It’s the last week of what I consider to be autumn 2014, and the week that has seen the conclusion of several of my personal favourite series of the season.
As it is the last week of the season, this blog post is rather larger than usual.
Episodes watched this week:
Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu 11
Log Horizon 2nd Season 12
Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru 11
Madan no Ou to Vanadis 12
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 5 (backlog)
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 6 (backlog)
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 7 (backlog)
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 8 (backlog)
Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de 12 END
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 9 (backlog)
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 10 (backlog)
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 11 (backlog)
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 12 (backlog)
Senki Zesshou Symphogear 13 END (backlog)
Akatsuki no Yona 12
Yama no Susume 2nd Season 24 END
Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru 12 END
Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken 13 END
Teekyuu 3 specials 1
Teekyuu 3 specials 2 END
Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu 12 END
Summer 2014 final status:
With Yama no Susume’s conclusion this week, the final Summer series is now over.
1. Hanayamata
2. Yama no Susume 2nd Season
3. Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?
4. Jinsei
5. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
6. Sabagebu!
7. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance
8. Zankyou no Terror
9. Free! Eternal Summer (on hold)
10. Rail Wars (on hold)
11. Glasslip (dropped)
12. Majimoji Rurumo (dropped)
13. Momo Kyun Sword (dropped)
There were a lot of things that I never really got around to watching out of the summer anime. I still have the first few eps of Tokyo ESP sat on my computer, but now they will count as backlog watches if I ever get round to them.
Autumn 2014 season end status:
The full season status will be posted once I finish watching all the 2 cours anime. There are also still some episodes yet to watch of several 1 cour anime, some of which will conclude over the coming few days.
series rankings at present:
1. Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru (up 1)
2. Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu (down 1)
3. Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de
4. Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
5. Log Horizon 2nd Series
6. Madan no Ou to Vanadis (up 2)
7. Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle (down 1)
8. Denki-gai no Honya-san (down 1)
9. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
10. Shirobako (up 1)
11. Akatsuki no Yona (down 1)
12. Sora no Method
13. Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken (up 1)
14. Kaitou Joker (down 1)
15. Gugure! Kokkuri-san (down 1)
Gugure! has ended but I’m behind on it. Madan ends tomorrow, as does this first part of Fate/Stay Night. Sora no Method ends the day after. Joker ends in the first week of January. Log Horizon, Shigatsu, Shirobako and Yona are 2 cours.
Well, it happened. Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru took the top spot for the season, largely thanks to the truly awesome episode 11, and thus also for the year. I’m still not 100% sure on this so it could change (if the OreTwi blu-rays fix the visual mishaps that showed up in a couple of episodes, then that would be enough to reverse this wafer-thin gap). I also somehow managed to get hold of a first press edition of volume 1, which shipped today. So yes, for the first time ever I am currently importing 2 series from the same season. I don’t know if I’ll buy the whole series of either or both though. I’ll be buying Washio Sumi wa Yuusha de Aru soon as well.
Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu had the best final episode of any of the 1 cour anime this season, though (I know none of the ones that I haven’t finished yet stand a chance of topping it). It was also the most loved every episode of the series, although as I started picking up volume 4 shortly before the anime got onto it (the first 3 volumes have yet to arrive) I realised just how much was skipped out in the anime. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though, as it was partly as a result that the anime was able to hold together well throughout and feel like a complete product in and of itself.
Which is something, to be honest, which Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de never quite achieved. There were lots of comments in the discussion at the end of that series saying that it was clearly designed with the main aim being to sell the novels rather than being a standalone product. Which I agree on entirely. But that just means that I’m the exact target audience for the series – finding new manga and novels to buy has become one of my main reasons for watching anime. And it did this job in this respect very effectively. I’ve bought the first volume (which is on its way) and will be buying more of the series before long, probably in my next order. Tomoyo was the best character of this season by some way, and that, along with Hatoko’s awesome rant episode, are the main things that ensure that this series is currently my third place series for this season. Despite the ending, as expected, not really resolving or settling anything.
Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken was a bit of fun, but nothing much more. I think the earlier episodes were, in general, more enjoyable than the later ones, but it was a good watch all the way through, and I’ll be watching the second season when it airs. It’s nowhere near worth buying anything of though.
Yama no Susume’s second season was the same experience as the first one was, just with rather a lot more of it. Which is a good thing, of course. As someone who loves hillwalking and mountain climbing myself, I love relating and comparing the experiences they encounter to my own ones. I am, of course, already buying the manga of this and will continue to do so.
Teekyuu 3 specials were awful but I’m sure the upcoming fourth season will be better.
I finally got around to watching the remaining episodes of Symphogear series 1. Hopefully I will be able to watch the second before the third one begins at some point in the coming year. This is a good and enjoyable series, even if seeing characters singing and fighting at the same time never fails to look slightly incongruous and odd.
To clarify – there will be a blog post of this sort next week, with comments and thoughts on those series which end in that period. I intend to do a few year-end blog posts over the next few days as well.
I apologise if this blog post wasn’t very well put together. I was interrupted about every five minutes while writing it, sometimes for an hour or more. Several times I came up with something I wanted to put in here and then didn’t get around to it because I had to go before I got the chance to write it down, before forgetting what it was by the time I came back. So there are things that I wanted to be in this blog post but which didn’t end up in here. If I remember them and they’re significant enough then I’ll make another blog post for them.
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