Seasonal Anime ImpressionsWinter 2021Part 5It's the grand finale! Are you excited? No? Well, that's fine. Below these last impressions there will be some overall thoughts on this season and an objective rough ranking of every anime that is important I watched this season. [The stuff in italics are the synopses taken straight from MAL]HorimiyaAlthough admired at school for her amiability and academic prowess, high school student Kyouko Hori has been hiding another side of her. With her parents often away from home due to work, Hori has to look after her younger brother and do the housework, leaving no chance to socialize away from school.Meanwhile, Izumi Miyamura is seen as a brooding, glasses-wearing otaku. However, in reality, he is a gentle person inept at studying. Furthermore, he has nine piercings hidden behind his long hair and a tattoo along his back and left shoulder.By sheer chance, Hori and Miyamura cross paths outside of school—neither looking as the other expects. These seemingly polar opposites become friends, sharing with each other a side they have never shown to anyone else.It seems like I've got to be controversial right out of the gate here: I am pretty ambivalent about this. Yes, this is good visually (the ED might deserve special mention) and yes, this is a romance anime where the main couple will probably be an actual couple within a few episodes (at least I hope so, else this would be rather stupid). And if that's enough to get you excited, by all means, check this anime out.BUT the whole set-up doesn't seem new or exciting, I might even go as far as saying it's "another one of these". This is a minor point but the opening scene involving their teacher is pretty weird on its own but made even weirder by the fact that this teacher just seems to have disappeared from this anime entirely. Seriously, why open the anime like this if all of it is almost entirely irrelevant.More importantly again, the characters don't seem to interesting. Hori is basically a tsundere and if I am supposed to be able to name a single character trait of Miyamura , the anime did not achieve its goal. Also this thing that is repeatedly stressed, that both of them have a hidden side or are totally different outside of school or whatever: Well, after reading the synopsis above, I think the normal reaction would be "What? Their 'hidden' sides are totally in line with their 'normal' sides". And, tbf, in the anime itself it's not quite as bad as that synopsis makes it seem but the changes between school and not-school still seem minor when we ignore appearances. And all of that might be because we didn't yet get to spend enough time with these characters and every issue I have might be resolved over time but if screen time was used more efficiently here, these issues wouldn't even have come up. Or, if efficiency isn't desirable here (for a more SoL feeling or whatever justification you might find), making us care about the characters should come before plot development for this kind of series.This is all not to say that this show is bad. It isn't and I'm even to some extent torn on whether to continue this. But I won't because it's just decent romance-y thing with no real reason to watch it over another one of those. There, I said it, do @ me.Dropped after 1 episode - 5/10Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu (Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation)Killed while saving a stranger from a traffic collision, a 34-year-old NEET is reincarnated into a world of magic as Rudeus Greyrat, a newborn baby. With knowledge, experience, and regrets from his previous life retained, Rudeus vows to lead a fulfilling life and not repeat his past mistakes.Now gifted with a tremendous amount of magical power as well as the mind of a grown adult, Rudeus is seen as a genius in the making by his new parents. Soon, he finds himself studying under powerful warriors, such as his swordsman father and a mage named Roxy Migurdia—all in order to hone his apparent talents. But despite his innocent exterior, Rudeus is still a perverted otaku, who uses his wealth of knowledge to make moves on women whom he could never make in his previous life. [sic]This is like the opposite situations than with Ex-Arm: If you watched the trailer, you might be disappointed by how this looks and sounds but if you didn't, you'd be amazed by the production value of this. Personally, I'd have been very surprised if the whole anime looked like the trailer. It's still very good looking though. Seriously, this is Studio Bind's first anime, the direction isn't super experienced either and yet we get something this beautiful. Sure, there are some little bits that don't look quite up to snuff but overall it's gorgeous to look at (This scene I think starts with the highest high and ends with the lowest low (visually) so far and this is an insanely high standard for both of these) The soundtrack is also great.But enough gushing because, let's be real here, this anime sucks. The premise is just the most generic isekai shit there is, the exposition is bad, boring scenes just take up too much time, the dialog isn't well written (as far as I can judge that from just subtitles) and I just absolutely hate the main character. He is terrible and I don't think the anime would agree with me on that point at all.I'd really wish all of this talent and effort was spent on a better source material (or something original for that matter). I can only say that I hate this but am excited about what Studio Bind will do next.Dropped after 17' - 5/10Wonder Egg PriorityA story of troubled girls, spun by screenwriter Shinji Nojima in the world of anime.Led by a mysterious voice while on a midnight stroll, 14-year-old girl Ai Ooto picks up an egg. The voice coaxes her: "If you want to change the future, you only need to choose now. Now, believe in yourself and break the egg."What awaits Ai after the breaking of the egg...I don't really want to say too much about this except: It's beautiful, wonderfully weird when it wants to be and the soundtrack is amazing as well. Just go and watch this.Not dropped - 5/10That's it for impressions for this season. Tenkuu Shinpan and Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san are two more anime that I want to check out but they won't be released until February and thus not find a place in these Seasonal Anime Impressions. Sorry Tenkuu Shinpan and Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san. You could have definitetly used the huge boost in pirated streams that my blog posts are giving you.Overall this season presents a lot of variety and also a decent level of quality in most directions that this variety goes in. Also there is just a crazy amount of sequels, including a lot of high profile ones that I'm not watching. I don't think there is gonna be an anime that just totally blows me away here though. This is not like last Winter season where we had Eizouken (in addition to Heya Camp (and also Id:Invaded, Pet, etc.)). Could these overall thoughts be any more boring? Let's just get straight into the ranking of first episodes.1 Yuru Camp△ Season 22 Wonder Egg Priority3 Beastars 2nd Season4 Ex-Arm (don't judge me, it's great fun)5 SK∞6 Kemono Jihen7 Yakusoku no Neverland 2nd Season8 2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu9 Kai Byoui Ramune10 Vlad Love------------------------------------- ~~~THE DROP LINE~~~11 Horimiya12 Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?13 Urasekai Picnic14 Project Scard: Praeter no Kizu15 Back Arrow16 Tenchi Souzou Design-bu17 Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu (not the worst one but the one I hate the most)Thanks for reading. Have a nice season.
Jan 15, 2021 • Subscribe
Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist-, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, SK8 the Infinity, VLAD LOVE, Laid-Back Camp
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