We’re coming quickly to the last month of the Fall 2015 anime season, just past the mid-point. For most story-based shows right now the second act is either climaxing or just ended, their third acts a week or two away. (For all those crazy shorts, life just continues on its merry way.) With so much available to watch it has become a challenge to compare one season to another in any given year. Waiting until after to determine which quarter had more variety or was more creative is even more difficult, over a hundred shows running together into one intense and colorful brawl of super-powered kids, moody anti-heroes, and disturbingly happy young girls.
The Fandom Post has a diverse gang of anime simulcast reviewers, churning out an eclectic selection of thoughts on popular, or struggling, or just overlooked shows every week. For the first time we’ll bring together a handful of them, in a mostly informal (lightly edited) chat, to give a mid-season snapshot of how things look, or what’s defining the season so far. On a more immediate and smaller scale, this is to compliment and serve up the deeper end-of-season and of course year-end reviews that will continue to mark each complete season. In this inaugural adventure in mid-stream opining, joining me are reviewers Kory Cerjak, Kate O’Neil, Greg Smith (editor of our regular Season in Reviews), and Kestrel Swift.
Brian Threlkeld: Er… So, what were the shows people had expectations for coming into Fall? And how did those expectations (good or bad) pan out?
Greg Smith: I look at the charts and regularly declare at the beginning of each season that it’s going to suck…partially because I read the premises and think so, partially to keep my expectations in check. If you have low expectations, you can be pleasantly surprised more often than not. I was looking forward to Is The Order a Rabbit 2 and YRYR3 [Yuruyuri San Hai]. I did not have especially high expectations for the new shows, though I was intrigued by the two darker mysteries, Perfect Insider and Sakurako’s Bones. Neither of those have blown me away, though they’ve not been disappointments either.
Kestrel Swift: Coming into the season, my only expectations were for sequels from which I roughly knew what to expect and One Punch Man. Those expectations actually ended up being spot on; I’m only watching two series not connected to any other anime franchise other than One Punch Man, and they’re barely hanging on compared to everything else. I knew almost as much of what to expect from One Punch Man as the sequels, as I’ve been reading the manga since it started and it was being adapted by the best studio one could ask for when jaw-dropping visuals are essential. Even knowing that there was infinite potential for disappointment, but by now the adaptation has proven itself to be one of the most consistently gorgeous and all-around well-executed television animation series out there, the only unfortunate aspect being its tragically short length, at least for now.
Kory Cerjak: I don’t look at any of the charts too far before hand, and if I do, I tend to forget everything I saw. I was hyped for Haikyu though and that’s more than panned out.
KS: I expected the best from Haikyuu!! Second Season and it blew all those expectations away by surpassing its already spectacular predecessor at every moment.
BT: I ignore charts, too. But I remained aware of known shows–YYSH and Rabbit 2, or the never-ending Teekyu short. So I had almost no expectations outside of those, and even those expectations were not hyper-elevated: these are conceptually simple shows and hard to really screw up (though YuruYuri did have a new director; it’s still the same old fun). Also, of course, I personally had somewhat non-existent expectations for the season as a whole because I was deliberately concerned with sharply limiting what I would watch. Perfect Insider has been a pleasant, if not spectacular, surprise.
KS: Noragami Aragoto is following up a series that was merely quite good by becoming truly great and only continuing to improve as it goes on, a very exciting prospect for a property that always excelled in technical merits but didn’t seem likely to be as amazing as this could now end up.
BT: Ah, forgot Noragami‘s second season, which was another known quantity, though that one has taken some time for me to get excited about; a minor disappointment, but by now forgiven for where it’s finally going.
…
Okay, so any surprises? (Good or bad, I suppose.) Hackadoll was about it for me–my thoughts have pretty much followed Chris [Beveridge’s] positive (by way of surprise) reviews. And I’d add Anitore EX because of the almost audacious nature of putting something like that together.
KC: I’ve been very surprised by how consistently funny Mr. Osomatsu has been. I was hesitant at first since given the first episode, they couldn’t likely keep up that level of parody for an entire season. But they haven’t just been one note and have slammed the jokes down one after another.
BT: I have been surprised with Osomatsu too, but it took some settling in. Switching to more subtle or plain weird parody than the (apparently too) outrageous parody of the first episode took a couple episodes to get used to; in fact the surprise comes in that I have still enjoyed that less in-your-face and sometimes intentionally lame humor, and the characters, more than I thought I would in the long run after episode two. It hasn’t been perfect, some stuff drags. But the weirder it gets, the better. Last ep’s extended US/Canada adventure was…mesmerizing for some reason.
KS: If there’s one series that brings the word “surprise” to my mind this season, it’s definitely Osomatsu-san. I couldn’t have expected anything less than that first episode coming from the new installment of a series from the better part of a century ago. All throughout it I was captivated but wondering how it could possibly sustain it, and by the end of the episode it became clear that it knew that was never an option, instead becoming something more akin to what I was expecting albeit with a much more modern sense of humor than I would’ve guessed (validating the premise of the incomparably meta first episode, as it turns out). After a couple episodes of its standard format I decided I wasn’t going to get much out of the rest of it, and the fact that the one episode that made it so special is now unavailable means it’s a series I’ll likely have to forget about entirely.
GS: Osomatsu hasn’t really been a surprise for me, but it’s been very hit or miss. I think last week, with the “flag” incident, I was laughing at the extreme limb it climbed out on. This week I was kind of displeased with the trashing of Todomatsu’s attempt to have a real life. The essential juvenile jerkness of the Matsuno sextuplets works if all 6 remain assholes…but if you try to make one “normal” but use the other 5 to harass and destroy that attempt…I don’t find that funny. It’s far too mean-spirited for my taste.
KC: I agree with you to a point, GB. Osomatsu, though, like any sketch comedy, is hit and miss. There have been bits that I didn’t laugh much at and bits that I loved to death, sometimes in the same episode. But it’s highs are still very high. It helps that I’m watching with someone else.
GS: That’s a good way to describe Osomatsu, as a sketch comedy. And it has the same perspective of scattershot humor, hoping to get laughs somehow. For me, it’s at its best when it goes ludicrous (the flags) or dark (that Black Factory gag, which they’ve referenced a couple times after its initial appearance).
BT: The Todomatsu cafe tale was amusing to me, anyway, because he’s not the only one of the six who has tried to have a “normal” pursuit; and because, as we saw, if his brothers didn’t screw him up, he would have done it himself anyway. None of them are normal. So it’s funny when one (him, Onomatsu, Karamatsu, etc.) tries to be. It’s a sketch show, with the other characters included, but the central spoke is still gag-orientated around that idea.
GS: Sure, but this almost seems like a repeating gag now: Choose 1 Mastuno, make him attempt to be normal, have the other 5 screw him up but show that he would have screwed it up himself anyway. If they do the gag 6 times…it’ll be 5 times too many.
BT: I suppose, if you don’t like the specific gag. (Given six different perceptions of what’s “normal” for them, I get some mileage out of it.) But that’s what an old-fashioned Japanese gag show does. They’ve even referenced that running-into-the-ground nature, several times.
KC: I’ll keep watching just for Dopeymatsu’s faces though
Garo, on the other hand, was surprisingly bad. I dropped it after I think five episodes. I loved the first Garo series, so I’m sad to see it drop this far in quality. At the same time, if a Garo season three came out, I’d have faith that it might be good.
Kate O’Neil: Yeah… Garo… I’m afraid that whatever good will was built up but the first animated series has been crushed with the second. I doubt we’ll get another chance at getting something like the first one again.
GS: It’s odd, but I’m not sure I’ve had any surprises, pleasant or unpleasant, this season. Things are fairly much turning out as expected…which leads to a boring and limited season. Hackadoll has been uneven for me, so I only watch the episodes I notice getting positive talk in the TFP forum.
I guess the one minor surprise is Utawarerumono 2. You would expect it to follow the first show, but it breaks off from how that one went rather sharply. In the original at this point it was all about politics and war. Here…it’s still largely a slow-moving slice-of-life show with only hints about a deeper story. I’m not minding that, but it was unexpected
BT: Okay, expectations for how the rest of the season will go for the stuff you’re watching?
GS: May not sound great, but I kind of expect things to coast for the rest of the season. Rabbit will continue to be adorable. YYSH will continue to throw in decent gags among all the yuri nonsense. Perfect Insider slowly seems to be serving up some of its secrets while Sakurako’s Bones could well introduce something approaching a plot before the end. I don’t think anything else, really, is going to throw much of a loop at me.
KS: Sakurako is losing me more and more as it goes on, but I’ll probably see it through unless it really gets on my nerves.
KO: I’m fully invested in Gundam Orphans for the long haul. It’s been a nice suprise to far, because Gundam series can and have been anything in a wide spectrum.
Gundam is two cour long though, so we’re only a quarter of the way through.
KS: Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans could really go anywhere, but I’m finding it more enjoyable than most new Gundam series in recent memory without ever seeming especially engaging.
KO: Unfortunately I think Garo is also two cour and I’m considering dropping it.
GS: It’s a weak season overall. Not that it lacks anything worth watching as I still found many shows to watch (Order Rabbit, YYSH, Utaware 2, PI, Sakurako Bones, Shomin Sample, Chivalry, Asterisk, a couple shorts), but if you asked whether I would buy any of them later on disc…eh, only Rabbit.
BT: The season has felt pretty low-key to me, yes. Not just from taking some break from it–there seemed from what I tried a lot more clumping of shows into only a few types, most of which (like the LN-based “gifted academy” sort; but even the mystery stuff) made the season feel like it wasn’t going anywhere new.
At this point, to belabor it from above, I expect at least a half dozen more Mr. Osomatsu episodes to be pulled and “changed”. Or maybe that’s too few?
GS: It’s actually one long season-length troll: the Osomatsu they release on disc will be a remastered version of the 1960s original anime, but voiced by the new seiyuu cast.
KS: With the unprecedentedly low number of new series I’m following from this season (only nine!), it’s fairly easy to imagine how they’ll go for the rest of their runs. … As mentioned before, with the way Noragami Aragoto is headed it could very well become one of the greats in its remaining time. Owarimonogatari is in the higher echelon of Monogatari offerings while K: Return of Kings and Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen are still better than their first seasons but trending downward as they lose momentum. Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry is the next biggest surprise after Osomatsu-san as the single example of the generic light novel adaptations BCT mentioned I actually find watchable, possibly even improving with almost every episode.
KC: Haikyu is amazing and everyone should watch more sports anime, especially this one…
BT: I heard good things about the first season. I know it’s volleyball…but anything unique about it beyond that compared to other sports anime? (Last I took in was Yowapeda, which had its ups and downs…)
KC: Haikyu hits every emotional note it possibly can. Sometimes as simple as a stare becomes the biggest moment in the series and, with the second season, it’s only ramped up. It knows the power scale and it knows that Karasuno is nowhere near the top of it, even against prodigy rookies. And when Hinata jumps, it feels like the greatest moment in the world.
KS: Haikyuu!! Second Season has been gold all along and even if it falters slightly it’s likely to remain the best out there, other than One Punch Man which is on a definite course to blow everything else away as it continues to reach new heights despite each episode appearing to be impossible to top.
And since we can’t top that, we’ll wrap things up there on this Fall 2015 mid-season rest stop. Four to five episodes remain in the Fall season. If you have any thoughts on anything in the season, feel free to add them in the comments below. Thanks!
