Sunday, October 23, 2016

Handling Sequels

So!
Today's post shall be a bit unusual. More and more, I'm conflicted about how I handle posting here on Evil Cat's blog. Specifically, the lack of posting. On the one hand, I have a job now, and that has made what time I do get to myself all the more valuable, it's easier to pick out what games I'm really enjoying, rather than just killing time on. On the other hand, I also am theoretically running a youtube channel (if one video a week counts as "running"). Finally, I have the posts I make here about anime that particularly catch my interest from new releases/ongoing shows.

A while back, when Evil Cat stopped in for a bit, I asked him briefly if he cared if I put up posts on sequel seasons that hadn't been featured here for their first seasons. He gave the okay, but I never really used the new allowance. Mostly, because there wasn't really a good way to make a post that didn't sound like, "Hey! Here's a show I've been watching for a long while, you should love it because I do!"
Yeah, no.

So instead, I've opted to come up with a one-size-fits-all blanket solution. When new seasons roll in, I'll make a single post pointing out the shows that are having second or greater count seasons. As always though, I'll only be pointing out ones that have caught my interest, are remarkable in some way, or have had a previous season posted about on the blog. My hope is that this will give me a quick and simple method to generate additional, but still useful, content on the blog. For instance, I don't think anyone needs a week by week update that One Piece is still running.
*quietly giggles to self*
*Ahem*

Anyway, on with the show:

Bungo Stray Dogs 2: The second season takes an interesting spin, by turning back the clock. Dazai's history was something of an in-joke bet amongst the detective agency he worked at. Even though we as the audience are given to know the what of it, the details were never explained. The shows second season begins where Dazai's time with his previous employer ends, and it is every bit as gloriously gloomy and full of humanity as the first season was. The one thing Bungo Stray Dogs constantly had going for it, and continues to have in my opinion, is a perfect hairline balance between comedy and tragedy/drama. I recommend this series, it's a wonderful balance of story and action, characters and powers. The presentation is also noteworthy, I like the artistic style.

Natsume Yuujinchou 5/go(u): The Fifth season of Natsume Yuujinchou, of course. A couple places phrased it as 'gou', more often as 'go', honestly it doesn't matter, it's the fifth season anyway so 5 is fine. Given that the previous tags on the blog used the romanji, I'll stick with it. When I saw this pop up on crunchyroll, I was immediately elated. Just absolutely out of my mind happy. I love this show so much. But then...I was suspicious. It had been so long...could it really meet expectations? I had actually forgotten about the show for a long while...after so much time had passed, could it really start back up where it left off? Continue to make me love all of its characters?
Clearly it wouldn't be on this list if this wasn't the case. Everything is as it should be, and one episode had me falling in love all over again. This show is golden. Go watch everything Natsume Yuujinchou has to offer you if you haven't already.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

[New][October 2016] WWW.Wagnaria!! - Not a sequel



Last Seen:2

Summary: Daisuke Higashida starts working part-time at a family restaurant due to financial difficulties at home. However, as he is slowly introduced to and spends time with his co-workers, it seems this restaurant doesn’t have a single normal person working there!

First Impression: Just as good as it always has been. Comedy from start to finish.

My Opinion: This is NOT the sequel to Working!!! That will be coming eventually I hope, but for now, this is actually an adaptation of the original...web comic? I believe someone said, that inspired the first anime. Or something like that. All I remember is reading various comments on multiple websites, and apparently the original author refers to the two restaurants as the 'Inu' and 'Neko' groups, Dog and Cat respectively. I've forgotten which group this shows is, but I'm sure if you're really curious it would be easy enough to find out. The two are sister Wagnaria restaurants, and the shows are confirmed to be taking place in the same world.
All in all, this group seems a bit more...laid-back? They're all the special kind of flawed insane we've come to love, but in a far less glaring and apparent way, like Inami's man-phobia violence, or the ridiculously chibi girl. I won't spoil anything for you, but rest assured the comedy is as golden as it has ever been here. Who knows, the two shows are taking place in the same world, so we may even see some cameos from the other group!

[Ended] Taboo Tattoo - Flat.

Why?! Why did you leave us BB? You were the only proper badass at all times...

Pros:
Few.
-That first fight between Seigi and Izzy is great.
-Flashy graphics

Cons: A lot.
-For as interesting as the powers themselves are, the characters never use them in very interesting ways. Izzy is the only one that gets any mileage out of hers, and that's just sad in a show with as many powers as this one.
-Plot holes, and poorly explained ... everything.
-That ending.

My Opinion: Easily a:

Bad,
Hands down. It's not mediocre, but it comes close. There was a lot of potential for originality in the beginning. Again, that fight between the two main characters was great. Unfortunately, that's about the only memorable thing worth seeing in this show, in my opinion. Cheap comedy, cheaper romances, and poor character motivations. Well, except maybe Blood's, but when you have as broad a goal as 'save the world', that's kind of boring too. The character himself made up for it by generally being 100% badass as long as he was on screen...which unfortunately wasn't very long.


Actually, that's another thing. Characters come and go so goddamn fast in this show. Did they honestly expect us to get attached to any of them? I shit you not, in one episode they introduce like, 4 or 5 new characters that all look interesting and important, but we never see any more than one of them again, for the rest of the show.

By the way. If you've seen the first episode, let me go ahead and let you know that whatever you were expecting,
[Spoiler]
a Giant Robot Battle
[Spoiler end]
is how the show ends. Yeah. No bullshit, that's actually how they decided to end it. Whether 'they' is the original author(assuming there is one), or the animation studio, it matters not. Someone was an idiot that had the power to make stupid decisions when the smart people ran out of ideas.

Impartial Opinion: Skip it. Even though it wasn't worth calling mediocre, it still doesn't have anything interesting enough to warrant attention, even if you have nothing better to do. There are better terrible 'nothing-better-to-do' bad shows. That's saying something, and I'm saying it. So there.
*cough*Right. Impartial.
I recommend you google/youtube the Izzy-vs-Seigi fight, and then otherwise skip this one.
Unless you really want to see that train wreck of an ending. Even out of context it's hilariously stupid. G'head, I highly doubt it will spoil anything at all, given how out of place it is. With a show this bland, you should have already known good triumphs over evil. Just at an 'edgy price', based on the authors tastes, which in this case, are bad. Whether that's the animation studios taste, or the whatever-it-may-be source material authors remains to be seen. I really just don't care.