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.

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.

The Best Anime Of 2015 – Part 2: Genre and General Story Awards

Characters, even the most excellent, need something to happen around them to give them an opportunity to be excellent. So, as we build towards the countdown of the best anime of the year, we next turn our focus to those anime that excelled in a genre format and/or general story way – Most Entertaining or Best Drama, for instance.

The Best Anime Of 2015 – Part 1: Cast and Character Awards

I do not write stories or create TV series. (I sometimes think I could become a SF writer and among the ideas I’ve had is one for a story that mirrors the recently airing Erased almost exactly except, instead of trying to stop a murder, the main character has to stop 9/11 from happening.) However, I imagine most anime series start out with characters and are fleshed out from there which is why I start here with these awards.

Day 8 – Wait! This Is Going to Actually Work?! – The 12 Days of Anime

Know thyself!!

Today’s post will be short-ish since I did not plan ahead enough to address the typical low battery feeling of Monday; so, I’m going to pick a moment that is well-known enough that it needs little introduction.

One of the things “everyone” knows about anime that is actually true (as opposed to the false ones like: it’s only for kids, it’s just animated T & A, it’s super violent) is that anime contains some very odd shows.

These odd shows don’t always work, but, often enough they do. I, therefore, make sure to check out these strange series at the start of each season. The question that I ask myself is – Is this show going to work? In the case of this year’s Ninja Slayer, the answer was no. For Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches the answer was kind of. For Show By Rock!! and Joukamachi no Dandelion the answer was yes.

Today’s moment is the moment where the most unlikeliest series convinced me that it was going to work. That anime was …