User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail Wiki in the Anime vol. 1: Fall 2015/@comment-3987368-20160102080517

Thanks for the Skype message about this, Misk. I didn't know how we were handling the discussion this season, but I think making a blog for it from here on out ought to be a good idea.

Best series: One Punch Man - Bitch please; the Bible has nothing on this =D In all seriousness though, it's very easy to see where the hype for this series came from. Superheroes are more common than ever thanks to American media but anime and manga haven't really done a take on them that has reached the widespread public. This is the biggest story about them to come from Japan and it's not even your typical straight-up superhero like a Superman or Spider-Man. It's a satire on the genre and it pokes fun at itself and its tropes like super-long backstories, arbitrary rivalries and over-complicated villain plots. It's not a series where you watch in order to see if the hero will win; how can it be? It's called One Punch Man for a reason. We know he is going to win. The appeal in the show lies in its humor. We don't watch The Simpsons to see how Homer is going to resolve his weekly problem; we watch to see what the problem is and laugh as he tries to. It's not about suspense here, it's just for humor and commentary. Of course, humor is a subjective as hell thing and it doesn't hit everyone the way it its some people. For me though, the humor was great, I still remember all those things in the series that made me laugh like the groin hits, the deadpan faces and the scenes of the naked Saitama. So, yeah, I know there are people who dislike it and that's fine. I don't think I'd say it's the best show of the year, but it is the best of the season for me and for the whole year, it is the funniest for me and the most entertaining.

Score: 9/10 Other series: K: Return of Kings - Well, there's something to be said when a movie that basically exists to set up a series is more exciting than the series itself, especially when the movie is only above-average at best. K: Return of Kings is the sequel series to the 2012 anime K, which was followed-up by the movie K: Missing Kings. The plot is good enough in theory: the Red Clan is slowly coming back to its former strength thanks to their new (female) king, the Blue Clan is operating as normal, Kuroh and Neko continue searching for their king, the Silver King, while being harassed by the Green Clan who want to find him first. Where the series falls though is its execution. Shiro returns somewhat early in the series (a nice entrance, but it still felt early) but for the most part, only serves as an expositional force for much of his role, telling everyone about the Green Clan's plot. It's only at the end that he finally does something significant. So, yeah, exposition was a huge problem with this series. We're constantly told the same things over and over from different characters (in occasionally contradictory manners) and the action is sadly the worse for it because it's only at the end where it starts getting good on that front. But by the end, what we do need is some explanation on things. Spoiler alert: Random civilians begin developing clan-like powers due to the abduction of the Dresden Slates (which the characters literally just stood around watching) and a plan is hatched to destroy the slates. The plan works but then we don't see anything about the aftermath of the power release for the civilians, which was entirely the point of the latter third of the series. In the defense of the series though, there is some very solid character development, as well as generally good and consistent animation. So, given the finale, I doubt there will be a third season, and I'm fine with that to be honest.

Score: 6/10 Digimon Adventure Tri - Well, this was supposed to be a series but now it's going to be six movies. I've already talked about it extensively with Reli and Mega, but for those whom I haven't talked with, I'd say that if you were into the original series, you ought to enjoy this movie. On a technical front, the movie is well animated (a few art shots are poorly-drawn, but they're a minority) and the music is both nostalgic (they got the original artists to return and record the songs once again) as well as well-done. As far as plot and characters go, the movie shows us how the characters have been since the end of the show and now they're in high school. Most of the characters are well done, and they do seem to be appropriately-written older versions of the original characters. The problem I had though was with Tai and his newfound hesitation to enter the fight. On one front, it looks like character development because he's now considering the consequences of his actions. On the other hand though, it doesn't because not only does he over-think things (literally nobody has been hurt by the events surrounding them) but this is preventing him from taking action, thus he's essentially allowing monsters to roam free and do as they please. It also feels very arbitrarily written, like the writers just wanted Tai and Matt to argue so they switched their personalities from the original show where Tai was the one who was headstrong and wanted to push on while Matt was the one concerned for the risks. Hell, even at the end, while Alphamon is walking through their friends' Digimon, Tai is still hesitant to fight and only does so near the end. Not to mention that the battle is way too short for my liking. Alphamon vs. Omegamon should be an awesome fight given how strong the two of them are, but barely anything happens before Alphamon vacates. Anyways, I did spend a bit of time harping about this movie, but in the end I did still like the good things I found about it, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Score: 6/10

Miss Monochrome: The Animation 3 - Nothing much to say about this series. It's just a bunch of 7 minute shorts about Miss Monochrome, voiced by Yui Horie (voice of Carla) and her attempts at becoming an idol. Nothing noteworthy or objectionable here.

Score: 5/10

Dropped So, there is no "worst series" for me this time around because anything that I found to be "bad" or "uninteresting" I just dropped. Of those, there are only two:

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk - Tsundere lead? Check! Dark-haired male lead who is good at basically everything he does and has all the chicks chasing him? Check! Huge-boobed authority check with a past of sorts? Check! So, yeah, no surprises in the series, acceptable animation, nice music, but terrible concepts and poor execution of fights.

Comet Lucifer - It tried to be Eureka 7 and failed. That's all I really have to say about it.

Honestly, I didn't watch too much seasonal anime this time around. I actually spent a lot more time from October to December watching other anime that interested me that I hadn't seen before but wanted to watch. Among a few others, I watched Code Geass (which I really enjoyed), Akatsuki no Yona (well-done), Angel Beats (overrated, but had a nice 2nd half), Attack on Titan (very good) and Fate/Zero (best of them all). There's a lot more that I want to watch though, both in the year 2016 and from previous years.

Anyways, I'm sure next year will be good. With things like the 2nd season of Attack on Titan coming out along with the second Digimon Adventure Tri movie and new shows by P.A. Works, Kyoto Animation and Madhouse, it looks like we're in for some very good-looking anime, at the very least.