Koi wa Ameagari no You ni
Short Synopsis: A young highschool student falls for her middle-aged, single father manager.
Lenlo’s Review:
I am rarely a fan of romance anime, generally preferring a good romantic tragedy. Koi wa Ameagari no You ni however has managed to claw its way into my heart, with its premise of forbidden love. A 45 year old man with a son, and a highschool student? Most would call that illegal at the least. Ameagari is going to live or die by its characters and so far, I love them. The klutzy but lovable manager Kondo and the love-struck Tachibana play off of each other well. They way they are presented is great as well, the subtle hints of Tachibana’s past with the track and her apparent injury to the strained relationship between Kondo and his son. I love it, and it wraps it all up in a well animated/beautiful looking package to boot. My one worry is the questionable aspect of the relationship and how that will play out. On one hand the classic romance could work well from a female perspective. On the other, these kinds of relationships are often doomed to tragedy from the start, and I love a good tragedy. Guess we will have to wait and see.
Potential: 85%
Mario’s review
After the Rain, or to translate literally from the original, “Love is Like After the Rain” (boy, how I love this title) is a romance anime that I can totally get behind, even with such questionable premise behind the crush of a 17-year-old girl to the boss who is old enough to be her father. Because the main focus isn’t about the alluring of such problematic romance, but more about the coming of age story where pursuing her crush marks the new chapter in her life. I was impressed by the show’s visual storytelling that manage to underline Akira’s current life with their attention to details, sharp direction, and a quiet but thoughtful key moments of rain and encounters. Akira isn’t the most expressive type, neither is the manager, for example you can sense a torrent of emotions hidden within her feeling about the track team, but she manages to hide it too well. The production as a whole is equally impressive with beautiful scene settings and terrific direction. This one is a keeper.
Potential: 80%
Miira no Kaikata
Short Synopsis: A young man lives with and gets to know the smallest, cutest mummy in the world.
Mario’s review
How the heck that with a season full of cute girls, endearing kids, adorable toddlers, the sweetest character EVER is a little pet mummy? I admit it sounds creepy in concept, A PET PETITE MUMMY, really? In fact, how do you find this little pet as charming or not will pretty much tell you how much you like this show. Aside from the chemistry between him and the main guy, the show is lackluster in any other department. The production value is nothing special, the art background is bland and unimpressive and the story is just about the two of them getting to know each other. It’s good-natured, it’s sweet and it will make you wanna hug your pets tightly, but with the season that chokeful with too much cuteness, it doesn’t have much else to stand out.
Potential: 20%
Lenlo’s Review:
As Mario said, the keyword for Miira no Kaikata is bland. Everything about this show screams mediocrity. Dull backgrounds, bog standard designs, and aside from the mummy, recycled characters. The only source of entertainment to be derived from Miira no Kaikata is the mummy, who will no doubt get old quickly. Heck, I got tired of the dynamic by the end of this first episode. I wish I could say more, but there’s just nothing going for it. My verdict? Pass it up.
Potential: 0%
Hakumei to Mikochi
Short Synopsis: Two tiny forest-dwellers hunt for a mythical bird and visit a portside market.
Mario’s review
And I thought I’m already done with slice of life cute girls this season, come two tiny girls that again hit the jackpot. The show’s aesthetic is presented like a storybook with panels and soft but bright color backgrounds, which I totally feel appropriate given this type of story. The miniature people and their habitat feel just right at home with many bedtime stories you always listen to as a kid, right? Indeed, the two small stories of this first episode give off the same vibe. Full of life (just look at the port-market’s houses, I swear I wanna live there),whimsical, gorgeous with light-heart and warm plots – a kind of laid-back anime that also have fun introducing its unique world. Hakumei and Mikochi, each has their own personalities and they play up each other well, although don’t expect any character’s development from them. I guess it’s the Winter cold that make everyone want a little warm from those titles like this, hence the avalanche of cute girls shows this season, but this one has an all-age appeal and with its rich world and bright atmosphere. I’m in.
Potential: 50%
Wooper’s review
A slice of life series about miniature people who live in the forest? That premise is right up my alley, but I might need to check out the manga on this one, because the anime didn’t meet my expectations. Actually, I sort of feel as though I’ve already sampled the manga, because Hakumei to Mikochi’s habit of placing rectangular panels on top of ongoing scenes gives it a similar air. This is a directorial technique that I recognized from last year’s Kuzu no Honkai, and sure enough, both series are from the same studio and director. Though I wasn’t a fan of Scum’s Wish, that show managed to squeeze at least a drop of artistry from the floating panel trick, but here it felt like a mere cost-cutting measure. It’s clear that a lot of care went into Hakumei to Mikochi’s art, and its characters blend quite nicely into its storybook backgrounds, but the number of still and panning shots in this premiere nearly put me to sleep. The show is cute, and has some charming dialogue about everyday problems (being unable to fit a piece of furniture through the front door, for instance), but I doubt that such a comfy vibe will be sustainable with production values this low.
Potential: 25%
Hakyuu Houshin Engi
Short Synopsis: A dumb shounen protagonist is given a list of enemies to defeat.
Wooper’s review
My god, this show has one of the worst opening songs I’ve ever heard. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas have never sounded so screechy as they do on this track, and all the OP offers on the visual side of things is a slideshow of heroes and villains in ~kakkoii~ poses. The meat and potatoes of the actual episode aren’t any better, either. Hakyuu Houshin Engi is based on a 90’s shounen manga, and Studio Deen created an anime version in 1999, but I don’t need to see either of those to label this premiere as the worst of the three. This episode condensed a manga volume’s worth of content into 20-something minutes, most likely in an effort to skip to a section more ripe for adaptation. The damn thing could have been animated in PowerPoint and remained just as entertaining, with the added benefit of making more sense. Names of supernatural classes, various realms, combat techniques, and weapons are thrown at you for over half the show’s runtime, and the script is forced to play catch-up with itself as a result. Taikobo, the series’ ostensible hero, literally exclaims the function of his weapon right after receiving it. Afterwards, when he reads the first name on the list of enemies he has to defeat, his magical flying pet Supushan blurts out a bunch of facts about the guy, who appears behind them less than five seconds later. The resulting fight is a masterclass in anticlimax that would put even the worst episodes of Dragon Ball to shame. Everything about this premiere is bad. I wouldn’t even recommend it for fans of the manga, as you’ll be pissed at what 2018 has in store for this franchise. Don’t watch this.
Potential: 0%
Mario’s review
Welcome to 90s anime remake. Engi looks outdated and feels outdated, from its character designs, to its way of storytelling, to its characters’ tropes – everything that reminded me of a little brother of Dragon Ball. But what terrible isn’t the old-looking feeling, people still like products in the past because they remind them of the spirits of particular era that we don’t have anymore, it lies in its awkward pacing. This first episode feels like a recap of the introduction phase so they can focus on the real meat of the story, but when the groundwork isn’t that carefully laid out, it crumbles on its own weight. Already in this first episode we have the main guy goes for his mission, encounters his “destined rival” (by him literally appeared in front of our main guy. Handy!), challenging the boss, loss, hiding and going on a journey again.What?? The content worths at least 3 to 4 episodes here, so naturally everything else, especially characters, are taking short-straws here. The main dude is bland and share no chemistry with his spiritual animal, and he also has an awkward flashback that feel way off. This is a bad adaptation of a not-so-significant manga to begin with, which makes my job here fairly easy. Skip.
Potential: 0%
The first one sounds interesting.
Despite being bland the Mummy anime, is indeed very cute, perhaps too much. The mummy barking like the puppy to get the MC’s attention, and all around the sweet tone. I mean, I just would lied if I didn’t say it did manipulate my emotions given other cute anime overshadow the cuteness with drama or fan service. I’ll recommend one episode to cheer someone’s day at least.
The mummy was cute, I will not deny this. It is a fact of life. That said, I just dont see how it could be interesting for a full cour. Maybe one episode as a sort of cheap dessert every now and then, but it would never hold my interest.
It would do much better as a short vignette series, with 5-7 minute episodes about their daily life and such. Cute but in short controlled bursts without all the pointless fluff between. A Cute-Scene-Of-The-Week show if you will, like Monster-of-the-week
Koi wa Ameagari no You ni is easily the fix I was looking for. There are couple of points that elevate it for me, let’s see:
– Starting with the most important of all: leg shots!
– Subtle atmospheres that are not being thrown at your face, like certain studio likes to do.
– ‘Anime feel’ that permeates through the character drawings – the lines are simple and expressive – I feel like I’ve gone back 10 or more years! The lines nowadays are too clean or perfect. Nothing like the hand-made feel here. The backgrounds and effects are modern, but do not reduce the effectiveness. They appear to use some kind of subtle post-processing on the backgrounds that enhances the edges for less cgi feel.
– Animation isn’t trading few lavish scenes for most of the scene’s quality and does not shy away from animating human movement properly and fully and from distance (with properly reduced level of detail). Things are constantly at move, things that wouldn’t normally have to be (not as far as we are used to), so the scenes flows nicely and keep your attention.
– I’ll be honest – I’m skipping a lot when I watch most of the stuff, because, well, many shows can be watched by a brain-dead person. Predictable dialogues, personalities, scene transitions, jokes, you name it – NONE of it is here. This series gets (and requires) my full attention. That’s rare.
– Characters & personalities are nice and not overblown and presented gracefully, in a ‘take as you wish’ manner, where you can sort of go at your own pace, if that makes any sense. I guess that means there is a lot of complexity underneath that is not directly expressed (but is most definitely implied) and the viewer can choose the processing speed to absorb it – which is allowed by the slow pace of scenes (that due to the introspective nature do not overstay their welcome). I’ve always had fun guessing what characters think and this is the anime that gives you exactly that – lots of (not necessarily deep) food for the mind to chew on.
– No drama. How soothing that students do not try to kill each other, throw fits because their favorite cake has been eaten or scream in disbelief at how stupid your opinion is. There are also no evil scumbags on the street threatening the heroine, loud customers drawing attention, nagging coworkers complaining that they are not main characters (haha picture of Ayu Daikuuji from Kimi ga Nozomu comes to mind, though I like her), depressions about the past (mc). The bubbly love effects are kept to a (reasonable) minimum – it can be ok (Ore Monogatari), but inherently it only gets in the way. And like, the girl smelled tha managers shirt and he saw her! Like Aku no Hana would run 12 episodes of drama with that! Nay! Very different approach here. The girl stays calm and basically admits her feelings – no self-denial, screaming pervert, and BS dialogue for 5 minutes. Refreshing.
– No ‘settings’ and ‘genres’ defining this. The school is not important, the restaurant is not important, nothing stupid takes away the precious time and prevents the series doing it’s own thing – these elements are nourished to a minimum extend necessary to give life to the world around the characters. I’m often annoyed by comedies being comedies and dramas being dramas and series not being what they pretend or think they are, because 90% time you get generic settings shit.
– Tsundere and without all the ‘Kugumiya Rie’-like screaming? Hell yeah!
– Art! This show is artistic! Just watch the OP or ED. The infatuation with clouds reminds me of Toki wa Kakeru Shoujo (Cumulonimbus FTW). They also like to abruptly cut short shots in – something of a Gainax’ style (prominent in NGE) – honestly, once in a while there comes an anime that I feel was loosely inspired by Gainax and that I could imagine in my mind fully converted into abrupt NGE scene cut style – this is one such anime.
– Music. They obviously didn’t want the music to take the focus, but absolutely recognize its power to set the mood. The music is innocent but has a tranquilizing effect on me, almost like I’m playing a visual novel and am at a good spot, not progressing, sitting comfortably, taking the feels in, listening to the music over and over, daydreaming.
Some more points:
– There was easy to miss scene at the beginning when the girls were running, MC tried to keep up only to stop in pain. Yeah…
– MC’s deadpan eyes are so full of life they are ready to burst! Someone give her a hug! Quickly! Manager! Aaaaargrrrrr…
– I love how they express characters with their feet – notice the impressive number of shots on boots and feet.
– The manager’s character style reminds me of Patlabor, is this coincidence or are some of the people in the production somehow connected?
– MC reminds me of White Album 2’s Kazusa Touma, but without the melodramatic baggage due to the show’s ultimate presentation. Kazusa’s voice actress (Nabatame Hitomi) is however one of my favourites, so Kazusa wins in that regard.
– The resemblance to NGE is really there. For example the after OP scene introducing the restaurant’s daily life was pure unadulterated Eva bliss, including the trumpet music, abrupt transitions yet with flow of actions of MC on her job and use of panning objects of varying distance to create depth of field in motion. Because of this the attention is drawed to the panning/composition and not the fact that the camera is actually moving, which increases immersion and produces the illusion of multiple things going on at the same time, without the cognitive load of multi-focusing.
– I know I sound like a broken record here, but what was with the pre-opening scene? MC listens to MP3, is contrasted to the everyday activity, is distant from the environment (reeks of Avoidant personality disorder), abrupt cut ins of seemingly unrelated shots ensue (but all come together eventually), MC is standing there vacantly in that heat (Rei goddamit!) then the girl turns around and MC disappears! If that is not a rendition of the NGE’s intro of Shinji walking absently through Tokyo and catching a glimpse of Rei across the street I dont know what is! Also, those freakking cikadas!
I was reminded of White Album 2 as well when I saw this! A bit melodramatic, but still a fun romance.
And I did indeed notice the subtle hinting of her track past. The hurdle breaking as she watches them, signaling her to leave. Showing she was one on track but something broke and no longer can.
Its a well shot/directed series so far and even if im not blogging it, will no doubt be following it.
Following your advice, i will not watch Houshin Engi anime. But I don’t agree with the statement: “not so significant manga”. The manga is one of the best shonen of the 90’s that I know. The cast of more than 30 characters contains not a single bland one.
I highly recommand it.