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 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 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 Anime Season – Mid-Season Thoughts Part 1

Now that we’re more than half way through this Fall 2013 anime season, I thought I would share my now semi-informed opinion about the shows that I am currently watching. I’ll probably divide this up into 2-3 separate posts since I have around 20 series that I’m currently watching.

BlazBlue Alter Memory – I’ve lost most interest in this series at this point. I felt that we were introduced to a ton of characters but we never really got to know any of them or who they were. This left me in a confused state where I can’t even remember character names as well as where they came from again. In addition, I think that this show tries too hard to force comedic and fanservice moments at bad times. I also still have no idea what the story or direction is for this series.

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)