While in the midst of messing around in spreadsheets that are part of The Best Girl Project, I realized that I should probably get around to telling the few of you how I experienced a season in which I dropped just one show and completed 27. Including the “movie” that was also part of the season, it means the Winter 2014 season now has the joint most anime I’ve watched matching the Spring 2011 season. It’s also my lowest rated season with at least 10 shows, so make of that what you will.
Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood.
Pupa in its first episode really showed why censorship can be a bad thing if used selectively. We have an older brother witnessing his sister turning into a man-eating monster where we can’t see that transformation happening. Then, we get to see her in her new form, which isn’t as terrible as I expected.
The only other thing I thought was worth noting in this 4 minute short was the fact that everyone except for Yume had were bodies covered in wounds. What that leads me into is asking a question of whether this show can actually work in short episodes as a psychological horror series. I’m inclined to say that the short format makes it more disposable and less likely to be remembered. Putting it together in a single hour-long feature format would make more sense in my opinion.
A picture from the real Season of Discontent. That pile of trash does not represent the anime this season.
“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter Of Our Discontent
I suppose I should preface this season preview post as coming on the basis of a rough couple of weeks personally and an evening of impromptu off-road driving. Anyway, winter usually is a dead period for my anime viewing and because of the quote I used above I can only suppose it is the same for you my lone reader. I’ve been in the anime viewing business for a long time, so I’m going to spend the time reflecting on all the great anime that I watched in the winter season of 2004. That’s because everyone gets jaded and remembers how good things were, right?
Let’s see, there was Paranoia Agent, Kon’s TV masterpiece which was surreal and filled with important social commentary at the same time. That really wouldn’t come to air now would it? Then I also watched, what was it…
There’s the big image you come to expect from me at the end. I, of course lead with this under-appreciated character.
I will get this statement of fact out of the way quickly. There are 47 series airing in the fall. Only 2 of them are continuations of series that began in the summer. One of them is Kingdom which doesn’t really count. When you have that many shows I think it’s kind of pointless to write a lot on each and every series. I think I wrote about 3000 words on 20 organizations engaging in a competitive business against each other over the course of 9 months. That’s the most distant description I could write of describing sport I could think of by the way.
Not even having a popular voice actor can make minor characters popular.
I’m still going to look ahead to the coming season for the reason that it presents an interesting case. There is a hell of a lot of noise when it comes to looking at what’s being released. Light novel adaptations, sequels, sports anime, game adaptations and combinations of those 4 are the dominant shows. I think one can’t go wrong with a known quantity with this much going on. I don’t blame anyone for that because inevitably there’s going to be a ton of crap. Hidden gems are extremely unlikely because everything is known beforehand in this blogosphere. When a series is announced, it seems like a perception takes effect based on just a few facts about it and its either terrible, great or forgotten entirely. I’m still going to watch most of these to get an impression of where they are coming from and I present these to you knowing that I’m just as biased as everyone else. I’ll try to keep it short since I don’t think you want to 5000 word walls of text.
Lower Mid-Table 