The Bitter Taste Left by the Second Season of Food Wars!

There were only a few anime series that I was able to watch this Summer season. That one of them was Food Wars! The Second Plate (Shokugeki no Souma 2nd Season) should be of little surprise, since, the first season ranked at #7 in my top 15 anime for 2015 post. That the second season is the favorite to win the title as most disappointing anime of 2016 shouldn’t be a surprise, at least, to anyone who watched both series.

In hindsight, I should have seen this coming.

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The Top 15 Anime of 2015

I feel that I’m somewhat late getting here but I have beaten the APR Top Anime of 2015 list so I can’t say that I’m late. 🙂 I’ll repeat what I said last year because it still holds: 2015 was a good year for anime. It’ll take several years to see how things settle out before one is able to compare it to earlier years but I think it’ll rank just fine in comparison.

I didn’t feel like splitting the countdown into two or three parts like I normally do, so, this post runs a bit long but it’s all here in one post.

The Best Anime Of 2015 – Part 3: VMA Awards

There’s a running joke in Shirobako about how the director will tell every department involved in making the anime that they are the most important in ensuring that the anime turns out good. They play it for laughs but the director is more right than not; each department and person is needed to give their best or else it will show in the final product somehow. I wish I had the expertise to cover all the departments that deserve recognition but I don’t and until I do, I’m not going to pretend I otherwise.

So, let’s see who’s won this year’s VMA Awards.

Early Season Impressions: Spring 2015 – The Surprises

I’ve over extended myself this season; there’s too many watchable anime series to catch that promise, minimally, that they will be worth the time invested. Of the 23 new series that I’ve watched, there is only one – Gunslinger Stratos: The Animation – who has earned enough enmity from me through it’s own incompetence that I’ve dropped it (gladly so, btw). At the same time, there seems to be only a few series with the chops to even attempt attaining the level of being “great” or the slightly lower “very good”. Further, there are only two series that have even a remote chance of pushing themselves up to the “exceptional” category.

Another aspect of this season is how few the number of surprises (good or bad) there have been. The last time I tried to predict which series were going to be the top series of the season (Summer 2014) I was only about half right and made several glaring mistakes. For this season I attempted the same thing and the list I drew up before the season started looks, four weeks in, to be very spot on. Yeah for me, but, boo for this season being so predictable. The high number of sequels, 8 out of the 22 non-dropped series, does play into this lack of surprises. (If the Lupin series does actually air starting in May the sequel number will be bumped to 9/23 or ~39% of the series for the season.)

That’s not to say there hasn’t been any surprises; there has been a few moderate ones and that might be the best place to start.

Anime Quiz 9 Answers

I’ve fallen a bit behind on Yoru no Yatterman and Rolling Girls due to my preferred method of viewing – cough, cough, Cthuko, cough, Cthune, cough, cough – sorry, I seem to have gotten a frog stuck in my throat. So, I might be completely disproved at this point but I’m starting to think that the main characters of Rolling Girls might never get their stones of power because I feel the theme of this anime could be about the strength of normal people vs. that of “superheroes”. Which is an interesting way for this series to end up going, then again, if they received their stones in an episode or two I wouldn’t be surprised either. Whatever happens both Yoru no Yatterman and Rolling Girls have helped make this season a stronger one then I initially thought it would be.

Now, let’s find out the answers to this week’s quiz.

Anime Quiz 4 Answers

One contribution I do (with my limited skills) for my family’s Christmas cookie baking is to get the walnuts ground up. To do so I first have to separate the bad walnuts out from the good and I try to do so as accurately as possible because I don’t want to throw out good walnuts nor let bad walnuts through. To check my accuracy I’ll eat some of the ones I decided were bad to see if they were in fact bad. Over the years I’ve gotten really good at getting this right and that means I’ve eaten plenty of bitter walnuts without finding a good one I erroneously separated out.

I’m reminded of this as I look over this winter season of anime. After separating out the series I thought would be poor, I gave several a taste test to see if I was right or not. (I dislike the idea of missing a potentially decent or good anime.) This season, I was dead on and now I have that metaphorical bitter taste on my tongue from all the series I’ve had to drop this season – eight – which is much higher then the normal 2 – 3 series per season. And there’s a couple more series I’m on the verge of dropping.

At least that gives me time to do these anime quizzes. Speaking of, here’s the answers to this week’s quiz.