Anime Winter Season 2014 Preview

It’s January, which means a new season of anime is here.

Now, I had a post for yesterday but it didn't seem to post, so we'll hold off on that one for another time. But for today, it's time to get the early season impressions out of the way. 

The new season debuts have been completed and the season is fully underway. I’ve seen most of the new shows now and have compiled my list of shows I hope to follow, although given my real-world commitments I can’t be sure how much I’ll actually be able to keep up with.

Generally I prefer to have the shows spread out fairly evenly throughout the week. If I can I like to watch a show on the day it debuts. However, as it stands, Thursday is a fairly heavy day of premiere episodes, so I can already predict I will end up pushing a number of its episodes around. Tuesdays and Fridays may end up being catch up days (Tuesday more likely than Friday) as they each have only two premieres. Hopefully I won’t have to temporarily drop anything just because I don’t have the time.

Okay, the first major disappointment of the season for me is Pupa. I had heard a lot about how long the chapters of the manga were, how it was a really surreal and rather extreme horror story. Given that when it comes to pushing the boundaries in anime we usually get more in the way of pushing the allowance of ecchi content, not really in horror. Given that I was looking forward to see how this show would be presented. I started watching the first episode and things started to happen all over the place… for a minute or two. Then the episode was over. Really, both for the type of show this was supposed to be, and for a horror anime in general, a series of episodes only four or five minutes long, including the opening and ending, just isn’t going to work at all.

In general my policy is to skip shorts like this until the entire run is complete and I can burn through them all at once. That might help raise the bar on this disappointment a little, but you’ll never know since chances are I won’t be reviewing it with my usual reviews in late March, early April.

An interesting quirk to this season is the arrival of the two Nobunaga anime. It isn’t that having two Nobunaga anime premiere at the same time is that unusual. In fact you’d have a hard time spitting into the past and not hitting a season with an Nobunaga derived anime. But the two this season – Nobunaga the Fool and Nobunagun – seem to have emerged from the same planning meeting.

Producer: “We want to make a new anime,”

Writer A: “How about one featuring Nobunaga?”

Producer: “Again? Guys come on, haven’t we done that to death already? Aren’t there any other historical figures we can work with?”

Writer B: “That Galileo one last season didn’t do so hot~”

Writer A: “How about we have a bunch of historical figures alongside Nobunaga?”

Producer: “How’d that work?”

Writer A: “How about… like, a descendant of Nobunaga and a bunch of other people meet in the present. We could have them join together and fight off these weird alien robots or monsters,”

Producer: “Hmm…”

Writer B: “How about an alternate reality with space travel and giant robots?”

Producer: “Hmm… why don’t we take a stab at both ideas?”

So we end up with two anime about Nobunaga interacting with other famous people across history. If you’ve ever seen Jubei-chan: The Ninja Girl, Nobunagun is very similar. A girl awakens to the fact that she is the descendant of Nobunaga and is taken over by his spirit to fight against some kind of invading monsters. Nobunaga the Fool is more an alternate reality type deal, almost similar to Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere. Neither is particularly stunning in its delivery, but from its nature I expect Nobunagun will get more attention, partially riding the coat tails of Kill la Kill because of their nature as being fast-paced and high action series.

There are 28 anime that I will be watching this season that either began this winter or in the fall, again, not counting shorts. Roughly a third to a fourth of those are continuations from the fall. Winter isn’t particularly known for having a blockbuster lineup. But can produce particular gems. Very few people had any inkling that Madoka Magica would turn out to be much. Yet it erupted into one of the biggest franchises in a while. So, you never know. Be on the look out; one of these could turn out to be a masterpiece.

One last thing to keep in mind is the state of change with Funimation. Staring this season, Funimation has shifted its simulcast rules such that you need an Elite subscription ($7.95 a month here in the states) to see any simulcast the week it premieres. Otherwise you have to wait until a week later to see it. While this is all but identical to Crunchyroll’s model, it is more than a bit of a nuisance. For one that would mean another subscription. As noted, it’s about $8 dollars a month (there’s no discount for buying multi-month or full year subscriptions either), making it more expensive than Crunchy. Furthermore if your overriding interest is in new season simulcasts, even at just the max number of simulcasts each has, Funi has only four this season (not counting the likes of One Piece or Toriko) while Crunchy has over 20, including a movie which they already aired. That means you’re paying extra for Funi, while getting much less content. Or look at it like this; a 1-year subscription to Funi’s EVS is $95.40, a Crunchy Anime 1-year subscription is $59.95. Throw $5 on the EVS money and you could get a full year of Crunchy All-Access, which adds access to a growing manga library and Japanese dramas, including at least one simulcast this season.

Of course the argument from Funi’s standpoint, which does hold some validity, is that their Elite subscription allows viewing of a number of shows from their library you otherwise couldn’t see, as well as the dubs of everything they’ve got a dub for. In that regard there is arguably greater parity, if not greater value, with Funi. Of course if you’re used to getting the free look, and moreover, as in my case, aren’t terribly interested in Funi’s past library, there isn’t a lot of enticement to catch at a new subscription. I may end up just watching everything from Funi a week later as I’ve already started doing this season. I personally don’t see the value in a Funi subscription right now.

Monday:

Gundam Build Fighters, The Pilot’s Love Song, Soni-Ani Super Sonico the Animation, Buddy Complex, D-Frag

Tuesday:

Tokyo Ravens, Hamatora

Wednesday:

Phi Brain Season 3, Witch Craft Works, Love Chunibyo and Other Delusions, Inari Konkon Koi Iroha

Thursday:

Kill la Kill, Golden Time, Nagi no Asakura, Engaged to the Unidentified, Z/X Ignition, Hozuki no Reitetsu, Magical Warfare

Friday:

Strike the Blood, Wake Up Girls, Nourin

Saturday:

Log Horizon, Recently My Sister is Unusual, Seitokai Yakuindomo Season 2, Space Dandy, Nisekoi, World Conquest Zvezda Plot

Sunday:

Nobunaga the Fool, Nobunagun, Noragami, Saki – The Nationals, Wizard Barristers

That's all for today. See you next week.