Onii-chan wa Oshimae: This is the story of a loser male suddenly becoming a young cute girl through the power of dubious science. He now has to deal with the unknown travails of being a woman, which are supposed to be cute and funny. Unfortunately he's still a worthless person doing worthless things and his life is still as boring as ever, so this series really ran with the wrong premise. Fail.
Ningen Fushin: A fast paced and funny first episode featuring a bunch of people with the requisite skills to get through life, but not the social skills to be accepted by society. Accused of crimes they didn't do, or simply talking to people the wrong way, they find themselves homeless, jobless and friendless. Their last resort is a chance meeting between each other (sort of like in Haganai, the club to make friends among friendless people). It's a great initial concept and I love how it shows that people only start doing self-destructive things when there's nothing better on offer, showing it isn't really a 'lack of character' but 'systemic oppression' that drives most negative outcomes. Pass.
Tomo-chan wa Onanoko: The central joke to this story is pretty funny, but it's also unbelievable. A guy can't help but notice a girl is a girl if he's around her long enough. I get that he's only pretending to not notice she's a girl but that's stupid too. The best comedies are situations that are all too true, not phony. Fail.
Koori Zokusei: There's nothing good about this story. A girl falls for an annoying guy who only causes trouble and can't take care of himself because he has a pitiable disability. Talk about dysgenics. Fail.
Tensei Oujo: I read the manga of this for a while and dropped it because it wasn't going anywhere. The first episode is fine, as was the start of the manga, and the art and animation and voice acting are high class, so maybe the anime will succeed where the manga failed. Pass.
Spy Kyoushitsu: A cross between Princess Principal and Assassination Classroom. Since both those series are in my top anime rankings, it's quite possible this hybrid could be great too. Pass.
Iceblade Sorcerer: So a guy who has already reached the title of 'Grand Mage', the highest rank, decides to attend incognito a magic school so he can hit on young boys and girls alike, the bisexual anime we were all hoping for. Fail.
Revenger: Chuunibyo assassins who spend more time making cool poses with impractical weapons than killing their foes, magically, through the power of plot, beat people with swords and guns. But their lives are far too hard core for the ordinary joys of life, so of course they're left with nothing but the job of more and more killing. Fail.
Buddy Daddies: This story is right up my alley. It dispenses with the useless and hopeless relationship with women and goes straight to the invigorating source -- adopting a cute young girl. The two men roommates are straight but uninterested in adult women for the obvious and common reasons, they had a life centered around their careers, but now there's a fun twist, a refreshing presence in their lives, that makes it all worthwhile. The action sequences are impressive, too. No superpowers, just pure skill, can navigate a battlefield in delightful fashion. Pass.
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale: I am so sick of shoujo manga tropes. So in the first episode this girl rejects a marriage proposal by a nice wealthy handsome childhood friend who also works in the same field as her and thus has plenty to converse with her about in a derisory manner as though it's ridiculous he could even imagine being worthy of her -- she then moves on to buying a male fairy warrior slave who she instantly goes googoo for, even though all he does is insult, threaten, and sexually harass her. The absurdity of a girl's 'flags' or 'triggers' or whatever you want to call them makes me want to vomit. Fail.
Legend of Heroes Northern War: So this girl saves a village from monster massacre and as a reward her coworkers insult her and her boss docks her three months' pay for disobeying orders. That's all I needed to see. Fail.
Ars no Kyojuu: So this innocent nice girl is kept in a prison cell and when she breaks free is shot with arrows because she's an 'experiment' so somehow it's okay to abuse her. Meanwhile the commander of the army is a crazed druggie which all the troops are apparently fine with, and the villagers watch on dumbly thinking all of this is normal while going about their daily lives. Talk about the banality of evil. Fail.
Tsunlise: This is an otome game where the villainess reforms and avoids her bad fate, which is standard these days, but there's a cute twist in that the villainess is reformed because the players of the otome game in the real world can speak as divine voices straight to the prince of the game's ears, so the game can now be changed from its bad end into an entirely different story. The best aspect of this is one of the game players (divine voices) is voiced by Kana Hanazawa. I could listen to KanaHana commentate on otome games all day. Pass.
Isekai Nonbiri Nouka: I already knew this was a good story from the manga, but the anime really improves upon it. The manga's art is comically barebones, but the anime turns it into a lavish, beautiful, full-rounded production. It spares no effort to take this gag manga and turn it into an art gallery. Like this the series could be one of the highlights of the season. Pass.
Trigun Stampede: Whose bright idea was it to turn a perfectly good anime into an inferior cg filler clone? Fail.
Nier Automata: This was a solid first episode with excellent music and animation. I'm not sold on the ultra-dark plot but we'll see. Clearly a lot of effort was put into polishing this production so somebody thinks it's worth betting on. Pass.
Saikyou Onmyouji: He should have killed his brother Gly on day 1. The guy is a psychopath, immediately attacking people for no reason, trying to rape a maidservant, verbally denigrating everyone he comes across. If you leave him be he'll either a) attack you in your sleep, at which point it doesn't matter how much stronger you are than him or b) attack someone else while you're not there and it will be too late to avert the damage done by your refusal to deal with him when you had the chance. If you're worried about the justice system just use one of your shikigami familiars to kill him in a way that can't be traced to you. It would look no different from a wild monster attack, and this world is full of wild monsters. The problem would be solved at no cost. Instead Seika did nothing and it all magically worked out through plot armor. Fail.
Saving 80,000 Gold Coins in Another World: They got one of the best scenes in the manga wrong. She was supposed to use her knowledge of wolf anatomy to defeat the wolf bare-handed, but instead they did some sort of knife fight thing. I guess it was too gruesome in the original? In any event, this is a lovely story, so it's good even if they mess it up, but there's no way it can be great when it isn't even faithful to the source. Pass.
Otonari no Tenshi-sama: I like this story. It's unlikely that a high spec girl would suddenly take an interest in a low spec classmate and next-door neighbor, but unlikely events do happen. Stories are mainly based around interesting, unlikely things, if they're commonplace no one would waste their time reading about it. Given the situation, I like how mature and polite the conversations between these two people are. No excessive exaggeration, just people communicating as equals back and forth, seeking mutual understanding. Romances like this would be nice. Pass.
Kaiko Sareta Ankoku Heishi: Or 'I was all powerful so I settled down in a nearby village.' If that sounds like a boring light novel title you'd be right on. There is nothing original or interesting about this story, except the fact that a buxom village lass exposes 90% of her breasts all day every day for some unknown reason. (No one else in the village dresses like that so it isn't this world's 'culture.' Besides, no such culture could reasonably evolve because all it does is lower a girl's worth in marriage because she's already used goods, free for anyone and everyone to behold.) Fail.
There are around ten more series that haven't premiered, so I'll cover them in a part 2. For now these 20 reviews should do. So far I'd say it's a promising winter season, with more hits than expected. But we'll see, there's still ten more shows to come.
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