The Spring 2014 anime was hit and miss for me. I honestly have only been in a so-so mood when it comes to what I want to watch. This season was laced with an overwhelming amount of kids & game anime that we generally skip review wise. Another pending issue is that we just don’t all like the same things, thus a lot of anime you may like may get skipped (EX: Sports or Shoujo targeted anime). As I’ve said in our “About Us”, we’re a group of mainly “guys” that write our thoughts on what we like. For me personally… kids, super ecchi, mecha, sports, and oddly animated series will slip past me. Additionally things like “Action” or “Drama” are a big mood factor. I would akin it to “liking horror”, but you aren’t always in the mood for watching one. That said, I did catch about half of the anime that aired this season even though I probably wasn’t even in the mood for all of those (which can be good in cases like Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou that I wasn’t in the mood for at all as a result making it seem even better as I got into it).
Spring 2014 did have some winners for me that I feel will slip past some people. Spring really didn’t carry over too many from the Winter 2014 season, nor were there any major giants/high expectation anime minus the return of Fairy Tail (which is still awesome). There were several anime that hit me better than “similar” in type/genre of their predecessors.
(Akuma no Riddle) felt a good cross between Danganronpa and Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge. The standard “kill your classmates for XXX reason” but not in the “foofoo” tone of DBCE that made it hard to take serious at times. I didn’t have to spend half my time “watching a visual novel” like Danganronpa, but instead put into the action/serious mode with AnR. I enjoyed the series as a whole and felt it did a good job of filling the gap of “Battle Royale” type anime a lot of fans enjoy.
(Knights of Sidonia) also impressed me. I am generally not a fan of mecha anime. This struck me as a sci-fi version of Attack on Titan, but a cleaner and better paced plot. The speed of AoT really annoyed me as I felt people classify it as more “epic” than it really is. Due to the stop gap on AoT, you really start to miss out on a lot of the politics and story of AoT that makes it “amazing”. You will get in the second season run (this is really where AoT really gets better in my mind). So back to KoS, I really enjoyed this anime. It carries the same “kill of character mentality” that AoT has, but integrates the history and politics of “why they are in this situation” much quicker. KoS is now on Netflix and I would recommend watching a few episodes before dismissing it.
AnR and KoS were the anime I put into “pleasant surprises” of the Spring. Both appeared to have solid art, but also could have been lackluster throwaways if not done well. Now of the 30 or so new anime that premiered, I would say there about 10 (counting the 2 listed above) that are “worth the watch” with a couple falling into the “you must like the genre” category.
Soul Eater Not! (Comedy / Kawaii / Action)
Selector Infected WIXOSS (Dark / Game / Psychological)
Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin (Comedy / Supernatural / Adventure)
No Game No Life (Adventure / Comedy / Game / Ecchi)
Mekakucity Actors (Supernatural / Drama)
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (Magic / School / Romance)
Hitsugi no Chaika (Action / Adventure)
Black Bullet (Action / Sci-Fi)
Now everything else on the season would really fall into personal taste (and Soul Eater Not! is definitely in that range). I enjoyed Love Live S2 & Blade & Soul (Claymore x Queen’s Blade) for instance, but I wouldn’t say they are “must watch” anime. Date A Live II was ok, but I had a few issues with how it rolled out and felt it went more into “Fan Service” than continued story. I didn’t watch Break Blade and Captain Earth, but both of them earned Squishy’s seal of approval and I heard that Haikyuu!! is worth a laugh (think Daily Lives of High School Boys x Free). For you shoujo romance lovers, Isshuukan Friends, Kamigami no Asobi, and Kiniro no Corda were all “ok” in my mind. Issuukan Friends a bit more original, but KnA and KnC easily fell into “generic shoujo” in my mind. Most everything else is (as stated) a personal “taste for the genre” matter. I enjoyed everything I had “assigned” to review, but I can easily see near every anime not being “my type of anime”.
That leads me to the big weakness of the Spring. Minus the release of the popular Fairy Tail 2014, I felt the entire season ran off as “weaker”. Usually in a “solid” season, there is at least one anime a day (or every two) that I look forward to watching when I get home from work and eat dinner. This time there were too many days of “ugg.. there is nothing to watch.” Even of my Top 10, many of them are “To be Continued”… simply leaving the void of “Look forward to next week!” and not satisfied with the episode I just watched. The result was a season of “meh”. Half of the anime that came out did not spark my interest in any form or fashion. A lot of the anime that did spark my interest fall into the “Wait for the entire anime to air and power watch” due to the nature of the story. (Most of my Top 10) No Game No Life, Black Bullet & Akuma no Riddle usually spans about 2 – 3 episodes for a fulfilling stop point, Mahouka spans about 6-8 episodes (3 arcs in 24 episodes), and Soul Eater Not! (The weakest of my top ten) the only real anime where “To be continued” doesn’t really come in minus the ongoing backstory. Spring was more like going weeks with “To be continued” and lots of “I’m not interested” than fun filled anime weeks. This resulted in a lot of “catch up and fill in anime” as I often would wait 2-3 weeks before even going to the next episode. This is not a good thing when the a whole season pretty much plays that way.
As a whole I felt did better than the Winter 2014 releases (remember many of Fall 2013 rolled into the next year like Kill la Kill, Magi, Strike the Blood, Tokyo Ravens, Log Horizon, and Golden Time) which as a whole was pretty weak sporting only about 25 new releases and only 5 I would consider “worth watching/recommended”. What I feel is a weak start to the 2014 Anime only heightens the tension I have going into Summer 2014 (which looks “ok”) and Fall 2014 (which looks amazing). Seeing that Summer’s strong points appears to be “Sailor Moon Crystal (2 Episodes a Month), Sword Art Online II (the 1st episode was lack-luster at best), and fan girl favorite Free Eternal (a big blast of fan service in Episode 1)” all of which made a lack-luster first impression wise, Summer 2014 hasn’t made a bang to me. Fall seems loaded with anime titles I am eagerly awaiting and sadly may determine if the 2014 Anime Season lands up being the weakest in recent years. I still have hope as summer could turn around this mindset. All in all Spring 2014 did justice for the year adding at least 10 anime I would say to “check out/recommend”, but falling into the “if you like the genre” add in. I do think Knights of Sidonia is your biggest sleeper hit of the spring and the other 9 all worthy of at least investing some time into.
Side notes:
*I personally loved Mahouka the best even though it does seem to chunk into blocks of eight episodes. I find the whole thing interesting and I am a big fan of “OP” protagonist (I dislike super ecchi or emo ones.)
*Inugami-san to Nekogama-san was super adorable for a short although you have “ok” with Yuri overload at times.