2015: Winter Season

Winter 2014, Week 5: Highlights of the Week

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Well, that’s another week in the books! If I’m being honest, I sort of felt like this was a weaker week in general, although being as busy as I was makes it a bit harder to pin that on the episodes themselves—a lot of time my mental state when watching has a big effect on how I feel about stuff.

This is also just a note that I’ll be gone this upcoming weekend leading a retreat, so after the KimiUso post tomorrow (and maybe some pictures of some new stuff I got on Friday), I’ll be gone until next Tuesday. After that, I’m hoping my schedule will start to be less crazy so I can crank out some of the posts I’ve had on the backburner for a while. Until then, cheers~!

Rolling☆Girls
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Winter 2015, Week 4: Highlights of the Week

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Cuts are finally complete at 11 shows for the season. With the end of the week bearing the bulk of the season’s weight, this is a manageable schedule for me with everything that’s going in real life and with all the project I’m hoping to do in the coming months with the blog.

It’s been a tough week-ish for the blog in terms of page views as it looks like my SEO ranking were pretty much reset with the new domain fully taking over. That’s…kind of a disappointment after it took literal months to build up my rankings to what they were before the crash, but I’m trying to look at this as a new challenge for me as I continue to hone my content creation and digital marketing skills. I’ve got a plan to work my way back up the list and a big part of it is continuing to create new, interesting content! Hope you guys enjoy!

Absolute Duo

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Winter 2015, Week 3: Highlights of the Week

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More shows dropped this week (including Isuca‘s premier managing a paltry 51 seconds before I gave up on it), meaning my schedule for this season is more or less set. There are still a few shows that could get knocked out, but I’m pretty happy with everything on a daily basis, so there would have to be some serious stumbles for any of the remaining bubble shows to get dropped.

Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!

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Winter 2015, Week 2: Highlights of the Week

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I wasn’t sure about this after the first week, but now…I’m sure. I have too many shows on this schedule, especially in the later half of the week. What’s killing me are the five ongoing shows, but none of them are even close to drop territory. Here’s what did bite the bullet this week:

  • Koufuku Graffiti fell victim to both “not really feeling inspired to go back to this one” syndrome and the “schedule too full” curse despite a warm premiere.
  • Military! basically sucked for three whole minutes.
  • Junketsu no Maria was sadly dropped—best wishes to Maria!
  • Assassination Classroom is getting close to drop territory, but isn’t quite there yet.

Cute Earth Defense Club LOVE!

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The Absence of the Church of Heaven: Junketsu no Maria and Catholicism

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So, the headline here is that I’m dropping Junketsu no Maria and that I’m pretty bummed about doing so. I like, even adore, a lot of the peripheral elements of the show—Maria herself, her little posse of misfits, the character designs—but the show’s handling of Catholicism and the Catholic Church, which was more or less the focus of this episode, has left me both uncomfortable and a bit upset after watching the second episode. And, as much as I want to, I just can’t ignore those warning bells in my head.

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Winter 2015, Week 1: Highlights of the Week (Ongoing Shows)

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With the premieres of new shows taking up most of my writing time lately, the five ongoing shows I’ve carried over from the fall have taken something of a back seat. Which, you know, is kind of a shame considering how good these five shows are. I didn’t want to let a whole week go by without talking about them at all, so we’ll have a short Highlights of the Week this week to chat about Garo, Shirobako, Your Lie in April, Log Horizon, and Akatsuki no Yona.

My schedule for this season is still coming together, but I’m hoping to aim for ~4 posts/week: Yona and KimiUso episodics, Highlights of the Week, and some kind of craft/editorial piece over the weekends. We’ll see how that goes. But, for now, on to this week!

Shirobako

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First Impressions: Winter 2015 Anime (Part 2)

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Alright, Part 2 of my Winter 2015 first impressions is here (Part 1 available here)! For me, this was the bigger selection of shows I was excited for and, as you’ll see, there were both some really easy keepers and some really easy drops. There really aren’t too many bubble shows this season after the first week, and Isuca is the only show left to air that I care about. I’m currently at 16 shows (including carryovers), but I’m expecting that number to go down by 2-4 shows. The spread is pretty good, too, with both Mondays and Wednesdays being empty. Anyhow, this was a very, very good batch of shows. Lots of fun times ahead in Winter 2015!

Still to Watch: Isuca

Garo

Obligatory Reminder: Garo is also still airing, and you should be watching it.

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First Impressions: Winter 2015 Anime (Part 1)

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Winter 2015 is here. It’s so here. So far, really, so good. There hasn’t been anything that’s compelled me to drop it outright (although a few shows have come close), and most of the shows I was truly excited for showed up well. Add a crop of decent premieres to five solid to excellent ongoing shows and you’ve got a pretty darn good start to the season. Either that or, after a fall season that failed to conclude with a show above 7/10, I’m just really happy to see some new anime.

Still to Watch: Kofuku Graffiti, Durarara!! x2, Isuca, The Rolling Girls, Aldnoah.Zero 2, Fafner of the Blue Sky, World Break, Death Parade

Ongoing: Shirobako, Garo, Your Lie in April, Akatsuki no Yona, Log Horizon

Shirobako

Just a reminder that Shirobako is ongoing, that you should be watching it, and that it’s hard being in anime world.

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