Forum - View topicThe Best (and Worst) Anime of Fall 2019
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#HayamiLover
 Posts: 796 Location: Eastern Europe |
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I understand why so many people find the Stars Align message great, but at the same time, it surprises me why no one pays attention to how flat the parents are in this show. While the anime copes well with the images of the guys themselves, it depicts parents not as people who don't understand their children, but rather as toxic enemies without any hint of a soul.
It could be a great show about the problems of parents and children, or at least about the difficulty of teenage self-identification, but in the end it constantly risked getting into the area of a troubled teenager's fanfic. When you constantly find yourself thinking that this is an Ichiro Okouchi's show, then that says a lot. This is especially felt in Mitsue's subplot, who, as I understand it, should have been perceived as a target audience of the show. It seems that in her face the authors decided to create an anime adaptation of Daria, simultaneously supplementing this with all possible teenage stuff from the 90s, like the stupidity of ordinary people and the perception of cynicism as a cool sign of intelligence. It feels like the authors see their audience as geek-ish lonely girls who are biased against the commoners and dream of being among unrealistically kind cute boys. |
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#894822
Posts: 111 |
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Best -
Iruma-kun Runner-up - Vinland Saga BEASTARS Bananya and the Curious Bunch Most disappointing - Blade of the Immortal (2019) True Cooking Master Boy Worst - Kemono Michi No Guns Life |
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Hal14
 Posts: 660 Location: Heart of africa |
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Best: Welcome to Demon school, Iruma. It's been a really good adaptation, with nice visual gags, VA, and even two fun insert songs. Thankfully, it continues into the next season because i only have one new show i'm anticipating
Runner-up: Vinland Saga. Great but i preferred the first half, which is why it's only a runner-up in Fall despite the overall show being in my top 5 for 2019. Worst: I normally only pick shows i finished for worst but compared to previous seasons Fall 2019 had the most drops from me, so .... Babylon. I had some hopes for the series, thinking it would be a mature, grounded political thriller but the spoiler[villains are just so hilariously bad] |
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rahzel rose
 Subscriber Posts: 824 |
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To Theron:
I actually quite enjoyed Stand My Heroes. Cute guys and a great voice cast aside, I liked that you could tell how seriously Rei takes her job, and that (most of) the guys weren’t shown to look down on her. And even then, Arakida comes around after the first couple of episodes. I also liked that it wasn’t a romance. There’s only one guy who actually asks her out and she’s very clearly not interested. Rei just wants to do her job and do it well. Now, whether or not you enjoy the mystery aspect of it will come down to personal preference I suppose, but I thought it worked out fairly well. It wasn’t too terribly cliche IMO? I suspect it might be a good show to binge watch as opposed to week to week. I’m already planning to go through it again soon. Also, not story related at all, but I absolutely love the opening song. I ended up purchasing it off of JP iTunes and I’ve definitely put it on repeat a few times. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18167 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Appreciate the response on this. So does she ever start acting like she has a lick of common sense, then? And does her ability ever show actual relevance (beyond preventing her from being chloroformed)? |
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pharmboy23
Posts: 196 |
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A real bummer of a season for me. The only show I had on a schedule was After School Dice Club and that ended up being entirely too dull, despite covering a subject where I have enough familiarity to spot Easter Eggs and games from my collection all over the place.
I wish I’d made time for ORESUKI and Stars Align, but I mostly caught up on manga instead. The upcoming season has some potential and I do like having a couple ongoing shows, so we’ll see... |
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HannoX
Posts: 194 |
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Best: Ascendance of a Bookworm
Runner-up: Vinland Saga Worst: can't really say since I quickly dropped ones I didn't like. However, if I have to chose then I suppose Kemono Michi I probably dropped it the quickest of the ones I dropped. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3442 Location: Finland |
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It's interesting to note the response to Kemono Michi when Konosuba was just voted the favorite isekai anime of the decade on the Funimation poll. Was the latter just a one-off hit? 
But yes, I kind of agree with that reaction, while I've not seen the anime I've read the scanlated manga chapters so far, and 'boring' would be one of the kinder things I could describe Kemono Michi with... Last edited by Blanchimont on Fri Jan 03, 2020 7:08 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2606 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I got a completely different impression on that front - I really felt like a lot of them looked at her like a pretty little thing who was just sort of there, with maybe the exception of, uh, that one guy whose place she went to in order to do outside work. (Names aren't my strong suit, sorry!) I absolutely agree that she took her job seriously - the scene where spoiler[she's told she's not really a member of STAND was a great example of what I think the show was trying to do] - but I just didn't see most of the other guys taking her as seriously.
Razel Rose may have a different take on this, but I think the common sense thing was dependent upon the situation. She makes some repeatedly bad choices, but definitely starts using her brain more. And no, no real relevance to her ability; I suspect that's more important in the game with a few of the guys' routes. |
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rahzel rose
Subscriber Posts: 824 |
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There weren’t ever any moments that I can recall where I was like “But why are you doing this???” I have a huge secondhand embarrassment squick, and all the dumb things that made me cringe in the show mostly came from some of the guys. Although I suppose again some of that may also be personal opinion, but I was never outright “Rei you’re doing something stupid!!” while watching the show. As for her abilities, uh. No. Unfortunately it’s never expanded on at all aside from the fact that Yui is a little obsessed over it and everyone seems to know about. The show only really has one big overarching plot and her ability isn’t necessarily needed for it? I think that if maybe there had two or three different story arcs it could have played a bigger role. |
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rahzel rose
Subscriber Posts: 824 |
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Ha ha I still don’t have all of them memorized either! But I guess for me it’s more that, yes, it’s clear there was affection for her? But none of the way the guys treated her felt mean or disrespectful in any way. Arakida got on her case about her heels and stuff, but when she got better shoes and showed him her determination, his view of her changed and I thought they worked well together, as an example. Maybe I’m just so used to the “you’re dumb and ugly but I guess I like you anyway” trope or “you’re too pretty and precious to let outside” trope that I found this show refreshing since it didn’t have that. There were times when they were worried about her, but they also let her do her job. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11330 |
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You're doing better than I am then. I couldn't even figure out who she was working for or who all the different factions were. Like she was a recruiter for STAND, but not a member herself, and the office where she hung out didn't seem to be her employer either. And the guys in the billiards bar were...the guys in the billiards bar? None of it made a lick of sense. Also, I thought it was over. The last episode I watched seemed like a finale to me, despite a few loose ends. Is there more? I'm likewise confused about Chris implying there are more episodes of Cautious Hero coming up when his review of the last episode was labeled Series Finale. That felt done to me as well. Anyway, I guess my Best for the season would be Kono Oto Tomare! and Ascendance of a Bookworm, with Dr. Stone as a runner up. I'm not yet willing to put Stars Align up there until I see how they resolve all the loose ends the truncated production left hanging. Worst that I watched was Stand My Heroes and Worst that I immediately bailed on was Kemono Wrestler. Most Disappointing has to be Ace of Diamond Act II. I love this series to pieces, but this season has been really rough in terms of its emotional storytelling, which it's always excelled at (points off for shounen dragging out moments) and most of all, that it's become a 90% slideshow, which is fatal for a sports anime. They've always been liberal in their use of pans and still frames and every other animation shortcut, but this season has gotten completely out of control on that front. I might as well just go read the manga, but at least the anime is in color and has the great soundtrack, plus Takahiro Sakurai at his cheekiest. |
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ranran-001
Posts: 532 |
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I'm gonna put Kemono Michi in the "Its so stupid its fun" I enjoyed it for it being dumb.
Fire Force, I'm gonna have to put in my biggest disappointment. I loved the first episode, but it just didn't gel with me afterwards. |
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rahzel rose
Subscriber Posts: 824 |
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She's a part of Matori (which is why Hattori calls her Matori-chan) which, to quote an article elsewhere on this site, is the narcotics control unit of investigators under the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. She works as a recruiter for STAND, but isn't part of it, so it's kind of like her side job when she's not working a case for Matori. The four in the bar, Revel, are informants basically. And then there's the Kujo household.
Episode 12 is the last one. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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Best: Chihayafuru - Given I named it one of my top 5 of the year, that kind of gives away that I would name it best of the season. While it was sad to see Chihaya pass on the Queen Qualifiers, it was still good to see this series return.
Runner-up: F/GO: Babylonia - As a game player, I think this has been very well adapted, well animated and well paced, while leaving room for the anime producers to leave their own touch on it. I'm excited to see the second cours return this weekend. Glad to see Ascendance of a Bookworm among the reviewers' best of the season, despite being dismissed by a couple reviewers in the preview guide. I think it has become one of my favorite of the genre, and it will be interested to see what they do in the second season in April. The closest to worst of the season I have is either Assassins Pride or Kandagawa Jet Girls, but those are more mediocre than outright bad for me. There haven't really been any series I've watched that have what I look for in a worst of season (or year) since last winter's W'z (which is my choice for worst of the year), though I'm not sure that that's a bad thing. That being said, Babylon is trending in that direction, at least in terms of story, so maybe there may be another candidate, but I'd want to watch it to the end before coming to that conclusion, and the production quality would probably place it above the worst tier, personally speaking. While I think Stars Align is good, what keeps me from putting it among the best in season - beyond being unfinished - is the thoroughness of the family drama. While I can appreciate that people see a perfect family life as unrealistic or not relatable, for me, it takes that past reality to an over dramatized terrible family life. Individually, I could see each instance as realistic, if a bit dramatized to spice things up a bit, but when nearly every family has severe drama in the past, present, or likely future, it slides past 'this feels real' to ' this is a lot of drama'. Sure most people's family life is not perfect and there is probably some drama, but it isn't all to the level of pouring scalding water on a baby, slapping your kid down a flight of stairs, taking great pleasure in telling your son that you're divorcing his father BECAUSE OF YOU!, or seriously considering murdering your genuinely terrible father. Again, I can believe each individual family drama to some extent or another, but taken together, it just pushes it up and over to the other side of the bell curve and ends up feeling about as unrealistic as everything being perfect. Last edited by zrnzle500 on Fri Jan 03, 2020 11:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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