Well, anime club has ended for the semester. I gave my first impressions way back in February, so now I’m going to see how well they hold up. I’m not going to be going as in-depth as most of my other reflections because I have a lot of these to go through, but here’s at least something.
Ghost Stories
It held up about the same way through the end as it did in the beginning. That is to say, the whole dub was a parody of a mediocre show. It felt like they were trying to shoehorn in a lot of jokes and it kinda fell flat as much as it ended up being hilarious, but that’s subjective humor for ya. It’s very much an episodic series, which I’m generally not too fond of, but it’s all right.
Nichijou
This was probably my favorite of the shows we watched this semester. I’m not big on slice-of-life, but Nichijou gets away with it because it’s also sketch comedy that’s all sorts of surreal and off-the-walls. There’s not much of an overall story arc, but that’s okay because it’s not a show you watch for the plot. You watch it for all the crazy jokes, the callbacks to older jokes, the surreal nature, etc. That, and there are a few subtle character arcs that are enjoyable.
I love this show. I absolutely love it. I love how the three ordinary schoolgirls are the ones who are constantly blowing things out of proportion and making the mundane epic, and the child scientist, robot girl, and talking cat are the ones who get the slow, reflective bits. It’s a funny show, but it still knows when and how to slow down and make an impact. It’s crazy, it’s cute, it’s over-the-top, and it’s sweet. You start to get a sense of the characters just by how they interact with each other, even when they’re cracking jokes. For example, there’s the scene where Yuuko decides to stop calling Mai out on her trolling, since Mai’s clearly looking for a reaction. Mai’s response is simply to troll harder, until Yuuko finally snaps and calls her out on it loud enough that people out in the gym can hear her. Yuuko comes to the decision that that’s just how their relationship is supposed to work: Mai pulls her weird pranks, Yuuko calls her out on them. It’s a weird and surreal scene that’s blown up to epically overblown amounts of awesome (like most of the show), but it’s done in a way that shows just how good Yuuko is at being a friend due to her flexibility and optimism (the scene where she gets confirmation that Nano’s a robot but tells her “I know you’re not a robot. You’re just Nano. Does that sound about right?” has her displaying the same qualities).
Like I said last time, you might hate it if off-the-wall sketch comedy is not your cup of tea. You will be going “What? What? WHAT?” constantly as you watch it. If you hate that, stay away, but if you like it, watch this show now.
Persona 4: The Animation
I get the feeling that I would have enjoyed this more if I had played Persona 4. It was pretty good, but It just felt…lacking. It was pretty funny, and the characters were pretty good. Though I personally found the protagonist to be a bit of a Marty Stu who was the flattest character in the series (probably because he’s a video game protagonist). Though he does occasionally display an incredible degree of swag.
Aww, yeah, look at him, bein’ the proswagonist over there. Yeaaaaah.\
The ending was all right, maybe? I don’t know. My biggest issue was that I didn’t really care enough, and that’s probably due to not being familiar with the game. Because of the wacky shenanigans like the above swag image there, I actually enjoyed the filler more than the plot. The plot just felt a bit lackluster.
Blue Exorcist
Again, didn’t really watch this one. Maybe it’s good?
Sword Art Online
Like I said last time, this show strikes a perfect balance between great and bad. Enjoyable as long as you can ignore the flaws, and sometimes the flaws are the good type of cheesy.
The biggest problem, though, is the second half. The second half of the series loses a lot of what was good about the first half. The stakes are a lot lower and the romantic subplots get kind of uncomfortable, and there are a LOT of “oh, come ON” moments. If you want something deep, avoid it. But if you want to watch some mindless stuff, add this one to the guilty pleasures list right away.
Madoka Magica
Well, I’ve already posted my reflections on this show, and we only watched four episodes of the dub. But again, it’s a great show and you should go out and watch it immediately if you haven’t.
Darker than Black
I’ve actually got a lot to say about this one, so I’m going to save the reflections for another post entirely. The short of it? First season was great. Second season was crap.
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