I’ve just released episode 22 of Innocence Seekers: April Light, and hope to finish the final two episodes of the chapter by September 28. However, I’ll dedicate this post to the anime I am watching right now, and the anime I watched before. Note that there will be unmarked spoilers ahead.
First off, to the upcoming anime. So far, there are five upcoming Manga Time Kirara adaptations confirmed: Blend S (Autumn/Fall 2017), Yurucamp (Winter 2018), Slow Start (ditto), Comic Girls (release TBA) and Harukana Receive (ditto). Of course, I’ll be watching all of them when they come on air. Of these five, the one I’m most looking forward to is Comic Girls (if that wasn’t obvious enough), and watching the PV has made me really excited for it. I’m also looking forward to Slow Start, especially since Hiroyuki Hashimoto (director for Is the Order a Rabbit? and Magical Girl Raising Project) is the director for this anime.
Of course, these won’t be the only anime I’ll be watching. The upcoming season has the second season of Yuki Yuna Is a Hero, which includes the adaptation of Washio Sumi Is a Hero that screened in theatres across Japan a while ago. I better steel myself emotionally for this; having watched the first season, well, actually, I won’t spoil it. I’m not sure what else I’ll be watching for the Autumn/Fall 2017 season, though; I’ll probably decide in late September.
For the Winter 2018 season, I’m interested in the adaptation of Mitsuboshi Colors, but I’m not sure what else I’ll watch that season (other than what I’ve mentioned above). But, then again, it’s a fair way away, and it’s possible more anime (including shorts) will be announced by the time I actually make a decision.
I’ve been meaning to do this earlier, but my chronic procrastination (and my work on my projects) has kept pushing this back. But anyway, I’ll review Hinako Note here. The characters really resonated with me; all of the main cast had their own issues, and I could relate to the struggles they had. In particular, Hinako had extreme difficulty socialising, Mayuki had a height complex and an extreme case of stage fright, and Yua’s love for Chiaki and general insecurity was causing her to treat Hinako as a “rival” (I should mention that Mayuki also has feelings for Chiaki). I read a blog post that states that the “quirks” of the main cast are coping strategies, and I have to agree. Ultimately, this is a “coming-of-age” story where Hinako has to overcome her extreme shyness by going into acting, and throughout the anime’s run, we get to see her succeed. However, I found that only Hinako and Yua had significant development; Kuina’s gluttony was mainly used as comedy, and Mayuki’s issues with performing were left unsolved (although the romantic subplot with Chiaki did see some development). However, lack of development is a general problem with one-cour anime.
The main issue I had, though, was the fanservice. I felt that it was a bit too much, and possibly close to the upper limit of what I can tolerate in a one-cour anime. If I look at the history of Comic Cune in general (and its origins as a spinoff of Comic Alive), I can see where the fanservice comes from (Comic Alive is known for featuring manga with plenty of fanservice); however, I feel that excessive fanservice has no place in a moe manga/anime.
I would probably give this a B+. If it weren’t for the fanservice, this would have gotten an A- or A from me.
I was going to review Sakura Quest at the halfway point, but I kept procrastinating until it was way too late. Anyway, with only a few episodes left, I believe it’s pointless to review now, so I’ll do it after it has finished. I’ll also review the second season of New Game! once it has finished, but I’ll talk a bit about the sixth episode here.
The sixth episode of the second season of New Game! is where the story becomes serious. At the beginning, Aoba was agonising over what to do for the key visuals, although she momentarily forgot about it when Nene showed her and Hotaru her game. The second half is where the story-defining moment occurs. Both Aoba and Kō are called into a meeting, and it is there where Christina announces that Kō will be doing the key visuals, not Aoba, under orders from Houbundo, despite Aoba being the character designer. While, from what I’ve read, this development was generally well-received, there are a few dissenting opinions (I found one on TV Tropes, and one on the AnimeSuki forums), as this deviates significantly from what one would expect in a Manga Time Kirara story. Unfortunately, this situation as portrayed by Tokunō (who worked for Tri-Ace before becoming a manga artist and has Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria and Star Ocean: The Last Hope on his resumé; Eagle Jump and Houbundo are, in my opinion, loosely based on Tri-Ace and Square Enix respectively) is common in the Japanese video game industry, right down to hiring notable freelance illustrators for promotional purposes (which the company actually threatened to do if Kō refused). The rationale is to gather hype (and potentially money) by using the names of well-known figures, rather than sticking on the name of some newbie whom no one has heard of before.
On a side note, I believe that Crunchyroll mistranslated ばかっぽい in the seventh episode (using “dumb”, which in my opinion is too literal; I felt that the scanlators’ “silly” was more appropriate, and EDICT has “geeky/geekish” as the translation).
Anyway, that’s all I’ll say for now. In the mean time, here are some things I found:
- cloba.U (Magic of Stella author) is working on a yuri dōjin of Why Did I Enter the Art Course!? (shipping Momone and Kinako) for Comiket 93 (full colour preview). Utau Aizaki’s response was very succinct and expressed her surprise very well (well, as well as two punctuation marks can).
- The cover of the October issue of Manga Time Kirara Forward features Kayou’s Chotto Ippai!. It’s not very often that one sees a manga without any adaptation feature on the front cover of a Manga Time Kirara magazine. Also, Hana, Naru and Yaya in bunny outfits (Hanayamata).
- Is Akino Miyabi’s younger son (who is two years old) becoming an Aikatsu fan?
And lastly, here is the Comic Girls PV.