Forum - View topicFall Season 2011: Postmortem
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naninanino
 Posts: 680 |
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Tamayura: Still the same, with very minor improvements. Not great, not bad, but I'll watch anyway.
Bakuman: Same as above. Gundam AGE: Well, after the dozens of Gundams I watched, there is no reason to stop now. Chihayafuru: Seems to be the winner for me. I'm always interested in learning about new games and the characters don't seem too bad either. I'm also on the fence on picking up the new Last Exile, but I'm not in a hurry. Chibi Devil might have been nice too, but I don't like babies in my shows. The rest seem like the usual anime inc filler. |
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WhiteHairGirls
 Posts: 4713 Location: New York City |
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I am going to list them from Best to Worst
Mirai Nikki I wasn't even interested in this anime from the written preview. But I gave the first episode a try and fell in love with it immedietely. Yuno is such a fantastic yandere character. Some people might feel it is rushed, but I like the pacing. Boku Wa Tomodachi This was my most hyped anime for the season and it has not been a dissapointment. The anime is witty. Kodaka is a rather unique "harem" lead. It makes the anime seem more realistic. Both Sena and Yozora are fine characters themselves. Their bickering makes the show enjoyable. Guilty Crown I loved Code Geass, so there is no need to explain why I enjoy this anime. The animation is beautiful. Working Season 2 The first season was great and it seems like the 2nd season got better. The comedy is great and feels refreshing. Bento Never heard of this anime and thought the premise was dumb. But I enjoyed the first episode and continued watching it. Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere This was ranked high on ym list before the season, but it has been a dissapointment. The terms are getting very confusing and I have no idea what is going on. But I still enjoy it. Maji de Watashi I thought the first episode was great but it has trailed off recently. The past couple of episodes have been mostly talking. But the scenes between the main guy and that blue haired girl are hilarious. C3 The first episode was alright and then it turned dark in episode 2. It felt like the writter was trolling the viewers lol. Its a decent anime UngoA rather interesting detective anime. The first 2 episodes spoiler[ the culprits both were not arrested and let off the hook ] Ungo is a nice weird character. Chibi Devi short anime that is just a filler for me. The characters are cute though. Mashiro Iro Typical harem with a lot of cliches. I will continue watching it as I did go through the whole 12 episodes of Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi which was also filled with cliches and was mediocore Maken Ki Seems like a worse version of Freezing- Girls that fight and the main guy has some hidden power. Probably will continue watching just to pass time. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Dropped:
HUNTERxHUNTER: Already watching Gundam AGE, don't want to watch yet another four-cour kiddy show. That said, this one is pretty good for what it is. Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle: Takes itself far too seriously, especially with the weak premise it has. The puzzles themselves are so easy as to be insulting to the viewer, and the characters are no drawcard either. Maken-ki: Yet another loser male lead paired up with yet another contrived harem full of horrible cardboard cutouts of girls. Ben-to: A Comedy that isn't funny. Kimi to Boku: Great replacement for sleeping pills. Majikoi - Oh! Samurai Girls!: Pretty good fanservice, but episodes two and three are crap in terms of plot. I still don't know what this show is about. Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere: A clusterfuck. Keeping: Mirai Nikki: Definitely keeping on with this. Way too over the top with its second episode, but the premise is cool and Yuno is awesome. She's crazy, but not psychotic. At least not yet. That's why I like her. She's a good balance of lovestruck and crazy, and is actually a lot tamer than many Yanderes out there who may take things too far. Let me put it this way; she is not solely defined by her being a Yandere, but manages to come across as a regular (if beautiful and smart) girl who just happens to like a boy a bit more than most. UN-GO: First episode episode wasn't all that great, but I'll stick with it till the end and hope it picks up. Guilty Crown: First episode was pretty bad, it had better get better or I may have to drop it. Chihayafuru: The game sucks, but the show is very good. Will watch all of it. C3: I went into the third episode determined to drop the show as soon as the episode finished, but it surprised me, and more importantly impressed me. Still not that great a show, so it is still on probation, but as long as each episode leaves me wanting more (and avoids going back to the tone of the first episode) then I'll stick with it. Persona 4: The Animation: What is with the colour of these people's mouths? Are they all cannibals who have just feasted/ And why have so few people remarked on this? Anyway, the lead is boring and his sidekicks are hyperactive, but I will probably watch the rest of the show. I want to know what is going on. Fate/Zero: I hated Fate/Stay Night, but this actually looks good. I especially love the characters, they are all interesting and I love trying to figure out who is going to be the first to die. Will definitely watch this till the end. Last Exile ~Fam, The Silver Wing~: Was never a big fan of the original, and from the first episode this looks worse. It's the characters, they annoy me and I want Fam to die. Yes, after just one episode she already irritates the hell out of me. Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: I'm not in the target demographic, but this has some really piss-poor writing. I will watch it because it is Gundam, but it is going to have to do better than this or I will forever lambast it. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai: Not the amazing show people were saying it would be - seriously, how is this so popular? - but it is pleasant enough. Will finish it. Bakuman Season 2: Apprehensive that it won't be as good as the first season, but it has started off pretty strongly. Will finish it (of course). Tamayura ~hitotose~: Boring as hell but harmless enough. Will probably finish it. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4640 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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We're in the penultimate stages now. How is the season going?
I'm personally going to wait to do a best to worst countdown of the season but I thought I'd give my general impression of the season and mention my dropped shows. I'd say that, over all, this season has disappointed me. The year has been pretty dang good so far but this season was filled with average and safe shows that didn't really excite me. Dropped: Early on I dropped Phi-Brain and Horizon to the Middle of Nowhere, those are still squarely on the scrap heap but I also said I had dropped HunterXHunter, but surprisingly I returned to that one, it's nothing too special but it's an easy watch. Also dropped Oh Samurai Girls/Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai a couple weeks later, during the episode with the mushroom/schlong shaped lolipops. Ultimately, a show like this (One that avoids plot) better be noticeably sweet, really funny, or feature exceptional fan-service and it was rarely sweet, only occasionally funny and while occasionally sexy- it got pretty old really quickly. I think I'm currently two episodes behind on Maken-Ki and have decided to leave it at that- no reason to continue. Like Samurai Girls it has yet to really introduce any plot in favor of many girls gathering around a guy, I think I watched it as long as I did because I liked the way the lead interacted with the girls sometimes. He is a bit sexist (must protect the weak girlies!) but a genuinely nice guy who I could understand having some inner strentgh. But I found much of the fan service in this one to border on grotesque and the humor was really very weak. With C^3 I was thinking I'd get through all of it, but I was in the same situation as Maken-Ki in which I found myself a couple weeks behind and simply uninterested in continuing. It's not hortrible but I find the tone shifts to sudden and jarring and while the tone shifts between moe-girl love fest and psycho-girl cat-fights sort of mean you're watching two shows in one, both halfs demonstrate remarkable repetitiveness. Two non-lolis, two big breasted bashful girls, two dolls, the new villainess reminds me a lot the first one- minus the swearing. And it's not like any of it is all that great in it's parts either- it's a standanrd moe girl group and standard slightly dark stuff. A number of shows tried doing this mixture this year and this is not one of the better ones. On hold: Mawaru Penguindrum Still waiting to marathon at the end. Last Exile I actually never started it, for basically the same reason. It looks like this would be better watched over a few days. Bamboo's comments on The Stream seem to support this as well. I'd also like to rewatch the first series, I started at one point but stalled out. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Unfortunately I basically just posted a big update on everything I'm watching this season last week in the other thread.
Short version: -Phi Brain sucks because you don't even see the solutions. -Un-go is a mess of bad execution. -Persona 4 is a pointless adaptation. Just play the game. -I'm bloody shocked that I'm even still watching Guilty Crown. -Future Diary is pretty goofy and sometimes unbearably so but more often it's a lot of fun. Here's the long version if anyone is curious. |
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dirkusbirkus
 Posts: 699 Location: Manchester, UK |
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Aye, I've posted in more length about this season's offerings, so one sentence summaries here:
Bakuman 2 - Still good, still a must-watch for me, pacing much better this season. 8 Ben-To - Amusing and strangely compelling, not as funny as expected but compensates in other areas. 7 Haganai - Good premise and nice character designs, humour fast running out of steam. 7 C³ - Surprisingly gorgeous animation, cheeky occasional fanservice and decent-ish plot. 7 Guilty Crown - Screw you guys, this is fun. 8 Horizon - What is this I don't even. 7 Last Exile 2 - Forget you ever saw the original and judge it as a standalone. 8 Mashiroiro Symphony - Harmless harem fluff, lead character in 'Not a complete twerp' shocker. (Edit: Strong finishing episodes have forced me to re-evaluate. Definitely worthy of an 8) Mirai Nikki - Nice concept, lost direction after episode 3 or 4, characterisation and plot are kinda weak, animation not stellar either. 7 UN-GO - Dropped it, picked it back up, dropped it. 7 Working 2 - Just a continuation of season one. 7 Last edited by dirkusbirkus on Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Dropped:
Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere Tried to be too much in one show. Dropped after 2 episodes. Maybe I'll pick it back up if I have nothing else to watch and a UK streaming service picks it up. (The first 2 episodes were available to the UK on CR when they first launched, then the series was region locked to the US  )
Low Priority: Mirai Nikki It just hasn't grabbed me yet. I'm enjoying it, but there's other things I'd rather watch instead. I'll watch it as and when. Phi-Brain Apparently there's a live action talk show type thing aired immediately afterwards explaining how the puzzles are solved, which explains why no explanation is given in the show. I'll watch it as and when, but I'm not keeping up with it week by week. High Priority: Bakuman 2 Pretty much a continuation of the first season. I'm still enjoying it and it's nice seeing the story animated. Chihayafuru My favourite show of the season, hands down. Even my partner, who isn't really into anime, likes this show. If you'd told me a year ago that one of my favourite shows was going to be a show about high school students playing a traditional Japanese card game I'd have laughed in your face. The characters are what makes this show. Chihaya's earnestness sort of reminds me of Tohru from Fruits Basket. Guilty Crown Yes, it's covered in tropes, but despite that, I'm still enjoying it. The animation is nice, and Shu appears to be growing some backbone at last. I've not seen Code Geass, so maybe that's improving my enjoyment of this. Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi Same as the first season. It's a fun BL. It's by no means a masterpiece, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. UN-GO The angular art has grown on me and the story is interesting enough to have kept me watching. Sometimes it's a bit WTF, but I am enjoying it, as is my partner. He's always asking "Is there new Un-Go yet?" 
Continuing from last season: Sket Dance It has good episodes, and it has mediocre episodes. But it's fun and it makes me laugh most weeks. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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The only show I'm following is Mawaru Penguindrum because it's the only show that holds my interest.
Dropped: Mirai Nikki - a run-of-the-mill shounen with a boring psycho girl and a boring boy. Besides, in the second episode the psycho girl turns into a timid girl for a while for no better reason than showing that the psycho girl can also be kawaii. Guilty Crown - boring. Fate/Zero - It's too slow and there is too much boring talking, not that I dislike series that are slow-paced, but the characters form Fate/Zero are not interesting enough. |
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WhiteHairGirls
Posts: 4713 Location: New York City |
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Damn you must be very hard to please lol. Those 3 are like the current best animes coming out and none of them interest you. |
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Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
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I have been watching anime for around 10 years, I'm jaded. 
As for the three series being the best in this season. They are not, not even close. Mawaru Penguindrum is vastly superior to any of them. MP has far better characterization, lively dialogues, and contains interesting philosophical elements. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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Let's see, for shows that started airing in the fall that I'm watching (in the order I watch them during the week):
Last Exile: Fam- Still enjoying it, even though I hear that this week's episode is a recap one, since I really like the conflict that's been set-up and I'm also enjoying the manga set between the two series even if it's coming out really slowly. Squid Girl 2- One episode behind since this season just hasn't grabbed me the way the first one did. Some of the skits are still fun but overall it's just falling flat for me. Chihayafuru- Still following and still enjoying, I'm always amazed at how well a sports anime can make the audience interested in the game and this show is no different, even though I always suspect the main characters are going to win the games I can't wait to see how they do it and love all the character interactions. Future Diary- At the rate they're killing off characters I'm surprised the show isn't over yet, although I'm happy the show isn't over yet since it is fun to see just how messed up everyone is. I don't particularly like any of the characters and don't really care who is going to live or die in the end but it should be fun to see how it all plays out. UN-GO- Well color me surprised, this show actually seems to be pulling off the "first half unconnected, second half connected" type of plot and I'm enjoying this much more than I thought I would be. Also love the setting, future not-quite-dystopia, not quite Orwellian but certainly messed up setting works very well and is important to the plot, exactly the way it should be! Guilty Crown- I was thinking of dropping this show but it seems to, very slowly, be getting better or maybe I'm starting to sympathize with Shuu a tiny bit ("hey guys, Gai is kinda crazy, why is everyone following him?" He's got a point). Bit of a disappointment for me but I honestly wasn't expecting it to be a great show anyway. Persona 4- I'm not entirely sure why I like this show but I enjoy watching it every week and I've been (very slowly) watching a Let's Play of the game as well for comparisons sake. The pacing is uneven but the show does have a lot of little moments of random humor that have me keep coming back to it. Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2- I'm much happier with the relationships this season than I was in the first one (even though my favorite couple gets barely any screen time) so I'm still sticking with it. Fate/Zero- I wasn't interested in this show at all when it first started but I tried it out one day when I needed something to watch and, once I got past the first few episodes and the mixture of talking vs fighting became a little more balanced, I found myself liking the show. I still dislike the majority of the cast but the plot is interesting and the visuals are great. Whew, think I have found my limit for how many shows I can watch at once, kinda glad there aren't a lot of shows I don't want to try out next season since most of these shows are 2 cour as well. |
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4640 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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My final postmortem. Favorite shows down to the dropped ones. Listing my continuing shows at the bottom.
Once again, definitely no Masterpieces- not even an excellent, less "very good" series than Spring and Summer but there were definitely enjoyable shows to be watched. Very Good Working!! This is just purely good comedy. Nothing gets resolved but I'm fine with that. It's basically a sitcom and coupling up your characters can ruin a sitcom, while the real fun can be had in the process. Yet they added more fun characters, made Inami even more adorable and solidified some characters more. I considered rating this Excellent because it definitely proved to be the best time I had all season, but looking at my full list it doesn't quite reach the levels of others I put there. Chihayafuru I'm not as blown away by this show as others are, I have reservations about the shojo trappings and don't fully buy Chihaya's motivations, but there's no denying that this is a quality show. Characters are fun, likable, and sufficiently diverse and the final tournament proved they could make a rather weak game into a fairly tense competition. (Whoops, I said I'd put continuing series at the end- forgot this one is continuing into the next season- oh well, I'll leave it here) Mawaru Penguindrum This one does stand out amongst the rest for some of it's superlatives. In a year full of shows with great art design this had some of the best, the story was complex and had strong themes, it was very impressive, but in the end I think Ikuhara once again went a bit too far, symbolism and methaphors became tortured, things that could have, and maybe should have, been presented more straight forwardly were given full on metaphorical treatment (spoiler[The Child Broiler] being the worst example- spoiler[it is so bad to just say they were neglected children without going the full on metaphor treament- which always made me think of the The Wall's "We Don't Need No Education" meat grinder sequence ].) It still greatly deserves a recommendation though, it will stick with you. Good Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai! / Haganai It fell into rut after the beginning but it was still consistently fun. A decent male lead, a good cast of bishoujos, cliche's done right. The return of the attractive Buriki (Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko) character design's. It is pandering to current otaku tastes but in a quality fashion. I also always felt there was a strong subtext in their interactions, reflecting each character's insecurities and deeper issues. Ben-To Once again, nice cast of characters, consistently fun, some quality pandering and character design, I don't think it's surprising that I'm not the only person that connects this with Haganai. This one had the advantage of surprising you with its story progression though. It featured a ridiculous premise that somehow worked by never apologizing for its silliness but also never taking it too seriously either. The final arc also nicely turned away from the expected resolution. Tamayura - Hitotose Basically Junichi Sato in auto-pilot mode. Very sweet, nicely "healing" but ultimately it flows past you like a warm breeze that will only leave the slightest pleasant impression. Kimi to Boku good slice of life, nice to see the male half of the "cute students doing cute things" but you have to admit the first four boys were rather boring, and while the fifth added some energy he was also sometimes very irritating. They did "unspoken feeling" rather well though. Un-Go Plenty of neat things going on, I greatly appreciated the ambition but maybe they ended up overly ambitious? Too much was left mysterious, too much was maybe based on one's knowledge of a intellectual post-war mystery stories by an author western audiences aren't familiar with, and that movie episode remains one of the least enjoyable episodes of the year. Decent Idolm@ster Haven't finished it, but feel safe in rating this rather stupid but cute show here. Mashiro-Iro Symphony So, it was certainly pleasant, but largely disposable and interchangeable with other eroge adaptations turned into innocuous harem shows with a bland male lead and generic bishojos. Dropped Look to previous posts for my thoughts on these if you care. I'll put them in ranking order though... C^3 (rated Not Really Good) Maken-Ki! (rated Not Really Good) Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai Phi-Brain Horizon to the Middle of Nowhere Will Continue ...but don't feel like rating at this half-way point. No great stand-outs though: Hunter x Hunter Guilty Crown Mirai Nikki Planning on marathoning at the end.... Last Exile- Silver Wing |
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