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.
When watching recent episodes of Wake Up, Girls, a series about a struggling Sendai-based idol group of the same name, I could not help but think that I was watching a show that made the experience of watching idols feel much more like watching a sport than pure entertainment. While the sense of conflict around anything I-1 Club related is clearly exaggerated for dramatic reasons, it adds a needed element of comparison that makes the rest of the show.
One has to commend the accurately labeled shirts in this show.
Yamakan’s latest effort at directing TV anime is very much not the comedy vehicles he tends to have the most success with. In fact, this seems to be a much more personal vehicle for him. After watching the first episode, I can’t tell if Wake Up, Girls! is some sort of encouragement for himself or if it is actually a defiant piece aimed at those who have criticized him. I do have to say it did seem like he was rather pissed off.
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…
When watching recent episodes of Wake Up, Girls, a series about a struggling Sendai-based idol group of the same name, I could not help but think that I was watching a show that made the experience of watching idols feel much more like watching a sport than pure entertainment. While the sense of conflict around anything I-1 Club related is clearly exaggerated for dramatic reasons, it adds a needed element of comparison that makes the rest of the show.
Lower Mid-Table 