Fall 2014 Anime First Episode Thoughts [1/2]

It’s obvious, but just for the record this only includes shows starting in very early October to the 8th, I’ll also have a part 2 with some shows airing up to then but also any shows aired on the 9th and 10th. Some other anime in the fall season still won’t be out by the 10th, but I wanted to post about the shows I’ve seen so far rather than wait till half of them are ending/over/near-the-end just to wait for one or two shows that ain’t started yet. These two posts should cover the majority of the shows I was interested in anyway.

This is in no particular order:

Selector Spread Wixoss

Well, it’s season 2 so I can’t say much aside spoilers, but so far it seems just as good as season 1. The new OP is great though I think Killy Killy Joker won’t be beat by it, though the new ED is really nice and far better than that of season 1. Everything else is as it was – being someone who loved the first season, I’m loving this one already. Lots of questions were raised in the OP as well that I’m excited to find out the answers for, and we also see some new characters in it. If you haven’t seen Selector Infected Wixoss, I highly recommend it – it’s a dark psychological series, not a card show.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete

For a show with such shitty quality art there sure is an impressive amount of stuff going on at the same time during most of the scenes. I’m not even joking; in most shows you’ll have one character moving or speaking at a time, but here there’s a lot of subtle shit or other character’s doing things all at the same time (or, again, both doing that and multiple people talking) in the shot even totally irrelevant shit or just looking around. There’s always shit happening instead of the world freezing aside the character currently the focus of the scene. It’s something I always like to see yet rarely do, and while the overall quality of the show seems low budget and amateurish (it legitimately looks like a low-end hentai, yet still looks better than Escha & Logy at least), this definitely made me happy with it regardless. Sadly the overall look is terrible due to being made entirly with extremely cheap CG dolls throughout. Obviously they are capable of having so much going on thanks to said incredibly cheap shitty CG they are using to animate the show overall – which makes doing things like that much easier, I still do appreciate seeing it though.

As for the actual content of the show, it seems strange but not in enough of a way to make me all that interested. Almost all of it is incredibly generic and feels (because it is) pulled straight from the most cliched bland VN imaginable. It doesn’t seem very good at all, actually it seems like total shit, but I still might give it one more episode anyway because of one small thing near the end of the episode.

Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken

I’ve already dropped this show after one episode. It’s terrible. It is without room for any fucking discussion simply a self-insert fantasy-fulfillment series for loser otaku. The entire story is simply this: A hot very busty girl marries an otaku blogger (she even states herself that she has no idea why she does so – apparently they try pulling it off as an ‘arranged marriage’ which makes even less believable sense if you think about it at all, and it contradicts the actions she takes with him entirely making it even more clearly wish-fulfillment: hot girl forced to marry you and fucking you like a rabbit and being in love with you anyway) and the show makes sure to say things like “they had a lot of sex” and have her fulfill his little wishes of lewd things. This is not just a show about pandering to otaku with anime/manga ‘culture’ jokes – but one for the otaku to put himself into the MC’s role. A loser with no personality who is simply an otaku marrying and fucking a hot girl who loves him for no reason. Literally nothing but wish fulfillment for fucking losers, and there’s nothing else aside that to it. Terrible show, avoid at all costs, the comedy in it isn’t even remotely funny either because of how much it’s just trying to make the viewer feel like they can “live the dream” too and marry and fuck a hot girl.

Denki-gai

I was expecting a series like Working!! (which I very highly recommend) but set in a manga store – I’d say I ended up with a cheap knockoff of a wannabe of a series trying to be like Working!! set in a manga store. The best way I can describe how watching it felt is to say that it wasn’t bad, but it was boring. It’s something I can handle watching every week, but it’s just got nothing to it. The jokes fall flat or try too hard, the comedy is all very cliche and not executed well, and none of the characters interest me whatsoever aside two ones simply due to their designs being cute. Those being the one with the big hat and the one with the messed up teeth. Aside them it’s…eh. I’ll keep watching it as a time killer because I did enjoy it, it just lacked anything more than the basics.

World Trigger

This show is far more, lets say “shounen-y” than I expected, and I’m quite disappointed. I was expecting something more like Attack on Titan and instead the show is full of all the tropes, cliches, and character types and personalities you’d expect from a kids show. That’s the problem here, it feels exactly like a kids show that’s trying to come off as mature and cool FOR kids, so it just comes off as embarrassing to watch as an adult. I’m fine watching kids shows and watching them when they are good – and plenty are actually quite enjoyable – but this just does it all in such a way that there’s no real reason to watch it. Hell, the entire first episode was about this new tiny kid being bullied, then bullied some more, then shown he’s actually super powerful. Oh, there’s even transformation sequences for some reason. I’d say to avoid this one unless you’re into stuff like Fairy Tail or Naruto – which is totally fine, but definitely not for me.

Cross Ange

Fucking stupid, and not in a good way. I do still REALLY like the character design for Ange and there’s another girl that was very cute – her maid or something. Aside that though it just felt confused about what it was trying to achieve. It was extremely serious yet had fanservice constantly shoved in your face (I mean that literally, there is just ass in your face very often and the ending even has her stripped nude with ass waggling about and all) which goes against the serious narrative and events occurring – such as the death of some woman (I assume her mom or something, I wasn’t fucking paying attention) as well as the government collecting ‘evil babies’ and stealing them from parents right off the street. Then the end of the show in the most confusing part of it all, Ange has to undergo a physical – something normal adults go through once a year if not more – and they have her very seriously react as if she was about to be, and then was actually being raped horribly. I don’t recommend bothering with this.

Grisaia

Nothing but a shitty harem to the point that it feels like a parody of one. I’m well aware of how the VN goes, and that changes nothing – it just makes an awful shitty harem into an awful shitty EDGY harem.

Amagi Brilliant Park

KyoAni finally going from just garbage to pure shit – the show depends entirely on being “KyoAni’s first show with nudity!” with nude butt waggling in your face, tits being hidden behind arms that are smushing them, and a light harem all participating in more ecchi fanservice bullshit. Probably the worst show of the entire season after that stupid fucking otaku self insert show. Fanservice is fine, but not when done like this – this is just fucking lazy and desperate, like the fans of it. KyoAni has always had a bad track record (albeit the fanboys seem to miss this) due to removing full characters, drastically changing stories, taking important main male characters and turning them into twin incestuous lesbians with big bouncy tits and so on. Ever since K-ON!! ended they haven’t made a single good fucking thing, and now they’ve dropped to their lowest ever. I strongly recommend avoiding this even if you are a kyoani fan – if you are one you should just be disappointed in them.

Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji

I think this show is fine, I don’t get the vibe it’ll live up to the expectations I had which were based on nothing anyway – those being that it’d be a lot like Maid-sama. I feel nothing of that here aside some story elements and a similar looking (visually) male lead. However I didn’t dislike it at all, it just seemed very derivative and lacked any real unique hook. I’ll keep watching it, I enjoyed it enough. Nothing outstanding or special, but totally an acceptable shoujo that fills all the typical necessities of this specific sub-type of shoujo romance even down to the male love interest being a messy blond/light-brown haired meanie butt and a super cute tomboy for the best friend of the lead (who I hope gets at least some kind of side story focus at some point during the show, preferably involving a romance of her own).

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Part 2 should be up on the 11th or so (so I have time to watch what aired on the 9th and 10th)! I realize most of these were misses, but the next part has a lot more shows I ended up enjoying.