What anime are you watching right now? Summer 2016 to now

[Compiling_Autumn]

Watched Kino's Journey about a week ago. Loved the tone and atmosphere, loved stories in it. It really made me wonder what life would be like as a traveler. The closest thing I would compare it to is Mushishi, but with cheaper animation and a slight misanthropic streak. The director also did Serial Experiments Lain, so if you needed another reason to check it out...

[Dr. Nick]

How did you come across Zakuro, Nick? Did you accidently click that die/dice button next to queue?

I have no idea what you're talking about, but I found out about Zakuro by browsing various threads about shows that have had an R1 release at one point or another but failed to make much splash and basically fizzed out unnoticed. Zakuro was really generic towards the end, but at least it wasn't a total nonentity like its fellow NIS America license Brave 10.

Encouragement of Climb S2:
This is still an exquisite little series, and I think the increased episode running time (upped to 13 minutes from the mere 3 minutes in the first season) definitely benefits the show now that the cast has a full complement of four girls and their mountain adventures are getting longer, some with overnight stays and so on.

On the other hand, the longer episodes also highlight the show's one weakness, namely that when it's not about the girls climbing mountains, planning a climb or at least visiting some pretty neighborhood nature spots, it's just this middling, leery thing. I mean, they actually dedicated an entire bonus episode to Kaede's boobs, and while her topographic prominence is remarkable, that's the sort of content you can get from a hundred other shows. In contrast, this is the one and only anime about entry-level mountain climbling, so the show would do well to stick with its strengths. And to its credit, it largely does, and good lord, the mountain climbing episodes are some transcendentally good television. They feature these incredibly detailed sequences of mountain vistas that on multiple occasions made me think "this is the most straight-up beautiful cartoon I've ever seen", even if a lot of the shots were probably just traced or Photoshop-manipulated photographs. The sense of exploration and being there is incredible and emotionally resonant by itself, and I think the climbing episodes would work just as well regardless of who the protagonists were, as long as the point of view was similarly that of a newbie's. Instead of moe schoolgirls, the climbers could be a group of salarymen for all I care, and these episodes would still tap the same basic emotions. The foundation is that rock-solid.

[Ray]

Kabaneri Of The Iron Fortress:

It's good, in spite of itsslf.

I mean if Attack on Titan is Eva, then Kabaneri is Rahxephon. clearly a derivative, but able to stand on its own legs as its own product.

it's a very creative take on the zombie apocalypse genre. blending elements of period drama, Steampunk, and creative use of both the characters powers and the zombies.

[chazthesilencer]

Encouragement of Climb S2

Aoi’s gut-wrenching disappointment after Fuji was easily the highlight of 2014 for me.
Just fyi- I was referring to this die/dice:


Watched the Yona of the Dawn OVAs. Kind of wish I hadn’t, it just made me excited for more Yona… which doesn’t appear to be happening any time soon.
An Onsen special with a largely male cast? Yeah, it worked.

I’m enjoying New Game! more than I feel I should. It really is just typical CGDCT faire, except the CGs are just cute women who look and act like CGs (who also happen to work on CGs in CG).
Ahagon is hot.

[norival1992]

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Despair Arc ‒ Episode 10
While Future Arc's 10th episode concluded in catharsis, the Despair Arc finally descended into its deepest dungeon of despair.

[Dr. Nick]

Gundam Build Fighters Try: Island Wars

A fresh, bitter reminder of how Try was a badly planned series that did pretty much nothing but squander its potential. Our protagonists spam their special attacks against some hapless zombie mooks, use an impossible asspull to defeat a ridiculous dungeon boss, and the whole thing ends with this weird coda implying that

SPOILER: Show

either time runs faster on Arian or Reiji made Aina into a very young teenage mother.

What Island Wars isn't is a bad beach episode specifically, but only because there's hardly any beach in it. Beach and hot springs episodes are often terrible (and doubly so if they're unconnected specials or bonus episodes), not because of the fanservice but because they're often terrible comedy episodes where the creative staff is clearly coasting. I keep coming back to Akuma no Riddle as an example case of this because it had two beach episodes, a really good one that was part of the original airing and drove the plot forward alongside the cheesecake, and the bonus one that was insulting continuity-savaging garbage alongside the cheesecake. In terms of its writing, Island Wars isn't anything uniquely bad, as it's basically on rails already laid by the equally badly-written main show, but for a special set on a tropical island, it's curiously cheesecake-free, with nary a vertical panning shot in sight. This supposed beach episode with an extra-long running time has less people in swimsuits than the Patterson–Gimlin film has bigfoot, and that might be some sort of anime first.

Things I liked? Satomi was funny as a comic relief, and while this might be considered controversial, I really liked Shia's new characterization. Considering she's this famous, overprivileged rich girl, it makes sense to me that she would develop into this aggravating poser-chuuni in order to stand out. But more about her further down.

Since this special got me talking about GBFT again, I might as well attempt some general series autopsy now that we've had time to swallow the disappointment the sequel season was. Within the western fandom it is pretty much universally acknowledged that Try's two biggest sins were that

1) all of its three main characters ranged from boring to horrible, and
2) the Gunpla action was ruined by excessive Plavsky particle hax that basically enabled Sekai to pull magic out of his ass.

Collectively, the fandom has poured a lot of energy into imagining how the series could have been better, and I must stress that the ideas that follow are not mine. Better and more analytical minds have been dismantling and fan-reconstructing GBFT ever since it started drowning in the puddle of its own making last year, and I'm just collating some their best ideas here. In short, Try could have been a good show if it ditched the Plavsky magic and had a different set of three protagonists. Who should the leads have been then?

SPOILER: Show

Well, if you polled a group of viewers for who they thought the most memorable characters were, I'm willing to bet good money Gyanko and Minato would get a lot of mentions. You got two protagonists out of three right there, and the team would be rounded out by Shimon, whose mini-arc was one of the highpoints of the early series. This trio would be pretty good protagonist material as they are, no major rewriting required.

Consider this: In a sports anime, especially if it's about a team-based sport, you want the protagonists to be the underdog team so that their eventual wins have meaning and feel like proper victories to the audience. Gyanko-Minato-Shimon team would give us this dynamic, with the added thematic bonus of each of them going against a particular negative aspect of the sport. Because even though Gunpla is freedom, Gunpla Battle as a sport is not without its negatives. The overarching theme of our hypothetical G-M-S team would be fighting elitism and elitists of all stripes. So let’s look at the members individually.

Firstly, Gyanko with her raucously alpha attitude would obviously be the leader. On a meta level, this would be a pretty devious second season realignment, because as a little sister of the first season's major butt monkey character she would get major underdog points from the get-go. In terms of her playstyle, she's definitely an outsider because she doesn't use a girly MS. Seriously, if you consider the female fighters in both seasons of the show, almost all of them seem to select their suits from the very shallow pool of explicitly feminine designs, and that has led to Nobel Gundam and the Bearguy being recycled. Even Gyanko's henchwomen follow this pattern, but not Gyanko herself; she's all about that old-school Gyan family heavy metal, and this is doubly unique because otherwise she's not your token franchise tomboy. For all these reasons, having her as the main character would reinforce the theme of Gunpla being freedom; you can do what you love without being tied to any particular style or established way of doing things. The sport has its internalized stereotypes, but Gyanko is an antidote to them.

Would she be too wild of a choice for a main character? I don't think so. She's brash and energetic which are typical attributes of a shounen protagonist, and her excessive ego and huge self-confidence would be generally more palatable in the context of a team-based show. Her weakness is obviously that she would attract trouble with her cockiness and big mouth, especially when antagonizing higher-level teams. She has a fairly unique character design that's kind of fetishy without being stupidly pandering like that of Fumina's, and perhaps most importantly of all, she's all about that Zeke aesthetic that's always super marketable in Japan. So yeah, I have to agree with the script doctors who suggested her as one of the replacement leads.

Let's jump to Shimon next because in the show that we unfortunately got, he's at least a little bit connected to Gyanko. Shimon is the snapfit newbie who in Gunpla Battle punches way above his weight class, initially simply because he's good at punching. Naturally, were he to be one of our mains and get to progress further in the tournament, his mere presence on the upper rungs would cheese off zounds of elitists offended by his unimaginative Gunpla lacking in construction quality, flair and gimmicks. Obviously he'd learn to be a better builder as the show went on, but ideally I would like to see him just keep using almost entirely unmodified vanilla Destinies all the way through. Thematically, he would emphasize the fact that Gunpla is also freedom in the sense that it can be enjoyed as it is and while you're still learning the intricacies of the hobby; you don't have to be an Xzibit-style builder or a walking Gundam trivia databank in order to be a competitive player. In other words, he would be fighting the sort gatekeeping elitism that scoffs at newbies and people who don't build unique snowflake suits.

Personality-wise, he would be the cool, reserved melee fighter of the team, the straight man in contrast to the haughty Gyanko and spergy Minato. Being a newbie to the sport, he would also be the audience surrogate to any potential new viewers unfamiliar with the first season, as him being in the team would naturalistically enable the others to dump exposition on him. Those who know him better know that he's a super nice guy, respectful, kind and extremely caring toward his sick little brother. This is a bit of a gap moe thing from a championship boxer who you'd expect would act and behave more like, well, male Gyanko. This is his big character draw but also his big weakness, because more unscrupulous competitors would be tempted to jump in and take advantage of his kindness. Proper asshole types would even keep pushing him outside of battles to see if they can make him lose his cool and snap. I could also see him eventually having this almost chivalric rivalry with Wilfred; personally, I would enhance this rivalry by explicitly making Shimon to be from a working-class background since the Gunpla Academy kids are obviously from super-affluent families.

In our timeline, GBFT is known for its horrid handling of "romance", which consists of at least three girls lusting after the D of Sekai, who's an annoying child. Could our hypothetical doctored series do any better? I think so, by making use of vaguely implied ship potential in the real show. In other words, just have Shimon and Gyanko start dating at the end. You may notice that during those moments after the regional qualifiers when Gyanko is not within Sekai's harem protagonist force aura, she hangs out in the back together with Shimon, and they're basically joined at the hip. Considering how disappointing GBFT's attempts at romance were, it's no wonder then that people started shipping them simply because of this physical proximity, and I agree that they could be a fun couple in the opposites attract sort of way.

As the third and final member of our hypothetical team, Minato is the team otaku, a master builder who pushes the Gunpla = freedom thing to its absolute limits, even shocking Meijin in the process. He fights unimaginativeness and soulless min-maxing and aggravates snobby traditionalists who think that combining super robots should have no place in something Gundam-related. In true otaku fashion, his major character flaw is that he's a clueless dolt with girls, as the Super Fumina incident aptly demonstrated. As such, he would be the team's lovable idiot and the biggest comic relief character. Shimons’ snapfit habits would give him grief, and he could have good comedy moments with Gyanko's female entourage who they themselves have a bit of a fujoshi streak.

Minato's character could also have a little bit of dramatic depth as well, if our hypothetical series revamped Shia a little and gave her a bitchier personality more akin to her new Island Wars characterization. She could essentially be a more villainous character who manages to manipulate Minato with her feminine wiles, even if she's just a cringy teenager pretending to be this otherworldly seductress. Minato would be dense enough to fall for it, causing him to get all depressed and thus undermining his team.

In fact, with this new cast of main characters the whole raison d'être for the existence of Team Try Fighters would be altered. Instead of being a resurrected team of a single school, I would imagine it being more like a task force type of thing. Gyanko, Shimon and Minato would all start out with their fairly weak canon teams, but after some dojo destroyer type of antagonist gives them all a whipping and also humiliates them outside of the game by being an unsportsmanlike bastard (IMO, Junya could be reworked to fill this role), the weak teams would pool their top aces together to get back at him at the championship tournament. This would also give more personal weight to the team's choice of name; they have things to prove and standards to uphold. (Minato could still keep using the Tryon-3 even without his usual wingmen with just minor modifications. Since the combined form is not actually all that huge, he could launch it as a standard single person piloted unit that can divide into separate components much like the V Gundam.)

As stated, I've lifted the above ideas wholesale from other people, but I'm going to conclude this with some fix-ficy ideas of my own. After this new Team Try Fighters beats their original antagonist in the semifinals, I would keep the outline for the rest of the tournament much the same, with Gunpla Academy still serving as the final boss. Since they've now achieved their original goal, the protagonists would have a new conflict in their hands as they have to decide how cleanly to fight against the overpowered but fair Gunpla Academy team (Note: for this scenario to work, Adou's bullshit would probably need to be toned down a little since Shia is more of a villain here). The Try Fighters initially resolve to have a clean, honorable, skill-based fight since they now have an emerging reputation to uphold, even if it means a higher chance of them losing. However, once Shia reveals herself to be a turbobitch who's merely been leading Minato on in order to crush his spirit, our heroes dump their honorable fantasies and decide to go for the jugular instead (As is expected: they're not warrior monks, they're mood-swingy teenagers playing a fancy video game!), and with Minato as the brains, they develop some truly mind-bending, rule-bending gray area bullshit to bridge the imposing gap in skills and resources, thus forcing a truly scandalous final fight. That's because imaginative troll tactics and mind battles are fun (see also: Girls und Panzer), whereas Plavsky hax really isn't.

[Ray]

Read Or Die(OVA) + R.O.D. The TV:



I felt like I was watching Avatar: The Last Airbender again.

Yes. I did pick the series up because bennet Recommended it. The truth is, I had heard about it but never bothered to pick it up. I mean, a series about Super-powered Bookworms? Seriously?

But as I watched the series, despite a few plotholes, out of place fan-service moments (including a full frontal hotspring scene, with nipples and everything), the changing of the dub cast between the OVA and the series, and the sheer lunacy of the setting. The likeability of its characters, the well choreographed action scenes, and the many plot twists and turns. . . it won me over.

The character interactions, are the highlight of the series. Be it Yomiko and Miss Deep and the subtle lesbian implications of their relationship, The bubbly energy of Michelle, and Stoicism of Maggie playing off the grouchy Nenene and Anita is always entertaining.

My favorite character has to be Maggie. She doesn't say much, but she's so expressive, she's like a big puppy.

[BiQ]

I really don't watch anime these days, but I did go for the Berserk anime.

To be blunt, it's a gigantic disappointment. It's honestly outright shitty not just as a Berserk adaptation but as an anime. Pacing was too fast all the time (in some way understandable since there was hell of a lot of ground to cover, but it was bad pacing none the less) , soundtrack was nothing but unimaginative metal riffs even when it does not fit the story (and a single not-bad Hirasawa track that gets remixed ad nauseam and overused), 3D model animations were barely passable at best and laughable animation-school coursework level crap at worst... well, at least it did stay faithful to the source material, except for lost children that got chopped...

And it gets a continuation of another 12 eps next spring which I again feel obligated to suffer through AND which also means Miura's time will be diverted to that.. Graaaahh...

I really really do second the sentiment that this anime is NOT a good way to get to know Berserk. Either read the manga (and start suffering alongside of us who are waiting through hiatuses), watch the 97 anime which at least has a somewhat coherent and selfcontained storyline and godly soundtrack. Yes, the animation there is dated and some things are chopped but at least it counts as a relatively good anime series in it's own right... Or go ahead and wait for the manga to finish (...yeahright...).

[Mr. Tines]

As we come to the end of the season, I still haven't watched any of the new shows, have slipped behind with MSG UC Re:0096, and have only kept current with Diamond is not Crash. Given that Part 4 is 14% more chapters than Stardust Crusaders, which was spread over 4 cours, I wasn't sure how they would do this -- but it looks like they are on course to complete in the 3 cours advertised, without it feeling rushed. Vento Aureo next summer, perhaps?

[chazthesilencer]

Yes. I did pick the series up because X Recommended it.

Ray, please don't mention the names of any TGWTG "reviewers" here. This is a safe space.

New Game! had a happy ending. Understandable, I guess a "Game's cancelled, you're all redundant, leave the office now before taking copies of your work" ending would have been a tad too real for some. <grumble>

The show never got too heavy into the ins and outs of games development, but rather focused on office humour- like employees fighting over the temperature of the AC/heater. Certainly nothing ground breaking, but it was nice to see cute girl antics outside of a school setting for a change.

Nene's antics quickly became annoying. She also featured in what had to be the most pointless use of slow motion I've seen since Garth Marenghi's Dark Place. Yes, that video was edited, but the original scene was still slow-motion for some bizarre reason.

Diamond is Unbreakable continues to entertain. It was a pleasure to get another dose of OraOraOra in eps 23 & 24. Funny how Josuke seems to be appearing more often as a background character than the JoJo lately.

Rewatching Working/Wagnaria 3. Didn't find it funny much the first time, but I find myself chuckling a lot more with this second viewing. Interested in seeing how www.working!! will do...

Picked up Re:Zero. Initial impressions weren't great, the whole -vidya gaem savvy protag finding himself in a euro-medieval fantasy world- thing has been done enough as it is, but being a fan of Groundhog Day- I latched onto the time loop gimmick right away.
Lots of cliff-hanger endings. Heh. Lucky me for waiting until now to start watching.

Sad to see that Food Ball Z and Orange will be ending this weekend, but Teekyu should be back soon to help ease the pain...

[norival1992]

I'm watching Dragon Ball Super...it's great

[chazthesilencer]

^You really shouldn't ignore your betters like that.

At least offer us some musings on the show, please.
Why is it great? Is Broly's power still maximum?

[Joy Evangelion]

Picked up Re:Zero. Initial impressions weren't great, the whole -vidya gaem savvy protag finding himself in a euro-medieval fantasy world- thing has been done enough as it is, but being a fan of Groundhog Day- I latched onto the time loop gimmick right away.
Lots of cliff-hanger endings. Heh. Lucky me for waiting until now to start watching

Yea, it should have been titled "Cliffhanger: The Animation." Would have been a better title than Re: Zero Starting Life over etc. etc. Not a bad series though, and the time loop thing was nice. Liked how it carried it all the way through the series, instead of abandoning it half way through or something. Got some Shinji vibes from Subaru, which isn't a bad thing at all, but I think the show kinda tried too hard to be emotionally deep. I like a good thinking man's anime as much as any other evageek, but when old Rem and Sub got in those long sappy conversations I couldn't help spacing out and wondering what I was going to eat for dinner the next day. The moby-dick arc was a lot of fun to watch and it was sweet to see the old swordsman avenge his old lady. It sort of gets me riled up when a twenty five episode series doesn't have much of a conclusion(i.e. SnK) but I saw that it wasn't really going to get wrapped up about halfway through, so I didn't cry about it too much. BestgirlEmilia.

Really loved Orange, though the ending was a tad bit predictable. Still good to see old Kakeru getting the girl and not dying though, as he was my dude through the series. Great cast, and a great message; be a good friend, even if it means losing your future wife. Loved that animation style and character designs, kept making me wish my high school had me wear a sharp green blazer. Going to miss watching this on Sunday afternoons.

Love Live Sunshine was solid as well. Another great cast, and was solid all the way through. It'll be nice when the second season rolls around, now that the band is all together and know what their deal is. BestgirlMari.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu remains the series of the year(And season two may be the series of 2017).

[norival1992]

Dragon Ball Super

[Rosenakahara]

Dragon Ball Super

we get it, STOP

[Justacrazyguy]

Well, well, would you look at that, the season is over! So it is time for me to give some brief thoughts on the shows I watched:

Shokugeki no Soma Second Season: More of the same. If you didn't like the first one, this'll do little to change your mind. The ED is pretty cool.

Mob Psycho 100: Remember OPM? Well, this is more or less the same. I liked it slightly more because it does have more charismatic personalities and the animation used is more experimental, but I still feel that if your looking to make a show which showcases animation talent and the like you'd be much better of doing something like Space Dandy. As this stands we have a slightly above average show elevated by a ridiculous talented team.

Orange: Drama! Suicide! A bland main girl! Aside from the fun side comments by the main characters friends I found this a bore to sit through.

91 Days: The old tale of revenge set in a fictional American town in the prohibition era. I was glued to my screen for the duration of the show. There's charismatic characters, great plot twists and a few moments of excellent acting.
Unfortunately the studio that made this show was lacking in manpower and time and aside from the beginning and end the show suffers from QUALITY frequently.
Still a fantastic show and the ending manages to live up to the rest. Favorite of the season for me.

Amaama to Inazuma: A relaxing tale of a single father trying to deal with his wife's death and the child she left. Most of the bonding moments are made trough cooking and eating. Be aware that there are some dramatic moments sprinkled trough ought.
Also suffers from the lack of a conclusive ending.

New Game: Cute girls make a game! Most of the comedy didn't hit me at all, and as such, I was left cold. It does feature some moments of neat animation if that's your thing.

Alderamin: War and tactics are the central theme here. None of it feels compelling though and the characters are too one dimensional. It is a very pretty looking show though. Also features an inconclusive ending that begs you to buy the LNs. Sigh...

Rewrite: You may have seen the thread about this LN. In it the anime was not recommended. I'm don't recommend it either. This only adapts one of the routes and there is already a sequel planned for another route.
I haven't read the LN but it can't be worse than this.

QUALITY Code : What seemed to be a regular magic academy battle harem anime turned out to have a few twists and tricks up its sleeve. The reason I kept watching wasn't for that but for some of the characters(the dialogue between the bother and sister was absolute gold) which i found to be very entertaining.
Unfortunately if you go to the web looking for reactions your bound to see only the laughter provoked by its atrocious animation quality. And boy is it bad. I honestly don't remember watching an anime with worse animation quality. Enormous chunks of the episodes were unfinished and what was finished looked awful.
If you decide to watch this one, I recommend waiting for the BDs. Though who knows when we'll get that.

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu LOVE! LOVE! : Cute boys dress up like magical girls and fight evil. A charismatic and often hilarious show that sometimes breaks the fourth wall. A great improvement upon the first season. That said, a quick glance at the cover will tell it's not for everyone.

Active Raid: Kidou Kyoushuushitsu Dai Hachi Gakari 2nd: Another second season that improves upon the firt one's strenghts. A cast of fun characters, episodes that range from emotional to hilarious, competent CGI and a bombastic ending made this one of the best of the season.

And that's that. I've watched more(RE Zero and others) but these are the only ones were I had anything to say.

Lets hope the next season is a good one!

[Mr. Tines]

Lets hope the next season is a good one!

It has promise, at least, even if some of that is from the large number of sequels (including more Natsume) or spin-offs (including another set of Pantsu Witches), which are known quantities.

[chazthesilencer]

Besides the return of my favorite show about tennis, I don't see much promise in this season...

Finished Macross Delta - Well, that was an ending, I guess. Didn't like how things went EOE all of a sudden. Obvious pairing was obvious. We'll always remember September.

WWW.Working!! ep1 - I was disappointed to see Miyakoshi looking so similar to Inami, it was bad enough that one of the first things we saw her do was punch someone, but couldn't they have at least given her blue hair or something instead?
No Kana Asumi present to soothe the soul, but I'll stick with this one for now. It wasn't until the second season of Working that things became really good, so this deserves a chance.

[Joy Evangelion]

I'll be watching Magical Girl Raising Project, which had a decent first episode. I imagine it'll pick up as things start getting serious and dark . I love Magician Lady Madoka(Raising Project even has some Kyubey esque thing in it) and Princess Tutu and really enjoyed Yuki Yuna and even Wixoss, so I figure I'll like this one.

Also watching Izetta, which had some pretty animation and a story that's piqued my interest; I like the mixture of witchcraft and WWII basically. I'll also be watching Gundam IBO, though I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I barely remember anything about the first season. I imagine I'll enjoy the mobile suit battles, as I have a simple mind. I'll probably check out the girls playing Ping Pong show as well and see if I want to bother with it.

-----------------------
Watched Planetarian over a couple days and I actually really loved it. It's almost like watching a movie, so if you like watching anime movies on Sunday nights(like me) it might be something to check out in a night. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes looking at the stars and enjoys a sappy story of friendship. Nothing mind blowing or anything, but it's a very nice story.

Also been watching Mushishi Second Passage over the last week. Watched the first series a couple months ago, and decided to watch the sequel once Autumn came around, as it's the time in which I feel most in-tuned with the natural world, which is a lot of what Mushishi is about to me. I really, really enjoyed the first special episode(about the eclipse) and felt it set up the second season very well, which I feel is a bit more grand, like the mushi are a bit more powerful this time around. Didn't really care for the second special episode though, but that may have been that it was too chill and I was too out of it from drinking the night before. Fragrant Darkness and Lingering Crimson have been my favorites so far, though I still have three episodes left.

[Mr. Tines]

The first episode of The Ancient Magus' Bride shows promise -- just so long as it's not too much concentrated on the "little girl suffering for being the nail that stands out" part, and is more on the magical Natsume/Mushishi -like side of being able to see the youkai.

With the opening shots of Big Ben and fog on the Thames, I was expecting something Victorian -- but then, suddenly, there's the Shard! -- even if the rural English framing does have some "Lol! Japan" touches.