Mario: As Wooper noted, our last 9 posts are about 9 different shows, which is something worth cheering for. The rest of the seasonal shows look quite slim, sadly. These shows below either fall apart after the first episode, or not even that interesting to begin with. At this moment I consider following only Appare-Ranman, and in a normal season I wouldn’t give it another chance. If that’s the case, next week I’ll look into some older forgotten anime and give them another try. We will see.
Houkago Teibou Nisshi 2-4
Wooper: After being delayed three months due to the COVID pandemic, Fishing Girls has returned to supply us with half an hour of feel-good angling action each week. “Action” might be a strong word, actually; these episodes have been fairly serene affairs, despite the characters’ colorful personalities. This show is the latest in a recent string of hobby-related anime that have nicely developed their central female relationships. It follows most closely in Yuru Camp’s footsteps, with the same emphasis on pretty backgrounds, rustic soundtrack, and educational content. Several moments thus far have managed to put a smile on my face, from Hina’s promise to catch lots of fish for her dad to eat, to the simple pleasure of eating orange slices on a shopping trip with her clubmates. It’s the diverse instrumentation that gives all these scenes their individual flavors; from ukuleles to marimbas to tin whistles, Houkago Teibou Nisshi plays host to a plethora of playful and soothing sounds. With every episode, the show deepens both Hina’s fishing knowledge and her new friendships in rewarding ways – I’m glad to be watching it this summer.
Kanojo Okarishimasu – 02
Mario: WHAT A PATHETIC MALE LEAD! Are we really supposed to root for this sad sack? He’s so pitiful it’s not even funny anymore.
DROPPED.
Lapis:RELIGHTs – 02-04
Mario: After 4 episodes I still can’t find where the “idol” tag comes from. It’s a high school fantasy show where the girls can spend an entire episode for their version of the “dodgeball” game. The World building looks good, but in the last few episodes the production suffers a bit. It’s a show where you can get the most out of it if you enjoy the CGDCT genres or high school fantasy minus harem in general, but Lapis offers little beyond it.
Appare-Ranman – 04
Mario: When it comes to racing, Appare-Ranman still offers its main appeals, but it says something that the best characters in Appare-Ranman right now is the side characters. The main leads so far consist of mostly bland characters, especially the titular character who is so obsessed with his technobabble it’s hard to care for what he says or does. Still, the race is about to begin now so at least I consider Appare-Ranma’s stronger material is here to come.
Gibiate – 02/03
Mario: Boy does this getting pale in its next two episodes. The production is very clunky in episode 2 with obvious CG animation and designs that don’t blend well at all. The three leads, and by episode 4, another one who comes from another time period (ie ISEKAI) are generic and while it’s cool to see they are in action, I can’t say they are that deep or interesting enough to follow. Will it become something of an underdog of this season? Possibly, but one where I can’t say I care too much. The next episode is gonna be a make-or-break for me.
Apparently, Kanokari is supposed to get better from here, where we actually see this sad sack and his exs admit their fuck ups, though whether or not it comes off as a poor attempt at driving sympathy for this loser is up to debate especially since this is also a romcom show, so it has to have its cake and eat it too.
It should’ve just been a breakup show, because I’d hate to see this kid get what he wanted in the end.
Why wouldn’t a loser deserve some sympathy? Losers are people too! He is really annoying though, I’ll give you that: kind of like the college age version of Zenitsu.
It’s kind of interesting to see how divided the fanbase of Rent-a-Girlfriend seems to be on its MC: some people (like Mario) find him so annoying that they end up dropping the show, while others find the fact that he’s such a loser (socially awkward, with terrible timing and bottom-tier self-esteem) refreshing in a sea of self-insert MCs. Personally I’m kind of in between those two extremes: he’s not annoying enough to make me want to drop the show, but also not interesting enough to really make me invested in his fate. But the show is pretty entertaining in a dumpster fire sort of way, and the girls are quite fun (and they are typically the main appeal of harem shows anyway), so I’ll stick with it for now.
Watching Lapis Re:Lights myself, episodes 4 and 5 were both awful, with the former introducing a really creepy woman who steals her younger sisters’ underwear and gets off on them freaking out about it, and the latter…was just pointless filler that served absolutely no purpose to the story. Oh, and a magical board game which is just an excuse to put one girl in a playboy bunny costume and have her act like an animal for a minute. For fanservice!!