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Monday, April 8, 2019

Spring 2019 Anime First Impressions: Part 1

YU-NO:  This is a surprisingly good show.  The plot proceeds snappily, not getting bogged down in boring details.  The music is fantastic.  The art, voice acting and animation are nice too.  It's a complex and intricate setting that will require lots of episodes to unravel, but thankfully this is a 2-cour series so that's actually a plus.  Not only does Yu-No easily pass in terms of being watchable, it may even be a great anime by the end.  Pass.

Hitoribocchi no 00 Seikatsu:  The art and voice acting is cute.  The humor isn't always effective, but there's enough to get by.  I also like the clearly defined goal of needing to make friends with everyone in class, it gives a sort of structure to the story and an achievable endgame.  But overall there isn't much to get excited about.  The jokes will eventually become repetitive and dull like all comedies, and I've already seen so many series about cute nice girls making friends at school, was there even a need for another?  I suspect the show is watchable but it will never be anything more.  Pass.

Kimetsu no Yaiba:  Thatch roofs, gas lamps, straw shoes -- and power lines.  Welcome to the world of Kimetsu no Yaiba, which doesn't even attempt to make any sense.  Ignoring the power lines (but how can you ignore the power lines?), I just witnessed an epic fantasy based off of Japanese folklore but also containing a lot of Shonen Jump like themes.  With Ufotable doing the animation, of course it looks great.  The voice acting is amazing.  Okay, here's the thing, this could be the best anime of all time -- except there's randomly power lines.  Why are there power lines?  *sigh*.  Pass.

Nobunaga-sensei no Osanazuma:  There are good and bad things about this show.  The good thing is that girls from the past are just better than modern girls, so featuring her as your main heroine and love interest is always a good thing.  The bad thing is this involves time travel, which is always annoying and creates way too many paradoxes.  It also involves a lot of other annoying tropes like the male lead being a bland loser.  Oh well, for a first impression it works, but I don't know how long this show can keep my attention.  Pass.

Boku-tachi wa Benkyou Dekinai:  A terrible series.  The humor falls flat, the characters are unrealistic, they don't understand that intelligence is based off of g, a unified factor, which means people who are 'geniuses' in one field are at least adequate in others, and to make matters worse the girls are rude cockteases who take no responsibility for stirring up a guy's romantic interest and then flattening it over and over again.  I hate girls like that, who take no responsibility for jerking around other people's chains.  I hate this show for so many reasons, all independent of each other, all of which would suffice to sink it.  Fail.

Senryuu Shoujo:  The haiku writing girl is cute and funny.  The boy is stupid and violent.  I don't like that the girl likes the boy, it degrades her.  But for the sake of the girl I'll continue watching anyway.  Pass.

Ao-chan wa Benkyou ga Dekinai:  A terrible series with Happosai constantly jumping in and doing perverted things to his own granddaughter.  This is supposed to be funny?  Fail.

Shoumetsu Toshi:  What happens if you mix up Gokukoku no Brynhildr, Durara, Ga Rei-Zero, Dimension W and a million other things?  Shoumetsu Toshi.  It's not a bad idea to follow in the footsteps of successful predecessors.  If you want a rousing urban action series full of shadowy factions vying with one another, here we go.  Pass.

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine:  Cute girls doing sports together is always a solid anime plan.  Beach volleyball, horse racing, tank fighting, it's a popular genre by now.  This time it's baseball and it still works like a charm.  It's insane how many baseball anime I've watched over the years, but I just always seem to like them even despite myself.  Pass.

Nande Koko ni Sensei ga!?:  This was painful from the very first ten seconds.  I couldn't make it through the episode.  Raunchy, graphic 'humor' like this is just obscene.  Fail.

Fairy Gone:  In truth I hated this first episode.  It looked like a poorly done version of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure with a bunch of uninteresting, bad cg looking stands.  The characters constantly make the wrong decisions and get away with them.  If this story weren't written by Ao Jumanji, my favorite value added light novelist, I'd have already given up.  But maybe things will turn around.  It's by Ao Jumanji, how bad can it possibly be?  Pass.

Gunjou no Magmel:  Our all powerful hero is above it all.  He doesn't care about anyone or anything, so he walks through life with a casual, devil may care attitude with his hands in his pockets.  At best he finds life mildly amusing.  He's gliding on the winds of nihilism.  You'll never be as cool as this hero.  Even his voice is cool.  And he has a cool super power.  It makes him stronger than everyone else -- effortlessly no less.  That's just how cool he is.  Too cool for school.  Pass.

Amazing Stranger:  I don't like relationships based on lies.  Fail.

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