Summer 2015 First Impressions (Part 1)

I’ve been very busy this past week, with 12 hour workdays every single day. I watched 5 of the 10 shows I intended to, so here’s a first part first impressions. There’ll be part 2. I should have more time again from next week, so expect a return to normalcy in the third week.

As I actually wrote something longer for each of these shows, I’ll keep it brief, and link to the lengthier impressions post. As always, the list is ordered by how much I liked the episodes, combined with how good I thought they were, in a descending order (first is best, last is worst).

1) Durarara!!x2 Ten Episode 13 (Durarara!! Season 2 Cour 2 episode 1):

Durarara!! is back, rejoice!

Durarara!! is back! True to the way the first season, and the second one started, we had a sort of quiet episode. “Sort of” is exactly right, because as we saw characters going about their daily lives, it was still full of small paths that criss-cross, and we’ve had some time inside Izaya’s head, narrating his life, in a manner similar to both how we’ve had for Mikado when we first encountered him, and mirroring the girl in the 2nd episode whom Izaya tricked. Izaya is a jerk, he’s a scary villain because he understands people deeply, and uses this knowledge to crush their hopes and dreams. But he’s still great to watch in terms of screen presence. Things are going on in Durarara!!, and although in this episode we supposedly took a break from “the main plot”, there were plenty of signs in the background, true to show’s fashion.

Summer 2015 Anime Season Preview and Expectations

There’s a week until the Summer 2015 season begins in earnest, so it’s time to put behind us this underwhelming Spring season in order to clear the plate for new and exciting shows! Wait, I’m only excited for 4 shows, and half of those are returning or continuing shows? Welp. Well, let us see what’s what.

As always, in these posts I cover shows I plan to follow, or have thoughts on why I will not follow them, or considered following and decided not to. As always, I try to strike a balance between giving you enough information on the show, and telling you why I think it is or isn’t worth watching. Shows ordered by day, and by expectation within the day, as that affects pick status. The “Almost In” category returns, describing shows that I’d pick up in prior seasons, but decided to put aside in order to make more time for backlog, after growing unhappy with how many of the shows I pick up ending up “not worth the time”, let alone “good”.

Most of the information about the shows can be had from the helpful Neregate Chart, and what I’ve happened to see on various sites, such as The Cart Driver. Check them out if you want more information, or information on shows I didn’t cover (such as follow-ups to shows I don’t watch).

Sunday:

Almost In:

God Eater – Shows (and films) based on video games almost always suck. The more of a storyline the game has, the worse it usually is. Exceptions, such as last year’s Rage of Bahamut: Genesis exist, but they’re few and far between, and atrocities such as the BlazBlue show are much more common. God Eater is a Monster Hunter clone, so expect team dynamics in the face of monsters to be the draw, which is a pretty standard fare as far as anime goes.

The stand-out aspect here is that this is made by Ufotable, who make really pretty shows, and that the voice acting talent is pretty respectable. Hirao Takayuki, the director, is the man behind the best regarded Kara no Kyoukai (Garden of Sinners) film, the 5th, Paradox Spiral. The art-style in the preview is interesting, somewhere between CGI and water-colours, of all things. The faces seem not very expressive, and while it is definitely interesting, it reminds me more of indie video games, or short flash animation. Dunno.
Interest Rating: 1/3. It’s likely to be really pretty, but as Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works has shown, pretty is not enough. And hey, if this ends up being surprisingly good, as has happened with Bahamut, I’m sure people will let me know and I’ll pick it up.
Airing Date: July 5th. Preview.