Weekly Seasonal Watches: Spring 2020 Anime Week 1

No episodic review this week. The list of anime that I will be watching this season is considerably smaller than usual for now Netflix is going to be releasing a lot of shows that I am much more interested in in April. These shows are shows that I find interesting and hopefully will continue to be entertaining.

We will see next week if I even do episodic reviews. I am thinking about covering Build Divers RE:Rise2 and that show starts airing next week. I will only do it if I have enough to say about it to do so. Same thing for something else if it wows me enough to write about it. I guess this is a first come, first serve thing. You will see the results this weekend.

Gah, this season. I had to get a Funimation account. I was hoping that shows would leak onto Hulu like they usually do, but that hasn’t happened. A little frustrated by that, but ok.

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Tower of God Episode 1

This is a Crunchyroll original anime based on a Korean manhwa that you can read on webtoons for free. (I haven’t). Something Crunchyroll has to do because Funimation’s growth is starting to take all the titles. I feel like there has been a lot of hype building around this show and I can kind of see why. This episode, while easy in concept, is going to build some layers to it as it goes on. It starts with a Boy name Bam chasing after a girl who left him named Rachel to take on the Tower of God challenge. A challenge that you go to protected by Headon and requires strength to do.

In this episode, Bam takes on the first challenge as an irregular. Basically, some one not scheduled to do it. His first challenge is taking down a steel ball protected by an eel and he does it with the magical sword given to him by Princess Yuri (rich tsundere) and her navigator Ed. I can honestly say that I find this concept interesting and the show generally looks great. Very minimalistic, but beautiful to look at. I honestly love the minimal approach because it gives the show some interesting style.

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Tokoyami: The Baseball Girls Episode 1

I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when starting this show, but I was very interested in it because it was a sport’s anime. The result was a mixture of pure cutesy moe stuff then serious baseball things. This is the first episode was alright. It established the core characters of Yomi Takeda finding a love for baseball again after being told not to throw her special ball because it made the catcher look back.

Luckily, her childhood friend Tamaki Yamazaki trained enough in another team in middle school to catch Yomi’s breaker ball. Also, the Kawaguchi twins that Yomi just met are there too. The episode looked ok I suppose, though the baseball scenes looked decent. I hope we get to see more of those at higher level later. I’m going to try and stick with this one throughout the season. Let’s see how that works.

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Haikyu!! TO THE TOP Episode 13 (Finale)

This episode was pure adorableness and set up for the huge match up for our Karasuno boys. Tanaka and his taller childhood friend Kanoka having their difficulties talking to each other because they are both awkward. I do really like their connection to each other with Tanaka showing Kanoka volleyball. At the same time, we’ve had a dramatic build up with Karasuno’s competitors Inarizaki. The second ranked team at nationals with an all-star cast. They’ve got a pep band and everything. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Too bad we won’t see more until at least a few months from now. I’m ready for it, this season has been good.

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Listeners Episode 1

I’m not exactly sure where this anime came from, but I’m glad it did for the most part. Listener is a mecha anime that is possibly the most 2000’s anime that ever 2000ed. I say that because it carries a lot of basic plot elements from shows like FLCL, TTGL, Eureka 7, and some others. Let me ask you if this sounds familiar. Echoes is a boy that digs trash for a living in a post-apocalyptic world where music doesn’t exist anymore. Echoes also loves players. People with guitar jacks in their bodies that allow them to pilot robots through the power of rock and roll. He finds a female player with no memories under a trash dump and his adventures of robots and rock and roll begins fighting the earless that have ravaged humanity.

So in general, this anime is original and not original at the same time. There is a lot of potential here, but it can also safely ride a line that has been established by many series before and just be completely unspectacular. Whatever the result is, I plan on following this one and hope it goes somewhere interesting. I believe it can and I think the sense of rock and roll came make it interesting. Let’s see where that goes. I’m nervous but intrigued.

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Sakura Wars (2020) Episode 1

As a first episode, this was alright I suppose. A lot of establishing things to the point where it doesn’t feel like it does enough of it? But for now, that’s alright. We got our plot with the Tokyo Revue branch protecting a girl that survived the bombing of the Russian revue branch from demons. The girls are also singers, performers, and actors, so it’s great to see a moment like that too. Same with the girls riding steam punk mecha fighting against demons with spectacular abilities. All good for me, let’s see where it all goes.

I do have to say some things here. Music wise, Sakura Wars was outstanding. From the jazz music in its opening and theme to the girls singing and performing on stage, it was great. On an animation level, it was all cg and it was ok. It wasn’t horrible, just a little too smooth and janky for my eyes to take in completely. Still, not all the bad forever. It’s just that I’ve watched Beastars recently and that cg animation was honestly amazing and experimental. At this moment, the animation isn’t completely fair but what can you do?

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My Hero Academia Season 4 Episode 25 (Finale)

Yeah, this is definitely the last episode that I am going to watch in a seasonal manner. Glad they left behind a confusing tone to solidify that decision for me. This episode was Hawks and Endeavour vs the nomu. While it was a very visual interesting and exciting fight, I can’t get behind half of the text behind it. The text of Endeavour trying for forgiveness with his family while never apologizing. So we are supposed to side with Endeavour on this while he’s showing how stubborn he is? I don’t think I can do that. He’s like the worst kind of Vegeta in that while and while Vegeta kills people, he never hurt his family because he’s a big tsundere. I can’t do that with Endeavour because he’s too much of a scum bag.

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Magia Record Episode 13 (Finale)

Will, that was a wild finale. Iroha using her doppel to save Yachiyo, a possessed Nami using her gun abilities that would make Gilgamesh and his Gates of Babylon jealous, the sudden appearance of Sayaka to save Yachiyo and the injured Iroha, more doppel useage, Iroha being taken over by the villains, and then the true form of the Wings of Magius show up. We see our other kids captured by them and being brain washed into joining the Wings of Magius to save their magical girl souls through the doppels but also cause chaos throughout the land. I’m so glad that there is a sequel season coming because this would be an absolutely terrible place to stop. Some questionable visuals here and there, but oh well.

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My Next Life as a Villainess Episode 1

Ok, that was completely adorable. It’s nice to be introduced into this world of a visual novel and then the girl having an accident finally noticing that she is an otaku girl isekai-ed here. Who was she before? We don’t know and that doesn’t matter. We just know that she’s a 17-year-old who died. With her knowledge of the game she’s in, she tries her best to break away from the fate of the character she is in. She changes herself to slowly grow in her abilities of spell casting and everything else while also trying to change her fate. She goes very tomboy while obviously shaking up the boy who is interested in her slowly, but she also changed her fate with her adopted brother by forcing her way in his life. It’s good stuff. I honestly can’t wait for more.

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