No pressure.

My preconceptions about Shūmatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii Desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desu ka? (WorldEnd: What are you doing at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us? also known as SukaSuka) were generally negative. After all, it's an anime adaptation of a light novel with a stupidly long title. It also seems to feature a lot of shrimpy anime children. Moreover, the lead is a male character who seems to be absent from much of the promotional art, which instead focuses on yet another girl with a sword. On the plus side, her hair isn't red and she didn't seem to use fire magic. That's at least a departure. And she has a giant witch hat. So, while I could find positive aspects, it was not an inspiring first impression. Nevertheless, I was at least willing to give it a shot. Thankfully, through three episodes, Shūmatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii Desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desu ka? is surprisingly all right.

Ruri cosplaying as Mini-Kashima.

Notably, the show has neat little gags. And while they aren't kneeslappers, they are a lot more amusing and deft than the sort of thing you typically find in run-of-the-mill light novel adaptations. Does it also feature a duel between the male lead and the female lead? Of course. That's basically a given. However, I liked the way the scene played out, making it apparent why Chtholly was getting so agitated without dwelling too much on it during the short fight itself. I am at least willing to accept them both as soldiers.

I like the design of Chtholly's wings.

Now, three episodes is not enough to make reliable projections as to how the rest of the show might turn out. That positive three-episode run might just be a lucky streak and the rest of the show could pretty easily turn into a garbage fire, but it's a good start so far, and a welcome surprise for something I had nearly written off on general principle. Alternatively, it could also easily turn into Saikano, which is itself not necessarily a bad possibility. Having lots of shrimpy anime kids in a war story does increase the likelihood that it will end up with wall-to-wall dead kids to generate maximum traumarama. What can I tell you? War is all Hell. Sometimes even light novel war.

Looks like 2016, going by the calendar.

From what I've been able to gather based on the first episode, the basic premise of Re:CREATORS involves the arrival of various characters from contemporary popular fiction to the land of their authors: Japan. That is, rather than Potato-kun getting hit by a truck and reincarnating in a fantasy world, characters from these fantasy light novel, video game, and/or anime worlds are transported to Japan instead. There have been shows with similar premises (e.g., Hataraku Maou-sama!), but this twist is still fresh enough to give Re:CREATORS the edge in capturing my attention this season.

Shouldn't she be wearing some goggles?

On its face, Youjo Senki (The Saga of Tanya the Evil) should be absolute light-novel garbage. According to those who have investigated the source material, the original light novel really is the sonorous trash you get in these sorts of reincarnation stories. The actual execution, though, is surprisingly deft. And while its appeal is somewhat niche, it does appeal to me, and it safely stays out of the uncanny valley of military anime. Notably, the air battles are quite good, and are a great deal more satisfying than what we got from Brave Witches or Strike Witches. It's easy to accept this is the way witches and warlocks might fight, particularly when one is clearly stronger than the others.

Duckface.

However, there's still the issue of Tanya's backstory. Through two episodes at least, there's not really a compelling reason why she needs to be a reincarnated Japanese salaryman. I can at least appreciate that the flashback to her previous death was executed in a clever way. Then again, at this point, just not getting hit by a truck sort of qualifies as being somewhat clever by default. Possibly the story will actually include Tanya's past life's corporate experience as a way to improve her chances on the battlefield, but I'm not expecting any sort of Moshidora epiphanies. Really, trying to make a Moshidora connection to Youjo Senki is tenuous at best, and I confess I only bring it up here and in the title of this post so I can pretend to casually mention I read an 800-page Peter Drucker book from the '70s in 2011 for a baseball anime which hardly anyone watched. Good times.

Who's ready for more BBK/BRNK faces?

There are a surprising number of shows I'm interested in scheduled for autumn 2016. Most of these are sequels of some sort, but there are a few new properties that have caught my eye. Notably, I've yet to do any concerted investigating into the upcoming season, so the following only include titles that I noticed at some point and deemed worthy of preemptively annotating in my anime spreadsheet.

The Gate appears.

The military otaku in Otaku no Video made me wonder if Japan has a subculture of military-aged males who don't really have an outlet for such interests, unlike their counterparts in other nations. To this 21st century American, it seems as if the warrior culture embraced by Japan's soldiers during World War II vanished after their surrender and disarmament, forcing them and their descendents to refocus (or repress) these drives. It appears as if the Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF) must do fuck all because Japan's constitution now prohibits offensive engagements, and defensive conflicts seem extremely unlikely because ain't nobody fucking with Japan without fucking with the United States too. Consequently, perhaps the Japanese military otaku demographic remains underutilized because this paternalistic alliance prevents their team from having any away games and they don't have much of a home game either. Even an anime JSDF has to ride the pine unless the show breaks out some fancy dancing.

Oh, Sunrise.

I'm not sure precisely when Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo (Cross Ange: Rondo of Angels and Dragons) went off the rails, but it's pretty much just headed straight towards where the fuck ever now. There's a post-apocalyptic parallel universe populated with randy dragon girls, for crying out loud. P.S. Spoilers.

I'm starting to think Ange and Tusk are both bar magnets.

I've seen some viewers claim that it's worse than Kakumeiki Valvrave now in terms of making sense, but that's honestly an unfair and misleading characterization. Whereas Valvrave suffered from lots of annoying bullshit that didn't make any sense, Cross Ange is packed with amusing bullshit that doesn't make any sense. It's an important distinction, okay. Blessed Haruhi, this is a great show.

As if there is any chance in Hell of Sera turning out to be bad.

Because of "circumstances," I find myself dropping about half the shows I was following this season. Well, perhaps not so much dropping as putting on hiatus for the time being. Maybe I'll catch back up during a particularly lousy season that coincides with greater anime-watching opportunities. (Won't be next season, because next season looks pretty sweet.)

I'm pretty sure this is how cooties are transmitted.

I only started watching Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de because of Studio Trigger. Thus far, it comes across as fairly unremarkable, although the basic setup is sort of amusing. This is no Little Witch Academia or Kill la Kill, so I'm left judging the show on its merits. It's fine, but the turbo-dere crazy girl was the only one I really liked. Since she's basically never in the show, what's the point? This is an easy one to put on hiatus, because I don't expect any spoilers down the road to ruin my chances of enjoying it. If it turns out to be a stinker, then I'll have dodged a bullet by ducking out early now.

Succor.

As much as I enjoy watching a runty old man brazenly fondle a nubile, 16-year-old princess who suffers from poor depth perception, I'm dropping Nanatsu no Taizai because I'm already reading the manga. There are currently more than 100 chapters out, making it a cinch that even a two-cour show will just trail off at some convenient stopping point without resolving anything. The anime adaptation is pretty good, and the fights have been entertaining, but I need to clear up some room in the ol' anime block.

Oh ho ho.

I'm putting both Magic Kaito 1412 and Detective Conan on hold. I consider Magic Kaito to sort of be a Detective Conan property anyway, even though that's not technically accurate, and I've got a huge backlog of Conan episodes numbering into the hundreds, so it's easy to set both shows on back burners. Really, most of y'all should probably be watching both of these shows. It just goes to show that "nobody watches shows if they're really popular."

Bad dream?

I haven't been enjoying Amagi Brilliant Park nearly as much as most viewers, largely because the current flavor to Kyoto Animation's work doesn't quite agree with me. That said, I have enjoyed it more than Hyouka (which I think most viewers would describe as vastly superior), and I've definitely liked it more than the episodes of Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! that I watched. (I skipped Kyoukai no Kanata, Free!, and Tamako Market entirely.) Kyoto Animation is very good at what they do, and I can tell the original light novel probably would have fared much worse had it been adapted by most other studios. Nevertheless, I can't ultimately care too much about the show and was mostly watching for Ayako. 50 Cent was pretty good until the series decided she needed to fall in love with Kanye West. The dude simply isn't charismatic enough to get me to care about this relationship angle. Even if he is at least better than the typical Potato-kun, that's a low standard to reach.

I'm pretty sure the entire thing is Hitoe's fault somehow.

I will definitely undrop selector spread WIXOSS at some point (providing it doesn't get another season). I intend to follow this suffering to the end (of this cour anyway), even though I basically get no enjoyment out of the show anymore. These are broken characters stumbling their way through an asinine situation for implausible reasons. I'm mostly just waiting to see if Akira is going to kill somebody before Hanayo gets pregnant. She is going to get pregnant and spawn stupid playing card babies, right? Oh, like you have a better reason to watch this show.

The Lion King.

I was going to pause Sword Art Online 2 because I've read the Mother's Rosario arc and already know what happens. Still, this arc should be about as good as Sword Art Online ever gets, so I might as well keep watching. I'm not sure how standard (read: Kirito) fans will react to the Asuna-led focus of these remaining episodes, but I hope they at least enjoy these episodes more than they like the second half of the first season. (You know, the one where Asuna spent all of her time sitting in a chair and waiting to be rescued when she wasn't too busy being sexually assaulted.) Unfortunately for people watching the anime, there are spoilers for this arc that will be difficult to avoid because they're of the variety that detractors of Sword Art Online won't be able to resist revealing.

Aim for the face.

Actually, there's a good chance I'll place Sword Art Online 2 on hiatus anyway.

P.S. Asuna dies.

That is totally the Sailor V costume from the back...

...but it changes to the Sailor Venus battle
costume when we see it from the front.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal was an easy one to put on hold because it only airs every two weeks and because I frankly don't like it. I like the idea of Sailor Moon, but I can't claim to particularly enjoy the manga, the 90-some episodes of the original anime that I've watched, or the Crystal Bullshit episodes of the remake that I've seen so far. With Chibi Usa about to make her appearance, this was a no-brainer. I still haven't officially dropped it (or the original anime, for that matter), since I feel I should watch the entire thing as a matter of principle, but it is a slog.

Busted. P.S. Spoilers.

You know what show I'm not putting on hold? Motherlovin' Cross Ange. This is some good shit, yo. Week after week of solid entertainment. Two cours, baby!

Hell yeah.

Shipping took longer than I expected, but I received my 2013 Idolm@ster calendar, err...2013 THE iDOLM@STER c@lendar. The calendar is two months to each single-sided page, and you have to tear them off to change to the next sheet. I'm pretty sure the paper is A2-sized, so it should be pretty easy to get frames. The colors seem a little less saturated than the scans you may have seen, but I'm pretty happy with the calendar as a whole. I probably could have just gotten it from Kinokuniya, but I was ordering something else anyway.

OH, HELL YEAH.

I'm pretty stoked about this, although it's been ages since I put together any sort of model airplane. I'm probably going to practice first on some other kit (maybe a tank!) to get used to it again. I want to be more confident of not messing it up.