There’s some twentyeight series I’m interested in this season, but here’s what I’m actually watching week by week:
Eizouken!
Best series of the season, made with a love for animation that made me fall in love with anime myself all those years ago. Just look at that video. Six episodes in and the magic of that first episode hasn’t faded yet. Every episode is basically a thesis on how to animate and it always shows off the techniques it talks about while it is talking about it.
Bofuri
Cute girls playing MMOs in virtual reality; not a new concept but one of the few such series that actually feels like they’re playing a game rather than wandering about yet another medievaloid fantasy world. Maple and Sally are very cute together and feel like proper friends.
Koisurue Asteroid
A slice of moe series about girls in the combined astronomy/geology school club doing club activities together. To be honest, I keep forgetting who the characters are week by week. The premise of the series, that two childhood friends find each other in high school and want to find an asteroid together seems to have been forgotten as well. Nevertheless, a mellow series to start the weekend with. Very well animated as well for a series like this.
Nekopara
Based on a visual novel that has you raise cat girls and then fuck them, the anime wisely drops that second part and focuses instead on the cute cat girls doing cute cat girl things. You sort of have to ignore the setting (see link above) to enjoy this and there are a few too many pee jokes for me, but this is an enjoyable time waster.
Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!
New series new band. Four cute animal girls form a rock band together in a world ruled by music. So far little from the original series has shown up but the setting, but the story is similar. A newcomer to the city, in this case a sweet farm girl from the sticks, runs into an already established but struggling band and eventually joins them. And just like in the original, the prickliest character in the band falls for our new girl. The hair styles are on point but I dread what these do to their poor shower drains.
Oshi ga Budoukan Ittekuretara Shinu
If you’d make it to Budokan I would just die, as a literal translation would have it. An idol show from the perspective of the obsessive fan/borderline stalker. The idol she follows is the lowest ranked of a struggling idol group, while she herself just does part time jobs only to have money to buy her merchandise. Idol and fan are sort of in love with each other, but can only see it through that lens of idol and fan. It is surprisingly melancholy.
22/7
22/7 meanwhile is another sort of idol story altogether, about several girls chosen for a mysterious idol project. I’m still not sure whether or not this is meant to be satire or not. It’s based on a real life idol group though so I don’t think it will peek in the darker corners of the idol industry much.
BanG Dream! 3rd Season
A straigh sequel to the second season and a good example of what 3D animation can do when it’s used properly. More Ako though!
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T
After the disappointment of Index S3 and the Accelerator anime, it’s great to see that Railgun is as good as ever. More grounded in everyday life it makes the stakes higher. Seeing Misaka get separated from Kuroko and have her other friend Kongō Mitsuko, the ara-araa princess step in.
Kyokou Suiri
A young girl sacrifises an eye and a leg to become a mediator between the world of youkai and humans. A very talky series yet one that never bores despite it.
Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun
Hanako, the ghost in the toilet, is a well known Japanese urban legend, but this time he’s a boy. And the girl that came to him to find a way to win the love of the snepai she admired now has to be his assistant. I love this sort of series and I love the animation style in this.
And that’s about it. Not mentioned, the new Precure, which had a good start and short series like Heya Camp, which is just too short to say much about.
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