October 2013 Rankings

Happy Halloween, y'all. I ended up watching more shit than I thought I would. Goddammit. I'm going to The Met tonight so I'm posting this without seeing anything that aired today. Also, does anyone know what the hell is up with Pupa these days?



GOOD TIER




(new) KILL LA KILL (episodes 1-4) - Hail Imaishi, savior of anime! Seriously, as if I could put any other anime at the top. Overblown, over the top, creative, and just plain fun, Kill La Kill is shaping up to be one of the best anime I've seen in a while, as well as one of the best in the 2010s.



(new) KYOUSOGIGA (episodes 0-4) - Kyousogiga has shown that even when it tones down the craziness, it can still be plenty entertaining, as well as telling a touching story in the process. The visuals are still gorgeous and bombastic, and the characters have already proven to be likable and still have more potential to grow and become even more awesome. The Yase episode was probably my favorite since episode one.



(+) BAKEMONOGATARI 2 (episodes 14-17) - Okay, I still do not like Nadeko. But I cannot deny the fact that this arc was not only a few steps up from the Mayoi/Shinobu one, but it's actually very good. Turning an annoying, insecure teenage girl into an insane yandere goddess with Medusa hair is pretty awesome. Not having Ararararagi has the narrator is one of the best things that has happened to Monogatari.



(new) GALILEI DONNA (episodes 1-3) - I didn't know what to expect from Galilei Donna, but I am very much liking what I am getting. The characters still need some work, though. The youngest needs to show that she's not perfect, the middle one needs to show that she has more emotion than just angst, and the girl obsessed with Galileo also hasn't shown much emotional range and is serving more of a plot advancer more than anything. But we already have a bunch of subplots: the mother's amnesia, the dad on the run, and the sky pirates (who are fucking awesome). As long as the story stays focused and doesn't get messy, this will be a very good and enjoyable (family-centric) adventure story.



(=) VALVRAVE THE LIBERATOR (episodes 13-15) - And it's back! The creators did well to change and expand the setting. We've already got more character development (the two siblings and Marie), and Kriemhild has already received more screentime in these few episodes than she did in the entire first half. I'm happy Valvrave remains as stupid and hilarious as ever.



OKAY TIER



(new) SAMURAI FLAMENCO (episodes 1-3) - I want to like Samurai Flamenco. I like the fact that we're not focusing on high schoolers. I like the relationship dynamics between the cop and our chuunibyou model guy. I like his awesome manager lady. But there is something about its presentation that I find very lacking and I am not being entertained. Episode three improved my overall opinion on it, though. Hopefully it will continue to go uphill from there.



(new) GINGITSUNE (episodes 1-4) - This show's characters would feel far more natural if they were in middle school rather than high school. There's nothing really bad about Gingitsune, but also nothing particularly unique or good either. I think neither the writers nor the director handle the drama well, and the conflicts always seem to resolve a little too easily.



(new) ARPEGGIO OF BLUE STEEL: ARS NOVA (episodes 1-4) - I feel like personifying girls as battleships could've worked, but it's certainly not here. While the CGI still looks unattractive, the direction is also lackluster, and characters are uninteresting and soulless, and I don't give a shit about the story whatsoever. The manga is probably better, but I don't care to find out.



SHIT TIER



(new) KYOUKAI NO KANATA (episodes 1-5) - Oh, KyoAni. I really can't deal with you guys anymore. Admittedly, episode four was a massive improvement over the first three crap ones that we got. But at the same time I still didn't care about what was happening. The most recent went back into the usual crap we get, too.



(new) COPPELION (episodes 1-5) - GoHands, GoHands, GoHands. I have no idea what your writers are smoking and/or drinking when they wrote these scripts, but I think it would be better if they stopped that and actually thought about what is happening in the story. The characterization is awful, the storytelling is a mess, and the animation is cheap as hell.



(new) LITTLE BUSTERS: REFRAIN (episodes 1-4) - More of the same. At least it started off with focusing on the least annoying girl in the cast. I'm also very relieved that Refrain is only going to be thirteen episodes long.



(new) INFINITE STRATOS 2 (episodes 1-4) - Why I am doing this to myself right now? I guess I can't totally quit being a masochist just yetBut I'm trying. I think this got even worse after the first season. There's even more contrived fanservice than last time.



(new) STRIKE THE BLOOD (episodes 1-4) - I'm actually thinking about dropping this. Me. Dropping something. If this were one-cour, I could see it through. But twenty-something episodes of this bullshit? I'm not so sure. Someone please tell me why I even decided to watch this in the first place.



(new) BLAZBLUE: ALTER MEMORY (episodes 1-4) - Game adaptations never get high expectations from me, but holy shit I was not expecting BlazBlue to be this terrible. I have absolutely no fucking clue what the hell is going on at any given time. I don't have any idea about who the characters are or what they want. The plot is hardly cohesive and is at this point nonsensical.
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