Rewrite Revealed:

If people haven't noticed yet, a full English translation has been provided for Key's latest visual novel, Rewrite.  Key's previous projects were Air, Kanon, Clannad, Little Busters, Planetarian, Tomoyo After Story, and Kud Waffe.  All of them have been priceless treasures, each in their own way, and Key was also behind the making of Angel Beats, despite it never being turned into a visual novel.  This company is quite simply the best thing on Earth right now, the Hope Diamond of the planet.  It is only to be expected, then, that Rewrite is also great.  Rewrite has a sequel, Harvest Festa, but it hasn't been translated yet so I can't comment on it.  But Rewrite is fully worth reading.  When Rewrite came out, I praised it as one of the most important things that happened that year.  Now that I can read it, I can confirm what I said was true.  The art is beautiful, the dialogue is hilarious, the music is immersive, and the ideas behind the story are unique.  Strangely enough, this may be one of the weaker entries in Key's long history, but even if it is it's still better than practically anything else anyone else can do.

One of those few competitors is Pretty Cure.  What Pretty Cure couldn't do in quality, they've made up for with sheer quantity.  Pretty Cure entered its tenth season this week, Doki Doki Pretty Cure.  How good is it?  Well, after watching the first episode, I just started back at the beginning and watched it again.  Doki Doki is amazing.  I already like the leading cast, but I also like the villains, the particular theme of their villainy this time around (self-centeredness), the art, the costume designs, the opening and ending animation and songs, the fact that this time, unlike in Fresh Pretty Cure, there will be a proper Pretty Cure representing the clubs, as well as one for hearts, diamonds, and spades, whereas in Fresh Precure there were 2 hearts, 1 diamond and one spade Precure, which made no sense at all. . . (okay maybe that's going into minutia too far, but unfinished cycles are Really Annoying!  And now they've fixed it!)

The point is, Smile Pretty Cure was the best season so far.  And already I'm starting to wonder if Doki Doki Pretty Cure is going to be even better.  How do they keep getting better every year?  And they intend to do this for decades yet to come?  How good will the show be by the end??????  When you're already number one, what do you have left to prove?  All Pretty Cure can do now is compete with itself.  If it just keeps improving over the season before it, soon enough there won't be any adjectives left to praise it with.

Between Rewrite and Doki Doki Precure, no one can possibly have any complaints with this wonderful month of February.  But there's still the rest of the anime field to review while we're at it.  Now that we've gone a ways into the winter season, how would I rank this season's good series now?  Remember, this is only how much I'm looking forward to the very next episode of a series, not its overall worth.

#1.  Doki Doki Precure.
#2.  AKB0048
#3.  Love Live
#4.  Da Capo III
#5.  Shin Sekai Yori
#6.  Haganai
#7.  Bakuman
#8.  Little Busters
#9.  Vividred Operation
#10.  Chihayafuru
#11.  Fairy Tail
#12. Hunter x Hunter
#13.  Oreshura
#14.  Naruto
#15.  One Piece
#16.  Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
#17.  Robotics;Notes
#18.  Tamako Market
#19.  Yama no Susume
#20.  Mangirl
#21?:  Seitokai no Ichizon
#22?:  Haitai Nanafa
#23?:  Ginga E Kickoff


As you can see, we lost some series along the way.  Mondai Ji-tachi is basically an overly complicated, poorly written, shallow snarl of a story.  It's too much work even trying to fill in the enormous gaps the story leaves in the plot, like how a girl who beats a gryphon in one episode loses to a tiger in the next episode.  Sasami-san is just boring, in addition to not making sense and being randomly artistically weird.  Koutora-san isn't terrible, but it also isn't going anywhere, and the characters don't really make any sense.  I would drop Tamako Market too, but it's a Kyoto Animation project, which means it's ridiculously pretty to watch, so I'll bear with it like I did Chuunibyou.  Seitokai Ichizon came out last fall, but only now is it being released in HD, so you could add that to the list.  Even though Haitai Nanafa came out long ago in Japan, it's only now being translated, so you could add that to the list as worth watching as well.  Even though the subbers of Ginga E Kickoff never keep up with the actual anime release dates, Ginga E Kickoff is still really good every time it does come out, so you can add it to the list too.


Even with the dropped series, the Winter anime season is looking really strong.  AKB0048 is surprisingly great and Haganai has regained its mojo.  Da Capo III continues to show why their girls are more attractive than anyone else's, and even Vividred is refusing to be left behind.  This may be the shortest month of the year, but in terms of blessings, it's the longest.