Autumn 2015 Anime: First Impressions Part 2

As promised, here’s more first impressions of the shows that I have chosen to watch this season. I’ll also talk a little about long-running shows too. With that said and done, let’s take a look.

Is the Order a Rabbit??

Remember, the two question marks in the title show that this is the second season. Much like the second seasons of other slice-of-life shows, it’s pretty much just more of the same. The ending theme was ridiculously adorable. It’s not world-shattering stuff, and it doesn’t have to be. I’ll be looking forward to seeing more of this – though I still hold Kiniro Mosaic and Non Non Biyori in higher regard.

Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid

I knew there was going to be fanservice, I just didn’t realise how much – completely uncensored, too. The show is touted as a “beautiful girl sexy battle action” show, and you could probably say that it lives up to that tagline. Basically, think Soul Eater with lesbians and a lot more fanservice. I’m hoping that Mamori and Mirei develop a meaningful relationship, but I also feel that I should not get my hopes up considering the type of show this is…

Anime de Training! Ex

It’s just cute anime girls showing viewers how to do exercises whilst directly addressing them. There’s nothing more to it, and I don’t really have much more to say about it.

That’s it for new shows this season. Of course, a few of the other anime series I’m watching started in prior seasons so I’d figured I’d share my thoughts on their progress so far up to this point.

Dragon Ball Super

The last episode I watched had the conclusion of the battle between Goku and Beerus. I think that the Dragon Ball Super fight is better than the film version, and I have to admit that the sequence in which Goku became a Super Saiyan God was a lot more fitting. Get past the less-than-stellar animation in the earlier episodes and this is actually pretty great. I look forward to seeing more (I suspect we’ll get a re-telling of Resurrection ‘F’, though maybe we’ll see Vegeta achieve Super Saiyan God before that).

Fairy Tail Series 2

The major battle of the Tartaros Arc are happening, and I’ve already seen my favourite – Wendy vs. Ezel, in which the Sky Dragon Slayer manages to achieve Dragon Force as pictured above.
There’s plenty of other action going on elsewhere as well as Fairy Tail clashes with Tartaros, and I’m enjoying it a lot – though I do know what to expect from having read the manga. Still, seeing how things transition from manga to anime is always fun.

Go! Princess PreCure

I suspect that the next few episodes will be all about character-building, before this one enters a final arc. The thing about the last part of any PreCure series is that they are really good. Before that though, standard episodic monster of the week stuff – which is fine, especially if the yuri subtext is played up between the characters.

One Piece

I feel like I type this every time I talk about One Piece in these posts, but it is still in the Dressrosa arc. The enemies are falling one by one, but the big fight that everyone is anticipating is Luffy vs. Doflamingo. Still, there’s quite a bit before we get there, with several villains still in need of being taken down. Kyros vs. Diamante and Zoro vs. Pica are two fights I’m quite eager to see the conclusion of, though that might not be for quite a while yet…

That’s everything for this season. There’s far more short-form series I’m watching than I would have liked, but what can you do? I suspect YuruYuri Season 3 will be my favourite show for this autumn, though Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid does have potential (which it will probably squander on yuri fanservice… not that I won’t enjoy that as well).
Overall, I think this season is the weakest of this year. Whilst there are some shows that I know I will enjoy a lot, the selection of shows just don’t quite have the same impact as previous seasons.