[Fall Season 2012 Anime Updates & Status Changes]

Its been almost 4 weeks since the season started, it is time to look back and re-arrange my thoughts on the currently airing shows. Quite mixed, in fact, some shows went better and exceeded my initial expectations, others simply drove downhill. Overall, this season is amazing, there are still 12 shows on my "watching" list after a month, the same time last season, I only had 3, this signifies a major improvement, a blessing. Lets go into the details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 4.3/10 Episode Scores (1-3): 4.3 → 2.7 → 1.4 → Dropped Okay okay, stop complaining you fanboys, here we go What do we have, what is the anime about, a sequel? Nope, not really, a spin-off? Not that either, then a remake? Well, probably not the case here since it's pretty different from the manga. To be honest, I still don't know what this is all about. It's like the team just adapted a feeble fan-fiction written extemporaneously by a five year old. The story just starts from nowhere, there are no explanations whatsoever, we just see Hayate and Nagi living there. What!? The characters pretty much all lost their original personality, they act like robots, Nagi is even lazier than before, Hayate doesn't have his semi-tragic yet energetic optimism anymore, some red-eyed girl appeared out of nowhere, I simply feel like they are heartless clones of the original characters, they are without soul, it's that bad. The art completely changed, yes, the age went down by like 10? They look like kids, the budget seems constrained as the art is cursory, the animation is poorly done, everything was lacking. I seriously could not find any reason for me to watch this anymore, not even to see how bad it goes, this is just a waste of time. What a shame, who remembers Hayate's former glory some 5 years ago, it was even on the top 10 of the year in 2007, what a shame... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 3.8/10 Episode Scores (1-3): 2.6 → 1.7 → 1.1 → Dropped This could have been the best anime of the year! Not a joke, it was such a huge letdown that my anger fills me with the rage to kill the anime staff. Everything was absolutely flawless, even from the eyes of a professional critic like me, there was nothing to be scolded for, the pacing, the plot, the characters, everything felt so natural that it was beyond anime, I thought the author that came up with such god-tier story must be as fine as Dickens or Joyce. There was, however, a fatal flaw, it lies in its presentation, you may have guessed it, its the stupid CENSORSHIP! Why on earth would anyone censor the most beautiful scenes of the anime, the scenes we were all looking forward to in the adaptation. Were they just selfish and kept it for themselves? Art thou fooled by greed and gluttony, methought tis the best anime o'er the year! Madness oh madness... /sarcasm No its as bad as I expected, horrible ecchi shit. Dropped. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 7.5/10 Episode Scores (1-3): 7.6 → 5.9 → 5.1 → Watching K had fairly high anticipation from most viewers, I too, looked forward to it after seeing the eye-catching previews. The first episode was already disappointing, the second and third went only worse. The plot seemed quite unique at first glance, then it just became a mess of rip-offs and cliches, fanservice on top of that. There's the bartender with sunglasses and blond hair, you take Shizuo straight from Durarara, not to mention the guy that looks extremely similar to Masaomi. The blue guys had uniforms whose designs come from Fullmetal Alchemist, you can see the girl below is another rip-off, Riza Hawkeye from the State Military in FMA. Its a whole lot worse when they forced in some lame comedy, freely alternating characters' personalities and added fanservice. Yes the catgirl is pretty much always naked, the cool uniform guy turned into a brat within 5 seconds, that's the kind of retarded scenes I'm seeing, certainly not very promising. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 4.0/10 Episode Scores (1-2): 6.3 → 5.2 → Watching AKA "The New SAO" or perhaps even "The New Guilty Crown". The target that most trolls and haters focused on this season, the forums aren't viewable, every thread has like 300 posts, full of quotes, swear words, profanity, idiocy, etc. 2 episodes, this seems nothing different from the last Visual Novel rom-com cliched story I've seen. Seriously Key? Are you doing it that bad, I'm sick of those tsundere moe girls and wimp male leads. Enough is enough, if you don't improve it, I'm still gonna watch it to see how bad it is. My Reaction: These are all pretty sad now lets look at the good shows this season. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 9.5/10 Episode Scores (253-255): 9.4 → 9.6 → 9.1 → Watching Well its a long story, so far in Kintama, the silly new character Sakata Gintoki attempts and fails to take over the throne of the male lead, our all-time-favorite Sakata Kintoki. Yes its been hilarious and not so much anymore. Gintoki injured Tama and hurt Kintoki's friends! So now everyone is getting angry at him and sending out [Wanted!] flyers. As you can see, everyone is uniting against this foolish minuscule self-proclaimed samurai. Yes, we are all sure we can get him down this time. Alright alright, ignore him, some people are just too dumb to know that. Anyways, my primary concerns are what happens after Kintama arc? I have a bad feeling TV Tokyo will start the old re-runs but NO! that must not happen, we want to see Keisei arc! Not that big of a problems, they'll just animate it after the re-runs, and that will be Next Spring. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 7.6/10 Episode Scores (1-3): 7.6 → 7.4 → 7.5 → Watching ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 8.2/10 Episode Scores (1-3): 8.6 → 8.1 → 8.3 → Watching Aha Ahaha Ahahahahaahhaha Ahaha Ahaahahaahaahahahh AHahaahah /end ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Also, I'm too lazy to write one for each of the following, don't want to bore you to death either. Bakuman 3 Btooom! Code:Breaker Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo Psycho-Pass Seitokai no Ichizon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 6.1/10 Episode Scores (1-3): 6.4 → 7.6 → 7.3 → Watching I honestly had poor expectations for this one. It just looked like another of those rom-com harems. But it surprisingly turned out to be pretty funny. Let's look at some screenshots If I hadn't told you, you would certainly think this is some action supernatural anime. Let's just say it's "imaginative", Kyoani's high quality animation is the selling point apprently, now we understand why they would rather animate this than some Little Busters crap, haha JC Staff will get hated for that. The show is nowhere to become very good, it's just something better than I thought, still pretty bad overall, but certainly enjoyable and more unique. A breath of fresh air. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Impression: 8.4/10 Episode Scores (1-4): 8.1 → 7.8 → 8.3 → 8.7 → Watching Okay, I have lots ot say on this one. It'll probably be my favorite of the season. At first I thought it was interesting and unique, it has potential, but now, by the end of episode 4, I can see this turning into an epic scale masterpiece. A1 has certainly put efforts into the animation, the art is godly, very different from all other anime in existence, that alone, deserves praise. The setting is immensely well built, the story carefully crafted, I can see this going somewhere, they are revealing everything little by little but I know, this is turning into a tragic path to truth. It will deal with mature themes,. which is also why not everyone will like this, some can't handle the expicit homosexuality, gore, others simply won't understand. Our characters are developing slowly, little by little, they are discovering more about their society, accessing forbidden information, and all turning into tragic heroes. There will be multiple timeskips throughout the show. 25 episodes, starting at a mere age of 12, they will reach an eventual age of 36. Most of the story happens when they were 18 I believe, but anyways, no more spoilers, the characters look great. Saki at age 12 (episodes 1-4): See what I mean, she just looks so more mature in the matter of 2 years. That's also one of the main things I liked about Shinsekai, the main characters. Saki is one of my favorite, despite being a girl, she is the sole protagonist of the series, and this is not a shoujo. Her growth is the focus of the series, she will witness and perhaps change everything in the world (like lelouch did?). There is no OP so far, but the ED is very nice, especially the artworks Yes, romance will be a huge part of the show, though now it is still unobservable. The romance isn't the comedic harem type you see in most shows nowadays, this one is mature, there will be lots of sexuality and explicit content, I've read the novel, I believe A1 won't animate the bad part, otherwise this is far worse than the To Love-ru ecchi. I've been talking for a long while now, this is no doubt, going to be my favorite series this season, maybe even this year (Gintama excluded). In conclusion, fall is a wonderful season!