Summer 2013 Anime Season Review - Part One of Three

Alright, here we are again. At this point I think there are only about two or three anime that haven’t ended for the season (at least one that has ended and I will review but whose final episode I haven’t had the chance to watch yet). That means it’s time for me to do a wrap up on this 2013 summer anime season in preface to a preview of the fall 2013 anime season already upon us.

So the first the thing I should do is remind you to look back at my post from my August 8^th post to see the complete list of shows that I’ve watched this summer.

Disclaimer: First, there may be spoilers involved, so don’t read this review, or the preview forthcoming in the next few days, if you haven’t watched yet and don’t want any spoilers. Second, this review is in no way intended to be a fully complete, inclusive, or otherwise definitive judgment on the shows herein mentioned. It is a fact that I have not reviewed or viewed every anime that has shown this summer, so don’t expect it. This review will be in three parts, culminating in what is my opinion of the best anime to watch if given a choice, based on the totality of the presentation and the associated story. Again, this is solely my opinion, and like all reviews should be treated as just one person’s opinion. So, without further ado, let’s get to it.

So, I’ll start my summer anime review with what I expected to be the biggest hit of the season, TWGOK: Goddess Arc. I was kind of expecting that, considering the subtitle, they would likely skip a bit of the prior story of the manga between where season 2 of the anime ended and when the goddess arc begins. I was very frustrated and extremely disappointed when the literally covered nearly one hundred chapters of material in a hasty five minute or so “flashback”. Usually you see an anime cut manga story because they can’t fit it all in the given seasonal timeframe of the anime. Usually this happens with a manga that is already at or near completion and for which there will only be a set number of episodes, thus they must get to the finale.

However, my impression of the TWGOK series was that it had done very well. After all, this was to be the third season of the series, and it had several OVAs including a spin-off OVA. Likewise considering that of the manga story they decided to completely cut was the introduction, interaction, back-story, and character development of two of the very characters of great importance to the goddess arc, namely two of the hosts of the goddesses, I don’t think coming in many fans were expecting they would skip that entirely for the anime. In fact, I imagine that it confused the hell out of some people who have only known the anime and not the manga, because those characters alternatively seem to just drop out of the ether. Part of the fun of the Goddess arc in the manga was the very fact that Keima has little idea who had a goddess at all, and by cutting a huge chunk of his conquests out of the anime, it’s like playing Clue and saying there are only half as many weapons and half as many possible suspects.

Don’t get me wrong, the animation of the Goddess arc itself was very pleasing to behold, and if you have read the manga or know what happens in the manga, then you may not mind too much since you already know everything that happened between the two points of the OVAs and this third season. But if I were to judge the anime franchise as a whole, it seriously took a major hit by not animating that portion of the manga. Even animating only the two would-be goddesses would have been only a slight improvement because, as I said, it ruins the mystery portion of the manga that had readers on edge for weeks/months guessing who did and didn’t have a goddess in them.

Knowing all this I find it hard to make TWGOK, as great a series as it is, my number one for this season. For those that never read the manga, the story is a continuity disaster, and for those that know what happens in the manga, it feels like there is a big hole missing. It’s quite evident that they really wanted to get to the drama of Keima figuring out whether Ayumi or Chihiro have the last goddess. It is a great part of the story, you just wish it didn’t come at the cost of basically glossing over a huge chunk of the rest of the broader, overall story. In theory they could always go back and make an OVA for the chapters of the manga they skipped, but I feel that at this point it would be all but pointless.

Dog & Scissors was very entertaining. I was worried about how they’d handle the animal cruelty setup, and they managed to turn it into some weird pseudo bestiality comedy, which I can tell you right now I could not have imagined watching at first. The funny moments are funny. The mystery aspects are not that great, but because the comedy is pretty good and the show seems to be a comedy before it is a mystery, you can forgive the bad mystery development. However, the show ends with a sort of happy yet hollow feeling. The last episode is fantastic, just the kind of episode you realize you’ve been waiting for from the start. However, there is a definite feeling as though they skipped something.

For starters, only two people in the entire series can hear Harumi speak, yet there is never an explanation at all about why. Don’t imagine it could’ve taken more than a minute or two to just hand out an explanation of some sort, but they never did. They also only mentioned the third of the three great authors, and had a few shounen-esque fights with her maid, which makes me wonder if they were perhaps hoping for another season or were holding out for an OVA to get more into her character directly. Furthermore, the way they more or less leave the fact that our M.C Harumi was a human who was killed and turned into a dog after the first few episodes is a bit disappointing. It originally seemed like they would make something more out of it, though I suppose that would’ve been too predictable. It’s good for a laugh and has some great slap-stick moments, but I must say that if you’re a dog lover and/or don’t have a stomach for cartoon violence, the constant animal cruelty bits might be grating. Good show, but not fantastic. It is worth a look, but among the comedies of the season it isn’t the best.

All in all I did watch Stella Women’s Academy (C3) to the end, so it wasn’t too bad. But it’s not exactly a stellar show either. The entire concept is a little flaky in my opinion, but that may due to the fact that living in the US, growing up in New York City, I have a more antithetical view of gunplay at such a realistic level while still trying to play it off as just a game. You get the feeling that this show is supposed to be more like Girls Und Panzer than Gunslinger Girl, but I don’t think it quite either. When you add in the whole thing of illegally modified air rifles used to snipe at people with near fatal consequences, and then that whole thing covered by a revenge arc, you get the feeling that this show doesn’t really know if it wants to take the matter seriously or stay the light-hearted, if dramatic, style of show you have with Girls Und Panzer and Upotte a few seasons ago. At any rate, it was a somewhat entertaining series – not great or fantastic by any stretch, but decent. I’d say place it somewhere towards the bottom of your list unless you really like Girls Und Panzer and Upotte and thought you might fancy the same concept with paintball survivalist play slapped on top of it.

Watamote was painful. I mean, it is really, really painful to watch. That might be just me. I’m a pretty empathetic person. I’m the type who cringes at other people’s pain. Our main character here… she is just so inept… I mean… it’s hard to even put into words. Tomoko is endearing because she seems to be really trying her best in her own way. But at the same time her way is just so beyond bad you don’t know if you want to hug her and tell her it’s alright, or shake her and tell her she’s a moron. Some episodes just make you cringe so much that you can’t even laugh at the parts that are meant to be jokes. You’re just waiting for a demon to show up and tell her only she can save the world or something – like TWGOK.

Every episode starts of like you would expect in some common slice-of-life melodrama. Usually there’s a positive payoff or some grand joke, but this show… it just starts as positive as it’s going to get and cascades downward like water over Niagara Falls. You try to peak your head up and think something good will happen, you will get batted down like a split-finger pitch at the bottom of the strike zone. You’re left wanting an upside for her, but all you seem to get is cascading failure. I can’t say to not watch it – I think it’s at least worth a look – but at the same time it can easily be a turn off too watching a show that portrays almost absolutely no hope for the main character. Most shows at least attempt to make the M.C appealing and someone to aspire to. This is the other category – a stern warning about what NOT to do. Some sweet moments do show up, and all of the failure leading up to the penultimate episode makes it worth watching if only to see that episode 11 and episode 12. But be warned; the show is a big blinking billboard of the most awkward and regrettable moments an average teen might face in their first years of high school. I rate it middle of the pack… but probably towards the front of that middle pack.

Well, that’s all for today. Check back tomorrow for the next batch of reviews.