And… we’re off! The first shows of the new season have shown us what they’ve got to offer. Am I buying what they’re selling, or looking elsewhere for something better? Hit the jump and let’s take a look shall we?
The shows that I’m watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics, strikethrough marks dropped shows and (*) marks shows that are watched but not regularly reviewed.
Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included
One Room, Hiatari Futsuu, Tenshitsuki
*ick* Studio Apartment is every fantasy fulfillment anime carefully distilled down and all the good parts filtered out. It’s about as bland, uninteresting, and derivative as it’s possible to be.
I mean, I could almost see the writer working their way down a list with ticky boxes to ensure no trope was left unmolested.
And yes, as I said on social media, the screencap is used deliberately and ironically.
Status: Dropped without a shred of regret.
Train to the End of the World
Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?
What the heck indeed, as in “what the heck did I just watch?“. And I kind of mean that in a good way. There’s a lot of weirdness going on… And that intrigues me.
But it also left a lot of blank spaces, and not in a good way. We really have no idea why Shizaru is so hell bent on finding Yoka. At least a hint would be nice, “but she’s a childhood friend!” is just meaningless. Her companions are cardboard cut outs at this point, but that’s not entirely unexpected.
And, Oh $DIETY the exposition. I hate infodumps and came this close to just noping out while all the animals gossiped. And the deus ex machina of what’s his face at the end was even worse. (And they straight up go “I can’t go with you because reasons”. GAH.)
There’s enough interesting there to have me come back next week, but right now it’s got some big handicaps to overcome to keep me coming back. Random weirdness simply isn’t enough.
Status: Tentative keeper.
Spice and Wolf: merchant meets the wise wolf
Ookami to Koushinryou: merchant meets the wise wolf
The first of Really Big Ones this season…
I didn’t know what to expect, but basically a frame by frame remake isn’t objectionable. It’s not an original story after all. But I kinda did expect them to put some effort into it.
Instead, it was just ordinary. Workmanlike at best. Neither the director, the animators, or the voice actors seemed to be putting in anything but a usual day’s work. And given the slow pacing of the story, it really demands something better.
Status: I’m going to stick with the show, and I’m trying not to let nostalgia put too heavy a rose tint on things, but it really does need to up it’s game a notch or two.
Bartender Glass of God
Bartender: Kami no Glass
I think I get where they’re going… But man, they’re not making it easy to get there. If there was ever a show where we should have dropped into the action straight off, this was it. The setup is pretty straightforward, and the few details needed could have been handled in flashbacks over the next few episodes.
Instead, we got a leaden lump of mostly exposition interspersed with rather pedestrian character moments. Not a promising start.
Status: Tentative keeper under the three episode rule. It really needs to find it’s groove and fast.
Laid-Back Camp 3rd Season
Yuru Camp Season 3
Smol Rin is precious and innocent and alongside Grandpa is the perfectly comfy start to the new season before diving into the chaos that appears when Chiaki and Nadeshiko are involved. A little bit of camping, a little bit of DIY, and we have a perfectly unobjectionable start to the new season. Which is not at all damming with faint praise – unobjectionable is Camp‘s stock-in-trade and is just fine. C’mon, you know me and my love affair with this show better than that.
Unlike many, I don’t really have a problem with the new character designs. In fact, as a manga reader, I’m kinda comfortable with them because they’re closer to the manga designs.
What I do have a problem with is the animation. Nadeshiko in particular kept drifting off model at key moments… And the characters aren’t always well integrated with the often photorealistic backgrounds in the outdoor scenes.
But I’m still looking forward to the season, as there’s some good stuff coming… and the OP gives me hope they may reach the firewood gathering chapters. If they do those right, y’all anime onlies are in for a treat.
Aw darnit, the OP doesn’t seem to be online yet.
Status: Keeper from the first sentence of the first announcement that this season was coming.
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Well, that brings us basically to the end of the first week… It’s not looking really good at this point, but there’s a ton of premieres yet to come. I’ve got ten more marked on Live Chart – and as usual I’ll take a gander at many more.
And with that, how is it going so far for you? Anything through Friday (PST, GMT -7) except for Astro Note and GIRLS BAND CRY is fair game. I’m planning on watching those as soon as I publish this and watch the Witch and The Beast finale.
As usual, drop a comment on the new shows or whatever you want to chat about – over to you!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
First, I’m not watching Bartender. I tried to watch the old show once, but the constant loving pans over the bar triggered me (I have issues with alcohol). I want to watch this, but I won’t be able to. Pity.
Spice and Wolf: Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what I remember from season one. I’m hoping they pull a Fruits Basket and give us a complete adaption. The story-telling Holo at the beginning was new, so this suggests the possibility at least. If we won’t eventually get a complete adaption (I hear season two of the old anime left out stuff that would have been necessary for season 3, which they couldn’t have known at the time), I don’t see a point to this, but at least it’s not bad.
Shuumatsu Train: I didn’t mind the exposition. It’s hardly a perfect show, but it’s much more interesting than the trailer suggested. As for Shizuku and Yoka; being childhood friends is perfectly enough for me – especially since they seem to have had a fight before she left about something. As usual, though, I don’t care too much about plot. I generally like the vibes of the show, something I didn’t get from the trailer.
Yuru Camp is basically Yuru Camp. Something did feel off; so it’s new character designs? I don’t mind. It’s been pretty much what I expected from the show. At this point, it comes with diminishing returns, but little Rin was great.
One Room/Angel: Ah, yeah, that existed. Old fashioned panty shot annoyed me; I wouldn’t even noticed about 10 to 15 years ago – how times change.
Nothing else I particularly want to talk about. A few things were nice enough: A Condition Called Love, or Henjin no Salad Bowl, for example. All in all, it seems to be a rather avarage season, which looks worse than it would if we hadn’t had that excellent run lately. We’ll see.
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re: Spice and Wolf And did you catch the color of the child’s hair? They’re very strongly implying something.
re: Train It’s not without promise, it’s just that I feel the execution is lacking. OTOH, I level that accusation at a lot of shows this season… Maybe it’s me.
re: Angel Pointless fanservice bothers me… Maybe more than it did in the past, but it does. Also I’m of the opinion that if ya want to do fanservice, lean in it. Half assing stuff bothers me too.
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@Spice and Wolf: Yeah, it’s part of why I think they’re going for a full adaption (even if maybe not decided yet?). Someone else mentioned that it’s likely a lead-in to Wolf and Parchment (which I didn’t know existed).
@Angel: Well, this show half-asses quite a lot, doesn’t it? The thing is, though, that this sort of fanservice was pretty much the industry standard around 15 years ago. It bothered me then, too, but mostly it just got stuck in my anime auto filter. The rise of moe seems to have gone at the expanse of ecchi, so now we get the rather rote character designs of “Train”. They put more work into the animals than into the main characters…
<blockquote>OTOH, I level that accusation at a lot of shows this season… Maybe it’s me.</blockquote>
Nah, it’s just that type of season. A lot of anime going around, with the usual production environment, I suppose. If it’s about production qualities, I think the best I’ve seen (till Friday) is Wind Breaker… Everything from the writing to the animation is really good; they don’t always put effort into the stuff I’m interested in.
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Nothing I’ve seen (so far) has had anything better than at best average production standards… But my wife and I will be watching Euph here in a bit, so that will make up for the others. OTOH, it’s kind of unfair to other studios to put KyoAni shows in the same class.
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All right, first shows of the season (and I also finished off The Witch and the Beast, but I’ll leave that aside here).
Spice and Wolf: merchant meets the wise wolf: Nothing spectacular, and the opening and closing songs have nothing on the songs from the first adaptation, but still pretty good. A couple of minor changes from that first adaptation, as Dawnstorm noted there was the opening storytelling Holo framing device, and instead of Chloe being the Holo of the village festival it was Yarei (which I guess is sticking closer to the light novels, as Chloe was an anime-original character). Also, we don’t get a giant wolf when Holo shows off her true self to Lawrence for the first time. These are not dramatic changes, and so far so good.
BARTENDER Glass of God: I don’t really know what to expect here. This is my first foray, I think, into stories about consumables that aren’t also magical girl shows. It was slow-paced, but I think it suits the story. In general, I think I’ll keep following it for now.
Yurucamp Δ: No complaints at all. I got what I signed up for, and there are already some nice interpersonal things going on, even between characters who haven’t seen each other in person yet this season (Rin and Nadeshiko, obvi).
A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics: Looked vaguely interesting and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get Mysterious Disappearances (and I’m still worrying over that “busty” description for one of the characters; perhaps I’m still testy over Occultic;Nine), so when this did show up on Crunchyroll I decided to give it a go. Reverse isekai with one of the magical girl variations plunged into a semi-realistic detective show (that implies it’s maybe going to leave realistic detective work behind), so I’ll probably stick with it. Also, I like the compassionate but not cloying treatment of homelessness in the first episode, though it’s perhaps a little idealized.
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As for why I didn’t capsule Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night, I let my HiDive subscription lapse and haven’t resubbed yet. I also have to catch up with Urusei Yatsura and Whisper Me a Love Song is coming up, so I’ll probably do that by next week.
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re: Glass of God If you have Netflix, check out Midnight Diner and Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories for how I kinda expect/hope this show to go. It’s not about the consumables, it’s about the bartender helping the people who find their way into the bar.
Re: Yuru Camp I hope you didn’t take my comments about it as complaints! I didn’t mean them that way. Minor quibbles with the animation at worst.
It’s a good thing you didn’t capsule Jellyfish… Anything after Friday is out of bounds. :) I still haven’t watched it (busy day), but the buzz I haven’t been able to avoid has been very positive.
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Nah, I re-read what you had to say about Yurucamp Δ a couple of times to make sure I understood you, and it was pretty clear that you meant most of what you said as compliments to the show. I think the animation is a little sloppier than I’m used to these days, and even in Yurucamp Δ up to now, but that doesn’t bother me.
That’s pretty much what I’m expecting from Kami no Glass. It seems to me that if you were to approach it as being about the consumable item completely, all you’d have is a cooking/mixing/baking show. Those can do well, but probably work better live-action.
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I don’t even know how a cooking style show but with drinks would even work… I mean, aren’t 99% of the standards just dump-and-stir?
But the best ones aren’t just about the mechanics of cooking anyhow. Think Sweetness and Lightning or Gourmet Girl Graffiti. Heck, on point for this season – Yuru Camp. I mean, they made making and eating cup noodles look good all the way back in S1E1!
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This is how. And that “dump-and-stir” would explain why you aren’t a bartender. ;)
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I’m still working through my list of shows to check and are only halfway through (oh those isekais…). Best for me so far are Salad Bowl of Eccentrics which made me laugh aloud a few times (rare these days). I thought the writing, animation, and acting were all pretty solid and the absurdity of how the between-world travellers deal with their situation was pretty well done and genuinely funny.
I also liked “Gods’ Games We Play” opening episode. Where it’s going to go after that I’m not sure, but the first episode was interesting enough.
Shuumatsu Train was a bit annoying I thought. Kind of purposefully weird and the animation being not really up to scratch. Im going to give it the hard three episode and fully expect to drop if it doesnt improve.
There are some pretty big titles going head to head this season – That time…etc…Slime vrs Mushou Tensi etc.. Both have been heavy hitting isekai fantasies with big followings and bankable results so I’m interested to see what each series serves up this season. Slime started with a revision episode and then proceeded to… another info dump for the opening of episode one. The rest of the episode was serviceable but typical Slime fare.
My other favorites so far have been the two shows we can’t talk about yet…
There is a Konosuba III starting soon too. After the not very interesting Megumin spinoff series, Konosuba has some ground to regain. I’m hoping it can do that.
Now its back to my list… ummm which reincarnated seventh son had the….? or was it that reincarnated mage?… or the salaryman who dropped dead on his doorstop after playing the Legend of Nobunaga?….I cant remember any more….
Oh yeah forgot… One Room, One Angel etc – Generic and derivative. I was slightly fascinated by the opening scenes on his balcony… where have we seen that before? It soon dawned on me: The opening scene from “A Certain Magical Index”… It wasn’t the same but there were some sequences that were so close to Touma dealing with a hungry Index on that balcony. One Angel undeservedly gets three episodes cos that makes me feel generous hahaha
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There are also a few sports shows that havent dropped yet and I’m very interested in them. A baseball show, women’s cycling, another golf show, and a futuristic formula one level car racing show heavy on the the 3D animation… More later….
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re: One Room Angel The comparison with Index is spot on! I knew I’d seen that somewhere before. But you’re way more generous than me to give it more than one episode.
Other than the train show, looks like we don’t have much in the way of overlap… But with the sports shows yet to drop, that could change. Look for the next post Friday (ish).
No Euphonium? I can’t remember if you’re a fan or not.
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I did watch the first few episodes of Euphonium and thought it was very good. However that was the time when I had some serious health issues and i just forgot to pick it back up after I came home from hospital. I should go back and check it out again when I can.
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They’re worth checking out if/when you have the time… I mean, there’s a reason why much of the anime world was losing it’s mind on Sunday. :) But I can understand putting it off, two seasons plus a movie is a big chunk.
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