New Anime I Failed To Watch

I had in mind that I might do lengthy first episode reviews again like in January, but the fact of the matter is that with a new Masaaki Yuasa show starting soon and Adventure Time starting last week, I really had a hard time sitting through cartoons that weren’t pushing my buttons. So here’s some I tried watching, but gave up before the end.

I did watch all of the first episodes Arakawa Under The Bridge and Giant Killing however, so I will give them their own posts eventually. It may take me watching a few more episodes of them first. With shows I like, I often find it takes two or three episodes before I can really vocalise what I love about them.

Whereas the hate comes straight from the gut. And here it comes now!

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao
Endurance: 1m39s
Why I gave up: Cheap animation, charmless character design, charmless performances. The weird shot of the lead turning his head from looking at the information board at the station.

Angel Beats
Endurance: 12m17s
Why I gave up: Character design by someone who clearly doesn’t have to try and make it move. Lack of weight to the animation. Plus the general Visual Novel aesthetic. Actual idea is perfectly fine, execution is execrable.

Mayoi Neko Overrun
Endurance: 7m5s
Why I gave up: The non-stop incessant chatter of characters who sound like they are just imitating the cadence of umpteen other light novel based shows. It wasn’t funny. Occasional bits of nice movement in the animation were not enough to press on further.

Senkou no Night Raid
Endurance: 8m53s
Why I gave up: A-1 doing their best/worst Production IG impression. Or possibly Bee Train impression. The sedative effect it had on me suggested the latter. Character design that doesn’t look like it was designed for A-1’s strengths, and stiff movement that suggested likewise.

Most importantly: too many hats that didn’t look like they were really being worn. My experience in watching cartoons and reading comics is that a Fedora or a Bowler is really hard to draw to make it look like they have the right weight & shape and appear to be firmly sitting on someone’s head from all angles. Sometimes they get it right here, but often it’s really distracting. Particularly as so many hats are being worn.