Brickmuppet prompted me to consider the score and remarkably this season is one of the busiest at Ani-nouto in years. After the Nanoha disaster, we would typically follow 1 (one) simulcast or fansub, and dillute it with a batch, possibly adding a rewatch. Not so in 2014 Winter. When the season opened, we dragged a patchy collection of hung series:
- Shikabane Hime Aka: seen 2.5, still waiting for the "fully awesome" that Evurus promised.
- The Third: seen 5, hung on Netflix not delivering DVDs. Bastards.
- The big Gurren-Lagann rewatch project: seen 15, up to recap and timeskip. In recent years I got to rewatching the post-timeskip on it only. The amazing, astonishing epicness of it was the reason. God! Just think of Simon saying "if that is really true... then why are you wearing this ring?"... or Lord Genome: "I know I have no right to act like your father, but you've done well, Nia", and Nia replies: "Thank you, father". And that ending! So at some point I decided to revisit the first 15 episodes, which are now but a foundation. The project was a success, but not blogged (until now).
But when simulcasts started happening, they swept all that aside. The roster is:
- Silver Spoon 2: This is the one where I previewed 10 seconds of next episode at Crunchy. The Moyashimon that I wanted and never got. Heck, no, 10 times better! And it's as wide in its scope as the masterpiece-class anime are. Sometimes I tweet that I only watch it to take screencaps of beautiful Tamako. Or look how Omo pinned the implicit gender-swap on Hachiken, it's a riot.
- Gundam Build Fighters: The most gundamnest of all Gundams, teaching the burning passion to the world through its characters, it's what every true fan wanted while suffering through 00. It may, in fact, be the best Gundam ever. Of course, 08th MS Team is still the greatest military classic, but this is different. Oh yeah, it is. [Is this just me or Sunrise made amends for that other Aina? — Ed.]
- Zvezda: Now that it discarded all the dumbcom and excuted the best Cerebus turn in years, it teases a promise of greatness. The Romeo and Juliet angle is what keeps me in.
- Chuunibyou REN: Remember how Mahoraba made craziness cute and fluffy and ef made craziness stoic and tragic? This is a credible attempt at something in that vein as well.
- S.Y.D. S2: The crass entertainment at its best. Was filed into "I can't believe I'm still watching this" drawer a few times, but there's just something odd about it that makes it different from "Girls High" and such. For example, when Hagimura confides to the dude during the trip that she can't deal with Nene (Todoroki) anymore.
There's a lot to watch in this season. Too bad Ken misses on that.