Spring 2016 First Impressions

- WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS -

Like the recent winter season, I have decided to hold back on the amount of anime that I watch (especially with exams haunting me every night) and have taken a more conservative approach to watching. While there aren't a plethora of entries right now, there's a good chance this list will expand by the end of the season. But for now, I hope that you'll find a little bit of amusement from this meager offering: my first impressions on the Spring 2016 season.

MyAnimeList
Spring 2016 Final Thoughts

This Season:
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2
Mayoiga
Re:Zero
Sakamoto desu ga?

Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2 (15/25)

I Rate: 8.0/10.0
One Sentence: We start off the final half of this season with Koro Sensei beginning the story of his life, and how he came to be the entity he is now.

I'll keep the entry for this one short, seeing as it was a mere week and a half ago that I wrote about Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2 up to episode 14. I'm glad to see that the background of Koro Sensei is finally being explained relatively early on, as that spells out an exciting and action packed final arc. With the ending of the first season I'm confident in Lerche's ability to close out this one. Looking forward to how this one will end, as it's been a great ride the whole time.

Best Girl: with Ritsu's nonexistent screen time and Kaede's little arc, I felt it would be fitting to crown a new best girl: the slightly more relevant Nakamura


Mayoiga (4/12)

I Rate: 7.0/10.0
One Sentence: An interesting and promising premise about a group of people looking to start a new life off the grid is spoiled by a lack of direction and poorly written characters

From the very beginning of Mayoiga the viewer is introduced to what seems to be an endless stream of characters. By the end of this introduction I was dazed and completely lost, but maybe that's because I wasn't paying enough attention, or I expected half of them to die off by the end of the first episode. I felt a lot of Danganropa vibes from the anime (not that I've watched Danganropa, but I have a gist of what goes on), but was sorely disappointed from the lack of... well, deaths.

The anime starts off with a huge variety of characters riding a bus on a dark and stormy night, and it's hinted that they're all from some sort of online forum, through the way that everybody is addressed by a handle. Eventually it's revealed that all of them are seeking to start a new life, discontent with their current ones, and are heading to the mysterious and undiscovered village of Nanakimura. The largest problem with Mayoiga is the pacing. We're a third of the way into the season, and very little has happened. So far the group has arrived at the village, lost a member, and split up (into those who stay and those who want to leave). To be fair, episode four ended off on a more exciting note with a few cliffhangers, but if this pacing is kept up, then we can be sure to expect a cruddy ending, a rushed ending, a second cour, or any combination of the three.

As I mentioned in the mini-introduction, there are a lot of characters who are present in Mayoiga. If we do a thorough count of them, we have 31 characters in total, who have the semblance of being important. We can make the assumption that they are important through the fact that they each have their little card in the opening theme (and ending, however it seems that all the characters are being spread out through the season). The excessively large amount of characters leads to a decrease in quality and the slowing down of the plot. More characters means that there is more fighting for screen time, and it also means that characters are much harder to relate to and have a harder time growing.

The best parts of the show are the opening and ending themes, both which are beautiful in their own right and send goosebumps up your spine. Additionally the animation/artwork that accompanies them are great and fit the tone. There are a lot of amazing theme songs coming out this season, but I do have to say that the Mayoiga opening is my favourite so far.

To end this first impressions off, Mayoiga is not showing any signs of getting any better, and unless something huge happens in the next episode (or really pushing it, the episode after that, the halfway point of its season) I can't see the anime being anything more than sub-par. It's a shame, since I genuinely enjoyed the setting of Mayoiga, so I'll just keep putting the opening on repeat until my ears bleed.

Best Girl: tsundere Maimai can be cute at times


Re:Zero (4/25)

I Rate: 8.2/10.0
One Sentence: At first seems like a good and much longer KonoSuba lookalike, but has a much more sinister and dark undertone to it.

Even though I haven't watched enough series from this season, Re:Zero seems like it's already clinched the spot of the best anime for this season, and for good reason. There's great usage of undertones in Re:Zero, as the lighthearted and comedic nature of the anime lures the viewer into a sense of false security, and then leaves you grabbing air as you fall off a cliff(hanger).

The anime is about Subaru, a shut-in who finds himself in a completely different world, akin to that of a fantasy MMORPG. He runs into trouble and is rescued by a cool beauty (who he later learns is named Emilia). Subaru decides to help Emilia look for an insignia that was stolen from her, and in the process the two of them are killed in a secluded loot house. After some confusion he discovers that when he dies he respawns at a checkpoint, but also goes back in time, erasing everything he has done. If you watched Re:Zero's first episode and stopped halfway, then you'll definitely think that it's another KonoSuba. But the show takes the stereotypical premise and adds a little twist to it, making it exciting and uncharted territory.

So far all the characters are easy to like, and our dynamic duo of Subaru and Emilia will see some amazing development over the 25 episode span of Re:Zero. None of the other characters have gotten any substantial amount of screen time, but there's some interesting stuff going on with Felt, as the last time we saw her she was knocked out and taken by Reinhard. I'm looking forward to where that goes and how it ties it with the main story we're seeing right now, but that'll come with time.

There are some more fantastic contributions from Re:Zero to the growing pool of excellent anime themes we have this season. Both the opening and ending are great (although I'm slightly more partial to the ending), and I thought that the little scene with the opening was pretty poignant to the anime. Some amazing stuff with the sound department coming from this show, and I'm thoroughly pleased with what it brings to the overall quality.

It would be an understatement to say that I'm excited for what Re:Zero has to bring to the spring and summer seasons this year. I'm glad that White Fox has 25 episodes to craft the anime into something brilliant, and needless to say I will watching every episode upon release. Re:Zero gets a big thumbs up from me.

Best Girl: definitely Emilia (Felt hasn't had enough screen time anyways)


Sakamoto desu ga? (2/13)

I Rate: 7.6/10.0
One Sentence: Loads of laughs and smiles from an anime that revolves around the stylish, cool, and perfect Sakamoto-kun as he goes through his day.

Sakamoto desu ga? is a wacky anime about Sakamoto-kun, a first year student in high school who has stolen the hearts and attention of everybody from day one. There isn't much else to say about the anime. Each episode has around two mini-stories (surrounding Sakamoto-kun of course) and there isn't much of a coherent story from what the mini-stories have provided so far.

For the characters, there's the god perfect Sakamoto-kun, who is absolutely ridiculous in every aspect but a likable character nonetheless. Two other characters, Sera and Aina, were each featured in their own mini-story, but have not made another substantial appearance. Sakamoto-kun will most likely be the only character of significance and the others will just be there to push the story along.

There's an upbeat and absolutely fitting opening for Sakamoto desu ga? with a surprisingly soft and gentle ending theme. There isn't anything else that I can really think of when it comes to the soundtrack.

If you're looking for a bit of a quirkier anime, then Sakamoto desu ga? might just be the fix that you need. Granted, it won't cater to the comedic styles of every individual, but it might do just the thing for you.

Best Girl: pretty much the only girl we've seen so far is Aina, so she gets it automatically