Fall Anime 2018 Part 1: Could you not
Even though we have 2/3 possible LN standbys covered, this is already starting better than last season.
Akanesasu Shoujo / The Girl in Twilight
What: Crew of rural girls tap into the yellow snow dimension, retrieve local copy of the most orange one from there.
❌ Main character is a Honk and a half, which makes her tremendously annoying. The others (including Honk v.2, which is a Homu instead) seem forgettable
❌ so far it’s just a bunch of mysterious mysteries and dead sibling feels, neither of which feel particularly promising
♎ Penned by Kotaro “Ruseman” Uchikoshi, so there’s probably some incredibad twists… eventually
✅ looks pretty nice, if not exactly luxurious or inventive
❌❌ Frank Zappa wrote a song about this show, advising me to avoid it. I’m not arguing with Frank.
Double Decker! Doug and Kirill
What: Zany buddy cop action comedy apparently set in the Tiger & Bunny universe, though I wouldn’t know. It sure seems Fujo-compatible.
✅ expressive, fast paced and some good action, which makes it up-front entertaining
✅ very solid Sunrise production values as well, which is essential here
❌ some CG effects bite off more than they can chew
✅ Main characters keep throwing shade on each other and have some funny slapstick bits going
♎ long term prospects seem sketchy, because the bickering main pair could become very old very quickly, especially in the hands of the culture that invented manzai. All the others are little more than (somewhat overdone) character designs as of now. This maybe warrants more research.
What: The Chinese webcomic version of Monster Musume
✅ less about horniness and more about wholesome family values/being accepting of weirdness, which is a step up if nothing else
✅ endearing approach to this whole monster biz
❌ production values are so-so at best
❌ it isn’t funny and the heartwarming stuff doesn’t really work exceptionally well either
What: Short about a pretty(?) guy who gets pressured into marrying a fluffy monster. Or something.
❌❌ 3 sketchy looking minutes of a whole loada nothin’ and I don’t want to know more.
Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru / Run with the Wind
What: Fiendish university student cons impoverished peers into joining the track and field club with the promise of free housing.
✅ It’s a sports anime where the sport is barely even mentioned in the first episode. Instead it spends the time on character building and that’s completely fine with me.
✅ Said characters are worth it too, a nice varied cast with no obvious annoyances so far.
✅ Production IG makes it look good while still keeping it within the realm of reason (if this was KyoAni it would be Free! and I’d hate it; look forward to me reacting to another KyoAni take on this later in the season)
✅ really not much more to say, it’s starting out rock-solid for this type of show; but with these, the followup is the harder part.
Ken En Ken - Aoki Kagayaki / Xuan Yuan Sword Luminary
What: It’s a CRPG! (the C stands for “Chinese”)
♎ only “kinda” janky everything means it’s not too awful actually, if you find any of the things this does (clockworkpunk mecha fantasy politics &c) interesting it might pass some time for you. I’m not feeling it though, just a forgettable C-Anime (the C does not stand for “Chinese”)
RErideD - Tokigoe no Derrida
What: Uhhhhh something something robots something something cryogenics. Time travel…?
❌❌ A thoughtful SciFi yarn should probably make more sense than this and should also feature more solid plotting than “I fell into a cryocapsule in the woods by accident”
❌ If you’re in this for the ABe character designs, know that nothing of those is left after the adaptation to animation.
❌ which is a curious waste of assets, since the animation ain’t much either
❌ doesn’t inspire confidence to put it mildly, and if that’s not enough 5 episodes are out already. I did not watch them, but let’s just say that if even noted shill website ANN says episode 1 was the only good one and proceeds to laugh at your stupidity, you got some writing problems.
Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai / Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
What: Monogatari with the tone of Oregairu, alternatively Oregairu with the conceit of Monogatari
✅ the whole “supernatural shenanigans as stand-ins for societal problems” thing has potential, as it usually does.
✅ Does not have the wacky SHAFT presentation and goes for slow and down to earth instead. Yes, I do consider that a plus.
❌❌ it’s still a pretentious LN made of many words of questionable quality. An aloof asshole protagonist that likes to pontificate is par for the course in this genre, but I’ve seen even that done better. Professional Anime Persons are mad about that period line above but it’s the best line in the episode (on account of having any sort of character at all).
❌ There’s just nothing immediately appealing about it and I don’t even like the shows it’s trying to imitate.
❌ wtf is that English title, you gotta stop
Sora to Umi no Aida / Between the Sky and Sea
What: Bunch of nonsense about girls doing space fishing with their app gods while being heckled by the patriarchy.
❌ But how? The answer is mobile games and it won’t let you forget that for a second. Because it’s an ad, you see.
❌❌ Starts with a boring and interminable intro that establishes that the main character is indeed a space cadet, then goes on to illustrate its wackadoodle universe and insipid RPG mechanics ft. giant enemy crab bosses.
❌ Not every mobile RPG makes Fate money, which is pretty obvious in this production.
❌ the GIRL POWA aspect is nothing short of laughable, I’m sorry if I made you expect the next Steven Universe with that synopsis.
✅ Wears its dunce hat proudly, there’s no indication of this taking itself too seriously. Hey, it’s a plus.
❌❌ A show of this pedigree should at least stand up to Umamusume or Kancolle, which it doesn’t. Bye.
Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken / Reincarnated as a Slime
❌❌ No really, I haven’t seen a show’s entire content so succinctly summed up by its title since, well, Steins;Gate Zero. If you know that “reincarnated” means “isekai” and what a DQ Slime is, you don’t need to watch this episode.
❌❌ On top of explaining the obvious it has a dragon quote a bunch from Sourcebook: Summoner, because Slime biology lessons are excessively exciting.
❌❌ Guessed that this is a LN yet? Of course, this is a C L E V E R S U B V E R S I O N of the expected isekai norm like roughly 85% of LNs.
❌ The OP teases that there’s more to this than Slyme Lyfe (since it shows us additional characters that are not Slimes or Exposition Dragons), so it won’t stay this way forever. However, since any space between words is filled with a passing game UI giving Slimeman an array of incredibly broken powerups, I know where this is going.
✅ Someone at 8-bit correctly surmised that all of this is incredibly boring and decided to fix it with the usual emergency brake of LN adaptations, firing up AfterEffects and becoming Teh Simbo. They got half a music video’s worth of visuals somewhere between Vaporwave and Democompo out of it, which is nice. On an unrelated note, I should investigate giving out half plusses.
What: Thunderbolt Fantasy, BITCH
✅✅ It’s S2 of the best show about yappin’ about swords, so duh
✅ I originally considered Taiwanese puppetry an amusing novelty but a season and a movie later it still hasn’t run out. So maybe it’s just legit.
♎ It’s starting slow, which means reintroducing the original characters (which I won’t forget in a hurry), and introducing the new characters (which the movie mostly already did).
♎ S1 only got really good in its endgame. So we’ll have to see, they certainly can’t pull the same shit again since the twist is now the premise.
✅✅ It’s more TBolt and if you’re not watching it we can’t be friends anymore.
What: Enterprising idol producer assembles an idol supergroup to save Saga Prefecture. The fact that they’re all dead does not slow him down much, even if it limits their range of performance somewhat.
✅✅ I’m incredibly desensitized to wacky high-concept comedy ideas, but this one still got me good.
✅✅ It knows how to comedy as well, so it ends up as that rarest of beasts: An anime comedy that actually makes me laugh.
✅ MAPPA is known for good looking first episodes and this is no exception. Please don’t donk it again, MAPPA.
♎ This would own completely if it went all in on pitch-black satire, but so far it’s only tangentially one. So that’s a little disappointing, but at least it’s funny anyway
❌ The main zombie is pretty cute as the straight man, but the producer is too over the top, occasionally annoyingly so. This may or may not become a problem down the road
✅✅ If a show like this gets over the initial hump of not having the crap nature, the potential is limitless. Count me in.
snowghoul
vaporwave
prguitarman
kaledo-art
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
2087
titsay
stormborns
ellievsbear
izzy806
