Overall Winter 2016 is pretty thin on shows that I would watch, with the exceptions to a few late-coming gems, pretty shitty season…Candy store probably best of season.

Dagashi Kashi – This is an excellent fun show about a small candy store in the country and the people that run it and others who live in the town. This is basically Non Non Biyori alternative slice of life with a light comedy harem angle mixed with junk food commercialism and advertising, I love it. So we have main faggot guy, he wants to be a manga artist, but his dad want’s him to take over the family business which is a small candy store selling junk food, small treats and other cheap stuff for kids. Cute super hype rich girl with purple hair comes in one day and starts talking about how great junk food and cheap candies are to the main guy and eventually tells them that she is the daughter of a big food company CEO and was tasked to buy this store. Main guy’s dad is like neverrr, not as long as I’m alive but as long as my son takes over, sure. lol wut. Main boy, reluctant to accept his fated responsibilities is like nooo, but main girl is like, ok; I will live in this town and visit the store everyday until I convince you to inherit the store since it’s so great. Thus setting the basic premise of the show. Main guy also has a friend who wears sunglasses at night and run’s a cafe which he visits for advice, bro’s blonde sister is pretty good, funny kinda of hoodlum gangster girl, lol jokes, childhood friend, default win. While the main guy’s faggot level is very high, it’s very well offset by the 2 main girls so his annoyance is kept to a minimum. They comedic level of this show is very high, with the main girl often going into a hyperbole mode when eating/taking about treats, same for main guy’s dad with occasional parodies of anime and other popular media; such as Gundam. Excellent animation and character designs, the girls look great, concept top notch slice of life element but has story backing, good, high energy comedy and meta level advertising, excellent voice acting, especially by the 2 main girls. Within less than 5 minutes of watching this show I knew that I was going to follow this shit. One of the best this season, watching for sure.

Dimension W – This show is alright, basically a few decades from now in the future the cost of gas has increased to 30x in comparison to what it is today and because of that, lead people to research into new sources of energy and discover the existence of “W” dimension which apparently can be harnessed for unlimited free clean energy. The New Tesla energy company, which takes advantage of this discovery makes little circle things called “coils” to power everything, basically next gen-batteries with extremely high energy output. The world is basically fueled by coils by Tesla now but some people want to upgrade/bootleg coils because that shit is expensive, criminals. The main guy of this show is an old-school mechanic who refuses to use coils and despite it’s cost still drives an old car fueled by gas and such. Main guy’s real job is underground “Collector” who does illegal work selling, collecting and buying un-authorized coils in the black market. So basically we have old-school badass that fights using throwing knives doing badass things in this near future. Main guy meets robot girl during one of his jobs which tries to steal his coils and ends up taking her or something. Some shit happen and main robot girl get’s taken by main guy and robot girl’s “Dad” or creator blows himself up after the police find him or something. Character designs are good, animation pretty good and concept pretty interesting. The main guy is pretty cool, girl is ok too but could have been better. Main opening sequence is pretty hype good song and nice dancing by the main guy. Will probably watch more of this and see how it goes.

Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut– Pretty bait ass show based off light novel. Follows the standard formula for light novel school-magic/mecha setting. So we have main faggot, which is even more faggot because they didn’t even give him a male voice actor and he is the usual transfer student to this rich mainly all girls academy that trains Dragnites or something like that. Dragnites or whatever they are called are basically mechas that kind of resembles dragons which the students use to transform, they normally take on the form of a weapon when not being used, like a sword or spear. So we have main guy here, first scene is him somehow falling into the girls bath and falling on-top of the main girl, usual reactions occur between the two and such. Main girl is standard tsundere, ok, blonde, rich girl who is the princess of the ruling kingdom that they are in. Main guy is the prince of a conquered kingdom that the main girl’s father conquered. Mild tensions occur but after some bullshit mock battle between them and then getting interrupted by some real threat, and main guy basically saves her, she then shows her standard tsundere character type and begins to like him. The girl uniforms in this show are pretty good and the mecha are ok, kind of shitty, like infinite stratos where the person is basically exposed like an exoskeleton riding on the front of the mecha but better than most. Decent character designs, decent animation, boring ass generic concept, bad main character, standard light novel action harem fare. Whatever, might watch more due to lack of other better content.

Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm – This show is pretty good because the waifu potential is very high, all the girls shown so far are all very well designed and attractive. So basically we got some school life setting, we have main guy, he is main guy nothing of particular note or noteworthy character traits, not that undesirable and faggot level not that high, tolerable. Main pink haired girl is the air-headed hype type of character who just moved into the town. She meets main guy on the street because she lost her house keys on the beach sands, ok. Other bunch of cute girls show up to help, other girls are pretty cute too/funny, dark blue haired girl and light brown hair are nice. They do some shit and then talk about making it on time for class, they then do some shit with their shoes and they have wings appear on their shoes with energy, they can fly now. Ok, so we have this kind of magic/magi-tech thing going on. Main pink girl is new to this and sucks, noobs it up. Eventually make it on time to school. After school, the 3 main waifus end up meeting waifu 4 on the beach, which is a blonde ojousama type girl from another school, apparently beating down and insulting some guy she just beat in “Flying Circus”, a flying aerial sport which uses these magical flight shoes. Ok, so this is where the show is going, fucking harem waifu sport competition show. Of course main pink hair girl can’t stand for this beat down and challenges the blond rich girl to the sport, obviously not knowing what the sport actually is. The usual foregone conclusion to this kind of scenario is that pink girl shows blonde rich girl wrong, and that’s exactly what happens here in standard anime fashion. As mentioned the character designs are very good, all of the girls are very attractive and their uniform designs are all good, all of the girls are cute and have good personalities. What’s actually a bit surprising to me is the level of moe comedic value all of the girls inject into the show with derp joke faces, chibi modes/cut-scenes is very high, which is great. What we have here then is basically a moe harem, get girl show that tries to disguise itself as a sport/competition story and does a pretty good job of it so far. Excellent attractive character designs, animation, good concept, pacing, will probably watch more to see how it goes.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu – This is a like a 1 hour opening episode which I put off watching at first because shit, I don’t have time for a full hour of this shit but later got around to watching anyways. Time period is like the mid-late 60’s maybe early 70’s Japan, not entirely sure since my memory of Japanese era’s is kind of hazy but yea, it’s in the past. Main guy just got out of jail, and has nothing but wants to start learning Rakugo, the Japanese art of performance storytelling so he goes to some old man which is pro at it and begs him to become his apprentice. At first old man refuses but ends up taking him in anyways. At old pro guys house main guy meets a girl about his age which is the daughter of old pro guy’s rival/friend but died, so he took her in and raised her. They initially don’t get along but over time they come to terms with each other because main guy ends up liking the Rakugo of her father, and get along, basically future waifu for the main guy. Cue training practice period of main guy trying to be pro at storytelling. After some time old man puts him on stage for first time, does a pretty good job. Later main guy’s former gang boss comes to visit and tries to convince him to come back into crime gangster work, old man defends him, asks boss man to watch him, boss man watches main guy, does a pretty good job, boss man leaves because he thinks he’s good and can survive on Rakugo. Next segment basically has main guy asked to open for old man on such short notice, does a shitty job, but not only that falls asleep offstage when old man is performing snoring, old man can’t take this bullshit, expels main guy. Main guy so sad and depressed, kind of laughable. Goes back to house anyways and talks to girl, convince him to beg old man to forgive him. Said begging occurs. Said forgiveness occurs. Story continues. Despite about 20-30% of the show being actual anime Rakugo storytelling segments, this was a pretty entertaining show with alot of character and drama which is pretty unique. Decent character designs, unique and interesting concept/story and good pacing. Watch more for now.

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt – Jazzy Gundam show set in UC timeline. Basically shit happens in Amuro’s world but main character is not Amuro or Char and some other fools fight stuff in space. Yea, whatever, I think they are treating this show like what they did for Gundam Unicorn, meaning like 1 new episode every once in a while. With that in mind, it is safe to say that I can ignore this until 2020+ when it when it will likely be done. Nice animation, unique character designs, intense sharp lines, very jazzy music score and theme, alright. Get back to me in a couple of years, whatever.

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! – zzzzzzzzzzzzz another take on the “yo, the game is real life” kind of anime, no doubt based on a light novel. So we have main fag, he’s otaku and shit right, so he gets up early morning to go to town and pickup the latest game, special edition. He lives far way, in the country, seems like every anime is trying to copy the setting of Non Non Biyori and on his way back home, he sees a girl who is about to be hit by a car; trying to be a hero or something he does the standard and kills himself by pushing her out of the way. Next thing he sees is some goddess of the afterlife, both of them chilling in limbo. Tell the boy, you dead son; tough luck, boy is like ah man, at least I didn’t die in vain; the goddess then proceeds to correct that statement telling him that he fully died in vain, with details such as how the girl was in no danger, how it wasn’t even a car, but a tractor, how it didn’t even hit him and that he died of a heart attack/fear due to the shock and how everyone was laughing at him when he died because it was such a pussy’s death. After more banter goddess offers him a choice, go to “heaven”, be re-incarnated or a third option, which is to have his existence restored in another alternate dimension with full memories and shit along with one wish or request of power to take with him, as in that world there are like orcs and shit and a demon king that is ruining the world, basically fantasy game world. Third choice is obviously chosen and his wish it to take the goddess with him. Goddess is like wtf yo is this allowed? Some other goddess is immediately summoned to take over her job, good luck bitches. Fag is like hahaha too bad bitch, goddess is like nooooo. They end up in standard bait town 154551654 in fantasy world. They do the usual and become adventurers and get classes/jobs, etc. The concept for this show is not too bad, they put a decent spin in the game world thing but my biggest complaint from this show is that the character designs and animation are butt ugly pieces of shit. Shading is where? Guess everyone is flat solid colors in this world except for the background. Guess lines don’t have to connect with each other aslong as color is between there somewhere. Yea, good enough, right? Background extra characters? Sure we can draw those, we can save time by making them look even more derp and shit than the main characters, which are already pretty bad. Yea, this is one of those shows that could have been good, but failed hard in so many ways. The guy is fag, girl is ugly, poor designs and based on op sequence, the other band of girls they get doesn’t get any better, all derps. Nope, watch something else.

Sushi Police – This is a 3d animated mini show about a bunch of japanese businessmen/robots who can’t stand how sushi is evolving around the world and goes and beats down people/places that are not making traditional edomae sushi. Obviously this takes them to California and other places in America/world and they do stupid shit and people go and criticizes them and such. Yea, I’m not entirely sure what this show is ultimately trying to pull, are they saying I can’t have my California roll and green dragon roll? That I should be killed? That’s what is looks like to me but in the end I’d like to think that they will come to the eventually conclusion that all sushi and rolls, no matter how crazy nontraditional it is, is still cool. That’s what I hope. If not, wtf is this showing trying to do then, the guys in the show say this is to prep the world for 2020 Japan Olympics and to make straight their culinary culture with the world but it’s not exactly conveying the most welcoming of messages. I wouldn’t really call this anime, since they don’t resemble anything like traditional anime, ironically but more of dreamworks/pixar kind of animated short. Yea, probably not watch more but we’ll see.

There are a few more lagging behind new shows that will start in Feburary but even then it is safe to say then that this season is pretty dry with content. How many times do I have to summarize “yo, the game is real life” or “fag, goes to school magic light novel” kind of fare? Well, at least there are those One-Punch Man OVA specials that get released with the blu-rays to keep me up throughout the winter and beyond…

Will probably watch for sure: Musaigen no Phantom World, Dagashi Kashi, Ooyasan wa Shishunki!, Oshiete! Galko-chan, Sekkou Boys, Assassination Classroom S2, Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, Ojisan to Marshmallow, Koukaku no Pandora

On the fence: Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm, Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut, Dimension W, Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R, Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Tabi Machi Late Show

Worst shows: Norn9 – Norn+Nonet, Divine Gate, Hai to Gensou no Grimgar, Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!