Myna’s Monthly Rankings – August 2012

Welcome to Myna’s Monthly Rankings. There shouldn’t really be any questions with my simple system, but I’ll go over it just in case. The tiers are self explanatory. Where they are placed is how I personally enjoyed them overall compared to all of the other shows. The + means it improved, the – means it got worse, and = means I thought more or less the same of it as last month. All right, now let’s get going.

Good Tier

(=) Natsuyuki Rendezvous (episodes 5-9) – I don’t know about you guys, but I really like the direction the story took with the fairy tale worlds and such. I think it’s brilliant. I also think that Natsuyuki might have the best characterization of the year.

(+) Space Brothers (episodes 19-20) – I’m actually astounded by how much I have grown attached to these five almost astronauts. Somewhere in this arc, the writers found the flawless balance between the comedy and drama and the result is amazing. Despite the fact I think this arc dragged on just an episode or two too long, it really payed off in the long run. I agree with Mutta: I wish all five of them could be astronauts.

(-) Humanity Has Declined (episodes 6-9) – So far, Humanity’s biggest flaw would be its inconsistency. Despite this, each arc has shown a different strength: the Pioneer/Voyager episodes delivered genuine emotion with some toned down but still eccentric humor. But I thought the second time loop episode was a bit tedious to watch. Thankfully the island civilization one was really great.

(+) Hyouka (episodes 16-19) – The cultural festival arc was absolutely brilliant. What made it work was the superb balance between character development, how it integrated flawlessly with the story, and the subtle and elegant exposition of the mystery elements. As much as I hate to admit it, that single arc made those god awful first few episodes completely worth it. Unfortunately, the follow up mysteries were a bit lackluster in comparison.

Okay Tier

(-) Moyashimon Returns (episodes 5-9) – And this is where I finally start agreeing with everyone else: this sequel is definitely a step down from the first season. Something about this journey to France arc just isn’t working for me.

(=) Yuruyuri♪♪ (episodes 6-9) – Yuruyuri’s second season has been a bit lackluster overall. However I must say that the episode seven’s segment with Akarin’s sister completely took me surprise and creeped me out a bit. But it was hilarious. Any sketch with Sakurako and Himawari are always great, and the Christmas episode was really amusing, too.

(-) Smile PreCure! (episodes 27-29) – After the first climax with Pierrot and the Bad End Kingdom last month, there was just no way that this month was going to match up. So instead we got some more filler episodes. Perhaps the absolute worst part is that we have to see both the normal and the Pegasus transformation sequences each episode now. It’s actually ridiculous. It also means that there will most likely be another upgrade. I wonder what those will be like…

(=) Eureka Seven Ao (episodes 16-18) – I think there’ something to be said about not missing this show at all while it was on Olympic hiatus. I just don’t give a damn.  Team Goldilocks disappeared? I don’t care. I didn’t know them. They were nice girls…I think. But the show gave me absolutely no reason to be concerned for them. Things are only interesting for me whenever Eureka is there. And I was never a big fan of her to start with. That really tells you something, doesn’t it? On the bright side, I think the ending sequence is adorable! The song’s fine, too.

Shit Tier

(=) Dog Days’ (episodes 5-9) – Not much happened this month, it was mostly mucking around and doing silly shenanigans. (Oh, wait…) And when the hell are we at least going to get a fucking duet with Milhi and Rico? We all know Nana is the better singer. Bias notwithstanding.

(+) Uta Koi (episodes 6-9) – I’ve liked the last couple of episodes. But I’m still far from being a fan of this anime. And I still can’t completely justify why. Something about it just doesn’t click with me, and I’m having trouble figuring out what it is.

(-) Sword Art Online (episodes 5-9) – SAO’s direction continues to be awful. It’s similar to Fractale where it uses drama for the sake of drama. Griselda’s ghost appears? That makes no sense in a show that already requires its audience to suspend its disbelief. Asuna calls out Grimlock on his beyond obvious possessiveness and he collapses? No. That is dumb. At this point, SAO is just fanfiction in motion. Especially after the Eureka Seven-esque scene where Lizbeth confesses her ~LOVE~ That was….ow. As of the most recent episode, the inevitable happened: Asuna has officially started her progression into a weak female character who is turning into Kirito’s housewife. It’s been extremely satisfying watching SAO’s MAL rank slowly declining, even though its number is still ludicrously high.

(new) Who is Imouto? (episodes 1-8) – I’m not exactly sure why I decided to watch this. Maybe I was just curious as to how dumb this really was. And I’m not sure what it’s trying to do. Is it supposed to be a parody? (If so, it’s failing.) Is it trying to be a gripping mystery? (The real mystery is how this shit got animated in the first place.) Is it trying to be bad? (If so, it passes with flying fucking neon colors.)