With only a few more days to go before the season starts, we’re back with the second part of our Summer Anime TV Guide! For those that missed it, the first part of this guide can be found here.
O Maidens in Your Savage Season: Kazusa’s first high school literature club meeting starts with five girls being asked, “What’s one thing you want to do before you die?” When one of them blurts out, “Sex,” it launches these new friends down a raucous, embarrassing, all-too-relatable path. (Kodansha)
Thoughts: First off, this series has the best title of the season, no contest. Mari Okada is both the writer of the manga for this series and it’s anime, which is…whew. With Okada, sometimes you get M3, other times you get Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans and you’re never really sure which you’re in for until you’ve invested an episode. That said, this manga seems to be popular, so it should have a smooth transition.
Premiering: July 5th.
Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note: Waver Velvet – The boy who fought side by side with the King of Conquerors – Iskandar – during the Fourth Holy Grail War in Fate/Zero. Time has passed, and the mature Waver has now adopted the name of Lord El-Melloi. As Lord El-Melloi II, he challenges numerous magical and mystical cases in the Clock Tower, the mecca of all mages. (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: Another show connected to the Fate/Stay universe. At this point it isn’t even the Japanese equivalent of the MCU, it’s like the Marvel Universe directly, with all its side stories and alternate universes. The series is being written by Ukyou Kodachi, who’s responsible for the Boruto manga as well as a litany of manga adaptations of anime. The director is Makoto Katou, who’s been around since the mid-90’s but his most noteworthy work was Assistant Director on Re:Creators. That show was great, but it’s hard to recommend this show to anyone when it’s a spin-off to a prequel of the main Fate series. I’ll check it out because I’ll try any action series if the premise is solid, but it may be too impenetrable for everyone else.
Premiering: July 6th.
Senki Zesshou Symphogear XV: Noriyasu Agematsu, of music production group Elements Garden, along with Akifumi Kaneko, designer of many famous RPGs and other games, are back for a third installment of the original TV animation. Its emotional and highly original battle scenes, where the characters sing as they fight, are back and better than ever, making the story even more dramatic. This time, the heroine, Hibiki Tachibana, and the other five Symphogear Wielders are faced with their largest and toughest foe yet: a mysterious group of warriors. (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: One last runback of one of my favorite shows of this decade. If you haven’t seen Symphogear before, it’s what happens when you cross the Toonami line-up circa 2001 into a single show: a little magical girl (Sailor Moon), some absurd armor (Ronin Warriors), a lot of over the top battles and beam struggles (Dragon Ball Z), and the occasional mecha appearance (Gundam Wing). Hibiki, Tachibana, and Yukine team up to crush threats both earthbound and galactic. I’m here for as long as they want to do this show, and I’m considering having a marathon of the last season the weekend before the series airs to freshen my memory.
Premiering: July 6th.
The Ones Within [Now Streaming]: This series follows Akatsuki Iride, a popular young man who livestreams video games on the Internet. One day, he and seven other streamers find themselves within the world of a mysterious game called The Ones Within, and they are tasked with completing real, risky life-or-death games in order to garner 100 million views. (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: It’s like BTOOOM! except with a lot of comedy and more geared towards the current era of streaming gamers. The series is being animated by Silver Link and directed by Shin Onuma, who’s responsible for series like Baka & Test and Death March to the Parallel World. If DM’s any sign, this series will at least be animated beautifully, even if it’ll be incredibly boring. (Hopefully it won’t have so many slavery references in the early episodes, though.)
Premiering: July 7th.
Re:Stage! Dream Days?: This story follows Mana Shikimiya, a girl who once dreamed of being an idol, but who decided to live a more ordinary life in junior high school. When Mana transfers to the Takao Middle School Campus of Homareboshi Academy and joins the Singing and Dancing Club, a club which is on the verge of being shut down, her dreams of being an idol reawaken. (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: Another cross-media franchise focusing on idols. It’s being animated by Yumeta Company, which has done shows like YuruYuri, Neo Angelique, and My Sweet Tyrant. Incidentally, the director for Neo Angelique Abyss and My Sweet Tyrant, Shin Katagai, is working on this series as well. Much like isekai, there’s rarely any shortage in idol series so if you need a fix for the season, this looks pretty inoffensive.
Premiering: July 7th.
Ensemble Stars!: Ensemble Stars is set at Yumenosaki Private Academy, a location that specializes in creating male idols. The series is based on a popular video game in which the main character becomes the only female student at the school, and gets to be the sole person taking the producer course, becoming the person responsible for turning these young boys into proper idols.
Thoughts: There’s nothing separating Ensemble Stars from countless other anime with male idols…except it’s by David Production, so it’s pretty much a lock the animation on this is going to be gorgeous. The director for Stars is Yasufumi Soejima, who doesn’t seem to have been the head of a project before now, but has worked on JoJo in the past, so maybe he’ll toss the JoJo fanbase a bone by having the idols do some…familiar extravagant poses? The writer is Shinichi Inotsume, who’s bounced around to a number of projects but stands out for his work on SKET Dance and Gangsta, which means this might have a fairly solid story to work from.
Premiering: July 7th.
Skilled Teaser Takagi-san 2nd Season: “I swear I’m going to tease and embarrass Takagi-san today!” Nishikata, a middle-schooler, keeps getting teased by the girl who sits next to him in class, Takagi-san. He tries every day to get back at her, but will he ever succeed? Takagi-san and Nishikata’s youthful teasing battle starts now! (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: One of the more popular slice of life series from last Winter due to its cute premise, Takagi-san makes a return for the summer. A likable schmuck being teased by their crush is super relatable, so this is good for at least a second season given how well received the original was.
Premiering: July 7th.
Vinland Saga: Vinland Saga follows the viking Thorfinn as a member of Askeladd’s mercenary vikings. While Askeladd’s group mostly only care about pillaging, Thorfinn is chasing revenge against the man who killed his father, Askeladd himself. Lacking the strength to do so in a fair duel, he works with Askeladd and their group to train and earn the fight to eventually slay the man who ruined his family.
Thoughts: Time to get pillaging! With WIT Studio done with Attack on Titan (for the forseeable future at least), this is presumably the next major project for them, especially since people have been waiting on the series to receive an anime adaptation for years now. This will likely be a major front-runner for anime of the season for many people out the gate. Shuuhei Yabuta (Inuyashiki) handles the directing, Kenta Ihara (Youju Senki) handles the script, and Hiroshi Seko (Ajin, Mob Psycho, Inuyashiki) will aid in scripting and series composition. That’s a lot of talent for one show.
Premiering: July 7th.
BEM: BEM is a remake of the 60’s series Humanoid Monster Bem. The anime follows three monsters fighting against other monsters and demons who threaten human beings in a major metropolitan city, hoping their good deeds will eventually allow them to become human.
Thoughts: What’s old is new again. Everything seems to be making a comeback lately. BEM is a series I’d never even heard of until I had to report on there being a new one, even though it’s had a remake in 06 and a live action television drama series in 2011. Still, LandQ Studios and Production IG on animation is pretty serious, and they’ve got Atsuhiro Yoshioka on writing, a dude that’s written a little bit of everything from Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! to last season’s Mix. If monsters working to get their humanity back does it for you, this is definitely worth giving a chance.
Premiering: July 7th.
Yami Shibai: Japanese Ghost Stories: Yamishibai is a picture-story style of animation whose motif is surrounded and based off the rumors, and urban legends throughout the history of Japan. (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: This is a series about seven seasons in, so if you’re a horror fan you should honestly already be watching this.
Premiering: July 7th.
Would you even fall in love with perverts if they are cute?: Kiryuu Keiki is an ordinary high boy who has never had a girlfriend in his life. One day, he finds a love letter addressed to him, but it has no name of its sender and comes with a pair of the white panties. He tries to find out who the sender is, but the cute girls around him are all suspicious and seem to hide some secrets. (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: Ahhh sweet, sweet casual perversion. Where would anime be without you? Probably more accepted on a mainstream level, but who needs that? Seriously though, this series jumped out the window with it’s premise alone. Who leaves a pair of underwear with a love confession? I’m guessing this is supposed to be cute, but what it really makes me wonder is how late this show airs and what the censorship requirements are at that hour. Neither the director (Itsuki Imazaki) or the writer (Kenichi Yamazaki) has been known for ecchi, but there’s a first time for everything. Hopefully it’s more comedic than anything else.
Premiering: July 8th.
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