:

Have you seen [Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou] yet? I saw the advertisement on yourube [sic] before it started, watched an episode and found it refreshingly nice.

Kirihime and Kazuhito
Get a room.

Indeed, I am watching and enjoying Dog & Scissors even though it is pretty awful in an Akikan! sort of way (albeit without Grape's horrible voice). This is one of those shows any reasonable viewer is forced to acknowledge as "objectively bad" although it can still be entertaining in a stupid sort of way. It really does have far too many flat-chest jokes and dog-abuse jokes. There's also a lot more foreshadowed bestiality than I was expecting.

Kirihime
Relax. She's only looking for her underwear.

If I have to conclude that Dog and Scissors is "objectively bad, subjectively bad," I think I have to categorize Railgun S as "objectively good, subjectively bad." Anyone who fears his reputation may be damaged by the type of anime he watches will likely loathe both To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S and Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyō. However, anime sophomores (i.e., ones who are neither neophytes nor jaded, seasoned, middle-aged veterans) will likely be able to find something to enjoy in RailgunS. On the other hand, the only people likely to enjoy Dog & Scissors are probably either the aforementioned neophytes or the elderly set of anime fans—the poor bastards who have been watching too long and seen too much to still be angry young men—so long their tastes have wrapped around enough and granted them the ability to enjoy just about anything.

Dated 26 August 2013: DokiDoki! Precure improves, Detective Conan remains the same, and Turning Girls is over already

Aguri
Aguri talks the talk.

I've mentioned the best shows I'm watching this season, and the worst ones (that I haven't dropped), but what about the rest? Well, I'm also watching DokiDoki! Precure, Detective Conan, and I watched the seven-episode series Turning Girls.

Cure Ace
Maybe Cure Ace really is Queen What's-Her-Name.

DokiDoki! Precure got better during summer 2013 because it sidelined Regina (perhaps her home planet needed her?) and brought in Kugimiya Rie to voice Cure Ace. All that Regina nonsense sucked, so I'm glad to see her go, even though she'll probably be back to fuck up the autumn 2013 cour. It turns out Cure Ace's civilian form is another shrimpy kid, but thankfully there's none of that Cure Muse crap this time around. She's not without her own faults, though. Cure Ace is sort of condescending and talks about Pretty Cure as if she's an old soldier who has been around for a long time and helped develop some of the doctrine. Excuse me, aren't you like 10 years old? Are you sure you aren't pulling these koans out of your ass?

Conan and Ran
Ran is going to have back problems from bending over so much.

I haven't mentioned Detective Conan much on these seasons summaries lately because the fansubs had fallen so far behind. Well, they're caught up again so Detective Conan can return to its role as my anime control group since it's still as good as it ever was. Shit's going down again this summer. Could use more Heiji and Kazuha, though.

Kaeru
Kaeru is the best Turning Girl because she is the most pathetic.

Turning Girls is good, but—like many gag anime comprised of five-minute webcasts—it's a bit overrated. It's fine for what it is, but much of its success depends on its format. I don't think I could watch an entire cour of full-length Turning Girls episodes. It's great in small doses, but any more would be too much.

Aguri
Drink water. Drive on.

It took me more than half the season to introduce all the shows I'm watching summer 2013, and I haven't even mentioned all the shows I've dropped. Hopefully I'll be able to knock those out before it's time to do the end-of-season wrap-ups. Or I could just focus exclusively on my latest Pretty Cure re-watching project. Apparently this site qualifies as a Precure blog.

Dated 2 September 2013: Shows I abandoned summer 2013

Shinobu
Thank Haruhi Shinobu escaped that Hell hole in the Cotswolds.

I knew in advance that I was going to drop most of these shows, but most of them are at least worth a look. From certain perspectives, a lot of these shows are actually quite good.

Lucy
I have to admit the OP is kinda cool.

The best show I stopped watching is Servant x Service which has some real appeal, but I dropped it because I didn't like Lucy. Most of the other characters are fine, though. It sort of has the same vibe as WORKING!! which I disliked. Servant x Service doesn't rub me the wrong way like WORKING!! did, but I didn't see a point in watching more Servant x Service when there are so many better shows to watch this season.

Alice and Shinobu
This is pretty much what Kiniro Mosaic is about.

Kiniro Mosaic (Golden Mosaic) is cute. Aggressively cute. Obnoxiously cute. Well, yeah; it's a "cute girls doing cute things" show. (As mentioned previously, I'm not a big fan of those.) That's really all the show seems to have going for it. Still, I was much more impressed with the episodes I did watch than I was with the manga.

Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku (Chronicles of the Going Home Club) is another "cute girls doing cute things" show. KKK appealed to me even less than Kiniro Mosaic because most of its humor seemed to be based on super-overblown reactions to medium-outrageous antics.

Gen'ei o Kakeru Taiyou: Il Sole Penetra le Illusioni (Day Break Illusion) isn't exactly good, but it's also not as bad as its most dismissive critics claim. Yes, it does seem designed to cash in on the popularity of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad show. That said, I did not find it particularly interesting, and was only watching to see if anyone got her head bitten off.

Chou Jigen Game Neptume The Animation (Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Animation) also did not strike me as a necessarily bad show, but I sensed I wouldn't be able to appreciate it without being familiar with the game first. Indeed, its most enthusiastic fans appear to be veterans of the video game. I guess that means it's a good adaptation.

Asia
Soup's on.

If you watched the first High School DxD then you know what to expect from High School DxD NEW. It's pretty much the same deal again, but that just wasn't enough this season.

I gave Futari wa Milky Holmes (We are Milky Holmes) a couple episodes to turn itself into first-season Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, but it didn't happen so I dropped it.

Sister Layer
Cosprayers Line.

Now we're in the dregs. Despite its huge popularity and strong start, Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) really took a dive summer 2013. It doesn't help that it started off with a clip show (episode "13.5"). Notably, it was the worst clip show I have ever seen. I'm not opposed to recaps as a matter of principle. Just as I never skip OPs and EDs, I also never skip clip shows. However, the Shingeki no Kyojin recap episode was so lackluster that I have to conclude nobody responsible for it had the slightest interest in it. Then the week after, episode 14 proved so disengaging that I finally gave up on the series entirely. (This was also partially inspired by my declining opinion of the ongoing manga. I've nothing to look forward to except [SPOILERS] with a bow.) I'm forced to conclude the two episodes of Attack on Titan that I watched summer 2013 were WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS. Congratulations.

Asia
I had a screenshot of Eren ready, but nobody wants to see that.

All of the shows I just mentioned are watchable on some level and arguably have positive aspects going for them. However, the summer 2013 season is too good on a whole to waste time with shows that are so flawed or otherwise uninspiring.

Dated 3 October 2013: Genshiken Nidaime doesn't come out on top, but at least it's not a bottom, either

Sue and Madarame
Maybe he's heavier than he looks.

The biggest problem I had with Genshiken Nidaime when it began airing was all the recast voices for returning characters. Unfortunately, I never did get used to those changes. I know other people also had trouble warming up to the new characters and the fujoshi-focused turn the series took after the graduation of most of the original cast. Of the new characters, Sue is my favorite (although technically not "new") but she's only good in very small doses doing the sort of thing none of the other characters will do. For example, suddenly disrupting someone's plans via her embrace of the violence of action.

Kaminaga and Hato
I'm sure it's a mere coincidence.

I get the sense that these various arcs of the Genshiken manga simply did not translate well into the single-cour anime format. The resolution between Madarame and Saki was long-awaited and nicely executed, but it felt odd to place as the eleventh episode because it diminished the importance of the two that followed it. The effect is magnified because I didn't care about the other characters' interests. The neuroses of Hato, the ostensible new main character, frankly feel overwrought and not nearly as important as it was made out to be. Nevertheless, despite all its flaws, Genshiken Nidaime was still one of the better Summer 2013 shows and is a refreshing departure from the standard retread of middle school or high school anime characters and their silly hangups.

Dated 15 October 2013: In re Summer 2013 Anime -or- The End of Silver Spoon ~Air/My Purest Love for Bacon~

Nakajima and Yoshino
I couldn't think of a gouda cheese pun to use for this caption.

Summer 2013: Silver Spoon [1-11] > Uchouten Kazoku [1-13] > Symphogear G [1-13] > Love Lab [1-13] > Genshiken Nidaime [1-13] > Prisma☆Illya [1-10] > C3-bu [1-13] > Turning Girls [1-7] > Detective Conan (701-711) > DokiDoki! Precure (23-34) > RailgunS [13-24] > Dog & Scissors [1-12].

Yoshino and Hachiken
These two are pretty upset even though Yoshino's not pregnant.

Dropped: Gatchaman Crowds (1-9) > Servant x Service (1-3) > Kiniro Mosaic (1-4) > Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku (1-2) > Gen'ei o Kakeru Taiyou: Il Sole Penetra le Illusioni (1-3) > Chou Jigen Game Neptume The Animation (1) > High School DxD NEW (1-4) > Futari wa Milky Holmes (1-2). WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS: Shingeki no Kyojin (13.5-14).

This chart started out as a joke, but has grown kinda out of control. Of course, the whole ranking anime thing started out as a joke too, and then suddenly five years went by.

Yoshino and Aki
Yoshino makes me want to eat smoked cheese more than Churuya ever did.

Gin no Saji (Silver Spoon) was easily the best summer 2013 series that I watched. It was consistently entertaining and I was impressed with how Hachiken's character developed over the show's 11 episodes. Even the quandary with "Pork Bowl" ended up much better than I expected. That was the plot point I had the most reservations about, but I'm quite pleased with how Silver Spoon resolved it.

Professor Akadama
Five will get you tengu he's going to trash the joint.

Uchouten Kazoku (The Eccentric Family) stands out among the summer 2013 shows for being intelligent about idiots and being strange while feeling familiar. The focus is on tanuki family dynamics, but it turns out the problems fuzzball shapeshifters have with their families aren't too different than those experienced by humans, except perhaps tanuki aren't as quick to embrace Shakespearean revenge tragedies. To be fair, all I really learned about tanuki is that they are dumbasses and that they are easily panicked, but maybe that's all anyone needs to know about tanuki.

Benten
Tall-collar service.

More importantly, I learned Mamiko can knock 'em dead better than ever. Her work as Benten was transcendent. I've never wanted to be a decrepit old man more. In fact, thanks mostly to Noto Mamiko's superb work, but also because Benten herself is such straight-up trouble, I'm nominating Suzuki Satomi for 2013 Girl of the Year. I'd also like to mention that Nakahara Mai is better than ever, although I encourage her to take more parts like her role in Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita and and fewer roles as young boys.

The Shimogamo mom
The Shimogamo matriarch is lucky so many dudes wanted to do her tanuki-style.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear G: In the Distance, That Day, When the Star Became Music... had a great ending. Basically, if you didn't like that final episode then you just don't like anime. That said, the show itself did have a few issues. First of all, Dr. Ver's comically evil persona never seemed particularly threatening, except for maybe when we learned he wanted to make babies with Maria. Second, Maria herself turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I certainly was not expecting her to spend most of the show crying. I guess it's a good thing there's not going to be a follow-up cour devoted to her efforts at repopulating the planet, because she'd probably cry the entire time then too.

Maria
Listen, sugar, either go back to whaling on some deadbeats
or help me repopulate the planet, but get to work.

Sorry, Maria really needed to focus more on tearing shit up and coming up with new cape-fu moves instead of all the moping she did. Still, I'll ignore a lot of faults when a show spends most of its time focusing on mahou shoujo whaling on each other while singing. Shirabe and Kirika were endearing even though their fights lost a lot of impact because there was no danger of anyone getting hurt. Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS already demonstrated that providing lots of collateral damage is not a substitute for emotional resonance.

Illya
The fan service in Prisma☆Illya gets out of control.

I've already written about the endings to Love Lab, Genshiken Nidaime, and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya.

Yura
Oh, hey, it's Evangelion's Train of Despair.

Tokurei Sochi Dantai Stella Jo-Gakuin Koutou-ka C3-Bu spent too much time on Yura taking all the fun out of a game, but that was sort of the point. In a way, C3-bu felt as if Gainax wanted to stretch out a Gainax ending as far as they could. Technically, C3-bu did have a Gainax ending, but then they went ahead and made another episode that seemed to contain material I'd usually expect in a standalone OVA. Maybe that's the way it was originally planned, but someone figured at the last minute that it probably wouldn't sell or something.

I finished watching Turning Girls weeks ago.

Ran, Kogoro, and Conan
Ran shows off her crazy metabolism again.

I fell behind on Detective Conan but managed to catch up by the time I finally got this thing written. As for Meitantei Conan itself, it's still a reliable control for comparing shows season-to-season. It does need more Kazuha, though. I was concerned maybe her prolonged absence was related to Miyamura Yuko's longer commuting requirements. (She moved to Australia a few years ago.) I'm not sure if that's a factor, but it appears autumn 2013 starts off with at least four Heiji (with Kazuha in tow) episodes to follow the two that finished up the summer 2013 season. I'm certainly in favor of a six-episode block of Kazuha episodes, but I'm curious if they would have been spaced out instead if Miyamura Yuko still lived in Japan.

Cure Rosetta
Relax, yo. Cure Rosetta has got this.

DokiDoki! Precure did two notable things during the summer 2013 cour. One, it introduced a sass-talking Kugimiya Rie Cure. Two, it raised the stakes in the all-singing, all-dancing 3DCG ED wars. Aside from that, DokiDoki! is turning out to be one of the less interesting Pretty Cure generations, although episode 34 did have some rad Cure Rosetta beatdowns.

Saten and Uiharu
This made no sense, but I'll allow it.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S needed more SATEN, but I'm glad it found excuses to trot her out in different hairstyles and various street clothes. The ending of the series was rather ridiculous with its casualty-free battle between espers and drones. I guess I was pleased to see SATEN behind the controls of a giant robot, though. P.S. Spoilers.

I already covered Dog and Scissors.

I won't revisit the shows I dropped except to say I also dropped Gatchaman Crowds. This one comes as a bit of a surprise because it seemed so promising after a strong start. However, I was unable to take the villain seriously and never cared what he did. I also did not sympathize with Rui at all nor had any interest in his reasons for crossdressing. The turning point was the episode where Rui is mercilessly beaten for what ended up being a hilariously long time and I realized I had absolutely no emotional investment in any of the characters and was only still watching to see how long Hajime could prolong her violently upbeat attitude. I fell behind after that, and once I learned how disappointed other fans were with the series finale, I decided to simply quit watching altogether.

Saten and Uiharu
Hey, sweetie, eyes on the God damn road.

This season summary is a lot more piecemeal than previous ones, but I kinda get the feeling the amount of time required to compile these things does not expand linearly with the number of additional shows watched. Maybe the one I write three months from now for the autumn 2013 shows will be a lot more cohesive and contain greater detail and not be dragged out over several weeks. At least, maybe it will be that way if I continue to watch only three shows. I've got up to 10 I might consider, but I can't see following more than seven for the time being.

Dated 18 October 2013: Watamote not wanted here

Pete asks with regard to Watashi ga Motenai no wa dō Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui! (No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys' Fault I’m Not Popular!):

There's not a word in your season summary (http://karmaburn.com/?p=5641) about WataMote (Everyone Else's Fault That I'm Not Popular), indeed not even on the whole site. What's up with that?

I've read 43 chapters of the manga and while it was also wrong and funny to me in most of the ways other readers and viewers of the anime have expressed, Tomoko also really isn't a very likeable person and I basically didn't want to be "around" her anymore. So I stopped reading the manga and I didn't bother watching the anime. However, I still like the spinoff 4-koma that's sort of about Yuu, Tomoko friend from middle school who's growing up to become pretty and popular.

Dated 23 October 2013: KILL la KILL leads the six shows that I'm watching so far

Mikisugi and Ryuuko
Relax, it's cool. He's her teacher.

I'm watching fewer shows autumn 2013 than I usually do. I suppose on average it's still about one episode each night, but with less time watching anime and less attention devoted to The Twitter, I do have noticeably more time to pursue other interests—to include updating an anime blog that's nearly in its 13th year.

(more…)

Dated 2 January 2014: Autumn 2013 season summary

Regina and Cure Ace
Go on, Ace. Slap the shit out of her.

I only watched five shows from the autumn 2013 anime season. It really should have been six, but subs for Detective Conan lagged again.

Autumn 2013: KILL la KILL (1-12) > Golden Time (1-12) > DokiDoki! Precure (35-46) > Kakumeiki Valvave [13-24] > IS Infinite Stratos 2 [1-12, OVA2]. Dropped: None.

Ryuuko
I'm sure Ryuuko is a sweet girl when she isn't psycho.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, it should comes as no surprise that I love KILL la KILL. Not only is it relentlessly brazen, it features girls with superpowers whaling on each other. This is the same reason why I love Pretty Cure, Symphogear, My-HiME, and Read or Die. Really, just having Koshimizu Ami hollering crude things every week is enough to keep me watching. It really makes me wish she had talked like that during Suite Precure♪. I'm definitely looking forward to the next cour of KILL la KILL. (Yes, I did just lump Read or Die together with Pretty Cure.)

Koko
Faceless eroge protagonist.

The anime adaptation of Golden Time faltered in a few spots, but the show is still good enough to easily claim the second spot on this list. I can't claim it's an exceptional drama or romance, but it's worth considering merely for not being set in a middle school or high school. I have it on good authority that White Album 2 is far superior when it comes to romance and drama, but I'm a little wary because I found the first episode of the first White Album anime to be insipid. I'll add White Album 2 to my ever-growing queue providing it is not a sequel to (nor requires familiarity with) the first anime, and as long as it doesn't feature the same idiot male character who could not grasp the concept of pre-recorded television.

Aguri
Revisiting the bit about the carrots was a nice touch.

DokiDoki! Precure is okay, but mostly notable merely for not being terrible. I'm relieved at how the Regina and Aguri arcs are progressing. Barring any last-minute stumbles, the ending will probably be all right. I'm glad Cure Ace didn't turn out to be another Cure Muse. There was still a lot about her that was straight bullshit, but I'm willing to give her a pass simply for her willingness to embrace her "it's our destiny to fight" moment. I'm still opposed to having shrimpy kids as Cures, but Aguri is so much better than Ako that I'll let it go.

Saki
I like that she still took the time to do her hair.

Kakumeiki Valvrave is a terrible show. Really, it's god-awful. Unfortunately, the worst part about the second season is that it was only "so bad it's good" on rare occasions. Aside from never making any sense, it had awful characters in ridiculous social and political constructs promoted so earnestly I'm completely unable to determine whether or not their ideals and goals were sincere or farcical. On the plus side, I get to use my "Characters in Need of Better Shows" tag again. Poor Saki.

Laura
Fräulein's crazy, yo.

IS Infinite Stratos 2 would have been so much better had it been entirely filler. I didn't care about the plot or any of the antagonists at all. The second new girl, Kanzashi, also really sucks. Her big sister (the first new girl), Tatenashi, is okay, even if she does take Bruce Lee's advice a little too literally. If they ever make an IS Infinite Stratos 3, they should disregard whatever nonsense is canonically in the light novels and just make the entire cour a series of jokes about the wacky, goofball, anime-Teutonic things Laura does after waking up in Potato-kun's bed every morning. Charles > Laura > Cecilia > Lingyin > Tatenashi > Charlotte > Houki > Kanzashi.

Nanana
Please, please, please, actually be the ghost of Nobunaga.

As you might expect, you miss out on a lot of anime when you only follow five shows in a cour. (Hell, I don't even know what some of the shows people talk about on the Twitter are putatively about.) However, you also miss out on a lot of crap. It's a real shame, because I probably would have gotten a lot of blogging mileage out of some of those crap shows. Luckily, we've got like three different shows featuring true facts about the Nobunaga and (I think) two shows about ghost girlfriends next season. At least one of those has got to be hot garbage.