This was a weekend full of anime, finally I watched all that I wanted to watch from the stuff that's out now, so I come bringing you first impressions for episodes 1. They may be bad, they may be good, they may be weird, such is anime. Let's pick it all up in a release date order starting from the oldest.
Coppelion
It did seem like an interesting proposition at first and the female MC is good, which is a lot more than what I can say for many female MCs. But that's just about it. They have a peculiar way to depict environment and because it's not in the same style as the characters, they are given those obnoxious black outlines, so while animation is interesting in a way, it is also kinda off-putting. As for the story, the basis could be interesting or not, but the feel I get from the first episode is that it is going nowhere. Still, as far as this one is concerned, I feel that the story is still possible to maybe go somewhere depending on episode 2, so I'm not completely convinced in its "meh"ness, unlike something else in this weekend.
Kyoukai no Kanata
OMFG KyoAni made an interesting anime. It feels like it's been ages since the last one. Well, it wasn't really ages, but after chu2 they overhyped their next stuff (I still remember tamako market ads in chu2) which made it seem like they've been doing that forever. But no, they can still adapt works properly, I'm happy. That being said, I have the opposite feeling I have for Coppelion for this one. It started off promising but I have a strong fear it will go "meh". The reason for that is that the source material is 2 volumes of a light novel. In case you are not aware of how this works, it's not enough. In fact the average should be 2 episodes per volume for regular LNs. Then again not all LNs are the same, some have more content than others, some have less, and also KyoAni is famous for once pulling an entire season out of 1 volume of a light novel. To give you a hint, it involves the number 8.
Kill la Kill
It looks like gurren lagann!
...
And that's just about it for me.
It kinda lacks story, lacks characters and it feels like it tries to pull through on the power of its animation a lot. Worst part is, because of that the animation and direction is showing its weaknesses. I wouldn't have used such wording on gurren lagann because it was an enjoyable anime so it was not apparent, but animation here where you have no choice but to focus on it (as there is hardly anything else) comes off as pretty iffy, to the point where it just looked cheap at times, I did see extremely old techniques in there and that's not art, just cost efficiency. When the bald guy went in the class and became huge for no apparent reason, for me it was less impactful and more making it look like a 5 minute gag animation series, which I did feel it would be better off being really. As I said I found a lack of story and characters there, and while characters were probably unintentional, lack of story seems pretty intentional in their trying to stuff in there as much "epic" as possible and go with that, which is yet another problem in a different way, since it would be fine with a comedic approach with the way it's going, but it is clearly trying to push that it's "epic" which only stresses the issues. I've been told to wait until episode 2, and I will and I hope I can take this back after seeing episode 2, but seeing how the beginning was set up and seeing the preview for episode 2, I think they are rolling with it for the rest of the season. I know this is the hypest of the aired anime by now, so combined with the opinions I've had lately it may make me come off as forcefully hipster or something, but that is my honest opinion for that, I am a sucker for story and I can see none here, it's like I'm being served a bunch of gloss without the cake, but I like cake.
Infinite Stratos 2
Oh, hey, Ichika still sounds as terrible as always. I can get used to it I guess. I am confuzzled from episode 1 though. Generally it seems like IS, so not much to say, sequel and all, but why so yuri? Seems like a weird way to approach episode 1. If it turns out that the MC of a harem is kicked out of focus this will be going from "ok mindless harem" to "exceptionally meh", but then again it's a sequel so I guess episode 1 is mess-able.
Yusibu
There is a hero and there's a demon king but there's a twist to the classical story!
Just this year I think I've heard of such settings more than I did in my whole life. It's pretty much cliche now, to the point that the twist would be there being no twist. Imagine a hero journeying to defeat the evil demon king, what a refreshing tale, right?
And the twist? The hero didn't manage to be the hero because the demon king died somehow (I guess it's implied there was another hero, but I'll still put my money on car accident) and so he is now working at a *something-something* store (Hataraku Maou-sama!) but the demon king's orphan daughter also comes to work at that store so he is now taking care of her (Hagure Yuusha no Estetica).
Now that we got our fresh stereotypes out of the way, let's talk anime.
Despite the cliche of it, it's actually nice, funny and refreshing, maybe you've seen some characters before, but they are still interesting characters, especially the demon king's daughter that learned conduct by watching her father. Anyways, it's worth the watch.
Strike the Blood
Speaking of stereotypes, we got the "teenager goes god mode" one here, with dark fantasy for students with some extra dark fantasy jargon for you. Still, I'd say it's ok, my inner early-teenager tells me so and he's dumb enough to be trustworthy. Main character is the reluctant highschooler vampire god-moder (no sparkling has been confirmed) with memory issues, female lead is the strong (obviously puny compared to the god-moder, duh) and strong willed middle school girl who is incidentally beautiful and incidentally is tasked with tracking the god-moder and keeping him in check (because, you know, that's how you keep broken characters in check) while she incidentally recognized his kindness while wiping his inner thigh and incidentally decides to follow him because that's her job, it's not like she wants to be with him or anything. As for whether you should watch it, yeah if it's your cup of tea, no if that kind of stuff annoys you. As for how it ranks amongst other stuff of its genre, iunno yet, it depends how much jargon it will throw at me in the episodes to come.
Outbreak Company
Master Class Otaku Kanou Shinichi is sent by the Japanese government into a world of magic and elves and stuff to spread the word of moe otaku culture, in an anime of otaku worship proportions (not an actual proportion). It's, well, mindless fun, and that's good in my opinion. What's the most important here I'd say is the atmosphere of it, it has a good thing going on (aside from the bgm). To give you an example
- Spoiler:
If the previous one was ok dark fantasy, this would be ok light fantasy.
Log Horizon
Speaking of light fantasy.
It's an mmo anime, and the way it is structured a comparison with SAO is inevitable.
SAO, was, well, see-through. It preyed on specific wishes and the writer's intent was apparent, the teenage, handsome, awesome inventor with a huge breasted little sister, not related to by blood, who totally had the hots for him, is trapped in an mmo by a cruel twist of fate where he is obviously awesome and single handedly pwns everyone, envied by men, desired by women. You get where I'm going with this.
Well, Log Horizon is kinda more obvious as it drops pretenses, it's budget is significantly smaller as it seems and animation quality is kinda meh, story seems to be developing forcefully and characters may be even thinner than SAO's, which is a tough task to accomplish. It gets one up on SAO in one deciding place though in my opinion.
SAO took itself way too seriously and tried to come off as the real deal, that this is one of the best things ever. To say again what I said yesterday though, Log Horizon seems to be aware of what it's doing wrong through all the compromises it's taking in story, characters and animation, it's not the best thing ever, the premise is mindless and obvious, and for that it seems to be giving off the feeling it feels guilty for it. Exactly because it's not trying to tell me "look at me, I'm the f***ing quality", exactly because it is trying to come off as something veeery casual, weirdly enough, because of that lowered quality, I am much more willing to accept it than I was to accept SAO.
It's not going to be near my top anime list any time soon, but I think I'll happily watch it and that's enough.
Freezing Vibration
So, it's Freezing. If you don't know Freezing, well, you don't really have to get into it, you won't miss much, but I won't be explaining what it is here either. Again a sequel, so not much to say, but I will say something. Freezing seemed like it could only drag on, and that's probably because it was an introductory thing, so I think Vibration, from what I've seen, is going to be better with at least more stuff actually going on. Also there's boobs.
White Album 2
I've watched White Album and its second season. That series taught me something very important. How vital mobile phones are. Hopefully this one won't spend half its time trying to teach me that thing, it's from later on so they probably have mobile phones by now. Heck, they may even sneak in smart phones, although that would heavily contradict the timeline of the series. By the way, if my opinion counts, first white album was a decent romance anime. MCs actions at times were cringeworthy, but still, decent.
Now, as someone whose only experience with white albums were those 2 anime seasons (there are VNs, I haven't played them), I'd say White Album 2 is a very good anime. It's not a sequel btw, it is in the same timeline but different characters so you don't need to know what happened before it.
From what I've seen from characters, story and direction, White Album 2, as a romance anime, delivers and does its job perfectly, which is why it is my favourite from this weekend. Yep, I'm naming a romance anime as my favourite from the list, thing is I both wanted to watch a good one I haven't watched before lately and white album 2 seems to be good at its job. While watching episode 1 I was thinking I want to watch at least 5 more episodes now and the rest tomorrow and how much it sucks that I can't do that because it's ongoing, which is not something I felt from the other anime here.
Unless you avoid romance for some reason, I recommend it.
Kuroko no Basuke S2
Well, I've read the manga so I can't fully deliver first impressions on the story. I can tell you it will be good if you are worried. Especially if you wanted S1, you should watch this one. As for the anime, did anime production values just go up? Everything seems so smooth. Apart from how they speak Engrish. Oh Japan. Anyways, if I wasn't reading the manga, it would be one of the better ones for me this season (first romance, now sports?! wtf al-bhed), and I'll probably watch it because the stuff that happens in this season is stuff I've read twice or thrice, as I said, it's good.
Magi: The Kingdom of Magic
Just like above, I've read the manga already, so not much I can offer on first impressions here, other than: should they really have spoiled that at the beginning? Anyways, there's an opposite thing going on here in comparison to KnB from above. KnB took care of the training arc at the end of season 1, so now you are getting in the sweet stuff. Magi on the other hand is now getting into it, yep, prepare yourself, training arc is coming. Maybe they'll condense it somehow but I doubt it, manga isn't that far ahead for that if you take out training. Worst case scenario, fillers (btw, the pirate stuff are not fillers). It's not that bad though, it's interesting to see Aladin being something other than a living questionmark in this series and see him actually grow. If you are looking for your standard shounen anime this season, look no further, Magi delivers on just that. It's not like we got too much right now, Naruto is closing up so I guess it is allowed to be somewhat interesting (I'm not watching to tell what's going on though, switched to the manga) and One Piece unfortunately seems to be having some sort of identity crisis lately, so why not, put some Magi in your life.
Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai!
Female idol pro wrestling, what a promising premise, huehue. It does seem to be going overboard at times (is she hurting? is she enjoying it? who knows), but if you've missed your daily share of boobs and thighs, if your inner sadist is hungry, then eat some Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai!, now with extra crotch shots. Also, idols, it's srsbzns (it's not).
Walkure Romanze
So, apparently, in jousting you can hit a feather on the opponent's helmet for extra points and style, the alternative being the lance being a bit off, hitting the head and snapping the neck like a twig at that speed, regardless of how easily the stick breaks. Oh, boob jousting, such a noble sport. Basically, women ride horses and use big sticks to hit people instead of men (blasphemy! you've taken everything else, at least let us wield our glorious phallic symbols) and there's this guy who is really emo about not being able to joust himself, and I mean reeeeeeally emo about it, so he has a relationship with his horse. The horse however is dissatisfied with him because of how emo he is, so he goes to his airheaded girlfriend wannabe, and I mean reeeeeeeally airheaded, to tell her how he'll never do her because of his severe bestiality and emo issues. So the airhead and the horse hit it off and so the airhead will probably be a knight or something.
The guy isn't a knight but he is in this academy where girls become knights (whenever I say knight, just translate it in your head into "jouster") so that he can be a helper for female knights so that he can get laid, but obviously there is a major flaw in his plan, he only likes horses! So he would refuse every female knight that would ask him to help her with something or something (it went like Belgririgwiubaingwing or something), but then he sees his horse being NTR'd by the airhead into a yuri-woman-loves-horse relationship. Thus he will probably be determined that a threesome is a necessity and become a Belgririgwiubaingwing (the term is now coined and official) for the airhead who will probably be a knight and they will all be very happy. Except from the emo guy, because he is emo.
Anyways, same production for the VN as princess lover thingy so you can see a bunch of similarities. It's exceptionally mindless harem to the point where it becomes annoying because of its characters. I meant it when I said the male lead is reeeeeeally emo and that the female lead is reeeeeeeally airheaded. I find that annoying. But it's w/e so I guess I'll watch about 6 episodes of it before I get my priorities straight mid-season and drop it.
So, something overall.
Thankfully this isn't the entire season there, because up to now I haven't found something really great. I could be spoiled in a way, both in summer and spring season, there were anime I really liked that got into my top anime list, that doesn't happen every time so I shouldn't keep such high standards. As for things I'd like to watch, there's plenty I think, it's better if it's not everything, that's a healthy schedule. So, here's to the anime to come.
Btw, did you watch something from the new ones not on this list that I should be aware of?
