Star Crossed Anime

Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san

Short Synopsis: A skeletal bookstore employee fields requests from perplexed parents and foreign fujoshi.

Lenlo’s Review:

This was the most amusing power point presentation I have seen all year. Sure, you could probably dig into the symbolism of a character’s head and how it connects to their personality or world view as the show goes on. You could talk about the stereotypes of the guests and how Japanese society views them. Instead, I am just going to leave you with one simple fact. This single 10 minute short had me chuckling almost the entire time. Honda-San is grounded absurdism and you know what? I love it. The delivery, the pacing, the power-point levels of animation. I have no idea why it resonates with me so, maybe because I worked retail for a year, but I love the story of this poor decayed book-store clerk.

Potential: This is my crack

Wooper’s review:

This is a half-length comedy about a skeleton named Honda who works at a bookstore. His co-workers include (in order of appearance): a guy with a bag over his face, a man with a cartoon rabbit’s head, somebody wearing what I assume is a stylized Daft Punk helmet, a woman wearing a helm from a medieval suit of armor, a character named “Mr. Sales,” and a girl wearing a Noh mask. There are many more to come, if the ED is anything to go by. Honda is the only one whose strangeness extends below the neck, however. Sometimes his jaw falls off when a customer surprises him with a strange request. Though he gets nervous around the store’s gaijin clientele, he still does his best to assist them however he can. Please support him by watching Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san.

Potential: Worth a chuckle or two

 

Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai

Short Synopsis: A girl wins a light novel contest with an incest story, and decides to use her brother as a public proxy.

Aidan’s review:

To contrast Wooper’s post below I have decided to only remark on the positives of this series in order to give a fair objective view of this anime. Well to begin the animation and character designs are…terrible..but ah the story, right the story is very…well…um….Alright you see this is clearly satire commenting on the nature of this incest fad with light novels. Sort of like a manga I knew called Oniichan Control which was about a brother who loved his sister but it turned out the sister was putting up a little sister front and is actually a psychopathic yandere grooming him to like her. Thus being a subversion on the arcitype and this show decides to shake things up by…playing it straight and sincere..alright so it’s not satire but it’s obviously a parody based on that one joke in the criticism of the main character’s work…even though the rest of the episode actually seems to be parading the LN state of being overrun with incest. (Screws eyes shut) Okay then this is actually postmodern experimental commentary on the nature of anime and incest which focuses on the preparation of archetypes to appeal to a mass demographic which demands the safe and familiar over creativity ingenuity or quality writing. It shows this by making use of exaggerated tropes pushed to the limit of absurdity like big titted women whose breasts are having seizures based on that jiggling, loita managers and obsessed brocon sisters. Thus all this trashy lazy setup is a metaphysical commentary criticising the appeal of familiar norms with conceptual taboo which in turn leads to the degeneration of mass media pandering towards teenage fantasy sexual desires and this is because….well it’s because…that’s all because….

(Sighs and stares blankly)
….this anime is shit.

Potential: Light Novels were a mistake

Wooper’s review:

Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai opens with a series of 13 close-ups on little sisters who appear to have been ripped from 2000s visual novels, all of whom address their older brother using different cutesy honorifics. Once they’ve finished, they all cry out in unison, “I love you, big brother!” This turns out to have been the main character’s dream, but even after he wakes up, Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai doubles down on the otaku baiting. For your viewing pleasure, the series features:

• a perfect little sister who does all the housework,
• a flat-chested loli co-worker who’s actually of legal age,
• panty shots,
• fantasy scenes where the main character imagines his imouto in provocative poses,
• censored nipples which will be uncovered for the Blu-ray version,
• a curvaceous editor who relentlessly flatters the MC and volunteers her boobs for groping at any time,
• tons of dialogue discussing the wonders of light novels,
• a big-breasted illustrator who nearly orgasms when her appearance is complimented,

and the list goes on. All of this is just gravy, however, compared to the fact that our hero’s little sister is totally in love with him. We witness that love in the form of excerpts from her light novel, entitled “This is the Tale of a Little Sister Who Loves Her Brother Too Much to Cope.” She also rolls around on her bed while scheming up ways to become his girlfriend and shrieking with glee. Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai covers all of this with a veneer of plausibility by making its lead character totally relatable. For example: he can’t imagine that his lil’ sis (who has just confessed to writing a story where the female lead loves being petted by her older brother) secretly lusts after him, because that would be totally weird! Am I right, fellow normal guys? Plus, he gets tongue-tied whenever sexy women grab his hands and use them to massage their chests. What a common situation in which to find oneself as a typical high schooler! Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai is the perfect gateway to the wonderful world of incest anime, because it keeps it [100 emoji] with the audience. We’re not elitist snobs who need fancy animation or a well-crafted soundtrack in our animes. All we need are older brothers and younger sisters who love each other more than anything in the world. That, and some tig ol’ bitties.

Potential: Ore ga Sick of this Shit dakedo Shit Keeps Getting Made

 

Conception

Short Synopsis: A highschool boy and a pregnant girl are transported to another world and must screw in order to save it.

Aidan’s review:

Wow. I mean when I heard about the whole aspect of making babies to save the world I was under the impression that the process actually didn’t involve sex. As a matter of fact in the games that appears to be the case as the ritual is not really elaborated on but obviously heavily implied to be sex. In the second game it appears they just place their energy inside some urn or something. Not here. Here they remove all ambiguity and go full on sex. Honestly I find myself both disgusted and somewhat impressed at the complete lack of shame in this. I mean I suppose it’s nice to see a protagonist with a sex drive and them just tossing aside the harem hijinks to just have them boink. But this has to be the trashiest Isekai I have ever seen, the animation is bare bones and the anime itself decides to do worldbuilding by literally linking a website. This is a story that gives no fucks at all besides it’s tituar concept of becoming a hero by banging girls. It knows how dumb this all is and it doesn’t care cause hey, it’s a game where you bang chicks to gain RPG powerups. Dare I say it, I may even play the game on steam due to morbid curiosity. The anime on the other hand…well I think they would have been better off just making hentai instead of this.

Potential: What am I doing with my life?

Lenlo’s Review:

An isekai of a harem game. Guess i’ve seen it all now. I’m done, I’m retiring. This show killed me. I don’t even wanna bother writing up a full paragraph, just read Aidans instead. God damnit.

Potential: Can I be done yet?

Mario’s review:

And I originally thought this season was already bad enough with rapes and loli sexual assault, now here’s the premise that can’t be topped: pregnating a harem team, one of them is your cousin. Yuck. If there is one praise I have for this show, it is that I admire it for its shamelessness. The opening sequence pretty much strips out all the pretense and gives you what this show is about (half of it anyway), a vintages of silhouetted naked girls. The other half is your cliche isekai world that the show doesn’t even bother to build it properly. Everything is fanservice to your teeth. We have girls already lining up to him to have sex (they literally say that), we have creepy mascot who trying to help our boy by molesting a girl for him, we have him tied up in chain with only underwear by a busty doctor. Even with the actual sex scene, there’s an overlong moment where the guy clumsily takes of the girl’s strap. It’s so badly framed that at one point it becomes unintentionally hilarious. Look, by now you know what you’re getting into so if this is your thing then go right ahead.

Potential: Anime again brings me down.

Release the Spyce

Short Synopsis: A girl is scouted to join a bunch of high school girls being ninjas.

Aidan’s review:
The opening scene of this episode had me feeling like I was in the 90’s again watching a really crappy version of the matrix. This show is certainly trying hard to look cool but so hard that it just comes across as really dumb. The science behind everything here is ridiculous and I am not sure if the writing itself is aware of it. I mean the “Spyce” in the shows title appears to be a drug based on the whole “Humans only use 10% of their brains” myth and the main character seems to have a supernatural sense of sight and smell but even more ludicious, the ability to diagnose physical and mental problems by licking people. This show seems to be targeting two conflicting demographics, those who want cute girls doing cute things and those who want action. The two are obviously at odds and it doesn’t help that the action is just painfully trying too hard. This show desperately wants you to think it’s cool and just as expected comes off as rather lame instead. I am not sure about a show which glorifies drug use either as this spyce turns girls into superheroes with seemly no negative consequences. This is just a really dumb poorly written show.
Potential: 0%

Mario’s review:
Release the Spyce is pretty much what you expected, a nonsensical fun ride. This episode spends its amount of time into two subplots: cute girls having their normal everyday school life and cute girls moonlighting as spies – or more as ninja, or more as heroes in cute outfits. Some details might stretch its credulity a little (ninja frog? Hell, yeah! Licking to sense other person’s personality?), but to its credits it doesn’t take those seriously. I suppose the main character Momo embodies the first episode’s strengths and weaknesses so far. On the narrative level, her role works as she’s a qualified addition to the cast. Unlike other main helpless protagonists who usually get sucked to the case all by accident, Momo gets there all by her ability and her determination to fight crimes. Her hesitation when it comes to action, her inspiration comes from her late-police father, all work by that glance. On the negative side, she never feels like a real person to me. Her ability is nonsensical and there isn’t much subtext going on in this chick flicks. The cast fares much worse as for now they fall into archetypal roles, and the villains are clearly evil and maniac. It’s too simple and straightforward for its own good.
Potential: 40%

 

Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc to Renkin no Kishi

Short Synopsis: A wannabe alchemist searches for a way to grant his childhood friend immortality.

Lenlo’s Review:
Ah, my first bamboozling of the season. It feels… bad. I went into this expecting something completely different than it turned out to be. Based on the description and some promo art, I was expecting some kind of historical epic during the Hundred Years’ War, maybe with some fantastical local elements ala Mahoutsukai no Yome thrown in there. Instead I get a high school harem series set in the 14th century, with a bunch of cliches that don’t belong there. I’ll be frank, I lost my interest when I saw 3 anime girl stereotypes in the same shot 1 minute in, all staring at our bland male leads empty seat. Color me disappointed and move on. There are better series in this season.
Potential: 0%

Wooper’s review:
How much longer will it be before the average Japanese animator loses all ability to draw walk cycles? If the premiere of Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc too Long Title is anything to go by, it could happen before 2019 hits. This episode was chock-full of awkward and aborted motion, from sword fights that freeze at inappropriate times to characters that are supposed to be entering a room, but appear instead to be marching in place. The low budget appearance is just what this story deserves, as its historical setting is squandered on a cookie cutter harem setup. There’s even some fetish baiting, with the most nervous of all the same-faced girls peeing herself because a bird startles her in the middle of a dark forest. Fear not, however, as our gentlemanly lead character proclaims that he’s got a little sister (of course he does), so he’s totally used to spontaneous urination. If you want to write a series this insultingly bad, why not just set it during the modern day? A quick Google search reveals that the link between the Hundred Years’ War and alchemy is tenuous at best, so you could have just made this another high school battle harem rather than dragging Joan of Arc’s name through the mud. There’s a time skip twist just before the credits, which is the only decent part of the episode, but it’s not worth the price of entry. Do yourself a lifelong favor and never, ever watch this show.
Potential: 0%

 

Anima Yell!

Short Synopsis: An excitable high school girl attempts to start a cheerleading club.

Lenlo’s Review:
Ah, the seasonal entry into “Cute Girls doing Cute Things”. This time that thing is Cheerleading, a traditional highschool activity. Anima Yell looks competent enough. The art isn’t bad, the animation is enough that for a few shots I was actually surprised with how the well the Cheerleading worked. Anima Yell even took the slow approach of gathering the club members and not just overloading us with everything all at once. Most of all though, it was actually kinda funny. It’s not my proudest moment, but I giggled at the “Chair” joke the first 2 times it came up, I’ll admit it. Basically, if you want a show you can sit back, relax, not have to think too deeply about the philosophical meaning of and just enjoy, you could do a lot worse than Anima Yell. Yeah, it’s not my cup of tea, but I’m the kind of asshole who enjoyed Ergo Proxy, and I can say Anima Yell is at the very least, competent in every way that matters.
Potential: 30%

Wooper’s review:
This is another high energy club anime in the vein of Anime-Gataris or Comic Girls, which should tell you everything you need to know. If you like pink-haired protagonists and would cite “irreversibly cheerful” as your mood of choice, Anima Yell was made just for you. The character designs won’t win any awards for originality, but they’re moe enough to make your teeth fall out. The animation isn’t exactly top shelf, but it’s competent, even for a series that revolves around a movement-heavy sport like cheerleading. The plot point of gathering five members to start a high school club won’t set the world on fire, but it’s a good jumping-off point for some decent character work, should the show be so inclined. One thing Anima Yell does better than a lot of its contemporaries is striking a balance between earnestness and clumsiness in its main character. When both of these traits are present in one person, they typically vie for dominance, when they should be harmonizing instead. This series takes the latter approach, which makes for a pleasant watching experience. Anima Yell’s lack of ambition and familiar template will discourage a lot of fans from picking it up (myself included), but it looks to be one of the year’s better entries in this genre.
Potential: 30%

Radiant

Short Synopsis: A young sorcerer takes on a giant monster without his teacher’s help.

Aidan’s review:
This was certainly quite different from the French manga I read and I was concerned that the Japanese animation studio decided to go anime original with the product. However it seems the creator of the original french manga(Yes, French) decided that the first 5 episodes would be a rewrite of the story. This could be due to the general consensus that I heard that Radiants first two volumes are too formulaic shounen and not very interesting. However it seems that most agree that once this story gets into its first real arc then it improves dramatically. Of course the question is, how long is that going to take and will it reach that point in a 21 episode run? I don’t think what I seen this episode is bad, as a matter of fact I would say that out of most recent efforts this show captured the spirit of golden age shounen quite well. The big problem is that everything you see here is very much an echo of shounen you have seen before. Thus your opinion on this show very much depends on your exposure to shounen anime. As someone who has seen a large share of Shounen anime I would say this show is fine and I have seen shounens that didn’t work as well as it did. The animation is certainly better than something like Black Clover as well. There is potential for this one to surprise but that’s if it can keep viewers interested long enough to pull out it’s big guns and if those guns can truly blow people away so that they forgive a slow start.
Potential: 60%

Wooper’s review:
I’ll be blunt – I didn’t enjoy a single thing about this premiere. Some people are excited for the cultural broadening of anime that Radiant represents (the source material is French), but if tired shounen copycats are the type of non-Japanese works that get selected, the net change is hardly significant. This show features a loud, spiky-haired magic user who can punch things really hard, and who must deal with discrimination based on his sorcerer status. He has a teacher who’s strict but secretly kind-hearted, and he even saves a young boy from a frightening monster in the very first episode. Is any of this sounding familiar? The series boasts strange character designs, verdant backgrounds, and European music, but these elements aren’t enough to distract from how safe and shallow the final product feels. There was only one image that interested me in these 23 minutes: a wide shot of the teacher’s airship against a moonlit sky. Apart from that, my eyes were starving for visual stimulation. My funny bone fared even worse, nearly disintegrating at the attempted physical comedy on display. For the sake of French comic authors everywhere, I hope that Seiji Kishi butchered this adaptation, so they can put all the blame on him and try again some day with a different director at the helm. If you’ve never met a shounen you didn’t love, this will be right up your alley. Otherwise, steer clear (no pun intended).
Potential: 20%

 

Goblin Slayer

Short Synopsis: A party of adventurers take on a quest to rescue some girls from goblins.

Aidan’s review:
Well that was dark, both figuratively and literally considering the full episode took place in a cave. The first ten minutes or so played a long con of showing a bunch of characters who looked to be main cast worthy and their first job of taking on goblins. What follows is the perfect example of what not to do for anyone who’s played an MMO or RPG. Like not damaging the quest giver who recommended that you wait for a higher ranked adventurer before going on the quest. Or remembering to take potions. Or not leaving behind your mage and healer while running on ahead. Or bringing a longsword to fight in a cramped cave. Or the tank swinging his sword wildly making it that the main dps couldn’t help out. So this episode mainly serves to do two things, one is showing how goblins are irredeemable assholes and two is showing how badass goblin slaying batman is. Believe or not considering how graphic this was it was toned down from the manga which was rather gratuitous with showing the rape and violence. White Fox took the more tasteful route of not directly showing rape but still making sure we knew what was happening offscreen. For a first episode it does the job of setting up the premise and the only real hiccup was White Fox replacing Goblin Slayer with a CGI model at times and thinking viewers wouldn’t notice. I hope that doesn’t become a common occurrence.
Potential: 75%

Lenlo’s Review:
Ah White Fox, we meet once again. Your 2 for 4 with me right now, so time to break the tie. So far, Goblin Slayer is preeetty good. I saw the bait and switch of the adventuring team coming a mile away, but it still worked. I found the light foreshadowing of the longsword and the cave walls/ceiling to work well. And most of all, I enjoyed how the Goblins were suitably threatening. So often anime, and fresh DnD DM’s, forget that just Goblins being weak stat wise means they have to make up for it in other areas, such as cleverness and numbers. Being underestimated. It makes me think that our lead will face some real challenges going through the series, even if I have no idea what the central plot may end up being. The fact that Goblin Slayer didn’t just cut his way through the horde either was appreciated. He used a very pragmatic approach of traps, using his resources, knowledge and the geography of the cave. As Aidan said, he is closer to a sort of Batman than a general overpowered MC. The two aspects that bugged me, that will most likely become a reoccurring thing if its being used this much in the first episode, is the CGI model of the Goblin Slayer and the rape. One of these things is less concerning than the other. I don’t think we are escaping that. But you know what, I don’t care. I am in for the season Goblin Slayer. Don’t disappoint me.
Potential: 70%

 

SSSS.GRIDMAN

Short Synopsis: A boy with amnesia has to turn into a giant robot to fight Kaiju.

Aidan’s review:
Allow me to be blunt. I have absolutely, positively no idea how to react to this one. The inspiration certainly seems to be along the lines of Tokusatsu shows like Kamen rider, in fact this does seem to be a sequel to a lesser known one. However the episode itself seems to be half school life and half giant monster fighting. What throws me off so much however is the nature of the dialogue which some have deemed realistic but I myself find rather quirky. I wish I could react to a giant monster ripping apart the town with as much nonchalance as these characters do. In fact these characters seem to react to any supernatural incident with mild disinterest. The main character has amnesia(Tired trope indeed) and both he along with everyone else treats it like he stubbed a toe. “You got amnesia? Well that’s odd but eh, you will get over it” That’s what is throwing me off throughout this episode because the characters seem to care very little about the events of the plot, causing a strange disconnect between myself and the story unfolding. Thus I cannot get invested in any of it but even then I just think this isn’t the kind of show for me. I feel this is more for fans of the original Gridman or other Tokusatsu media.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo’s Review:
If nothing else, I have to give Gridman props for trying something interesting. Not with the story, that’s some standard Super Sentai Kamen Rider fare, though I do like the monsters being carved and created. Not the characters, because amnesia is a played out trope that every anime fan is probably tired of. No, I have to give it props for its direction. In just this first episode Gridman tried a number of interesting shots, even if they failed. The single frame cuts during a conversation, as if time is passing for awhile and its just cutting to the start of each sentence. Or the long pause after the ball knocks the sandwich to the ground. I’m not sure either of them worked as intended, but I give props to Trigger for trying something new like always. As far as the actual show goes though, I am personally not interested. I grew out of Power Rangers a long time ago, and I am not familiar with the source material of Gridman enough to truly care. As Aidan points out, the characters react to everything like they have seen it a thousand times, even the giant Kaiju showing up out of nowhere. It’s the same offbeat style Trigger is known for, but here it bugs me. Still, if you like Sentai Shows and if Gridman keeps up some of these interesting directional choices, you might enjoy it.
Potential: 15%