Three seasons down, one to go. 2020’s given us plenty of great anime as compensation for the, uh, [gestures broadly at the world], and now we’ve got one last slew of offerings trying to make their mark and give us some light in a trying year. Which shows do we frankly regret wasting time trying? Who are the seasonal frontrunners? And which shows simply stuck the landing for the time being? Find out below, as Yata and Haru take you on a retrospective of 22 of this season’s premieres!
The winds of change are coming. No one knows what the next month will hold for us. Hell, we didn’t even know what this past week held in store for us, as Yata was briefly hospitalized from a freak choking incident, Haru had to become an emergency plumber in real time, and WordPress shat out a new editor for us to learn the ropes of on the fly. So we’re 5—practically 6—days late, but we’re here. We’re here and we have thoughts on the one thing we can control: a season of anime in the rear view mirror, a scattering of good shows entered into the Completed log, and intact computers that let us ramble about them to our heart’s content.
It’s all we know how to give right now.
Please clap.
Hey, everyone. Yata here. I’m now 9 months late to what’s supposed to be an annual tradition here at For Great Justice, my opinions about the year’s OPs and EDs, but better late than never, I guess. If nothing else, you lot kept demanding the usual content, and while I’d normally be happy to provide, my time management has gone completely out the window and it will probably remain there through the end of the year. There will be no good time to churn these overdue pieces out. Their day has passed. But in order to get any head start for this year’s OP and ED list, I’ve first got to make good on last year’s promise. There can’t be a gap in the timeline. My pride won’t allow it.
Hey, y’all. Yata here. On top of FGJ’s home country still completely fucking up this whole pandemic response thing, it’s officially Too Fucking Hot™ out, and you know what that means: summer is here! Normally staying indoors and bingeing some anime sounds like our idea of a fun time, but the mood turned sour twofold over the last few weeks; Haru has been feeling ill for the better part of a month and while his doctors have run tests concluding that what’s ailing him isn’t COVID-19, his top priority right now is getting rest and not stressing himself out over writing words about cartoons.
The second issue is that the anime industry itself got set back from when this crisis had its wave over in Japan last season. As a result very few shows—I haven’t run the numbers, but probably the fewest we’ve seen in about a decade or close to it—are airing weekly for the next 3 months, and that’s before taking into account how transparently mediocre most of the surviving batch is, or how two of the biggest hype-titles of the summer dropped in non-weekly formats. Masaaki Yuasa and Science SARU’s new adaptation Japan Sinks 2020 went live all at once, and I loved it so much I intend to give it a proper article of its own, so expect that within a few weeks. Studio Wit’s new title Great Pretender also seems cool, and I say “seems” because I actually haven’t gotten around to it yet; its first half came out in arc-length increments, but it likely won’t leak the second half until the fall, so I’m tempted to hold off for now and just watch it then.
What remains are slim pickings, but if there’s anime airing, someone’s gotta cover it, and here I am to answer the call. What’s worth tuning into weekly between now and September? Hell, what’s even airing, like, at all? Buckle up, ’cause it’s time for some first impressions.
As 2020 rolls on, the question isn’t “what anime will air next?” but “will us two dorks live long enough to see it all through?” That’s the plan, even if the new normal is us being 48 hours behind deadline. Time isn’t real anymore anyway, but the takes? The takes never change. Except for when they do, and boy did some of them this month. Spring looked promising and still delivered a fair number of hits, but many of this season’s shows lost balance towards the end. Here to break down which ones did and didn’t (and what it all meant in the grand scheme of things), Yata and Haru are valiantly back with thoughts. Dig on in.
Hello, everyone! Yata here. Coming at you with something a bit different in this unannounced update, so thanks for bearing with it. Generally speaking, writing about anime here on For Great Justice has been one of my key hobbies in recent years and it happily keeps me engaged with the written word, but for just as long as I’ve been spewing thoughts about cartoons here, the primary passion I’ve pursued in my leisure time is actually music; listening to it, writing about it – sometimes even on this site, in various forms – and occasionally writing and recording my own original music as well.
I’m here today (with my cowriter’s permission, of course) to plug my latest release of that form, a punk rock EP entitled After Never Comes. It contains six original songs totaling approximately 26 minutes, all written during the past three and a half years and recorded at home since this past January. Everything on it was arranged, performed, and produced by myself aside from the bass performances on each track and some of the bass arrangements on tracks 5 & 6, which were respectively recorded and written by Eliza of Caffeinated Telescopes. Without her help, this project wouldn’t have been logistically possible for me to complete in a satisfactory and safe manner under current COVID-19 conditions here in the States. I can’t thank her enough for hopping on board.
The EP can be streamed on YouTube as well as the embedded Bandcamp link above, where you can purchase it digitally for a voluntary sum. 100% of the artist proceeds will be donated to NIVA’s Save Our Stages campaign, a fundraiser to keep independent music venues all across the U.S. afloat and their staff paid while they are either closed or operating with reduced capacity as a result of the pandemic. Myself and Eliza will not be keeping even a cent of the money raised from this EP for ourselves. If you’d like to donate directly to NIVA instead of placing that in our hands, you can do so here, and in light of recent events, if you’d prefer to redirect or additionally send your aid to any number of other civil rights organizations combating systemic racism and police brutality, we at For Great Justice are obviously totally fine with that too. Hell, knowing our audience, you’ve probably already done so just as we have. In addition, for all purchases made today, Friday, June 19th, Bandcamp’s share of the sales will be given to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
I sincerely hope you all enjoy the music. Thanks for your time and we’ll be back with your regularly scheduled Spring 2020 Final Thoughts piece within two weeks. Until then, stay safe, be healthy, and make tiny changes to Earth.
As the world continues to be a mess, this season’s anime—the ones that haven’t halted production, at least—continue to be pretty damn good. Between the sticky summer weather beginning to rear its head and the crazies taking to the streets from ill-informed sociopathy, this is a damn good time to stay indoors and watch some fuckin’ anime, and that’s what we at FGJ have been up to. However, Haru’s been under the weather lately and needed to prioritize getting rest, so this is a solo Yata mid-season update, with all the rambling, big words, and unproofread self-fellatio you’ve come to expect from the site’s Most Chaotic One. The brand lives on. Buckle up for some aggressively positive takes.
Born to die, world is a fuck. Spring anime are here. Or rather, some are, some were, and some were going to be, but this pandemic is wreaking havoc on the normal way of things, and Japan’s animation industry has found itself no exception. It’s at a weird time, too—this season had just gotten under way, and since aaaaalmost everything that had planned to premiere did (SAO, Oregairu, etc., we’ll see you eventually), we here at FGJ still have a lot to talk about. So yeah, the bad news: this anime season may be cut short. The good news? If enough series can weather the storm, a lot of great stuff has emerged this time around. Haru and Yata are both here, running down the 21 combined shows they peeped over the last week. What’s worth sticking around for? Find out on this chonkin’ big slate of first impressions.
How long has it been since I’ve had the blog all to myself?
[checks notes]
Almost 5 years, apparently. How the time flies.
Anyways, quite a bit’s happened since For Great Justice’s last update. I took off for a return trip to Japan, while literal all-hell proceeded to break loose back home before I’d even landed at Kansai Airport. Whereas most of the world is now gripped in the middle of a paralyzing pandemic, and Yata has his hands full training his store’s new surge hires – in addition to his latest vroom-vroom project – you guys are stuck with Just Harubruh for our blog’s sendoff of the Winter 2020 anime season! While I did manage to cover one of the shows he reviewed, you have my apologies if you swung by hoping for more Yata content with regards to Chihayafuru and the rest of his share of the winter anime workload. I took my sweet time trying to slap this rickety-ass writeup together, but hey, better late than never, and better this than nothing at all, right?
right? ._.
Anywho, let’s dive in!
If we at For Great Justice have anything to say about it, the world ain’t gonna end from freak viruses or pathetic presidential candidate discourse before we get through the upcoming stacked spring anime season, but even that’s getting a little too ahead of ourselves. It’s still winter, and winter has its fair share of gems to celebrate and duds to discard. It’s been about a month since we last chatted, so without further ado, Yata and Haru are back to update you on what we think about this season’s roster just past the halfway point.
