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TV Series Watched Seasonally
~In the order in which I started them~

☆

Winter 2011

Puella Magi Madoka Magica
• Completed: 8/10
Remarkable visuals and sound, a good series that however didn't have on me the impact it has on most. The film trilogy didn't contribute to secure my opinion and doubts about the score it deserves long-term either. It gets the credit of becoming a worthy magical girl series though.



Winter 2014

Tonari no Seki-kun
• Watching: 7/10
Dazzling originality in some episodes and boring ideas in others, especially in the 2nd half of the series where some of the games are repeated and the next styles become more abundant: those episodes including the robot family or other random inanimate objects, or those based solely on Yokoi's imagination and rather exacerbate feeling of protection towards cuties. In my opinion Seki-kun isn't likeable, but his inventions and unbothered mood made good contrast with Yokoi's character, who however should've learnt more about how to deal with his personality during class. Animation seems quite poor at first but it ends up being fitting altogether, in combination with a perfect soundtrack that adds to the fun of the series.



Spring 2014

Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou
• Dropped: 4/10
Entertaining first minutes but extremely typical setting and characters afterwards. The bright animation wasn't enough to keep me watching, since the characters' annoying actions and repetitive jokes shadowed it completely.

Akuma no Riddle
• Completed: 4/10
The entertainment potential the series showed in episodes 1 and 2 starts to look mediocre at episode 3, to get only worse from there. Episodes 4 and 5 were boring, the character's actions were pathetic in the 6th. All flashbacks that are supposed to develop characters are pitiful and close to nonsense, plus near the end the ridicule of the story had only increased.

Isshuukan Friends.
• Completed: 5/10
A promising first episode for a series that has unusual and soft art, a beautiful opening marvelously animated and an ending theme that lives up to it, these characteristics made me feel disappointed when the story turned into an average attempt of Slice of Life series with forced drama scenes unfitting for it, and especially the characters acquired annoying personalities with little contribution to the plot. In that collection of cliché events careless Shougo ended up being the most refreshing character. In the end this isn't bad as a School anime, but it could've been much more.

No Game No Life
• Completed: 6.5/10
After a first episode way better than expected I didn't find the strange scenes in the second as good, but though this type of pretty much filler scenes continued during the series they didn't affect my enjoyment of it. Having a preview of the anime's style helped me not to be influenced by its posterior hype and #16 position reached in MAL's ranking. Silliness aside the game strategy lived up to expectations (with the character's knowledge however not always well backed up) and the dazzling animation I didn't originally like was a perfect fit.

Mekakucity Actors
• Completed: 6/10
The unusual style of the series that drew me in initially, certainly isn't the best of SHAFT works: character design never becomes really likeable with the awkward looking eyes, matt colours and the heavy abstraction that, though it fits the anime most of the time, is excessively gloomy and irrelevant for example during episode 4. The series has the somewhat annoying characteristic of leaving an event as cliffhanger and starting a new one in the next episode, but this feature accentuated the puzzle-like story and made me eager to keep watching despite its quite episodic format. I considerably liked the series until boring episode 9 came along, with its disagreeable and rigid animation at the start, and especially episode 12, which messed up the facts and highlighted the very weak character development. The series had been able to keep all events decently conjoined up until now, but near the ending everything was rushed and not even basic events were clarified. Music wasn't as memorable as it should've been considering it's the origin of the anime, with a couple of exceptions every song falls into oblivion. Despite all that Mekakucity Actors tried to make a difference and it was totally worth the watch, plus I had considerable enjoyment in putting the pieces together.

Escha & Logy no Atelier: Tasogare no Sora no Renkinjutsushi
• Completed: 3/10
Last of my disappointing Spring picks and the one that took me longest to complete, not only because of the day count but because it was particularly tedious. I've had some experience with series presented in this fantasy/medieval setting, none too successfully, but after watching a light and good-looking first episode I thought this series had the potential to achieve different outcomes. That impression was quickly proven wrong when I watched a considerably less enjoyable 2nd episode and the rest of the series overall: random, silly and extremely boring. The inconsistency of the almost episodic plot wasn't the only one at fault; characters had so little development and characterization beyond basic introduction that all of them were a bland sight, Escha's tears always felt forced and definitely not touching, VAs weren't impressive and the animation that seemed decent at first was quite weak. The sountrack was quite noticeable, but mainly because it had an excessively loud effect.


Summer 2014

Gekkan Shoujo Nokazi-kun
• Completed: 8/10
Funniest show in a while, first put On Hold until it completed airing to be able to fully enjoy it. 100% comedy, some seasoning and nothing else. But I didn't care about Chiyo's confession being completely neglected, about Nozaki's infinite cluelessness or about Lorelei's somewhat disastrous development (about this one I cared more than the rest). This is to be seen as a combination of assorted sound, facial expressions (such lovely art for Chiyo) and wise/nuts dialogues to achieve the greater comedy. The ED is very generic to my tastes; the OP definitely catches one's attention every episode.

Glasslip
• Completed: 2/10
I wanted to write about how irritant characters in the series are (particularly Touko with her "EHHHH?" deep responses), how ridiculously classical music is placed, the uselessness of the stills and how not even one of their faces looks good (plus glass blowing... No? Synopsis-only item?), but I've been so dazzled by the brilliance of the last episodes that I forgot about it. Being able to mess up dialogues and every single event so much, either with absurdity or complete oblivion, is worthy of a masterpiece. Genius work (how, you wonder), hence entertaining, I can't deny. ~ This series induces to sarcasm so much. And damn the chickens.


Winter 2015

The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls
• Completed: 2.5/10
I very much subjectively despise this. I won't even spend more time on writing a longer comment for it specifying what I dislike. 'Everything' scored in a range of 2 to 4 out of 10 excluding the animation (not the character designs) should suffice. In one word: "bornnoying".

Koufuku Graffiti
• Completed: 4/10
SHAFT + cooking. That's all that interested me. Graffiti? Well, we'll never know why that's there if for once there is a reason for it. Another case of evolving mediocrity, possibly a 5/10 from the start but the enjoyment values changed a lot. Whereas at first the series offered the unusual themes I was looking for and the episodes in Shiina's house (5 & 7) and the previews were truly fun the series run out of originality too soon. All characters have some blandness embedded to them, or at least I wasn't able to get into any of them at all and the art that was already too bright and not very appealing to begin with also worsens as the (on the other hand "common") animation quality drops. The ED is 100% forgettable and the OP somehow got unbearable after a few times. The story becomes amazingly slow, too much for the couple of merry family scenes to make up for the boredom. Maybe I was looking for cooking, and I found too much eating. The series rarely made me hungry.

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
[Fall 2014, started mid-season]
• Completed: 5/10
The beautiful prospects of a high quality dramatic music anime… The competitions start and everything is laid out for it to shine and yet, why? Why the slow pace, the exaggerated and misplaced melodrama accompanied by a lot worse comedy, the little importance of some characters and the secondary role of the most interesting ones, the constant interruptions and visual distractions in every competition that make the music a mere accessory and not the reason of being on stage? And the repetition. The flashbacks with equal monologues. The little credibility of the mother in the protagonist's past. Oh the boredom. It could’ve been different. Some episodes, like #18, prove it.

Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (TV)
• Dropped: 3/10
Koro-sensei is skillful. Koro-sensei is viscously attractive. Koro-sensei is funny. Nothing else in the series is. From the absurdly put settings to the typicality or blandness of the characters (and their designs), every scene (excluding those where Koro-sensei cooks, marks exams and builds sand castles) comes out as boring or vulgar and the attempts of drama are close to pathetic. Not only the watery flashbacks but even the corrupt policies of the school. How students from every other class is made ugly (they are all bullies too) to draw sympathy towards the poor assassin victims is way too obvious. Also... why is Nagisa male? Or, is he?


Spring 2015

Shokugeki no Soma
• Completed: 5.5/10
A case that makes itself hard to rate, given the series’ differences between its halves. The first takes afloat the elements that the manga managed to camouflage well enough, and sinks more than ten episodes into stupidity of an indecent sort. That combined with the cheap-looking effects that flood the animation, and a soundtrack that is repetitive in its excessive grandiosity. In contrast, the second half manages to get me into the competition, despite perfectly remembering the events that would follow. For now, its positive aspects focus on the content from its strong source material. The designs aren’t my liking, and the characters remain flat, but the storyline pulls the series up if and it continues that path, not only its enjoyment value will stand out.


Summer 2015

Charlotte
• Completed: 4/10
At first the series was just a compound of all those things I tend to dislike from Key’s. Their trademark clichés (referring to those elements they can only try, with much difficulty, not to include them in all their works), the flat character introductions, the sudden drama and the painful (attempt of) comedy. If the series had stuck to that, making its superpower premise shine a little, I would’ve found it mediocre and sent it to oblivion. And that’d be the end of it. But that didn’t happen, because the last episodes made themselves lasting. They were hilariously bad. The plot strikes with the most unbelievable developments once and again, making its characters’ feelings more baseless by the minute. To then conclude with a scene that is the pinnacle of all the impressive abuse of convenience and lack of thinking the series’ writing is capable of. The pace was also appalling. Some episodes were entirely dedicated to a single character that never appeared again (and who we are encouraged to weep for), and during the next the offer switched to “deep stuff” cases that were closed and filed in a few minutes. I did laugh now and then.


Winter 2016

Hai to Gensou no Grimgar
• Completed: 5.5/10
Grimgar doesn’t suffer from the same signs of mediocrity that characterise many sword-setting fantasy anime, but it has its own. A prioritisation of fanservice over some reflective moments the anime does have also sullies its potential as a psychological study of battle. The behaviour that depicted so well in the first episode the fear of someone who has never killed soon disappears under the anime’s insistency in showing the characters’ actions within the group alone, taking all their training in the different guilds and outside interaction for granted, resulting in fighting that progresses very quickly and unrealistically (and at the same time, erasing most context from ep. 1 entirely). The story also seems to notice that maybe the monsters they’re killing have lives and feelings of their own, but any attention to that ends very quickly. Yet the series isn’t entirely rushed, because many episodes go by with very little to tell, due to the action being very similar and the scenes dedicated to character development turning out unimpactful and very slow at times, despite how hard they try to stir up some tears. The numerous dialogues, sometimes presenting the irrelevant seriously, intend to deepen a bond between the characters that never solidifies beyond superficiality. That said, I wouldn’t mind a second season. This anime still offers an unusual presentation of battle taken at the pace of slice of life, making daily life out of it, and if it extended its horizons and the outside world that surrounds the protagonists, it could leave its mark.


Spring 2016

Anne Happy♪
• Watching: 1/10
By the last episode, this series has drowned all words with its stupidity and created every kind of boredom and irritation.

Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu
• Completed: 5.5/10
A trip of up and downs all along. After a decent entertainment-focused start, boring typicality and eventually tedious behaviour arrive. Yet, as soon as certain characters get out of the way (most noticeably Emilia) and the focus is on the mystery present in the story, there is much improvement. A good pace combined with adventurous and sometimes dark events make the thick of the series a fun ride, even if not too consistently under examination. But only to conclude with three extremely lacking three episodes and a miserably lazy conclusion. Subaru, who at first seems to challenge being favoured by the plot, develops his initial lack of ability so incredibly that only hardship makes such favouritism not evident. Entertaining, for sure. Good? The more I look back on it, the better use I find in a lower score.


Summer 2016

Rewrite
• Dropped: 3/10
The first 48-minute episode of this left me in a marvelled state. Negatively. Extremely unskilled animation combined with bland and unappealing designs show a plot that grows more incoherent by the minute. I know, I know this is based on a very long visual novel. This is a complex story (I expect). But this presentation isn't only mildly confusing and to be explained. It's disastrous. It is a 48-minute long bore.

Shokugeki no Souma: Ni no Sara
• Completed: 6/10
In essence, Shokugeki no Souma continues to be quite the same. So why is this season better? Mostly, because of the stage the story is in. The stupid parts and the very boring inactivity periods (numerous in the first season) have been left behind, so from all the vulgarity I only had the tasting reactions left to get used to. The whole season focuses on the main competitions that the previous had been anticipating, and although the pattern in which the challenges are presented hardly varies, the series manages to increase the tension with the episodes. That can be considered an achievement of its own.

Amanchu!
• Dropped: 4/10
Oh, Amanchu! The fresh sea breeze you started with was slow and not more spectacular than a clear sky at noon, but it wasn't obvious that it would become so irreversibly stale as it did. Not in many cases the use of "cutesy" ends up becoming as detrimental and blatantly repetitive as in here. The main characters are reduced to that, and the plot... after episode 1, it must've sailed far away.

Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!
• Dropped: 4/10
A show that loves misleading situations to fool the characters into rejoicing over an achievement only to realise the results are nothing like their hopes. But the technique doesn't fool the audience. Why? Because it's perfectly predictable.

Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume
• Completed: 6/10
Grey, sometimes bland... But not always. Its sparks of colour are like the plot's, that especially at the beginning and at the end tries to fetch further and bring forward the interesting sides of the setting through the characters, even if they on their own never reached me. It is too short and not deep enough for a full meal, but still a snack worth trying out.

Bananya
• Completed: 5/10
This is astonishingly dumb, but not repulsive in bad quality. It's incredible someone dared to make it, but taken lightly it can be rather funny. Most times, due to strange reasons.


Winter 2017

Nyanko Days
• Watching: 3/10
More of these dumb things? There are two questions to make: Why was this made? And why did I watch it? No more.

Kuzu no Honkai
• Watching: 7/10
A controversial show in a somewhat rarer way than it is average. It can be extremely fickle, even though its intent is to show depth. The point to be highlighted is that, by the last episode, the show has had its share of both. The final episodes are what managed to convince me of its worth, but I'd be capable of contradicting my good score as much as the series is in between of sensibility and irritability.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon
• Watching: 7/10
This is the way for a cute + comedy to be made.

Demi-chan wa Kataritai
• Dropped: 4/10
There are two characters I would've liked to have known more about, but—like it was from the start—I suspected that even when I got to find out the approach towards the information given wouldn't be satisfying. That's how much care I have for this series' premise and how it is vanquished by the boring presentation of it.


Spring 2017

Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii desu ka?
• Completed: 4.5/10
It's what I expected but also worse. The fantasy world itself is quite dull, but the backstories of its past and its future as well definitely aren't. But does the anime care? Not at all. Information on both is spouted whenever suitable, but never with even half as much dedication as is put on kids with pastries or a warrior-to-housewife transformation. SukaSuka has a liking for tragedy, but such a taste couldn't combine worse with the moe and the behavioural clichés it chooses to show. Some scenes retain the interest of what it could've been, but for all those odd conversations between characters and focus on irrelevant things... what's their point? It's good that while I was watching the last two episodes I wasn't expecting beyond, but when I finished it I couldn't but notice how many loose ends and poor explanations covered the stories that, had they been the focus of the story, would've left the series better off.


Summer 2017

Netsuzou TRap
• Dropped: 2/10
It happened that I went to check the episode's duration, and ended up watching one third of it. Then I thought "Why not skim the rest and make it a drop?" and on the following day, I did.


Fall 2017

Houseki no Kuni
• Watching: 8/10
The series' quality varies enough for that score to be a bit generous rather than strictly deserved, however all of its sides (soundtrack, visuals, story, some moments of the characters'—that's possibly where the series gets silliest at times) shine so singularly that I want to give it the merit.

Shokugeki no Souma: San no Sara
• Dropped: 4/10
I started the series with all the intention of dropping it, but expecting that it'd be entertaining enough to tempt me to undo the pre-made choice (even though seeing more wouldn't be of use in any way). That wasn't the case. Could've dropped it at minute 5, as the view of the episode already was the same then.

Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau
• Watching: 5.5/10
It had it all. It had it all to be an immersive and diverse adventure in a fantasy world not at all like those in which the main male character falls into a MMORPG. But once it starts, its recession into poorly dealt with drama and even worse managed characters (the repetitive pointless exhibits of that sadist!) is speedy.


Summer 2018

Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight


Spring 2019

Fruits Basket (2019)

Carole & Tuesday

☆