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
