Geddit? “Hot Spirits”? Senku in Dr Stone wants to make brandy?
…Okay, my jokes are getting more terrible as I continue these summer premieres…
Previously, I watched Sacred Beasts, Astra, Maou-sama Retry! and UchiMusume. This post has Fire Force, Dr Stone, Granbelm and Ensemble Stars. I’ll be skipping the recap of DanMachi (I saw s1 at the start of the Spellbook’s existence!), so then it’s Kochoki, Arifureta, Cop Craft, DanMachi and Given. Also, someone said Naka no Hito was good for potential husbandos, so I’ll give it a shot too.
(Sorry if I’m a little too snarky here. I’m currently on meds after I had some dental work done, so bear with me as I suffer from increased snark to go with that territory – the worst of the symptoms are over, thank goodness.)
Page jumps
Fire Force
A visual spectacle for sure (better than Dr Stone‘s, even), but just as I suspected, it fell victim to being “stock shonen pervy” as well…right down to “the nun washing herself off with water, the camera focussing on her ample butt” in the ED. I’ve seen promo material that has a big-boobed woman as well (I believe her name was “Princess Hibana”), so I expect it to get worse, but I’d rather shonen perviness than what UchiMusume will become…if it ever gets a proper ending.
Without the visuals, I feel like this would come off like OPM or Demon Slayer – visuals sell the entire package and bring the hype.
Notes:
- For some reason, names go [first] [last] in this series. Normally, it would be the other way around.
- I’m half-tempted to call Shinra “Twinkletoes”…haha. I’ll rein myself in on that joke.
- It took me a few days and a comment to realise I hadn’t gotten a good grasp of any character that wasn’t Shinra, because my initial reactions are just as I thought they’d be…we have the rest of 2 cours to go, so we have time to flesh out everyone.
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Dr Stone
An accurate adaption of the manga, but with visuals far better than I expected from it.
Notes:
One of my notes go: “*raises arms like Christ the Redeemer*…and Boichi and Riichiro Inagaki said, “Let there be light!”…and for some reason, it was green light…” – But seriously, why is the light green???
- I noticed a few more things the second time around – for instance, I didn’t notice the pet hospital was called “Shuei” (a play on Shueisha, the final kanji of which means “company”). As for whether Taiju shoved Yuzuriha into the tree and protected her or just the latter…I’m not sure if that was clear in the manga, but it was clear in the anime.
- Thanks to reviews, now I can’t unsee Senku’s hair as a leek/green onion/other vegetable…and that’s the first proper note I got when I loaded the episode…*sigh*
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Granbelm
It has magical girls…but in the same sense Star Driver has magical girls.
Besides that, it looks truly stunning in a way only matched by maybe Fire Force, but I kept procrastinating on watching it, which on top of the unnatural amount of buffering I’m already going through (which is exacerbated by bad weather…it was raining on and off the day I watched this) means it took me almost 3 and a half hours to finish this premiere…which means I have to hit “pause” on it. I’m sorry, but when I was focussing on watching as opposed to waiting for buffering to disappear, I didn’t keep track of time enough to approximate how long I was taking.
Notes:
- I’m thinking Symphogear fans must be happy this season, since they get double the dose of what they love.
- I feel like Mangetsu is a relatable protagonist (i.e. she’s clueless like the audience), but also annoying as a result of being relatable.
- There are still 5 or 6 premieres after this one, so even if I move Sacred Beasts to “paused”, I don’t think I’ll find this season too bad.
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Ensemble Stars!
It generally looks better than it should be and only exposes itself as being on a mediocre budget when it tries to do action scenes (which are probably too much of a stretch for it). That’s because it’s basically what I assume to be an animated version of the game…which I haven’t played, so I don’t know how faithful it is. The twist is interesting, because normally it’s just an idol school and that’s the end of that. Otherwise, this is a serviceable way to pass the time, even if I can’t remember one of the boys’ names (the purple-haired one) after the episode ended.
Notes:
- Anzu doesn’t do much…*sigh*
Rankings
Since I only need 4 new shows this season, the threshold is higher.
Watching:
- Astra (1 ep)
- Dr Stone (1 ep)
- Fire Force (1 ep)
- Ensemble Stars! (1 ep)
- – [the threshold of pausing/dropping] –
- Sacred Beasts (1 ep)
Paused:
- Granbelm (1 ep)
Dropped:
- Maou-sama, Retry! (1 ep)
- UchiMusume (1 ep, hit “drop” as soon as I learnt it does an Usagi Drop…)
So how’s your experience with these shows? Did I skip anything good? (For a refresher, see the anticipated anime list here.)
After the second ep of Granbelm… I think putting it on pause is a mistake. You might rewatch the first and then go into the second once your connection and headspace improves.