PhantomStranger

Shomin Sample is a funny harem show from what I've seen. This "common" high school boy is placed in an all-girl academy oblivious to the outside world. They are so out of it that the girls at this school have never seen a cellphone before.

Nothing world-changing about this show but there are some truly lol moments.

printerati

I just finished it on Hulu, and I absolutely hated the final four episodes. I was enjoying things through the battle of Momon and Nabe vs. Clementine and the monk, but they completely lost me with the stupid "mind control" setup, almost two full episodes of video game spell-casting, a certain character's reappearance at the end, and the sheer volume of "to be continued" stuff crammed into the last few minutes of the final episode. (Log Horizon is also guilty of that last one.)

PhantomStranger

That "final" arc was a little tedious but I strongly suspect it was written with the expectation of Overlord getting another season. I agree these types of anime occasionally get bogged down in the minutiae of MMORPG details.

While I didn't hate the final episodes, they were somewhat disappointing from my perspective. Overlord is still an anime I highly recommend and hope it continues.

printerati

I watched the first few episodes of The Perfect Insider (or Everything Becomes F: The Perfect Insider) on Crunchyroll last night, and I like it a lot so far. It's based on a 20-year-old Japanese murder mystery novel (which I have not read), and is a lot more intelligent (in terms of both subject matter and storytelling) than most of the stuff I have watched this year. Everyone is still a suspect at this point, and I'm anxious to see how all of the flashbacks and diary entries play in. It is also available on Hulu.

PhantomStranger

I've gone through about ten episodes of The Ultimate Otaku Teacher. It's a decent show about a genius otaku nerd that only applies himself when he's motivated to do something. He uses clever tricks to help out his students' problems. It's a light comedy that touches on several different things near and dear to otakus.

PhantomStranger

The Ultimate Otaku Teacher gets repetitive and starts running out of tricks the more you watch it. It has become a slog watching episodes when I hit the teens.

Place to Place is a cute, gentle high school slice of life program. It's not groundbreaking but provides some nice moments as this boy and girl ever so slowly circle each other for romance in their wider circle of friends.

printerati

I recently started We, Without Wings - Under The Innocent Sky, which reminds me of DURARARA!! in several ways, just a lot dumber with a lot less focus and a lot more fanservice. I'm only a few episodes in, and don't feel any compelling need to finish it.

PhantomStranger

Yep, I remember it being completely unfocused and scattershot. I trudged through five or six episodes a couple of years ago before giving up.

LorenzoL

Ranma 1/2 - I'm on episode 10 right now. Many more episodes to go but I like this show so far although the plots tends to get a little repetitive...

Thrush

Just finished the second season of Tokyo Ghoul: Root A. While it was certainly better than the first, mainly due to the main character being a lot less whiny. The ending was odd/confusing.

printerati

I recently marathoned School Days on Crunchyroll, going into it completely blind. I hated everyone in it but couldn't stop watching, and after reading various opinions of the show once I finished it, I don't seem to be alone in that. I highly doubt I will ever revisit it.

I did revisit Cowboy Bebop on Hulu, and it remains as great as ever. I still have not seen the movie, which isn't available to (legally) stream for free anywhere that I can find.

I gave up on We, Without Wings - Under The Innocent Sky after the fifth or sixth episode.

As far as simulcasts go, I am keeping up with DURARARA!! (things are finally coming to a head) and Active Raid (meh), and I have ERASED, AOKANA, and KONOSUBA in my queue.

Koby

I liked School Days actually.

As for Durarara!!x2; I'm waiting for Crunchyroll to premiere the dub of Ketsu (cour 3), if they even will.

ERASED has been great so far.

I have my MyAnimeList link in my signature which shows what I'm watching, what I plan to watch, what I have watched, what I dropped, and some shows I've marked as I won't watch.

PhantomStranger

Through seven episodes Erased is already nearing classic status for my tastes. It could go sideways like these complicated time travel adventures tend but I have high hopes it successfully finishes out a strong arc.

PhantomStranger

I highly recommend Tokyo ESP if you are looking for high-stakes action with superpowered people taking sides. I recently knocked out the entire season, it makes for very snappy viewing with its tale of Espers battling each other for control of Tokyo. Think factions of X-Men wanting to control the world.

The first episode is one of the best openers I've seen in a long time and there are a couple of brutal twists during the series.

Koby

One thing to note is Tokyo ESP and Ga Rei Zero are in the same universe and share some characters.

PhantomStranger

That's interesting, I hadn't seen Ga Rei Zero in many years and didn't realize the two shows were connected at all. Though now thinking about it, there are similarities in the action and a couple of the characters.

In my opinion Tokyo ESP is the better show. Remembering back, Ga Rei Zero started off from its ending and then showed how everything got there, which hurt a lot of the suspense for me. I did like the show but thought that hurt it.

Koby

To be fair, Ga Rei Zero is a prequel story to 'Ga Rei' so anyone who had any knowledge of the plot already knew exactly where it had to end up; hence starting there and then jumping back wasn't really a bad idea. I get how it might seem that way if you didn't already know what was to be though.

Honestly I'd love to see Ga Rei get an anime adaptation. I didn't care for Tokyo ESP.

OutRun2

Someone mentioned this anime called "Gate" and couldn't praise it highly enough. Any of you guys seen it?

Koby

I like Gate. It was announced as a split two-cour series. The second cour only has 2 episodes left before it completed. Seems like there is a lot more story that could be told though so I'm hopeful for another season announcement at some point. Cour 1 was pretty slow, but things have picked up in the second half. The characters are the best thing about the show.

TheBigDave

Gate is one of the best shows in the past year. I put the first season at #3 on my Top 10 of 2015 list. You should definitely watch it.

The first season only covered one light novel, and the second season covers two LNs. That's why the pacing has picked up. Personally, I preferred the pacing of the first season. It gave more time for the characters to interact with each other. The 2nd season feels kinda rushed to me.

This current season will be the end of the 3rd light novel. And there's 5 LNs total. I hope they come back for one more season to finish it up.

McHawkson

How about Eraser?

I already suspected who was the serial murderer couple episodes back and it was revealed recently. But that episode is probably got me thinking about how can the main character get out of trouble that he is about get killed by the serial murderer. Can't wait to see what happened next!

PhantomStranger

I've been enjoying Erased a great deal.

I think I know who the killer is as well.

Koby

Well they did finally show who it was in the last episode.

I had hoped it was a red herring...

McHawkson

Yeah, the biggest question is how will he get out of the situation he was in at end of last episode? He can't just "call" to go back in the future. If he's dead by drown and he can't be exist in the future.

That's what I'm looking forward to next one to see how he get out of the situation.

fujishig

Is the second season of GATE a lot better? Seemed like a bunch of political/national posturing about how infallible and altruistic the JSDF is. Did the guys in the other world actually start to put up a fight against the tanks and whatnot?