With this Friday’s two new shows (and the only full-length Friday shows on the season), the flow of first episodes for this summer season has come to a close. Fortunately, the day went 1 for 2, and added another show to the slate of things I’m gladly continuing.
The noitaminA block’s been out of commission for a few months now, and it’s not coming back as strongly as it could be. One timeslot is being taken up by Ano Hana, a move that’s good advertising for A-1 Pictures but means one less new show this season. Still, the new show we do get comes from strong source material; Hiromu Arakawa’s Shonen Sunday hit Silver Spoon.
I’m covering Dangan Ronpa for 3 reasons. First, the Lerche power trio is involved. Second, C3-bu is a show we decided to do together as a slaparound on weekends. Third, it’s a mystery and I have no clue how it goes, so it should be fun to react to in real time.
I’m going to belabor this point, but Touch is an amazing, timeless classic manga. It’s also wildly unpopular in the states, something I kind of knew, but became much, much more obvious in my marathon sessions this week. Something I did not expect happened, and I had in no way been spoiled on it. The impressive thing isn’t so much that it happened, but how Adachi Mitsuru gives the audience the inside scoop. Suffice the man is a genius who’s madder than he lets on.
Warning: This article spoils a somewhat important twist in a manga that’s 20+ years old, but one that’s virtually unknown to western audiences. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read this and do read the manga.
Based on what I’ve seen of reactions to Free on the internet, it seems like a large quantity of people are ruling it out with one glance at the promo material rather than 20 minutes of episode time. It’s becoming increasingly obvious how much of a shame that is, because this show is complete in ways it didn’t even have to be to be an enjoyable ride.
In 2011, Toei Animation and Banpresto collaborated to fund a mediocre 20-minute ONA based on an awesome trailer. In 2012, Director Rie Matsumoto returned to the fray to do it right, cranking out a new five-episode ONA. We watched the latter, and are ready to dish in the latest “us-doing-whatever-we-want” feature!
When P.A. works gets ambitious and does cool crap like this show, it’d be a disservice to the material to just have one reviewer. We’re breaking down the not-at-all-token arsty show of the new season, Uchoten Kazoku, buddy cop style!
Today’s Monday, and it’s been about a week since the first summer anime have aired. A few are on second episodes now, but I’m not going to end up covering them because WataMote clinched a lock on my open Monday slot.
We’re a little past the halfway mark in Summer 2013, and with one more week of new material still to air, things are looking fairly positive. Sunday carries a (literally) shorter slate, but not one lacking punch.
Saturday’ slate of new anime concludes with two slice-of-lifey shows, albeit with one much more anticipated than the other.
Animetics 