Spring 2014 Anime Season Preview
It's finally time. Here we go, with my preview of the new anime season, only a couple weeks late.
Spring is when things start to heat up. If you've lived pretty much anywhere in the U.S north of Miami this winter, hearing that it's heating up is probably a godsend right now, although if you're one of the many locales that received another in the endless rounds of snow again yesterday, saying it's spring is a joke.
But the calendar at least says it's spring, and the weather aside the offerings from the anime front seem to convey that sentiment too. Many shows from this past winter season were merely decent. They were middle of the pack, not terrible, but not that great either. So far there are many shows this spring that seem to be high quality, and some that... aren't.
First off, the bad ones. Really, there is only one "bad" anime so far this season. I was not a big fan of Nobunaga the Fool. Dai-Shogun - Great Revolution is worse. the story is ignorant, the characters are ignorant, and the animation style looks like a flash anime. It's low quality, period. It's apparently supposed to be a comedy, but it's so bland. It tries to go for the dirty jokes, but it comes off as purely crass. You want a show with dirty jokes and comedy, Seitokai Yakuindomo from last season is much better. I give every show at least three episodes to convince me, but don't count on a review of this one by the end of the season. It's probably gonna get dropped.
Funimation has, once again, secured a few of the shows with the most hype coming into the season. Riddle Story of Devil is one of the more hyped series. It has a very dark atmosphere that is reminiscent of Another. I think most are going to be more apt to compare it to Danganronpa because of the similar setup, though I think Danganronpa's focus on dark humor is different from Riddle's straight dark mystery.
Selector Infected WIXOSS has a strange title, but it has a feel very similar to Madoka Magica, or probably more appropriately like Day Break Illusion from last summer. Overall its feel is murky - it's dark, but you can see how they might not keep it that way too.
Soul Eater Not is a spin-off of the Soul Eater story. I don't have a lot of hope for it. The original Soul Eater anime started off good, but you could tell, even without reading the manga, when it started to deviate. When it did the story just got lost in itself. I'm not one of those that think an anime must always stay true to the source material, but when it does deviate I only ask that it do a good job. I don't know how far the manga for Not goes, but at the moment I don't have great faith they'll stay on course or do a particularly good job at deviating with what I believe to be an only somewhat interesting story to begin with.
Of the Crunchyroll set, the return of Fairy Tail is the real juggernaut. They picked up the story right where the first series took its break. The series never really had a huge problem with deviating from the manga. The art style wasn't quite in line with the magna, which I thought was reasonable to expect, but they've changed it to match now. The big question for the series is how long it will stick around this time. From my understanding the manga hasn't gotten terribly farther ahead than where the anime left off before, so it won't be too long before it catches up again. That means either taking another break or a lot of fillers - both things I think are fine if done right, but which "fans" in general tend to have little patience for.
Love Live School Idol has a new season. So far it kinda suffers that "2nd season syndrome" that many shows suffer. Usually it's when a show with a bit of eechi content goes overboard in the second season at the expense of story and plot. For Love Live it's more like they dialed up the attempt at a comedic side a bit too high, to the point that the show seems a bit off. Things sorta evened out a little better in episode two, but so far season two looks to be worse than a fairly decent season one.
Brynhildr in the Darkness is another dark series for this spring. The director is the same one behind Elfin Lied, to give you a sense of where this will go. The manga has a tragedy tag, so expect some emotional heavy lifting. So far as the first couple episodes we've already seen one very cruel, fairly graphic, death. It is a good story, but it is also gonna be very depressing, so be prepared.
The Irregular at Magic High School sounds like another likely "Magical Warfare" but the manga and light novel are not at all the same. The story does have a few head-scratching aspects - sorta like "why would that happen" sorta things - that seem to be more inconsistent writing than designed mystery elements, but it should be a good story nonetheless. It kinds starts off rather slowly but should pick up the pace by episode 6 or so. I don't know that the story as set up is any deeper, but the execution here is at the very least much better.
Mekakucity Actors is one of those shows that I feel will annoy me. I feel like it will have a lot of cool moments, but the main characters are gonna say or do stupid things that everyone is gonna be amped and excited about, but that I at least will personally think they shouldn't be excited for. Like a depressing "I hate the world" diatribe of a series that everyone is going to say, "yeah, that's so deep and they're right", while I sit here thinking how ignorant and idiotic it is. I don't know, it's interesting so far, and I've no idea where the story is going, so for me it could be a nice upside surprise.
Well, that's it for the in-depth preview. I've added a new page titled "Anime Following". It will be updated every three months (every anime season) to reflect which anime I am watching that season and which streaming outlet I am viewing them on. Hope you enjoy the season.
Spring is when things start to heat up. If you've lived pretty much anywhere in the U.S north of Miami this winter, hearing that it's heating up is probably a godsend right now, although if you're one of the many locales that received another in the endless rounds of snow again yesterday, saying it's spring is a joke.
But the calendar at least says it's spring, and the weather aside the offerings from the anime front seem to convey that sentiment too. Many shows from this past winter season were merely decent. They were middle of the pack, not terrible, but not that great either. So far there are many shows this spring that seem to be high quality, and some that... aren't.
First off, the bad ones. Really, there is only one "bad" anime so far this season. I was not a big fan of Nobunaga the Fool. Dai-Shogun - Great Revolution is worse. the story is ignorant, the characters are ignorant, and the animation style looks like a flash anime. It's low quality, period. It's apparently supposed to be a comedy, but it's so bland. It tries to go for the dirty jokes, but it comes off as purely crass. You want a show with dirty jokes and comedy, Seitokai Yakuindomo from last season is much better. I give every show at least three episodes to convince me, but don't count on a review of this one by the end of the season. It's probably gonna get dropped.
Funimation has, once again, secured a few of the shows with the most hype coming into the season. Riddle Story of Devil is one of the more hyped series. It has a very dark atmosphere that is reminiscent of Another. I think most are going to be more apt to compare it to Danganronpa because of the similar setup, though I think Danganronpa's focus on dark humor is different from Riddle's straight dark mystery.
Selector Infected WIXOSS has a strange title, but it has a feel very similar to Madoka Magica, or probably more appropriately like Day Break Illusion from last summer. Overall its feel is murky - it's dark, but you can see how they might not keep it that way too.
Soul Eater Not is a spin-off of the Soul Eater story. I don't have a lot of hope for it. The original Soul Eater anime started off good, but you could tell, even without reading the manga, when it started to deviate. When it did the story just got lost in itself. I'm not one of those that think an anime must always stay true to the source material, but when it does deviate I only ask that it do a good job. I don't know how far the manga for Not goes, but at the moment I don't have great faith they'll stay on course or do a particularly good job at deviating with what I believe to be an only somewhat interesting story to begin with.
Of the Crunchyroll set, the return of Fairy Tail is the real juggernaut. They picked up the story right where the first series took its break. The series never really had a huge problem with deviating from the manga. The art style wasn't quite in line with the magna, which I thought was reasonable to expect, but they've changed it to match now. The big question for the series is how long it will stick around this time. From my understanding the manga hasn't gotten terribly farther ahead than where the anime left off before, so it won't be too long before it catches up again. That means either taking another break or a lot of fillers - both things I think are fine if done right, but which "fans" in general tend to have little patience for.
Love Live School Idol has a new season. So far it kinda suffers that "2nd season syndrome" that many shows suffer. Usually it's when a show with a bit of eechi content goes overboard in the second season at the expense of story and plot. For Love Live it's more like they dialed up the attempt at a comedic side a bit too high, to the point that the show seems a bit off. Things sorta evened out a little better in episode two, but so far season two looks to be worse than a fairly decent season one.
Brynhildr in the Darkness is another dark series for this spring. The director is the same one behind Elfin Lied, to give you a sense of where this will go. The manga has a tragedy tag, so expect some emotional heavy lifting. So far as the first couple episodes we've already seen one very cruel, fairly graphic, death. It is a good story, but it is also gonna be very depressing, so be prepared.
The Irregular at Magic High School sounds like another likely "Magical Warfare" but the manga and light novel are not at all the same. The story does have a few head-scratching aspects - sorta like "why would that happen" sorta things - that seem to be more inconsistent writing than designed mystery elements, but it should be a good story nonetheless. It kinds starts off rather slowly but should pick up the pace by episode 6 or so. I don't know that the story as set up is any deeper, but the execution here is at the very least much better.
Mekakucity Actors is one of those shows that I feel will annoy me. I feel like it will have a lot of cool moments, but the main characters are gonna say or do stupid things that everyone is gonna be amped and excited about, but that I at least will personally think they shouldn't be excited for. Like a depressing "I hate the world" diatribe of a series that everyone is going to say, "yeah, that's so deep and they're right", while I sit here thinking how ignorant and idiotic it is. I don't know, it's interesting so far, and I've no idea where the story is going, so for me it could be a nice upside surprise.
Well, that's it for the in-depth preview. I've added a new page titled "Anime Following". It will be updated every three months (every anime season) to reflect which anime I am watching that season and which streaming outlet I am viewing them on. Hope you enjoy the season.
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