The current anime season has ended, and I thought I'd give y'all my thoughts on the shows I introduced here now that they're complete (or at a stopping point).
Hataraku Maou-sama! (complete at 13 episodes): This was fun and silly and cute. There is an overarching story, which revolves around Emilia the Hero wanting to fulfill her duty to kill the Dark Lord and the Dark Lord basically wanting to pay all his bills. When more people from Ente Isla show up, it gets harder for Emi and Maou to maintain the equilibrium they reached.
Also, Lucifer as a NEET is hilarious.
Suisei no Gargantia (complete at 13 episodes): This is a well-plotted story, and it has a satisfying ending. There were a couple surprises I didn't see coming, or didn't expect quite the way they were done, (and a couple I did), but the plot arced in about the way I expected it to. The main conflict was Ledo learning what it's like to live as a human rather than a soldier. He also uncovers some lost knowledge about what happened when people left Earth, which sets off emotional turmoil. I don't really want to spoil you. It's good, and you should watch it.
Attack on Titan: BRUTAL. The story gets a little WTF around episode 6, but it's explained, and the explanation works. The soldiers react realistically to seeing their friends and squadmates get eaten by giants; they're not all stoic and all. Still brutal, still gorgeously animated. Definitely worth watching if you can handle the BRUTAL.
A friend commented that it wasn't the blood spatter and giants' eating people that bothered her, but the characters' reactions to it--bugged-out eyes, panting or gasping, general horror--that did. Unlike a lot of shows I've seen that involve basically killing a lot of people, Titan shows people reacting to losing their friends. It's a reminder to the viewer that the faceless mooks aren't actually faceless.
Valvrave the Liberator (will resume in fall?): Oh god this show is so dumb. I swear the people who wrote it were drunk or on some really good drugs. That or they had every trope ever written on cards stuck to the wall and threw darts at it to see what happened next. Vampire aliens, space nazis, secret military plot to use high school kids as pilots of secret space alien mecha, the illuminati, a girl who wants to be a idol singer, fridged female love interest, genki girl whose dad is the prime minister and whom everyone likes, juvenile delinquent guy, hikikomori, hapless bishounen class president...
I'm mainly watching to find out what dumb thing they're going to do next. I haven't been able to predict many things, primarily because the plot looks like it's doing this thing and then suddenly a wild PLOT DEVICE appears out of nowhere and makes you go WTF? Though it was really obvious that PM Dad was going to be killed in the space nazi fleet and that JD guy was going to pilot one of the mecha.
If you decide to watch it, don't say I didn't warn you.
2 comments:
Gargantia is the one I've been waiting to end. I know I'll marathon it on Crunchyroll as soon as I have a free weekend. Good to hear it wraps up as strongly as I expected.
It's a fairly tightly plotted thing, with very little wasted time. The "filler" is character development, for the most part. When you have 13 episodes, you don't have much excess space.
Post a Comment