By now, the new season has started to air and all the new shows have reached the first checkpoint of 3 episodes. Now before we get into the list, let me explain the rules first! I have made a Top-list for this season, saying which Anime I liked best and which one was rather bad. For the actual list, I have only chosen those shows that I have watched up to the last episode that aired before I wrote this reaction, meaning that anything I have dropped during this season is getting mentioned, but not listed (it won’t get a number)! Also if there are second season in this chart, I am only going to talk about it’s currently airing season!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, my top 16 shows for the Fall Season of 2013, based on the first 3 episodes.
16: Nagi no Asukara:
Nagi no Asukara is another one of those shows, that actually don’t do a lot wrong, but rather have one or two huge mistakes that seem to ruin it. For this show, one of the things that I really don’t like about it, is the main character. While at times being a character that doesn’t seem bad, but rather being a pretty reasonable young boy, he often just annoys me. Whenever he gets angry and starts arguing with people, it gets really hard to understand why the hell he is losing it. Otherwise the show is perfectly fine so far. The characters are decent for the most part and even though there is no stand out one and everyone seems to be a little boring to watch at times, there is still plenty of time for them to develop. Another huge plus point for the show is it’s theme, being the acceptance of other cultures which I do really like, as it gives a lot of room to toy with different kinds of situations. The art for this show looks amazing, especially the backgrounds. P.A. Works once again shows, just how good they are at making an Anime look good! The OST is quite decent while not being overwhelming either.
15: Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova:
The reason why this is ranked higher than Nagi no Asukara shall always be unknown…no seriously though, I myself don’t have any idea why I like this more than the underwater Anime I just talked about, even though it technically should be a lot worse. Getting to the first thing that really annoys me in this show: The CGI! This show looks bad! Really bad! Not that the animation itself is outstandingly bad, but the Studio, being Sanzigen seems to really adore CGI-Animation. Unfortunately, I myself am not that big of a fan, if it doesn’t look good. And guess what…it doesn’t. Which is weird, considering this is done by the same studio that produced the Black Rock Shooter TV Series, which had amazing CG. The characters for this show aren’t really special and did only get brief screentime as far as the supporting cast goes. The two main characters are focused on a lot more, which frustrates me, as it probably would do the show a little better if they gave the minor characters a little more screen time since the main duo doesn’t look too interesting to me, especially the main character. What probably keeps me watching this Anime is the premise, which I so far really like as well as the fights, that are well coordinated and nicely done, giving an atmosphere of an actual ship battle just in a lot more fun.
14: Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta
For this show I have one particular problem that I just don’t really get. The show has a weird preference to quite often jump to really dark passages, making you a) wonder what the f*ck is going on and b) look forward to more dark passages in the future, since the darker parts actually are really well executed. Unfortunately though, it often doesn’t get explained just what happened and the viewer is left with confusion for the rest of the episode.
Also the show really likes to go back to a really light hearted part, directly after showing something really dark, leaving that one scene as a single dark part in a quite light hearted show, making me wonder what the show wanted to accomplish with it. That probably is my biggest problems with this show. I just don’t really get what is going on at times. From what we have seen so far, I can say that there was happening a whole lot, but I never really did get a proper explanation for why it even happened. We don’t really have any villains that we know (except for the two that got only a few seconds of screentime each) and we don’t really know a lot about the characters. I am hoping that the show is going for a character of the week style though, as the characters are really interesting to watch and the interactions are a lot of fun to see!
13: Non Non Biyori:
It is no secret I guess that I am a Moe Zombie! I freaking love K-On, I love Love Lab (No pun intended) and I love every moe that is well done (KyoAni ftw <3)! And as I love it that much, there was no doubt about me at least liking this show a little, if the humor was done well and it really is! So far I really do enjoy to watch the girls doing their stuff and I think it is pretty funny. But honestly, it didn’t grab me as much as other moe shows like Lucky Star or K-On did, but is something that I can smile about, while not really bursting out laughing. It is definitely a good show so far, but nothing that really stands out to me.
12: Gundam Build Fighters:
Shows like Yu-Gi-Oh or the original Dragonball have been stuck in our minds, eversince they they got popular in the west and even though the genre of tournament shounen is getting rare, we finally did get a fighting Anime that is only focused on the tournament. With Gundam Build Fighters coming along as a show that can be described as fanservice for every Gundam Fan and a pretty decent show for everyone else. Unfortunately I belong to the second group, as I have never seen any Gundam at all. But even though I originally thought that most of the fun in watching this show wuold only be accesable to the hardcore Gundam lovers, the show was a lot more enjoyable than I thought. The battles look amazing and the characters are quite interesting as well, even though I had to laugh at some of the stupd stereotypes, such as the old man…I do really like what Sunrise is doing here and it makes me want to watch Gundam soon.
11: Coppelion:
When I saw Coppelion on the seasonal chart, I was really confused, since I didn’t really know the reason for this project to have already been stopped in the past. What irritated me the most though, was the fact that it wasn’t even grown adults who were going into a highly radioactive area, but highschool kids and as we know Anime, it likes to produce something really lighthearted about every single topic, however serious it might be. That is what I thought about Coppelion and while I was hoping for this show not to do the thing that I expected it to do, being it failing horribly due to them not taking the matter seriously, I kept my hopes low. I am pretty happy about where the show turned out to go now, as it goes into a rather serious direction, that has lighthearted elements to it and so far I do quite enjoy it. The biggest problem that I have with the show for now, are the characters. There is not a lot wrong with the three main characters so far and I did get quite attached to them, even though they are a little cliched and at times don’t really seem to fit into the shows setting. But the minor characters, which are the main source of the Drama accuring aren’t really interesting so far, leading to a Drama that l honestly can’t care about, as much as I would like to! I do enjoy the show itself but only to an extent.
10: Kill la Kill:
I guess I will have quite some people bitching at me for this one…Kill la Kill is the by far most hyped show for this season and people seem to really enjoy this show for one reason. As it is by the same guys that also did Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which was incredibly popular as well and really well known for it being mindless fun. Kill la kill seems to be a lot like it’s predecessor Gurren Lagann and seems to be just as much mindless fun as the latter one was, but I personally can’t really see the appeal. It is flashy, it is over the top and it is quite funny at times and while I definitely do enjoy it for how mindless it is, I can’t really say that I like it as much as others do. The characters seem pretty dull the story is really meh and whatever they are saying makes no sense. As this is what the Anime wants to accomplish though, I probably should give it credits for just how well it does it. To me though, it is fun to watch, but nothing that would hurt not watching!
9: NouCome: Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru:
This….is….weird…Not only the name is damn long, but the show itself is really weird, but in a surprisingly good way! The premise alone is something that makes it worth watching the show, as it makes really curious about how they are going to get it working, but as soon as the show starts, I really started enjoying it. The premise while being really weird works a lot better than I thought it would and the humor of the show really did get me laughing a lot. The characters are pretty blant so far, but all pretty enjoyable nontheless. The humor at some points in time is pretty dark though and it is hard to watch it without pausing, which kind of ruins the experience for me at some points in time since it just feels really awkward to watch. It is the same feeling I l had watching WataMote from last season, just not as bad.
8: Kyoukai no Kanata:
I probably wouldn’t have started this show, if it wasn’t for the Production Company behind this being Kyoto Animation and eversince I finished watching Chuunibyou I pretty much turned into a KyoAni fanboy. As for Kyoukai no Kanata, I really do enjoy it and after seeing four episodes of it, as it seems to be pretty interesting. The premise of the show, while at first seeming a little overused, looks quite interesting to me personally and as far as the characters go, I am interested in most of them. The main heroine of the show, while being a moe stereotype is really likeable and the one of the few problems I had with the show got resolved in the latest episode, being the main character being really boring. The biggest plus for this show though, probably is the animation done by KyoAni, as it looks bloody amazing! The fights are really fluent and the animation really detailed. The characterdesigns are really moe influenced, but that is to be expected from a Kyoto Animation show. I do however like, that they are finally going in a dircetion away from their slice of Life moe style.
7: Galilei Donna:
This is another show that I only decided to watch the second I saw that it came out and so far I am pretty happy that I did start it! While rest of the show of course wasn’t bad either, the thing that I personally liked the most was the first half episode, as it had an atmosphere of great suspense and really well done scenes cut into each other. I absolutely loved the direction of that part an while everything else was done pretty well too, it was that part that kept me hoping that something like that was going to come back. It of course still has time to do so, but as far as I watched it, it didnt. The story for this show so far, has been pretty intriguing and the characters are interesting, making for a pretty cool experience and I do really enjoy it so far. We don’t really know anything and I am definitely interested to learn more about Galileo’s Inheritance and what there is about it!
6: Machine Doll wa Kisutsukanai:
Machine Doll is another Anime that my expectations were really low for, but that pleasently surprised me. Starting off as rather weird, with Yaya being a character that really says some damn perverted stuff and some scenes that leaves the imagination of the viewer to interpret what just happened…if you know what I mean! The mystery that the show presents is pretty cool though and I like the way they executed it so far. The story in total was well done and the world the show is set in is well fleshed out and thought through. The characters for the most part are pretty interesting, leaving a lot of mystery at this point as well, since we really don’t know a lot about some characters that actually seem to be really important! The Animation though is something that looks a little weird, since there is a lot of CGI in there that often looks really out of place and even the faces of the characters look really static at times, so much that it sometimes is really hard to distinguish how they are feeling about their current situation. In total I can see a lot of potential in this show, tbat i hope is not going to be wasted!
6: Log Horizon:
As many others, I went into this show expecting a badly executed SAO clone, that would either only be a little better than it’s impopular predessecor or even worse. What I got though, was something I really didn’t expect! The setting is really well executed, making the world of Elder Tale a really interesting one, which it mostly does by adding one thing: Game Mechanics! The Anime keeps really original to how a game works. That is something no other VR-Anime has explored so far and adds a lot of pretty cool moments to it. Instead of dull hitting each other and boring fights, the main characters are winning by defeating their enemies with tactics. Speaking of the characters, they do seem quite interesting and while there still is a lot of mystery about their gaming past, they are really likeable. The only thing that displeases me a little so far, is the type of story they seem to be going for, which is really episodic and it might take a while before we get to see the more serious stuff!
4: Golden Time:
Golden Time is another great example of an Anime that I didn’t think would be good that suddenly turned out to be one of the best! Being written by the same person that wrote Toradora, of course there was something to expect, but I personally haven’t seen Toradora, making me go into this show blindly. So far I really did like it and the characters are a lot of fun to watch. The show features a wide cast of characters and for the most part, they are really interesting. Ranging from the obsessive one, to the really nice one, every single character got a little bit of screentime and I hope they will keep getting more as the show goes on since I do like a of them. The main character while annoying me a little at first did get a lot better as well and after the most recent episode, I started to really like him.
3: Strike the Blood:
I only recently finished a pretty good show, with the name of To Aru Majutsu no Index and even though I don’t really want to start talking about that one, I can safely say that I really liked it, which was mostly thanks to it’s style of pacing. Strike the Blood now, could honestly be considered an Index spin-off, if it wasn’t for me to know that those two were written and published by entirely different people and another Index spin-off never getting announced. The two shows so far show a lot of similarity, not only plot and setting wise, where it already is pretty close, but in it’s pacing as well. The climaxing in Strike the Blood is done exactly the same way as it was in Index and the slower parts of the show do feel the same way! The thing that makes this a slightly better show, is that the main character really has been a lot better than Index’, which doesn’t mean a lot though. I do really enjoy strike the Blood and hope they will keep the good pacing and ark style they seem to be going for!
2: Kakumeike Valvrave 2nd Season:
After finishing the first season of Valvrave, I was really surprised, by the sheer amount of fun that I had while watching it, even though the plot was horrible and the characters as unbelievable as it was possible. I did really enjoy it, probably most due to the fact that I am a sucker for epic giant mecha fights. With the second season now having started, I can safely say, that while it still doesn’t deserve the hype it gets to me, that they put a lot more effort in the first 2 episodes, than they did in season 1. I can finally care about the characters and while still being really melodramatic, I do really enjoy it! The fights are as awesome as before and the plot just keeps bombing stuff from every region of Anime to us. It shows that while being a clusterfuck of pretty much everything that Anime is able to give us (the moe part is missing though), it is really enjoyable and I certainly will have a lot of fun following this show!
And the number 1 spot of the Fall 2013 Impressions goes to:
Outbreak Company!
Outbreak Companz is something that I started watching for the sole perpose of wanting to know, how they would be able to execute the concept! I started watching it with the expectation of getting your usual fanservice heavy, moe influenced show that’s only actual plus point would be the reference humor that would be expected from a show like this. But what I got, was what I was expecting (except the fanservice) and a lot more. We do have quite some moe influenced characters, ranging from the clumsy and cute girl to the flat-chested little tsundere. We do have a lot of reference humor and hidden references and posters to Anime that either are popular right (*cough* Attack on Titan *cough*) or have been popular for a long period of time, but we also get a lot of really serious stuff and many situations that are a lot more serious than I would have expected from a show like this! The biggest thing that this Anime shows, is the differences that always exist between two cultures and how hard it is to overcome them. The society of the fantasy world that the show is set in being completely different to what our society in this world is like. The show really goes in depth about that and shows many differences, like equality that doesn’t exist in the medieval like world. It is really good at presenting all those strong themes, due to a really strong character cast so far, with the three characters that did get a the most focus so far, as every single one of them is written amazingly well and they’re actions are really logical and easy to follow. They are really likeable and while there are situations, when it really seems to escalate, it is easy to forgive the characters for everything bad they seem to have done, as it actually is just normal for them. Those are the reasons I think that this Anime so far is the best for this season and I am really looking forward to seeing more of it!
Related articles:
- Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova: First Impression (korisanime.wordpress.com)
- Non Non Biyori: First Reaction (korisanime.wordpress.com)
- Nagi no Asukara: First Impression (korisanime.wordpress.com)
- Coppelion: First Impression (korisanime.wordpress.com)
- Kill la Kill: First Impression (korisanime.wordpress.com)
