New Anime Season part 2 · 9:37pm April 13th
Mysterious Disappearances
What’s it about? A one-hit-wonder novelist now works at a bookstore. In the meantime, she gains the power to alter her age, and uses it to investigate supernatural incidents with her coworkers.
The manga was good, if excessively ecchi. The animation here passingly reminds me of Dark Gathering if only due to the horror theme and slight throwback style. The main character's personal struggles, of feeling unable to achieve the success she did earlier in life, hits home.
Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again
What’s it about? Title is plot summary.
Goofy and cute, though I wish it were a little more closely focused on the lead characters rather than making them the vague center of a wider cast. The animation is okay, but clearly not a lot of movement.
Kaiju No. 8
What’s it about? In a world beset by monsters, a guy cleans up the bodies after the military takes them down, but he’d rather be fighting. One day, he turns into a monster and decides to give it a try.
Animation seems somehow low-res, though nicely dynamic. I immediately wonder why there need to be foot soldiers attacking kaiju if they have helicopters. Otherwise, there's a lot of detail here about handing kaiju after they're dead, more than, for example, Pacific Rim. I'm hoping I'll like this more than most kaiju stuff, if only because it seems more people-driven and character-based. Stay for after the credits.
Whisper Me a Love Song
What’s it about? Two girls mutually fall in love at first sight, but not really because no romance is ever straightforward. Also, guitars.
Kind of annoyed the music only sometimes matches the instruments being played. The animation is overall great, but I'm not really a fan of how oversaturated dating game it is. I remember the manga being frustrating because it was mutual love at first sight right at the beginning, and then nothing happened for a long time. The anime has great production value, and we'll see if that entertains me enough to keep me patient.
Blue Archive the Animation
What’s it about? In a dystopia where people have varying degrees of animal traits, schoolgirls with guns search for a missing student council president.
One of the better adaptations of a mobile game. I still have no idea what is going on, but there's a lot of character and detail, and the animation looks better than the trailer implied. The combat is nothing special.
Go! Go! Loser Ranger!
What’s it about? Superheroes defeated alien invaders over a decade ago, and now keep the aliens around to reenact their humiliating defeat for public entertainment. One of them has had enough and infiltrates the heroes.
I’ve never been much for sentai shows, even this one with a significant twist. I had read a little of the manga, and thought it was interesting, but drifted away from it. This episode, my computer started buffering halfway through and I just decided to quit. While it might not be my thing, it looks like it will be well made with good animation.
And now down into the manga.
List organized in rough order of my most to least favorite.
Below are those manga that I recommend.
Although We were Transported to an Alternate World, We'll Have a Fun Adventure With Our Cheat Skills of "Time" and "Replicate"
Two girls get isekai'd and granted OP abilities.
Long one shot. Could have made for a pretty decent series.
Below are those manga that I conditionally recommend.
Mitsuba No Monogatari
Tanya the Evil except during the French Revolution instead of WWI.
I wish it started a little closer to the actual war, rather than the opening military academy arc, and I wish we get a little more backstory on why the protagonist is so bloodthirsty beyond just being bored.
My Childhood Friend Is A Dragon Who's Embarrassed About the Size Of Her Tail
Title is plot summary.
Short chapters. Not much to it, but cute. Unfortunately seems incomplete.
My First Love Is Too Embarrassing to Tell Anyone
A mad scientist manipulates her two younger siblings' sexes.
Ecchi and incest, though actually less than expected. Not many chapters yet.
I Don't Wanna End Up as an NPC!
A succubus attempts to be a manga artist, but isn't very good. Her friend agrees to teach her to draw, in exchange for advice on hentai.
Yuri, but if it’s going to be among two or three is too early to say yet. 4koma.
King
Two siblings and their teacher are all vying to be the street racing king of the mountain.
It's like Initial D but less serious. Unfortunately, it's the type of comedy that does a lot of over the top faces without actually being that funny. From the perspective of the first chapter - the only one I read - it seems more about school life than actual racing.
Below are those manga that I do not recommend.
My Bride is A Rice Cooker!!
A guy and a girl get isekai'd and she turns into a kitchen appliance.
Uncle Roger alert. Not sure why else this exists. I mean, sure it's a troll comic but it feels like a lot of effort to not do very much with. One shot.
I would watch the heck out of this show
That vid? That's some top quality shitppost.
I liked Mysterious as well, but I'm dismayed at how much emphasis they continually put on her boobs. After one ep, the nature of her powers isn't quite clear yet.
Whisper Me a Love Song was an alright beginning, and it's cute enough. I had the same disconnect with the music, but I didn't notice the instruments. It was the voices. The drummer and keyboardist didn't have mikes, leaving the bassist as the only other one who could be singing when you hear two voices, but half the time that happens, you can see she isn't singing. The problem with the "love at first sight" gimmick is that it doesn't involve any characterization, so it can easily feel thin, and this does to me.
Ranger hasn't shown up on the sites I use yet, but it probably got put up earlier today.
The other ones I started last week, and oddly, it seemed like multiple ones didn't show up until now but then dropped two episodes to catch back up:
Oblivion Battery was okay. It'll be an ensemble cast, so waiting to meet the rest so far. It at least seems more realistic than most baseball anime. Pitcher/catcher dominated their junior high league and dashed a lot of players' hopes, then the catcher suffers a head injury that gives him amnesia, and they both decide to attend a high school that doesn't have a team, for reasons undisclosed so far.
Astro Note. The official description was wrong on a few details. A young chef with impressive credentials is out of a job when the luxury hotel that employs him goes bankrupt. He lives in a hostel kind of place while job hunting because he immediately fell in love with the caretaker there, who was an awful cook. But she's an alien. Not as serious as other recent shows with a similar premise, this is more of a random comedy. They dropped 2 eps last week. Not bad.
Girls Band Cry also dropped 2 eps at once. This doesn't have the comedy elements of Bocchi but does have similar social issues. Girl leaves her family to get away from their controlling oppression and seeks out a band she loves, only to find they've broken up. But she convinces the lead guitarist not to give up, and she actually has a great voice, so they're going to make a new cut at it. I liked this quite a bit, and they give the main enough personality quirks and problematic history to make her very interesting.
The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio is just okay. Pretty much a cliched Odd Couple situation, where two girl idols who have completely opposite personalities and essentially maintain secret identities are found out by their producer to be in the same high school class, so use that as a gimmick to give them a radio show. Nothing much to it yet.
The Fable. You had this last week, but I didn't see it until after your blog post. Was just okay for me. They give the setup for him needing to lay low for a while, but then nothing happens.
Unnamed Memory. A witch cursed a king and his son so that they could never continue their line (it would kill any potential mother), so the son is looking for ways to break it. He goes looking for another powerful witch and is the first one since his father to navigate her gantlet, so she agrees to help. I like the setup and characters, but not a lot of plot yet.
Tonbo! This smacks of being a lot like Barakamon. Guy comes to a rural island and finds everyone there unusually good at golf, though with very little proper equipment. He enjoys playing with a girl who only uses her late father's 3-iron. As yet, the plot is rather empty, and the production values are so-so. As it's simulcast, I watched the dub, and in what is unusual these days, the dub is disappointing. I wonder if the VAs are better in the sub. None of the English ones are voices I recognized.
Kuramerukagari and Kurayukaba. Pair of semi-related short movies that just came out last week. Since they're done now, I'll withhold a review of them until I post it in my blog this Tuesday.