Saturday, 1 October 2016

The Best Anime from Summer 2016 and the rest...

The Summer 2016 anime season is at an end, and it's time to decide which of the many anime that ended in the Summer 2016 season, so that includes left overs from Spring 2016, are the best 5. As usual I'll also share my thoughts on the rest of the anime I've watched.

Amaama to Inazuma

Synopsis : Having lost his wife, math teacher Inuzuka Kouhei is doing his best to raise his young daughter Tsumugi as a single father. He's pretty bad at cooking and doesn't have a huge appetite to begin with, but chance brings his little family and one of his students, Iida Kotori, together for homemade adventures. With those three cooks in the kitchen, it's no wonder this dinner table drama is so delicious.
Thoughts : Amaama to Inazuma is one of those shows that from the get go, pulls on your heartstring, but also heals you with laughter and it's cuteness. Each episode was a joy to watch, even though some of them had some sad scenes. Amaama to Inazuma was the best way to start a week, every week. Go out and watch it now!

Amanchu!

Synopsis : Hikari Kohinata is an overwhelmingly cheerful and outgoing 15-year-old girl who has spent all her life in a small and beautiful seaside town on the Izu peninsula. On the first day of high school, she meets Futaba Oki, a slightly introverted girl who has just moved from Tokyo. Before she knows it, Futaba gets dragged along into Hikari's passion for scuba diving. And from there, Futaba gradually starts to come out of her shell, and learns how to take challenges and dive into the ocean of life.
Thoughts : Amanchu! is from the author of Aria, and those of you that know me, know Aria is one of my favorite anime franchises of all time. Needless to say Amanchu!'s timing couldn't have been better after the hole of seeing the Aria franchise come to a complete halt has left me. Amanchu! is pure fun, but also breathtakingly beautiful at times. Amanchu! has tons of smartly done references to the Aria franchise, and was also very informative about diving as a whole. Well worth the watch!

Re: Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

Synopsis : Natsuki Subaru is an ordinary high school student who is lost in an alternate world, where he is rescued by a beautiful, silver-haired girl. He stays near her to return the favour, but the destiny she is burdened with is more than Subaru can imagine. Enemies attack one by one, and both of them are killed. He then finds out he has the power to rewind death, back to the time he first came to this world. But only he remembers what has happened since.
Thoughts : Re: Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu feels like the love child of KonoSuba and All You need is Kill. A funny, gory, fantasy setting anime with some edge of your seat scenes, initially. Later on Re Zero had some extremely cruel scenes and as a viewer you even end up hating Subaru for a while. Great voice acting and characters really made this well worth the watch.

Relife


Synopsis : The story follows Kaizaki Arata, a 27-year-old jobless man who fails at every job interview he has after quitting his last company. His life changes after he meets Yoake Ryou of the ReLife Research Institute, who offers him a drug that can change his appearance to 17-year-old in order to make him a subject in an experiment for one year. Thus, he begins his life as a high school student once more.
Thougths : Weirdly Relife was entirely released on one day. Which made it easy to binge watch(personally I love binge watching anime) But that's not the reason it's on this list. Relife had a lot of characters I could relate to, and the interaction between characters and events(except for the age altering pill) felt very realistic and genuine. Relife has a pretty important message to convey to viewers, but also has and end that leaves you wanting more.

Kidou Senshi Gundam UC RE:0096

Synopsis : The story is located in a colony "Industrial 7" in UC (Universal Century) 0096. It depicts an encounter of a 16 years old student Banagher Links and the pure white mobile suit "Unicorn Gundam", and also depicts the global basis war over the forbidden box "Laplace".
PV :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VsItczD6qI
AniDB : http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=11977
Thoughts : It's not entirely fair to have Gundam Unicorn on this list, as it's just a tv version of the OVA which was a masterpiece. If you want a full review of Gundam Unicorn head on over the to following link http://reefza.blogspot.co.za/2014/08/anime-review-mobile-suit-gundam-unicorn.html

"So what about the rest" you ask. Well below I'll share my thoughts on each of the other shows I watched from this season.


91 Days : One of the top picks at the start of the season, 91 Days was really good throughout, but kind of fell flat nearing the end, even though it had a pretty good message about how pointless revenge really is.

Alderamin on the Sky : Every week I looked forward to a new episode of Alderamin on the Sky, really loved the characters in it as well as the cruel depiction of war. Sadly it ended a bit too soon for me, even though a second season will be well received.

Brotherhood - Final Fantasy XV : A really short, but cool background series on the main characters form the upcoming Final Fantasy game, but nothing more than that.


Ange Vierge : Let's be honest now, Ange Vierge was an anime about girls in baths or hotsprings with the occasional fighting scene. The only episode without a "bath" scene was the final episode.

Macross Delta : Not one of my favourite Anime from the Macross franchise, but I did enjoy it quite a bit. The characters grew on me, even if the music didn't.

Active Raid S2 : Active Raid's second season was just as good as the first season, with some good twists and turns along the way. Well worth watching if you enjoyed the first.



D.Gray-man Hallow : The continuation of the long delayed D.Gray-man series started off just as lackluster as the original ended. Only worth watching if you REALLY want to know what happens.

Mob Psycho 100 : This will probably get me a lot of hate but, I didn't think Mob Psycho 100 was anything more than average, the animation was pretty bad, the characters themselves, though colorful to an extent, were average. Other than a few action scenes it felt like this show was riding on One Punch Man's popularity, but in a bad way.

Tales of Zestiria the X : UFOTable is known for stupidly high level animation and Tales of Zestiria the X is no exception, IF you watch it for no other reason than eye-candy. that's totally fine. The few episodes with Tales of Berseria were a lot better than the rest.


Orange : Orange was another one of my top picks at the season's start. Especially with promise of quite a bit of heartache to come. Even though the show had a lot of teary eyed moments, in general it wasn't even all that sad. Loved the characters! But hated Kakeru...

Fukigen na Mononokean : A very enjoyable anime about a yokai exorcist and his budding apprentice. I went into the show with no expectations and quite enjoyed it. Sadly it's not an anime that I would call memorable.

Momokuri : Momokuri is probably the cutest anime I've seen with a crazy stalker girl as the main character, if cutesy romance with comedy is what you are after...with a bit of weird. Then Momokuri is for you, otherwise, steer clear.


Time Travel Shoujo : Best education show this season? You bet! Time Travel Shoujo was a surprisingly fun and yet informative anime about the history of scientific discoveries.

Rewrite : Worst Key Visual Arts anime to date? Yup. A sequel has been announced, just goes to show, a show doesn't have to be good to get a sequel.

Qualidea Code : Shoddy animation and an asinine story is what you can expect from Qualidea Code, yes there are kids with superpowers and an alien invasion, but it's not worth your time.


Love Live! Sunshine!! : A spin-off series of the popular Love Live! anime, with an all new cast, and a fair bit of self worship. Love Live! Sunshine!! wasn't a bad watch, but not a great one either.

Shokugeki no Soma S2 : I loved every moment of Shokugeki no Soma Second Season, Heck I'm still considering adding into my list of top 5 from the Summer 2016 season. A great continuation of a great anime, though a bit to short.

Handa-kun : I had high hopes for Handa-kun, as it's the prequel to one of my fave anime, Barakamon. That being said Handa-kun had a less than stellar start, but it was quite enjoyable non the less.


Masou Gakuen HxH : A pointless anime that's sole selling point, being it's lewdness, was censored, al be it in a funny and creative way. Rather wait for the uncensored release before you waste your time with this trash.

Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru! : A cute rom-com anime that had a lot of laughs, but lacked severely on the romance side.

New Game : New Game was an enjoyable look into the lives of the staff of a game development studio in Japan, a great mix of characters and pacing made for an enjoyable watch.


Berserrk 2016 : Ahh Berserk, probably one of the anime most of us long time fans were looking forward to the most, but sadly the use of shoddy CGI let the series down. Good news though, another season has been announced, we can only hope they return to more traditional animation styles...

Planetarian : Planetarian was the better of the two Key Visual Arts anime this season, even though it was a really short 5 episodes. It was a lot better put together than Rewrite.

DAYS : DAYS was a really enjoyable soccer anime, well worth the watch if you enjoy seeing people work hard at achieving their goals.


Kuromukuro : Kuromukuro is another left over anime from Spring 2016 that was surprisingly fun to watch, with a good mix of action and comedy. It didn't really stand out between all the other anime though.

Fate Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA 3rei!! : The latest season in the Fate Kaleid series was on par with the previous seasons. Seems there is a movie announced to wrap it all up finally. If you want to see Fate/Stay Night characters in a magical girl anime. Fate Kaleid is for you.

Regalia - The Three Sacred Stars : Regalia - The Tree Sacred Stars is a weird addition to this list as it's not finished yet. In fact due to the original creator not being happy with the route the anime was taking, the studio had to restart it. In case any of you were wondering what the heck happened to it.

That concludes my thoughts on the various anime from this past season. If you don't see an anime title on here, I have most probably dropped it for one or other reasons. Feel free to share your thoughts about the list and your fave shows from the past Anime Season with me. It's always fun to hear/read what other people thought about the shows.

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