Style over substance?
KS: Speaking of LiSA, I was surprised to hear a couple more songs from her in Mekakucity Actors. This series probably won the (vocal) music award on quantity alone, not surprising since it’s the anime entry in a franchise that started with a series of Vocaloid music videos on Niconico. Although I had heard positive things about the print adaptations and a Shaft adaptation at least meant it was awful nice to look at, it loses itself in its stylistic devotion nine times out of ten. In the end it makes a good series of music videos itself, primarily bringing in talented people with real vocal cords to sing renewed versions of the old Vocaloid tunes, but it spends too much time on these ultimately trifling distractions (and showing us how cool Shaft stuff looks) to succeed in delivering a coherent narrative in its 12-episode run.
GBS: I’ve long had this feeling about Shaft, that they’re more interested in being visual show-offs than trying to create well-rounded productions that are both stunning visually and coherent as narratives. Certainly, they may not have had much to work with here as the source material is rather limited in scope, but then that just puts the onus on them to make it work. I tried the first episode, did not feel much from it and so it joined the ranks of the departed (from my viewing list) in very short order.
Seasonal Trends
GBS: With all of the formulaic shows, I didn’t really notice any new trend making an appearance this season. It was mostly a season of genres and settings we’ve already seen before. Doesn’t mean that there was a lack of creativity (as old dogs can be taught…well, if not new, at least newly packaged tricks), but it’s hard to point to a strong trend being present. As Mastilo noted, there were quite a few new sports shows to join those already in progress. Is this going to be a trend that holds, or one that fades?
KS: I noticed an abundance of sports shows in the Fall 2013 season, and it seems like whenever one ends there’s at least one more to take its place, or at least confirmation that it will be back before too long. Maybe I just haven’t noticed them as much before (and the fact that we now get simulcasts for everything certainly helps for a genre that historically bombs in US sales), but it feels like they have much more solid representation as of late.
Final Thoughts
GBS: It’s hard to say overall what I thought of Spring 2014, because I ended up watching relatively fewer shows than in the past 3 or 4 seasons. That might be all I can say: it was a season where I decided to be very picky with what I would commit to watching on a weekly basis. And it’s hard to say that what I did watch inspired me much at all. There were shows I liked (particularly Kawaisou, Rabbit, Love Live 2, Captain Earth, and even Chaika, which ended its first cour well) and shows that ultimately disappointed (One Week Friends was good until the finish; Nanana’s Buried Treasure had its highlights, but ultimately came across as nothing more than a five-and-a-half-hour chain yanking/infomercial for the original work; The World is Still Beautiful was too uneven; Comic Artist was fun but Aito really was too annoying; Flag gave me mood whiplash with its trip to The Matrix after being an enjoyably fluffy lightweight comedy up to that point). I know I have yet to see several contenders for “outstanding” so people keep telling me, but of what I watched, nothing rose to that level.
MvP: As usual for me, the stand-out shows made up for everything else. Ping Pong and Mushi-shi Zoku Sho were, hands down, the two shows I looked forward to most each week, with Akuma no Riddle (Story of Devil) as my surprise cheesecake dessert. A few of the other series were (or continue to be) entertaining watches: Haikyu!!, Rowdy Sumo Wrestler Matsutaro, Folktales from Japan, and World Fool News. One Week Friends, which made me question it from the beginning but kept baiting me on, was the only disappointment; I respect where it ended and realize that the series is based on an ongoing manga, but that ending is not the ending it is going for and there were a few problems I had with the show’s focus, pace, and execution. Although it was not a new show per se, it was the first time Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (the first season) was available, and that was a ton of fun to watch.
KS: Honestly, this probably ended up being one of my favorite seasons in a while. Mushishi: The Next Chapter was every bit as wonderful as I could’ve hoped, even more than the first season, already one of my favorites. No Game, No Life came out of nowhere to be my favorite TV anime not related to any previous anime since the unmatched year of 2011. At the end of the season I did manage to marathon Ping Pong, and despite having initially dropped it after the first episode, by the end of the eleventh it was pretty high up in those same ranks. Fairy Tail also returned better than ever. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders is a tiny disappointment itself, but I watched the entirety of its predecessor in this season as well, which was as good as I had been promised, and its sequel is still a great deal of weekly fun. Even Haikyu!! is shaping up to be one of my favorite sports shows. There was plenty of garbage to be taken out early on, as it was a very big season and we got simulcasts of nearly everything, but many were easy drops, and it’s my own fault for insisting on trying everything. Riddle Story of Devil didn’t last much longer and the likes of The Irregular at Magic High School, Mekakucity Actors, and Brynhildr in the Darkness proved to disappoint throughout the season, but the uncommon wealth of excellent shows more than made up for all of that.
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Okay, that’s what our season reviewing team thought of the spring’s offerings. Summer is now coming into full stream, so it’s back to the salt mines for us. I’d like to thank Bryan, Kestrel and Mastilo for joining me, Greg Smith, in this look back at last season. See you again in three months.
