Five Summer Anime I Would Like To Watch If I Have Time
Posted by: CalAggie in Anime, Previews
I decided to do a summer anime preview even though I probably won’t be able to watch much in August and, for some reason, I haven’t gotten more than 3 episodes into most of my five picks for spring. Nevertheless, I feel I have to let you know what I am looking forward to watching and recap how my spring picks are progressing. If you want to hear me go through the list of summer anime premieres, download the 40-minute long second episode of Amateur Otaku Radio. Anyway, below are five summer anime that look good on paper to me right now (in order of premiere):
ZOMBIE-LOAN (July 3rd):
This comedy deals with a shy high school girl, Michiru Kita, who has the power of knowing how close someone is to death simply by looking at the darkness of a ring that appears around their neck - the darker, the closer to death. Michiru is interested to find two boys who should have died six months ago with full black rings; it turns out the pair broke out of the afterlife as zombies to fight evil zombies that terrorize the living. Hmm, an honorable reason, I suppose. Houko Kuwashima (Sango, Inuyasha; Flay Allster, Gundam SEED) is voicing Ms. Kita and it’s based on the manga series written by PEACH-PIT, the duo that created DearS and Rozen Maiden.
CODE-E (July 3rd):
In this romantic comedy, Chinami Ebihara is a high school girl who has had to transfer form school to school because of her ability to create electromagnetic waves whenever she gets excited or nervous. Another Kotaro Kannagi notices this phenomenon happen and becomes obsessed in studying her power. Seems like an interesting concept for an anime in the technological age where many teenagers use cell phones and internet messaging instead of landlines and even handwritten notes to communicate with each other. I’m expecting at least a few awkward moments where stuff just stops working at the most inconvenient time possible.
Doujin Work (July 3rd):
Najimi Osana gets dragged to a doujinshi selling event by her friend Tsuyuri and finds herself very interested in the subculture when she meets a famous dojinshi artist, Justice, who is also a childhood friend of Najimi. So, naturally Najimi decides to create her own doujinishi despite the handicap of poor drawing skills. I can relate. Anyway, it’s based on a mainly 4-koma manga and the subject is about perverted manga. The female lead Najimi will voiced by Masumi Asano (Momono, Mahoraba; Risa Asakaze, Hayate) and the tall Justice will be played by Hiroki Yasumoto (Sado Yasutora, Bleach).
Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei (July 7th):
I always like to have one “dark comedy” in my to-watch list and this one deals with a teacher who has attempted suicide many times. He somehow manages to help his students with their problems despite his reluctance. I read the first five chapters this afternoon and some of his students have odd behaviors so hopefully those translate to the small screen.
The seiyuu involved include Hiroshi Kamiya (Takemoto, Honey & Clover; Kohei, Moon Phase) and Ai Nonaka (Konoka, Negima) just to give you a sense of how the conversation will sound like when the new female student Kafuka Fuura discovers Nozomu-sensei trying to hang himself from a cherry tree (or in Fuura’s naive mind, attempting to make himself taller).
Moetan (July 8th):
Do you guys remember those books that used moe characters and computer and anime examples to teach English? Well, apparently “Methodology Of English, The Academic Necessity” is being made into an anime. Magical girl/teacher Ink-chan will be voiced by Yukari Tamura (Nanoha, Nanoha). I imagine there will be some Engrish in it but hope that most of the dialogue between the characters will be in Japanese. I can only take so much…
Honorable Mentions:
Buzzer Beater (July 3rd): It’s humans playing basketball against aliens in a tournament in an attempt to bring the intergalatic trophy back to Earth. It’s also a remake of the 2005 adaptation of the 1997 webcomic by Inoue Takehiko, which still happens to be online. I haven’t watched much sports anime or read sports manga because those in that genre seem to fall into the tournament mentality, but the webcomic kept my interest so I’ll check it out.
School Days (July 3rd): I haven’t played the eroge or seen the ONA and the story looks like many other school romance adaptations. Still, I might take a peek at this one because I have read that some of the game endings were violent.
Shigurui (July 19th): In 17th-century Japan, two men with a shared past face each other in the first tournament to use real metal swords. Bloody violence seems appetizing but I hope it has a story to go with it.
Spring Recap:
Victoria Romance Emma Second Act:
I watched the first episode and thought it was an interesting change for Emma to part of a large crew of servants. Hakim is still present to criticize William, Eleanor is still attempting to get William to like her, and the handsome footman Hans could try to make a move on Emma. Oh, and the opening theme got tweaked and became a “Celtic version”. Nice!
Hayate the Combat Butler:
Four episodes in, it’s a pretty good comedy. I wouldn’t go so far to say it’s great because of the self-awareness of the characters that they are IN an anime (playing to the crowd is patronizing to me..) but it does have nice chemistry between the characters and good pacing.
Hitohira:
This series actually made me laugh me more than Hayate, probably because I read a couple volumes of Hayate before watching the anime. It has a lot of heart and is leading to a showdown between the Drama Club and the Drama Research Society. One of the funnier things is how Chitose, a member of Drama Club, handles her crush on Takashi, the cool cucumber of DRS, and tries to avoid being seen by the DC president when she is hanging out with DRS.
El Cazador de la Bruja:
After three episodes that were slow and was mainly with a short fit of action at the end of an episode, I’m disappointed so far. I want to know what the hell the blue jewel around Jody the office lady’s neck means and how she is important to the story. Are there more Ellis-like characters out there?
The series could also use more interesting music. I’m going to keep watching to find out the mysteries (because I’m an idiot like that) but I hope it will get more interesting soon.
Darker than Black:
I also watched the first three of this series and it definitely has more action than El Cazador. It also has better BGM and more active characters. Hei’s human and feline informants add to the noir-ish atmosphere of this sci-fi story. The concept of Contractors and Dolls, the renumeration Contractors have to pay, and some relation to stars in the sky is interesting and I would like know more about the Hell’s Gate incident itself. Gonna continue watching this one because of the progressive storyline and the humanity of the side characters Hei meets.
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All man those review of the July animes coming out seem nice. The ones you already watched though are ones that I am up-to-date with except for the Emma one. All I can say is you have the same opinions as me, and that El Cazador’s pace is really slow. So don’t get your hopes up to much unless you like gunslinger girls (pun intended). Otherwise, look out for those parodies in Hayate ’cause they’re fun to look for. At least I think it is.