Halfway seasonal Review! Part one

With the winter 2020 season halfway, here is a list of the shows we’re watching (or dropped), and how we feel about each of them!

Eizouken

Edy: Best anime of the season without a doubt. There’s a scene in episode one where Asakusa is talking about what goes into making an anime and what makes it so good and special. The funny thing is, Eizouken does all of this. It’s creatively directed, the scenes flow perfectly and the characters are animated with so much flare. Yuasa Masaaki is literally just flexing his directing skills with this show.

It’s so amazing the little bits of things the character do that just show their enthusiasm. My favorite part in episode one was when they started sketching what the characters had in their imagination then putting them together on the window. It really feels like the character – or the show itself – loves anime. This show is honestly too good and impossible to fit into a small paragraph. I think I will review this show episodically starting from episode one. I really regret not watching immediately when it came out to do so.

Kyokou Suiri

Edy: This show is looking like it’s going to be a show I really enjoy just because of the character. From what I’ve seen from the episodes that are out right now, the show had the flashes of a really entertaining show. The character, Kotoko, might be like one of the cutest characters I have seen in anime, and she is absolutely delightful to watch. Her facial expressions are amazing, her personality just pops everywhere, and the way she talks reminds me so much of witty lines from the Monogatari series. The show, however, seems way too heavily reliant on the dialogue and depending on the character, the location, and the event it really makes or breaks the whole scene or even that episode. But regardless Kotoko is fun to watch and since she is usually at the center of all the conversations it’s not really a problem most of the time. From what I’ve seen, the cases that they deal with are also all interesting enough for me to really enjoy watching this show. I hope that this show continues being as good as it is right now. 

Click her to read my episodic reviews of Kyokou Suiri

ID Invaded

Jun: Unexpectedly great show from the first episode, despite what many people said about it. It’s intriguing, fun and the main character is likable with a somewhat interesting backstory. The gimmick of IDOs is really interesting and enjoyable to watch, and if we ever get to see the blue haired side character enter one properly and join the investigating team I’d be thrilled. There’s many plot points of which we know quite little of, such as the character John Walker, who randomly appears in some murderers’ IDOs, as well as Kaede-chan, who is always dead whenever someone enters an IDO, regardless of who the pilot is. The gimmick I probably like the most about the IDO is that the pilot doesn’t retain their memory when they enter, and so there’s always this “I”m a master detective” sequence and it’s so exciting and gets me really thrilled to watch the rest of the episode.

For the most part, I’ve been enjoying the hell out of this show, but there’s one…. Just one problem that I have with it. And that’s the small girl. 

Putting aside her character design which I’m simply not a fan of, I think the reason behind why I dislike her the amount I do is because the scenes that involve her, investigations outside the IDO, tend to be really boring. Although they do give us some exposition to explain how the IDOs work, I generally found most of the dialogue to be boring, and the detectives to be uninteresting characters. Newest arc though, that hot killer girl is voiced by Ayaneru. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Magia Record

Jun: Magia Record was as disappointing as expected. The art is gorgeous, and lives up to Madoka Magica’s reputation. The story, on the other hand, is mediocre at best. Because the original Madoka already happened, and pretty much anyone watching this show is going to be aware that this is a dark mahou shoujo anime, the show immediately begins without trying to surprise you, but taking the dark tone as something obvious and expected. Which is fine on its own, but the characters and story are unbelievably boring and uninspired, and  the character designs have such an obvious parallel to Madoka. I know some people would like that, but I’d rather watch new characters in this fucked up magic world. Magia Record is an anime that is carried solely by its visuals. And to me, it’s not enough to continue watching.

Nekopara

Jun: nekopara was okay. i thought it would be about a guy fucking his cats, but unforunately this show ended up showing some like normie shit about a guy grooming his cats. from what i could tell, this is some like slice of life shit….. i think like the cats are doing work and running a shop, and then they find a shota cat? something like that… honestly i think that shows like this are not good because they don’t develop their characters, and it’s just overall the characters are nothing but typical anime character archetypes like the tsundere or the genki girl. the main problem that i find with shows like these are that they confuse iyashikei(psychologically “healing” shows) to boring garbage nothingness. It’s not enough to just have characters with no personality acting out the same, tired out jokes that a million other anime have done. Of course, maybe I’d have a different opinion on this show if i actually watched it, but i’m a busy man with better priorities.

What other shows have you guys been watching this season? Tell us what you thought of these shows and give us some recommendations for this season as well!