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I haven't watched anime in a few weeks. Too much GenCon prep, so I'm binging shows in English, but here's what's on my list so far.

Sweetness and Lightning (been loving the manga)
Berserk ( the cgi is not great, but it's the only Berserk anime I'll get)
Re\Life
Taboo Tattoo
Thunderbolt Fantasy (not anime, but written by Madoka Magica's writer, and the first episode was fething awesome)
91 Days
Food Wars
New Game...

and Jojo's from last season... It's a lot, but they're all scratching an itch for me. When I can get back to them :(

Sweetness and Lightning, Alderamin, and Fate/Kaleid are about it for me this season. I'm thinking of giving New Game a try, I need to start High School fleet at some point, and I'm re-watching Lucky Star since it got uploaded.

I'm also watching Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans and One Punch Man on Toonami, because sleep is for the weak, apparently.

Watching berserk. It would be so much better if it weren't for the crappy CGI animation.
I really hope this doesn't catch on; we have 3 series so far that use mostly CGI, Sidonia, Ajin and now Berserk, and in all cases it looks like cheap, poorly produced crap.

What's funny is that in berserk they include scenes from the 90s anime, and it looks so much better than the 2016 anime.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Watching berserk. It would be so much better if it weren't for the crappy CGI animation.
I really hope this doesn't catch on; we have 3 series so far that use mostly CGI, Sidonia, Ajin and now Berserk, and in all cases it looks like cheap, poorly produced crap.

What's funny is that in berserk they include scenes from the 90s anime, and it looks so much better than the 2016 anime.

I will; say this about Berserk though, the art may look like butt, but they have a solid team working on the storyline and scripts.

Yeah, the story and script is good, and I do like the premise. But holy crap, the animation sucks.
Berserk does have some awesome scenes that work despite the shoddy CGI, like in the first episode when Guts was fighting those Skeleton Warriors (na na na na na naaa) and then the Corpse Rotted Greatwood.

Anyway, round up time

Berserk - Already mentioned

Mob Psycho 100 - Awesome. It's basically One Punch Man with exorcisms and psychic powers.

91 Days - Pretty nice mafia drama anime, except this time with no supernatural elements, which tends to show up in these sort of a shows. I like that

Rewrite - Generic SoL fest. Basically inferior Suzimiya Haruhi

Planetarium - Zzzzz

Masuo Gakuen HxH - This season's harem anime. It's...not that terrible. It's saving grace is that the premise of the anime supports all the ecchi shenanigans going on and it acknowledges how stupid it is. The girl designs though...I don't know why people think beach ball tits are attractive. I find it disturbing.

D Grey Man Hallow - Pretty good, but I think it's predecessor was superior.

Alderamin on the Sky - Its ok I guess. I don't like the little fairy things though

Tales of Zestiria - Appears to be a solid adaptation of a game series that I don't know. I like how at the end there's RPG style dialogue sequences.

Saiki Kusuo - Surprisingly good. Nice light little comedy. I have a feeling its going to get stale really quickly, though episode 2 was pretty funny.

Taboo Tattoo - Trying really hard to be a serious Mirai Nikki shonen sort of anime.

And that's it.
I think the AotS might be 91 days or Mob Psycho 100 for me.

Um. Isn't the Corpse Rotted Greatwood a boss from Dark Souls 3?

Yes
When I saw that tree monster, I immediately thought of that boss

But no, the possessed tree isn't really the Greatwood.
Though Dark Souls did take quite a bit of inspiration from Berserk.

Something I've been watching I've not seen mentioned yet is Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars. A blend of action packed giant mechas with Loli yuri moe. It's working out alright so far.

Anybody knows if there's any hints of sword arts online continuing? Reading the phantom bullet books made me think that would be much better than the 2nd season was. Would like to see that in anime form.

Welp caught up with the magi series in netflix.

i still have no clue the feth is going on.

I am worried that they're doing SAO as a "Did you like this adventure? Go read the Light Novels!" sort of marketing thing. I really hope that the popularity of it encourages them to continue making it into an easily-accessible anime, but I wouldn't hold my breath. From what I understand, it's incredible that they got a second season at all.

Anvildude wrote:
I am worried that they're doing SAO as a "Did you like this adventure? Go read the Light Novels!" sort of marketing thing. I really hope that the popularity of it encourages them to continue making it into an easily-accessible anime, but I wouldn't hold my breath. From what I understand, it's incredible that they got a second season at all.

Well I don't mind reading the novels since I love reading and indeed reading is my default mode of enjoying so for me it's actually reverse Enjoy the book? See the anime as well! As it is depending on did they know do they get 3rd season or not I would have rather done 2nd season from phantom bullet than the fairy land thingie! The 3rd and 4th book(anime 2nd season) were IMO much weaker than 1st and 2nd(SAO) and I'm enjoying 5th and 6th(phantom bullet) lot. Almost as much as SAO indeed.

edit: I doubt they would be doing that anyway(anime business is harsh. They aren't generally looking multiseason ahead but season by season. If you did well on 1st season it's still no quarantee you can run 3+ seasons. That depends on how 2nd season did if 1st season did enough to give you 2nd season...). Much more likely is simply that the 2nd season dvd/bluray sales were unsatisfactory since it's those that anime gets most of it's money from. DVD/bluray sales stink, anime either generates low profit or is even deficit. And while I'm not partial(I didn't like 2nd season) can't say I would be surprised if the 2nd season media sales were low...

edit2: Also those books are already very old. Like 99% sales they are going to generate have already likely to be generated so they wouldn't really gain anything by not doing anime to drive sales of book. Sales aren't going to be big anyway! If anime generates profit it would likely be more money than book sales would lose(it's not like book sales would go to 0 anyway...). So much more likely they simply look at possibility of anime generating profit or not. And if season 2 tanked profit wise they will likely decide "no". The one thing in anime industry I don't like is aversion of risks :-/

In a way that's the regrettable thing about having animation get so, uh, "mainstream". It means a lot of the studios will be in it for a quick buck and so the gems that get thrown up in the scuffle have a good chance of being lost. If it were all done 'for the art' they'd last longer, and probably have more work done beforehand to iron out the issues, so that bad production or writing decisions don't drag down an otherwise good concept.

I'm hopeful that the recent trend of "Cinematic Universes" that the comics industry has started might push the whole film, cinema and animation industry towards long-term franchise development as opposed to short-term, season-by-season work. You can already see that some of the most successful properties of the last decade have been continuous, multi-part works- Game of Thrones, the MCU, the DCTVU, even the long-running crime dramas have all hopefully done well enough that that sort of 'deep universe' writing will become the norm.

Anvildude wrote:
In a way that's the regrettable thing about having animation get so, uh, "mainstream". It means a lot of the studios will be in it for a quick buck and so the gems that get thrown up in the scuffle have a good chance of being lost. If it were all done 'for the art' they'd last longer, and probably have more work done beforehand to iron out the issues, so that bad production or writing decisions don't drag down an otherwise good concept.

I'm hopeful that the recent trend of "Cinematic Universes" that the comics industry has started might push the whole film, cinema and animation industry towards long-term franchise development as opposed to short-term, season-by-season work. You can already see that some of the most successful properties of the last decade have been continuous, multi-part works- Game of Thrones, the MCU, the DCTVU, even the long-running crime dramas have all hopefully done well enough that that sort of 'deep universe' writing will become the norm.

Interesting thought. There is precedent for this in anime, but the examples that come to mind do not fill me with confidence.

Current Summer season watch list update.

Started and go up to date on New Game! over the weekend. Another interesting slice of life even if the all female developer team is just a tad bit unrealistic and the fan service is obnoxious given the setting. Really looking forward to when the show gets to the publishing deadline or whatever other crisis event that the show is building to.

To date these are where shows rank in my watch list;

1. Gundam Unicorn
2. Alderamin on the Sky
3. Food Wars
4. Mob Psycho 100
5. New Game!
6. Sweetness & Lightning
7. Taboo Tattoo
8. Qualidea Code

Also catching up on Fate/Kaleid liner Prisma Illya.

My buddy and I started watching Kabaneri. It's pretty awesome, so far. About halfway through.

Anvildude wrote:
My buddy and I started watching Kabaneri. It's pretty awesome, so far. About halfway through.

It's worth watching thru, but in my opinion it definitely goes down hill.

Alderamin on the Sky continues to be a fun little anime that requires thinking but has the political stuff simple enough that you can follow along without hurting your brainspace.

The whole Empire vs. Republic thing gives me strong divided Roman Empire vibes, with the Empire being the West and the Republic the Byzantines. I wish more was revealed about the Republic... eh, maybe I'll give the translation of the light novel a go.

 Hoitash wrote:
Sweetness and Lightning, Alderamin, and Fate/Kaleid are about it for me this season. I'm thinking of giving New Game a try, I need to start High School fleet at some point, and I'm re-watching Lucky Star since it got uploaded.

I'm also watching Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans and One Punch Man on Toonami, because sleep is for the weak, apparently.

I binged One Punch Man not expecting to like it....I can honestly say I rather enjoyed it. The oblivious bored superhero who just wants a good fight, the side kick who thinks he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, the convoluted superhero ranking system and the brat girl at the top of the pile.

I hope they do a second season for it.

The creator of OP-M has said that there will be a second season, come hell or high water.

My own personal watch list for this season is..

- 91 Days
- Berserk
- Alderamin on the Sky

I dropped Gundam Unicorn a few episodes ago, as I was getting really tired of the main character's gak.

 BrookM wrote:
The creator of OP-M has said that there will be a second season, come hell or high water.

My own personal watch list for this season is..

- 91 Days
- Berserk
- Alderamin on the Sky

I dropped Gundam Unicorn a few episodes ago, as I was getting really tired of the main character's gak.

Gundam Unicorn is much easier to digest in the 7 OVA episodes rather than this re-edit for tv.

Also, on One Punch Man, was it ONE, or Murata?

From what I recall, it was Murata himself who said it.

As for Unicorn, maybe I was expecting it to be too much like Iron-Blooded Orphans or the Origin, not a whiny spanker who plays hostage roulette with all the big factions, tries to resolve fights through hugs and cries just a bit too much about how much of a crapsack that universe is.

 BrookM wrote:
From what I recall, it was Murata himself who said it.

As for Unicorn, maybe I was expecting it to be too much like Iron-Blooded Orphans or the Origin, not a whiny spanker who plays hostage roulette with all the big factions, tries to resolve fights through hugs and cries just a bit too much about how much of a crapsack that universe is.

The whiny teenager who cries about how much of a crap sack the universe is, is practically a staple of Universal Century shows. Alternate Universe stuff (Like Iron Blooded Orphans) can still feature that protagonist, but they tend to be shades of difference because they're not beholden to the UC timeline.

Also, if ONE had said that, I'd give it more stock since he's the original creator. Murata saying it, while having some force behind it, works mostly for Murata since it will hopefully drive up Jump sales whenever OPM is in the magazine. ONE is just doing this for fun and releases chapters on his website for free.

Unicorn disappointed me as well, especially the juxtaposition of the weirdly metaphysical/hocus-pocus-magic-ey stuff (psychocrystals erupting organically from a giant robot...?) they went with in the ending contrasting with the reapolitik and real world military feel of much of the rest show. Not the first time a Gundam show has done something like that, but it especially didnt work for me in Unicorn (I could kind of forgive the way they did it in Char's Counterattack), particularly when contrasted with other UC gundam stuff like 0080/0083/08th MS Team/Origin, etc.

I'll wait for the second season of Iron-Blooded Orphans myself, along with whenever they'll do the last instalment of Origin.

In other news, I've added Shokugeki no Soma to my list for this season after watching over half of the first season last night on the insistence of a friend. While the way the battles are shown is a bit idiotic and done to death, it's still fun to watch.

Today's episode of Berserk was..





Can't wait for next week's episode now.

Yeah, Berserk is getting better. The CGI is still awful, but at least it has cool stuff now. What's annoying is that some bits aren't in CGI and it looks so much better.
I love Skull Knight. He has such a nice armor design.

Yeah, still not sold on the CGI, but somewhat wonky visuals aside, this all is going somewhere awesome.

Also, that shot from the episode ending, along with that awesome soundtrack playing over it..



Again..

I know right, it was a pretty nice shot. It looks like the opening to a boss battle. Or a metal video. Whatever, its friggen cool.

What is that gif from? I'm not too familiar with Slice of Life cutesy anime.

I have no idea, a friend of mine uses a few of those to convey her general reaction to certain shows.

It can be best summed up as...

Me: Go watch Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans.

Her:

Me: At least watch Ash vs the Evil Dead.

Her:

Her:

Her:

I just bookmark the ones I like the most for whenever the need arises.