heavenly_pearl | Entries tagged with zombie land saga

Did my usual look back at the fanfiction I wrote last year over on Tumblr!

2021 Fanfic Year In Review

2021 Fanfic End of the Year Asks

It's also time for the usual seasonal anime review, as well as the reveal of my top ten favorite series of the year!

The aquatope of white sand - Last season, I said this had the potential to be one of my favorite series this year, and I happy to say...it is! Kinda annoyed that the "visions" from the first half of the series never really went anywhere, but that's my only real complaint. Otherwise, the characters are great, the animation is gorgeous, and it's just a really, really good show!

Restaurant To Another World 2 - I don't know if this series really needed a sequel, especially several years after the first season originally aired, but I'm glad it got one anyway! I liked that this season brought back a lot of customers from the previous season, and of course, the food porn was incredible! Especially since a lot of the food highlighted this time were some of my personal favorites. I was always excited when it came to watch a new episode, to the point that I actually considered it one of my favorites of the year, as you'll see below!

The Night Beyond The Tricornered Window - I will say that this got off to bit of a rocky start, especially with how Hiyakawa was so possessive and controlling of Mikado (which is a BL trope I hate) but it got a lot better once the story started focusing on the main mystery. It helps that Hiyakawa was given an understandable backstory for why he acted that way and that the story never really portrayed their relationship as healthy or sexy, with several other characters calling out Hiyakawa's problematic behavior. Actually, for a story that's supposed to be BL, I have to say it kinda sucks as one, with a main couple who honestly don't have any real chemistry, but as a paranormal mystery, it's great!

Tropical-Rouge Precure - After complaining that Sango, Asuka, and Minori were being ignored in favor of Laura and Manatsu, this cour delivered by giving the other three Precures a couple of focus episodes each. It would have been nice for them to have been more spread out through the series, admittedly, but as much as I love Laura, it was kinda nice to have a break from the "Laura and Manatsu Show".

SAKUGAN - I'm not really sure how I feel about this mecha series, to be honest! It got off to an amazing start, and there are moments of that initial brilliance in later episodes, but there are also quite a few low moments. Overall, I really liked it, but I also thought it could have been even better.

takt op.Destiny - I feel the same about this series as I do about SAKUGAN. There were points I really, really liked, and I loved the character designs, especially for the Musicarts, but the villains were pretty weak and uninteresting, and the stuff with Anna near the end was just...weird.

Platinum End - Though I had heard some less than positive things about the manga this series is based off, I still wanted to give it a chance because I absolutely love Death Note and Bakuman, created by the same writer and mangaka. The verdict? Yeah, it's pretty bad. The main character, Mirai, is the complete opposite of Death Note's Light in that he's 100% opposed to killing in any situation, even self-defense, which is fine, but he also lacks Light's intelligence or charisma, making for a dull lead. The main villain, Metropolitan, is slighlty more interesting, but he's no L either. Honestly, the best character by far is Mukaido. It's too bad he's not the main character, because I think he has the most interesting story to tell. Also, there are a couple of sex scenes featuring minor characters that are purely there for shock value that I found rather off-putting. That being said, this first cour ended with one heck of a cliff-hanger, so of course I'll be sticking around for the second cour to see if things can get any worse. *laughs*

For the upcoming Winter season, I plan to keep watching Platinum End (assuming it resumes right away; details about the start of the second season haven't been given yet, but there was a title card for the thirteenth episode at the end of the last one) and Tropical-Rouge Precure. I'm also catching up with the first season of The Case Study of Vanitas (which Crunchyroll unexpectedly picked up a couple of weeks ago despite being originally a Funimation title) so I can watch the second season (assuming Crunchyroll also gets it from the start this time). For new shows, I'm hoping Crunchyroll also gets Requiem of the Rose King and Sasaki and Miyano, but those are the only two that have really caught my eye so far based on summaries.

And as for my Top 10 Favorite Series of 2021...

*drumroll*

1. Fruits Basket

2. The aquatope on white sand

3. Zombie Land Saga Revenge

4. Sk8 the Infinity *

5. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! X

6. Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun!

7. Laid-Back Camp Season 2 *

8. oddtaxi *

9.Heaven's Design Team

10. Restaurant To Another World

(* means I didn't watch it simulcast, but picked up later)

And new category! My Anime Movie of the Year was... the Sailor Moon Eternal movies, of course! I don't think I ever got around to gushing about them here, but while the first film admittedly had some pacing issues, the second one was amazing and was about all I ever wanted as an animated version of my favorite manga arc.

Wow, this was a good season! In fact, I think this was probably the best season I've seen so far since I started regularly keeping up with new shows a few years ago -- and I didn't even get the chance to see everything I was interested in.

Fruits Basket - Would it have been nice to have one more cour so that EVERYTHING in the manga could have been included in the anime? Sure, of course. Do I deep down care about anything they left out? Nah, not really. (And it's already been announced that we're getting some sort of prequel project focusing on the backstory of Tohru's parents, which was one of the more notable parts that was cut from the main series.) All the truly important stuff is still there. Is this still a wonderful adaptation of my favorite manga ever? HECK YEAH!

Zombie Land Saga Revenge - The first amazing season was a lot to live up to, but I think this sequel managed to do it right! It was great to finally get spotlight episodes on Tae and Yugiri and get some answers about why Kotaro was so desperate for Franchouchou to "save" Saga. The "stinger" at the end was, admittedly, weird and unexpected, but when you're dealing with zombie idols, that's kinda par for the course. And, hey, sequel hook! I definitely wouldn't mind another season of this.

To Your Eternity - A word of warning that this show is quite gory and features a lot of body horror, but if you can get past that, it's really rather fascinating to watch the alien(?) orb at the center of the story gradually gain sentience and intelligence through the various transformations they go through. It's also tough watching and knowing that the characters you get most attached to are probably going to die in the most heart-breaking ways, but, seriously, this is good stuff. Maybe keep some tissues handy, though!

Backflip - I have to admit when I first heard this anime was about a men's rhythmic gymnastics team, I thought it was a bit of a made-up sport like skate-leading in Skate Leading Stars. As far as I knew, rhythmic gymnastics was a women's only sport where they performed using different items like hoops, ribbons, and clubs, but it turns out that men's rhythmic gymnastics actually is a thing in Japan (and apparently Spain, of all places?), although it's more like a team floor routine with acrobatic lifts than the women's version I'm familiar with. Anyway, while the characters are paper-thin and the story is your generic sports anime plot, there was just something really...enjoyable about the whole show. Doesn't hurt that the routines are really well animated and gorgeous to watch! Happy to hear this is getting a movie!

Those Snow White Notes - Man, I just love music anime! The performances in this show are just fantastic. I wouldn't expect shamisen music to be so good, but it is! Ends on a bit of a downer, but hopefully we'll get more.

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun - More wholesome demon fun! It was interesting to see Iruma go through his "evil cycle" and the new teacher is a fun addition to the cast.

Tropical-Rouge Pretty Cure - Laura's still the best thing about this season. She really is a blast. Wish the villains were as interesting as their designs, but when their whole schtick is that they don't want to work, that's hard to do. Still bright and fun, though!

My Hero Academia - Some of my favorites parts of MHA are when the show focuses on their training at school, so I should have loved this new season in theory, but... The training tournament just went on for soooooo many episodes! It didn't help matters that it came after a two-part training drill OAV and that the first episode of the season was also another training exercise. It's just a LOT of training. On the plus side, the second half to the season is already off to an intriguing start.

Next season... There's not a lot of new stuff that's piquing my interest available on Crunchyroll. I'll be continuing with To Your Eternity, My Hero Academia, Tropical-Rouge Pretty Cure, and Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun, of course, and there are new seasons of IDOLiSH7 and My Next Life as a Villainess, which I'm very excited to watch, but most of the interesting new shows are going to Funimation. (Kageki Shoujo!!, The Case Study of Vanitas, RE-MAIN, Life Lessons with Uramichi-Oniisan). Might just catch up with one of the series I wasn't able to watch last season.

Current Mood: geeky

Long time, no see! I'll hopefully get around to posting a new Merchandise Round-Up soon -- I've got some really cool stuff to show off! -- but for now, let's talk about the winter anime season. At the moment, I'm just going to focus on the shows I watched on Crunchyroll. I've just started a two week free trial at Funimation so I can marathon through the four shows that really interested me this season (Sk8 the Infinity, Skate-Leading Stars, Horimiya, and 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team), which means I haven't really watched enough to form an opinion on them yet. I'll probably edit this post later with my thoughts when I finish.

Sk8 the Infinity: This is what I meant about making a sport exciting when talking about the surfing anime below. I don't care about skateboarding at all, but, dang, those races were thrilling and cool! Also loved the friendship between Reki and Langa, but ADAM is a world-class creep. Best show of the season by far.

Skate-Leading Stars: Y'all already know how much I love figure skating, so, to be honest, this show wasn't a hard sell for me. *laughs* I did have to turn off my brain a little bit to watch it, though, because the jumps were just so ridiculous. Apparently everybody can do quads in this world, even a guy who quit the sport as a novice in singles and decided to come back years later to compete as part of a skate-leading team. He even tried a quint at one point and landed a quad axel/quad toe loop/quad loop, which is just...impossible. Buuuut, even though I was annoyed that the teams wore the same costumes for both their short and free programs and wished they had showed more of the programs, what skating they did show was well animated, and I just really enjoyed it. No, not as good as Yuri!!! on Ice, but still a fun watch.

Heaven's Design Team - This was probably my favorite of the season -- fun and educational! After almost every episode, I ended up hitting Wikipedia to learn more about the animals featured. I wish they had decided they were going to use the localized English names from the manga for the characters from the start instead of suddenly switching three episodes in when I was just getting used to the Japanese names, but that's my only real complaint.

Horimiya - The first half of this series was fantastic! But starting around the halfway mark, when the titular couple started dating, it seemed to lose its way a little. Apparently a lot was cut from the manga in order to make the whole series fit into a single season, and it showed. I still really enjoyed it for the most part, but Hori became kinda unlikeable with her unreasonable possessiveness and her pushing an obviously uncomfortable Miyamura to beabusive to her in public as part of her masochistic kink
I really think the show would have worked better with another season and more chances to show the good side of their relationship, along with exploring some of the side characters more. (I especially liked the love triangle between Yuki, Tooru, and Sakura.)

Tropical-Rouge! Precure - I don't think I've ever seen such a HYPER magical girl lead. Manatsu can be a bit much to take in at times, but it's fun and colorful, and Laura the mermaid is kind of a wicked delight. It's only been a few episodes so far since it started mid-season, but I'm enjoying it!

2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team - This show really wasn't what I was expecting, which seems strange to say when it's clear from the title that it's a volleyball anime. I just wasn't expecting it to focus so much on volleyball? Especially based on the first couple of episodes. I thought it would focus more on Hajima working to become a better person and team player when his bullying of one of his old teammate resulted in said teammate trying to commit suicide (not a spoiler, BTW), which he does, somewhat, but... It's hard to explain. It doesn't help matters that it turns out thesuicide attempt was actually faked, seemingly absolving Hajima of most of his guilt.Anyway, it was a good series, but I couldn't help feeling that it didn't know what it wanted to be, if that makes sense?

Quintessential Quintuplets - I really enjoyed the first season, so I was looking forward to watching this continuation. Unfortunately, the pacing just felt...off almost all season, and the girls (especially looking at you, Ichika) backstabbing each other to try to win Futaro's heart was disappointing when they mostly avoided that in the first season. There were still some good parts, but, eh, I was left underwhelmed.

WAVE - Let's go surfing!! - Though I tend to enjoy sports anime, even for sports I don't particularly care for, this show really did nothing to make surfing seem exciting. Don't get me wrong; it's not terrible. It's a nice enough show, and I give it props for genuinely surprising me bykilling off one of the main characters early in the series in a surfing accident, but we didn't even find out for certainhe was deaduntil the second-to-last episode. There was really no reason to make it a mystery for the audience, many of whom were hopinghe was alive after allaccording to the comments at Crunchyroll. EDIT: Wait! I wrote this review before actually watching the final episode, and it turns outhe actually is alive? Or maybe he was supposed to be a spirit or a ghost?I don't know! They never really explained why he decided to go surfing during a storm either, when he knew how dangerous it could be. Now I'm really curious and want a second season! Or at least to see the movie this series was apparently based on.

Bungo Stray Dogs Wan! - A series of amusing shorts based on Bungo Stray Dogs, it was good, but mostly forgettable aside from the episode that turned most of the cast into pre-schoolers with Dazai as their teacher. Hilarious!

The spring season is looking to be REALLY good, with lots of sequels to series I already enjoy. Of course I'm going to continue with Tropical-Rouge! Precure, as well as the new seasons of Fruits Basket, Zombie Land Saga, My Hero Academia, and Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun. That doesn't leave much room for new shows, but Those Snow White Notes, The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, Bakuten!!, and Farewell, My Dear Cramer have all caught my eye. Guess I'll just have to see which ones land on Crunchyroll to help me decide!

Current Mood: geeky

Welcome to 2020! I meant to make a post before the end of the year, doing my usual year-end fanfiction reviews and making a list of my top fifty favorite anime of the past decade, but, oops, I forgot! Well, better late than never, right?

First off, Top 50 Favorite Anime Series Of The Decade!

1. Yuri!! On Ice (2016)

2. Fruits Basket (2019)

3. Shirobako (2014)

4. My Love Story!! (2015)

5. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju (2016)

6. Bakuman (2010)

7. Space Brothers (2012)

8. ReLife (2016)

9. Oh, Maidens In Your Savage Season (2019)

10. Chihayafuru (2011)

11. Sailor Moon Crystal (2014)

12. Card Captor Sakura Clear Card (2018)

13. Tiger & Bunny (2011)

14. Bloom Into You (2018)

15. My Roommate Is A Cat (2019)

16. Yamada’s First Time (2010)

17. A Place Further Than The Universe (2018)

18. Yona of the Dawn (2014)

19. Zombie Land Saga (2018)

20. Death Parade (2015)

21. Your Lie In April (2014)

22. Major 2nd (2018)

23. Sound! Euphonium (2015)

24. Amagi Brilliant Park (2014)

25. Snow White With The Red Hair (2015)

26. Haikyu! (2014)

27. The Promised Neverland (2019)

28. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun (2014)

29. Hinamatsuri (2018)

30. Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits (2018)

31. Orange (2016)

32. Given (2019)

33. Free! (2013)

34. Recovery of a MMO Junkie (2017)

35. Ancient Magus’ Bride (2017)

36. Sakura Quest (2017)

37. Love Stage!! (2014)

38. My Hero Academia (2016)

39. School Babysitters (2018)

40. Kaguya-sama: Love is War (2019)

41. Hanasaku Iroha (2011)

42. How To Keep a Mummy (2018)

43. Interviews With Monster Girls (2017)

44. Idolish7 (2018)

45. Flying Witch (2016)

46. Kiss Him, Not Me (2016)

47. Another (2012)

48. Bunny Drop (2011)

49. Tanaka-kun is always listless (2016)

50. Golden Time (2013)

Honorable mentions go to Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Kimi ni Todoke - From Me To You, Natsume's Book of Friends, and Kobato. I only counted series that started between 2010-2019, so these didn't make the cut, despite airing partly between those years.

Now, fanfiction reviews! I answered three different year-end review questionnaires on my Tumblr, so I'm just going to link to them instead of copy and pasting. This entry is already getting long enough!

Set One
Set Two
Set Three

My review of the fall anime season and my choices for the Top Ten Anime of 2019 will be posted sometime in the next few days...hopefully.

Current Mood: hopeful

Fall was a pretty good season, anime-wise.

Zombie Land Saga - I never expected to love a show about zombies so much, but Zombie Land Saga is downright hilarious with just the right amount of absurdity and heart. Plus, the idea of zombie idols is kinda brilliant. I thought IDOLiSH7 was going to be my favorite idol anime of the year, but this show surpassed it. I'm really hoping it gets a second season. It ended at a good point, but the final scene was definitely a sequel hook.

Double Decker! Doug & Kirill - This show started off really strong, but lost a little steam near the end, although I still really enjoyed it. And I have the say, the character designs were simply gorgeous!

Tsurune - Tsurune started airing a little later than most of the shows this season, so it still has a few episodes to go, but if you were a fan of Free!, then you'll probably also like this show, which is basically an archery-version of Free! Not that that is a bad thing in my book. Archery isn't quite as exciting as swimming, but Masa is really hot...

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san - It's always been a bit of a dream of mine to work in a bookstore, so it was fun to watch this series and see what it is like. Some of the customers that showed up were hilarious. I also enjoyed picking on all the censored mentions of real-life companies and manga series.

Ace Attorney - Decent season, I guess, but suffers from the same issue as the second half of the first season in that Mitsurugi was barely in it. I just can't really get into these other prosecutors.

Sword Art Online: Alicization (continuing) - Word of warning: Episode 10 is really tough to watch. Even censored... Well, it's disturbing. But the overall storyline so far is pretty good, and I'm looking forward to where it will go. I think this series is supposed to last for several seasons, which is pretty rare nowadays.

As for next season, I'll be continuing with Alicization, of course, and I'll probaby catch up with the second season of Mob Psycho 100 once I finish watching the first season on Toonami. Looks like there's a new season of B-Project, too. New shows that look promising are Domestic Girlfriend, Promised Neverland, Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunōsen, and Dōkyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue. Hopefully Crunchyroll will get at least some of them.

And now, for my Top Ten Series of 2018! There weren't any series this year that I would rate a perfect ten, but I think all of these are worth checking out.

* means I didn't watch the show while it was airing but picked up later due to good buzz.

1. Zombie Land Saga
2. Major 2nd
3. A Place Further Than The Universe *

4. Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card
5. Hinamatsuri *
6. My Hero Academia
7. School Babysitters
8. IDOLiSH7
9. The Ancient Magus' Bride
10. Double Decker: Doug and Kirill

I mentioned in my last entry that I hadn't decided what new anime to watch this season, so here's an update on what I've decided to watch: Double Decker! Doug and Kirill, Sword Art Online: Alicization, second season of Ace Attorney, Zombie Land Saga, Tsurune, and Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san. So far, a much better season than the summer!

I kinda wish I hadn't announced that I was writing again. It seems like ever since I decided to make it public, I haven't been able to write as much as I had been writing when it was a secret. It doesn't help that I came up with an idea for a sequel to the story I'm currently working on ("Friends With Benefits"), and it's all shiny and new and I really want to work on it, but that would be kinda dumb when I need to finish this story first... Ah, well. I did post a new -- well, technically old -- story on FF.net yesterday. Remember "Consummation", the story about Keitaro's and Takara's first time? I posted it a long time ago at AO3 but not at FF.net because I didn't want to up the rating of "Spirit of Fire", but I've gone ahead and finally posted it as a one-shot for any SOF fans that don't visit AO3.

It's been a while since I posted about my latest purchases of Sailor Moon merchandise, so here's a round-up!

This actually just came in today -- a Helios/Chibi-Moon cup! (A pic of Pegasus is on the other side.)

I realized that I had plushes of all the other (non-Starlight) senshi except Chibi-Moon for some reason, so I decided it was about time to rectify that oversight. I love that she's holding the Crystal Carillon!

( More pics under the cut )

Current Mood: okay

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Happy New Year! And Fall Anime Review
2021 Spring Anime Review
2021 Winter Anime Review
Happy New Year!
2018 Fall Anime Season and Top Ten Series of the Year
Updates and latest buys

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Entries tagged with zombie land saga

Happy New Year! And Fall Anime Review

2021 Spring Anime Review

2021 Winter Anime Review

Happy New Year!

2018 Fall Anime Season and Top Ten Series of the Year

Updates and latest buys