Anime Preview - Summer 2013
The spring 2013 anime season is either done or wrapping up now. Last Friday I let you know what I thought were the hits and misses of the last season. Now, I am looking forward to the summer season.
So the first thing I will note is that there are three anime from last season that are continuing. Those are Attack on Titan, Majestic Prince, and Scientific Railgun. My choice for best of the season, Valvrave, will be returning with a second season in October, so I will try to be patient and wait for that.
Counting the above three, I expect that there will be about the same number of shows I will be watching as last season - provided there is a viable viewing option of course.
The biggest ones of the season will probably The World God Only Knows season 3, Monogatari season 2, and the new Rozen Maiden.
TWGOK is entering a saga that gets quite a bit different in tone than the prior seasons. While I have seen some of the manga and know that it will be very good, those who have only seen the anime may be a little staggered when that shift comes. Good news is that there should be enough comedy left to balance it out and not ruffle too many feathers.
The entire set of monogataris (Bake, Nise, and Mono) have been toss ups as far as I'm concerned. They are relatively novel in their presentation, but can be hard to follow and can easily be a turn off if you're not in the right frame of mind when you sit down and watch. The complexity of the dialogue, in combination with the fast talking of the characters, makes it easy to lose track of conversations if you're not paying attention. The jokes tend to be either bad or high-handed, so they can feel flat at times. And most of all the show is all about the dialogue. There is very little in the way of "action" so there's that too. It is a smart and entertaining series if you're prepared for it, but it definitely isn't for everyone.
Rozen Maiden is an older series. I'm still not quite clear about whether this is a remake or a continuation. There are three series prior to this new one. The manga the series is based on ran from 2002-2007. The three anime projects spanned from 2004-2006. I've heard that the old anime didn't stick too close to the manga, but I would say it's still worth a watch if you can. Like I said, I don't really know if the new one is a remake or continuation, but either way it should be interesting.
There's also Fate/Kaleid, which promises to be an awesome semi-serious comedy mash-up for fans of the Fate/Stay series. It's not likely they can do a good job of covering the entirety of the three mangas for Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya and retain everything, so hopefully this one runs for more than 13 episodes or gets a second season. The problem is that if you don't much like the Fate/Stay series, or much rather they animate one of the other games or manga, then this one will probably do more to get on your nerves than entertain you.
About that, I'm thinking this is their way of easing back into the other Fate/Stay stories. Fate/Kaleid does get some serious moments, so it's not full on comedy like Carnival Phantasm was, but it isn't as serious all the time as Fate/Zero or even Fate/Stay Night. This could be a good transitional story. But, again, there's a lot of inside jokes that will mean nothing if you haven't experienced the rest of the Fate/Stay Night universe yet.
Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou is an intriguing entry. I'm not sure how it will fly. You have a boy who is something of a bibliophile, who dies trying to protect his favorite author, is reincarnated as her dog, and it turns out she's some kind of sadist who likes to go at him with scissors. It's not a completely unheard of motif, but at he same time you get into very dangerous territory with some people when you start airing a show where the main character abuses animals with sharp objects. It's bizarre enough to watch at least a couple episodes, but it could easily turn bad.
Blood Lad, a story about a vampire boy who promises a ghost girl he will return her to life as an excuse to visit the human world, sounds like a concept with both good and bad potential. It could be interesting depending on how the dynamic of a vampire and a ghost running about together, but it could also end up as window dressing on a stale story. Even so, I think it will be pretty good.
The ecchi entry of this season will be High School DxD New, a follow-up season to the prior High School DxD season of last year. I was talking to someone about the show last year and they mentioned that in the manga where the last anime ended it was on the cusp of basically the male lead, Issei, having a number of his harem moving into his house with him, so the beginning of this season at least is probably going to be all about him running into half-naked girls left and right. That'll be fine if you're looking for a mindless ecchi show, but hopefully there's an actual bigger story since I don't believe the last season left a tremendous amount of unfinished business.
Symphogear G is a follow up to Senki Zesshou Symphogear. I don't know where this one will go since the last season ended with the only real enemy being defeated (and killed I think). I heard rumors that this one will be a prequel, but since the preview shows all of the ladies from the end of the last series, I doubt that will be the entirety of the story if at all. For a sequel they could be delving deeper into the mythology of the enemy, the Noise, but they will have some continuity to tie up since they offered little insight into any sort of grander hierarchy to them in the previous season.
Servant x Service is probably the oddest of the bunch in that it is not odd. The description states that it follows the everyday lives of a trio of employees at the government Health and Welfare office. It's listed as a comedy and slice-of-life show, so the most I can expect right now is jokes about hating/loving government work, hating/loving social work, and ridiculous or outlandish situations involving residents of that city. It's hard to say whether or not this will even by picked up for streaming, much less how entertaining it will be, but since it is quirky for an anime I will give it a shot if it does ever stream anywhere.
My preliminary guess is that I'll end up choosing TWGOK season 3 as my favorite at the end of the summer season. There's a number of other shows I didn't mention, don't know yet how many of them will get streams, and I do know a couple that I think may surprise to the upside, but all in all it should be a pretty good season.
So the first thing I will note is that there are three anime from last season that are continuing. Those are Attack on Titan, Majestic Prince, and Scientific Railgun. My choice for best of the season, Valvrave, will be returning with a second season in October, so I will try to be patient and wait for that.
Counting the above three, I expect that there will be about the same number of shows I will be watching as last season - provided there is a viable viewing option of course.
The biggest ones of the season will probably The World God Only Knows season 3, Monogatari season 2, and the new Rozen Maiden.
TWGOK is entering a saga that gets quite a bit different in tone than the prior seasons. While I have seen some of the manga and know that it will be very good, those who have only seen the anime may be a little staggered when that shift comes. Good news is that there should be enough comedy left to balance it out and not ruffle too many feathers.
The entire set of monogataris (Bake, Nise, and Mono) have been toss ups as far as I'm concerned. They are relatively novel in their presentation, but can be hard to follow and can easily be a turn off if you're not in the right frame of mind when you sit down and watch. The complexity of the dialogue, in combination with the fast talking of the characters, makes it easy to lose track of conversations if you're not paying attention. The jokes tend to be either bad or high-handed, so they can feel flat at times. And most of all the show is all about the dialogue. There is very little in the way of "action" so there's that too. It is a smart and entertaining series if you're prepared for it, but it definitely isn't for everyone.
Rozen Maiden is an older series. I'm still not quite clear about whether this is a remake or a continuation. There are three series prior to this new one. The manga the series is based on ran from 2002-2007. The three anime projects spanned from 2004-2006. I've heard that the old anime didn't stick too close to the manga, but I would say it's still worth a watch if you can. Like I said, I don't really know if the new one is a remake or continuation, but either way it should be interesting.
There's also Fate/Kaleid, which promises to be an awesome semi-serious comedy mash-up for fans of the Fate/Stay series. It's not likely they can do a good job of covering the entirety of the three mangas for Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya and retain everything, so hopefully this one runs for more than 13 episodes or gets a second season. The problem is that if you don't much like the Fate/Stay series, or much rather they animate one of the other games or manga, then this one will probably do more to get on your nerves than entertain you.
About that, I'm thinking this is their way of easing back into the other Fate/Stay stories. Fate/Kaleid does get some serious moments, so it's not full on comedy like Carnival Phantasm was, but it isn't as serious all the time as Fate/Zero or even Fate/Stay Night. This could be a good transitional story. But, again, there's a lot of inside jokes that will mean nothing if you haven't experienced the rest of the Fate/Stay Night universe yet.
Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou is an intriguing entry. I'm not sure how it will fly. You have a boy who is something of a bibliophile, who dies trying to protect his favorite author, is reincarnated as her dog, and it turns out she's some kind of sadist who likes to go at him with scissors. It's not a completely unheard of motif, but at he same time you get into very dangerous territory with some people when you start airing a show where the main character abuses animals with sharp objects. It's bizarre enough to watch at least a couple episodes, but it could easily turn bad.
Blood Lad, a story about a vampire boy who promises a ghost girl he will return her to life as an excuse to visit the human world, sounds like a concept with both good and bad potential. It could be interesting depending on how the dynamic of a vampire and a ghost running about together, but it could also end up as window dressing on a stale story. Even so, I think it will be pretty good.
The ecchi entry of this season will be High School DxD New, a follow-up season to the prior High School DxD season of last year. I was talking to someone about the show last year and they mentioned that in the manga where the last anime ended it was on the cusp of basically the male lead, Issei, having a number of his harem moving into his house with him, so the beginning of this season at least is probably going to be all about him running into half-naked girls left and right. That'll be fine if you're looking for a mindless ecchi show, but hopefully there's an actual bigger story since I don't believe the last season left a tremendous amount of unfinished business.
Symphogear G is a follow up to Senki Zesshou Symphogear. I don't know where this one will go since the last season ended with the only real enemy being defeated (and killed I think). I heard rumors that this one will be a prequel, but since the preview shows all of the ladies from the end of the last series, I doubt that will be the entirety of the story if at all. For a sequel they could be delving deeper into the mythology of the enemy, the Noise, but they will have some continuity to tie up since they offered little insight into any sort of grander hierarchy to them in the previous season.
Servant x Service is probably the oddest of the bunch in that it is not odd. The description states that it follows the everyday lives of a trio of employees at the government Health and Welfare office. It's listed as a comedy and slice-of-life show, so the most I can expect right now is jokes about hating/loving government work, hating/loving social work, and ridiculous or outlandish situations involving residents of that city. It's hard to say whether or not this will even by picked up for streaming, much less how entertaining it will be, but since it is quirky for an anime I will give it a shot if it does ever stream anywhere.
My preliminary guess is that I'll end up choosing TWGOK season 3 as my favorite at the end of the summer season. There's a number of other shows I didn't mention, don't know yet how many of them will get streams, and I do know a couple that I think may surprise to the upside, but all in all it should be a pretty good season.
Comments
Post a Comment