Top Winter 2015 Anime: Final Ratings

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015iblessall 51 Comments

It was a good season of anime. I realize I’m closing the season on a pretty small selection of shows and that a number of those shows are leftovers from the Fall 2014 season, but even so…this was a good season of anime. I don’t actually know what more to say beyond that. It was good, I really enjoyed it and felt blessed to be watching what I was watching quite a lot, and I’m sad many of these shows are over. And that’s that. Here are the best anime of Winter 2015. Are you ready, Koharu-chan?

[Management: I’ve decided to rename the “Best Animation” category the “Best Visual Aesthetic” category. The idea here is to condense character designs, background art, and general visual appearance into a single category. I’m not really qualified at this point to discuss the actual technical merits of animation, but I can at least tell you what I thought looked good. Additionally, the caption awards have morphed into something a bit different than “the was the best action” show; rather, they’re now more along the lines of “this show had the best romance/action/etc.”]

Continue reading →

Winter 2015, Week 2: Highlights of the Week

January 21, 2015January 20, 2015iblessall 21 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

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

January 19, 2015January 20, 2015iblessall 79 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

First Impressions: Winter 2015 Anime (Part 2)

January 12, 2015January 11, 2015iblessall 16 Comments

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