What am I Watch?! Hangover Edition!

Don’t judge a show by its poster

by Bob Johnson

So many of the shows we picked for extended watches were letdowns, while some that barely pinged the radar proved to be among the best of the bunch. In short, this season has been a great example in how NOT to preview anime.

While some shows are plainly terrible, there’s also a subset more like Two Car, that start strong but catch the wrong train shortly thereafter. A suggestion to follow, if you’re a stickler for quality management, is to recalibrate your idea of the three episode watch to follow statistical methods and be scattered throughout the season. There is too much sample bias just catching the first three.

Fuck yeah Look it up!

Garo: Vanishing Line

Garo is much in the vein of the old-fashioned high-energy beat-em-up, and has some interesting noir elements. A perfectly cromulent anime – and the best surprise of the season.

Look these up!

Code Realize

Sure, it’s the kind of show that raids fin-de-siecle pop culture characters in the same brutal way the English language acquires loanwords, but the result is not just watchable, but a cosplay goldmine!

Love is Like a Cocktail

The only show this season that was exactly what it said on the tin. Take notes! The essentials of your next anime convention party room bar are listed in detail during each saccharine short.

Blood Blockade Battlefront S.2

All the Bs tripped Gristle’s radar, and as it happens, The Hierarchy Approves. It’s Season 2 of a p. good show; need to watch that to say more.

Maybe Look This Up!

Two Car

A strong open focused on motocycle sidecar racing skills peters out into magical, unrealistic fantasies about lesbian drama. Still, the race commentators are hilarious.

Don’t Look These Up!

Onyakopon

Totally bizarre and mercifully short, the “best” part of this short-format show are the song-and-dance numbers. The cel-shaded art is striking, but not particularly well-rendered. Not recommended if you’re older than 12.

My Girlfriend is a Shojo Bitch

Insufferable harem characters mime through just enough intolerable plot to totally wreck any enjoyment of the lower-than-expected levels of fanservice. Frieza’s wife, the wipes are better than the scenes they separate!

Anime-Gataris

Here we go again, another schoolgirl light-adventure show. The twist is talking pets? No, thank you.

Urahara

Not to be outdone, Urahara’s talking pets are weird alien invaders that must be battled following transformation scenes. The show focuses on trendy art, fashion, and food, but as they are trapped in an inescapable force bubble in a major urban centre, I expect all of these people to die from hypoxia.

Girls’ Last Tour

Lacks any serious effort to be thoughtful or funny. The uneventful outings have zero energy. Unless you are inclined to think Katyusha’s sleeping scenes in Girls und Panzer are the pinnacle of video content, not interesting in the least.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *