2014: My Third Quarter in Anime

At the start of this year, I looked at the big "season preview" images and the announcements of what anime series would be streamed and where, and wound up not watching any new shows. I didn't worry too much about that; I was carrying some series forward from the previous season anyway. Three months later, though, I looked at the preview images and the announcements again and only started watching one new show, and that a series I was just hoping the opinions of others wouldn't be too relentlessly negative towards. That did get me thinking ahead to when these latest series would eventually be for sale on disc, and whether extending the trend forward would make me far too much like those people who seem to be complaining all the time about how "they didn't abandon anime" (as much as a few other people perhaps wish they would), "anime abandoned them."

Certain straight-line projections into the future end up looking foolish in the face of unexpected changes, however, and three months ago I looked at the preview images and the announcements for the third time this year and surprised myself by filling a respectable slate of new series to watch through weekly streaming and thinking a few more shows would've been interesting to watch too if only I'd had the time. That might, though, have replaced one worry with another. As much as I hope I'll "hit the jackpot" with another show like Puella Magi Madoka Magica or Kill la Kill, where the excited reactions and speculation builds in a virtuous cycle week by week, the risk seems greater that less positive reactions will reinforce each other and drag down my own feelings before I quite seem to reach that point myself.

In any case, all these new series to watch might have been the push needed to do something I'd been toying with for a while. Finding my cheap home office desk chair uncomfortable to just sit back on and watch, I bought not a more expensive chair but an economical wireless router and the cheapest streaming video TV add-on on the store shelves nearby to watch from the improved comfort of my downstairs armchair. The setup has worked pretty well. In reducing the old distinction between "watching anime streaming on my computer upstairs" and "watching anime off discs on my TV downstairs," though, I may have increased my distance from the old thought that streaming is just a waypoint to owning discs with the series on them to eventually watch again. Always aware of how I buy anime faster than I can watch it, though, I'm not too troubled by that. There are also those intimations and worries the Japanese companies of the "anime industry," convinced there's more money in these later days in concentrating on an irreducible core of "cost is no object" collectors, will cut out the middlemen and "harmonize" prices over here, just happening to protect their home market in the process; with that in mind, becoming content with watching series streaming doesn't seem bad at all. (After that thought, though, there's another thought that the streaming back catalogue will be pared back much faster than it is now in the same "because they can" spirit...)
( Starting off: Captain Harlock and Super Robot Wars )

( First up, first off: Glasslip and Sailor Moon Crystal )

( Mecha mayhem: Captain Earth, Argevollen, Aldnoah Zero, and Knights of Sidonia )

( Also streaming: Akame ga Kill and Ace of the Diamond )

( The last addition: Sasameki Koto )

( Shifting gears: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine and Hidamari Sketch x Hoshimittsu )

( The late replacement: Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun )

( Finishing off: Eden of the East and Mach GoGoGo )