Fall 2013 – Week 5 Thoughts and Impressions

We’re now approaching the halfway mark for a lot of series for this season. This week also managed to revitalized my interest in several shows.

Valvrave S2 – This was a pretty crazy episode after last week’s revelation of Marie’s connection with the Valvraves. You can’t help but feel bad for her, having lived so long but having no recollection of her past because of the tests. She finally has a place where she belongs with friends now only to lose everything once again. I was really impressed by the direction in this episode, bringing back one of the endings from last season and playing it to a montage of Marie destroying her own memories. This scene was one of the most powerful ones I’ve seen and reminded me that while Valvrave is pretty ridiculous, they can execute some emotional and powerful moments. I also can’t help but feel that they left something behind… (poor Saki and Akira)

Bakuman Series – Post Thoughts

I recently completed watching the final episodes of Bakuman 3 after picking up the series from the beginning approximately a month ago. I really did not expect to complete a 75 episode series within such a short amount of time, especially while keeping up with school and the ongoing Fall 2013 season. I must say that I did not expect to enjoy this series as much as I did since I had brushed it off so many times in the past before actually deciding to watch it. Be warned that this post contains SPOILERS so those who don’t want to be spoiled, you have been warned!

Fall 2013 – Week 4 Thoughts and Impressions

I can’t think of anything this week that really stood out to me but I’ll still comment on a few series this week.

 Golden Time – Things are starting to heat up for this series with a little more of Banri’s past being revealed. While I do enjoy this series overall, I can’t help but feel that Banri’s confession to Kouko came rather abruptly. While they did spend some time together, it just overall felt more like friendship between them despite the hints being dropped about Banri’s feelings. I just hope that they make use of this early confession to develop the characters more since this is a two cour show. I couldn’t see them getting together this early (especially with Kouko’s obsession with Mitsuo) but this is likely a catalyst for them to grow and mature so they can decide what they really want. Hopefully the confession to a vulnerable Kouko doesn’t strain their relationship dynamics since it was nice watching them interact so casually.

Fall 2013 – Week 3 Thoughts and Impressions

With week 3 of the Fall season now pretty much coming to a close, I have to say that most series are starting to shape up and take form of what we can continue to expect from them. I’m finding myself enjoying series that I previously had written off and becoming more engaged in their worlds.

Samurai Flamenco – While this is only on its second episode, I can already tell it will probably be one of my favourites. Masayoshi’s character is just really likeable to me with how optimistic and innocent he is. It’s also a nice contrast from Hidenori’s more pessimistic and realistic attitude. I really enjoyed how Masayoshi was trying to prevent miniscule crimes that seemed to be just unnecessary (throwing garbage out in the morning, don’t steal umbrellas) but they ended up causing real problems for some people (himself). While the series is still starting off, I really enjoy the focus on small crimes or rule breaking as it gives the whole series a more light hearted feeling. However, I think it’ll probably escalate further and dealing with more serious and big crimes (gangs, drugs, etc.). In the end though, I just hope they keep it to somewhat realistic situations (no super powers or crazy technology) since I got the “ordinary” feel from the series based on the initial description, “This is a story of love and justice presented by the creators who failed to be adults for those “grown-ups” who don’t want to be adults either…..”.

Fall 2013 – Week 2 Thoughts and Impressions

I finally managed to find the time to catch up on the majority of my anime this week. With the second week now pretty much over, I managed to start every fall series I had planned on watching originally. Overall, I found that most of the shows that started in the second week were more entertaining to me compared to the ones that started airing last week. From the series that aired last week, I found most of them to be more enjoyable after getting more into the stories and characters in the second episodes.

Fall 2013 – Week 1 Thoughts and Impressions

Alright so I’ve been pretty busy with classes this past week, watching League of Legends World Finals, and climbing the ladder in League as well. I’ll continue posting recommendations and other content once I clear up my assignments in about two weeks time. Anyways, I did manage to watch most of the shows I wanted to this week.

For the most part it’s far too early for me to have a solid impression or opinion on the shows since I didn’t really find anything managing to impress me on the first episode. I usually don’t start developing attachment to characters and shows until about half way through the season (unless its a sequel). The opening and endings are alright for the shows but I don’t find them to be as catchy as last seasons’.

Kill La Kill – This was quite hyped up by the community since many people loved the staffs’ previous work and it was Trigger’s first full anime series. My first thought on this series was that it is pretty freaking crazy. I’m not really a big fan of the art style but I guess it fits for the overall theme and style of the show. It also reminds me quite a bit of Medaka Box (which was one of my favourite series) with Mako resembling Shiranui. It also has a ton of shounen action and tropes and I guess is a kind of parody of the genre. Overall, I like this series but I don’t think it’s as mind blowing as many are claiming it to be.

Fall 2013 Anime Season: Pre-Air Impressions (Part 2)

Continuing from where I left off last time, I’ll be going over the Fall 2013 series that I plan on watching and giving my initial impressions of them based on the currently released previews and synopsis.

BlazBlue: Alter Memory – I’m not very familiar with the game but just looking at the preview, this series has very beautiful animation and art style. Hopefully the fight scenes will be well animated as well. I’m not expecting too much since it is based off of a game and the last series I watched that was similar was not executed very well (Danganronpa, Devil Survivor 2).

Summer 2013 Anime Season Wrap Up (Part 1)

With the summer season coming to an end, I will be posting my thoughts on the series that I have watched and how my impressions of them changed as the season progressed. I’ll post my thoughts in batches so I am not too overwhelmed by the time the last show finishes airing and also so the wall of text is a bit smaller. With that said, here are my thoughts on the series that have already concluded!

Fall 2013 Anime Season: Pre-Air Impressions (Part 1)

So for this post I guess I’ll just post what anime I plan on following in the upcoming fall season and what my initial thoughts are after reading the synopsis and watching any previews.

Tokyo Ravens – I’m not familiar at all with this series but I really like the art style that they have for it. I feel that this will be a pretty generic shounen anime which I don’t mind watching every so often. It also has Hanazawa Kana as the main female lead so I’m sure it’ll be a decent series overall.