Insomniacs after school
Short Synopsis: Two sleepless kids meet at their school’s astronomy observatory.
Lenlo: Insomniacs… Wasn’t bad. Maybe it’s because insomnia is a bitch, and I myself find it difficult to sleep at night. I can connect with that. Two people bonding over it in their little clubhouse for day-time naps is kind of cute. And the show looks fine! The character designs remind me of I Am A Hero, a manga I’ve long enjoyed. Just enough realism to their proportions and structure to feel nice without being prohibitively hard to animate. For all intents and purposes, Insomniacs seems like a solid enough highschool romance. The real question is just if that’s enough. Will it be able to remain interesting during its run, will it hold my interest? Or will I check out by episode 3 because it’s just another highschool rom-dram? Only time will tell, but it’s enough to make me give it a shot. I have a bit of hope though, because the second half as they wandered around during the night was much better than the first half.
Potential: 40%
Mario: It’s interesting to see the differences in approach between this show and last year’s “Call of the Night”. While the vampire show provokes such a distinct feeling of roaming the street at night, “Insomniacs” doesn’t go to night time until the last 5 minutes. Its focus is entirely different, about two sharing the same secrets, that of they both can’t sleep at night, and that they find a place completely their own. At its best moments, “Insomniacs” successfully sells their unusual bond where they can sleep soundly together. But at worst, the show still has its romance / coming-to-age trappings that make it feels more familiar with other romance anime. In fact, “Insomniacs” reminds me more of “Let Me Eat Your Pancreas”, a film with a similar lead girl – hyperactive but sickly girl and a premise of them spending time together “as friends”. Overall, the episode is functional, the show provides good reasons for these two to know and spend more time with each other, but it doesn’t have the nuance that I found in better romance shows like say Skip and Loafer.
Potential: 50%
Magical Destroyers
Short Synopsis: Japan cracks down on Otaku-ism and carts them off to otaku camps. A resistance forms and is…surprisingly successful?
Amun: “Magical Destroyers” is one of the few original works this season, so not much was known about it coming into the premiere. What we’ve got is a “specialized dystopia” (a la Shimoneta or to a lesser extent Kill La Kill) where being a rabid fan of anything is punishable by incarceration. Seems pretty extreme to me, but Japan historically has not been known for public policy moderation. I just wasn’t enchanted so far – the main character designs felt more appropriate for supporting cast, and the enemies feel downright lazy. I do think some of the little jokes are pretty good, like the magical girl transformation where she has to change her shirt manually. This is pretty clearly going to be a love-letter to otaku culture, but I don’t think that’s really enough to carry a full season. We’ll see, but so far, I’m not just not feeling it (although that ED was quite a trip).
Potential: 5%
Mario: There’s just something missing in this premiere that doesn’t click with me. The episode provides a neat backstory of a “post-apocalyptic” world (not really!! But it feels like that to these otaku) where the world is against the otaku population. It also has a vibrant style and a clear love for the culture, which will obviously appeal to some fans out there. However, Magical Destroyers does a very poor job of establishing its characters and their abilities, so there’s a huge gap in-between “2008” and the present-day that I cannot cross. Take Otaku Hero, our… ahem… hero, for instance. He says that he’s tired of the ongoing wars and he wants to quit. Fair enough, except that we haven’t seen one goddamn thing he achieved beforehand. Every member in the resistance keeps saying that “we are totally dependent on him for everything” – but what is “everything”? I don’t see any of that here. The show then attempts to give us some brief slideshow-type flashbacks on how Otaku Hero enjoys fighting with everyone, but for me they function like implant memories because he did next to nothing up to that point from my perspective. Furthermore, we have Anarchy, a magical girl who… doesn’t transform for unknown reasons, and then she has these overpowering skills out of nowhere. I mean, if they stick with real life (2008’s flashback is the world we lived in), then adding anime-power just doesn’t gel at all.
Potential: 0%
EDENS ZERO 2nd Season
Short Synopsis: Guy who was raised by robots and a wannabe influencer with a robot cat are trying to find the celestial being at the center of the universe for fun or something.
Amun: One of my (few) complaints about Edens Zero is the weird non-linear temporal narration. We see it again here in the opening episode, and honestly, it’s just confusing. With Weis’ older/younger self situation, there are way more elements of time travel in this show than there’s any reason to be. Aside from that small complaint, Edens Zero is back to where we left off – the team is off to fight Draken Joe and looking space sexy doing it. It’s pretty straightforward what this season’s conflict will be, and that’s perfectly fine. As long as Edens Zero can avoid wandering into weird future/past paradoxes, I think we’ll be in for another fun ride!
Potential: 80%
