I sincerely have no idea where the series is going to go next season, because holy shit that was unexpected
Animation Summer 2014
-
-
Well, the season's coming to an end. This week certainly was a thing.
Aldnoah Zero. I'd care more about the whole thing if I actually cared about the characters. But I don't. The center, which seemed to be Inaho's and Asselyum's "romance" doesn't work at all. There is no meaning behind any of this. Why is there more in January?
Sword Art Online had some great action this week, and in contrast to the previous weeks, I liked that Sinon showed some competency. This is the reason why I like her character more than the others. She has her own character and skills.
I finally got the point Zankyou no Terror wants to make, but it also made me realize that in the end the characters are most likely not going to get any more elaboration. In the end we got very little about Five and I think all the depth all the other characters are going to get is just this indirect stuff, which works alright, like I've mentioned with the Lisa and twelve scenes, but in the end it's not that much at all. I still like it, but it's not as great as the great opening episodes promised. I think a lot of the time spent on the exposition stuff could've spent more with exploring and developing the characters.
Finally, there's Tokyo Ghoul. Aldnoah Zero kinda seemed to attempt the whole "cycle of hatred" thing, but that didn't really work. Tokyo Ghoul is a pretty excellent exploration of that theme, I reccommend checking it out because it has some great characters, interesting themes and the action looks nice when it isn't censored.
-
So Season 2 will have insane Slaine?
It was an unexpected ending for AZ, hope they dont revive "them". -
Slaine will make an awesome main character for season 2. He's just a Failure Stu.
Goes on an mission to stop an assassination. Ends up shooting the target during the shoot out.
Needs to get to someplace in 2 hours to protect the package. Ends up showing up at 3 hours since his mech ran out of gas. Package is gone.
He sees a caped person carrying a gun and shoots him dead. Turns out it was a kid playing with a toy gun.
Ends up killing a guy whose arguing with a woman that looks like the princess. Turns out it's just a husband and wife fighting.
Wants to go to a hospital. Ends up hijacking a car that has a bomb inside it and leaves it at said hospital.
He gets put in charge of delivering a nuclear weapon to a nuclear weapon storage facility. He gets sleepy and accidently hits the launch button destroying a city. -
Slaine will turn into an Obito-like character imo.
-
I had decided not to watch the second cour Aldnoah. Zero in winter, but now I can't help but want to see it if only find out what the hell it will be about after the awe-inspiring clusterfuck of an ending that we got here. I was staring in disbelief the entire time.
Mortal men can't comprehend the action of one commonly known as "Slaine". His actions are boggling and his abilty to fail at everything he tries to do is frankly fascinating. The finale has managed to turn a relatively inoffensive character into a character equivalent of an unfolding, high octane trainwreck in slow motion. Bravo, simply bravo.
How can I pass up after the potential of amusement, this precedent of monumental writing has been established?
-
Part of me wants to see the trainwreck unfold, too, but this just ended up being really boring to sit through in these final episodes. There is Sawano's soundtrack, but it's one of his weakest, too. Not bad at all, but not as good as his other stuff.
-
Eh the show could be worse, it could have been like Garagantia where it was really evident that different people wrote different episodes. But by and large it's a pretty generic series that's entertaining enough to watch week by week but in all honesty is pretty lackluster. This season has been full of disappointments really, I was expecting a lot more out of AZ and Glasslip and I'm even losing interest in Zankyou no terror. At least the comedy trio of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, Sabagebu and Barakamon has remained strong.
Sabagebu was hit and miss. It wasn't bad but I much prefer a few of director's other series (Minami-ke, Love Lab). A lot of scenes were duds. Momoka is awesome in an asshole-ish way but otherwise not particularly likable and she was the best character of the lot. I was hoping it would be better but I'm not particularly disappointed. It made me chuckle at least once an episode.
I had low expectations from AZ and ZnT. Urobuchi is a mediocre writer overall so I'm not sure why expectations were high, and he only wrote like 3 episodes anyway. ZnT seemed like a story about martyrs without a cause starring emo teenagers. Pretty much what it ended up being.
Knew Barakamon would be good, it was. Hoped Glasslip would be good, it wasn't. Nozaki-kun was a pleasant surprise. All in all a normal season.
-
This week in anime featuring the Top 5.
AZ>ZnT>SAO>AGK>TG.
Highlight of the week: Slaine "killing" Inaho.
-
ZnT #10 was unexpectedly bad. The whole conclusion to Five's character and the events following Twelve's betrayal felt so very, very dissatisfying. Even the show's premise with the Athena project and whatnot didn't impress me really. It might have, had the characters been more focused on, but that can't be changed now.
I dunno… There's still one episode left and it might just manage to satisfy me to some degree, but the overall impression I had of the show- a highly positive one, mind you- changed drastically over the course of this one penultimate episode.
Haiykuu on the other hand is my personal anime of the season. I cannot wait for the inevitable sequel.
Dia no Ace I'm still just watching 'cause I'm nearly 50 episodes in and don't want to drop it now. But I'm not a fan of the in-between SOL like episodes. I'd rather focus on the baseball games as those tend to be pretty neat mostly.
Sailor Moon and HxH I've three and seven episodes left to catch up on respectively. But mustering up the needed motivation is a bit of a problem atm.
-
Sailor Moon really isn't worth it. I'm caught up, the animation continues to be really wonky, the music isn't anything noteworthy and while the story is fine it overall just.. isn't that well presented. I really agree about Terror, the opening episodes were great and the base of the characters is intriguing, but in the end there's very little real substance behind the characters and I doubt that will change much with final episodes. A lot of it was just spent on dry exposition about the plot. Certainly, Watanabe's directing and Kanno's music is great, but everything else…
-
Comedies carried this season.
Barakamon, Nozaki-kun, Space Dandy.
-
So Terror in Resonance. That happened. Not much else to say except I should've just continued with Space Dandy instead. Luckily it's not too late.
-
So Terror in Resonance. That happened. Not much else to say except I should've just continued with Space Dandy instead. Luckily it's not too late.
Yes, pretty much. It had a strong and promising start, but in the end, we didn't learn much about the characters..and well, since five entered the picture I gradually lost interest, it was just a lot of exposition that in the end wasn't that important. Just basically indifference from me. It looked and sounded pretty, but that's pretty much it.
-
Terror is a peculiar case of what happens when you combine a lame script and poor characterization with great direction and soundtrack.
Except that it's a kind of a show that lives by the former more than the latter, so…
Nowhere is the contrast more evident than in the ferris wheel scene. The romance is so contrived and unearned, yet direction is working overtime to create an illusion of substance.
-
Blimey, what a horrible ending that was for ZnT. Really wish we had learned more about 9 and 12 at least. The anime was promising at the start but I'm left feeling disappointed.
-
The ending episode itself was solid all around. The elevator scene, explosion scene and even the sniping scene were fantastic. That we never delved into the leads is to be blamed on the preceeding episodes. It's mostly because of Five:not only was she is a horrible villain who's authority messed with the suspension of disbelief, but she took away focus and screentime from things that mattered, such as Nine and Twelve. Who knows, maybe they'd even develop Lisa! Five should never have happened. The show was better off sticking to the formula of the first 4 episodes even, as repetetive as that was getting. Five's episodes (except maybe episode 5) were what brought the show down.
-
The show might have been better had it been 2 cours. I really wanted to know their backstory, and more character development for Lisa wouldn't hurt either.
-
Yes, pretty much. It had a strong and promising start, but in the end, we didn't learn much about the characters..and well, since five entered the picture I gradually lost interest, it was just a lot of exposition that in the end wasn't that important. Just basically indifference from me. It looked and sounded pretty, but that's pretty much it.
Completely agree, but the ending was very effective, big guy vs the little guy, in the end there was no justice. Too bad we never really got to see Five's true intentions.
One of the show's strength was it's realism there were situations that made the show look stupid such as the airport chess game and vehicle animation in episode 10.
Yoko Kanno delivered great music and the ending animation by Takeshi Koike was great also. It may seem a shame that they didn't develop the main characters much considering all the emotional 'fluff' they used to convey them, but then again Nine and Twelve were simply fighting silence in their own manner, I don't think they could have been developed much further because their actions spoke louder than words.
If the series was any longer it would only come across as being less powerful.
-
Barakamon ended ;_;
-
-
"Look at us. Remember us. Don't forget that we walked on this planet!"
…is what Nine and Twelve's actions amounted to. Two boys who went through horrible experiments, lost all their 'comrades', and only wanted to let the world know what happened to them and that they're there. After watching those 11 episodes that concept makes sense and makes for an intriguing story. On paper at least. The execution itself would've been so much better had the characters been more developed. The trio of 9, 12, and Lisa would've sufficed. Adding Shibazaki would've only been the icing on the cake. Five, in that regard, wasn't even needed. Her role went from maniacal villain-genius to clingy victim (in love?). I liked her design, some of her actions, and her seiyuu, but in hindsight there was no need for Five to be part of the cast.
But even so, I cannot say that the ending didn't catch me off guard. And it most certainly moved me. After all, despite the little development they had, 12 and 9 in particular were lovable guys. Ha, what a cruel way to deliver that ending... Have them fool around, make the audience believe everything's going to be alright, only to then ruthlessly kill the duo in the next moment. Brilliant directing it was, regardless of its cruelty.
-
With the season being almost over for me, here's my ranking of the summer anime and the spring anime who ended this season :
High+ : Baby Steps, Haikyu, Akame ga Kill, Jojo
High : SOA2, Space Dandy, Tokyo Ghoul, Nobunaga Concerto, Free
Mid : Mahouka, Matsutaro, Tokyo ESP, Re:Hamatora, Zankyou no Terror, Aldnoah Zero
Low : M3, Captain EarthFavorite OP : Tokyo Ghoul
Favorite ED : Nobunaga Concerto (especially the last episode version)Additional notes :
- My best surprise is Akame ga Kill since I already knew what to expect from the other 3 High+
- Mahouka would be High if the sister didn't exist.
- Space Dandy had some fantastic episodes this season. I enjoyed it better that the first one.
- Pierrot did a great job with Baby Steps. I can't wait for season 2 (and hopefully a 3rd one after that) and see the amazing matchs that comes later in the manga
- I skipped every complaints about the Tokyo Ghoul adaptation to remain unbiased as an anime only watcher. So I can't say that it's a bad adaptation (I'll make my own opinion later when I read the manga) but it was a great anime. I heard that it should get a 2nd season next year so I'm going to wait before reading the manga.
- Diamond no Ace continue to be great. I'm glad that it was extented for 2 more cours.
- Kill la Kill episode 25 was awesome. Nice way to conclude that fantastic anime.
-
Oh, this is a good time for round-up, I guess!
Stuff I ended up watching this season: Sailor Moon, Free! season 2, Aldnoah Zero, Tokyo Ghoul, Sword Art Online II, Zankyou no Terror.Sailor Moon has been very average, with wonky-looking animation, alright music (I guess) and alright story. It's nothing notable for anyone but maybe those who have somehow experienced Sailor Moon before or were fans, and even then the original had a very limited budget - it was a 200 episode series, but is still THE way to experience the series and despite it's own shortcomings is a version of the story which is considerably better done.
Free! Eternal Summer Hey, it's that fanservice series! Except aside from that fanservice it has a fun and very likeable cast and a cute message about chasing your dreams and enjoying what you love. It's how fun the cast is what I think the series does the best. Each character gets their share of character development in this season, too and it actually goes in a very interesting place with Haru in particular. It's not amazing, but definitely really fun and I did feel for the boys in some of the more serious moments.
Aldnoah Zero I think the two things I will remember from this series are Slaine and the music. It actually started off pretty well, and I was holding hope up until the final few episodes of the series, but in the end it sort of just ended up kind of empty and meaningless. There's some very interesting directions the series could've gone, but where it ultimately ended up going was just kinda boring. I think Slaine's character is the best developed out of the cast - and that's actually not saying much because all of them ended up pretty one-note at the end point. Yes, it's still the first cour, but I have no desire to continue the series. I wouldn't reccommend this one aside from just listening to the OST separately and even that while definitely not bad, isn't Hiroyuki Sawano's strongest.
Tokyo Ghoul Probably my favorite of the season. Censoring and apparent "rushing" (which I don't get, it didn't feel rushed to me at all) aside, I freaking love the cast. They're all very human above all else and the conflict in the series is very grey. You can sympthize with characters on both sides. There's only one character I can't stand and that's Tsukiyama Shuu. He's an uninteresting villain and his whole character seems pretty jarring to the general tone of the story. It's nothing too special with it's world or it's plot, but I definitely 100% reccommend this for it's themes and characters, despite it not having much wrap up in terms of plot (depending on whether there will be season 2 or not).
Sword Art Online II I liked it's action and I like that Sinon is pretty much the character with the most depth in the series so far. It really did put effort into developing her character. However, same isssues plague the series, as they did season 1. Sinon still ends up crying to Kirito, there's still some unnecessary gross stuff, like the rape-y looking stuff in the recent episode, also while some of the character stuff IS interesting, some of it is just redundant and boring exposition. It's basically all issues which are in the previous season. It's sort of a guilt pleasure situation for me with this one, the incompetence in writing is very obvious, but it's an entertaining kind of bad. I don't think, except for select episodes of the exposition mentioned before, I really found it boring as a whole. It's entertaining, but it's not good.
Terror in Resonance I guess you could call this my second favorite, but the strengths of the series are more the direction/animation and music. Both are excellent. While the characters aren't terrible, they aren't anything notable. It also has a message about terrorism, but ultimately I just ended up being indifferent towards what it had to say because I just didn't care enough. A lot of the series time was mismanaged with in the big picture pretty unnecessary exposition and especially the character Five. A lot of that time could've been used to round out the cast better. In the end I just found it a moderate "good", for s_ome_ of the depth the characters did manage to get and very much purely for the masteful direction and music it had.Favorite OP: Tokyo Ghoul Favorite ED: Either Aldnoah Zero (specifically, Aliez) or Zankyou no Terror.
-
Space Dandy is the anime of the season for me.
Not even a contest after that finale. That was one of the most exciting over the top episodes of anime I've ever seen. The kind that leaves you reeling for a good half an hour after you've seen it.
Barakamon for #2, Nozaki-kun for #3.
-
It's possible I'm biased as I love Tokyo Ghoul quite a lot but it gets top spot from me. Even though it was a little rushed I loved every second of it and really hope we get to see a second season.
Nozaki-kun was the surprise anime this season, for me that is. Thoroughly enjoyed it and every episode gave me a good laugh. One of those animes that makes you feel good whenever you watch it.
-
Anime Kaneki has to be one of the worst MC I ever seen along with Satoshi, Rinka, Natsu, Inaho, Slaine.
Tokyo ESP has to be the biggest bust of 2014, for an anime that was hyped at the same level as AGK, it was a terrible series; MC gets her ass kicked every single time, shitty animation, fast pacing, almost no character development.
My ranking for the Big 5.
AGK
AZ
SAO II
ZNT
TG -
Well for me Glasslip managed to snag the title of 'Garbage of the season' from SAO. Nothing noteworthy happens in the series but the directing felt so bad, with it's awkward screen transitions and horrendously cheap looking stills. The dialogue between these so called close friends always felt so distant and they were always so damn wishy-washy. The worst part is I went into it expecting something good because it's from P.A Works. Weirdly enough it was the exact opposite with Sabagebu, I went in expecting garbage but I was pleasantly surprised with a good comedy series, in general this was a great season for comedies, shame about most other shows this season disappointing.
-
I gotta admit that Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus was the best anime this season. The arc was very good in the manga and the adaptation was even better. Tokyo Ghoul was a bit disappointing after Mado died, Tokyo ESP was one of the most mediocre anime that I've ever seen, Akame ga Kill was just too generic and clichéd. I've watched one ZnT episode and don't know whether I should continue or not. Haikyuu and JoJo were great btw. I didn't even bother to watch SAO II since the first season is garbage.
-
My rundown:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - Stardust Crusaders (Part 1)
Was this the most well-written story ever? No. Did it have a deep, insightful cast with compelling motivations? No. Was it obvious that Araki was playing by ear and pulling stuff out of his ass when appropriate? Yes. Was it a damn fun, earnest, and creatively wacky show to watch? Yes. And in this case, that's what matters. There were some bumps in the road due to the occasional lows inherent to the monster of the week format, but overall it was a fun ride and I'm eagerly looking forward to the gang's Egypt adventures. I'm also going to try to pick up the Jojolium volumes when they come out in English print next year, so mission accomplished.
Captain Earth
Maybe it was all the Shakespeare theme naming and the fauxosophic bits in the eyecatches, but this show came off to me as intending to be more ambitious that it ended up being. I suppose that as a "summer anime" it was adequate, but it was held back by very tropey character writing, and I'm still miffed that out of the three main bad guys who weren't completely one-dimensional most of them were pretty much ignored after their introductions. If it had gotten to the point sooner, maybe things would've been better, I dunno. The visuals certainly didn't disappoint (that's something a BONES show will never lack in), but I doubt this is a show that's going to retain much mindshare until it's inevitably added to Super Robot Wars and people "oh yeah, that thing."
Space Dandy
On the other side of the BONES coin, you have this. If I had to summarize this show with one word, it would be "gonzo". Being more or less a place for all of the anime industry top talents to just hang out, kick back, and have fun you never knew exactly what you'd get each week, a comedy, a drama, a romance, a race, it could be anything! And all throughout this wacky, eclectic show had an unbeatable level of energy, from the voice actors to the animators to the musicians. While it may not have been what some people were expecting when they heard the news that Watanabe was directing another sci-fi anime it's definitely something that deserves to be watched, and the type of show that we won't be seeing all that often.
Terror in Resonance
Then on the other side of the Watanabe coin with have this. I don't really have too much to add to the discussion here. The soundtrack and directing were incredible, very cinematic. However, yes I do agree that it would have been better off had it not tried to be Death Note during its middle act and spent more time on the characters. Like, I don't mind that Twelve went from being gleeful and manic to the sensitive, human side of the terrorist duo, but it was a Point A - Point C deal, with not much in the way of Point B. It was pretty funny how in the denouement there wasn't a single mention of Five; removing her entirely would indeed have little effect on the story. The only thing I think her presence led to was the presence of the American forces in the last episode, and even that could've been written around. Not something that I regret watching by any means, for as has been said the other aspects of the production more than picked up the slack, but if the writing and tone had been on-point throughout the whole run as it was at the beginning and very end it would've been something truly great, I feel.
Aldnoah.Zero (Part 1)
Oh boy, and now we come to this. Thinking about it, I feel that this show really demonstrates the weakness of the split-cour system. You can't write it like you have a straight twenty-four episodes, you have to treat it as two separate seasons, and give your audience a reason to get invested and return when it resumes. What I'm getting at is that I found myself losing interest as it wore on and we learned…almost nothing about any of the characters, Inaho included. I think the only character who really got their motives and such half-way sufficiently fleshed out was Saazbaum, and even then it was executed in a way that made little sense. Then the last six minutes of the finale comes along and things go pants on head stupid. Aside from the titanic amount of dumbassery Slaine displayed during those six minutes, where do we go from here? Assuming that Inaho's really dead-dead and not in-a-coma-to-reawaken-when-it's-sufficiently-dramatic-dead now no one on the good guys' side has the chops to assume the protagonist's chair because, as I said, barely anyone was developed or accomplished anything! Good luck expecting Slaine assuming that mantle to go over well now that he's jumped off the deep end. I suppose that was the hook to get people to tune in again come January, but right now I don't have much motivation to do so other than to see what further heights Slaine can achieve in fucking things up for everybody.
-
The funniest thing is that Inaho, the princess and Slaine aren't probably even dead. I read a discussion about it and it was pointed out that the power of Aldnoah might be trasferred through a freaking kiss. Hence why the mech activated when Slaine entered it, he was kissed by the princess. That's why Inaho was smirking, too, he knows he's not gonna die because he kissed her. This is totally plausible, too. It's ridiculous.