Summer 2018 Watchlist

My summer anime watchlist includes catching up on seasons of series I missed these past few years, continuing with new seasons of ongoing series, plus a surprise.

I recently watched the second seasons of Attack on Titan and Free—two very different kinds of shows. ;-)

I saw that Attack on Titan’s third season was about to start and wanted to get current on it.

Attack on Titan’s second season felt as fresh and exciting to me as the first season. The shock of seeing the titans in all their grotesqueness has worn off a bit, but the reveal that several characters we trusted were actually titans kept the story taut and tense. There was quite a long layoff between the first and second seasons, but you wouldn’t know it from the second season’s production quality. It’s like no time at all elapsed between the two seasons.

It’s great to experience Attack on Titan and its dizzyingly fast action scenes, its epic feel again. For sheer intensity, it’s a must see.

Free is one of those series that falls into the “like” category for me, rather than anything stronger. It’s slice of life and I seldom get excited by that kind of anime. The characters are pleasant enough, the story—what there’s been of it—is fine.

Each of the first two seasons focused on one central issue. In the first season, it was whether Haru and his former friend Rin would reconcile their friendship. The second season was a little more involved, as third-years Haru, Makoto and Rin were set to graduate from high school and their close-knit swim teams prepared to face the future without them.

The second season finally did something with the show’s protagonist, Haru.

Free’s blank slate of a main character never interested me much. I always thought it odd that Haru, who speaks and expresses himself the least of all the characters, was the focal point of the show.

In season two, Haru experiences trouble competing at swim meets. When questioned as to his plans after high school, he responds badly to being pressured.

Since Haru doesn’t talk a lot, we don’t know what’s driving his behavior until Rin takes him to Australia where Rin attended school. When Haru sees where Rin used to compete, including an Olympics-worthy pool and stadium, he suddenly wants to compete again. Being shown a larger world makes Haru realize he can live a bigger life, and he snaps out of his funk.

Free’s second season didn’t turn me into a rapt fan, but it was definitely more interesting than the first season. And apparently the third season—now airing—finally introduces a real antagonist. So I’ll be getting caught up on season three soon.

I’m also working my way through the second season of Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront).

As with Free, Kekkai Sensen is on my like list. The story is set in an alternate-future New York City in which paranormal beings and events are commonplace. It’s one of those series that is strange enough and has sufficient action scenes that it intrigues and entertains, even if lots of things are left unexplained.

Yamishibai is now in its sixth season.

I find series like Yamishibai irresistible. Yamishibai gives you horror stories, each four to five minutes long, usually with a twist at the end, and narrated by a sinister figure with a smiling mask. They’re short slivers of stories, some terrifying and some sad. Most leave you concluding that “hell is other people” as Sartre said, so if you’re looking to be uplifted, I suggest you find some other anime to watch for that. ;-)

My two favorite series this season are Boruto and Gintama.

Boruto, the sequel series to Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden, is about Naruto and Hinata’s son and his teammates Sarada, daughter of Sasuke and Sakura, and Mitsuki, Orochimaru’s created son.

Naruto, as we remember, was the orphan hated and shunned by his fellow Konoha villagers. Young Boruto has the exact opposite problem. As the privileged son of the greatest hero in the ninja world, how does he distinguish himself from his old man and forge his own path?

The best moments in Boruto for me are when we get to see the characters from Naruto, now grown-up Konoha citizens and parents to ninja students of their own. Kishimoto’s story universe has been a part of my life since I became an anime fan. Boruto is a good series, but I suspect even if it weren’t I would watch it anyway, because it feels like coming home to a place I know, with characters I love.

After 12 years, Gintama is in its final story arc.

And it’s a pretty grim arc. Many characters I didn’t expect to die have died already in the battle for planet Earth, with the last boss still undefeated.

There’s nothing else in the anime/mangaverse like Gintama, with its mix of alternate history, zany comedy and dead-serious drama. This sixth season took an unexpected hiatus in spring, splitting the season into two cours. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened soon and the conclusion was left to a third cour later this fall. But for now, Gintama is live and careening toward a bloody and fantastic finale.

Finally, something that is both old and new for me.

When I discovered anime and manga, I used to walk the manga aisle at a Japanese bookstore near my home. I’d pick up manga volumes and stare at the covers, flip through the pages and, not able to read a single Japanese kanji or kana at the time, mainly look at character designs.

I remember one character design in particular.

I fell in love with Toru Muhyo. His chibi size, turnip-shaped head and little cape were so cute. I had no idea what the story was about, though I could tell it had fantasy and paranormal elements.

And now, more than ten years later, Muhyo and Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation is an anime, Crunchyroll is airing it, and I’m going to watch it. It’s a late-summer surprise, an unexpected gift bestowed by the anime gods. It’s good to be an anime fan. =D

Attack on Titan and Free! - Reviews

Warning – Complete spoilers for both series

Attack on Titan has concluded its first season and it lived up to the hype. Full of visceral thrills and chills and some of the most harrowing action scenes I’ve seen in anime, Attack on Titan was one of the series I looked forward to watching the most for each of its twenty-five episodes.

I finally warmed to Eren, as he became a genuine hero and more sympathetic than he was at the beginning. Being the only human (at least initially) who could transform into a Titan, Eren suffered through a lot of ill treatment and prejudice but still retained his character and sense of self.

My favorite character was Levi. It’s unlikely, but the little street thug-turned ace Titan fighter with the perpetually morose expression got under my skin – in a good way I mean. :D I think it was because he did his best with a huge unpredictable military bureaucracy over his head and maintained his own integrity, especially in his dealings with Eren. The beating he delivered to a bound Eren in the public military tribunal was hard to watch, but it met Levi’s objective. He had to show the higher-ups that someone could control Eren, and it not only preserved Eren’s transformation ability for future battles against the Titans but literally saved Eren from being executed.

I was afraid that Levi would get killed because he’s the kind of supporting character whose death would make a huge impact. He still might die at some point, but I’m glad he’s been left alive for now.

Apparently Levi and Eren are a yaoi pairing in some fangirls’ eyes. I haven’t read any of the fan fiction and probably won’t – I mean, the idea of certain pairings comes close to making you laugh and I’m afraid for me Levi/Eren (or Eren/Levi) would definitely be one of them. XD

I was confused at first when it was revealed that Annie was the Female Titan, initially because we didn’t know that any human other than Eren could transform and after that because – well, why Annie?

One of the valid criticisms of Attack on Titan thus far is that there are a lot of characters and not a lot of character development. About the only thing we were shown about Annie is that her father trained her to fight in hand-to-hand combat – and it’s also implied that he sexually abused her. Childhood sexual abuse leaves its victims with rage, often long into adulthood, and Annie is still just a teenager.

This is what Annie shares with Eren - rage. The flashback to the attack on Mikasa’s family reveals that Eren was a killer even at eight years old. Seeing his mother get eaten by a Titan fueled the fire even more.

There’s still so much we don’t know about the Titans, but there appears to be a symbiotic relationship between them and the humans of the walled world. When the Female Titan first showed up, I assumed it was Eren’s mother since she kept trying to eat him and take him with her. I still don’t get why Annie in her Female Titan mode tried to consume Eren.

In sum, Attack on Titan leaves you wanting more in every respect: more episodes, more information on the Titans and their relation to humans, what happens when people get eaten, etc. Most of all, it leaves you wanting more of those ferocious battle scenes with their unmatched intensity. I have gotten literal chills and felt my heart beat speed up watching Attack on Titan. Those scenes are simply amazing.

On the other end of the intensity scale… well…

If Attack on Titan left me wanting more, Free! left me with the feeling that I’d kind of seen enough. XD

Not that Free! was bad. It was fine. It’s just that I’ve seen girl characters in anime with more initiative and self-determination be more dynamic than these guys, who appeared to be sleepwalking through their own show.

In the final third of the series there was a plot, at last, sort of. Rin beats Haru in the freestyle semis and then stands there lording it over him like a jerk at poolside.

What happened in the next episode gave me some hope for the series. We expect Rin to go on and advance to the finals after this, but instead he becomes withdrawn and introspective. Haru on the other hand, rather than being devastated, actually comes out of his torpor, joining in with Makoto, Nagisa and Rei and being more social.

Years ago, Haru beat Rin in a swimming competition and Rin took it hard, leaving Haru feeling guilty. The relationship between the two boys froze in time at that point and it isn’t until Rin beats Haru at the semis that the two come to reflect on their feelings for each other. Both boys are shaken up by Rin’s win, and the series does a very good job of showing how this affects them both. What each has been missing the whole time has been the other’s friendship, but it takes Rin saying to Haru that he’ll never swim with him again to shock the two of them awake.

The whole time I was watching Free! the series had an off quality to me that I couldn’t put my finger on. I think I know what it is now. The characters in Free! look like guys but they’re not – they’re girls in guys’ bodies.

Here’s what I mean. Think of the characters in your average sports anime and what they’re like. They’re aggressive, enthusiastic, highly individualistic, take risks and fail, take risks again and win, and so on. Does this sound like the boys in Free! to you? No, of course not. These are boys as Kyoto Animation thinks girls want to see boys – as neutered and harmless as a boy band.

Think back over Free! and now imagine Haru, Rin, Makoto, Nagisa and Rei as girls instead of boys. Haru and Rin are the two girls who broke up their friendship over a long-ago incident. They now go to different schools and still miss each other, though each can’t admit it.

Makoto is Haru’s best friend and Rei is the neurotic but lovable new girl in their circle. Nagisa is the cheery girl who can’t stand it when someone is feeling down.

Rin – the feisty one – keeps challenging Haru and finally beats her in a swimming race. However, instead of moving forward Rin is upset over this, as is Haru-chan. Can the two girls ever be friends again?

I may be different from other female fans – or even other fujoshis – but I find male characters are at their most attractive when they’re being guys, not girls in boy drag. I was bemused watching Free!, wondering why I didn’t like it more. The final episode in particular made me cringe as the characters fell all over themselves expressing their feelings for each other, even Haru who barely said a word through the whole series and at the end winds up emoting all over the damn place.

It sounds like I hated Free! I didn’t, but I am disappointed that Kyoto Animation didn’t make Free! a sports anime with guys being full-blooded guys as well as focusing on their friendship and what they meant to each other – but in a more realistic way. For me, Free! was too soft at its center to fully engage me and it all came down to the characters. The story didn’t set me on fire either, but if the characters had been more dynamic the story would have been as well – so again – it was the characters.

Be that as it may, I’ll probably watch the second season to see where the story will go now that Haru and Rin are friends again, which was the only point of tension in the entire series. I guess Haru could beat him again at freestyle. ;-) We’ll have to wait and see.

Some Thoughts on Summer Season 2013

We're into the summer season, and the two best new anime series I'm watching are both surprises.

Eccentric Family is about the uneasy balance between humans, tanuki and tengu in contemporary Kyoto. The main character is Yasaburo Shimogamo, a teenage boy who is actually a tanuki.

The Shimogamo family is the "eccentric family" of the series' title. Mother dresses like a boy prince, while eldest son Yachiro orders Yasaburo and little Yashiro around. The second eldest son Yajiro turned into a frog and lives at the bottom of a dry well, visited by townspeople who want to wish on a frog and/or to confide things to someone.

The father of the family was cooked in a tanuki stew, possibly by Benten, a beautiful and mysterious human female.

Eccentric Family is gentle slice-of-life with the occasional bite to it, plus fantasy action scenes. The sense of humor is wry and adult. It's the kind of show where the relationships between the characters are the most important thing, and the characters' interactions are always amusing, interesting and/or moving. A surprise, because I didn't know what to expect, but it's my favorite of the summer series so far.

Another one I wasn't expecting to like so much is Makai Ouji.

Set in an English boarding school, Makai Ouji is about William, a young aristocrat, and Dantalion, the devil/demon he accidentally summons.

What I like the most about Makai Ouji is the way the story is being told. In a nutshell, the script is excellent. The story proceeds logically, is paced perfectly and the characters keep revealing more about themselves in dramatic (but logically sound) ways. It balances dramatic and comedic scenes well. The little shonen-ai moments almost detract from the story (I never thought I would say such a thing, but it's true); it would be worth watching without any hints of boy-boy whatsoever. So, one more surprise this season.

I'm also enjoying Hiromu Arakawa's Silver Spoon, a story about a boy who goes to agriculture school in Hokkaido. The world of agriculture and dairy farming is certainly different than the usual anime setting, so it's like an education. ;-)

Blood Lad is an enjoyable romp. A vampire with his own territory in Hell comes to Earth with a human girl-turned-demon who needs to be restored to being human again.

I love the main character Staz's dead-looking eyes. ;-0 Even better, his older brother is due to appear soon.

Not only does Braz have the same dead-looking eyes, but he's a megane!

Yamishibai is a collection of creepy paranormal tales, one tale per episode. I've seen up to episode 3 and so far it hasn't disappointed. Oh, and by the way, each episode is only five minutes long, so if you give Yamishibai a try and don't like it, at least you haven't lost half an hour of your life. ;-)

And that brings us to Free!

To be honest, Free! is not quite what I expected. I don't know what I should have expected from a male version of slice-of-life moe. Maybe a more exciting plot? More feistiness from the (rather passive) teenage boys?

Yes, the boys are decorative and easy to look at, but I have to wonder if Free! isn't actually a sly parody of moe. The silly dressing room scene with the boys trying on different revealing swimsuits, Haru tossing his hair, the stereotyped roles (Haru the taciturn main character, Rin as his rival, Makoto the "normal guy" of the group, Nagisa the chibi cute one and Rei the neurotic intellectual). It's like KyoAni is deliberately sending up the moe genre - but to what end?

Not to mention the art. I have an issue with the art. Check out 1:08-1:17 in the following video:



When I first got into anime, a lot of my American comic book fan friends sniffed, saying the faces and bodies looked "stylized" and "airbrushed." So what happened with Free!?? What is with all these sinewy muscles (more than is even realistic)?

Honestly, Haru's and Rin's torsos could stand some airbrushing. You don't want to look as sinewy as THIS GUY

Right?

To finish up my thoughts on Free!, I like it well enough but it's hardly the droolfest this fujoshi was expecting. Maybe for me, moe even with guys doesn't work too well.

It's a good summer season of anime. Hope you're all enjoying it as much as I am. =D