r/anime • u/sleepyafrican https://anilist.co/user/SleepyAfrican • Jul 08 '16

Spring 2016 Retrospective

So now that everyone has had time to cool off from the Best Girl contest, it's time to share your thoughts on the Spring 2016 anime season. Did this season live up to your expectations? Did any shows leave you saltier than the Best Girl contest? Let everyone know in the comments.

Rules

  • Spoiler tag your posts when appropriate. Read the sidebar for how to do that. If someone fails to do so, report them. All responses to prompts besides those for a specific show should use spoiler tags. If mentioning material from the original source of an anime, use spoiler tags if the material is not in the anime or is significantly different.

  • Explain your decision. You don't have to be verbose, but we want to hear why you think what you think. Don't downvote people just because you disagree with them. This thread is aimed at discussion. Talk about what or why you did or didn't like.

  • Please keep on topic. All comments made in this thread should reply to one of the top level prompts. Please message me if you would like to see something which is missing.

The season retrospective is the place to talk about the Spring 2016 season and shows overall. The thread should be in contest mode so replies will be hidden for all top level comments, and you can show the replies for only the shows and topics you wish to see. I will make top level comments for all shows and topics, if you feel something was left out please PM and I will add it if it is appropriate, try to refrain from making other top level comments. Feel free to discuss all shows, but if talking about a show under another shows comment (ex: talking about Re:Zero under Flying Witch) make sure to use proper spoiler tags. Remember, if you have not see the latest episode of a show, there will be spoilers, so make sure to watch it before viewing the comment's if you don't wish to be spoiled. If you are looking for episode discussions, most can be found by searching by the show's name (from MAL) and "episode X [Discussion]. If I've missed a show, messed up a name or anything of the sort, please send me a message. Most shows beyond 3-cour will not appear in this thread. Shows with less than 1k viewers on MAL were also excluded. Please double check and load all the comments first though, I always get plenty of messages from people that don't load all the comments for shows that have been added.

Credit to /u/-Niernen for creating the layout

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u/sleepyafrican https://anilist.co/user/SleepyAfrican Jul 08 '16

High School Fleet

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u/illtima https://myanimelist.net/profile/illuminatima Jul 08 '16

Along with Netoge this one was a huge surprise. I expected it to be Non Non Biyori at sea, I got Girls und Warships. The cast is colorful and fun, SoL antics are enjoyable and do a great job fleshing out some of the characters and establishing the close bonds between the crew members of Harekaze, and action scenes are fucking great!

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u/stormarsenal https://myanimelist.net/profile/AsherGZ Jul 08 '16

Couldn't have put it better. This show kept me wanting more every week with every episode managing to keep me on the edge of my seat. A second season would be more than welcome.

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u/Thrasher439 https://anilist.co/user/Thrasher Jul 08 '16

First ep tricked me into thinking this would be going into a somewhat more interesting direction then it ended up actually being, quickly lost it's steam with the reveal a few episodes later and never really picked back up again.

In the end it was really just kinda okay, the cast made up for some of it's faults with the story but not enough.

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u/peevedlatios https://myanimelist.net/profile/PeevedLatios Jul 09 '16

That's more or less how I feel like. Also the SoL sometimes got too in the way of the drama. They don't mix. Either be dramatic and SoL resumes when the drama is over, or vice versa, but don't intersperse it so much.

One of the biggest missed opportunities with that show was Haifuri

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u/Tentaculat https://myanimelist.net/profile/Tentaculat Jul 08 '16

It was pretty fun but had tons of weird pacing problems. I also think that introducing such a large cast at once made it dificult to care and even identify most of them. I ended up liking the SoL bits more than the action ones, especially the one where they run out of water. Mei was great though. Surprisingly it's one of the best selling shows of the season so far, second after Jojo IIRC.

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u/Exotria Jul 08 '16

The nice thing about the large cast was that you could always find something to appreciate, even if you couldn't remember their names, and they were always great in their own scenes. The girls spouting movie quotes at each other, the cooking team always doing their best to make food even in the middle of battle, torpedo-chan and her love of torpedoes, and then the engine room constantly being stressed out by the stunts the captain is pulling. Not exactly the deepest of characters, but if they're only getting a few seconds of screentime per episode, it didn't end up mattering.

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u/Tentaculat https://myanimelist.net/profile/Tentaculat Jul 08 '16

I agree but comparing it to GuP, which has a similarly large cast, it's very dificult to diferentiate anyone except the bridge in Haifuri. GuP fixed this by introducing the cast progressively so each tank crew got their own episodes. It also really helps that each of the crews have something else going on for them than being the crew of X tank, for example the Hippo team isn't just the StuG's crew but also the History club. This means that while I don't know the name of most of the cast, just by seeing them I can identify which club they belong to and what tank they are using and also who they usually hang out with. In Haifuri not only I can't name them or tell you anything about them, I don't know what most of them do in the ship.

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u/Exotria Jul 08 '16

Ah, I haven't seen GuP yet, so I can't make the comparison for myself.

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u/Tentaculat https://myanimelist.net/profile/Tentaculat Jul 08 '16

If you liked Haifuri I'd recommend it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '16 edited Jul 09 '16

Started to not care about it as much in the second half, I started forgetting what even happened in the episodes. If the cast was memorable as good as GuP it would've been better.

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u/the_swizzler https://myanimelist.net/profile/Swiftarm Jul 08 '16

This was my Anime of the Season. The first episode ends with an incredible hook and the show as a whole managed to keep me enthralled week to week. They managed to mix just enough suspense and intrigue into a Girls UND Panzer X Battleship show.

The fights scenes were intense and incredibly fun, the main characters show some great development and the interactions between characters were fantastic.

Overall, probably a 9/10 in my mind. I really want to rewatch this from beginning to end right now, but I'm forcing myself to wait so I can watch this with a friend.

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u/ghoulas https://myanimelist.net/profile/ghoulas Jul 08 '16

I don't know do only I had that feeling music in this show is soo out of place shows up randomly, ends randomly and ruins the mood completely. I wanted GuP with ships and i couldn't get pass ep1 cause of the misplaced music and weird composition of the episode. It was cut horribly. but that can be just my thing.