Summer 2015 Anime Season Wrap-up

Summer 2015 Anime Season Wrap-up

Warning: The following post may contain spoilers from the shows I watched from the Summer 2015 anime season. If you wish not to know some plot details in the stories, or simply don't wish to find out what happens in the series that are mentioned, please exit the tab, and come join me once you've watched the first few episodes. But than again, if you don't mind spoilers, feel free to stay put.

Also, the pictures for my special posts are chosen at random. It's another C.C. picture, and oh, it's by the same artist too. XD What can I say, I love this picture! :3

So with that said, let's get started:

Another anime season has been brushed under the rug. And like the other seasons this year, it was still pretty enjoyable. This season actually has the most amount of shows that I'm interested in seeing, after once again, following 2 shows while they were airing. XD

Like last time, I'm going to first give updates on shows that I watched from my previous wrap-ups (complete or not), and then go into my sole dropped show (just one again) before we hit the shows that I completed or plan to watch in the future.

Once again, please remember that this is my opinion on the shows that I've watched. It's okay if you liked a show I didn't, but please don't be rude about it.

Besides watching the first 2 episodes of World Break at Anime Iowa (hopefully I can watch more of the show eventually), the English dub was pretty good (of course, with exceptions), and the show isn't too stale. It's probably not going to be something I complete, but let's see what'll happen.

Mikagura School Suite and Uta no Prince Sama Season 3, where are you hiding? It's time to show the world what I thought of you:

Mikagura School Suite unfortunately suffered the same fate as Cute High Earth Defense Club Love! though it did last until the halfway point this time. While the show was lighthearted and funny like I expected, some of the jokes did get a little old. Also, I left every episode that I watched feeling some sort of a dissatisfaction, feeling like I needed more to be fully satisfied. 

Also, the fight animation's quite lovely. Of course I don't that; it's pretty terrible. I expected better.

Also, the voice work is pretty hit or miss in both languages. Some voices sound good, but others not so much. As a whole, I kind of wished I liked this show more than I did, because when the purple and white haired girl appeared at the end of the 6th episode, I was already out the door without a second glance. For my final score, I would give a 6 out of 10 for the first half.

And then we have Uta Pri Season 3. I recently did a collab review with one of my good friends Luke, which you can read here: http://dazzlinganime1.blogspot.com/2015/08/uta-no-prince-sama-season-3-review.html

I'll just leave this section with a red done stamp by just saying that I think this season of Uta Pri was its worst, like many others on the big bad internet. But you can see all the pent-up rage with the link above.

Let's move on to my one wonderful dropped show, shall we?

Sky Wizards Academy.

What I wanted to do with this show after I watched the first episode:

Oh boy, I've been looking forward to do this for 2 months. And no, I'm not being sarcastic. I need to release my pent up rage that I experienced watching this first episode of this series. Because let's be honest, this first episode SUCKED!

First off, I went into this series with low expectations. I wasn't thinking this show was going to be awful, but I was expecting the bottom barrel of mediocrity at best. This sounded stereotypical, no doubt about it. Let's not forget the 2 main leads in this show are also the leads in Absolute Duo, which isn't the most original. I still had at least a bit of hope for it.

However, I wasn't expecting, well......THIS! The first episode is worse than the premiere episode of The Testament of Sister New Devil. You thought it couldn't get worse than that, right? Sadly, it did. 

So, where do we begin? How about we talk about the content of the episode first, okay?

In the first half of the episode, we get a random fight sequence to start off as a poorly placed flashback to "show" the viewers why Kanata is branded a traitor. This is never explained in the first episode, or from whatever I've seen, and I really want to know why he's been branded that way. I'm pretty sure the reason is stupid anyways, so why should I even bother caring?

We then have expositions placed in there to introduce our 3 female lead characters, each as frustrating as QUARTET NIGHT without all of their character development. We then see Kanata again, as he meets all the 3 leads in the exact same situations where they all brand him as a pervert, he gets a request to teach all of the girls (as they're on the same Fireteam), he comes in, all of the girls decide to automatically display their weapons (because he's a "pervert" and a traitor is SO harmful or whatever), and the episode ends.

No, really. That's what happens in the first episode. And it dragged on FOR FOREVER!

I shouldn't feel like I'm watching an hour long episode when it's only 23 minutes, because that's what it felt like watching this annoy-fest. The entire episode was just so irritating, I'm glad that I don't have to suffer through any more of this.

The characters are really nothing special, though I do kind of like Lloyd. Everyone is either bland or annoying, and frankly, I don't give 2 s**ts like I've been mentioning. Misora is the worst, including the fact that Nozomi Yamamoto doesn't sound that good as her, going with this very high and squeaky voice that sounds like nails going down a chalkboard. It gave me a supreme headache.

And then we have the animation, which gets no gold stars from me. The majority of the first episode, the animation is either just average or eye-burning. The eye-burning part comes from the fight scene at the beginning of the episode, when Kanata fights off the Devil Beatles (YUP! That's the the name of our evil creatures we must defeat. Let's give a round of applause on how creative this is). Diomedia has this very odd mix of both regular and CGI animation that works pretty poorly. The end result makes the flying look very clunky and not that pretty to look at.

The majority of the females also don't look very good in motion, and I bet if someone didn't know what the anime was based on (its based off of light novels), they'd automatically assume eroge. Everyone out of our females besides Lecty have either very simple character designs, or huge doe eyes that don't look that attractive. The score's also pretty much non-existent.

If there's one thing I am happy about, it would be the first episode of this show's Broadcast Dub from FUNimation. Props to Felecia Angelle for making the English dub more tolerable than the Japanese with interesting casting and surprising results. For her first show, she brought something that I didn't expect. Misora actually has more bark thanks to Tia Ballard, and all of the voices are actually good. Megan Shipman's voice is a little too light for my tastes, but it's far from bad.

So basically, if I saw this show sitting in a dumpster, I wouldn't rescue it. 1.5 out of 10, only due to Tetsuya Kakihara and Nao Toyama.

Okay, time to move on:

Jitsu wa Watashi wa and Snow White with the Red Hair.

Again, I really liked both of these shows. Of course, one happened to be liked better than the other, but I don't regret watching either one of them. Though as I'm writing this, I've watched the final episode for Snow White with the Red Hair, and the final episode of Jitsu wa Watashi wa hasn't aired.

Jitsu wa Watashi wa is a fun romantic comedy which doesn't have a big story, but doesn't need to in the end. It had some great comedic moments, and put me in a good mood most of the time. Though some episodes in the middle didn't rise to their full potential, and some jokes got old along the way, this series gave me Tenchi Muyo and Rosairo + Vampire flashbacks, and that's always a good thing.

Snow White with the Red Hair is another shojo series, which is split into a two cour. So while we have to wait until Winter to watch Part 2, we can fangirl all we want about the first half. MY SHIP HAS SET SAIL! EEEEE!!

This series only has issues with repeated dialogue in how Shirayuki's hair color is unique and how she gets in danger for some of the episodes, but she's a smart cookie, which gives this anime bonus points. The animation dips as well, but besides that, this series is perfect, and I'm sad I have to wait for more. But hey, at least we still have more to expect, unlike other shows I know. A collab review with Luke will be coming out within a few weeks.

What about the shows I want to watch? Let's go look at them and find out:

Aoharu x Machinegun.

For me, I think this show just sounds fun. Though I haven't heard the best things about it, the characters look interesting, and I've never seen an anime where a female character is mistaken to be a male (yes, I haven't watch Ouran yet. I'm planning to eventually though, put the pitchforks down!). Though, like some shows that I haven't watched yet, I have absolutely no clue what this show is about, hopefully I have fun.

Charlotte.

There's really one reason why I want to watch this show, and that has to do with the creators behind Angel Beat (Key) helped make this. So I'm wondering if this show is going to be just as good as Angel Beats. and hit me right in the feels. And by feels, I mean almost making me bawl like a baby when the finale hits. But I guess I need to watch it first though.

Gangsta.

I think my inner Morrigan personality from my mini show on Youtube is screaming about the amount of man meat in this opening. Oh dear.

After Jormungand went nicely for me (mainly Season 1 since the first half of Season 2 was almost really bad), I think another one of these action shows should help me later down the line in case I want to tackle Black Lagoon. Also, I've heard some pretty good things about this, so I'm excited to see these 12 episodes.

Gate.

I'm probably going to watch this show when I get the chance to watch Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon. I think what interests me into watching this is that it reminds me a little bit of Sword Art Online, probably because it's the same animation studio XD. Hopefully it doesn't become as overrated as that show is.

Castle Town Dandelion.

COMEDY! ALL ABOUT THE COMEDY! This show just sounds SO funny, and I think a lot of sibling hijinks are going to happen. Though I do hope it has an overall plot, because I think this show could be a comedy that needs one. 

Shimoneta.

I don't know what propels me to try this show for a test run. Maybe because I enjoyed Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, and this show seems like it? Or maybe because I'm in the mood for watching something zany? It does sound a little overly sexual at points, but maybe it'll know how to effectively use it.

Seiyu's Life.

The fact that this source material (manga) is written by an actual seiyuu (Masami Asano) just makes this all the more interesting to me. Maybe I'll learn a few things about how Japanese anime gets recorded, and perhaps other things related to it as well? Than again, I could watch Shirobako, but I don't think it interests me as much. Either way, this show looks to be comical and informative.

FUNimation didn't do as many Broadcast Dubs this season, but Sky Wizards Academy and Gangsta do have them currently airing on Dubbletalk. I'm interested to see what Gangsta's dub sounds like (the preview clips gives me high hope).

That ends this wrap-up everyone! What shows did you watch this season? Any that you found to be horrible? How about ones on my list?