Winter 2014 Anime Season – First Impressions 2

As the winter season continues into it’s 2nd or 3rd week for some series, I thought I’d jot down some more of my first impressions on the season so far.

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren – It’s interesting to see KyoAni make another season for Chuunibyou since I thought the first season was wrapped up rather nicely. They still managed to keep up the energy from the first season, despite the cast being another year older. While some of them were trying to pull off a second year debut (and put their chuuni past behind them), they revert back to their old selves and the silly antics resume once again. With Rikka’s issues being resolved last season and within the first episode of the season, it seems like this season will focus more on the romance side of things between Rikka and Yuuta. I’m not too sure what else they would do for plot since last season addressed Rikka’s personal issues (aside from them introducing another chuuni character). Overall, I think that this season has a more laid back feel and is closer to your traditional romantic comedy series based on my first impressions.

Fall 2013 Week 13 – Thoughts and Impressions

The Fall 2013 anime season has now come to a close with the conclusion of White Album 2, Valvrave S2, and Monogatari Second Season (Carrying over from Summer). All of the two cour shows have taken a break as well and will resume in the new year along with the Winter 2014 anime season. This Fall season ended off on a good note, in my opinion, for most of the series. I’ll wrap up the Fall 2013 season posts this week by discussing my thoughts on White Album 2 episode 13, Valvrave S2 episode 12, and Monogatari Series: Second Season episode 26.

White Album 2 – This series was quite the roller coaster of emotions. Here we have Setsuna, Kazusa, and Haruki who made a major impact on each others’ lives but yet they can’t truly be happy despite how much they care about each other. There is no possible scenario where the three of them can truly be happy at their current state where one of the girls will be hurt while the other two will carry the feeling of guilt if they decide to pursue their romance. We can see how much this guilt is eating away at Haruki where he wants Setsuna to be upset with him. If Setsuna were to vent her frustration to him, he could feel more at ease since he knows he hurt her and wants some kind of punishment to help him cope with his guilt. Instead, Setsuna refuses to blame him since she’s still upset over her guilt of trying to force herself between the two of them despite knowing how they felt.

Fall 2013 Week 12 – Thoughts and Impressions

With only 1 week left to go for the Fall 2013 season, many of the series have already concluded this past week. A couple of the two cour shows are also going to be taking a break next week I believe so it will give me a chance to catch up on my backlog before I begin the Winter 2014 anime season! This week I’ll be discussing my thoughts on Monogatari Series: Second Season episode 25, Kill la Kill episode 12, and White Album 2 episode 12.

Monogatari S2 – Another tense episode despite it being heavy on the dialogue. We’re left with even more questions regarding Ougi after the relevation that Oshino actually has no family. Why is Ougi using Oshino’s name and who are they exactly? I found it interesting that Kaiki said Oshino never had a family, he did not lose one or distanced himself from them, he stated Oshino never had a family to begin with. This leads me to wonder if Oshino is even considered human as well or if it was just a case of emphasizing that Ougi couldn’t possibly be related to Oshino.

Fall 2013 Week 11 – Thoughts and Impressions

Another week of anime has passed by us as we approach the end of the season. Many of the shows this week have reached a climax or are wrapping up their stories so it was quite a great week for many series in my opinion. NouCome was also the first show of the Fall 2013 season to end which saddens me since it was usually the highlight of my week. I don’t have much thoughts on the finale besides it was as ridiculous as the show always is and it was nice to see them bring all the characters back for an explosive finale! This week, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on White Album 2 episode 11, Kill la Kill episode 11, Samurai Flamenco episode 10, Valvrave S2 episode 10.

Fall 2013 – Week 10 Thoughts and Impressions

We’re now into week 10 of the Fall 2013 anime season where many shows are entering their final stages to conclude within 2-3 weeks. This week I’ll be discussing my thoughts on White Album 2 episode 10, Valvrave S2 episode 9, Monogatari Second Season episode 23.

Valvrave S2 – This was one of the craziest episodes I’ve seen in a while, even for Valvrave standards. Bloodshed everywhere as the Magius continue to manipulate the humans to turn on the Valvraves and the rest of the JIOR people. It’s pretty weird seeing L-Elf in his depressed state, still torn over the fact that there was no way for him to save Lieselotte. Without him to make the decisions or to lead the JIOR nation, we can see that things are starting to fall apart. Haruto also continues to suffer with Shouko’s feel of betrayal towards him and ends up destroying their relationship. In addition, Haruto swore to take full responsibility for everything and end it all himself but yet we still see others being sacrificed for the sake of Haruto. Despite me coming into this after hearing that its “so bad that its good”, I actually really enjoyed the action throughout this series and found my adrenaline pumping while being emotionally devoted when watching this series. I’m hoping that this season of Valvrave will run two-cours since there is still so much to be answered and resolved.

Fall 2013 – Week 9 Thoughts and Impressions

With exam season approaching quickly for many of us (including myself), I’ll keep this week’s post a little on the shorter side so I can get back to studying (I hope)! This week I’ll be sharing my thoughts on White Album 2 episode 9, Golden Time Episode 9, and Monogatari Second Season episode 22.

White Album 2 – After their performance at the culture festival, we could see the group (especially Touma) show tension being around each other. Setsuna has been trying to keep the three of them together but it is obviously difficult for Touma since she doesn’t want to hurt Setsuna but she hasn’t gotten over her feelings for Haruki as well. As we saw in the last episode as well, Touma was trying to distance herself from Haruki so that perhaps if he was madly in love with Setsuna, she’d feel like she has no chance with him and then she’ll be able to move on. Haruki on the other hand seems to be wavering a bit regarding his feelings for Touma. Leading up to the performance, Haruki lived with Touma and practiced with her all day while getting to know her better which is why it felt a bit odd to me that he would accept Setsuna’s confession.

Fall 2013 – Week 8 Thoughts and Impressions

I apologize for the delay between my posts. I’ve been working on posting more frequently and regularly but school has been a little overwhelming lately so I haven’t had that much time to watch anime and make posts. With that said, I’ll be continuing my Fall 2013 mid season impressions later next week when I have a bit more free time. Anyways let’s get to this week’s anime. I’ll be sharing my thoughts on Nagi no Asukara episode 8, Valvrave S2 episode 7, White Album 2 episode 8, and Samurai Flamenco episode 7.

Nagi no Asukara – I think that Hikari is quickly becoming one of my favourite main characters of the season. I’ve been saying this a lot but just the way he’s changed from being rash and quick tempered to considering the feelings of those around him has really impressed me. He’s even willing to sacrifice his own happiness for his friends and family. While at first we saw the kids between the land and the sea discriminating against each other, these were just the impressions they had gotten from their elders. After the kids got to know each other better, we can see that they really are no different from each other and they all get along now. The grown ups on the other hand are still stubborn and holding onto past conflicts and grudges against an entire race of people. While this episode was rather relaxing to see the kids work together to show that Akari was welcome to Miuna’s family, I can’t help but feel that the elders from the sea will cause trouble for them in the near future.

Fall 2013 – Week 7 Thoughts and Impressions

We’re now into week 7 of the Fall 2013 season! The end is approaching for many shows but at the same time we a lot of two-cour shows as well that will carry on into the winter season. I’ll do a series of post within the next few days to share my mid-season impressions on all the shows that I’m currently watching since I don’t really have enough to write about them on a weekly basis. Anyways, this week I’ll be sharing my thoughts on Monogatari Series: Second Season episode 20, Samurai Flamenco episode 6, Kill la Kill episode 7, and White Album episode 7.

Monogatari Series: Second Season – Okay while this show technically is a summer 2013 series, it was two-cour and continued into the fall season. With that said, I didn’t really discuss about it in the past because I didn’t feel emotionally involved or anything based on the first few arcs (weren’t my favourite characters). However, this past episode just blew me away completely. Hachikuji’s interactions with Araragi were always my favourite part of the show, just the way they go back and forth with witty comments, or their affection for each other. I was expecting this to be a more Shinobu focused arc since her name was in the title so I was not expecting this outcome until mid way through the episode. Hachikuji and Araragi’s final conversation was very heart felt and showed how much they meant to each other. You could hear Hachikuji’s voice breaking more and more as Araragi’s voice showed more desperation as the conversation progressed.

You can watch Monogatari Series: Second Season on Daisuki (May not be available in all regions)

Fall 2013 – Week 6 Thoughts and Impressions

Alright so this post is a day late since I’ve been busy with assignments for school as well as the end of Season 3 for LoL (last minute climb). Anyways, I finally had the time to catch up on the majority of my series so I can share my thoughts for week 6. The shows I chose to write on this week were Kill La Kill episode 6, Golden Time episode 6, Valvrave S2 episode 5, and Samurai Flamenco episode 5.

Kill La Kill – This episode showed a lot of character development for both Ryuuko and Sanageyama. Both of them at the start of this episode were pretty cocky in their strength (Ryuuko relying fully on Kamui while Sanageyama relied fully on his eyes). However, once Sanageyama lost the match, he worked hard to improve on his weaknesses to become stronger while Ryuuko stayed complacent based another victory for her. Ryuuko finally realizes that she isn’t some god (at the moment anyways) and can actually be defeated even with her Kamui. I’m interested to see how the pacing for this series will work out now with it being a 2-cour show. They showed the power gap between her at the moment and the elites along with introducing outside parties who will get involved in the future. Anyways, I look forward to next week’s episode since the last two really revitalized my interest in Kill La Kill.