Back in January with the sole purpose of expressing just how much I did not like the first episode of Space Dandy, I thought it would be funny if I could go through the entire calendar year with that being the only show I dropped. That was a terrible idea, and as one who tends to lack perspective on most things I needed a reminder. Fortunately, Freakonomics Radio chose to re-broadcast their episode on quitting. Which reminded me of how I made this terrible mistake to begin with. I got caught up in trying to make a dumb point about a show I didn’t like.
The name of this post (minus the Pointless Debate portion obviously) was derived from an idea for a panel I had for conventions. Now, the whole idea of me standing in front of a bunch of people telling them to not watch something in the middle of a commercial event devoted to people who watch it seemed rather absurd. Also, knowing how Baka-Raptor’s attempt at stand-up comedy at the closest thing to a local convention for me went, I just couldn’t pull the trigger. So instead, you get a blog post with a sample of some things I would have hypothetically said in front of the 3 people who went to my panel so they could use a room to eat on a Sunday afternoon before the organizers pulled the plug on me for spreading propaganda.
This is the type of online card battle game I play. Terrible people make the best characters.
When I talked about my plan to watch as many shows as I felt I could, I failed to take a bunch of things into account. Namely that it is very hard to keep up with 30+ shows at a single time. It’s pretty much cut into the free time I have left so my other hobbies (like suffering heavy defeats playing the latest FIFA games online) are effectively non-existent. I guess that’s why critics are able to do this because that’s their job rather than a hobby.
So with that in mind, I go into this spring season with the caveat that I will watch as many first episodes as I can, but I will continue those shows that I feel I need to keep watching. No boasting about how I’ve dropped a show. No trashing shows I did drop outside of what I did watch. Yes, it’s pretty much a retreat back to how I was before, but I think quitting has a bad reputation. In any case, on with the preview where I think I may end up with more free time this spring than I thought.
Continuing Shows That I Will Watch
2 of the 4 permitted answers for Nisekoi Best Girl. The other 2 have not yet been introduced.
Nisekoi – it’s pretty much what I’ve expected up to this point. It seems like they’ve really pushed off introducing Marika, which is a definite minus. However, the 20 episode run is an unusual number that I can only really put down to an event happening in June that would impact late night television in Japan. (Yes, I know exactly what that would be.)
Nobunaga the Fool – I have no real idea what is going to happen with each episode. I guess I’m imagining Nobunaga unifying both the East and West stars because the plot dictates it, but how it gets there is a mess.
Sequels/Spinoffs That I Will Watch
Just a reminder. Best Girl.
Date A Live – It’s harem trash that I can’t help but continue watching. The recent OVA featuring Best Girl Origami reminded me of why I kept coming back to the show. There’s an awareness of how silly it contrives itself to be. That works well enough for me.
Sequels/Spinoffs of Shows That I Dropped or Did Not Watch and Will Therefore Not Be Watching with No Explanation Why
The collaboration of the year.
Broken Blade Cardfight!! Vanguard: Legion Mate-Hen Dragon Ball Kai: Majin Buu-hen Fairy Tail JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Keroro Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R Kiniro no Corda: Blue♪Sky Lady Jewelpet Love Live! School Idol Project Second Season Mushishi: Zoku-Shou Pretty Rhythm All Star Selection Puchimas!! Petit Petiti Idolm@ster Soul Eater Not!
Children’s Shows I Would Not Watch
Disk Wars: Avengers Dragon Collection Hero Bank KutsuDaru Monster Retsuden Oreca Battle Nandaka Velonica Tenkai Knights Wasimo Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V
The Rest of the Pool
Abarenbou Kishi!! Matsutarou – The first of the sports shows this season is about sumo. I’m not really optimistic about this one because it doesn’t seem different from the average sports show.
Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky – Another game adaptation which is set in a slowly ending world where people use alchemy. The more this show goes away from the game dynamics, the better it will be. I just remember trying to play a game with Atelier in the title and just struggling to figure out what the hell was going on. Maybe I’m too dense to play Atelier games.
Baby Steps – I don’t think they protagonist in this show is going to cause a mass extinction via tennis, so that’s a plus. On the downside, there’s little entertainment value in this sports show that plays as a straight romance.
Black Bullet – This looks so stupid. It’s another one of these kids get superpowers in a post-apocalyptic world which would only exist in anime. I can’t see past the first episode without banging my head on a table.
Blade and Soul – I don’t know much about this one to be honest. A straight up story of people playing in an MMORPG seems pretty boring to me, but Log Horizon has done pretty well in that regard. Maybe this is just more of the same.
Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou – This looks like a straight romance series with a protagonist who has to deal with the terrible neighbors that he has. Getting MC-kun hooked up with Sempai-sempai will hopefully prove to be interesting.
Brynhildr in the Darkness – Another show where a guy matches up with a girl who has magical powers. Anyone watching Buddy Complex from this season will relate to the fact that I expect the main character to go into traumatic flashbacks when he has to deal with the new main girl who looks like the girl who died when he was a child.
Captain Earth – This has mecha invaders from Uranus. That seems scientifically improbable. As is the probability I have patience for this show past episode 1.
Devil’s Riddle – Reading the description on this, it would seem like it’s a normal shoujo romance type show where a girl falls in love with the boy she is supposed to go after. But wait…there are a bunch of female assassins after the main guy. Put this one in the category of High Concept Harem Variant.
This is the very first panel from the Dragonar manga. It’s downhill from here.
Dragonar Academy – This is going to be an appalling mess of a show. Think Zero no Tsukaima with a plot that makes no sense and amps up the fanservice even more. The main character gets a young girl as a dragon and I’m guessing that means she has something against clothes. The best this can hope for is to be better than Dragon Crisis.
Fuuun Ishin Dai Shogun – This is just about the dumbest looking revisionist history idea I’ve ever seen in anime. Will I watch it hoping it’s as bad as it seems? You know I most definitely will.
Haikyuu!! – A shounen sports show with high school students playing volleyball in a long game of revenge, this looks pretty unrealistic. The main character is too short to really succeed at even the high school level, so they will make him jump unrealistically high to make him seem normal. Kurobas is much more realistic than this.
Hitsugi no Chaika – The main character is a retired soldier at the age of 20. Since he seems to be uninjured, it feels hard to sympathize with a character who then comes across a girl with a coffin…who happens to have magical powers. This seems to be a theme this season.
Inugami-san and Nekoyama-san – This show seems to be about yuri shipping based on the names of the two characters. You see, Inugami likes cats when she should like dogs and Nekoyama likes dogs when she should like cats. Oh how original…
Irregular at Magic High School – This is from the top selling light novel series about a world of magic users and how unjust it is towards the protagonist. That’s okay because he’s really great at what really matters, though it can’t be measured so he is seen as a lowly ‘weed’, whereas his brocon sister is top of her class. It’s Self-Insert Wish-Fulfillment at its highest level.
Is the Order a Rabbit? – So a regular cafe show where cute girls just do cute things based on their names. I can’t see much coming out of this honestly.
Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara – Having read the manga for this, prepare to be amazed when this show completely loses direction. So it goes from a fun high concept show about a guy who can literally see the flags that he is tripping to a grand conspiracy.
Kenzen Robo Daimidaler – Quite possibly the classiest mecha show that will ever be made. I read the first chapter of the manga which had an enemy mecha with it’s main cannon placed between its legs. The protagonist was also thoroughly unlikable to make some of the jokes work. Ultimately, I think this may end up in the pile of Misogynistic Power Fantasies with Mecha.
Knights of Sidonia – I briefly remember watching a trailer for this months ago and coming away not impressed. It was like they looked at Arpeggio and decided that they needed to have the CG characters look even less lifelike. It was also very pretentious, even by the standards of an advance trailer. I just hope the space battle set pieces look as good as possible.
Magical Girl Wars – I guess this is a show where magical girls battle each other drawn from character designs from Pixiv. Doesn’t this inherently mean that the one from Tokyo will win in the end?
Majin Bone – Some mecha show from Toei. That’s as much as I know.
Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to – This is a 4-koma adaptation with a perverted mangaka and the female assistant(s) who put up with his antics. It’s as hilarious as that sounds.
Mekaku City Actors – This is one of the NEET focused shows this season. This one is about a boy who is forced to go outside thanks to a character in an online game. I’d say this is probably the least objectionable of these shows this season.
No Game, No Life – Another one of the NEET shows, but this time it’s about a pair of siblings who go to another world which plays out much like Problem Children. Clans play games with outcomes that are absolute. It’s a shame the pair are thoroughly unlikable since I stopped caring about them quickly in the manga adaptation.
Normal High School Girls Tried Being Local Idols – Oh look, another idol show. I guess this just has to surpass Wake Up Girls in budget to really succeed with fans of the genre. As far as plot, I think it appeals to the same audience who hates the Tokyo-based idol factories.
One Week Friends. – This basically appears to be 50 First Dates only with the time period being a week and the location being a Japanese high school. The larger question of how a character with a memory that resets is able to attend school will likely remain an extremely open question.
Ping Pong THE ANIMATION – Tatsunoko is involved in Wake Up Girls, which has me under the belief that this will look exceptionally poor. With Yuasa directing it, that shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance. The thing that I think will get in the way is that the characters will not be interesting enough.
Ryuugajou Nanana’s Buried Treasure – This would be the NEET series about the poor student who moves into an apartment that is haunted by the ghost of an attractive girl who was a NEET. I get the feeling that this will be very much like Dusk Maiden or whatever that show was called with the ghost. It’s almost the same plot.
Sadon Desu – Very much another one of those shows about a club that does nothing. I hope the tea ceremony club will be as entertaining as D-Frag this season. I doubt it because I think only one good show of this type is allowed per year.
selector infected WIXOSS – Turns out this is a J.C. Staff original. I guess this is about some girls being sucked into a game because they have weaknesses. It’s like they are hoping to channel the spirit of Madoka into something that isn’t as dark but still commercially viable. Good luck with that.
Tricks of the Gods – Oh look, an otome game adaptation. I hope that this actually isn’t completely dependent on tropes within the genre and abuses its audience like every other adaptation from the audience. I’m hoping for a bit too much in this case, but it frustrates me that it’s assumed that otome game players are also masochists.
The World is Still Beautiful – And finally, we have the show about a girl named Nike. That’s just so much potential gold that can come from ignoring how that is actually pronounced. So I can pretend this is a show about how the world of athletics is beautiful in the state of Oregon because they have so much money from our heroine. Then completely ignore that it’s a love story set in a fantasy world.
So that is that for the season preview for this season. I would definitely be interested in knowing how wrong I am about the new shows in the coming season. I will also try to watch any shows that are recommended by you, my loyal reader…readers(?). I will also be attempting to compete in the newest edition of the MAL Fantasy Anime League. I take pride in failure since I have no idea how to compete to win. So maybe someone out there can point the way. When I go ahead and post my team, I will pose a Cart Driver-esque challenge that will apply to the summer.
For those who care about the “regular” chart I use. That will be up shortly.
Lower Mid-Table 