This season was interesting. It’s one of those seasons were some of the stronger and/or experimental shows from the beginning part of the season didn’t end up by being bad at all. Instead, production issues hit a couple of my favorite shows. One recovered fine while the other had people going to the hospital multiple times and has a final episode appearing in February. Other shows maintained their strength and some others cut out a lot of things resulting in the product being diminished a bit. In general, it was a very good season all things considered. I enjoyed a lot of things.
I wish I was smart enough to keep some kind of score card for these shows going up and down on my scale instead of everyone else. Maybe I will look into doing that for spring 2021. A new feature would make this interesting. I’ve seen a few of them around the internet, but none of them really fit my opinion at all? Hmmm, we shall see where this goes. Oh, I have gone off topic again. Let’s talk about shows that aired in Winter 2021 before I go off topic again.
A Handy Guide for how I feel about shows:
Solid: Seasonal Favorites, Highly Recommend.
Good: Maybe not as high quality as the first category, but still pretty enjoyable.
Ok: What it says on the tin. Maybe preferable for those who are into the genre the show is from.
Bad: I’m not even sure why I am still watching it besides maybe learning something from it.
Jujutsu Kaisen
I don’t know what to say here other then this second cour just rocked. There is so much good stuff here in what is a tournament in a woods between Kyoto and Tokyo Tech and the special cursed spirits doing their scheming. The character writing is super slick and every moment, even the baseball episode, counted or something in the end and it’s incredible. The last three episodes weren’t the strongest, but they put everything from the season together to see how our first years grew. Aww man. I want more.
Laid-back Camp Season 2
The ultimate comfy show was simply fantastic. For a “show where nothing happens”, a lot happened. A lot of introspection of going camping and being by themselves vs camping with other people to see where they are. The Izu camping trip for Rin and the others, which the season led up to, was great. I like how the perspective of caring for people was turned around too. Rin watched over the others in their solo trips all season, so seeing Nadeshiko do the opposite for once was nice.
Back Arrow
This show man. It trully is the chaos child of Goro Taniguchi and the writer behind Gurren Lagann (I forget his name, sorry) and its perfection in what it does. I am only looking at the first cour, but it was very solid. The typical journey of Back Arrow and the Granedger was messed around with by going in fun and chaotic directions which were completely unexpected. There is just something so refreshing about watching this fun and chaotic mess.
Sk8: The Infinity
This show had some of the most ludicrous skating and character situations possible. Not to mention the shear insanity that is ADAM the skater with his costume and the way he acts. It’s beautiful in what it can achieve, yet it also has a heart of gold with the simple idea of skating should be fun. The show stuck its landing when exploring this message of fun with these cool, yet simple characters vs the adult world. All of this makes it the most unique sports anime I’ve seen in a while.
Attack on Titan Season 4
This season was pretty good. It kind of fit here due to being better, in my eyes, then the others below it. It gets that free ticket. The battle of Paradis’ horrible campaign against Marley with the effects of the war and chaos from the cyclical nature of the war itself. The hatred spread through the long war has been spreading throughout the show and we are seeing that being evaluating and validated through different means. Also, the titan battles are pretty solid as well.
Wonder Egg Priority
I think that Wonder Egg is a bit too ambitious for a one cour show, but I like what it’s doing. Exploring a very unique female cast that are pushed to the edges of society through their exploration of fighting against girl’s suicides and winning girls back is hard thing to make it work this way, but it does somehow. That in itself is a good way to create a show and explore a few things. The production issues and the thing about Xanato’s warrior pushes it a little too far into beyond one cour territory considering it comes out of nowhere. Still a more then solid recommendation.
Log Horizon Season 3
Log Horizon is back and it left off where it left off six years ago. This season is another expansion of season 2 by solving some of the issues that resulted from season 2. Mainly, the round table and Minori’s continued kid crush around Shiroe. The show was worth it for seeing the cast members again along with those two options. Its not flawless though, but that’s fine. I still enjoyed it completely for what it was. I just wish Database wasn’t left behind from six years ago and hope we can get a season 4.
Horimiya
This show. I thought that starting out, Horimiya would be my anime of the season. It kind of diminished itself a bit by skipping around through the manga and never giving satisfying conclusion to a lot of what it brought up. Instead, the anime brought up concepts just for them to either be ignored or brought back later and that was a little annoying. It didn’t commits to any major theme or resolve them in anyway. Still, the direction of the show is and the show’s cast was excellent. Especially the side characters and their own journey through the show. I was decently satisfied, but it could have been so much more.
Cells at Work! Code Black
A darker version of Cells at Work with some gender flipped characters and a body of a male who smokes and drinks too much to live. It was trully frightening to watch every week as the body failed to fight back against the same things that occurred in Cells at Work! in something that was an examination of capitalism and over work where something outside of the body solved everything. The ending where the body died until it was brought back to life in a better state was incredible. I just think the unorginality of it all brought it down a bit. Something just darker is just kind of lame, but but good execution saves it.
Cells at Work!!
Its more cells at work with different cases around the stomach. It was good, just didn’t have the spark or energy from the original season to make it something special. Still, for all its 8 episodes, I enjoyed it quite a bit regardless. I was glad to come back to this every Thursday.
Ok and Bad Ratings
Nothing
That was it, the entire season for me. As I said before, everything was good an enjoyable. Besides Promised Never Land 2, which I dropped at episode 5, I had a good time. I looked forward to watching what comes out this coming season. Should be a fun time I hope unless everything falls apart somehow. Hmmmm.
Mechanical Anime Reviews 
Very keen for more ‘Back Arrow’, yeah. Hoping it can dial everything up even more for the second half 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person