With the phenomenal start to the year, Winter 2018 is going to be a hard season to top. However, this season has quite a bit lined up to be phenomenal in its own right. From more seasons of My Hero Academia, Steins;Gate, and Full Metal Panic to spinoffs and spiritual successor, it’s stacked with potential.
However, only some of these can be my favorites (so far) of Spring 2018. Which shows make the cut? Let’s find out!
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Tada Never Falls In Love
Doga Kobo is rather well-known for its adaptations. New Game, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Himouto Umaru-chan, Yuru Yuri; the list goes on. One thing that there’s a surprising lack of is original productions. Their last original anime, Plastic Memories, aired exactly 3 years ago in Spring 2015. Obviously the prospect of a new original anime by them was too tantalizing to ignore.
Fortunately, Tada Never Falls in Love is more than just an original production. It doesn’t really have any kind of special hook, with the closest thing being Teresa as a foreign transfer student from a fictional European country. However, the show’s strength is in its characters. Every single character that gets introduced is likeable in some way, and that’s not an exaggeration.
Mitsuyoshi Tada playing the straight man while still having his goofy moments with the Photography Club. Teresa being a massive weeb about the old TV series Rainbow Shogun. Kaoru coming across as a pretty boy harassed by both Teresa’s friend Alec and the Tada family cat Nyanko Big. Hajime playing his club president role as the shrine to his favorite gravure idol sits out of frame. Hinako as the class rep who looks suspiciously like said gravure model.
It’s a lot to take in and that didn’t even cover every character, but needless to say the show is made that much better by them.
The genre doesn’t really lend itself to needing a sophisticated presentation and the show doesn’t really need to do so either. Nevertheless, its framework is just what the story needs to unfold properly. It makes me really curious to see where this favorite (so far) goes from here.
Last Period: the journey to the end of the despair
If you would’ve told me a few months ago that a gacha anime would be skirting up alongside the strong contenders as a favorite (so far) of the season, I’d have probably asked you to leave. Yet, here we are; not one but two gacha anime in Spring 2018 are edging up real close to make it in this list.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby would probably have made it as one of the best produced gacha anime I’ve seen (made by P.A. Works, no less!), but it still stubbornly sticks with the ‘every girl is cute, but not too cute’ template and throws in idol performances for seemingly no reason. It’s still great, but not ‘favorite (so far)’ great. That honor goes to Last Period: the journey to the end of the despair.
Last Period’s setting is rather plain, high-fantasy gibberish (monsters called spirals are defeated by heroes called periods) with a plethora of different realms and races. However, the visuals are enhanced by some busy but great character designs. The design philosophy of the game’s art is ‘cool and cute’, and that really translates well to this anime.
However, there has to be at least one show this season that gets a bit meta, and this one fits the bill.
The basic setup of Last Period is a group of periods take various quests to rebuild Branch Office #8. So far, each episode has set this in distinct villages; (Stingy Village, Steamy Village, Spooky Village, etc.) with each village mayor being the same character and voice actor with different terrible puns related to the town name.
On top of this, Last Period takes jabs at gacha games and itself in different ways. Lavish summon animations, drop rates, maintenance, real-world currency, collaboration events, these all show up in this show in some way.
Choco also serves as the show’s meta character, pointing out things like gacha addiction, voice actors, and the varying success of anime meccas. Though this digs into the show trying to have its cake and eat it too. We see this a bit with its gacha system jabs, but it’s even more apparent in episode 2.
As the group travels to Steamy Village, Choco points out how the 2 supporting girl characters came along for seemingly no reason, then comments on how putting all the female characters in the hot springs in episode 2 is “too much fanservice”.
Then 5 minutes later, they put all the female characters in the hot springs in episode 2.
I wouldn’t consider it high art, but Last Period does what it sets out to do pretty well. Does it have the momentum to sustain 12 episodes? We’ll see. For now, though, it’s one of my favorites (so far) of Spring 2018.
Comic Girls
You know me; gotta fill the moe quota with something this season!
Snide comment aside, this show really didn’t seem all that interesting to me on the surface. ‘Cute girls drawing manga’ seemed like a road well travelled for cute girl shows (though to be honest there aren’t really any striking examples that stand out to me), but this show does manage to shuffle its girls’ archetypes. At least slightly.
My least favorite of the girls so far are the tomboy/chuunibyou shonen artist Tsubasa and the ditsy, food-loving shoujo artist Koyume as far as archetypes go. Their characters are improved as the show continues, but the other two girls really stole the show for me from episode 1.
Kaoruko is a small, cute highschool 4-koma artist that has no friends and no clue how highschool girls are supposed to act. Her art style skews towards chibi and she gets easily flustered and emotional when her work is criticized, taking it very personally. She's also a magnet for small, cute animals, not unlike a Disney princess
Ruki is a doujinshi who got the gig by accident. Originally drawing pitches for childrens’ manga, her art style is distinctly more adult. After switching publishers and getting in too deep to quit without disappointing her fans, she tries her best to separate her work from her life. Still, her fantasies can get the best of her in my favorite scene of episode 1.
Let’s be honest (and I feel like I say this every season at this point), this isn’t breaking any mold or doing anything really new. It’s just a pleasant cute girls show, and Comic Girls is still good enough to be a favorite (so far). Here’s to hoping it doesn’t go as off the rails as Slow Start did past episode 10.
Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
“And the award for My Most Obvious Pick In This List goes to…”
In all seriousness, even with my general excitement for this show I’ve been burned by self-hype in the past (see: 2Car). That aside, I’m happy to say that my excitement did not go to waste.
The work that Studio 3Hz put into Alternative GGO really shows. The direction of the first episode is reminiscent of the first episode of Princess Principal; in media res to establish LLENN as the main character and the Squad Jam event as the core story element.
One of the main concerns I had after reading the manga for Alternative GGO was that this show may not be able to capture LLENN's expressions as well. Fortunately, Studio 3Hz succeeded, striking a good balance between serious and goofy.
That really matches the tone of the source material as well. The core premise of Karen only playing Gun Gale Online because she can be a small cute character as a means of escapism is so sweet and genuine. The harsh, brutal nature of the game world helps reinforce Karen’s initial fish-out-of-water feeling.
It does have some of the inescapable gripes of being a Sword Art Online anime; some coincidental and some not. World building relies on exposition a lot, but this is supplemented (in most cases) with accompanying action and visuals to help ease consumption.
Budget is saved for where it matters, so there still are your typical still shots with either motion graphics or lip flaps. Some inconsistencies and the way MMOs work in this universe can take you out of it if you’re paying close enough attention.
Beside this and the dip with episode 3 essentially retreading the start of the Squad Jam, I’m still enjoying the show. Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online is probably the most flawed favorite (so far) I’ve seen.
Caligula
There were a surprising number of anime based on games to premiere this season, but what’s more surprising than that is the ones to show up as my favorites (so far). First gacha anime, now an adaptation of a interesting but under-the-radar Vita JRPG?
In all seriousness, my first impressions of Caligula are a mixture of intrigue and anticipation. The main plot point of the show could be seen from the marketing and… well the entirety of the source material, but I thinking going into it with as little of this knowledge as possibly lends itself better to the first episode’s impact.
Caligula starts out simply enough, with the only really fantastical element being the absurd male school uniform designs. The main boy Ritsu is probably best described as a psychology otaku. Even if this changes during the show’s runtime, that alone sets him apart from the boilerplate modern JRPG/visual novel gruel.
Going through the motions of school life while spending time in Ritsu’s head helps you get a grasp of his personality, just in time for the wheels to start turning. As Ritsu listens to a new song by μ, a hugely popular virtual idol, he hears someone’s cries for help in the background.
At this point, Caligula does a great job of unsettling you. Friends, family, society… everything around Ritsu starts to act robotic and unresponsive to his stimuli. This encapsulates in one very strong scene where Ritsu asks his friends if they heard anything weird in μ’s new song like he did. As he starts playing it, everyone around Ritsu snaps into place, facing him.
There are a couple things that bring Caligula down, though. The ending scene of the first episode really feels like something you’re supposed to know just by looking at it, but you wouldn’t if you’ve never played the game. It’s also disappointing to learn that μ isn’t actually evil, just brainwashed.
I’m still interested to see where it goes, but these nitpicks bring Caligula down a bit too much to be my absolute favorite (so far) of the season. One other show manages to take that spot.
Hinamatsuri
Every once in a while, there’s a show that comes along in which it’s easy to recommend and hard to explain why. In the case of Hinamatsuri, that’s because going into this show cold is the best way to experience it. If you’d rather have me tell you why I recommend it, here it goes; Hinamatsuri is perhaps one of the most bizarre shows I’ve seen in both premise and tone.
Nitta, a yakuza playboy with an expensive vase collection, has his life interrupted by a pod dropping on his head carrying Hina, a psychokinetic girl from another dimension. Antics ensue.
There’s a lot to the individual pieces that make up this show, and their execution in the final product really makes Hinamatsuri special. It may not be as aesthetically different or reminiscent, but what we get here could be considered to be more important.
The quality of the animation really pops in the more action-intensive moments, but even just normal interactions and expressions are enhanced by this execution. The direction of these moments is also phenomenal. It’s as if the director anticipates your reactions to the events happening and sets up its characters to perfectly capture your feelings with proper self-insertion.
Every single character, much like Tada Never Falls In Love, is likeable and well-written. Almost every single one has the potential to be Best Boy or Best Girl. Any character with an extended amount of screentime has growth and gets fleshed out incredibly well. My favorite of these is probably Hitomi, the middle school bartender.
Yes, that’s correct.
The only complaint I have with this show is the tendency for people to emerge from their pods fully nude, Terminator-style. It does mesh well with the binary tone of the series, but it can be off-putting and one of those things that makes a show hard to recommend caveat-free.
Hinamatsuri is the definition of a sleeper hit. It’s not a spin-off of a previous hit like Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online. It’s not a passion project commemorating a 50-year anniversary like Megalo Box. It isn’t even self-aware meta humor like Last Period or fanservice trash like High School DxD.
But Hinamatsuri is my favorite (so far) of Spring 2018.
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And that’s a wrap. Obviously there are some honorable mentions to consider as well;
Megalo Box stands out as a new production that encapsulates the feel of older anime, even if that includes its no-so-great aspects as well. Gegege no Kitaro is a great ‘Saturday morning cartoon’ follow-up from Toei and the best yokai-themed show this season. Wotakoi: Love Is Hard For Otaku gives me strong MMO Junkie vibes, with the only negative being the Amazon exclusivity and simulcast/subtitle gamble.
As for the non-honorable mentions, it’s likely these fall into the Meh and Worst Show of the Season categories. Stay tuned!
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