Hello, and welcome once again to my usual
segment, my first impressions of the Summer 2012 Anime Season. We seem to have a lot of action and romance
this season it seems, must have something to do with the heat. So far none of the controversy from the
beginning of last season either, no groundbreaking original/strange concepts,
just a lot of safe productions that may prove to be at least entertaining. Nothing much else to say here, so let’s get
right into it.
Natsuyuki Rendezvous
This series is about a young man with a
crush on the local florist. In order to
try and get closer to her, he takes a part time job at her shop, but quickly
finds things aren’t likely to go his way.
Not only is the florist still pining over her deceased husband, but the
ghost of her husband is still around in the shop. Unfortunately, he’s the only one who can see
the ghost, which just makes things even more awkward when the ghost insists on
not giving her up to anyone, despite the fact that he can’t touch anyone or
anything. It’s a fairly serious show,
though you still get some laughs from the ghost’s antics in the background that
the main character is desperately trying to ignore. It’s a good romance series, so if you’re into
that sort of anime, then I’d give this a shot.
Tari Tari
A slice of life series about a group of
high school friends, some of whom create their own choir club, but I really
don’t know how much of a plot point that will end up being considering the
final performance of the school year happened in episode 2. There’s a transfer student from Austria,
and a guy who is the only member of the Badminton team, and aside from that…
there’s really not much to say about this series. Honestly, it just seems like a series made to
have cute girls do cute things, though there’s also a few boys, so maybe
potential love interests they haven’t introduced as a plot point yet, but
probably not. Anyways, if you enjoyed
K-On, you’ll probably like this anyways so give it a shot.
Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru
After the death of his father, the
protagonist, the heir to a massive, worldwide corporation, discovers he may
have a half-sister he has so far been unaware of. He also finds out that for some reason she
seems determined to marry him for some undisclosed reason. Adding to his plate of issues, his father’s
will lists a requirement for him to take over the family business. To take over, he must find a girl he loves
and marry her when he graduates from high school. With the knowledge that his sister also goes
to the same school, and is actively pursuing him, he attempts to find love
while also trying to discover the identity of his sister and avoid ending up
marrying her. The plot of the series is
a bit complicated, but it flows fairly well with the characters. Each girl in the series has something that
could potentially make them his sister, so it keeps the audience guessing as
well. I, personally, would like to
believe that all of them are just in on this and they’re just messing with him,
but we’ll see how this goes. It seems
like a fairly interesting series, a bit of a mystery to go with the harem
romantic comedy. If you enjoy harem
anime, you’ll probably enjoy this, so give it a shot.
Campione
A high school boy sent to Italy by his grandfather to deliver
a stone tablet to an acquaintance gets dragged into a battle between gods. Using the power of the tablet, he slays one
of the two gods, and gains his powers, becoming a Campione, or Godslayer. The series follows him and the people who
begin gathering around him as his life is turned completely upside down. It seems like a pretty solid action series,
though it seems like the protagonist has a harem in the works as well. The characters are interesting, and the
action scenes are well done as well, so I’d recommend it to almost anyone who
can take a bit of fanservice here and there.
Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
This series takes place in a distant future
where humanity is on a slow downhill to extinction, destroyed by their own
wasteful habits and overpopulation. The
main character is part of a UN envoy to one of the few remaining villages,
whose job it is to help ensure a food supply as well as to investigate any
strange goings on. Trust me, strange
things happen. This show also features a
group of small people called fairies that like to mess around with people,
though they are generally harmless. From
bleeding bread, to sentient, skinned, headless chickens, this show has some
weird stuff going on, but the main character takes it all so deadpan seriously
that it makes it even weirder. If you
enjoy shows that are just weird for the sake of being weird, then this is the
show for you, and I’d recommend you take a look.
Oda Nobuna no Yabou
A series about a character from the present
day who accidentally travels back in time to an alternate universe Sengoku era
where all the major players of that age are women. Huh, feels like I’ve already seen that in the
last year. Oh, wait, so it’s a high
school BOY this time, and he’s a fan of the Nobunaga’s Ambition games? Okay, slightly different then. At least he’s not a complete idiot checking
his textbook every couple of episodes to find out about upcoming events like a
certain useless character I won’t mention.
Anyways, the main character in this series seems like your standard
perverted otaku-type character, but he has some moments of wonderful character
depth. Being knowledgeable about the
time period, he knows how certain things are going to turn out, and risks his
own life in certain situations to try and guide things in the right
direction. Out of all the Sengoku
time-slip/gender-swap anime… and there’s a number of them recently… this
definitely seems to be the best so far.
Not that that’s hard. The bar has
been set pretty low.
Hagure Yuush to Estetica
Speaking of anime I enjoy just for the
antics of the main character, this one’s surprised me a little bit. The basic story is a high school boy from the
modern world is summoned to an alternate dimension to save it from a Demon King
that is terrorizing the people. He
trains himself up to fight, confronts the Demon King and defeats him before
returning home. That’s where the
storyline of the series picks up. Yeah,
that whole bit was the prologue.
Anyways, while returning to his world, he brought someone along with
him, the Demon King’s daughter. He had
apparently entrusted her to him with his dying breath, asking him to protect
her from her cursed fate. So he took her
with him and had her pose as his sister.
However, people being summoned to other dimensions to act as heroes is
apparently a fairly common thing in his world and they are soon brought in by
the appropriate authorities and forcibly enrolled into a special school for
such people that “trains them, and protects them for their own good”. Yeah, everyone who buys that load of bull,
you obviously haven’t seen enough shows like this. Anyways, the show follows the two of them as
they go through this school, that obviously has some other reason for
existing. While the storyline doesn’t
actually seem like anything special so far, and it seems to rely a little
heavily on fanservice for its ratings, I find myself liking the main character
severely. His antics are just generally
fun to watch. He’s incredibly true to himself,
and protective of others, but when you see that grin on his face, you know
something hilarious is coming. This is
definitely one of those anime you watch for the characters, not for the
plot. If you like action/fantasy anime,
you may get a kick out of this one.
Dakara Boku wa, H ja Dekinai
Speaking of characters who are completely
true to themselves, the main character in this anime doesn’t hide a damn thing
he’s thinking. In fact, he often
vocalizes every private detail he’s currently thinking without realizing
it. The basic idea is that the main
character is a regular high school student who randomly meets a shinigami who
is searching for a certain target. She
more or less forces him to help her, using him as a source of energy to help
her fight monster and other shinigami competing for the same target. Only thing is his source of energy is his
horniness. Yep, you read that right, the
hornier he gets, the more power he gives her.
Much to her dismay, him doing perverted things allows her to take huge
bursts of energy from him. Anyways, this
is another one of those anime. If you
don’t like overly fanservicey shows, you’ll hate this, but if you don’t mind,
then this may be an interesting watch for you.
Definitely not the worst thing out this season, so give it a look if you
aren’t opposed to loads of fanservice with some action on the side.
Kokoro Connect
This series is about a group of misfit high
school students that were all forced to join the same club. One day, a few at a time, their souls begin
swapping bodies for seemingly no reason.
I’m only an episode into this series, so I may not have gotten to the
actual plot setup yet, but so far that seems to be about it. There was a lot of talking, but aside from
the body-swapping, not much happened.
The characters’ personalities are actually quite interesting and varied,
and they play well off each other, which is good considering this entire series
kind of rides on that. The preview for
episode two seemed to hint at some major plot, but we’ll see. If you enjoy interpersonal drama, you’ll
probably like this series.
Joshiraku
An anime about a group of female comedians
sitting around in a dressing room chatting about random things. That’s about all there is to say about this
show. The only other real thing worth
mentioning is that the manga this is based on was written by Kumeta Kouji, the
creator of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei.
Considering the comedy in this series largely gets by on puns, you can
really tell he was involved. Anyways, if
you get a laugh out of Japanese puns, or enjoyed Zetsubou-sensei, this show is
probably for you. Just don’t expect too
much of a coherent plotline, you’re not likely to get one.
Arcana Famiglia
This anime is about a vigilante
organization that keeps the peace on a small, trade island somewhere off of Italy. All main members of the organization have
special powers that come from a contract they made to one of the major Arcana,
the face cards in a Tarot card deck.
Hmm, sounds like a novel I’m writing…
Anyways, the leader of the group decides it’s about time to retire, and
to choose his successor, he decides to hold a tournament between leading
members of the group. He also decides
that the winner will marry his daughter, who is also one of the leading
members, and therefore will be participating herself. Anyways, despite that being the premise, they
haven’t really gotten into any fighting or the tournament itself at all three
episodes in. It seems to be moving
rather slowly, and the characters aren’t exactly anything special either. So far it has just failed to make itself
interesting. It was initially described
to me as “Bleach if it were good”, but I’m just not seeing it. At very least, Bleach got to the point way
more quickly than this has. It may
redeem itself later on, but so far, for a show about people with powers that
dropped the hint of a tournament at the beginning, there’s been very little
fighting, or use of the powers in general.
Watch if you wish, but I don’t see much of a point to it.
Binbougami ga
The protagonist is a girl who’s been lucky
her whole life. She has everything,
money, a good life, looks, popularity, and athletic ability. However, one day, misfortune comes knocking. Well, a god of misfortune in fact. The god explains that she has an unnatural
amount of fortune, and even seems to steal it from those around her, and she’s
there to balance things out. This
doesn’t go over well, and the two continue to get into clashes over this
mission. The setup is a basic gag anime,
with references left, right, and centre, and a little bit of serious plot mixed
in. The show itself is pretty fun, and
manages some genuinely entertaining moments.
If you’re into comedy, this is definitely the anime for you this season.
Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate
In an overly serious school that has as
many useless offshoots of the student council as the US Government, a scandal
has erupted with the student council president at the centre and a new election
has been called. The forerunner in the
election, the current head of school finances, plans to eliminate all useless
clubs that don’t actually do anything in an effort to improve the school
budget. The protagonist, a member of the
Snack Club that essentially does nothing but hang out and eat sweets, discovers
that their club is at the top of that list.
In order to save their beloved club, the protagonist, backed by his
fellow club members enters into the election himself in an attempt to win. Just as it sounds, this school takes its
student government way too seriously. Anyways,
this is a harem anime, with the Snack Club being the main part of that. At first I thought there was at least one
other guy in the club to offset that, and then quickly realized he was part of
the harem too. Anyways, as overly
serious as this series takes itself, this is one of those cases where the
series makes it work. The situation is
somewhat ridiculous, but the way the characters all take it so seriously makes
it interesting. In that sense, I would
dare to compare it to Ben-To. The
characters make it enjoyable, and the storyline seems to be well laid out ahead
of time, so this may be a good series.
If you like harem anime, give this one a look.
Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse
This would be the mecha anime of the
season, and a pretty good one at that.
It takes place in an alternate future where mankind has been at war with
a mysterious alien race for many years, and the fight has finally made it to
earth. The BETA as they’re called are
making their way to Japanese shores by the end of the first episode. The main character, daughter of a
high-ranking military official, becomes a pilot and leads a small group into
battle to defend a supply base. I won’t
spoil how that goes for you, but I will say that the series went above and
beyond what I was expecting of it already.
The first episode was a bit slow and uninteresting, but then the second
episode happened and jaws hit the floor pretty hard. I’ll leave what happened for you to find out,
but I will say this much. The pistols
the pilots carry? They’re not for the
BETA. I strongly recommend everyone take
a look at this series, anyone with a strong stomach anyways.
Sword Art Online
This series is about a Virtual Reality
MMORPG by the same name as the series. A
brand new game that sold out quickly, and everyone was excited to play. There’s only one issue noticed after
launch. There’s no logout button. The designer of the game appears in the sky
over the main city and explains to the players that they are trapped inside the
game. They cannot log out, and if anyone
tries to forcibly remove the VR helmet, a small device inside the machine will
fry the user’s brain. Oh, and one last
thing, if they die in the game, they die for real. The only way out is to clear the one
hundredth and final floor of the major dungeon.
The main character, a beta tester, tries to survive in this game, and
the series follows his interactions with the people in the game and his battles
as they slowly clear the game. The
series has a good handle on the emotional issues the players of the game are
suffering from through all of this, and the story is fairly compelling if a bit
rushed out. The speed at which they’re
going through the story seems to be the only issue, so we’re possibly looking
at another Zetman here. Anyways, if you
enjoy the .hack series, this is probably right up your alley, so give it a
look.
