The Summer Preview Because I Quit Spring

I needed an image to fill this, and no you don’t need context.

This is probably the first post where I’ve actually tried to get assistance from other people in it’s creation. For the most part this is just a fairly standard preview with my opinions in it plus some other information. I wish I could have been a bit more creative with that, but I can only work with what I’ve got.

Kingdom 2
Starts: June 8 (Saturday)
Episodes: 39
Director: Iwanaga Akira (Tegami Bachi)
Initial Thought: Never watched 1

I’d put it down more to the fact that I never was all that interested in Warring States anything whether that was Japan or in this case China. It never seems to feel like a real thing when it’s portrayed in fiction. I have the same problem with medieval fiction as well. I studied this at university, but I can’t help but feel that I’m alone with this problem.

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou
Begins: July 1 (Monday)
Director: Takahashi Yukio (debut)
Initial Thought: Part of the heap misery on a loser genre?

If Kirihime was voiced by Kugimiya Rie, then this series would almost exactly resemble those ending animation sequences from Zero no Tsukaima where Saito is being abused in dog form. That’s the vibe I get from looking at this. The useless protagonist in dog form is going to spend the entire time being tortured. Is the main lesson from this series supposed to be “don’t be a hero” because a life of pain awaits?

Recorder to Randoseru Mi
Begins: July 1 (Monday)
Director: Imazaki Itsuki (Ai Mai Mi)
Initial Thought: Didn’t the joke die within the first episode of the first season?

An honest question for the 2 people still watching this: does each episode still involve the boy who looks 20 years older than he is getting arrested? It seems like that would just get old really quickly even in 2 minute a week bursts.

Brothers Conflict
Begins: July 2 (Tuesday)
Episodes: 13
Director: Matsumoto Jun (Blood+, Senkou no Night Raid, Persona -trinity soul-)
Initial Thought: The gender-bent version of that terribad from last month, only somehow more skeevy.

At least the age range is more realistic than the infant to 17 spread of that other OVA. With these shoujo harems, I wish they would actually develop the characters that are involved in it. There are 11 of them here, and I can’t see much time for that to happen. So it will just have to stick to stereotypes of things like the bookish one, the troublemaker, the siscon otaku, etc. I think once you go past 5 members of a harem it starts to have problems without having to focus on 2 exclusively.

Gifuu Doudou!!: Kanetsugu to Keiji
Begins: July 2 (Tuesday)
Director: Shirohata Bob (Hetalia, Hiiro no Kakera, Gravitation)
Initial Thought: I didn’t know about this one until late to be honest, but it looks like generic Sengoku era drama.

I don’t know why this one seemed to have sprung on me until late. Basically it looks like the story of two men who become friends as they try to make history on the battlefields of Sengoku-era Japan. Maybe they become more than friends in the process considering this director’s history, but I don’t think he even has to go that far. Just enough to imply these two guys have something going on will work for the fans. I think the main problem this series will have is just distinguishing itself from something like Kingdom. Actually I think it’s fair to say that this is actually a direct response to that series. The early start date should help it domestically at least.

Senyuu. Season 2
Begins: July 2 (Tuesday)
Director: Yamamoto Yutaka (Fractale, Kannagi)
Initial Thought: Yamakan’s got to Yamakan

The first season really lost its way once it started introducing tons of new characters near the end. It’s almost like Yamakan thought he was doing Fractale all over again in 5 minute bursts. This series works best as physical comedy between Alba and Ross with Rche being the innocent third party. The rest of the characters introduced after that weren’t really good apart from the old lolicon Rudolf voiced by Nakata Jouji.

Free!
Begins: July 3 (Wednesday)
Director: Utsumi Hiroko (debut)
Initial Thought: Probably not worth watching until it hits the school festival arc.

I don’t understand the controversy behind this even existing. Surely as a private company Kyoto Animation is permitted to make whatever the hell they want. Even if they wanted to do a rotoscoped version of The Birth of a Nation with cute girls in white robes or Triumph of the Will with chuunibyou boys, they are able to do that even if it is financial suicide. A story about a boys swimming club could never be considered at that level. My warning would be that it will not become good until the school festival arc.

Tamayura ~More Aggressive~
Starts: July 3 (Wednesday)
Director: Sato Junichi (Aria, Phi-Brain)
Initial Thought: Does that title even mean anything?

I watched only the OVA of this and only the pink cat really gave me any entertainment. The rest was just about the character designs, but nothing really happened at all. That’s why I don’t understand this whole Aggressive thing. More aggressive than what? Chocolate milk?

Danganronpa Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei The Animation
Begins: July 4 (Thursday)
Episodes: 13
Director: Kishi Seiji (Angel Beats, Devil Survivor 2 The Animation, Persona 4: The Animation)
Initial Thought: This is so contrived

I really don’t get scenarios like this. The whole lock people in a room and figure out who the killer is plot is so cliche that hardly anyone uses it anymore. They are making a whole series out of that idea. Why doesn’t 1 person kill the rest of the group and get away in the first episode? It seems like that logic would break this scenario.

Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku
Begins: July 4 (Thursday)
Episodes: 12
Director: Sato Hikaru (debut)
Initial Thought: Extraordinary girls doing normal stuff, zzzzzzzzzzz.

This is a story of an actual “go-home club” only the girls in it happen to be highly eccentric. I don’t really know what to make of this. It could simply be generic girls doing nothing club, or maybe Yuyushiki with action. This feels like one of those 4 minute shows though.

Love Lab
Begins: July 4 (Thursday)
Director: Ohta Masahiko (Kotoura-san, Mitsudomoe, Yuru Yuri)
Initial Thought: Do the names of the girls even matter?

The synopsis released for this makes it less appealing than it really should be. This is just a story of a girl who is more than what she is on the outside. Then forming a club to investigate all matters of love. It’s just going to be a cure girls investigating their emotions in an environment outside of the uptight school they are used to.

Rozen Maiden
Begins: July 4 (Thursday)
Director: Omata Shinichi (Sankarea)
Initial Thought: Staircase episode needed

I don’t know why this needed a remake exactly. The best thing about the original run was the fact that it managed to make lifeless dolls have more personality than the people who owned them. Jun was also forming a bit of a harem of his own if I remember right despite the fact that he is full-blown hikkikomori. Oh what the hell, the audience just wants more Suigentou, don’t they?

Senki Zesshou Symphogear G
Begins: July 4 (Thursday)
Director: Ono Katsumi (Hataraki Man, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s)
Initial Thought: I never got the joke in even watching this ironically the first time.

Really, I just don’t understand. Basically, I don’t even see it as even being that classy in the most ironic of ways. It just felt like a bunch of action set pieces scripted around singing that wasn’t even that good with a side of shipping girls together. That’s why it has a second season, isn’t it?

Servant x Service
Begins: July 4 (Thursday)
Director: Yamamoto Yasutaka (Shinryaku!? Ika Musume, Valkyria Chronicles)
Initial Thought: Will only really work if the workers do lots of drinking and whinging about their jobs outside of work.

Office comedies and anime really never have made much of an impression. I would put that down to the fact that the target audience for anime never really wants to become boring salarymen. So they’ve done stuff like having the office workers pilot mecha or sleep with cute voice actresses or learned about forming relationships with the help of strange people. This is an attempt to try to make a provincial government office seem like a fun place to be. The truth is that the setting in a workplace comedy doesn’t really matter that much. Characters and writing do, and frankly I’m not optimistic about this one.

Tokurei Sochi Dantai Stella Jo-Gakuin Koutou-ka C3-bu
Begins: July 4 (Thursday)
Director: Kawajiri Masayoshi (debut)
Initial Thought: The destitute man’s Garupan

What’s left of Gainax appears to be jumping on the girls in combat bandwagon. With Garupan on the serious end of the spectrum and Upotte! on the silly end of the spectrum, where will this one end up? Probably closer to Upotte! than you would think. I don’t believe they construct an entire world around the combat as they did in Garupan, so I think it’s strictly sticking to a club where girls fire guns with no threat involved.

Fantasista Doll
Begins: July 6 (Saturday)
Director: Saito Hisashi (Bamboo Blade, Haganai, Sora no Otoshimono)
Initial Thought: Free money for all of the voice actresses involved

I don’t understand how this could possibly be any different from show a couple seasons back with the dolls that battled, but generally did adorable things for their master in his apartment. I think series like this fall into the category of subsidies for all involved in the production. It’s not very good, but it’s a spot on someone’s resume and some money. A contractual obligation of an anime if I could really call it anything else.

Fate/kaleid line Prisma Illya
Begins: July 6 (Saturday)
Director: Sakamoto Takashi (Tasogare Otome x Amnesia)
Initial Thought: Never watched any of the Fate series

Really, I haven’t watched any of it. I didn’t watch Fate/Zero because I had not finished Fate/Stay Night. I did watch Tsukihime though that has been completely disowned by most Type Moon fans as far as I’m aware. They do like to do fun stuff like this from time to time, so making one of the characters into a magical girl for fun is definitely fitting for the franchise.

Genei o Kakeru Taiyou
Begins: July 6 (Saturday)
Director: Kusakawa Keizou (Campione!, Sekirei, Asura Cryin’)
Initial Thought: A poor looking Madoka clone

I suppose this fits into the whole post-Madoka magical girl genre. It’s strange how seeing girls being tortured somehow caused a paradigm to form in that genre. Since this is original I don’t know much beyond it kind of seeming like Card Captor Sakura.

Genshiken Nidaime
Begins: July 6 (Saturday)
Director: Mizushima Tsutomu (Joshiraku, Girls und Panzer, Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san)
Initial Thought: Not really bothered honestly after the ending to the first series

So it’s an attempt to recapture the comedy behind the cult otaku college club series from many years ago. To do that, they’ve completely thrown out the previous voice acting cast and are starting from scratch. Which is sort of strange considering there is overlap between the two. So I’ll chalk that up to just trying to save some money. Anyway, this is more of a fujoshi group now, which makes it somewhat different. I did begin to read some of the manga for this, but I actually lost interest. Sorry.

Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi
Begins: July 6 (Saturday)
Director: Kumazawa Yuuji (Oda Nobuna no Yabou)
Initial Thought: God must have left on Sunday because it was NFL season.

This is set in a sort of apocalyptic world where no one is born anymore and no one dies either. Forget how impossible all of that is, but rather focus on how stale the world would become. It would literally become the most boring world possible. So this is the story of two people traveling around this boring world doing stuff. I struggle to see where the entertainment will come from this series.

Kiniro Mosaic
Begins: July 6 (Saturday)
Episodes: 12
Director: Tenshou (Tanaka Motoki) (debut)
Initial Thought: Ichigo Mashimaro?

I really hope this doesn’t turn into a “Hey Look, those foreigners sure are funny being foreign” type of show. On the other hand, I think it’s equally likely this just turns into one of those girls doing cute things series even if 2 of them happen to be foreign. My real question is why the UK? Is it just the fact that both happen to be island nations on the periphery of the same mass of land? Or is it just tiring of America as a soft target? I’m sort of interested in this Anglophile trend.

Monogatari Series Second Season
Begins: July 6 (Saturday)
Chief Director: Shinbo Akiyuki
Director: Itamura Tomoyuki (Nekomonogatari)
Initial Thought: I actually don’t really care for Senjougahara with the short hair.

As much as everyone wants episode 12 of Bakemonogatari to happen again, I think that’s an exception. That’s not a bad thing as there is always the possibility of over analyzing all of these episodes. I mean, that was just an episode devoted to toothbrushing and not really a symbol of anything larger. What was I thinking when I was writing that post?

Blood Lad
Begins: July 7 (Sunday)
Director: Miya Shigeyuki (Buzzer Beater)
Initial Thought: Doesn’t look like there’s all that much in the way of substance or story.

This is one of those series where they want to have an otaku main lead, but they can’t just go out and use that type of character. So it’s a vampire who is a human otaku. He wants to make his 2D waifu into a 3D waifu. At least that’s what I think the plot is. His trips to the real world will come off like the trips to Akihabara in most anime in this genre. This may not be as bad as I thought. I wonder what the beach/hot springs episode will be like.

Hakkenden -Touhou Hakken Ibun- Season 2
Begins: July 7 (Sunday)
Director: Yamazaki Mitsue
Initial Thought: Barely lasted 1 episode in season 1

I don’t really have much to add to this thought actually. I was really unimpressed by that episode. Anyone want to fill me in on what I missed?

High School DxD New
Begins: July 7 (Sunday)
Director: Yanagisawa Tetsuya (Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de, Kannazuki no Miko, Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora)
Initial Thought: Not as terrible as people think it is.

A fun fact about the first season: it is still the only show since I’ve been voting for APR to have every episode of its run make my ballot. While you may think I was sending in troll ballots, I put it down to that season not being particularly good and this series not being as horrible as people think. As far as harems are concerned, I thought HS DxD did about as well as is possible on making Issei into a lecherous lead who still has a heart of gold.

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist
Begins: July 7 (Sunday)
Director: Kon Chiaki (La storia della Arcana Famiglia, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi)
Initial Thought: This really doesn’t look like much will be happening.

This season’s blatant fujoshi show. Basically a boy being pursued by older men after what he possesses. You could change that sentence with just a few words to make it sound horrible. No, it’s not his innocence they are after, it’s the fact he ends up with the power to choose the next king of the demon world. Get your mind out of the gutters.

Ro-Kyuu-Bu! SS
Begins: July 7 (Sunday)
Director: Kusakawa Keizou
Initial Thought: Never watched the first season

The type of anime that appeals to someone on twitter who you may know about. Yes, more elementary school girls playing basketball. I don’t want to know if the actual audience for this show was the intended audience. The consequences of that are beyond thinking.

Teekyuu Season 2
Begins: July 7 (Sunday)
Director: Itagaki Shin (Ben-to, Black Cat, Devil May Cry)
Initial Thought: Didn’t watch season 1

That’s not entirely true. I did watch the first episode and it looked really poor in addition to the jokes being given no time. It’s the classic short comedy problem of trying to spray as many jokes into the minute or two as possible. It’s like they don’t know that timing is the key to comedy.

Uchouten Kazoku
Begins: July 7 (Sunday)
Director: Yoshihara Masayuki (Bannou Yasai Ninninman)
Initial Thought: Pretty Appalling Works

This looks very much like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei in appearance without even a hint of the dark comedy. The people behind this seem like they are capable of giving this comedy an edge. Then you see that PA Works in the credits. So it will be brightly colored with all the edge of a spoon.

Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai Season 3
Begins: July 8 (Monday)
Director: Osedo Satoshi (debut)
Initial Thought: One of the best produced harem anime out there.

A fun little fact about this franchise for me. I’m caught up in the current arc of the manga, but I completely skipped what this series will cover. That would be the Goddess arc which is only really explored in the recent Tenri OVA. There should have been Tenri figures at Anime Boston, I would have been all over that, but I digress. The thing that always struck me about the first two seasons of Kaminomi was the level of detail that went into the production. Few visual flaws and though I may be a victim of the orchestral score making everything better that it really is, I loved the BGM.

Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaete mo Omaera ga Warui!
Begins: July 8 (Monday)
Director: Oonuma Shin (Kokoro Connect, Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, ef)
Initial Thought: Pity series with its heart in the right place.

This is actually a really melancholic dark comedy. The protagonist Kuroki had delusions of becoming popular in high school which didn’t pan out. So she really exists on an island in the universe of this series. She gets no help from anyone, her only social interaction is with a middle school friend who turned out to be popular and attractive. The worst part is that it’s not as though she’s intentionally ignored by anyone in the school, she’s simply part of the scenery. So she resorts to living in fujoshi fantasy land sometimes. I just end up feeling bad for her. I think that’s part of the charm of this series.

Gin no Saji: Silver Spoon
Begins: July 11 (Thursday)
Director: Ito Tomohiko (Occult Academy, Sword Art Online)
Initial Thought: Looks so boring

As much as this may seem like a combination of Genshiken with Moyashimon, that’s just making a poor use of university comedies simply for a point of comparison. This is just a simple story of a rich kid having to experience life with the poors. He will just learn how tough they have it and eventually empathize with them because he doesn’t like his life back at home. I’d also expect it to completely disregard the advantages he already has in life should any troubles show up at the door of he or his
new friends.

Chou Jigen Game Neptune the Animation
Begins: July 12 (Friday)
Director: Mukai Masahiro (debut)
Initial Thought: References galore

I only knew this as a game franchise that was filled with references to the great console war that rages on today. Also, it seemed to thrive on DLC just to add characters. I’ve never heard of anyone praising the battle mechanics or story, so that’s a great sign for this series.

Gatchaman Crowds
Begins: July 12 (Friday)
Episodes: 12
Director: Nakamura Kenji (Kuchu Buranko, [C], Mononoke)
Initial Thought: Never really watched the original

I know I’m supposed to be able to watch this without having watched the original, but a rule is a rule. That’s true whether the original aired in 2008 or sometime in the early 70s (and it’s not Macross). So I suppose I’ll miss out on this, but I’m sure some of you out there will enjoy it.

Futari wa Milky Holmes
Begins: July 13 (Saturday)
Director: Nishikiori Hiroshi (To Aru Majutsu no Index, Ayakashi Ayashi, Azumanga Daioh)
Initial Thought: Never watched any of the shows before

I think I’m missing out on another fun series. Is there any reason to watch the prior series? Anyone?

Kimi no Iru Machi
Starts: July 13 (Saturday)
Director: Yamauchi Shigeyasu (Casshern Sins, Yumekui Merry)
Initial Thought: This is dragged out so long with no one doing anything

Probably the only manga series I’ve ever heard of that people keep going back to because it makes them angry at the author. I think this one is special in just the way that the story goes out of it’s way to make contrivances so the male lead never has to really commit to choosing a girl. A decent writer would have ended this series long ago on artistic grounds, but someone trying to squeeze more money out of angry fans would just keep extending it on and on, wouldn’t they? Hell, even Good Ending finally ended eventually.

So for those who simply can’t be bothered to read through that wall of text to see what is good, here is an easier way of ranking these.

Eagerly Anticipating
The World God Only Knows
Watamote!

Looking Forward To
Free!
Servant x Service
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya
Kiniro Mosaic
Monogatari Series: Second Season
Highschool DxD New
Genshiken Nidaime

Okay With Existing
Brothers Conflict
Senyuu. 2
Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku
Love Lab
Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi
Gin no Saji
Milky Holmes

Not Really Something I’d Want To Watch
Kingdom 2
InuHasa
Tamayura: More Aggressive
Gifuu Doudou!!: Kanetsugu to Keiji
Danganronpa
Symphogear G
Gatchaman Crowds

Why Does This Exist?
C³-bu
Rozen Maiden
Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS
Teekyuu. 2
Genei wo Kakeru Taiyo
Blood Lad
Neptune the Animation

Abject Failure
Recorder to Randoseru Mi
Uchouten Kazoku
Fantasista Doll
Hakkenden 2
Makai Ouji
Kimi no Rage Machi