2013 was definitely a show filled with many shows of assorted variety. It probably says a lot that I can think of tons of shows of appalling quality yet struggle to come up with more than one show that I genuinely loved. Anyway, let’s rank these things and move on with out lives in 2014 because that’s truly for the better.
During the course of a normal year watching anime, I drop a lot of shows. It ends up being about 9 out of every 20 from my reckoning. That said, I make many, many mistakes in the eyes of my readers, followers on twitter, or people who even think of the name Emperor J. That includes those who have lived in mountain monasteries their entire lives and have no concept of blogging in their minds. So to further their confirmation bias of my taste, I present to you the list of my worst drops as rated by MAL and other comments throughout the year.
It’s time to bring this feature back for the 599th post on this blog. I suppose I should do something special for that one. I’ll get around to coming up with something this week. This is the first time I’ve done a roundup collectively of the summer. I hope that’s been enough to separate the bad from the good. Unfortunately, I’m almost certain that’s eliminated any other series that my readers are still watching. I have a tendency to do that almost every single time.
But first a little digression on what’s happened this week tied to the man I’ve pictured above. That would be Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun. The undoubted superstar of the club in Major League Baseball’s smallest market, 2011 National League MVP, 5-time All-Star and as of this week admitted drugs cheat. In the midst of that season, I had the unusual luck of catching the same cross-country flight as him, but as it was 2am I really made no note of it other than the coincidence of being on the same plane. This is more about fandom though. While the figures involved in creating something may go on to be a future disgrace, the thing they created will still exist. Urobuchi may now live on overhyped projects that chop women to bits and have characters say funny things just for laughs, but Madoka will still always exist. And while the season may be lost for Milwaukee now, come March 31st next season there will still be baseball played, and Braun will probably be starting in left field.
A trio of new civil servants spend their first days on the job at the local health and welfare office in this first episode. Yamagami, Miyoshi and Hasebe come to terms with a job that requires them to be scolded by members of the public and their own supervisors. They manage to find their footing quickly in a lighthearted way.
There were a couple of problems I found with this first episode. Hasebe must be among the most unlikeable characters in a comedic role that I can remember. He doesn’t even have to try yet he is good at his job. He slacks off all the time and tries to pick up women at work. Since the romantic flags are set all over his relationship with Yamagami, this becomes a problem.
Frankly, no one will like a comedy where the hard working woman falls in love with an asshole man because it’s too cynical. Hasebe has to change for that to work. Otherwise we may be subjected to endless taunting by Hasebe of calling her by her abbreviated given name.
Also, it happens to take Miyoshi out of the picture. She was part of the group joining on that day, but she’s already been relegated to secondary character status. It feels like a waste of a character.
As for production quality, if you’ve seen Working! it’s on par with that. A-1 seems remarkably consistent at delivering series that above average in visual and audio production. Unfortunately, the source material leaves only so much bending room.
Reasons to Continue Watching
Reasons to Drop
My Verdict: What can I say? It’s a grownup Working!. I happened to like that show, so I’m going to keep going here. I’m curious what they will do once this leaves the office.
This is probably the first post where I’ve actually tried to get assistance from other people in it’s creation. For the most part this is just a fairly standard preview with my opinions in it plus some other information. I wish I could have been a bit more creative with that, but I can only work with what I’ve got.
Lower Mid-Table 