[Summer 2016] Season of Key

[Mouse2010]

Aww, this thread is so inactive. I guess the board is slowing down even more?

I've been watching this season; I just haven't had time to post. Currently caught up on Orange up through episode 8, and on Sweetness and Lightening through episode 7. For Orange, I'd have to say that I really have no idea where the plot will go from here. I can't tell how successful the friends are going to be in their mission to save Kakeru. And maybe the bigger thing is that I'm not sure how I want the series to end. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: I really like Naho x Suwa, especially the 20-somethings with their cute baby. I don't want them to save Kakeru but lose that part of the future. So I have very mixed feelings.

As for Sweetness and Lightening, I've noticed some interesting omissions from the manga. I understand that they have to skip some episodes, but there was one scene in particular that I'm surprised they missed, from the end of the first volume of the manga. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: It's the part where Iida-san walks home and finds herself thinking "If only he weren't my teacher!," thus revealing her crush on sensei. I suspect that they are not skipping it entirely, but rather moving it later in the series. But the alternative is that maybe they are downplaying that element of the series to make it less potentially objectionable.

[MangaRocks!]

For Orange, I'd have to say that I really have no idea where the plot will go from here. I can't tell how successful the friends are going to be in their mission to save Kakeru. And maybe the bigger thing is that I'm not sure how I want the series to end. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: I really like Naho x Suwa, especially the 20-somethings with their cute baby. I don't want them to save Kakeru but lose that part of the future. So I have very mixed feelings.

^ There's an answer to this that might help a bit with those feelings, though it is slightly spoilery in terms of revealing which particular variant of SPOILER: Highlight text to read: time-travel is being used in the series.

Slightly-spoilery answer: SPOILER: Highlight text to read: The version of time-travel being used here creates an alternate timeline when the letter is sent back-- so, technically, the original timeline (with Naho x Suwa included) still exists (and always will), no matter what happens in the new alternate timeline.

[EventualDay]

Aww, this thread is so inactive. I guess the board is slowing down even more?

Aww I hope not. I don't post much but I love this site... it really makes me happy to skim all of the different threads and topics. Maybe I'll try to lurk a little bit less.




Though I'm not watching a whole lot this season, so I'm pretty much useless in this particular conversation, haha. To be honest, mostly I'm keeping up with the second cour of last season's Re:Zero, which is a phenomenal if flawed show. It does a satisfying amount of work on playing with gamer tropes and "hero travels to another world" cliches. But, that isn't really a summer show, so I'm not sure a full discussion is really warranted here.

Otherwise, this season I'm watching B-Pro (which is about as terribly silly as everyone predicted) and Cheer Boys! The latter had a lot of potential for fantastic animation since it's about cheerleading, and hypothetically tumbling and other acrobatic-type skills. But to my intense disappointment there's actually a lot of still shots and frozen frames. So far I'm pretty sure the most movement any episode has had has been in the opening :/ So I'll still finish it, but I'm falling behind on the episodes because I'm just not that excited to watch them...


On a slightly unrelated note, I just saw the live action film for Orange. I'm excited to compare the anime to it as a different medium, but not right away Maybe in a few months.

[Terabyte]

Summer 2016 is a really good season in my opinion. I've been watching three series and I have been really enjoying them:

Orange: (I'm on episode 10 at the moment) This is a neat show about a girl getting a letter from herself from ten years in the future, so that she can try to erase her regrets from the past. Each episode is packed with emotion, and I'd definitely recommend it if you're a fan of romance or drama. There's also a bit of comedy, though that's not the focus. All in all, I think this is my favorite series of summer '16 so far. It's even inspired me to pick up the manga, which is just as good if not better.

Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru/This Art Club Has a Problem!: (8/12) This show is a slice of life comedy that focuses on a group of school kids and their art club. It doesn't really have a story at all and it's mostly episodic, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Actually, I feel like this show is rather underrated. I really enjoy watching this show and it manages to make me laugh often. It's definitely worth a try.

Sweetness and Lightning/Amaama to Inazuma: (5/12) While I haven't even watched half of the show yet, I have enjoyed it a lot so far. It's about a dad and his daughter...and food. It's very sweet and lighthearted (as the name may suggest) and just fun to watch. One of the reasons I like it so much is the character of the little girl. It's very believable in my opinion, and relatable in my case since I have a 5 year old sister. Though she's not, uh, as well behaved as Tsumugi on the show, lol. But they both say funny things.

[John_Smith]

I think I’ll jump in here at least once before the season ends.

Rewrite (1-11): Key, what happened to you? This show has terrible, terrible execution. It’s the first Key series where I thought, ‘huh, it’s like a visual novel adaptation.’ Somehow, I found myself still looking forward to watching it each week (am I that easily entertained by supernatural themes?).

It is interesting how they’ve managed to use some of the more cliché/whacky stuff at the beginning and make it plot relevant. I love how this show (and Clannad) handle magic; as being everywhere and commonplace, and not very extraordinary (at first!). The way how they just wave away the existence of supernatural creatures as just ‘some undiscovered animal.’ An elephant is fantasy until you go to Africa (or India); a dragon is fiction, until you come across the skull of a T-rex; a Star Trek communicator is science-fiction until you have cell phones.
By making supernatural ordinary, they’ve made the ordinary supernatural.

I also love how they played off the old school club setting; The various members being SPOILER: Highlight text to read: a part of different factions waging a secret fantastic war against one another, is a very cool idea… unfortunately the bad execution has prevented it from really going anywhere.

The one aspect of the show which I can offer nothing but praise for (and something which I rarely take notice of) is the voice acting. Particularly for the actresses behind Kotori and Kagari. Amidst the sea of high pitched squeaky moe, their voices are really distinctive, and the humor revolving around them is usually spot on (for me anyway).

…Don’t kill me Kaze. I can see how the source material could be better. There’s a lot of good stuff there, it’s mainly just the execution that kills it.

I so did not mean to make that pun. Does that even count as a pun? Still it was unintentional, and it's staying.




Orange (1-11): A shojo with soft science fiction and dealing with SPOILER: Highlight text to read: suicide, that should be more than enough to keep it very interesting. While it has kept my interest… I have my grievances. Mainly in that, I feel like each episode is just Naho relearning the same lesson about coming out of her shell. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: You have a life to save, get on with it girl! When it comes to romance in stories, the one trope I can’t stand and Orange has inadvertently set off is the indecisive love-triangle. I can do love triangles. It’s the indecisiveness that I can’t stand. This one is unusual, because both Naho and Kageru are being indecisive while the third member is pushing the two together (Dear Lord, how indecisive would Naho be if Suwa wasn’t being the better man?!)

But, despite that complaint, each episode does seem to sort of… dig deeper? Each episode has its special moment which I can appreciate.

Also, I’ve found my anime kindred spirit. I swear, Hagita and I have the same personality!

SPOILER: Highlight text to read: I really like Naho x Suwa, especially the 20-somethings with their cute baby. I don't want them to save Kakeru but lose that part of the future.

SPOILER: Highlight text to read: I haven’t been following the talk around Orange, but I’ve figured that everyone’s pretty much rooting (or rooted, for you manga people) for Suwa. But I agree: save Kageru first, then ship.





Arslan Season 2 (1-8 complete): In summery, not as good as the first season. The main reason being that very little that happens is actually consequential to the overarching plot, and the best parts are all set up for a potential third season. Furthermore, it needed those 4 or so more episodes to really sell its plot. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: King Andragoras’ escape should have been amazing, but instead it just turned out okay. Shagard needed more fleshing out in order to be the impactful villain he was supposed to be.

Now, it was nice to see Etoile finally realize that Team Arslan is the place to be. I find her to probably be the most interesting character in the series. I really like how they don’t simply depict the Lusitania religion as evil. Instead, we have Etoile who genuinely cares about the Parsians (albeit, in her own, overzealous way). Different people interpreting the same religion to different conclusions… basically how it is in real life. The one problem with her character was her complete naivety that the people she worked for are complete villains… but this season dealt with that.

I also liked seeing Aralan deciding to disregard his father… but we don’t see the consequences of it!
Overall, I gave the season a passable 7.


I feel so negative. None of my shows this season quite lived up to my expectations.

Though I'm not watching a whole lot this season, so I'm pretty much useless in this particular conversation, haha. To be honest, mostly I'm keeping up with the second cour of last season's Re:Zero, which is a phenomenal if flawed show. It does a satisfying amount of work on playing with gamer tropes and "hero travels to another world" cliches. But, that isn't really a summer show, so I'm not sure a full discussion is really warranted here.

By that you mean that it started last season, in the spring, right? But it's still airing, for a another week or so? I would go for it. I had a similar situation with the 2nd cour of Assassination Classroom; but nobody came and hunted me down with an axe.

...Okay, I looked it up, and the last episode seriously just aired, so maybe I'm a little late.

[KazeShiki]

…Don’t kill me Kaze. I can see how the source material could be better. There’s a lot of good stuff there, it’s mainly just the execution that kills it.

Haha, well first of all, no, no you don't see how the source material could be better. The anime hasn't even begun to touch on what makes Rewrite so good. There's basically an entire 2nd half left that is akin to the After Story of Clannad. You don't watch the first half of Clannad and call that an accurate depiction of how emotional Clannad gets in its later stages. But that said...man I hate the Rewrite anime so much. I may write a rant post after the finale airs but you're pretty spot on in regards to some of the problems the anime has. I have nothing to say to defend the anime. All I have left is the sliver of hope that the 2nd season will make up for it.

[Mouse2010]

It's ironic that it's been so long since I've posted, seeing as the last time I posted, I was complaining about how inactive this thread was! Ooops.

Orange episode 11: What I liked about this episode was that SPOILER: Highlight text to read: everyone tried to convince Suwa that it was okay to confess his feelings to Naho. I'm torn between admiring him for being noble and being frustrated at his willingness to set aside his feelings. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: The theory of different worlds is nice and all, and I appreciate that he and Naho get to be a couple in the other timeline, but I think I still wanted Suwa to be with Naho in BOTH worlds. I guess that's a little unreasonable of me, but I just like him better than Kakeru.

Sweetness and Lightening, ep 11. Am I right that the next episode is the last episode of the series? Or at least, of the season? I'm a little surprised. It looks like they are not going to end it at the place where I thought they'd end it. But I'll have to wait and see.

[KazeShiki]

Rewrite rant incoming. Lots of VN spoilers about what the anime skipped, and why anime-only viewers don't actually understand anything.

First of all, the common route of the first 6 or 7 episodes is passable. Fine, the characters don't get as much development as they deserve, but an anime's gonna anime. You get the basics: a bunch of girls and MC make a club and do dumb stuff while the supernatural slowly begins to build into the climax that was halfway through the season. But then the anime proceeds to overuse bad comedy instead of, I don't know, explaining the situation? The Rewrite VN has 5 heroine routes which all greatly expand on what is going on in different ways, the different viewpoints of each side, and why, in the end, nobody is right.
Kotori SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Let's begin with the childhood friend Kotori who was probably best explained in the anime, if poorly. After losing her parents in an accident, she stumbles upon the inherited knowledge of a druid and gains it in exchange for protecting the Key. She turns her parents and dog into familiars who obey her every command, devoid of any personality, and so while she appears to be a cheerful, friendly girl on the surface, she suffers from crippling guilt and loneliness due to what she has done to those around her. She is neither on the side of Gaia or Guardian, and as a result, has to fight both organizations by herself. Needless to say, she fails - in a rather traumatic way. The anime briefly touches on what is still kind of a spoiler at this point, but I might as well make a comment here due to how the anime handled it: when she inserted Kagari's ribbon into Kotarou's arm to save his life, it is questionable whether he became a familiar or not. Kotori has to constantly live with this feeling of unease as to whether or not Kotarou is acting because he is still who he is or because he is now her familiar who is influenced by her desires. The anime showed a flashback where Kotori rejects Kotarou's confession of love, and this is why - because she doubts the sincerity of his feelings. Kotarou on the other hand, is unaware of all of this. Is he still acting on his own self or is he really just subconsciously a puppet of Kotori? Is he still the childhood friend Kotori can place her trust in or is he but a hollow existence without the freedom to give her what she desires?
Shizuru - I suppose Shizuru's route is not really needed to rant on. It has some interesting stuff, but in the end, it was just very "Key-esque" in how it was super adorable and super romantic but also super sad. A lot of the plot points in Shizuru's route crosses over with other routes, so I'll rant on those below.
Chihaya SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Oh, Chihaya. She tries so hard but her character, and even her own route, is greatly overshadowed by Sakuya. And what did the anime show about Sakuya? He's strong, knows about Kotarou's powers, and apparently transforms into a giant monster? I don't know what anime viewers got out of it but it couldn't have been much. From the very beginning, Sakuya hates Kotarou. It comes off as dumb jokes, but he really does hate Kotarou. Why? Because if Kotarou is Shirou, Sakuya is Archer. Kotarou's Rewrite powers have been held by one other person in the distant past: Sakuya. Sakuya overused his Rewrite powers and evolved beyond a human, turning into a tree (dumb, but significant if you paid attention to how many giant trees Rewrite has) and a familiar, who eventually is found by Chihaya and the two form a contract. Sakuya hates Kotarou because he sees his former self. And so, the relation between the two turns into that of a mentor-mentee. The anime barely touches the surface of this without explaining anything...Sakuya doesn't want Kotarou to repeat his own mistakes, and yet, Kotarou is determined to protect those he loves. In the end, Sakuya turns into the uncontrollable giant familiar you see 5 seconds of and it becomes an emotional and fateful battle of mentor and mentee while simultaneously foreshadowing Kotarou's own future. Oh, but the anime took all that out while keeping in the giant Sakuya. Okay.
Lucia SPOILER: Highlight text to read: The anime portrays Guardian as more like the good guys. Lucia's route shows you just how wrong and twisted they can be. The anime does a terrible job explaining something really simple: Lucia's superpowers is that of vibrations (breaking glass, etc.). However, her poison powers originate from literally human experimentation. She is a victim of mad scientists seeking to play god and modify humans to their liking. So, it can really be said Lucia's problems and stigma come from Guardian itself. While her route wasn't all that great, it did involve turning Lucia into a human weapon by making her poison powers go out of control, as a certain person basically uses Lucia to kill off the entire city. I admit I forget some of the finer details, but the anime really completely ignored this aspect of Guardian.
Akane SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Not only does the anime fail to show parts of Guardian, it also fails to show how much Gaia is a victim, other than that really random short flashback of their ancestors getting killed. Basically, Gaia members are often very depressed people who feel there is no hope in the world. They often have traumatic pasts (a bunch of Midou's childhood friends getting killed off by Guardian) with no one to rely on or trust. While it's not an excuse for their actions, it does show you just how very human they are in their weakness to fall into despair and hatred. Additionally, if you recall that one random guy who said "wait don't go kill people" before he got eaten by a raptor, he's actually an incredibly major character who is practically the #2 leader of Gaia. In actuality, Gaia is split into 2 factions - Suzuki's faction which wants to use threat of the Key to control the world (akin to being the only power in the world to have nuclear weapons or something of that nature) and Sakura's faction which just wants to destroy the world because they hate it. There is so much political complexity going on inside Gaia, and you really miss out on all of it from the anime. Akane's descent into madness was kind of done well, and the VN also comes with a rather great line as Kotarou punishes Akane for what she does to the world: "I'm going to make you live. Live, and suffer. Until you forgive yourself, I'll be by your side." I'm pretty sure I butchered that quote, but the implication of him forcing her to repent for her sins with actions (that isn't suicide), endure the suffering, and learn to love life again - all while he is there to support her; wow, that was really powerful in the VN.
SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? SPOILER: Highlight text to read: It is heavily implied, if not outright stated, that the world is destroyed in every heroine route. It doesn't matter if Gaia or Guardian "won." The world ends because Kagari destroys it or the world ends because of wasteful, selfish humans. At the very end of the Rewrite anime, we see something that implies...something. Regardless, the true story of Rewrite has not even begun. The story of how to save the world and humanity. The story of warring humans, none of whom are right, learning to come together towards a common goal. Rewrite is a story about finding hope in a hopeless situation, finding the sole path to the salvation of humanity. I do hope the 2nd season does Moon/Terra justice, but I guess I'll have to wait a few months to see.

[Mouse2010]

So . . . let me talk about Sweetness and Lightening. The final episode was perfect in and of itself, but I actually found it very unsatisfying as a conclusion to the series. I think that this is one of those cases where having read the manga gave me unrealistic expectations for the anime. This is not a high-drama series, but there are some moments a little later in the manga with more tension and more resolution, and I had kind of assumed that the anime would end after working through one of those issues. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Particularly, I am thinking of the part of the manga where they think they may have to stop cooking together due to the restaurant opening.

Also, I have mixed feelings about the way SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Kotori's crush on Inuzuka-sensei was handled. Basically it does not exist in the anime; at best it might be subtly hinted at in one or two scenes. In some ways that's better because it's more appropriate, but I felt like that took out some of the dramatic potential in the story. In the manga, there were definitely a couple of issues where the question of SPOILER: Highlight text to read: How is she going to handle her feelings for him? created more tension in the plot.

That said, if there are any plans in the works for a second season, I could see a second season building on the first season and being even better because of the gradual build up to some of the more dramatic parts of the manga.