Completed Series: Haikyuu!!

   Series: Haikyuu!! / ハイキュー!!
   Year: 2014 | Spring
   Episodes: 25
   Production: Production IG

   Official Summary: A chance event triggered Shouyou Hinata's love for volleyball. His club had no members, but somehow persevered and finally made it into its very first and final regular match of middle school, where it was steamrolled by Tobio Kageyama, a superstar player known as "King of the Court." Vowing revenge, Hinata applied to the Karasuno High School volleyball club... only to come face-to-face with his hated rival, Kageyama!

A tale of hot-blooded youth and volleyball from the pen of Haruichi Furudate!! (via MAL)

   Catie's Thoughts: I'd been circling this series for a while because, well. Haikyuu is everywhere, really. It's super-popular, got a big cast of male characters - it's a shounen sports anime ffs. I remember how Prince of Tennis kinda ate a huge chunk of my friendslist whole (although I could never get into it myself). So I waffled, and I was finally talked into watching it - and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Mainly, because I wasn't expecting a sports anime to be cute.

I almost called it quits during the first episode though, but it's certainly worth it to stick it out. Every single character in this show is amazing, and adorable in their own right. The relationships between the characters, Hinata's boundless enthusiasm, and the way that they grow and change certainly makes up for any bits lacking. Even the way the games are staged is nice, although near the end we certainly fell into the "people in the stands explaining everything" trope that makes me go ehhh. 

The animation is very much on point, and I can only hope that IG gets to do season 2 as well. I will be there for that, certainly.

Watch It: Crunchyroll

Completed Series: Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle

 Series: Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle / 棺姫のチャイカ AVENGING BATTLE
 Year: 2014 | Fall
 Episodes: 10
 Production: Studio BONES

 Official Summary: The search for the remains of Emperor Gaz continuous. Chaika still in search of knowing who she really is and what her purpose is. Similarly, the Red Chaika continues the search for the rest of Emperor Gaz's remains. The Gillette corporation continues the mission to catch every last Chaika. In their adventure they give a revealing account kept secret by the Emperor, which Chaika, Fredrica, Toru, and Akari decide to uncover. (via MAL)

 Catie's Thoughts: Technically this is just the second half of the series, but as there seems to be a trend of separating the shows by a season. The story picks right up where it left off with no silly thing as a recap to remind you where we were or what was going on.

I really did enjoy the show as a whole, however. Studio BONES does some nice things with their original shows, although the "here's the twist" thing is kind of getting - not old, but perhaps a bit predictable. However all the clues to where the show was going to end up were scattered through not only this season, but from the original season as well. 

This may just be my lack of memory regarding the first season, but it felt like the "whoops surprise here's our mentor we have to fight to the death now" thing came out of left field. I have a vague memory of a flashback from the first part of the show, so it may just be the fact that there was a half-year between that and this to blame. The last two episodes felt a bit rushed and too slow all at once, which is a weird pacing issue - I'm not sure I liked how quickly Toru just threw away his identity? It felt like it came out of nowhere, although he was much more a subtle character so I probably missed the signs. 

Overall I did like the show - it doesn't stand out among BONE's best by a wide margin, but even BONE's middling series are a head and shoulders above a lot of other studios.

Watch it: on Crunchyroll, where else

Completed Series: Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de

 Series: Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de / 異能バトルは日常系のなかで
 Year: 2014 | Fall
 Episodes: 12
 Production: TV Tokyo

 Official Summary: Half a year ago, the four members of a literature club, as well as the elementary school niece of their faculty adviser, were bestowed with supernatural powers. The boy in the club, Ando Jurai, became able to produce black flames. The girls acquired a variety of powerful abilities: Tomoyo could slow, speed, or stop time, Hatoko could control the five elements (earth, water, fire, wind, light), little Chifuyu could create things, and Sayumi could repair objects or heal living things. However, since they gained these powers, nothing has really changed in their everyday life. Why have they been given these powers in the first place? Will the heroic fantasy life they imagined these powers would bring ever actually arrive? (via MAL)

Catie's Thoughts: Meh. 

Okay, that's not fair. The series has an interesting premise, which is that there's this epic magical fairy war going on in the background that these kids have no idea about despite having developed random superpowers because of it. It's a slice of life as to what they're doing now, messing around with their powers and being generally nerds. However, underneath that premise is a basically by-the-numbers harem show complete with every girl falling in love with the rather-unlikable MC whose name I've already forgotten despite having just watched it two hours ago.

(It's in the preceding paragraph and I can't even be arsed to match it up.)

There's nothing really wrong with the show. It could be fairly charming, to the right person, I'm just disillusioned and quite bored with harem shows. The girls all have some interesting personalities underneath the stock harem tropes, I just would have been more on board with it if half the show wasn't devoted to each and every girl fawning over and falling for the again-uninspired lead male character.

Watch It: Crunchyroll