Currently Airing Anime

Robotics;Notes:

 Spoiler

I probably didn't pay as much attention to the overall story as I should have, but the series really lacked an overall urgency to it. I had initially heard the VN did poorly, but I never followed up on the situation. The plot really lacked a defining feature for the protagonists to work towards/against. It was primarily doing the robot contest at first, and then just making a big ass robot, but why? Just because. And then suddenly, these reports. Let's read them, but why? Just because. And then finally, it starts to pick up, but there's a glaring lack of conflict from episode 1 to whenever Misa died in my opinion. The confession scene was expected to occur, but at the same time, I didn't feel it as strongly. Kai was always depicted rather stoicly, and while he does show a lot of concern, it's never really stressed as much affection, let alone love. So while it does happen, and reaffirm all our hopes and dreams, it fell flat at the same time for me. The last episode felt way too grandiose as well. I know we're supposed to expect technology to have improved significantly a couple of years from now, but having reflexes down to nanoseconds would not help your gigantic brick dodge projectiles moving at the speed of sound. Also, a pineappleing app that shoots a missile and deletes an AI. What. I did like the NOAH reference though. I enjoyed reading Chaos;Head quite a bit. I wonder if they'll be continuing with this franchise though. I hope they learned a lot from this.

5/10

Psycho-Pass:

 Spoiler

This show had a really strong flow throughout its entire run. Its a type of show I rarely find myself watching, but it's one of my favourites over the past year. The initial episodes really set it out to feel like a standard crime drama, but it drew a really vivid (or somber) atmosphere. The overall continual conflict between Makishima and Kougami had a lot of strong impact, especially showing the fight scene in the first episode in a flashforward. I read a few comments around after finishing the last episode, and a lot of people seemed confused as to why Makishima just gave up, and waited to be shot, and why Akane didn't destroy Sybil. I would like to point out that, rather than giving up, Makishima knew he lost. He had suffered a rather serious wound, losing a significant amount of blood, and then having crashed a large vehicle, he crossed a field, and climbed a rather steep hill. I was personally expecting a Sherlock Holmes ending going into this episode, as Kougami and Makishima I feel have a lot of influence drawn from Holmes and Moriarty, where Kougami and Makishima would seemingly both die.
One of the strongest points to the show though, I always felt, was Hanazawa Kana's performance and Akane's growth throughout the series. The final scenes showing her accepting the necessary evil that is Sybil, rather than destroying the world as they know it brings another level of depth to the possible future story I feel. I think it shows a greater conflict over whether humans can truly improve themselves to a point where a system like this isn't needed, compared to whether a system like this needs to improve itself much more (i.e. The Matrix). If I were more educated in literature, I'm sure I would have a much more meaningful connection to a lot of the references that I end up having to wiki later, though I do recognize some of them.
Of all the characters, Kunazuki Yayoi had the lowest amount of impact throughout the entire series. I think her role played a more significant part towards dehumanizing the Sibyl system through her flashback, but her active role itself was never that great, especially compared to Shion, where she has the technical skills. But dat yuri.

10/10

Seitokai no Ichizon Lv2:

 Spoiler

I think this series was heavily overshadowed by two things: GJ-bu this season, holding a superior animation quality and being a new series, and the fact the original was much better. My memory may not be that great, but I remember a much better feeling of interest thinking of the first season compared to this. I think there were a few good episodes, such as the later ones involving Ringo, and Asuka, but the leading episodes felt a lot less interesting. Maybe the content wasn't as interesting to the me of now, compared to when I watched the first season, but the general consensus around is that it's worse. I believe sales are abysmal, so the chances of a sequel are poor, but given that a sequel would have a completely new cast of girls, I'm not sure if I would even want that, given the attachment of the current cast.

5/10

Shinsekai Yori:

 Spoiler

It's finally over. The rather significantly low animation quality of this show is a large putoff. I feel the overall story may have been able to be condensed into a 13 episode show instead of 25. A lot of the episodes are for exposition about random pomegranate that sets the "tone" but isn't really used significantly. A lot of it just didn't seem necessary. The overall conclusion at the end wasn't that shocking, though I wouldn't say it's something you'd predict prior to that episode. A lot of it felt dragged on, and there was a large focus on "lore", but there were significant parts that didn't play a part in the overall story at all. I thought the show overall was okay, but I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone unless they want something very specific, especially if the BluRays are not significant improvements to the eyecancer. Also, those tainted cats at the end were adorable.

4/10

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: The Movie 2nd A's I rewatched 1st yesterday, and I thought the cinematography in it was very good. I was considering watching them back-to-back, but the download for 2nd was horrendously slow, and I likely didn't have enough time. Seeing 1st really set the mood up really well for the expectations in 2nd, as it's been quite a long time since I'd seen the originals. Both movies are amazingly well done, and I would recommend them to anyone who hasn't seen the originals, as the content is almost identical, and what was removed isn't important in my opinion. As proof of such, I didn't even remember the pomegranate that was removed ever even happened until I read about it afterwards, and thought, oh okay.

 Spoiler

There are a lot of amazing scenes in this movie. It starts off really strong with the reunion scene, and leads up to an amazing fight with Nanoha vs Vita, with a bit of action from Fate vs Signum. After getting the cartridge system, the transformation scenes were AMAZING. A little bit of tension was lost transitioning from Nanoha's to Fate's since there's a gap of silence switching tracks and scenes, but it felt really good seeing such a long, well animated scene with their own themes playing out, and showing Raising Heart Excelion and Bardiche Assault afterwards. All of the fight scenes were fantastically done. Nanoha solo vs Reinforce was especially amazing, with them intertwining the Fate + Alicia scenes, and then having that MAXIMUM OVERBAWWWWWW farewell, and Fate coming in and saving the day. The scene had a lot of impact, with a really strong track playing in the background, especially after watching 1st yesterday, with the scene where Alicia asks for a little sister. T_T The music overall in this movie is perfect, especially for this fight, transitioning from the sad cut to the heroic fanfare as Nanoha begins to lose, and Fate comes and saves her. I'm not 100% sold on CGI being used like the last boss was though, but the overall cooperation fight scene was really something, especially with Starlight Breaker + Plasma Zanber + Ragnarok.

I had completely forgotten about the conspiracy aspect they left out, but I honestly don't think it was a significant selling point to the story to begin with, just something to drag out 12 whole episodes.
There's apparently a 3rd movie in the works now, and I'm hoping it's not StrikerS. It's a lot of content to condense into a single movie, and I doubt it would work well being divided. It's also not as good as 1st or A's. I'm always hoping that one day, they'll revisit the story and fill in the gap between A's and StrikerS (TEN YEARS), as that's a lot of potential content (TEN YEARS)that can pad their pockets ($$$$$$) quite thickly, I would imagine. I also want to see some ViVid, and Force as well. It's just been a long time since StrikerS, and it's such a successful franchise.

10/10


A lot of the other shows I've seen this season were much more entertaining to me than Robotics;Notes, Shinsekai Yori, and Seitokai no Ichizon Lv.2.

For example, that fucking crow scene in Vivid Operation 11. That was fucking insane. I'm still hoping for a Vivid Purple/Black ending to defeat the final boss =]