summer 2020 review

Yeah it's Summer 2020 anime, and that really went by so fast. 

Completed 

Fugou Keiji: Balance:Unlimited

One of those shows from last season that had to be postponed because production hadn't finished on the show, but I honestly wonder if that pause on production actually ended up making this show as good as it turned out to be. Despite being  based on a LN, this show ended up being legitimately a reasonably good adaptation of the source material as most people often struggle to adapt properly. 

So this ended up kinda being like, a huge deal last season because everyone was simpin so hard for Daisuke (which, lmao, fair), but it really kicks off in such a fun way. You have resident demoted police officer Haru, meeting this rich bocchan who just doesn't give a shit about anything Daisuke Kambe, and just this whole crazy plot which revolves around him spending a lot of money. It's fun, high octane and pretty heartfelt even despite all the somewhat crazier details. It feels like a different spin on the same tropes, and it's refreshing and fun. 

Then the show slowly opens up this sneaky subplot - halfway through the season - in order to establish this story and the mystery behind Kambe's parents death and why he's in the police department to start with. This part of the story is a little more predictable and a little more trope-y, like actual murder, and where money wasn't just the solution, and that Kambe kinda basically turns into a batman/ironman/black panther kinda thing where he's just a normal guy with a lot of money and some wicked upgrades to some cool bodysuits and tech. Some people didn't enjoy the fact that the second part of the show took a turn into a more serious plot, but this is probably more of a source material issue, and I didn't mind where they took it. Additionally, without much knowledge of the LN and the source material in general, I can only say that overall, it seems like everything felt really consistent and really well paced. 

I would definitely rec this show, while it's not perhaps the most original, it is a really solid addition and one that consistently felt interesting this season and I enjoyed watching this one a lot. There's also a stage play of this that's happening and I'm kinda excited for it. 

Houkago Teibou Nisshi

 This show I actually totally overlooked last season, and it was put on hold (Covid, you know how it is) except it's actually such a relaxing and comforting show. My friend recommended this to me, and I just happened to get into it the day before it started to re-air. 

This is very much like, if Yuru Camp was a fishing anime. It's got that lovely relaxing vibe, with cute girls doing comfy things, and I like that it doesn't amp up that 'cute' girls aspect too much, that's one of my favorite parts of the show. Each of the girls are charming and unorthodox in their own way and a lil whacky but I really love that, the president of club who's got this lovely laid back charm, the vice pres who is tall, studious looking and a fisherman's daughter, the tomboy childhood friend and MC who's a city girl who ends up joining the club despite originally wanting to do handicrafts (with the perfect punchline at the end). 

This is all about fishing, with some little cute side plots about cooking, family, studying but I absolutely love the bits of educational entertainment that come with the show, and how relaxing it was. While not quite as laid back as Yuru Camp, this is a wholesome, warm and really cute show that I really enjoyed watching. 

The God of High School 

This was.... actually kinda difficult to watch despite my initial hype for it. After episode 6, which is where my interest in this show really peaked, it steadily slows down, and is knee deep in the sludge of its own ambition. 

I have briefly written about GOH, the original source material, the webtoon in all it's glory, but in this case, its really not at all applicable to talk about it in relation to the anime. During the process of rewriting GOH the webtoon into anime form, Crunchyroll and studio Mappa consulted the creator, Yongje Park during some behind the scene interviews, and essentially rewrote this story with Park's knowledge? blessings? for anime. Essentially, despite having all the same 'elements' of this story, a majority of the storyline has been hacked, snipped, edited, photoshopped, airbrushed and simmered down into the show that was eventually released as what we see. In fact, when I retrospectively went back to start from the beginning of this webtoon, I was actually extremely surprised and intrigued because of the stark differences in tone, plot and organisation of the anime. It felt like a completely different story, and if you are interested in actually reading the webtoon, i would highly encourage you to. And start from the beginning, because of all the creative liberties that were taken. 

The anime itself is amazing in terms of the visual effort they put into this show, and the dedication they put into the animation, the fight scenes show. You can actually see all the action, and the framing and the artistic depth and direction they put in this is one of the main things that pulled me into this show in the first place - who doesn't want a Tekken style battle royale with amazing quality animation and fun soundtracks? Up till episode 6, it really delivers. Fun, martial art sequences, a compelling side plot about the main characters, and a promise for MORE fun fights and cool people with their fun powers? Sign me UP. In fact, up till this point, the condensed version of the story is a refreshing light crash course of the webtoon, I welcome the creative liberties they've taken to tighten up and streamline the story. 

Episode 7 - here's where it all goes wrong. Incidentally, also the week after I had furiously read the whole of the webtoon. 7/8/9 are still... by all objective means, fine additions to this story. it outlines, and really skims past a lot of the more 'fun' fights, features Q (who is, kinda my favorite), and then they start to introduce the concepts of borrowed power, and how people grow to become more powerful. Instead of introducing it as powers they all already have and know how to use, they decide to bring that into the actual anime and seeing it as a new thing. They change the tag team battles into 1v1 battles which changed a key part of the story structures and the match ups of each battles themselves, and that's where things continue to break down. This really suffers when we reach episode 10/11/12/13 - It causes a little domino effect with all the tiny changes, since Mori doesn't know that his grandfather is alive, there's a while issue with him trying to find out the truth about what's happened to him, there's an issue of cutting out characters completely and reinventing fights, there's entire plot points (like the magician's grandson) which just gets cut out and skimmed over, Jegal Taek's powers and backstory is 'revealed' but nothing about his power is actually said, this whole development of his antagonism ditched, and people without powers who get powers, and a whole fight with divine beings that happen when they never existed in the first place. In the midst of the breakneck pacing, nobody with the backstories ever get as much airtime as they should, and none of the information that's spoken about in the webtoon is ever revealed, which is key because Tam/Avarice is a key part of Jegal, and essentially to the whole plot in the end. 

Let's not talk about how the anime has deviated from the webtoon - because we could be here all day and you can look on reddit threads for that. let's talk instead about how this affects the show. While elements of the story are brought forward to make more sense for the anime viewer, no matter how much you rewrite a story to make it more contexualized for anime only viewers, a story is bound to suffer when you try to establish 50 chapters worth of content into a 20 minute episode, especially when a lot of fights and information is dropped about what's actually happening. As a result, while ep 10/11 aren't great, a little choppy, they still make sense. Then episode 12 happens and it's just scene after scene, shot after shot of action with no dialogue, narration or explanation for what happens, only that stuff is hectic, stuff is happening, and this bad guy gets an upgrade and.... that's that. 

For all intents and purposes of a complete season, episode 13 as a result is fine. It does a sort of graceful blowback that tries to be close to the original, especially artistically, by animating the fight, it reveals Mori's power (with absolutely no suspense or tension), and he... wins. There's really no build up, and at this point I honestly felt kinda listless. It's just, things .... happening. You don't know, or care about what's happening. I wonder if it's because I've read the webtoon as a reason for my confusion - maybe this clash of the conflicting storylines of the original material and the anime in my head is what's making it extra hard to parse. Or is it because it genuinely just makes no sense ? (reddit + other friends seem to indicate that its the latter). 

I uh. conclusively, have to say that this show is wasted potential. It reaches wonderful highs, but it makes those lows even more disappointing. For a show with so much love, effort and dedication put into the art, it feels a little bit like a bad play, with the bare bones of a garbage plot, dressed up in wonderful visual experience that almost makes up for... well, whatever ended up happening after episode 6. Despite those amazing fight scenes though, there is nothing, no investment, if we don't care about who and what is happening. A comment on MAL kinda sums it up - this show is about showing and not telling. It never once tries to explain or even verbally catch you up to speed, it just shows you more and more of whats happening and you just kinda have to piece it together as best you can, even when they have many chances, even if they could have explained more, they just choose to forgo it and just dive right back into the action. 

I do love this show for introducing GOH (webtoon) to me, to broadening my horizons to manhwa, to the source material giving me this incredible feeling of excitement that I really haven't felt in a while, especially when it came to the first half of this show, but i am genuinely upset that the weakness of the anime will reflect badly on the possibility for a future season 2, and people will lose interest in this show because the last parts of this were animated so badly. While we cOULD talk about how they should have saved Jegal's fight for a second season, or it would have been better as a 2 cour show, or how they could have cut out other things for the same effect, we won't because they didn't. 

All in all, I, would still recommend this show. At least up till ep 6. I would highly highly recommend you check this out, and then if you're hooked, see it as a gateway drug to start on the webtoon, and really get stuck into how fucking good it is. Up till then, it's a 8/10 for me, and a sordid 4/10 for the rest of... that. If we average it out, this show scores a solid 6. It's still visually nice to watch, and solid in every quality sans the changed storyline.

Kanojo, Okaishimasu 

Okay this is fine tbh. It's one of those shows which I'd say is slightly better than your average trash show, but it's nowhere near what I'd consider a masterpiece. 

This is a show about this one guy who gets dumped by his ex, and so he rents a girlfriend. some shit happens, and he and his rental girlfriend end up doing some long term shit, they actually realize they're neighbours, they secretly fall in love, and he gains a harem along the way. 

I don't mind this show, and despite my usual hangups and irritation around shit like college age romance, this doesn't apply to this show because this is legit not realistic at all. this isn't about raw, realistic falling in love, this is a gratuitous self insert fic about a guy learning to find self confidence because every cute girl is actually deeply in love with him.

I find this show kinda fun, if not a little bit hard to watch at times due to the sheer awkwardness of some of the stuff that happens and some of the situations they find themselves in, and I know a lot of people ended up kinda relating to this at first and then arguing over who they liked most (waifu wars, who can live without them?), and also seeing a lot of hate for Mami - a girl who, I would probably say, is the most realistic and relatable but gets a lot of hate because..... i guess people who take shows too personally and have a personal gripe about being played? I - again - am not the kinda person who will demonize a character and their motivations if it serves a real plot point, and she is kinda the incentive. I find Mami the most interesting character out of the girls who eventually are introduced, because I think there's a lot of realism and tension between her as the kinda girl who shows up a lot in real life, and Kazuya (MC) as a lot of guys who just blindly play into situations like that because they're not willing to let things go, or move on, or just aren't smart enough to see past the facade. 

Besides that, it's just a little developing harem where there's clearly a clear winner - no contest tbh - and solid pacing and animation for a quaint little show. shout out to the one ED where they animated the whole of Ruka's backstory without needing to actually spend extra time fleshing out additional information.  

Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e

An unexpected favorite of the season! I really enjoyed this despite not expecting to. 

This feels like one of those isekai shows, a demon king is reborn in another age, 2000 years into the future, and he basically is very very overpowered. However, there's no real life element in this, which I actually feel like makes it more interesting. They also give this such an entertaining aspect to this, it's not a guy who's just trying to get through this world to get back to his old one, this guy legitimately loves this world, has history with it, is ridiculously overpowered and self assured and he's fun to watch. 

The first few episodes of this season were little more jaunty and a little more fun, but i never get bored of watching our MC, Anos Voldigoad, just to ever more ridiculous things. its almost, reassuring to watch an MC you know will never fail, because it's kinda fun to see what else he reveals about the world, which is a whole different kinda story angle, but incoporates a fun fight/action element to the show as well. 

I do not particularly care for the love interests, or the romance aspects, or the kinda cringey fan club singing moments, those are all just, whatever moments for me, but the most intersting part is really seeing Anos in action. There are some moments of 'plot' but theyre really not that important when all your MC is doing is just overcoming them. They're like, not even hurdles, theyres just pebbles hes stepping over. this is anos' world and we're all living in it. 

One of my favorite twists about this show is definitely this rivarly/overarching plot that they set up with Anos and Kanon - the hero. They make a pact to establish peace and when he revives himself, he finds himself in a world he doesn't know where everyone has forgotten him, and the demon lord is now some person who isn't him at all, and becomes 'Avos Dilhevia'. Essentially what happened was Kanon, with unlimited ressurection powers (source magic), ends up spending 2000 years, after being betrayed by his teacher, revives himself as a demon in order to rewrite history, in order to save Anos from being demonized (no pun intended) by humans and demons. He plans this whole thing where he becomes a demon and overwrites people's memories in order to masquerade as Avos, let himself be killed, and therefore this desire for revenge by a corrupted source of magic by his old teacher will finally be solved. Love a little bromance subplot and that sexual tension between Kanon and Anos ha. 

As an adaptation of a LN/WN, this is legitimately a pretty solid way to do so IMO. They skip a few details with fights but I like that they ended the story on a good, wrap up moment where the mysteries are revealed about the changes and answer some questions. While i would have liked more information with fights and magic and everything, it's still not exactly a poor way to tell a story even with some details omitted if they're not essentially crucial to the story. 

Monster Musume no Oishasan

This was probably one of the more last minute additions for this season but it was nevertheless, not too bad. So this isn't the original Monster Musume - you know, That one. The infamous one with the lamia and the slime girls and a spider woman which awoke kinks and fetishes you probably could have gone your life without knowing. Yeah that one. When I watched this at first, I fully expected some sort of sequel or follow up to that show, but it's just a case of very very similar names - sort of like Nanatsu no Taizai and Sin: Nanatsu no Taizai. Both of them are the Seven Deadly Sins, except one of them is a shit overhyped shounen, and the other is a delicous piece of shameless ecchi, and everyone who clicked for the first was certainly not prepared for what they actually got. Fools.

While this isn't quite an upgrade from the original, which was already an indulgent, harem, slightly lewd kinda show, this is a simple hearted revamp of the original concept. normal human man, who is a doctor, lives in a world of humans and monsters, and has a lamia, centaur, harpy/pheonix, mermaid, dragon, arachne, golem and cyclops in love with him. Similar cast of like, demi humans, but this show is a little more earnest. 

There is a kinda plot, basically the doctor meets a new girl every week and then he does his best to fix their issues and they all slowly fall in love with how capable and kind hearted he is. He legitimately just is a really sweet guy, and then the monster girls all have their lil antics around him. 

This whole show is fine, it's just a middle of the road fine. It's got these moments of ecchi lewdness which makes it kinda awkward to watch around anyone else - with all the moaning noises as he examines their bodies totally clinically, but its not really anything else but a gratuitous dash of fan service (As a good doctor, he just ignores it lmao). It's not totally bad, but it's really not interesting or fun enough that you'll want to go back for more. For me, I'd give this a 5/10, it's not bad, it's not amazing, it's just fine. 

Peter Grill to Kenja no Jikan

This, despite it's ecchi tag, was actually legitimately a pretty depressing show, and also has no relation to the title of the show as far as I'm concerned - Philosopher's Time? where????? 

So Peter Grill - a human, wins this huge tournament battle, and he's finally ready to marry his naive, sheltered fiancee, Luvelia, who is his senpai in the guild that he's registered in, and is also the guildmaster's daughter, and the guildmaster absolutely hates Peter's guts - yknow standard overprotective father stuff. however, since he's become the strongest human since winning that tournament, he legitimately is just a great fighter and so everyone, due to what I assume are eugenic reasons, end up wanting to bear his child in order to have the sperm of the strongest man = better offspring. 

Despite the sort of uh, loose logic that happens in terms of the genetics here, it's also kinda just a plot where he's just repeatedly cheating on his fiancee with all the demi-humans in the show. This season we have the Ogre/Oni sisters, one Elf and a hot Orc (the rest look like pigs, but she's just humanoid). Despite like, the idea that, after multiple, repeat amounts of copious sex, the whole basis of pregnancy just seems kinda odd that, it just seems like no matter how many times he creampies these girls, they literally just never get pregnant. now i'm not about to debate shit like, how demi human biology works, or pregnancy across nonexistent fantasy species, but I also figure if it is possible to get a kid, surely at least oNE of them should be pregnant by now. Basically what i'm saying is, the actual plot of the show about how they want his kid and their fixation on his superior genetics feels like a really stupid flimsy point to get him to keep cheating on his fiancee. There is some sort of plot that was established in the background of the story as well, but it really falls to the wayside in favor of this cheating subplot. While I'm not the kind of person who will outrule a show because it doesn't demonize cheating, the way they've handled it is really boring imo. 

speaking of said fiancee, luvelia is .., uh... ?? idk exactly how to describe her. for a guy who loses his mind over touching tits, it's kinda weird to me he doesn't just nip it in the bud and just go for girls who will actually want to boink him (and there are clearly many). i don't really understand why he has chosen her, continues to choose her, even despite his repeated incidents of cheating. Morally speaking, this show feels kinda just sad and a little depressing, because he seems miserable in his engagement, his father in law sucks, he's constantly just fucking other women because he's ridiculously horny, and he gets no time to himself because all these women also want to continuously fuck him, even while he's on a date with his finacee. I would even enjoy it if he did, but he looks so fucking unhappy with everything, and I truly question if that relationship with his Luvelia is even one he even truly will enjoy, or if he's just fantasizing and idealizing this relationship with her. 

For a show which is literally about horny energy, this show makes me feel far too depressed and introspective about the concept of relationships, and there's really not enough uncensored tits or sex to make this feel worth the depressive NTR plot. 

Super HxEros

An underwhelming attempt that doesn't really go anywhere. 

It's about teens being horny and aliens which feed on the horny powers - except its not quite any of the genres it claims to be and doesn't succeed at being interesting. The male MC gets to move in with a bunch of horny girls and there's like, a harem of girls. 

The genres is like, comedy, action and harem except, there's clearly one girl who's going to win (the one he proposes to), it's not really a lot of action (like, magical girls have action but lets be honest, flashing lights and naked bodies isnt really ..... action), and not quite comedy because well. it's just not that funny.

straddling the line between every single genre but not really being good at any one of them, not quite horny enough to be fun ecchi plotless lewdity, and also not quite intense enough to be any insightful commentary on anything, this is like, the poor man's attempt at making an adult rated mahou shoujo harem with a self insert guy, but it never amounts to anything more than a poor and misguided attempt at trying to be something more than just a low quality and sobering show of censored bodies and fetishized teen girls. 

3/10. 

Lapis Re:LiGHTs

Okay this - I dont really know HOW to talk about this show because it was genuinely, not as bad as I had expected it to be, but also somehow, because of that, it became more of a disappointment because I started having expectations for this show. 

I expected this show to kinda be a run of the mill kinda idol anime show (Love Live style), but this ended up having a real spirit to the show which is set in a fantasy world, the girls all have magical powers at a magical academy, it's got a slice of life element, and paired with the final Idol tropes. I really unexpectedly enjoyed this show because a good 8 episodes is really just about the main character, Tiara, befriending her group and having fun at her school, before spending the final few episodes talking about how they can become an idol group to save themselves from being expelled. They don't even go through all the long winded episodes of TRYING to become idols (like Love Live), they really just throw themselves into it and within one episode are smashing out some hits, which was a blessed difference for me in terms of other idol shows... like.... Love Live. 

Full disclosure, I just didn't enjoy Love Live on any level, but in terms of 'idol anime', I don't totally mind the genre, as shows like Idolmaster and StarMyu are actually pretty enjoyable. 

My biggest gripe with this show is definitely the way they tried to throw in a plot and resolve it within 3 episodes - I definitely probably would have been fine if they'd tweaked the whole 'monster' aspect? I just found it a very cliffhanger type of ending which iMPLIES there will be a second season, even though nothing was really DONE? I don't know, it was an unfulling ending to me that didn't even seem like an actual ending. it just felt like, there was a real tonal shift from, happy school life, to expulsion, to some random gritty ass adventure where people were straight up gettin killed on the battlefield, while cute girls dance around. 

If this feels like a random stream of consciousness in terms of the review it's because it is and the show somehow feels liek that - but I can't deny that I did legitimately enjoy the show before the idol part starts, and I absolutely looked forward to watching this show every week becaues of the fantasy/magic aspects which honestly were underused - i love magic and the fun powers very much. 

I do think though, if it's anything like the rest of the mediocre idol shows which happen to (for some odd reason) get heaps of funding to make a season 2, I'm very much looking forward to it. 

On-Going 

Enen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou

Good addition to the first part of the show. I am a fan of the manga and they've adapted it quite quickly but also relatively consistently, which is good. 

On-Hold

Ahiru no Sora

This was just SO good. I genuinely found this such an interesting show - especially over the course of the 50 ish episodes, it had so much space to move. yet it really takes such a relaxed pace. 

Essentially, despite reaching the end of this series, I actually feel like this is just the start of the story. After all the grinding, the hard work, they reach a point of no return, and they're confronted with everything they've built up to now being literally burnt to the ground, and now they have to make an effort to either tackle this again with everything they have, or give it all up. 

I found this.... I think such a breath of fresh air? Knowing that Sora has to go through the pain of losing his mother, losing a tournament, and the whole team losing everything that they've worked so hard to achieve, it actually made me really excited because this whole 50 episodes sequence just felt like the prologue to a really amazing show. 

Overall this show, despite the laggy pacing in the middle of the series, was genuinely wonderful. It's not your typical pretty boy shounen sports series, it's one that really rips your heart out, has that dose of ugly, and I feel like it's so wonderfully earnest that it was a real unexpected favorite for me. 

Dropped

Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai!

Who the fuck can stand her??? This literally was some r/cringe shit, I'm sorry to everyone who enjoys this. I watched 3 episodes and wanted to end myself.