I’m watching PriPara.

I’m watching Symphogear.

I’m watching the combined PriPara/Symphogear (with an added dash of Precure)

Do you need to know more?

Princession Orchestra is a blatant remix, but it works. As in PriPara there’s a magical virtual world only girls (and goats?) can enter, where they can do all sort of things, including live performances. That’s what our protagonist Minamo is doing with her best friend Nacchi, when the performance they’re watching is attacked by black robot like things. But fear not, as they’re soon joined by a very Symphogear like magical girl, with a punch equal to Bikki’s and who also sings as she fights. The very next day is Nacchi’s own live, she always wanted to be an idol, while Minamo is happy enough to just support her. Of course the evil magical robots attack her as well, which triggers something in Minamo and she transforms into a magical girl herself….

What’s not to love?

I went into Summer Pockets completely blind with only the vague idea that it would be some sort of slice of moe series. It was when I saw this girl that I knew I was wrong and it was actually a Key visual novel adaptation.

There’s just soemthing so Key about a brooding, mysterious white haired girl that I didn’t even need the magical disappearing butterfly that led the brown haired dull looking protagonist to see her to know. The Key house style is stronk and immediately recognisable. The rest of the episode too was a feast of recognition as it played out exactly how you’d expect a first episode of a new Key adaptation to do. You got the ordinary looking high school or maybe college age boy moving to a small island for the Summer to help his aunt sort through his grandmothers heritage, who clearly has some sort of Tragic Past that makes shlepping to the boonies attractive to him. Once there he meets a variety of girls who will surely become important later as he tours the island. Nothing important happens but some hints being dropped for future follow-up and a lot of banter between him and some of the girls.

It all felt incredibly nostalgic and this screenshot from the ending is a good example that made me immediately think of Little Busters for example. Series like Kanon, , Little Busters and especially Angel Beats were very important to me when I got into anime seriously again about a decade ago. Kanon helped me deal with grief, Angel Beats was the first anime I was really obsessed with. All of this is why I liked this first episode so much, because it hit me dead right in the nostalgia centre, actual quality concerns be damned. The ANN reviewers may not have liked it much, but for me this was perfect.

I really can’t be arsed with this.

Haite Kudasai Takamine-san is the sort of horny anime that’s actually afraid of sex, so has to invent a whole ridiculous scenario to get its heroine to strip. In this case Takamine-san can turn back time if she takes off her underwear, which she does to make sure she keeps her perfect reputation at school. Nobody remembers that she does so, except for our protagonist, who ‘accidentally’ saw her topless and this supposedly negates her powers. So she decides to blackmail him into making him her ‘closet’, carrying extra underwear with him that has to dress her in when she uses her powers. The Writer’s Very Obvious Fetish. I tried the original manga ages ago and didn’t last more than a few chapters. The anime isn’t any better.

A good opening or ending sequence can elevate even mediocre looking anime. And with Ballpark de Tsukamaete!‘s production values being on the limited side, it needed a cute, eye catching ending like this:

Originally a manga by Suga Tatsurou, Ballpark de Tsukamaete! starts off simple by following an overworked salaryman to his favourite way to unwind: taking in the game at his local ball park. Here he meets a particularly aggressive beer vendor girl and they start flirting a bit. So far so standard romcom, but the manga wasn’t content with just this. From the third chapter already it started broadening its view, following other people working or visiting the park. What you get is a series that lovingly depicts the community centered around the local baseball team: supporters, stadium staff, players and their families. The anime does the same, following its two segments about the salaryman and the beer girl with one centered on some security staff as they help a lost girl find her parents.

The animation in this first episode, except for that ending, was serviceable at best, not really up to the manga’s standards. A bit of a disappointment but the story makes up for that and it’s a fun, cozy watch, done competently enough that the animation quality doesn’t matter that much.

After years of isekai protagonists getting underage slave girls for their harems, I guess turnabout is fair play as we have an adult woman fantasying about having the 15 year old protagonist work as one.

This woman, the protagonist’s case worker at Hello Hello Work Station, this series version of the Adventurer Guilt, is not the only adult woman lusting after him. So does the adventurer who hires him to help her mine the mountain she owns to pay her tax debt. Granted, the white haired cute, un-threatening young boy protagonist is not rare in fantasy anime like this (see last season’s Izure Saikyou no Renkinjutsushi e.g.) but I can’t remember seeing this level of thirstiness bordering on sexual harassment before. A new milestone in anime has clearly been (b)reached.

Otherwise, Kanchigai no Atelier Meister is depressingly familiar in its setup. Our hero, Kurt started out as the jack of all trades for a famous group of heroes, until he got kicked out for being useless at the start of the episode in a much ruder fashion than was necessary. He sets about finding new work but the tests at the job centre show his skills to be abysmal across the board. As he starts doing odd jobs like repairing the city walls it becomes clear he’s actually overpowered but years of abuse have left him with such low self esteem he can’t see it himself even when everybody else does. This first episode’s title even lampshades this: “the common tale of how the guy in charge of chores with low self-esteem turned out to actually possess incredible skills”. The only real twist is that Kurt’s skills do not lie in combat, but in support, especially alchemy related tasks and that his views of what is normal are skewed by his upbringing in an isolated village where everybody could do the things he does.

And even these are not particularly novel ideas; Izure Saikyou no Renkinjutsushi‘s protagonist was also some sort of alchemist with support skills while we had the naive hero who doesn’t understand his own strength because everybody else in his village was stronger all the way back in 2021 with *deep breath* Tatoeba Last Dungeon Mae no Mura no Shounen ga Joban no Machi de Kurasu You na Monogatari. The combination of these two tropes with being kicked out of the hero’s party is somewhat new, at least for anime, but is it enough to keep interest?

Having read some of the manga version of this series, the appeal lies in the tension between Kurt’s blithe ignorance of his own worth and everybody else’s dawning horror of what a monster he is and their increasingly desperate attempts to keep him from realising the truth. It could get a bit grating. So far the actual animation quality has been decent enough with strong character design. I particularly like Yulishia, who reminded me of Togame from Katanagatari. Whether I will keep watching this will depend on the rest of the season, which does look packed so the likelihood is great I’ll drop this a few episodes in.