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Broke my rule about not watching currently airing anime for Made in Abyss, and I wasn't disappointed. This looks very good. Big comparisons to anime like Now & Then, Here & There, Bokurano, Sound of the Sky & From the New World, it's in that vein of a childish, dreamlike aesthetic with a dark subtext.
 
Fractale-Episodes 3-7

Princess Principle-Episode 1

I enjoyed this a lot, you don't see a lot of Steampunk in anime generally, so it's nice to see something somewhat original. Opening and music in general was very strong.

Fate/Apocrypha-Episode 2
 
Decided to try FMP again, I watched 10 eps or so several years ago but didn't grab me.. but tastes evolve over the years, so I'm giving it another go.
 
Hetalia: World Series episodes 1-48 (Complete. I love this series, each five minute episode is a joy to watch and the dub always hits a bullseye, especially when they stray from the script. Shame I've got to wait for seasons 5 and 6 to get the Anime Classics treatment for consistencies sake) 4/5

Miami Vice episodes 23-24
 
Just in work a lot, but i managed to get all of the Kill la Kill CEs and I'm watching through the dub, though dub sanketsu is still sounds too neutral for my taste i can get into how the rest are cast. Last one i watched was Episode 3. Get naked!
 
Tokyo Marble Chocolate

Aww, wow. A really sweet romance story and very, very clever! Most familiar sentiment:

"The best of my intentions turn instead to disaster."

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Space Dandy episodes 21+22

I think I might've asked this before, but... what the f*** did I just watch?



Help me out here, baby!
 
7O3X Fastest Finger First ep 1. I'm not convinced by the female leads seiyuu but this first episode was still a fun watch, nothing groundbreaking though.

Knight's & Magic ep 1. Some silly otaku wish fulfilment. I enjoyed it well enough, but I could understand it not being everyone's cup of tea.

Otogi Zoshi ep 3-26 (complete). An unusually structured series, with the first half being set a thousand years ago and the second half in the modern day. Both halves have a different feeling, with the first being a tale of heroic samurai seeking mystical artefacts to save the capital city from decline, and the second having the character's reincarnations investigating various supernatural occurrences around Tokyo. I like how the modern versions of these characters were given somewhat different personalities from their medieval predecessors (something you realise just seconds into the second OP), it would have been so easy for the writers to just cut and paste them.
In fact this series does a great job of showing just how different Tokyo is today compared to even just a hundred years ago. The writer is clearly in love with this city, and this series includes a lot of historical facts as a result.
The story itself was decent enough, even if the ending felt lacklustre (everything was happening because 'magic') and the animation quality is good for the time, but for me it was the characters that made this an enjoyable watch, especially after the shift to a modern setting.

Sagrada Reset ep 14.

Vatican Miracle Examiner ep 1. An interesting and unusual premise for an anime. It has potential.
 
IncendiaryLemon said:
Princess Principle-Episode 1

I enjoyed this a lot, you don't see a lot of Steampunk in anime generally, so it's nice to see something somewhat original. Opening and music in general was very strong.
Click to expand...

So true, of all the first episodes i saw so far this season, this might be the Summer show for me.

But it is Principal though and not Principle.
That's a lie, or wait it's not, or or or ... no no no? ;)
 
Stiivun said:
So true, of all the first episodes i saw so far this season, this might be the Summer show for me.

But it is Principal though and not Principle.
That's a lie, or wait it's not, or or or ... no no no? ;)
Click to expand...

My illiteracy strikes again!

A Certain Magical Index II-Episodes 13-16

Boy was the end of that Festival arc genuinely awful. It rendered the whole arc 100% useless. The protagonists didn't do anything at all to stop the plans of the villains, whose plot was only foiled by mere coincidence. What hot garbage.

Fractale-Episodes 8-11 (Complete)

Although this is a very nice looking series and I enjoyed the character aspect a lot, I have some major issues with the story. In this universe, a religious group have come up with a system called Fractale, which essentially sees all of mankind plugged into a grid of some sort, and live out their days through holograms. Through this system, there is peace on Earth, as concepts such as poverty, war and economy have been totally phased out, and have been for a millenia. There's a resistance movement which seeks to take out the system, and it is this group that the anime chooses to follow. Boiled down to its most basic element, Fractale is about freedom vs peace, and it heavily leans towards the side fighting to take down the system in order to give mankind their true humanity back. The issue is the show does an incredibly poor job of actually selling the audience on this, to the point where I actually thought the religious guys our leads are battling were in the right.

I mean think about it, you have a system that has managed to establish peace on Earth for over 1000 years, yet we're meant to be rooting for the people who have decided to disrupt that peace. Sure, the temple does some pretty shady things, such as manually removing doubts about the system from people, but it's all in the name of peace, and everyone seems happy, it isn't like they have no freedom at all. It just makes these resistance fighters look arrogant and selfish, as if they know best when clearly getting rid of Fractale will result in the return of all the awful things that once plagued mankind before Fractale. Maybe it's just me, but a small amount of freedom seems like a small price to pay. There is also the topic of how they manage to maintain the system, but you can throw that one out with the needs of the many argument. The series seems to think that a few hundred people dying every few centuries makes it not worth having thousands of years of peace, which I just can't agree with.

Towards the end, they do throw out a few bits of dialogue about how both sides have pros and cons, but it simply can't get away with this when the show wasn't written from a neutral point of view in the slightest, totally vilifying the side supporting Fractale whilst showing the terrorist group that have actively killed innocent people in the name of their cause as being morally grey, leaning into good. This series would've been far better if it was written as neutral on the situation, having the leads spend time on both sides of the fence to explore both ends of the argument, but it's so slanted to one side, and it's the side I happened to totally disagree with through and through.

Still, this was a rather interesting series, even if heavily flawed. I'd recommend people check it out, if for no other reason than the pretty superb visuals and the cuteness that is Nessa.
 
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Miami Vice episodes 25-27

Also watched Brian de Palma's Dressed to Kill a typically solid film from one of my favourite auteurs.
 
The Anthem of the Heart - So yeah I thoroughly enjoyed this, I actually watched the last 15mins or so twice....

My Hero Academia - Season 2 Episode 14 - I don't really have much to say about the episode itself but I hate the new OP and ED, so there's that lol next episode looks like it may be decent.
 
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