Welcome to the third installment of the Summer 2015 Anime Roundup! While we don’t have a lot of slice of life to cover this season, we have comedy in spades. If it’s laughter you are looking for, here’s where to find out what suits your tastes.
My Love Story!!
This series airs on Crunchyroll and updates on Wednesdays at 3:00pm.
Director: Morio Asaka (Chihayafuru, Chobits, NANA)
Animation Production: MADHOUSE (Chihayafuru, Hanayamata, NANA, and so much more)
AKA: Ore Monogatari!! (My Story!!)
Gouda Takeo is a very tall, muscular, and perhaps not particularly attractive student. He’s got a great heart and has a lot of (male) friends. Unfortunately, whenever he falls in love with a girl, she ends up in love with his good-looking best friend Suna. Suna in turn always rejects these girls because they talk crap about Takeo. Therefore, after he falls in love with Rinko Yamato after saving her from a grouper, he assumes she is in love with Suna and vows that he will help them get together because he doesn’t want Suna to break her heart. As it turns out, Yamato is actually in love with Takeo!
This series is a carry-over from last season, and if you haven’t started watching it yet you should. The synopsis above is just the first three episodes. How often do you get a romantic comedy that doesn’t take a full series for the main characters to get together (if they even do at all)? Not often. That’s a fact. Plus it’s reversed from the “awkward girl becomes friends with a cute popular boy” trope, so that allows male viewers to enjoy the show as well.
After episode 3 the perfectly timed romance, drama, and comedy continues. We learn there is more to Yamato than being “pure and innocent”, that Takeo isn’t as unpopular with girls as he thinks he is, and that there might just be a girl out there that is worthy of Suna. It never suddenly gets too weird or serious. The situations could happen in real life, mostly, except for all the silly things Takeo is capable of. This romcom is worth your time. I promise.
Charlotte
This series airs on Crunchyroll and updates on Saturdays at 1:00pm.
Director: Yoshiyuki Asai (has only done episode directing until now)
Animation Studio: P.A. Works (Angel Beats, CANAAN, Shirobako)
A high school student named Yuu Otosaka has the power to temporarily possess other people, which he uses to cheat on tests and become popular at school. However, he is discovered by the student council at Hoshinoumi Gakuen and learns that he is not alone in the world. Many teenagers awaken to powers that then disappear in adulthood, and using them causes such children to be discovered and experimented on. He is bribed into transferring to Hoshinoumi Gakuen and joining the student council to help (or stop) other teens with special powers.
I have heard many people say that Yuu acts a lot like Lelouch from Gode Geass. I haven’t seen much of that franchise, so it doesn’t bother me. What I like is that he gets put in his place early on in the show. It isn’t about Yuu acting like a jerk. Right now it’s about the student council going around and helping people. It’s not particularly unique, but I do like that the powers tend to be “incomplete” somehow, each coming with a restriction that can either cause some trouble for the student using it or can only be used in certain situations.
This show is based on a Key visual novel and it is a lot like Angel Beats, from helping individuals to the baseball game episode. This also means we are given another more prominent male character so we aren’t just watching an unrealistic “guy surrounded by girls” series. Hopefully, given the source of the show, it will get into more deep and tragic backstory and have a bittersweet resolution. That is what I want from this show.
And Yuu. Stop being a nitwit and just tell your sister you don’t like pizza sauce. For goodness’ sake. That joke is getting old and it’s only been four episodes. Grow a pair and just end it.
If you want a more in-depth analysis of Charlotte, Our own Logan Peterson has been posting up episode reviews. Get started with episode 1!
Miss Monochrome-The Animation-2
This series airs on Crunchyroll and updates on Fridays at 11:30am.
Director: Yoshiaki Iwasaki (Hayate the Combat Butler, Love Hina)
Animation Studio: LIDEN FILMS and SANZIGEN Animation Studio (Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, The Heroic Legend of Arslan)
Miss Monochrome, self-proclaimed idol, is on a quest to become more popular and beloved so she can compete with the famous idol Kikuko. She slowly and ineptly builds up staff, merchandise, and band members to help her with her goals.
While last season focused a lot on Miss Monochrome’s backstory and new beginnings, this season has some fun new characters to help Miss Monochrome on her way to having a great career. It is a short show, only about 7 minutes or so, and it is amusing enough to watch Miss Monochrome fumble her way to victory. If you watched season 1, this is more of the same. In my opinion, this show would be best watched all at once when you have an hour or so to spare.
Seiyuu’s Life!
This series airs on Funimation and updates on Wednesdays at 1:00pm.
Director: Hiroshi Ikehata (Has mostly done episode directing only up until now)
Animation Studio: Gonzo (Full Metal Panic!, Last Exile, Samurai 7, Bokurano, and more!)
AKA: Sore ga Seiyuu!
This series follows Futaba, Ichigo, and Rin through their careers in the seiyuu (voice acting) industry. Futaba and Ichigo are fairly new seiyuu, and are adults with other jobs as they try to improve their careers as seiyuu. Rin is more of a veteran seiyuu, even though she is a high school student.
That’s really all there is to the show so far. It is not as fun as Shirobako, but is trying to be for the seiyuu industry what Shirobako was for the anime industry. Voice acting works very differently in Japan than it does here, and the show provides some good insight to the career. Also, it hasn’t gone into moe-trope-land yet. As long as they stay focused on girls’ careers and don’t start doing stuff like beach episodes, I’ll probably keep watching just for the information.
Shimoneta: a Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist
This series airs on Funimation and updates on Tuesdays at 4:30pm.
Director: Youhei Suzuki (Hasn’t fully directed a show yet, but has done a lot of episode directing and storyboarding.)
Animation Studio: J.C. Staff (Food Wars, Golden Time, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and more!)
AKA: Shimoneta to Iu Gainen ga Sonzai Shinai Taikutsu na Sekai
AKA: Shimoseka (Thank goodness!)
Japan has cracked down on the public and banned lewd acts and speech. Citizens must wear collars that monitor their every word. Pornography is burned. Tanukichi Okuma has worked hard to enter a school so pure and in-line with Japan’s public morals laws that the students there don’t know anything about biology and reproduction at all, let alone pornography. This is because his childhood friend Anna is the student council president there, and he wants to be pure like her. However, he ends up being blackmailed by student council vice-president Ayame into helping her terrorist organization, SOX, distribute lewd materials and educate the student body.
Because Tanukichi’s father was also a “pervert terrorist”, Tanukichi grew up with all the information that he feels he is not supposed to know. The rest of the students KNOW he knows, and he is reluctant to explain, part out of embarrassment and part because he thinks the knowledge makes him a bad person. But when he is helping Ayame it gives him a thrill, even if he denies it afterward
I avoided this show at first because it sounded dumb. Well, it IS pretty dumb, but it is also hilarious. With the problems Japan is having with its low birth rates, it doesn’t seem like this kind of society is that far off. People are already not having sex; what if people simply didn’t know how anymore? So with that kind of mindset, I can’t help but cheer on SOX and support their endeavors to educate their fellow students and commit “terrorist” dirty joke acts against the Japanese government. I like this show so much better than the dark and disturbing Prison School even though there’s just as much perversion in it. It’s just more fun.
Sky Wizards Academy
This series airs on Funimation and updates on Wednesdays at 1:00pm.
Director: Takayuki Inagaki (Rosario + Vampire, Seiken Tsukai no World Break)
Animation Studio: Diomedea (Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!, Squid Girl, KanColle)
AKA: Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan
The world has been invaded by magical armor insects, and mankind has retreated to floating cities and fights the bugs in mid-air battles. The show follows Kanata, who people call a traitor even though their reasons for it make him just seem lazy or cowardly instead of traitorous. He is assigned the three worst students in the academy – all female, of course. Misora has no talent in her chosen weapon and is oblivious when it comes to information gathering and tactics. Rico can walk the walk, and she’s also too full of herself to work properly in a team. Lecty has talent but doesn’t have the self-confidence to demonstrate it. They all think he is a pervert. He couldn’t give a crap.
I was originally going to file this with the action shows, but it turns out that there’s not really all that much action going on. This is much closer to a slice of life or romantic comedy. In fact, the girls in this show want this to be a harem. They keep trying to pull in harem tropes, and Kanata keeps refusing to react like a typical harem-hero. For example, when he accidentally touches breasts:
AHAHAHA! Kudos to Kanata. He’s the only reason I’m even still watching this show. So long as he continues to resist the evil that is a harem, I will continue to be amused. I really was hoping for more sky-magic-fighting but instead in episode three we watch people shop and work a waitressing job. Kanata explains why he had the girls do these things, but…just…bleh.
Next time on the Summer 2015 Anime Roundup
Aoharu x Machinegun
Food Wars
Kyoukai no Rinne
Ushio to Tora
