Here is my 'personal, opinionated' tier ranking for the first impression of this season's series. The tier will be divided as;
E = Horrible, 0% chance of following, dropped.
D = Bad. 20% chance of following till the end. Re-watch value is zero.
C = Mediocre. 60% chance of following till the end, but Re-watch value is very low.
B = Decent. Sometimes involves my bias. Chance of following until the end is 90%.
A = Very good and enjoyable. 100% chance of following the series until the end.
S = Extremely good series. The best of best, tops the season's ranking.
SS = Anything that is close to masterpiece, but missed it due to 1% of mistakes. Also never given during the first impression ranking.
SSS = Masterpiece, but this rank never happens for the first impression ranking. This can only be given when it is perfect from the start to the end of the series.
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E TIER
<DOG DAYS>
"DOG DAYS" throws away seriousness of the war, and make it some kind of toy fighting. It's lack of seriousness is constantly turning me off. Concept of 'turning into the animal' or 'strip-show' when dies is way too childish, and makes entire thing incredibly boring. Direction is all over the place, so I cannot concentrate on single scene properly. This makes me even wonder if seven-arcs even have an ability to produce proper animation other than Nanoha the Devil Queen (Oh, it was founded by Akiyuki Shinbo, so not even their original works).
Rank:
Story: E
Sakuga: C
Music: B
Direction: D
Character: E
Enjoyment: E
Overall: E
<Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai>
I heard a lot of good receptions about its original VN. Even though I hate
Nishimata Aoi's design so much, I decided to have a look at it. I even endured all those disturbing pantsu shots and.... AND....
One of the character was, fuckin, the most, ridiculous, chuni-byou I've ever seen. Automatically dropped, Kusoge adaptation is Kuso.
Rank:
Story: E
Sakuga: D
Music: C
Direction: D
Character: E
Enjoyment: E
Overall: E
<HEALTH EDUCATION FOR 30s>
Fuck image, it was shit...
D TIER
<A-Channel>
Let's start with the good things, characters are cute, eye purification level is definitely decent. Voice actors are fine, except Yuuki Aoi's voicing loli nagato.
It's by Saki's team, but... it was just boring. How should I care about ANYONE in this anime? The first 5 minutes are enough to tell you how bad direction of this animation is. It was practically impossible to keep my eyes in the screen, due to dullness of character design, colour palette, loose animation, and most of all, absolutely pointless storylines that does not even bring me to be turned on by moeness. Seriously, I appreciate moe most of the time, but this is just boring as hell.
Rank:
Story: E
Sakuga: D
Music: C
Direction: D
Character: D
Enjoyment: B
Overall: D
C TIER
<C>
Soooo, we have 'C' in C tier.
The premises weren't half bad. It was very promising one, directed by Nakamura Kenji from Mononoke and Kuuchu Buranko. However, 1st episode disappointed me.
The problem is that I cannot erase the feeling that this animation is trying to just 'force' the idea of 'money is everything!' without realistic and deeper insight. After Kyuube the Human form makes contract with our poor haremless Ichika (*seiyuu-gag), it suddenly turns into shonen psychic-monster battle adventure whatever thing. I even started thing, 'was it even about money?'. Well, it is only first episode, so it is open for development, but the first impression definitely wasn't good as I though.
Rank:
Story: C
Sakuga: B
Music: C
Direction: A
Character: C
Enjoyment: C
Overall: C
<Hidan no Aria>
I say this, if JC-staff made Infinite Stratos, this will be an exact form it will take. It is basically, clone of Infinite Stratos. Textbook-following cliche with big big harem, with 'supposed to be cool' protagonist. Oh my, they even added Kugimin tsundere show. How familiar!
Regardless, it ended up being exactly as I expected. Bad, but still watch since there 'were' actually some good parts to follow on. However, I will still end up dropping this in early stage.
Rank:
Story: C
Sakuga: B
Music: C
Direction: D
Character: D
Enjoyment:C
Overall: C
B TIER
<Hana-saku Iroha>
One word to describe this series is 'morning drama'. There is nothing really special about the story. However, what saves this is main character Ohana and god-like sakuga. Sekiguchi Kanami's return was surely massive. PA Work's quality finally returned from shit-sucks-badness of Angel Beats to CANAAN/True Tears quality era. That alone is enough quality to make this top priority series for me.
Ohana is so moe. I want to see her getting teased more. :3
Rank:
Story: C
Sakuga: S
Music: B
Direction: B
Character: A
Enjoyment: B
Overall:B
<Nichijou>
Most of its part left me disappointed, honestly. It was based on my destroyed faith on Kyoto Animation's directional ability. So many parts that is supposed to be funny ended up being boring and tired some, they were repeating exactly same technique and spacing for every single comedy scenes, which is hilariously bad. Same as Hana saku Iroha, the thing that keeps me from watching this is SAKUGA. Animation quality is just INSANE. I mean seriously, wiener scene and racing part was just over kill. Even though it wasn't funny at all, my eye was pleased with it.
Rank:
Story: A
Sakuga: S
Music: C
Direction: C
Character: C
Enjoyment: A
Overall:B
<Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai II>
Now I think of it, I forgot to write about the reason why Manglobe fail. Oh well. Direction was very very bad as usual, but there was some improvements, some better directions here and there. I was a bit surprised with that. Nevertheless, Keima is god. No contest.
Rank:
Story: A
Sakuga: A
Music: C
Direction: D
Character: S
Enjoyment: B
Overall:B
A TIER
<Steins;Gate>
Yep, this series is indeed awesome. It's episode two, and infinite amount of foreshadowing is already released, which is keeping my interest constantly on high position. Although pacing makes some parts a bit confusing, it wasn't that hard to think. From some powerful directions, I could feel staffs deep attachment to this series. Very impressive.
Another major strength of this series was character. Okarin is 'real life' chuni-byou character, which is very rare in normal series. His delusional approach nothing more than role play, which is one of the crucial element to keep mood in balance between light and serious mood. Mayushi is cute and Hanakana is just <3. Other characters are very interesting too, including beautiful Makise Kurisu and Nyan nyan girl who also seems to suffer Chuni-byou.
Rank:
Story: A
Sakuga: A
Music: B
Direction: A
Character: A
Enjoyment: A
Overall: A
<Denpa Onna to Seishon Otoko>
Shaft series never disappoints me, period. I loved it. Downside was that there was 'way too much' denpa to understand what the hell is going on with the story, and how author is trying to be '2nd Nisioisin' with less than witty dialogues. Other than that, it is very good. Animation and character design is just top class this season. Seriously, Meme and Erio is sooooooooooooooooo cute and moe! Eye purification level is almost infinite. The main character isn't too bad either; I can see his potential as expert tsukomi. I look for to this much more.
I hate OP so much. But I'm listening it again and again. (*eh?)
Rank:
Story: B
Sakuga: A
Music: B
Direction: S
Character: A
Enjoyment: A
Overall: A
and finally......
S TIER
Yeah, you might be surprised. The S-tier animation, in other words, the series with the best first impression + high possibility of becoming masterpiece was NOT Steins;Gate. There was something more amazing, and that extremely good animation that I just kick myself for underestimating is...
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<Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai>
Japanese name: あの日見た花の名前を僕達はまだ知らない。
TS: We still don't know the name of the flower I saw that day.
;_________________;
Nagai Tatsuyuki, you did it. Seriously, this has almost 99% chance of becoming masterpiece. I've never seen something that is flawless as this episode. This shows how important direction is when portraying the story properly.
It's funny that Okada Mari is writing story for both Hana-saku Irohad and Ano Hana, but this one is far superior. Supported by flawless directions, this story is nothing like korean-morning-drama at all. They managed to create this much depressing+tear jerking mood in just one episode, and even that was amazingly done.
From the start to the end, including OP, ED and music, it was perfect. Instant S, and watching this. This is golden, noitaminA is finally saved.
Rank:
Story: S
Sakuga: A
Music: A
Direction: S
Character: S
Enjoyment: A
Overall: S
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There there... now I'm going to study....
