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MY FAVORITES FOR FALL 2015


With Seven Days of Anime Project coming to a close, I cannot help but feel glad as I genuinely liked seven offerings this Fall. I personally felt that this season is the best this year given the consistency of the titles it presented though most of these are sequels of already established series. Well, we still have One Punch Man and Concrete Revolutio as good original shows which aired this season, isn't it?


7. OWARIMONOGATARI





Now that Owarimonogatari has finished airing, I had mixed reactions to this show overall. On the plus side, Owarimonogatari managed me to be entertained even if it is now the nth entry to the Monogatari franchise mainly thanks to Sodachi and Ougi. The visuals remain quirky as Shaft can be and the musical score is on point as always. On the other hand, I felt sad that I had to place it here because the second half was not able to sustain the excellence of the first half. It was frustrating that Shinobu Mail is supposed to be a more important arc as it connects to Kizumonogatari only to be marred by the franchise’s worn antics that had me irritated over time. Yet I can confidently say that Owarimonogatari is a welcome addition to the entertaining Monogatari franchise.


6. HIGH SCHOOL STAR MUSICAL (Starmyu)





I am pretty sure that everyone who might be reading this right now gave a puzzled look as I placed a fujoshi series in my favorites this Fall. To add some fuel to the flame, Starmyu is a freakin’ teen idol show to boot! Okay. I need to give some explanation here. Do you remember Tsuritama? Yes. That anime about fishing? The reason I am putting Starmyu as my favorite and well ahead of Owarimonagatari is because it gave me the same set of fun and light atmosphere which Tsuritama had throughout its run. It is funny, quirky and emotional with its set of emotions given in moderation. While the plot is nothing special, this show had me emotionally invested with its quirky but relatively developed characters and convincing drama towards the last third of the show. I cannot help but root for the Team Otori’s dream of performing in the Ayanagi Festival and what a poignant event that was when it happened! On a less serious note, I can also never get over with the random insert music videos, shipping opportunities Starmyu gave to its fanbase and the cheese it presented in its early episodes. Do not be fooled with the nondescript first episode as this series gets seriously better through time. With its first volume BD sales almost at par with One Punch Man, count me excited for the second season.


5. ONE PUNCH MAN





Is One Punch Man overhyped? Yes. Is this overrated? Yes, but not as worse as haters claim. This one has the most justifications as to why it became a crowd favorite out of the breakout titles in 2015 and will surely appear in many year-end lists for its awesome animation and for its reminder how straightforward satires can also be entertaining. It has a very simple plot that it pulls for all the time but the jokes can get repetitive. Much has been said with One Punch Man’s ultra-fluid animation but I will address one of its issues that is the quality of fights in this series was diluted by overuse of camera zooms and explosions.

One Punch Man can also be emotionally compelling as we have seen the excellence of episodes 8 and 9 yet it stayed too much to its panacea that is only enjoyable due to the visuals. In the end, if you are someone who watches anime simply for the sake of animation, this one is for you.


4. LUPIN III (2015)





The atmosphere of this ongoing installment is right in the middle of your typical Lupin gag episodes and the Fujiko Mine spinoff. It can be brainless fun if it wants to (the first episode) but it can be dead serious when it needs to (Lupin decoding the dying message of Rebecca’s former beau and its surreal visual presentation). What separate this installment from others is it utilizes recurring characters and the absence of dumb Detective Zenigata. Also, it is refreshing to see an anime that is not set in Japan. Plus, that cool artwork which mixes the 1970's look of the series while applying 2015's animation techniques! My only beef with its characters is that it seemed to carry over the traits of Goemon who is as interesting as watching paint dry.



3. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: IRON BLOODED ORPHANS





Probably the most polarizing series at the moment as it has the bloggers divided as to those who seriously love it and to those who loathe it to bones because of the series composer Mari Okada. Do I love it? Yes. I love it to bits as Iron Blooded Orphans is one of the few series that make ballsy efforts to develop all of its characters while moving the plot. The fight scenes, while few, are totally having ‘edge-in-your-seats-quality’ and this series portrays the hardships of these kids and they are forced to grow in these terrible circumstances. In addition, we are not given overpowered Gundams (no power beams!) this time but machines that are beatable even the protagonist is operating it. Well, to be fair, I wished that this series would be at least be faster because of the slow pacing (just bring Kudelia to Earth darn it!) and careful presentation of its out of the world ideas that really offend others (the harem thing and its effect to young kid’s mental image of marriage to be specific).



2. CONCRETE REVOLUTIO





It looks like this series has gone a lot before it ended right as my second pick for this season. Judging from first episode alone, this was not the anime I really wanted for its abrasive art and animation, its very jarring time skips coupled with its Japanese way of stating eras and the less than good Baccano! style of presentation. Yet my instinct told me not to drop this even when the MAL community seemed to hate it and it paid off. Little by little, the time skips made sense, we were introduced to characters that played role to the show’s biggest moments and we were shown the reasons why Jiro left the Superhero Department for all the justifiable reasons. By the time it reached episode 9, I was now already incurably hooked trying to put all the pieces of the puzzles and was given by arguably one the best finales this 2015. Hats off for being the best new show this season, Concrete Revolutio!


1. NORAGAMI ARAGOTO





Now that I already mentioned my thoughts about wanting this over the first season, I guess it’s my time to have an assessment of this show on its own. If Iron Blooded Orphans fizzle as the number of episode count increases and Concrete Revolutio’s first episode was a real mess, Noragami wins because of consistency in general. There were no signs of dropping in terms of the quality of visuals and storytelling from episode one until the last one. There were also no bad episodes yet some are greater than others given that these are the emotional peaks of their respective arcs. Controversial opinion time: The Ebisu God Arc is much better than the Bishamon Arc for my taste. The latter one made me convinced that Aragoto is miles better than its prequel but the former has the brevity to tackle the intricacies of how the gods’ sense of justice work in the heaven, fleshing the heck out of Yato’s character and for its really great execution to make us care for the clumsy batman, I mean, god Ebisu. If you had an arc as grand as this and the story still didn’t go all over the place, it is a sure win in my book.

Dishonorable Mentions: Comet Lucifer for boiling down as a show for kleptomaniac mechas (talk about wasted potential) and The Perfect Insider for A-1 Pictures’ lifeless presentation of an otherwise fine mystery series.