 Hey everybody welcome back to the channel Gio here and today we're going to be talking about the winter anime season 2020. What a start to the year. I'm not going to get into all the events happening in the world because you know that's not really the purpose of this channel. I just want to alleviate the tension if you will and talk to you guys about the different shows that I've been watching. I started doing that last year and started covering the seasons. I used to do a preview then a full review but whatever. Here's the full review. The winter season was a little bit for me at least just for me just a tiny bit underwhelming compared to other years. It wasn't as strong as I would have wanted it to be. The first one that we're going to take a look at is Inspector or the Japanese name Kyoko Sweedy. It is based off a manga and light novel series. This one is based on the story of a 17 year old Kotoko who has a unique situation. When she was a child she was kidnapped by spirits called Yokai and returned missing one leg and one eye. Since then she has been able to communicate with other worldly forces both benevolent and dangerous. Kotoko is alone in her power until she learns that the crush she's watched from afar, Kuro, has had his own encounter with the Yokai. As if being touched by the supernatural wasn't enough Kuro's personal life is also in shambles with their shared experiences and understanding. They form a partnership to deal with mysteries from ancient demons to the ghost of an idol but for a girl who's used to dealing with spirits winning love might prove to be the bigger challenge. Inspector just looks visually it looks really interesting. I love the poster and I'd love the art style the character designs and all that stuff. It is brimming with personality and that's what I like in a series where you're able to take a kooky concept in this case a character that had a pretty dramatic event and picks herself up and becomes such a fun amazingly well written and complex character and is able to lead the story in a very fun creepy and romantic sort of way. Inspector is pretty fun. I like the whole idea of it being sort of a supernatural detective show. You've got these two characters bound by fate for very different reasons but they share a common thread with the whole yokai and supernatural aspect. The one thing I will say is that the structure of the series doesn't lend itself to a 100% recommendation on my part because when it starts you get a wonderful introduction with these two characters. It goes off into an episodic event that lasts I think three episodes or two and a half. I think it was two and a half of them solving a murder case that involves a river serpent deity and then it goes off into the main portion of the show. I was under the impression that they were going to adapt the series a little bit quicker but instead we have a good eight episodes to a case and in some occasions the plot just grinds to a halt when it comes to the steel lady. Not to say steel lady whatever. It just grinds to a halt and while the story is interesting and what they're doing is interesting I think it needed a quicker pace. I think that's the only thing that I have issues with the series that first season hopefully does get picked up for a second one. I believe the earlier episodes were like really highly rated in Japan so hopefully we do get a follow-up but it's visually appealing. It's got a great cast of characters. The story's pretty badass. It's just the pacing that I don't think was the very best. Moving on to something completely different. We've got Seton Academy join the pack. I am not going to lie to you guys. I'm a fan of stories with anthropomorphic animals. I think it's hilarious. I've said it in past videos. You can examine human interactions and personalities and do interesting metaphorical takes on them I guess. It just having anthropomorphic animals lets you look at society in a different way that in a different fun way I should add. So what the heck is Seton Academy about? It's a school full of animals where thanks to population decline there are fewer humans than any other creature. Gene an animal hater and the only human in his class falls in love with Hinohitomi the only female human the moment he lays eyes on her. However he soon finds himself entangled with various other creatures after he reluctantly joins the pack of Lanka the wolf the only other member of her pack. This is a bonker series. I love the idea of taking the concept of anthropomorphic animals but you're having them mixed with human features. It's never stated in the series but it's obviously meant for us the viewers to sort of see the interactions between like a wolf girl a panda girl or stuff like that or a lion so that they're able to talk communicate and mingle with the two humans and it's just a very funny wacky series that reminded me of I guess the anime equivalent of my gym partner is a monkey that but an anime form if that makes any sense where you have this human character interacting with all the animals from the animal kingdom from aquatic animals to ancient species really tongue-in-cheek jokes that I appreciate like the teachers being dinosaurs doesn't get any better than that but yeah somewhat wholesome in its execution simply because of how charming some of these characters are sloth girl for example happened to be my favorite character in the series I love the running gag that she's so slow that she's she's basically dying in front of everybody because she can't keep up and can't do the things that other characters are doing Lanka the wolf is just pure cuteness and one of the most wholesome characters of the year so far in 2020 so we'll see how that lines up when the year ends but I definitely liked the wacky fun bizarre humor obviously there are some inside jokes if you like animals and you know about the species biology and all that stuff you're really gonna have a fun time with it next up you've got Somali and the forest spirit I actually did I think it was my very first anime impressions video on this channel unfortunately soon after I posted that video a lot of world events started occurring and it just I never got a chance to do more first impressions so yeah Somali and the forest spirit I absolutely loved it it's the definition of wholesomeness it's a world where humans are scarce and to the very point of extinction and on a fateful day a golem who's the guardian of the forest he basically monitors everything and makes sure that everything is running smoothly and protecting all the animals and all that stuff he stumbles upon this little girl Somali and he takes it upon himself to deliver her to the humans however she she's what three four something like that at the start of the series she sees him as the father figure and what soon develops is a very sweet endearing wholesome and entertaining look at a dysfunctional relationship that forms between a human girl and a golem creature if you watch the series then you are here for a treat because it looks great it looks fantastic Somali is just a treat she's so cute and adorable the golem is really well designed the world is fascinating to look at it's very dark it's sort of a mishmash of things we've seen before like the sensibilities of made in abyss with that kind of world where it's beautiful to look at but there's a thin layer of creepy and dark stuff waiting to jump at you but also mixed with some very beautiful designs that reminiscent of a jibbly movie stuff like that so i really did enjoy it and i think if you watch it you're gonna have a fun time the cast is fantastic and the story is just really hard warming and i do wholeheartedly recommend it easily in my list right now as one of the best shows of 2020 that's that spot is right there how the heck do i even begin to describe what the hell is doro hendoro uh it's a very popular manga that started a few years ago already ended and uh the the show i was made aware of the manga by my friend Riley the abnabus collector on our shows at omnibros live and he wanted me to check it out and i never got around to it and now the anime started so i started watching the anime and it's it's chaotic but in a very good way the animation i love i love that people were so upset that studio mapa was doing the cg anime thing people were so triggered and upset like oh it looks terrible you're ruining this manga but turns out it looks pretty freaking unique for an anime it doesn't compare to the grungy dirty look of the manga but what we do get in the anime it looks really good i love the blend of uh three CGI with regular 2d animation and it's a city that's brimming with personality although it's very dark and brim uh the whole it's called and a clan of sorcerers has been uh plucking people from the streets and using them as experiments and all that stuff and in a dark alley a man called kai man are there i guess i should say caiman because it's the reptile he uh wakes up with a bad case of denisha and a reptile head so he's trying to figure out what the heck happened and why is his face that of a lizard uh reptile along the way with his best friend nikaido and man it's just so chaotic that i cannot recommend it enough it's a really wonderful world that was created with great interesting characters where you have villains that are just as entertaining and endearing as the main heroes and you sometimes switch while you're watching it between who do you like more the bad guys or the good guys they're just as demented on both sides i i i uh i think uh dorohedoro will be uh quite popular i hope we get a north american release on netflix uh because i i do think more people should watch it and you know make the series even more famous than it already is uh next up you've got interspecies reviewers the famous anime of 2020 no other show will uh surpass the uh ferocity and the intense reaction that this show had with its fan base and with sensors and studios and whoever pitched making an anime out of that manga is a genius okay this is a sex comedy about uh reviewers revealing brothels in this magical world this alternate world where uh sex work and prostitution is legal so they go to fantasy brothels like succubus or uh different types of monster girls or aquatic beast or you know stuff like that and it's very tongue-in-cheek it plays with the tropes of folklore and the characters and the anatomy of these creatures it's really funny also extremely perverted this is like borderline hentai which was hilarious to me and the whole controversy with funimation them picking up the series without really doing any research finding out like oh boy this is uh this is something else and dumping it but of course they've already bought the license right so they can't really get rid of it so it's stuck in the uh abyss of unlicensed shows if you will so fans were in an uproar because you're censoring that show you're not showing it uh nobody's able to pick it up like another company so it's just stuck and then you start seeing the reactions worldwide from other uh streaming services and then realizing what the show's about i believe amazon pulled it out and all the uh several european streaming sites uh and several channels in japan as well it's amazing that that show aired on tv holy crap it's it's hilarious and if you're into that sort of thing that sort of humor you're gonna love it but it's not for everybody at all like it's huge not safe for work tag however it's done by studio passion and i really liked the animation like the character designs and the colors and all that stuff it looks amazing i'd love that art style and the only reason i'm even talking about it was because i saw the uh key visual poster thingamajig and it piqued my interest because of how bright and colorful and um the art style was for the series other if it weren't for that i don't think i would have been watching the series so on our on a artistic point interspecies reviewers is pretty top-notch in my humble opinion i know i know you're probably being all upset and like you're into garbage um sue me next up you've got demon school iruma koon which i covered on the last seasonal review as it was starting uh it definitely ended on a strong mark i think it was 23 episodes it's fun uh wholesome high school dxt type uh series with iruma being thrown into the school he's a human it's in the underworld with uh helish demons and all that stuff because he has the worst parents in all the fiction or in reality they sell him to a grand devil for fame and cash and all that stuff and this devil sullivan he wants to have a grandson because he's old and he's always wanted to have a you know grandchild of his own so now he has and he enrolls uh iruma into high school turns out this character is the principal of the school so hijinks ensue it's very it's very light fun series you're really gonna like the characters i think they're well developed and seeing iruma koon inspire and motivate his classmates to be better versions of themselves is a fun aspect of the show and the manga so i'm very much looking forward to season two which you know got announced and the series uh took off a lot of people liked it also one of the best openings has to go to iruma i really liked that opening that was awesome sherlock kubikicho it's a strange title basically the sherlock holmes anime it's fine i'd like the concept and the reimagining of the sherlock holmes franchise but it got too episodic and too forming like the running threads are fine but it's nothing too spectacular if you catch my drift however the animation and the character designs they look pretty cool i like it but it's just okay at best on my uh my level isekai quartet season two much better than the first season first season was fine i liked it i'd laughed but it was just a thing you know i it's just a really cool achievement that you're able to take all of the characters from the isekai shows konosuba re-zero uh tania and overlord and do sort of a comic book avengers-esque event where you have all these characters interacting in chibi form that's really cool but it felt uh like they were getting into the groove and season two they they arrived it's better written in my opinion the introduction of other characters from other shows was a really welcome surprise and a lot of people were upset but you've got to realize they're not the protagonist of isekai quartet it's still the i don't know why i did this it's still the main four series you know the main characters of the four shows i talked about so that didn't bother me but season two much better and for 12 episodes at 12 minutes each it's amazing that they took the time to develop a lot of the supporting cast and without losing steam uh from us enjoying the mainstays and the popular characters everybody had a good opportunity to shine and i appreciated that i thought that was really good and i wholeheartedly uh enjoyed season two room camp the spin-off sequel to late-back camp at three minutes for episodes basically the whole series is like 33 minutes it's too short man i love the girls and uh their hijinks of wanting to do the whole camping stuff it's such a wholesome series i was uh i was really excited but you start watching the first episode and once you're getting into it it ends because it's only three minutes it's a short web series uh they recently announced season two of late-back camp so i'm excited for that but yeah room camp is just a little appetizer for things to come right oda cinnamon nobunaga dogos reincarnated from um or i should say old samurai legends reincarnated in modern times as cute dogs yes please it's fun the animation's nothing too fabulous but it's a fun uh series i really liked it it was uh wholesome and seeing the ending one of the best openings and endings but that ending with the live action dogs easily takes a cake as one of the best anime endings of all time it was extremely adorable and i loved it keep your hands off a zouken i think this is a has to be on the list of everybody's favorite shows of 2020 it was phenomenal the deconstruction of what makes anime such a great hobby and a great genre for a lot of people is examined in this series basically the three main girls they start in anime film club against the wishes of the school directory because they already had an anime club but what they want to do is create their very own anime because they're such huge fans of it the characters are fantastically written and a wonderful representation the whole cast is very diverse and it's so cool to see the anime opening is one of the catches things you'll hear it was just an all-around treat seeing their love for a medium that we'd love it's infectious and i wholeheartedly recommend watching this series if you want something fresh unique and just wonderful you're gonna have a fun time fantastic characters the animation's all over the place it's great and it goes into wacky bizarre territory but it's great and seeing like their developed anime is really good too and them sort of doing the meta commentary on the animation process the artists the producers the sound the production teams all that stuff it's really cool and it gives you a fresh perspective on a medium that we all enjoy toilet bound hanako koon one of the most visually pleasing series that you'll watch toilet bound is awesome i love that it's creepy but not too scary it's just the right amount of interest it sort of reminds me of an atlas game when they go full out with their thing maybe i don't know probably just me but still i love that it's taking the concept of like creepy folklore stories and spooky urban legends and playing it up with wonderful visuals and nene uh she's such a wonderful character hanako and the rest of the characters are all great and seeing them interact and how funny the dialogue is and their interactions solid i i'd love it it's a great series and just on an artistic point of view a really marvel of a series i genuinely enjoyed every single episode even if the story you know sometimes it was a little bit episodic in nature i guess but the overall plot was really cool plus the relationship between nene and hanako how that gets explored with him of course being a ghost and she's a regular high schooler i think it's high schooler or middle school i don't know because she's in school but you're really good stuff i i enjoyed it uh next up uh darwin's game which is sort of an edgier death note mixed with elements of battle royale i wanted to like it but i didn't really like it that much the concept is fun and the characters are they're tropey at best but the animation inconsistencies and the overall plot just felt very cliched i've seen this stuff before um but i do like the aspect that it's a mobile game and they're stuck playing it like in real life and the only way to survive is by beating and killing your opponents so you can escape the game i guess if you die in the game you die in real life like you're written off of existence i guess uh the art like i said uh little inconsistent and i don't know it seems like i've seen this before but if you want to pass the time it's a fun little series i also watched a couple series that i have to admit did not really peak my interest and i did not finish that was uh the orphan reboot or remake um it's okay i wasn't too interested in it uh plunderer i watched like three or four episodes and just didn't really like it um to um i don't know it was a blend of things i've seen before uh pet i want to give pet another shot because it's weird and bizarre but i can't really give you my honest feedback on it because i i think i only watched like the first two episodes next up i watched id invaded which is fantastic it reminded me of the um was it the cell the movie with uh jennifer lopez stuff like that or maybe a little bit of paprika from satoshi khan it's a mishmash of things and it's very psychological and cerebral in nature uh with criminals going or not criminals with people going investigators going inside uh criminals minds and stuff um i do want to keep watching that i only watched like the first three or four i really do want to continue that but it's great i liked it uh the runway series i watched one episode out of curiosity not necessarily for me i don't really care too much about the runway business but i hear uh it has a ton of fans and if you want to check that out uh yeah go for it uh the characters would look good in that series um i also'd like to check out older series when i do this these seasonal things um i continued watching black clover because it's still ongoing the latest season uh it already caught up to the manga and they got to the mangaka to help out with the story to finish off season three so that's going to be interesting but the whole elf um story was awesome i loved it and i'm really happy the studio piero uh is starting to give black clover more attention a little bit more love because the episodes have improved in the animation uh the story is really fascinating and i loved that elvish tail it really flipped the shonen jump formula on its head or the shonen uh elements i guess um i thought it was uh pretty clever i liked it and i'd love the black bulls their their friendship uh is inspiring and really cool uh to me i watched a little bit more about um cells at work because i dropped off like halfway so i'm close to finishing that series i like it uh david production uh all their anime adaptations are fantastic so there you go uh golden kamui i am finishing season one so i maybe i'll do a video on golden kamui later on please tell me uh galgo chan was a surprise because the premise looks pretty like eh but i ended up really liking it it's funny and it's embarrassing and uh endearing in a strange sort of way having three girls that are very polar opposites of each other uh and them finding common ground and building a friendship and discussing really uh quote-unquote embarrassing topics was hilarious for an anime to do that uh that was the first i think and i also watched uh let's see if i'm missing anything i watched uh jojo season four diamonds on breakable that was fantastic and every season i've liked more and more i i i know a lot of people uh they say oh season one it's not that great it's not until season three where you start getting hooked that was hooked right away i really enjoyed season one uh all the mythology and characters the memes and all that stuff i loved it and season two was even better for me and then season three it was just a uh testosterone fueled uh righteous adventure that i i loved so much and now season four a lot of people prefer season three um you know the stardust crusaders is pretty legendary but i i think uh so far season four is my best uh my favorite i should say uh jojo season everything about it was just great you took your time developing all the characters giving every everybody at least an episode's worth of development the villain is extremely scary having uh kira be uh an un an invisible force a very realistic thing even though it's set in a very bizarre story with unique personalities superpowers and all that stuff i think it was really well done and it gave you a sense of urgency as to why the characters had to hunt this villain down to save the uh the populace and all that stuff i watched uh science fell in love it's an interesting concept about two scientists that are very uh dull and somewhat predictable and very uh monotone finding love in each other and trying to prove scientifically if they're really in love or if it's uh false thing it's a quirky premise for a rom-com but i i i dropped it it didn't pique my interest enough and finally uh buffoonie um it's the name of buffoonie i don't want to get hurt so i'll max out my defense the famous maple i love that it fooled everybody thinking it was gonna be an isekai but it's just a regular series about this girl uh finding friendship through online gaming and enjoying the game she's not trapped there's no real peril you're just watching characters have fun and interact with each other and playing a really cool um uh virtual reality mmo uh type thing uh mixed with jrpg elements and maple is just the sweetest uh most wholesome thing ever and she's awesome and all hail maple and her gang they're awesome i i really enjoyed it and i'm so happy that's getting a season two it's such a fun series that it doesn't take itself too serious see what i did there and just uh you know it just uh fun with characters uh becoming friends and playing uh really cool video game what's not to love it's like art imitating real life i guess for a lot of us so yeah uh if i were to rank all the shows i watched because i i just talked for way too long i'm sorry about that i would say my top five shows of the winter anime season in no particular order would be inspector doro hedoro keep your hands off azoken toilet bound hanako koon and for the last spot i am going to go with uh samali and the uh guardian of the forest those are the five best shows of the season in my honest opinion so yeah uh most of the shows were good but not like super outstanding aside from those five five so there you go guys uh what did you think of the shows uh let me know down below if you saw them or if you just saw one don't worry about it uh let me know in the comment section what you thought of the season as a whole thank you everybody for tuning in i'd love doing these sorts of videos if you want me to review a specific series let me know in the comment section as well i'd be more than happy to do this i'd be more than happy to do a review like that it takes me a little while because you know uh it's different from uh doing a book review this i gotta look at the whole series again and make a like a essay type video so it takes a little while that's why i don't do them that often but thank you so much for tuning in if you're new to the channel thank you so much consider subscribing maybe uh i do content like this on a regular basis where i talk about anime comics manga reviewing books very close to 2 000 subscribers which is insane so thank you everybody for the support thank you once again for liking commenting subscribing follow me on social media if you can facebook twitter instagram and that's about it i've got more anime to watch i'm actually planning out some anime specific reviews for a certain series uh in the near future so look out for that so i've got more anime to watch uh i've gotta go i will catch all of you on our next episode