winter 2018 season preview part eight wrapping up

Like all good things and most bad things the winter season preview has to come to an end. There simply isn't any more new shows to review (since I have hidive at the moment and netflix likes to throw in binge seasons for shows) for the next two and a half months. This is not to say these late comers are neccesarily least as there is at least one good show in this bunch.

Hakyu Hoshin Engi

Taikobo is a orphan who has been training as a celestial warrior. One day he is tasked with the Hoshin project (namely taking on 365 celestial criminals). He soon finds out that this task may be harder than he may first think.

This show is a reboot of a long running manga (it even had an adaptation in the 90s). This show has the feeling of being made mostly for those already familiar with the manga. If you aren't that familiar (like me) the show may be a bit hard to follow.

Hakata Tonkatsu raman

The Hakata ward of Fukuoka city is known for being a city of assassins. There are many pro killers as well as the urban legend of the killer of professional killers.

The first episode of the show is slightly hard to follow since they introduce a whole lot of characters, but I have the feeling that it will get easier in later episode, especially that given the nature of the show some of the characters will get cut out.

Darling in the Franxx

In the future humanity is relegated to living on special plantations and even those are under attack by giant monsters. They are defended by robots piloted by a pair of teenagers one male and one female. The main male character meets a strange woman with horns.

This show is the lone mecha show of the season, and I have to say that it has a nice look to it, being that it is partially made by Studio Trigger. I have a feeling the first episode was mostly set up but I am interested in seeing how future episodes will pan out.

Winter 2018 season preview part seven supernatural girlfriends of the amazon

Last year there was an anime service on Amazon.com called Anime strike. It was expensive but it had some of the best shows of every season. However the premium service is gone (you still need amazon prime to watch some of the shows though) and there are still some new shows on the site. However unlike when strike was around none of the shows in this batch will probably be as good as say Made in Abyss.

Killing Bites

Super powerful corporations have had secret fighting tournaments for a long time and now has genetically engineered hybrids to make for even more exciting fights. Yuuya is a normal college student who ends caught up in the tournament.

This show looks like it will be the sex and violence show of the season. The action and fan service is pretty good and the characters are okay. You probably already know if this is the show for you.

After the rain

Akira Tachibana who is a high school girl who also works as a waitress at a local diner. She is also secretly in love with the manager despite the fact that he is a much older man who was already married once.

I found this show to be the best one of the bunch. It had decent characters but I want to see how they evolve.

Beatless

In the future human-like robots called Hies are common. One night five powerful hies escape from their lab and one of them ends up with a normal high school boy Ayato.

From the looks of the first episode this is a very generic boy meets robot girlfriend show. I am not saying it couldn't be decent but it just looks quite generic to me.

winter 2018 season preview part six magic magic everywhere

As my winter season preview grinds on I sometimes have to cover some shows that aren't that great. Maybe it's just a spate of bad luck but maybe that is part of why I do these previews, since not everyone is dedicated enough to watch over twenty new shows every season and you need to know what to weed out, even some of the shows on the trash pile aren't really awful to watch.

Marchen Madchen

Hazuki is a shy girl who reads books to deal with her social awkwardness. One day she meets a magical girl and finds a strange book in her backpack. She follows the stranger and it leads to a magical school.

This show looks like a fairly average magical girl show. There might be some more interesting stuff in the future but the first episode didn't set up anything more than there is a magical school and the main character has magic. There is also a fair amount of nudity in the first episode so there is also that to watch out for.

How to raise a mummy

Sora is a normal high school boy who has a strange father who one day sends him a small mummy one day. As to be expected Sora has no idea of how to take care of the little mummy. 

This is a nice and cute slice of life show and the mummy, Mi-kun is adorable. From the promo art and closing animation it looks like the main character's friends will pick up small supernatural pets of their own.

Death march to a parallel world 

Suzuki is a programmer who works very hard. One night he goes to sleep in the office and wakes up one of the video games he works on. By chance he wipes out an army of high level monsters and gets all of the loot and experience from beating the army.

This is this season's entry to the isekai genre. I don't have a feeling that it is great but it might be a decent show. Even though there isn't really any girls in the first episode the ending and the promo art tell me that this will be a harem show. 

winter 2018 season preview part 5 unexpected visitors

It is said that there are only two stories, either someone starts a journey or a stranger comes to town. Maybe that only can be said of some of the anime shows here but then again there wasn't too many slice of life stories back then (I blame a lack of paper).



A Ryouo's work is never done

Yaichi is a young shogi prodigy being the holder of the Ryouo title at age sixteen. One day a nine year old girl named Ai shows up at his apartment and wants to become his disciple.

This show is a pretty cute show with some nice characters. There is one fan service scene in the first episode so I wonder how prevalent that will be in future episodes.

Karakai Jozu no Takagi

Nishikata is a high school age boy who wants to do nothing more than to prank his female classmate Takagi. However she is a bit more clever than him so she ends up pulling pranks on Nishikata instead.

This show feels a bit like a bunch of short shows strung together into a full length episode. I found the show to be funny and cute but I wonder how long it will last.


Basalisk

There was a huge ninja war ten years ago and now a new group of children train to become ninjas. That includes Hachirou and Hibiki who come from different ninja clans but are fated to marry.

I didn't watch the first season of the show so I don't know how much I missed. I have the feeling that there will be some strange and cool ninja combat but I have no idea on how the plot will turn out.

Season preview part four Cute boys doing cute things

One thing that I have noticed over the years about anime is that Japan has a different take in what equality means; namely instead of protesting sexualization anime takes the approach of having fan service for everyone. In this group of shows there are two shows about attractive boys doing non action things and at least one of them looks pretty good.

Gakuen Babysitters

After losing his parents Ryuichi is taken in by a school's chairwoman, however with one proviso, Ryuichi is to take care of the children of the teachers. Can he both do this and take care of his younger brother Kotaro?

I found this show to be simply adorable. I like the main character and the children of this show are really cute. This show is cute and I think that even people who might not be in the show's demographic might enjoy this.

Sanrio Boys

Kouta Hasegawa is a normal high school boy who secretly loves the Sanrio mascot Pompompurin. He meets some other boys at school who also like Sanrio.

I found this show to decent show. I know that this isn't my kind of show and it isn't bad, however I can't really say that it is anything that looks exceptional.

Kokkoku

Juri is a woman who strives to a productive member of society, unlike much of her family. One day her brother and nephew are kidnapped and her brother. Her grandfather shows her a specials stone that allows people to stop time and they use it to save their family. However they aren't the only ones who can stop time.

Even though Anime strike is dead Amazon still has some new shows on it's site. This show likes like a serious science fiction mystery show. I don't know where this show is going exactly but it has me interested in it.

Winter 2018 season preview part three various fruits

I know I wanted to post this a day earlier but crunchy roll outages and a surprise shift at work conspired against my blog. However I post today and I am glad I watched the shows that I saw being that usually around this time of the season the better shows start coming out.


Citrus

Yuzu is a fashionable girl who is changing schools due to her mother remarrying. Not only is she is unused to a strict all girls school she has a new sister in law, Mei will have to sort out her feeling with her.

This is show is a fairly dramatic yuri show and those are kind of rare. I really liked Yuzu as a main character and feel that she has the strength of character to carry this show.

Card captor Sakura Clear card arc

It has been a few years since Sakura had her adventures collecting the clow card. She is now in middle school and Syaoran has has returned to Tomaeda town. One day the clow cards turn clear and a new adventure begins.

The first episode is mostly set up for the new plot. However it is still nice to see all the characters from a show I liked so much in the past. It looks like it will be a good show this time as well though.

Pop team epic

Popuko and Pipimi do stuff. It is hard to explain it in clearer terms than that.

What the H E double hockey sticks did I just watch? This show is a crazy comedy with heavy emphasis on the crazy. This show might not be for you but it is worth giving it a try.

Slow start

Hana Ichinose is a shy girl who is just starting at a new school. She wonders if she will find any friends but luckily she does.

I found slow start to a be a very average cute girls type of slice of life show. The characters are decent enough but nothing really makes this show stand out in the genre.

winter 2018 season preview part 2 Friday Fantasy

Fantasy is something that you can use for a lot of anime shows since the idea of stuff like magic allows for a lot variations. So it is little surprise that the three new anime show (all on crunchyroll) are fantasy shows of some type.

Toji no Miko

Giant monsters called Aratama plauge the land and the only effective countermeasure is special maidens who train with special swords. There is also a special school where these young women train to be monster hunters.

I found this show to a decent take on "the military is made of teenage girls"type of anime show. The characters are decent although I found there is a small mystery regarding Hiyori and what is her hidden agenda. There is some cg animation but I found it to be rather decent.

Record of Grancrest war

There is a world where the nobles half special crests that can fight chaos. However instead of the lords upholding peace they fight among themselves. The fist episode is about the alliance between the low level lord Theo and the mage Siluca.

This show looks like it could be an interesting fantasy show with a bunch of fantasy politics. It's hard to say how good the show will turn out but I found the first episode to be mildly promising.

Ito Junji collection

Ito Junji is a well known horror mangaka. This anime show is a collection of his short stories.

I wasn't that thrilled by the first episode. However I have a feeling that is was a case of the episode not taking full advantage of Ito's speciality, his ability to make unsettling imagery.

Winter 2018 season preview part 1 Cute girls doing traveling things

Hello everyone and welcome to the Jeckyllcast and blog's winter preview of the 2018 anime shows. I planned to start blogging again but severe computer problems put my blogging plans on hold. Anyway in this bunch of anime shows to review it is pretty clear that it is a bunch of slice of life shows featuring a cast of moe girls. While none of them look like they will become show of the year at least a couple of them look like they will be fun to watch.

A place further than the universe

Mari is a normal high school girl with a desire to do something great but no idea of what to do. All this changes when she meets Shirase, a girl with a driving desire to go to Antartica.

This show looks fairly interesting show that looks like it could balance the adventure of going the south pole with high school girl antics. The first episode is mostly Mari becoming friends with Shirase and then learning about the idea of going to the south pole.

Ms. Koizumi loves ramen

When Yuu meets the lovely transfer student Ms. Koizumi she wants to become friends with her. However Koizumi loves ramen but has no interest in Yuu.

A great problem with many slice of life or comedy shows is that they have a concept that is too rigid. I have the feeling that this might be one of those shows. I found that the chemistry between the two main characters isn't much to be interested either.

Laid back camp

While camping near the foot of Mt. Fuji a calm and experienced camper named Rin runs into a lively but airheaded camping novice, Nadesiko. Rin ends up help Nadesiko and the two of them star to become friends.

I found this show to a rather nice slice of life show. The characters were fun to watch and the music and backgrounds were also beautiful. I wonder if the show will have more instructive segments like the fire starting segment in the first episode. If you like slice of life shows you should watch this.

fall 2017 season preview part 4 Sequels all the way down

I usually make it a policy not to review multiple seasons of a franchise since I feel the most boring post I can make is one that says "this show is pretty much the same as it was last season" which I feel I would be doing if I reviewed most second seasons of shows. However I haven't been blogging for over a year so there are several shows that didn't get the review treatment of the first season. Here are three of those shows

Himouto Umaru chan R

Umaru Doma is a beautiful model student who lives with her older brother Taihei (I actually had to look up his name). However at home she is a tiny girl who wants to do nothing more than laze around and play video games. This show is a light comedy who reminds me of Oreimo without the incest sub plot. This first episode doesn't explain much so you should probably watch the first season first.

Shokugeki no Souma San Sara

Yukihira Souma is a hot headed teenage cook who goes to the prestigious and harsh cooking school of Totsuki academy. This time he is gearing up for the right to challenge one of the elite ten and not get expelled in the process. This looks like it will hopefully be as good as the previous two seasons with orgasmic good food and hot blooded cooking action.

Yuki Yuna is a Hero 

Sumi, Sonoko and Gin are three magical girls who are tasked with defending their city from monsters that come from beyond the long bridge. This show is a prequel show to the original Yuki Yuna is a hero. I found it to be a magical girl show with a nice aesthetic. I don't want to give away spoilers but expect this show to get dark in upcoming episodes. 

fall 2017 season preview part 3 girls and their vehicles

Whoever said the whole addition of cute girls as the main characters in anime would ruin it as an art form didn't know what they were talking about. At least two of the shows in this batch of new shows (even if one of them is a second season to something rather old) are clear examples of shows with cute girl protagonists and a good deal of philosophical thought in them. The other one, while a decent so isn't but you can't expect that out of every show.

Girl's last tour

Chito and Yuuri and two girls who travel through the war torn ruins of an empty city. This is the story of their daily lives as the two scavenge the ruins for supplies. This is a very simple and quiet kind of show and yet I find that this is an evocative show and I look forward to future episodes.

Kino's Journey the beautiful world

Kino is a traveler who wanders the world with only the talking motorcycle Hermes. Kino visits each country with the stipulation of only staying three days in each one. Kino's Journey is a well known anime series with a previous season airing in 2003. This show looks to be an episodic show where each episode explores some idea, sort of like old school science fiction. The art style is updated and I like the look of it.

Two car

Megumi and Yuri are on the side car motorcycle racing team. They are both in love with their coach and are at odds with each other, but can they work as an effective team? This show is a simple sports show and I can't say that the first episode of it impressed me all that much. 

Fall 2017 Season preview part 2 Kemono Enemies

The trope of characters having animal traits has a long history in anime (being that animals are the only creatures other than humans and plants don't do much). There are many uses of this trope (including werewolf bishonen in Sengoku blood night, but that is another post). There is little in common with the three shows other than that there are animal themed characters in each of the shows.

Juuni Tenshin 

Every twelve years there is a tournament when twelve people, one of each who represent a member of the Chinese zodiac, fight each other in a battle royal in order to win a wish from a shadowy organization. This show is a dark action anime where many of the characters aren't good people, at least the boar lady who is the focus of the first episode. isn't. However it looks like there will be a strong action component in this show.

Konohana Kitan

Yuzu is a young fox Youkai who is taking up a new job at the local inn. She is inexperienced but a friendly and kind person. This show is one of, if not if, the cute girls doing cute things show of the season. I found the characters to be nice enough and the atmosphere to be nice enough. It might not be a great show but it is a worthwhile show for it's genre.

Urahara

Rito, Mari and Kotoko are three girls who run a hip fashion store in the toyoko ward of Harajuku. One day culture stealing aliens show up and being sucking up everything cultural in sight. By a twist of luck the girls run into a talking fried shrimp who gives them the powers to fight off the aliens. This show is a strange sort of twist on the magical girl genre. this show has an unusual art style to it which might be a turn off for some people.

Fall 2017 season preview part 1 Season of Vampires

After about a year and a half I have arisen from the dead and begun to start blogging about anime again. The fall season is one of the stronger seasons in my experience and I hope that this is the case for this season as well. For the first batch of shows I am watching two shonen action shows and a bishonen visual novel adaptation. None of them feel like particularly stand out shows but at least they weren't horrible.


                                                                    Black Clover

In a world where almost everyone knows magic, there is a young orphan named Asta who can't use any magic. Even on his fifteenth birthday he didn't receive a grimoire like everyone else, or does he?
In short Black Clover is a shonen adventure show with a magic and wizards gimmick to it. It looked a bit generic but one episode reviews on these kinds of shows are a bit difficult since there is usually only enough time to show that the main character has special powers. I did like the character interaction between Asta and Yuno though so I have some hope for the show.

Sengoku Blood Night

Yuzuki is a young woman in the modern world who is transported into a world like Medieval Japan except for the fact that that the important people of the world are creatures like vampires and werewolves. This show is one that is clearly meant for fans of pretty boys so I am not part of it's target demographic. Even so I can't say much in it's praise so because it does as poor job in establishing it's main characters or making me care about them.

UQ Holder

Even though magic is now common knowledge a young boy named Touta is stuck in a rural village even though he wants to travel to the capital. One day though he gains the power of immortality from his teacher Yukihime, even if he doesn't know the weight of that power. Even though this is a sequel to Negima this show doesn't require previous knowledge. This is a shonen adventure show but since it has vampires in the main cast dismemberment is cheap. Also this show promises fan service in future episodes. 

Spring 2016 season overview Pull the trigger

It's getting late in April and I am thinking that it's also getting a bit late for season preview articles about spring anime, not too late for summer ones though but I can't time travel so those won't come out for a while. A couple of the anime shows that I am reviewing I have seen more than one episode of and guess what they are both of the Studio Trigger shows and I found them to be rather enjoyable.


Kiznaiver

Agata is a strange boy who can not feel pain and thus is indifferent to most of the world. One day he is drafted into something called the Kiznaiver project which causes a group to be able to share each other's pain. I found this be a cool show and if it stays true to it's possibility it could turn out to be a great show.

Space patrol Luluco

Lulu is a young girl who lives in a town where many aliens live but still lives a normal life. One day her father is frozen and she is drafted into the space patrol. Even though this is a short show I found this show to be a stylish way to spend eight minutes and it is pretty funny and not too generic.

Twin star Exorcist

Rokuro lived through a tragedy and thus no longer trains to be an exorcist. However one day he meets another exorcist girl named Benio and his passions a rekindled. This show feels like a pretty pedestrian shonen adventure show and it could be good but it looks average right now.

2016 spring season overview part 5 Genki is unbreakable

In the future the military will be staffed entirely by teenage girls, if anime to be believed. Given the state of anime did you really think there would be only one segment devoted to cute girls. So back by popular supply there are three shows, two of them slice of life kind of shows. While I haven't seen any spectacular there are at least in my opinion, no real stinkers either.

Anne Happy

At a certain school there is a special class dedicated to helping unfortunate students find happiness. The show consists of a group of girls, each of whom has a particular misfortune. This show is one of the slice of life show, straight out of the four (five actually) girls sit around and eat cake. I wouldn't expect greatness out of this show.

High School Fleet (Hai Furi)

In the future the sea levels have risen and a popular group is the blue mermaids. The main characters are the students of the destroyer the Harekaze. The first day of the student's voyage takes a dramatic turn when they are fired on. While this show has the whole cute girls are the navy thing happening the events in the second half of the first episode make me think that this will be a somewhat decent action show as well as a moe fest.

Flying Witch

Makoto is an entry level witch who has left her parents home and has moved into a relative's home to go to high school in the country. I found this to be a nice show that takes the slice of life genre in a different direction than your usual moe girls show.

Spring Overview part four In search of excellence

About some time in the middle of my season overviews if the past is a good indicator I start getting to some of the really good shows. This is not to say that can't be found anywhere in the season but usually in the middle you start running into the shows with a bit for intellectual meat on them. One of the shows here is certainly fits that bill, another might and the third is a comedy but at least it is a different sort of comedy than what we are used to seeing.

Joker Game

In the year 1937 the embers of World War II are beginning to glow. Japan is working on beefing up their intelligence capacities and thus has formed the D agency. Lieutenant Sakuma is a soldier tied to the group who is about to learn about the world of spies. This show is one that looks like it is going to be very dark and very intellectual as this show's concept of spies has far more to do with complex manipulation than James Bond style antics. Color me interested.

Bungou Stray Dogs

Atsushi is a young man who has just been kicked out of his orphanage and is now on the side of a river starving. He runs into a strange man who is looking for a runaway tiger. This ends up having Atsushi join a supernatural detective agency. This show is an action mystery type of show with a good dash of style. I have a feeling that a certain type of fan who isn't too into moe or typical shonen will really dig this show.

Don't you know I am Sakamoto?

Of all the students in school the coolest so far is Sakamoto. All the girls in school love him and many of the boys are jealous of him. However no matter what happens or who tries to mess with Sakamoto, he is utterly unflappable. I found this show to be a one joke comedy show. However it is a really good joke and I wonder just how far this show can go before it gets stale.

Spring 2016 season over part two Cute girls save the world

I have posted and now posted again in timely fashion so I can honestly say that this blog isn't dead. So I have decided to review the first episode of three new shows, this time the theme is groups of girls, something that is very common in anime. In truth these shows are rather different as there is a slice of life and the latest installments of a seminal magical girl and mecha shows. All three of these shows are at least decent and worth checking out.

Bakuon

Sakura Hane is a new high school student who rides to school on a bicycle and one day meets a girl who rides a motorcycle to school and is introduced to the world of motorcycles. In short this is show about cute girls riding motorcycles. Judging by the first episode I am finding this show to be something that uses it's premise to good use like a girls und panzer. Also I found the character designs to be slightly old school and I found that to be a slight plus.

Macross Delta

In the future humanity has expanded out into deep space and have run into various types of aliens. The latest threat is a disease called Vars which causes people to turn violent. There is an idol unit called Walkure that is used to combat the threat of Vars. The first episode does little more than introduce the two main characters as well as the fact that this show will contain a lot of singing and well doe cg dog fighting. You can only get this off of fan subs but I found this to be an interesting show.

Sailor Moon Crystal

Sailor Moon and her friends have defeat the threat from the future but a new threat looms and it seems that Mugen academy could the be the center of the problem. This show continues the sailor moon tradition in reanimating the third story arc of the sailor moon epic. It look like there is better animation than the first season of sailor moon. There is also a new ending showcasing why a lot of people are interested in this season in particular.

Spring 2016 Season Overview part 1 A mystery wrapped inside an enigma inside Crunchy roll

I am hopefully casting off the doldrums of blog hiatus and starting up regular posts with this posts today. As usual one of my regular deals is to review the first episode of every show I watch. I don't know how long I will walk this proverbial minefield for your hopeful benefit. With this particular post I tell you about the first three shows that I have seen this season, all of them on Crunchy roll.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Diamond is Unbreakable

One day in the town of Morioh Jotaro arrives to inform Josuke that he is a member of the Joestar clan and entitled to part of his father's fortune as well as to avoid some mysterious threat. However Josuke possesses a supernatural power known as a stand. I rarely review season four of a given franchise in these overviews but I find this show to be a special case. I have found this show to be a bit slower than your usual Jojo fare but I have heard good things about this section of the show and it still felt good enough that I will continue watching.

Mayogiga (aka The lost village)

A bus with 30 people who wish to do their lives over again heads for the mysterious town of Nanaki. However there subtle hints that not all is going to end well. I found the first episode to be mostly setup since so many characters are difficult to remember and although I don't feel it is a modern classic it looks like it could be at least a decent show if you like mystery and possibly horror shows.

Ace Attorney

Naruhodo is a brand new attorney ready to taken on his first case. To start out he is tasked with proving his friends innocence in a murder trial. This show is based off of a series of games known in America as Phoenix Wright. I found the first episode to be merely passable but from most mystery shows (and any work about the legal process counts) tend to use the first episode as a mere proof of concept and are never among the best episodes.