Look, it ain't that bad, okay.

Depending on which corner of the anime fandom you find yourself, I imagine you're either on the side that doesn't believe DARLING in the FRANXX needs defending, or in the camp that doesn't believe it deserves defending. My basic perspective on the show is that it is not capital-G Good, nor is it part of the "bad but has good parts in it" category, but rather that it is a flawed result of some efforts that I genuinely appreciate.

The robots are named after flowers, but I don't know if there is any meaning to it.

Studio Trigger's Gainax heritage basically guarantees I'll give any of its shows a try. They haven't all been hits, but I'll generally find at least something to enjoy. DARLING in the FRANXX is Studio Trigger's two-cours science fiction partnership with A-1 Pictures featuring giant robots and lots of sexual allegories. The show is not at all subtle, with wall-to-wall metaphors about marriage, intercourse, orgasm, infidelity, and polyandry. And that's just the first three episodes. Unfortunately, it also stars an exceptionally dull teenage boy (because of course it does). At least he isn't a whiny brat, I guess. (That role was already taken by one of the supporting cast.)

What? You can't see it?

I'm calling it. Re:CREATORS will end (next season) with Potato-kun re-drawing and re-writing Altair as a wall-to-wall dere-dere moé-moé...kyun! schoolgirl whose MAD gets super popular on the NicoVideo. Still the best show this season, though. Even ahead of Little Witch Academia TV which is also really good. I should write about that before it ends.

15-love.

I put Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de (When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace) on hold halfway through the autumn 2014 season to watch different shows, but I came back to it and finished it off a year later. There wasn't anything particularly bad about the series when I put it on the shelf last year, except I felt it was a rather unremarkable effort by Studio Trigger, a company better known for KILL la KILL and the Little Witch Academia movies. But now that I've finished Inou-Battle, I believe it is a excellent show—not relative to anime in general, mind you—relative to other harem comedies. You see, harem comedies tend to be mediocre at best and typically cursed with one or both of the following typical flaws: (1) Uninteresting harem candidates, or (2) an unlikable male lead.

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.)

(Unrelated picture.)

Bernard writes:

I noticed you didn't seem to have an entry for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, I remembered that one was pretty interesting, was wondering what you thought of it.

I watched the first episode because of Nakahara Mai, but I wasn't particularly interested in it for whatever reason despite the unexpected violence. I heard that it's good, though.

Erin writes:

Just wanted to say, that after a few years away from anime that your blog is the one I haphazardly browse to see what I've missed.

Thanks for reading! I wish I could point to some amazing bit of anime that you missed over the past few years, but nothing really stands out. Oh, there is a lot of material that's very good and plenty of stuff that's "important" from an "I can't believe you never watched that!" perspective, but the hoary joke about television being a medium because nothing on it is rare or well done sort of applies here. Despite all the anime that I've really enjoyed, I don't know there's much I would recommend to someone "a few years away from anime" besides Little Witch Academia.

Hachiken's actually about to have his mom's home cooking for the first time in ages.

I feel as if I watched too many shows last season. However, there also isn't anything that I regret not dropping. Does that mean the winter 2014 season was particularly good or does it mean I'm not making very good use of my spare time? Maybe it's both. There were quite a few good shows, or at least okay shows with lots of good moments.

Pilder fucking on!

I should probably put together a season introduction for Winter 2014, considering that half of it has already passed. At this time, I'm still following 14 15 of the shows currently airing this cour (Jesus Christ, fourteen FIFTEEN?), and may add Gundam Build Fighters if I ever get around to starting it. I present the following shows in order of their precedence on the chart at the time I started writing this sucker, but you shouldn't put too much weight on their positions or particular ratings because this ain't anime titration, you know.