Get Your Tomatoes Ready Because Here We Have the Worst Anime of the Summer 2018 Season

Posted on by Karandi
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If you missed it, earlier today the best of the season came out so if you would rather celebrate the successes of the season than wallow in, or jeer at, the misfires I recommend you check it out. In the meantime, a reminder that worst anime of the season is still an anime good enough to be watched through. Voters are asked not to vote for shows they haven’t watched. So while the anime in the list below and as the voters choice are problematic, there are most definitely worse anime out there.

Without any further ado, let’s get into the list.

Worst Story – 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

I almost gave this to The Master of Ragnarok, but then I realised there was a show that did even worse with its premise. Despite the set up being that the Princess has to wake up the princes, other than the very first prince, none of the princes are actually sleeping. Couple this with the fact that I got to the end of this and still have no idea what the overall goal is given the characters just seem to wander around and react to stuff, and basically the story is all but missing in action. A thin excuse to encounter various ‘prince’ types so that fans of the game can get all excited to see their favourite character for the two seconds of screen time they get before the main characters move on.

Worst Visuals – Angolmois: Record of Mongol Invasion

Angolmois Episode 10 Teruhi

The filter is hideous. There’s no way to sugar coat it. When you have ugly character designs, a bland colour palette and then over the top of the lot you put that filter that just makes everything look like we’re watching it through smudged glasses that keep moving, this anime well and truly deserves the label of worst visuals for the season. While there are some good moments in the story, you do have to accept it is just going to be truly disgusting to look at.

Worst Opening – 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

100 Sleeping Princes Episode 4

Seriously, this one is a thin excuse to pan over the cast of various princes we’ll encounter. The music is dull and borderline put me to sleep and the slow pan with almost zero animation over various characters, most of which we’ll encounter once at best throughout the season and then never hear from again, and to be honest I skipped this opening more often than I watched it.

Worst Character – The Cast of the Master of Ragnarok tied with Mineta (My Hero Academia)

Mineta had to be here. Seriously, if someone could just go through every episode of My Hero Academia and erase the bug from existence, I’d be really, really happy. There isn’t one scene he is in that is actually necessary and he contributes nothing. However, he does eat screen time on what I’m guessing someone thought were comedic moments but mostly I’m just left disgusted with his presence and he’s becoming increasingly annoying as the franchise continues. That said, it would be a mistake not to mention the incredibly bland and undeveloped cast from The Master of Ragnarok. And yes, I know that is two seasons in a row where I’ve given the title of worst character to an entire cast, but trust me, they earned it.

And now…

Worst Anime of the Spring 2018 Season – The Master of Ragnarok

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Yep, there were plenty of shows I liked less than this one, however I dropped them and didn’t finish watching. That just left this one on my list to leave as the worst of the season. Angels of Death got an early drop, Holmes of Kyoto hung in a bit longer but bored me to tears and so I gave up. Other early drops include Island and Lord of Vermillion (which definitely deserves a mention). Still, Ragnarok set up what could have been an interesting enough story, did absolutely nothing with it, and then totally flubbed its ending. It really deserves this placement.

Finally, Reader’s Choice

With 103 votes, making it the most votes ever for a worst of the season, the competition was pretty much won early on, but a last minute rally behind a show that really stuffed its ending brought us to a tie (won’t they be so proud). Anyway, the results of the readers poll:

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And so we have a tie between Angels of Death and The Master of Ragnarok.

Angels of Death took a very early lead in the poll. I think the disappointment factor may have played a role given how hyped up the show was before it began airing. Then, after the final episode of Master of Ragnarok, its votes took off and it caught up. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt that I’d held out hoping the show would get better only for the final episode to kick me in the teeth.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote.

Summer 2018 was definitely not the highlight of the anime year, but we still had some fun titles to watch. As we move into Autumn, let’s keep our fingers crossed for something amazing, and if not, we can always vote for it being the worst of the season.

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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Drum Roll For The Best of Summer 2018 Anime Announcement

Posted on by Karandi
Cells at Work Episode 12 - Platelet

Summer has indeed had its ups and downs and to be honest, it is probably the weakest of the seasons 2018 has offered us so far. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to follow, review, and discuss. However, I did find if a lot harder than normal to narrow down my choices for best of the season given there was a lot that was kind of okay but nothing that really demanded I pay attention to it. (Banana Fish and Attack on Titan Season 3 are missing from my own awards as they are both going to continue on to the next season).

As always, thanks to people who voted in the poll for best of the season. After I get through my picks, I’ll announce the winners of the reader’s poll.

To my awards…

Best Story from Summer 2018 – Steins;Gate 0

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While there’s some questionable execution and pacing issues with this story, in terms of the story I was most interested in following, Steins;Gate 0 wins hands down. Angolmois is too straight forward, How Not To Summon a Demon Lord was entertaining but not exactly a riveting narrative. There just hasn’t been much that I’ve watched this season with an overly interesting plot so Steins;Gate 0 remained my favourite story of the season even if I did criticise it, a lot.

Best Visuals from Summer 2018 – My Hero Academia Season 3

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Bones continues to deliver some quality visuals and animation in My Hero Academia this season. While I felt the characters and the plot were a fair bit weaker than season 2, the visuals did not drop the ball and whatever scene we were watching was delivered with impressive or interesting visuals.

The fight between Midoriya and Bakugou is probably the stand out from the second half, but realistically the action in My Hero Academia is always exciting to watch. It would be nice to see the kids get into a wider variety of settings from time to time, but this is still my visual pick for the season.

Best Opening from Summer 2018 – Cells at Work

Cells at Work - Episode 2 - Platelets

Am I coming up with excuses to include platelets? Definitely. But because I took Attack on Titan out of the running, I had to choose the opening to Cells at Work as my favourite. It is good fun with a lot of energy and I loved that for one episode we even had different characters singing the opening. It was a surprise and a bit of fun. This one really suits the show and just gets you excited for the adorableness to follow.

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Best Character from Summer 2018 – Diablo (How Not To Summon a Demon Lord)

How Not To Summon a Demon Lord Episode 4

Right, so it is kind of rare for an isekai protagonist to make it into my favourite character list, but I really like Diablo. He’s great fun to spend time with and a lot of the draw for the show is his character. I would love to see more of him in a follow up season and just see if he learns to balance out his inner insecurities with his external demon lord persona. One thing I know for sure is that it will be fun.

And of course, cutest character from Summer 2018 goes to the the Platelets

  • Cells at Work Episode 11 - Platelets
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  • Cells at Work - Episode 10 - Platelets
  • Cells at Work Episode 9 - Platelet
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  • Cells at Work - Episode 2 - Platelets
  • Cells at Work Episode 12 - Platelet
  • Cells at Work Episode 10 Platelets

And now…

Best Anime of the Summer 2018 Season – Cells at Work

Cells at Work Episode 8

Having taken out Attack on Titan and Banana Fish from the running, I was pretty much left with Cells at Work, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord or Phantom in the Twilight as shows I genuinely enjoyed this season. Phantom in the Twilight fell short with its ending. How Not To Summon a Demon Lord is fun and all, but it isn’t without its issues. So the anime that was most consistently entertaining this season was Cells at Work.

I’m actually fairly surprised that this is my best of the season, but it kind of speaks of how hit and miss the season has been. That said, this one is a fairly solid piece of entertainment. It isn’t going to change the world, but it is a great way to spend a Sunday morning and it certainly kept me entertained this season. I even learned a couple of things from it.

Haiku Kotaro Bokuto

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Finally, Reader’s Choice – Best Anime From Summer 2018

Voting was incredibly close and also pretty scattered this season. By the final days the top two were deadlocked and remained that way until the final hours of the vote. With 178 votes this is the most participated in vote to date so hopefully we can continue to grow this number and make the data more reflective of the community as a whole. Still, here are the results.

Best of

And the winner is… Banana Fish.

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Totally not surprised, though I am amazed at how close the vote was between Cells at Work and Banana Fish with Attack on Titan dropping off early on. Still, all three of these will go on to the best of the year poll joining the best from the last two seasons and whatever wins the Autumn poll. I’m also throwing My Hero Academia into the best of the year poll because amazingly I totally left it out of this vote (whoops).

Anyway, Banana Fish has kind of taken over my twitter timeline most weeks after the episode airs so I’ve really enjoyed it and there are some really excellent blog posts being written about the series so I can tell there are some really big fans out there. Hopefully the second half is as entertaining as the first was.

Thanks everyone who participated in the vote. We say farewell to another season of anime but enter a new one with all new possibilities laid out before us. Check back later for my worst of the season poll.

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Karandi James


Friday’s Feature: Anime Characters in Summer

Posted on by Karandi
summer

Two days from Christmas and those of us in the land of Aus are dying from excessive waves of heat and humidity when we aren’t having our roofs blown off by summer storms. Seems odd that I’m still reviewing the Autumn 2016 anime season while summer is in full swing but even odder that we’re about to move to Winter 2017. But enough of that and let’s get to today’s feature (though admittedly this is more of a lazy discussion than an actual feature).

It seemed to me that it was a good opportunity to look at the common events that anime characters get up to over Summer Holidays. Not my favourite or the most annoying (this isn’t a top 5 list) but rather just a nice and laid back discussion about these common occurences. Anyone who watches a lot of anime should already know the seasons are really important in Japan and that is reflected in their anime.

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First of all we have the obligatory beach or pool trip. This kind of screams summer because it’s hot and the characters want to cool off and generally the animators want to put the various characters into swimwear. We also then get the beach volleyball, the throwing various people into the water, the guy/girl who is lazing under the umbrella, sandcastle building, shell collecting, part time job serving refreshments and all the other clichés that go with being at the beach.

Of course most of you already know how I feel about water and the beach so needless to say these episodes don’t exactly appeal to me or my ideas around summer.

But that’s okay. Anime has plenty of other summer activities in store for us.

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For instance we can go to a festival. This usually involves laying out or buying the appropriate clothes, everyone blushing and looking shy, eating some fantastic looking food, goldfish scooping (though what happens to all those goldfish is a question I’d rather never have answered), and probably a fireworks display. It’s fun, it’s energetic, it’s not entirely exclusive to summer as there are festivals in other seasons in anime, but it comes up a lot over the summer holidays and is kind of entertaining to watch.

Not to mention, I really want to eat all of that food. Looks so good.

One cliché that I actually don’t understand at all is the ghost hunt or test of courage. I’m not really sure why this seems to come in around summer time or what the obsession with walking through the woods/abandoned school building at night is but it’s another time honoured cliche that we’re going to run into.

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If the characters are younger we’ll almost always be treated to a bug catching session (or if your characters involve Haruhi Suzumiya in which case you’ll definitely get sick of bug catching by the end of the endless eight). This is usually light and harmless fun and kind of reminds you of just how easy it is to find entertainment when you find joy in little things.

Last one I want to mention is the going to a relative in the country and then proceeding to bash around in semi-wilderness areas or mountains and usually making a random friend that at the end of summer you need to say farewell to.

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All and all, summers in anime always look fun and full of things to do (as well as hot and there are a number of characters who would prefer to sleep at home). So for our discussion today I’ll ask you how you spend your summers or which anime summer would you most want to be in?

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Kiss Him, Not Me Episode 9

Posted on by Karandi
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Kiss Him, Not Me Episode 9 Review:

This episode of Kiss Him, Not Me at least avoided making me actively question how it is choosing to portray romance this week but that’s pretty much only because we first shifted the scene to a beach episode (because who doesn’t love those) and the focus this week shifted to Shinomiya who has so far been pretty much of a nothing character save for a few arguments with the other guys.

So the beach part of the episode (surfing, body boarding, suggestion of volleyball, BBQ, the forest at night, and a ghost scare) is all pretty standard and neither particularly good nor bad. It just kind of is. Shinomiya on the other hand is now the character I like second least in the series.

Apparently familiarity really doesn’t help in this case because amazingly enough the underclassman plagued by self-doubt and worried about his own inadequacies does not make for a compelling romantic lead nor a particularly interesting character and when the back drop for our focus on him is as generic as it comes there just isn’t any reason to like him at this point.

Kiss Him, Not Me is available on Crunchyroll.

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Karandi James