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The Fall 2017 Anime Preview Guide


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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:52 am Reply with quote
I've got a pretty good grasp of this season now, but there's two shows I've only found scarce info on, not even if they're supposed to be shorts or full length;
Glamorous Heroes (グラマラスヒーローズ) premiering on 7/10,
and Hitori Kurashi no Shougakusei (ひとり暮らしの小学生) premiering on the web 10/10, 10 episodes, based on a manga by Matsushita Kouichirou.
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Galap
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Joined: 07 Apr 2012
Posts: 2354
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:28 am Reply with quote
Jacob wrote about Just Because:

Quote:
trying to figure out this show's central conceit was like pulling teeth.


This jumped out at me because while this was a negative point for Jacob, it was a positive one for me. I tend to like things where the central conceit is either nonobvious and you have to figure it out as you go, or it's just kind of nebulous anyway. Because to me that discovery, the sense that you have to play the game to figure out why you're playing the game, is something that I really enjoy. Probably because it's kind of realistic: one's life doesn't really have a 'central conceit'. And for that to be true for the characters give a lot of room for them to be realistic in a way that's less common in fiction.

I really liked the intro to Just Because; I really liked how the animation was rugged but very subtle. And I also liked the 'about to graduate high school' setting, making me remember that period of my life as well. It was long enough ago that I don't really think about it that much, and since present-day me knows what came after, it was a little hard to remember what not knowing was like. I remember being ready to try something new and move on, but it was a little weird to be leaving the environment and the people I'd been around for a significant fraction of my life up to that point.
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BethanyP



Joined: 25 Nov 2016
Posts: 26
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 2:05 am Reply with quote
I'm sticking with Just Because!. There are enough anime about that bash you over the head with the premise in the first episode, assuming you've got the attention span of a bored spaniel. The characters are a bit weak, given how many there are introduced here, but I can put up with that in exchange for them not fitting neatly into the standard anime stereotypes.

There is only so much you can tell from one episode, but I suspect in eleven week's time I'll still be glad we didn't get another Is It Wrong To Pick Up a High School Girl With A Little Sister Dragon??? or something
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BodaciousSpacePirate
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Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 3017
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 2:46 am Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
Well thank you for the link, I never heard this before and I love it!


This was my high school's graduation song my sophomore year, so while I liked the song when I first heard it, after the 50th or so time it started to wear on me. Very Happy
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2599
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 5:21 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:


I knew Natsume (who btw is Mio)


Damnit. Embarassed I had her written down as Hazuki in my notes... Crying or Very sad

I really can appreciate how many people find this soothing (and I do actually understand the phone number thing; I have my deceased grandmother's number in mine), but I guess what this all comes down to is that I just don't like school nostalgia stories. It's a button-pusher for me. And, more importantly, that camera girl makes me want to smack her through the screen. Laughing

We can't all wear dead flamingos on our heads, I guess.
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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9809
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:22 am Reply with quote
It is beginning to sound as though these "soothing" high school shows are acting as Rorschach test of people's memories of high school life. Laughing

To me, high school was just something to put up with until it was over. I have no fond or hateful memories of it. However the passage of time can drain a lot of emotion out our memories. I will say that the idea that your time in high school is something to cherish would have caused strong laughter when I graduated and caused me to smile even now.

When I watch shows set in a Japanese high school I don't associate them with my own past any more then I would something set in an alternate world. Might as well be fantasy land or middle earth.
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Chocoreto



Joined: 17 Feb 2016
Posts: 105
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:32 am Reply with quote
Quote:
"Just Because!" is not a good enough reason to make an anime.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call 'absolute destruction'. Kudos to the reviewer. Whether you agree or disagree with this statement, you cannot deny that the review makes you understand completely what kind of show we're talking about. If some people like it, by all means enjoy. For us who do not, its existence is already long forgotten, thing that I assure you, wouldn't change even if I we watched it.

Other than that, Gintama, Osomatsu-san and Shokugeki No Souma are off to a decent start. I had missed the purely comedic side of Gintama as much as I had missed the Matsuno brothers. Shokugeki feels quite tame, and sadly not as beautiful as the second season, which was a pure treat for the eyes, with its gorgeous character designs and vivid colors. But it's Shokugeki nonetheless, it will be good.

Juuni Taisen was much better than I expected it to be, while Ousama Game was much worse, and it wasn't like I expected anything from it to begin with. I guess a bunch of unlikable characters being killed off will always be a plus, but if the next episodes are as tedious and badly written as the premiere, I'm not going to be on board. Seriously, who wrote this? It needs to become at least unintentionally funny.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 9:15 am Reply with quote
Chocoreto wrote:
Quote:
"Just Because!" is not a good enough reason to make an anime.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call 'absolute destruction'.


Nah, that's what we call "absolute garbage" previewing. Jacob fell into the banal trap of seizing on a show's title to make a cheap crack which no doubt he finds hilarious. Rolling Eyes A good reviewer can evaluate the merits of a show that falls into a genre that he or she doesn't have a particular affinity for without getting overwhelmed by, "this isn't the kind of show I like, so it sucks!" I liked Just Because!'s well-executed naturalism. Yes, it's SOL and SOL by definition aren't rip-roaring tales of wild narrative excess. If you don't like the genre, that's cool. But that probably means you are incapable of evaluating them in any kind of intelligent manner, too.

I couldn't get past the first episode of Tsuki ga Kirei because I found the social anxiety of the leads to be irritating in the extreme. I've heard good things about the show so maybe if I had stuck with it, I would have come to like it as well. I can say I find Just Because's first episode much more engaging.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 10:12 am Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
Also love how reviewers can have such divergent reviews, must not use the same critical criteria...

ANN apparently does not believe in being objective with their reviews; they are encouraged to just express their feelings. I don't respect those type of reviews because to me they are not professional. With that approach yours and my opinions are as valid and worthy as those of ANN critics.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 10:21 am Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:

ANN apparently does not believe in being objective with their reviews; they are encouraged to just express their feelings. I don't respect those type of reviews because to me they are not professional. With that approach yours and my opinions are as valid and worthy as those of ANN critics.


All reviews are subjective. There is no such thing as an "objective" review.

Your opinons are just as valid and worthy as the people who write for this site.

This is a very strange attitude you have.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:08 pm Reply with quote
MMO Junkie: It's definitely a charming show. It's not bad looking, but certainly isn't the best looking show, both in art and animation. The monster design in the game is a bit dorky but not necessarily in a bad way. Where they are going with (just in case) spoiler[the other lead's IRL gender] is pretty clear, but they are putting the piece there so you can connect the dots without really slapping you in the face with it. While it won't be the best show this season, or perhaps even just on Fridays, it is worth watching.

Kino's Journey: While I had my doubts, I think the director did a good job. I especially thought the scene where spoiler[the town turns on the guy who came to the town to get his murder on] was very well done. While the credit for the writing probably belongs to the author, I think they made a good choice on where to start this reboot, for both old fans and newcomers. One issue that needs mention is, perhaps predictably, the use of CG. They don't use it too much, but it is noticeable. I don't know if it is an issue on my end, but in one sequence, it seemed like the CG was flickering, which could be an issue if it is recurring and more widespread than just me. I haven't watched it on other devices to see if it shows up there though.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:10 pm Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
When I watch shows set in a Japanese high school I don't associate them with my own past any more then I would something set in an alternate world. Might as well be fantasy land or middle earth.


I feel the same way. I can't really watch these idyllic high school stories because I cannot relate to them. My experiences in high school were rarely quiet and peaceful. The students tended to be very aggressive and would look for reasons to pick fights with whoever they feel like (always keep a sharpened pencil in your pocket in case someone targets you), funding was horrible and enrichment programs were constantly on the chopping block, and every guy wanted to be Mystery the Pickup Artist and Notorious B.I.G. at the same time (minus the dying).

School in western media is typically written as a hellish place to be. That fantasy Calvin had in Calvin & Hobbes in which he'd fly a bomber plane over his school and drop bombs on it, leaving it "a smoldering crater." Springfield Elementary in The Simpsons is always incredibly underfunded and Principal Skinner always exhausted in his inability to do anything meaningful. The teachers in South Park Elementary are completely powerless to stop the kids' misbehaving because the kids don't take them seriously. X Middle School in Fillmore! was depicted as filled with corruption and backstabbing. Brick makes high school look like a Mafia-controlled city from the 1920's, and all that really needed to be done was change the way the characters spoke. I've yet to see anime or manga show anything close to these depictions. I guess the Japanese school systems, or Japanese culture in general, doesn't create resentment or shady behavior like that. How else do you keep hundreds of teenagers in one place unsupervised and have it NOT turn into a war zone?
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Chocoreto



Joined: 17 Feb 2016
Posts: 105
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:32 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Nah, that's what we call "absolute garbage" previewing. Jacob fell into the banal trap of seizing on a show's title to make a cheap crack which no doubt he finds hilarious. Rolling Eyes A good reviewer can evaluate the merits of a show that falls into a genre that he or she doesn't have a particular affinity for without getting overwhelmed by, "this isn't the kind of show I like, so it sucks!" I liked Just Because!'s well-executed naturalism. Yes, it's SOL and SOL by definition aren't rip-roaring tales of wild narrative excess. If you don't like the genre, that's cool. But that probably means you are incapable of evaluating them in any kind of intelligent manner, too.


I would agree with you if they had told them to 'evaluate the episode in one sentence', but he has given some solid arguments beforehand as to why he came into that conclusion and how he experienced it. I don't understand how someone can write positive things for something that they didn't enjoy at all, and why would they be obligated to do so. Professional reviews don't have so much to do with taming your opinion trying to please everybody, as with having a proper structure and trying to cover as much ground on the content as possible. I'm not saying that the reviewers here are all always perfect, (i.e. when the fanboy/fangirl side takes over) but what I'm reading the preview for, is trying to understand what kind of show are we talking about, more or less. I've read plenty of things I don't agree with from time to time, but as long as I can understand what it's about from the previews, they have achieved their goal.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:32 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
I guess the Japanese school systems, or Japanese culture in general, doesn't create resentment or shady behavior like that. How else do you keep hundreds of teenagers in one place unsupervised and have it NOT turn into a war zone?

Basically, by an all-encompassing cultural straightjacket. This is only possible in a mono-cultural society, and probably only in one that's on an island (or, more accurately, several islands). By keeping a lock on every aspect of society, and making it very unpleasant to deviate too far from the established norms, it becomes possible to do what you're talking about. I would hate it. In fact, even people who are removed from it for a relatively short time (like, say, going to school abroad for a year), tend to have a hard time returning to the proper mind set (or wanting to do so).

It might be possible to create something similar here, but it would have to be in a fairly isolated part of the country, with a very homogenous population. Maybe someplace like Utah could do it, or something similar to it. But I doubt we could pull it off to the degree the Japanese do.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:42 pm Reply with quote
Er, the notion that Japanese "school systems or culture in general" are free of resentment or shady behavior due to supposedly being a "mono-culture" is patently false. There is in fact a large amount of anime and manga that deal with the resentment and dysfunction of high or middle school aged kids that feel deeply alienated.

If you're looking for a grounded but far less idyllic depiction of the lives of school-aged Japanese kids, try something by Shuzo Oshimi or Inio Asano.
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