Summer 2013 Anime Season: First Impressions

First Impressions: Summer 2013

It is another year of me writing opinions on anime and it is time again for my first impressions list of the summer 2013 anime season. Over the last year I looked at magical girl anime, talked of toku, and gained an appreciation of sports anime. Next year, I will probably end up doing more of the same, I can’t help it I just like magical girls, toku, and sports. I will try to mix up the genres more in the future, though I can’t promise anything. But enough with that, lets save the future for another day. Let us look at my first impressions of the summer 2013 anime season.

Recorder to Randoseru Mi- Same as the first season, awkward jokes about a kid who looks too old and is accused of being a pedophile, and his sister who looks like a loli. It isn’t great but it isn’t bad. If you watched the last two seasons, you will probably see that one too.

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyo- Dog and Scissors is about a bibliophile who dies before he can read the final book in a series done by his favorite author. He is brought back in the body of a dog with a psychic connection to the girl he saved on the day he died, who just happens to be the author of his favorite series. She is also a bit of a sadomasochist with a love of scissors. This is a bit of an odd series, setting up to be a bit of a harem series, but the protagonist is in a dog’s body. I am conflicted with this show. I like the main character, and I even understand him to some degree. I have things I need to finish, and I would fight death to the end, which sounds strange but my point stands. But this show is so awkward at times, especially at the end of the second episode and the whole dog’s harem thing that I kind of want to stay away. I will give this show a few more episodes, but I might end up dropping it if it stays the bestiality route.

Senyuu. Season 2- Second season, same as the first, kind of. It is the continuing adventures of all the same characters from the last season. The problem is that it is really less amusing then the last season. I mean, it might just take a few episodes before it starts rolling, but so far the second season just isn’t as good as the first. I hope they start to focus more on the main character again, and just make the whole damn thing less complicated. For a micro series that is a parody of generic adventure series, it has a huge cast and a plot that is really complicated. But we will have to wait and see.

Gifuu Doudou!! Kanetsugu to Keij- A story of two great men reminiscing about how awesome they were and about how incredibly tall they were when compared to everyone else. That’s basically it really. Two tall, over muscular, and huge chinned guys are just talking about the past and how they met and stuff. And how eccentric they are apparently. I have to admit, I liked how over the top the first episode presented the series, but the second episode seemed to drag it down, and there is nothing really that I want to see in it. I will probably drop it if the next episode doesn’t do something to make me interested in these two dudes and their medieval bromance.

Free!- Free is that swimming anime you’ve heard so much about. If you haven’t, it is an anime about pretty anime boys swimming, meaning they are mostly without clothing. Beyond that it is a sports anime about a four man swim team trying to both rekindle the lost friendship they had in their childhood while also enjoying what is left of their youth. The characters are all very diverse and fun to watch, and the animation is beautiful, both in and out of the water. Personally, I like this show, it is fun and the swimming is great and I am a sucker for sports anime like this. I think this will be a really good show this season, if not for story or anything definitely for characterization and great animation. Also, it is surprisingly funny, I really recommend it.

Tokurei Sochi Dantai Stella Jo-Gakuin Koutou-ka C3-Bu- A shy girl goes to an all-girls academy hoping to change herself a bit, hoping to one day be able to come out of her shell. Her roommate is the current captain of their schools War Games club, a club where the girls participate in games where they shoot each other with air soft rifles, which are basically really accurate replicas of guns that shoot pellets with air. All the girls are, in their own words, strange and weird and I find them really cool. And of course they drag the new girl in. It is basically a “cute girls doing X” anime, but after the perfection of Girls Und Panzer, I am really looking forward to this show. The first episode was really funny and as far as I know all the actions the girls took during their game was accurate to real world air soft battles. I like this show. I like the characters, I like the shooting, and I like the little fantasy the main character entered, which apparently is not going to only be in the first episode. I personally can’t wait for more war games.

Danganronpa Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei The Animation- Holy balls that is a long name. Dangan Ronpa Gurren Laggan (I am sure this joke has been done but still) is about 15 teenagers who are all invited to a prestigious school because they are all the best in one field or another, all except the main character who is an average anime protagonist. But when they show up to the school, they all get abducted and are forced to play a cruel survival game. They are not allowed to leave the school unless they kill another student, and get away with it. I actually really like the set up. With 15 students, it means that even if they decide to play it fair, draw straws to save at least half the group, one person is either stuck in that school, or someone has to kill more than one person. All the characters are really bright and distinct, making it easy to tell the characters apart. This show is based on a video game that quickly gained popularity, but I am going in basically completely blind. But I liked the first episode and the setup is interesting enough to create a pretty cool mystery. I like this show, I look forward to seeing all the characters revealed to be psychotic in some way or another. (Upon watching the second episode I have a better understanding of the murder game and I have to say the whole all or nothing play here is really terrifying, and completely undo’s my previous thoughts.)

Love Lab- It’s Pretty Cure only without the magical girls and more awkward relation talk. But it is funny, so I like it. Basically the smartest most competent girl in the school has a problem, when it comes to boys and such she has no clue what to do. So in private she conducts “research” and by research I mean she makes out with a hug pillow. In walks the school wild girl, and an unlikely friendship is born, surrounded by lies and deceit. The crux of the humor is surprisingly not sex based, but more about recognizing the tropes and idioms in relationships in fiction and making fun of them for being so ridiculous, and then taking that up to eleven. I personally found it really funny. The student council president, who is the smart competent girl, picture of her perfect man is surprisingly down to earth and realistic, which is a gag I don’t think I will get tired of. And the wild one’s lies of being experienced in the world of romance just keeps building, to the point where the reveal is going to be gold. The rest of the cast are slowly forming, though how they will play in the whole love research thing is yet to be seen. I like this show, and will probably keep up with it this season.

Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku- In japan, in some schools, it is customary to join some sort of club or organization while in high school. Those who don’t are jokingly referred to be a part of the going home club. But in this show, there is an actual club called the Going Home Club, and wackiness ensues. Seriously though, while on the surface this is another show about a group of girls in a club that don’t do anything but talk and drink tea, this show has some depth to it, with expertly timed jokes, some funny gags, and really funny characters. There is the main character, the straight man of the group and only really joined the club to stop them from pestering her or something, the one who is supposed to be the most feminine and girly one who is also a bit of an airhead, the rich girl with no knowledge of the value of a dollar, a martial arts expert who also liked video games, and their leader, who’s only really establishing thing is that she is the leader, and a bit zany herself. While the setup has been seen a million times the execution is where this show shines, with funny jokes and good reference humor. It even did the whole Dragon Ball Z eye scouter gag without explicitly saying over 9000. Color me impressed. If you want a good show about cute girls doing nothing, this show wouldn’t be a bad choice.

Servant X Service- This series about the daily lives of a civil servants office in Hokkaido, Japan. It follows three new civil servants, a timid girl who gets walked over a bit, a lazy guy who while he can do the job perfectly he will do anything not to, and a young woman out for revenge. Kind of. She just wants to get back at a civil servant form years ago. The show is really great. It gets the feel of a government office perfectly, with people just yelling at the hard workers for no reason, and shows that they are just people trying to do a job. It is sympathetic, but isn’t above making a few jokes at government workers expense. It is a fun show with fun characters and is really something different from all the moe girls doing X series that are out there.

Kin-iro Mosaic- A Japanese girl spends a homestay in England, becoming close friends with the daughter of the family she was staying at. Even though there was a language barrier, there was a deep understanding between the two. Years later, the English girl comes to japan to go to high school with the friend she made. This show is surprisingly funny. The Japanese girl who loves everything western and the English girl who loves everything Japanese make a good pair, and the side characters, while a bit stereotypical for this type of show, are still nice. Honestly, I had to pause the episode at least once because I was laughing too hard at some little joke, it just works. It is a fun little show that I look forward to watching more of.

Uchouten Kazoku- Hidden from view from the real world, magical beings like Tengu and Tanuki, exist, living everyday lives in modern day japan. And that is really all I can say about the series without explaining every detail in the first episode. It is a very well done series, the art is beautiful and it is shaping up to be an interesting show. But to be honest I just couldn’t get into the first episode. It might have been the fact that it seems to be starting in the middle of the central conflict, or might just be me, who knows. I plan on giving it a few more episodes, but I might end up dropping this show.

Blood Lad- In the demon world, territory is controlled by gangs with powerful monsters as leaders. The leader of one territory is a vampire, and also a huge nerd. He is obsessed with everything from the human world, especially Japanese culture. One day, a human girl wonders into the demon world, and the vampire freaks out, wanting to talk to her about the human world. And then she dies. She comes back as a ghost but is still dead. So the vampire gang leader makes a vow, he will bring this girl back to life. And he will go to the human world to look for a way. And not just to go to Japan and buy figures and manga and games, he swears. I like Blood Lad. It is a bit too fan-servicy at times for my taste, but I just love the main character. I am a sucker for nerdy characters that have some sort of obsession, especially if it is about a culture they are not a part of. It is not a very deep show that I will enjoy as a fun ride.

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realists- In an English all boys catholic school, which is something I don’t get to say about an anime a lot, a young boy learns that his family’s wealth has disappeared, done in by some bad investments by his uncle. While trying to find something to sell in order to continue schooling, he finds a summoning circle, and out pops a demon, who asks for the dude to choose him to be the next leader of hell. It turns out the dude is the descendent of King Solomon. This show is a little ridiculous to say the least. It is all pretty boys flirting with each other about demon kings and such. And the dude is a complete realist who doesn’t believe in any of this crap. I have so much fun watching this show, it is just funny and ridiculous and just not any good. This is going to be my popcorn series of the season. I am just going to sit back and enjoy a show were a kid is the messiah and doesn’t believe in demons or religion or anything. It is going to be a good time.

The World God Only Knows 3- For those who don’t know, The World God Only Knows is about a dude obsessed with dating simulators, to the point where he doesn’t care about real girls at all, and he is the single best dating sim player ever. He gets roped into helping a devil to round up lost souls. These souls enter the hearts of women, and will kill them over time if they are not taken out. And the only way to take them out is to romance the lost soul out of the girl. So Kiema, the dude, has to make multiple girls fall in love with him in order to save them, and if he fails he will die. After the lost soul leaves the girl she forgets everything that happened while the soul was in her, including all of Kiema’s romance. The third season adds a new wrinkle to this. It seems some of the girls are now possessed by a goddess in place of the lost soul. While the goddesses are good, they are not hurting the girls and seem very nice, they casue the girls to remember the time they were being seduced by Kiema, and all of the feelings they have for the young nerd. What I liked about the original two seasons was Kiema’s slow development. He was someone who hated the real world and preferred the safety of his game worlds, but after being forced to interact with these women, he was slowly changing. Yeah he still loved dating sims, but he was starting to care about people also. It is my opinion that he even felt bad about romancing so many women, as if he was betraying one after another. But the fact that they forgot the encounter after the soul was exercised, I believe, created a barrier, as if they were just another part of the game. But now that some of them are remembering, I am really interesting in seeing how he will react. The problem with the third season is that some of the important information, like a few of the main characters involved, were introduced during a few OVA episodes. OVAs that I have not seen. So I have no clue who some of these new girls are except for the brief introduction they got, which seems shallow when I think about how important they might be. But that aside I like this series and plan on continuing to watch it.

Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaete mo Omaera ga Warui!- Another impossibly long name. This series is about a delusional girl who believes that she should be popular, and is dumbfounded about why she isn’t. Ignoring the fact that she spends all her time playing dating simulator, doesn’t talk to anybody, barely sleeps so she has deep bags under neither her eyes, is unsociable, I just don’t know why either. Seriously though this is a great series. The main character flips between wanting desperately to be popular with friends and a boyfriend, and hating anybody who is in that situation, looking down on them. She both can’t understand why she isn’t popular but also completely understands what needs to be changed in order to be popular. In an odd way, I both pity her, and completely empathize with her in almost every respect. Seriously, I love this show, it is hilarious, go watch it. At least the first episode.

So that was the new season. And god that was a lot of shows. Surprisingly a lot of interesting shows that I plan of watching all the way through this summer. So, until next time, have fun watching.