#Animexchange – Sound of the Sky

I Hope You Like Amazing Grace

This is the fourth instalment of the “Anime X-Change Project” reviews. If you don’t know what that is, be sure to check out all the info here from an earlier post. For this one @InfiniteZenith suggested Sound of the Sky which someone had once told me was “K-on! without a soul”, well there is a Rio… Mio… hmmm, suspicious. All jokes aside, this anime is more properly akin to Girls’ Last Tour with a dose of Violet Evergarden. If that sounds like a winning combo, that’s because it (mostly) is.

Girls’ Last Tour – Thoughts for a Dying World

Hope in the Midst of Hopelessness

A concept that is often explored in media is the resiliency of humankind. No matter how bleak or hopeless a situation appears, people always find a way to survive and carry on. In some ways Girls’ Last Tour echoes this message while depicting a surreal, lonely, dying world. As long as we have each other, we can enjoy the end of the world together, right?

Saying Goodbye to Girls’ Last Tour – Concluding our Fourth #Anitwitwatches

Come and Vote!

The time has arrived once again to say goodbye to another great season of #anitwitwatches. For our fourth watch we settled on Girls’ Last Tour for a change of pace after School Days. Don’t fret though! We’ll be preparing to move on to a new show after next week. That’s where you come in! Below I’ll leave a link to our vote on Twitter where you can help decide what we’ll be watching next. Keep an eye out as we’ll be announcing the winner alongside the concluding thoughts for Girls’ Last Tour on 3/16/20.

Tomorrow is the second to last #anitwitwatches for Girls' Last Tour. We'll be watching a SINGLE episode only (11). With that, we'll be preparing to send this show off and usher in a new show. Below are the fifth season contenders for #anitwitwatches, so have your say (thread)!

— Jon Spencer Reviews (@JS_Reviews) March 9, 2020

I’ll be reviewing Girls’ Last Tour shortly after the watch concludes, so please look forward to that as well!

What is #Anitwitwatches?

This is a community initiative I started a few months ago where we get together and collectively watch an anime. Then, we talk about it on Twitter using the hashtag #anitwitwatches. The first ever watch was for Tonari no Seki-kun which was a lot of fun. You can view more information on the watch, as well as my review on Seki-kun here.

Our second watch was for Rampo Kitan which I had already written about previously, so that review won’t mention the watch at all. However, you can find all of the threads about any previous watch by searching the hashtag on Twitter or by clicking the linked #anitwitwatches right here.

As mentioned above, our third watch was for the infamous School Days! It wen’t over really well and has even lead others to watching the show some time after the watch has concluded. You can find those thoughts linked above and via the hashtag mentioned in the previous paragraph as well.

Why is X Show on the Poll?

As I mentioned last time, each show was carefully considered using a series of criteria to ensure that this activity remains fun and varied each time. Due to some oversight with the last voting round on my end and the heavy nature of School Days, I’ve elected to largely mix up the poll for this new season of #anitwitwatches. A short summary is provided below and in the actual voting thread above as well.

1. Wandering Son – This is a carryover from our very first watch, it just keeps almost winning! There seems to be a lot of interest in it and I’m all for watching it. This  made my Top 20 Anime of the Decade list awhile back if you wants some quick thoughts.
2. Rolling Girls – A CGDCT show with just enough depth to be interesting week-to-week. Very colorful and fun!
3. The Pet Girl of Sakurasou – This is a story about failure, but learning to push on even in the face of adversity. For creatives like us, it’s perfect! The show is a 24 episode one, but don’t let that worry you. It’ll work just fine 😉
4. Death Parade – Lately this show has been at the forefront of discussion in various circles of mine. This has me itching to watch it, and I’ve wanted to put it on the poll anyway.

Join in the Fun!

So get to voting! I hope to see you for the next watch and would love to hear about shows you’d like to see added to the poll in the future. If you have any questions feel free to ask, I’d be more than happy to answer!

#Anitwitwatches 4 – Girls’ Last Tour Schedule & Announcement

Welcome to the Fourth #Anitwitwatches!

After the contentious School Days, I decided to mix up the poll considerably since that show was a trial for some folks, even if everybody seemed to largely enjoy the experience. Of these shows, only one of them has escaped my viewing before but I put it on the poll with the thought it had no chance. Wouldn’t you know it though, Girls’ Last Tour took home the gold!

Below you’ll find information on what the watch is as well as the schedule for this fourth season of #anitwitwatches. Thank you to everybody who has participated in the past and all of you who will be joining for the first time with this series!

What is #Anitwitwatches?

This is a weekly community event meant to bring folks together to revisit old favorites and discover new shows. It’s meant to be something you can get as involved in as you want, there is no pressure to participate every week or every watch, but we’d love to have you to share in the experience and discuss the shows we are watching all the same!

I was inspired to do this after seeing the “rewatches” that people do over at Reddit in the r/anime sub. Since I interact with a lot of you guys on Twitter, I thought it would be the perfect place to do something similar! That said, even if you do not have a Twitter you can still join in by posting any content via WordPress, YouTube, or whatever suits your fancy. If you do, be sure to send me an email at jonspencerreviews@gmail.com so I can share your wonderful creations!

For everyone else, simply watch the episodes for the week based on the schedule below. Make sure to use the hashtag, #anitwitwatches when you do, and that’s it! Discuss with the other folks participating, create content, and generally just have a fun time!

This next show was chosen based on YOUR votes, so let’s get to the watch schedule.

Girls’ Last Tour Watch Schedule

We will be taking a 1 week break, meaning that we will NOT be watching anything for the week of 1/26/20. This is to give me time to properly prepare for hosting the watch and give everybody else a little break before starting something new. Plus I need to wrap up the showcase stuff for the end of that week. We will be keeping the Monday time slot for this watch after careful consideration and feedback.

If you have not done so, you can see where you can watch School Days for free, and legally, by using because.moe. Unfortunately, I cannot realistically check all regions but I aimed to make this as accessible as possible. That said, I won’t stop you from doing what you need to in order to participate. The more the merrier!

Here are the dates (all Mondays) and the episodes for each:

• 1/27/20 – Break
• 2/3/20 – Episodes 1 & 2
• 2/10/20 – Episodes 3 & 4
• 2/17/20 – Episodes 5 & 6
• 2/24/20 – Episodes 7 & 8
• 3/2/20 – Episodes 9 & 10
• 3/9/20 – Episode 11
• 3/16/20 – Episode 12

Since I haven’t actually seen this show, I did the best I could based on the episode descriptions (doing my best to avoid spoilers). It seemed to me that doing doubles for all but the last 2 episodes would suit the show nicely sans the final 2 episodes. That’ll make this watch 7 weeks long with the usual break at the start. I hope you’re excited to watch this one and I look forward to all the excellent discussion!