Not counting sequels or continuations, here is a list of all the anime series I’ve tried this season. I’m still following some twentysix of them, which is a lot and I completely understand Frog-kun’s policy of only following one series at a time, but I’m easily distracted and like variety as much as I like binging.
39: Hitori no Shita – The Outcast
An actual Chinese cartoon, as in anime created in China, this was dull, looked awful and took me less than an episode to drop.
38: Tsukiuta. The Animation
The first of the mousey girl gets to deal with male idol group series this season. It starts with the idols being introduced on a television panel show which is just as much fun as it sounds like so dropped it was.
37: Masou Gakuen HxH
Censor beams. Censor beams everywhere. Loser protagonist had to sex up magical girls to get them enough power to fight off an alien invasion. You know exactly what you’re getting from the very first second as a screen filling pair of tits is slapped in your face. All of this is only slightly less blatant than Ange Vierge (see below) but at least that didn’t have gropings of unconscious girls.
36: Ange Vierge
Starts with flying girls fighting alien penis invaders, then shifts to fifteen minutes of various over designed girls infodumping at each other — in a bathhouse. Yes, fifteen minutes of gloriously censored advertisement for the bluerays.
35: B-Project
The other mousey girl gets to manage a male idol group anime. Yesterday she worked in a record shop. Today she’s their A&R representative. Let’s spend half the episode introducing characters again. Boring, but not as boring as Tsukiuta as I at least managed to watch the whole first episode.
34: Hatsukoi Monster
A high school girl falls in love with an older looking, handsome boy who saves her from being run over — only to find out he’s an elementary school student! Could’ve been funny, but wasn’t, just creepy. I only found out recently that there’s a nineties series with the opposite setup, an elementary school girl with the body of a twentysomething college student which may be even creepier.
33: Mahou Shoujo? Naria Girls
Magical girls doing improv. The crap animation could’ve been forgiven if it was actually funny.
32: Handa-kun
A prequel to a much better series, Barakamon, this is about a high school student who is seen at the coolest guy in school who everybody is too much in awe of to attempt to speak to, which he interprets as everybody hating him and being out to get him. Cringe comedy has to be very good to keep me watching, which this wasn’t and the pointlessly meta first half of the show didn’t help.
31: Scar-red Rider XechS
Incoherent magic school students fighting alien invasion nonsense, but this time with a cast of hot boys rather than hot girls. Really incompetent but not as morally bankrupt as Ange Vierge or Masou Gakuen HxH. I liked the random blonde girl with the Dutch flag hair ties though.
30: Ozmafia
Hey! Do you Like the Wizard of Oz? Do you like the mafia? Pretty boys? Then this is for you, if not for me. At least it was short.
29: Qualidea Code
Another magic school students fighting off alien invaders series, this one is different as it took three light novel authors to come up with the plot. The protagonist is an unlikeable dick to the point where his allies actually screw him over at the end of the episode for the massive property damage caused by the obligatory dumb blonde, which was at least amusing. Otherwise this was bog standard light novel fare, borderline decent, but why waste time on it when there are still so many actually good shows to watch?
28: Servamp
A boy finds a stray black cat, takes him home and discovers its actually a vampire and now he’s its master. The vampire is a NEET, the protagonist is a happy hardworking, easily manipulated idiot. Together they fight other vampires. I gave it three episodes, two more than it deserved. Not bad, but not good either.
27: Puzzle & Dragons X
Boy discovers he has magical powers, can control monsters, just like his disappeared father. Based on a card game apparantly. I gave this four episodes, which is probably three more than it deserved.
26: Time Travel Shoujo: Mari Waka to 8-nin no Kagakucha-tachi
An edutainment show about a girl whose deadbeat but genius scientist father has invented a device that causes her to travel through time involunarily to meet with eight famous scientists all of whom had something to do with discovering of how batteries fucking work. Somewhat worthy and it may be dropped at some point.
25: Show By Rock!! Short!!
Short sketches set in the world of Show By Rock!! about furries starting a rock band, fluffy and inoffensive, occassionally funny. Good palate cleaner between more serious shows.
24: Fukigen na Mononokean
Boy gets possessed by a youkai who is only looking for a friend, gets involved with grumpy exorcist his own age who first removes it for him only to then tell him how much he owns, so now he has to work for him. Protagonist is a bit whiny, the exorcist is a tsundere grump, the stories are a bit dull but as long as there’s no new season of natsume Yuujinchou it’ll have to do.
23: Rewrite
An adaptation of a Key visual novel that went from incoherent to somewhat bland over the course of its first few episodes. The lead is a lesser version of those of Clannead or Kanon, as is the harem and there is some sort of environmental catastrophy plot lurking in the background, but it’s enjoyable on a episode by episode base.
22: Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars
An immortal loli pilots a giant robot while her younger sister is the empress of the country she’s defending. For an empress she’s remarkably free to wander the streets to help with festival preparations or to get accosted by other lolis in giant robots. That seems to be a bit of a thing in anime, of the super important royal girl still doing all of the normal school girl things anime expects.
21: Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu
The adventures of a straight, male fan of boys love stories, usually only read by “rotten girls” for sexual and other kicks, who is incensed at everybody thinking he’s gay for liking this genre. I like how his friends completely accept this even when they clearly don’t share his hobby.
20: Taboo Tattoo
This is very much an average fantasy action series, about a hot blooded fifteen year old called Justice who gets a strange tattoo from a homeless guy he saves from some punks, only to be drawn into the shadow war fought between the US and some random made up Asian kingdom. So far it’s been fun enough to keep watching, better executed than all the similar shows I’ve dropped.
19: Days
Straight forward sports anime about a clumsy but hardworking loser who becomes friends with the new star of his school’s football team when the latter needed warm blood for his pickup game. He enjoys it so much he joins the football club too: he may not have talent, but he works hard. The protagonist may be a bit grating at times with his enthusiasm, but is likeable, his friend the star is lazy rather than arrogant and I like the relationship between our hero and the club’s female caretaker, one of his classmates, who is a classic tsundere. She abuses him by letting him do her work for her, but still looks out for him when needed.
18: Kono Bijutsubu wa Mondai ga Aru!
The artclub has four members: the president who basically only likes to sleep, the obligatory overactive kooky girl, the guy who only joined to draw his perfect 2-D waifu and our protagonist, the only sane woman in it who is unfortunate enough to have a crush on said guy. Mildly amusing, but you do wonder why she likes him in the first place as he is just completely unappealing.
17: Tales of Zestiria X
Ufotable has a reputation for creating gorgeously animated series and this video game adaptation is one of them. A rather slow moving plot and I’d hoped the princess from the prologue would’ve been the star rather than the slightly bland actual protagonist, but a nicely done fantasy series nonetheless
16: Bananya
Short observations, you could hardly call them stories, about a cat that lives inside a banana skin like a hermit crab inside a shell, narrated by somebody who sounds as stoned as the people who came up with this.
15: Battery
Asshole pitcher finds the catcher of his dreams to play baseball with. I like the relentlessly obnoxious attitude of the main character, both when it’s justified (arguing back against the coach when he orders him to get his hair cut) and not (shouting at his little brother he isn’t fit to play baseball). Anime needs more interestingly asshole protagonists.
14: Thunderbolt Fantasy
Not actually anime, but rather a completely over the top Taiwanese puppet show full of wire-fu and sword fights and bombastic dialogue.
13: Saiki Kusou no Psi-nan
Short comedic adventures of a boy who’s the strongest psychic in the world though his powers cause him nothing but hassle, as voiced by Arararagi-kun.
12: New Game!
Yes, this is an unabashed cute girls doing vaguely nerdy things show and it has its share of lovingly captured fanservice, but that first episode was best I’ve ever seen any series capture that feeling of the first day on a new job.
11: Cheer Danshi
Four young men decide to take up cheerleading and try and convince other men to join them. Actually the best sport show this season as it takes the cheerleading seriously, not as a vehicle for the expected jokes.
10: Momokuri
Senpai noticed him! And stalked him. But it’s alright, because she confessed her love and he accepted. Which doesn’t stop her from keeping collectin his drink straws.
09: Love Live Sunshine
Did you like Love Live? Than you’ll like this series as well, as another group of misfit high school girls attempt to become school idols. You do suspect the main character is mostly interested in gathering her harem of cute girls even more so than in the original. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
08: Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin
A fantasy war story about the rise of the greatest general in the history of the Katvarna Empire, who at this point is just a lazy womaniser trying to avoid too streneous a military service. I like the mildly steampunk flavour of the series as well as the relationship between the main girl and the protagonist. Both have their strengths and they complement each other nicely, they like and trust each other without engaging in the usual anime antics.
07: Planetarian
The second Key visual novel adaptation this season and much the superior one. Only five episodes long, this is the story of a post-apocalyptic looter who falls in love with the android employee of a planetarium on top of a department store in a long abandoned city. Very nicely done, building up to the inevitable tragic ending.
06: Mob Pyscho 100
The other teenage boy with strong psychic powers series of the season. This one based on a manga by ONE, also the creator of One-Punch Man, with which it shares much of the same deadpan humour and a very similar protagonist. Funny and well animated.
05: 91 Days
A straight up mobster revenge story set in prohibition era America, from the same team what did Baccano a decade ago.
04: Orange
A woman sends a letter to her ten year younger past self to get her to not make the mistakes she made herself, but both her past and her future self are infuriating dweebs. Sentimental in a good way and with a great cast of friends.
03: Amanchu!
A shy girl is seduced into the world of watersports scuba diving by her energetic green haired new friend. Based on a manga by the creator of Aria, it has the same languid feel to it. A perfect relaxation series.
02: ReLIFE
A twentyseven year old NEET takes a pill that turns him back into a seventeen year old high school student, so he can learn to reintegrate in society. Sounds like wishfulfilment, but has a rather dark undertone as it turns out that whole elaborate plot is only there because anime Japan doesn’t have proper therapists.
01: Amaama to Inazuma
A teacher learns to cook for his young daughter six months after his wife died, with the help of one of his students. Heartwarming and not to be watched if you’re hungry. That undercurrent of grief keeps it from being too saccharine.
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