Winter Anime Review
Apr. 4th, 2018 09:31 pmI actually haven't finished this season yet, but I've watched enough to say that I really liked everything I watched...with one notable exception.
As for next season, I have sooooo much I want to watch, I'm not sure I can fit everything in my schedule! I'll definitely be watching the continuations of CCS: Clear Card, IDOLiSH7, and FRANXX, as well as new seasons of My Hero Academia and Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory (*squee* finally more FMP!). Brand new shows I might check out if available for free streaming are: Tada Never Falls in Love, Comic Girls, Devils' Line, Piano no Mori and Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku. I want to watch Lupin the Third: Part 5 and Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online, but I think I may wait and see if they're picked up by Toonami first since Toonami aired previous seasons of those shows. I'm on the fence on Steins;Gate Zero... I liked the original series well enough, I guess, but I'm not in any rush to watch more. I'll probably save it to watch at a later date.
Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card - This was my most-anticipated show this season, and it absolutely lived up to the hype for me! Love, love, love it! The animation may be a little slicker and the guys may no longer have those ridiculously broad shoulders that were so popular in the 90s, but otherwise it doesn't feel like any real time has passed between this sequel and the original series. They even got most (maybe all?) of the original cast back and reused a lot of the same background music from the first series. My only real complaints so far are that the actual cardcapturing hasn't been very exciting and I have no idea if the second movie is supposed to be canon or not. (The show itself can't even seem to make up it's mind!) Those are pretty minor things, though.
School Babysitters - Oh, my, word, this series was seriously the CUTEST! I could have lived without the older brother who hits his little brother, slap-stick-style, and the kinda-creepy teenage boy who gets nosebleeds because he thinks babies and toddlers are just so cute, but if you ignore those two problematic things, this show is just full of the WAFF-y goodness.
IDOLiSH7 - I've watched a few idol shows over the past couple of years. They were usually pretty good, but nothing memorable. This show, however, I could actually see myself buying to rewatch if it continues to be this good. It's genuinely funny and touching, the music is great, and the guys' personalities are developed enough that I can actually remember their names (most of the time)!
The Ancient Magus' Bride - I don't think this second half was quite as strong as the first half, but I still really liked it...with the caveat that I have yet to watch the final episode. I've heard that a lot of people feel like the ending was rushed since the anime caught up with the manga and they had to do an anime-original ending. Unless it's, like, Kare Kano bad, though, I don't think it'll ruin how I feel about the rest of the series, which was great.
March comes in like a lion - March's pacing has always been a little disjointed, but I think the fact that the show went on break for a couple of weeks while the Olympics were airing made it feel more disjointed than usual. Still good, though.
DARLING in the FRANXX - This was not on my original to-watch list, but it sounded kinda interesting when I checked out ANN's Preview Guide, especially since mecha series aren't very popular nowadays. It's pretty good so far, but I don't see it becoming, like, Evangelion/Rah-Xephon/Full Metal Panic-good. We'll see.
Maerchen Maedchen - This series... Well, I'm not sure what really happened. The production was apparently very troubled, leading them to take two weeks off to improve the quality of episode 9. That meant they had to end with episode 10, even though it was meant to be a twelve-episode series. I haven't actually watched those two episodes yet, but just knowing what happened, that can't be good. It wasn't even that great in the first place, despite having quite an interesting premise (magical girls based on fairy/folk tales). What a shame.
As for next season, I have sooooo much I want to watch, I'm not sure I can fit everything in my schedule! I'll definitely be watching the continuations of CCS: Clear Card, IDOLiSH7, and FRANXX, as well as new seasons of My Hero Academia and Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory (*squee* finally more FMP!). Brand new shows I might check out if available for free streaming are: Tada Never Falls in Love, Comic Girls, Devils' Line, Piano no Mori and Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku. I want to watch Lupin the Third: Part 5 and Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online, but I think I may wait and see if they're picked up by Toonami first since Toonami aired previous seasons of those shows. I'm on the fence on Steins;Gate Zero... I liked the original series well enough, I guess, but I'm not in any rush to watch more. I'll probably save it to watch at a later date.
One series I WON'T be watching, despite my usual compulsion to complete a series, is Tokyo Ghoul:re. I forced myself to watch the first two seasons that aired on Toonami and hated almost every minute of it, so, nope, not going to torture myself any longer. Gonna cut my losses and stay far, far away!