The schedule. First an addendum to last season. Netflix finally delivered an anime worth watching with Aggressive Retsuko. The original series (both have different canons) is slightly superior though, so watch it first. On to the promising shows and more Gintama is fine too, i guess:

Angolmois - Genkou Kassenki I haven´t tried the manga and will hold back my expectations due to that but the setting and character designs look neat. Especially if i consider how weirdly rare good chanbara anime became.

Attack on Titan S03 explains itself.

Banana Fish The manga is now 33 years old and is a gang drama set in 1973. Meaning that no one expected this adaptation to happen. I wonder who the target audience is, yet shows as this are what noitaminA was created for. It´s nice to see the imprint return to it´s roots during the last year. If only their film division could follow suit. The source material is a shoujo manga btw and rarely has a demographic fit less. I lastly advise to stay away if you can´t stand rape. The manga really went all out in that regard and frankly could have used less.

FLCL Progressive I wasn´t crazy about the April´s fool premier but it was good enough to go on for one more ep. Unlike the immediately incoherent and joyless FLCL Alternative from last season. All in all a sequel/reboot hybrid i could have done without, unless the team immediately pulls a 180.

The 3rd Attack on Titan compilation film and the last Lost Girls OVA are coming to Blu-ray. Rohan from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Golden Kamuy are further getting an OVA and the forever delayed Terra Formars OVA is also coming out. It´s by the 2nd studio, so i ain´t holding my breath. Especially if i consider the huge story gap this adaptation is about to create. The Death of Superman is also scheduled for this month.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 1:24 am, Sep 29 2018

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Overlord season 3 Surprising because I never expected madhouse to go over 1 season so quickly.

The nice thing about the staggered rollout of new shows this season is that I get to judge the new ones by more than one or two eps. before I write my little summaries.

Angolmois - Genkou Kassenki I checked out the manga and Ghost of Tsushima - The Animation is a very direct adaptation, outside of the opening to the pilot. The studio managed to outweigh the clear lack of money with a stylish art style and ep.1 was overall enjoyable if a bit simplistic. It would have been nice to get a less juvenile story but this is a young adult action show after all. The protagonist is at least likable and you just have to love his haircut. Ep. 2 was a bit of a mess though and somewhat cheap but ep3 was thankfully better. 7/10

Attack on Titan It´s really weird to see how straightforward the story used to be when compared to the last year and a half of the manga. The new OP is rubbish btw. 8/10
PS: The recent 2nd game by Omega Force pretty good btw.

Banana Fish More things work than not but the staff committed the worst sin they could have done. The setting was transplanted to present day and now utterly stopped making sense. The mean street of 80s NY don´t exist anymore, neither do Warrior style gangs, drugs culture changed and the desert wars didn´t have the same drug connection Vietnam had, yet here we are. The mafia also never worked like this and an openly gay and pederast don can´t exist in a post Sopranos world. The pilot further adapted over 120 pages and ep. 3 went equally fast. I could go on for hours if I wanted to deconstruct how MAPPA completely butchered the source material. Don´t get me started on the crazy dated and highly problematic gay stereotypes (this ain´t a BL manga/anime btw.), so I will just praise the quality animation and character designs and call it a day. I am still somewhat glad this show got made and now weirdly hope so see an equally period-setting-displaced Sanctuary come to live. Lol. Read the manga instead, watching the just concluded Pose S01 to see quality 80s gay fiction or jump right into Luke Cage S02 to see how important it is to change the story you adapt if you throw out the original (comic) setting. 6/10, on a good day.
PS: Ep. 2´s comment that Ash is gay is an anime original and presents the one change I like. His is Griffith-sexual in the manga.

FLCL Alternative Still has to air but saw the pilot. It´s not what i would call a strong opening, basically a more wacky K-On with some action, but it at least had some identity. Meaning that it´s immediately more appealing that the grading emo nonsense the FLCL Progressive pilot offered. I seriously had to force myself to even finish that opening ep. before i gave up on that seeming unrelated (?) show. Alternative though gets at least one more ep. to prove itself. 6/10

Planet With I accidentally overlooked this latest manga by Satoshi Mizukami despite being a fan for years. Hups. The show seemed at first like an amalgamation of his other work but clearly gained its own identity towards the end of the pilot. J.C. Staff could have done a better job of capturing his vibrant style but what else was expected… More shots work then don´t though. The manga (the anime is based on original storyboards by Mizukami, so I can´t call it the source material) is better paced and the artwork is more stylish, so that version would get a higher recommendation. It would have been nice to have his 6 volume Spirit Circle be adapted instead though. 7,5/10

At least 2 of the shows are good enough to finish and Angolmois seems pretty solid too. Planet With even mostly count as an original anime, which is the real accomplishment of the season.

All my ongoing anime are done. DuckTales, Steven Universe, Teen Titans Go and Voltron remain. Death of Superman is a solid action film with a well realized Doomsday but the script is more than questionable and overly crammed.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 11:43 am, Dec 21 2018

________________
I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb