It’s another good anime season, with four series I’m currently watching.
Let’s get into it. :-)
I’ve been looking forward to Kowloon Generic Romance ever since I heard it was getting made into an anime. It’s an adult romance with a few off-the-wall elements that I didn’t expect.
The story is set in the Kowloon Walled City, a legendary set of buildings in Hong Kong - that’s “legendary” for many reasons.
Custody of the so-named walled city, originally a military fort, was eventually passed from the Qing Dynasty to the British. After WWII, the city got built up as refugees poured into Hong Kong from the Chinese Civil War. Buildings and multiple floors stacked on top of each other until neither the British nor the Chinese dared to police the place.
(I love the fact that the walled city was super densely packed - while two sides of it bordered completely empty lots!)
The anime (based on the manga of the same name) is about the romance of Reiko Kujirai and her co-worker Hajime Kudo. The two work as agents for a realtor that manages apartments in the walled city.
Kowloon Generic Romance has a great period feel in its character designs, and in the look of the walled city and its unique architecture - including the dark dank corridors with unknown liquids dripping from the ceilings.
There’s a central mystery as to the female lead, Reiko. She discovers she’s a dead ringer for Hajime’s ex, to the point where people simply assume that’s who she is. In addition, a strange metal octahedron-shaped structure hovers in the sky. People see it - they know it’s there - but nobody really comments on it, which is odd in and of itself. The structure is called “Gene Terra.”
My second favorite series this season is My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is MHA’s more adult spinoff. Set some time before the canon story in MHA begins, its hero is Koichi Haimawari, a nineteen-year-old conbini clerk. Unlike Deku in the main series, Koichi was born with a quirk. His problem is that it’s pretty dorky. He’s able to slide along the sidewalk like a four-legged creature, so long as three of his limbs are touching the ground.
He also needs to find his courage, which he does, along with two new companions. Pop Step is a young female idol who can “pop step” across rooftops. And Knuckleduster is a gruff older guy with a scarred face whose philosophy is to punch first and ask questions later, if at all. All three were not and are not candidates for the hero academy for varying reasons, so they are the next best thing: vigilante heroes with a conscience.
Spinoff series are fun. Characters from the main series make cameo appearances and the familiar setting means you can relate to everything right away. I also appreciate that the characters are adults. It doesn’t go overboard with the adult humor, but the humor is there, and it’s a different feel from the main story’s 16-year-olds and that shounen level of levity.
The final two series are light in tone and fit in the “when I can” category, meaning, I’ll watch them when I can.
Chika Suzugamori is a mangaka. She won an award for her work, but then hits a slump. The publisher rejects her next few manuscripts and she feels like an amateur again.
Slightly desperate, she polls her fans as to where she should journey in Japan for inspiration.
And so, she takes trips throughout the country, alone at first and then with various girlfriends. Zatsu Tabi is one of those gentle, meandering shows, slice of life I guess, which isn’t my favorite kind of anime. But I do enjoy the travelogue aspect and glimpses of the manga publishing life in Japan.
Finally, there is Apocalypse Hotel.
From MyAnimeList:
Many years have passed since humanity vanished from Earth, yet the Galaxy Tower hotel in Ginza, Tokyo, continues to operate. At the center of its staff is Yachiyo, a dedicated hotelier robot, along with other employee robots working tirelessly in various departments. Together, they spend what feels like an eternity maintaining the hotel, despite having no guests. As they await the return of their owner and the day humanity reappears. Now, a small miracle is about to change everything for Yachiyo and her robotic colleagues.
Apocalypse Hotel reminds me of series like Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san, stories where the unusual is the usual everyday reality.
Such premises can result in poignant moments. In the first episode, Yachiyo is shown laying a robot to rest, as they don’t have the parts or expertise to fix him. The next shot is a wide shot, showing that the entire room is full of broken robots - basically, old friends in eternal limbo.
It’s moments like these that keep me coming back to anime, season after season.
