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Wednesday, January 6, 2016

2016 Winter Anime Viewing Plans:

The winter anime season begins today.  My first impressions post will be along for the first week of shows a week from now.  However, to even reach a first impression, I must be willing to watch the first episode.  If a show's preview hype isn't up my alley, I don't even bother to form a first impression.  That's why I thought I'd chart out which series I'm even going to try to watch ahead of time.

Active Raid
Boku Dake ga Inai Machi
Dimension W
Divine Gate
Hai to Gensou no Grimgar
Haruchika
Kono Subarishii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!
Luck and Logic
Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiideskura
Myriad Colors Phantom World
Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R
Landlord is in Puberty
Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation
Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut
Schwarzesmarken
Shoujo-tachi wa kouya wo mezasu
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm
Pandora in the Crimson Shell

These will be the shows covered in my first impressions post.  The rest are shows we've already seen before, though of course I'll be watching them -->

One Piece
Pretty Cure
Fairy Tail Zero
Assassination Classroom 2
Durarara Ketsu
Gate s2
Utawarerumono 2
Koyomimonogatari

The fall season really only had Owarimonogatari to boast of, but this winter season promises to bounce back strong.  Eight surefire hits, with 18 additional chances at success.  Even if only 1/3 of them pull through, that's 14 shows to watch, a hell of a lot more than the fall season offered by the end.  I also have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of these shows will be new inclusions to my great anime rankings.  Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu, Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm, Myriad Colors Phantom World, and Active Raid have such great pedigrees, it's hard to believe they won't turn out well.  But then again the same could have been said about Chaos Dragon. . .

What's the point of viewing anime if you don't have a good machine to view it on, am I right?  But there's progress on that front, too.  LG is announcing a new OLED tv that's virtually the final, perfect tv that needs ever be built in history.  With 99% of the colors the human eye can see being displayable, with high (1000 nits) brightness, pure black blacks because the oleds simply turn off when required, 4k resolution, a flat screen, perfect picture from any viewing angle, 75" in size, an insane refresh rate, 10-bit color depth, etc, etc.  Once you slap this monster down in the living room you'll never leave your house again.  The only problem is the price.  Right now the tv is totally unaffordable.  However, there is no technical requirement the price be this high, in fact, OLED's are in principle cheaper to build than LCD tvs.  It's just that LG currently has a monopoly on the technology and is looking to cash in on it.  In addition, they have yet to mass manufacture the screens in the same way LCD makers mass produce their versions, so the price per unit is kept artificially high.  Once they build a giga-factory for oleds and competition forces them to lower their prices, this tv will sell for ~400 dollars just like all the previous tv's eventually do.  And once that day comes, five years from now or whenever, hoooo boy will anime start looking nice.  Internet bandwidth and storage technologies will need to increase to accommodate the more detailed images, but there's plenty of progress on both of those fronts as well to meet the demand there will be for it five years from now.

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