The Winter 2016 season of anime was a weird one for me—one where the unexpected winners of the season were shows I had fully intended to ignore from the start and one where old standbys didn’t manage to impress me the way they had in the past. That all being said, I’m pleased with this season, even as I look forward to the bounties of spring.
Whew, it’s been a while, huh? Apologies for the delay—weekend trip and video games have a bad habit of messing up my routines so thoroughly that I can’t get other things done even if I have the time.
I just want you all to know that, while I do really like the current season, I’d give it all away to have Macross Delta airing right now. Well, except maybe Konosuba.
People say the three-episode rule is the best for deciding on shows to keep and drop, but I’m somewhat of the opinion that five episodes is better for feeling out which shows are going to end up great and which are just going to end up fine.
In which I attempt to chronicle the full extent of my anime life from the past week or so, and lay out the path forward through the Winter 2016 anime season…
Eh, how do you blog, again?
Another season has passed. Despite being a rather slow season and mostly lacking in shows I would consider worthy of serious superlatives, I was generally amused, entertained, and engaged by the stuff I ended up watching all the way to the end. As always, there were some up weeks and some down weeks, but on the whole I’m pretty happy with the way this season ended up. It certainly won’t go down as one of the best in anime history—but when you come away from a season with an episode of a bubble dropping on Lelei’s head, how can you really complain?
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the closing lines of the oft-quoted, oft-anthologized, oft-ridiculed poem by Robert Frost:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— | I took the one less traveled by, | And that has made all the difference.
GATE, much like writers who choose to use “The Road Not Taken” as openings to their columns, takes the more-traveled road as a matter of course—yet, in doing so, it makes way for the discovery of a few rare mushrooms along the path and one big one with a bad smell that covers the whole forest. Now, I don’t mean to be coy here; I enjoyed GATE a whole heckuva lot. It’s a fascinating blend of things I found engaging and off-putting, likable and awful. At the end of the day, though, I’ll always give three cheers for a show that manages to succeed in spite of a fundamentally misguided base premise. There’s something awfully human about a show like that—even if you might not want to emulate it.
I suppose I should be thinking up something insightful to say at this point, but I’ve really got nothing for you guys in terms of summing up the past week of anime. The season’s off to a good start and I’m enjoying pretty much everything that I’m watching, but as a season I’m not overly impressed or disappointed. Everything just kind of is, and if your kind of anime is airing (like it is for me) it’s a pleasant time to be keeping up with the shows that we’ve got.
The weekly roundup or rundown or highlights (or whatever you want to call them) are back! As it happens, I’m going back to the normal Wednesday release schedule for this season…and you’ll also notice that I’ve navigated away from the clunky “Highlights of the Week” to something a bit snappier (and maybe a bit more SEO friendly): “Anime Weekly.” In the end, nothing’s really changing—this is still going to be the catch-all post for the week that compiles my thoughts on everything I’ve been watching. It’s just easier to type out the title now.
And a good thing, too, because despite my best efforts to cull my watchlist for this season, I’m still carrying 15 shows—5 more than the target set for myself at the beginning of the season.
Hi, hi, sorry I’m late! Let me finish this piece of toast and we’ll get started!
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All better! Anyways, good day all! Are you ready to wade through the cesspool of anime premieres to find a few shows that are actually worth your while? cocks head cheekily/cutely Good, because it’s finally that time of year. Summer~. And oh geez, why do all the show have to come out all at the same time? It’s annoying… (note: none of the shows covered in this issue were among my top anticipated titles for the season)
Mage in a Barrel 