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I wound up rambling a bit too much but heck, here it goes Re:Zero - Contained some very light novel-y as heck exposition vomit that was really turning me off, and while I might have watched more out of curiosity over its popularity, a tornado hit while I was in the middle of the second episode (technically third, as its premiere was double-length) and I took it as a sign that I shouldn't watch any more Re:Zero. Macross Delta - It's hard for me to nail down exactly what I disliked about this show, because it was pretty much every minute I watched. I'm a big Macross fan and while I'm absolutely not opposed to seeing entries getting a bit wild instead of sticking to its roots (My favorite entry, after all, features a rock band fighting space demons with sound lasers), it just didn't do anything for me. Though I suppose the same could be said for how I felt about a lot of Kawamori's output during this decade. Hated the characters, the art direction, the CG felt many years out of date, and I didn't even like the music which is a real bummer since I've enjoyed some of the songs in even the weaker parts of the franchise. Despite all that I might have given it another chance if I heard good things about the ending, but instead a lot of what I heard was that the first few episodes were the strongest by far, and since I hated those I figured no sense in dwelling on it. Better luck next time, and I'm hoping that by then Kawamori finally steps away from the franchise. Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans - I felt that G-Reco, the prior Gundam series, was one of the best things to happen to the franchise in nearly 15 years. But despite that, I had some hopes for this show. The main folks in charge weren't from Sunrise's usual stable of mecha directors/writers. And it looked like it was going for a grittier, more grounded story than recent entries to the franchise, so I had hoped it would be a breath of fresh air. And for the early episodes, it was! The opening episodes were violent in a way that wasn't ceremonious, deaths would be sudden and there wouldn't be time for any melodrama. Unfortunately after awhile it runs into a problem similar to Attack On Titan. Once the core cast is firmly established, the illusion that they're living in a dangerous, gritty setting in which they could die at any moment just goes right out the window. I've noticed that one of the reoccurring problems in the weaker Okada scripts I've seen is that the character drama winds up feeling very artificial, and when it comes to important character deaths IBO is no exception. There's a character death that happens in the middle of the show. It's a character that has been around for a lot of episodes up to that point. She wasn't given much in the way of development or backstory until the episode she dies. It's a real hokey bit of writing that crops up in anime from time to time; a lengthy flashback meant to make you feel sympathetic right before they die. It's not inherently bad writing but the way it's usually handled is. To the show's credit, the other major character that was killed off had plenty of development before then, though the main complaint you can levy against that particular death is that killing off the fat guy is a hoary old mecha anime cliche. Despite that I stuck with it, and the season finale dashed any remaining hopes. A combination of being unwilling to kill off anyone important (the final battle kills off named characters so tertiary that you probably didn't even know they had names, while putting named characters in equally dangerous situations that escape with barely a scratch), adhering to some old Gundam plot points without understanding what made them work in the first place, and an antagonist whose motives are so shrouded in mystery that I'm not even sure the people making the dang show knew what's up with him during that first season. It was the sort of ending that I felt okay on initially but every time I thought about it since it aired I disliked it more and more, to the point where I'm not even going to bother with the second season no matter what I hear about it. Dishonorable Mentions: Erased - I don't think this is a bad anime by any means, in fact I'd call it pretty decent overall! But talking about disappointing shows is a way more interesting topic than stuff that's outright bad, since the actual worst anime are all boring as heck to watch and boring as heck to talk about. Erased had an explosive start. The great direction combined a solid visual motif with impeccable pacing such that it really makes you want to watch the next episode ASAP. And for a show with such reliance on suspense, that's a real important trait to have! The first two thirds are thrilling, as our protagonist with the power to go back in time to his younger self uses his knowledge of the future to try to stop a string of local murders. It's the best part of the show by far and if the whole series kept that quality up I definitely wouldn't be talking about it here. Unfortunately, once the murderer is revealed a lot of what I liked went straight out the window. It's probably a cliche to refer to that one Stephen King essay about how the scariest monster is the one that's not revealed, but hell, it absolutely applies here. There's a lot of talk by the murderer telling the protagonist that they're both alike, that they're linked together, etc. But it all rings hollow to the point where it feels completely undeserved and unsatisfying. And while I have no problem with an anime being blatant about the power of friendship being used to save the day, here it feels a little too on the nose. The final stretch of episodes is far from the worst dive in quality I've seen in anime, not by a long shot. But it's a bummer to see a show go from being an incredibly compelling piece of work that I could universally recommend without any caveats, to an alright show that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth when I think about how its last arc went down. Concrete Revolutio - The very definition of a show I really wanted to like more than I actually did. Season one had some strong standalone episodes but while the overarching plot aimed high, it wound up having some very mixed messages and an overall unwillingness to fully commit. Despite that I still felt positive enough about the standalone content to continue on to season two. Unfortunately that season amplified both the stuff I liked and the stuff I didn't. Many of the standalone episodes were stronger than the first, but the overarching plot was a complete mess that didn't seem to know quite what it wanted to be until the very end in a way that felt like they changed plans between seasons (Stuff like aliens that possessed people and were controlling the government was resolved in a way that definitely felt like that). The political messages of the first season wind up getting swapped for a message that anime and manga aren't just for children, delivered by one of those lame types of anime villains that had been behind the scenes making mysterious plans in the background for the entire seasons, so it was a slap in the face to see its ultimate message boiled down to that. It's the sort of thing where even though I wouldn't call it a bad show, the cons were such that by the end of it all I guess it just burnt me out on watching current anime for awhile. Most Avoided: Thunderbolt Fantasy and Keijo. The former because while the puppet stuff sounded neat, I was wary that it would be yet another Urobuchi script and then I heard confirmation that it was indeed, yet another Urobuchi script. With the latter, even ignoring the discourse around the show the examples I've seen of the show's humor were incredibly unfunny to me to the point where it completely turned me away.
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Dec 26, 2016 17:13
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AnoHito posted:Careful, last time a series of real life disasters stopped me from watching a popular show, it was Toradora and it was great. I've come to the conclusion that god doesn't want people to watch good anime. Also you should give Re:Zero another shot. It gets really good and pretty much does the opposite of what IBO did in terms of writing as the series goes on in that the violence is always grim and you never feel that the main characters are "safe." I will say that if I had been enjoying it up to that point I wouldn't let something like a tornado stop me from watching more, but that didn't wind up being the case. Mostly just mentioned it since it's something I'll always associate with the show haha.
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Dec 26, 2016 17:50
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kater posted:I don't see the point of hating a show unless you watch the whole thing. If you have it in you to stop you should just do that. That doesn't mean you can't have an opinion on the parts you saw!
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Jan 1, 2017 15:06
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Cake Attack posted:Back when love Hina was relevant there were always people who insisted the manga was like a masterpiece and the anime was just a pale shadow of it and well, I'm taking a stand 10 years later and saying I don't believe them If we talk in purely relative terms then heck, sure the manga is better than the anime by comparison I guess?
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Jan 13, 2017 00:48
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