winter 2017 anime

[rtil]

SAVING ANIME TIER

• little witch academia
• rakugo s2
• yamato 2202
• lupin III: chikemuri no ishikawa goemon

THINGS PEOPLE ARE HYPED FOR I HAVE NO ATTACHMENT TO TIER

• kizumonogatari 3 (although i have seen bake finally but i have no idea wtf this movie is about)
• konosuba s2
• kuzu no honkai
• ao no exorcist

CURIOUSITY TIER

• youjo senki
• masamune-kun no revenge
• chaos;child
• tantei-dan
• chain chronicle
• kobayashi-san chi no maid dragon

IT'S STILL GOING TIER

• gintama
  
• precure a la mode

IT'S TIME TO STOP TIER

• nanbaka s2
  
• danmachi OVA
  
• to love-ru OAD
• sword art online: ordinal scale

[Bamyasi]

IT'S TIME TO STOP TIER

• nanbaka s2

To be fair this should have ended after episode 3.

Kizumonogatari is the prequel to Nekomonogatari Kuro which is the prequel to Bakemonogatari.

Also what you gotta gents To Ruv-ru huh fam.

[rtil]

it's degenerate and i'm not having any of it

but in reality the NEETbux fuel the industry so i must allow its existence to continue

[Bamyasi]

Can't w8 4 the 12th.

[webm]https://u.nya.is/ibobps.webm[/webm]

Penis envy-chan and masochist knight-san are my waifs.

[BluPhoenix]

LWA, konosuba are the only definite watches from me

people keep talking about maid dragon but idk how to feel after the pv

[rtil]

tfw tantei-dan NEO started airing and only subs are hardcoded by some anon

youjo senki pv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwaruTPKq9I

[zwimmy]

i'll watch LWA for sure

youjo senki mite b cool

[bd648]

I really liked the manga for fuuka so i'm pretty excited for that.

[SrsSam77]

Youjo Senki was dissapointing both on it's own merit and based on how good and capable both the LNs and the Manga were, studio NUT more like studio she left after the bj and you got herpes

Demi-chan is at a pleasingly good level, though I don't like the plot swap they did so it was the girls that were new to the school instead of the sensei being an incoming intern teacher.

Masamune-kun would be better had I not read the manga, even though the chapters are very wordy and can be up to 50 pages in length the art style both pleasing and easy to look at, and makes the anime seem lo-def in comparison

[Bamyasi]

Hot opinions incoming (ranked in descending order of projected disappointment potential).

You must watch beautiful ermahgerd full of many surprise I ruv it ;-; tier:
Kuzu no Honkai: Lerche does rom-dram what could possibly go wrong. Favorite first episode of the litter.
Masamune-kun no Revenge:

Hand Holders: GoHands outgoes themselves. Animated in Blingee.
Akiba's Trip: Superior firstborn Gainax offshoot does trashiest show yet. Beautiful.
Gabriel DropOut: Best gag show OTS maybe.
Urara Meirochou: Pornography.

Potential to not be dropped tier:
ēlDLIVE: First 15 minutes felt like a throwback to early/mid-2000s gag anime. The rest was left wanting.
Demi-chan wa Kataritai: Vamp a cute. A-1 so forgettable as always.
Fuuka: Friend vetoed it after 2 minutes but I think it looks pretty.
Seiren: If they were going for a boring VN adaptation vibe they succeeded.
One Room: Fucking hilarious.

Boring and stupid tier:
Little Witch Academia: I've always thought this franchise seemed puerile and manufactured. Will still watch I guess.
Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: NeoAni has officially given up. Insipid and lame even compared to their other post Chuni S1 work (imo).
ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka: Gee auditing what could possibly be more interesting. I liked Rispara and Sarai-ya Goyo so I'll still watch it.
Chain Chronicle: Haecceitas no Hikari: Attempted viewing was aborted but I'll give it another shot.
Onihei: Ugly rendition of an apparently classic story.

Dropped like the fucking Fist of the North Star tier:
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2: Dropped after 30 seconds after seeing DEEN was back to their worst former standards after owning the first half of 2016. Might watch if they get their shit together for the BDs.
Youjo Senki: Apologies to anyone who likes this but every other frame made me feel like I was gonna spew. Would far rather watch Brave Witches or even Izetta for this kind of thing. Don't understand why Valkyria Chronicles is apparently so hard to emulate. One of the ugliest shows in recent memory of this profile not even memeing.
Spiritpact: Once I heard the Chinese singing in the OP my viewing was over.
Schoolgirl Strikers: Animation Channel: Crypto idolshit.

Still need to check out tier:
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen: Definitely watching this.
ChäoS;Child: After seeing how bad last season's Science Adventure show shat the bed at the end I'm not so enthused.
Granblue Fantasy: Dunno when it's airing but the game has nice art and I want this figga:

Tales of Zestiria the X 2nd Season: Didn't finish S1 (or the game for that matter).
Rewrite: Moon and Terra: Ditto.
Yowamushi Pedal: New Generation: Ditto.
Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu: Why the fuck is biking anime so popular all the sudden?
Gintama season 4,000: I'll catch up eventually!
Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Fujouou-hen: Guh.
Super Lovers 2: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

How do you guys even pick what to watch? I wouldn't have a clue without enduring the pain of viewing each and every first episode and usually failing.

[rtil]

How do you guys even pick what to watch?

in order of things i look for:
staff involved > studio making it > it looks or sounds interesting to me

like if one of my favorite directors or writers is on key staff, i would watch it no matter what

a show like ACCA 13 i picked up because madhouse is animating it. i didn't even read what it was about

then shows like youjo senki - the thumbnail looked interesting and the synopsis strange enough for me to watch it. also it's a new studio so i'm curious to see what they're capable of

also your taste in anime is degenerate but you already know that

[Bamyasi]

That's a far more loyalist approach than mine, which is just appearance ≥ content.

I'll concede to claims of degeneracy but will also ride to battle in defense of my favs. The art in Hand Holders and Akiba Strip in particular is fuggin gorgeous to my philistine layman eyes (though the sakuga in AT is at several points terrible to the point of possibly intentional hilarity and Hand Holders often seems to falls apart in motion). Even so, am I wrong to think these shows look ;-;? Give it to me straight doc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9-7mns5vRc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oov26OFUjFE

Also hope you gave No Game No Rife a shot if you follow Madhouse so closely. I think I remember you doing so but not if the siscon pandering was bad enough to make you drop.

And tbf what isn't degenerate this season aside from Rakugo, Gintama and Super Lovers?

[rtil]

I'll concede to claims of degeneracy but will also ride to battle in defense of my favs. The art in Hand Holders and Akiba Strip in particular is fuggin gorgeous to my philistine layman eyes (though the sakuga in AT is at several points terrible to the point of possibly intentional hilarity and Hand Holders often seems to falls apart in motion). Even so, am I wrong to think these shows look ;-;? Give it to me straight doc.

you're right about hand shakers in that when it starts moving everything falls apart. it looks great when it's paused, but the animation is super choppy and the camerawork is all over the place. it's a shame because GoHands is capable of doing great work, but i think they have given up too much of their traditional talent over to 3d novices who try to be too fancy with their work and don't know anything about composition and editing. even the best 2d animator can't make some of these ridiculous scenes work.

akiba's trip has some good sakuga. didn't care much for the story or characters though

Also hope you gave No Game No Rife a shot if you follow Madhouse so closely. I think I remember you doing so but not if the siscon pandering was bad enough to make you drop.

i watched 9 eps of NGNL. it's pretty but other than that i hated it. couldn't finish it. also the mangaka is a literal fraud and pedophile

And tbf what isn't degenerate this season aside from Rakugo, Gintama and Super Lovers?

LWA is pure. no pantsu allowed

[Bamyasi]

Yeah Hand Holders' execution is a bit disappointing but also adds to the charm/uncanniness imo. Clusterfucks this exotic and bizarre can only happen by accident and that's why they fascinate me. Especially weird considering the director was responsible for this:

I also like the concept somewhat even though it's just recolored F/sn UBW. Really grinds my gears that it's getting so much h8 for it's visuals when Yaoi on Ice was way fuglier imo, especially the rotoscoping, and the characters were superdeformed in like half the shots, if they even had base designs (the three nieces iirc never once looked like beings from YoI's visual universe).

Reasoned response to HS from your everyday anime consumer goes thusly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCAuXBW9aYA

Do you mean the Akibastrip characters themselves or the designs? I like the designs personally but there was some controversy over not hiring the original creator.

I vaguely remember the NGNL tracing controversy and I guess his output is evidence enough of pedophilia. It's so preddy tho, I can't make myself dislike it (the show not the manga).

Little Witch Academia is cute and all but the storytelling's really clumsy (Deux Ex Academia 20 minutes in JFC). I just can't help but wonder if the producers know that magic is way more interesting as a plot device when it has like, actual rules and limitations, and that the biggest reason for Harry Potter's success was that Rowling actually used the school setting to teach the reader about magic concurrently to the characters, and thus prepare them for subsequent mechanics. But that's just like, my opinion man. Shimada's been in the biz for almost 4 decades but afaik this is her first original script.

[rtil]

YoI doesn't get as much hate because it's not so ridiculously abstract. YoI is easily digestible fujoshibait with an animation technique that normies think is amazing. long story short YoI plays it safe. just look at the joke of an awards ceremony crunchyroll put up for 2016, where YoI swept almost every category it was in, including best OP, which was just the same 10 seconds of rotoscoped footage on loop; and best animation, which is so sloppy it has its own twitter for bad drawings. so while YoI has problems, it's still sensibly structured, which lends to its success.

Hand Shakers on the other hand is a non-stop parade of mistakes right out of the gate - an almost headache-inducing trainwreck with so many production problems it's a miracle we are witnessing it being broadcast. every artistic choice they made is so bizarre it feels like nobody was on the same page, did their own thing and then they slapped it together hoping it would work. i wish i could have been a fly on the wall in the studio while this disasterpiece was being created to see how it happened. perhaps they were trying to be ambitious and try something new. whatever they did, it failed spectacularly. but i can at least give them credit for trying.

Hand Shakers and YoI do have one other thing in common besides bad animation, though - everything fucking sparkles.

when i mentioned akiba's trip i was talking about the way the characters are written, not their designs. although i found everything in the show to be pretty forgettable aside from the glowy stripe they get when they become a vampire zombie hunter person. i get that akiba's trip is unapolagetic, but like other shows in the same vein (looking at you konosuba) i just can't get into it because it still feels too samey.

i'd give LWA some time to mature. i never read any HP books or movies - well i saw one but i had no idea wtf was going on, the point is i have no attachment to it. so for me i can't say anything about the comparison. but i will say witches and magic were common themes in anime before harry potter exploded, and that i don't think that LWA has ever been very self-conscious about establishing rules in its universe because they never seemed that important to their stories. not every writer can be as thorough as yoshihiro togashi and get away with it. it also doesn't seem very trigger-like when you look at their staffers' history. TTGL, KLK, P&SWG, all these fictional worlds are so loose with their inner workings and themes, but i think they get away with it because of how overtly whimsical they are. that not everyone can accept a fictional world that runs on pure willpower i can understand, but at least they don't pretend it isn't anything else.

[Bamyasi]

Oh god the CR awards are heinous. The only categories they got remotely right were the ones MP100 made top 3.

Again, everything you say about HS is inarguable, but I can't help but find it totally endearing for the same reasons it's widely disliked. It's like a kitten with only two legs and CGI wheels: difficult to watch stumble around and hit walls but you can't just leave it alone (might still drop it though). I will make the argument that HS at least has more consistently flattering art than YoI, which at it's worst was an affront to human anatomy and all Creation.

I understand your dislike for shows like AT, KS and NGNL. They're basically the animated equivalent of the kusoge they pay tribute to: kind of hard to appreciate if you most actively seek out characteristically "good" games and anime.

I'm definitely watching LWA all the way through, because I think the love labor involved has earned at least that much from everyone. I don't really like Harry Potter either, but it is the most successful fantasy series of all time for better or worse, so it did do something right. You make a good point about Trigger's past work but I will argue that TTGL and SPL did have actual rules governing their narratives, they were just illustrated almost solely by the potential for characters to die. I think this is why so many people had a hard-on for Mako dying in KlK, and why they felt shortchanged when she didn't, not because they specifically wanted her to die, or for it to turn into some kind of grim Urobuchian burlesque, but to establish rules in the universe and give context to their emotional involvement with it.

My problem with LWA's first episode is that Ako and friends were saved from the cockatrice not by her overcoming a personal obstacle like Simone's impotence, Ryuuko's bashfulness, or Luluco's puppy love (all introduced as central to their character in each series respective first episode), but just because the magic staff thing happened to appear. I'm sure there will be an explanation as to why it appeared, but the stakes are already much lower than any previous Triggerverse show, because "It's magic I ain't gotta explain shit," is the central mechanic here, without it being (so far) related to the main character's interior struggle (which I guess could be anxieties related to her non-magical blood, but this doesn't seem to bother her so much cuzza how genki and baka she is).

They get pretty much everything else right though. Ako at least wants something, even if it's just to be a badass. It's also fvcking gawgeous just as eye-candy.

[rtil]

i can understand why you'd find hand shakers endearing, i'm just explaining why i think it's getting collectively dumped on. and YoI benefits from one of the major problems because of their dichotomy - YoI looks good to the untrained eye when it's moving, which is how you're supposed to view it - but it looks hilariously bad when it's picked apart frame by frame. Hand Shakers has the opposite problem, and because of that it's never gonna get the same pass as something like YoI.

i'm sure harry potter is successful for a reason, i'm just saying i have no frame of reference for it. i just think it's dangerous to tread into rules too much at the risk of a trigger anime drowning in expository dialogue about how everything works so people can poke holes in it - and i don't think they'd be good at it, either. i see what you're saying about the convenient plot device in the first episode, which made an appearance in the 2nd ONA as well when Akko wanted it and got it because reasons. granted i think the 1st LWA production is better than that one, but i always thought that LWA would work better in a tv series format, so here we are and we're about to find out.

[Bamyasi]

Ah yeah I appreciate the explanations. Here are some of my fav caps from the first HS ep. That is a funny contrast between it and YoI, though these are some of the best frames from the former.










I would unironically hang some of these in my home (though that's true for pretty much any anime I like, though most aren't as fun to view in frame by frame and get the slow eyerape in detail).

Also need to watch Mahoujikake no Parade again because the only time I did previously I was too wasted to appreciate it. Totally agree about expository dialogue. It's annoying when dumb writers forget their working with visual artists, but "show don't tell" is a good rule for any storytelling.

[rtil]

they are good drawings, probably too detailed for the budget. i think they went a little overboard on the hair

[SrsSam77]

Yeah so only 2 series really tickle my taint this season so I'm binging nanatsu no taizai(AOTC) and cowboy bee poop right now gg thanksalot wapan you had one job and you blew it