Right off the heels of one of the weakest overall seasons in recent memory, anime is back and summer is bringing the heat! By the end of this past spring, I think we here at FGJ had finished a combined like…6 shows? In comparison, we’re covering triple that in this loaded round of first impressions. But how many are we sticking with—and which ones? Some obvious choices and some oddball surprises alike made the cut. Let’s run ’em down!
For better or worse this past season will go down as one of the overall weakest since we started FGJ, but there were still a handful of shows Yata and Haru watched to completion and even (*gasp*) enjoyed. Which ones made the cut? Which ones flopped? Is anyone really prepared for next season yet or are we all deluding ourselves? The answers to those first two questions below on this seasonal final thoughts installment of For Great Justice.
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s an extremely underwhelming mid-season update in terms of quantity. This time around, Yata’s the only one participating and he’s only watching…four seasonals. As such, this rundown will be brief, but it’s better than nothing. Find out what some of this spring’s most renowned titles and an outlier or two have been up to on this short and sweet For Great Justice update.
Thunderstorms are blowing through and allergies are ramping up, which can only mean one thing: spring is here, and with it, a whole new slate of anime to check out! This time around, notable premiering titles include Sarazanmai, Carole & Tuesday, and…
[checks the charts] oh. wow.
Okay, no beating around the bush, there’s not a whole lot else to watch this season, but that didn’t stop the two of us here at For Great Justice from giving most things a chance anyway and picking up a few surprises. Which other series struck our fancy? Which will be relegated to the Seasonal Anime Broiler? And is Sarazanmai really worth the hype? (spoiler: yes). Find out below on this batch of first impressions!
Another season down, another season to go. This upcoming spring looks a bit less stacked in comparison, but it’s not time to focus on that just yet. No, here Yata and Haru are back to wrap up their takes on the best this past winter had to offer…and a few other shows. Which ones were our favorites despite the stiff competition? Which ones ultimately let us down? How do they all stack up? Find out below in our winter 2019 final thoughts.
I’m two months late with this one, but I wasn’t gonna abandon this annual tradition entirely. I don’t know about the rest of you, but 2018 felt like a relatively weak year for OPs, though there were still some remarkable standouts and a plethora of solid enough contenders fighting to round out this top 25. If you’ve been following For Great Justice for a while, you’re likely already familiar with my OP and ED-grading criteria, but if haven’t (or if you need a refresher), these are my general rules:
Despite all that, none of these metrics are ever given numbers during the ranking process, and the craft-related pros and cons ultimately still fall second to my personal enjoyment. After all, objectivity is bullshit and these ratings are just my personal opinion. You are certainly entitled to disagree.
It’s the dead of a…surprisingly mild winter for each of us, but there is still time to get trapped indoors and watch anime, and what a bountiful selection of shows we have to choose from! Between the two of us there’s only one drop below—everything else we’ve been watching ranges from “good enough” to a potential highlight of the year. Which series are Yata and Haru digging most halfway through our first season of 2019? Find out below!
We’re both back now! The Great Great Justice Hiatus is over, and what better time to return than the start of a new year? From the looks of it, this will be a pretty average season of anime, too: some favorites are back with new installments, some titles that slipped us by have started off on the right foot, and…uh…there’s plenty of unrepentant garbage floating around too, but all in a day’s work, right? No point beating around the bush, let’s jump right into our first impressions on this winter season!
Alright, 2018’s done, my big ol’ annual music writeup’s been published, and now all that’s left on my plate is rebooting this place. First of all, thank you so much for your patience throughout For Great Justice’s hiatus the last several months. It should operate at normal capacity again starting this month, with the three usual seasonal coverage articles as well as Weekly Rundowns over on my Twitter.
Our little hiatus from covering anime didn’t extend to me taking a break from actually watching it, however! In addition to a handful of movies, I completed 31 seasonal series and dropped 38, making good on my resolution to be a bit more selective about what I do with my time this year.
The dedicated otaku among you are bound to be familiar with most or all of these titles already, but the goal of this list isn’t just to recap what I loved this year. I’m also aiming to give people who don’t follow seasonal anime often or at all an idea of what they might enjoy from 2018 regardless of whether or not I did. Still, I’m gonna be pretty blunt about what I personally thought of these shows, so if you loved something I couldn’t stand or vice versa, do not view any of what follows as a personal attack. These are just my quick, oversimplified takeaways.
As usual, this will be done in tiers until the Top 10, which all get their own dedicated entries. We’ll start with the worst of the dropped titles then gradually move up to the completed, more positive ones. Sound good to y’all? I’m ready. I’m more than ready. Welcome to my 2018 in anime!
For Great Justice is not dead. We are merely sleeping, and this post is our middle-of-the-night bathroom break, which is to say the only reason it’s here is because I wouldn’t be able to focus on other tasks without the momentary pleasure of relieving myself of these wonderful, irrelevant thoughts on some anime ending themes. World, get ready to be my proverbial toilet.
