Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu is Shin Oonuma's Redemption (Episode 2)

Yes, please.

When people talk about anime made by studio SHAFT, they often toss around the name of it’s chief director, Akiyuki Shinbo. After all, Shinbo’s influence as a director has the biggest effect on the creativity of SHAFT anime, as proven by the fact that his style has largely been retained from his time before going to SHAFT. However, a lot of people give him too much credit, when SHAFT is more like a body with singular goals with him at the head, rather than him dominating the creative influence. Shin Oonuma would have been proof of this. Oonuma is one of the important members of SHAFT, who co-directed Pani Poni Dash, along with other SHAFT anime. Oonuma got his personal directorial debut with 2007’s amazing ef ~a tale of memories~, but somehow, his influence was overshadowed.

Opinions vs. Absolutes in Anime Reviews

This is a carry-over discussion from my comments section on the Unrepresentative Studio Screw-ups post.

The word ‘good’ gets thrown around a lot in anime discussion, and in conjoint with various aspects of what most consider to matter in an anime. ‘Good animation’ or ‘good characters’ or ‘good directing’. Good is always taken to have an objective meaning (I won’t get too deep into that, though, since I’m sure I have too many times on this blog.) However, some of these things are totally up to opinion, while others aren’t. I’d like to explore what things should and shouldn’t be personal considerations.