One of those light novel adaptations. A dime for a dozen episodes of mediocre anime, multiple seasons if we’re not so lucky. At least its title doesn’t take forever to type… This one follows Takeshi Nanase, an ordinary boy with a somewhat dark past who has formed a fake relationship with a childhood friend and lives a mostly similar life. “Please, keep selling me that he’s ordinary!” I cry as blood flows out of my eyes. He eventually comes across Mui Aiba, who is a magician and ended up turning Nanase a magician. Nanase’s life is now not so ordinary, but that plot sure is ordinary. Madhouse is the lead production studio listed, but the trailer makes me think Media Factory is the true lead here.
Silver Spoon was a delight of a series when season 1 aired in Summer ‘13. It’s about as straight-up slice-of-life as an anime got last year and it really grew into a lovable show that I could count on to be enjoyable. Season 2 will be a continuation of Yugo’s story as his comfortability with school and his friends increases, and with the issue of Pork Bowl solved, hopefully the pairing of Yugo & Aki can take another step forward.
I didn’t need much to pick this show out during our draft. Basically, two high school girls get all romantic because they want to take their friendship to a new level and make some special memories. I can’t say much more. Hopefully it won’t get all over dramatic like yuri tends to, but I’ll temper my expectations. I’m not expecting an ecchi show, but at the very least this looks cute.
Zillions of Enemy X Ignition… I just don’t even know anymore, man. I’ll never get the appeal of card-themed shows (not named Chihayafuru) or the Android/iOS games where you’re roped in for free only to be asked to pay to get the better cards with more voluptuous female characters.
About the first 30 seconds of the PV might fool some into thinking it’d be another one of those period-type shows, but then a magazine is shown and the nice character designs by Katou Hirotaka spring a little life into it (for me, at least). Because of a nicely presented trailer and that this is Studio Wit’s (Attack on Titan) sophomore effort, I think this could be a fairly decent series, though the comedic sensibility of it may be a tad too ingrained in japanese folklore for most foreign fans to truly enjoy.
If you watched Sliver Spoon and thought it was missing a retired idol, then this series is for you. Now I could make fun of this series all day long, but it is being produced by the same studio and director that brought us Watamote and Baka to Test. Those are two of my favorite comedies to come out of Silver Link and if it has the same type of humor in it, I will probably stick with it. We will just have to wait and see if the first episode can deliver some good laughs.
Shaft adapting a Jump manga interested me enough to actually read the manga at the time of announcement many months ago, and because I’ve enjoyed the manga a fair bit, I’m looking forward to Shaft’s adaptation, which looks quite nice with direction by Shinbo. The story follows Raku Ichijou, heir to the head of a Yakuza family, who made a promise with a girl (10 years ago when they were little) to get married, but he forgets the girl’s identity and is eventually forced into a “Fake Love” with transfer student Chitoge Kirisaki for certain reasons and things are hectic from there. I’d be skeptical if I didn’t read the manga myself, which I’ll go ahead and mention does ok with at least clearing up a misunderstanding or two early.