The manga (which I've read) started in 2006..:
Future Diary (未来日記 Mirai Nikki?) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Sakae Esuno. The manga was serialized in the Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace between January 2006 and December 2010.
Apparently it is required to have one jailbait anime in each season now...
I wasn't sure what to expect from a Shonen Jump adaptation airing in NoitaminA's programming block but I got pleasantly surprised. Doing this kind of story with kids is a very easy hook and while mainly twist based it works quite well for the most part. Really loved the conclusion of the arc in regards to Mama too. I'd imagine further seasons to be more in line with regular shounen fare so we'll see how this goes.
Osomatsu-san was the unlikely champion of the last two seasons - at least when it came to making dosh. Based on a manga from the 80s it is mostly a reimagining by Studio Pierrot. Given this setup it seems even weirder that it got to the place it is. As it turned out it has been welcomed in fujoshi community. They tend to enjoy all male casts and given the hiki-neet attitude of the guys that are even easy to draw yourself just seemed to hit all the checkboxes (along with the censor drama around the first BD volume). Now one shouldn't blame a show for it's fandom and in this case they should get some applause. The show was pretty much allowed to do whatever it wanted. The comedy that usually plays out as multiple sketches in an episodes can get really inspired. That's not to say they're all perfect (and some are slightly lost in translation) but it's a fun ride overall.
Season 2 has been confirmed as per last episode. That is good news!
I think Mike Flanagan is quite competent in most of what he does, but nothing of his ever blew me away. This show is no different as he certainly is aware of today's tropes and crafts an unusually slow paced horror story more focused on the psychological impact of the haunting than scares, but after so many scene transitions between the story's timelines it gets quite tedious. It is really the later half of the series that tainted my enjoyment with more focus on melodramatic elements, monologues and a conclusion that had me feeling like I just wasted quite a lot of time...
Eff me, this is a 2 cour show... going to drop this then. Really hoped for this to be an above average isekai but it really isn't. Any promise of individuality in the first episode was not touched upon and it instead went the boring Gary Stue-lets-be-friends-with-everyone route without a hint of an interesting story to be found.
(If you haven't seen a few of these enjoy yourself, be my guest but I'm too old for this now ;))
For the love of Johj! No way in hell can I watch this like that. One of the only good things about Terra Formars is it's gore which is blatantly censored in every scene. It isn't just a tiny bit: 2/3 of the screen is just black because of that! Since it all boils down to fighting cockroaches with animal powers this will be an issue throughout the show. With the current pace which leaves out pretty much everything even more so.
I might check back for the BDs but it seems like a doomed adaptation anyways.
This show is way better than you would expect from a promotion tool for someone's 3D avatar. Except for one episode the gags are fun and Miss Monochrome has to go through quite some suffering but get's a wonderful christmas miracle in the end.
I'm just watching this on the side (dubbed even) but dang, it's worse and more clichéd than I expected. Hard to believe someone would actually produce this.
While I didn't hate the show it has a weird tone as if your parents were trying to be edgy & cool but are still settling for family friendly goofs... The episodic nature keeps things somewhat interesting as it's the local residents whose interactions end up being especially cringeworthy.
WARNING: Looks like the Higurashi New marketed as a remake was bait all along.
This is a sequel* to the original series https://trakt.tv/shows/when-they-cry-higurashi.
Since it's based on a visual novel with different routes repeating events are expected which is why they were able to mislead with the premiere but the second episode reveals a twist of the series and references being set after the events of Higurashi. They also changed the title from "New" to "Gou" 業...
*What exactly it is we cannot say for sure right now but you are definitely not getting a fresh start.
I have never seen the old "Twilight Zone" but heard a lot about it so my expectations of a "modern" adaptation were quite high... and apparently way off. None of the episodes had a particularly interesting gimmick or explored that in any meaningful way. Instead the episodes end up being quite boring, sometimes goofy and just not very good... this also partly because in 2019 you have to include an important message in each episode, regardless of cost.
Feels like a gamble whenever I vote for something recently but a "Meh" seems "Fair"...
Let me start by saying that technically the show is good. The cold look goes well with the theme, the animation is good and the music (when it's not overdone) too.
Unfortunately this all means nothing when the script doesn't hold up. For a show with "Terror" in the title... this isn't seen here. Yes, buildings get blown up but that's about it. The already short season spends it's time with solving riddles for clues about the next bomb's location instead of anything meaningful. The master plan the 'terrorists' have come up with is really one of the worst ways to go about it and they're supposed to be exceptionally smart.. Lisa, a girl who gets involved with the group, is one of the worst characters I've ever seen. She hardly has a personality and serves no purpose except to bringing trouble for the protagonists. Seriously, just by removing her they would have had already more time for characterization or backstory. Heck, removing the 80% that is spent on riddles would have allowed a much different direction and actually doing something with the premise.
As much as I was looking forward to it I didn't care for most of the episodes and given it's conclusion I wouldn't recommend it.
Remember that edgy thing called "Elfen Lied"? Yup, this is by the same author and while I'm fuzzy on the details on that it certainly is similar in the way of inflicting violence to teenage girls. It is also probably the only 1-cour show that changed openings on the second last episode and then even to a terrible crunkcore-thingy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C__joUsxAPw).
Despite rating it just a "4" I want to stress that I got plenty of enjoyment out of it... just for all the wrong reasons - or maybe not! Going by the anime alone one has to either believe this is a work by hacks (which it kinda is) or well versed people intentionally taking the piss out of genre conventions.
Anyways, you should not watch this show if you expect any kind of logic or common sense. The story is ridiculous and badly paced. It also follows the same pattern up until the end where they just throw in an ending because they can. What made the show for me was it's schizophrenic tone, switching between comedy bits set to goofy music with some romance to heavily censored action - with a straight face. Really, it's amazing how much bullshit they managed to stuff in there. If you want to watch something so bad that it's good give it a go.
Space Battleship Yamato 2199 is a remake of an now almost 30 year old show that got a quite the unusual release. Multiple episodes a-piece were first shown in the cinema with physical releases and a TV broadcast later on. In addition to that they also marketed to the english market themselves which they hardly ever do (and releasing awkward videos like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR71MSl3vIs).
The show itself is a straight space opera. Almost all episodes are self-contained and play out on their travels to a remote galaxy where they hope to save planet earth with the help of an alien race. Except for three episodes I enjoyed them all quite a bit and there are some great space battles to be seen. It might all have been a touch too romantic for my taste but it's oldschool in that regard.
The presentation itself is good throughout and the show carries retro sound-design and music (with the intro recreated by Hideaki Anno).
The original aired in the US under the title Star Blazers which gives it that now quite "uncool" name but if you havn't seen it then you now have the chance to do so with the updated version.
Thanks @ManiacB for the rec. I would never have looked into it otherwise.
By the author of Inferno Cop comes another, minimalisticly animated short series. The overall runtime is a bit more than a half hour which allows you to power through the episodes quite quick. There are more than enough fun moments to justify doing so (especially the Kaerun live-stream episode) but it's not like you will miss out on something profound. The whole thing is (as far as I can tell) officially on YouTube including English subtitles.
S2 has been confirmed... maybe trap Kirito won't be as bad but I'm sure that will probably not be the case.
http://www.swordart-online.net/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Ghr_rbJmQ
Despite my initial low expectations for the show it turned out to be my favorite of the 1-cours this season. It's just really comfy to watch. There is hardly any drama in the show and the cast including the various spirits were great. Too bad nobody is translating the manga because I would totally continue. If you're going to give it a try I recommend watching past the first two episodes because they weren't the best.
Trakt gets it's episode information from TVDB and there it's according to FOX (http://www.fox.com/americandad/recaps/season-9/episode-19) and not the scene naming. You would have to name them like this: http://thexem.de/xem/show/93.
I have never really watched Star Trek (except the odd episode of DS9 and Voyager) but having watched every RLM episode about it I can only feel sorry for the die hard fans...
In the days of legit shilling even some people who hated SOA would tell you this is better.... it's not. I'd argue it's even more offensive.
LLENN is a Mary Sue and just like the main show this is loaded with ass pulls and non-existent logic in it's world... The action scenes are extremely boring to watch and visually dull. Pito is an even worse villain than "I just wanted friends, LOL" guy as she made me want to scratch my eyes out after every dumb line of hers.
F* this show. Save Sigsawa-san.
While tolerable this show is EXTREMELY repetitive as it only has the single joke for every segment. I would have preferred to see this as a short series instead.
I've added my two cents about the show previously and I'm happy to say it hasimproved (even my wish of a better OP was granted). Where as most anime play it save in an detached setting, Silver Spoon keeps it's Slice of Life grounded and has characters dealing with real-life issues. The start was a bit slow imho but Hachiken keeps on growing throughout the show. If we're lucky another season will be made but this would still be an ending I could live with. It's not selling that well but the manga is still ranked highly.
I'm certainly late to the party but still in time for the third arc that is starting next month.
The on-going JoJo manga started publishing when I wasn't even born and had an anime adaptation once before in the 90's. JoJo is rather popular in Japan thanks to the fabulous art style and poses the character's strike (which get referenced quite often in other works).
The show is well done style over substance and riddled with shonen antics so you either go with the flow or stay away from it. That said, the members of the Joestar family are actually not that dumb and often win thanks to their wit.
Here is hoping we get to see a lot more arcs in the future!
I don't have any strong feelings about Silver Spoon but I thought I'd give my two cents about it now that the first cour is over: It does what it sets out to do pretty well. Given that there are kids today that don't even know where their food comes from it's nice to see that something on the topic of agriculture can get an anime adaptation (helps that the mangaka wrote Fullmetal Alchemist though). One of the topics that the plot always seem to come back to is the breeding of live-stock and being able to eat it afterwards. I felt that this always got treated a bit one-sided. The Japanese way is always the right one so for example when the chickens are kept in tiny cages no one questions it. The only thing I wish for is that the second cour gets a better OP because the current one is kinda akward.
I was happy to learn that Quibi also gives horror a shot and if this would actually expand to 50 states it would be incredible - not that it seems realistic at the moment though (in part because of the platform but also because it is more expensive to produce)...
Like any anthology the ride is uneven and some of them actually felt too short but the production was on point so even the worst ones were at not flat-out bad
The Golden Arm (Michigan) - a bit underdeveloped backstory but good payoff with Evil Dead vibes.
America's Largest Ball of Twine (Kansas) - well done folk horror.
Scared Stiff (Oregon) - too short really...
Grey Cloud Island (Minnesota) - meh regular "modern-horror fare" with a twist that is obvious from the get go...
Destino (Florida) - Alejandro Brugués X Eduardo Sánchez collab which SHOULD have made use of the portrait mode the platform provides to do something cool but instead just plays the normal found footage stick :disappointed:.
Apparently this "pre-aired" so I hope it's going to get additional episodes soon... there were others announced in press before the release...
I'm not sure why I even watched four episodes but this is it for me... It's a super generic MMORPG fantasy show which only selling point is the girls playing it (being as moe-blobbey as possible). It offers no plot to care about and the protagonists are not only clueless about the game but also just happen to be overpowered^2.
Absolutely comfy-core TV... despite launching with positive press apparently no one on trakt watched this. Too bad :/.
This is the kind of post-apocalyptic slife-of-life you will only ever get in anime format. Despite looking like it would be focused on war-themes it just sets the backdrop as it is more concerned with exploring the mysterious world they live in. While there are plenty of elements I despised it was still an enjoyable ride set to a great OST. It's closer to the original Kino's Journey than the remake this season...
