Anime Update: "Back in Black, Time to Dust Yourself Off..."

Despite my best intentions, I still have not wrapped up the late episodes of Victory Gundam, as I poured practically all of my attention toward Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, and – to a slightly lesser extent – Ninja Slayer. Both proved quite entertaining to watch, if not for drastically different reasons. I have begun writing my review for the second half of the Stardust Crusaders anime, and I expect said review will be posted sometime later this month. As for Ninja Slayer, I intend to keep on plugging away at that series, one twelve-minute episode at a time, with a written review following not too long after its finale airs (whenever that is set to occur, later this year). While I was rather let down with Studio Trigger's debut series, Kill la Kill, I'm completely on board with Ninja Slayer's bonkers parody of late-1980s/early-1990s action anime.

I did in fact watch a good portion of G-Reco, and found it largely to my liking. The mobile suit designs, technology of the fictional setting, and even the art direction all remind me a great deal of Turn A Gundam, a series which I absolutely adore. I intend to finish G-Reco before the end of 2015 as well, which should prove a relatively easy task, considering that is has a shorter episode count than most full-fledged Gundam series. As far as the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin films are concerned, I will continue to watch those as they are released, though it does not appear that those films are slated to come out on a particularly frequent basis – in fact, their release schedule seems not unlike that of Unicorn Gundam, which I suppose is just fine, so long as they carry on with such a high production value.

As far as other, more recent anime is concerned, I would like to give the recent Mushishi sequel series a watch. I loved the original and its bizarre fantasy folklore delivered through a calm and soft-spoken narrative style. Aside from that, there are not many series on the immediate horizon that I’m particularly interested in. Perhaps I’ll get around to watching the second season of Space Dandy – the first season was good fun and all, I simply kind of forgot about the second season in the wake of all the Jojo’s excitement. Sword Art Online’s second act of its first season left such a foul taste in my mouth that I have zero desire to view the second season.

I will keep my eyes and ears open for word of an official release date for the second season of Knights of Sidonia, however, as the first season of that anime hooked me enough to warrant a follow-up. And with regards to an (potentially) even longer-term viewing schedule, I’m excited about what Under the Dog might bring. I understand the project recently had a few staff members leave the project over creative differences, but I believe that character designer Yusuke Kozaki is still on board, whose work on the No More Heroes games I am a huge fan of.