Third Mid-Season Evaluation with TL

Hey guys, TL here, with a short piece on what I feel about the current season.

Tonari no kaibutsu kun started out this season as my favorite. The first couple of episodes were amazing, and in particular, I thought episodes 1 and 4 were some of the single best episodes I’ve ever seen. The comedy was funny, the romance was cute, and the interaction between the characters indicated progression towards a relationship-driven romance series – by the second episode, the two characters had confessed towards each other, and I honestly thought we were going to get a series about characters ACTUALLY in a relationship, as opposed to the typical romance series where two characters ‘struggle’ to discover their feelings, full of drama and ‘misunderstandings’. I was really excited to see where this series was going…

.. only to be totally disappointed. We’re at episode 9, and slowly but surely, the show has decended into your typical romance: Full of ‘misunderstandings, characters clearly like each other but try to deny it, oscillating between hot and cold. There are still many great things about the show, of course. I’m not too big a fan of Haru, but otherwise I love the characters, and the animation, while not big budget, is great (I love the way they draw the cartoony reaction faces and whatnot). I also like the soundtrack. However, I absolutely cannot conceal my disappointment in this show – The first 4 episodes were glorious, but I cannot deny that it has dropped off significantly from that.

6.75/10

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!, or, as I just call it, chuuni. The best show this sesason. Great animation, great characters, and absolutely hilarious. The show itself has kind of a suzumiya haruhi feel to me (except without kyon) – The first 5 or 6 episodes just plain silliness and pure fun. Of course, inevitably, the show had to turn to a more serious tone. How did it do? Surprisingly, not too bad. The romance seems pretty decent as well – for ONCE no harem or even love triangle. The drama wasn’t too overdone – I did have some trouble believing that a student in high school could realistically have delusions like that, but whatever – it makes for fun situations, so I’ll let it slide.

8/10

My feelings towards Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo would be, what I would say, opposite of what I feel towards Tonari no kaibutsu kun. I didn’t like it too much at first, but now it’s grown on me, and I enjoy it quite a bit. The drama and romance, while not spectacular by any means, is alright. Besides dealing in romance, they also deal in other issues like chasing your dreams (and how sometimes they’re not realistic), or dealing with success (and failure), especially in face of failure amongst your peers (or vice versa). Nothing incredibly original or amazing again, but still pretty decent, in my opinion. I think it’s also worth noting that this show is produced by the same studio as Little Busters, but the budget for this show is NOTICEABLY larger. While the latter is filled with still frames, the animation is for this show is, in my opinion, actually pretty amazing. A lot of care is put into detail, and backgrounds look amazing.
The characters are pretty cool across the board, for the most part – I’m not sold on the MC, and I’m not a huge fan of the genki-girl senpai (and I hope the loli imouto never shows up again), but to be honest, even the female main character, who I didn’t like at first, has grown on me considerably. Best character in the show (maybe season?) is still the following though:

7.5/10

If I had to describe magi in one word, it would be fun. It’s not deep or mind blowing, the characters aren’t very developed (so far). The writing, while not full of holes and stupidity, has it’s fair share of kinks. The show does a great job, though, with it’s adventuring atmosphere. I’d recommend this show as a ‘fun’ watch – don’t expect anything amazing, but I personally find it quite an enjoyable show.
7/10