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Monday, February 22, 2016

There's Such a Thing as Demerits in Anime Judging:

No matter how good your show has been up until this point, for every annoying or obnoxious thing that's been inserted afterwards, your show has become overall worse than it originally started as.  That's why adding additional episodes to an unfinished series is a gamble, it could actually dilute and lessen the quality of the entire show, not just be bad in and of itself.  One Piece would have been better if it had ended at Water 7 than it is now.  It's a shame, but that's just how it is.  The story leans too much towards gags at the expense of both the quality of the characters and of the plot.  I felt like it had a more serious nature in the past, it was a world in which I could still respect the Straw Hat crew, instead of the ridiculous stupidity they tend to indulge in these days, like Sanji's nose bleeds and abandoning the crew the moment a pretty lady winks at him, or Zoro getting so lost he can never do anything to help anyone else, or Luffy falling for cheap trick after cheap trick despite having trained for years to no longer get caught in cheap tricks anymore.

Or Brook being on-screen and doing anything whatsoever.

Dragon Ball has the same problem, in that it is almost a mere gag manga talking about poop and farts and nipples instead of serious, interesting topics like the friendship/rivalry between Goku and Vegeta.  Every time it descends into adolescent humor it weakens its own brand, and the quality of the show overall.  As such, I've had to punish both of these shows in my anime rankings, by dropping them back to 16th and 17th respectively.

Other shows that felt my wrath in the latest rework of my rankings are Air, for being so pointlessly sad; and Baka to Test, for being too repetitive in its humor and not advancing the plot enough.

A show that jumped dramatically upwards is Boku Dake ga Inai Machi.  The fact that the story is going to be complete from beginning to end is a huge plus factor.  In addition, I feel like the characters are very lifelike and realistic, and the story is gripping and full of tension and suspense every step of the way.  A-1 Pictures has also gone out of its way to make the whole story look beautiful, they clearly cared deeply about getting the chance to do this show.  It's moved all the way up to 89th.  Hai to Gensou no Grimgar has made a more modest progress up to 166th because not much has actually happened in the show.  Dimension W is still stuck at the bottom, 178th, just trying to prove it deserves to belong with the rest of the shows.  Ganbare, Dimension W!

Assassination Classroom is indeed getting an animated ending that follows the manga, which is excellent news.  However, it's just enough to keep it in my rankings, not enough to raise it up to any higher level.  Without an ending, this show wouldn't have been any good at all.  With an ending it is a worthwhile honorable mention.

Hoshizora no Memoria is a visual novel by Favorite, the same company which did the legendary Irotoridori no Sekai.  Strangely enough, Hoshimemo has been fan translated, and is now getting a corporate translation into English, while Irotoridori hasn't been, even though it's the far more famous title and higher earner than Hoshimemo ever was.  So it goes.  In any event, from what I've seen so far, Hoshimemo is awesome, which just makes you wonder how good Irotoridori will be.  I fully recommend reading either the fan translation or the corporate one, whichever floats your boat.

For technical reasons, I've had to separate my Anime Rankings and my Anime Rankings + Voices posts.  Likewise my Beautiful Anime Girls and Beautiful Fairy Girls posts.  They're all equally permaposted, though, so no real change has occurred.

Trump won handily again in South Carolina.  But if all the Kasich and Bush voters flock to Rubio in the future it won't go so well.  Super Tuesday is going to be tense.

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