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As Spring 2019 heats up, we take one more look back at Winter with our final writer’s poll of the season. Unlike our weekly surveys, this one is a reflection of our writers’ top 5 shows of the season as a whole. And yes, ongoing shows are eligible – which means winter’s winner could potentially repeat in the spring.
Here are Winter 2019’s final numbers:
Weekly Staff Poll (Final)
Dororo (2018) – 23 points, 3 first place votes
Mob Psycho 100 II – 20, 2
Boogiepop wa Warawanai – 9
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari – 7, 1
Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai – 6, 1
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari has really slipped, IMHO.
Really, prove that your shield can’t hypnotize?
I think some of the childish narratives are starting to get on my nerves from
people who are living in that reality and haven’t learned a f&^^##g thing.
I’m looking at you, the 3 stooge heroes. Really hoping this improves — oh well…
Not to defend poor writing, because it definitely could have been executed a lot better. But if we consider Shield Hero’s setting to be medieval with a feudal society that’s far less progressive than our modern one, then the ridiculous punishments and intensely power tripping villains can be justified to some extent, since power is stacked heavily towards the top that it’s pretty much impossible to hold those abusing it to account.
Melromarc’s autocratic with a fleshed out bureaucracy with secret services and whatnot, so it stands to reason that the crown (and the clergy) has a lot of control over information and its distribution. If we want to discuss how gullible the three heroes are, a lot of vital information is concealed from them, so I find it hard to blame them entirely. Though I reckon they should definitely be more skeptical of certain claims. That said, it feels like Ren and Itsuki are beginning to catch on, if you consider their reaction to Malty hurling lethal fireballs at Melty.
The author of the series resorts to anything to keep Naofumi as being this oppressed individual who comes up against the most unfair circumstances. It’s infuriating and is used like a shoddy crutch that feeds into the audience’s growing desire for justice and vengeance. But it isn’t far off from real life if you consider the course of human history. Back in the old days, how does a woman prove that she’s not a witch? In most cases, they’d set out ridiculously impossible tasks e.g. ‘A witch would be able to survive this ordeal’. It’s pretty easy to figure out what happened to those poor women.
Is Boogiepop that good ? I dropped it after 3 eps, should I go back ?
It depends with Boogiepop. I’m the kind of person who enjoys being confused and really like turning things over in my head. I think that being able to marathon the episodes means that you’re not left confused week in week out, or wind up forgetting crucial pieces of information, which seems to be a common weakness in series trying to construct multi-layered mysteries (Sagrada Reset, Occultic Nine, etc). Personally, I really enjoy that kind of stuff and think these kind of shows are well worth my time.
But if you just don’t like being kept in the dark on things, it still probably wouldn’t be worth your time.
My answer would be unequivocally yes, but (and I guess this is equivocation, ROFL) you have to understand that it’s a product of its time and Madhouse made no attempt to update it. Treat it like a piece of music – you don’t necessarily have to understand exactly what it means because the experience is about how it makes you feel. As a show totally unlike anything in anime today but quite like many sci-if shows of a decade or two ago, I really appreciate Boogiepop’s singularity.