Summer 2020 First Impressions

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.

Spring 2020 Final Thoughts

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.

Update – EP Announcement

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.

Spring 2020 Mid-Season Thoughts

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.

Spring 2020 First Impressions

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.

WINTER 2020 FINAL THOUGHTS

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!

Winter 2020 Mid-Sesaon Thoughts

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.

Yata’s 100 Favorite Anime of the 2010s

You’ve read the title. You’ve probably seen the hype posts. If we’re really close, you’ve definitely heard me begrudgingly complain about how much time this ate up. But I’ll be damned, if I’ve watched [checks the database] 127 days worth of anime between 2010 and now, I better put those hours of staring at screens to good use and…continue to do that, this time with a bit more reflection and a lot of typing.

To be absolutely clear, this is nothing but me taking the chance to plug my hundred favorite anime of the past ten years as they sit with me right now. It is not an attempt at curating some “definitive, objective” list of anime from the 2010s, nor is it indicative of shows I A) might have loved once but outgrown, B) still like overall but haven’t felt as passionately about in the long run, or C) have yet to watch. As a result, I’ve inevitably left off a title or two or hundred that you love—but tough luck. My tastes, my biases, my list. Even as it stands, this isn’t an exhaustive rundown of what I felt was worth watching.

A quick word on eligibility: with one exception that I think you’ll find spiritually justified, all these shows began in or after 2010. Some are still being adapted or have greenlit sequels that have yet to be released, but as long as the series in question has—as of this post—fit that criteria and aired a majority of its episodes during the decade, it’s eligible for a spot. Standalone movies are not eligible (that might be its own list once I’ve seen more of them), but if they’re part of a parent franchise that aired an eligible TV counterpart, I may discuss them here. Episode counts don’t reflect OVAs unless otherwise stated, and all information on the graphics should be correct as of this article’s publication in early February 2020.

The specific rankings are largely arbitrary but broadly get firmer closer to the top. Licensing information changes often, so regardless of when you access this page, if you’re looking for any show’s legal streaming status, check out Becuase.MOE. And of course, there were far more than 100 great anime this decade, so if you don’t find your favorite here, check my AniList profile to see if I’ve even watched it. Consider all the remaining 8s and 7s there which aren’t listed below my honorable mentions.

And that’s it for the preface. Without further ado, my 100 favorite anime of the 2010s:

Winter 2020 First Impressions

Between long-awaited greenlit adaptations and surprising sequel announcements, 2020 is already looking like a mighty exciting time to be an anime fan, and while the rest of the world is uh…mostly continuing to be a shitshow, not all of these shows are shit! Kicking off the year in style, Yata and Haru are back with their first impressions on 20 seasonal premieres. Which ones have passed the litmus test all easy breezy? Which ones we did we low-key accidentally not save our writing for? (Asteroid In Love. It’s Asteroid In Love. Haru’s sticking with it, though.) And which ones are getting thrown straight in the fire? Find out below on For Great Justice’s first seasonal rundown of the new decade!

Yata’s 2019 Anime Year in Review / Top 10

This has been a weird week. I’ve been cooped up at home with a nasty, fatiguing cold I can’t seem to shake, one of my “bands” just put out our massive new album, and as I type this, “World War III” has been trending for about 24 hours and I’m sure we won’t hear the last of that soon. But I’m here today to say farewell to something else: 2019. More specifically, the anime it had to offer us. Last year brought the decade to a fair enough close; there wasn’t a ton of close competition for the top spots on this list (especially because my beloved My Hero Academia and Chihayafuru won’t wrap up their current seasons until this spring and are thus ineligible this time around), but I still feel satisfied with the best of the best that we got.

If this ain’t your first rodeo here, you know how this goes. If you are new, here’s how I do this: I’m gonna briefly and remorselessly oversimplify my thoughts on each of the 30-something shows I dropped early from 2019 followed by expanding a bit more on the 30 or so shows (and movies) that I saw to completion. All those entries are clustered in tiers (this year named after quotes from one of my band’s most iconic tracks) until the top 10, which get their own special individual treatment where I do my best to sell you, casual watcher, diehard, or anywhere in between, on my favorites. Sound good enough? Rad. Let’s get crackin’. Here’s my all-in-one reflection on anime in 2019.