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

Second Mid-season anime review!! by jampopo

Hey guys! I’m back, woohoo~~ Sorry for being absent for this whole time.. I.. have no excuse.. x_x” Though I’m back right now! And that’s freakin’ good news right guys? Yea? Woo..hoo~~

Anyways let’s get straight to this mid-season anime review!!~

First off, it’s Shin Sekai Yori/ From the New World. (Note, the orders on this list are randomized.)

This anime (so far) talks about a group of teens who, with their telekinetic power, slowly uncovers dark secrets of their current peaceful, utopian village set on mother earth in the far future. The anime starts to get strong at around episode 4, but slowly drifts to being a weak anime with hardly any greater climaxes in the next few episodes. The visual art style isn’t too bad, but the animation quality takes a huge slump at around episode 5 or 6. With such a great setting in a fantasy world, and with the incredible start, I expected the story to continue being dark and interesting. Sadly, that didn’t happen. It also didn’t help that the characters are a bit too generic, but hey, some yaoi + yuri action goes on later, so if you’re into that… wink wink. Personally it was a great disappointment to me that the plot didn’t advance a whole lot since episode 4, but things are starting to look up as the story seems to pointing towards an interesting turn now. Here’s to hoping for more intense contents \(o_o)/

Art: 6/10
Animation: 5/10
Characters: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 8/10

Shin Sekai Yori Mid-season evaluation: 6/10

Next up is Psycho Pass.

This anime is set in a futuristic world where our psychological state is judged by a computer system, which assists the Inspectors of this anime to predict and capture potential or active criminals. The anime is my action-anime choice of the season (though, granted, I’m actually only watching 4 animes this season). Its scenes are focused on chasing criminals, with a bit of detective work. The art style is actually pretty nice, though I can’t understand why the main female character has a different sort-of look compared to the other characters. The story is fairly strong, though I really hope the whole psycho pass computer system will be explained clearly later on. This anime isn’t super good, but it’s not disappointing too. Characters are mildly interesting, though there seems to be more stories about the characters that have yet to be mentioned. An anime I’d keep an eye out for if I was looking for something casual to watch.

Art: 7/10
Animation: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Story: 8/10
Music: 8/10

Psycho Pass Mid-season evaluation: 7.5/10

Third is Robotic;Notes.

The anime encircles around the robotics club and Kaito, the lazy main character who doesn’t mind working, as long as he is beaten in his favorite game by the person who’s asking him a favour. I am not sure why, but every week, I’m looking forward to another episode of Robotic;Notes the most out of all the animes I’m watching. I’m a great fan of Steins;Gate, the previous project of the same studio who’s making Robotic;Notes, and so I’m expecting quite a bit from this anime. The characters are generic, though the two main characters have a condition that either slows or fast forwards time for them, which is rather interesting. The story just started picking up, so we could expect more to come soon (hopefully~). Visuals are nice, bright and vibrant. Hopefully, we’ll see a very rich story coming out from this anime.

Art: 8/10
Animation: 7/10
Characters: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 7/10

Robotic;Notes Mid-season evaluation: 7/10

Lastly, we have Tonari no Kaibutsu kun.

This anime is about the romantic relationship between the hardworking Shizuku and the smart but.. dumb Haru. (Btw no, there’s neither bondage nor anything that has to do with chains in this anime… so far.) My comedy anime for this season, this anime is definitely hilarious. Filled with unreal comedic scenes, the anime invites shounen anime-watchers to also enjoy this shoujo anime. Although the romance in this anime seems rather… push-and-pull, tug-of-war-ish, it is still a comfortable watch that will surely make you smile at several moments. The visual style is rather colorful, and the characters are interesting for sure. This might be an anime you’d want to pin down on your list of to-watch-later-on. If you’re a guy, don’t worry. It’s not THAAAT lovey dovey if you’re worried about that.

Art: 8/10
Animation: 7/10
Characters: 9/10
Story: 7/10
Music: 7/10

Tonari no Kaibutsu kun Mid-season evaluation: 7.8/10

Annnnnnnnd that’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed reading through this list. We will probably get into more details on several of these animes, so continue keeping an eye out for our blog, and hope you’ll enjoy your stay. Tomorrow our new member will post his mid-season anime review, so please check that out! Thaaaaaank you!