With dozens of anime premiering each season, it’s inevitable that there will be some duds. Some shows can either improve along its runtime or in some cases be enjoyable in a turn-off-your-brain kind of way.
However, those don’t qualify as Mehs to me. Mediocrity is just that; run-of-the-mill, committee-designed, serviceable productions with seemingly little to no passion behind them. While the spectrum of the season has favored good to great overall, I still have a few Mehs in Spring 2018.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Magical Girl Ore
Gag anime tend to be hit or miss for me. While I didn’t like Love Tyrant at first, it did end up growing on me. To Be Heroine, while impressive in its animation, is a bit too outlandish for me to get behind. In a lot cases, the premise needs to be strong to keep me watching, but even then how it’s presented makes or breaks it.
In the case of Magical Girl Ore, the premise of girls transforming into buff men as their ‘magical girl’ form is undercut by… well, the preceding 20 minutes of episode 1.
From character gags that don't land with gag forms that are off-putting to a yakuza with the most obnoxious delinquent voice I’ve ever heard, the presentation soured my opinion over its run. Even the moments of interest like Saki’s mother being an ex-magical girl are undercut by mediocre meta commentary.
Unlike every other Meh in this list, I don’t really have anything else to say about Magical Girl Ore. I’m not sure if that makes this my best or worst Meh of the season...
Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits
I can usually go for anime based on Japanese mythology, even if it’s a bit repetitive at this point. Whether it’s spirits in The Eccentric family, gods in Konohana Kitan or yokai in this season’s Gegege no Kitaro, I still like giving these a shot due to my relative newness to the subject.
However, it’s still possible for me to spot a dud when I see one, and Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits is an easy pick even for the genre.
Aoi, a college student, inherited the ability to see ayakashi from her grandfather and tries to go about her life with this curse. After being kind to a demon by giving him food, she gets dragged to an inn in the spirit world. This demon tells Aoi that her grandfather owes the inn a great debt and must she must marry the demon to pay it off. Not wanting to, she decides to stay in the spirit realm to work it off instead.
The setting at least has something going for it, but nothing else picks it up from there. The presentation is generic in style and tone. Characters are plain and boring, even for Aoi; a plain, boring college student. As a Gonzo production, the art and animations feels a little inconsistent as well. The fact that this is getting stretched across 26 episodes is perhaps the final nail in the coffin for me personally.
Overall, it’s a decent setting wrapped in poor packaging and makes Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits a Meh for me.
Golden Kamuy
In a similar vein of decent setting we have Golden Kamuy. While I may be a bit harsh for this depending on who you ask, I feel like this anime doesn’t really have much going on. Well, not much beyond the main premise that is.
Set in Hokkaido shortly after the Russo-Japanese War, the scarred veteran Sugimoto seeks a lost treasure to care for his fellow soldier’s widowed wife. After meeting Asirpa, an Ainu girl who helps him survive in the harsh northern climate and learning of a treasure map hidden in the tattoos of several escaped prisoners, Sugimoto sets out to find the treasure before they do.
With the period being a rather unexplored time in modern media (at least to my knowledge), it sets a nice backdrop for the story to unfold in. I can give the show credit for at least doing that. At the same time, though, this setup hits those same ‘shonen’ receptors of my brain that kinda turns me off of it.
While I don’t want to disparage these guys as I do genuinely enjoy their music, a MAN WITH A MISSION OP pretty much sets the tone for a series. That combined with the general conveyance of the dialogue and the ‘Villain of the Week’ character designs makes me want to take a nap.
Awkward 3D Bear aside, Golden Kamuy doesn’t really have much else to latch onto as far as animation goes. While one could argue that it’s not needed with the slower pace this time period allows, it doesn’t prevent it from getting boring in the even-slower-than-normal bits.
It doesn’t have as bad of a first impression as Black Clover did (and still does as the newcomer Shonen Jump anime) but I can’t help feeling unmotivated to continue watching. With clenched fist and a lump in my throat, I have to give Golden Kamuy a Meh.
Dances with the Dragons
As I’ve said in the past, I’m kinda tired of high fantasy and the genre problems that come with it. Useless jargon, style with the same surface-level substance, and objectification disguised as chivalry. However, when this tired formula branches out and digs its tendrils into other factors, it’s immediately more appealing to me.
Take Dances with the Dragons; a high fantasy that has tendrils dipping into sci-fi and magecraft. The premise of kaiju-esque tiers of dragons and fighting them with weapons made to artificially recreate the spells dragons use to breath fire is cool! The world (or at least the city) having touches of modern technology like vehicles and televisions is also interesting.
However, it starts to go downhill once exposition kicks into full gear. I can understand needing some in the immediate foreground at the start of episode 1, as the main guys Gaius and Gigina are fighting a high-level Dragon.
Wait...
What was the tier of Dragon called, again? Or is it an Aion? I distinctly remember names being said, but it hasn’t sinked in...
And that’s really the main problem with this show. So much is said and told about its world and characters, but it all turns to white noise. For starters, Gaius was the only name I remembered; I had to look up the 2nd guy’s name.
I know that they work for some kind of agency, possibly bounty hunters for these creatures (which includes kinds that sort of betray the name Dances with the Dragons). I know that they live in a city that’s part of some country... which borders a significantly high number of other countries…
There’s some sort of assembly, though I’m not sure if its religious or political (or both, Vatican-style)...
Other characters are introduced, but it’s not clear what their affiliation is even though names and titles are thrown around all over the place…
This is 12 minutes into episode 1, and my brain clearly checked out 5 minutes prior. I can understand needing to cover a lot of ground when adapting from complicated source material, but it would be easier to digest if it wasn’t so tedious.
Maybe I should try another episode or two and see. Heck, maybe I should go back to Grancrest War since that apparently picks up from what I heard. Or, maybe I can just let it stay as a Meh for me.
Persona 5 the Animation
There were so many other anime based on games this season that I anticipated to be bad. Heck, even the two gacha anime this season, Last Period and Umamusume: Pretty Derby are both great in their own ways.
I can honestly say that I was surprised to see this pop up as a Meh. In fact, Persona 5 the Animation is probably the quickest show to ever switch from good to mediocre for me. As for why, it isn’t immediately apparent.
The first episode is actually kind of decent. As a good recreation of the opening of the game leading up to Akira—sorry, I meant Ren—awakening to his Persona Arsène. It even has some nice touches like seeing Rise and Kanami ads, as well as how the MetaNav first takes Ren and Ryuji to Kamoshida’s Castle.
The problem with Persona 5 the Animation is that not only are we retreading the same path as Persona 5, we’re also retreading an inferior version of it.
There was a lot more to Persona 5’s presentation than just anime cutscenes. From UI to direction to music, everything about the game oozes with style. Obviously there are limitations unique to the medium, but my hope for an anime adaptation would be that it could capture that essence and ‘adapt’ it.
Sadly, it looks like CloverWorks took inspiration from just the anime cutscenes. Even then, it took the worst aspects.
Coloring, shading, and character designs are great equivalents to the game, but the production rears its ugly head anytime a scene requires more than just characters talking. Putting the comparisons aside, the action doesn’t even hold up to standard anime fare. It really comes across as passionless A-1 Pictures at its most mediocre. The All-Out Attacks are the biggest victim of this, going so far as to feel like a bootleg version of the game’s finishing moves.
Persona 5 the Animation doesn’t come across as a passion project or even an unfortunate production with some hints of gems mixed in. It really feels like a committee-approved branch of the Persona 5 Marketing Machine (and that is in itself another problem, but let’s save that discussion for a rainy day). Fittingly, it is my biggest Meh of Spring 2018.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Well, its looks like everything I’d like to cover has been handled this season. While I may have come across as a bit sour in this write-up, I still think Spring 2018 has had a very consistent level of quality. No major spikes and valleys. It’s also nice to see that there isn’t really anything offensively bad either...
Well, there is one show this season that hits that mark. Which one? Stay tune for my Worst Anime of Spring 2018.
