Welcome to my Spring 2020 anticipation post! Some choices are easy, sequels, continuations, adaptations of material I’m familiar with… The rest, working from ad blurbs and PVs on YouTube… Sometimes it’s like reading tea leaves. Through the wrong end of a telescope.
Anyhow, hit the jump and let’s take a look at the upcoming season!
Continue reading “Let’s look forward to Spring 2020”
I can’t believe it’s that time of year already… Spring is about to spring, and with it a fresh new crop of anime. And that means it’s time to peer into the crystal ball and try and figure out what tempts me to watch it.
Yeah, the title is a hoary old joke… But, what the heck. It works for me.
Anyhow, let’s hit the jump an run ’em down!
Continue reading “Spring 2019 – hope springs eternal!”
OK, it’s not quite that bad… But with everything else I’m working on I do have to admit to being sorely tempted to just leave it at that.
Anyhow, hit the jump and let’s take a look at my picks for next season.
Continue reading “Fall 2018 preview – This almost fits into a tweet.”
It’s that time of year again… As one season comes to end, another season begins. That whole circle-of-life thing. Or, at least that whole anime calendar cycle thing. Except for a couple of standouts (which I’ll talk about in my upcoming season review post), Spring 2018 wasn’t that great… But a new season brings new hope, and there’s some potential for Summer 2018.
The picture, taken from Mount Omuro on the Izu peninsula, is actually related to my most anticipated anime of the season… Can you guess what it is? Hit the jump to find out and to see more of what I expect from the upcoming season!
Continue reading “Looking to the horizon – Summer 2018 preview.”
I used the same title last year… But what the heck, it’s only once a year, right? Hit the jump and let’s chat about the upcoming season and what I’m planning on watching!
Continue reading “Hope Springs Eternal – Anticipating Spring 2018”
Yes, I know, it’s a Christmas song. And playing Christmas songs after the holiday season is rather tasteless… But once the title popped into my head, I couldn’t get it out except by using it.
Anyhow, hit the jump and let’s take a look at a few of the shows I’m anticipating for Winter 2018! Continue reading “Waiting on a winter wonderland… Anticipating Winter 2018!”
Will I find love? A question often asked of fortune tellers . A question also asked by anime fans as the old season draws to a close and a new one appears on the horizon.
The chance of finding something wonderful keeps people looking… At least an AOTS, maybe even an AOTY. (Though the competition is strong for the latter this year.) Hope springs eternal and all that.
So, let’s hit the jump and see what series makes my heart beat faster in anticipation this season!
Continue reading “Will I find love? Anticipating Fall 2017.”
It’s that time of year again! Time to look forward to what’s airing next season!
Let’s hit the break and take a look.
Continue reading “Looking forward to Summer 2017!”
A new anime season is like the opening of baseball season. There’s a great feeling of anticipation. Every show you’ve looked forward to is excellent. There’s no disappointment…
With that in mind, hit the break and let’s take a look at the shows I’m anticipating in the coming weeks. (And a few thoughts on how I’m going to blog the upcoming season.) Continue reading “Hope Springs Eternal… Looking forward to Spring 2017.”
With Fall 2016 drawing to a close, and the premieres starting in just over a week… it’s time to look forward to Winter 2017 and new anime. I try not to get too excited, because you never can tell whether or not they’re going to get picked up… But it’s still fun to think about it.
Eagerly Anticipating – shows I can’t wait to see:
Konasuba 2: More comic adventures, more explosions (but only once a day!), and maybe more Aqua being eaten by a frog… What’s not to like? “Trapped in another world” (especially a gamified one) is a genre that’s about been done to death, but Konasuba’s comedic take is very refreshing. The first season was laugh-out-loud funny with fun characters and some nice dramatic touches, I look forward to more.
Looking Forward To – shows I’m interested in checking out for one reason or another:
Fuuka: Honestly, I can’t put my finger on why I’m looking forward to Fuuka. Maybe it’s because the female lead reminds me somehow of Ritsu from Kawai Complex. (A character I liked and an anime I enjoyed.) Maybe it’s because 2016 was bereft of any decent romances and I’m starved for one. Whatever the cause, I feel compelled to look forward to it.
Little Witch Academia: I enjoyed the OVA and the movie, while the premise is rather generic, the characterizations and writing were a cut above. The movie especially was a nice blend of comedy and drama. But… The PVs make it look like the anime will be a reboot of the story rather than a continuation, and that moves it down a notch from Eagerly Anticipating to Looking Forward To. LWA will live or die by whether or not it can maintain the charm of the originals and not drop into being a generic school comedy – only with witches.
Piace: Watashi no Italian: I didn’t care much for the manga… which seems kind of odd to say for a show in the Looking Forward To category doesn’t it? Mostly I didn’t like the extraordinarily slow pace. (By the end of the first volume, they were still introducing characters.) But it has the bones of a wacky workplace comedy, if only they can tighten the pacing. Plus I just can’t resist at least checking out anime about food. These two things together bump it up from “Sure, whatever”.
Sure, whatever – shows that might be good, or might be on the fast train to Dropsville:
Akiba’s Trip: Honestly, I’m checking this out mostly because the OP is sung by Earphones, the voice actress idol unit formed by the main cast from Seiyu’s Life!.
BanG Dream!: In the wake of the over-the-top success of Love Live! and the more modest success of Wake Up Girls!, mixed media idol projects are slowly becoming A Thing and BanG Dream! is the latest of those to make the leap to anime… At least for me, they’ve been a very mixed bag though. The announced plot (girl who dreams of being an idol finds her instrument, meets other girls with similar dreams, and they set off down the rocky road to stardom) doesn’t exactly excite me either. But I love idol anime, so I can’t resist at least checking it out.
Idol Jihen: A world where political parties are formed by idol units to fight back against a corrupt government and “save the smiles of the people”… Sounds like someone decided to file the serial numbers off of AKB0048, slap on a coat of fresh paint and see if it sells. As with BanG Dream!, I can’t resist at least checking out idol anime, otherwise meh as I didn’t much care for AKB0048.
Seiren: Romance/comedy… An original project and the PV’s are playing it close to the chest, so we don’t know too much about the plot. I’m checking it out mostly “just in case”.
Scum’s Wish: Highly anticipated by many… But the one chapter of the manga I’ve managed to read so far left me mostly meh so it drops to the “Sure, Whatever” category. It may rise, or drop off entirely between now and the premiere depending on whether I get a chance to read more and how I feel about. Or I may just skip the rest of the manga and let the anime speak for itself.
Urara Meirochou: On the list mostly because it has the chance to be my CGDCT of the season.
Because of the Crunchy/Funi partnership, it will be interesting to see how the announcements are handled… In the past Funimation dropped all the shows on us at once, leaving the exact schedule for later. Crunchyroll on the other hand typically spaces their announcements out, leaving us in the dark. Sometimes their announcement has come only hours before the show drops. Two incompatible styles, but (at least theoretically) one set of announcements.
Two things I’m not happy about are Netflix and Amazon, who are going to get at least one show each this season. Netflix doesn’t really understand that the anime community they’re trying to woo is built around weekly simulcasts and pushes everything into their binge watching model. Amazon… Amazon is the big elephant in the room. After the disaster that was Battery, they’re trying to pretend the Noitamina deal never went down. We still don’t have a legal stream of Fall 2016’s Great Passage, and Amazon will get the much-anticipated Scum’s Wish for Winter 2017 (and Saekano for Spring 2017). I don’t know how long the deal runs for, but this season and whether or not they stream Scum’s Wish as scheduled could make or break their relationship with anime fandom for the forseeable future. (And they’re already in rough waters because of the cost.)
