Island
Short Synopsis: A man stranded on an island full of cute girls claims to be from the future.
Lenlo’s Review:
Well I can see how ISLAND might appeal to some people. After all the first two scenes are A) Erotic wordplay about “breaking” and B) The classic trip and fall into your main love interest, but this time it’s directly into his crotch. Face first. Truly, ISLAND is a bastion of culture. Yeah, there are small hints about some kind of murder storyline. Some kind of detective drama. But let’s be real here, this is a fanservice delivery system. If Studio feel learned how to weaponise the genre, this would be their Tsar bomb. If your into fan-service and B-plots designed to deliver that fan-service, ISLAND may be for you. For everyone else, I give it a 1-in-a-million shot at being anything resembling decent. It’s a shame to, because we have irrefutable proof that Studio feel knows how to make good anime. They just choose not to sometimes.
Potential: 0.00001%
Mario’s review:
Let’s me just recap the story just so we have an idea how half-baked it is. We have a guy who literally a blank page, who both suffers amnesia (!), but “remembers” enough key events to advance the plot at will (!!). He meets various girls (!!!) and the first thing he remember about them is boob and kiss (!!!!). This is obviously a VN type of story where the main guy has no personality whatsoever and the girls are loud and cliche. It doesn’t help that the fanservice is off-putting and the conversations are generic. There’s some hints of a darker storyline which all the mysteries and killing stuff, but so far it’s hard to invest to any of that because the pacing is all over the place. That insert song in the end might pull some viewers in but for me it’s just a generic J-pop song. Uninteresting characters with too much fan-servicey and not enough plot would sum this one up nicely.
Potential: 10%
Hanebado!
Short Synopsis: The remaining members of a badminton club struggle to keep their group together.
Mario’s review:
How appropriate that we have a sport anime that kick off the season in a middle of football frenzy and Wimbledon, and it’s a competent one to boost. Conventional plot aside, Hanebado has all the ingredients of a solid sport drama, from adequate character developments to outright impressive badminton choreography. These two main girls have clear motivations and struggles, but what I enjoy the most is the way the show display characters’ feeling through subtle expressions (this reminds me a lot of KyoAni works). Yeah, that main girl can be unbearable sometimes but she comes from a place I can totally understand. As a person who used to practice tennis day and night, I come up with that question a lot: Why do I keep playing the sport. As noted, the animation is impressive. It’s one of the few shows where I can say it resembles the sport in real life, but I’m not sure if they can keep up that impressive visual for the rest of its run. Other concern is that I’m not certain if it can finish the story in one cour, because I just don’t want to invest in a story that just stop when everything just gets interesting.
Potential: 60%
Wooper’s review:
This is one of the anime that most interested me based on promotional footage, because the badminton matches looked great. Now that I’ve seen the first episode, though, I realize that the rest of the production doesn’t have that level of polish. That goes for story, characters, visual direction, and most disappointingly of all, music. Hanebado’s soundtrack sounds like the result of putting every Joe Hisaishi score into a blender, taking two sips, and throwing the rest away. And that’s honestly a shame, because with good visuals for the competitive scenes and a distinctive sound for the rest of the show, we might have had a contender on our hands. Instead, the average character writing (featuring transparent stand-ins for the concepts of “talent” and “hard work”) shines through at every possible opportunity, making their relationships and arguments feel artificial. The idea that two rivals will have to become friends and work to improve their club isn’t wowing me, either. Hanebado still gets a light recommendation from me for the athletic animation and the fun OP, but don’t expect the world from this series.
Potential: 40%
Senjuushi
Short Synopsis: Rifles are Boys.
Lenlo’s Review:
Sigh Why do I do this to myself? Why does Japan do this to me? To anyone? Welcome to “Ancient-guns-as-cute-boys-doing-cute-things” the anime. I swear if this becomes a genre, i’m just done. There are so many things wrong here. I would need this entire post to explain my problems with Senjuushi. That’s not going to happen. I already made that mistake with Touken Ranbu. And at least Touken Ranbu had the decency to look as flashy as Fate/Zero or Fate/Unlimited Blade Works. At least from it I got some visual stimulus! From Senjuushi all I get is a dozen of the exact same male face with different hair colors, scaled to different sizes. Nope. I’m out. Bye.
Potential: 0%
Mario’s review:
Just after last year with Touken Ranbu where hot boys are the incarnations of famous swords, Senjuushi basically borrows the idea with them boys as an embodiment of famous matchlock firearms, in a musketeer fashion. The mashup of all the different setting periods is actually the most amusing factor this show provides. Throughout this episode, more than dozen of male characters introduced and I’ll be damned if I remember any of those faces. Make no mistake, this show is an advertisement for those boys and I suppose this show will make several missions as an excuse for those boys teaming up and squeeze out every drop of charisma out of them. Avoid this show at all costs.
Potential: 0%
