Month: July 2019

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord.

Dale is a cool, composed, and highly skilled adventurer who’s made quite a name for himself despite his youth. One day on a job deep in the forest, he comes across a little devil girl who’s almost wasted away. Unable to just leave her there to die, Dale takes her home and becomes her adoptive father. Devil or not, Latina is beyond adorable, and the adventurer soon finds himself head over heels with being a parent. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Dale has never had to think far beyond his next mission or his next meal, but when he finds an orphaned devil girl in the forest one day, he’s suddenly forced to look beyond his own day-to-day survival. The girl has one broken horn, marking her as a criminal – but one would be hard-pressed to come up with any scenario in which a kid her age should be banished in such a way. Dale learns that her name is Latina, and he takes her back to his home in the walled city of Kreuz.

After cleaning Latina up, Dale considers his options. He’s barely 18 and his job as an adventurer keeps him away from his home base for days at a time. But the “perpetually under-funded” city orphanage probably wouldn’t be that happy to have yet another mouth to feed. And Dale has a support system in Rita and Kenneth, the proprietors of the restaurant where Dale rents a room. Rather than dump Latina in the hands of strangers, Dale chooses the path toward instant fatherhood, with all its challenges and surprises.

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Industry News News

When the World Makes Little Sense at All

Apologies for the sparse updates the past week or so. Being online has been a little bit emotionally challenging for me lately, due to some upsetting anime fandom-related occurrences both local, and now international.

By now I think many/most people are aware of the tragedy that took place at Kyoto Animation’s building 1. In short, an arsonist attacked the production office and set it on fire, killing 33 people and injuring several others. As of this time there’s been no confirmed motive from the perpetrator (who was captured and arrested), although I doubt any sort of reasoning could possibly even begin to make sense of such an inherently senseless act.

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – Dr. Stone

Taiju is about to confess to the girl he loves when a mysterious force hits the Earth and turns every human into stone. Taiju and his friend Senku wake up thousands of years later and begin to rebuild society. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 24

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Senku is a scientific genius, and Taiju is a lovable meathead. But neither boy’s particular strengths allow them to escape the mysterious green light that envelopes the Earth and turns all of its people to stone. By sheer force of will, Taiju holds onto his consciousness and vows to finish his confession to his crush, Yuzuriha, should they ever break out of their stony prison.

When Taiju finally does manage to break free, he finds the landscape almost completely transformed. Senku has been awake for 6 months already, and tells him the news – it’s now 3,700 later than when they were transformed, and the world has essentially been thrust back into the stone age. But Senku has a goal, and with his brains and Taiju’s brawn, he believes it’s a realistic one. He plans to use scientific knowledge and technique to recover humanity’s lost technology, and restore civilization to its former glory.

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – O Maidens in Your Savage Season

The girls in a high school literature club do a little icebreaker to get to know each other: answering the question, “What’s one thing you want to do before you die,” One of the girls blurts out, “Sex.” Little do they know, the whirlwind unleashed by that word pushes each of these girls, with different backgrounds and personalities, onto their own clumsy, funny, painful, and emotional paths toward adulthood. – ANN

Streaming: Hidive

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Kazusa and the other members of the literature club start to realize that the world of novels is saturated with adult concepts of sex and sexual metaphors. When news drops of a new novel from one of the club’s favorite authors, focusing on a character who creates a “bucket list,” the girls discuss what sorts of things they want to do before they die. Bluntly, one of the girls says that she’d want to have sex, and this sends the others into a tizzy. While the other girls in their class seem comfortable enough talking about sex day in and day out, Kazusa and company aren’t comfortable with the concept at all.

Kazusa starts to feel like she can’t escape the subject of sex; she and her best friend start to mis-hear sexual words in everyday conversation, and the way some other girls talk about her childhood friend Izumi causes her to react in ways she never expected. When she goes over to deliver a hot meal to Izumi (since his parents are out of town), she walks into the last situation she would have wanted to – she catches him with his pants down, pornography playing on his laptop. Kazusa runs away and wishes that sex weren’t such an overwhelming topic. It’s confusing, a little scary, and completely foreign, and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be comfortable with it.

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Book Club Special Features

“Legend of the Galactic Heroes” – Week 4

Managing attendance at two conventions in as many weeks is a tall order for me. Though I didn’t have any responsibilities at SGDQ during the last week in June, the late nights and intense emotions of the event definitely wore me down more than I expected them to. This weekend was CONvergence, where I sat on 4 panels while also juggling a day of work on Friday and several anime premiere impressions here at the blog (I really don’t want to end up too far behind this year…). All of the time away from home, the crowds, and the stress of speaking in front of people (among other things), ended up becoming overwhelming, and I skipped out of the last day of CON to recuperate. While it’s disappointing to miss part of something you’ve looked forward to all year, sometimes mental health has to be a priority. The up-side is that being at home gave me the time to continue this watch-along rather than delaying it a day or two (while also trying to dig into all of the high-profile new anime series that premiered this weekend). Life is all about blessings in disguise.

The Marchionesse has a bone to pick with Annerose. All Screencaps from Hidive.

Note: This post contains spoilers for episodes 11-13 of the series.

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Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – Demon Lord, Retry!

Akira Ōno is a regular guy who works at a company that manages an online game. He often plays the game as his character “Maō” (Dark Lord). But one day, when he logs on, he is whisked into the game’s fantasy world as his character. There, he meets a one-legged girl, and begins his adventures alongside her. But as he is a powerful “Dark Lord,” various nations and holy maidens journey to defeat him, and he stirs up trouble everywhere he goes. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Akira is just about to shut down the server of the online game he manages. It’s been a good 15 years, but it’s time to move on. Just as the clock strikes midnight, Akira sees a flash of light. When he comes to he finds himself in another world, dressed suspiciously like his character Hakuto, the Demon Lord of legend.

He meets a little girl named Aku as she’s being chased by a demon. Hakuto’s skills are such that he makes short work of the beast. He sees Aku as a benefit to him – since she’s a local, she can help him navigate the landscape. He makes a try at finding a way back home; unfortunately the wishing shrine he finds is almost out of juice, and his wish to go home turns out to be invalid anyway. The shrine’s Idol does leave him with a frightening tool, however; a ring filled to the brim with evil power. After closing off some loose ends in Aku’s village, the two start making their way toward the capital.

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – Astra Lost in Space

In the year 2063, travelling through space has become commonplace. Eight students from Caird High School, along with one child, set out for a school camp on a nearby planet. However, the students are then mysteriously transported 5,000 light years away from home, with no way to call for help. Aboard an abandoned spaceship they call the Astra, these nine students slowly try to make their way back and figure out why they were transported in the first place. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: The first episode is double-length, but I’ll endeavor to keep the summary succinct.

Aries is excited to be attending space camp, but that doesn’t mean her scatterbrained ways are in check at all. After almost forgetting her passport, she dumps her suitcase at the spaceport and ends up getting her bag stolen. Luckily a kind stranger, who she learns is a boy named Kanata from her high school, helps her out. After she and her classmates gather, they board the ship for camp. They’ll be spending a week on Planet McPa, a nature preserve where they’ll be relatively safe. No sooner does the group set down on the surface than they’re confronted with a strange spherical object. Their curiosity turns to horror when the entity begins to engulf the group one-by-one.

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Categories
Conventions Special Features

CONvergence 2019 – Panel Materials

Hi all, I’ll keep this brief. While J.C. and I were on several panels this year, only one – Shiny New Anime – had any quantifiable amount of material to go along with it. Both the handout and the PowerPoint slide deck are below.

Please note: there aren’t any huge differences between the version of Shiny New Anime we presented a few months ago at Anime Detour, and this one; I mostly just cut items due to our more typical time slot at CONvergence, and added a clip for Sarazanmai. There are a few more additions to the handout, however.

Handout
PowerPoint Presentation

As usual, these are yours to have. If you use any of the material for your own presentations, blog posts, or what-not, please credit me. I put a lot of work into these materials (even if they’re fairly straightforward).

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?

When a friend cruelly calls Hibiki fat it’s like a knife stabbed into her heart. The high school girl loves to eat but decides to go on a diet to be absolutely thin by summer vacation, but she doesn’t know how to exercise properly on her own. Hibiki finds herself in front of a training gym and joins. Once there, she meets her beautiful and charismatic student council president Akemi Sōryūin and steps into the intense yet enjoyable world of weight-training. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Hibiki is a growing girl with a healthy appetite, but when a friend of hers comments on her expanding midsection and overall plumpness, she decides that it’s time to slim down. She joins the Silverman Gym, and discovers that a classmate of hers, Akemi, is planning to join as well. As it turns out, Akemi has a bit of a muscle fetish, and this gym is packed to the gills with bodybuilders and their bulging muscles. Hibiki feels out of place, but decides to try to get her money’s worth anyway.

Akemi is old hat at strength training, but Machio, their personal trainer, is encouraging and helps Hibiki push herself to complete more reps than she might on her own. She learns how to do bench presses and squats during her first week. When Akemi asks how many times a day Hibiki eats, Hibiki gets ready for another scolding, but Akemi is simply impressed; with such a strong appetite, Hibiki has almost infinite potential to bulk up her muscles.

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – Magical Sempai

Tejina is cute, weird, and loves stage magic. She also has crippling stage fright. The nameless male main character first meets her practicing parlor tricks in her club room alone. His high school requires that he join a club, and for some reason he can’t take his eyes off Tejina and her fruitless attempts at magic. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA (12 minutes apiece)

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Protagonist-kun (he’s literally unnamed) needs to find a school club to join, since his school requires it of all students. He plans to join the literature club so that he can slack off, but hears some enthusiastic dialog coming from an open door and decides to peek inside. The source of the speech is Tejina, a pretty upperclassman with a love for stage magic. Unfortunately, her skills at maintaining illusions leave something to be desired. Somehow protagonist-kun gets roped into becoming her assistant, though his main duties involve playing the straight man and cleaning up after Tejina’s mistakes.

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