Watching Spring 2019 Anime

This is a follow up piece to the prior article including my list of what I plan on watching this anime season. The series that I am continuing from last season is Dororo, and a late addition is The Rise of the Shield Hero. Now that the majority of first episodes are out in their respective streaming sites, the final list of shows that I will be watching is, Fruits Basket, One Punch Man Season Two, and Kimetsu no Yaiba on Crunchyroll, followed by Fairy Gone, RobiHachi, and Shoumetsu Toshi on Funimation. Fruits Basket is available on both services. While Attack on Titan will be added to the list at the end of the month when it airs on the 29th, there are two shows I am unable to watch this season. Ao-Chan Can’t Study, and Carole & Tuesday. Ao-Chan Can't Study is exclusively streaming on HiDive, and I have already shared my thoughts on Carole & Tuesday being on Netflix in the previous article.

'Fruits Basket'

The latest adaptation of the story does not stand out too much when it comes to the visuals nor the music. The animation in the series is quite simple and pleasant to look at, while not leaving a strong impression. The character designs are standard, however despite that, they are distinct and easy to pick out. The real strength of the show comes from the premise and the characters involved. Each one so far has a defining character trait, which helps them stand out, and their personalities are all different, which adds a lot of variety in the cast as no two characters are the same so far. While each one is strong in their own right, albeit heavily exaggerated at times, these characters work best when at least three of them are working off of each other at one given time. What intrigues me the most is the premise of the show. The idea of Chinese Zodiacs living as people in modern day Japan is fascinating, and I am quite curious to see where the story goes.

'Kimetsu No Yaiba'

As far as first impressions go on this show; it was okay. It is a good looking show with a good soundtrack, as is the case with ufotable. Aesthetically the show has high fidelity. The show mixes up segments of both 2D and 3D animation, and for the most part it manages to pull it off near seamlessly. As far as the characters and narratives go, it is one that has a well-trodden path, with plenty of prior examples of similar ideas so far, and this is not a detriment if they manage to pull off the ideas with flying colours, or subvert the ideas. What holds the show back, as far as the first episode is concerned, is the narrative, as it seemed to have been a mish-mash of plot points that have been done better elsewhere. However, I am hoping that as the anime continues, the narrative will kick into high gear.

'Shoumetsu Toshi'

This show left the biggest impression on me this season so far. The visuals are fantastic, bright and vivid, a feast for the eyes. The soundtrack is exhilarating, and there is a mystery surrounding the story, and curiousity about where the narrative goes piques my interest. The characters are all interesting, both from a design and written perspective. The powers involved with the characters are curious and the fact that we have the equivalent of Gilgamesh’s ability in this show with guns is exciting. There is a lot of variety in character, motivations, narrative arcs, and various powers that make this show quite interesting.

'Fairy Gone'

We now come to the first original work of the list. This is a show I’m in two minds about, as there are things I like in the show, and things which ended up taking me out of it at times. The visuals feel as if they are a mixed bag. While the environments are fairly consistent, the characters are not. When on a still frame the character models look fantastic, and really compliment each gorgeous design, however when moving they seem rigid, and stiff most of the time, save for a few exceptions that looked fantastic. While they call the character's battle partners fairies, I keep thinking of stands from Jojo's Bizarre Adventures every time they appear and fight. When the fairies come out, they have a presence to them, however they feel underutilized, and the heavy 3D nature of the fairy character models makes them stick out like a sore thumb. The main reason why is because there are times when the frame rates of the 3D animation and the 2D animation do not sync up. We find that certain character relationships are important, but beyond that I did not get a sense of what the story would be. I am intrigued, but it is more a morbid curiosity, which I hope would be rewarded rather than not.

'RobiHachi'

RobiHachi is a curious show, and one I find difficult to describe. One, because I have no idea where this narrative is heading, two it is a futuristic, sci fi, mech, slice of life, comedy? I have a hard time telling if this show it trying to play the genre conventions straight, or as parody, and in a lot of ways it does not seem to matter, as it invoked a good time while watching it. The setting is interesting, however I do find the animation to be far too clean and sterile; antiseptic in a lot of ways, and mixed in with how bright and colourful everything is, it is in a lot of ways, disarming, which helps carry the humour of the show across in an odd way. It feels as if there is a larger story to come, but there is no way that I would be able to guess what that is. I am very interested in watching more to find out.

'One Punch Man' Season Two

When it was announced that season two of One Punch Man was going to be handled by J.C.Staff, as opposed to studio Madhouse, I was cautiously optimistic about how it was going to turn out. While there is a notable lack of the same energy that was present in season one, while watching the first episode of the new season, it very much felt like One Punch Man. The action was exciting, the soundtrack was exhilarating, and the humor for the most part worked. One moment that stood out for me was when characters inside the show addressed the amount of time it took for season two to come about indirectly, which was a nice little fourth wall break. So far, while I am not completely blown away as I was with the first season, I am quite satisfied by what we got.