Yeah, most definitely was before any sort of timeskip. The last episode I watched was right when the main kid and his older sister left home and the ocean god got all pissed and put them in that ice tornado.
Way fucking late, but not as much as last year!
Noragami
It's got style (dat OP), it's pretty funny, yet it still manages to fit in a good bit of seriousness. It does have a bit of the usual trouble of a tiny bit of foreshadowing and then BAM all the secret stuff in a lump at the end. Yet it doesn't really have a pacing problem otherwise. Maybe if it had been a full season show there would be time to fit everything in a good spot.
Witch Craft Works
A decent series, solidly done, a good mix of funny and awesome. It's by no means the best anime ever, but there isn't a thing about it I'd change. I really need to go back and catch up on the manga, I didn't know it'd get so epic by the end, so it's actually ending up higher than I expected it to be. Man, that ED really is a weapon though.
Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil
It's pretty as fuck, but it's Yasuomi Umetsu and ARMS, so naturally it's got production values coming out of everywhere (though there is some bad slippage in ep 11). But of course, that means it also has the man's personal eccentric design choices. You either don't mind, or you hate it. And like his usual, the writing and plotting isn't exactly the most solid. Despite all this, it's by no means terrible (there's much worse in the same season alone). Hell, I'd even go so far as to say it sets up and lives in it's setting better than say, Moretsu Pirates did, or RideBack
Ep 7 though, deserves special note.
We're going to Boston!
Yeah. No.
"We're looking for this murderer, be careful" "Well it's a good thing we're going to be in Boston, not Los Angeles where you're looking! Nevermind how we got here."
(It's fucking magic, a wizard did it)
And then the driving music...
Oh no, he's in Canada. Oh my, just too many convenient coincidences.
Nobunagun
The animation quality is crap, the character designs are indefensible, the characters themselves are just a bit too one-note/cookiecutter, and the silly bits just don't mesh with the show well.
But
The show has good raw materials to work from. The invaders are a decent enemy, neither side is stupid on the field, the actual plot is alright, the pacing in general is fine and while it doesn't go full on "the horror", it makes it clear this ain't a disney war. The property was just, picked up by a studio that wasn't quite up to the task yet. (There also really is no excuse for that bit of episode 11/12)
Mahou Sensou
Like Nobunagun, this is a show with a decent amount of potential (more, possibly). The front half of the show is a bit too scattered (overly fluffy filler exposition episodes ahoy), and the back half delivers on the potential just a bit late and not well enough, the last few episodes also just pretty much fall apart.
This isn't a normal "crap show, watch the disaster" trainwreck, where you can see it'll happen because someone engineered the locomotive on principles from some other universe.
But a wreck where an actual functioning engine met up with disater. I don't know if it's a poor adaptation of the source, or if the source has the same problems. Either way, someone at Madhouse fucked up bad. Proof thad budget alone wont save you, you also need writers/adapters with well functioning brains.
Minute to minute it's better than Nobunagun, but overall it's such a diappointment that it's lower despite the better potential.
Nobunaga the Fool - Dropped after three episodes
From what I saw I wouldn't say it's bad (that could change further in). But hot blooded giant robot shows just aren't really my thing, and there wasn't something amazing about it (like TTGL) to hook me in despite that.
Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta - Dropped after two episodes
Just such a fucking rote retread of standard school shows in execution, there is no heart in the characters or plot. It absolutely kills the good setting around it. If you are going to do something that's been done before, ideally you have to do something about it better than the predecesors, or at least as well as. This manages neither. If you liked To Aru Hikuushi e no Tsuioku, don't fucking bother with this. If you saw this and not the first, please don't write the film off, it'd different and way better.
Maybe you can push through it to see the narrative arc through, but while I've made it to the end of a number of meh shows, I just can't get through this one.
As for Hamatora... ah fuckit, I'll just write someting up for it when I get through S2, they aired close enough together anyway.
Anyone bother watching Matsutaro? Wasn't the best series by any standard, but I still enjoyed it.
Started off hating the MC and he grew on me over time... then that fucking shit ending. I know the show isn't going to get a second season. That said, would anyone know where I could see the manga? I can't find it anywhere. Manga goes by the name of Notari Matsutaro
That's a spring show.
Anyway, you won't find the manga, because it was never scanlated, because the manga's run was from 1973 to 1998.
Fansubbing was still on VHS in those days man.