Anime Reviews by Tripl3M: Spring Season 2014

Hey peps,

this season of animes was interesting. It had a surprising amount of surprise.
There was a lot of stuff which I thought I would dislike or like and this confuses me. Generally I am able to determine whether I like a anime from the description and the genres alone, but the ones like Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou or Majin Bone really did positively surprise me.

Anyway let's get into the detail with the major anime released of the Spring Season.

I am first going to list the one I've dropped due to various reasons like didn't sound too interesting or generally weren't that great in my opinion.

Abarenbou Kishi!! Matsutarou: Just no... style and what's it about... eh just not interesting....
Akuma no Riddle: This was clearly a yuri anime, which isn't bad, though the first two episode were slow.. really slow. In addition, after skimming the wikia of it I've kinda guessed the plot entirely. I don't know if it's a good thing or bad thing, but it seemed obvious to me, that they're going to pull some but the innocent girl isn't innocent thing. Just every conversation Haru has in the first two episode were out of place, even for a anime about assassins trying to kill a target competitively.
Atelier Escha & Logy ~Tasogare no Sora no Renkinjutsushi~: Game... bye
Baby Steps: Tennis anime... ugh
Black Bullet: I think I read a manga called Black Bullet which wasn't that good, so probably that. If anyone watched, tell me your opinion of it.
Break Blade: Reading the manga and that got less interesting over time. Sorry to those who're only watch the anime.
Blade & Soul: Game... ugh
Fuun Ishin Dai Shogun: sounds incredibly boring... anyone watch it?
Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?: No idea what this wanted to be... nor did the style stick out in any way.
Gokukoku no Brynhildr: I am reading the manga and it's a series I will continue to enjoy more in the few minutes it takes to read the manga rather then spend the 20 minutes to watch the anime. Just didn't feel like a anime to me, though it did give me this.

Good I love this, mostly because it contains german. XD
Haikyuu!!: Sports... ugh
HappinessCharge Precure!: Magical girls... yeah not watching that... especially with such a name.
Hitsugi no Chaika: I have probably missed this one in the wave of the releases during the season or already had my handful of animes I decided to watch, so I dropped it. If anyone has seen this one, tell me who it was. Thanks.
Isshuukan Friends.: While I can see why this is surely a good romance story, it's so slow... I think I fell asleep during the first episode. It's just nothing happened, at all...
JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Stardust Crusaders: Jojo anime... and bye. Not a friend of the entire Jojo series. I am pretty sure this is part of it, at least it looks like it.
Kamigami no Asobi ~Ludere deorum~: Holy crap this was the most shoujo anime of the season. Screw that other shoujo that was released in spring. This at least looked good. I think my reason for dropping it was that they flooded me with characters, I had no interest in, since there was no reason to be interested in them. In the first episode they threw all six of the main male cast plus I think two side characters at the viewer in the duration of 20 minutes. There was no time for me to find a reason why I should be interested into any of those characters, because in the short time they had, they were nothing more than bland tropes and stereotypes.
Kenzen Robo Daimidaler: I had enough ecchi anime for this season. If anyone watched it, please rate it from 1 being something like Love Hina (a very mild amount of ecchi) to 10 being Maken-Ki (do I even have to explain why?).
Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R: Detective animes are ok. style just wasn't my thing.
Kiniro no Corda: Blue♪Sky: I would have imagined this to be from before 2010, when this style was still a thing in shoujos. A style which I just can't get myself to like in anime or manga.
M3 ~Sono Kuroki Hagane~: Same with earlier. Probably just missed it. Anyone whose seen it, please tell me how it was.
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: The manga is good, but the anime isn't much further than the manga which I have just recently reread so there was no reason for me to watch it. Still probably good though.
Ping Pong The Animation: Name says everything... and the style is really weird...
Sidonia no Kishi: I don't know why CGI is still attempted in anime. Most fail it is and the rare cases it's good is because of the compromise between animated and CGI parts, but fully CGI series rarely look good.... I am a huge fan of Roosterteeth, but RWBY just was... eh. The fights are good, but that's just Monty Oum's thing. Sidonia no Kishi just hadn't had the magical Oum touch to combat to make at least that look good. Overall the animation are just plain weird most of the time, especially when they're talking just like in RWBY.
Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii: Just didn't sound interesting at all. Tell me how it was, if you watched it.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V: Seriously can you blame me? First off I am a MTG player, second I am a MLP CCG player and third it's Yu-Gi-Oh, like that is going to be good. Ok it did seem interesting with the new holo battles or what that was, but how the pendulum cards played out was just boring.

and wow I really dropped a lot of animes this season, well Spring and Autumn usually hold a lot of new animes, since there are no leftovers from the previous season.

Starting with Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou:
Ok, I thought I wouldn't watch this and replace it with Kamigami no Asobi ~Ludere deorum~, but the first episode really suprised me. Not only was the supporting cast really good, but the main characters alone were fun too much. It's also done a good job with pacing, realizing when it's starting to get too slow and automatically picks it back up. But the real argument for me was the supportive cast. They might seem as cheap comical relief as first glance, but they're really much much more than that. Every character has a multiple roles to play and it was surprising to see which one had which role. I really had a blast with this one and I will suggest this to you. I would even say this to be a good anime for someone who hasn't watched anime before.

Next up Captain Earth:
Breaking a personal rule for the future, talking about a unfinished season.
Captain Earth is like Kill la Kill, it lives in the shadow of the precursor, but unlike Kill la Kill which learned from it's precursor Captain Earth didn't completely.
Star Driver is one of my favorite animes and is one of the animes I point to if you like a very strong supportive cast (well aside Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou now), because every side character has a role which does affect the story and is shown through out the anime. The maidens of the island aren't just randomly chosen once they try to break a seal, no they were shown to the viewers through out the anime. But those were just the maidens, the entire relationship between the evil organization and the Majestic Prince and the school was fascinating as well. A lot was going on in this anime and through excellent pacing it didn't seem overwhelming and this saddens me, since Star Driver did this so well, at which Captain Earth fails.
The side characters in Captain Earth are useless. Asides the ones which work for Globe or the other company, none of them matter in a way, which annoys me since from episode 6 to now I believe they started to focus on the Designer Children and with every one of them we get a entire episode about how their life was and who took care of them or similar, but at the end of it they all switch to the bad guys, even though it doesn't make sense at all and through every single one of them switching so far, the episode you just wasted 20 minutes on is worthless because all those side character die.
The entire anime was no supportive cast outside of those which were shown in the first two episode and that was what made Star Driver great, the supportive cast.
I am not saying Captain Earth is bad. The interaction with the existing supportive cast is interesting and the main characters are a lot better than the one of Star Driver, which were quite dull for the most part, but situations like Bugbear's switch to the Kiltgang just don't seem logical. I also do not understand the Kiltgang's logic. Why do they try to attack everytime they convert someone, it's now 5 vs 2. FUCKING MURDER THEM IN ONE ATTACK ALREADY?! IT'S 5 IMMORTAL ALIENS VS ONE HUMAN AND A FORMER IMMORTAL ALIEN!? I get that they have to build the Machine Good Fellow first, but just keep them all safe till you have more people. Is that so hard?

Before I continue my rant about that, I am going to move on to... Hero Bank... great
Hero Bank is ... stupid. Like really stupid. Not like awesome stupid like Space☆Dandy, just plain stupid stupid. Hero Bank is about a bunch of elementary pupils and there is this game called Hero Bank and only their jokes are based on the stereotypes which each character represents. I know that this show is clearly aimed at a far younger audience than I am, but really we're on a site here about fanfiction on little ponies, so shut your mouth. It has it's funny moments but in general I won't suggest it. It's just too much aimed at the humor of little children that it gets annoying. At least western cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants (in it's early days) or Gravity Falls have a charm to them which is something for adults as well. This is "I ripped myself a new one" jokes and it's the only joke the main character has.

Next up is Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara:
I did a blog about this about a week ago, but mainly focused there on the last three episode rather than the anime in total.
So I will say this now:
Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara is a excellent harem anime til episode 9. If you want watch it till episode 9, because until then it's a little humored story about a boy who can see flags like the ones in gal games. This is used in great way. It's fun to watch. The cast is good and there is nothing to complain. After episode 9 the anime becomes bullshit. Not only those it fail to understand what a singularity is, yet uses the word, it also just ruins the entire power of the main character. This is what happens during episode 9, school festival finishes up, the main character helps one more girl with his power and breaks the simulation because too much good energy bla something something. Episode 10 is then the clean up which tries to explain what the shit just happened, awfully to that. Episode 11 is bullshit fight episode and 12 is the final bullshit.
In episode 12 as well does this happen and keep in mind everything that happened was a simulation. The girls from the simulation come and help the main character save the real world and at the end of the episode they talk to him like NOTHING EVER HAPPENED! THEY JUST WENT ON LIKE THEY DID IN THE SIMULATION!!?!?!?! WHERE THE FUCK IS THE LOGIC IN THAT BULLSHIT?! The girls in the simulation are not the girls in the real world, therefore how the fuck should they know him or even care for him?! It makes no sense and all of that just because they need a happy end.
I want to give this anime a recommendation, it's a excellent refreshment to the genre of harem animes, but not that those final episodes. So no, don't watch it. It's not worth your time.

We're continuing with Majin Bone:
This is a surprise. Not in the aspect that it is something which defines it's genre, it just has a really good story for a anime which solely focuses on action and probably mainly because the 5 main character have the most screen time and good chemistry. Probably also the overly cute style they pick for it was a good idea too and that the fight in CGI doesn't feel wrong at all, because it almost always switch entire from animated to CGI. It's interesting to see that this is a card game originally, but nonetheless it's quite good and I'd say go watch it if you like action focused animes. It's no Gatchaman Crowds, but it is good enough.

Next is Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers:
I love Marvel (Hmm Runaways... soo goood). I love Avengers (hmm Ironman and friends.. soo good.) I love Tony Stark (hmm Robert Downey Jr. hmm soo good. wait now it's just sounds wrong.. oh well) but I hate Disk Wars. It's just not that great, it's like most things in the superhero genre a toy commercial for this disks.. and the way they worked in the anime just wasn't that interesting as well. I would have like it maybe more if it were like the later Megaman Battle Networks with the Crossfusion, but even then it's just weird. I am giving this a nono.

Next up: Mekakucity Actors or Kageru Project, same thing

The music videos of them are good. The style is very cool. The story is ok... It mainly suffers from the release of the music videos a long time ago, which dictate the story. It is a interesting watch, but if you know the music videos you kinda know the story already. I am suggesting it, but don't expect something amazing, ok?

Next is No Game No Life:
Just go watch it, this is really good. It has a definite recommendation by me. Since the first moment of seeing this is coming I was hyped for it, because I loved the manga, but it only had one volume. I might have to get the light novels if they're on english somewhere, since they're finished.
But there are some things I don't like about this and it's mainly how other characters are treated in the anime especially Steph one of the most present side characters. Steph is a moron compared to Sora and Shiro who are geniuses and that's what the animes wants to show since it's about a world where no violence exists and everything is decided by a game and Sora and Shiro are some NEET übergamers. But like wise are Sora and Shiro retard once they have to deal with social interaction or economy, which are Steph's strong point but they're only shown during few rare occasions and the anime mainly focuses on using Steph to explain what just happened or to make Sora and Shiro look smarter. A minor addition beef I have with No Game No Life is the fact that it has no ending... and I really hope that this gets a fucking second season, not like some show called Panty and Stocking were a second season was promised and never came.
GRArkada did a review on it and I will leave it here for you to watch, though I disagree with both his point or at least he is using them wrongly.

.. ok maybe the oversexualisation of Shiro is a little weird.. or the gender balance in general, but I am pretty ok with that. There are a lot worse.

Moving on to Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin:

Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is one of those "escape the puzzle or die" animes with the last big members of those being Kami no Puzzle, something I rather not think about since the entire thing of Giver and Solver became every stale after like 5 episode of 3 seasons...
But Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin actually gave it new life till the last four episodes... wow second anime this season which didn't fuck up their last few episode. The problem here wasn't some bullshit plot twist, but rather the introduction of what I see as a bad guy you'd use later on, but before I go into this I need to talk about the story
Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is about some island... the island itself isn't too important more important is the ghost Nanana who lives in the room 202 of the Happy Place (I think was it called). Nanana was when she lived a treasure seeker and found these items called Nanana's treasure, which she hit in deathtraps all over the island. She's a ghost because she wants to know how her killer is, who probably killed her for the location of the treasure, because they're really powerful like a teapot which can instantly make great tea once you pour water into it and other stuff. The story takes place a bit after Nanana's death and follows the adventure club, a club dictated to finding her treasures. The character in the anime are quite diverse and it's fun to watch. It also has a shit ton of reference or just straight clips or images from other things like a scene from Star Driver or lots of Tekken footage or Terraria music or Monster Hunter and so on, since Nanana being a ghost and only can be in the room 202 does absolutely nothing but play games or just animes. She is the überNEET (and I want to be like her. Her life is amazing. She only lives of pudding and can't get fat because she's a ghost).
So back to the bad part, in the second half of the season there is a bad guy introduced, which at it's core isn't bad and the way Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is, is very supportive of a bad guy, but not that the point where it currently is. The bad guy is someone from the former Adventure Club and has a few treasures and knows a lot, he would have been much more suited as the bad guy from the second season and then the entire second season, not just some episodes. And because of two reason A) he has a lot to offer since he does know a lot and B) the first season already had a focus on something, adding another story to it, just confused things and lost through that direction of where it was going.

It's still a good anime and I will still suggest it, even with the absolute dick cliffhanger at the end.

Next is... this...Seikoku no Dragonar
This is my "why the fuck do I even watch this" but it's not as bad as Boobies McOP from last season. It has similar problems, but they weren't as extreme in this one. It also get a 8 on my ecchi scale (named earlier) and this pretty much should give the entire image of what it is.
I'd say unless you want something to fap to, don't watch it.... It really isn't much more than fap material over and over again.

Selector Infected WIXOSS was great. Oh my god, I didn't note think I find myself one day saying this about a anime with a (nearly) all female cast, because all female casts usually run into two directions: Ecchi or Yuri. and this is neither, which is amazing! Selector Infected WIXOSS is about girls who get choose to become a Eternal Girl and have to play WIXOSS a card game to do so. They're also called Selectors. Now in this world almost everyone plays WIXOSS (which is bullshit since good looking girls don't play Magic The Gathering!!!! also there are quite a few similarities to MTG) and what separates the Selector from the rest are their LRPIR PPRIL... uhm LRIGs (finally.. weird word, weirder that it isn't in the title.). These cards are talking cards which each Selectors has it's own of and only Selectors can see and hear the LRIGs. AND HOLY FUCK how this card game is used in the anime is amazing, since the focuses isn't on the game itself, but why the game is important.
It is a definitive recommendation by me. You should watch this. It has almost no problems, a little bit pacing at some point but otherwise nothing at all.

and next is Soul Eater Not!
Soul Eater Not! is a spinoff of Soul Eater which is set I think before more of Soul Eater, but it can't be because I think I saw Black☆Star use the sword from later on, but Liz and Patty aren't partners with Kid yet... anyway it's great, it's Soul Eater. What are you even doing here anymore?

Didn't watch any of the movies this season, eh not that bad. Though there was a Sora no Otoshimono movie... ok I have to find that at some point.
Moving on to the shorts:
Dragon Collection: There is a manga to this... and it has nothing to do even remotely with the animes... This slightly pisses me off, but DraColle is kinda fun.
Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san: Yuri Shoujo short... eh not my thing
Kantoku Fuyuki Todoki: Just plain weird...
Keroro: I think Jananimations did something with this once... oh well.
Mahou Shoujo Taisen: Random, but fun. I'd give it a go.
Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to: Go watch it. It's good.
Neko no Dayan: wasn't posted on my site, didn't lose anything with it.
Neko Pitcher: same as other neko thing.
Oreca Battle: I'd give it a go, but Dragon Collection is better.

As for OVA, I hardly wasted any time on those. There was a Choujigen Game Neptune one, but that was ok and Puchimas!!: Petit Petit iDOLM@STER is always a blast to watch, but otherwise none of them were animes I watched.

That's it for the Spring Season. Now I can start diving into the ton of new animes for Summer Season... WHICH MEANS SPACE☆DANDY IS BACK, BITCHES! WUTWUT! AND STRANGE+!!! also SOA 2 is here.... and Psycho Pass New Edit version... It's not like people will magically stop talking about those two.... but the Summer Season has a lot to offer this year.

Well tell me what you thought about the animes from last season.

Tripl3M out.