Much better than I had expected from that awful title.
The simplest way I can describe this show is “discount Blood Blockade Battlefront”, and that might sound harsh, but my love for that show is pretty well-known. While this one doesn’t have all its pieces (the setting is a little less interesting, the main character is unlikeable) there are more similarities than differences.
That being said, I still totally enjoyed this premiere. Sunrise is pretty reliable when it comes to production, and even though this isn’t nearly as lavish as a Bones show, it’s not bad-looking, and the direction is at least slightly above-average. If the rest of the cast introduced at the end of the episode are interesting, and the show stops explaining the joke all the time, this could come out to be something good, and I’m rooting for it.
Premiere Impressions – RErideD – Derrida, who leaps through time
What a way to start Fall!
Surprise! Out of nowhere, four episodes of a brand new show premiere early on Crunchyroll before the season even starts, and while I was initially worried about what that might mean for the quality of this show, my fears were totally unfounded. RErideD is already shaping up to be something great.
We haven’t seen a decent science fiction story in a while with a tone like this – very dour and grounded, yet with a fantastical element. The ill-fated KADO had a cube with an alien inside, and here, we have time travel and the robot apocalypse, which of course is brought on purely by greed. I don’t consider that a spoiler since it’s obvious from the beginning that that’s where things are going, but let me summarize this episode anyway, because a lot happens in it.
1) A researcher discovers a fatal bug in his automated robots that activates when they are deployed en masse in combat.
2) He goes to his boss with this information, and his boss rejects his request to recall so that a patch can be implemented.
3) Said researcher retreats from work and goes to visit his old friend for said friend’s daughter’s birthday, for which he gives her flowers.
4) The daughter confronts him about giving up on researching time jumping, and he tells her it’s impossible.
5) Later that night, the researcher finds out his friend’s daughter has been hospitalized due to some sort of accident related to her own time travel experiment.
6) Even later, the researcher’s friend calls him and tells him to get his shit together because his boss is trying to hunt him down and kill him for discovering the bug.
7) The two get into a car accident that traps the friend and gets him killed by the boss and his hit squad, and the researcher flees on foot.
8) The researcher stumbles into a strange facility and, without thinking, steps into a cryo chamber without setting a time limit on it. While he is frozen, a woman (I’m guessing the friend’s daughter) visits him and places a pocket watch where he’ll find it when he wakes up.
9) The researcher awakens and steps outside in the future, where the city he knew has been destroyed by the robots he created after the bug caused them to turn on the human population.
It’s a lot for a premiere, but it sets up a ton of potential going forward, and the direction keeps up, especially once night falls and we get a ton of emotionally-lit, dramatic shots (I’m very fond of the aesthetic of snow falling at night…).
(A quick note: as of this writeup, shows comprising more than one cour are getting separated out and discussed at the end of the year, so Lupin Part V, My Hero Academia, Major 2nd, and Steins;Gate 0 will not be part of this list, though I’ll still be writing Final Thoughts posts for them as I complete them.)
What a mixed bag of a season for me to finally finish on time.
We had a few triumphs, sure, but this summer was pretty solidly running at a 6/10, with some high points but a lot of average-to-low stuff dragging it down. I was really hoping for better from several of the shows on this list, but overall this was a strangely weak summer with a bunch of disappointment. As before, I’ll mention what I skipped first.
* Attack on Titan Season 3, FLCL Progressive and Overlord Season 3 because I haven’t seen either of their previous seasons.
* Hi Score Girl, Back Street Girls and Sirius the Jaeger because they were picked up by Netflix. (I’m considering doing a Netflix writeup for the whole year at a later date)
* Free! Dive to the Future because I’m waiting for the release of the prequel movie that sets it up, and Funimation taking their sweet time with it instead of pushing it out before the show aggravates me.
Worst of the Season: The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar (1/10)
Two very similar and similarly terrible shows emerged this season, but of the two, I ultimately have to say that Master of Ragnarok was the more heinous. The writing in this show was, over time, consistently insulting to the point of near-parody. Not only have we already seen the concept of guy-with-smartphone-in-another-world before, but this one added in even more stupid harem nonsense than before and contrived a situation where everyone in his harem referred to him as either their father or their big brother, all while constantly wanting to fuck him. It also just looked flat-out awful and half-finished.
How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord (2/10)
Yeah, I ultimately had to bump Demon Lord to a 2 just in comparison to Master of Ragnarok, because even though I still loathe the idea of the harem being literally enslaved, from what I understand (I still haven’t even watched the entire first episode because what would I get out of it?) the world-building in the show has at least been passable and the plot isn’t total garbage. That being said, I won’t say much more on this one because I didn’t experience the whole thing.
Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King (2/10)
The first entry on the list I straight-up forgot existed. It’s edgy garbage that doesn’t have the substance or production to make even the first episode worth finishing, and I do remember wondering if my VRV app was having trouble buffering it. Nope, the show is just a slideshow.
Music Girls(3/10)
Oh boy, did this one not even stand a shadow of a chance airing in the same season as Revue Starlight. Music Girls just struck me as having almost no effort put into it at all, aside from developing one of the ugliest art designs I’ve ever seen in anime. The first episode was boring as hell and was so generic that it makes me wonder how the director behind The Galaxy Railways ever ended up here. Did he wander in, confused, and they just drafted him into a garbage fire?
ISLAND (3/10)
If ISLAND had been spun as a satire of KyoAni Key adaptations like Clannad or Air, I would have probably thought it was hilarious, but instead this twelve-car pileup of cliches was meant to be taken entirely seriously. A man with amnesia washes up on a mysterious island in a town that dislikes outsiders, is really cool about the whole thing, and the girl he’s trying to meet might be a vampire because she never goes outside and is only awake at night? With no subtlety or nuance at all, and a huge age difference between Main Guy and the girls? It would have been better if they had been joking.
Dropkick On My Devil! (3/10)
Dropkick was a strange beast that I didn’t finish the premiere of because I could tell right away that it would be a low-effort, derivative comedy that should probably have been a short rather than a full-length TV series. It’s basically an even less original Gabriel Dropout! and I was not about that.
The Thousand Musketeers (4/10)
The Thousand Musketeers commits the sin of just not being interesting enough. We’ve seen what can happen when mobage adaptations are done well (we get Love Live! or Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu) so I don’t get why there are still ones that are just poorly animated snoozes. The Thousand Musketeers isn’t awful, but it has no excuses, and I do not understand for the life of me why HIDIVE tried so hard to push it instead of throwing all its weight behind Revue Starlight.
Holmes of Kyoto (4/10)
The first show on the list that I didn’t drop after the first episode, Holmes at least started with an interesting and chill premise but ultimately tried too hard to push a plot that didn’t make sense and didn’t have enough narrative stakes to get the viewer invested.
Seven Senses of the Re’Union (4/10)
The biggest disappointment of the season, Seven Senses got a running score of 8/10 on my midseason writeup before everything went very, very wrong. It’s been a full week since I’ve watched it and the ending still infuriates me just to think about it, but ultimately the story jumped the shark in episode 8 with a plot development that could have reasonably been recovered from had the finale decided to resolve literally a single thing instead of just pretending that killing a low-tier villain solved all of the cast’s problems.
Phantom in the Twilight (5/10)
Phantom is another show that just couldn’t keep me interested in it. Three episodes in, the production had not improved and the characters had run out of time to become interesting. Like I said in my writeup, it seemed to be aiming for a 6, and it should not have been rewarded for it. I still think this idea could have worked if given an Atlus makeover.
Angels of Death (4/10)
I had at least a little bit of hope for Angels, but ultimately I could just no longer stand main character Rachel or the inane story being told, clearly in an attempt to cash in on the unadaptability of Zero Escape. I still like Isaac as a character, but he couldn’t save a show that just faded into boring mush seven episodes in.
Unrated: Asobi Asobase -workshop of fun-
Like I said, I could see why this one got a lot of positive press, but it was just not for me.
Unrated: Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs
Another show that was just not going to be my cup of tea. If the TNA community wants it, that’s fine, but I wasn’t gonna try to pretend this was anything better or worse than it was.
Unrated: Planet With
I’m still embarrassed by this one, and my inability to see what everyone else seems to be seeing in it. I imagine I’ll revisit and reevaluate it later if only to resolve what feels like a black mark on my critical viewing.
On-Hold: Cells at Work!
Cells at Work! hasn’t done much other than not be what I was hoping for out of it. I typically cannot get into episodic shows because I don’t see what’s supposed to be hooking me, and with no overarching plot to speak of, it was doomed on part from the beginning. The first episode is still terrific, but I don’t want to watch it 13 times, you know?
On-Hole: Chio’s School Road
Of the comedies this season, Chio was the one I just never managed to make up my mind on. From what I’ve heard, it’s wildly inconsistent with its humor and that’s kind of scared me away.
AND NOW, the stuff I actually liked!
Harukana Receive (7/10)
Sometimes, a simple premise can work well with good execution. Harukana Receive didn’t try extra hard, but it didn’t have to, running at a consistent pace throughout to deliver a good story that isn’t made worse just by its lack of originality. If you miss Haikyu!, you’re better off with this than…
HANEBADO! (7/10)
A frustrating viewing experience where the matches are beautiful and most of the cast make no sense. The melodrama here is pumped up a little too high for the script to keep up with, and it results in a show where one of the main characters becomes more of a villain than the antagonists, despite the fact that the show still seems to be trying to get the audience to root for her. So, come for the visuals, but don’t expect the story to match in quality.
Grand Blue Dreaming(7/10)
A strange comedy that mixes typical situations with a large dose of alcohol and nudity, and comes away looking very unique and unrepentant in its stupidity. The best dumb shows are intentionally dumb, and any show with this many naked guys is absolutely in on the joke.
Angolmois: Record of Mongol Invasion (8/10)
It’s been a good while since I’ve seen a decent bloodfest, and this one follows in the tradition of samurai cinema by going over the top while telling a story of redemption in the face of hopeless odds. While the ending wasn’t perfect, the action is visceral and satisfying, and our hero Jinzaburou manages to be a credible badass.
Best of the Season: Tie
Revue Starlight (9/10)
Revue Starlight hit a few early bumps in the road that thankfully managed to be left in the dust in the second half, delivering a coded love story about two girls and what they will do to fulfill a childhood promise to each other. Distinguishing itself massively from others in the idol genre, Revue Starlight traded in musical numbers for dramatic, excellently-staged fight scenes where interpersonal drama can be resolved through creatively theatric swordfights and magical girl-style transformations. An absolutely worthy substitute to the unlicensed fourth season of Symphogear.
Happy Sugar Life (9/10)
A near-masterfully plotted thriller that expertly balances oversaccharine fluff with underlying violent tension, Happy Sugar Life is a story I’ve never seen before and an examination of psychopathy and the logical extreme of the very concept of moe. It stumbles only slightly in its ending and the over-the-top characters, but ultimately comes out way ahead of much of its seasonal competition.
Final Thoughts – HANEBADO!
A very attractive mess.
There’s no mincing words here – HANEBADO! looks gorgeous in motion. It is perhaps the best-looking show of the season outside of Attack on Titan or Revue Starlight, and while it can look a little wonky in the still shots, the matches are directed impeccably, with very ambitious camera placements forcing the quality animation to keep up, and it absolutely does.
But the story is all over the place, with characters going in very strange directions in the second half, and our protagonist going from a childish prodigy to a sociopath. The in-universe explanation makes sense – she gets it from her mom, who abandoned her for years in order to focus on the sport – but it makes it very, very difficult to root for her and pretty much causes the hero position to shift back to Aragaki by the final match, with Hanesaki’s team trying to snap her out of it and her cruelly brushing them off.
So character-wise, we have an unfortunate mixed bag that makes for a really strange show. The production team certainly tried hard and succeeded greatly, but the changes from the manga caused the story to become questionable, almost nonsensical, with a very inconclusive ending showcasing little growth on the part of the characters.
So, yeah, I’ll give it a 7/10 if only for the visual spectacle, but having few decent characters, I wouldn’t recommend it as much as Harukana Receive or Major 2nd.
Final Thoughts – Happy Sugar Life
See, sometimes I can have nice things.
Happy Sugar Life was, from the beginning, a complicated show. As of this final episode, we have come back around to the first scene – a mutual suicide by way of jumping from a burning building. And, while I’m not sure I’ve fully processed the ending, I also can’t think of a better one, because if Satou had survived then the show’s message would have failed dramatically.
Everyone gets punished for their sins.
The characters in this show are nearly all insane, and nobody escapes entirely unscathed, whether it’s Satou for her selfishness costing an innocent life, Mitsuboshi for his deceitfulness, or Asahi for his desire to take his sister back to her abusive home life purely for his own desire. I appreciate that their sins weren’t all weighed equally in the end, and that their individual victimhood led them to these dark places.
This show kept me right on the line the entire way through, by subverting my expectations as an anime viewer. Every time the viewer comes close to sympathizing with our irredeemable heroine, we get harshly reminded that she is a psychopath who will burn it all down in order to keep her fantasy alive.
The one thing harshing my buzz about this story is Shio herself, and her ultimate reduction into being more of an idea than a character. She is something that our trio of nutjobs are chasing for different reasons – Satou to fulfill her need for sexless love, Mitsuboshi for nearly the opposite reason (very nearly admitting multiple times that he wants her intimately), and Asahi because he believes that a “complete” family can make him happy again. I would have liked to see at least a more hopeful ending for Shio herself, though.
But honestly, Happy Sugar Life has been a crazy, nerve-wracking ride since the very first scene, repeated here: wedding music played during a death scene. Satou’s castle crumbles, and, as often happens, its ruler goes down with it instead of facing reality. I’ve never seen anything like Happy Sugar Life, and I’m so glad that we got a great ending for it.
9/10.
Manga Review – Shortcake Cake, Volume 1
A formulaic but charming romantic comedy with a few early shake-ups.
The story begins with our heroine Ten moving into a boarding house near her new high school, in order to save time on the two-hour commute, where she meets six friends, two of whom are, of course, very eligible boys. The setup is not unlike Dreamin’ Sun, but Shortcake Cake carries a lot more energy and speedy pacing – the love triangle is set up by the end of this first book and the boys in question are already aware of it, and one last twist really gets the story going, provided the next chapter actually sticks to it.
The one element I’m not totally on-board with is the art, which isn’t bad but can look a little bit lazy at times. The author leans a little too much on super-deformed faces and far-away character shots without fine details, and I noticed a few instances where the background work was half-baked enough that the characters wound up halo’ed because otherwise their heads would have blended into the scene behind them rather than just sticking out on their own.
Overall, though, this first volume was enjoyable, even if it wasn’t particularly ambitious. We see repeated plots like this because the elements can still work, they just won’t be very challenging.
Score so far: 7/10
Final Thoughts – Revue Starlight
It wins “Most Improved” by a country mile.
I was pretty unsteady on this show when I tried to cover it weekly, but by the halfway point it had managed to recover the intrigue of its first episode and ramp up the story in a very satisfying way. I’m really impressed by how much better this managed to get, all leading up to an incredibly satisfying ending which takes the show in a different direction than I had expected, in the best way.
It also remained gorgeous throughout, despite a troubled production, and several scenes in the last few episodes were nothing short of breathtakingly animated. Even the CG work doesn’t disappoint, running at the correct framerate and managing to still look lifelike even though it’s noticeable. I want to especially declare the fight scenes here to be some of the best of the year. Even though the victor is often precluded, the bouts themselves are often mesmerizing, which is great considering they replace the more traditional musical numbers. Revue Starlight absolutely manages to make its drama work.
Studio Kinema Citrus made a name for itself last year, and while Starlight certainly isn’t as popular as Made in Abyss, it shows that that project was not a fluke. This is a production team that knows what it’s doing, and I cannot wait to see what we get out of them next.
9/10!
Final Thoughts – Grand Blue Dreaming
A very unique kind of comedy.
We don’t get very many adult-oriented comedy shows, and thankfully Grand Blue Dreaming takes full advantage of its adult cast by cramming as many alcohol and nudity jokes into its runtime as possible, even while riffing on classic misunderstanding comedy bits we’ve seen before. Our main character Iori is an idiotic and rude moron who never learns, in the proud tradition of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and the show mines his lack of decency for all it’s worth once we find out he’s much less nice than most slice of life protagonists. He never gets the girl, he’s usually drunk in the middle of the day, and he’s always moments away from stripping in public, and the rest of the guys aren’t much better.
It’s hilarious… Most of the time.
Some of the sexual jokes can read kind of badly in an age in the U.S. where consent is becoming a major issue, and some of the mean-spirited jokes get repeated more often than is really necessary.
I also would have liked to see more of a conclusion to the story. Granted, there wasn’t much of a story, but the group’s vacation isn’t even over by the time the final credits roll, and only one character goes through an arc of any kind.
That being said, I’m very glad Grand Blue Dreaming exists. It was the only comedy this season I managed to finish, it scratched my perverse itch for naked muscle bros, and it delivered one of my favorite bait-and-switch tricks I’ve seen in anime. It’s raucously funny, highly memorable, and very unique, even if it ultimately ends up treading familiar ground.
Final Thoughts – Angolmois: Record of Mongol Invasion
A terrifically bloody throwback.
If you know much about Asian history (or can extrapolate from the story of Mulan), you should be able to tell how this story is going to end as soon as it begins. This is not a battle our “heroes” were ever going to win, and in the end, what we get is more akin to a classic samurai redemption story for our protagonist Jinzaburou. Exiled from Japan for his past crimes, he and his fellow prisoners wash up on the shore of Tsushima and get drafted into the battle to defend the island from the coming Mongol threat.
Like many samurai stories, this one is bloody as hell, with the body count soaring as the plot goes on, and we learn more about why Jinzaburou was exiled, who he used to be, and what he’s really fighting for in defending a land that rejects him. The fight scenes in this show, particularly when the action is one-on-one (the final fight being a particular highlight) are beautifully choreographed, tying Jinzaburou’s canine aesthetic together with an animalistic sword style and genuinely cementing him as a man not to be fucked with.
What I would have liked to see from this series, however, is a slicker production (I would have loved to see this as made by ufotable) and the ever-present filter on the screen toned down just a tad, as it became distracting in more than a few places and distorted a few of the backgrounds. I also wish that the princess of the island were given a little more characterization to justify her role as the deuteragonist, because I was disappointed to see her become a tsundere when in front of our hero.
But, all-in-all, Angolmois is certainly a stand-out in what has, overall, been a pretty disappointing summer in comparison to the ridiculously packed spring.
The Arcane Archive 