summer anime thread: pretentious tier list edition

rtil · September 21, 2014 07:50 PM

Quote from: Gilthwixt on September 20, 2014 07:04 PM
Jesus fucking christ, Aldnoah Ep. 12

I guess I got lulled into a sense of security with Gargantia, because this shit fucking blindsided me.

Edit:

Final Verdict - Summer 2014

Zankyou No Terror: 7/10 - Strong start but everything involving Five was really weak. Last episode might still save the series.

Tokyo Ghoul: 7.5/10 - Great animation and art but a massive failure as an adaptation. Terrible way of ending a season.

Sword Art: 6.5/10 - Good animation as usual, cliche as fuck writing.

Aldnoah Zero: 9/10 - Based Urobuchi, January can't come soon enough.

Sailor Moon: Usagi/10 - it still amuses me that anyone in the series thinks a tiara or thin white mask is a good disguise.

Haven't gotten around to finishing Space Dandy or Tokyo ESP because they've been kind of meh. Dropped Akame ga Kill because it's shit.

>rating a show before it's over
>rating ZnT lower than Tokyo Gruel

i will admit it has been a disappointing season overall. everything i was looking forward to was not as good as i was hoping. i dropped Tokyo ESP, Tokyo Ghoul and Aldnoah Zero. complete garbage, especially Tokyo ESP, i don't think an anime could ever open more disastrously than that and it never got better, either.

Space Dandy s2 has been an interesting ride. ZnT feels like it should be 2 cours, the middle kind of dragged but i'm looking forward to the finale. they sure have a lot to do in the final episode. I think Watanabe really needs more breathing room for his stories, though. i still don't really get the introduction of Five's character, but again i think the last episode will possibly cover some ground there. i expect it to open up with a flashback. still, the show has been a great breath of fresh air as expected of Watanabe. it's definitely no masterpiece, though.

SMC started out rocky but the animation has been improving a lot. they've also been updating the animation in the earlier episodes already for the BD release, as well as updating the OP and ED. promising signs for Toei, who used to never do that kind of stuff. shows that the staff at Crystal actually care about what they're creating.

Gilthwixt · September 21, 2014 08:12 PM

What didn't you like about Aldnoah? TG I can understand, it was really condensed and left no time for character development, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed watching AZ. I'm not really huge on mecha and Gargantia was mostly okay; AZ by comparison had a lot more going for it.

rtil · September 21, 2014 08:38 PM

Quote from: Gilthwixt on September 21, 2014 08:12 PM
What didn't you like about Aldnoah? TG I can understand, it was really condensed and left no time for character development, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed watching AZ. I'm not really huge on mecha and Gargantia was mostly okay; AZ by comparison had a lot more going for it.

the characters. could they be any more boring and one-track? i was so uninterested in what was going on because of the bland characters. and i don't really care for nor am i ever surprised by Urobuchi's story "twists" so i just dropped it.

Gilthwixt · September 26, 2014 05:25 AM

I guess I'll just have to politely disagree. I can't say the cast of Gargantia was any better, and by the end I definitely ended up caring about the cast of Aldnoah a lot more.

Zankyou no terror gets bumped to an 8/10, since the sound track was pretty good and the ending wasn't awful like TG was, but it was still pretty unsatisfying.

rtil · September 26, 2014 05:44 AM

i'm just baffled how anyone could find the cast of aldnoah interesting. it was like watching cliches: the anime.

i'm giving ZnT a 6/10. it's still the best anime of the season though because it was a shitty season. the ending was good but it was still marred by the fact they had basically just wasted 5 episodes on a character that went out with a fizzle instead of a bang. i'm so confused as to why Five was even in the show. everything was so great up until the part where she showed up, and the momentum and suspense died slowly over the 2nd half. and then the ending felt really rushed. they spent all of a few seconds glossing over the aftermath of everything. it felt like Nine and Twelve's sacrifice was for nothing because of that. then Lisa and Shibazaki just run off and it's over. if i could describe it all in one word it would be underwhelming.

rtil · September 29, 2014 02:53 AM

just finished space dandy s2. i'm making it my AOTS. lots of wacky fun, character development, great animation (except for a few episodes) and a solid ending. it says "maybe continued?" at the end so we might get more Dandy someday.

cipher · September 30, 2014 07:27 AM

I finished ZnT. Honestly I kind of liked the ending, but overall agree the show could have used a lot of work, especially with Five. While I kind of expected what had happened, I always appreciate studios/directors that go with the sad/melancholic endings. For whatever reason it makes a show resonate a lot more with me, and makes it more memorable.

The 'good guys' don't always have to win, even if the line between what justifies a character as 'good' is blurred.