Summer 2014: Make us Feel the Splash *clap* *clap*

Sequels
Free! Eternal Summer - We didn't get anything from Kyoto last season, and now we get a sequel to this slightly-above-average Kyoto show, could be worse.
Strange+ 2 - Not sure why I watched all of season 1, or why this got a season 2, but 5 minutes, whatever.
Sword Art Online 2: Phantom Bullet - This doesn't require any reasoning, but I didn't know they were getting Aoi Eir and Haruna Luna to do OPEDs again, very hype.
Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Zwei - Forget all the hype I just said about SAO2, this is all that matters, but no Choucho OP .
Persona 4 the Golden Animation - I can't really put this on my "watch" list, because I'm pretty much going to be skipping through each episode to see what's different from the original, and I'll probably just archive it anyways.
Sengoku Basara: Judge End - I had no idea this was coming, oh well I like me some awesome Engrish and crazy battles.
Hanamonogatari - Hrrrrrnnnnngggggg

New Shows: The Struggle
Glasslip - PA Works coming back after a season off following Nagi no Asukara, which I rated somewhat highly, this contender for top 3 studios doesn't let me down. OP by Choucho (marry me)
Tokyo Ghoul - Strong staff and seiyuus, I'm still convinced an anime cannot possibly "scare" you, but I'll keep watching them until one actually does. Has mystery themes and an OP by tk, the male (I believe) singer of Ling Tosite Sigure, who did Psycho-Pass's first OP (gdlk).
Rail Wars! - After seeing this advertised at Comiket 85, I was sold. This is done by Studio Passione, who I have no idea who that is.
Futsuu no Joshikousei ga [Locodol] Yattemita - Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh, we'll see how this goes. The premise sounds kinda funny, but I'm not feeling studio Feel.
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal - I've seen the first episode of the original sailor moon like 6 times and nothing past that, I suppose this is a good opportunity to see what actually happens in this show.
Aldnoah.Zero - I guess this is the elephant in the room for this season, it's got everything but the kitchen sink. What is actually exciting me the most aside from Gen's story, is the fact that Takayama Katsuhiko is adapting it, who adapted my favorite anime of all time ef a tale of memories. If this show ends up being Gargantia 2.0, I dunno if I'll be happy or disappointed.
Barakamon - I'm going to give this a try since I actually really liked Yuyushiki, but we'll see if it becomes unbearably boring.
Jinsei - "school comedy" is pretty much a shoe-in to get me to watch, but once again, it's Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel. I think the only way this show can be good is if the girls' "life problems" are really dark and really real......... which I can doubt with almost 100% confidence.........
Sabagebu - "girls with guns, school comedy". If this becomes Stella Jogakuin C3-bu, I'm going to Shift-Delete the folder.
Akame ga Kill - The White Fox of the season, since about 80% of what I've listed so far has been pretty low-key sounding, I'm going to need whatever action series I can find, and this one doesn't sound half bad, but I think it's a bad sign that that director and writer have both been listed under a bunch of romance shows.
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - I may get sick of romantic comedies someday, but not yet. I like Mikakunin de Shinkoukei, so hopefully Douga Koubou can deliver on this one as well.
Ao Haru Ride - I can't remember off the top of my head when the last time Production IG did a shoujo romance, but this one "looks" good and has some good support, so let's hope this lackluster synopsis isn't the end-all of the show.
Hana Yamata - Continuing from the success of NGNL and my personal high rated enjoyment of Mahouka, Madhouse with director-in-tow create this show about traditional Japanese dance + yuri. I've watched shows about the famous hundred poems and Karuta, so a little dance can't hurt.
Majimoji Rurumo - I'm literally just going to check this out because of JC Staff, but I feel a drop coming.
Zankyou no Terror - I couldn't finish Space Dandy, but maybe Watanabe actually has talent when he tries, and this sounds a LOT more interesting.
Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? - The Silver Link show of the season (that isn't the Illya sequel). We didn't get a follow-up to the brilliant Nou-rin last season, but I have yet to watch a show by this studio that I didn't like, but that's probably just because Oonuma Shin is a genius.

Possible Pick-ups
Tokyo ESP - The categories interest me, but Xebec + a really bad plot keep me away. I'll wait to see if this gets any good reviews.
Dramatical Murder - This doesn't seem interesting to me, but I feel like it's going to be hipster-bait, I'll again wait to see what comes of it.

Final Count: 6 Continuing, 7 Sequels, 16 New Shows = 29
FUCK.
Let's hope they're at least spread out through the week better than last season was.

Sequels:
Sword Art Online 2: Phantom Bullet: I was pretty critical of the second half of SAO (liked the first half, wasn't so bad), but after the miracle that was Mahouka, this series is a masterpiece by comparison.
Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Zwei!: Isn't this why we're all here this summer?
Persona 4 The Golden Animation: Eh, I'll just skip until HanaKana starts talking again.
Hanamonogatari: I can just write this sentence and leave it at that.

New:
Tokyo Ghoul: Intrigued, but I dunno if it'll hold.
Rail Wars!: After the rightist propaganda, we now have leftist propaganda. The premise sounds sounds pretty bad, and I hear the studio does not like the author at all. In other words, it's a train wreck in the making.
Aldnoah.Zero: First off, Gen's not writing this. But hey, they pretty much threw everyone else at it. Why not.
Jinsei: All I remember is Feel somehow got a good season out of minami-ke.
Akame ga Kill!: People won't shut up about this and the premise doesn't seem like something that'd drive me away.
Ao Haru Ride: If the boyfriend is a jerk, I'm dropping this.
Hana Yamata: I threw NGNL a bone and it worked. Might as well see if it can happen again.
Zankyou no Terror: Weird premise, but I'll give it a shot.
Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?: This sounds so bad it might actually be good.
Tokyo ESP: This sounds like a silly silly show, lets roll and see what we've got.

One-shot:
Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen: It's Xebec, but there's a premise to this. Iunno, I'll check it out.

Analysis:
4 returning and roughly 10-11 new pickups. That's actually up from last season, so looks good.

Yeah, I forgot that Feel actually made the best season of Minami-ke, I was getting it confused with asread.
Looks like we'll have a bit to talk about this season Thahn.

Ghoul:

Pretty meh horror, but everything else looks pretty good.

Rail wars:

Needs less rail and more wars.

Sailor Moon Crystal: I only saw the first episode of the first series and I saw it like 3 times, and now I've seen it again. Kotono Mitsuishi is pushing 50 years old and you can tell, I'm not sure re-casting her for nostalgic purposes (or what I assume the reason was) was the best idea.

Glasslip: This show literally starts out by throwing every character and their names at you, good luck remembering them all. Also there was literally one glass blowing scene, probably just for good measure.

Locodol: This show, is by definition, an anime. That is all.

Free! 2: I dunno which season's ED was gayer, Kyoto pls.

Rail Wars!: Studio Passione seems to be off to a good start with their use of fanservice and cliche romcom situations, maybe their first full-length production won't be a complete failure. The action scene was animated "entertainingly". The best first episode I've seen thus far.

Tokyo Ghoul: If you're trying to make a horror, don't make the main guy turn into what we're supposed to be afraid of, and then change the tone to some sort of battle manga. Also, I found myself laughing when they revealed the friend and Touka to be ghouls, also the setting of "well ghouls are killing people but we can't do anything about it so, whatever" was pretty comical.

SAO2:
Was alright, but nothing happened yet.

Aldnoah:
Jeeze, New Orleans just can't catch a break.

Also, Kalafina goodness.

SAO2 made me really nostalgic, I suppose I got attached more to the cast than I had thought. Really looking forward to more.

Aldnoah kinda pissed me off because I called the entire episode from the bus scene like 4 minutes in or whatever.

Dropped Barakamon, they stuffed pretty much all my pet peeves into one first episode.

Of what I've seen so far (everything but Sabagebu):

Aldnoah Zero - Although predictable, I'm still going to look forward to it all. The staff will pull through.

Sailor Moon - Yeah, only gripe here is the VA. I felt it sounded a bit off, but then I saw your post about it and wow. They should have recast that role. Everything else is good. Just sucks that I won't see ep 2 for 2 weeks.

Free 2 - Seems like Kyoto had more budget after not doing anything last season. The ED is no Splash Free, but it was funny. I like the OP better this time around though.

Glasslip - Boring first ep. Like I'm going to remember every character's name even though there's only 6. The main guy is kind of an asshole.

Rail Wars - This first ep was funny. This will be my break from all the seinen (though I would never get tired of seinen).

Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen - Another one of those zero to hero type situations. At least Aldnoah didn't do that ep 1. But I sense kind of the same thing going on here. Same conflict between the 2 opposing sides. Except this one so far seems to be about resources. Aldnoah's conflict seems a lot like Gundam SEED's.

Sword Art 2 - Decent first ep for setup. I still enjoy it though. The topic is going to be either how great the show still is, or how much everyone else hates on it. Then there's gonna be the hardcore hipster fans that read all of it and will try to be the elitist assholes that essentially go, "i'm gonna be a huge fan, but still say the anime sucks."

Tokyo Ghoul - Not really horror if it's trying to scare you. Seinen/thriller maybe. Still creepy as hell though. So far I like it better than Another.

Sword Art novels aren't that great, no matter what anyone says. There's a difference between entertaining and well-written, and the guy simply just ain't that great at writing. Alternatively maybe baka-tsuki just sucks at translating.

Ryuuka wrote:Sword Art novels aren't that great, no matter what anyone says. There's a difference between entertaining and well-written, and the guy simply just ain't that great at writing. Alternatively maybe baka-tsuki just sucks at translating.

Those things aren't exactly mutually exclusive.

Akame Ga Kill:
Stupid MC, but the rest of the main cast seem like a fun bunch. Also all dat lack of black blood.

Sure SAO can't compare to something like Log Horizon in terms of writing, but I do agree that the hate for the show has risen to pointless levels. I mean selector infected WIXOSS was horrible and entertaining but people didn't hate on that on every website relating to anime.

Pretty sure that the reason it gets hated on is because it failed to live up to the expectations of people who read the novels.

But I thought you said the novels weren't great to begin with.

Also, just watched Akame ga Kill, that show had some radical tone shifts but was FANTASTIC.
I was surprised at the lack of blood/cut body parts censoring as well, good stuff.

The novels are not very good, but the anime failed to even emulate what made them enjoyable.

Chumara wrote:Sure SAO can't compare to something like Log Horizon in terms of writing, but I do agree that the hate for the show has risen to pointless levels. I mean selector infected WIXOSS was horrible and entertaining but people didn't hate on that on every website relating to anime.

Because Wixoss isn't poplar, SAO is. No one would be vocal about the writing of something isn't popular.

Hanayamata





And sold!

P4G:
Ended up being lolzier than I thought it'd be.

ESP:

Okay, that was a lot less silly than I was expecting. I'm guessing it's pretty much gonna be X-men.

Aldnoah:

Well they revealed the princess much sooner than I thought.

SAO2:
Aw yeah, look at all that plot... oh, wait.

Time to catch up on the last 4 days of anime, me and my TV are about to become best buddies.

Tekkaman Calamity wrote:Aldnoah:

Well they revealed the princess much sooner than I thought.

I was really hoping she'd be dead for real, also I'm going to be very disappointed if the MC somehow has the skills/ability to pilot some special mech for no reason to save the Terran race.

Aldnoah:

SHOCK!

The princess is really a magical girl!

Akame:

Okay, looks like show's done introducing everything and is starting a plot.

Thahn, Locodol is still the exact same show it was in episode one, so if you weren't going to watch it then, you probably don't wanna watch it now.