While waiting on the Fruits Basket finale to wrap up coverage of Spring… Let’s take a moment to take a look at what’s coming for Summer 2021. (Other than the heatwave we’re expecting this weekend.)
Hit the jump and let’s dive right in!
The first show needs no introduction…
Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon S
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S
Is it bad that my most anticipated series this season is a sequel? Nah. I don’t think so. Not when it’s a show as fun as Maid Dragon.
Over on Twitter someone asked a very reasonable question about the elephant in the room next to the (maid) dragon… “Is it Maid Dragon people are looking forward to? Or the return of KyoAni?” After all, Maid Dragon is the first full series produced by KyonAni since the tragic arson attack in 2019.
For my part, I think it’s a little of both.
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My coverage of the first season can be found in my posts on the Winter 2017 season.
Also be sure and check out one of the best AMV’s I’ve ever seen: Worth Watching – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid / My Best Friend.
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Streaming on: Crunchyroll, VRV
Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shite Shimatta… X
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! X
Bakarina returns! I mean, another show which needs no introduction…
Given the ending of the first season, I am not at all sure where the second season is going… But I’m entirely onboard with watching Katarina cluelessly bumbling her way through the world, overcoming every adversity simply by being nice to people.
Also, Katerina x Maria. That’s a ship I’ll sail on forever. Unless it’s Katerina x Sophia, the fated relationship across space and time…. Damm. I can’t decide.
No announced stream. Crunchyroll streamed the first season so I expect they’ll pick up the second as well.
Shiroi Suna no Aquatope
The aquatope on white sand
A former idol goes to Okinawa and finds a new life helping a struggling aquarium from shutting down.
Crunchyroll
Why am I anticipating this? Is it because I get Adachi to Shimamura vibes from it? Because it’s PA Works and I almost always check out what they present? Because the trailer just looks charming?
A little bit of all of them I think, plus it’s the closest to a CGDCT show this season. (And long term readers know that’s right in my wheelhouse.)
Streaming on: Crunchyroll
Love Live! Superstar!!
Yuigaoka Girls High School is a newly established school that lies between the Omotesando, Harajuku, and Aoyama neighborhoods of Tokyo. The story centers on its first batch of students. With no history, no upperclassmen or alumni, and no reputation, it is a school full of unknowns.
Five girls, among them Kanon Shibuya, have a fateful encounter with school idols. Kanon decides, “I love singing. I want to make something come true with song!” Many feelings converge upon a star that has only started to grow. The future is blank and full of possibility for these girls, and their story that everyone will make possible has only just begun. Soar with your wings, our Love Live!
My relationship with the School Idol Project is complicated. I enjoyed the heck out of the original Love Live!, but the sequels… Love Live! Sunshine!! had some interesting characters, but fell short in that they never let the show stand on it’s own two feet. Between the constant references to it’s famous sibling and flawed performances, it never was what it could have been. Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club was just a mess right from the start. It had some interesting ideas, but it never went anywhere but in circles and I dropped it mid-season.
So, it’s with great trepidation that it goes onto anticipated list.
No announced stream, though I find it hard to believe it won’t get picked up somewhere.
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Only four series? I mean I’ll check out tons more, but I hadn’t realized how few I was actually anticipating. On the other hand, a thin season would actually be a bit welcome. Not only are there side projects to the blog I need to work on… But with two episodes of Nana and Oishinbo each week I start with the equivalent of four series right off the bat.
That being said, with the overwhelming number of isekai in this season’s offerings, I don’t anticipate picking up much/many. I’m pretty much burned out on the genre, so unless it’s something really special I’m not sticking around.
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So, what are you anticipating this coming season? Check out the season chart, drop a comment, and let’s chat!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
Yeah, I’m not really excited for anything on this list. I mean, I’m glad all those sequels are there, but among the new shows little stands out.
The PA Works show so far looks like PA Works at its most… normal? This is the same type of character design Iroduku used, I think? It’ll likely at least be entertaining, and it could be really good, too, but I’m not seeing it yet from the trailer.
Anything else? I’m mildly curious about Sonny Boy. Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid stands out visually a little, but that could go in both directions (i.e. awkward-to-decent CGI saved by an aesthetic minimalism and great colour; I have no idea how this will affect me for a full episode but that’s enough to catch my eye). Tantei wo mo Shinderu? (Shrug) Bokutachi no Remake? (If it’s not boring…) Kanojo mo Kanojo (I liked Aho Girl)? Ore Tsushima (a short with cats)?
I predict Fumetsu no Anate e will be the best show next season, too. I hope to be proven wrong (though please not by FnAe jumpting the shark Knocks on Wood).
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Yeah, as I said, it looks thin… Not much to anticipate, mostly just curiosity at best. I agree with several on your curious list. Definitely Kanojo mo Kanojo.
From what I’ve heard of Fumetsu, I think your prediction is likely to come true. But… There’s always that show that comes out of nowhere. Maybe there’ll be one this season.
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There’s pretty much one show I really like but didn’t anticipate at all per season for me. This season that’s Pretty Boy Detective Club. I completely looked over it.
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It’s always nice when that happens!
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Love Love Superstar. I watched the first episode. It interested me at the start as the art style seemed to have progressed and moved away from the simple, sparkly yet dead eyed character design trope that they have used in every other Love Live Series (Ive always wanted to say that about Love Live). But as the episode progressed all the tired old Love Live school idol tropes started piling up. There’s the grumpy one in a position of power who supposedly hates school idols. There’s the loud enthusiastic one, etc etc. You know how it goes by now. By the end it was as syrupy, optimistic, empty, trivial, and exploitative as every other Love Lives series has been and art changes didn’t matter any more. Whilst so far it seems marginally more watchable than the previous execrable Love Live series, I don’t think I can sit through the same old trope rehashing again. Love Live as a franchise needs to discover other ways to be, because what they are doing now, just doesn’t cut it.
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I am however enjoying Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru. (The Detective is Already Dead), I like what its done so far even though the big reveal in episode 2 you could see coming just like an isekai bus. It has some emotional resonance so far that I like.
Im liking the PA works Aquarium show, I liked the ex-idol character whose decisions I could relate to.
I’m checking out the various Isekai shows to see what’s doing with them but I’m not sure if anyone wants to know or can remember which ones I’m writing about, there are so many this season…
Oh and Kanojo mo Kanojo just sucks. I watched the first episode and disliked the main character so much I couldn’t watch the second episode. It has an art style similar to Aho Girl and the Mangaka and His Assistants but so far Kanojo mo Kanojo lacks the somewhat screwball humour of Aho Girl, and the strong female characters that offset the Mangaka’s perverted nature. Oh well I guess someone will like it and watch it. It just won’t be me I guess. :)
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I was a bit iffy on Aquatope after the first episode, but it settled down a lot in the second… There’s a lot of potential. (And little surprise, much of the creative staff worked on Irodoku.)
Yeah, one episode of Kanojo mo Kanojo was enough for me and I noped right out of there.
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The only series I’m watching this season so far is Aquatope, which is going well so far. I don’t have much experience with P.A. Works — I only found out that this was the same studio responsible for Shirobako, but I think that was made a while ago. The show looks beautiful and the setting is great; just not sure where they’re headed with the magical realism stuff but I guess we’ll find out.
I should probably try out Dragon Maid. The first episode turned me off when I watched it years ago, but I was in a different place then. Happy to see KyoAni back either way.
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Aquatope is, as I said to kumashock, made by many of the same people who made Irodoku… Which bodes well for the series, except they totally blew the ending of Irodoku.
As far as Maid Dragon goes, yeah it takes a couple of episodes to settle into it’s groove… But not every anime is for everyone. And yes, also very pleased to see KyoAni back in the groove.
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Bocchan to Kuro Maid may be the stand out show this season. Not because how it looks -it employs a relatively minimalist palate so that form is always supportive of the content. And the content is very good. Bocchan to Kuro Maid explores the question what does it mean to be a young man who can bring death to whatever he touches? The exploration of this question is what this show is about I think. It is profound and sad, and Alice’s awareness of how sad it is and her attempts to make her doomed young lord happy and comfortable are touching indeed. Bocchan to Kuro Maid wasn’t one of my first picks this season but after watching the first two episodes I’m completely hooked on this show.
P.A. Works’ Aquatope is also good. It looks like another installment in their original anime productions around the theme of work. I’m enjoying the carefully observed characterizations similar to those of Shirobako and Sakura Quest, (Both stories about “working”) which are always a stand out in PA Works’ original works.
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